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University of Florida Chapter Receives Third Straight Award;
University of Illinois and Canada's University of Guelph Students Earn Individual Scholarships
CYPRESS, Calif. – Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A., has named the recipients of its third annual Yamaha-ACT Scholarship Program. The University of Florida Chapter of the National Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow (ACT) has received its third straight chapter award, while Janell Baum of University of Illinois and R. Bruce Sargent of University of Guelph both earned individual scholarships. As recipients of the individual scholarships, both Baum and Sargent will also have the opportunity to serve as interns for Yamaha during the 2011 Ag Media Summit (AMS) this month in New Orleans, La.
Yamaha's scholarship program was launched in 2009 to provide financial assistance to members of the ACT, a national college student association with 354 registered members located on 17 college and university campuses across the country. ACT's mission of fostering professional development is at the core of the new Yamaha-ACT Scholarship Program.
The Yamaha-ACT Scholarship Program is broken out into two individual student scholarships and one chapter scholarship. All three awards are aimed at helping students attend the annual AMS. As the largest gathering of crop and livestock media professionals in the country, the AMS is the primary career development networking opportunity for these ACT students each year. This industry event is hosted by the American Agricultural Editors' Association (AAEA), the Livestock Publications Council (LPC) and the American Business Media Agri-Council.
As part of the application process, students were asked to incorporate important ATV and Side-by-Side (SxS) vehicle safety messages within an appropriate real life farming/agricultural scenario into practical communications pieces such as a feature story, brochure or press release.
""The annual Yamaha-ACT Scholarship program has assisted some outstanding young men and women in ag programs at universities across the country," said Steve Nessl, Yamaha's ATV and SxS group marketing manager. "By encouraging lessons about safe, responsible use of farm machines in their education, we hope they will carry these messages throughout their careers as professional communicators."
Applicants were judged based on merit, need and quality of submission materials by a review committee consisting of Yamaha employees; Senior Director at The American Quarter Horse Journal, Jim Bret Campbell; Christy Couch Lee, owner of Cee Lee Communications; Justin Davey, Assistant Multimedia Producer for Successful Farming and Agriculture.com.
Previous Yamaha-ACT Scholarship winners come from Oklahoma State University, Purdue University, Texas Tech University and the University of Florida.
About Yamaha Motor Corp., U.S.A.
Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A., (YMUS), a leader in the motorsports market, makes the toughest, most capable and versatile ATV and Side-by-Side vehicles. The company's ever-expanding product offerings also include motorcycles, outboard motors, personal watercraft, snowmobiles, boats, outdoor power equipment, race kart engines, accessories, apparel and much more. YMUS products are sold through a nationwide network of dealers in the United States.
Headquartered in Cypress, Calif., since its incorporation in 1976, Yamaha also has facilities in Wisconsin and Georgia, as well as factory operations in Tennessee and Georgia. For more information on Yamaha, visit www.yamaha-motor.com.
This press release is presented without editing for your information. MOTHER EARTH NEWS does not recommend, approve or endorse the products and/or services offered. You should use your own judgment and evaluate products and services carefully before deciding to purchase.


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In all seven of their wins this season the Lady Bisons have placed three players in double figures in scoring.
"When we have a third person scoring 10 or more we win," Lady Bisons' coach Frank Bennett said. "Nine or eight doesn't do it. "We would like to have some balance in our scoring. This is a just a statistic we have noticed this season."
Guards Jenna Bartsokas and Anna Bowers, the top scorers for the Lady Bisons, will lead the Lady Bisons Monday night at 5 when they face Campbell at Allen Arena.
Bartsokas is third overall in the A-Sun in scoring with 15.4 points per game and fourth in A-Sun games only with 18.3 per game. Bowers is seventh overall in scoring with 14 points per game and 15th in A-Sun games with 12.9 points per game.
"You would like to get a third or fourth player in double figures and others scoring eight or nine," Bennett said. "Teams are watching videos of our games and they see the stats. They are really keying on Jenna and Anna. We can't rely on two people to carry the load every game.
"We are emphasizing trying to get the ball inside more and driving to the basket more. We need to get to the free throw line more. When we are shooting a lot of three-pointers it usually isn't good for us."
The Lady Bisons lost 56-52 to Belmont Thursday night. Campbell beat Belmont 60-57 Saturday. Campbell, winner of its last five games, is 6-10, 5-2 in the conference. The Lady Bisons are 7-9, 4-3 in the A-Sun.
"Campbell is hot right now," Bennett said. "They have a lot of the same players back from last season. They have a lot of depth. They have a lot of people getting four or five rebounds and their scoring has been like that."
Tonisha Baker is 18th overall in A-Sun games in scoring with 11.7 points per game and 11. 5 overall, 16th in the conference for Campbell.
Jazmine Cooper and Lauren Yesh are tied for 12th overall in the conference in rebounds with 6.3 per game. Yesh is 10th in A-Sun games only with 7.3 boards per game.
If the Lady Bisons are going to be successful they will have to find that third player able to add at least 10 points. Center Jess Reece, forward Hannah Phillips, center-forward Leah McAlister, center Chelsea McMeans and guard Miaca Bowman have all been in that third player role this season.
One person Bennett would like his players to throw the ball to more is center Brittany Duerk. She had a career-high 10 rebounds in the Belmont loss.
She is averaging 5.7 rebounds per game in A-Sun games only, 17th best. She is averaging 5.6 overall, 16th best in the conference.
"Brittany is capable of getting 10 rebounds a game," Bennett said. "We would like to see her get a rebound every three or four minutes she plays.
"She has rebounded well in parts of games. We just want her to be more consistent. We would like to play her at the No. 4 position more. At the five position she gives up a lot of height there."
The Lady Bisons also have to tweak a few other areas if they are going to continue their improvement this season.
"I feel like we are not far away from playing our best basketball," Bennett said. "We have to tighten it up defensively. I also think we can be a better shooting team.
"I was proud of the comeback we made against Belmont after being down 16. To erase that lead and be in a position to have shots to tie or go ahead in the game showed our determination."
Written by Mark McGee, Senior Publisher/Director of Media Relations.

subset: commoncrawl


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When M. Night Shyamalan constructed the Northern Water Tribe, for The Last Airbender, he created the biggest East Coast set ever built. Watch as they piece the massive set together, snowflake by snowflake. Plus a few spectacular new stills.
Check out these breathtaking new stills that came out recently:
The film, which was inspired by the Nickelodeon cartoon, "follows the adventures of Aang, a young successor to a long line of Avatars, who must put his childhood ways aside and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the Water, Earth and Air nations."
Airbender will be in theaters July 2nd.


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5:00 pm
Growing a Greener World "Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) programs" Pennington, NJ, Bedford Hills, NY and Ranger, GA. Community Supported Agricultural programs (also known as CSAs) are sweeping the country as a way for consumers to have access to the freshest, local and organically grown produce and more. For those that don't have the time or space to grow their own, it is the perfect partnership between the farmer and consumer. D
5:30 pm
Hands On Crafts for Kids "Games and Sports" What could be more fun than combining games and crafts? Craft a game board, make up a game, or celebrate your favorite team. We begin with team bracelets in your school colors. Then, make a shoe tag for your backpack or sports bag. D
6:00 pm
Cuisine Culture "Paul McCabe, San Diego" Paul McCabe has earned himself "Best Rising Star Chef" from the James Beard Foundation because his cutting-edge dishes blend organic local California produce and self sustainable philosophies into a superb melange of French California Cuisine. His three -course meal includes a first course of Beet Salad with Caramelized Yogurt, Local Citrus, Valdeon Cheese and Candied Pistachios; a main course of California Lamb Loin over a bed of Farro, Heirloom Carrots and Asparagus, topped with a Spiced Pepper Jam; and dessert: a White Chocolate Panna Cotta served with Local Strawberries, drizzled in Rhubarb Consomme and crowned with Strawberry Snow. D
6:30 pm
Mexico -- One Plate at a Time with Rick Bayless "Presenting: World-Class Wines of Baja" Baja California Norte produces many world-class, gold medal-winning wines. That fact may surprise most people in the United States. Rick takes us on a tour of the region along with renowned winemaker and visionary Hugo d'Acosta, founder of La Escuelita, a nonprofit winemaking school that opened in 2004. D
7:00 pm
Julia Child Memories: Bon Appetit! PBS presents a retrospective that includes some of the most memorable episodes from Child's classic cooking series, THE FRENCH CHEF: "Bouillabaisse à la Marseillaise," "To Roast A Chicken" and "The Omelette Show." In addition to testimonials from noted chefs, the program features commentary from author Julie Powell, who wrote the book on which the film comedy Julie & Julia is based, and Meryl Streep, who stars as Julia Child.G
9:00 pm
Woodsmith Shop "Router Bit Cabinet" Storing and protecting expensive tools is a necessity in every shop. The Woodsmith editors show you a quick and easy way to build a handy wall-mounted case for your router bits. D
9:30 pm
Growing Bolder "No Strings Attached" NULL
10:00 pm
Scheewe Art Workshop "Spring Blossoms" Bring a touch of spring into your home to enjoy all year long. Blossoms of tulips, primroses and narcissi, can be painted using delicate hues or bright jewel tones the choice is yours. Paint the same subject several times for gift giving by creating and customizing accent colors to meet your friends' tastes. D
10:30 pm
Best of the Joy of Painting "Little Home in the Meadow" Bob Ross uses his oval magic to paint a lovely cabin situated in a serene little meadow. D
11:00 pm
Essential Pepin "Fruit Fete" Good Lady Apples Bon Femme; Stew Of Red Summer Fruit; Braised Pears In A Caramel Sauce; Flambeed Bananas; Apple Fritters. D
11:30 pm
Burt Wolf: What We Eat "Taking The High Grounds: The Story of Coffee" Discovered in Ethiopia, today coffee is the second most valuable legal export on earth.G


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Featured News - Current News - Archived News - News Categories
The North Tonawanda History Museum invites readers to check out its fall slate of programming, focusing on the War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier, Polish-American heritage in Western New York, and the importance of North Tonawanda in making the Pan-American Exposition a reality in 1901 in Buffalo.
The North Tonawanda History Museum
is located in the Lumber City History Center at
54 Webster St., North Tonawanda. Free parking is available in the municipal parking lot on Manhattan Street behind the History Museum, with Webster Street readily accessible from the parking lot by Project Pride Way and Tremont Street. Manhattan Street runs parallel to Webster Street and River Road - in between them - and can be reached by either Tremont Street or Goundry Street.
Upcoming events include:
Saturday, Sept. 15
"Tuscarora Heroes and the War of 1812 Attack on Lewiston"
Presented at 2 p.m. by Lee Simonson, author of "Tuscarora Heroes." Simonson also is a former Niagara County legislator.
Dec. 19, 1813, was Lewiston's most important day and one of the greatest untold stories in American history. Lewiston citizens found themselves on the front line during the War of 1812 and were under attack by the British and their native allies. On the morning of Dec. 19, Lewistonians were running for their lives in an attempt to escape the thrashing knives and tomahawks. Many of them didn't make it and blood was running down Lewiston streets.
At the moment when it seemed all hope was lost and the local citizens thought they would all become victims of a ghastly massacre, men from the local Tuscarora nation ran down from atop the Escarpment and rescued the fleeing population.
Despite being outnumbered 30 to 1, the Tuscaroras devised a quick strategy to fool the British into thinking that there was a large unseen force ready to swoop down on the invading troops. The enemy stopped in its tracks and the Tuscaroras were able to buy precious minutes for the surviving Lewiston residents to escape east on Ridge Road.
Simonson's book, "Tuscarora
Heroes," details exactly what happened that fateful morning.
For more information, call 716-213-0554 or visit www.nthistorymuseum.org.


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Finnbarr P. Murphy (fpmurphy) posted on his blog yesterday about his new project, uefivars, to retrieve and display information about UEFI variables. UEFI is the new firmware standard, replacing legacy BIOS over time, which is present on Dell 11G PowerEdge servers today. fpmurphy's work is based largely on my own efibootmgr project which I started back in 2001 when first working on EFI for the Itanium processor. I'm glad to see renewed interest in this work as more people get exposed to UEFI on new systems. Perhaps it's time, 9 years later, for bits of efibootmgr to turn into a library for use by applications like uefivars.
Tag Archives: Fedora
Fedora mailing list procmail recipe
In honor of Fedora moving its mailing lists this weekend, here's a little procmail recipe to file each incoming mailing list stream into its own folder. Fedora lists get a folder prefix of 'fedora-', while all other mailman-handled lists simply get the list name, with whitespace and the @domain part stripped off.
:0 H * ^X-BeenThere: { BEENTHERE=`formail -xX-BeenThere: | sed -e 's/@.*//;s/^[ \t]*//'` :0 H * ^X-BeenThere: .*lists.fedoraproject.org $HOME/Mail/fedora-$BEENTHERE :0 E $HOME/Mail/$BEENTHERE }
Fedora Elections – get your last-minute votes in!
The Fedora Elections for two Board seats, four Engineering Steering Committee seats, and all seven Ambassadors Steering Committee seats has just a few hours left (ends 2009-12-16 UTC 2359). I'm excited that we have such a great slate of candidate volunteers for these important positions of leadership in our community – it really speaks to our ability to incorporate new contributors and help stretch the Project in new directions.
I've been pleased to be a member of the Board for 3.5 years now, and hope you would consider re-electing me.
If you haven't already voted, please take a few minutes to do so. If you have already voted, thank you.
I'd also like to thank John Rose for stepping in as Election Coordinator – a mostly-thankless yet critical task that ensures a smooth election process. Also special thanks to Thorsten Leemhuis for coordinating the election questionnaire (for the last time!). Informally I asked several attendees at FUDCon Toronto if they felt that the questionnaire was helpful to them, and universally I heard that it was indeed helpful. It takes a fair bit of time to gather the questions, sort for "really good" questions, gather the results, and of course, for candidates to answer. I'm glad it provides benefit proportional to the effort, and remind community members that next election cycle (Spring 2010), someone else will need to take on this task that Thorsten has done for several cycles now.
FUDConF13: Toronto Videos
I've just posted 2 videos shot at FUDConF13 Toronto last week. I'm afraid I haven't done justice though…
- Moksha, by Luke Macken. My camera cut out after the first 10 minutes, so that's all we've got.
- The last 20 minutes of the Fedora Infrastructure: Sysadmins vs. Developers love-in, taken by Adam Williamson.
If anyone else has video or audio from this or other Fedora events you'd care to share, please contact me and I'll help you get it into proper ogg format, tagged, and posted to Fedora Infrastructure servers for distribution.
Fedora Election Town Halls
Late notice via this blog, but John had sent the announcement earlier, so I don't feel so bad…
Fedora Election Town Halls are scheduled, including a Board Town Hall tonight at 9pm Central time, and another at 9am Central Wednesday. See the Elections page for full schedule and details how to join the fun on IRC.
I'm standing for re-election to the Fedora Project Board. After 3.5 years, I just can't give it up. 🙂
Upcoming Fedora Elections
Yes, it's that time of year again. Rain is falling, another Fedora release is about to conquer the known world, and volunteers everywhere are busy preparing their ideal Fedora Mission Statements to captivate the electorate. Fedora's Winter Election is upon us.
The first order of business is to find an Election Coordinator. For the last 2 election cycles I have volunteered for this role, with the able assistance of John Rose (inode0), and Thorsten Leemhuis (thl) and others. This cycle, I would like someone besides myself from the Fedora community to volunteer as Election Coordinator. Raise your hand, don't be shy! If you have been harboring a secret (or public) list of all my mistakes, here's your chance to set things right!
As Election Coordinator, you will have the opportunity to:
- propose, get buy-in, and finalize the schedule
- schedule forums (traditionally IRC and with FUDCon Toronto, Live)
- seek forum moderators
- if desired, gather questions from the electorate, distribute to the candidates, gather and post their answers.
- coordinate with Infrastructure to be sure the elections app is ready.
Second, a schedule will need to be set. At the Board meeting this week, we agreed that it would be nice to hold in-person forums at FUDCon Toronto, December 5-7, for those who can attend. Our election rules require us to complete the election within 30 days of the Fedora 12 release, so must end by December 17. Per Nigel Jones, author of
our voting system, most of the votes cast were within the first 2-3 days, so running it Dec 8-17 would be sufficient.
Before these, we typically hold nominations for 2 weeks, and a week for IRC Town Halls to be scheduled. Thorsten also requested after the last election that we have a few days between end of nominations and beginning of the town halls, to allow time for candidates to be given a set of questions, and sufficent time to answer.
Third, we need to be sure of all the committees who are holding an election. The committee chairs can assist here. I believe that the Board, FESCo, and Ambassadors are electing members, and that the Fedora 13 naming election will happen too. Are there any I missed?
Feedback on prior elections, ideas for how to improve this cycle, and volunteers for Election Coordinator all welcome on the fedora-advisory-board list.
Fedora is Self-Hosting
Fedora 12 (Beta available now), is self-hosting.
What does this mean? Simply put, it means that you can use a copy of Fedora 12 to rebuild, from source, all* of Fedora 12 again.
Why is this important? One of the key tenets of Free and Open Source software is that anyone can get a copy of the source code, make modifications to it, built it, an use the modified version. Simply publishing the source code, without also allowing people a way to rebuild and use that code, doesn't accomplish this goal.
Source code tends to bitrot over time. Libraries that your code uses will change, get updated, add features and bugfixes. Compilers improve and update to later standards. Your code needs to keep up. So, for each Fedora release, we run an "Fails To Build From Source" pass, which rebuilds every package in the distribution, using the packages in the distribution. We started the Fedora 12 development cycle with about 400 packages which couldn't build (still, less than 5% of the total packages) for various reasons. Over the last few months, members of the Fedora Packager community have been whittling away at these, fixing their packages, sending patches to their respective upstream projects, and therefore improving the quality of the open source ecosystem as a whole.
The result? You see immediate improvements (smaller package sizes due to new compression methods being used, future-proof security through the use of stronger hashes to guarantee package integrity), and increased flexibility should you wish to remix Fedora for your own purposes.
Thank you packagers!
* Truth in advertising: All in this case means 8448 of the 8485 packages in the Fedora 12 tree. There are 37 problematic packages (0.4%), none critical to a vast majority of users, which still need some love.
Installing Fedora 12 and saving the environment
If you're like me, chances are you have a system or three with DVD / CD burners in them. Aside from their use for backups, I have tended to use my burners to create Linux install DVDs, done my install, and then given it to someone else, or (ashamedly) thrown it away. What a waste.
I also prefer to do network-based installs, where I don't have to download a whole 4GB DVD image, or even 700MB CD image, and burn it. Instead, I download the 160MB "netinst" network install ISO, burn that to a CD, boot that CD, and point the installer at a Fedora mirror to grab all the packages. This works great, but still, I'm left with a netinst CD when I'm done that I may no longer need.
Enter isohybrid, new in Fedora 12 (Beta). I've got a few USB keys of various sizes, most larger than 160MB. Instead of burning a CD (which I can still do, the process is unchanged), I can write the netinst ISO file directly to a USB key, and boot it. Amazing!
Give it a try when you install Fedora 12 Beta, and save one more CD from becoming landfill.
$ wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/fedora/linux/releases/test/12-Beta/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-12-Beta-x86_64-netinst.iso $ sudo dd if=Fedora-12-Beta-x86_64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=1M $ eject /dev/sdc
Replace /dev/sdc with the actual device name of your USB key. You will want to unmount any file systems that are mounted on that key before writing to it.
Then boot that USB key, and you're off to the races. When prompted for which local file system contains your install image, simply click "Back", select the "URL" install method, and use a URL of your favorite mirror.
Special thanks to H. Peter Anvin for writing isohybrid and including it in syslinux.
MirrorManager automatic local mirror selection
MirrorManager 1.3.2 (plus a hotfix) is now running on all Fedora Infrastructure application servers. This brings one new interesting feature – automatic mirror detection. How's that you say?
As you know, Internet routing uses BGP (Border Gateway Protocol), and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) to exchange IP prefixes (aa.bb.cc.dd/nn) and routing tables. By grabbing a copy of the global BGP table a few times a day, MM can know the ASN of an incoming client request, and Hosts in the MM database have grown two new fields: ASN and "ASN Clients?". MM then looks to see if there is a mirror with the same ASN as each client, and offers it up earlier in the list.
I've pre-populated the MM database, for public servers only, with ASNs, and set "ASN Clients?" = True, meaning such will offer to serve all clients on the same ASN. If you have a private server and wish to do likewise (remember, this doesn't work for home systems or those behind NATs), you can fill in those fields yourself. The Fedora wiki page on mirroring gives an example on how to look up your ASN. I recommend this for all schools, research organizations, companies, and ISPs.
The mirrorlist lookup code now goes in preferential order:
- same netblock
- same ASN
- both on Internet2
- same country
- same continent
- global
For ISPs and schools, this should mean that most of the possible Fedora traffic will stay within your network – no transit costs. And as netblocks change, MM will keep up with them automatically.
To see this in action, try a query as such, and look for the 'Using ASN ####' in the result comment line.
$ wget -O – 'http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=fedora-11&arch=i386'
# Using preferred netblock Using ASN XXXX country = US country = MX country = CA
I hope you enjoy this new feature.
Fedora services IPv6-enabled
As Mike McGrath, Fedora Infrastructure team lead announced last week, several Fedora services are now IPv6-enabled. Thanks to our good friends at ibiblio.org, who have native IPv6 connectivity, we were able to set up one web server and one DNS name server, with more services to come over time. The web server in particular means that nearly all Fedora Infrastructure-hosted web pages and web applications are immediately reachable over IPv6. This week, over 5000 unique IPv6 addresses have been served.
However, this has not come without a cost. There have been a handful of individuals having difficulty reaching our web pages. In one case, the user needed to lower the MTU (maximum transmission unit) for his ethernet adapter from the default 1500 to 1472, to accommodate both IPv6 and his PPPoE connection. For others, particularly those using 6to4 routing (the default method in Fedora if you don't already have native IPv6 connectivity), some packets are getting dropped elsewhere on the Internet (pings reach our server, responses don't make it back). These are the growing pains we'll have to live through, and which will resolve themselves over time as more network operators deploy native IPv6 to their end users.
If you have troubles reaching Fedora web sites, take a look at the Known Problems section on our IPv6 wiki page for common workarounds, add your own workarounds as you find them, and if all else fails, join us in #fedora-admin on irc.freenode.net for assistance. There's not a lot we can do about the wider Internet and its routing, but we'll help if we can.
If you'd like to help get additional services IPv6-enabled, check out our IPv6 page for tasks we'd like to do, and offer your own ideas.


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Hunter X Hunter 2011 Info:
Plot Summary: Alternate retelling of the original Hunter x Hunter series. Gon Freece is a boy living on a small island. He learns that his fater who he doesn't remember is an extremely famous man and an amazing hunter. Gon takes the hunte rexam to seek out his fater, but he soon learns that the challenges he must face will be beyond his imaginations.


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To receive email notifications for Annual Reports click here.
Investors should consider their investment goals, time horizons and risk tolerance before investing in Eagle Point Credit Company Inc. (the "Company"). Investors should also consider the Company's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing in securities of the Company. The investment program of the Company is speculative and entails substantial risk, including the possible loss of principal. There can be no assurance that Company's investment objectives will be achieved. An investment in the Company is not appropriate for all investors and is not intended to be a complete investment program. Shares of closed-end investment companies, such as the Company, frequently trade at a discount from their net asset value, which may increase investors' risk of loss. Past performance is not indicative of, or a guarantee of, future performance. Please review additional Risk and Other Considerations and the Terms and Conditions.
This website's content is for information purposes only and does not constitute investment advice, or a recommendation or an offer to enter into any transaction with the Company or any of its affiliates, and does not constitute an offer to sell securities of the Company or a solicitation of an offer to purchase any such securities. The information on this web site is intended for U.S. residents only.
Not FDIC Insured | May Lose Value | No Bank Guarantee


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Account Verification Needed
Thank you for registering!
Please note that your registration will not be considered fully complete until you confirm by following the link we have provided in a confirmation email that was just sent to .
Until you follow the link in that confirmation email, you may log in but will not be able to comment, so make sure to check your inbox for a message from firstname.lastname@example.com.
Pa. House OKs bill barring killing dogs, cats for meat


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If you want to lose all your faith in the human race and surrender to the fear that we're going to turn into some kind of nightmarish dystopia — then check out the collection of one-star reviews of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 over at Least Helpful. Sample review:
I think this book was a very confusing book. I think it was a good level for my class but like said it was confusing. I liked the idea of not having books in this society. it owuld be great because you would never have to read.
There's also several people who somehow came away with the impression that Fahrenheit 451 is in favor of burning books, and that's why they hate it. Jeez. [via PublishersWeekly on Twitter]


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Ldemchuk necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 97 diseños de 11 diseñadores freelance.
We are two brothers, one given up for adoption at birth, but recently reunited. We did not know eachother at all until a few years ago..So similar, and love construction. We want to spend as much time together as possible, so we have started our own company. We are so similar, you would think we had grown up together, we love; quading, snow mobiling, big trucks, and working with our hands. We are both married to very similar ladies who we love, and each have a son and a daughter.We both are hard workers and love to do it right the first time! We are so excited about our future together in this company. We want the logo to reflect our personality, steel checkerplate, rugged design, retro gas station look. Bold colors; red, orange, navy, black a steel. With the name "hammerhead", either; a hammerhead shark head, or a rugged hammer head (the kind you bang nails with).
Our audience is anyone who needs a house built. We need to look professional and solid. A company you would trust.
The word HAMMERHEAD is the primary focus for the logo, "construction company", needs to be on there too, but not as boldly. We are open to all suggestions and ideas. We hope designers will read our story, and get as excited about our future together as we are. This logo represents so many things for us, a brother relationship that neither one of us thought we would ever have. A company that we can build together, and pass down to our sons.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Lancaster Colony (lanc) Stock Research
Last Updated by Anonymous | Update This Page Now
Generic Strategy
Narrow Scope
Broad Scope
Low Cost
Generic strategies categorize companies by the scope and the strength of their business. Lancaster Colony does not have a definable strategy, therefore, it risks losing out to firms that concentrate on one particular competitive advantage. (read more).
Company Description: Lancaster Colony Corporation manufactures and markets consumer goods like salad dressings, sauces, pastas and various other goods in the United States. Update
Market Research
Staples Industry Research & Analysis: The consumer staple industry includes companies whose sales come from necessary consumer staple purchases such as rent, mortgage and food. Staples Trading Strategy: The consumer staple industry tends to be less sensitive to economic cycles. Look for undervalued staple investments at any time in the business cycle when stock prices are low, and especially during the late stages of a bull markets when investors become more defensive. The global economy is currently in a recession, therefore, investors are rotating money out of consumer staples and into faster growth industries. Upward sloping stock charts and financial news may indicate a selling opportunity while the opposite means that stocks are becoming undervalued.
Industry Sub Sector: .
Market Challenges: Opportunities: Solutions:
Strategy Analysis
Strategy: Competitive Advantages:
Financial Analysis
Current Revenue Sources: Future Revenue Sources:


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Match Play 21
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Celebrating illustration, design, cartoon and comic art of the mid-20th century.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Daniel Schwartz: "Bold innovative illustration style"
This final day of observing Daniel Schwartz's bold innovative illustration style, emphasizes the consistent quality he displays in every assignment. Schwartz the fine artist, and Schwartz the illustrator, effectively unify without conflict or incompatibility.
The above illustration, probably done around 1960 or 61, for a story in McCall Magazine, is one of my all time favorites of Daniel Scwartz. For me, it has all the ingredients... interesting composition, nice mix of warm and cool colors, mood development and exciting surface texture. His soft overall color scheme, with a woman deep in her own thoughts, sets the mood for this intriguing illustration. Schwartz uses his effective combination of thin oil washes and opaque lighter values to define shape and form in a collection of nostalgic elements. Notice the very loose sketchy treatment to those elements, while the figure is given more clarity and importance. During the 1950's and before, this would more likely be the appearance of the color rough submitted for final approval. But, Schwartz uses his fine art influence and experience, in making it work as the finish. One of the radical changes in illustration was an evolution from accurate defined literal interpretation, to spontaneous expressive brushstrokes, enhancing the mood, and giving it a poetic atmosphere.
This was a courtroom assignment for Life Magazine in 1971 for the military hearing of Lt. William Calley Jr's account of the Mylai massacre, during the Viet Nam War. With his varied capabilities as a fine artist / illustrator, it is not surprising to me that Schwartz was selected to illustrate these hearings. This becomes an ideal assignment for an illustrator, since photographers and video cameras are generally not permitted. This was a very high profile hearing, and obviously the assigned illustrator cannot purposely inject his personal feelings into the illustrations. The challenge is to be objective, and record the essence and general mood, transporting the reader to the event.
These transparent watercolors became the defining technique that Schwartz adopted, in the late 60's. I don't recall other high profile illustrators using this particular technique at that time, and if there were some, they put their own spin on it. The first illustration is quite complex, depicting the whole court room, displaying the key players... then shown above, he uses a vignette depicting profiles of six officers to hear the accounts. The well defined features, with astringent expressions, reflect the seriousness of the hearings. Schwartz artistically allows his paint to drip off the bottom edge of each illustration... an effect that was virtually not seen in illustrations, to my knowledge, prior to 1959 or 60. The drips effectively break up the hard edge bordering the illustration... a technique, not uncommon with fine art watercolor painters.
The illustration above is a good example of Schwartz's ability to sketch on the spot, with a combination of accuracy and artistic flair. This is journalistic illustration at its best, in my opinion. As depicted in yesterday's posts of the "Fallen Angels", Schwartz was no stranger to sketching on location, and from what I gather from very good sources, he preferred that direct contact. His use of color in these last 2 spot illustrations, is limited but quite effective. They remind me of graphic sketches of the old masters, with their casual sepia tone washes... which no doubt Schwartz was quite aware of.
After the 70's, I don't recall seeing his illustrations in magazines, but he is currently doing easel paintings for galleries, and it appears he has gone back to oils, depicting less detail. Click the URL below, and you can see examples of his work today: Daniel B Schwartz.com
6 comments:
Tom, you've done a great job this week, highlighting Daniel Schwartz. That piece you singled out today as your favorite really is beautiful. His fallen angel series is my personal favorite -- his work reminds me a lot of the caricaturist David Levine's paintings. Are you familiar with them?ReplyDelete
Again -- great job. Leif has set high standards, & you more than met them.
Thanks Neil, I truly appreciate your flattering comment, and glad you enjoyed Daniel Schwartz's work. Yes, I am familiar with David Levine's work, and I agree with you. David Levine, Daniel Schwartz, Herb Steinberg, Albert White, Sheldon Fink, Aaron Shikler, Harvey Dinnerstein, Julian Fishburne, Burton Silverman and Stewart Kaufman became good friends in the 60's, and started showing together at the Davis Gallery in N.Y., City. Their goal as a group, was to try and keep realism alive during a push toward abstraction in the fine arts world. Unfortunately their efforts to continue and show as a group faded, as they drifted apart and found other interests.ReplyDelete
Tom Watson
- Harry Borgman3:22 PM
Hi Tom,ReplyDelete
That was great work that you showed this week, I can't get enough, how about another week ? I'm a real fan of Daniel's paintings.
I checked out his web page and he has some really beautiful art there, I recommend everyone take a good long look. It's wonderful to see that he is still active, at the top, and still going as strong as ever.
Thanks again Harry,ReplyDelete
Schwartz's illustrations came to me like a clap of rolling thunder, every time I saw one. Unfortunately, that's all the clipped illustrations of Schwartz that I hung on to. My entire clip file became so fat, and I was only using less than a quarter of all the stuff I would save for research and inspiration. Over the last 20 years I had to a pare it dow to a manageable size, and now I wish I had some of it back.
Besides, I don't want Leif to become too complacent with idle time on his hands ... ha!
Tom Watson
I own a beautiful oil painting by Schwartz of Yankee Stadium, world series, with Don Larsen on the mound.ReplyDelete
Signed by Schwartz, Dec 1960. I need to sell this. Do you have any suggestions for who I might contact? Happy to send a scan.
Also want to sell a wonderful tugboat oil by Sheldon Fink, same era.
If you would like me to send you jpgs of the two paintings mentioned below to share on your page I am happy to do so. Both are exceptional.ReplyDelete
I own a beautiful oil painting by Schwartz of Yankee Stadium, world series, with Don Larsen on the mound.
Signed by Schwartz, Dec 1960. I need to sell this. Do you have any suggestions for who I might contact? Happy to send a scan.
Also want to sell a wonderful tugboat oil by Sheldon Fink, same era.


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STERLING – Kathy Henson, 54, owner of Persona Studios, is a third-generation shutterbug. Her grandfather, John Persona, opened the photography studio 79 years ago.
Her father, John Jr., also was passed the photo gene. Henson essentially grew up in the family studio.
Photographer Ashley Mosher's son, Bentlee Lawrenz, is learning what that is like firsthand. An entire wall of his growth has been documented and displayed at the entry of the studio.
"Grandpa took hundreds of pictures of me when I was a baby, too," Henson recalls.
As much as things are the same, and as many styles that find their way back, times have changed a lot. Since Henson took over the business in 1980, she said, and evolving technology has posed a huge learning curve.
"The evolution of digital can be a blessing and a curse," she said. "I didn't like it when it first came along. Now, I do. It is so easy. When you had film, you didn't know what you were getting."
Photo editing can also be tricky, but her entire staff does a little of everything, she said.
The full-service studio offers all variations of photo sessions, with the staff of seven working as a team.
Photographer Mosher, 22, said that during consultations the staffers share ideas with clients. They discuss location, poses, props and the variety of printing options they offer.
Once a plan is set in motion, two assistants work with the person or family to help make sure each detail is taken care of.
"We want them to be happy with everything," Mosher said. "Sometimes they come in with a picture they found online with an idea they want to re-create, and we do our best to make that happen."
Added Amanda Koelling, 30, "We love when people come in with ideas and we are able to create their vision."
Aware that not everyone has an idea how to be a "model," they often show people exactly what pose and direction to face.
"We will get into position and show them, 'This is what we want you to do,' rather than just telling them," Koelling said. "We have two assistants who make sure everything is just right, every hair is in place, and things look good."
The team enjoys shooting outside and taking advantage of natural light. The backyard of the studio is fully landscaped. It also has staged sets, including a rock wall waterfall, barn doors, wagon wheels, and several smaller props.
Although two indoor studios are available, many customers prefer to go on location, where the staff happily totes as many props as needed.
"Every year, every session, we want to do different things," Koelling said. "You find though, everything eventually comes back into style. We have a lot of urban brick wall type settings, farms, railroad tracks, abandoned buildings, and we are always on the lookout for that type of thing when we drive around."
The team is involved in area schools as well. Aside from basic portraits, the photographers shoot high school prom, homecoming and other dances. This year they covered 13 schools.
They also shoot sporting events for yearbooks at no charge to the schools.
Because of time constraints, they no longer do weddings unless it is by special request.
Henson said doing what she loves is her favorite part about her work.


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All About Shoulder Bursitis
A few weeks ago we shared about bursitis and how these structures help reduce friction between tissues in your body. When a bursa becomes inflamed, it is known as bursitis. Bursitis can happen in many areas of the body, including knee bursitis and Achilles bursitis (in the heel). Dr. Kevin McIntyre of Burlington Sports Therapy helps explain shoulder bursitis and how to treat it. Here's an excerpt:
Many patients come to our clinic believing they have shoulder bursitis. Shoulder bursitis is a condition in which the bursa of the shoulder gets inflamed and generates pain. What is a bursa you ask? Let's start from the beginning…
Bursa and Bursitis
Bursa are anatomical structures that are present throughout our body. A simple way to explain them is that they are "spacers" to separate different tissues in our body to prevent friction…think of a balloon filled with pudding. Under normal circumstances we don't even know we have them. They are present in our shoulders, knees, hips (and other major joints) and they usually don't cause any symptoms or signs of dysfunction. When provoked, these structures can become inflamed. When this happens they swell with fluid and create the painful condition called "bursitis".
Check out the full article and learn more about shoulder bursitis.


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Justin Parmer necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 79 diseños de 27 diseñadores freelance.
The Morton H. Meyerson Family Tzedakah Fund
According to Jewish tradition, Tzedakah is righteous giving required of every Jew. Our Tzedakah fund is the primary philanthropic vehicle for the Morton H. Meyerson family.
The fund primarily supports small non-profit organizations with low administrative expenses and leaders who are passionate, competent and kind.
The people who see this logo are potential recipients of grants or potential contributors to the fund.
We prefer the logo to be sharp and easy to place on business cards, websites, letterhead, etc.
Since we would like the logo to remain simple, the name of the foundation probably won't fit into the logo itself, and it is not necessary.
It should reflect the principles of tzedakah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzedakah). Religious symbols could be an aspect of the design, but not the entire design.
For an example of a style that we appreciate look at http://www.2m.com. The logo could follow this style, but it is not a requirement. We are open to all ideas.
Prefer Vector based graphics, but also not a requirement.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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A Madame Guillotine Time Machine II
By Mark Soo
Francesca Gavin
Francesca Gavin is a prolific arts writer and curator. Based between Berlin and London as Visual Arts Editor of Dazed & Confused and Art Editor of Twin, Gavin is also the curator of the Soho House art collection. Internationally recognised, she possesses a global outlook, having put together permanent displays of art previously in Berlin, Miami, New York, New York and London. She has also written five books including "The Book of Hearts", "100 New Artists" and "Hell Bound: New Gothic Art".
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We ship in 48 hours and if you are unhappy with your purchase, returns are free. (more info)
About Mark Soo
Mark creates multimedia spectacles
"I've always liked putting things together. Being an artist allows you to construct many different kinds of things and pull them together."
Born in Singapore before moving to Vancouver and now in Berlin, Mark Soo is fascinated by the effect that culture and technology have on photography. He has worked with film, installation, video and photography, and is unafraid of using dated technology. One example is his use of photograms, a photography technique that doesn't require a camera. For Absolut Art, Soo's approach remains the same with the same fondness of old technology. Using a low-resolution cell phone, he captured images related to 18th century France. The end result is three pieces entitled "Madame Guillotine" that require the viewer to observe the work from far away.
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Our frames are off the wall
German crafted professional grade frames in black and white individually crafted for Absolut Art and chosen by the curators and artists to best fit the artworks.
The frames are magnetic so they are super easy to use - you can switch out your prints in a matter of minutes.
- 6 millimeter aluminum frames
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All our artworks comes with a signed certificate of authenticity that is your guarantee.
Keep it safe, it's valuable. And beautiful!
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More suggestions for youBrowse all artworks
One day we will all die… by Jan Stenmark
The Royal Opera - Sweden by Kristian Bengtsson
Untamed Women by Maria Herreros


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Tyra Banks Speaks To Oprah About Domestic Violence In One Of Her Relationships When She Was 20! (Could She Be Talkin About Director John Singleton?)
Tyra Banks Tells Oprah Of Her Personal Domestic Abuse
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Christmas Pastorale (Archive)
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Christmas Pastorale (Archive) by Joan Pinkston. For SATB choir. Sacred. Choral octavo. Published by Beckenhorst Press (BP.JH540).
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From furniture exhibition to exhibition furniture.Posted on Monday August 05, 2013
For those furniture geeks out there, The V&A has a history of furniture design going on. The Dr Susan Weber Gallery tells the story of furniture design and production spanning the past 600 years and displays more than 200 outstanding … Continue reading →
Happy 295th birthday Thomas…Posted on Wednesday June 05, 2013
Today would have been the 295th Birthday of Thomas Chippendale. Thomas Chippendale was a London cabinet marker and furniture designer in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs, titled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director. The … Continue reading →
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Flying Stones
by Ellen R. Braaf
Thousands of years after the Egyptians piled up millions of huge stones to build their pyramids, scientists still ask: "How'd they do that?" A group of researchers, including a team from the California Institute of Technology, has a surprising answer—by using kites and the desert wind to help lift the stones! To test their theory, the researchers designed a simple rope-and-pulley system and mounted it on a support frame. They attached one end to a large kite and the other to the tip of a 3.4-ton obelisk shaped like the Washington Monument. Critics called them pyramidiots, but it took the researchers only 25 seconds to raise the huge stone in a 15–20 mph wind, such as is common in the Egyptian desert. Archaeologists point out that there is no evidence that the Egyptians used kites in building. But this summer the pyramidiots plan to lift a 10-ton obelisk using only materials that were available to the ancient Egyptians. Will they unlock the mystery of the pyramids? Stay tuned!
- Why do you think scientists are interested in re-creating the machines that people used a long time ago? Write a sentence or two for your answer.
- Where can you find a rope-and-pulley system today?
- Imagine you could put a rope-and-pulley system in your home or your school. What would you use it to do? What would power the system?


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Some Teen Filed A False Report Bout 3 Illegal Immigrants Attacking Her & Then Gets Arrested! LMFAO
Fox News Reports "School teen lied about attack over anti-illegal immigration project"&IP=220.127.116.11
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- 1 Organization's Description
- 2 Web Site URL
- 3 Main subjects covered in its information resources
- 4 The content of its web site
- 5 Blanket and/or standing orders
- 6 Contact information for vendors that distribute its documents and publications
- 7 Publications distributed through approval plans
- 8 Subscription databases
- 9 Principal serial publications
- 10 Languages of its products
- 11 New titles RSS feeds or e-mail newsletters
Organization's Description
Renouf is a privately owned company that specializes in the distribution of IGO and national government (NG) publications and documents that are currently in print and available for sale. The company currently represents over fifty organizations (a complete list can be found on its web site). If you are unable to locate a publication in its online bookstore, you can contact Renoufâs customer-service department and it will try to obtain it for you. There is not charge for this service.
Web Site URL
Main subjects covered in its information resources
The publications the company offers cover a wide array of subjects. To assist the visitors to its site, Renouf provides a brief description of each organizationâs products and a link to its web site.
The content of its web site
The web site contains entries, including descriptive annotations, for over 41,000 publications. New releases are added daily. The site allows the user to conduct searches by title, series, ISBN, and author. The visitor can scan a full product description in a matter of seconds. The Renouf search engine saves the buyerâs time by allowing him/her to search the publications of dozens of organizations simultaneously. Publications can be ordered online and billed to the userâs account, so prepayment is not required. The company also accepts orders by e-mail, telephone, and fax.
Blanket and/or standing orders
Renouf offers blanket standing orders, as well as standing orders for particular serials and monographic series.
Contact information for vendors that distribute its documents and publications
Publications distributed through approval plans
The company offers no approval plans.
Subscription databases
Renouf services all the print and electronic subscription products made available by the organizations it represents. The company offers new subscribers a discount of up to 33 percent on the electronic subscriptions.
Principal serial publications
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Languages of its products
The company provides products published in English, Spanish, and French.
Renouf offers a free monthly e-mail updating service, which provides the client with a list of new publications that have been added to the site. This list is indexed by subject/organization headings. Renouf also publishes a printed quarterly newsletter featuring a selection of new releases.


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Why ASEOPRO.com?
Online marketing is about getting your website in front of potential customers, and converting that traffic into business.
If you're depending on Pay Per Click advertising to get potential customers, you're paying too much.
In order to get to the top of the natural search results you need a marketing strategy.
Search Engine Ranking results often change week-to-week due to competition, so maintaining a top ranking requires constant monitoring and content management.
Every day more of your potential customers are searching the Internet for the products you offer. If your website can't be found your potential business is going to the competition.


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Hjoggsjö, Sweden, 2011 | The project Valborg is an exploration of a Swedish spring tradition.
fireworks sparkling sparks evening night woods forest tree trees silhouette black and white valborg norrland sweden
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IN THE PAST two years, I've done two smart things: I went fishing last summer, and then I went fishing again this summer. Fishing is teaching me the art of waiting. And how to wait is what Mark 13:32-37 and the spirit of Advent are all about.
There is the obvious parallel: The very act of fishing, like the celebration of Advent, is a ritual of hope. Both are filled with expectation; we are waiting for something.
But some similarities are more subtle. Don't be deceived by tranquil scenes of grandpa, fishing pole in hand, leaning against a tree, eyes closed, lazing away ... Take it from me, to be truly fishing is to be constantly on guard. You are always watchful, always mindful, always alert for the slightest touch on the line. The attention is so focused that eventually you can feel or hear a fish circling the bait. But if the concentration breaks, even for a split second, chances are you've missed what you were waiting for.
Perhaps it's not a tragedy to lose a perch or a pike, but to think that the Messiah might have brushed your shoulder and continued by unnoticed is another story. ... A peace and justice fanatic like myself who spends days dialing phone numbers, organizing demonstrations, attending meetings, writing articles, answering letters, leading workshops, and doing other important activities guaranteed to drag in the kingdom of God needs to be reminded that waiting has value.
Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB, was national coordinator of Benedictines for Peace when this article appeared.


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Celebration of updated EthnoMed web site, provides online cultural information for health care workers, Feburary 9, 11am-12noon
Contact: Ann Marchand
(206) 744-9092
Media Contact: A.C. Petersen
Libraries Communications Officer
(206) 543-9389
More Information
The public is invited to learn about updates to the EthnoMed website at a celebration and demonstration on Tuesday, February 9, 11am. – Noon at the UW Health Sciences Library, 2nd Floor (view map ). A brief program begins at 11:15am, and light refreshments will be served. For more information about the celebration, see http://ethnomed.org/about/ethnomed-celebration
EthnoMed.org, a joint endeavor between the UW Health Sciences Library and Harborview Medical Center, provides information about cultural beliefs, medical issues and related topics pertinent to the health care of immigrant health for health care providers and patients.
The newly transformed EthnoMed website, funded by the National Library of Medicine and the result of a collaboration between staff, librarians and faculty at Health Sciences Library and Harborview Medical Center, utilizes a new content management system and emphasizes usability and accessibility.
Top features include:
- Improved navigation for browsing content by cultures, clinical topics, and patient education materials
- More frequent posting of new articles
- New Contribution Pathways Program , which encourages UW students and faculty to submit projects for publication on EthnoMed.org
# # # # # # # # # #
contact: A.C. Petersen, Libraries Communications Officer


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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Why vendors resist negotiating software maintenance fees
I've been coming down pretty hard lately on certain software vendors for escalating costs of software maintenance contracts as well as the lack of value and flexibility in maintenance programs. I'm not alone in this criticism, as other bloggers, such as Vinnie Mirchandani (aka, Vinnie Maintenance), Ray Wang, and Dennis Howlett have voiced the same concerns.
One thing that has puzzled me for a long time, however, is why vendors are not willing to negotiate software maintenance fees in the same way that they negotiate upfront license fees. One of my associates the other day referred to maintenance fees as the "third rail" of ERP deals--it seems you can't touch it. But vendors often discount the license fees to close the deal. Why aren't they willing to negotiate maintenance fees?
They easy answer is, because that's where they make their money. Although that's no doubt true, I've recently learned that there is another reason.
Issues with revenue recognition
A Spectator reader, who will remain unnamed, recently contacted me about this matter. He is the CEO of a privately-held Tier II ERP company and a veteran of the industry. He'd been observing my rants about vendor maintenance fees and thought it might help me to see the situation from the vendor's perspective, specifically from the accounting side.
He points out that accounting standards for revenue recognition in the software industry have been evolving over the past several years. "Revenue recognition" simply refers to the policies that govern when a company can book sales dollars as earned revenue.
For enterprise system vendors, revenue recognition involves a number of issues. For example, suppose a vendor closes a deal for 100 users, plus implementation services, plus hardware, plus maintenance fees.
- When is the vendor allowed to record the revenue for the software licenses? Does he count it all as revenue as of the date of the invoice, the date the software is shipped, the date the software is installed at the customer's location, or the date that the implementation is complete?
- The implementation services are a bit simpler, as they typically are billed and recognized as revenue as of the date of service. But what if the implementation is performed as a fixed fee? When should the revenue be recognized?
- What about the first year's maintenance fees? Should they be recognized as revenue at the time of sale, or amortized over the 12 months? Can the vendor recognize revenue for maintenance in months prior to the software being operational?
A little thought about questions like this and you can see why the accounting for enterprise system deals can be difficult.
- And what about the hardware? Should the sale of the hardware be recognized at the time the hardware is shipped, at the time it is installed at the customer site, or at the time that the complete system goes live?
Potential for abuse
Furthermore, if the customer wants to structure the deal differently (e.g. for financing purposes), can the vendor move money between different parts of the deal? For example, can he charge more for the software licenses and take it out of maintenance fees? Or, can he take money out of the implementation services and put it in hardware?
What if moving this money around also lets the vendor recognize revenue earlier than he would have been able to if he had structured the deal as he normally does? Isn't that cheating? It sure could be.
Because moving money from one part of the deal to another may affect revenue recognition (and therefore, tax obligations), a large body of regulations have been promulgated to provide accounting standards for software deals. The most significant of these standards is AICPA's Statement of Position (SOP) 97-2, Software Revenue Recognition (later amended by SOP 98-9). According to The CPA Journal, a publication of NY State Society of CPA's:SOP 97-2 provides that revenue should be recognized in accordance with contract accounting when the arrangement requires significant production, modification, or customization of the software. When the arrangement does not entail such requirements, revenue should be recognized when persuasive evidence of an agreement exists, delivery has occurred, the vendor's price is fixed or determinable, and collectibility is probable.The rules get really complicated when contract accounting is not required. In such cases (which cover many enterprise software deals), the rules require that the vendor's fee be allocated according to something it calls "vendor-specific objective evidence (VSOE)" of the fair value for each element of the deal. The CPA Journal article explains:VSOE is limited to the price charged by the vendor for each element when it is sold separately. This requires the deferral of revenue until VSOE can be established for all elements in the arrangement or until all elements have been delivered. If PCS [postcontract customer support] is the only undelivered element in the arrangement, however, the entire fee can be recognized ratably over the term of the PCS contract. In addition, recognition of revenue must be deferred if undelivered elements are essential to the functionality of any delivered elements.This brief explanation, as complicated as it is, does not do justice to the complexity of these accounting standards. Read the entire CPA Journal article to get an idea of the problems facing software vendors in accounting for sales. You can also read this article from CFO Magazine, which illustrates what happens when a company runs afoul of these regulations.
To further complicate things for publicly held companies, different auditors may have slightly different interpretations of the rules and may force vendors to restate earnings if they do not agree with the interpretation of previous auditors.
Why vendors resist negotiating maintenance fees
But what does this have to do with negotiating maintenance fees? As patiently explained by my CEO reader, software vendors spend a lot of time structuring their pricing for each element of the typical deal so that it will pass muster with their accountants and auditors. Change the structure of the deal, and it is likely that the vendor will have a huge accounting problem.
Therefore, if the vendor appears unwilling or unable to negotiate changes to the maintenance fees, it's not just that the vendor is greedy. It is at least partly, if not largely, due to the accounting considerations.
I believe this explanation and think it is important to keep this in mind when negotiating with software vendors. It does not explain, however, why software maintenance fees are so high to begin with.
As confirmed by my source, rather than try to negotiate a lower percentage on maintenance fees, a better approach would be to negotiate harder on software license fees. As most vendors are now basing their maintenance charges as a percentage of the discounted price of the software, any discount won will pay off in terms of lower maintenance fees over the life of the contract. In addition, negotiating a maximum increase over multiple years is also advisable.
Update, Nov. 28. I contacted Stephen Guth, author of the Vendor Management Office blog, for his take on this post. He spends a lot more time on these matters than I do, so I was interested in his perspective. He writes back:I think software account reps tick through an ordered list of reasons as to why they want to resist negotiating fees (high margin, annuity stream, etc.), and I think revenue recognition and having to deal with their Controller are somewhere on the list. I used to work for a vendor, and it was always easier for us to go to our special pricing folks than to go to our CFO/Controller. We avoided the Controller like the plague. We would be willing to do deals through our special pricing folks but rigorously resisted any deal elements that required us to go to the controller for approval. I suspect it's the same elsewhere and your contact's perspective confirms my suspicion.In other words, Stephen confirms that from the vendor's side there are some negotiation points that can be handled through "special pricing" and some that require sign off by the vendor's CFO/Controller. Knowing when you are treading into the second area is key to understanding why vendors resist changing maintenance terms, conditions, and pricing structures. These points may be well-known by those that work on the vendor side of the table, but they are not widely realized by typical buyers that I deal with.
I guess the point is that buyers need to look at the TCO and their own accounting treatment (e.g., capital of a license vs. the expense of maintenance). In some cases, and it sounds crazy, a buyer may want to (as a trade-off) offer to load a software license fee as a concession for a dramatically lower maintenance fee. Again, all about the TCO. And all you and I can do is try to equip people with our perspective so that they can make their own informed decision.
To negotiate successfully, buyers need to understand the needs of sellers. At the risk of repeating myself: software revenue recognition issues are not an excuse for recent escalations in software maintenance fees by certain vendors. But the issues around accounting compliance do explain why, once maintenance program structures, terms, and conditions are established, vendors resist changing them on a case by case basis.
Related posts
Pushing back on software vendor maintenance fees
SAP maintenance fees: where is the value?
SAP under the spotlight for "broken promises"
Vendor software maintenance programs: top 10 wish list
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hike
Oracle confirms: maintenance fees are virtually all profit
Oracle profits strong, thanks to your maintenance payments
Vendor maintenance fees: just say no
High software maintenance fees and what to do about themby Frank Scavo, 11/26/2008 05:01:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Fallout from SAP's maintenance fee price hike
Dennis Howlett is reporting that the U.S. SAP user group (ASUG) has terminated its first full-time CEO, Steve Strout. Dennis speculates--with good reason--that Strout was not pushing back hard enough on SAP's recent hike in maintenance fees.
Read Howlett's post for more.
In related news, Societe Generale analyst Richard Nguyen put out a sell-rating on SAP's shares, on his forecast that SAP's fourth-quarter profit will come up short. The reason? SAP customers are pushing back on SAP's maintenance price increase.
Larry Dignan has more on Nguyen's downgrade on SAP.
Related posts
Pushing back on software vendor maintenance fees
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hikeby Frank Scavo, 11/26/2008 04:59:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Monday, November 24, 2008
Microsoft Dynamics customer stories
Dennis Howlett attended Microsoft's Convergence conference in Copenhagen, its annual gathering for users of its Dynamics line of ERP systems. He was favorably impressed with the user-centric nature of the event:This was a modestly confident yet cautious Microsoft, happy to parade good customer stories. This is to be welcomed and a sharp contrast to other shows where the emphasis is often on ensuring the company's message is not tempered by customer reality. As we move forward in an uncertain economy, these stories will become much more important to commenters and customers alike.Read Dennis's blog post for the latest from the show on Microsoft's AX, NAV, and GP products.by Frank Scavo, 11/24/2008 12:35:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Thursday, November 20, 2008
Consona layoff
A Spectator reader informs me that Consona had an unannounced layoff on November 3. Sales, development, and corporate functions were affected. The number of employees affected is unknown. My source is a former Consona employee that maintains contact with folks who still work there.
Consona, which changed its name from M2M Holdings last year, is the parent company for Made2Manage, a well-regarded ERP system for small and midsize manufacturing firms. Consona has also acquired several other ERP and CRM systems for the SMB market, notably Intuitive, Onyx, Encompix, DTR, Cimnet, and Axis. Intuitive itself had previously acquired Supplyworks and Relevant. Many of these are solutions focused on niche industry requirements, an approach that I am particularly fond of.
Consona has not responded to my request for confirmation of the layoff.
If you have further information, please email me or post a comment below.
Update, Nov 24. A Consona represented responded this morning with confirmation of the workforce reduction, but claims they were movements of jobs from the U.S. to Consona's offshore development facility in India.
She writes:We did recently move some positions to our office in Bangalore, India. We are leveraging our offshore development capacity during the economic downturn to maintain our ability to deliver solutions to our customers while keeping costs down. We also restructured our IT organization to provide 24 hour support to our customers and offices around the world by opening an IT support organization in Bangalore. Considering these positions were simply transitioned to another location, the "reductions" you note ... are insignificant.
Overall, Consona has a track record of being a stable company for our customers. Our strong financial performance is based on the fact that we continually adjust our business based on our results, near term projections, and state of the market and economy. This is not something all software companies are doing, as you know.
Just a few notes on our office in Bangalore...
- Mixed onshore/offshore model that doubles development capacity and achieves a faster time to market (24-hour operation)
- Similar structure in many other SW providers.
- We have our own development center operating successfully since the 90s as part of Cimnet Systems.
- Staff are Consona employees, have been successfully releasing both major and minor product releasesby Frank Scavo, 11/20/2008 10:56:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Netsuite claims new deal flow more predictable
On-demand enterprise system provider NetSuite appears to be bucking the trend these days. According to NetSuite CFO Jim McGeever, sales slowed in late September, but since then the flow of deals has become "much more predictable." He made these remarks today in a presentation to the UBS Global Technology and Services Conference.
Tom Steinert-Threlkeld reports:"What has happened in October and so far in November is that when people said they were going to buy, they actually bought," McGeever said.I'm not sure what to make of this. Our research at Computer Economics shows that 44% of U.S. and Canadian organizations have delayed the start of major projects in the August to October timeframe, and 16% have cancelled such projects outright. The only explanation I can come up with for NetSuite's success is that its on-demand model is selling well these days as it minimizes upfront investments. Still, the claim that it is doing well in large deals is counter-intuitive in this market.
Going by the boards have been deals with small customers, who spend less than $10,000 a year with the company, he said. The deals with big customers, aka "elephants," are getting done. Elephants who didn't complete deals at the end of September, will complete them before the year ends, he said. "We don't expect to lose any of them," he said.
NetSuite got its start by selling to very small businesses. In 2002, the average ticket was $447 per customer. Now, sales growth comes entirely from customers spending more than $10,000 a year. The biggest growth area: Customers spending more than $100,000. "The larger deals seem relatively strong," he said.
If you have insights, email me or leave a comment on this post.
Related posts
Workday: evidence of SaaS adoption by large firms
All not sweet with NetSuiteby Frank Scavo, 11/19/2008 02:12:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Layoffs at Lawson
I spoke too soon on the previous post. A Spectator reader alerts me to layoffs announced today by Lawson Software.The restructuring plan includes the elimination of approximately 200 employees, or 5 percent of the global workforce, with personnel departures expected to be substantially completed by Dec. 31, 2008. When combined with anticipated voluntary attrition and limited hiring, the total reduction in the global workforce is estimated to be between 8 percent and 10 percent by the end of the company's fiscal year on May 31, 2009.The firm expects restructuring costs to be in the range of $9-12 million, resulting in savings of $40-50 million.
Read Lawson's announcement for more.
Expect to see more of these sorts of announcements. Investors will view not vendors in a bad light for layoffs in the current economic climate, and in fact may actually view such actions favorably.
It's another story for those let go, of course. We hope the best for them and their families.by Frank Scavo, 11/18/2008 01:30:00 PM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Oracle layoffs, Nov. 2008
Update: See my latest post on Oracle layoffs, January 2009
As I mentioned previously, the Spectator is getting a surge in Google-referred traffic recently for search terms such as "Oracle layoffs." Oracle is not saying anything publicly, but I am getting some feedback from readers.
The latest is that there have been Oracle layoffs in November, but so far they are not affecting delivery people. There was a reduction in force, however, in August that did affect Oracle's consulting unit, which I reported previously.
Again, anyone with more information, please email me or leave a comment on this post.
Update, 1:10 p.m. Tom Steinert-Threlkeld points out that although SAP has not yet cut overall headcount, its employee count in the Americas, excluding acquisitions, has actually fallen slightly in the past nine months. He also quotes SAP's CFO, Werner Brandt, as indicating that SAP layoffs in the future cannot be ruled out. Brandt made the comment in answer to a question at a UBS converence in New York today.
No recent news to my knowledge on layoffs at other enterprise system vendors, such as Infor, Microsoft, IFS, Lawson, QAD, Exact, Glovia, Best, or JDA.
Update, Nov. 20. A spectator reader reports:I spoke to one of my former coworkers that was just laid off [by Oracle] on Monday and she said that her understanding was that 20% of the Education staff was let go. They were notified by managers early Monday morning and by noon they had each received a packet at home via FedEx with a severance packet. By EOB on Monday email had been cut off. Typical Oracle. Still haven't found any articles on it.by Frank Scavo, 11/18/2008 08:53:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Thursday, November 13, 2008
Top ten software engineering concepts
Ed Yourdon, the father of structured programming and one of the greatest minds in software, has put out a terrific presentation, Top Ten Software Engineering Concepts.
Ed does a great job summing up the key principles of software development, many of which go back decades. I studied many of them in college over 30 years ago and in my early years in corporate IT. Ed points out that these principles keep getting rediscovered by new generations of developers, using different terminology. The presentation, in PDF format, is loaded with links to external resources on each concept.
Do yourself a favor and download it now for future reference.
Ed is giving the presentation itself at a CompAid "Software Best Practices" conference in Chicago on November 13th.by Frank Scavo, 11/13/2008 09:38:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Fresh round of layoffs at Epicor
Epicor announced a new round of cost-reduction steps today, including headcount reduction, cutbacks in discretionary spending, and efficiency improvements. It said that expects to save somewhere between $16-20 million, with restructuring charges eating up $4 million of the savings during the fourth quarter.
Although Epicor did not note the number of employees affected, an Epicor employee in the firm's Newburgh, NY office informs me that the layoffs hit 10% of Epicor's headcount worldwide. Unfortunately, he was one of them.
The cost-cutting actions come at a key time for Epicor. As with all tech companies, the firm faces cutbacks in IT spending due to economic conditions. But Epicor is also battling a hostile takeover bid by New York hedge fund Elliott Associates. Epicor's board voted last week, for the second time, to reject Elliott's offer. Elliott already owns 10.2% of Epicor and is gunning for the whole thing. It originally bid $9.50 per share back in October, but last week lowered its offer to $7.50.
Cost-cutting will just take Epicor so far in improving the bottom line. If it wants to remain independent, it will need to improve the top line as well. But under current economic conditions--and intense competition from other players--it won't be easy.
Postscript: I am convinced there is a fresh round of layoffs at Oracle as well. The Spectator's web log is suddenly getting hammered this week by Google searches for the words, "Oracle layoffs." The only difference with Oracle is that they are not saying anything. If you have more information, leave a comment or send me an email.
Related posts
Epicor facing unfriendly takeover bid
More layoffs at Epicor
Epicor in transition: revenue up, profits down
More on Epicor's management changes
Layoffs coming at Epicor?by Frank Scavo, 11/13/2008 07:33:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
2009 IT spending outlook: could be worse
Over at Computer Economics, we've just released the results of a special survey of IT executives, conducted in October 2008. In light of the current turmoil in world financial markets, the findings are a bit contrarian. According to the report's media alert:IT organizations decidedly stepped up their cost-cutting measures in the third quarter of 2008. Nevertheless, as they head into 2009, most IT executives are not anticipating deep cuts in IT operational spending or staffing levels, according to a new survey by Computer Economics, an IT research and advisory firm in Irvine, California.The full report, Outlook for 2009 IT Staffing and Spending Levels, is available on the Computer Economics website, along with an executive summary.
In the October survey of 159 North American IT organizations, one-quarter of the respondents anticipate spending reductions of at least 3%. But another quarter anticipate that their IT operational budgets will rise by at least 5%. At the median, IT organizations forecast that their spending growth will be flat.
IT executives are also focused on retaining their current employees. IT organizations at the median and 25th percentiles forecast no change in their headcount in 2009, while companies at the 75th percentile are actually forecasting a 5% growth in staffing levels.by Frank Scavo, 11/12/2008 08:10:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Pushing back on software vendor maintenance fees
negotiating software maintenance. He first asks, how is it that vendors are now charging annual maintenance fees that are 20% of the initial license cost (or more, in the case of SAP and Oracle), where they were typically charging 15% a few years ago? The answer, in effect, is because they can. In other words, buyers are simply not pushing back hard enough.
He then provides a list of 18 questions you can use to push back on your software vendor when it comes time to negotiate. Here are a few...
Read to get the whole list. post
- Why do I have to pay you to fix your own bugs?
- Why should I have to pay software maintenance in advance?
- Can you separate the cost of actual maintenance from how-to / technical support?
- I'm only able to install half of the total licenses in the first year, so why do I have to pay maintenance on all of the licenses?
I know I've been harping on this subject for a long time (see related posts below), as have other bloggers, such as Vinnie Mirchandani (aka, Vinnie Maintenance), Ray Wang, and Dennis Howlett. But things won't change until buyers start pushing back harder.
Or, antitrust actions are taken. But that's another story for another post.
Update, Nov 6. SAP's co-CEO Henning Kagermann defends SAP's plans to increase maintenance fees.
Related posts
SAP maintenance fees: where is the value?
SAP under the spotlight for "broken promises"
Vendor software maintenance programs: top 10 wish list
Mad as hell: backlash brewing against SAP maintenance fee hike
Oracle confirms: maintenance fees are virtually all profit
Oracle profits strong, thanks to your maintenance payments
Vendor maintenance fees: just say no
High software maintenance fees and what to do about themby Frank Scavo, 11/04/2008 09:31:00 AM | permalink | e-mail this!
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text:
Learnable necesitaba un nuevo diseño de botón o icono y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 258 diseños de 72 diseñadores freelance.
Learnable is an online education marketplace. At learnable.com, anyone can create or discover an online course! You can be an instructor, a student, or both!
- Professionals / Students / Hobbyists / Retirees - anyone looking to learn practical skills online.
- Subject Matter Experts / Educators - people who have domain-specific knowledge that they want to share and earn a passive income from
Our target market is professionals, lifetime learners and subject matter experts. We're not competing with university education. We're not competing with the free content on the web. We're aiming to create online learning experiences that engage, delight, and which represent fantastic value for money.
We need icons designed for the Learnable brand.
In these specific formats:
Favicon icon - for our website (16 x 16 pixels)
Square 'profile' Icon - that can be used in Twitter and other social media profiles. (i.e. 512 x 512 pixels, saved in Hi res, and in vector format) Note the design must also 'render' well when automatically resized to smaller pixel dimensions.
Ideally we want the design of the icon to be clean, simple and on-brand with what we currently have. See:
The obvious color for consideration is the current Learnable blue (see style-guide attached). But don't let this limit you if you feel strongly about something else. Also give some thought as to how this icon could be used alongside the current logo.


text:
Great surfers surfing all types of boards, on all types of waves. Filmed in Australia, California, Hawaii, Mexico and Micronesia.
Jai Lee, Harley Ingleby, Brian AndersonWatch Trailer
|Great surfers surfing all types of boards, on all types of waves. This is Director Steve Clevelands film starring Alex Knost, Dane Peterson, Joel Tudor and more. Filmed in Australia, California, Hawaii, Mexico and Micronesia.
|Longboarding, Shortboarding
|Jai Lee, Harley Ingleby, Brian Anderson, Colin Whitbeard, Ryan Burch, Chad Marshall, Jared Mell, CJ Nelson, Joel Tudor, Dane Peterson, Leah Dawson, Jen Smith, Kassia Meador, Asher Pacey, Darshan Gooch, Chris Del Moro, Jan Wessels, Tyler Warren, Alex Knost, Harrison Roach, Vince Felix, Dane Pioli, Ned Snow
|Steve Cleveland
|Surf Craft Media
|not rated
|Running Time
|42 minutes
|Audio Language
|English | Stereo
|Download Resolution
|HD | 1280x720 (1.32 GB) SD | 848x480 (599.40 MB)
|Streaming Resolution
|HD | 1920x1080
|Additional Features
|Chapter Markers
When you buy a video, your viewing rights do not expire. You can watch a purchased video as many times as you would like once downloaded to your computer. Unlimited Watch Now streaming from your My Video Library is included with every purchase. You can also download and transfer a video you own to portable devices (iPad/iPhone/iPod) for offline viewing.
When rented, the viewing period for this video starts immediately upon purchase and will automatically expire after 72 hours. Rentals are viewed using Watch Now streaming. Rentals are not downloadable and cannot be transferred to portable devices. A constant internet connection is required during viewing.
Watch Now $0.00
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text:
Avoidant personality disorder is a mental health condition in which a person has a lifelong pattern of feeling very shy, inadequate, and sensitive to rejection.
Alternative Names
Personality disorder – avoidant
Causes, incidence, and risk factors
Cause of avoidant personality disorder is unknown. Genes or a physical illness that changed the person's appearance may play a role. About 1% of the population has avoidant personality disorder.
People with this disorder cannot stop thinking about their own shortcomings. They form relationships with other people only if they believe they will not be rejected. Loss and rejection are so painful that these people choose to be lonely rather than risk trying to connect with others.
A person with avoidant personality disorder may:
- Be easily hurt when people criticize or disapprove of them
- Hold back too much inintimate relationships
- Be reluctant to become involved with people
- Avoid activities or jobs that involve contact with others
- Be shy in social situations out of fear of doing something wrong
- Make potential difficulties seem worse than they are
- Hold the view they are not good socially, not as good as other people, or unappealing
Signs and tests
Avoidant personality disorder is diagnosed based on a psychological evaluation that assesses the history and severity of the symptoms.
Talk therapy is considered to be the most effective treatment for this condition. It helps persons with this disorder be less sensitive to rejection. Antidepressant drugs may be used in addition.
Expectations (prognosis)
People with this disorder may develop some ability to relate to others. With treatment this can be improved.
Without treatment, a person with avoidant personality disorder may lead a life of near or total isolation. They may go on to develop a second mental health disorder such as substance abuse or a mood disorder such as depression.
Calling your health care provider
See your health care provider or a mental health professional if shyness or fear of rejection overwhelms your ability to function in life and have relationships.