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I actually have an answer to the engagement one: Increasingly, our clients are asking how they can tap their own employees as ambassadors, either for the company, its brands, or both. It's always nice when the facts support your opinions, and indeed, the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer uncovered a dramatic increase in the credibility of "average" employees - especially those with technical expertise - as unofficial company spokespeople. (Fun fact: A technical expert within the company's ranks is now more trusted than the CEO.) This highlights a real opportunity to recruit, train and equip employee ambassadors to be the faces of the company.
Ambassador programs are hardly new. For decades companies have been recruiting employees to hand out brochures at events, volunteer in their communities, share product discounts with friends, etc. But the rising power of social media has breathed new life into such efforts. More and more, we see clients tapping employees to advocate for the company and its brands via their own social networks. I'll be sharing an in-depth look at one ambassador program when IABC publishes its Gold Quill Award winners next month.
In the meantime, however, I wanted to share a couple things we've learned from running such programs. We start and end each of these with a participant survey. Not only does this help measure the program's effectiveness, it also allows you to ask employees what works – and what doesn't – about your program.
Here are three things employees have told us make ambassador programs successful:
- Training on the company's social media policy. No one wants to get in trouble for talking about their employer online. While many companies have in place social media guidelines, employees have told us that they're unsure how to put such policies into practice. As such, they'd rather say nothing at all. Scenario-based training (self-paced or workshop format) that walks employees through real-life situations can build the confidence to start talking about the company via social networks.
- Interaction with leaders and other ambassadors. Let's not kid ourselves: Employees don't volunteer for ambassador programs out of pure altruism – they expect to get something in return, too. What, exactly? Networking opportunities, for one. While coffee and croissants with the CEO is unlikely in larger organizations, ambassadors appreciate exposure to senior leaders. Furthermore, employees have told us they want to learn from their fellow ambassadors. For one program, we set up a closed ambassador Facebook group, where participants asked each other how to respond to tough questions from the outside world, posted links to interesting content for others to share and simply put faces to names. Of course, if networking isn't enough of an incentive, you might consider offering something more tangible, like the trip to Las Vegas that inspired this Home Depot employee's video.
- Specific calls to action. Share a great experience you had with one of our brands! is not a call to action. It's too general and about as actionable as someone telling you to make some life changes! You might think you're giving employees the freedom to advocate however they choose, but most need more specific guidance. Give ambassadors easy, defined activities that take only a second: Ask them to retweet a link to an article about your company. Provide a sample email to send congressional reps in support of legislation. Or a product coupon code to share with Facebook friends. Whatever you ask of your ambassadors, make it something they can do quickly, simply and preferably on the spot from their mobile devices.
- Corporatey content. From an employees' perspective, you can't spell corporate messaging without mess. If you ask ambassadors to share something on Facebook, they won't do it if it reads like the first line of a press release. My colleague Phil Gomes recommends giving content the "Battle Hymn of the Republic Test:" Read it aloud, and if it sounds like something you'd hear announced over the Battle Hymn of the Republic, rewrite it.
- A heavy-handed approach. Motivating ambassadors to participate should be a carrot vs. stick system: Don't penalize employees who aren't fully engaged in the program, but do recognize your rockstars. Ambassadors are typically volunteers, and they don't want to be treated like corporate shills.
- Asking too much. Similarly, set realistic goals for your ambassadors. They're doing this on top of their day jobs, so asking them to tweet about all the wonderful things your company is doing twice a day is unreasonable. Keep it real.


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Beer-lovers unite: Colorado Craft Beer Week is in session
It's a good week to be a craft beer fan in Colorado.
Craft beer sales continue to grow in the double-digits. The latest Brewers Association data show that craft brews have a 26 percent market share of Colorado's beer industry. And the Centennial State is in the throes of Colorado Craft Beer Week, which runs through Sunday.
"It's truly a week that is driven by the brewers," said Steve Kurowski, marketing director for the Colorado Brewers Guild, which heads the nine-day celebration of the state's craft beer industry that has an annual economic impact of more than $1.1 billion.
Brewers across the state are hosting close to 100 events — including beer deals and special releases — as part of Colorado Craft Beer Week, which kicked off with the third-annual Collaboration Fest on Sunday.
Headlining the new events this year is Colorado Pint Day, which is scheduled for tomorrow: Patrons who purchase a 16-ounce beer at any of three dozen participating breweries and brewpubs will receive a free glass.
"That's going to have a whole bunch of activity," Kurowski said.
Can't make it to Pint Day? There should be plenty of other events to suit your fancy.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Pixie hard case envelope clutch bag by ShuWish will become a key piece in your accessories collection this season. Available in range of faux suede's, shiny patent's and bridal satin's it's luxuriously textured and perfect for all season's colour palettes. Inside, the matching silky satin lining adds that classic touch. Finished with an elegant metallic slim bar. Simply add your essentials and sling this bag over your shoulder using the delicate chain strap or carry this bag as a clutch on your big day or next night out.
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|Model Name
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|Handbag Dimensions
Width: 23 cm, Height: 14 cm, Depth: 5.5 cm
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The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for heavy snow for much of the state as the storm began this afternoon in Central Massachusetts.
A few flakes came down off and on through the morning, but the storm began in earnest in Worcester about 2:30 p.m. and rapidly intensified. The speed limit on the Massachusetts Turnpike has been reduced to 40 miles per hour to reduce the possibility of accidents as snow coated the highway.
There may be periods this afternoon and evening when an inch an hour falls, and patchy fog is expected to limit visibility as well. Between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m., the fog is likely to freeze and the north wind will pick up.
The National Weather Service is predicting between 3 and 7 inches of snow for the Worcester area, with more expected in southeast Massachusetts due to a secondary coastal storm.
In advance of the storm, Fitchburg declared a snow emergency parking ban, prohibiting parking on city streets between 5 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday. Worcester's parking ban is also in effect.
Today's snowfall comes on top of several inches of snow that fell Dec. 27 and 28 in parts of Central Massachusetts.
Frigid weather is forecast for next week, with low temperatures in the single digits on Tuesday and Thursday nights.


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He's done it! We've been reporting on the attempt by Zenith Ambassador, Felix Baumgartner, to earn his place in the history books by making the world's longest sky dive from the edge of space.
On Sunday, after overcoming concerns with the power for his visor heater that impaired his vision and nearly jeopardised the mission, Felix Baumgartner finally achieved his ambition. Wearing the all-new El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th chronograph, Baumgartner reached an estimated speed of 1,342.8 km (Mach 1.24) jumping from the stratosphere, which, when certified, will make him the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall and set several other records* while delivering valuable data for future space exploration.
After flying to an altitude of 39,045 metres (128,100 feet) in a helium-filled balloon, Felix Baumgartner completed a record breaking jump for the ages from the edge of space, exactly 65 years after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier flying in an experimental rocket-powered airplane. The 43-year-old Austrian skydiving expert also broke two other world records (highest freefall, highest manned balloon flight), leaving the one for the longest freefall to project mentor Col. Joe Kittinger.
Baumgartner landed safely with his parachute in the desert of New Mexico after jumping out of his space capsule at 39,045 metres and plunging back towards earth, hitting a maximum of speed of 1,342.8 km/h through the near vacuum of the stratosphere before being slowed by the atmosphere later during his 4:20 minute long freefall. Baumgartner's jump lasted a total of 9:03 minutes. Countless millions of people around the world watched his ascent and jump live on television broadcasts and live stream on the Internet. At one point during his freefall Baumgartner appeared to spin rapidly, but he quickly re-gained control and moments later opened his parachute as members of the ground crew cheered and viewers around the world heaved a sigh of relief.
"It was an incredible up and down today, just like it's been with the whole project. First we got off with a beautiful launch and then we had a bit of drama with a power supply issue to my visor. The exit was perfect but then I started spinning slowly. I thought I'd just spin a few times and that would be that, but then I started to speed up. It was really brutal at times. I thought for a few seconds that I'd lose consciousness. I didn't feel a sonic boom because I was so busy just trying to stabilize myself. We'll have to wait and see if we really broke the sound barrier. It was really a lot harder than I thought it was going to be." Felix Baumgartner
Baumgartner's El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th watch
Commenting on his exploits, Zenith President & CEO, Jean-Frédéric Dufour said: "The Manufacture Zenith is very proud to have been the official timekeeper of this mission and to present the El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th Tribute to Felix Baumgartner. Thanks to him, Zenith El Primero Stratos Flyback Striking 10th is the first watch ever to cross the sound barrier in a near space environment."
The Stratos is equipped with the world's most accurate automatic chronograph movement – the legendary El Primero – as well as the Striking 10th and Flyback functions, making it an eminently suitable partner for Felix Baumgartner's exploit. "This project is all about uniqueness, manpower and precision and my Zenith chronograph perfectly matches the mission." said Felix Baumgarnter after the jump.
Baumgartner and his team spent five years training and preparing for the mission that is designed to improve our scientific understanding of how the body copes with the extreme conditions at the edge of space.
Zenith watches have often accompanied pioneers during their most incredible projects, participating in some of the greatest human adventures. These include explorer Roald Amundsen's discovery of the North and South Poles; Mahatma Gandhi's peaceful fight for India's independence; the laying of the foundations of ecology by the learned Prince Albert I of Monaco; Louis Blériot's Channel crossing; John F. Kennedy's political career; intrepid explorer, Colonel John Blashford-Snell in various endeavours such as his latest expedition to Nepal; as well as Johan Ernst Nilsson in his daring Pole2Pole mission. Felix Baumgartner has now joined this illustrious list.
Watchuseek Blog
Monday, October 15, 2012
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BACKGROUND IMAGE: iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
- FeatureIBM unveils storage tank
- FeatureStartups Have Bigger, Faster Alternatives to Traditional NAS
- FeatureToo many SAN islands
- FeatureSane strategies for SAN growth
- FeatureCreating a model for data backup capacity
- FeatureCreating a comprehensive data storage automation plan
- FeatureInsurance company tests its ability to recover
- FeatureBullying vendors and voiceless users
- FeatureSnapshot: Server disk drives
iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
Too many SAN islands
One of the main challenges to growing SANs is the proliferation of independent SAN islands. We look at how and why a multinational financial services company consolidated many islands into larger ones, but stopped short of a single, unified SAN.
Four years ago, when business unit managers at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Financial Group in Toronto began to understand the advantages of networked storage, storage area network (SAN) deployments at the $15.5-billion multinational financial services company gained momentum faster than Lance Armstrong accelerating down the Alps.
|Putting its new gear to the test
Until then, rbc banks, brokerage business, insurance companies and other units had been saddled with a growing mess of direct-attached disk systems running on a wide range of servers--from Novell NetWare to IBM AS/400s. As the number of direct-attached drives--many of them IBM 7133 SSA serial disk systems--increased, RBC's far-flung businesses were having more and more trouble keeping up. When an application required more disk, provisioning took up to eight weeks. And because of the limits on SCSI bus cable lengths, many data centers were simply running out of room for more direct-attached storage (DAS).
So when RBC's central technical support division gave SANs the green light after having tested SAN firmware interoperability and issuing best practice recommendations, RBC's business units began switching to Dell, EMC and IBM SANs as soon as leases on older servers expired.
"We'd tell them, 'By the way, when your leases expire, you're ordering your next server with Fibre Channel cards. This is the firmware, the brand and literally, the part number to order.' And they did it," says Harold Durnford, RBC's manager of systems-managed storage who oversaw much of the switch to SANs.
SAN island proliferation
RBC's businesses complied with Durnford's recommendations perhaps just a bit too enthusiastically. It wasn't too long before SAN islands were popping up all over the place. And with there was no central IT authority to dictate when, where and under what conditions a new SAN should be deployed, RBC then found itself recreating many of its pre-SAN management problems, only this time it was because of SAN proliferation.
While RBC managed to restrict its Unix environment to two 256-port dual fabric SANs, its Windows environment was a different story. Rapidly growing and highly distributed applications such as Exchange e-mail were increasing total Windows-related storage by upwards of 100% per year. By early 2003, Durnford says, RBC found itself with upwards of 30 Windows-based SANs--many using 8- or 16-port gigabit switches--spread throughout the 30 countries in which RBC operates.
"On the Windows side, the proliferation of islands came about because the solution we were using would only provide for two terabytes per SAN," says Durnford. "Each application server might want one tenth of that, so after we got 10 servers using the SAN, with server No. 11, I'd have to start another SAN island." The result was that RBC was hiring more people to manage SAN islands and taking even longer to provision storage, says Durnford.
Now RBC is moving to end--or at least slow down--the SAN island proliferation. Durnford has put in place what amounts to a two-phase plan. The first plan for RBC is to use inter-switched links (ISLs) and larger, 2Gb switches to consolidate existing Windows SAN islands, while continuing to manage SANs supporting the company's different operating environments--Windows, Unix, mainframe and IBM iSeries--separately. In Phase 2, the company plans to use a common storage resource management (SRM) software tool to manage all of its SANs and may even build centralized storage utilities that remote servers could access using LAN-free ISLs running over dark fiber connections.
"Our initial exploitation of SANs was purely connectivity and volume purchase-driven," says Durnford, adding: "Now we've got to consolidate onto fewer SANs that we can view and manage more simply."
RBC is certainly not alone in attempting to stem SAN island proliferation by consolidating onto fewer, larger fabrics. According to estimates by Gartner Inc., SANs with a port count of 320 or greater will grow at a rate of 40% over the five-year period ending in 2007. That compares to a growth rate of 12% for SANs of all sizes over the same period.
Simplify storage provisioning
Like RBC, many organizations consolidating storage onto larger SANs are hoping they can simplify storage provisioning.
"Next to backup, provisioning is the number one issue that IT is dealing with. At most companies, it's in the dark ages," says Arun Taneja, founder and consulting analyst of the Taneja Group in Hopkinton, MA. "Usually, you've got the systems administrator, database administrator and the storage administrator trying to figure out why an application isn't running fast enough. By the time they figure out they need more storage and go through the process of buying and deploying it, what should have taken a few minutes, takes weeks. The move from direct-attached storage to SANs was supposed to fix that, and it has made things easier," says Taneja, adding, "but not easy enough."
In Phase 1 of RBC's SAN consolidation push, a first step was to establish standard SAN deployment, management and procurement processes and encourage the company's lines of business to use them.
Eighteen months ago, Durnford's group created a storage steering committee, which included IT and business representatives from each of the company's businesses.
The purpose of the committee, says Durnford, was to announce SAN management and consolidation best practices, such as when you're consolidating SANs; how and in what sequence you hook up the switches; how you document the changes and how you back up data during the change and restore it. "We wanted to make sure we shared our experiences so that they could financially benefit from them, avoiding costly mistakes," Durnford says.
And authority over storage still remained with the lines of business. But with business executives and IT managers on the steering committee, Durnford was then able to generate business buy-in for storage consolidation.
Interoperability testing
Among the key best practices that Durnford's group emphasized was the need to thoroughly test and verify the interoperability of SAN elements, including switches, directors, arrays, etc.--before putting consolidated SANs into production. When in 1999, the technical support division started evaluating SANs, Durnford's group tested interoperability of various devices at different release levels from different vendors. They soon learned to anticipate compatibility problems, says Durnford, even in cases where vendors had certified interoperability between their devices. In a consolidated SAN, interoperability testing is particularly important.
"It doesn't matter what the vendor tells you, oftentimes when you hook up two switches that are not of agreeable [release] levels, you'd get what providers like to call 'unexpected results,'" says Durnford. "In fact, oftentimes when we heard from the vendor that it should work, it was a clue to us that we needed to test it, certify it and lock down the firmware."
Centralizing information about what devices and firmware releases actually work with each other and disseminating it to the rest of the organization, says Durnford, accelerates SAN consolidation. The technical support division also developed standard change management procedures that should be used when deploying and consolidating SANs.
Just-in-time purchasing
As part of Phase 1 of its plan, RBC standardized its SAN hardware vendors and then centralized storage procurement with Durnford's group. On the Windows side, for example, RBC will use Dell Computer Corp., EMC and IBM gear. On the Unix side, it will be EMC and IBM. Boiling down vendors to just this group will greatly reduce compatibility problems as more SAN consolidation projects take place. And centralizing procurement allows RBC not only to make sure all groups are buying only from the approved list, but it will also allow for much speedier provisioning.
RBC has begun what Durnford calls "just-in-time" provisioning. What this means is that vendors ship switches and disk arrays to RBC just before they are really needed. Durnford's group then configures them and tests them in advance. Only once a SAN has reached an agree-upon threshold of consumed storage space is the additional disk deployed. And only then does the company actually pay for it. Using this approach, Durnford says, RBC has been able to cut the time it takes to provision new SAN storage from up to eight weeks to, in some cases, in only 24 hours. (For a look at a different SAN consolidation project also intended to simplify provisioning, see "AXA Group's major consolidation push")
Using these procedures and standards, RBC businesses have begun to consolidate their existing SANs. In one case, six older Windows-based SANs in three different sites--totaling 11TB--are being consolidated into three SANs. In another, multiple SANs supporting 50 Exchange servers deployed across two sites are being consolidated along with the application servers.
RBC is also consolidating the mainframe side, mainly just to reduce software license charges. Last year, the company consolidated the North Carolina data center supporting its United States-based Centura banking business to an existing Toronto data center. Another consolidation project is under way, this time RBC's West Coast data center is merging with its Toronto site.
For now, says Durnford, RBC plans to continue consolidating SANs within each operating environment without creating central SANs that can support servers running different operating systems. Currently, says Durnford, the company is shooting for creating standard SAN fabrics of 500 ports. Although there are few technical reasons to avoid creating consolidated heterogeneous SANs, RBC is wise to focus first on consolidating within operating environments, says Taneja.
"There is LUN masking software for switches and HBAs that allow you to consolidate storage for different operating systems onto one SAN fabric, but organizations should probably think twice before attempting that," says Taneja.
|RBC's two-phase consolidation project
Phase 2 kicks in
In Phase 2 of its SAN consolidation efforts--now in the evaluation stage--RBC will begin to address cross-platform management and create storage utilities that can be accessed remotely. Before consolidating SAN storage from multiple operating systems, however, RBC officials want to find a single storage software tool it can use to manage all fabrics, regardless of the kind of servers or storage arrays they contain.
Currently, RBC is testing EMC's ControlCenter software package, which is being refashioned as a storage management suite capable of managing SAN elements from various vendors. If ControlCenter actually proves to be a capable heterogeneous storage management tool, it will replace the variety of hardware-specific storage management tools that RBC now uses, giving Durnford's group the ability to manage any SAN from a single console.
So far, says Durnford, RBC has concluded that, while ControlCenter doesn't provide the richness of information that a storage management tool native to a specific piece of hardware can, it may do enough.
"It looks like [ControlCenter] will provide a scaled-down view, the basic nuts and bolts stuff you would expect," says Durnford. "But some of the value add--details such as how the internal arrays of an IBM Shark are laid out, for example--I don't think we're going to see that in the product. The question is--is that information important enough, or can you go with a more generic view?" RBC is still evaluating that question.
Also under review is the idea of creating large storage utilities that could be managed centrally and accessed remotely. RBC is trying out the idea first on tape backup, providing remote access from a tape SAN to its Toronto-based Capital Markets business unit using dark fiber to support a LAN-free ISL. Capital Markets will use the link to tap into tape backup located in an RBC site about one mile away. If that works, says Durnford, the company will use the same approach to provide remote tape backup to a business unit 30 miles north of Toronto. And if that works, RBC will look at using dark fiber and ISLs to provide remote SAN disk storage.
"It depends on the proof of concept," says Durnford. "Tape is not very sensitive when it comes to things like latency, and disk is. We'll look at it, and based on what we see, we may be able to go back to one of the business units and say, 'If you need additional disk storage, why not use the switches and connections we already have in place for tape? The disk storage doesn't really need to be right next to your server. It can be over in our building.'"
The ability to build storage utilities that can be accessed remotely would take SAN consolidation to an entirely new level. But it won't happen overnight. Not only must the dark fiber connections and ISLs first be tested, but such large SANs will also require fast, 4Gb switches that are just now under development. And at RBC and many companies, it will require business unit managers to accept the idea that they can give up direct, local management of stored data without losing control of other risks.
AXA Group's major consolidation push
RBC isn't the only large financial institution driving toward storage area network (SAN) consolidation. $85-billion AXA Group, with corporate headquarters in New York City, has also launched a major push to merge SAN islands and direct-attached storage (DAS) into fewer, larger and more manageable SANs.
But while both RBC and AXA see just-in-time storage provisioning as a major benefit, they're going about consolidation in different ways. RBC is taking a phased approach, and AXA is mounting a frontal assault, simultaneously consolidating SANs in all six of its major countries of operation and pulling together storage for servers running Windows and a variety of Unix flavors.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, AXA plans to consolidate 15 SAN islands in six different countries to six SANs--one in each country. Coupled with a major server consolidation effort, the SAN consolidation project will enable AXA to cut overall storage needs--currently about 250TB in all--by between 40% and 50% by improving disk utilization, says Ron Roberts, global program manager for server/storage consolidation. By consolidating SANs and managing them in a consistent way around the globe, AXA will install capacity before it's needed, but pay only as it is used.
But why the decision to consolidate SANs simultaneously around the globe rather than in a less-risky phased fashion? Doing so will allow AXA to consolidate quicker and gain significant benefits sooner. "It is ambitious," says Roberts. "But in order to allow us to achieve the greatest savings in the shortest period of time, it's being parallelized."
AXA's recent acquisition history--including its 1992 purchase of The Equitable Companies--contributed to the SAN island proliferation, Roberts says. Until 2001, different units of the company had their own IT organizations and made their own decisions on storage. So AXA ended up with a wide variety of storage platforms and operating systems and a proliferation of servers and SANs. Besides the 15 SANs worldwide, AXA has about 5,000 Unix and Windows servers. The company is consolidating them and expects to end up with fewer than 1,000.
Groundwork for the consolidation efforts was laid in 2001, Roberts says, when AXA centralized control over its IT infrastructure into AXA Technology Services. Under CEO Leon Billis, the unit set out to consolidate and standardize IT infrastructure and to move to a just-in-time utility model for procurement under which AXA would neither purchase nor lease equipment but simply pay for capacity. Earlier this year, AXA signed a $1 billion "Infrastructure on Demand" deal with IBM Global Services.
On the storage side, the company has standardized on Cisco switches for its SAN fabric and on Hitachi Data Systems Lightning and IBM Shark storage devices. Some AXA country operations will use HDS devices, others IBM. Native IBM and HDS storage management software tools will be used. Overall, AXA will end up with 50% HDS storage and 50% IBM.
While AXA is attempting to consolidate SANs in its six operating countries at the same time, the company does plan to leverage best practices and lessons learned as much as possible between countries. Like RBC, AXA's IT organization has been performing compatibility testing and will share knowledge about what works with what.
In addition, AXA is running unique pilots in some countries. The results of those pilots will be shared with other countries. Three countries, for example, are currently testing a variety of application workloads to determine how best to architect both the SANs and consolidated servers. Results of those tests will be shared with all AXA's country operations via weekly meetings, workshops and collaborative Web sites, Roberts says.


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5 Uniquely Japanese Beers You Can Actually Buy in the U.S.
Key Ingredient: Sansho PeppercornRegion: Iwate
A 100-year-old sake producer, Sekino Ichi began brewing beer relatively recently: only 22 years ago. Yet this is long enough that their Iwate Kura craft beer brand is one of the oldest in Japan, and a leader in the movement to brew with native ingredients in an otherwise bland sea of Japanese macro-lagers or imitative American styles. The brewery uses local yuzu, cherry blossom, persimmons, orange peel, raspberries, and even oysters - but their most distinctive product is their Herb Ale, brewed with sansho, the spicy Japanese peppercorn belonging to the Rutaceae citrus family. The well-made beer is incredibly flavorful, with a distinctly spicy, lime-like aroma, but clean and refreshing as all get-out.Ethan Fixell
Hitachino Nest Nipponia Ale
Key Ingredient: Kaneko Golden Malt and Sorachi Ace hopsRegion: Ibaraki
Like Sekino Ichie, Kiuchi Shuzô got its start in sake long ago (in 1823!). Yet Kiuchi's Hitachino Nest brand is now the best known Japanese craft brewery in the U.S. thanks to the success of their flagship Belgian-style White Ale - first produced in 1996, and embraced soon after by importers and restaurateurs such as Momofuko Group's David Chang. White Ale has its charms, but Hitachino's Nipponia Ale, brewed with Kaneko Golden, Japan's first ever beer malt, is truly exceptional. As a hybrid of ancient Japanese noodle barley and American barley, the robust, golden grain imparts increased levels of protein, nitrogen, and richness to Nipponia Ale. Meanwhile, indigenous Sorachi Ace hops beautifully complement the malt with lemon and herbal cilantro notes. (Likewise, their red wine barrel-aged version is incredible, if you can find it!)Ethan Fixell
Yo-Ho Sorry Umami IPA
Key Ingredient: Bonito FlakesRegion: Nagano
Founded in Nagano in 1996, Yo-Ho has since become the largest craft brewery in the country (it helps that mega-brewer Kirin purchased a 33 percent stake in the brewery in 2014). The brand built a reputation in Japan with its American-style flagship Yona Yona Ale, but is now making waves overseas with creative brews like their Sorry Umami IPA. Produced solely for the U.S. market, the beer is brewed with bonito flakes (or katsuobushi) that not only help facilitate fermentation, but contribute to its flavor profile. For those terrified of a "fish flake beer," have no fear: The bonito only adds a subtle sea-like salinity without ever making it fishy.Ethan Fixell
Waku Waku Light Ale
Key Ingredient: Locally Grown RiceRegion: Ishikawa
Located on a remote farm in rural western Japan, Waku Waku Tezukuri Farm Kawakita is one of the smaller breweries on this list, and has only begun exporting to the U.S. in the last two years. Unlike Japanese brewers who purchase matcha, yuzu, or black beans from other parts of Japan, Waku Waku uses ingredients harvested from their own farm. They have even begun to grow a mix of American and British hops (Challenger, Centennial, Fuggle, Nugget, and Cascade, to be exact), but their greatest asset is rice, the crop which has prevailed throughout the region for centuries. They use this rice to brew their Light Ale, a smooth, crisp, clean and bone-dry beer that American lager guzzlers will adore.Ethan Fixell
Coedo Beniaka Amber Ale
Key Ingredient: Roasted Kintoki Sweet PotatoesRegion: Saitama
One of the oldest craft breweries in Japan, Coedo was founded in 1996 by the pioneers of farm-to-table produce distribution in Tokyo. Kyodo Shoji Koedo processed secondary vegetables into new products - including beer. One of their initial recipes was the first commercial sweet potato beer in the world, Beniaka, an amber ale brewed with local, roasted Kintoki sweet potatoes from Saitama. The unlikely ingredient allows for a balanced sweetness that amplifies caramel malts and an earthy, savory touch that melds nicely with mellow, herbal hops. It's a true taste of Japanese terroir that we can now enjoy from across the Pacific Ocean, even if you can't travel the globe to try the world's 50 best beers.
More From The Daily Meal:
101 Best Beers in America
The Best Beer in Every State
15 Reasons to Drink a Beer Every Day
How Much a Six-Pack of Beer Cost the Year You Were Born
The 25 Best Cities for Beer Lovers
Ethan Fixell is a freelance beverage writer from New York City. A Certified Cicerone®, Certified Specialist of Wine, and Certified Specialist of Spirits, he teaches wine and spirits classes at Astor Center in New York, and is the U.S. Executive Director of rock and metal publication Kerrang!.Ethan Fixell


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Last Update: Jan 26th 2018
So your heard Cygames finally introduced Medusa as a playable character in Granblue Fantasy. You also heard they are making her a Nippon-exclusive promotional character because fuck gaijins. You talked to yourself, "Well, that's not much of an issue I can just buy the code off someone just like Light Zooey."
Well, bad news. Unlike Light Zooey, you don't get the playable Medusa in the form of a serial code. Instead, you can only get her through linking your game account with their MVNO service, within Japan. "Fuck KMR," you said to yourself again, "so us filthy gaijins can never get her without first paying 150 gold moons. Suptix when?"
Well, fear not! Despite what many international players believe, signing up with their Linksmate service is completely doable as a gaijin and the steps it takes are actually quite simple. The biggest hurdle to getting Medusa is the final account-linking part, which requires you (or someone you know) to be personally in Japan to complete the step. But if you can get that part covered you can get her easily. This article will guide you step by step to sign up with Linksmate and get Medusa.
What to Prepare?
To sign up with Linksmate, you will need to prepare the following items:
- Credit card
- A JP address
- And Google translate (to help you fill out the forms)
Yup, that's right. A credit card and an address in Japan are all you need to sign up with their service. Unlike other JP cellular services, Linksmate doesn't come with phone call function with the basic plans and so there is no need to provide any ID/address proof.
This however doesn't mean you can just use whatever JP address you got, because the address you fill in is where they will ship your SIM card to you. For those who don't live in Japan or have someone they know there, we recommend signing up with one of the proxy purchasing services like Tenso and use the JP address they provide you as your billing/shipping address on Linksmate. If you are planning to go to Japan soon, you may also make them send the SIM directly to where you are staying there (provided that your hotel can accept your parcels for you).
Update (9/19): Although Linksmate doesn't come with phone call function, you will still receive a JP phone number upon signing up with them (for SMS verification purpose). If you are a mobage platform user, you can actually use this number to verify your account and collect those tasty 1000 crystals that have been sitting in your notification box since Day 1. Thanks Reddit!
Which Plan to Get?
Linksmate offer 5 data plans with different data sizes. Realistically though, as a gaijin, you would only be looking at two of those options which are the 1GB and 10GB plans.
The 1GB Plan
The 1GB plan is technically your cheapest ticket to Medusa. At first glance, it seems that you can get her for just 500 yen by signing up with them for one month and immediately terminate your contact with them once you have gotten your Dusa. But those who have dealt with these phone plan stuff before would know there are always additional costs hidden somewhere with these plans – and Linksmate is no exception.
To sign up with Linksmate, you will first have to pay 3,000 yen for the first-time registration. Then, you need to add an extra 500 yen to subscribe to the "Count Free" option to become eligible for the game linking/loyalty rewards (aka Medusa).
To cancel your subscription after you have gotten your Dusa, you will have to pay another 3,000 yen for the termination fee.
Finally, adding in the monthly fee and other misc costs (such as the price of the actual Sim card) , the 1GB route would end up costing you around 7,500 yen (~Usd 68), which is more expensive than the prices of two Suptix combined.
10 GB Plan
Alternatively, if you are dedicate to this game and can afford spending a bit extra outside of food and gacha each month, we would recommend signing up with their 10GB plan. The major difference between the 1GB and 10GB plan is that the latter makes you eligible for their "loyalty" program. With the 10GB plan, you receive a "star" each time you are billed. At 6 stars, you can trade them for one of the three loyalty bonuses.
Among the three options in the above picture, the Linksmate Ticket certainly takes the spotlight. In short, the linksmate tix is a variant of the notorious Sierotix, which can be used to trade for almost anything in the premium draw pool.
(Updated 1/26/2018) IMPORTANT: Since the game linking/loyalty rewards (e.g. Medusa, the monthly pots/Stars) are actually linked to the "Count Free" option, you will need to keep subscribing to that service (500 yen per month) to keep receiving those rewards.
Unlike Sierotix, you can't use the linksmate tix to trade for the non-suptixable primals or any of the Grand Series characters. What you can do, however, is to use it to trade for any of the seasonal/promotional limited characters in this time, at any time (regardless of whenever the character in the draw pool when you use it). This includes all of the Summer/Halloween/X'mas versions, Zodiac and other promotional characters like Light Zooey, and new seasonal characters are added to the pool as soon as they are released.
This means that at the price of
just 10 draws per month (3,000 yen), you can get one seasonal character of your choice every 6 months. This is quite a game-changing thing for non-whales: with 2 linksmate tix per year, you can choose to spend them on limited characters that come only with a 3% rate up (e.g. X'mas versions) and conserve your spark fund for those limited characters that overlap with Legfest to increase the likelihood of getting good "by-products" from your spark.
IMPORTANT: Please note that you can only start accumulating stars once you have linked your game account with your linksmate service (which is the final step you have to complete to get Dusa). You will still be charged for the monthly fee regardless of whether your accounts are linked or not. Be sure not to sign up with them until you are ready to complete the final step.
The Forms
The application forms you have to fill in are pretty straightforward and you should have no trouble filling them out with the help of Google Translate.
Be sure to order the correct SIM size for your device or else you will have to pay extra costs to order a new one from them.
Getting to Japan (or have someone else go there for you)
This is the final and the hardest step in getting Medusa. To make her appear magically in your game, you will have to successfully link your game account with your Linksmate service. Just linking them on the Linksmate website is not enough: you will have to be in Japan and login to Granblue using a device with your Linksmate SIM installed.
You can either complete this step by traveling there yourself, or have someone you trust who live there/will be traveling there for holiday to link your accounts for you. If you are "dedicated" enough, you can even consider spending a weekend in Tokyo just to link your accounts (and perhaps visit Akibahara while you are there). While this may sound absurd and expensive, do keep in mind that it is still guaranteed to be cheaper than the alternative (that is, spending 150 gold moons to get her with Sierotix).
Realistically though, you will have better chance "bribing" your friends/relatives to do it for you by offering them free, fast and unlimited internet access while they are in Japan. Despite the fact that Linksmate is managed by the infamous HRT (former game producer of Granblue), my personal experience with the MVNO service was pretty positive. You should use this as an advantage to get people into helping you to complete this final step. Just remember to teach them on how to enable Linksmate on their device and login to your Granblue account.
Linking Linksmate and Your Granblue Account
To hook up your game account with Linksmate, you would have to play the game through their network. Playing the game through a WiFi network, even with a Linksmate SIM installed, doesn't count for the purpose of linking your accounts.
Most phones nowadays support a wide range of cellular frequency, and so they can be used directly in Japan. However, do take note that in order to connect to Linksmate, your device will need to be SIM-free or at least compatible with the NTT DoCoMo network in Japan (as a MVNO, Linksmate doesn't have its own network and has to rent DoCoMo's one).
If you don't have a SIM-free device, the alternative is to bring a travel wifi router, put your Linksmate SIM in it, and connect your device to it. It seems that so long as the game data is sent through a Linksmate-connection their system will recognize your game info and complete the linking process, regardless of whether the device you use to play the game has the SIM installed or not.
Once you (or your proxy) have logged to your game with a Linksmate-connected device at least once, you should receive a confirmation email 2-3 hours after saying that your accounts are linked. After that, you may login to your profile on the Linksmate website and claim your Medusa in-game!
That's all for this guide. I hope this can help more of you acquire this little cute, exotic tsundere primal!


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The social web is a Re-imagination Machine. It prods and encourages us to imagine how things could be different. In part, it's about how we collectively reorganize society for different outcomes. But re-imagining the world operates at a deeper level - by shifting the frameworks through which we make sense of reality.
People are starting to seize on the way that social technologies enable us to organize differently, outside the choke hold of established institutions. Books like Charles Leadbeater's We-think and Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody show how the early examples are predictors of mass collaboration, creativity and self-organisation.
And practical initiatives like Social innovation Camp forge more social startups under the rubric 'using the web to help the world organise itself better".
But a symptom of something wider is the way that online modes of organising seem to be seeping offline. Rigid formats for events, office space and leisure time are giving way to barcamps, co-working and flashmobs. In the same way that the term Open Source became a rallying cry for Open everything else, the collaborative and non-hierarchical tendencies of online organisation are being taken offline. A tendency that Rohan Gunatillake calls Ungeeking: "Ungeeking is what happens when behaviours developed online make their way into areas of our lives independent of the technology through which we learnt them."
While the fantasy of the independence of cyberspace has passed, folk like Dougald Hine are realising that the impact of the social web also comes from "the spread of real world spaces which reflect the collaborative values of social media" and are applying it to the crunchiest of problems (see Social Media vs the Recession?)
I'm intrigued by the way these new modes echo forgotten models from the past such as the cooperatives of the nineteenth century or the medieval Guilds. One reason why the chance to disturb the present means having a deeper sense of history that you can get from the latest web hype.
But there's more to it than history. History itself is really a shorthand for 'seeing things differently' and social history isn't a straight line but a strange attractor of different patterns that ebb and flow depending on the era. The problem, as neatly stated by the otherwise bitter-seeming Nick Carr, is that the practitioners of the social web upheaval and the people with the ideas to give it a body are generally separate; "As we move deeper into the shallows, so to speak, we naturally seek a guide. Contemporaries offer little help. Those that know the technology cannot see beyond it, and those that don't know the technology cannot see into it. Both end up trafficking in absurdity. So we look to the past for our prophet. McLuhan is the natural candidate, but it turns out his vision only extended to 1990, and even then he was half-blind."
So we need new frameworks, and there are some likely-looking ones to hand in the ideas of the postmodernists. Carr looks to Baudrillard, as does digital practitioner Simon Collister whereas social media educationlist Josie Fraser invokes Barthes, Foucoult & Derrida. This is the inevitable effect of a remix culture in a post-deferential era where it's common to think that online readers compose their own beginning middle end and in order to exist online we must write ourselves into being.
The point isn't to argue over which post-structuralist predicted Bebo, but to grok that digital tectonics requires us to re-imagine the future at a fundamental level. If the point is not just to undertand the world but to change it, then there's partial roadmap in the Causal Layered Analysis developed by the futurist Sohail Inayatullah to help think about circumstances in which values and underlying metaphors are a significant part of possible social change. It's based on the assumption that the way in which one frames a problem changes the policy solution and the actors responsible for creating change. (See Appendix 1 of the Carnegie UK Trust's Scenarios for civil society). The social impact of social media is usually interpreted at the level he calls litany - "quantitative trends, problems, often exaggerated, sometimes used for political purposes and usually presented by the news media", or possibly at the level of social causes - "economic, cultural, political and historical factors where interpretation is given to quantitative data. This type of analysis is frequently articulated by policy institutes". But Inayatullah adds levels of worldview (how discourse helps to constitute an issue not just to cause it) and metaphor & myth (the collective archetypes, the unconscious dimensions of the problem or the paradox).
So Erik Davies did us all a favour by making the utopian side of all tech innovation visible in Techgnosis: Myth, Magic and Mysticism in the Age of Information. The social web and it's siblings are starting to stir ideas at the level of Imagination and we should pile in behind that. At a time when the global scenario is a literal mashup of financial and environmental crisis, we can't afford to simply reorganise the deck-chairs on the deck of the Titanic. The interesting thing is how much the new thinking and new doing are linked; how much the practice of social innovation with digital tools might help us to think differently about the better world that we imagine. And that's why, invoking my own preferred postmodernist thought-gangsters Deleuze & Guattari, I'm betting that the social web can be our Re-imagination Machine.


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Every time I want to open Software Center to install something, my computer hangs before it starts. What could be the problem?
When I try
sudo apt-get update and type my password, in the end of that I get error:
W: GPG error: http://repo.steampowered.com precise InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY F24AEA9FB05498B7
When I run
software-center command from terminal, it does not give any errors, only thing it writes in output is:
Fontconfig warning: "/etc/fonts/conf.d/50-user.conf", line 9: reading configurations from ~/.fonts.conf is deprecated. 2012-12-23 15:55:18,554 - softwarecenter.ui.gtk3.app - INFO - setting up proxy 'None' 2012-12-23 15:55:19,000 - softwarecenter.db.database - INFO - open() database: path=None use_axi=True use_agent=True
and after that it stays that way...


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4BR Editor Iwan Fox takes a quick tour around Symphony Hall in Birmingham, home to the 2010 British Open Brass Band Championships.
Visit 4barsrest.com on Vimeo
Thursday 9 April • Anniversary Halls,. St Catherine's School,. Bramley, Surrey GU5 0DF
Friday 10 April • Regent Hall (The Salvation Army). 275 Oxford Street . (Opposite RESERVED). London. W1C 2DJ W1C 2DJ
Saturday 18 April • St David's Church, St David's Street, Neath SA11 3EP
Saturday 18 April • Barker's Pool, Sheffield S1 2JA
Sunday 19 April • High Street, Sandbach CW11 1AL
April 9 • Littleport Brass are currently a third section contesting band near Ely in Cambridgeshire and rehearse every Wednesday evening 7.30-9.30. We are looking for a bass trombone and cornet (position negotiable). We are a friendly, active band.
April 1 • Chadderton Band is a non-contesting band playing at various events throughout the year. We are a friendly band looking for players of all ages and abilities on all sections. Euph and percussion . Come along to one of our rehearsals.
April 1 • Upper Rhondda NEEDS YOU. Again losing players to further their education, our focus switches on ensuring the Bands stability and continuity. Vacancies now exist throughout the Band. In particular Soprano, Solo Cornets, Solo Euphonium and Tuned Percussion.
Mus.B (hons) Conductor, Adjudicator, Teacher
© 2020 4barsrest.com Ltd
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The Libyan rebels assembled a motorized cavalry of mostly civilian trucks outfitted with crude armor and even cruder weapons almost overnight. Where'd they come from? Secret workshops run by brave mechanics using junk tools and spit-and-gum techniques to keep the troops at the front armed.
A reporter from the New York Times was granted a few days inside these workshops around Misurata, which has been the source of heavy shelling and intense street battles. Photos show aircraft rocket pods, tank-mounted machine guns, and other weapons designed for other uses being rigged onto technical pickups.
Colonel Qaddafi's loyalist forces have yet to fully overrun the city despite the superiority of their equipment due in large part to the hundreds of similarly out-fitted armored trucks running around. When not arming trucks, these shops are also making other weapons like "henzab" spike-sided pods (similar to Caltrops) to be deployed around the streets to puncture boots and tires.
Few of the mechanics have any experience in this kind of work, but a lack of weapons means fighting in any way possible. There's even a guy using metal tools to scrape explosives out of unexploded shells. (Hat tip to Westie1984!)
Photo Credit: Getty Images/Chris Hondros


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Throw this little puck into the tub and let it do its magic. As it dissolves in the water it releases Epsom salts, body oil and essential oil creating a beautiful-smelling soak that leaves you relaxed and your skin soft and silky. Use one per bath or break one in half for two soaks.
Epsom Salt (Magnesium sulfate), corn (zea mays) flour, meadowfoam (limnanthes alba) seed oil, Purified Water (Aqua), Pinus Sylvestris (Pine) Oil, Tsuga Canadensis (Spruce) Oil, Abies Sibirica (Fir) Needle Oil, Juniperus Virginiana (Cedarwood) Bark Oil
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Discover now our wide-ranged job offers and have a carreer at Dr. Dietrich Müller. We are looking for:
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Thermally conductive pad: Thermipad TP 22715 with 15 W/mK
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Thermal management for LED – Applications
APTIV films are available as a new high performance materials
ArpaxX - push up the heat: Dr. Dietrich Müller GmbH
ZVEI: The Electrical Industry expects that the boom will continue in 2012
Lectures at the CWIEME Berlin 2011
CWIEME Berlin 2011: Dr. Dietrich Müller GmbH with a large product range
Increased Growth Forecast for the German Electrical Industry
Hannover Messe CoilTechnica: A Good and Positive Response for Dr. Dietrich Müller
FIEE: A resounding success for Dr. Dietrich Müller
Dr. Dietrich Müller: Punched parts made of 3M VHB Tape
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MT in different varieties and Thermiflex
Dr. Müller GmbH: New product for the solar industry
Dr. Dietrich Müller registered as a UL – "Repackaged Recognized Components" Company.
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Dr. Mueller: High technology and innovation at one time in one venue
Dr. Müller GmbH continues its leadership as a supplier of Ultem films
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Dr. Müller proud of the opening of the Germany's first offshore wind park
Müller and Temac: Distribution agreement sealing materials
Get involved with the latest insulation product offerings at the Coil Winding 2010 – Dr. Müller GmbH
Direct request:
Enquiries from the United Kingdom:
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Tel +44 7549 834830
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Let us know, which product you are
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Delivery situation in Japan
As a result of the dramatic events in Japan and the potential effects concerning the supply of materials, we decided to examine the supply security of our suppliers. And in conclusion we do not expect any supply problems.
Electrical Insulation Materials
The supply of Teonex Q51 is covered by our partners' stocks. Alternatively, we could offer you PEN films from other manufacturers. With regard to Nomex® products, which are also produced in Japan, our partners could also provide us with them. There is also the possibility, to obtain the aramid paper from the DuPont´s manufacturing plant located in the United States.
Thermally Conductive Products
Our Thermally Conductive Products (pastes, pads, films and compounds) are produced in our own factories. Materials from Japan are not used.
Our gasket materials are supplied mainly by the company Temac, no materials from Japan are used.
Technical Films
The technical films which we distribute are not extruded or cast in Japan.


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The original company that was making the bears is no longer doing them - new supplier details that Rich has tried and got a nice bear from are:
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text: Yeah, Apple have been raking in the dosh with the App Store. To celebrate their newly built greenhouse, they are holding a One Billion App Countdown Contest. You stand to win a lot though, likely, the odds are rather unfavourable. All you have to do is buy an app or fill out a form until the One Billion Countdown is over.


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gdclarke necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 40 diseños de 18 diseñadores freelance.
Dealicio is a web startup in the highly competitive web advertising / marketing space. With Dealicio everyone shares in a great deal!
Dealicio's service provides online marketing that creates value for publishers, advertisers, and audiences. Our customers are web publishers and media companies.
We're a small, innovative company with a fresh take on web advertising and web marketing. While part of our service is consumer facing, Dealicio is primarily a service provider to publishers and media companies.
Our company goal is to align the interests of publishers, advertisers, and consumers ... everyone shares in a sweet deal!
We're smart people with great ideas and make some really cool web software but we can't design a logo to save our lives.
Our beta website is dealicio.com - shhhh ... it's a secret.
Our target audience consists of 3 main groups:
1) Publishers and media companies - this could be niche bloggers, newspapers, hyperlocal news site, radio, etc ...
2) Advertisers - mostly small businesses that are doing a little bit of advertising on the web but these could also be larger regional and national companies
3) Audience - Consumers - people comfortable surfing the web, buying stuff on the online, and buy stuff from local merchants. Probably a bias towards women
It's really important that we convey a sense of trust to each of these groups. Not stuffy corporate Madison avenue ... real people that you can trust.
Our design requirements are:
1) Looks great on a web page
2) Scales easily - needs to work as a normal web logo but also need a smaller version that can fit in the corner of a 300x250 or 160x420 web ad
3) looks great on white or colored background
4) Can be easily printed and used in print material
5) No color preference - the choice is yours!
6) Does not have to include the word Dealicio -- BUT would be nice if it did.
Some other important considerations:
1) Conveys that sense that everyone is getting a good deal on something.
2) Trustworthy
3) Logo must be professional without being stuffy. Think "innovative" but also "accessible."
4) No cartoons, clip art, or stock photos please.
Ask questions ... We'll do our best to respond ASAP.
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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American Mensa, Ltd., respects your privacy. This document outlines the ways that the AML Web site may collect information from you.
Browsing the site
Generally speaking, you can visit the pages of the AML Web site without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information.
There are portions of the AML Web site that do request personal information:
Members-only pages
Some sections of the Web site are reserved for AML members, International members and our guests only. To access the members-only pages of the site, you will need to enter your member ID and password. You may also need to have cookies enabled in your browser. This information is used to confirm that you are a member in good standing before displaying these limited-access pages.
NOTICE: The information in the members-only section is for the use of AML members only. This information should not be shared with nonmembers of American Mensa or used for promotional and/or non-AML-related purposes.
Web form and order form pages
Other portions of the site require personal information in order for you to complete certain activities such as joining AML, renewing your membership, updating your member profile and so on. These pages will ask you to enter personal information such as your name, member number, mailing address, phone numbers, email address, credit card information and personal profile information. The information that you type in these forms is necessary to complete the action for which the page is used. We use SSL (Secure Socket Layers), an advanced online encryption system, for your safety.
American Mensa collects information from children on a voluntary basis to update personal profile information or to provide membership information to potential members.
NOTICE: Information from potential members may be distributed to local chapters to provide information about local member benefits and activities and to arrange testing as necessary. For our young members, we require parental consent to distribute more information than name, city and state within the organization.
The AML Web site uses cookies to provide members-only access to certain portions of the site as well as to complete online transactions. A cookie is a text file stored on your computer that includes identifying information that can be retrieved later. To increase security and privacy, AML uses "session" cookies only — that is, the cookies from the AML Web site work only during your current visit. Information is not saved for future visits.
Opt-out provision
If you currently get Mensa-related notices via email from American Mensa and wish to have your name removed from future mailings, please visit our opt-out page.
Links to other sites
The AML Web site includes links to other Web sites. AML is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. You should always read the privacy policy at a Web site before revealing any personal information.
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We will inform you of any changes to our Web policies by posting a notice on our Web site. Those changes will go into effect on the date posted in the notice. The new policy will apply to everyone using our Web site and will replace any prior policies.
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As some of you know, this weekend la familia López went into D.C. to meet Claudia, who was visiting the area with her family.
I can't believe that this was our first time meeting face-to-face. After only one year of knowing each other through Twitter, blogs and E-mail, I felt like I was being reunited with a childhood friend – someone I've known for a very long time. Our familias got along so well together all evening that when it was time to part ways and Claudia gave me a special gift, I actually started to cry a little.
It's funny the reactions I've had to these friendships that have been sparked over the internet by people who don't quite "get it." These days making friends on the internet is common place in our culture – it's normal – but a long time ago, it wasn't seen so favorably. At best you were a social outcast who lacked the skills to make friends the traditional way – and at worst, it was something dangerous because you were befriending potential ax murderers who were going to come chop you to pieces.
In conversation with family, neighbors or co-workers, I would say "my friend" did this, or "my friend" said that – sometimes the person, (knowing of my excessive internet use), would stop me and say, "Is this a real friend or an internet friend?" … I have never been able to make that distinction.
Maybe I can't bring you a caldo de pollo when you're sick, but I'll send you links to home remedies and keep you company online while you spend the day in bed. Maybe I can't be a literal shoulder to cry on, but I know when the keyboard is dotted with tears just by the tone of your E-mail. Maybe I can't rush to the hospital when you tell me a loved one has had an emergency, but I will text you and tweet you as you wait nervously in the waiting room. Maybe I can't come over to your house for un cafecito y chisme, but we can do that almost as well on Skype. Maybe I can't throw you a real life surprise fiesta on your birthday, but surprise packages in the mail can be just as much fun. Maybe I can't be there for you, but I am HERE for you.
It might sound crazy, but without all of you, I would be a different person right now – I've gained so much encouragement and inspiration from you. Some of you know this because I've told you, but there are hundreds more who will never know. I may stumble upon a random blog post or read a comment you left me. You might say something that makes me feel curious or confident. That small moment of curiosity or confidence may lead me to try new things – those new things spark ideas and those ideas become words and actions. Those words and actions are expressed on my blog and in my life in real tangible ways… and my blog, so I'm told, has inspired and encouraged many of you… so around and around we go.
What I'm trying to say is, I have had the honor of meeting many of you face-to-face – and in the years to come, I hope to know many more of you – but whether I ever get the chance to tell you in person or not, know that I thank you from the bottom of mi corazón for being a real friend.


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The Community Ambassador has many roles in support of the management team. The Community Ambassador serves as a liaison between current residents and the management team, and establishes relationships with prospective residents and the community. Primary responsibilities of the Community Ambassador include creating and maintaining a vibrant community atmosphere, and increasing resident satisfaction and retention within the community. This will be accomplished through programming (initiating social and developmental activities), one-on-one contact, proactive problem-solving, and overall focus of the well-being of our residents. The cornerstone of his position is an outgoing personality with great visibility, accessibility, and availability to residents. In addition to creating a community setting, Community Ambassadors serve as role models for residents, both as students and residents.
Community Ambassadors must be able to commit an average of 20 hours per week to office hours, off-site marketing and promotional activities, on-call duty shifts, programming, and regular resident interaction.
To perform the role successfully, an individual must be able to perform all essential functions satisfactorily. The requirements define the knowledge, skill, and/or ability necessary to perform the essential functions. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.


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Your support makes a real difference in our students' lives. Your generous gifts provide bright, promising, hard-working students with opportunities to fulfill their educational goals and make their own mark on the world.
Liesl Laurich (B.A. '11 Justice Studies)
Recipient of the Rory Donnelly Family Assistance Award
Veteran, U.S. Air Force Security Forces
My Northeastern Experience
国产偷拍视频 "It was a great educational experience and a great social experience as well. I loved being a part of clubs and making lifelong friends. My favorite memory was when our Veterans Club had a bake sale and I brought my daughter to introduce her to the concept of volunteering. She walked around selling cupcakes for our troops!"
Receiving the Donnelly Scholarship
"I feel fortunate to have received this scholarship from someone who faced challenges similar to myself. My hope is that I may be able to pay forward this act of generosity to help others in similar situations. The scholarship makes me hopeful for future generations. I know that a little gift can make a huge impact in someone's life, and I would like to continue this act of generosity with future generations."
Giving to Northeastern
"I hope that by sharing my story, others will be encouraged to give a gift that will benefit someone in need. This is not just a gift, but an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. The people who apply for these scholarships, like me, want to succeed and give our children the best lives that we can dream. Without these opportunities, those dreams might not come true."
国产偷拍视频"The Donnelly Scholarship was a blessing to my daughter and I," said Laurich. "Without it, I wouldn't have been able to put my daughter in daycare so that I could attend classes. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders, knowing that my daughter was being taken care of and I could focus on my studies."
At Northeastern, Laurich engaged in a variety of activities and societies including the Alpha Chi Society, Associate Justice, Justice Studies Club secretary, Student Conduct Committee member, Amnesty Club secretary and Veterans Club treasurer. She graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Justice Studies in 2011.
国产偷拍视频Prior to coming to Northeastern, Laurich served for three years as a security forces leader in the United States Air Force Security Forces, where her duties included missile security, convoy actions, capture and recovery of nuclear weapons and law enforcement.
Today, Laurich takes night classes at the John Marshall Law School and works as a legal administrative assistant at a downtown Chicago law firm. "My passion in life is to help others and be able to contribute to society by providing legal aid," said Laurich.
Your generous gifts of cash, in-kind donations, gift annuities and other gifting products provide the opportunity for our students to succeed. You can further impact their future with your gift today!
Donate Today!


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We're big fans of Boxee, the slick cross-platform media centre, so it's great to see that they're still adding features. Not only that, but it's now easier than ever to snag a download.
Boxee is now in public alpha for Mac, Ubuntu, and Apple TV (that means available for everyone!), and in private alpha for Windows. If you remember before, the private alpha isn't a deal-breaker; request a download and you'll usually receive one in a week or two. Besides wider availability, Boxee has also added support for Joost and BBC iPlayer, though the latter will only work in the U.K. They've also expanded the use of MTV Music, adding search and browse options. [New York Times]


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Login Required
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It gently holds injured and weak Pokémon in its fins. Its special membrane heals their wounds.
Floating in the open sea is how they live. When they find a wounded Pokémon, they embrace it and bring it to shore.
This Pokémon does not evolve.
The Pokémon Company International is not responsible for the content of any linked website that is not operated by The Pokémon Company International. Please note that these websites' privacy policies and security practices may differ from The Pokémon Company International's standards.
Pokemon.com administrators have been notified and will review the screen name for compliance with the Terms of Use.
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Council of Student Services (COSS) - Annual Reports and Operating Plans
Each year the Division of Student Life submits its Annual Report & Operating Plan to the Council of Student Services (COSS). These reports provide an overview of everything Student Life does to support students at the University of Toronto.
If you need an alternate version of any of these documents or reports, please contact Tricia Kenderdine at firstname.lastname@example.com or 416-946-7053.
COSS agendas, minutes and presentations for the 2019-2020 academic year
Chair: Hanie Yousefi
Secretary to COSS: Julia Smeed, 416-978-8619
Recording Secretary: Sarah Matias, 416-946-5462
COSS Meetings
Meeting #1 | September 23, 2019 3 – 5 p.m. | Simcoe Hall, President's Boardroom, Room 132 – Introductory/Orientation
Meeting #2 | October 21, 2019 3 – 5 p.m. | Room 221, Goldring Centre (100 Devonshire) – KPE Sport & Rec Presentation
Meeting #3 | November 25, 2019 3 – 5 p.m. | Room 313, Koffler Student Centre (214 College St.) – SL Presentation
Meeting #4 | January 10, 2020 3 – 5 p.m. | Music Room, Hart House (7 Hart House Cir.) – HH Presentation
Meeting #5 | January 20, 2020 3 – 5 p.m. | Room 313, Koffler Student Centre (214 College St.) – Budget Presentations
Meeting #6 | February 3, 2020 3 – 5 p.m. | Room 313, Koffler Student Centre (214 College St.) – Budget Vote
Meeting #7 | March 18, 2020 3 – 5 p.m.
Origin of COSS
In 1994, the Ontario government introduced Compulsory Ancillary Fee Policy Guidelines which outlined how non-tuition related fees could be introduced or increased. The Guideline requires that students be involved in decisions to increase non-tuition ancillary fees, and mandates that each institution establish a protocol to govern how this involvement would take place. In 1996, the Council of Student Services (COSS) was created to facilitate this involvement. All fees charged for Student Life, the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, and Hart House are charged pursuant to this Protocol.
COSS rules and procedures
Documents outlining the rules and procedures of COSS
Governing council policies
See the attached documents for governing council policies
COSS consists of seventeen voting members:
- The President of the University or the person delegated by the President
- Two part-time undergraduate students, appointed by the Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students
- Two graduate students, appointed by the Graduate Students' Union
- Four full-time undergraduate students or members of the executive of the University of Toronto Students' Union, appointed by the University of Toronto Students' Union
- One full-time or part-time student, chosen by QSS (the COSS equivalent at UTM)
- One full-time or part time student, chosen by the CSS (the COSS equivalent at UTSC)
- Six other persons appointed by the President of the University of Toronto
COSS has a non voting Chair that is appointed by University Affairs Board. The nominee is selected from a list of candidates supplied by the student governments that are members of COSS (UTSU, GSU, APUS).
Key Provisions
- The Protocol establishes the Council on Student Services ("COSS"), consisting of students and University representatives, whose mandate is to enhance the experience of the students by promoting the provision of the most efficient and effective student services. Its key powers include the power to advise Governing Council, through its advice to UAB, on policy regarding many student services and to review the operating plans of these services.
- All proposals for the increase, decrease, introduction or elimination of a fee covered by the Protocol are to be first considered by COSS, and the Council's advice will be sent to Governing Council through the University Affairs Board (UAB).
- Increases in existing fees based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and/or the University of Toronto Inflation Index (UTI) may be approved by UAB and GC not withstanding the advice of COSS.
- The creation of new fees, or increases in existing fees greater than CPI and UTI require the approval of UAB, GC, and either COSS or a Student referendum.
Agendas, minutes and presentations for the Council of Student Services (COSS) in past years.
For more information on COSS, please contact Julia Smeed at firstname.lastname@example.com or 416-978-8619.


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