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If you have any news or events of interest to the local Christian community, please send details to our East Norfolk editor, Tony Rothe.
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Limo driver wishes he could have done more
The first indication Orville Brown had that something was wrong with the stretch limousine he was driving was when one of the nine women on board knocked on the partition and complained of smelling smoke, he said Sunday.
At first, the 46-year-old driver misunderstood.
"They had the music up in the back, and I figured she was asking, 'Can I smoke?' " Brown recalled in an interview. "I said, 'The owner doesn't allow smoking in the car, and we only have four minutes to the destination.' "
It was just after 10 p.m. on the San Mateo Bridge. Less than 15 seconds passed before the women knocked again, Brown said.
This time, when he rolled down the partition, they were shouting, "Smoke, smoke!" and "Pull over, pull over!"
Driving limo for 2 months
Brown, a San Jose resident known by his nickname of Ricky, had started driving a limousine for Limo Stop Inc. of San Jose two months earlier, putting in about a half dozen shifts behind the wheel of the 1999 Lincoln Town Car, he said.
Now, a night of revelry for a woman celebrating her wedding had suddenly turned into a nightmare - one that would end with her and four of her friends dead in a fast-moving fire that trapped them in the limo.
Brown had picked up the women in Alameda and was headed to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Foster City for a party. The bride's husband was at the hotel waiting for her.
Brown said it took 30 seconds to a minute for him to pull over after the women first knocked on the partition.
"At that point, there was a lot of smoke. It was coming through so fast," he said. "I'm not even out of the car and one (woman) is coming through the partition. I believe that was the one that booked the trip."
Brown said he helped all four of the surviving women escape through the partition. The first woman through, he said, immediately ran around to the passenger door on the back right of the vehicle.
Motorists try to help
But it was too late - even with other motorists beginning to pull over to help.
"When she opened that back door, I knew it wasn't a good scene. I figured with all that fire that they were gone, man," Brown said. "There were just so many flames. Within maybe 90 seconds, the car was fully engulfed."
The women who died were huddled near the partition window, San Mateo County medical examiner Robert Foucrault said. "They were there on top of each other and doing what they could to get out."
As members of the group that escaped waited for emergency responders, they cried. Some screamed. Brown said he had trouble calling 911 because he was so shaken.
They were lucky, he said, that they did not all perish in a fire that burned so hot it melted the fenders.
"We got out by the grace of God. I just wish that I could have done more," said Brown, who was unhurt. "It's something you never imagine will happen. It's a limousine ride - it's supposed to be a joyous thing.
Brown called his older brother, Lewis Brown Jr. of Vallejo, several times from the bridge after the fire.
"He's devastated," Lewis Brown Jr. said Sunday. "He said he doesn't want to drive anymore."
Orville Brown, a married father of three, said he is an experienced commercial driver who has operated bobtail trucks and airport shuttles.
He took a job with Limo Stop with a goal of saving money to start a program for at-risk youths in San Jose that he named the Believe, Receive and Achieve Foundation.
Driver's family well known
Brown comes from a well-known family. His great-uncle was the late Charles Bledsoe, one of the NAACP attorneys who filed suit in 1951 in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education case, which led to the desegregation of public schools. He is not related to the plaintiff, Oliver Brown.
His father, Lewis Brown Sr., was the first African American to be elected to the Vallejo City Council.
He said he has reached out to the victims' families and plans to give his next two paychecks to them.
"Man, they were having so much fun," he said. "Beautiful women just wanting to go to a party."
Demian Bulwa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com Twitter: @demianbulwa

subset: commoncrawl


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21 's
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gabned necesitaba un nuevo diseño de página web y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 74 diseños de 10 diseñadores freelance.
We are a small start-up that is trying to create a new way to manage personal finance.
Our product comes from the need to simplify the lives of busy people who every day must manage their personal finance. With Prolagus we want to provide an agile structure that, with simple steps, can put order in their accounts, from bills to big expenses.
Mostly male and female, 25-40, in cities, college graduates, wealthy, trendy and (maybe) tech addicted.
2 WEB PAGES DESIGN (homepage + internal menu page):
The design consists of creating 2 pages:
1) A Homepage
2) An Internal Menu template (users will log in and visualize an internal page)
The page's design will be a fixed-dimension, fitting onto screen (without scrolling the page using a 1280x800 desktop).
Weight: around 990 pixel
Height: around 650 pixel
Try using standard fonts to allow us to change easily the text, and please don't use an image of text, because our website will be multilanguage, therefore we would prefer not to manage a lot of images, but only text.
We are looking for a good looking and homely website, clean (but not empty, with a strong focus on the action that the users have to achieve), fresh and coloured (if you see our logo, you could understand what we are trying to build).
We would like them in PSD format.
Other indications to focus your work better and meet our requirements:
• Show us some variations on the disposition of the "sign up" and "sign in" boxes, and please show us both your new solution (if you have one) and the brief original one;
• Please don't use dark colours (black, dark grey), also in the background: we want the website to look light and interesting for the eye. Frames are ok, but please not too thick.
• Instead of placing standard images in the middle (where you see "connect", and so on) , we would like to see "hand drawings": these are stylized images, like when a kid makes a drawing on a blackboard, or you could even try simple cartoons;
• The "Pika" button on the bottom will be a link to a Help section, so we would like to represent in this button our prolagus, our logo as a "Help Wizard companion/mascotte"
We have attached a mockup with a general idea of what we think of our website. Feel free to change whatever you want. We did not create these as a design map or creative guideline, just to convey basically what we need.
- Header : should contain a logo (is attached in PSD format, choose if you want to put the name on the left or on the bottom of the image's logo), some text/buttons with link, the possibility to change the language (maybe using a dropdown menu)
Then a possibility to login (Username and Password), also using facebook-twitter-google account (we'll use JainRain.com).
- Slider: maybe could be interesting create a slider with a combination of images/text (but if you have other idea, please submit them to us) that will explain our website.
- Footer : the footer will contain some menu chose (Privacy, Terms of Use and Contact... the classic stuff... )......
Generally has the same header and footer of the homepage, with a left sidebar:
- Left Side bar: Look for a unique background image / Design with some options.


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hi, im looking to write a live stock chart.
are there any APIs that allow me to make the computer draw a candlestick chart (plus draw lines on the same candlestick chart for the various technical indicators)? i tried using JFreeChart and it doesnt look like there are methods to draw lines on the candlestick chart... or is that functionality available but im not aware of it?


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Build Your Own Mahogany Sports Car (Sep, 1956)
Check out the cover for a better view of the finished car.
MI's Speedball Special
You can build this beautiful sports car for less than $500 with ordinary tools.
By Don Bruce
HOW would you like to own this snazzy-looking mahogany-paneled sports car? You can—and for less than $500 if you are the least bit handy with ordinary tools and not afraid to get your hands dirty. The entire chassis and body are made of wood. The power plant can consist of any 2- to 4-cylinder motorcycle engine. Because of its high power to weight ratio, about 12.3 to 1, you will be able to do close to 90 mph. The finished car will weigh in the neighborhood of 750 pounds.
The car has a wheel base of 94 in. and is 143 in. long with suspension independent on all wheels. It uses a Renault rack and pinion steering gear. The frame of the car is made of 2×4-in. oak. All the body bulkheads are 3/8-in. marine plywood.
From the first sketch of the Speedball Special, duplication by the home builder was the primary concern. Six cars were built before this one was actually finished. Many parts were tried and discarded. This is the first car in many years to feature wood as its basic material. Wood, of course, was the only material used when cars were first built. Antique cars were thus studied for ideas. Styling features from the antiques were also incorporated such as the outside gear shift levers, emergency brake handle and small suspended windshields. This old-new construction gives wonderful flexibility to the individual builder, plus the advantage of a familiar material.
This car uses mahogany for the body skin, but here again the builder has his own choice. If you don't care to get so involved in building the complete car, the body can be built on a stock or modified chassis. The basic shape can apply to a front or rear engine chassis and can be lengthened or shortened.
All of the car's components are simple, engineered to give no running or service problems. The oak frame, plywood bulkheads and mahogany strips are ordinary boat-building operations. A motorcycle engine is used for power. An ad in the local paper will help you locate a used one. It will supply almost all the power train items operation will need. Since no differential is used, the drive is transferred to the left rear wheel only. But don't buy a one-lunger. Get one with at least 40 hp.
The parts of the bike used are: engine, clutch, transmission rear hub, brake and sprocket, oil tank and gas tank plus all instruments, cable guides and switches. If you buy a foreign bike, you'll get a four-speed gearbox but no reverse gear. With American jobs, you can get a four-speed, or a three-speed-reverse box. If the four-speed is desired, a starter motor can be hooked up for an electric reverse. Don't worry about its power, it'll pull you at about 15 mph if you want it to.
Frame Construction
The first step is to cut both side members to the correct length and curve up the bottoms of the front frame horns as shown in the frame layout drawings. Then mark and drill the bolt holes for No. 1 and No. 2 cross members. Cut and drill these cross members to receive the attaching bolts as shown in detail drawing No. 1. Now raise the frame on a couple of wooden horses. Install cross members 1 and 2, but do not bolt up tight. Leave some slack in the bolts to allow the frame to flex. Get a stout rope and use a bumper jack to pull together the two side members until they are the correct distance apart for inserting the No. 3 cross member. Mark the angle at each end and cut. Then glue in position with a good waterproof glue. Hold in place with finishing nails. Now drill for the bolts. This is repeated for all remaining cross members except No. 6. This one is installed without glue, then removed. Nos. 1 and 2 are loosened, glue inserted, then No. 6 is glued and inserted. Lastly, Nos. 1 and 2 are tightened. The bumper jack is also used to pull in the rear half of the side-rails. The engine support rails and gussets for beefing up the rear suspension points are installed last.
Suspension and Steering
To install these parts, care must be taken to duplicate the geometry of the car from which the components were taken. The best, and simplest way is to cut them out with a welding torch and position and bolt them to the frame. Track measurements if retained, would guarantee that the front-end camber and caster are correct. The front suspension for the rear wheels is twisted to allow the axle shaft to pass within an inch of the coil spring and still allow the bearing saddle support arm to be as short as possible. Frame notches are not shown since the suspension used governs their shape. At least 3-1/2 in. of wheel drop must be allowed for, 3-1/2 in. from the normal loaded position.
Chrome Parts
Bumper guards are from a 1952 Ford. The front guards were shortened 1-1/4 in. The rear guards are stock. Cover plates can be cut from aluminum or steel and chromed. Polished copper or brass would go extremely well. When making patterns for these cut-outs, use a stiff paper and fit only a few inches at a time, taping your pieces together as you go along. This way a very close fit along even very irregular places can be had.
Engine Mount
This is built up from 1/8xl-in. angle iron. Its final shape is governed by the engine used, since all bike frames vary. Two things must be kept in mind however. It must be high enough to allow room for the axle below it and for good weight distribution the engine should be ahead of the axle. Secondly, the bike frame, with the extension for the transfer shaft, must also be high enough for the spare tire to nestle below it. It is important that the two chains, one from the transmission to the shaft and the other from shaft to rear wheel sprocket, be kept as short as possible. This will insure a minimum of chain noise and long chain life. See detail drawing No. 3 for engine mount layout.
Left Rear Brake and Axle Construction
The reason for the alteration to the rear brake and sprocket drive is that the axle is stationary and the bearing hub rotates. This must be changed so that the axle rotates and the hub is stationary. Detail drawing No. 4 shows these changes and its mounting to the frame.
The axle used is built up from a Renault rear axle and 3/4-in. steel rod. See detail drawings Nos. 5,6, and 7. The outer end of the axle is supported by the modified spindle from a front suspension. See drawings Nos. 7, 8, and 9. This drive arrangement allows high wheel bounce with very little change in rear track.
Engine Starter
Although the kick starter shaft could be lengthened and the pedal mounted on the right rear side of the body, an electric starter is a nice finishing touch. A Ford Consul starter ring gear is welded to the clutch housing. A British or a German starter must be used, since all American starters revolve counterclockwise. Some American motorcycles have electric starters as optional equipment and of course could be used.
Muffler System
If the motorcycle mufflers are in good shape, there is no problem, but if a new system is needed, four Fiberglas-packed hot rod "racket busters" will do nicely. These units are small and when welded together, two to a side, will make the engine quiet but throaty.
Use of the motorcycle power package is really appreciated at this point. Controls and their linkages are always troublesome at best, but because the bike is already set up for cables, the job is extremely simple. The throttle cable runs from the engine to bulkhead H inside 1/4-in. copper tubing. At bulkheads G and F short lengths of tubing act as guides. At bulkhead E, tubing and a small windshield wiper control pulley are used to drop the cable down to the pedal. The return spring for the system is at the carburetor. The clutch has the same arrangement with 3/16-in. steel cable used with two pulleys at bulkhead E. The brake pedal linkage is shown on detail drawing No. 10. The choke arrangement is left as is since it can be reached from the driver's seat. The same applies to a spark control, if the motorcycle originally had one.
All wires run fore and aft along the left frame rail. Since this would be hard to service after the body skin has been installed, a 1955 Pontiac fuse block was used. This allows separate fuses for all lines. Use No. 14 gauge primary wire.
Special attention was given so that all wire installed was uninterrupted from source to fuse block and from fuse block to end. Before installing the skin check all lines thoroughly with a light.
Regarding the use of the spotlight as a headlight, check your state laws governing this. Actually two sealed beams ' would do just as well. The linkage and folding arrangement for the headlights is quite simple. Two stationary headlights can of course be mounted on the top of the front shock absorbers or the hood. Make sure that the headlight centers are more than 24 inches from the ground. This is the minimum allowed by all states. Folding and control linkage is shown in detail drawing No. 11.
Gas Tank and Fuel Pump
The gas tank used was built up from two round five-gallon drums and a one-gallon paint can. The filler neck and cap are from the motorcycle tank. The gauge is an old carburetor float. See detail drawing No. 12, on page 131. An electric fuel pump is used. Since all motorcycles have a gravity feed the pump is mounted inside the passenger compartment on the right side and is visible from the driver's seat, so that the fuel flow can be checked while running. See photo.
Body Skin
Applying the 1/4xl-in. mahogany strips looks much harder than it actually is. Remember they're only an inch wide, so handling is easy no matter how long they are. Start by standing the body almost upright on either the two right or two left wheels. Nail supports to the bottom so that it can't fall down. Lay your first strip against the plywood bottom. The second strip is paced along a line level with the top of the frame from bulkhead D to I. This will assure you that the strips are parallel to the ground on the sides of the body.
All strips are butt-glued against each other and glued and tacked with brads to the bulkheads. Now start laying the strips down from the one at the top of the frame to the one next to the plywood. By measuring along the edge of bulkhead G you will determine the number of strips needed. Take this as your basic figure to determine the amount of taper for each strip. Cut and lay your second strip along the one parallel to top of frame. Mark it where it passes over each bulkhead. Measure the gap between the two strips in place at each bulkhead and divide this total by the number of strips needed. This will tell how much to taper the strip from one bulkhead to the next.
Bevel the upper edge of the third strip and taper the lower edge with a plane to the correct amount as determined by your figures. Do the bottom curve first on both sides. Any minor gaps between strips won't be noticed here. For a filler, save all shavings and mix into a paste with glue.
After the two bottom curves are done, return the body to its normal position on the horses. Lay up both sides until top taper begins. Now lay a strip down the center of the hood. Then lay seven strips down each side of this. Do not cut out headlight holes until all wood has been applied or the contour will not match. By measuring along the bulkhead F the number of strips needed is found. However to gain the best results in taper appearance, use two taper points per side. Lay a strip along the top, bending it so that its edge is just where the upper body curve begins. Then taper out to this strip. Next remove the measuring strip and apply a taper from the side up to this strip. Be very careful with the last five strips per side since their fit will be very noticeable if sloppy. Repeat this on the side and on the rear deck and the work is done. The whole job of stripping should take about 40 hours.
Body Ends
One mahogany plank 1″x8″xl4″ is used for the build-up of the front and rear. For ease in working this was later cut into 1″x2″x7' lengths. The strips are sanded off flush with bulkheads A and L. The pieces are cut rough and glued in place. Do not attempt to shape until all pieces are glued up. To shape the body and ends, a disk grinder is recommended. It can probably be rented or borrowed from the local body shop over the weekend and with it the entire body can be shaped in less than a day. The nose piece is notched out so that a radiator hose can be nailed in place and covered with the inside turned out of an old innertube.
Before shaping, remove all brads used to hold strips in place while the glue was drying. After shaping the body, No. 5, 3/4-in. flathead brass screws are used to hold the strips to the bulkheads.
Body Finish
After power sanding, hand sand the body with No. 60 paper. Then apply a sealer, sanding between each third coat. Next apply spar varnish inside and out. If desired, it can be compounded and waxed.
These are made up of 3/8- and 1/8-in. steel rod. The 12-ft. lengths of 3/8 in. and 8 lengths of 1/8-in. rod used for both seats.
This car has been subjected to all kinds of tests, short of a collision. It was left completely exposed to snow and rain for long periods and has stood up perfectly. To allow for water to pass through the car, small % in. drain holes were drilled at each corner in the bottom of the car. By placing the car on a slight incline, any accumulated water will drain out. The bottom of the car should be undercoated with a body dead-ener. This will protect all hard-to-check places from dryrot or warping.
Acceleration through the gears is exceptional. The best way it can be described is with only the driver, it's very close to a motorcycle carrying two people. Top speed with the Ariel engine is well over 90 mph. With a big Harley or Indian, it should break 100.


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WeWork is the platform for creators, providing hundreds of thousands of members around the world with space, community, and services that enable them to do what they love and create their life's work. Our mission is to create a world where people work to make a life, not just a living, and our own team members are central to that goal.
We are creating software for physical space that leverages data and technology at each point in the building process, such that it can make better sourcing decisions, improve its designs, build faster and smarter, and ultimately improve the lives of the people working within its buildings. Our cutting-edge technologies and dedication to technological innovation are key reasons why WeWork has been able to scale from operating one workspace location to more than 210 in just over eight years.


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Ngobas is All-in-One website that can be use by everyone for free to find friends and exchange information. The name Ngobas is derived from the abbreviation, which is Ngomong Bebas Originally Sedap, meaning that it is appropriate to speak according to the ethics of socializing.
I realize that information and communication are the main things in life. Ngobas is the right platform for that. We will always be connected wherever we are and that is the purpose Ngobas was built.
- Samuel Berrit Olam
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Handling / Assembly
Dispensing. Machine tending. Material removal. Press brake tending.
18 Motoman robots make it possible for IKEA to produce an assembled, flat-packed "Billy" bookcase kit every 6 seconds! That is 40,000 units per week.
The robotic solution also helps save 20% in production costs. This video illustrates various handling and palletising applications.
In this video two MOTOMAN robots are used to deliver seamless automation for an Amada EMZ 3610 PDC punching machine and an Amada HFE 100.25 press brake.
- Improved efficiency
- Suitable for small batch quantities due to MOTOMAN MotoBend offline programming software
- Reduced dependence on manual labour
This video shows different types of MOTOMAN robots, such as the traditional 6-axis articulated arm robot, the SCARA robot and a dual-arm robot working on a number of electronic component assembly applications, including:
- Circuit board assembly
- Soldering
- Cable assembly


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Buy time to react
Parking lots are filled with obstacles and hazards, but often the biggest danger is other drivers. They may cut across empty rows, drive too fast, or ignore signs and pavement markings, endangering everyone in the lot. The best way to deal with these drivers is simple: Slow down. This buys you time to react and avoid a collision. Be especially cautious when turning corners and backing up.
Expect pedestrians
Parking lots are full of people coming from and going to their cars. Though pedestrians may not be looking out for you, it's still your responsibility to look out for them. Keep a wary eye out for any pedestrians who may cross your vehicle's path, and be sure to obey all crosswalks within the parking lot. When entering particularly high foot-traffic areas, take your foot off the accelerator and cover the brake. Anticipate pedestrians even if you don't see any. If you're in a busy shopping area, remember that people lugging sacks of groceries or other purchases could also be shepherding hard-to-see children, too.
Distance yourself
Door dings and scratches are aggravating and hard to avoid. No matter how courteous and conscientious you are when parking, you can fall victim to someone else's carelessness. One way to reduce the risk of door damage is to park away from other vehicles. This may be inconvenient, but it's considerably more polite than parking your vehicle across several spaces to keep others from parking near you. And the extra walking is good exercise.


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Womens Louis Vuitton Bags
Remember back in the good old days when we could book an economy plane ticket and know that we'd be getting a hot meal on the flight? We'd be able to choose chicken, beef or the vegetarian meal. We could get to the airport an hour early, instead of two and leave our shoes on going through security. Those days are long gone. Now we get no food except peanuts or the chance to purchase over priced snack boxes. On the plane we get a lousy complimentary beverage and we get to pay up to $25 per checked bag twice on a round trip ticket. We might be charged to choose our seats, or we can pay to upgrade to "economy plus." The nice little extras no longer exist and the hidden fees keeping getting tacked on to the bill.
trapped like a fish in a glass bowl, there could be snow where you are supposed to land. Weather happens. And when weather happens, airlines have a teensy little clause called "the Act of God" clause and they like that clause. A lot. Why? Because when flights are delayed or cancelled for "weather" the airline is not accountable, not even if your connecting flight was cancelled as you were in mid air, completely unaware of the cancellation, and you arrive for a red eye flight with two young children to a catch a plane that isn't there. Or, if it is, it isn't going anywhere. That's what happened to me last weekend while flying Delta from Denver to Burlington, Vt., connecting in LaGuardia in New York. had been cancelled. We had been automatically re booked for the following day with an extra leg added. New York to Detroit to Burlington. Makes sense. Wait. What? That wouldn't work for us! I rushed the girls off the plane to customer service.
flying is the fact that delays happen, weather happens, mechanical issues come up and workers go on strike. and when these things happen, your weekend can be turned upside down faster than a cup of water on a tray table during turbulence.
The girls and I began a midnight trek around the airport in search of someone who cared that we were stranded, exhausted and majorly inconvenienced. That's when my sister emailed me a Womens Louis Vuitton Bags link to an article about Mitchell Berns, who had sued Delta for a bogus weather cancellation in 2009 and won by default. Though his Delta Louis Vuitton Empreinte Curieuse Wallet
Your flight may be cancelled or delayed for safety reasons: a snowstorm or thunderstorm. Even if you can't see the snow falling as you stare out the airport window, Vuitton Atlantis
Have you ever heard the old saying "Know your rights?" Well, in the case of flying commercial airlines, you can throw those rights out the airplane window. If you're being given information that you have no way of cross checking with irrefutable data, then you have no rights. So the next time you are told your flight is cancelled due to weather, unless you see three feet of snow outside, challenge the agents. As a Delta Facebook Representative told me: "We spend considerable time with weather models through our meteorology teams to determine what areas may be affected and when. With any weather events, they can be unpredictable." I'm glad to hear that because the airline should be more than able to tell passengers exactly where the "weather" is occurring and how it is affecting their travel even if they have to trace it six flights back to a plane grounded in Miami for a thunderstorm.
Will being informed of this unfortunately common occurrence get you treated well or comped a room when stranded overnight? It might. Even if it's only because the agent just wants you to stop waving your smartphone in her face and yelling "Show me the weather!"
Flying the unfriendly skies
One thing that hasn't changed with Louis Vuitton Evasion Sunglasses
With a cancelled flight, I had expected a madhouse at the customer service desk but it was quiet. I immediately asked why our flight had been cancelled. "Weather."
"But where?" I insisted, "Where is this weather? It's not raining here. My parents' flight landed just fine in Burlington an hour ago. There's no weather there." No one could tell me. They gestured lamely towards the ceiling, swishing their hands back and forth, "It can be anywhere, you know, up there. In the flight path, or you know, wherever." And so began my education on "the rights of passengers vs. the responsibilities of the airlines." I was told we could not be comped a room, even though I had a 5 year old and a 7 year old with me, because of the Act of God Clause. Had the cancellation been mechanical in nature, I would be shuttled to a hotel and possibly given food vouchers for the next day. A night in a hotel plus another day of airport priced food was not in my budget. Our other option was to sleep in the vinyl chairs in the baggage claim area, since we could not sleep in the terminal for security reasons.
plane was grounded due " weather" he was able to book a last minute flight on another airline that left and landed at the same time that his original Delta flight should have. In the interview he cautioned travelers not to blindly accept the "weather" cancellation because it's an easy way for an airline to get out of costly (yet compassionate) compensations for it's customers. After all, how would I know if there was mechanical difficulty or if there really was a rogue and malingering thunderstorm somewhere in the flight path? I wouldn't.
Womens Louis Vuitton Bags
Louis Vuitton Gym Bag


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What if I don't like the website after it's built?
We won't build your site without your involvement. We'll work with you every step of the way to make sure you're getting the look and feel that you want for your site.
The Professional Web Services team is made up of experienced designers who will make sure you're satisfied with the progress of your site. There won't be any surprises by the time it's published; just what you expected.
Ultimately, you're the one driving the design of your site.
To speak with a PWS Specialist, call (480) 366-3336.


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If you haven't seen the announcement yet about the Licensing changes that are coming to PowerApps and Flow starting on October 1, 2019 you really need to read the following Blog. This announcement was originally made at Inspire this year, but has undergone a number of significant changes. Make sure you read this and understand what it means to you and your organization.
@Eickhel could you please comment on "app in production"? for example: if i create and publish an app till 1st of october, will it count as app on production?
And if i am going to make some changes, updates to this app after 1st of october?
App in production just means an app that has been shared and Published. It should also include any apps that you wrote for yourself.
So, if I create and deploy 50 dummy apps (basically just a start screen and the connector) to production those apps will be free to use the next 5 years? I can then change/update the apps as needs within the organization arises; i.e. App39 can be the new ticketing system 2 years from now?
Theoretically, yes. But its a clear attempt to do an end run around the new licensing. So will it hold up if MS takes notice? Not sure.
The problem is that to establish the connector you need a database and I don't think you can really edit the connector and change the database later. So you would also need to spin up 50 databases on 50 different server aliases (so that you could move them later if needed).
How about using an SQL elastic pool? I think you can have any number of db's within a fixed cost base. The more active databases you get you can just scale up the resources of the pool. I'm not really sure if this would work.
I don't know if that would work either. I've never tried connecting to an elastic pool. Either way its still violates the spirit of the exception even if it doesn't violate the letter of the law.
The law changes without notice. MS recommended in june to split our main app into smaller focused apps for performance reasons. We were also recommended to move to either CDS or SQL for the same reasons. We did both and invested resources into this. One month later they dump this news on us. Our smallest customer - 100 users - will need to cough up a minimum of 12.000 USD per year IF we manage to squeeze everything into one app - 48.000 USD if not. Outrageous.
If creating 50 dummy apps and using an SQL elastic pool (with 50 idle databases) can get us around this I have no qualms about it.
I have another scenario that I would like to discuss.
Let say I have a canvas app that are primarly used on PC's (tablet mode, horizontal) and there is also a demand for a less feature packed mobile app (mobile mode, vertical). That means two PowerApps connecting to the same data source (Azure SQL).
Will that mean that I need two $10/app/user/month licenses?
My understanding is that the license is actually per 'business process' which may be served by up to two Apps, so I guess if you need a full fledged desktop and cut-down mobile app, that would be permissable under a single 'App'/User/Month subscription. Though how that will be policed and who defines what counts as a 'business process' will be interesting to see.
I have so many discussions around this with my customers rigth now and there are so many things that are unclear. 😕
I hope you are correct 🙂
@MagnusGöransson wrote:
I have so many discussions around this with my customers rigth now and there are so many things that are unclear. 😕
I hope you are correct 🙂
If you are at the planning stage it may pay to accelerate your development to get 'minimum viable product' apps in place (using the Azure SQL Connector) before October 1st so they are grandfathered in for 5 years. You then have breathing space to evaluate other products/technologies (we're investigating Progressive Web Apps for cross-platform, cross form-factor apps that are easy to deploy and can access on-device features like camera and gps) that may offer a value-proposition closer to the old licensing for PowerApps.
The per App license can cover an app that contains two applications, so for that scenario I think you should be fine with one $10 license per user using either app. But remember if you have 4 Apps like that you are already at the same cost as the standalone license at $40 per user/month and that covers unlimited numbers of Apps.
Hi All
This is such a disaster we are now starting to deploy PowerApps and these changes have now put the brakes on our initiative.
I do have a question if anyone could clarify.
We have about 15 existing apps that use Azure SQL connectors, etc. I understand this will hold for 5 years before turning into premium. All my Office 365 user have access to these apps. So I have 5 years to use these apps before making any decision. Do I still need to pay on top of my Office 365 licenses for all my user to have access to these apps i.e. 40USD per user during the 5 years? Or does the Office 365 license cover user access for the next 5 years while the connector changes from standard to premium?
If the Apps fall under the exemption that grandfathers them in then you do not need premium licenses for any of your users to access and use those existing apps.
For 5 year grandfathering question, you can find the information here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq#how-does-the-chan...
Also most of these questions are covered in FAQ here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform/admin/powerapps-flow-licensing-faq
That FAQ leaves a lot of questions to be answered as you can see in this thread. It seems MS screwed a lot of ISV's and Business App creators with this change. Lesson learned.
FAQ covers all the common questions and principles, however not every possible permutation/combination. If there are specific questions you have, do let us knw, we can answer it and also add it to FAQ
Read this thread! Lot's of specific questions and concerns - you will see migration from PowerApps! The "grandfather period" is pointless for potential devs/users; if MS sticks to this model PowerApps is dead as a platform for developing Business Apps from an ISV point of view (and for developing internal Business Apps based on anything else than SharePoint lists).
We were told in june to split up our app into more focused apps (from 1 to 7-8) and to move from SharePoint lists to CDS or SQL so we are basically screwed right now. Monthly costs for us and our customers will quadruple unless we can find creative ways to circumvent the new licensing.
This requirement for 30 user minimum is removed and is not longer enforced
For Question 1, it is max of 2 app per user per business process.
The way number of passes (thats what we call them :)) would be determined would be based on how many (and what type) of apps your users who do not have a licensed access. So if your users use only specific apps and not everything, then the number of passes are based on what they will use.
Later this month, we will also try to do a deepdive webinar on how this will technically look in the product
Sure i will try to go through and anwer any unanswered question.
For your specific question around 7-8 apps, i will suggest to check if most of the apps are accessed by all users or only certain population (thats typically reason for breakup). If yes, then per app model is really for 2 apps/user/business process and if distinct users are using different apps, then you might still be able to use per app license model.
I think it would be easier if MS would re-think their "standard to premium" connector changes.
That would solve almost 70% of complaints.
The "per app" plan where you can have 2 apps whithin a "business process" is really vague. What does it mean and how is it enforced/policed?
If we have 7-8 apps it's really difficult to know which user needs which app. So either they get a "per app" license which is 10 USD per app or they pay 40 USD to use all apps. On average I think they will need the "per user" license which will increase the cost of our smallest customer from 0 USD to 48.000 USD per year (100 users). Right now they have a E3/E5 license which have zero cost.
As clear evidence of this, I already brought this up with my leadership and the decision came down to a) stop PowerApps development, b) investigate other options, c) determine which apps to refactor and which to just retire. Now, to be fair, we are a company of only 300 employees but laying a $40/app/user/month for just PowerApps. Then we also pay for the other Microsoft services such as Azure etc. Had we known these prices to begin with we would have simply done our apps in Node.js / Angular or React.
Microsoft is truly hurting themselves with this approach for several reasons. First, much of PowerApps is still being refined and essential features are still not complete. Case in point, examine the connectors and see which support delegation (a key enterprise feature). Only SQL Server is a credibly complete connector -- though does not support triggers -- and certainly shouldn't be considered premium. All otherconnectors are missing key operands. Consider also the PDF viewer which is a no-brainer requirement of most business applications. Even something this critical is still listed as an experimental feature and requires access in a completely unsecure approach (although I and others have finally figured out how to do it securely). Point is, Microsoft really should understand PowerApps / Flow position and realize these products are still fighting for segment and not dominating. Ther are alternatives and they are more robust than PowerApps. Not sure Microsoft is reading the market correctly and my bet is that you are not. As a Microsoft fan, I hope I am wrong.
@wjhepworth wrote:
< the decision came down to a) stop PowerApps development, b) investigate other options >
Solid decision making based on the evidence. Good leadership. You guys are not alone.
@wjhepworth wrote:
Microsoft is truly hurting themselves with this approach for several reasons. First, much of PowerApps is still being refined and essential features are still not complete.
Agreed. PowerApps has such potential. I think MS realized it and got greedy.
Maybe this should be another thread but....like most (all?) of you, I am forced to leave Powerapps (can't go from $0 to $300,000/year). So what are the alternatives you are all looking at?
We're still in denial. Flabbergasted. But clearly we have to look at alternatives down the road during the "grandfather period" which MS "graciously" offers us (terms still to be negotiated, thank you).
Something that gets to me with this whole thing is that MS (or that part of MS at least) seems to be confusing PaaS and SaaS.
Sometimes, our business is willing to pay 10$/month/user for a fully-featured, top quality, key-in-hand piece of software that solves a non-mission-critical problem. We came accross Sql Database Modeler two weeks ago and it was just the case: It was a bit of unexpected spending, but we felt it was worth our money.
But PowerApps is a platform. You still have to build (and support/maintain) the **bleep** things. ^^ And no matter how talended I am, it's not going to be to the level of a real SaaS offering since, for one, I am not a team of full-time developper dedicated to a subject.
THAT, more than anything, is where I feel PowerApps (Dynamics flavoured) is going wrong : it's a middleware platform asking for a final product pricing scheme. No power user can convince their boss to grant them license money AND spend days building something. "Can't you find something on the market that does more or less what you want" I hear them say (real SaaS approach). "Can't you just do an Excel spreadsheet like we do for everything else?" (real platform approach).
We as professionals have often been the silent, under-the-radar evangilazors of MS solutions, but now we are cut out from our typical usecase and can't help propagate the solution.
The only opportunties left is when corporate buyers and sellers agree on a massive deployment and someone at IT realises "well, now that we're paying for this thing I've never heard about, i guess I need to find some use for it".
Because lets face it : despite its potential, PowerApps is still largely unheard of. For most folks, there are still quite a few steps in that AIDA model before a purchase. Now the whole buttom-up approach is dead, and the top-down one will fail to takeoff without strong community support from power users and consultants.
This is truly a sad and terrible mistake. 😞
@FredericForest wrote:
Something that gets to me with this whole thing is that MS (or that part of MS at least) seems to be confusing PaaS and SaaS.
Sometimes, our business is willing to pay 10$/month/user for a fully-featured, top quality, key-in-hand piece of software that solves a non-mission-critical problem. We came accross Sql Database Modeler two weeks ago and it was just the case: It was a bit of unexpected spending, but we felt it was worth our money.
But PowerApps is a platform. You still have to build (and support/maintain) the **bleep** things. ^^ And no matter how talended I am, it's not going to be to the level of a real SaaS offering since, for one, I am not a team of full-time developper dedicated to a subject.
THAT, more than anything, is where I feel PowerApps (Dynamics flavoured) is going wrong : it's a middleware platform asking for a final product pricing scheme. No power user can convince their boss to grant them license money AND spend days building something. "Can't you find something on the market that does more or less what you want" I hear them say (real SaaS approach). "Can't you just do an Excel spreadsheet like we do for everything else?" (real platform approach).
We as professionals have often been the silent, under-the-radar evangilazors of MS solutions, but now we are cut out from our typical usecase and can't help propagate the solution.
The only opportunties left is when corporate buyers and sellers agree on a massive deployment and someone at IT realises "well, now that we're paying for this thing I've never heard about, i guess I need to find some use for it".
Because lets face it : despite its potential, PowerApps is still largely unheard of. For most folks, there are still quite a few steps in that AIDA model before a purchase. Now the whole buttom-up approach is dead, and the top-down one will fail to takeoff without strong community support from power users and consultants.
This is truly a sad and terrible mistake. 😞
I agree wholeheartedly. We use power apps for simple things such as Training booking calendars, HR Campaign Trackers and Photo ID badge creation. For the new licensing costs we can buy a dedicated, more feature rich Service to replace all of our in house built systems and still have enough money left over to have a company day out.
Can you imagine if Microsoft decided to licence VB, C or other Visual studio language components the same way? I know you've bought visual studio for all your developers and the hardware to run the apps and created the SQL databases, but now you will need to pay a monthly subscription to use the connection between these servers as well...
I'm more disappointed than anything else tbh, I've campaigned for powerapps use with great initial resistance, and now the company is bought in and starting to see some of the benefits, its being taken away due to crazy licencing costs.
5 yr grace period??? but who is going to use something they already know is outdated knowing they need something else 5 years from now. I have already dumped my powerapps.
Well, in terms of being outdated, not sure the the PowerApps platform can be classified that way. While none of us are happy about the pricing, it is still a great platform. If it weren't, nobody here would care.
Hey @PaulD1 ,
Did you hear that there are grandfathering arrangemends for 5 years for existing apps and flows?
Good comments Fred - I think that the licensing offered really is unfit for large organisations - they are going to have to do a lot better to deal with this audience.
@rorybi wrote:
Good comments Fred - I think that the licensing offered really is unfit for large organisations - they are going to have to do a lot better to deal with this audience.
Funny thing is : small organisations feel exactly the same . I deal with both SMB and multinational enterprises, and I've yet to hear someone say it's a great value proposition...
It's still too early to tell and I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this like many others.
I have no idea what my employer will or won't do in regards to the new licensing just yet.
I have no involvment in the decision making in regards to licensing.
I have been a PowerApps Champion in my organization for almost two years now and based on my reccomendations, posts, and tutorials, other departments have or are starting to develop with the PowerApp platform as well.
I will still reccomend PowerApps for SharePoint list forms but with this new licensing it will be a hard sell on other types of app development.
Based on my past experience I suspect within our organization that PowerApps will now be restricted to SharePoint list forms only as replacement for InfoPath.
The majority of the mobile versions of PowerApps will most likely be eliminated.
I will need to refactor, I mean port over to another platform, all PowerApps that rely on connectors.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not abandoning the platform, but I forsee that more than likely I will be developing with PowerApps much less due to these license changes.
Going forward, since I've also been developing internal department apps with REACT, Angular and .NET for several years now,
If there is any fallout, and there will be, from the new PowerApps licensing, I'll just start developing more web and SharePoint apps with Angular, REACT and .NET
Not yet sure about Flow, but given that the majority of apps I develop have to be made available to all employees worldwide. The number of employees could be over a 100,000 contractors, fulltime and temporary workers at any given time, Flow will be restricted as well.
As for developing mobile apps, I can always get back up to speed on SWIFT if need be. We are an iOS only house.
PowerApps is a wonderful platform to develop with, it has been a pleasure working in this environment.
I truly believe there is no easier nor faster way to develop and that you Microsoft should be able to make money from it.
But I also agree with everyone else on this forum that this is too drastic a change.
My department and I suspect our other deparments will follow, All PowerApps projects that require connectors, that require data sources other than SharePoint will be terminated and evaluated to see if we wish to port to another platform or just shelved, which is a shame.
Powerapps, for us - and probably for many - is (was) a great tool for developing spot solutions that significantly improve manual, admin, paper-based processes. For example, in the past our employees would request reimbursement for attending a conference by completing a form and emailing it to Finance. Using Powerapps, this can now do this online. Flow sends out alerts, tracks approval status, etc. The data is saved in SQL rather than in a binder and can therefore be used for many other purposes.
Very nice and clearly an improvement. But how much of an improvement? What is the dollar value of that improvement? We have perhaps 20 of these solutions now, with more in the works. Everything from identifying employee skills, to assigning desks. But what is key here is that none of these are business related or critical in any way. None add to our revenue or materially help our revenue generators do their jobs better or more efficiently. And to be frank, our leadership is not all that concerned about the few minutes of admin time these apps save. When we do need a business critical solution, we do what everyone else does. We buy it or in rare cases, we unleash our crack team of programmers to build it. Using Powerapps to build core business apps would be a very bad idea – it's buggy, slow, limited functionality, on and on.
So imagine what it was like when I went to leadership and said, "hey, you know those cool little apps that allow people to register for conferences, include CPR as a skill, and update their address….well they will now cost you a quarter million annually to run. " I literally had to pull up the Microsoft licensing page to convince them I wasn't kidding or insane.
Not that I think anything will come from it, but I thought I would add to the discontent. I have been casting vision over the last year for how PowerApps could work into a microservices architecture that is being developed. We were talking about employee portals that would have an app catalog with access to all of the relevant services. I have been loving PowerApps and Flow and the idea of citizen development. I've been actively promoting these in our company. If I am understanding this correctly, this change is going to cost near a million dollars a year for our company. As much as I love PowerApps, the only obvious choiced is to completely scrap everything aside from the most basic SharePoint list replacements and move into another tool. I'm really disappointed by this.
I understand the sentiment, but for the record there is more included in the seeded license than just the list replacement forms in SharePoint. Any standalone App or Flow that uses SharePoint or OneDrive as a data source is also included. I suspect your ananlysis is still true since the kind of services architecture you are describing probably includes custom connectors and those just went from $7 per user to $40.
You have a hard job @Pstork1 (especially since it's not an "official" one !). But kudos on keeping the postive side on ! 🙂
Cheers !
I FEEL your pain. Thiscould be a killer for our plans as well. There's just no way to justify this cost. I was in LOVE with this solution and platform and we were 100% on board and cheerleading this solution. Also using Azure SQL, 12 apps so far, with many, many more in the pipeline.
Well I've sent my weekend working (Thanks for that too btw Microsoft!) on moving our existing app over to Sharepoint Lists, since I hadn't seen the 5 year grandfather clause. I've managed to get it working for the most part but one thing I have learned is that SP will not be suitable for the further apps we have planned. The non delegable tables are almost impossible to work with.
That kills Powerapps completely for us. There can be no further development on the platform. Such a pain since I sold the whole concept to the company myself and it had been a really big hit up until now.
I will now be recomending the next app, and the current app, are outsourced to a third party. At this point I don't even want Microsoft handling my emails.
I do see that the seeded license is still going to have a fair amount of functionality, but only for small scale apps. There are two things that are really hurting me here. One is that they are moving SQL into a paid connector. This kills my ability to interact with any other enterprise level applications without going into custom connectors and hitting the same wall. The other thing that is hurting me is that they are pulling PowerApps licenses out of the D365 licenses. (This is my understanding from the cryptic information I have read) We have thousands of those licenses and use them when needed to get the P2 plan. So we'll keep building apps, but they'll target small groups and not be able to connect to enterprise data. I had really hoped that we would be able to make PowerApps a true part of our application infrastructure, but not for a million dollars a year. We are feeling the same thing from the flow side of the house. We were about to start creating some pretty cool workflows, but it just isn't feasible now.
To add an attempt at being constructive, I resonate with the folks that would prefer a pay per use type approach. We deploy apps to over 3000 users. Because we create micro-apps some of these apps may be used 2-20 times per day, but they have to be deployed to the whole company. I wish there was a way to let everyone have access but not be carrying a $40/user/month price tag if they don't engage with the tool.
Does anyone know how long Microsoft will let us use BCS to connect to Azure SQL? This connection works in PowerApps but I am afraid to re-create my apps using connections to external lists until I know how long its going to be around. I know they have said no further development is being done but they have articles written this year showing how to use it in current SharePoint online version.
Does anyone know if there is a time bomb on this as well? I cannot use Azure Sql if its only going to work until 2024...
Still looking for a workaround for this that doesnt cost $40 per user per month...
Wat I don't get is why only allow 2 apps on the first-tier model ($10/user). What is that about? You cannot build too complex apps in PowerApps like you can with Visual Studio. We have built many small apps to tackle the business needs for the company accessing their SQL database. With the P1 license, even though you paid $7.00 / user, you had access to all the apps. So now my users can only access two of them? Why?
And that reaises a question: Can I then pay $5.00 / user under the Office365 Business license so my users can have access to all apps and the $10.00 /user on the powerApps side will take care of the SQL connector? If that is so, why would anyone buy the $40.00? and if that is not so, why would anyone go from $10.00 to $40.00 just to access different apps within the organization?
Most of the D365 plans still include a seeded license that covers the premium features, that hasn't changed.
Just to add my two cents;
It makes it really tricky for us to move forward, we have only created canvas apps using SharePoint (thank god), but we were right in the middle of planning a rollout to 800 users with a series of apps using SQL (following the advice to chunk down the apps).
I get that the PowerApps team need to pull in some money and that the O365 licence fee may not cut it if they want to ramp it up to the next level - but to make this feasible for our company it would cost like £5K a month for two apps and £20K a month for unlimited apps - so yeh for that kind of money we could start an in house development team - then we can make our own rules, apps and do whatever we want, so it wouldn't make sense to do this.
Another thing that strikes me as interesting is that coding and developing in general will get easier and easier as we go forward - with prices like these, it has made me wonder after all the pain and bugs and issues to get PowerApps working the way that I wanted it to (and still be a the mercy of licencing changes), why don't I just pick up coding for real - I am half way there! - sure its way more complicated - I know, but that won't stop people, have you seen VS2019? : ).
In my mind the whole workforce is moving slowly in a direction where coding will be way more common place than it is now, and (in my view) there may be a world where developing the canvas app from scratch is just quicker, cheaper and better. And moves like this where everything just gets expensive - simply nudges people in DIY direction.
The potential and price-point of powerapps inspired thousands to learn a new skill and spend hours and hours working on issues, creating communities, working together, and helping each other - the pricepoint has now changed, but to me that is a critical part of what allowed all this great stuff to happen, and if that's gone. then it won't be long before something else comes along to take its place.
@Pstork1 - many Kudos for your solid answers on this post, much respect.
And Microsoft - you have created awesome products and your approach has been spot on up to this point, I hope that this continues either way this goes down.
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text:
Above my computer desk where I sit and do the lion-share of my writing hangs an essay written by Gregory Orr called "The Making of Poems" which has strongly influenced my thinking about the uses of poetry. I try to read lots of essays about poetry, and recently have endeavored to write my own poetic commentaries through this blog, but where Orr's essay differs from most prose written about poetry is in the simplicity and insistence of his message.
He writes in his first sentence: "I believe in poetry as a way of surviving the emotional chaos, spiritual confusions and traumatic events that come with being alive."
God knows no poet in the current climate in Canada would write something so revelatory and unfashionable for fear of internet finger-wagging, but deep down beneath our stony demeanors and gold-plated bullshit detectors, I think most of us still believe in the ultimate truth of this statement.
We would just never say so on the record.
Indeed, that word surviving has become troublesome in Canada because of its all too obvious associations with Margaret Atwood's landmark study of Canadian literature Survival published in the 1970's. The words survival and surviving have become a kind of shorthand for a prescriptive new generation of critics to dismiss something as purely sentimental, plain, or uninspired.
Now, I am not suggesting that poems that are clearly sentimental, plain or uninspired are nowhere to be found. Look anywhere in Canada, or the world for that matter, and you will find poems that span the whole spectrum from self-indulgent twaddle to self-effacing ostentation being written and being written badly.
However, I suppose what I am saying is that despite the various peregrinations Canadian poetry has undertaken in the last four decades, and no matter how aestheticized or self-divided the debate has become in recent years, poetry's openness to human experience and its ability to translate that experience into something meaningful should never be forgotten. We forget this truth at our own peril.
Despite what some others would have us believe, reading a poem is not simply a surface tallying of technique, as there is always a shared emotional aspect to any worthy poem. At least, this is what I intuit from any poem that stays longer with me than the time it takes to read it.
Take for example, a poem by Ed Hirsch I first read in his book The Night Parade several years ago and can now be found among the pages of his new and selected poems The Living Fire which came out with Knopf earlier this year (click this link for a terrific interview with Hirsch).
For several months after purchasing Hirsch's new book, I found myself thumbing through its pages looking for the poem "Execution" printed below:
The last time I saw my high school football coach
He had cancer stenciled into his face
Like pencil marks from the sun, like intricate
Drawings on the chalkboard, small x's and o's
That he copied down in a neat numerical hand
Before practice in the morning. By day's end
The board was a spiderweb of options and counters,
Blasts and sweeps, a constellation of players
Shining under his favorite word, Execution,
Underlined in the upper right-hand corner of things.
He believed in football like a new religion
And had perfect unquestioning faith in the fundamentals
Of blocking and tackling, the idea of warfare
Without suffering or death, the concept of teammates
Moving in harmony like the planets — and yet
Our awkward adolescent bodies were always canceling
The flawless beauty of Saturday afternoons in September,
Falling away from the particular grace of autumn,
The clear weather, the ideal game he imagined.
And so he drove us through punishing drills
On weekday afternoons, and doubled our practice time,
And challenged us to hammer him with forearms,
And devised elaborate, last-second plays — a flea-
Flicker, a triple reverse — to save us from defeat.
Almost always they worked. He despised losing
And loved winning more than his own body, maybe even
More than himself. But the last time I saw him
He looked wobbly and stunned by illness,
And I remembered the game in my senior year
When we met a downstate team who loved hitting
More than we did, who battered us all afternoon
With a vengeance, who destroyed us with timing
And power, with deadly, impersonal authority,
Machine-like fury, perfect execution.
There is much to love about this poem: the hard-shifting rhythms, the keen perceptions and the perfectly lucid imagery. But this is not why for me I find the poem sufficiently affecting. It is also the intensity of feeling and reverential treatment of Hirsch's own life experience, the elegizing of an old high-school coach as a subject of monumentality, which affirms the poet's life as meaningful and the poem, an act of self-creation, as his only defense against the "impersonal authority, / Machine-like fury" of reality and death which are constantly attempting to annihilate him.
It should be said that part of poetry's undeniable currency is in the connection it creates between poet and audience. This poem is no exception, of course, as is it reminds me of my old high-school vice-principal Ken Leyshon who was also the school's football coach. I heard later that he died of cancer in his retirement which was troubling for me as he was the single-most physically fit person I had ever seen.
To quote from the same essay I began with, Gregory Orr writes: "An additional miracle comes to me as the maker of poems: Because poems can be shared between poet and audience, they also become a further triumph over human isolation." I believe this unequivocally after twenty years of attempting to write poems, but I understand that others do not see it quite this way and wish to keep art separate from reality out of a belief that it makes it easier to judge a poem's merits. To them, I say again: the writing of all poetry is personal and reducing it to mere aesthetics is empty rhetoric. A poet who truly wishes to introduce either the beautiful or the ugly, the profound or the problematic, into a poem can only do so by adding his own personal experience and private feeling to impress the language.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Basho from The Knapsack Notebook
"Within this temporal body composed of a hundred bones and nine holes there resides a spirit which, for lack of an adequate name, I think of as windblown. Like delicate drapery, it may be torn away and blown off by the least breeze. It brought me to writing poetry many years ago, initially for its own gratification, but eventually as a way of life. True, frustration and rejection were almost enough to bring this spirit to silence, and sometimes pride brought it to the brink of vanity. From the writing of the very first line, it has found no contentment as it was torn by one doubt after another. This windblown spirit considered the secularity of court life at one point: at another, it considered risking a display of its ignorance by becoming a scholar. But its passion for poetry would not permit either. Since it knows no other way than the way of poetry, it has clung to it tenaciously.
Saigyô in poetry, Sôgi in linked verse, Sesshû in painting, Rikyû in the tea ceremony—the spirit that moves them is one spirit. Achieving artistic excellence, each holds one attribute in common: each remains attuned to nature throughout the four seasons. Whatever is seen by such a heart and mind is a flower, whatever is dreamed is a moon. Only a barbarian mind could fail to see the flower; only an animal mind could fail to dream a moon. The first task for each artist is to overcome the barbarian or animal heart and mind, to become one with nature. " (53)
Translation excerpted from Almost Paradise: New and Selected Poems & Translations by Sam Hamill published by Shambhala press.
Saigyô in poetry, Sôgi in linked verse, Sesshû in painting, Rikyû in the tea ceremony—the spirit that moves them is one spirit. Achieving artistic excellence, each holds one attribute in common: each remains attuned to nature throughout the four seasons. Whatever is seen by such a heart and mind is a flower, whatever is dreamed is a moon. Only a barbarian mind could fail to see the flower; only an animal mind could fail to dream a moon. The first task for each artist is to overcome the barbarian or animal heart and mind, to become one with nature. " (53)
Translation excerpted from Almost Paradise: New and Selected Poems & Translations by Sam Hamill published by Shambhala press.
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Keys To Managing Postoperative Wound Infections
In a thorough review of the literature on surgical site infections, this author shares insights on key risk factors, discusses current concepts and controversies with preventative measures, and offers a salient overview on common pathogens.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that postoperative infections following elective, clean foot and ankle surgery are relatively uncommon. Indeed, a review of the recent literature from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows the surgical site infection (SSI) rate to be approximately 2.1 percent for these types of surgical procedures.1 However low the relative incidence may be for the development of postoperative infection following lower extremity surgery, the management of these types of complications can present a challenge to every surgeon. The presence of postoperative wound infections often delays the recovery of surgical patients and these complications commonly increase the length of stay in the inpatient setting.2,3
Furthermore, surgical site infections may produce long-lasting sequelae that can require additional medical and surgical management as well as further nursing care. This creates both a psychological drain on the patient as well as a financial drain on an already besieged healthcare system.4 Consequently, the effective diagnosis, management and ultimate prevention of surgical site infections are relevant to providing quality patient care in an ever evolving healthcare environment.
Various studies demonstrate that a reduction in surgical site infections is directly related to increased education (for the surgeon, the operating room team and the patient) and awareness of the causes and risk factors for the development of postoperative infections. A critical evaluation of infection control practices has furthermore shown a reduction in postoperative infection rate, particularly in those instances in which regular feedback is provided to the surgeon following surveillance for wound infection.1 It is important to note, however, that simple surveillance is not adequate to provide essential reductions in infection propagation. Action and prevention are key, and appropriate prevention of surgical site infection begins prior to the surgical encounter.
A Closer Look At Risk Factors For Surgical Site Infections
There are numerous risk factors that can predispose one to the development of surgical site infections. These risk factors have been validated and documented in the literature, and they combine to provide the relative risk for the development of postoperative infections. It is important for the surgeon to recognize the potential risk factors in his or her surgical patients, and subsequently initiate the chain of action that can attempt to prevent or at least minimize the potential for the development of surgical site infections.
These factors can be divided into essentially two categories, intrinsic and extrinsic factors. Intrinsic factors are those factors related to the patient and to the surgical procedure being performed. Patient-related risk factors include the patient's age, the presenting condition, the potential for concomitant disease, preexisting infection, tobacco usage, malnutrition, obesity and uncontrolled diabetes. These are all independent risk factors for developing a postoperative infection.5-7
Sorenson and colleagues found the optimal abstinence period required in heavy smokers to reduce the risk of surgical site infections was four weeks.8 Malnutrition lowers a host's defenses and compromises the immune system, thus predisposing the patient to infection and poor wound healing.9 Recognizing at-risk patients prior to surgery is essential to successful management of these complicated patients during the perioperative period.
As I noted above, the presence of diabetes is an independent risk factor for the development of surgical site infections. As the epidemic of diabetes increases, there has been increasing interest in various surgical techniques for the treatment of the diabetic foot. Armstrong and colleagues developed and later validated a diabetic foot surgery classification system designed to assist the surgeon in assessing risk when determining a rationale for foot and ankle surgery in this high-risk population.10,11 This system included class 1 (elective), class 2 (prophylactic), class 3 (curative) and class 4 (emergency) surgery. There is an increase in postoperative infection with each increasing class of foot surgery.11
There are risk factors associated with the procedures surgeons are performing as well. It is a reality that certain types of procedures are simply more prone to the development of surgical site infections. Infection rates increase in complicated reconstructive surgery, types of diabetic foot surgery, open fractures and traumatic wounds.12-16 Additional surgical procedure-related risk factors include poor surgical technique, the duration of operation, the use of drains (closed drain systems reportedly reduce the risk of surgical site infections), hematoma formation, excessive use of electrocautery and accidental cross contamination, commonly either from bowel or infected tissue.17 Furthermore, researchers have demonstrated that inappropriate antibiotic prophylaxis and inadequate skin prep prior to surgery increase the risk of the development of postoperative infection, especially in high-risk surgical patients, immunocompromised patients, those living with diabetes, and patients suffering from vascular disease.18,19
Extrinsic risk factors are those factors associated with the operating room, the operative equipment and all potential factors that are not directly related to the patient or the surgical procedure. The literature has demonstrated that these factors, in combination with intrinsic factors, can often contribute to the development of postoperative wound infections.20 These factors include the number of individuals in the operating room, inadequate sterilization/disinfection of surgical equipment, reuse of inadequately sterilized invasive devices, prolonged preoperative stay, inappropriate dressing techniques and the length of the surgical procedure. Prolonged surgical time increases the risk for surgical site infections and extended tourniquet time may cause tissue ischemia that enhances infection. With every hour of operating time, the infection rate doubles.21
What The Literature Reveals About Preventative Measures
It is said that an "ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This is especially the case with the development of surgical site infections. Researchers have shown that preventative measures significantly reduce the risk for the development of surgical site infections in numerous patient populations.22-28 Preventative measures, such as prophylactic antibiotics and the use of skin preparations prior to incision, are geared to address extrinsic risk factors, most commonly those risk factors associated with surgical procedure. One can also attempt to address intrinsic patient factors such as tobacco usage via smoking cessation modalities. In those patients with concomitant medical issues, a delay of elective surgery until the patient has greater medical management can further reduce the risk of surgical site infections.
While it is common to use antibiotic prophylaxis in foot and ankle surgery to reduce the incidence of surgical site infections, the use of antibiotics is controversial.22 Historically, surgeons have utilized antibiotic prophylaxis in four different scenarios: 1) when incorporating implantable devices (these implanted devices often lower the bacterial burden necessary to cause wound infection); 2) in cases of trauma or limb salvage; 3) in cases involving prolonged operating time (greater than two hours); and 4) in cases involving immunocompromised patients.22,23
Most would agree that the use of perioperative antibiotic therapy is indicated for dirty or contaminated wounds, and for those procedures known to carry a greater risk of the potential for the development of surgical site infections, including those procedures in which surgeons are utilizing hardware or implants.23
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) maintains evidence-based guidelines for antimicrobial prophylaxsis in surgery. There are regular updates to these guidelines, which can provide the clinician with vital information about the drug, dose and timing for effective perioperative reduction of surgical site infections.24
However, the use of prophylactic antibiotics remains a controversial issue in clean, elective foot and ankle surgery. Indeed, one must realize that the use of preoperative antibiotics may not always be necessary for ensuring successful outcomes. Surgeons should avoid the careless use of antibiotics. Current recommendations for regarding prophylactic antibiotic usage indicate that following appropriate antibiotic selection, the patient should receive the relevant antibiotic within 60 minutes of surgery and antibiosis should not be continued more than 24 hours following surgery.24
Surgeons may also deliver antibiotics locally with the use of antibiotic impregnated beads. Generally, the beads are infused with an aminoglycoside, such as gentamicin or vancomycin, because these agents are active against the most common pathogens and offer heat-stable properties.25 These beads deliver high levels of the antibiotic locally with little systemic uptake and systemic toxicity is not a concern. Many authors have advocated the benefits of antibiotic beads in foot and ankle surgery.26,29
In addition to the use of preoperative antibiotics and antibiotic beads intraoperatively, perioperative patient care has further evolved to reduce the risk of surgical site infections. Among these functions, preoperative preparation of the surgical area reportedly lowers the rate of postoperative infection.27-28 To prepare the skin, shaving is no longer recommended. When necessary, one can remove hair with clippers. Shaving leaves the skin with the potential for small lacerations, which can increase the risk of colonization and subsequent infection postoperatively.27
Researchers have also demonstrated that preoperative skin preparation reduces the incidence of surgical site infections.28 Physicians should ensure preoperative skin antisepsis for the patient in order to reduce the risk of postoperative infection. The operation site must be well disinfected before incision. Alcoholic solutions containing long-acting skin disinfectants, such as chlorhexidine or povidone iodine, are preferred in this application.28 The use of such disinfectants with greater than 40% alcohol content, however, increases the risk of burns to the patient during diathermy.30 Bibbo and colleagues demonstrated in a prospective randomized study that chlorhexidine and alcohol were superior to povidone iodine solution in foot and ankle surgery.31 One should apply the antiseptic with friction well beyond the operation site as part of the standard preparation prior to incision, and one should allow the area to dry before operating.
In conjunction with preparation of the surgical site, it is necessary that the surgeon prepare as well. The antiseptic utilized for the surgical scrub is also vitally important in the reduction of surgical site infections. Recent studies have shown that a scrub-less aqueous alcohol hand rub is as effective as povidone iodine and chlorhexidine gluconate scrub.32 A scrub-less technique may improve surgeon adherence and enhance the overall effectiveness of the surgeon's preoperative scrub. If the surgeon prefers a more traditional scrub, the scrub should last at least two minutes as this is the minimum time required for iodine to be effective.
Researchers have also identified operating room ventilation as a potential source for the development of surgical site infections. Therefore, in high-risk cases, such as cases involving implantation of total joints, laminar flow systems (airflow 0.5 m/s) that deliver about 300 air changes per hour can be helpful in maintaining positive pressure.33
What You Should Know About Common Pathogens In Surgical Site Infections
Common pathogens for surgical site infections vary somewhat based upon the nature of the procedure one is performing. In those instances of surgical site infections following clean orthopedic procedures, normal skin flora pathogens, such as Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus, are the most common offending organisms.19,34-36 Surgical site infections following other types of surgery can demonstrate more of a polymicrobial environment at the infection site. Virulence and pathogenicity are major factors in the development of infection. Different bacteria are known to be more or less invasive, and it is these properties that will make them more likely to be the underlying pathogen in a surgical site infection.
Furthermore, the emerging number of multidrug-resistant strains of bacteria has made the management of surgical site infections increasingly difficult, and the consequences for untreated or undertreated surgical site infections can be devastating. It is important that clinicians appropriately recognize those patients who are at-risk to potentially reduce the incidence of multi-drug resistant, infection-related morbidities. The risk factors for methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infections include recent previous hospitalization, nursing home residence, prior antibiotic usage and intravenous drug use.37,38 The most important risk factor, however, is a previous history of MRSA infection and one should obtain a thorough patient history as part of the preoperative workup to assess for potential MRSA risk factors.38
In Conclusion
Prevention of surgical site infections requires proper patient selection, meticulous surgical technique, a clean surgical environment, appropriate antibiotic prophylaxis (when indicated) and antisepsis at the surgical site. When surgical site infections occur, early and aggressive management is key.
Perioperatively, each surgeon must thoroughly evaluate his or her surgical patients, and identify those intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors that can predispose a patient to subsequent surgical infection. It is incumbent upon each member of the surgical team to practice appropriate hand hygiene in the perioperative setting, and it is the surgeon's responsibility to enforce strict sterile principles by the entire surgical staff. The literature is quite clear. The implementation of evidence-based practices during the perioperative phase reduces the risk of surgical site infections, lowers healthcare costs and, most importantly, improves patient outcomes that will save limbs and lives.
Dr. Fitzgerald is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine — Greenville in Greenville, S.C. He is also affiliated with the Center for Amputation Prevention with the Greenville Health System in Greenville, S.C. Dr. Fitzgerald is a Fellow of the American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons.
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2. Khan KI, Mahmood S, Akmal M, Wagas A. Comparison of rate of surgical wound infection, length of hospital stay and patient convenience in complicated appendicitis between primary closure and delayed primary closure. J Pak Med Assoc. 2012;62(6):596-8.
3. Taylor GD, Kirkland TA, McKenzie MM, Sutherland B, Wiens RM. The effect of surgical wound infection on postoperative hospital stay. Can J Surg. 1995; 38(2):149-53.
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10. Armstrong DG, Lavety LA, Frykberg RG, Wu SC, Boulton AJ. Validation of a diabetic foot surgery classification. Int Wound J. 2006;3(3):240-6.
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12. Gustilo RB, Anderson JT. Prevention of infection in the treatment of one thousand and twenty-five open fractures of long bones: retrospective and prospective analyses. J Bone Joint Surg Am. 1976;58(4):453-8.
13. Nichols RL. Preventing surgical site infections. Clin Med Res. 2004;2(2):115-8.
14. Dellinger EP. Preventing surgical-site infections: the importance of timing and glucose control. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2001;22(10):604-6.
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16. Beyea SC. Preventing surgical site infections--guiding practice with evidence. AORN J. 2000;72(2):305-7.
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21. Cruse PJ, Foord R. The epidemiology of wound infection. A 10-year prospective study of 62,939 wounds. Surg Clin North Am. 1980;60(1):27-40.
22. Zgonis T. Jolly GP, Garbalosa JC. The efficacy of prophylactic intravenous antibiotics in elective foot and ankle surgery. J Foot Ankle Surg. 2004;43(2):97-103.
23. Morita K, Smith KM. Antimicrobial prophylaxis in orthopedic surgery. Orthopedics. 2005;28(8):749-51.
24. Bratzler DW, Dellinger EP, Olsen KM, Perl TM, Auwaerter PG, Bolon MK. Clinical practice guidelines for antimicrobial prophylaxis in surgery. Surg Infect (Larchmt). 2013;14(1):73-156.
25. Trostle SS, Hendrickson DA, Stone WC, Klohnen AA. Use of antimicrobial-impregnated polymethyl methacrylate beads for treatment of chronic, refractory septic arthritis and osteomyelitis of the digit in a bull. J Am Vet Med Assoc. 1996; 208(3):404-7.
26. Ramanujam CL, Zgonis T. Antibiotic-loaded cement beads for Charcot ankle osteomyelitis. Foot Ankle Spec. 2010;3(5):274-7.
27. Tanner J, Norrie P, Melen K. Preoperative hair removal to reduce surgical site infection. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2011(11):CD004122.
28. Mimoz O. Chlorhexidine is better than aqueous povidone iodine as skin antiseptic for preventing surgical site infections. Infect Control Hosp Epidemiol. 2012;33(9):961-2.
29. Poi MJ, Pisimisis G, Barshes NR, Darouiche RO, Lin PH, Kougias P, et al. Evaluating effectiveness of antibiotic polymethylmethacrylate beads in achieving wound sterilization and graft preservation in patients with early and late vascular graft infections. Surgery. 2013;153(5):673-82.
30. Fennell MR. A multidisciplinary approach to intraoperative fire safety. AORN J. 1995;62(4):636-7.
31. Bibbo C, Patel DV, Gehrmann RM, Lin SS. Chlorhexidine provides superior skin decontamination in foot and ankle surgery: a prospective randomized study. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 2005;438:204-8.
32. Moralejo D, Jull A. Handrubbing with an aqueous alcohol solution was as effective as handscrubbing with an antiseptic soap for preventing surgical site infections. Evid Based Nurs. 2003;6(2):54-5.
33. Namba RS, Inacio MC, Paxton EW. Risk factors associated with surgical site infection in 30,491 primary total hip replacements. J Bone Joint Surg Br. 2012;94(10):1330-8.
34. Al-Momany NH, Al-Bakri AG, Makahleh ZM, Wazaify MM. Adherence to international antimicrobial prophylaxis guidelines in cardiac surgery: a Jordanian study demonstrates need for quality improvement. J Manag Care Pharm. 2009;15(3):262-71.
35. Bode LG, Kluytmans JA, Wertheim HF, Bogaers D, Vandenbroucke-Grauls CM, Rooseendaal R, et al. Preventing surgical-site infections in nasal carriers of Staphylococcus aureus. N Engl J Med. 2010;362(1):9-17.
36. Bratzler DW, Houck PM, et al. Antimicrobial prophylaxis for surgery: an advisory statement from the National Surgical Infection Prevention Project. Clin Infect Dis. 2004;38(12):1706-15.
37. Elward AM, McAndrews JM, Young VL. Methicillin-sensitive and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus: preventing surgical site infections following plastic surgery. Aesthet Surg J. 2009;29(3):232-44.
38. Eseonu KC, Middleton SD, Eseonu CC. A retrospective study of risk factors for poor outcomes in methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection in surgical patients. J Orthop Surg Res. 2011;6:25.


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If you're a lover of avocados then you'll appreciate learning (or being reminded) that cold water can help keep avocados from turning brown!
So whether you're making guacamole or just slicing up the delicious fruit to eat by itself, once you cut the avocado in half either immediately immerse it in ice cold water or run it under the faucet. This method keeps oxygen out and hence prevents that yucky browning that naturally occurs.


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These games teach valuable skills and have a high fun and educational rating.
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Zoodles 11.8.7 Copyright (c) 2014 Inquisitive Minds, Inc. All rights reserved.


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