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What is the difference between the Sans Rival by Star Reyes versus other sans rivals out there?
Personally, I didn't notice any difference. Most of the people in the Ultimate Taste Test liked it and it got a rating of 3.6 out of 5.0. It was a bit too sweet and the tasting portions were a bit too big for people to enjoy. The most important thing, my wife (who is a sans rival-monster) loves both the Sans Rival and Silvannas.
What is the difference between a Sans Rival and a Silvanna?
Sans rival is made from meringue, butter cream and lots of cashews. Silvannas are made using the same cream and meringue but in an oblong shape and with a softer cake texture. Star Reyes' Silvannas use crushed pound cake and less cashew than the Sans Rival. Different suppliers usually have their own way of creating the meringue and cream based on their own well-guarded recipes.
Star Reyes' Sansrival Story
by Ina Reyes
While my family was temporarily living in Iligan in the early 70's, my mom decided to learn baking along with a few of her friends. When my mom started baking for the family and friends back in 1973 or 74 (I wasn't born yet at that time), the Sans Rival became the instant favorite. And so my mom continued making it and then also tweaked some recipe details until she got the taste just right. Since then, the Sans Rival was a staple figure in every family occasion, as well as for neighborhood and office events.
By the late 70's, my family moved back to Manila. Since my parents were in the banking and finance industry, a lot of their clients and colleagues knew about the Sans Rival and they would all order from my mom. I was already born at that time and so I would remember whenever my dad or mom would celebrate their birthdays in their offices, a lot of people would come and ask for Sans Rival. Actually whenever someone celebrated a birthday in my family, we would always have it as the birthday cake. And so when I was young, I used to think that sans rival was THE ONLY birthday cake.
Office Christmas parties always consisted of several boxes of Sans Rival. Christmas season would always be the busiest time since we got a lot of orders. Before, only my mom and her 2 helpers would make the orders and they would literally bake until the next morning just to finish all the orders. I also remember when I was a kid, whenever my mom and her helpers made Sans Rival, I often consumed the rejects or the "retazos" and I absolutely loved it! And so as time went by, the same people continued to order from us, and then more people came to know about it and also ordered from us, and the list just goes on and on until today.
We remain a small time Sans Rival-maker. We're not really bakers, though we experiment on some cooking and baking at home sometimes. My mom just happened to stumble upon a good recipe for Sans Rival and made it her own. We've managed to use all premium ingredients and no substitutes to maintain the quality. It's nothing really fancy, but we'd like to maintain a homey kind of taste and feel to it. In one of my mom's baking experiments, she came up with her own recipe of the Silvannas, which is quite similar to Sans Rival, and it also became a favorite. And so aside from the Sans Rival, we now also accept orders for Silvannas by the dozen.
We are very grateful that a lot of our old customers and also the new ones have remained loyal and continue to order from us, especially during Christmas season. My mom, Star Reyes, has retired from the banking industry a long time ago and has been living overseas for quite some time now but the old customers still remember her because of the Sans Rival. She has passed on the recipe to me and to my sister-in-law to continue her tradition. We are planning to diversify and add more desserts to our short list soon and hopefully people will also appreciate them. We have been keeping operations low-key at our Mandaluyong home, but we intend to grow and venture into bigger things in the near future.
Sans Rival by Star Reyes
Sans Rival
Whole (7×10) – P700
Half (7×5) – P400
1 dozen – P300
1/2 dozen – P170
Ina Reyes
Contact: +63 9165387598 / +632-5006807
Website: SansrivalByStar.multiply.com
Live an Awesome Life,
Text and Photos by Anton Diaz. Copyright 2009.
blog: www.OurAwesomePlanet.com
prof. blog: AntonDiaz.com
mobile: +63917-LOVEOAP (5683627)
email: email@example.com


text:
Intalock is Australia's leading provider of cyber security managed services. We pride ourselves on being uniquely different, we not only deliver world class cyber security managed services, we have a wealth of experience in understanding data, the lifeblood of any organisation. As a Cyber Security industry, we think that good security is building higher walls around our companies taking a lot of time, money and resources which isn't effective or sustainable. At Intalock we take a different approach, we want to understand your data, it's sensitivity, how you use, store and share it, actually we want to understand everything about it. By doing this we help our client by building and managing innovative solutions to reduce their risk by taking a strategic data centric approach to cyber security.
With presence in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Manila we work with medium to large enterprises across the Asia Pacific region. Our aim is to help our clients grow their businesses without the need to compromise on security.
Our team's collective experience was gained within operational and leadership roles in Cyber Security across a diversity of industries which has ensured a broad and deep level of knowledge and experience. Our consultants have unsurpassed expertise and capability in the areas of Offensive Security, Governance and Risk Consulting and operationalising security technologies. As a client-centric business, we pride ourselves on taking the time to understand and get to know our clients' business as if it were our own and build long term relationships that are based on mutual trust, respect and willingness to work together to achieve positive outcomes and measurable results. That's why global financial institutions, Australia's largest healthcare providers and some of the world's biggest mining companies trust us to protect and manage their information.

subset: commoncrawl


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1. You will receive an email stating that your order has been Shipped and Completed. Note, for security issue, the link to download the eBook will NOT be in the email.
2. Instead, you need to login your customer account and access to My orders page, click View on the Order.
3. Click Download to download.
3. Alternatively, you can go directly to https://www.canaanland.com.my/account-download for quick access of your downloadable items.


text: The Russound P125 is a 2-channel dual source power amplifier with auto-source switching. It features Primary and Secondary audio line inputs with a loop out to another zone, receiver, or device from the secondary source. A speaker-level input can be connected and assigned as either the primary or secondary source. This amplifier can be used for power upgrades in zones for large speaker selector or volume control systems.


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If you like seafood, you'll love Busan!
Seafood has been an important staple food in Korea for thousands of years. Food culture is one of the most important and strongest part of this country, as we know. I grew up near a traditional market (we used to call it just 'market' back then), so it was normal to see animal guts, fish intestine, sesame seed oil maker, Chinese herbal potion brewer and some more bizarre shops in daily bases. Still I am quite fond of these kind of markets with fresh goods rather than supermarkets.
It was good to see a lot of markets are still alive in Busan, not just for tourism reasons. That's living. I feel alive among the fresh products, without vinyl covers and barcodes. I've seen all sorts of seafood while I was growing up, and trained (by my grandmother and my mom) to recognize how fresh they are. The quality of products in Busan is top notch, I can surely say. Some are better than others. The variety is amazing. It surprises me every time I come down here.
Only two days I spent in Busan, but I ran into a few markets during the time. Here are the amazing seafood scene from Busan. The products here are very commonly seen in everywhere in Korea, in markets and dining tables. I've miss this. This scene, and the food.
Jogi – croaker that is native in West and East Sea of Korea


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Blind woman Gisele Mesnage sues Coles over online shopping website
Gisele Mesnage's vision impairment has not prevented her from travelling, completing a university degree or writing a play but buying groceries online is a different story.
Ms Mesnage, who has been blind since birth, has launched a landmark claim against Coles with her legal team alleging the supermarket giant has discriminated against her because of her disability.
Her issue with Coles dates back to 2008, when she first registered for online shopping. The Ashfield woman uses a screen reader, which converts text to speech, and believed online shopping would be a quick and convenient alternative to going to the supermarket.
"For me, online shopping is a revolution," she said. "Not only do I want to be part of it, I need to be part of it. It's about independence." Sydney Morning Herald – Read more…


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Local artists Low and Dosh will play together when the Turf Club throws
its benefit for Barack Obama at 9 pm on Wednesday, August 27th.
Conceived as an effort to get Minnesotans passionate about the upcoming
election and to bring light to Sen. Obama's ongoing campaign, the event
promises appearances from more local acts and DJs as liberal-minded
Minnesotans get together to celebrate the presumptive nominee.
The Turf Club is located at 1601 University Avenue in St. Paul. For more information, call (651) 647-0486 or visit www.turfclub.net.


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Progressive muscular relaxation technique is a very effective for stress management method.
Progressive Muscular Relaxation (PMR) is useful for relaxing your body when your muscles are tense. Deep muscle relaxation reduces the muscle tension as well as general mental anxiety. This technique is effective for stress-related health problems. People often get sound sleep during or after practicing this relaxation technique.
Object:To tense and relax each muscle group.
Clothing: loose clothing.
Place & Position: a quite place where you can lie down on your back and stretch out comfortably. You can use a carpeted floor or a mat on the floor.
The Technique
- Tense up a group of muscles so that they are as tightly contracted as possible (hard but not to the point of cramping) for 5 to 10 seconds. Be sure you continue to breathe. Then release for 10 to 20 seconds and relax, i.e. exhale slowly. Relax (exhale) the muscles further for a few seconds so that you are as relaxed as possible. You should feel deep relaxation in your muscles.
- Repeat with other muscle groups.
How to Tense Muscle Groups
You can start with the muscles on your feet and gradually go to your face muscles.
Lower Legs: Point your toes towards your face, away and curl them downwards.
Upper Legs: Point your feet up, down, left and right.
Thighs: Clench them.
Hips and buttocks: Press the buttocks to gather tightly.
Stomach: Suck the stomach into a tight knot.
Chest: Take deep breath, hold and then exhale.
Shoulders: Shrug them.
Hands: Clench them.
Wrists and forearms: Bend hands back at the wrist.
Wrists and upper arms: Clench hands into fists, bend your arms at the elbows.
Beck: Arch back up form the floor.
Beck of the neck: Press head back.
Front of the neck: Touch chin to chest.
Cheeks and Jaws: Grin from ear to ear.
Around the eyes and nose: Close your eyes as tightly as possible.
Around the mouth: Press lips together tightly.
Forehead: Wrinkle it.
Note: For maximum relaxation you can use PMR technique with breathing techniques and/or imagery. You can do it by breathing in deeply while stressing the muscle group and exhaling while releasing the muscles.
Stress & Meditation - Relaxation Topics
Meditation and relaxation
Progressive muscular relaxation (PMR) technique
Normal Blood pressure


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The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) is an independent body that provides support to Scottish courts and devolved tribunals in Scotland. The SCTS has a large property portfolio made up of over 70 sites, of which over 83% are listed buildings. The sites range in age, function and size and include Europe's largest and busiest court in Glasgow, as well as smaller rural areas in locations such as Fort William and Selkirk.
Building a foundation
Servest Arthur McKay was introduced to SCTS in 2008, initially working as a sub-contractor to provide planned preventative maintenance (PPM) and reactive mechanical and electrical (M&E) works to its outer circle sites. In 2009, the sub-contractor work expanded to cover the whole estate, allowing Servest Arthur McKay to prove its capabilities in these hard-service areas. The addition of these sites, where the type of the work is of a sensitive nature, was the start of a trusting relationship between the organisations.
An opportunity to expand
In 2011, SCTS was looking for a company that could take on the management of all its facilities, including M&E, cleaning, waste management, security, energy management, landscaping and project work. Having built an understanding of how SCTS worked during its time as a sub-contractor, Servest Arthur McKay put in a competitive tender that clearly set out how the two organisations could work in partnership. Based on the proficiency of the services already provided and the efficiencies proposed in the tender, Servest Arthur McKay was awarded the total facilitates management contract in 2011.
Making efficiencies through operational initiatives
From the very start, Servest Arthur McKay was keen to use its expertise of the public sector to implement a number of operational initiatives to make efficiencies that would benefit SCTS.
The team implemented bespoke pro-active maintenance regimes to reduce the risks of unforeseen issues and increase the building's availability. This involved weekly site visits and check sheets to pick up faults at an early stage. The success of this is seen in the change of maintenance activities, which went from 80% reactive and 20% planned at the start of the contract to 30% reactive and 70% planned after only a few months. This enabled resources to be used more efficiently, allowing for advanced planning of works and reduced travel times, ultimately leading to cost savings.
Servest Arthur McKay made changes to the structure of the contract, adapting the way the teams were organised to align with the regional split of SCTS's estate. Regional managers, responsible for each area, were appointed so there were clear lines of communication, which dramatically improved the reporting on any issues and therefore their resolutions.
Training to ensure an exceptional level of service
Through a number of training programmes, the Servest Arthur McKay team members have made further efficiencies across the SCTS estate, which have been financially beneficial for the organisation.
Servest Arthur McKay implemented an enhanced training programme to upskill the site-based engineering team to increase the self-delivery of hard-services. This led to improved control, regulated costs and increased efficiencies of the services.
After the first year of the contract, Servest Arthur McKay moved to a self-delivered cleaning service. This enabled the team to work better together as one cohesive team that led to improved cleaning standards. It also made significant efficiencies, making the move both financially and operationally beneficial.
To further enhance the effectiveness of self-delivery, training for the in-house team was provided, upskilling them to be multi-skilled operatives. Covering a number of areas, the training has allowed the team to be flexible and adaptable to the needs of the sites, making the delivery of services even more cost-effective.
Sophisticated energy management
Servest Arthur McKay's commitment to sustainability enabled SCTS to meet its ambitious 5% year-on-year carbon reduction target. This was largely achieved through the implementation of a sophisticated energy management system, which uses next-generation technology to remotely monitor and target energy consumption reduction. It was also coupled with logical initiatives to help reduce energy consumption, these included; boiler upgrades and heating controls improvements; the introduction of solar photovoltaic PV panels; window replacement and secondary glazing; waste management surveys and the introduction of more recycling bins; energy and water efficient appliances and water recycling.
The efficiency of the system and the dedication of Servest Arthur McKay's energy management team led to targets being exceeded, with a significant CO2 reduction of 30%, a 24.9% reduction in water usage and a 10.7% waste reduction. These significant cuts have helped SCTS in achieving the prestigious Carbon Trust Triple Standard award.
Plans for the further initiatives and collaboration
Having worked closely with SCTS since 2011, Servest Arthur McKay has made a number of cost-saving and operational efficiencies, whilst raising service standards. Servest Arthur McKay will continue to work with SCTS to ensure a consistent service delivery, extending existing initiatives and introducing new technological innovations to support SCTS's achievement of its strategic objectives.
The focus continues to be on the achievement of energy efficiencies, with revised CO2 targets in place and plans to roll out 'Green Rewards' as a colleague engagement programme. Servest Arthur McKay is set to reinforce the collaborative working relationship with SCTS, as the teams work towards gaining the BS 11000 Standard, a partnership award that recognises this type of collaboration.


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The nearly two year saga following Wanderlei Silva evading a drug test in 2014 has finally come to an end with the former UFC fighter receiving a three-year suspension from the Nevada State Athletic Commission on Wednesday.
Silva faced the penalty after he fled his own gym in May 2014 when drug testing collectors showed up for an unannounced visit and required a sample ahead of his scheduled matchup against Chael Sonnen in the UFC.
Silva later admitted to taking a banned diuretic that would have surely resulted in a positive test, but the commission treated the infraction as the worst penalty possible considering he actually avoiding the drug test all together and fled the scene.
So Silva was hammered with an unprecedented lifetime ban by the state of Nevada for his actions, but following an appeal from the veteran fighter, a judge overturned the decision saying that the governing body had overstepped their bounds with the suspension and ordered that he be given another hearing and a new penalty.
Delay after delay kept pushing Silva's case back but finally on Wednesday the commission dealt with the case while the Brazilian was represented by attorney Ross Goodman.
The argument in Silva's defense had remained the same the entire time that because he wasn't a licensed fighter in the state of Nevada when the test was going to be administered, he shouldn't be subjected to their penalties.
The commissioners flat out denied that motion before deliberating on a new suspension for the former UFC light heavyweight and middleweight contender.
While a four-year suspension was floated, commissioners ultimately decided on a three-year ban for Silva that would be retroactive to May 2014 at the time of the original test.
Silva will be eligible to re-apply for a license in the state in May 2017 while also being required to provided a clean drug test at the time he would attempt to fight in Nevada again.
The commission did retract the $70,000 fine levied on Silva after deliberation considering that he never actually fought Sonnen in the UFC, thus didn't receive any compensation for the contest.
Silva was just recently released from the UFC after coming to an agreement with the promotion following a career that lasted for nine fights over six years before he was originally suspended in 2014 for skipping out on the drug test.
At 39, it's hard to say where Silva goes from here but there's still a possibility he pursues a fight in a country like Japan, where he spent the majority of his career, because the Nevada commission ruling only applies to athletic commissions who also abide by those suspensions. Japan has no such athletic commission and thus if a promotion wanted to put Silva into a fight, he could technically compete again sooner than 2017.


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Ready to serve Homecooked
Pork HC Meal - Ready to Serve
Deliverable only in Chennai.
E-mail email@example.com for deliveries in South and Central India.
Our Homecooked Meals are made with only the finest ingredients, freshly sourced from the farms and cooked in small batches by hand.
Please allow up to 21 days for delivery
Product Details
Use it as complete nutrition or mix with other foods! Convenient, completely balanced and honest!
Pork lean Meat (60%)
Pork Liver, Heart, Lung (20%)
Shellfish Mineral (equivalent to 10%)
Pumpkin (10%)
Portioned into 500 grams, frozen.
Feed up to 3% of ideal Bodyweigth daily for complete nutrition.
5 KG - 125bgrams a day
10 KG - 250 grams a day
15 KG - 400 grams a day
25 KG -650 grams a day
Rotate your Protein!
Introduce slowly!
We are lead by a powerful dedication to nature and including as many natural elements into our lives as possible. That means caring for all animals - which is why we only source from local farms where we know nature is allowed to be the boss. We know what we are doing - constantly setting new standards by constantly furthering expertise in studies as well as daily practice with Street Dogs and Cats as well as professional consulting. We are honest about everything we do, in fact we want you to ask us questions because we are proud of our quality, processes and knowledge. At Canine India you can trust .
Our Food stays well as long as it is kept safely away from moisture - store in a dry place at room temperature or in the fridge / freezer.
Store Chews between Chewing Sessions wrapped in a cloth in a dry place.


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Chemicals called phthalates, banned from children's teething rings and rubber duck toys over a decade ago, have just been found in high concentrations in your kid's favorite meal: macaroni and cheese mixes made with powdered cheese (even some that were labeled organic!).
Phthalates are known disruptors of hormones and they have been linked to birth defects and learning and behavior problems in older children. Based upon the staggering amount of data, most scientists agree that phthalates are on the list of endocrine-disrupting chemicals that they are most concerned about.
How did these nasty chemicals get into the millions of boxes that are sold annually? Well, two ways really… One, they are thought to migrate into the food via the packaging (printed labels or plastic in the packaging) and the equipment used in their manufacturing (plastic tubing, conveyor belts, gaskets).
And two, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has NEVER banned phthalates from food even though they KNEW via a 2014 report to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, that the main source of exposure was not from toys but from foods, drugs and beverages!
The study of 30 cheese products found phthalates in over 97% of the samples with the highest concentrations (not surprisingly) in the most highly processed products–the boxed mac and cheese products that contain cheese powder.
Eleven environmental and food safety groups have petitioned the FDA asked them to require that phthalates be banned from all food and its' packaging and from any equipment related to processing food and its manufacturing equipment. The latest information from Tom Neltner, chemicals policy director for the Environmental Defense Fund (the EDF is the organizer of the petition), is that the petition has been delayed temporarily for "technical" reasons.
It seems that once again, our governmental agencies are protecting companies and their profits before protecting our people.
Watch this report from CBS News on this serious concern (the reporting on mac and cheese starts at 0.50 seconds):
What can you do about this? Please consider signing the petition at #KleanUpKraft.org! And, despite the convenience, for now, it probably best to make your own mac and cheese from scratch at home.


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Solvents and reagents for specimen preparation
Most of these products can only be dispatched to a UK address because of carrier safety regulations.
Acid Alcohol 1%
Formalin 5%
250 mls
Formal Acetic Alcohol
Iso Propyl Alcohol
500 mls
Insect Killing Fluid
30 mls
10% Sodium Hydroxide
10% Acetic Acid
Brunseal Clear
Brunseal Zinc White
Brunseal Black
Brunseal Gold
Brunel Microscopes Ltd
Registered in U.K. (England) No: 2060047
find us on youtube, facebook and twitter
250 mls of 1% Acid Alcohol, used as a differentiator for Haematoxylin - and other uses. UK only.
Price £6.67 + vat
250 mls of 5% Formalin, the fixative of choice for zoological materials and a good general fixative. UK only.
250 mls of Formal Acetic Alcohol, an ideal fixative for botanical materials. UK only.
Price £8.33 + vat
250 mls of Glycerine, used to soften tissues and insect parts in particular. UK only.
Price £20.00 + vat
A can of 500 mls of Iso Propyl Alcohol, used for dehydrating all materials prior to mounting or wax embedding. As effective as E thyl Alcohol - but without the Customs regulations! UK only.
Price £11.67 + vat
An effective general purpose insect killing fluid. UK only.
Price £3.00 + vat
A can of 500 mls of Toluene, a general clearing agent prior to mounting with Canada Balsam Substitute or Paraffin Wax embedding. The recommended alternative to Xylene. UK only.
10% sodium hydroxide used for tissue maceration particularly for whole insect preparations. UK only.
10% Acetic Acid used as a mild decalcifying solution for insect specimens. UK only.
15 mls of clear ringing cement. Ideal for glycerine jelly and aqueous mounts. Immersion oil resistant.
15 mls of Zinc White ringing cement, for decorative slide ringing.
15 mls of satin black ringing cement, suitable for dry mounts, glycerine jelly and aqueous mounts. Dries very hard.
15 mls of gold ringing cement. Gives a thick gold finish that dries hard. Ideal for decorative preparations, particularly when used as a top ring for a black base.
Price £3.00+ vat
Used as a safe substitute clearing agent for Xylene which is now thought to be carcinogenic and therefore not available. UK only.
Price £7.50 + vat
Universal Accessories
Microscope Cases
Slide Preparation and Kits
Dissecting Equipment
Slides and Mountants
Staining Powder and Solutions
Prepared Slides
Slide Storage
Paraffin Wax
100 grams
56 degree melting point paraffin wax for tissue embedding.
Price £2.00 + vat
Parasite Flotation Fluid
1 litre
1 litre of replacement flotation fluid for the Bird Parasite identification kit.
Price £5.83 + vat


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Combating Loneliness - Encouragement for Today - December 20, 2013
- Sign Up for Email?
- Published Dec 16, 2013
December 20, 2013
Combating Loneliness
"My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted." Psalm 25:15-16 (ESV)
Don't look his way, her heart and mind insist.
She doesn't want to look. Then again, she does. Though my friend did not check the "Plus One" box on her RSVP card, she wishes she had. Why had she come to this party alone? Maybe then she wouldn't gravitate to him.
He's reckless and destructive. My friend knows better, but he's the only one who can relate to her. Even so, she avoids eye contact, hoping to make him believe she doesn't need him anymore.
She succeeds until another round of laughter fills the Christmas party. Her resolve walks out as he walks up to her, extending a knowing hand. Fingers entwined, she falls in his snare. She can't stand him ... this companion called loneliness.
In the midst of listening to marriage, baby, vacation, life-is-grand stories, she hears the voice of loneliness, high above the conversations: You'll never have this. You'll be lonely forever.
She had promised herself she wouldn't turn her eyes to him this time. As she was getting ready for the party, she put this truth on: "My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted." (Psalm 25:15-16 ESV)
But she forgot this hopeful promise as she fell into the trap of loneliness.
By the time the clock chimed an acceptable hour to bid her goodbyes, she was eager to be gone. One step out the door and she lowered her guard too soon. Loneliness had saved his best for last. Powerfully, he pummeled lies until she believed: You will always be lonely.
When he trotted off, leaving her alone, a different hand reached down. One that is gentle and healing. Let me help you up. Rough night, huh?
She looked up to see His scarred hand extended.
How'd You know I was here?
He tells her He's been there the whole time, always near, at the ready to rescue any time she looked to Him for help. As she faced Him, He began to untangle the false claims of loneliness with truth: I am near (Psalm 145:18). I will never leave (Deuteronomy 31:6). I am your joy (Psalm 16:11).
Hollow parts of her heart filled with the confidence of Jesus. She knew it was time to break-up with loneliness for good. Not just at parties, during holidays, or weekends with nothing planned.
Maybe it's your time too? Truth is, loneliness can tag along whether you are alone or surrounded by family and friends, on special days and ordinary days.
There's only one way to keep loneliness from being a constant companion in life. It is to make sure our "... eyes are ever toward the LORD ..." Psalm 25:15a (ESV).
Let's keep our focus on God and call out to Him when we feel loneliness setting a trap for us: in the festive times, in the quiet times, at all times.
Dear Lord, my eyes are ever toward You, for only You will release my feet from the trap of loneliness. Will You please turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted? Thank You for being near and being my joy. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Related Resources:
Do You Know Jesus?
Encouragement for Today: Devotionals for Everyday Living is a great way to connect daily with the Lord.
Visit Samantha Evilsizer's blog for verses to print out and pray to combat loneliness.
Reflect and Respond:
Christmas can be a time when loneliness is overwhelming. If you struggle with this, what can you do to combat loneliness?
Choose a Bible verse to memorize that you will use to fight loneliness. Write it on a piece of paper or make it your phone/computer screen saver as a constant reminder of the nearness of Jesus.
Power Verses:
Deuteronomy 31:8, "It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed." (ESV)
Lamentations 3:22-26, "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.' The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD." (NIV 1984)
© 2013 by Samantha Evilsizer. All rights reserved.
Proverbs 31 Ministries
630 Team Rd., Suite 100
Matthews, NC 28105


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Wading River native launches eco-friendly product line
Growing up in Wading River, Jessica Leale remembers walking along the beaches with her family and taking in the natural beauty of her hamlet.
Now living in Robbinsville, N.J. with her husband and three children, the Shoreham-Wading River graduate has launched an eco-friendly product line she says is much inspired by the community she grew up in.
Her line – are you? — offers an array of gift items: jewelry, clothing, candles and note cards, each created with sustainable and environmentally-friendly materials.
She developed a heightened sense of awareness of the waste her family was producing, she said, while raising three small children.
"I saw thousands of diapers go into the garbage, plastic toys being thrown out," said Ms. Leale, 38. "I wanted to be more eco-friendly."
Ms. Leale, who worked in the finance industry for 15 years and now works part-time for an investment company, spent the last two years planning and developing her "eco-gift" company. In early March, her products became available at areyoudesigns.com and in a boutique in Princeton, N.J. She's also looking into selling her gifts in stores in the Hamptons.
Each item is labeled with an inspiration question. "Are you following your dreams?" is printed on a soy wax candle, which emits less smoke and toxins than other candles poured with paraffin wax.
Ms. Leale said the way her products were made, with sustainability in mind, tie into the motivational messages printed on them.
"If you're trying to do good, you might as well do good all around and use natural resources," she said.
Her notecards, made from organic cotton fibers are tree-free.
Are you? necklaces, bracelets and keychains are made with a recycled form of silver. Ms. Leale purchases silver through a company that melts and refines unusable silver, instead of one that mines for silver, a process that can pollute water and wildlife.
The t-shirts, which come in different shades of gray, are made with organic cotton and a mixture of recycled polyester and traditional fibers. The shirts are sewn together on vintage sewing machines, Ms. Leale said. And all items can be giftwrapped in recycled craft paper and tied with organic jute twine instead of ribbon.
Ms. Leale, who has no previous experience in retail, said she runs the small business by herself, managing the marketing, accounting and design, but solicits help from her 8-year-old, Jack, who comes up with the copy.
She said she hopes the messages on her products become a source of positive energy for her customers.
"Sometimes you go about your day and moan about it, and these gifts are little reminders," she said. "Are you taking chances? Are you making memories? It's a short life. I think people should be reminded to make the best of it."


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Story highlights
US dietary guidelines recommend children consume less than 10% of daily calories from added sugars
Experts suggest that kids be allowed one sweet treat per day and learn to self-regulate sugar
A lollipop after a morning doctor visit. A cupcake for a classmate's birthday with lunch. A bag of cookies, gummies or a few little doughuts before after-school activities begin.
And dessert is still a few hours away.
Even the word "snack" – once thought of as a healthy, energizing source of calories for children – can seem like a euphemism for an IV sugar solution these days.
US dietary guidelines recommend consuming less than 10% of daily calories from added sugars. On a 1,500-calorie diet, a level appropriate for moderately active 4- to 8-year-olds, just less than 10% would be about 33 grams of added sugars per day.
In August, the American Heart Association issued stricter sugar recommendations designed to keep kids healthy, stating that children should consume less than 6 teaspoons – or 24 grams – of added sugars per day. It also recommended that children and teens should limit their intake of sugar-sweetened drinks to no more than 8 ounces per week.
Research suggests that babies are naturally inclined to crave sugar as soon as they exit the womb. It's not a preference at this very early stage but rather a biological reality. To complicate matters, consuming sugar causes kids to crave even more of the sweet stuff.
"Sugar, packed in items like sugar-sweetened beverages and snacks, consumed consistently over many years can promote excess weight gain – especially through the overproduction of insulin, which clears the blood of sugar (storing the calories as fat), and this leaves a child wanting more and more sugar," said Kathy Isoldi, a registered dietitian nutritionist and associate professor of nutrition at Long Island University, Post, who conducts research aimed at reducing childhood obesity prevalence.
It's no wonder it can seem nearly impossible to curb our kids' intake when you take into account not only cake and soda but such foods as sweetened yogurt and breakfast cereal.
The health effects of sugar
The negative health effects of consuming too much sugar can appear well before adulthood and are not just limited to weight gain and obesity. In fact, you probably wouldn't serve your child beer or wine, but according to one researcher, too much sugar could have some similar effects.
"Sugar (specifically fructose) is metabolized in the liver just like alcohol," said Dr. Robert Lustig, a professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. "This is why children are getting the diseases of alcohol, like type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease, without the alcohol. These are diseases that were unheard-of in children prior to 1980."
According to the CDC's 2014 diabetes report card (PDF), more than 5,000 new cases of type 2 diabetes are estimated to be diagnosed among Americans younger than age 20 each year.
There's also been an increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome in adolescents; that's a cluster of conditions, including increased blood pressure and excess fat around the waist, that can increase diabetes and heart disease risk. Lustig's recent research, published in the Public Health Nutrition journal, found that it wasn't the fault of the pounds that sugar packs on to young people; it was another result of excess sugar.
"Sugar doesn't cause disease just because of its calories. Sugar causes disease because it's sugar," Lustig said. "Thin people get metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes, too. Obesity increases the risk, but sugar is an independent risk factor apart from calories or obesity."
Sweet suggestions
So what can parents do to keep sugar from overtaking their kids' diets? Here are a few suggestions from experts.
Don't deprive your kids of sweets.
Despite the consequences, health professionals agree that parents shouldn't deprive their child of sweets.
"Sugar is not a 'toxin' that must be excluded from a child's diet," Isoldi said. "Often, children who have sweets restricted and feel deprived will not learn how to regulate sweets. Instead, they often overindulge whenever the possibility is presented.
"The key is to help children find a balance with food, helping them learn how to enjoy healthy foods and enjoy (and self-regulate) treats."
Even Lustig agrees. "I'm for dessert – for dessert. I'm not for dessert for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks," he said.
Allow children one sweet treat or dessert per day.
Good choices include animal crackers, vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. However, if kids are set on having chocolate chip cookies, this should not create a "food fight," Isoldi said. And – deep breath – don't restrict portions, even if it makes you anxious to watch.
"Parents should let their little one decide on the amount to eat, because only allowing one or two cookies will create a restrictive environment that is counterproductive." That doesn't mean that you have to offer the whole box, however. You can start by giving your child two cookies, but instead of saying, "You may have ONLY two cookies, do you hear me?" you can instead say, "Here are two cookies. Oh, you want three? Sure." The idea is that your child should be able to learn his or her own internal satiety cues, which can ultimately help prevent eating issues later in life.
Keep fruit drinks, soda and sugary beverages out of the house.
"There's no nutritional benefit to drinking sugar-sweetened beverages," Isoldi said. And although liquid calories can still add up, you don't feel as full as you would from solid foods. The result? People who drink sugary beverages don't necessarily cut back on their calorie intake to compensate.
For an alternative to soda, dilute 4 ounces unsweetened juice with 4 ounces seltzer water and flavor with lemon, lime or other fresh fruit.
Watch out for sugars in foods that you don't think of as sweet.
Keep an eye on breads, sauces and condiments by searching ingredient lists for names such as high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, glucose, sucrose or other words ending in "ose," evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup, malt syrup and molasses. Food packages will soon list "added sugars" as a separate line on nutrition labels, so the amount of these sugars will no longer be "hidden."
Remember, even natural sugar is sugar.
Many people think that "natural" sugars like honey and agave are healthier than ones that are more highly processed, like sucrose or table sugar. But when you look closely, you see that all of these sugars contain fructose and glucose. And while honey may offer some antioxidants, you would probably have to consume a lot of honey calories in order to experience any health benefits. Honey and agave are actually sweeter than table sugar and contain more calories: One teaspoon of sucrose has 16 calories, while 1 teaspoon of agave or honey has 21 calories.
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This doesn't mean foods containing natural sugars aren't healthy. But how these natural sugars are packaged matters.
A piece of whole fruit like an apple contains naturally occurring fructose, but it also delivers 4.4 grams of fiber, thanks to the peel and pulp. Apple juice, on the other hand, lacks fiber and is a more concentrated source of sugar and calories. This translates to a more rapid rise in blood sugar when you drink juice – and may even help explain why eating whole fruit, including apples, has been associated with decreased risk for type 2 diabetes, while greater consumption of fruit juices has been associated with a higher risk, according to a Harvard study published in 2013.
Lisa Drayer is a nutritionist, author and health journalist.


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The fast-rising, female singer-songwriter who picked up nominations for both the Brits Critics Choice and BBC Sound Of 2016 shortlists
Name: Sophie Frances Cooke
Age: 23
Location: London and Newbury, UK
Style: Piano-driven pop anthems that manage to sound somewhere between Carole King and Coldplay
Look out for: Frances' latest single Say It Again out now and her debut album coming very soon
In less than 12 months, Sophie Frances Cooke has solidified herself as one of 2016's fastest rising stars, winning critical acclaim across the board, sweeping nominations for both the esteemed Brits Critics Choice and BBC Sound of 2016 Poll. But her story began as a child growing up in Berkshire, learning the piano and violin, and encouraged by her father to learn to play his favourite Britpop albums.
"He used to a lot of indie music like Coldplay, Radiohead and Keane, and then some other stuff like Beck," recalls Frances. "But I was always drawn to more piano-based stuff that he was listening to, so when I could play well enough he bought me the songbooks, like [Coldplay albums] Parachutes and Rush Of Blood To The Head, and the first couple of Keane albums. But he didn't know anything about music, so the first one he bought me was a guitar one! I was just learning it all on piano – I just loved the way they voicing their piano parts and it really inspired me, I think. And so I started experimenting with chords myself."
As the experimentation continued and she finished school, Frances went on take a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts and the idea of becoming a singer-songwriter flourished. "I went through a stage of wanting to be a backing vocalist, because that sounded fun and I love writing harmonies. So I went through different things and then sat down one day, just sat playing the piano, singing and writing something, and I was like, 'Ah, this is how I write songs all the time, so why can't I just perform like this? Why can't this just be the thing that I do?'"
Then, in the last year of her course at LIPA – while back home in Newbury for the summer holidays – the songstress started venturing into nearby London each day to collaborate. "I'd commute in to write with anyone that my manager put me in contact with, just building up this portfolio of songs. At the same time, my manager was starting to chat casually with publishers."
And so by the time the new academic year came back round, Frances' songwriting experience was building momentum and the idea of moving back to Liverpool seemed senseless. "I said to my mum and dad that I needed to move to London, and they were like, 'What?! You're so young…' But I did and did manage to finish the degree… just!"
Moving into a small flat in Finchley, Frances would spend her days writing songs in her box-room and doing everything she could to take advantage of the opportunity: toplining tracks for producers and doing sessions for other acts, but also writing for herself as an artist. And it worked. In her short time in London, the 23-year-old found herself in sessions with some of pop music's heavyweight songwriters such as Jimmy Napes and Adele-collaborator Greg Kurstin, as well as Jonny Lattimer who wrote Starry Eyed with Ellie Goulding.
Asked about the difference these collaborators make to the process, Frances replied: "It really depends on the writer. Greg, for example, took charge of the music and I did the melody and lyrics. But someone like Jimmy is the most incredible lyricist, so you can't write a song and him not be involved in the lyrics. One of my first writing sessions with Johnny Latimer, he would get really involved in the lyrics and get down to the nitty-gritty, changing one word or a syllable. So it really depends on the writer and what their skills are."
It was during this fruitful time that Grow was written – which would go on to be the single that bagged a TV sync slot and hit the top of the iTunes and Shazam charts in Portugal – and several other songs that will see the light of day on her forthcoming debut album. When we spoke to Frances, the record was "pretty much finished", about to be mastered and scheduled for release mid-to-end of October. With her last single, Don't Worry About Me amassing over four million streams on Spotify and the superb new release Say It Again continuing the momentum, we're betting the album will be a success and Frances' bold piano-driven anthems reach many more millions of listeners.
To find out more about Frances, check out her official website: francesmusic.com


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I'm officially on maternity leave now for the remaining of the month – it's pretty nice to be able to schedule blog posts to keep things fresh while I step away to enjoy my family. Before the new year I typically try to make a list of goals for the upcoming year, I'm still working on 2019's list but for 2018 I set quite a few goals and to be completely honest I didn't stay focused on them individually – I stayed conscious of my work of the year – meaningful though!
2018 goals:
Self care – started with a massage last week for my sciatic nerve (it was deep tissue – far from relaxing)! Made it to the chiropractor a few times, took time to paint my nails/toenails often and enjoyed coffee dates with friends.
Practice yoga regularly – did not do this – this pregnancy hasn't been the easiest and I just did not have the energy.
Read a book a month – reading What the most successful people do before breakfast : and two other short guides to achieving more at work and at home currently! – I wish I had achieved this – I have so many books stacked up and found myself falling asleep everytime I tried to read.
Set a budget – started FINANCIAL PEACE UNIVERSITY! – We have this but did not implement a budget yet. My plan for the new year for sure.
Launch something new – oh, something big is coming and we cannot wait to announce it! Launched our Consulting services!
Travel more!! – We didn't travel as much as we would have liked to but couldn't be happier that a little bundle of joy will be joining our family soon (if he hasn't already by the time this publishes)!
Drink more water – done!
Stay meaningful! -my word of the year! YESS!
photographs by Stories by Victoria
What goals did you set for 2018? Did you hold yourself accountable? What goals are you setting for 2019?


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Businesses of all stripes rate the need to move faster as a top priority, and many times, that translates into the need for better and faster IT projects. But traditional IT processes and disjointed project management don't easily afford rapid, agile, and adaptive IT innovation.
The good news is that a new wave of ITSM technologies and methods allow for a more rapid ITSM adoption -- and that means better rapid support of agile business processes.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy.
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: John Stagaman, let me start with you. We hear a lot, of course, about the faster pace of business, and cloud and software as a service (SaaS) are part of that. What, in your mind, are the underlying trend or trends that are forcing IT's hand to think differently, behave differently, and to be more responsive?
Stagaman: If we think back to the typical IT management project historically, what happened was that, very often, you would buy a product. You would have your requirements and you would spend a year or more tailoring and customizing that product to meet your internal vision of how it should work. At the end of that, it may not have resembled the product you bought. It may not have worked that well, but it met all the stakeholders' requirements and roles, and it took a long time to deploy.
It was a lesson learned by IT organizations. Today, saying that it will take a year to upgrade, or it will take six months to upgrade, really gets a response. Why should it? There's been a change in the way it's approached with most of the customers we go on-site to now. Customers say we want to use out of box, it used to be, we want to use out of box, and sometimes it still happens that they say, and here's all the things we want that are not out of box.
But they've gotten much better at saying they want to start from out of box, leverage that, and then fill in the gaps, so that they can deploy more quickly. They're not opening the box, throwing it away, and building something new. By working on that application foundation and extending where necessary, it makes support easier and it makes the upgrade path to future versions easier.
Moving faster
Gardner: It sounds like moving toward things like commodity hardware and open-source projects and using what you can get as is, is part of this ability to move faster. But is it the need to move faster that's driving this or the ability to reduce customization? Is it a chicken and egg? How does that shape up?
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Gardner: Philipp, how do you come down on this? Is this about doing less customization or doing customization later in the process and, therefore, more quickly?
Koch: I don't think it's about the customization element in itself. It is actually more that, in the past, customers reacted. They said they wanted to tailor the tool, but then they said they wanted this and they took the software off the shelf and started to rebuild it.
Now with the SaaS tool offerings coming into play, you can't do that anymore. You can't build your ITSM solution from scratch. You want be able to take it according to use case and adjust it with customization or configuration. You don't want to be able to tailor.
Gardner: Let's just unpack a little bit the relationship between ITSM and IT agility. Obviously, we want things to move quickly and be more predictable, but what is it about moving to ITSM rapidly that benefits? And I know this is rather basic, but I think we need to do it just for all the types of listeners we have.
Back to you, John. Explain and unpack what we mean by rapid ITSM as a means to better IT performance and rapid management of projects.
Best practices
Stagaman: For an organization that is new to ITSM processes, starting with a foundational approach and moving in with an out-of-box build helps them align with best practice and can be a lot faster than if they try to develop from scratch. SaaS is a model for that, because with SaaS you're essentially saying you're going to use this standard package.
The standard package is strong, and there's more leverage to use that. We had a federal customer that, based on best practice, reorganized how they did all their service levels. Those service levels were aligned with services that allowed them, for the first time, to report to their consuming bureaus the service levels per application that those bureaus subscribed to. They were able to provide much more meaningful reporting.
They wouldn't have done that necessarily if the model didn't point in that direction. Previously, they hadn't organized their infrastructure along the lines to say, "We provide these application services to our customer."
Gardner: Erik, how do see the relationship between rapid and better ITSM and better IT overall performance? Are there many people struggle with this relationship?
Engstrom: Our approach at Effectual, what we focus on, is the accountability of data and the ability for an organization to reduce waste through using good data. We're not service [process] management experts, in that we are going to define a best practice; we are strictly on "here is the best piece of data everyone on your team is working [with] across all tools." In that way, what our customers are able to see is transparency. So data from one system is available on another system.
Those kinds of mistakes are reduced when you share across tools. So that's our focus and that's where we're seeing benefit.
What that means is that you see a lot more reduction in types of servers that are being taken offline when they're the wrong server. We had a customer bring down their [whole] retail zone of systems that the same team had just stood up the week before. Because of the data being good, and the fact they were using out-of-the-box features, they were able to reduce mistakes and business impact they otherwise would not have seen.
Had they stayed with one tool or one silo of data, it's only one source of opinion. Those kinds of mistakes are reduced when you share across tools. So that's our focus and that's where we're seeing benefit.
Gardner: Philipp, can you tell us why rapid ITSM has a powerful effect here in the market? But, before we get into that and how to do it, why is rapid ITSM so important now?
Koch: What we're seeing in our market is that customers are demanding service like they're getting at home at the end of the day. This sounds a little bit cliché-like, but they would like to get something ordered on the Internet, have it delivered 10 minutes later, and working half an hour later.
If we're talking about doing a classical waterfall approach to projects as was done 5 or 10 years ago, we're talking about months, and that's not what the customer wants.
IT is delivering that. In a lot of organizations, IT is still fairly slow in delivering bigger projects, and ITSM is considered a bigger project. We're seeing a lot of shadow IT appearing, where business units who are demanding that agility are not getting it from IT, So they're doing it themselves, and then we have a big problem.
Counter the trend
With rapid ITSM, we can actually counter that trend. We can go in and give our customers what's needed to be able to please the business demand of getting something fast. By fast, we're talking about weeks now. We're of course not talking 10 minutes in project sizes of an ITSM implementation, but we can do something where we're deploying a SaaS solution.
We can have it ready for production after a week or two and get it into use. Before, when we did on-premise or when we did tailoring from scratch, we were talking months. That's a huge business advantage or business benefit of being able to deliver what the business units are asking for.
Gardner: John Stagaman, what holds back successful rapid ITSM approach? What hinders speed, why has it been months rather than days typically?
Stagaman: Erik referenced one thing already. It has to do with the quality of source data when you go to build a system. One thing that I've run into numerous times is that there is often an assumption that finding all the canonical sources of data for just the general information that you need to drive your IT system is already available and it's easy to populate. By that I mean things like, what are our locations, what are our departments, who are our people?
The other major thing that I run into that introduces risks into a project is when requirements aren't really requirements.
I'm not even getting to the point of asking what are our configuration items and how are they related? A lot of times, the company doesn't have a good way to even identify who a person is uniquely over time, because they use something with their name. They get married, it changes, and all of a sudden that's not a persistent ID.
One thing we address early is making sure that we identify those gold sources of data for who and what, for all the factual data that has to be loaded to support the process.
The other major thing that I run into that introduces risks into a project is when requirements aren't really requirements. A lot of times, when we get requirements, it's a bunch of design statements. Those design statements are about how they want to do this in the tool. Very often, it's based on how the tool we're replacing worked.
If you don't go through those and say that this is the statement of design and not a statement of functional requirement and ask what is it that they need to do, it makes it very hard to look at the new tools you're deploying to say that this new tool does that this way. It can lead to excess customization, because you're trying to meet a goal that isn't consistent with how your new product works.
Those are two things we usually do very early on, where we have to quality check the requirements, but those are also the two things that most often will cause a project to extend or derail.
Gardner: Philipp, any thoughts on problems, hurdles, why poor data quality or incomplete configuration management and data? What is it, from your perspective, that hold things back?
Old approach
Koch: I agree with what John says. That's definitely something that we see when we meet customers.
Other areas that I see are more towards the execution of the projects itself. Quite often, customers know what agile is, but they don't understand it. They say they're doing something in an agile way. Then, they show us a drawing that has a circle on it and then they think they are agile.
When you start to actually work with them, they're still in the old waterfall approach of stage gates, and milestones.
So, you're trying to do rapid ITSM implementation that follows agile principles, but you're getting stuck by internal unawareness or misunderstanding what this really means. Therefore, you're struggling with doing an agile implementation, and they become non-agile by doing this. That, of course, delays projects.
Quite often, we see that. So in the beginning of the projects, we try to have a workshop or try to get the people to understand what it really means to do an agile project implementation for an ITSM project. That's one angle.
They should be asking whether it's easy to tailor the solution. It doesn't really matter how.
The other angle, which I also see quite often, goes into the area of the requirements, the way John had described them. Quite often, those requirements are really features, as in they are hidden features that the customer wants. They are turned into some sort of requirements to achieve that feature. But very seldom do we see something that actually addresses the business problem.
They should not really care if you can right-click in the background and add a new field to this format. That's not what they should be asking for. They should be asking whether it's easy to tailor the solution. It doesn't really matter how. So that's where quite often you're spending a lot of time reading those requirements and then readjusting them to match what you really should be talking about. That, of course, delays projects.
In a nutshell, we technology guys, who work with this on a daily basis, could actually deliver projects faster if we could manage to get the customers to accept the speed that we deliver. I see that as a problem.
Gardner: So being real about agile, having better data, knowing more about what your services are and responding to them are all part of overcoming the inertia and the old traditional approaches. Let's look more deeply into what makes a big difference as a solution in practice.
Erik Engstrom, what helps get agile into practice? How are we able to overcome the drawbacks of over-customization and the more linear approach? Do you have any thoughts about moving towards a solution?
Maturity and integration
Engstrom: Our approach is to provide as much maturity, and as complete an integration as possible, on day one. We've developed a huge amount of libraries of different packages that do things such as to advance the tuning of a part of a tool, or to advance the integration between tools. Those represent thousands of hours that can be saved for the customer. So we start a project with capabilities that most projects would arrive at.
This allows the customer to be agile from day one. But it requires that mentality that both Philipp and John were speaking about, which is, if there's a holdout in the room that says "this is the way you want things," you can't really work with the tools the way that they [actually] do work. These tools have a lot of money and history behind them, but one person's vision of how the tools should work can derail everything.
We ask customers to take a look at an interoperable functioning matured system once we have turned the lights on, and have the data moving through the system. Then they can start to see what they can really do.
It's a shift in thinking that we have covered well over the last few minutes, so I won't go into it. But it's really a position of strength for them to say, "We've implemented, we've integrated. Now, where do we really want to go with this amazing solution?
So the faster we can help customers start to see a working system with their data, the easier it is to start to move and maintain an agile approach.
Gardner: What is it about the new toolset that's allowing this improvement, the pre-customization approach? How does the technology come to bear on what's really a very process-centric endeavor?
Engstrom: There are certain implementation steps that every customer, every project, must undergo. It's that repetition that we're trying to remove from the picture. It's the struggle of how to help an organization start to understand what the tools can do. What does it really look like when people, party, location, and configuration information is on hand? Customers can't visualize it.
So the faster we can help customers start to see a working system with their data, the easier it is to start to move and maintain an agile approach. You start to say, "Let's keep this down to a couple of weeks of work. Let us show it to you. Let's visit it."
If we're faster as consultancies, if we're not taking six months, if we're not taking two months and we can solve these things, they'll start to follow our lead. That's essential. That momentum has to be maintained through the whole project to really deliver fast.
Gardner: John Stagaman, thoughts about moving fast, first as consultants, but then also leveraging the toolsets? What's better about the technology now that, in a sense, changes this game too?
Very different
Stagaman: In the ITSM space, the maturity of the product out of box, versus 10 years ago, is very different. Ten or 15 years ago, the expectation was that you were going to customize the whole thing.
There would be all these options that were there so you could demo them, but they weren't necessarily built in a cohesive way. Today, the tools are built in different ways so that it's much closer to usable and deployable right out of the box.
The newest versions of those tools very often have done a much better job of creating broadly applicable process flow, so that you can use that same out of the box workflow if you're a retailer, a utility, or want to do some things for the HR call center without significant change to the core workflow. You might need to have the specific data fields related to your organization.
And, there's more. We can start from this ITSM framework that's embedded and extend it where we need to.
Gardner: Philipp, thoughts about what's new and interesting about tools, and even the SaaS approach to ITSM, that drives, from the technology perspective, better results in ITSM?
If you're looking at ITSM solutions today, they're web based. They're Web 2.0 technology, HTML5, and responsive UIs.
Koch: I'll concur with John and Erik that the tools have changed drastically. When I started in this business 10 or 15 years ago, it was almost like the green screens of computers that slide through when you look for the ITSM solution.
If you're looking at ITSM solutions today, they're web based. They're Web 2.0 technology, HTML5, and responsive UIs. It doesn't really matter which device you use anymore, mobile phone, tablet, desktop, or laptop. You have one solution that looks the same across all devices. A few years ago, you had to install a new server to be able to run a mobile client, if it even existed.
So, the demand has been huge for vendors to deliver upon what the need is today. That has drastically changed in regards to technology, because technology nowadays allows us, and allows the vendors, to deliver up on how it should be.
We want Facebook. We want to Tweet. We want an Amazon- or a Google-like behavior, because that's what we get everywhere else. We want that in our IT tools as well, and we're starting to see that coming into our IT tools.
In the past we had rule sets, objects, and conditions towards objects, but it wasn't really a workflow engine. Nowadays, SaaS solutions, as well as on-premise solutions, have workflow engines that can be adjusted and tailored according to the business needs.
No difference
You're relying on a best practice. An incident management process flow is an incident management process flow. There really is no difference no matter which vendor you go to, they all look the same, because they should. There is a best practice out there or a good practice out there. So they should look the same.
The only adjustments that customers will have to do is to add on that 10-20 percent that is customer-specific with a new field or a specific approval that needs to be put in between. That can be done with minimal effort when you have workflow engine.
Looking at this from a SaaS perspective, you want this off the shelf. You want to be able to subscribe to this on the Internet and adjust it in the evening, so when you come back the next day and go to work, it's already embedded in the production environment. That's what customers want.
Gardner: Now if we've gotten a better UI and we're more ubiquitous with who can access the ITSM and how, maybe we've also muddied the waters about that data, having it in a single place or easily consolidated. Let's go back to Erik, given that you are having emphasis on the data.
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Engstrom: The concept of services and the way that service management is done is really around services. If we think about ITIL and the structure of ITIL [without getting into too many acronyms] the ability to take Services, Assets, and Configuration Management information, [and to have] all of that be consistent, it needs to be the same.
A platform that doesn't have really good bidirectional working data integrations with things like your asset tool or your DCIM tool or your UCMDB tool or your – wherever it is your data is coming from-- the data needs to be a primary focus for the future.
Because we're talking about a system [UCMDB] that can not only discover things and manage computers, but what about the Internet of Things? What about cloud scenarios, where things are moving so quickly that traditional methods of managing information whether it would be a spreadsheet or even a daily automated discovery, will not support the service-management mission?
It's very important, first of all, that all of the data be represented. Historically, we've not been able to do that because of performance. We've not been able to do that because of complexities. So that's the implementation gap that we focus on, dropping in and making all of the stuff work seamlessly.
Same information
The benefit to that is that you're operating as an organization on the same piece of information, no matter how it's consumed or where it's consumed. Your asset management folks would open their HP IT Asset Manager, see the same information that is shown downstream at Service Manager. When you model an application or service, it's the same information, the same CI managed with UCMDB, that keeps the entire organization accountable. You can see the entire workflow through it.
If you have the ability to bridge data, if you have multiple tools taking the best of that information, making it an inherent automated part of service management, means that you can do things like Incident and Change, and Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM) and roll up the costs of these tickets, and really get to the core of being efficient in service management.
Gardner: John Stagaman, if we have rapid ITSM multiple device ease of interface, but we also now have more of this drive towards the common data shared across these different systems, it seems to me that that leads to even greater paybacks. Perhaps it's in the form of security. Perhaps it's in a policy-driven approach to service management and service delivery.
Any thoughts about ancillary or future benefits you get when you do ITSM well and then you have that quality of data in mind that is extended and kept consistent across these different approaches?
The ability to know what's connected to your network can identify failure points and chokepoints or risks of failure in that infrastructure.
Stagaman: Part of it comes to the central role of CMDB and the universality of that data. CMDB drives asset management. It can drive ITSM and the ability to start defining models and standards and compare your live infrastructure to those models for compliance along with discovery.
The ability to know what's connected to your network can identify failure points and chokepoints or risks of failure in that infrastructure. Rather than being reactive, "Oh, this node went down. We have to address this," you can start anticipating potential failures and build redundancy. Your possibility of outage can be significantly reduced, and you can build that CMDB and build the intelligence in, so that you can simulate what would happen if these nodes or these components went down. What's the impact of that?
You can see that when you go to build, do a change, that level of integration with CMDB data lets you see well, if we have a change and we have an outage for these servers, what's the impact on the end user due to the cascading effect of those outages through the related devices and services so that you can really say, well, if we bring this down, we were good, but oh, at the same time we have another change modifying this and with those together coming down we may interrupt service to online banking and we need to schedule those at different times.
The latest update we're seeing is the ability to put really strict controls on the fact that this change will potentially impact this system or service and based on our business rules that say that this service can only be down during these times or may not be down at that time. We can even identify that time period conflict in an automated way and require additional process approvals for that to go forward at that time or require a reschedule.
Gardner: Philipp, any thoughts on this notion of predictive benefits from a good ITSM and good data, and perhaps even this notion of an algorithmic approach to services, delivery, and management?
Federation approach
Koch: It actually nicely fits into one of our reference installations, where that integration that Erik also talked about of having the data and utilize the data in a kind of on-the-fly federation approach. You can no longer wait to have a daily batch job to run. You need to have it at your fingertips. I can take an example from an Active Directory integration where we utilized all the data from active directory to allocate roles and rights and access inside HP Service Manager.
We've made a high-level analysis of how much we actually save by doing this. By doing that integration and utilizing that information, we say that we have an 80 percent reduction of manual labor done inside service manager for user administration.
Instead of having a technician to have to go into service manager to allocate the role, or to allocate rights, to a new employee who needs access to HP Service Manager, you actually get it automatic from Active Directory when the user logs in. The only thing that has to be done is for HR to say where this user sits, and that happens no matter what.
We've drastically reduced the amount of time spent there. There's a tangible angle there, where you can save a lot of time and a lot of money, mainly with regards to human effort.
With big-data analytics, you'll be able to see that that manual change model is used often and it could be easily automated.
The second angle that you touched on is smart analytics, as we can call it as well, in the new solutions that we now have. It's cool to see, and we now need to see where it's going in the future and see how much further we can go with this. We can do smart analytics on utilizing all the data of the solutions. So you're using the buzzword big data.
If we go in and analyze everything that's happening to a change-management area, we now have KPIs that can tell me -- this an old KPI as such -- that 48 percent of your change records have an element of automation inside the change execution. You have the KPI of how much you're automating in change management.
With smart analytics on top of that, you can get feedback in your KPI dashboard that says you have 48 percent. That's nice, but below that you see if you enhance those two change models as well and automate them, you'll get an additional 10 percent of automation on your KPI.
With big-data analytics, you'll be able to see that manual change model is used often and it could be easily automated. That is the area that is so underutilized in using such analytics to go and focus on the areas that actually really make a difference and to be able to see that on a dashboard for a change manager or somebody who is responsible for the process.
That really sticks into your eye and says "Well, if I spend half an hour here, making this change model better, then I am going to save a lot more time, because I am automating 10 percent more." That is extremely powerful. Now just extrapolating that to the rest of the processes, that's the future.
Gardner: Well Erik, we've heard both John and Philipp describe intelligent ITSM. Do you have any examples where some of your customers are also exploring this new level of benefit?
Success story
Engstrom: Absolutely. Health Shared Services British Columbia (HSSBC) will be releasing a success story through HP shortly, probably in the next few weeks. In that case, it was a five-week implementation where we dropped in our packages for Asset Management (ITAM), Service Management (ITSM), and Executive Scorecard, which are all HP products.
We even used Business Service Management (BSM), but the thinking behind this was that this is a service-management project. It's all about uniting different health agencies in British Columbia under one shared service.
The configuration information is there. The asset information is there, right down to purchase orders, maintenance contracts, all of the parties, all of the organizations. The customer was able to identify all of their business services. This was all built in, normalized in CMDB, and then pushed into ITSM.
With this capability, they're able to see across these various organizations that roll-up in the shared service, who the parties are, because people opening tickets don't work with those folks. They're in different organizations. They don't have relevant information about what services are impacted. They don't have relevant information about who is the actual cost center or their budget. All that kind of stuff that becomes important in a shared service.
The customer was able to identify all of their business services. This was all built in, normalized in CMDB, and then pushed into ITSM.
This customer, from week six to their go-live day had the ability see, what is allocated in assets, what is allocated in terms of maintenance and support, and this is the selected service that the ticket, incident, or change is being created upon.
They understood the impact for the organization as a result of having what we call a Configuration Management System (CMS), having all of these things working together. So it is possible. It gives you very high-level control, particularly when you put it into something like Executive Scorecard, to see where things are taking longer, how they're taking longer, and what's costing more.
More importantly, in a highly virtual environment, they can see whether they're oversubscribed, whether they have their budgeted amount of ESX servers, or whether they have the right number of assets that are playing a part in service delivery. They can see the cost of every task, because it's tied to a person, a business service, and an organization.
They started with a capability to do SACM, and this is what this case is really about. It plays into everything that we've talked about in this call. It's agile and it is out-of-the-box. They're using features from all of these tools that are out-of-the-box, and they're using a solution to help them implement faster.
They can see what we call "total efficiency of cost." What am I spending, but really how is it being spent and how efficient is it? They can see across the whole lifecycle of service management. It's beautiful.
Future trends
Gardner: It's impressive. What is it about the future trends that we can now see or have a good sense of how the events fold that makes rapid ITSM adoption, this common data, and this intelligent ITSM approach, all so important?
I'm thinking perhaps the addition of mobile tier and extensibility out through new networks. I'm thinking about DevOps and trying to coordinate a rapid-development approach with operations and making that seamless.
We're hearing a lot about containers these days as well. I'm also thinking about hybrid cloud, where there's a mixture of services, a mixture of hosting options, and not just static but dynamic, moving across these boundaries.
So, let's go down the list, as this would be our last question for today. John Stagaman, what is it about some of these future trends that will make ITSM even more impactful, even more important?
Stagaman: One of the big shifts that we're starting to see in self-service is the idea that you want to enable a customer to resolve their own issue in as many cases as possible. What you can see in the newest release of that product is the ability for them to search for a solution and start a chat.
The other thing that we're seeing is the ability to bridge between on-premises system and SaaS solution.
When they ask a question, they can check your entire knowledge base and history to see the propose solutions. If that's not the case, they can ask for additional information and then initialize a chat with the service desk, if needed.
Very often, if they say they're unable to open this file or their headset is broken, someone can immediately tell them how to procure a replacement headset. It allows that person to complete that activity or resolve their issue in a guided way. It doesn't require them to walk through a level of menus to find what they need. And it makes it much more approachable than finding a headset on the procurement system.
The other thing that we're seeing is the ability to bridge between on-premises system and SaaS solution. We have some customers for whom certain data is required to be onsite for compliance or policy reasons. They need an on-premise system, but they may have some business units that want to use a SaaS solution.
Then, when they have system supported by central IT, that SaaS system can do an exchange of that case with the primary system and have bidirectional updates. So we're getting the ability to link between the SaaS world and the on-premises world more effectively.
Gardner: Philipp, thoughts from you on future trends that are driving the need for ITSM that will make it even more valuable, make it more important.
Connected intelligence
Koch: Definitely. Just to add on to what John said, it goes into the direction of the connected intelligence, utilizing that big data example that we have just gone through. It all points towards that we want to have a solution that is connected across and brings back intelligence towards the end user, just as much as towards the operator that has that integration.
Another angle, more from the technology side, is that now, with the SaaS offerings that we have today, the new way of going forward as I see it happening -- and the way I think HP has made a good decision with HP Service Anywhere -- is the continuous delivery. You're losing the aspects of having version numbers for software. You no longer need to do big upgrades to move from version 9 to a version 10, because you are doing continuous delivery.
Every time new code is ready to be deployed, it is actually deployed. You do not wait and bundle it up in a yearly cycle to give a huge package that means months of upgrading. You're doing this on the fly. So Service Anywhere or Agile Manager are good examples where HP is applying that. That is the future, because the customer doesn't want to do upgrade projects anymore. Upgrades are of the past, if we really want to believe that. We hope we can actually go there.
Mobile and bring your own device were buzzwords -- now it's already here. We don't really need to talk about it anymore, because it already exists.
You touched on mobile. Mobile and bring your own device were buzzwords -- now it's already here. We don't really need to talk about it anymore, because it already exists. That's now the standard. You have to do this, otherwise you're not really a player in the market.
To close off with a paradigm statement, future solutions need to be implemented -- and we consultants need to deliver solutions -- that solve end-user problems compared to what we did in the past, where we deployed solutions manage tickets!
We're no longer in the business of helping them and giving them features to more easily manage tickets and save money on quicker resolution. This is of the past. What we need to do today is to make it possible for organizations to empower end users to solve their problems themselves to become a ticket-less IT -- this is ideal world of course -- where we reduce the cost of an IT organization by giving as much as possible back to the end user to enable him to do self service.
Gardner: Last word to you, Erik. Any thoughts about future trends to drive ITSM and why it will be even more important to do it fast and do it well?
Engstrom: Absolutely. And in my worldview it's SACM. It's essentially using vendor strengths, the portfolio, the entire portfolio, such as HP's Service and Portfolio Management (SPM), where you have all of these combined silos that normally operate completely independently of each other.
There are a couple of truths in IT. Data is expensive to re-create; the concept that you have knowledge, and that you have value in a tool. The next step in the new style of IT is going to require that these tools work together as one suite, one offering, so that your best data is coming from the best source and being used to make the best decisions.
Actionable information
It's about making big data a reality. But in the use of UCMDB and the HP portfolio, data is very small, it's actionable information, because it's a set of tools. This whole portfolio helps customers save money, be more efficient with where they spend, and do more with "yes."
with a free white paper
Smarter service management means doing more with the information you already have and making informed decision that really help you drive efficiencies. It's doing more with "yes," and being efficient. To me, that's SACM. The requirement for a portfolio, it doesn't matter how small or how large it is, is [that] it must provide the ways for which this data can be shared, so that information becomes intelligence.
Organizations that have these tools will beat the competition. They will wipe them out, because they're so efficient and so informed.
Organizations that have these tools will beat the competition at an SG and A (Selling, General and Administrative) level. They will wipe them out, because they're so efficient and so informed. Waste is reduced. Time is faster. Good decisions are made ahead of time. You have the data and you can act appropriately. That's the future. That's why we support HP software, because of the strength of the portfolio.
Listen to the podcast. Find it on iTunes. Read a full transcript or download a copy. Sponsor: HP.
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Venom exhaust works Ford/FPV and Holden HSV exhaust systems and parts
Venom Exhaust works or "Venom" as its commonly known. Manufacture exhaust systems and components mainly for the Australian market. They offer a full range for the Barra XR6T platform including dump pipes, bolt-on cat sections and full systems in mild and stainless steel. Venom proves that you don't need to spend a lot of money to make decent power with the barra.
Customers regularly see over 300 rwkw with just a cat pipe injectors and tune other customers wanting more go for a dump pipe cat and full system see over 500rwkw with other supporting mods.
Recently Venom has been making a mark on the Holden HSV market with bolt-on cats for the VE and VF NA HSV with TriY headers and VE and VF L98, L76/L77, LS2 LS3, and LSA. These are a great bolt-on and free up the factory system while retaining a factory and stealth fitment. Customers have seen 15kw gains from just replacing the cats. Add these with any of the various mods you will find for LS V8s and the gains will keep coming.
MRC Performance sells Venom exhaust works products online and freight all over Austalia and New Zeland.
This category is empty! Please try another category or use our search function to find what you are looking for. If you require further assistance please contact us.


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Monday, December 06, 2010
Space the final frontier, starting point Prince Rupert?
Redouane Al Fakir who is the head of the Muhammad Institute for Space Science, an organization dedicated to putting the Islamic world into the forefront of space exploration would like to see coastal British Columbia become the launching point for the adventure.
He has short listed two locations for his would be launching pad, Tofino and Prince Rupert, based mainly on our secluded but accessible by road locations, an ideal combination it would seem for a space exploration departure gate.
His plan is called Space Launch Canada and he has been making the rounds to try and sell his vision for the future, introducing the idea of British Columbia's place in that future at a public forum last month.
His venture is being organized under the umbrella of his non profit institute which is located at the University of British Columbia.
He estimates that it would cost 100 million dollar to build any such facility and get it operational, so far he's secured 250,000 dollars towards the goal mainly from overseas sources.
He has been approaching middle eastern countries such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to see if they are inclined to add to the pot, he would also like to see such Islamic countries as Malaysia and Indonesia join in on the project.
So far there has been little comment on his plans from any Canadian officials including Canada's Space Agency, which one might imagine would want to know about any such kind of development in the works.
His ambitious blue print for construction and deployment would see rockets blasting off of our coast in 2015.
The CBC offers up the full review of his idea with this item posted to their website.
Posted by . at 7:06 am
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(en) A lebanese Java User Group at Cnam Liban university. Articles in English or French. (fr) Groupe d'utilisateurs Java Liban. Articles en français ou anglais. This blog is the index toward contents (in general) on others sites. It helps the Group to stress on current activities.
jeudi 31 mars 2016
Lebanese Java Users Group, new updates
A Lebanese Java Users Group updates...
First time git config
The first thing you should do when you install Git is to set your user name and email address. This is important because every Git commit uses this information, and it's immutably baked into the commits you start creating:
$git config --global user.name
"Pascal E Fares"
$git config --global user.email email@example.com
You need to do this only once if you pass the
--global option, because then Git will always use that information for anything you do on that system. If you want to override this with a different name or email address for specific projects, you can run the command without the
--global option when you're in that project.
mercredi 30 mars 2016
Testing to Start for Computer With Chips Inspired by the Human Brain
The Wall Street Journal (03/28/16) Robert McMillan
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on Thursday will begin testing a $1-million computer packed with 16 IBM TrueNorth microprocessors designed to mimic the functions of the human brain. Bundled into each TrueNorth chip are 5.4 billion transistors comprising a network of 1 million simulated neurons connected by a massive web of synapses. "TrueNorth is useful for deep-learning applications and for a broader class of machine-learning applications as well," says LLNL researcher Brian Van Essen. TrueNorth emulates the brain's low power consumption, with the 16 chips using only 2.5 watts together versus a typical server chip's power requirements of up to 150 watts. Van Essen's team will test TrueNorth by uploading some supercomputing tasks to it. Van Essen expects the system to help the lab filter out potential glitches in simulations of phenomena such as subatomic particle interactions and identify patterns in cybersecurity and video surveillance. "It's great that they're [testing TrueNorth]," says University of Washington professor Luis Ceze. "It's very efficient, but they have to show that the accuracy of the models that they implement [is] good enough."
dimanche 20 mars 2016
Analyzing Flight Data: A Gentle Introduction to GraphX in Spark
samedi 12 mars 2016
How To Secure MySQL Replication Using SSH ....
Configuring MySQL replication leaves port 3306 open to the Internet and data between the replication servers is not encrypted. Using SSH tunneling MySQL replication data can be transferred through the SSH connection...
lundi 7 mars 2016
Object-Oriented Meets Functional (SCALA)
Have the best of both worlds. Construct elegant class hierarchies for maximum code reuse and extensibility, implement their behavior using higher-order functions. Or anything in-between.
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Motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists will encounter new traffic patterns in Downtown El Paso as crews from Paso del Norte Trackworks prepare to begin laying rail on Kansas Street, according to the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority.
Beginning on Monday, October 10, 2016, Kansas Street will be reduced to a single lane between Franklin Avenue and Overland Avenue thru January. Main, Mills, and San Antonio Avenue will be closed to thru traffic between Kansas and Stanton.
Texas Avenue will be reduced to a single lane in each direction at Kansas Street. Following this section of work, crews plan to continue moving south on Kansas Street between Overland Avenue and Paisano Drive.
Commuters travelling west on Interstate 10 from the Eastside, Mission Valley, Central, and Northeast El Paso who typically use Exit 19B/Downtown to Kansas Street, are encouraged to consider the following alternate routes:
- I-10 to Exit 20/Cotton Street and access Downtown via Texas Avenue or Myrtle Avenue.
- Loop 375/César Chávez Border Highway to Campbell Street to access Downtown.
Commuters travelling east on I-10 from the Westside, Upper Valley and Northwest El Paso are encouraged to consider the following alternate routes:
- I-10 to Exit 18B/Porfirio Diaz Street to Franklin Avenue to Durango to Paisano to access Downtown.
- Mesa Street to Texas Avenue.
As crews continue work to relocation underground utilities, Santa Fe Street will be closed between 3rd Avenue and 4th Avenue from 8pm to 4am on Thursday, October 13, and Friday, October 14, 2016.
The following street closures and lane restrictions will remain in place during the week of October 10, 2016, as work continues throughout the 4.8 mile route:
Street Closures
- Kansas Street between Paisano Drive and Father Rahm Avenue
- Father Rahm Avenue between Kansas Street and Santa Fe Street
- Mesa Street between 4th Avenue and 6th Avenue
- Oregon Street between 4th Avenue and 6th Avenue
- Santa Fe Street between Paisano Drive and San Antonio Avenue
- Overland Avenue at Santa Fe Street
- Oregon Street between Nevada Avenue and Schuster Avenue
- Cliff Drive immediately west of Oregon Street
- River Avenue immediately west of Oregon Street
- California Avenue immediately west of Oregon Street
- Crosby Avenue between Stanton Street and Mesa Street
Lane Restrictions
- Stanton Street between Main Drive and Missouri Avenue
- Stanton Street between 4th Avenue and 6th Avenue
- El Paso Street between 4th Avenue and 6th Avenue
- Santa Fe Street between Montestruc Court and Paisano Drive