text:
One look at your traffic sources will likely tell you that mobile shopping is becoming the new normal. And with this shift in consumer behavior comes the growing importance of mobile-first conversion rate optimization.
In this episode of Shopify Masters, you'll hear from Michael Levy, CMO of Pete & Pedro, about how they created a mobile website with a 4.5% conversion rate.
Pete & Pedro is a company that sells premium grooming products to help men become more confident and look their best.
We all sit at our laptops all day, so we think about desktop first. You kind of take your phone for granted. But the first thought should be, "Actually let me look at it on my phone. How is the phone experience going to be?"
Tune in to learn
- How to address and handle negative reviews
- The most important parts of a mobile page
- Why you should change your offer depending on the source of the traffic
Show Notes
- Store: Pete & Pedro
- Social Profiles: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram
- Recommendations: Judge.me (Shopify app) Product Recommendations (Shopify app) Privy (Shopify app) CrazyEgg
Felix: Today, I'm joined by Michael Levy, marketing director from Pete and Pedro. Pete and Pedro sells premium men's grooming products to help men become more confident and look their best. It was started in 2013 and based out of Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome, Michael.
Michael: Hey, Felix. How are you doing?
Felix: Good, good. So you are, like I mentioned, the marketing director. Tell us more about how you got introduced to the company.
Michael: Sure. So the company was started by Aaron Marino. His nickname is Alpha M. He is one of the biggest men's influencers on YouTube. In my prior company I worked with, called Grooming Lounge, we had done some sponsorships with him way back when he was just getting started, and we had a lot of success and basically kind of formed a friendship. And over the years, I saw his businesses grow and saw Pete and Pedro grow, and we just kind of chatted. Basically, he wanted to take Pete and Pedro to the next level. I've been in the men's grooming space for a long time, and it just kind of fit. So Aaron asked me if I wanted to come on board, and I did.
Felix: Awesome. You mentioned to me offline that you joined later in the company, but you are good friends with … You basically know the founding stories. Tell us a little bit more about that. How did the idea behind the business come?
Michael: Yes. Aaron, he does men's influencer stuff, the lifestyle, fitness, grooming. He's all about making guys feel more confident, and basically he was in the image business. And obviously, if you want to have a good image, usually you want to have nice hair and nice products that you're using to look your best. So he basically kind of launched Pete and Pedro on a whim with his barber. They got together, and he was like, "Hey, let's get some good hair products out here. All the stuff that's currently in the market is not that great, or it's not for my hair."
So he looked around, and basically, after a year, they launched a couple of products basically in his garage. His first order was like 20 units of each product. It was kind of just on a whim, to see how it goes, and it just basically exploded from there just because he had a great following, and the products are really good. Basically, guys would try it, and it just became kind of like a big hit instantly.
Felix: Got it. So the company, as we mentioned, was started in 2013. When did you join?
Michael: I joined a little bit less than a year ago. The company was doing well before, so my mission is to take the company from doing well to doing fantastic. We're doing great, but we have bigger hopes and dreams, and we want to scale it up. So basically, I jumped on board to see if we can take it to the next level. Aaron has a lot of different businesses, and part of it was he was kind of like giving me the keys to take it to the next level and grow it out. So while he's doing a variety of projects, he was like, "Mike, why don't you take it over and see if you can make it and take it to the place that we want it to be?"
Felix: Right, so when you are coming into a business that's already successful, has a great brand, lots of exposure from the figurehead essentially of the business, and you're coming in, what kind of things do you see that you can add most immediately? What kind of work is required to take it to the next level, like you're saying?
Michael: Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that was great for Pete and Pedro was there was a solid business, but there was a lot of stuff that wasn't happening. So for me, it was really all about first diving into kind of the low-hanging fruit and basically building up the business from the inside out. So my mission, this whole first year, was really all about converting the website, getting the traffic that we already have to convert at a much higher rate than it currently was. And we actually have a pretty high conversion rate, but what can we do to make it better?
So there's been five to 10 things that I've done in the first six months here to really get that up and re-invigorate the business so that it can get to the next level, kind of putting in the building blocks that it didn't have. As I said, Aaron, he's done an amazing job, but he does a lot of different jobs in different companies, so he wanted somebody who can really focus on the business entirely while he can be kind of the pitch man and the leader of the organization from the marketing side of that.
Felix: Got it. So like you mentioned, you are kind of focused on the mid and bottom of the funnel, taking the traffic that's coming in and converting them, but let's talk about the top of the funnel too. So most of the traffic is coming from Aaron's Alpha M. YouTube channel?
Michael: Yeah. He's got a 5-million-plus YouTube channel, and most of the traffic is coming from YouTube. So part of my thing is diversifying that a little bit, to start building up the social media on Facebook and Instagram. One of the other key areas was the email. There really wasn't too much email marketing going on except for an occasional newsletter here and there. So one of my first initiatives was really getting together the email and starting to build the foundation for leveraging an email list and not just getting people to the website. So there wasn't too much going on on the email front, and obviously that email can be 20% of your sales if you're doing it correctly, and basically when I came on it was 1%. So right now, there's already been a big jump into the email front success of the revenue that we're getting, and there's still a lot more that we can do with automation and so forth with our email program.
So yeah, I'm seeing … One of my goals over the next month or two is actually to really revamp our email programs, getting all the automation in, so that our customers who are very engaged are really looking at all the products, or they're upselling or cross-selling, all the opportunities that are out there that we're not taking advantage of.
Felix: Got it. I think one of the mistakes that you see with entrepreneurs is that they might focus on the top of the funnel, and then also once traffic gets to the site as two separate things, but they're really related, right? The kind of traffic that you bring in can have a big impact on the conversion rate. Can you say a little bit more about how you would focus on things? Like, social media with Facebook and Instagram, how can that affect conversion rates later?
Michael: Yeah. I think where your traffic is coming from is definitely going to affect your conversion rate. YouTube, he's getting a lot of guys who've been following him for a while, so they kind of know Pete and Pedro. They've looked around. But there's also a ton of new guys who are joining up to his subscriber base, and then they come over, and then they basically don't even know that Pete and Pedro is one of his products, and they're totally like, "Whoa! There's a whole grooming world of products that he has."
For Facebook and Instagram, these are guys who are much more committed to the brand. These are the truly … We've got people who love the company, and they really want to follow the success and grow with the brand and be part of its success. Now, if it's the ads, you're kind of getting them into the door, so they don't know who they are, and you're going to get a lower conversion rate. The hope is that the conversion rate is justified by the sale to get them in, and then hopefully they become a long-term customer and a long-term fan. So you might lose a little bit on the cost to get them in the door, but as long as they're bringing in the revenue for us down the line, it's going to help out.
Felix: Right. So what you're getting at is that there are two paths for a customer to be introduced to the products. One is through the brand that Aaron and the YouTube channel has built, and the other is kind of more like a direct response, like showing an ad, getting someone to click on it, and then selling them basically on the product alone outside of just the brand. So once someone does come in that route where they are just experiencing the product for the first time, doesn't know much about the brand yet, how do you, I guess, backfill that afterward? How do you get them to be introduced to the brand after they've made their initial purchase, or maybe not even a purchase, but just got their initial exposure to the products, but doesn't know anything yet about Aaron or the YouTube channel or Alpha M?
Michael: Yeah. That's been the big thing that I've started off doing, was really trying to build the credibility and education for the website. When I started, the main product that we sell was called … It's a putty, and it's a hair product, and it had 10 reviews, but thousands of people were buying it. So there were no reviews on the website. So my first thing that I did was I launched an app from Shopify called Judge Me and basically built a reviews program for all our products. If you go to the putty now, you'll see there's over a thousand reviews of the putty. So just imagine if you're a new customer that's never heard of the product or brand, and they go there and you see a thousand reviews and they're all four or five stars, you're going to have a lot more faith that this is a solid product.
So Aaron's getting them over, getting them to take a look. I view myself as can I close the sale by making the website experience even better? So the reviews has been really huge for us. We're getting a lot of buy-in. And the best thing about reviews also is, when you do get the negative feedback … Not everybody's going to love the product, but basically, me or somebody within the company reads every single review we get. And I love getting sometimes negative reviews because those customers are the ones you can really turn, integrate, [inaudible] of the brand, or get them a product that they like.
They might not like a certain hair product, so we'll give them a deal to try another product to make sure that they're happy. We think there's a product for everybody. So not only are you converting customers with the reviews, you're also making unhappy customers happy, so it's a double benefit. That's been really big for us. It sounds simple, of course, reviews, but if you're not doing it, you've really got to leverage it.
Some of the other things that we've done, the product recommendations. So if you're on any page, you really want to have recommendations on there so that if they like a shampoo, then you really need to leverage conditioner. That's been really successful for us to really leverage the most closely associated product.
Felix: Right. I think an important thing about the negative reviews is that a lot of brand new stores, when they start seeing that, they kind of think like, "Oh, man, the game's over. People don't like what I have," but you're saying that's just a great opportunity to turn an unhappy customer into a happy one and potentially a loyal and maybe even an evangelist for you. So when you do get a negative review, how do you recommend people address the review publicly, and then also how do you handle that kind of feedback internally?
Michael: Yeah. For me, one of the big things for me is customer service. I think the best marketing companies today are the ones who have the best customer service. So every experience that guys have, every interaction they have is all about making the experience better and making them trust and know that there's somebody on their side to make sure that their experience is the best. As you said, if it's a negative experience, I actually view that in two ways. One, okay, we have things that we need to work on. What can we improve to make this experience better?
For example, our putty is actually a pretty unique product. You have to actually know how to use it. So we have a lot of guys who think it's not good, but it's really they don't know how to use it. So we've made a lot of educational videos. If you go to the website, video is huge now, so every product has a video. We have a video section and our advice section. So we want to make sure these guys are educated and they know how to use the products.
We also have a hair tool and a selfie image tool as well, where people actually can send in a picture of themselves for their hair, and then we'll actually give them a recommendation of which hair product they should use. That's a pretty big leap for most websites, but we have a pretty strong trust factor with our customers who are willing to do it, and then we're able to give them strong feedback on which product they can use.
But internally for customer service wise, I'll read the reviews. I'll talk to our customer service team. We'll strategize on what we think is the best thing to do. For example, we might give somebody 50% off of the purchase that they just made and also then give them 50% off of another product that they want, so essentially they're getting another free product to try to give it a go. But every scenario is different.
We also have a rewards program that I launched recently. Guys love their points. It builds loyalty. It gives them free stuff. There's a referral program to grow out the business, and it helps with the brand building. So that's been really good as well so that people create an account. When they create an account, the chances of them staying or sticking with you are significantly higher. It's easier to grow your business with your current customers than it is to get new ones, which might cost three or four times more. So getting your current customers to try new stuff is way easier than getting the new guy, who's never heard of you, to basically give it a shot.
Felix: Right. When you do get this kind of a negative review, it sounds like it's either true improvements that can be made, which are going to take longer to implement, but a lot of times the miscommunication. You're able to solve that through education or try to avoid it altogether by having more content around video and ways to service a customer and make it clear what product they should get, what's a good fit for them. So once you are able to fix that kind of issue, where you get them the right product that's actually a better fit for them, or you explain how to use the product to them and they get it and they are happy, can they update their review? How does that get addressed more publicly so that you're…because, like you said, credibility is important, so if you are putting the work into fixing an issue, how do you make sure that your audience is up to date on the customer service that you've provided?
Michael: Yeah, I mean, they do have the ability to update a review if … Or we'll ask them, if it is a really negative review, to update it. For the most part, we really don't change the reviews that we get really at all. We're okay with that because getting negative reviews actually brings a lot more credibility because not everybody is going to love your product. But the positive ones significantly stand out more. So if we're getting a thousand reviews and 950 of them are four and five stars and 50 of them are one stars, then I'm going to believe the four or five stars.
So we don't really make any changes to the negative reviews. We just want to make sure that those customers are really happy about their experience and make sure that they have an opportunity to come out of [inaudible]. I mean, like, okay, maybe this product wasn't for me, but we know that we're going to have new products, and there's going to be new education and new stuff that they might be interested in down the line, and they might come back. So I feel like there's a product for everybody.
When I started, we really just had hair products, so one of the key things that I've done in my short time here is really to grow the line. Since I've started, we've launched a shave line. We've launched a body-wash line. We're launching new tools. So there's a lot more opportunity to cross-sell and make sure that every guy has something to buy. One of our slogans is "Bueno Hair," but now we're like a complete grooming company with a variety of products. So we've really expanded what we offer and be our product as well. When you are able to offer more products, you're also able to find something that everybody is interested in to give a shot.
Felix: Got it. One nice thing about this app that you're using, Judge Me, I think a key to getting and building such a quick review program is around incentives and also timing. Do you offer any incentives, or do you recommend any incentives to encourage people to leave a review?
Michael: We don't. We don't really need them as much, just because we have a lot of guys who are more than willing to provide the reviews. But I think early on, if you're really looking to get quick reviews onto the website and you feel like it's a little slow, offering 10%, 15% to get those reviews definitely helps. Or you can do an email blast asking customers to do a review and give them a little bit of a deal to do it to get those reviews up to where you want. Or if there's a new product that you're specifically targeting, you can ask those guys directly, be like, "Okay, what did you think? And we'd love it if you could write a review."
So Judge Me has been really good. I mean, there's a lot of solid review companies out there. It's nicely integrated with Shopify. It's one of the bigger review companies. Most companies have reviews, but I think people, once you get to a certain size, you kind of take the reviews for granted. I think it's actually the reverse. You should never, ever take your reviews for granted because that's the most important thing about your business, is what your customers think.
Felix: Yeah, I almost, if I see a company that has a large brand, and I go and see they don't have many reviews, a red flag, some kind of alarm goes off. I'm surprised that they don't have more reviews. Something seems off, so I think you're right. As you grow your views and the size, the number of reviews, I think, should grow with you. Otherwise, there can be a hit to credibility. What about on the timing side? Is there a certain time where asking for a review seems to convert better?
Michael: Yeah, that's been interesting actually because of our shipping … We ship a lot of international orders, and our shipping, it can take a little bit more. It takes about two to three weeks for our international shipments to get to our customers, versus our United States orders can take one to four or five days. So you really want to make sure that you get requests which give the customer enough time to try out the product, but not too far away, where they kind of like don't care anymore. I like to do it a couple of days after when I expect them to get the product. So if I expect they'll get in seven days, I kind of like to do it on the 10-to–15-day range, so it's pretty quickly after they get it, right when it's fresh. Our guys really want to try out the product right away. Some businesses, maybe they won't even open it up for a week.
But we also have … If it's an international order and it's been like three weeks, sometimes they're like, "Hey, I haven't gotten the package yet." So that's a good opportunity for us to take a look at the tracking, see what's going on, interact with the customer, and tell them it's on the way. But obviously, you want to make sure the review requests are coming in after they get the product and have a chance to try it. And you can always dabble with different days to see what type of conversion time frame you're getting. We have pretty high success, so for right now it's pretty solid for us.
Felix: Got it. You mentioned too that the key is to get existing customers to buy, rather than introducing new customers to your suite of products. When you do have a new product that you're releasing, how do you typically like to … I guess, how do you launch to existing customers, and how is that different than the way you would launch to new customers?
Michael: Yeah, that's one of the things that we do, I think, a solid job with really leveraging our social media. So any of the new development with new products, when you're working on the label for the product or coming up with the name, we really try to get our fans involved in the process so that it gets them excited to know that the products are on the way. Kind of talk about its benefits or what it can do for you. And also Aaron, on his channel or his Instagram, he'll promote or mention something as well. So we really try to build up this energy to go along with it in our email or maybe at the top bar of the website and say, "Hey, coming soon, our new body washes." So there's a lot of energy that we try to promote for a new product.
For some of the products, we'll also create kind of like a product in advance, where you can get a pre-order for the products. Like, the body washes was a really big launch for us, and we had a pre-order, out-of-stock notification thing where people could sign up, so that right when we did get it, we'd have email out to 500 new people, and boom, we don't have to wait a week or two to get the word out. It's literally right when you get it in stock, it opens up. Everybody gets an email. It's automated, and boom, that first day, you've just got 50 orders that normally you might have to wait a week or two before you launch. There are some good apps in Shopify for that as well, that have some of these features to not make you want to wait.
But those are the key things. I don't think there's any magic formula. I think you just have to leverage all your marketing channels to get people excited and show pictures, do videos, create the pages, and then, from there, launch it via your key marketing channels.
Felix: When it comes to email, how do they get on the list? Are these just existing customers, or can they also be people that are just prospects and not having purchased yet?
Michael: Yeah. I think that's one of the key things that I did. I launched a company called Pretty, which is kind of like an email-capture site sign-up service. If a guy comes to the website, before there wasn't any ability to get onto the newsletter. Now there's a pop-up, where if somebody will sign up they can get 15%. Or they'll get close to the checkout, but at the last minute they're like, "Eh, I'll do this another time, or maybe I'll go look somewhere else," so we have an exit intent pop-up that says, "Hey, don't leave. Here's 5%. You have to finish up your order." And also where they're coming from. So if they're coming from YouTube, we have a different offer, versus if they're coming organically via Google, but they're just coming to the website. It might be a different offer for different customers.
Felix: How does that work? How do you determine … I like this approach, where you are customizing the offer depending on where the traffic is coming from. How does it change? How do the offers change?
Michael: Well, right now, if they come to the website just organically, it actually will be 10%. If they come from YouTube at the current moment, it's actually a 15% offer. So more than likely, if they're coming from YouTube, it's probably somebody who either has been familiar with Aaron's channel or is coming there because they watched something. So they're probably a little bit more engaged customer, and we want them to … The chances of them succeeding are much higher. They're already activated by watching his videos and are willing to basically click over to check us out. So we're actually giving a better offer to those guys. Now, that's something we'll have to evaluate. Maybe we drop that back down to 10 or bring up the first newsletter signup to 15.
Now, these are one-time signups. Once they sign up, they don't get the popup anymore, so it's generally like their first order. But basically, if they're watching the YouTube series or videos, that's a much more engaged customer, so we want them to convert at a higher percent, and so far we're seeing that.
Felix: Yeah. I'd wonder … I would think that because the motivation or the buyer is much more motivated that comes from the YouTube channel, I would imagine that you would require less of an incentive to kind of push them over the line compared to someone that maybe doesn't know much about the product or the brand and just came from Google Search. Is there data that you've seen that shows the opposite of that?
Michael: Well, I mean, I think you're right. Some of this is new, so it's not a matter of … I mean, I tend to agree with you. But you can actually do AB testing on the Privy, so I think anything is worthy of testing out. Maybe if you do 15%, you also get bigger orders.
Felix: Right.
Michael: So for the guy who he's coming because he wants the putty, but now because he's getting 15% off that first time, he might be like, "Oh, you know what? I'll try out that shaving cream because I'm getting 15% off." So you probably maybe lose a little bit on the percent discount, but the orders are higher. Everything's a fine balance. Sometimes you can say the same thing for 5 to 10%, but if you give somebody 10%, they're much more willing to spend more because they know they don't have an opportunity to take advantage of it. So yeah, I'm okay with the 15% for right now, but I do agree in a couple of weeks, a month, let's see how it does, and we can test them out to see which coupon is the bigger. But the Privy or anything, it's always worth testing out and seeing which ones makes the most sense for your business.
Felix: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I think you've raised a good point that not every customer is the same, right? A customer that's coming from the YouTube channel might respond better and purchase a greater volume, have a larger cart value than someone that comes from Google Search, and the higher incentive might encourage them to be more likely to add more to their cart. So yeah, I think you're right, that it's not just which one is going to become a customer, which one's more likely to buy or become a customer. You've got to look at things like what is the actual lifetime value of that particular customer, so I totally agree. Now I want to talk a little about the recommendations. I think this is a great way to do things, like increase the order value. What app do you use, and how customized … How do you, I guess, teach it, or how do you customize it so that it recommends the right product?
Michael: The app really does most of the recommendations based on data analysis, so it's looking at our data and realizing if they bought a body wash, then you should be mentioning another body wash. For example, our two main products are our putty and our salt. The salt's a pre-styler, and then you use the putty. So that's been one big thing for us. It's basically kind of like a combo type of one-two bang with those two products because every guy who's getting the putty has a good chance of getting the salt.
So if you go down to that product, you'll see that the salt is the first recommendation that's there, and also there might be one or two other options. You don't want to have too many options. It's kind of like too many choices is a bad thing. It's just having the right amount of products that they actually really, really are likely to buy is what you want down there. So I won't have more than three other products to buy as an option. One to three is usually the best, but they're frequently bought together. The app has been really big. You can see … If you go into the data, you can see what percentage of guys are adding to their carts and so forth, and we know that guys are doing it right there. So the less pages they have to go through the site looking, the better.
Felix: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Now, what about…I actually want to jump back to the email capture. So once you are capturing their email, what does the email kind of odd responders, what do they start receiving from you guys?
Michael: Right now, we don't have too much of the email chains going in. That's definitely on the top of my radar, is we want to build up a lot of the welcome series and basically a whole chain of emails that really introduces them to the company and what our top sellers are, and who Aaron is, and what's new, and anything and everything about Pete and Pedro. That's definitely one of the first things that somebody should be doing, and I've been evaluating email programs and will be jumping on to creating those automations that are out there, so that you kind of have a whole streamlined experience of what Pete and Pedro is all about.
So if they sign up for a coupon right now, the coupon tells them right then and there what the code is. I think that's important actually. You don't want a lot of guys to come off the website. You want them to stay on the website. Now, it's not bad to get an email. I think that's good, but at the same time, a lot of these programs, it might take two to five minutes to sometimes get. It can be kind of annoying, and then basically annoying turns into leaving and I'll go look elsewhere. So I actually like having the coupon right there on the website because they copy the code and then they can place the order they want.
Felix: Got it. When it comes to the design of the website, have you done any kind of overhauling since joining? Have you made any significant changes there yet?
Michael: Yeah. I mean, that was one of my first main projects, as I thought that the website needed an overhaul, especially on the mobile side. Our mobile traffic is growing exponentially, just like everybody else. It can be almost two-thirds of our traffic, and our mobile site is really not up to par in my opinion. And the same for the desktop as well. I'm a big believer in looking at data. We use an app called Crazy Egg, which basically tells you where people are clicking on the website. It gives you a lot of data, hot spots …
Felix: Can you give an example of something that you might have seen through Crazy Egg that made you guys make some kind of change?
Michael: Yeah. Like, the home page right now, we added in, for example, the Shark Tank. Pete and Pedro have actually been on Shark Tank, which is obviously huge. It's a very unique thing about the company. So when I went to Crazy Egg, I noticed a lot of people … The Shark Tank actually image wasn't even clickable, but guys would kind of scroll over it. They'd try to click it, and I noticed that. So if you click on the Shark Tank image, there's actually … It'll take you to a whole page where people can watch the whole Shark Tank experience.
If you scroll a little bit farther down, you'll see the bestsellers on the website. So we noticed that guys want to go quickly directed to their top picks, so we added in the bestsellers to the home page as well. What you find also is most guys will shop at the top of the website, of course, but they also scroll down to the bottom. So when I started, the bottom of the website really didn't have any information. I think people actually take that for granted or they [crosstalk].
Felix: They'll skip the entire middle? They'll read the top and then skip the middle?
Michael: Yeah, yeah. So the bottom and the top are going to be … probably are going to be your two most heavy spots. So if you scroll to the bottom of our website, you can see it's got all the information that you need. Tried to make it nice and clean, and it directs people to where they want to go. If they want to learn more about us or shipping policies, and we have a lot of international customers, return policy, so we really try to split it all up and make it nice and clean. Those are some basic strategies. It sounds simple, but … Everybody should be doing it, but they're not doing it. Put the social media tabs up at the top because the social for us is really big, and then looked to see anything and everything that was going on on the page.
So actually, if they're on the home page right now, the second level slider right under the main square, I was actually shocked that that right arrow on the first slider there was actually our heaviest clicked thing on the entire page, which I couldn't believe. So I was actually going to get rid of it. If you see where it has the putty with the right slider there, I was … I'm like, "This is kind of stupid because I don't see any value add," and the next thing I know, I did the Crazy Egg, and that's where everybody was clicking. So I think good marketing is using your instincts but also looking at the data. So use the data, but also use our instincts. Sometimes the data matches up with our instincts, and sometimes it just tells you the exact opposite.
Felix: Which one wins in that case if it's competing, where your instinct says one thing, but then the data shows something different?
Michael: What do you do in that case?
Felix: Yeah. How do you like to handle that situation?
Michael: I think if it's clearcut, you stick with the data. If it's somewhere in that 50–50, 60–40 range where you're like, all right, what's going to make our experience better for our customer, then I think you go with your gut instinct. Yeah, so I think every person has to decide is that important to their business, is that important to their website or their brand. But if the data is conclusive, then I think you've just got to roll with the data, even if it's the opposite of what you think. The data doesn't lie. Good instincts will go far, but data can sometimes go farther.
Felix: Right.
Michael: So that's been big. But the main thing was really, not only just the desktop, but it was really doing the mobile completely. So I researched … I would go to like 25 other mobile websites of other retail businesses and see what they're doing and kind of take a best practices type of thing and mesh that with my own frame for our current customers and rebuilt the mobile site, which I thought would make it much more mobile friendly and easier to get around and shop, and so I think that's been really huge. Like I said, my goal in the first six months here was how I can improve the conversion rate of the business, and I've basically improved the conversion rate by about 0.5%. We already have a really high conversion rate of about, let's say, 4%, which is significantly high for retail. Now we're at like 4.5, which is a monster. So just doing those little changes can make some big, big differences if you're getting a lot of traffic.
Felix: Definitely. When it came to overhauling the mobile design, did you have to completely build a thing from scratch, or did you just look for spots where you could plug in or move things that made the difference?
Michael: We used the current template that we're using within Shopify, but essentially I redesigned every single page on the site. So the product pages we redesigned. The home page, the look, the drop-down category on the left side, the shopping cart, pretty much essentially … I'd mock up how I wanted it to look, and then our designer/tech team would create it, and we would evaluate it and go from there. I mean, we had categories and so forth, so a lot of different things that people just take for granted, but if you actually look at the thing, you'll see that it's … I think it's pretty clean, and we're seeing the conversion rate jumped up pretty quickly, and I think that had a huge part of it because the mobile experience is just way, way better now than it used to be.
Felix: Right.
Michael: Because I think it's actually interesting … We all sit at our desks or our laptops all day, so we think about the desktop because when I'm emailing customers, when I'm emailing you or talking to somebody, you're always in front of your desktop, and you kind of take your phone for granted, but I think actually marketing now is … The first thing should be actually let me look at my phone. How is the phone experience going to be? And then actually relate it back to the desktop. The conversion rates on mobile are lower. People still convert much higher on desktop because that's where it's more comfortable. It's a little bit easier experience, but the mobile gets more traffic, so the more and more we can to convert the mobile, the better it's going to be.
Felix: What was the … You said you redesigned each page from scratch. If you were to rank in order maybe the top three pages, what would they be? What would you recommend people focus their time on first if they are to redesign their site for mobile one page at a time?
Michael: I think having a solid navigation is important, so start there, really thinking about … Like, if you want the customer to get on your website, make sure the navigation is nice and easy, so they can click the menu tab and get to everywhere they need to be quickly and easily. So have a nice navigation window. I mean, you have limited space on the mobile, so making sure the navigation at the top is there for them.
And then, of course, you're going to want to have nice and clean product pages and an easy checkout. I think those are kind of like the three. So make sure it's easy to get around with the navigation. Make sure the product pages are not filled with just excess information. Keep them nice and clean and formatted and have nice pictures. Don't try to do too much on them. And then three, boom, the checkout. If the checkout is not a good experience, you might have done everything and then they're just basically … They can't figure out how to get to checkout or put in their credit card or skip a line or whatever it is. So you should be placing 10 to 20 test orders yourself and asking yourself, "Was that easy?" I'm obsessive with doing test orders and trying stuff out and seeing, like, "Was that easy?"
Felix: Is less better in that case, for the checkout process?
Michael: Yeah. I mean, you can have a one-step checkout. It could be a two-step page checkout. A lot of people go both ways, but the less amount of steps the better obviously. But it's just got to be easy, so people can put in their information and not miss something, especially mobile, where it's a little bit … You have less room to work with, so people miss stuff a lot more frequently, and people get annoyed, so they'll leave.
One of the things that we also did was add a lot of different payment options. I added Amazon payments, so we have a solid Amazon business. Amazon payments has been really solid for us because it builds an easier conversion because they can log into their Amazon credentials but still buy on your website. So that's been supported. Google Pay, Apple Pay, anything in all those different types of payment conversion things all add up to a lot of success if you bundle them all together.
Felix: You mentioned navigation was the main focus, and you also said that the top and bottom of a mobile website are the key aspects. There's navigation in both sections, so how do you decide what should … because you obviously can't include and should not include everything. So how do you decide what should go in for navigation on the top or bottom of a mobile site?
Michael: I mean, you want to have the most important stuff, so you want to have the shop, the shopping categories the first. I mean, I would put them at the top, because that's where people are more than likely to go. You should have your shopping cart at the top right. Or it depends on how you want it, the top right or top left. Your login and contact information. And those are going to be your key things. The categories for shopping, your contact/login/account are going to be … Keep something that everything that people want access to quickly and easily that they're going to use.
What are the top five pages that people go to? That's what you're going to want them to have easy access to. It could be your bestsellers or … I'm not sure … or whatever it is. Maybe there's a lot of people who want to find out what your shipping policies are, and you want to have your ship in there. You just never know, but see what … Go into your Google Analytics and see what your top 10 pages are, and those are the things that should be easily accessible.
Felix: Peteandpedro.com is the website. What is the next big project that you want to focus on to keep on increasing the conversion rates?
Michael: I think the big thing for me right now is we need to upgrade our email experience. When I came on, there just wasn't too much going on in the email front unfortunately, which is a good opportunity. So the first thing I did was really kind of re-engineer our list and put it all together. The second stage here is I've been looking at improving all the email automations and experiences that customers are getting. Email can be 20% of your revenue if you're doing it successfully, maybe more. Right now, it's a smaller piece, so that gives us a lot of opportunity to grow and really build on the customers that we're working with.
So I really want to build the welcome series and the win-back series and improve the shopping cart at [inaudible] and the browse in [inaudible], all these different series of things that people get when with their emails that really just basically kind of leverage the machine a little bit. So really getting all those in place will be a huge, huge piece to our puzzle and that we're currently not doing. So I'm looking forward to doing that and seeing how it does, because I think really leveraging more than just newsletters is a huge piece that I think a lot of companies probably don't do, but they probably should be doing.
Felix: Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Michael.
Michael: Yeah, my pleasure.


text:
If you want your resume to be more effective and less generic, make sure every word on it counts. Forbes recommends striking common phrases like saying you're "experienced in [something]"; instead, show where your experience lies.
You can be "experienced" in something after you've done it once-or every day for the past 10 years. So drop this nebulous term and be specific. If, for example, you're a Client Report Specialist, using a phrase such as "Experienced in developing client reports" is both vague and redundant. But sharing that you "Created five customized weekly reports to analyze repeat client sales activity"-now that gives the reader a better idea of where exactly this so-called experience lies, with some actual results attached.
"Seasoned" and "well-versed" are similar words to look out for and turn into more meaningful, detailed examples. Also, the article instructs you to avoid claming to be a "team player" or "customer-focused" because, similarly, the label isn't as effective as your accomplishments or activities.
Hit the link below for more words to eliminate from that very important piece of paper, and if you're a master of the CV, let's hear your tips in the comments.
Photo by kafka4prez.
Final Cut: Words to Strike from Your Resume | Forbes
You can follow or contact Melanie Pinola, the author of this post, on Twitter or Google+.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Priscilla 3 in 1 Handbag Sets
Priscilla 3 in 1 Handbag Sets
Regular price
Regular price
Sale price
Unit price
Handbag Internal: 3 compartments, 1 zip pocket, 1 slip pocket.
Sling Bag Internal: 1 compartment, 1 zip pocket, 1 slip pocket
Coin purse Internal: 1 compartment only
Handbag: 30.5cm (L) x 12.5cm (W) x 23cm (H)
Sling bag: 24cm (L) x 8cm (W) x 19cm (H)
Coin purse: 12cm (L) x 5cm (W) x 10.5cm (H)
Shipping & Returns
Shipping & Returns
- We offer fast and reliable shipping for all our products.
- Orders are typically processed and dispatched within 1-2 business days.
- Shipping times may vary depending on your location.
- We provide tracking information so you can monitor the progress of your shipment.
- If you received any defective items, please contact our customer support team within 7 days of receiving your order.
- The goods must be in its original condition, unused, and with all tags and packaging intact.
- We will provide you with instructions on how to return the item and process your refund or exchange.
Note: Please review our detailed return policy on our website for any specific conditions or exclusions that may apply.
If you have any further questions or need assistance with shipping or returns, our customer support team is ready to help you.
Care Instructions
Care Instructions
Simple Care Instructions for your Handbag:
- Wipe the surface with a damp cloth and let it dry naturally.
- If using any chemical cleaner or conditioner, conduct a patch test on a small area first before applying it to the entire product.


text:
An attacker with an automatic weapon opened fire on police in Paris' iconic Champs-Elysees shopping district Thursday night, killing one officer and seriously wounding two others before police shot and killed him.
Paris police spokeswoman Johanna Primevert told The Associated Press that the attacker targeted officers guarding the area near the Franklin Roosevelt subway station at the center of the avenue popular with tourists. She said he appeared to be acting alone.
Police and soldiers sealed off the area, ordering tourists back into their hotels and blocking people from approaching the scene. The Paris prosecutor's office said counterterrorism investigators are involved in the probe.
The attack came three days before the first round of balloting in France's tense presidential election. Security is high preceding the vote after police said they arrested two men Tuesday in what they described as a thwarted terror attack.
In Thursday's attack, French Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said on BFM television that a man came out of a car and opened fire on a police vehicle. He said officers were "deliberately" targeted.
Speaking in Washington during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, U.S. President Donald Trump said the shooting in Paris "looks like another terrorist attack" and sent condolences to France.
Emergency vehicles blocked the wide avenue that cuts across central Paris between the Arc de Triomphe and the Tuileries Gardens, normally packed with cars and tourists. Subway stations were closed off.
Security forces are more widespread in Paris since deadly Islamic extremist attacks in recent years, and France remains under a state of emergency.
French President Francois Hollande scheduled an emergency meeting Thursday night.
The incident recalled two recent attacks on soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris, one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport last month.
A witness identified only as Ines told French television station BFM that she heard a shooting and saw a man's body on the ground before police quickly evacuated the area where she works in a shop.
A French television station hosting a televised event with the 11 candidates running for president briefly interrupted its broadcast to report the shootings.
None of the candidates immediately commented.


text:
Often associated with his musical collaborator, the composer Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan, Sir William Schwenck Gilbert was a dramatist, published poet, and satirist before composing the lyrics for the operettas that have immortalized his name. Born in London on 18 November 1836, the son of a retired naval surgeon, he traveled with his parents throughout Europe, and at the age of two was kidnapped and held for ransom by Italian bandits. Returning with his family (which included three sisters) to London in 1849, he studied first at the Great Ealing School and then at King's College, but decided upon a career in the military as an artillery officer rather than continue studies at Oxford. However, just as he finished his military training the Crimean War ended, and he found employment as a clerk of the Privy Council at the Educational Department (1857 to 1864).
An inheritance of £400 enabled him to study law. Although called to the bar in 1866, he could not attract enough wealthy clients to succeed financially, and switched to humorous freelance writing, making significant contributions to the magazines Punch and Fun from 1861. In 1869, his various "Bab Ballads" were collected. His first professionally produced play was Uncle Baby, which débuted at the Royal Lyceum Theatre, London, on 31 October 1863, and ran for seven weeks. Other light satirical works for the popular stage include the Christmas pantomime Hush-a-By-Baby (1866) and burlesques Dulcemara, or The Little Duck and The Great Quack (1866) and Pygmalion and Galatea, one of seven new Gilbert plays staged in 1871.
The twenty-five-year partnership with Arthur Sullivan actually began in 1871, when the librettist and composer collaborated on Thespis, or The Gods Grown Old, which premiered on 23 December. They scored their first big hit some four years later with Trial By Jury, which under the able management of Richard D'Oyly Carte débuted at the Royalty Theatre, London, on 25 March 1875, originally conceived of as a companion piece for Jacque Offenbach's comic opera La Perichole. The story is apocryphally told of how the death of Gilbert's composer necessitated the hiring of another, and so D'Oyly arranged for the pair to meet; two weeks later the operetta was ready for rehearsal (in fact, they first met in the autumn of 1870 and produced Palace of Truth together that November). Their next three works -- The Sorcerer (1877), H. M. S. Pinafore (1878), and The Pirates Penzance (1879)--were performed at the Opéra Comique. However, in 1881 their manager built the new Savoy Theatre especially for G & S productions. Of eleven dramatic works which Gilbert wrote during the 1880s, seven were scored by Sullivan. The quarrel that eventually destroyed the nineteenth-century theatre's most effective partnership began when Gilbert voiced his concern about the excessive cost of the carpets for the new playhouse. The rift continued unabated until 1893, after which they collaborated on only two significant works: Utopia, Limited (7 October 1893) and The Grand Duke (7 March 1896). After Sullivan's death on 22 November 1900, Gilbert teamed up with Edward German to produce the less-than-memorable Fallen Fairies (1909), an adaptation of The Wicked World. Knighted by Edward VII in 1907, Gilbert died four years later when, aged 74, he attempted to rescue a drowning woman. Despite the continuing popularity and calibre of his work, Gilbert's verse does not usually appear in anthologies of nineteenth-century British verse, the exception being Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom's Victorian Prose and Poetry (Oxford, 1973), which features under "Poetry of the Nineties" Bunthorne's song, "The Aesthete," from Patience.
The Best of Gilbert and Sullivan. EMI Classics. EMI Records, 1987, 2000.
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ed. Una McGovern and Melanie Perry. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap, 2003.
The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan. The Modern Library. New York: Random House, 1936.
Crowther, Andrew."The Life of W. S. Gilbert."Gilbert and Sullivan Archive. http://math.boisestate.edu/gas/html/gilbert_1.html.
Gilbert, W. S. The Bab Ballads, ed. James Ellis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap and Harvard U. P., 1970.
Jones, John Bush. W. S. Gilbert: A Century of Scholarship and Commentary. New York: New York U. P., 1970.
Terpening, William."Sir William Schwenck Gilbert: A Bibliography."
26 July 2004


text:
Expanding Our International Product Portfolio With an Australian Focus
10 May 2014
easy-forex launches the online trading of key Asia-Pacific indices as part of its extended contracts for difference (CFD) product offering. Traders now have easy access to the Australian, Japanese, Chinese and Hong Kong exchanges as well as a wide range of other international exchanges.
Furthermore, easy-forex also enables traders the opportunities of trading key agricultural and energy commodities including wheat, corn, cotton, oil and natural gas. As well as offering over 70 currency pairs for trading, the Company is also extending its metals offering from gold and silver to also include palladium, platinum and copper. CFDs are one of the most popular ways to trade commodities and indices due to their leverage opportunities and ability to short sell.
Robert Francis, Managing Director of easy-forex Asia Pacific said, "Australia is one of the biggest global commodity exporters. It is the third largest producer of copper, while in the wheat market Australia has almost 15 per cent of global exports and in cotton it has some of the best performing growth yields. We aim to ensure our traders have all the opportunities open to them to capitalise on these exciting markets."
easy-forex traders receive training and support from their dedicated account service managers and market analysis and insights from the Company's award-winning dealing room.
Robert Francis added, "Our product offering allows for a wider range of portfolio management and gives our customers the ability to use their knowledge of specific markets, trade in them and hedge their business interests in an easy and hassle-free way."


text:
Support Your Local Dive Bar Black & White Trucker Hat by Haute Sheet
- Regular Price
- $29.99
- Sale Price
- $29.99
- Regular Price
- $29.99
- Unit Price
- Translation missing: en.general.accessibility.unit_price_separator
Support Your Local Dive Bar Trucker Hat! We support ours.
- Mesh back
- Adjustable fit
- Black and White Trucker Hat
The Fringe Co & Haute Sheet have teamed up to bring you the cutest collaboration of trendy trucker hats, perfect for adding a touch of humor or style to your outfit.
Free Shipping on all Orders over $100.
All orders are processed and shipped within 4 business days unless otherwise noted in the product description. We do our very best to get your order out as soon as possible. We do not ship on weekends or holidays. If you need your items sooner, please reach out to us at email@example.com.
Free returns for store credit on eligible items.
Merchandise may be shipped back within 30 days of the delivery confirmation date. Original shipping fees are non-refundable.
- Body Suits are final sale.
- Bralettes are final sale.
- Accessories including hats are final sale.
- All Jewelry is final Sale
- All "SALE" items are final sale.
- All Discounts Greater than 25% are final sale.
- All home decor items are final sale
- Pre-Orders are final sale
- Personalized Items are final
See our full refund policy here-


text:
Fuck Cancer Dishcloth is backordered and will ship as soon as it is back in stock.
F*ck Cancer Knit Dishcloth PDF Pattern - Easy Beginner Knitting Projects - Instant Digital Download - Fuck Cancer
Fuck Cancer! If you ever feel that sometimes you just need to swear in your kitchen then this clever dishcloth design is just for you! The pattern has written instructions as well as a chart if you prefer and your end result washcloth should be approximately 9 inches by 6.5 inches depending on how tightly you knit.
Please contact me if you have questions about the pattern. Due to the nature of the item, refunds will not be issued.
Details -- PDF Pattern ONLY- Instant Digital Download- For Personal Use- Commercial Use Terms Apply
Instructions -
On completion of your order and payment I will email a link to you to download the pattern. If you don't receive that email, please contact me here.
For more patterns, knit items and accessories please visit us here:
PLEASE NOTE: This listing is for the purchase of the pattern ONLY, not the actual finished item. A digital pdf download of instructions on how to make your own item will be available on completion. Due to their digital nature, they cannot be returned or refunded.
Should you have any problems or enquiries do get in touch via the contact shop button. We pride ourselves on our customer service and will do all we can to accommodate you.


text:
Plant Database
Boxed Plants
Seed Packets
Potting Soil/Compost
Gift Certificates and Books
Garden Design
Wildflower Kits
Contact Us
Cart ( 0 )
Garden Design Service Available
We courier Boxed Plants, via FedEX, to you
Gift Cards Available
Native Plants in Claremont Inc.
4965 Westney Road
Pickering, Ontario L1Y 1A2
Plant Database (No shopping)
« Back
Tufted Hair Grass
Deschampsia cespitosa
Soil Moisture and Composition:
Prefers dry to mesic rocky soils.
Native Habitat:
Found on shorelines and in alvars.
Feature Copy:
Clump forming. Cool season grass.
Bloom Period:
July - Sept
The information we provide for our plant species is based on experience as well as research gained from other respected sources. We would particularly like to acknowledge the valuable contributions to the study and understanding of native plants provided by
Illinois Wildflowers
, the
Missouri Botanical Garden
and the
North American Native Plant Society
What Our Customers Are Saying...
"10,000 Trees for the Rouge, who organizes one of the nation's largest spring planting events, sourced wildflowers from Native Plants in Claremont. Karen and her team showed up with perfectly beautiful flowers, along with a training session to ensure that our planting coaches were well educated on how to plant them. Our event turned out to be a huge success, and Native Plants in Claremont was a key part of that!"
10,000 Trees for the Rouge
"Karen Abrahams and her dedicated nursery team have always been an essential element of Alter Eden designs and installations. The kind of loving connection with the land that Karen espouses ensures that I am bringing the best plants at the best prices to my clients while providing the safest and most forage rich species for the pollinators I plant for."
Gillian Leitch, Native Plant and Pollinator Rainscape Designer + Beekeeper, Alter Eden
"Native Plants in Claremont has always come through in helping us restore the local ecosystems we serve and expressing people's celebration of life."
Ranger Marc Yamaguchi, David Suzuki Foundation, Homegrown National Park Raingarden Initiative


text:
Spoofed IP packets with forged source addresses are often used in attacks with a goal of avoiding detection.
After reading this article you will be able to:
Related Content
Subscribe to theNET, Cloudflare's monthly recap of the Internet's most popular insights!
Copy article link
IP spoofing is the creation of Internet Protocol (IP) packets which have a modified source address in order to either hide the identity of the sender, to impersonate another computer system, or both. It is a technique often used by bad actors to invoke DDoS attacks against a target device or the surrounding infrastructure.
Sending and receiving IP packets is a primary way in which networked computers and other devices communicate, and constitutes the basis of the modern internet. All IP packets contain a header which precedes the body of the packet and contains important routing information, including the source address. In a normal packet, the source IP address is the address of the sender of the packet. If the packet has been spoofed, the source address will be forged.
IP Spoofing is analogous to an attacker sending a package to someone with the wrong return address listed. If the person receiving the package wants to stop the sender from sending packages, blocking all packages from the bogus address will do little good, as the return address is easily changed. Relatedly, if the receiver wants to respond to the return address, their response package will go somewhere other than to the real sender. The ability to spoof the addresses of packets is a core vulnerability exploited by many DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks will often utilize spoofing with a goal of overwhelming a target with traffic while masking the identity of the malicious source, preventing mitigation efforts. If the source IP address is falsified and continuously randomized, blocking malicious requests becomes difficult. IP spoofing also makes it tough for law enforcement and cyber security teams to track down the perpetrator of the attack.
Spoofing is also used to masquerade as another device so that responses are sent to that targeted device instead. Volumetric attacks such as NTP Amplification and DNS amplification make use of this vulnerability. The ability to modify the source IP is inherent to the design of TCP/IP, making it an ongoing security concern.
Tangential to DDoS attacks, spoofing can also be done with the aim of masquerading as another device in order to sidestep authentication and gain access to or "hijack" a user's session.
While IP spoofing can't be prevented, measures can be taken to stop spoofed packets from infiltrating a network. A very common defense against spoofing is ingress filtering, outlined in BCP38 (a Best Common Practice document). Ingress filtering is a form of packet filtering usually implemented on a network edge device which examines incoming IP packets and looks at their source headers. If the source headers on those packets don't match their origin or they otherwise look fishy, the packets are rejected. Some networks will also implement egress filtering, which looks at IP packets exiting the network, ensuring that those packets have legitimate source headers to prevent someone within the network from launching an outbound malicious attack using IP spoofing.


text:
If you subscribe to my Pinterest page, my @douglaswelch Twitter account or my Google+ feed, you know that I am always finding recipes I want to try. This series, New Food, will highlight some of those finds as we make them for the first time in our own kitchen. Then, I'll report back to you on the results — for better or worse! — Douglas
Lentil and Sausage Stew
Once again, we are trying to get new tastes and new foods into our family menus, so when I saw this recipe pop up on the [L.A. and O.C.] Foodventures blog, I knew it was something to try. I discovered I liked lentils during a holiday trip to visit family in Sicily and have been looking for a way to have more of them here. This ended up being very tasty and very filling. The original recipe said it would feed 2 as a main dish, but I think for our tastes it would serve at least 4. We made a double batch and ended up with a lot of leftovers — not that won't be great to have on a busy night when we don't want to cook.
I have altered the recipe a bit. I replaced the water with more chicken stock, to make for a deeper flavor. We used both Italian Sausage and Smoked Sausage, as we had the latter left over and stews are always great for cleaning out the fridge. I found I didn't need to add the optional cheese at the end, as the lentils were so flavorful on their own.
Go easy on the heat here, too. Some recipes seemed designed to blow out your tastebuds with too much chili pepper. I added just enough to give you the taste — and a little heat — but not enough to fell like it is burring your mouth.
Lentil and Sausage Stew
4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
4 cups coarsely chopped kale (or other leafy green)
1 cup dried green or red lentils, rinsed and drained
1/2 pound sausage, removed from casing (We also used some leftover smoked sausage, sliced and then quartered into bite size pieces)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4-1/2 teaspoon crushed chili flakes (to taste)
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/8-1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (to taste)
1/4 teaspoon chili powder
handful of shredded cheese (optional)
1. Brown sausage in non-stick pan
2. Reduce heat to medium and deglaze the pan with the 1/4 cup of the chicken stock, add the garlic, chili flakes, paprika and cayenne pepper.
3. Toss in the greens and broth, heat until greens are wilted.
(Alternately, add kale near end of cooking for a different texture)
4. Add lentils and water, bring it back to a simmer and continue to cook for 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally and season as needed with salt, pepper, chili powder, etc. to your liking. I found a pinch or two of chili powder added a nice touch with the paprika.
5. Serve, topping with shredded cheese, if desired
* Original recipe discovered via [L.A. and O.C.] Foodventures blog
Previously on New Food:


text:
The ABC7 News I-Team investigation began with an unsigned letter from someone describing themselves as "a friend of zoo workers" who is concerned about their safety. Then, we filed a public records act request and received internal zoo documents that show problems in the code red system.
A group of employees from the San Francisco Zoo are taking an extraordinary step -- going on camera to say safety at the zoo could be better -- that it should be better. They have seen first-hand, this can be a life or death issue.
"I went home at the end of the day with chunks of meat and blood in my hair on me," animal keeper Corey Hallman said.
Hallman watched a tiger mangle his co-worker's arm -- she survived and still works at the zoo.
Zoo administrative worker Wesley Haug was there one year later on Christmas Day when the same tiger, Tatiana, leapt from her grotto and killed 17-year-old Carlos Sousa, Jr. There were reports, never proven, that Sousa's two friends had taunted the tiger.
Police shot and killed the 350 pound cat.
"I saw Tatiana almost every day; I'd go by before I left," Haug said. "It was such a beautiful cat and for this to happen; it was devastating."
In response to the mauling, the zoo spent more than $27,000 on a "code red" alert system with personal panic buttons for keepers working with the most dangerous animals, horns to broadcast a warning tone and a message telling visitors to find shelter, and a computer system that automatically called the police.
But, keepers sometimes triggered the alarm by accident.
"They never gave us any kind of protective case or gear to prevent that from happening," Hallman said. "So, many of the employees got creative and took bottle caps and duct taped them over it."
After some of the buttons suffered water damage, the zoo, without consulting the worker safety committee, decided to mount all the alarm buttons on the wall.
The animal keepers union representative calls that a mistake.
"If you are being mauled by a tiger, you can't say, 'Excuse me one second, I need to run over and press this button,'" Tim Jenkins said.
Zoo Director Tanya Peterson and her spokesperson repeatedly denied requests for an interview, so Dan Noyes caught up to her at the zoo last week to ask several important questions.
Dan Noyes: "Why put the buttons up on the wall instead of on the keeper's person. I mean, if I'm being attacked, it might be hard to reach the wall, right?"
Tanya Peterson: "Well, you know what, we did have a keeper unfortunately attacked by a tiger. It was the buddy system and another person was there, so we feel that the buddy system is a more important offensive process for safety."
She said the buddy system and radios are most important to keeping workers safe. Peterson and her team have altered the "code red" system -- cutting the automatic notification to San Francisco police and removing the verbal message.
Dan: Is it important to have the buttons working for you?"
Tanya Peterson: "The buttons are a secondary system. It's a public alarm system. We're actually concerned that they create mayhem."
That worries zoo workers. They've lost confidence in Peterson and how she and her staff maintain the "code red" system.
"I walk through the Zoo every day and it's always on my mind; OK, are we safe or could we be safer," Haug said.
"I think that we should be a world class leader in safety, based on our past experience," Operations Shop Steward Steve Levitt said.
The workers want a simple test, just like a fire drill -- push each of the 10 "code red" buttons and hear the alarm go off.
The zoo refuses, instead testing parts of the system at different times, and staging exercises like one from December.
Tanya Peterson: "I'm going to ask everyone to go in lockdown, he is approaching the front gate, he may be armed."
Peterson devised a scenario in which a gunman is looking for his ex-wife, a zoo employee. She signals a staff member to push a code red button.
Tanya Peterson: "Main Desk, in fact, why don't you hit the panic button for me?"
Main Desk: "10-4 pushing the panic button."
The alarm doesn't sound. Peterson tries again.
Tanya Peterson: "Could you just make someone hit the panic button so everybody knows? I'm going to take these people up and lock them down here."
Again, nothing. More than five minutes pass, until the head of it struggles to manually sound the alarm.
Durant Chow: "I'm trying to do it manually now, it's going, but it's not sounding."
The I-Team found more problems with the "code red" system in public records:
2011: System malfunctioned and sent out false alert
2012: "Recorded message on the speaker system was inaudible"
2013: test of panic buttons in bears and administration "outright failed." the button in snow leopards had no batteries and no wiring.
"It wasn't hooked up to the system," Jenkins said. "So, one of my members who works at snow leopards thought for over two years, if she was in trouble she could push that button and it would work and it didn't. It never worked."
The I-Team took what it found to the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Commission, which oversees the zoo.
"Frankly, my concerns as chair of the Joint Zoo Committee are really around the inability of frankly both sides to move beyond the rhetoric and get to let's find workable solutions," Rec and Parks Commissioner Eric McDonnell said.
Carlos Sousa says after the tiger killed his son, he found some comfort knowing the zoo tried to be safer with the "code red" system. Now, he wants them to get it right.
"I think they should, you know, fix that problem and make sure it works for all the employees, so the employees are safe and the people that go to the zoo are safe," Sousa said.
The zoo has just announced it's spending $170,000 on new radios that have a panic button -- that does not address how the public will be warned about a dangerous animal on the loose.
The zoo put out a statement late Thursday saying in part, "The zoo has full confidence in our safety procedures...and has received full and complete certifications from all of our oversight organizations, including the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and the USDA."


text:
Rotel T 14 Tuner
£599.25 ex demo one only in silver boxed with full warranty
The T14 provides a wealth of high quality listening choices, from over the air FM/DAB+ broadcasts to a wide variety of internet streaming services over Wifi courtesy of DTS Play-Fi.
This is not your father's tuner. While the T14 can receive classic analogue FM stations, it has also been designed to take advantage of Digital Audio Broadcasts (DAB+), as well as all popular Internet streaming services. That's a lot of options, but Rotel's T14 makes selecting them as simple as the touch of a button. The 30 FM and DAB+ presets provide easy access to all of your favourite music stations.
A near endless supply of music sources are supported by the T14 using the DTS Play-Fi iOS and Android Apps including Spotify, Pandora, Tidal, Rhapsody, Amazon Music, Deezer and more. Your listening options for radio broadcasts have never been more varied or available at such high quality.*
*subject to station broadcast quality


text:
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end a civil war that killed more than 200,000 Colombians.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee said the award should also be seen ``as a tribute to the Colombian people who, despite great hardships and abuses, have not given up hope of a just peace, and to all the parties who have contributed to the peace process.
It did not cite his counterpart in peace negotiations, Rodrigo Londono, the leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
Santos and Londono signed a peace deal last month ending a half-century of hostilities only to see their efforts collapse following a shock vote against the agreement in a referendum six days later.


text:
Part 23 of the commentary by Dr. VIshnu Bapat on Shankara's Tattvabodha.This is a key work which introduces all of the key concepts of Advaita in a systematic manner.
The commentary is based upon those by several other authors, together with the audio lectures of Swami Paramarthananda. It includes word-by-word breakdown of the Sanskrit shloka-s so should be of interest to everyone, from complete beginners to advanced students.
Part 23 continues the enquiry into the statement 'you are That' (tat tvam asi) and looks at the meaning of 'you' and 'That'.
There is a hyperlinked Contents List, which is updated as each new part is published.


text:
Bluebonnet Nutrition reintroduced Maxi One and Maxi Two Caplets one-a-day and two-a-day multis, respectively. They have been reformulated with higher levels of B vitamins plus select coenzyme forms (75 mg of each B vitamin in Maxi One and 100 mg of each in Maxi Two per serving) and highly efficient, patented Albion chelated minerals, as well as a blend of superfruits.
12915 Dairy Ashford, Sugar Land, TX 77478, www.bluebonnetnutrition.com
Published in WholeFoods Magazine, January 2012


text:
Letting Go
Release Day Blitz
Letting Go
by Terri George
Book 3 in the Frost Trilogy
Genre: Erotic Romance
Release date: August 30th
Join the release party!
Add to your Goodreads TBR:
Buy Links:
Amazon US http://amzn.to/1LBRzSF
Amazon UK http://amzn.to/1Jsdfjj
Amazon AU http://bit.ly/1ErmMbM
Amazon CA http://amzn.to/1PZe3yy
Nick Frost is a man adrift; lost without the one thing that holds him together. Only Mia can save him from himself, but she knows what she saw. Will she find it within herself to forgive?
Keeping secrets can test love to its limits. Mia has kept things hidden too. How will Nick react when he discovers Mia isn't quite the girl he thinks she is? Will Nick let Mia into his head as well as his heart and lay his ghosts to rest?
They say true love is strong enough to weather any storm. Well there's a whole heap of trouble blowing in from the west. When Nick acts before thinking, will Mia come up with a plan to ensure his freedom?
"Love is seeing all the flaws and accepting them. Love is recognizing all the fears and insecurities."
Can Nick and Mia accept each other's flaws. Can they both Let Go of their fears and insecurities and find their way to their Happy Ever After?
I'm out of the cab a nanosecond after it comes to a halt outside the club. It's still early, but already there's a line of people hoping to get in. One of the security blokes unhooks the purple rope as I approach.
Ray emerges from inside. I don't fail to notice the look that passes between him and Aide. Fucking hell, I don't need two nursemaids. Why can't they just leave me to my misery? I don't want their sympathy or their concern.
I grunt in reply to Ray's welcome and go inside.
The pounding beat of the music reverberates beneath my feet as I cross the entrance lobby. I must look like I mean business because the rope at the bottom of the staircase that leads to the upper floor is unhooked tout-fucking-suite and I don't even have to break my stride.
Upstairs in the VIP section I make straight for the bar.
'Vodka,' I tell the barman. 'And not that shit you give the punters. Koniks.'
The barman looks past me, over my shoulder. I glance round in time to see Aide give a small nod. Fuck that pisses me off.
I glare at the barman. 'What the fuck are you looking at him for?'
The barman looks all kinds of nervous as well he fucking should. I'm his boss for fuck's sake. He takes the vodka from the drinks fridge and reaches for a tumbler.
'Forget the glass.' I snatch the bottle out of his hand.
'Classy,' Aide sneers behind me.
I tell him to fuck off and head to the farthest seating area.
Flopping down on the sofa, I unscrew the cap from the chilled bottle and throw it on the table. Ah, the first taste is always the best. Okay it's not my first tonight, but still.
Aide places a glass in front of me and sits on the opposite sofa.
I stare at him. 'Got a problem?'
'Your drinking is bad enough. You could at least try not to look like some wino.'
That's funny. Yeah, some wino I am; sitting in one of the most expensive clubs in London in a thousand pound suit. 'Fuck you.'
Aide sighs and takes a swig from his bottle of Stella. Okay for him to drink from the bottle then.
'So is this how it's going to be? You drinking away our profits, not to mention your life,' Aide asks as I pour vodka halfway up the small tumbler.
I raise the glass to my lips. 'Start a fucking tab then. You know I'm good for it.' Fuck. I'm good for ten lifetimes.
But it's this one that's killing me.
Other books in this series!
Amazon US http://amzn.to/1qk6bZd
Amazon UK http://amzn.to/1PnxfHf
Amazon AU http://bit.ly/1CYiZxZ
Amazon CA http://amzn.to/1aptbFS
Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/BeguiledFrostTrilogy1BarnesNoble
Smashwords http://bit.ly/1zZcgR0
In Too Deep:
Amazon US http://amzn.to/1OomAvv
Amazon UK http://amzn.to/1OdnxWi
Amazon AU http://bit.ly/1EaNuD0
Amazon CA http://amzn.to/1ccUYum
Barnes & Noble http://bit.ly/1IWiy99
Smashwords http://bit.ly/1Dw3j3h
About the Author
From a small child I've loved to lose myself in stories. I'm a firm believer that if heaven exists, it contains every novel ever written and has big squishy sofas to curl up on and read for all eternity.
My comedy play, The Magazine was performed at The Bush Theatre in London and my poetry has been published in several anthologies. However, what I really wanted to write were novels. With several unfinished manuscripts languishing in the depths of my computers hard drive, it was my discovery of erotic romance that led me to the realisation this is the genre I should be writing.
As English as they come, I couldn't survive without tea. From Rachmaninov to Aerosmith my taste in music is best described as eclectic. And I make a mean chocolate cake.
I currently live in London, England, but dream of moving to the coast. A long held desire I really hope to fulfill one day.
I had an absolute blast writing Beguiled and In Too Deep and I hope you enjoy them, along with book 3 of The Frost Trilogy due to be released late summer 2015. I realise the colloquial dialogue and British idioms may be new to some readers, but Mia is English as am I and she speaks with a definitive English voice - I couldn't have written my feisty, intelligent, well-read heroine any other way. Maybe I should have included a glossary! LOL
Website: http://terrigeorge.co.uk/
Goodreads: http://bit.ly/TerriGeorgeGoodreads
Brought to you by ………


text:
Large enough to handle most requirements, yet small enough to provide quality customer service
Wisharts pride themselves on quality, reliable service, using well maintained and presented
modern equipment. Our trained, efficient staff are dedicated to meeting customer expectations.
Take a look around our website and discover the services and products we offer
to the general public, businesses and contractors.
From basic fleet service work to full restoration rebuilds visit Max's Mechanical Workshop & Repairs website for more details.


text:
CONTACTStaffCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2024 Pride Publishing Inc.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Private Policy and Terms of Use.
Sparse showing for gays and lesbians at Grammys
Outside of Nathan Lane's participation in the soundtrack album for The Producers (Best Musical Show Album) or that elaborate Billie Holiday boxed set (Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia
1933-1944, which was voted Best Historical Album), gay and lesbian artists were hard to spot among the winners of the 44th annual Grammy Awards. This year's big winners include newcomer Alicia Keys, veteran rockers U2, and the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack.
Here is a complete list of the winners of the 44th annual Grammy Awards:
Record of the Year: "Walk On," U2
Rap Album: Stankonia, OutKast
Song of the Year: "Fallin','' Alicia Keys
Album of the Year: O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, Various
Rock Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "Elevation,'' U2
New Artist: Alicia Keys
Country Collaboration With Vocals: "I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow,'' Dan
Tyminski, Harley Allen, and Pat Enright (The Soggy Bottom Boys), from the O
Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack
Female Pop Vocal Performance: "I'm Like a Bird,'' Nelly Furtado
R&B Album: Songs in A Minor, Alicia Keys
Rock Song: "Drops of Jupiter,'' Charlie Colin, Rob Hotchkiss, Pat Monahan,
Jimmy Stafford, and Scott Underwood (Train)
Pop Collaboration With Vocals: "Lady Marmalade,'' Christina Aguilera, Lil'
Kim, Mya, and Pink
Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "Stuck in a Moment You Can't
Get Out Of,'' U2
Rock Album: All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2
Male Pop Vocal Performance: "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,'' James Taylor
Pop Instrumental Performance: "Reptile,'' Eric Clapton
Dance Recording: "All for You,'' Janet Jackson
Pop Instrumental Album: No Substitutions--Live in Osaka, Larry
Carlton and Steve Lukather
Pop Vocal Album: Lovers Rock, Sade
Traditional Pop Vocal Album: Songs I Heard, Harry Connick Jr.
Female Rock Vocal Performance: "Get Right With God,'' Lucinda Williams
Male Rock Vocal Performance: "Dig In,'' Lenny Kravitz
Hard Rock Vocal: "Crawling,'' Linkin Park
Metal Performance: "Schism,'' Tool
Rock Instrumental Performance: "Dirty Mind,'' Jeff Beck
Alternative Music Album: Parachutes, Coldplay
Female R&B Vocal Performance: "Fallin','' Alicia Keys
Male R&B Vocal Performance: "U Remind Me,'' Usher
R&B Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "Survivor,'' Destiny's Child
R&B Song: "Fallin','' Alicia Keys (Alicia Keys)
Traditional R&B Album: At Last, Gladys Knight
Rap Solo Performance: "Get Ur Freak On,'' Missy "Misdemeanor'' Elliott
Rap Performance by a Duo or Group: "Ms. Jackson,'' OutKast
Rap/Sung Collaboration: "Let Me Blow Ya Mind,'' Eve Featuring Gwen Stefani
Female Country Vocal Performance: "Shine,'' Dolly Parton
Male Country Vocal Performance: "O Death,'' Ralph Stanley, from the O
Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack
Country Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal: "The Lucky One,'' Alison
Krauss and Union Station
Country Instrumental Performance: "Foggy Mountain Breakdown,'' Earl Scruggs,
Glen Duncan, Randy Scruggs, Steve Martin, Vince Gill, Marty Stuart, Gary
Scruggs, Albert Lee, Paul Shaffer, Jerry Douglas, and Leon Russell
Country Song: "The Lucky One,'' Robert Lee Castleman (Alison Krauss and
Union Station)
Country Album: Timeless--Hank Williams Tribute, Various Artists
Bluegrass Album: "New Favorite,'' Alison Krauss and Union Station
Contemporary Jazz Album: M2, Marcus Miller
Jazz Vocal Album: The Calling, Dianne Reeves
Jazz Instrumental Solo: "Chan's Song,'' Michael Brecker
Jazz Instrumental Album: This Is What I Do, Sonny Rollins
Large Jazz Ensemble Album: Homage to Count Basie, Bob Mintzer Big
Latin Jazz Album: Nocturne, Charlie Haden
Rock Gospel Album: Solo, DC Talk
Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album: CeCe Winans, CeCe Winans
Southern, Country or Bluegrass Album: Bill & Gloria Gaither Present a
Billy Graham Music Homecoming, Bill and Gloria Gaither and the Homecoming
Traditional Soul Gospel Album: Spirit of the Century, the Blind Boys
of Alabama
Contemporary Soul Gospel Album: The Experience, Yolanda Adams
Gospel Choir or Chorus Album: Love Is Live! LFT Church Choir,
Hezekiah Walker, choir director
Latin Pop Album: La Musica de Baldemar Huerta, Freddy Fender
Latin Rock/Alternative Album: Embrace the Chaos, Ozomatli
Traditional Tropical Latin Album: Dejame Entrar, Carlos Vives
Salsa Album: Encore, Robert Blades
Merengue Album: Yo Por Ti, Olga Tanon
Mexican/Mexican-American Album: En Vivo...El Hombre y Su Musica,
Ramon Ayala y Sus Bravos del Norte
Tejano Album: Nadie Como Tu, Solido
Traditional Blues Album: Do You Get the Blues? Jimmie Vaughan
Contemporary Blues Album: Nothing Personal, Delbert McClinton
Traditional Folk Album: Down From the Mountain, Various Artists
Contemporary Folk Album: Love and Theft, Bob Dylan
Native American Music Album: Bless the People--Harmonized Peyote Songs,
Verdell Primeaux and Johnny Mike
Reggae Album: Halfway Tree, Damian Marley
World Music Album: Full Circle/Carnegie Hall 2000, Ravi Shankar
Polka Album: Gone Polka, Jimmy Sturr
Musical Album for Children: Elmo and the Orchestra, Sesame Street
Spoken Word Album for Children: Mama Don't Allow, Tom Chapin
Spoken Word Album: Q: The Autobiography of Quincy Jones, Quincy Jones
Spoken Comedy Album: Napalm and Silly Putty, George Carlin
Musical Show Album: The Producers, Original Broadway Cast With Nathan
Lane and Matthew Broderick; lyricist and composer Mel Brooks
Compilation Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual
Media: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Various Artists
Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual
Media: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, composer Tan Dun
Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media: "Boss
of Me,'' (They Might Be Giants from Malcolm in the Middle),
songwriters They Might Be Giants
Instrumental Composition: "Cast Away (End Credits),'' Alan Silvestri (Alan
Instrumental Arrangement: Claude Debussy "Doctor Gradus Ad Parnassum" From
Children's Corner, Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer (Bela Fleck with Joshua
Bell and Gary Hoffmann)
Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s): "Drops of Jupiter,'' Paul
Buckmaster (Train)
Recording Package: Amnesiac (Special Limited Edition) (Radiohead)
Boxed Recording Package: Brain in a Box--The Science Fiction Collection, Various Artists
Album Notes: (tie) Richard Pryor...And It's Deep Too! The Complete
Warner Bros. Recordings (1968-1992), Richard Pryor; Arhoolie Records
40th Anniversary Collection: 1960-2000 The Journey of Chris Strachwitz,
Various Artists
Historical Album: Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia
1933-1944 (Billie Holiday)
Engineered Album, Nonclassical: The Look of Love (Diana Krall)
Producer of the Year, Nonclassical: T Bone Burnett
Remixed of the Year, Nonclassical: Deep Dish, "Thank You (Deep Dish Vocal
Remix)'' (Dido)
Engineered Album, Classical: "Bernstein (Arr. Brohn & Corigliano): West
Side Story Suite (Lonely Town; Make Our Garden Grow, Etc.)" (Joshua
Producer of the Year, Classical: Manfred Eicher
Classical Album: Berlioz: Les Troyens, James Mallinson, producer
Orchestral Performance: "Boulez Conducts Varese (Ameriques; Arcana; Deserts;
Ionisation),'' Pierre Boulez (Chicago Sym. Orch.)
Opera Recording: Berlioz: Les Troyens, Sir Colin Davis; Michelle De
Young, Ben Heppner, Petra Lang, Peter Mattei, Stephen Milling, Sara Mingardo,
Kenneth Tarver; James Mallinson, producer (Various Artists; London Sym.
Choral Performance Award: "Bach: St. Matthew Passion,'' Nikolaus Harnoncourt
(Arnold Schoenberg Chamber Orch. and Wiener Sangerknaben; Concentus Musicus
Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance: "Strauss Wind Concertos (Horn Concerto;
Oboe Concerto, etc.),'' Dale Clevenger, horn; Larry Combs, clarinet; Alex
Klein, oboe; David McGill, bassoon; Daniel Barenboim, piano/conductor
(Chicago Sym. Orch.)
Instrumental Soloist Performance (Without Orchestra): "Britten Cello Suites
(1-3),'' Truls Mork, cello
Chamber Music Performance: "Haydn: The Complete String Quartets,'' The
Angeles String Quartet
Small Ensemble Performance (With or Without Conductor): "After Mozart
(Raskatov, Silvestrov, Schnittke, Etc.),'' Kremerata Baltica; Gidon Kremer,
Classical Vocal Performance: "Dreams & Fables--Gluck Italian Arias (Tremo
Fra' Dubbi Miei; Di Questa Cetra in Seno, etc.
Classical Contemporary Composition: "Rouse: Concert de Gaudi for Guitar and
Orch.,'' Christopher Rouse, composer
Classical Crossover Album: Perpetual Motion (Scarlatti, Bach, Debussy,
Chopin, etc.), Bela Fleck, banjo (Joshua Bell, violin; Evelyn Glennie,
marimba; Gary Hoffman, cello; Edgar Meyer, bass and piano; Chris Thile,
mandolin; John Williams, guitar)
Short Form Music Video: "Weapon of Choice,'' Fatboy Slim featuring Bootsy
Long Form Music Video: Recording the Producers--A Musical Romp With Mel
Brooks, Mel Brooks (With Various Artists Including Nathan Lane and
Matthew Broderick)
New Age Album: A Day Without Rain, Enya
Want more breaking equality news & trending entertainment stories?
Check out our NEW 24/7 streaming service: the Advocate Channel!
Download the Advocate Channel App for your mobile phone and your favorite streaming device!
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Meet all 37 of the queer women in this season's WNBA
April 17 2024 11:24 AM
Here are the 15 gayest travel destinations in the world: report
March 26 2024 9:23 AM
21+ steamy photos of Scotland's finest gay men in Elska Glasgow
February 01 2024 10:07 PM
More Than 50 of Our Favorite LGBTQ+ Moms
May 12 2024 11:44 AM
Conjoined twins Lori Schappell and trans man George Schappell dead at 62
April 27 2024 6:13 PM
Latest Stories
Chino Valley school district sues California over new law banning forced outing
July 18 2024 6:52 PM
Federal appeals court upholds Tennessee drag ban
July 18 2024 5:41 PM
While the Lord Almighty speaks to Biden, it's time to prepare for Harris
July 18 2024 3:22 PM
Yemi Alade, Billy Porter and Omawumi to headline Global Black Pride 2024 in Atlanta
July 18 2024 2:57 PM
Ruby Corado, founder of LGBTQ+ nonprofit Casa Ruby, pleads guilty to wire fraud
July 18 2024 10:23 AM
Watch: GLAAD national ad features terrifying potential future under Project 2025
July 18 2024 9:00 AM


text:
Viewnior – The Elegant Image Viewer (PPA Installation instructions inside)
Sponsored Link
* Fullscreen & Slideshow
* Rotate, flip, crop, save, delete images
* Animation support
* Browse only selected images
* Navigation window
* Set image as wallpaper (only under GNOME, see INSTALL file)
* Simple interface
* Configurable mouse actions
Viewnior is insipred by big projects like Eye of Gnome, because of it's usability and richness,and by GPicView, because of it's lightweight design and minimal interface. So here comes Viewnior -- small and light, with no compromise with the quality of it's functions. The program is made with better integration in mind (follows Gnome HIG2)
Viewnior is written in C (GTK+) and uses modified version of the GtkImageView library by Bjourn Lindqvist.
Install Viewnior in ubuntu 10.10/10.04
Open the terminal and run the following commands
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xsisqox/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install viewnior


text:
Free shipping from €50
Personal advice, also via chat!
Excellent warranty conditions
Do you have a question?
We are here to help you!
Monday to Friday
8.30am - 5.00pm
For more information
send us an email
EXIT Supreme ground trampoline ø427cm - black
The EXIT Supreme trampoline is a round trampoline of absolute top quality with black padding. To construct the EXIT Supreme, you dig a big pit in the ground so that the trampoline stands completely on ground level for a lovely and safe result. With the Supreme trampoline parents don't have t worry about their children accidentally fall from a high trampoline.
The double-conical springs of the trampoline, which are 21.6 centimetre long ensure a high bounce and a nice soft landing. The unique de-aeration system of the jump mat and the padding ensures an open structure so that air can easily escape while jumping. In addition, the EXIT Toys Supreme trampoline has extra strong padding, which is 37 cm wide and 3 cm thick, including a feet safety system. This always prevents your feet from getting tangled in the springs.
This trampoline is not only lovely and of top quality, but also long-lasting. The padding is UV-resistant and the frame is galvanised, and afterwards powder coated, so no chance of rusting. The EXIT Supreme with its utmost bounce comfort is in a class of its own!
General characteristics
What is the shape of the trampoline? Round trampolines are very suitable for children, because when bouncing they automatically land in the middle. Rectangular trampolines take up less space and are suitable for more experienced jumpers (adults). Oval trampolines combine the features of the round and rectangular trampolines.
Before using, the product first has to be assembled. The product is not delivered ready-to-use.
Is the product easy to assemble using a manual and does not require technical knowledge?
Does the product include a manual (including instructions for use) so you can assemble it yourself?
How long does it take to assemble the product?
From which age can this product be used safely?
Which quality marks does the product have and which European safety standards does it meet?
- TÜV / Intertek: this product is tested for safety by a reputable and certified testing authority.
- EN: this product is approved according to a European safety standard. The figure after EN refers to the relevant European safety standard(s) used in testing this product.
- CE: this mark indicates that the product was designed and manufactured in compliance with the legal requirements regarding safety, health and the environment.
- GS: Geprüfte Sicherheit (GS) is an additional certificate and it means that the product meets the German standard – and if applicable also the European standard – for safe use.
- FSC: the FSC quality mark is proof that the wood for this product originates from a forest managed according to the international FSC standard for sustainable forest management.
Is the product resistant to weather influences, such as sunlight, rain, hail, snow and wind?
Quality level
What is the bounce rate of this trampoline? The quality of the bounce of a trampoline is determined by the age of the children and the length of the springs. Young children will have the most fun on a trampoline with a bronze rating. These trampolines have short springs which makes it is easier for them to lift off. The older children experience greater fun and jumps on a trampoline with larger springs. On a trampoline with a golden rating they will make the highest jumps.
What is the quality level of this trampoline? The quality level of the trampoline is determined by the sturdiness of the frame, the thickness of the padding and how well the safety net has been finished off. The higher the trampoline scores on these parts, the better the quality
What is the maximum height of this product? This means the height from the ground up to the highest point of the product.
What is the maximum diameter of this product?
What is the total weight of the product, including the packaging?
Is the trampoline supplied including the safety net? A safety net prevents children from landing outside of the trampoline.
Is the trampoline supplied including a ladder?
Is the trampoline supplied including a shoe bag? You can store your shoes here when you are jumping.
Is the trampoline supplied including a spring hook? The spring hook is handy for tightening the trampoline and preventing any injuries to your hands.
Is the trampoline supplied including protective cover? The cover protects the trampoline against weather influences, such as rain and snow, as well as from outdoor influences, such as leaves and bird droppings.
Is the trampoline supplied including a frame net? A frame net around the legs/supports of the trampoline prevents children, pets and objects from getting under the trampoline.
Jump mat
What is the colour of the jumping mat?
Which material is the jumping mat made from?
What is the diameter of the jumping mat? The diameter of the actual jumping surface, without the padding.
How long is the warranty on the jumping mat?
What sort of springs are used to connect the jumping mat to the trampoline frame? Double-conical springs are stronger and more durable than conical springs and they stretch less.
How many springs are used to connect the jumping mat to the trampoline frame?
What is the length of the springs that connect the jumping mat to the trampoline frame?
How are the trampoline springs finished? Galvanised springs do not rust.
How long is the warranty on the springs?
What is the colour of the padding?
How wide is the padding surrounding the trampoline?
Is the padding filled with a foam layer?
Which material is used to fill the padding? EPE is a type of foam that breathes, protects well against falling and prevents water absorption.
What is the thickness of the padding filling?
What is the material and the thickness of the top side of the cover around the padding of the trampoline?
What is the material and the thickness of the bottom side of the cover around the padding of the trampoline?
How long is the warranty on the trampoline padding?
What is the colour of the frame?
Which material is the trampoline frame made from?
How is the frame finished? A galvanised frame protects against scratches, weather influences and rust. A powder-coated frame provides an extra layer for additional durability.
How many legs/supports are there under the trampoline? A W-shaped or U-shaped frame part counts as 1 leg.
What types of connections are used to connect the various parts of the trampoline frame?
What is the diameter and thickness of the rod of the trampoline legs/supports?
What is the diameter and thickness of the rod of the top rail?
What is the height of the trampoline frame (therefore of the jumping mat)?
Other characteristics
What is the recommended weight for safe use that a trampoline can take? The weight depends on the size, the material and the quality of the springs.
What is the maximum weight used for testing a trampoline – before it gets broken? This is usually up to 5 times the maximum user weight.
Is there marking that shows the middle of the jumping mat? A marking in the middle makes it easier for users to bounce in the middle of the trampoline and not at the edges.
Does this product include an anchoring set so that you can anchor it into the ground?
Packaging information
This product comes in 3 boxes with a total weight of 100 kilos.
Box 1
Box 2
Box 3
Standard included:
- Jump mat
- black padding
- 88 galvanised springs of 21.6 cm
- 8 metal legs
- Spring hook
Available documents
Extends the lifespan
Easy to secure with anchors
Stretches the springs with ease
Prevents hand injuries