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Smaller PNGsApril 15, 2010
Last week I put together an animated infographic that required some flexibility. Alpha transparency was essential, but the number of images I needed to pull it off meant that my typical way of creating PNGs wasn't going to work.
Let's be honest; Photoshop is absolutely terrible at saving transparent PNGs for web use. Your choices are between an 8-bit with 1-bit transparency (better than a GIF in terms of file size, but no better in terms of transparency options) or a huge 32-bit PNG with alpha transparency. There's no middle ground. You can run the resulting files through various PNG reduction utilities (PNGOUT, Pngcrush, or my personal favourite PngThing) but when the savings are a few hundred bytes off an 80KB file, the returns are slim.
I'm not in the practice of using Fireworks, so those of you who do can start gloating now. But as I thought about the problem a bit, I remembered that Fireworks has a few more options. Specifically, I remembered that you can save out 8-bit PNGs with alpha transparency, which seemed like the right mix.
And the resulting lower byte counts were respectable: 95KB › 11.7KB. 28KB › 4.6KB. 38KB › 8.9KB. 36KB › 7.1KB. 45KB › 7.3KB. 28KB › 4.7KB. etc.
When I casually mentioned the smaller files I was able to produce on Twitter I was a little surprised by the response. Seems that a lot of people don't know about this, so a quick write-up feels like it's in order. Here's my process.
1. Save out a full 32bit PNG from Photoshop
Any file format with transparency will do really. You could probably even just open the PSD. But I start here.
2. Load it into Fireworks.
3. In the Optimize palette, adjust the settings to PNG 8.
You'll probably want to go further and find a colour level less than 256 that works with your image for more savings, but this is the starting point anyway.
File > Export, then pick a spot for your smaller file.
And that's basically it. Clearly this only works for images that would normally do well with lower colour levels, you won't be using this for photographic elements any time soon. But for those that work, you can throw the result through one of the previously-mentioned optimization tools to shave off a few more bytes too.
PNG8 with alpha transparency also has the added benefit of degrading nicely in IE6 for those that need to support it. Sitepoint have a nice article on it http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2007/09/18/png8-the-clear-winner/
Personally I love Fireworks - I've been checking out Acorn and Pixelmator but unfortunately neither have the right combination of vector tools + png export options.
I was just using this workaround a few days ago and thought it would make for an informative blog post. However, I don't have a blog so I'm glad someone shared my thought.
You may want to update your FW screenshot to show "alpha transparency" selected instead of "no transparency." I can already imagine people simply copying your settings.
pngquant is an alternative for those who doesn't have Fireworks - it's a command line utility that easily converts PNG32 to PNG8. I've been using it quite much in my latest projects and it works great.
I didn't know Fireworks could do that; you won't get that using Photoshop's "Save for Web & Devices". The issue with IE6 and PNG24/32 can be solved using vendor-specific CSS. Just google it.
Nice tip for getting smaller PNG's-Images and probably the only reason for me to use fireworks.
Posts like this always make me wonder why JPEG-2000 is so marginal a format. JPEG-2000 also offers alpha transparency with fantastic compression ratios. The algorithms for compression are pretty damn good too - even with compression set to maximum, you'd be hard pressed to spot any visible difference with the source image.
If only it were more widely used. Incidentally, Safari knows how to handle JPEG-2000 out of the box. Firefox doesn't (on OS X at least).
As a proof, I've just used Preview.app to save an 880KB 24-bit-with-alpha PNG out as a JPEG-2000 image, full alpha, maximum compression - file size down to 90KB. Awesome.
Fireworks is great for that, but did you find that it optimised too much?
By that, I mean when I try to use Fw, it reduces the colours too much when using png-8 with alpha. As an example I was trying to save a simple icon with alpha transparency, but it wouldn't allow anymore than 44 colours out of a total 256 for some reason.
No matter what setting I went for it didn't want to budge! So basically I'm asking if that happened for you?
(I've noticed it on Fw CS3 Win, and Fw CS4 Mac)
Ever tried www.smushit.com ? I know it's based on some the utilities you mention in the post but the savings i get from it, more often than not, are not in the order of the few hundred bytes.
Good trick anyway, i stopped from using fireworks in the last years but this will turn useful in the future.
@Sean Curtis: You're right about IE6 supporting PNG8, although you only get the opaque parts - the transparent parts just disappear leaving a raggedy edge.
@Tom: I had the same problem with subtle gradients - setting dithering to a high value can help. I suspect it's to do with reduced colour resolution in PNG8 mode.
I used PNG8 in these JavaScript demos to save space:
The image files were getting too big. The Earth graphic was especially huge as a PNG32. About 3 times smaller as a PNG8!
@Cavan Riley – updated the image, good catch.
@Jonathan Hollin – I think you answered your own question. Formats not supported by all browsers are fairly useless on the web.
@Tom – I haven't personally come across that one yet, but others on Twitter mentioned a problem with Adaptive colour that sounds like what you're describing. So you're probably not crazy, it probably is a real issue that I'll stumble across sooner or later.
Hi Dave,
We (Yahoo!) provide a tool called SmushIt. It's part of the YSlow suite and provides lossless shrinking of image files (GIF and PNG). It uses a whole bunch of opensource tools internally and finds you the best possible savings.
@jontathan Hollin - JPEG2000 is a patented file format, so it's unlikely to get into firefox and opensource webkit versions. IE doesn't support JPEG2000, but supports JPEG-XR (http://www.phpied.com/ie9-and-jpeg-xr-first-impressions/) which offers better compression.
PngThing is worth having just for the icon.
This has always bothered me about photoshop… I don't have fireworks so I needed to find another quick way to get alpha-transparent PNG8's:
ImageAlpha is an excellent GUI which will convert your alpha PNG24's into alpha PNG8's. Get is here: http://pornel.net/imagealpha
Another good PNG compression GUI (by the same guy): http://imageoptim.pornel.net/
This is the reason I keep an old version of Fireworks on my Mac and I don't know why Adobe don't have this feature in PhotoShop?
ImageOptim is another good 'crushing' app.
Great tip. I have to admit that I haven't even opened Fireworks since I purchased CS4. I think it would be great if Adobe would finally just migrate the useful features of Fireworks into Photoshop.
The tip in this post is really great. I normally use Photoshop to make my images on my website smaller (save for web…)
I always use png 32 bit, but after compression the file size remains too large.
Now I've tried PngThing and the size of my images are much smaller and the quality is the same.
You really helped me. Thanks
@Steven Woooooaaaaaah slow down there boy! Why not just give fireworks custom brushes, then we can just ditch Photoshop instead? Fireworks is just the best for Web GUI, PS doesn't come close! With PS effects import, better vector support and a more intuitive interface, Fireworks is mega underrated…
@Chris - let's not do this, okay? Some people prefer Photoshop. Some people prefer Fireworks. The End.
Thanks for the article, Dave. I've been using Fireworks (FW) since the beginning—Macromedia-era some time around 1998–1999—for this very same reason. I do most of the detailed, artistic stuff in Photoshop (PS) and then I would either import a flat PNG (pre-Adobe) or the source PSD (CS+) intro Fireworks for slicing. The compression differences between FW and PS were pretty amazing back then and they still are today.
Nothing beats PS for great compositing and clean type, but Fireworks has great compression algorithms. I also prefer the pixel-precise level of control you get with slices, guides and vector shapes. FW also has pages now which are a really big help for large, multi-page comps or mockups. For me it's not a PS vs. FW issue; I simply use what works best for the task.
Thanks again and I hope you find other ways to integrate FW into your workflow. :)
When you finish your image go to:
Then select a number between 0-255.
After this, you can save for Web in 32 with alpha channel.
The size of the file will be smaller.
Do you know Yahoo Smushit?
I usally did the basic png shrinking with Photoshop and than use Yahoo's Smushit Tool.
You can upload any image there or link to your site and smushit squeezes your images as much as possible - especially png's shrink extremly: smushit.com/ysmush.it/
@Mediopirzel – interesting. That does actually have an impact, I was able to shave off about 25% of a 32-bit PNG's size. It might prove useful in some situations.
The problem is that it's still saving out 4 bytes per pixel, whereas an 8-bit PNG only costs 2 bytes (plus compression on both of course). So your file sizes aren't going to be as small as they could be if you take it the extra step and save out an 8-bit PNG instead.
Still, if all you've got is Photoshop, that's a decent alternative.
Primitive painting program KolourPaint at Linux allows you to save as 24bit PNG with transparency. The sizes are also small compared to those by Photoshop.
Bit late to this but punypng (http://punypng.com/) does an excellent job of compressing pngs as well as other images.
Holy crap Dave! If i knew this earlier, i could reduce a lot of my website's image sizes :/ (Even though it's never late to start doing it :)
Really great tip. I've been using Fireworks for design purposes and have interacted with the "Optimize" panel for so long, i feel ashamed for not knowing this…
Another great tip! This one is right up there along with saving for web directly from Illustrator.
The adjustment layer is a really great solution here. It's totally non-destructive so you can always come back later to edit it, but still keep the posterize settings available to tweak.
The last tough part for me is that it doesn't posterize the alpha layer which adds a lot of weight if you've got a big blurry shadow somewhere. The best solution I've found for that is to replicate the shadow as a solid color layer with a mask, and then posterize the mask.
It may not be 8-bit, but with all these techniques and PNGcrush I can get some tiny files.
I remember reading in your post about designing Bright Creative that you generally favor gifs over pngs. May I ask what changed your mind?
I do this on Linux with a command-line tool called pngnq, which I have nicely integrated with my one-step build script (this little Ruby thing I use to minify/optimize CSS and JS and generally "pack things up" for production).
The results with pngnq do look better than the ones achieved with Fireworks, or, for that effect, pngquant.
There's also the issue issue of dithering and/or banding that such tools introduce and which you failed to mention. I've just had to hand revert (through Git) a Masthead image to it's previous 32-bit state because the dithering screwed the middle of the logo.
Nice and short article though, I'll point to it when my not cl-happy friends need to do this.
@Andrew - what changed? The decreasing prevalence of IE6, mainly. Two years ago it was still necessary to jump through hoops to support it, and I never felt the PNG transparency hacks were worth the effort. These days I'm starting to take it for granted that alpha transparency is available mostly everywhere.
@Thiago Cavalcanti - "There's also the issue issue of dithering and/or banding that such tools introduce and which you failed to mention."
Sure I did: "Clearly this only works for images that would normally do well with lower colour levels, you won't be using this for photographic elements any time soon." I didn't call out dithering specifically, but anyone familiar with image compression will immediately see that's what I was getting at.
Thanks for your answer, Dave. Our policy is more or less that IE6 users are used to seeing the grey block behind their image. So as long as functionality isn't harmed we usually try and use them without any sort of png fix.
Also, fantastic timing on this article. With this fireworks trick of just re-saving the image I was able to cut one png (as optimized as I could get it photoshop with posterize and all) down from 60k to 20k. Thanks!
I have recently started doing all my non-graphic development from a linux environment and was happy to find out that gimp 2.6 that installed with ubuntu happily opens my CS4 photoshop files and does a great jog with png transparancies
I tried to use Fireworks but in some images failed, mainly those that had shadow.
I saw the comment from Darren Wood and decided to try ImageAlpha, by far much better than the Fireworks, I'm testing and so far only had success!
This is my choice: ImageAlpha http://pornel.net/imagealpha
1. Much faster than Fireworks;
2. Better compressions;
3. Free :D
Lot's of good info, but I'm curious..
Anyone aware of good PC solutions? Many of those mentioned have been mac oriented and that's just not going to work.
As David mentioned, Gimp 2.6 does a fine job as well. Actually, for my money I think Gimp has the best overall image-saving capabilities.
Plus it's much smaller than Fireworks—and free!
Here's another plus for punypng (http://www.gracepointafterfive.com/punypng). It does require uploading your images to their server, but then the uploader allows multiple file uploads, and all in all is pretty handy. Nothing is said to be saved, either. File size reductions of 40% and more are not uncommon (the original file being exported from Photoshop).
My favorite tool for such kind of optimization is the great "Irfanview" (http://www.irfanview.com).
Under "Save for web" you will get a lot of options to optimize and reduce the file size.
In a preview you have the full control about the picture quality you will get.
And the best, its free!
Guess I need to get fireworks. One aside note, On a recent clients redesign project i worked hard to keep it IE6 accessible. Ended up using the alternate IE hacks for each element that might need a gif instead of .png or what not.
Funny though, one of my new clients just had their site redesigned for a pretty decent fee using Joomla as a back end. I looked at it in IE6 and its horrible. It basically breaks, no IE hacks just gray on black where should be transparent. I didnt have the heart to tell them. Also I hear that many new design setups do not support IE6 anymore.
got best results with OptiPNG http://optipng.sourceforge.net/
Very useful tips. I have already used them and add to php tutorial http://phpforms.net/tutorial/tutorial.html.
I use http://benhollis.net/software/pnggauntlet/
It works really great. You can achieve even *smaller* file size than using Fireworks.
I didn't know that Fireworks can do that. I would agree with Artur, I used png gauntlet few times to achieve smaller size and it worked fine.


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This week I've been taking on the last part of DD I hadn't played with yet: the Gold class challenges. I wrote up a brief strategy summary for each one, and wanted to discuss a couple of the ones I found most difficult to see if I was missing something in any of them.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this set of challenges. They seem to be about on par with the Vicious dungeons, and some of the very hardest were really brutal. Of the ones that seemed hardest:
Fighter: Impossible for me before I figured out to prep the RBS. Manageable with it. I was using Goblins but in retrospect I wonder if Halflings would have been better.
Berserker: Demanding, even once I figured out the strategy, but fun and a cute take on the class.
Warlord: I think the second toughest. Four bosses and just not that many resources. I ended up doing it as an Orc, which combos well with the goat horns, and went Earthmother->Dracul. If the secondary altar had been say JJ I have no idea how I would have managed. None of the threats or opportunities seemed to have much to do with the Warlord's class features, unless I was missing something.
Bloodmage: Probably the hardest of them all. Being a dwarf seems to do you no good, since it's lousy for leveling and you can't save much blood for the end. (The boss takes too many resources and his damage doesn't drop fast enough.) I ended up playing a PISORF orc, which seems sort of to be an intentional strategy because PISORF always spawns. Even so, it took a lucky set of item shops: Midas Gloves, Rock Heart, Dragon Soul, and enough left over for a Schadenfreude, and also a convenient set of walls to slam the boss into rather than having to use monsters much; even so I dropped the boss only with my very last PISORF.

subset: commoncrawl


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We're getting a lot of questions about Wyclef Jean's charity as several sources are starting to raise questions about it.
First off, we do not yet rate this charity as it currently doesn't meet our criteria. Why? It has only filed three Forms 990 and we require at least 4 to complete a rating.
Second, our team has taken a look at what information is available on this group.
- We find it odd that the charity filed all three 990s (for fiscal years 2005, 2006 and 2007) in August of 2009. Charities are often not especially timely in filing these documents, but this is beyond late.
- According to the group's FYE 2008 audit (the corresponding 990 isn't available at this time) the group spent 69% of its budget on programs. Our research shows that the most efficient charities spend at least 75%.
- Just about all of its program expenses are providing grants to its affiliate organization in Haiti. There is nothing wrong with that, but we really don't know how the group in Haiti spends its money.
- One of our recommendations is that donors stick with charities that have experience in providing aid after major disasters and/or that have a long history of working in Haiti. The group may meet the second criteria, but it doesn't appear to meet the first.
At the end of the day, this charity is going to bring in a ton of money because of its affiliated star power. Already it has raised $1.5 million! It is critical that we all- from the media to nonprofit experts to donors - closely watch how it handles all of these new donations. Will it spend the money on its own programs and services? And does that mean it will help with the medium to long term recovery efforts or will it try to provide immediate aid? Will it simply funnel it to other groups -and if so, will it that diminish how much makes it to other organizations?
For more on celebrities and their charity work, visit our YouTube page.
You can read CNN's take on the story online here.


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I Hate Moving
At last count, my husband and I have figured that we have moved 12 times in the 15 1/2 years that we've been married ~ all moves in the state of Texas. [Roots, what are those?] No, we're not a military family. They've just all been family- and/or job-related moves. Needless to say, I hate moving. I hate the packing of the boxes, the transferring of utilities [Budde Rd., anyone?], the loading of the truck, the driving, the unloading of the truck, the unpacking of the boxes, the wondering of whether or not something of real value has been broken, and most of all the expenses involved. I hate every aspect of it. The next time we move, it'd better be because I won the lottery. I'm not doing any move-related work [except for all the shopping for my mansion].
By Foot, By Wagon, By Ship...
No doubt it is hard work to move, but it was even harder for our ancestors to move. Every time I trace an ancestor's migration path and compare it to a time line to see how they traveled, I am both amazed and humbled. Their means of transportation was not easy to say the least, and how far they went is beyond my comprehension.
From Ireland to Texas Via New Orleans
This is why when I look at the small amount of information that I've been able to find on my 2nd great-grandmother Annie O'Brien, I am truly dumbfounded. What makes a nineteen year-old young Irish lady board a ship in Dublin, Ireland with, I would guess, everything she owns, and set sail for New Orleans, Louisiana in the year 1872? Admittedly, I've not done much research on her. I have a copy of her death certificate obtained from FamilySearch.org [Record Search], and I found on Ancestry.com as well as on microfilm at the library that she married my 2nd great-grandfather Daniel Rook(e) Vaughn in 1874 in New Orleans, Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. Additionally, I was able to follow them in the census to Texas where they lived and raised children until their deaths.
My Tin Cup Is Always Half-Full
From what my mother has told me, she was supposed to have been a strong-willed lady [supposedly part of my "long line of managing women" that I descend from] who had a penchant for Irish Whiskey. It's been passed down orally in my family that she had a tin cup that she'd take once a day to the local saloon's back door and have it filled up. [It could have been worse ~ it could have been a whole bottle of Irish Whiskey or she could have been a "saloon girl." See, for me, my tin cup is always half-full...] It has also been said by various family members that it's a good thing she died in 1918 because she never would have survived Prohibition. Just this wee bit of information makes me thirsty for more of Annie's story. I want to know her. I want to meet her. In order to do that [seances aside], I need to search for her. I have to find out what was going on at the time she was living in Dublin as well as the history leading up to her birth. The only thing I really know about Irish history that may have influenced her was the Potato Famine. Was this why she moved?
It's A Lot Like Listening To A Violin
With all this in mind, I chose for my summer reading challenge a book entitled, "In Search of Ireland's Heroes...The Story of the Irish from the English Invasion to the Present Day" written by Carmel McCaffrey. Now, you might be wondering why I didn't choose a book about the Potato Famine. I'm glad you pointed that out. I find that reading history is a lot like listening to a violin being played. In the hands of a master violinist it is pure poetry to the ears, but when it's accompanied by the rest of the orchestra, it makes sense to not only the ears, but to the mind and heart as well. You can't take a piece of history out of context and be able to read and understand it. Moreover, according to Isaac Newton, "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." You can't understand the reaction [and the motivations behind it] without understanding the action that it's reacting to. Confused? Let's say for example, when my daughter comes to me and says that my son hit her, I always ask both of them their side of the story. My thinking is that somewhere in between lies the truth. Plus, there might be a good reason that he hit her. Maybe she hit him first... [As a side note, for my sanity, I try not to micromanage my children. I advocate them solving their problems on their own. It's not a part of my future plans to be a 70-year-old mom mediating who hit who and why they did it. I'm going to be too busy traveling to awesome places like Ireland.]
From An Irish Point of View
Ms. McCaffrey's book was and is an excellent source of the history of Ireland leading up to the day my Annie set sail for New Orleans, and then through to present day. It is very easy to read without feeling like it was "dumb-downed." That's probably because it isn't. It's just that she writes like she's talking to you. [She's Irish, so in my head, I added the accent, too.] Furthermore, I'm glad that I chose not to read just about the Potato Famine because I would have missed why it was so devastating to the Irish. In other words, their reaction of the action. Don't worry, though, I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow of Irish history from about 1200 and onward. In order to learn all about Ireland's heroes, you need to read the book like I did. If you have Irish heritage like I do, or just desire to know Irish history from the Irish point of view, then this book is for you.
So That's Why...
I learned that just as a family tree does not stand alone, neither does a country's history. There were many times while I was reading the book, that I had "Ah-ha" moments. I would think, "So, that's why..." Of course it covers English and some European history, but it covers some American history as well. It gives a better understanding of some of our American forefathers and their motivations, the affects of the American Revolution on Ireland, and a small look at the American Irish who managed to stay connected with their homeland.
Going To Bed Hungry
So, did I learn anything about Annie O'Brien? You can bet your tin cup I did. I learned that no matter how hungry I get, I will never come close to understanding what true hunger is. The fact that her mother and father made it through the famine and had Annie is a true miracle in and of itself. Annie reported that she was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1852. This would've been 2 years after the famine officially ended. According to Ms. McCaffrey, 1.5 million Irish died from starvation and disease. 1.5 million. Certainly, the aftereffects of the famine were still being felt severely in 1852 and throughout Annie's childhood. I would imagine that there were nights she went to bed hungry, or if she didn't, her parents did.
Will The Real Annie Please Stand Up?
On Annie's death certificate, her father is listed as James O'Brien, and her mother's name is unknown. So, does this mean she never talked about her mother? Could it be her mother died young? Annie's son Daniel Vaughn, Jr. was the informant on her death certificate, so maybe because he was the youngest, he never heard any stories. Maybe he just didn't remember them. Additionally, I have yet to find the passenger list that marks her voyage. Do you realize how many Annie/Ann/Anne O'Brien's there are, not to mention that her first name could have been Mary [rolling of the eyes heavenward]. Like I said above, I haven't done a whole lot of research on her. Furthermore, even though the census and her death certificate list her birthplace as Dublin, Ireland, I'm not even sure if that's correct. It was common to just list Dublin, Ireland because that's the port they left from, even though they might not have been born there. I also know that she was Catholic, as is all of my mom's side of the family. So, maybe church records will help me find her. Although, an Annie O'Brien with a father named James may not be very easy to discern from all other ones in Dublin, Ireland. Also, in all the Texas census she is listed in , I've yet to find any O'Brien's in the same vicinity as she. So, did she come alone? Had everyone in her immediate family passed away in Ireland? Was she an orphan? Was she really an O'Brien? [Sigh.] There are so many questions...
A Feast ~ the Likes of Which She'd Probably Never Seen
After visiting New Orleans for the first time this past weekend, another question has been added to all my other questions. When she finally got off that ship, and got a whiff of the Creole food, the Cajun food, and the seafood, how much was her mouth watering? I wonder what she ate first, for food is definitely one thing that New Orleans is known for, even in 1872. Could you imagine what that must of been like for her ~ to not only have food, but spicy food and lots of it? I'd bet my tin cup that her eyes were bigger than her stomach on more than one occasion.
All Aboard! Next Stop ~ Ancient Ireland
In the book, "In Search of Ireland's Heroes", the O'Brien name/clan is mentioned just once in the beginning of the book. Ms. McCaffrey indicates that after the English Invasion the O'Brien's were still in power in Munster [southern Ireland]. Now, the O'Brien's were not the "movers and the shakers" of the time period that this book covers. [of course not...] Clans such as the Fitzgerald's, the O'Neill's, and the O'Donnell's take center stage in this book. Apparently the O'Brien's were the "movers and the shakers" of ancient Ireland, an account of which can be found in Ms. McCaffrey's prequel to this book and is entitled, "In Search of Ancient Ireland." Also, according to many published genealogies of this clan, the O'Brien's descend from a Brian Boru who was crowned as High King of Ireland in 1002. Now, that's a family story that is a "must-read." So, in my "off-time" from searching for more of Annie's story, I'll be ensconced in ancient Ireland and Brian's story [the High King ~ not the football player] while sipping from my tin cup.


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Harry Mussatto Golf Course
Golf Leagues
Our leagues offer competition, fun and a great way to meet people. Players of all ability levels are encouraged to participate. Ask in the Pro Shop for details. Entry green fees and carts are extra.
Senior League
- League Green Fee for non-members | $10
- Senior League Fee | $1/weekly
- Cart | $6
Each Tuesday morning, beginning in April and running through October, a group of eager and motivated seniors gather. The competition consists of 4-man scramble teams competing for weekly prizes. Lunch is served on the first Tuesday every month and coffee weekly. It's a lot of fun. Come out and join us!
Women's League
- League Green Fee for non-members | $10 Wednesdays a.m./p.m.
- Cart | $6
The Women's league is divided into morning and evening groups. The morning group features a scramble format and a more laid back atmosphere, while the evening group plays a variety of fun events. Both leagues are fun and offer a great way to meet and make new friends.


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Average salaries for SEC football coaches tops out among all conferences
College football's leader in many ways, the Southeastern Conference this season has regained the distinction of having the highest average compensation for its football head coaches.
The SEC's 14 coaches are making more than $3.3 million a man, according to USA TODAY Sports' annual analysis of major-college football coaches' pay. That represents an average increase of nearly $560,000 and carries the SEC – also the leader in 2011 -- past the Big 12, which had the highest average last season.
In addition, 11 of the SEC's 13 public-school coaches entered their current contract years with the possibility of attaining at least $700,000 in bonuses, including six who had at least $1 million as a maximum.
Big 12 coaches are averaging nearly $3.1 million, which means they are closer to those in the SEC this time than they were in 2011, when the gap was almost $500,000.
DATABASE: Average salaries of head football coaches
Big Ten coaches remain, on average, the third-highest-paid group at roughly $2.6 million. But they continue to gain ground, from roughly $560,000 per coach from being the second-highest paid group in 2011, to $475,000 back in 2012 and $435,000 this season. Since 2011, the average pay among Big Ten coaches has risen almost 36%.
Atlantic Coast Conference coaches ($2.28 million average) nudged back in front of those from the Pac-12 ($2.24 million, a 40% increase since 2011).
The SEC's average this season is being pushed by one-time compensation to new coaches at Arkansas and Tennessee to cover buyouts to their previous schools – but those are not the only factors.
MORE: Quirks found in coaches' salary packages
Arkansas' total of almost $5.2 million for Bret Bielema includes nearly $2 million related to the buyout payment he owed Wisconsin. Last season, Arkansas paid John L. Smith $850,000 after paying Bobby Petrino more than $3.6 million in 2011.
Tennessee's total of nearly $4.9 million for Butch Jones includes $1.4 million related to Jones' buyout to Cincinnati and a $500,000 signing bonus.
Then there is Texas A&M, jumping Kevin Sumlin's pay from more than $2.4 million, including buyout considerations to Houston, to $3.1 million. LSU, Georgia and Florida also provided raises, ranging from $250,000 to $549,000. And Kentucky went from paying Joker Phillips $1.7 million last season to paying Mark Stoops $2 million this season.


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Simply select your choice of Engraving Style from the dropdown menu and then add the required text for engraving into the appropriate Text Area.
Please contact us if you would like more than one Record Shield or Record Plate engraving per Annual Shield.
Engraving Tip, If you require a lot of engraving, Gothic Block or Cursive Script are easier to read at smaller letter sizes.
Custom Centres
Why not have your own club logo or design for the trophy centre badge?
Our vinyl printed centres are an ideal way of personalising any trophy that accepts 1" or 2" centres
with no minimum order or set-up charge the custom centres are just 50 pence each.
So if you would like your own custom centres just select 'Custom' from the dropdown menu,
then click on UPLOAD FILES to send us the image for the centre.
We can work from most types of image file including BMP, JPG, GIF & TIFF and vector files including AI, EPS, CDR & PDF
Please do not send us DOCX or PPTX files.
|1 = Top Scroll
|5 = Title Plate
|2 = Shield Front
|6 = Record Plate
|3 = Record Shield
|4 = Bottom Scroll
Emerald Shield is a trademark, © 2017 & Registered Design of The Trophy Store Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
© 2019 The Trophy Store | All Rights Reserved


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President's Pages in Princeton Alumni Weekly
Making Music at Princeton
May 13, 2009
Shakespeare tells us that "the man that hath no music in himself . . . is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." Whatever the merits of this claim, we do not have to worry that it applies to our students. From September until May, Princeton is awash in music, from formal recitals in Taplin Auditorium to freewheeling jam sessions in Café Vivian; from the works of classical composers to the music of laptop computers; from grand productions involving multiple art forms to a cappella beneath a moonlit arch.
Indeed, it would take more than one President's Page to even briefly describe the extraordinary range of student-generated instrumental and vocal music that is presented on our campus in any given year. Last month alone you could have listened to the Princeton University Orchestra under conductor Michael Pratt perform works by Richard Strauss and Schumann, or the Princeton University Glee Club perform Bach's Mass in B Minor under the direction of Richard Tang Yuk. You could have attended jazz vespers at the University Chapel — part of a flourishing jazz program headed by composer and trumpeter Anthony Branker '80 — or a vocal recital by Adam Fox '09 in fulfillment of his certificate in musical performance. You could also have caught the Nassoons, Princeton's oldest a cappella group, harmonizing beneath Blair Arch, or the Princeton University Players presenting Orpheus Waking, a new student-written musical, at 185 Nassau Street. And for those with an interest in composition, there was the annual spring concert of the Undergraduate Composers Collective; while for those with a taste for musical fusion, there was a concert sponsored by the Romanian Students and Scholars Association, featuring Romanian-American jazz. And this does not begin to capture works performed by faculty, musicians-in-residence, and visiting artists.
What I can attempt to capture in this President's Page is the spirit that informs and, in a real sense, unifies the music that pervades our campus. This spirit, which marks our approach to the creative and performing arts in general, reflects a strong belief that studying, performing, and composing music should not be the exclusive domain of a professional conservatory, but should be included as an integral part of a liberal arts education. Indeed, our certificate program in musical performance, which attracted 29 students last year, requires participants to major in another field while giving them a clear curricular structure in which to develop their instrumental or vocal talents. I like to think that Princeton is one of the few places where you will find alumni such as Jonathan Vinocour '01, an outstanding chemistry major who earned a certificate in musical performance and, after a stellar beginning to his musical career, will be joining the San Francisco Symphony as principal viola this fall.
Just as our student musicians embrace a wide variety of academic fields, much of their musical activities are themselves multidisciplinary. Princeton's celebrated Laptop Orchestra, for example, was founded by Associate Professor of Music Dan Trueman *99 and Professor of Computer Science Perry Cook and brings together students from these and other disciplines to explore entirely new ways of making music. Other productions involve close collaborations between scholars and performers, ranging from Baroque opera to the works of 20th-century Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev, often within a framework of related courses, exhibitions, and conferences. And there are countless opportunities to blend the talents of actors, dancers, and musicians, such as a joint project of the Princeton Shakespeare Company and the Princeton University Orchestra in which Shakespeare's play and Mendelssohn's music were united in an unforgettable production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Princeton's music department has recognized the importance of incorporating a performance component into its offerings since its formative years before the Second World War, when it established a strong relationship with the orchestra and glee club. It has also played a crucial role in anchoring the musical arts within a rigorous but supportive academic setting. Today, together with the Lewis Center for the Arts, the Department of Music and its musical performance program are creating new opportunities for students to express themselves in virtually every conceivable musical form, while forging multidisciplinary connections that will enrich the musical experience of these talented young musicians and all who hear them.


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As we near the end of February, this article also closes a series in honor of Black History Month. In previous articles, we've reviewed the establishment of the Republican Party for the express purpose of ending the moral failure of slavery. We've looked at the accomplishments of Republicans in securing liberty for black Americans, from the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, to the 1866 Civil Rights Act (with Democrats refusing to uphold the law, and a Democrat-appointed Supreme Court later repealing the laws). We also looked at the violent, bloody history of Democrats and their sister organization, the Ku Klux Klan, which terrorized and murdered thousands of blacks.
Despite the clear facts outlined in history, somehow the Democrat Party has audaciously claimed the mantel as the party that protects blacks, a claim as ridiculous as it is incredulous. Granted, the Democrat Party no longer relies on cross-burning and lynching to keep blacks in their place. However, today it uses far more subtle and sinister tactics to keep blacks on the government "plantation". And despite their public proclamation of love for blacks in America, their private comments, and the disastrous results of Democrat policies, show us that the Democrats are not now, nor have they ever been, a friend to blacks.
Democrats like to take credit for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and claim Republicans were against civil rights efforts. Yet the truth is that when the 1964 Civil Rights law was passed, it only passed because of overwhelming support from Republicans, who were a heavy minority in both the House and Senate. Without 80% of Republicans voting in favor, the law would not have passed because of opposition from nearly 40% of Democrats. The longest filibuster in Senate history came about as Democrats attempted to derail the passage of the law. Among those deeply opposing civil rights for blacks were Albert Gore (father of former VP Al Gore), Robert "KKK" Byrd, and Democrat Senator Richard Russell, who said of the bill, "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states." Democrats named the oldest Senate office building in his honor.
The bill was signed into law by Democrat Lyndon Johnson, which was interesting in and of itself, since Johnson had staunchly opposed passage during his tenure in Congress. In fact, it was Johnson who removed the enforcement "teeth" from the 1957 Civil Rights Act signed by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, the same president who desegregated the military.
How does one reconcile the sudden change of heart by Johnson? Perhaps we understand it in a better light when we understand that Johnson was perhaps the shrewdest, most ruthless political operator in American history and a master at turning events to his advantage. Though he signed the bill, it is hard to imagine he'd had a complete change of heart when his private thoughts are revealed. According to testimony of Robert M. MacMillan (who served on Air Force One under Johnson), LBJ was once taking a flight when he bragged to the two governors accompanying him, "I'll have them n*gg*rs voting Democratic for two hundred years."
Modern Democrats have offered similar feelings, if in not quite so crude a fashion. In 2007, then presidential candidate Joe Biden said of primary opponent Barack Obama, "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy…I mean, that's a storybook, man." Does that mean that all the blacks in public office before Obama were dirty, ugly, and illiterate? Likewise, the "first black president", Bill Clinton, said to Ted Kennedy during the 2008 campaign (when Clinton was seeking Kennedy's endorsement for Hillary), "You know, Ted, a few years ago this guy would have been carrying our bags." Now, lest one think that was a one-time faux pas, we now know, via wide coverage of the Edward Klein biography "The Amateur", Clinton also said of Obama, "Obama doesn't know how to be president. He doesn't know how the world works. He's incompetent. He's…he's…Barack Obama's an amateur."
Of course, those comments are downright complimentary compared to the insults and vitriol reserved for black conservatives. After promising a fair hearing, then- Senator Joe Biden savaged the character of Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, in what Thomas would call a "high-tech lynching". Thomas was painted as a scary, black sexual predator that preyed on women. So unfairly defamatory was the attack that the liberal Juan Williams, a Washington Post op-ed columnist at the time, described it as "indiscriminate, mean-spirited mudslinging supported by the so-called champions of fairness: liberal politicians, unions, civil rights groups and women's organizations." Thomas would not be the only black man or woman to feel the hateful lash of liberal Democrats for leaving the Democrat plantation. Such notables as former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, and more recently TEA Party favorites like Herman Cain, Tim Scott, and Mia Love would all be savaged by liberals, their characters assassinated publicly, with nary a whimper of protest from the likes of the NAACP or the Congressional Black Caucus. I guess one can't be "authentically" black unless they are liberal Democrats.
As for the myth of Nixon's "Southern Strategy" and the claim of racist southern Democrats switching parties, a lie so often trotted out by liberal Democrats, that is easily debunked. Of the Civil Rights-era Democrats who fought so hard to prevent their passage, only one, Strom Thurmond, ever switched to the Republican Party. The rest would go to their graves as Democrats. Likewise, it was Nixon who worked hardest to desegregate southern schools, and it was Nixon who passed affirmative action programs to help blacks.
As harsh as the personal attacks on black conservatives have been, the policies of Democrats have ruined the lives of millions of black Americans. Astonishingly, presumably due to ignorance as to the impetus for these policies (liberals claim they are helping blacks, even as they cut their legs out from under them), blacks actually elect and re-elect Democrats with around 93% of their vote, insuring that these brutal policies will continue to destroy the black family for generations to come.
And what are these destructive policies? These are the policies that lead to the disintegration of the black family, leave them mired in poverty, leave them professionally disadvantaged, and that leave them impotent against violent criminals.
Despite significant and growing support in the black community for educational choice, Democrats continue to fight hard against allowing vouchers, charter schools, or any other avenue for improving education for black children. Indeed, it was Obama himself who cut off funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which served underprivileged minority children, and which outperformed other area schools at almost half the cost. Inferior education is a guarantee of generational poverty, so why do Democrats oppose giving these children a chance?
Likewise, gun control laws and union work laws were passed specifically to disadvantage blacks. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring decision in McDonald v. Chicago, gun control laws were passed as a way to disarm blacks who were being attacked by bloodthirsty mobs of KKK thugs. You see, thugs prefer unarmed victims. The union work laws were passed to protect white union workers from losing contracts to non-unionized black laborers who offered quality labor at a lower price. And most horrific of all is the holocaust of abortion which has devastated the black community. Planned Parenthood, the organization that grew out of Margaret Sanger's eugenics plan (by which she promoted the elimination of "undesirables" like blacks and Hispanics through a program of abortion and sterilization) receives hundreds of millions of dollars from Democrats, funds which helped slaughter an estimated 16 million black children since 1973, more than twice the number of Jews slaughtered during the Holocaust. Planned Parenthood has been caught on tape willingly accepting donations for the specific purpose of killing unborn black children. How tragically ironic it is that blacks today give near unanimous support to a party that has achieved what the KKK of years past could only dream of accomplishing…the legal, systematic slaughter of millions of blacks?
So, as we conclude this annual Black History Month, I hope that for once we can take an objective look at which party has been a true friend to the black community, and which is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Which party was formed to secure freedom for blacks, which party fought in the halls of Congress, and which party soaked the fields of battle with their blood? And then consider which party has infiltrated the black community, their churches, their beauty salons, their schools, and their places of gathering, whispering comforting promises even as they plot their enslavement and demise.


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Automotive Technician
Experienced Technicians Needed – Immediate Sign On Bonus
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Disclaimer: I acknowledge that I am applying for employment with an independently owned and operated Midas franchisee, a separate company and employer from Midas Corporation and any of its affiliates or subsidiaries. I understand that each independent franchisee is solely responsible for all decisions relating to employees including and without limitation hiring and termination, and Midas Corporation does not accept or review applications. Any questions about my application or the hiring process must be directed to the Midas franchisee.


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Select Destinations under the broker's name in the Administration Console window's navigation pane.
A list of the available physical destinations will appear in the result pane, showing the name, type, and current state of each destination.
Select a physical destination by clicking on its name in the result pane.
Choose Properties from the Actions menu.
The Broker Destination Properties dialog box (Figure 2–9) will appear, showing current status and configuration information about the selected physical destination. You can use this dialog box to change various configuration properties, such as the maximum number of messages, producers, and consumers that the destination can accommodate.
For this exercise, do not change any of the destination's properties.
For topic destinations, the Broker Destination Properties dialog box contains an additional tab, Durable Subscriptions. Clicking on this tab displays the Durable Subscriptions panel (Figure 2–10), listing information about all durable subscriptions currently associated with the given topic.
You can use the Durable Subscriptions panel's Purge and Delete buttons to
Purge all pending messages associated with a durable subscription
Remove a durable subscription from the topic
The Durable Subscriptions tab is disabled for queue destinations.
Click OK to accept the new property values and dismiss the dialog box.


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The best antidote I know for worry is work. The best cure for weariness is the challenge of helping someone who is even more tired.
One of the great ironies of life is this : He or she who serves almost always benefits more than he or she who is served.
Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something
The 2018-2019 School Year is here and we are looking for a full-time Speech Language Pathologist through the end of the year for a terrific high school in Montebello, CA.
This district is full of a terrific team of educators, grateful parents, and children who are in desperate need of your life-giving excellence!
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1. Masters of Science in Communication Disorders, Speech-Language Pathology or similar coursework from an accredited program
2. Successful completion of PRAXIS
3. 1 year of verifiable, supervised professional experience within the last 3 years (may include residency or clinical practicum)
4. Valid SLP license or credential in the state of practice, or ability to obtain one
TherapyTravelers is a culture of appreciation! TherapyTravelers attracts, empowers and retains the finest therapists so that every human can manifest their full potential.
Our therapists love us because of our amazing team, collaboration and adventure, our unique culture of corporate responsibility, and our crazy awesome contracts!
We are in the business of changing lives and we maintain a positive culture committed to excellence, teamwork, and authenticity.
Our benefits are out of this world too!
We believe that Happy Therapists make Happy Students!


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Skin Tone colored pencils
by LYRA
This assortment of twelve pencils includes the most prominent skin tones of the people of our world. Use these wood-cased break resistant pencils for broad designs or fine outlines. High color intensity. Simple application and easy removal with soap and water. Can be washed out of most textiles. Dermatologically tested. Wood casings keep fingers clean. Wood casing of pencils are 10.5 mm in diameter; core is 6.5 mm in diameter.
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On the Ball: Seeds are planted
That time of the year is here, where postseasons overlap and local fans have a full menu of options. Well, almost full — the Middlebury College men's hockey team lost in the NESCAC quarterfinal round on Saturday, its earliest exit ever.
While the Panther basketball teams have wrapped up their league tournaments — the men in real style, by knocking off the No. 1 team in the nation, Williams, to win the NESCAC title and one of the top NCAA Division III tournament seeds — the high school tournaments are getting under way this week. Girls' basketball and boys' and girls' hockey games are all on the docket.
Still, Coach Jeff Brown's 25-1 Panther men are making the big news. They earned a first-round bye, straight into the round of 32. They play Saturday night against the winner of a Thursday game between Western Connecticut 21-5) and Salve Regina (17-10). The Panthers expect Western Conn., which would bring talented 22-point-per-game guard Daquan Brooks.
Tickets for Saturday's game are $6 for adults and $3 for students and will go on sale Tuesday at http://boxoffice.middlebury.edu/index.php, or at 802-443-6433, or at the McCullough box office during normal business hours.
There is a chance the Panthers would host a round of 16 sectional the following weekend, but Brown said the NCAA does not always award sectionals to the highest seed. Gate receipts and travel costs are also factored into the equation. It is possible, therefore, that Saturday night could be the last chance for we locals to see seniors Andrew Locke, Ryan Wholey and Jamal Davis (whose defense last weekend on Williams all-star forward Troy Whittington proved invaluable).
Of course, watching the talented Middlebury women's hockey team is free. The top-seeded, 19-4-1 Panthers take on No. 4 Bowdoin at 1 p.m. on Saturday, and No. 2 Amherst (the defending national champion) faces No. 3 Trinity at 4 p.m. The final will be in Chip Kenyon at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Both Middlebury and Amherst made the NCAA field a year ago, but there are no guarantees: Only Sunday's winner is assured of making the dance.
Sticking with hockey the Middlebury Union High School boys last week only had to defeat one of two teams, both with losing records, to earn no worse than the No. 2 seed in Division II. Instead, they dropped a pair of one-goal games, and earned only a home quarterfinal.
That game is set for Friday at 7 p.m. in the Memorial Sports Center, probably against Burr & Burton, a team the No. 3, 12-4-3 Tigers have defeated twice. Their probable semifinal foe is Peoples (15-5) on the road. The Tigers won there, 5-1, this winter, so their prospects remain favorable. Especially if, as Coach Derek Bartlett is fond of reminding them, they play a full 45 minutes.
The Tiger girls finished 8-11 and got a No. 7 seed in D-II. They will host No. 10 North Country, a team they brushed aside easily earlier this winter when they were at full strength. A Saturday quarterfinal at No. 2 U-32 would be next. The Tigers gave the Raiders a good battle in a home game I saw this winter; hopefully they can do so again.
Only one thing is for sure in girls' basketball: One of our four local D-II teams will be eliminated on Tuesday night. That's when No. 7 Otter Valley (7-13) will host No. 10 Vergennes (4-16). The Commodores played a tougher schedule than the Otters, but OV did beat Middlebury, which defeated VUHS twice. Tuesday's winner gets a long bus ride to No. 2 Lyndon (14-6) on Thursday.
No. 5 MUHS (8-12) got edged out for the No. 4 seed by U-32 (9-11) when the Raiders won by two points at Northfield on Saturday. The Tigers should have little trouble getting out of the first round: No. 12 Woodstock (0-20) visits on Wednesday at 7 p.m. That game will mark the final home appearance of four-year varsity players Katie Ritter and Nicole Brown. Then MUHS would have to visit U-32 on Saturday at a time yet to be announced, with a Monday trip to the Barre Auditorium on the line.
The Mount Abraham girls are off until Saturday, courtesy of their 13-7 record and No. 3 seed. At 1 p.m. they will host either No. 6 Fair Haven or No. 11 Missisquoi (0-20). The smart money — heck, even the dumb money — is on the Slaters to advance and face the Eagles in what will be the final home game for four-year starter Jenn Loyer. The winner of that game will advance to the Aud and face either Lyndon, OV or VUHS on Monday.
OK, other than that, this week's Nordic and alpine ski state meets, this weekend's the New England wrestling meet in Connecticut and the state cheerleading championships at VUHS, and the final regular season boys' basketball games, there's not a whole lot going on. Then mud season looms.
Andy Kirkaldy may be reached at [email protected].


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Medically at least, we now know what to expect from Cowboys defensive end DeMarcus Ware.
According to Todd Archer of ESPNDallas.com, Ware had surgery on his right elbow, and is expected to be back at full strength before the start of the offseason program.
The elbow had bothered him the past two seasons, but every expectation is he'll be fine moving forward. It was one of several problems he had last year, along with a quadriceps strain that cost him three games and parts of others, as he was held to a career-low 6.0 sacks.
The remaining question is what the Cowboys do with his contract.
He's scheduled to count $16 million against the salary cap, and make $12.25 million this year. With Terrell Suggs re-working his deal with the Ravens this week, it would be reasonable for the Cowboys to try to adjust Ware's numbers downward as well. But as of this week, there had been no such talks.
The 31-year-old struggled with the adjustment to a 4-3 defense as well as the injuries last year, and the Cowboys are nearing the time when they might have to make a hard decision with Ware.


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Commercial Cleaning Services Young America MN 55559
The pressure from customers to reduce costs is greater than ever due to the current economic climate. Many companies are now reviewing overheads across their business and looking to see where savings can be made. In terms of office cleaning, reduced budgets will ultimately lead to a lower level of service, so it's about taking a logical, common sense approach that balances savings opportunities against critical business needs.Reducing the frequency of the office cleaning operation offers immediate cost savings, with some companies switching from a daily service to alternate days. However, some businesses have taken more extreme measures, which in my opinion is a mistake. For example, if a company is to introduce a deep clean just one day a week and then rely on its staff to maintain the cleanliness of the building for the remainder of the week, this will not only distract employees from their day-to-day roles, but also result in much poorer working conditions by the end of each week.Careful Planning Better planning offers a more effective alternative to simply reducing office cleaning across a business. One of the simplest ways of reducing costs is taking a close look at the overall office cleaning operation to focus resources to make the most of budgets. By classifying areas as either high or low profile it is possible to adapt the office cleaning regime to concentrate on critical requirements.Typically, areas such as the office reception, entrance, washroom, meeting rooms and boardroom are seen as high profile, whilst back office and administrative spaces are seen as low profile. Mind you there is still a fine balance, because cutting back too much on low profile areas can damage the working environment for office staff and have an adverse impact on workforce motivation.Therefore, companies need to undertake a range of initiatives to effectively remove costs from an office cleaning operation without incurring damaging side affects. Intelligent office cleaning is a way of understanding the needs of an operation to reduce the required hours through better scheduling.If a meeting room is often only used on certain days of the week does it need to be cleaned on a daily basis? Could it instead be cleaned every other day or only when it has been in use. With some clever thinking it is possible to streamline an office cleaning operation without impacting on levels of cleanliness, which ultimately removes additional costs. Daytime Approach Switching to daytime office cleaning offers a host of business and operational benefits including reduced costs, increased productivity and enhanced customer care. Additionally, reducing a building's opening hours, for example from 5am-9pm to 8am-7pm, will enable it to be locked down for longer periods, offering reductions in operational costs such as heating, air conditioning and security.Also, there is often a change in customer and staff perception when adopting daytime cleaning. The Increase in the visibility of office cleaning staff raises the overall awareness of the process, highlighting its importance and demonstrating the commitment to high standards. Building occupants tend to show more respect towards office cleaning staff when they see them working hard to keep the building clean, so greater care is often taken by staff and visitors as a result.Having office cleaning staff available during a building's opening hours ensures a consistent level of cleanliness throughout the day. With a traditional service, a building is likely to be clean at the beginning of the day and then standards gradually deteriorate until office cleaning staff return the following evening or morning.Daytime cleaning offers new levels of flexibility and the opportunity to respond to any situation. Office cleaning schedules can be adapted to better meet the needs of customers whether this is identifying operational peaks, or arranging job allocations based on the planned usage of meeting rooms. Moreover, it enables an immediate response in the case of unforeseen accidents and spillages, minimising the required clean up time and promoting a clean and hygienic working atmosphere.Workplace Hygiene The swine flu epidemic has brought hygiene to the forefront of people's minds, with companies and employees alike looking at ways of minimising the spread of the disease. What it has highlighted is the ongoing need for proper hygiene within the working environment to protect staff's health from dirty and germ-ridden surfaces and equipment. Therefore, any changes to an office cleaning schedule need to take into consideration employee welfare and the implications of any reduced levels of hygiene.The cost of absenteeism to UK companies is considerable, with 11 billion lost each year due to sickness, and this figure is likely to have been even greater over the past twelve months. A large percentage of that is due to bacteria and germs being picked up by people in the workplace.Desks and office equipment are in fact a breeding ground for germs and bacteria. For example, a toilet seat has on average 47 microbes per square inch compared to a telephone that has around 25,000 and a keyboard with 3,300. This is hardly surprising when you consider that toilets are cleaned regularly, but most people don't think about their office desk and the equipment on it. As a result, there can be up to 10 million bacteria on the typical desk, and this can include Ecoli, MRSA Winter Vomiting bugs and now of course Swine Flu.Regular sanitising of IT equipment and hard surfaces is a must to reduce the spread of bugs, viruses and diseases. Also, taking time to educate employees about the personal and business risks will encourage better personal hygiene and working practices.Waste Management Recycling is now an important consideration for all companies who are under legislative, corporate and social pressure to reduce the impact their operation has on the environment and wider community. Therefore, there is an opportunity to take an integrated approach with the office cleaning operation to adopt effective waste management procedures to keep time and cost pressures to a minimum.Over the past few years, the cost of dumping rubbish at landfill sites has been increasing 25 per cent annually, and this is unlikely to change moving forward. Therefore, there are wider cost savings available for those businesses that can achieve high levels of recycling. Companies can also receive money back for waste paper, so this represents an added kick back.By integrating waste management with an existing office cleaning operation, companies can benefit from added value resulting from efficient waste segregation and better-managed processes to make significant time and cost savings. It is possible to tap into the expertise of office cleaning companies to increase levels of recycled office and operational waste including paper, confidential paper, ink cartridges and food waste. Outsourcing And A Partnership Approach Some companies may consider that they can reduce costs by taking their office cleaning operation back in-house. However, organisations should not underestimate the knowledge and expertise possessed by office cleaning companies and the ability this provides to focus on core activity.Most office cleaning companies will have access to specialist cleaning equipment that offers added efficiency benefits. Battery powered, low noise vacuum cleaners are essential for daytime cleaning operations, whilst microfiber cloths not only reduce cleaning time and improve results, but also minimise the use of polish and other cleaning agents.There are also many hidden costs associated with in-house office cleaning operations. For example, companies will need to organise appropriate training for internal office cleaning staff and also take into consideration holiday cover. Furthermore, companies will not have the same buying power as office cleaning companies, so equipment and cleaning product costs will also be higher as a result.Office cleaning companies often widen opportunities to benefit from a multi-service solution. Many office cleaning companies are either part of a larger group or have partners in place to deliver an integrated service offering. Therefore, companies can access a wide range of complementary services to help achieve additional cost savings.Simply slashing office cleaning budgets is not necessarily the most effective means of lowering overheads, so it is worth taking a step back and considering all the options available and what issues need to be considered. What is important is that whatever steps are taken do not negatively impact on a business' core activity.
Why Keeping Your Office Clean Is So Important
No doubt, there is a huge market for the office cleaning business and more people are becoming aware of this. However, this increased demand doesn't necessarily guarantee success for everyone that ventures into it. There have been stories of successes as well as of failures. Actually the failure stories tend to be more common. What is it that makes a difference?Several factors are responsible for making any business venture successful; the business of professional office cleaning is not different. Some of the factors include: diligence, excellent service delivery, dedicated staff, innovative inputs...Many a small thing has been made large by advertising-Mark Twain And yes... advertising! The statement quoted above says it all. Advertising your cleaning services is a major determinant of the extent of its growth. You may be the best cleaner in town, charge the lowest office cleaning rates, have the most dedicated staff, but if your clients are not aware of this, you might just be on the fast track to bankruptcy. I'm sure you can now agree with me that advertising your business is an integral part of its success.Your excuse may be that you cannot afford the services of an ad company since yours is just a small business. Hey, you can strike that out this minute! While securing the services of an ad company is definitely helpful, it's not the only way. There are less expensive ways of achieving the same result: growing your office cleaning business. The purpose of this article is to discuss a few of these ways.Do a great job: this is a particularly important step. For a small office cleaning concern like yours, the best form of advertising is word of mouth or recommendations from those you've worked for. If you do a great job, they will tell others and if you also do a shoddy job, the same thing applies.Build your Clientele base: this is relevant to preparing your resume especially if you are just starting out. You may have to take some jobs at lower rates to establish your office cleaning company. Develop a strong resume: be sure to include your strong points, your experience, jobs you have handled... If necessary, employ the services of a professional resume builder. Since this is the first contact between you and your prospective clients, it must put you in the best light. Don't lie.Conduct a research to identify prospective clients: once you've identified them, present proposals to them letting them know why they should employ your company to clean their offices.
3 Homemade Cleaning Solutions That Can Save Your CarpetYoung America MN 55559
Another service that adds value for a customer is conducting inspections after the janitorial services are provided. This takes cleaning accountability to a whole new level. The job of inspecting a building for cleanliness is very important. It can make the difference in keeping or losing an account.
We personally conduct all inspections and are thorough, fair and honest. After all, we would rather catch a problem before the customer does!
Carpet Cleaning Tricks: The Horrifying Halloween Stains
Janitors have access to virtually all areas of a building, including your office, when no one else is around. Your office is the center of your firm's brand, image and reputation in the community. Your office may be home to the firm's intellectual property, trade secrets, or proprietary information such as customer lists and price sheets. You may also keep the names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and dates of birth of your clients and employees in your office. Is this information safe? What do you know about your office cleaner? Has your janitor been convicted of a crime of violence? Is your janitor an illegal or undocumented worker, a violent felon, a drug addict, a corporate spy, or an identity thief?A single case of identity theft could cost your firm thousands of dollars, thousands of hours of labor to fix, and cause enormous damage to your firm's brand, image and reputation among your customers and employees. Identity theft statistics are staggering. The Javelin Strategy and Research Center recently reported:• There were 10 million victims of identity theft in 2008 in the United States, a 22% increase over 2007 • 1 in every 10 U.S. consumers has been victimized by identity theft • Up to 55% of victims take 4-12 months to correct the damage from identity theft • In 2008, existing account fraud in the U.S. totaled $31 billion • The average victim loses between $851 and $1,378 out-of-pocket trying to resolve identity theft • 47% of victims have problems qualifying for a new loan • 70% of victims encounter problems removing negative information from their credit reports • Businesses across the globe lose $221 billion a year due to identity theft • Stolen documents and wallets account for almost half of all identity theft (43%).Evidence developed during the past few years points to an unmistakable and irrefutable connection between illegal or undocumented workers employed as janitors, and identity theft and other crimes. The crime of identity theft is generally committed for two reasons; personal benefit or document fraud. There have been a number of stories in the media about janitors committing identity theft.In Seattle, 2 janitors were accused of stealing the identities of 181 people and running up thousands of dollars in charges. The janitors said they stole the information by rummaging through company files, including personnel files. In Florida, a janitor was charged with stealing the identity of an attorney whose office he cleaned, selling shares of stock owned by the attorney, and running up $20,000 in credit card charges. The U.S. Attorney for the western district of Washington reported that 2 janitors, while employed at a janitorial company working at night in a U.S. Bank branch, stole information on more than 200 bank customers. Using that information, the janitors opened credit accounts in the customers' names, and signed up for on line banking. Using the credit card accounts, they purchased expensive items such as laptop computers, flat screen televisions and airline tickets. Using on line banking they paid their own bills and transferred funds to checking accounts that they then drained. They also submitted change of address requests on line so that the customers did not get their bank statements alerting them to the problem. The indictment charged the janitors with more than $200,000 in fraud.While a significant portion of identity theft is committed for financial gain, identity theft is also perpetrated for the purpose collecting personal data to sell to document forgers or organized identify theft rings. In New York, a janitor at public radio station WNYC was charged with stealing a list of the station's donors and selling it to an identity theft ring.The sad truth is that many cleaning contractors hire persons that they know, or should know, are illegal aliens. Many cleaning companies simply choose to accept identification documents presented by employment candidates at face value even when there is an obvious discrepancy. Failing to verify that employees are who they say they are and eligible for employment in the U.S. unnecessarily subjects building owners, managers and tenants to unacceptable risk of harm and potential legal liability. The seriousness of this risk is demonstrated by two recent cases.In November, 2009, more than 1,200 janitors employed by a janitorial services contractor were fired in Minnesota when they were unable to provide the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with proof of their legal status in the United States. The vast majority of the 1,200 fired workers turned out to be "undocumented." These illegal aliens may have committed several felonies: document fraud, perjury on an I-9 form, and identity theft if the social security number or other personally identifying information used by the illegal alien belonged to another person. By failing to verify that these persons were eligible for work in the United States, this cleaning contractor exposed its customers, including building owners, managers and tenants, to significant criminal and financial liability under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, 8 U.S.C 1324a(1), specifically prohibits the hiring of an alien not authorized to legally work in the United States. A much lesser-known section of this law, 8 U.S.C 1324a(4), provides that an entity that uses a contract or subcontract to obtain the labor of an alien knowing that the alien is an unauthorized alien with respect to performing such labor, shall be considered to have hired the alien for employment in violation of law. WalMart Stores, Inc. was reminded of this law the hard way. While avoiding criminal charges, WalMart agreed to pay a record $11 million in fines to the federal government to resolve charges alleging the employment of illegal aliens by the independent contractors WalMart retained to provide janitorial services. The investigation resulted in the arrests of over 350 allegedly illegal aliens. The cleaning contractors that hired the undocumented aliens and placed them in WalMart stores plead guilty to criminal immigration charges and agreed to pay a further total of $4 million in fines.While no one action, or series of actions, can ever provide 100% protection against identity theft or other crimes committed by a janitor, there are several actions that must be taken to mitigate risk in connection with signing a contract for janitorial services.Due diligence. Investigate whether the cleaning contractor has ever been associated with hiring illegal aliens. The internet is a valuable tool in this regard. Search the internet under the name of the company and check the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. If a company has a history of hiring illegal immigrants, you would be well-advised to hire a different contractor.Criminal Background Check. Make sure the cleaning contractor conducts an extensive criminal background check on all employees. Insist that appropriate language covering this point be included in your contract. E-Verify. A criminal background check, without more, may be insufficient to detect persons with criminal records. Here's why. Some U.S. citizens, in order to hide extensive criminal histories, will provide a cleaning contractor with a fake name and false proof of identity. If a criminal background check is run using this fraudulent information, the results may come back showing no criminal history when in fact that person has an extensive criminal record. The Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify System confirms the identity of each employee by comparing information from the employee's I-9 form against 444 million records in the Social Security Administration database and 60 million records in the Department of Homeland Security's immigration databases. E-Verify allows the contractor to determine whether that person is who he says he is and confirms the reliability of the identifying information that will be submitted for the background check. In addition, E-Verify determines the eligibility of each employee to work in the United States. Research indicates that illegal immigrants generally are not "undocumented." They commonly possess bogus documents such as counterfeit social security cards, forged drivers licenses, fake "green cards," and phony birth certificates. Experts believe that approximately 75 percent of illegal aliens use counterfeit social security cards to obtain employment. The E-Verify System helps detect this fraud. Before signing any contract for cleaning services, make sure appropriate language requiring the use of E-Verify is included in the contract.By following these simple suggestions, a building owner, manager or tenant can:(1) significantly reduce the risk that a janitor employed by a cleaning service will engage in identity theft, corporate espionage, or other serious crimes against persons or property in facilities under their control, (2) prevent cleaning service outages arising from having their cleaning contractor shut down, imprisoned or fined by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and (3) avoid potential criminal liability and large civil fines arising from your cleaning contractor's illegal conduct.Copyright 2010, James Cleaning Service, LLC. All Rights Reserved.


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Letter to Senator Dodd expressing NEA's support for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Act of 2007 (S. 1557)
July 18, 2007
Dear Senator Dodd:
On behalf of the 3.2 million members of the National Education Association (NEA), we would like to express our support for the 21st Century Community Learning Centers Act of 2007 (S. 1557). We thank you for your leadership in introducing this key legislation, which will provide students with much-needed after-school programs.
As you know, the availability of quality after-school programs plays a critical role in keeping children off the street and engaged in constructive, enjoyable activities. After-school programs also help enhance academic achievement. In fact, students participating in 21st Century Community Learning Centers show vast improvement in academic performance, homework completion, and classroom participation.
We particularly support provisions in your bill that would strengthen the sustainability of promising programs and improve the overall quality of after-school programs. Additionally, we are pleased that your bill would add physical fitness and wellness programs, as well as service learning and youth development activities as allowable uses for 21st Century Community Learning Center funds. After-school programs have been identified as effective venues for improving nutrition and providing access to physical activity at a time when childhood obesity threatens the health of many of our nation's students. Further, service learning and youth development activities give students the opportunity to design their own projects that address community needs and are integrated with their academic studies, leading to improved student engagement and enhanced student achievement.
Again, we thank you for your leadership on these important issues. We look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure great public schools for every child.
Diane Shust, Director of Government Relations
Randall Moody, Manager of Federal Advocacy


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Romney stands by remark
Mitt Romney on Tuesday afternoon refused to back down from his controversial comments that "47 percent" of Americans "are dependent upon government" and "believe that they are victims," insisting in a TV interview that "people would like to be paying taxes" because that means they have higher incomes.
"There are a number of retirees and members of the military and so forth who aren't paying taxes, and that's how it should be," Romney told Fox News's Neil Cavuto. "But I do believe that we should have enough jobs and enough take home pay such that people have the privilege of higher incomes that allow them to be paying taxes. I think people would like to be paying taxes."
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( Also on POLITICO: Romney woes jangle GOP nerves)
He added that the government should not be "handing out," but rather helping people get jobs.
"The good news is if you're doing well enough financially that you can pay a tax. And the problem right now is, you see in this country, so many people have fallen into poverty that they're not paying taxes. They have to rely on government," Romney said. "And the right course to help them is not just to have government handing out but instead government helping people to get back to good jobs."
( PHOTOS: 10 gaffes caught on mic)
The GOP presidential nominee was heavily criticized Tuesday after videos posted by Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, show the GOP nominee telling high-dollar donors at a Florida fundraiser in May that "there are 47 percent who are with [President Barack Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them."
Obama was asked about the video on Tuesday's "Late Show with David Letterman."
"I don't know what [Romney] was referring to, but I can tell you this," he told the talk-show host in an interview set to air in full Tuesday night. "When I won in 2008, 47 percent of the American people voted for John McCain. They didn't vote for me. And what I said on election night was, 'Even though you didn't vote for me, I hear your voices, and I'm going to work as hard as I can to be your president.'
"One of the things I've learned as president is you represent the entire country," he continued. "If you want to be president, you have to work for everyone."
According to a pool report, he added, "What people want to know, though, is you're not writing off a big chunk of the country. This is a big country. And people disagree a lot but, one thing I've never tried to do and I think none of us can do in public office is suggest that because someone doesn't agree with me that they're victims or they're unpatriotic."
"There are not a lot of people out there who think they're victims," he said. "There are not a lot of people who think they're entitled to something."
On Fox, Romney said Obama has increased the number of people on food stamps during his first term.
"The numbers on food stamps are really revealing. When the president took office, 32 million people were on food stamps, and now that number is 15 million higher, almost 50 percent higher, now 47 million people on food stamps," Romney said. "You've got Americans falling into poverty under this president in an increasing number, it looks like on these food stamp figures."
Romney was hoping to clarify the remarks from his fundraiser, the full tape of which leaked Tuesday. The $50,000-a-person event was held at the Boca Raton, Fla., home of investment banker Marc Leder.


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Hubble's First Observation Of Jupiter
On March 11, 1991, the Wide Field/Planetary Camera on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope observed Jupiter for the first time. This "true color" picture of the southeast quadrant of the planet shows a striking oval-shaped dark ring on the left and the Great Red Spot just rotating out of view on the right aide. These features are thought to be very large hurricane-like structures where warmer gases carry ammonia ice crystals from deep in the Jovian atmosphere up above the top of the normal cloud layers that shroud Jupiter.
Jovian clouds are thought to be colored by small amounts of sulfur, phosphorus and carbon compounds in the ice crystals. This picture has about the same resolution (0.15 arcseconds) as voyager pictures taken 5 days before encounter in 1979. This will allow a continuation of the study of Jovian wind velocities begun by voyager and allow expansion of this program into the ultraviolet and infrared where clouds form at different heights in the atmosphere.
The blue and blue-green bands to the right of the edge of Jupiter are artifacts due to the rotation of the planet during the six minutes between the separate blue, green and red exposures used to make the color picture.
The Wide Field/Planetary Camera was designed and built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, California.


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Dr. Carle Pieters
Dr. Carle Pieters, Brown University – Dr. Pieters is a Research Professor in Geological Sciences at Brown University. Dr. Pieters is the Principal Investigator for NASA's Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) experiment that launched on the Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission in 2008 and is also a Co-Investigator on NASA's Dawn mission to explore the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. Dr. Pieters has been a faculty member at Brown since 1980, after having worked several years at the Johnson Space Center in Houston and as a Peace Corps volunteer in Sarawak. Her general research efforts include planetary exploration and evolution of planetary surfaces with an emphasis on remote compositional analyses. Dr. Pieters is a sitting member of the NASA Advisory Council's Planetary Protection Subcommittee and a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union. She was awarded the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize by the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences in 2004. Dr. Pieters previously led the International Lunar Exploration Working Group (ILEWG) and also served as the President of the Planetary Sciences Section of the American Geophysical Union.