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BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) With each win, there is a growing sense in Buffalo that the Sabres just might be capable of mounting a late-season playoff push.
It is a much different mood for Martin Brodeur and the slumping New Jersey Devils. Their worry grew deeper Sunday night after their skid reached seven games with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Sabres.
``It's really concerning that we can't just win. That's the bottom line,'' the Devils goalie said. ``We played one of the teams that we should beat, and I thought we deserved to beat them the way we played.''
The Devils lost to Buffalo despite outshooting the Sabres 37-22 and outplaying them for numerous long stretches.
New Jersey (15-14-10) dropped to 0-3-4 in its past seven. It is the Devils' longest winless streak since going 0-4-2-1 from Nov. 10-23, 2001. This skid has coincided with the absence of top forward Ilya Kovalchuk, who missed his seventh game because of a shoulder injury.
New Jersey earned one point Sunday to move into ninth place in the Eastern Conference standings, but the loss clinched a playoff spot for the conference-leading Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Sabres (16-17-6), meanwhile, are showing signs of resilience.
With 38 points they have jumped into 11th place after winning their third in a row during a week in which the team began rebuilding by trading away three veterans, including captain Jason Pominville.
Nathan Gerbe scored the lone shootout goal, and Buffalo's Ryan Miller stopped 37 shots through overtime, and three more in the shootout - including a victory-clinching glove save on Travis Zajac.
``We survived and got two points. Not pretty, but it's two,'' Miller said. ``When you win hockey games, there's a certain belief. And we're just trying to do it one game at a time.''
Steve Ott extended his goal streak to three games, and Patrick Kaleta also scored for Buffalo.
Kaleta opened the scoring with his first goal in 53 games, and first point in 40, dating to March 7, 2012.
``We're a resilient group,'' said Kaleta, who also provided several big hits, including one that leveled Zajac in the final seconds of the second period. ``We're taking it game by game right now. It's a whole new season.''
Gerbe scored on the Sabres' second shootout attempt by snapping a shot that beat Brodeur low on the glove side. Miller made his best stop on the Devils' next attempt when he kicked out his right pad at the last moment to stop Patrik Elias.
Miller opened the shootout by stopping Steve Sullivan's back-hander.
Sullivan and Mark Fayne, who forced overtime with a short-handed goal 5:46 into the third period, scored for the offensively challenged Devils. They have combined for just six goals in five games, and have produced three or more just twice in their past 12.
``I can see how it can be frustrating when you're getting that many scoring chances and not being able to grab a lead and play with some comfort,'' said Sullivan, who was reacquired by the Devils last week in a trade with Phoenix. ``It's got to turn soon. We're running out of time here, so we've got to start burying pucks.''
Help might be on the way. Before the game, Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said ``it won't be long'' before Kovalchuk resumes skating.
The Sabres overcame their own issues on Sunday, and a booing home crowd.
Buffalo was having such a tough time controlling the puck in the second period that fans began cheering whenever the Sabres got the puck past their blue line.
Held to four shots in the first period, the Sabres were outshot 18-8 through 32 minutes. The momentum shifted after Buffalo's John Scott leveled David Clarkson with a hit at the right circle.
Buffalo managed six shots over the next two minutes, including Ott's goal that put Buffalo ahead 2-1.
Fayne tied it with the Devils' NHL-leading 10th short-handed goal. He was set up in the high slot by Dainius Zubrus, who was allowed to roam free in the Sabres end.
``Frustrating, you know,'' Devils coach Peter DeBoer said. ``We generated chances and shots and opportunities, but we just aren't finishing like we need to.''
NOTES: The Sabres have allowed a league-high seven short-handed goals. ... Sabres RW Thomas Vanek missed his sixth straight game with an upper body injury. ... Fayne's goal was the ninth of his career and first in 49 games. ... Of Kaleta's 27 career goals, four have come against New Jersey, his most against any team.


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BACKGROUND IMAGE: iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
- FeatureEarly Adopters Unequivocally Up About iSCSI Arrays
- FeatureEMC Expands Reach of Symmetrix DMX
- FeatureSRM Vendors Set Sights on Secondary Storage
- FeatureGrid computing will change storage
- FeatureNew Pricing Schemes Aim For Lower Storage Costs
- FeatureGuest Opinion: IBM Makes the 'V' Word Respectable Again
- FeatureDiagnostic Tool Shines Light on SDLT
- FeatureProtect your SAN from attack
- FeatureIntelligent Switches To Get Common API
- FeatureFile Virtualization Tackles NAS Management Woes
- FeatureCan tools streamline provisioning?
- FeatureThe best way to scale SANs
- FeatureWhy consolidate?
- FeatureE-mail: It's worse than you think
- FeatureRecovering from a data center disaster
- FeatureMore cool technology coming out over the next year than at any other time in storage history
- FeatureGetting started with data storage efficiency
- FeatureDo you encrypt your backup tapes?
- FeatureEditorial
iSTOCK/GETTY IMAGES
E-mail: It's worse than you think
According to a 2003 study by Meta Group, 80% of businesspeople say e-mail is more essential than the telephone. However, storage managers are struggling to keep pace with the growth in message volume and retention requirements. however.
It's official: Nothing beats e-mail. According to a 2003 study by Meta Group, 80% of businesspeople say e-mail is more valuable to them than the telephone. And just like phone networks, e-mail systems experience enormous strains behind the scenes that may cause problems--but users don't want to hear about it. They just go berserk when their e-mail systems don't work.
|No Tampering, Please
The stresses on these systems are formidable. Corporate misbehavior has resulted in complex new regulations for e-mail retention--and has forced IT managers to take existing regulations seriously. Meanwhile, spam is flooding enterprises, not just home user mailboxes. Like a Malthusian curve, e-mail storage requirements just keep climbing, with each enterprise user now eating somewhere between 5MB and 10MB in e-mail per day, a volume expected to double by 2006, according to IDC.
"Everyone is having trouble managing the growth in e-mail data stores," says Carolyn DiCenzo, a VP of research for Gartner Inc. "And in some industries, e-mails are also important records of transactions. So people don't just read e-mails and delete them anymore; they actually keep them in their mailboxes for much longer." Larger e-mail data stores make backup and recovery more difficult, says DiCenzo--especially since people now expect nothing less than 24/7 availability.
Unlike large enterprise transaction databases, e-mail databases can't increase without incurring major performance penalties. So archiving old e-mail is essential; it represents a different process than basic backup protection, which can be complex in itself, depending on how coarse (coarse meaning it involves the entire data store) or granular (occurring mailbox by mailbox) the restore needs to be.
Ratcheting requirements even higher, some enterprises now recognize that e-mail stores serve as de facto repositories for intellectual property. As a result, they're beginning to treat messages as just another data type in a document or content management system, making quick search and retrieval a requirement.
To slay the e-mail hydra--and eliminate concerns over backup and recovery, scalability, archiving, spam control and content management--vendors have forged new weapons, and enterprises are establishing new lines of attack. All involve software or hardware solutions used in conjunction with the major e-mail servers: Lotus Domino and Microsoft Exchange. Of course, the servers have also evolved. Both Exchange 2000 and Domino Server Version 6 will store only one copy of an attachment, even if that file is attached to multiple messages. But a complete e-mail management solution, especially for companies with special regulatory needs, requires additional software. And in almost every case, IT must also shoulder the burden of persuading users to change their e-mail habits.
The monster that ate my server
In countless organizations, IT managers express frustration that something as mundane as e-mail seems to take so much of their time. "I spend at least two hours every day dealing with Exchange in some way," says Mike Wolf, manager of technical services for LifeCare Assurance, in Woodland Hills, CA, a fast-growing insurance administration company that specializes in long-term care services. "Our information store went down a week ago, and I was here until 4:00 in the morning."
Wolf's overriding concern is the same basic bugbear that everyone is dealing with: a ballooning e-mail store. Though the company has 80,000 to 90,000 agents in the field, Wolf has only 350 Exchange 2000 mailboxes for employees of the company's corporate offices to worry about. Yet the 60GB of disk Wolf installed two years ago--figuring it would last a long time--is already hitting the wall. "We're at the 22GB [mark] now," he says. "In Exchange, you need [to] double your disk space, so at 30GB we'll be over our limit."
Although 30GB may sound like a pittance, the issue isn't simply space, but also backup and recovery overhead. "Our current recovery strategy is a nightly full tape backup on the data store and an individual mailbox backup for individual message restores,"says Wolf. "The reason I do it that way is because this is an insurance administration company, and one e-mail can save or or ruin the day." If one of LifeCare's VPs wants an e-mail from two years ago, says Wolf, trying to dig that out of a full data store backup is a non-starter, so he restores from the "bricklayer" backup, as the mailbox-level backup is called. But even that is time consuming.
Laying down the law with size limits on end-user mailboxes is one obvious way to reduce such overhead. But here's where the Platonic ideals of best practices wither in the cold light of day. "We look at a lot of case studies on successful Exchange implementations and the policies and procedures for e-mail," says Wolf. "But we haven't found anything that fits LifeCare yet because people work directly out of their inbox."
Wolf ruefully admits that a culture of using the e-mail system for what amounts to document management stems from a lack of foresight on IT's part, but he feels that it's too late for draconian cutbacks on mailbox sizes. "If we were creating a brand-new environment, we would make it that way from the start, and the user would never know the difference," he says. "The problem I've got now is several hundred users who do know the difference. We let it be a free-for-all, and it's going to continue to be that way because they're used to it being that way. So our only choice is to add storage to our Exchange server and rethink our Exchange environment."
That rethinking has coalesced into a plan for next year to move to Exchange 2003 and to set up a local ActiveX cluster sharing the IP SAN device for the information store and the data for Exchange, says Wolf, who eventually hopes to have a three-node cluster with one remote in a redundant hot site facility. "By doing it that way, you get the redundancy you're looking for and you get the storage capacity you're looking for, because with IP, SAN storage is almost unlimited. You can resize those partitions almost on the fly."
The solution Wolf is considering is a storage concentrator from IP storage vendor StoneFly Networks, in San Diego, CA, which circumvents the usual objection to e-mail SANs--too much expense for an application that's less than mission-critical--by using Gigabit Ethernet and iSCSI-based storage (see "Is an e-mail SAN right for you?"). But there's another effort Wolf realizes he needs to make: Soon, he plans to roll out an archiving program that requires users to retain old messages in archive folders or lose those messages for good.
|Software for Message Management
Low-level software that supports write once, read many (WORM) verifiability is one thing; software that helps you manage, archive, and/or sample electronic communications is quite another. Here's a sampling of packages to consider:
Legato EmailXtender. This is actually a family of products that includes EmailXtender itself for centralized administration; EmailArchive for policy-based archiving with Exchange; and EmailXaminer for compliance management and sampling. EMC purchased Legato in July.
Veritas Edition for Microsoft Exchange 2000. Basically, this package helps you manage Exchange storage so the mail server is easier to administer and configure across a variety of storage systems. It aids in recovery and performance optimization as well.
Tumbleweed Messaging Management System. This is a platform, rather than a product, with several different components that sit outside the mailstream and examine message content--and perform specific actions based on regulations. Antispam and antivirus components are part of the suite.
iLumin Assentor Enterprise. This software suite provides industrial-strength message management and archiving, with special emphasis on the needs of the financial services industry. Assentor Compliance inspects messages and manages mail; Assentor Discovery is for retrieving and reviewing archived messages.
KVS Enterprise Vault. Originating in the U.K., this highly regarded suite of e-mail archiving, retention and retrieval software integrates with the journaling features of Exchange to store and retrieve e-mails for compliance purposes.
FaceTime Communications IM Director. Yes, instant messages are considered electronic communications, too. IM Director adds logging, archiving, and security to instant messaging, essentially turning instant messages into e-mail messages that can be archived and retrieved.
Where the regulations roam
While some may be reluctant to impose rules, others have rules thrust upon them. The small Manhattan brokerage firm Abel/Noser must deal with the modern version of Securities and Exchange Commission rules first adopted in 1934. According to Abel/Noser compliance officer Ravi Jethmal, the SEC and NASD "require broker dealers to monitor a certain percentage of all ingoing, outgoing and interoffice e-mails and require the broker dealer to maintain and store all e-mails on non-corruptible electronic media (such as WORM) for a minimum of three years."
Ryan Farley saw his first write once, read many (WORM) drive when he came to work at Abel/Noser as a senior systems engineer over a year ago. "Right now, from where we started with the system, we have just about every e-mail that has come into the company," says Farley. About six months before Farley started at Abel/Noser, the company deployed Legato's EmailXtender and EmailXaminer. The former is a policy-based system that automatically collects, organizes, stores and retrieves e-mail messages and attachments. The latter periodically dips into the mail stream and samples e-mails according to their content, in accordance with SEC and NASD rules.
One of the challenges presented by these regulations, says Gartner's DiCenzo, is the stipulation that organizations have "the information in an active archive. You must be able to recover it in hours, not days or weeks. This is why the push to an intermediate disk archive has become popular. It's not just a secondary storage media; it's a program that allows for access of data directly to the archive in a query kind of way."
That's exactly what Abel/Noser has implemented. "Basically, an additional mailbox is created on the Exchange server, and for every single message that comes in, a copy of it is also forwarded to that mailbox," says Farley. "From there, it goes into a Windows message queue on the Xtender server. And from there, it's put into container files, put into a SQL database, random samples are made for the compliance side of it, and then when the container file gets large enough, it's burnt onto the optical disk." In addition, says Farley, "We run complete backups every day onto LTO tape off our file server, which holds all the e-mail files, all the PSTs."
Legato has several de facto safeguards against tampering during the few weeks it takes for e-mail to be stored on magnetic disk. "The SQL logs will show what stuff was sampled," says Farley. "And if anyone looked through our samples, they would be able to see chunks of dates missing if anything was tampered with. The program goes in between the SQL database and the mail server, and there's no way to interface with it directly, at least no way that would be conceivable with Legato's format."
Farley finds that retrieving messages using Xtender is easy--both a Web-based query tool and an Outlook plug-in are provided--and that he can retrieve an e-mail from the WORM archive in less than a minute. On the other hand, Abel/Noser has only a year's worth of e-mails on the system, and he's not sure how it will scale over time. "It's possible we might have to start cycling WORM disks out once we maintain [them] three years," he says. He admits that cycling disks would make the restore procedure "ridiculous," but he also thinks it's pretty unlikely that he would need to restore an e-mail more than a year old.
Although Farley has been happy overall with the system, his experience hasn't been problem free. Recently, the system experienced a hard drive problem that required a complete restore. "The only thing that I don't like about Xtender is, when problems have come up, the support hasn't been what I've wanted it to be," says Farley. "There are basically three components to a good product: how easy it is to use, how well it takes care of itself and what happens when it breaks. This product is easy to use and fairly stable, but the times I've had problems with it, I've found myself disappointed in some of the support."
The scourge of spam
Not even the most solicitous vendor support can stop the vexing nuisance that is spam. An accurate estimate of the percentage of spam among business e-mails is hard to come by--some say it's as high as 50%--but everyone agrees that the scourge of junk e-mail continues to rise, with no end in sight. In an era of scarce IT resources, it's infuriating to think that as much as half of the cost of an e-mail infrastructure is being eaten by parasites.
At a San Francisco public relations firm that uses Lotus Domino, an IT director who prefers to remain anonymous (I'll call him "George") confirms that, by the end of 2002, spam had begun to hover at the 50% level for many of his 100 or so users. In a PR company where reps bill by the hour, time spent sifting through junk e-mail is just "cash out the window," says George. And not only were local personnel and system resources being squandered, but so were backup time and space at an off-site co-lo site, where the company nightly uploads a snapshot of the entire network.
|Is an E-mail SAN Right for You?
Revulsion reached a new level when George discovered that spammers were simply locking onto his domain and blasting away, on several occasions nailing his server with thousands of e-mails per day from one spammer. "The tipping point," he says, "came one morning when I was deleting maybe 600 or 700 dead e-mails from the server that had arrived since last night." On further investigation, he says, he discovered that people who had been on the staff for a while and had older e-mail addresses were getting approximately 75 spam e-mails per day.
Yet a quandary presented itself: How do you deploy an effective spam filter for a business that relies so heavily on open communication? Thanks to a tip from a contractor who helps maintain George's servers, he discovered Purepath, an antispam product for Lotus mail servers from Canadian startup Team Technologies. George installed the product on his server just last March.
"Purepath has been great for us because it doesn't use just one technology. It's primarily blacklist-based, but allows you to select any number of blacklists you want," he says. You can even block entire countries: "I turned off North and South Korea," he says, "just because we do no business with those countries, and there's a huge percentage of spam that comes out of them." But it's the various rules and heuristics that you can add on top of blacklists that make Purepath "incredibly smart," says George.
The problem, of course, is the risk of it being too protective and blocking e-mails that should get through. "I've been cautious about implementing things as we go along," says George, who says Purepath's options are "tricked out" to the degree that along with merely bouncing obvious spam, you can review suspect e-mails and sort them into various folders according to specific criteria. But that's exactly what he doesn't want to do--spin cycles reviewing spam. So George has dialed back the rules. As the system is configured now, about five spam e-mails per day get through to each user and, as far as he can determine, there are no false positives.
George is first to admit that no solution is perfect, including his own. "Spam may escalate to the point where the way we use e-mail might be completely different," he says, "because of all the different technologies that are out there to combat spam." Not long from now, George speculates, something like a return receipt may have to become part of standard e-mail procedure. "People just assume today that when they press 'send,' their e-mail will miraculously appear at its destination. We may not be able to take it for granted anymore." Reports George has generated since deploying Purepath bear witness to a truly alarming spam crisis: a fourfold increase in the number of junk e-mails trying to penetrate his defenses in only three months.
The content is in the mail
There's the junk--and then there's the stuff with hidden value. Studies show that much of the average enterprise's intellectual capital is bound up in e-mail messages, though attempts to quantify e-mail's importance amount to pure speculation. The point is this: Everybody hangs on to e-mails that contain unique information critical to their job, and is almost never shared with others.
"It's unstructured data that really hasn't been tapped into," says Joe Fisher, director of product management for Tumbleweed Communications, a Redwood City, CA, e-mail management software company. "If you think about it, a lot of the communications are happening between the organization and its customer base. I mean, here you have communication and conversations with your most valuable asset, your customers. And there might be some really good nuggets in there, whether it's for figuring out how to tailor marketing programs or whether it's how to improve support programs or add new products. You can let other systems around e-mail query the archive and pull information out, whether it's for business process automation or for streamlining marketing programs."
For companies struggling to make nightly e-mail backups more efficient, meta-tagging e-mails and hooking them into a content or document management system sounds pretty far-fetched. It requires the creation of a reasonably high-performance archival repository where old e-mails never die, and it requires you to meta-tag messages based on their content, using software such as Tumbleweed's Messaging Management System or TrueArc, which was acquired late last year by content management software vendor Documentum. Another example: Lotus Domino e-mails archived with IBM's CommonStore can be accessed via IBM's Content Manager software.
Now that e-mail has scared everyone with its potential liability, it's only a matter of time before added investment in e-mail management builds business-side pressure for IT to squeeze more value out of messages. Mike Gundling, VP of product management for e-mail management software vendor iLumin, thinks that giving e-mail that kind of status is a way of recognizing what's already happening. Says Gundling: "Everything is flying around in e-mail."

subset: commoncrawl


text: FINAL LOOK BACK: The Inaugural New York Red Bulls II season Tweet © On January 21, 2015, the New York Red Bulls announced that the club successfully acquired the rights to a USL franchise. An essential stepping stone in the development of the modern American soccer player, the inception of a USL team for the Red Bulls was a no brainer. "We are proud about this important moment in the history of our organization," said Sporting Director Ali Curtis. "This platform will integrate coaches, players and staff at all levels from the Academy, USL PRO and First Team as we are excited to start competing at the USL PRO level this season." Less than a month later, New York Red Bulls II was born. The Red Bulls unveiled NYRB II's name and logo on Feb. 9, 2015 and made Tyler Adams the club's first ever signing in March. The 16-year old Red Bulls Academy product was first introduced to the organization through the Red Bulls Regional Development School (RDS) at the age of 10, before joining the Red Bulls Under-13 Academy team, and has since become a member of the First Team. READ: BY THE NUMBERS: USL Edition | A numerical guide to NYRB II's inaugural season Following open tryouts and preseason, Red Bulls II announced its first roster ahead of its inaugural USL match, consisting of 11 USL players, four MLS loans, and five Red Bulls Academy players who each signed a USL agreement for academy players, allowing them to play for NYRB II while preserving their amateur status. In total, 12 of the 20 players listed on the roster for the first game were Red Bulls Academy products. The team played its first match on March 28 at Red Bull Arena against Rochester Rhinos. The young Red Bulls II team played to a scoreless draw, 0-0. In the next game, New York welcomed Toronto FC II. MLS loanee Anatole Abang scored the first goal in club history, thanks to an assist from Sean Davis, and Red Bulls II earned its first ever victory, 4-1. As the season progressed, bright young stars began to emerge. It wasn't long until Red Bulls U-18 captain Derrick Etienne, who's since signed as a Homegrown Player with the First Team, took the league by storm, commanding the left side of the field and dazzling defenders with his quickness and exceptional ball control. Konrad Plewa, a versatile player who played as a midfielder and a defender in 2015, scored back-to-back game-winning goals to kickoff NYRB II's first winning streak on an extensive road trip. READ: IN FOCUS: A five part series on the returning Red Bulls II players That same road trip marked a turning point in the season. It was a grueling stretch: six straight road matches from May 30 - June 27. After opening the road trip with a draw against FC Montreal, Red Bulls II earned a much needed victory against Wilmington Hammerheads. Then against Louisville City FC, one of the top teams in the league, Plewa and Etienne both scored while goalkeeper Santiago Castano kept a clean sheet. New York went on to win again and just like that, they were four games unbeaten, their longest such streak of the season. But perhaps the biggest boost to their season was not a USL game. On July 22, the New York Red Bulls hosted 2014-15 English Premier League champions Chelsea FC in the 2015 International Champions Cup. By the end of the night, Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch provided 15 players, all regular Red Bulls II starters, their First Team debuts against Chelsea. After going into halftime trailing the English champions, 1-0, Red Bulls Academy product Franklin Castellanos leveled the score in the 51st minute. Shortly afterwards, 16-year old Tyler Adams scored his first professional goal to put New York ahead in the 69th minute. Four minutes later, Sean Davis added a third. Although Chelsea pulled one back, the Red Bulls proved it was their night and Davis answered with the fourth and final goal in the 77th minute to earn New York a victory that made global headlines, 4-2. "I think that looked like a Red Bull team [tonight]," said First Team Head Coach Jesse Marsch. "I think it's important to acknowledge the job that John Wolyniec has done with the USL team, Vadim [Kirillov] and Ibrahim [Sekagya], the job those guys have spent a lot of time with us and our team, and our training and our team, and we've tried to implement the type of play and style we want at all levels...the best part is I still think even with a bunch of different players on the field and some young kids on the field, it looked like us." WATCH: FIELD LEVEL: The view from the pitch for RBNY's 4-2 win over Chelsea Football Club Red Bulls II never looked back since, finishing the season strong and earning the club's first ever USL Playoffs berth. The club finished its inaugural regular season 12-10-6, in fourth place of the Eastern Conference. NYRB II were also the fourth-highest scoring team in the league. On Sept. 26, NYRB II hosted its first postseason match at Red Bull Arena against Pittsburgh Riverhounds in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. Pittsburgh went ahead early in the match, but Red Bulls II answered in the second half to send the game into overtime tied, 1-1. In the first overtime session, the Riverhounds pulled ahead with a goal in the 96th minute, but captain Karl Ouimette leveled the match in the 102nd minute to keep New York's playoff hopes alive. In the second overtime, Ouimette snatched another goal in the 115th minute, and Daniel Bedoya put away the game with NYRB II's fourth goal to earn Red Bulls II its first playoff victory, 4-2. Unfortunately, Red Bulls II's playoff run ended in the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Rochester Rhinos, the eventual 2015 USL champions, but it was an impressive first season for the young team. "It's been kind of one of the shining stars of the year in terms of USL and that player development platform," Ali Curtis said. "That's been unbelievable for us, it really has helped guys like Tyler Adams and Sean Davis and [Anatole] Abang like you mentioned, it's helped even the young player in Derrick Etienne and the season that he had at [University of Virginia] and you know developing through our pyramid so it's been fantastic for those guys." "They get meaningful training opportunities as well as meaningful minutes against real professionals in games that count and it's expedited their development so if you looked at the first half of the season and where guys were playing from the USL perspective and Sean Davis and Abang and those guys, it's helped their development as soccer players and contributing to our team at the MLS level." Next season, five USL players will be returning to the squad as head coach John Wolyniec and his technical staff looks to build upon a successful first season in USL. "We'll get better at that platform, we'll get more sophisticated, that team will get stronger, we'll look to add more local players to that team so it's very exciting," Curtis said. "I think the future is bright particularly because as an organization we're able to make that investment, which is fantastic by the way, so it's exciting." Back to news


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Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Hot chocolate... but not for drinking!
What initially caught my eye about this recipe was the inclusion of hot chocolate cocoa mix in the dough. It has not been cold enough that we have really wanted a steaming cup of hot chocolate, so I thought it would be a good way to use up that lonely canister we had in the pantry. The kind I used was a milk chocolate variety. The cookie dough is more like a thick batter, so I would highly suggest using a cookie scoop to easily get the portions onto the baking sheet.
The chocolate cookies are baked until they are just set in the center - they are then taken out and topped with a halved marshmallow in the center of each hot cookie. The cookies then go back into the oven and cook for just a minute or two more until the marshmallow begins to look expand and look puffy. This will soften them just a bit and even out their shape. Now, we have 2 layers of chocolate... but that is not enough of course! The cookies are taken over the top with a third chocolate layer in the form of a rich glaze. You certainly can't go wrong with all this chocolate!
The glaze is kind of like a cooked frosting - you need to work somewhat quickly or it will begin to thicken and set up. However, if you notice that it is starting to get too thick to drizzle nicely, you can add another teaspoon or two of milk as you go along. You can use either natural or Dutch-process cocoa powder in the glaze - I used Dutch-process as I like the smooth rich flavor it has. I was ready for a super-sweet cookie with the milk chocolate cocoa powder and all, but it actually was quite mild with different degrees of chocolate flavor in each bite.
As I said earlier, I used the chocolate marshmallows since we already had them on hand, but I would probably use white next time for a more striking contrast of colors - as is, the cookies are just a few shades of brown.
I asked Jeff if he wanted anything specific for dinner at all when I was planning out the meals this week and he suggested some sort of burger since we just made our favorite burger buns. Instead of just burger simply seasoned with salt and pepper (which is always perfectly good), we decided to spice things up and make a recipe for Korean Barbecue Burgers.
Adding some zip to the ground sirloin is a mixture of green onions, brown sugar, fresh ginger, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and a couple garlic cloves. When you add this to the meat mixture, try and use a light hand to mix them together - while you do want to completely incorporate the ingredients, you don't want to end up with a tough product. We cooked our burgers to around medium, but I think these would still be juicy enough if you feel more comfortable taking them to well done. If you want a more snappy bite to the burgers, add some thinly sliced radishes with the crisp romaine lettuce on top of the patties - if you want to stay more authentic or be a little more adventurous, add a generous portion of kimchi instead. Served on our toasted homemade buns, these well-seasoned burgers were just the ticket we were looking for to change up the ordinary burger.
9 comments:
wow, I have to bookmark this cookie recipe. I have a tin of Godiva Cocoa Mix sitting on the shelf for awhile now. This could help me use some of it up! :)ReplyDelete
Oh, and I made your M&M cookie bars yesterday. It's hit with my hubs colleagues.
- Anonymous10/17/2007 12:53:00 AM
Mmmm...if I saw those cookies in an elegant pastry shop, they would be the thing I couldn't pass up! They look so professional and beautiful. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Hopefully I'll have a chance to try them sometime soon.ReplyDelete
If you made them for guests they would just disappear! It's such a pity you don't live next door to me =)ReplyDelete
Good grief! I gain weight just looking at your site, Joe. Not that it stops me from bookmarking them, but still...ReplyDelete
You could not resist buying another Holiday Magazine. Good for us because you will share nice recipes. Thanks.ReplyDelete
Joe - Oh man. I absolutely love Korean BBQ. Great idea to incoporate those flavors into a burger.ReplyDelete
Mandy - Oh, these would be perfect with a premium cocoa like that!ReplyDelete
Julie - Wow! Thank you!
Kelly - I would certainly share often if you were!
KM - Hee hee!
Helene - There are so many good magazines that come out this time of the year it is hard to resist!
Ed - I thought they worked together quite well... I think we will be making these again soon!
- Anonymous11/04/2007 03:20:00 PM
Just made a batch... what a huge waste of good ingredients. Don't even bother.ReplyDelete
Anon - Sorry you feel that way! Everyone we gave them too enjoyed them! Different people have different tastes I guess.ReplyDelete


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You are cordially invited to join us for THE gala holiday happening of the year, when friends old and new gather for Sandra Stillwell Presents: "Every Day's A Holiday", in Kansas City, Missouri, August 22-25th, 2013.
Do you remember...
The childhood anticipation of waiting for Santa -- snug in your cozy new Christmas PJ's? Those magical Christmas mornings when you unwrapped that beautifully dressed dolly or other treasures you'd been dreaming of?
The excitement of shopping for that perfectly accessorized frock to wear on Easter morning? Brightly colored flowers and the delightful pastel colors of Easter eggs? The warm feeling of a fuzzy soft Easter bunny or chick?
Do you recall...
The thrill of receiving that special heartfelt valentine from a secret friend? The tug at your heart feeling of romantic chocolate and flowers sent from someone who thinks you're special?
How about the wide eyed fun of spooky ghosts, witches, black cats and bats? Or the fun of trick or treating and eating your loot afterwards? Dressing up in Halloween costumes or kitsch, and seasonable colors of orange, purple and black?
Do you remember...
Festive fourth of July parties and picnics with family and friends, followed by larger than life fireworks displays at nightfall? The sounds of big band music with patriotic colors and stars and stripes as far as the eye can see?
Or perhaps a different type of holiday has special meaning for you -- a fantasy flight to a far away destination? An anniversary? New Year's Eve?
"Sandra Stillwell Presents: Every Day's A Holiday" will sweep you back to a time of such happy remembrances when the magic of holidays could be witnessed everywhere from Main Street to Hollywood's Silver Screen.
Limited to only 50 attendees, this intimate holiday soiree will be a celebration of friends, dolls, beloved holiday traditions, classic movies and beautiful fashions -- all rolled into a fun filled weekend that will surely bring out the child in us all!
The Souvenir Package...
Our "Every Day's A Holiday" souvenir package will be a collection of elegant holiday fashions mixed with a twist of fun! Created to fit your favorite 16" fashion doll these designs will be produced especially for this not to be missed Sandra Stillwell Presents event!
Also Included in your registration fee will be a docent guided tour of the Toy and Miniature Museum of Kansas City to view fabulous examples of dolls, dollhouses, miniature room sets, teddy bears, and toys of yesteryear. Housed in a 38 room historic mansion, this delightful museum is truly a child's Christmas dream come true!
Of course, no holiday would be complete without Kansas City's own Hallmark Cards, so we're also planning a tour at the Hallmark Visitor's Center, where we'll learn the rich history of this century old company.
And, if all the exciting things mentioned above weren't enough... there's still more packed into your "Every Day's A Holiday" registration -- a fun movie break, desert reception and 3 meals, including a gala Saturday night banquet! We will also have illustrious guest speakers, interesting programs and displays, raffles, room shopping, and maybe even a few holiday surprises!!
Registration and other fees...
As an added bonus for each convention guest who books within the Sandra Stillwell Presents group block, the hotel has once again agreed to include a complimentary breakfast for every night's stay. These breakfasts on our event days -- including our Sunday farewell breakfast -- will be group meal functions in our ballroom, with table gifts and centerpieces. There will be an additional $35 fee per breakfast for registrants not staying at the hotel to attend these meals and receive any related souvenirs.
If booked within our hotel room block and paid in full by cash, check/money order by July 5, the registration fee is $415. After July 5, the fee is $440. Payments can be made, but are non refundable.
A $15 charge will be added to payments other than cash or check/ money order.
A $15 charge will be added to payments other than cash or check/ money order.
A $50 cancellation fee applies to all cancellations prior to August 9th. After that date, no cancellations are allowed.
Companion registrations will be available if purchased with a full registration. Please email for details.
Checks or Money Orders for registration should be made payable to Sandra Stillwell, and mailed to:
Every Day's A Holidayc/o Sandra Stillwell
8305 Blue Lick Rd
Louisville, KY 40219
Please contact me if you need to make special arrangements.
At this time, there are no absentee registrations, however, we will have a wait list for those interested. If absentee registrations become available, they will be offered to those on the list before being made available to the general public.
What could be a more perfect place to set the scene for our holiday celebrations than "Holiday Inn"? Yes -- that's right -- we'll be spending our "Sandra Stillwell Presents" holidays at the Holiday Inn Country Club Plaza!!
Tucked inside the legendary neighborhood known for it's beautiful fountains, Spanish architecture, upscale shopping and great restaurants and nightlife, the Plaza Holiday Inn is only a few steps away from Kansas City's renowned Country Club Plaza -- which made history as the first ever outdoor shopping center!
We've secured the very special group rate of only $119 per night, which includes breakfast in the hotel restaurant on days that we do not have a convention breakfast function.
In order for you to experience everything Kansas City has to offer, this special rate has been extended 5 days before and 5 days after convention, based on availability. If you need to book outside these dates, please contact me directly.
The Plaza Holiday Inn offers complimentary Wi-fi, garage parking (on availability) and neighborhood shuttle that will take guests shopping to both Country Club Plaza and Hallmark's Crown Center. For those who would like to visit restaurants, museums, and convenience stores within a 3 mile radius of the hotel. (Shuttle runs on a first request basis)
Hotel reservations may be made by calling 1-866-280-6326 and asking for the "Sandra Stillwell Presents" group rate. Please note that the cutoff date for guest bookings is 8/8/13, or until the block is sold out -- which ever comes first
Please remember that it is VERY important to book within our group block.
Our room block is extremely limited, so I highly recommend that hotel reservations be made as soon as you can. I will be monitoring the group bookings closely to make timely revisions while possible.
If you plan to join us for Every Day's A Holiday and are not yet ready to make hotel reservations, it would help greatly to know what days you are planning to book.
I strongly encourage all attendees to stay at the Convention hotel for a complete "convention experience". Besides all the fun and camaraderie those who don't stay at the hotel will miss out on, our room and food rates are based on meeting a guaranteed minimum, and it is crucial I have your cooperation to meet that guarantee.
Also, with our many planned activities, you'll find being on site much more convenient!
Optional Offsite Tours:
Known as the "City of Fountains", Kansas City boasts more fountains than any other city outside of Rome. Our Thursday tour will feature a driving tour of some of these lovely fountains, as well as other Kansas City landmarks.
Second only to New York City in garment manufacturing during the 1960's, Kansas City earned the nickname, "Paris of the Plains". Our Thursday offsite tour will also include a visit to the Kansas City Garment District Museum, where curator and designer Ann Brownfield will treat us to a behind the scenes tour of their "Kansas City produced" archives. We will learn about Kansas City's garment manufacturing legacy and see fashions that were manufactured there -- including TWA airline hostess uniforms.
Owned at one time by Howard Hughes and frequented by celebrities, TWA -- Kansas City's hometown airline -- was well known as the "Airline To The Stars". I'm excited to say that still another part of our Thursday offsite tour will take us to the TWA Museum, which was founded and is operated by former TWA employees. Housed in the original 1931 building that was built to house the TWA corporate headquarters and maintenance facility, the TWA Museum collection features both pilot and stewardess uniforms, plus many other artifacts which tell the history of the airline pioneer. Director Pam Blaschum --a longtime TWA stewardess -- will be our hostess as we travel back through the glory years of airline travel and learn all about the legacy of this important aviation giant.
The cost of the Thursday tour -- only $119 (dependant on our filling up the chartered bus) -- will include an exclusive souvenir fashion that relates back to Kansas City's heritage. More details forthcoming soon.
The Sunday tour is not finalized yet, but if there is enough interest, we will plan do one! Our Sunday tours have traditionally been for a smaller group -- a great chance to relax and enjoy each other's company after convention, while having a fun time seeing sites we may not have been able to see otherwise. Kansas City, known as both the jazz capital and the BBQ capital of the world, offers many other interesting and fun activities that I'm currently looking into -- and, as always, I welcome suggestions of what YOU would like to see and do!
Please watch for news about this Sunday tour and any additions/changes to our other tours in the next few weeks...
Raffle Donations:
A little known fact about conventions is that registration fees never fully cover expenses! Last year's raffle was a big success -- a huge help to convention and great fun for participants, too! So, once again, we'll be having a raffle to help offset extra costs. Dolls, fashions, repaints, accessories, gift certificates... donations of all types and sizes are welcome and greatly appreciated!! If you would like to contribute to the raffle, please email me at firstname.lastname@example.com.
Airport Code and Transportation...
The airport code for Kansas City International Airport is KCI.
Super Shuttle is offering a special group rate of $19 each way, or $32 round trip.
Super Shuttle can also accommodate private transportation for 3 people traveling together for $39 one way, or $64 for 10 people. Reservations can be placed online or by calling 1-800-BLUE VAN (258-3826) and providing the code CVVWS. Please make reservations 24 hrs in advance.
An alternative to Super Shuttle is 5 Guys Shuttle (913 7485423), who offers a private van for 1-4 people for $40. Depending on the amount of luggage, this van may be able to accommodate 6.
It is extremely important that you let me know as soon as possible if you are interested in joining us for "Every Day's A Holiday" and if you plan to extend your stay either before or after convention.
Your feedback is crucial to know how many people to count on when planning souvenirs, meal functions, and offsite functions.
A small deposit of only $50 will hold your spot for this not to be missed "Sandra Stillwell Presents" event! Last year's "Radio Days" convention sold out in record time and we expect this year to follow suit, so please don't wait too long to register!
Holidays have always been a magical time for me -- a time for little indulgences and big dreams. I truly believe that "Every Day's A Holiday" and any day spent with friends and dollies is cause for celebration.
I've been dreaming of doing this "holiday" convention for a long time, and now that the time is drawing near...like a kid waiting for Christmas...I'm getting more and more excited about spending my "holidays" with you!
So mark your calendars, pack your bags, and start making plans to experience the holidays in "Sandra Stillwell" style!
I hope to see you all in August!


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This is the list of tips that were submitted for points by participants in the Building RSS group writing project.
I've already bookmarked this list myself and you should do the same. Please share it with any blogger friends that want more RSS subscribers. Also, subscribe to our feed via rss or email to find out when the list is updated and to know when the even more comprehensive Building RSS e-book comes out.
These tips work.
Thank you to our sponsors
This Building RSS guide of RSS-breeding tips has been made possible by the generous help of:
- Liz Strauss, among other things, author of the acclaimed The Secret to Writing a Successful and Outstanding Blog
- David Airey, designer extraordinaire and creator of Logo Design Love
- Daniel Scocco, blog maestro and recent author of Killer Domains
- Mirko Humbert of the newsful Designer Daily
- Simon Emery of OIOPublisher fame
Now on to the tips…
Subscriber Breeding Tips
I was going to quote and cite the blogger for each tip, but it made the list too hard to read. Instead I've only done so for the first tip and every additional tip simply has the blogger's name linked to the corresponding post.
I've also edited the quotes to keep them as concise as possible. If you want more details on a specific tip, click through to the linked post.
The colored RSS icons correspond to each blogger that submitted tips.
The tips are divided into categories as follows. Click the link to jump directly to the category you want:
- Observe your niche – What different strategies are blogs taking in your niche? What's working and what's not? Do you see a lot of pretenders that are simply trying to duplicate the bigger blogs without much success? If so, you'll want to avoid falling into the same trap. { Steven Snell, To Gain Subscribers, Focus on What You Do Best, Traffikd
- Think about what you can offer – …have something to offer to readers. What is it that will make readers want to subscribe to your blog? What is it that you do best? …realize what you have to offer that others are not providing. { Steven Snell
- Decide on your angle – Once you know more about your niche and where you fit in, develop a strategy of providing content that will attract subscribers and draw interest from other bloggers. Think about the types of content that you will publish, how frequently you will publish it, how you can get it in front of readers, and how it will help you to build a successful blog in the long-term. { Steven Snell
- Post remarkable content – Write articles that people will want to share with others. { Joel, Double Your FeedBurner RSS Numbers Overnight, So You Want To Teach?
- Celebrate feed subscription milestones { Joel
- What is RSS? – Devote a post or page of your blog explaining to your readers what RSS is. They may not subscribe because they do not know what it is, or what the benefits are. { David Shaw, 25 Ways to Increase Your RSS Subscriber Count, ProTycoon
- Post series – By writing a series of posts, people will subscribe so that they do not miss the next post in the series. { David Shaw
- Run contests – Run a contest that requires people to sign up for your RSS feed to join. { David Shaw
- Dedicate a page on how to subscribe { Becky S., Take a break from posting & your RSS subscribers may increase, PreBlogging.com
- Offer a competition to get people to subscribe via email. On FeedBurner you can easily see who these new users are. { Becky S.
- Write reference lists that will be updated – incite readers to subscribe by telling them they will get alerts when the list is updated. { David Bradley, Get Writing, Get Readers, Significant Figures
- Use multimedia to show how to subscribe for example, "a simple 5-minute video showing folks how to add the feed to a cell phone and to Outlook." { David Bradley
- Write quality content – Provide useful information that people could use for whatever it is they're doing. The more they find your voice helpful, the more they will subscribe. { Nepspeed82, 10 Simple Steps to Increase Your RSS Subscribers, ulupongdotcom
- Make catchy headlines – This is your article's introduction… What do you think make girls buy glossy magazines just by looking at its cover? The same should also apply to your blog. Just convert buying into subscribing. { Nepspeed82
- Format posts for readability – Avoid long blocks of content…use bullets to enumerate ideas… use subheadings to break your train of thought in parts….use whitespace effectively. It's all about making it easy for the brain to digest your information quickly. { Nepspeed82
- Write to encourage comments and conversation. { Brad Shorr, Attract RSS Subscribers with Quality Blog Content, Word Sell, Inc.
- Stay on topic. People are more likely to subscribe when they know what to expect. { Brad Shorr
- Edit your posts. Some bloggers spend as much time editing a post as they do writing the first draft. Careful editing tightens up and connects ideas, making it easier for readers to follow your thoughts. { Brad Shorr
- Support your ideas with examples and facts. Naked opinions don't carry much weight. { Brad Shorr
- Tell stories. Blogs are an excellent medium for stories, and storytelling has universal appeal… { Brad Shorr
- Campaign for causes { Debi Zylbermann, 100's of Tips to Increase RSS subscribers, Debi'Z QA Blog
- Make lists – { Debi Zylbermann
- Make "ginormous" lists, followed up with quality content { Vivien, RSS: Why, What and How, InspirationBit
- One at a time – Many of your direct contacts and friends will subscribe to your blog if they're not already, especially if you focus your networking efforts to your niche… { Steven Snell, Gain Subscribers by Growing Your Network, Pure Blogging
- Quality over quantity – Subscribers that know you personally and have interacted with you will almost always be higher quality subscribers than someone who doesn't know you… { Steven Snell
- Inbound links and personal referrals – …if you have two potential posts from other bloggers that you could link to for a specific topic, one of them you know well and one of the you don't, who are you going to link to? { Steven Snell
- Social media votes – If you're marketing your blog through social media, a strong network is priceless. Along the same lines as the previous point, most of us tend to vote for those that we know better than the typical blogger/reader relationship… { Steven Snell
- Guest post opportunities – One of my favorite methods for blog promotion is writing guest posts on other blogs. It's an incredible opportunity to get your name and your writing in front of a targeted and potentially large audience… { Steven Snell
- Advice – I think we could all use some advice every now and then from others in our niche. I know on a few specific occasions I've been fortunate enough to get some great help and advice from my blogging friends, and I've had other ask me for advice as well… { Steven Snell
- Long-term benefit for your efforts – One of the things I really love about networking is that your network can help you for years to come. If you're willing to take the time and make the effort now to get to know other bloggers in your niche, the long-term benefits could keep coming… { Steven Snell
- Can help you to get a new blog off the ground – If you already have a strong network of blogging friends, launching a 2nd blog can be much more successful. Not only will you have your own audience from the first blog to start off with, but you may get some links or mentions from others in your early days that could make a big difference. { Steven Snell
- Comment on other blogs in your niche { Steven Snell
- Reach out to those that you don't know through an email or a contact form { Steven Snell
- Link out to others frequently { Steven Snell
- Invite guest posts { Joel
- Participate in feed exchanges – Join BlogCatalog and look for groups with threads that involve feed exchanges. Participate in the discussion and you'll be guaranteed 20 or more new subscribers in a day… { Nepspeed82
- Advertise your RSS subscriber numbers { Joel
- Only display your subscriber numbers when high – A common mistake blogging beginners make is displaying their FeedBurner count when it's low… humans work under the 'flock' principle … so when ever you see a small community you don't really have any desire to join it… { Tibi Puiu, The 9 step ultimate guide on how to increase your subscribers, Lost Art of Blogging
- Make email subscriptions available { Joel
- Visible RSS Button – Make sure you have a visible RSS button on your site, make sure it is above the fold. The top of your sidebar would be a good place… { David Shaw
- What Would Seth Godin Do – This is a great little plugin that displays a small message to new visitors to your blog asking them to sign up to your feed. { David Shaw
- Subscribe Me – This plugin displays small chicklets on your blog, asking people to subscribe using their favourite reader. { David Shaw
- Subscribe Remind – ask people to subscribe to your feed at the end of each post with this plugin. { David Shaw
- Use a big RSS button { Becky S.
- Use the standard (orange) RSS icon – Most people who know what RSS is recognize the orange icon. { Karen, Where does the RSS Button Go?, Scraps of Mind
- Clearly mention the various feeds you host { David Bradley
- Get a clean and organized template – Before anything else, your blog must serve its primary function which is to "SERVE YOUR CONTENT" and not to forecast your city's weather or watch your neon ads. Emphasize your content, subscribe widgets, search box, categories, archives and anything else that will point to what your blog has to offer… { Nepspeed82
- Place another RSS button near the end of your posts – A new reader is not going to be interested in subscribing to your blog feed until they have read at least one of your posts. { Karen
- Encourage readers to subscribe { Joel
- Encourage readers to forward useful articles to friends { Joel
- Encourage readers to invite their friends to subscribe { Joel
- Submit posts to blog carnivals { Joel
- Host blog carnivals { Joel
- Ask your readers to subscribe – …have a short message at the end of your posts which says something along the lines of "If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to my RSS Feed, to keep up with all future updates"… { David Shaw
- Use forums – Answer questions on forums and include a link back to your feed in the signature. If people think you are informative and an authority in your niche, they may subscribe to your blog. { David Shaw
- Cross-promote – Once you have networked and made friends with other bloggers, you can then promote each others feeds. This can be done at the end of each others feeds, or by directly posting about each other. { David Shaw
- Submit your feed to RSS directories { David Shaw
- Enter/Make RSS competitions – Start an RSS competition with a blog that has a subscriber count close to yours, then encourage your visitors to subscribe to help you win the competition. { David Shaw, Top 8 Ways To Increase Your RSS Subscriptions, ProTycoon
- Encourage readers to use smart/live bookmarks – in Firefox and Safari, bookmarking an RSS feed creates a folder of bookmarks to each item in the feed. { David Bradley
- Use syndication services like BlogBurst { David Bradley
- Submit your feed to blog directories { David Bradley
- Submit your articles to social media like Digg, StumbleUpon and del.icio.us { David Bradley
- Piggyback on other high-traffic pages – create something like a plugin for wordpress, and mention your feed on those pages. { Becky S.
- Use the Comment Relish Plugin – thank people for their comment and tell them about your RSS link. { Becky S.
- Use EntreCard – convert droppers into subscribers. Just do your regular drops, and make insightful comments on the blogs you find interesting or relevant to your niche. { Nepspeed82
- Use offline opportunities to promote your blog – …like speaking at conferences… a couple of weeks ago I gave a conference talk, and included a competition where I told the attendees that the answers would be on the blog. { Debi Zylbermann
Blog Management
- Plan and track subscriber count goals { David Shaw, Analyzing Your Blogging Goals, ProTycoon
- Post Frequently – Once you are publishing good content, you then need to do it frequently. This will lead people to subscribe so that they do not miss any of your future posts. { David Shaw
- If you post often, keep them short. Few readers have the time to digest 500+ word posts on a daily basis. { Brad Shorr
- If you post infrequently, it's ok to write long posts, as long as they have substance. { Brad Shorr
- Post Less Frequently – …I guess when people visit your blog, and they see that there are great posts on your blog, but you haven't updated in a bit, they will choose to subscribe, so that they will hear about your next great post… { Becky S.
- Use Full Feeds – Make sure you show full posts in your RSS feed, there is nothing more frustrating than a site that uses excerpts in their RSS feeds. { David Shaw
- Enable Auto-Discovery – Auto-Discovery is used by browsers to find your feed. If found it will display the small RSS icon in the address bar. Many people subscribe using this method, so make sure the browsers are finding your feed. { David Shaw
- Give Something Away – Offer something free to people that subscribe to your feed, such as an E-book. Everyone loves a freebie. { David Shaw
- Make sure all subscribers see the same feed – Use the FD FeedBurner WordPress plugin to direct your subscribers… from your domain feed (e.g. https://groupwritingprojects.com/feed) to your FeedBurner feed. Thus your feed count will considerably grow and you can be rest assured that all your subscribers are accounted for. { Tibi Puiu
- Study the tactics of your favorite blogs – Try them out on yours. See what works for you, what felt right for you? { Vivien
- FeedBurner -FeedBurner reduces the steps need to sign up to your feed, making it easier for your readers to subscribe. { David Shaw
- Use Aweber for email subscriptions, especially if you already have a mailing list { Paul Piotrowski, Why My RSS Feedburner Counter Jumped Since Yesterday, How to Make Money Doing What You Love
Final Standings
- David Shaw, 18 points
- Steven Snell, 14 points
- Joel, 10 points
- David Bradley, 7 points
- Brad Shorr, 7 points
- Nepspeed82, 6 points
- Becky, 6 points
- Debi Zylbermann, 3 points
- Karen, 2 points
- Tibi Puiu, 2 points
- Vivien, 2 points
- Paul Piotrowski, 1 point


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|Viper Router Bit Dovetail 14-degree Pattern Bit, 1/2" Dia., 1/2" Flute, 1/4" Shank Dia.
Our High-Quality, Carbide-Tipped Viper Router Bits are made in the USA. This Dovetail 14° Pattern Router Bit has a 1/2" Dia., 1 Flute Length of 1/2", and a Shank Dia. of 1/4". This bit is used for making Dovetail joints. Or choose our Off-Brand bit (with the same cutting dimensions) X-152 for $6.56
Click Here for more Details.
Sherwood Creations Inc. was established in 1996 with one goal in mind, to create and design original, easy to follow, full size woodcraft plans and patterns and offer them to you at an affordable price. Ten years later Sherwood is still providing outstanding woodcraft patterns, plans and templates for unique yard art, useful household items and crafts, along with tools and supplies to help you. In 2003, Sherwood added full size color prints as a woodcraft decal for the woodworker who enjoys cutting wood more than he does painting. Sherwood offers their woodcraft patterns & plans in their free mail order catalog and free patterns and free plans are also available online.
|© Copyright 2010-10 Sherwood Creations, Inc., All Rights Reserved Site Developed by www.acemenow.com


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Biography :
Dr. Guido Germano, PhD is the Scientific Director of the Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Program. Dr. Germano is also a Professor of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine. Dr. Germano's research and expertise play an integral role in Cedars-Sinai's Nuclear Cardiology program. One of his most outstanding contributions to the field's knowledge and clinical practice has been his creation of new artificial intelligence techniques to accurately determine the location of the heart from 3-D tomographic (SPECT) images, estimate epicardial and endocardial boundaries and quantify heart volumes in a completely automated fashion.
Widely recognized as an expert in the field of cardiovascular nuclear medicine, Dr. Germano has lectured extensively worldwide. He serves on the national and international committees of numerous professional organizations and editorial boards. He is also the co-director of the two annual American College of Cardiology nuclear cardiology courses for physicians and technologists. In addition, he has written more than 160 original manuscripts, chapters and books and received numerous awards for excellence in research in the fields of heart research, medical physics and nuclear medicine.
Dr. Germano received his doctorate and master's degrees in biomedical physics from UCLA. He also earned his MBA from GEPI, Ministry of the Treasure in Rome, Italy.


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With style and safety in mind the Ulm Crib in Birch ensures that you and your baby can rest easy. It is painted with an eco-friendly non-toxic paint and the sides are fixed to provide maximum structural stability, ensuring the crib is as safe as possible.
The Ulm collection features minimal characteristics with sleek lines and mid-century modern flare that is ready to grow with your child. Each piece of furniture is masterfully crafted from sustainably harvested solid birch, birch plywood and the highest grade MDF, made from recycled or reclaimed wood.
Would you like us to help you find a similar item? Talk with our Design Consultants toll-free at1-800-927-5164.
*Shipping transit time varies based on destination. Free shipping offers are limited to the 48 contiguous states of the USA.
International Customers (including Alaska and Hawaii) please contact a Customer Service Representative if you have any questions about placing an order with PoshTots.
Some assembly required. Assembly service available upon request.
This item is custom made especially for you upon order.Click here for our policy on custom made items.
Promotion codes cannot be used for sale item purchases.
*Free shipping offers are limited to the 48 contiguous states of the USA.


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Emergency veterinarians are needed for relief shifts at Veterinary Specialty Center of Tucson. If you are an experienced ER vet, or someone interested in venturing into ER, we want to hear from you! Our specialists and emergency doctors take a "one hospital" approach together with our experienced administrative and technical staff to provide the highest quality compassionate health care and service to our patients, pet owners, and referring veterinarians.
A variety of different shifts are available to accomodate all kinds of schedules! Please send your resume to email@example.com or apply online at www.petvetcareers.com.
Relief Veterinarian Information:


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I've spent too much time on setup & maintain a development server, which contains following tools:
- Common services like SSH, BIND, rsync, etc.
- Subversion, Git.
- Apache server, which runs CGit, Trac, Webmin, phpmyadmin, phppgadmin, etc.
- Jetty, which runs Archiva and Hudson.
- Bugzilla.
- PostgresSQL server, MySQL server.
I've created a lot of Debian packages, like
my-mysql-utils, etc. to make my life more convenient. However, I still feel I need a lot more utils. And I've spent a lot of time to maintain these packages, too.
I think there maybe many developers doing the same things. As tools like subversion, git, trac are so common today. It's not to hard to install and configure each of them, but it took a long time to install them all. And it's time consuming to maintain them. Like backup the data, plot the usage graph and generate web reports. (gitstat for example)
So, I'd like to hear if there exist any pre-configured distro for Development Server purpose, i.e., something like
BackTrack for hackers?


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Every week, WoW Insider brings you Totem Talk for elemental, enhancement, and restoration shaman. Once just the expert on enhancement shaman, Josh Myers has spent most of Dragon Soul as elemental, and he's not quite sure how he got there. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Mastery is my favorite stat in World of Warcraft because it's the only stat that actually changes function from class to class. Haste might speed up rune regeneration for death knights, or fire mages might view a huge critical strike chance more happily than an affliction warlock, but those stats do largely the same thing across classes. On the other hand, the mastery of an elemental shaman is incredibly different than a holy paladin, which is a big change from a protection warrior.
Lucky for me, this patch gave rise to mastery as elemental's key secondary stat after hitting the spell hit cap. It's been a good stat all expansion but sat solidly behind haste through all of Firelands and much of tier 11. With Dragon Soul out and most ele shaman who have been playing the past few months now wearing their tier 13 sets, it's mastery's turn to shine.
The reason for mastery's newfound glory is the Spiritwalker's Regalia four-piece bonus, which gives you 250 haste rating every time your Elemental Overload procs, stacking up to three times and lasting four seconds. At a full stack, this is effectively 750 free haste rating that you get just for gearing for mastery. However, this stack falls off quickly, and chances are you'll only get one or two spellcasts off before it drops. As a result, you want a lot of mastery, to give the two casts you do get a fair chance at keeping the buff up.


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lifelooker.com - Site With 250,000 Pageviews/Month Making $4,000/mo
Listed at. Click to view listing.
The domain valuations given are from Estibot's appraisal tool. As it's difficult to automatically assess the value of a domain, these should be taken with a pinch of common sense. That said, Estibot still continues to provide some of the best automated domain valuations in the industry.


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Titan: Dawn is a nostalgic blend of classic RPG gameplay and exciting, fast paced action, creating a player experience like those found in our favorite games of old. Presented in a 3D isometric world, the game draws on essential elements from some of the greatest games of the past and enforces the importance of quality storytelling and engaging participation.
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RM25RM70Save RM45
Thu, 13 Jun 2019
4:00pm - 7:00pm
Petronas Twin Towers (Concourse Level)
Concourse Level, PETRONAS Twin Towers, Kuala Lumpur City Centre, 50088 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
With the One Day Gym Access Pass, you will be entitled to a one-time entry and have no time limit to spend at the gym, including full access to gym facilities and equipment.
Towels will be provided. Customers are advised to bring own padlock and water bottle.
13 Jun 2019, 03:00 PM +0800
This is a rare find! Nobody has booked this before, so do share some thoughts after your session and be the first!


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She said, "The most important thing to me in a repaint are the eyes, especially and specifically the irises & pupils. Of course, it has to all blend together with the rest of the face and other parts of it but it is usually the eyes that attract me to a repainted doll...Lots of times though when artists display pictures of their dolls, they don't provide close ups of those beautiful eyes or of the doll looking straight forward. It really turns me off when that is done, but it doesn't stop me from contacting the artist/ and or the seller if I am motivated enough with the whole face repaint and do ask to see pictures of the eyes up close."
Link to original post where you can see a slide-show of the eyes.
Please remember that you need to be a member of Prego (it's free) to log-in there.


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Story highlights
- Two men arrested after intensive weekend manhunt
- Two boys, 7 and 10, and their sister, 15 were killed when a stolen SUV struck them
- Two men carjacked a real estate agent's SUV and sexually assaulted her at gunpoint
- Mother of three siblings remains in critical condition
Philadelphia police said Monday they've apprehended two suspects in a Friday carjacking that left three children dead and their mother in critical condition.
Jonathon Rosa, 19, and Cornelius Crawford, 22, are both charged with several felonies -- including three counts of murder, kidnapping, aggravated assault, sexual assault and more -- in a crime spree that began Friday morning.
Police said the duo carjacked a 45-year-old real estate agent at gunpoint and both sexually assaulted her as they drove around the city with her in the backseat of her SUV.
Homicide Captain James Clark said at one point the Toyota 4Runner blew a tire, which caused Crawford to lose control and careen into a street-corner fruit stand, striking and killing 10-year-old Thomas Reed, 7-year-old Terrance Moore and 15-year-old Keiearra Williams. They were all the children of 34-year-old Keisha Williams, who is still in critical condition, according to Giselle Zayon of Temple University Hospital.
The SUV then wrecked in a vacant lot, according to police, and the two men fled. They remained at large for most of the weekend, until Rosa, accompanied by his pastor and his mother, turned himself in Sunday evening "once he became aware that they were closing in on him," Clark said Monday. Crawford, a convicted felon, was arrested without incident, he said.
Philadelphia police conducted an intensive, around-the-clock manhunt for the pair over the weekend. "It was a great collaboration between police and the community," said Clark.
A message left Monday for the attorney of one of the suspects was not immediately returned.
The family, who lived just around the corner from the fruit stand, was working there Friday to raise money for a local garden, according to police.
"They were sweet," Ursula Jackson told CNN affiliate KYW. "They were beautiful, they were beautiful little kids."
Williams said Monday that former NBA star Charles Barkley, who spent part of his career playing for the Philadelphia 76ers, has offered to pay for the funerals of the three children.


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A high school sophomore in New Jersey who is a quadruple amputee is motivating people both on and off the soccer field with his indomitable spirit.
Jorge Dyksen, 16, was stricken with an infection as an infant that prevented blood from flowing through his fingers and toes and the only way to save his life was to amputate both hands and both feet, his family recalled.
Despite becoming a quadruple amputee at just 14 months old, Jorge said he doesn't let anything hold him back. His message is simple: "Never give up."
Tim Smithhart, Jorge's principal at Manchester Regional High School, said: "Nothing stops him from anything he sets his mind to," though "he might confess to not being able to tie his shoes."
Jorge plays starting forward for the Manchester Falcons junior varsity team. With the help of Rotarian Tom Ford in Panama and Healing the Children in New Jersey, Jorge has been splitting his time between his birth country and the United States since he was a baby.
Every year he spends nine months in New Jersey with the Dyksen family, which adopted him, and three months with his biological family in Panama for the summer. Jorge has made the trip to America every year, going to school, getting fitted for new prosthetics and going through re-evaluations since his amputation.
"He is a tremendous example -- loves life and has a fabulous smile," said Ford, who has known Jorge since he was a boy.
Adoptive parents John and Faye Dyksen have been a volunteer host family for Healing the Children and have previously hosted two girls from the Dominican Republic. They said they were faced with a tough decision when they first learned of Jorge. A child who is a quadruple amputee was unlike anything they had dealt with.
"We were all pretty nervous about it," Faye Dyksen said.
"When we went to the airport ... all the fears just went away." she said. "It was kind of like love at first sight."
Jorge was just 16 months old at the time and having five kids of their own, "Mama Faye," as Jorge would call her, recalled that it was "neat to see teenagers reach out to the little guy."
The adoption process took three years. And in September 2012, just months before his sixteenth birthday, Jorge legally changed his last name from Grajales to Dyksen. "He's always been a part of the family," Faye Dyksen said, noting his biological family in Panama made a "sacrifice of love."
Though it's hard to say goodbye to his family in Panama at the end of every summer, Jorge keeps in contact with them by phone every two weeks. "I'm just happy that my parents down in Panama decided that I should get adopted here, and it was a great choice that my mom and dad here would go through it. I'm just happy," Jorge said.
Jorge was the youngest of three children and his birth parents couldn't provide for his special needs. It costs about $27,000 for a pair of prosthetic legs. The Dyksens, along with fellow church member, organized fundraisers to raise the funds that would provide Jorge with the ability to walk on his own. Jorge was badly injured in a game of soccer when his legs were tangled with another player in seventh grade, and "he does not like being in a wheelchair," Faye Dyksen said.
Jorge said he doesn't consider himself to be disabled. "I just feel like a normal person because everyone treats me like it. I just keep going on and doing what I want to do," Jorge said.
"I always tell people, 'Never give up.' Look, I have no arms and no feet and I can do everything without them. I can still kick a soccer ball, hit a baseball, type and even text," Jorge said.
When Jorge approached his adoptive mom about playing soccer for the school team, she said she had mixed feelings about the matter. "I don't like to tell him 'No, you can't do this, or you can't do that.' But it's so easy to get injured," she said. "But I just prayed harder."
"Usually a child like that would want to stay and hide in a corner, but God just gave him a personality," Faye Dyksen said.
Jorge said he often gets stares and unwanted attention from strangers, but he's used to it.
"I really just don't care. When people say things, I just giggle at myself," Jorge told ABC News.
With good communication between the school's athletic department and Mama Faye, Jorge has taken to the field. Jorge sets his own pace and tells Coach Sanchez when it gets to be too much. Without hands and feet, Jorge's body has less surface area which causes him to sweat more than anybody else.
"His goal is to score a goal by the end of the year," Assistant Coach Daniel Sanchez told ABC News. "I think he will by the end of the season."
Sanchez said Jorge is an inspiration and "big motivating factor."
"Whenever the team is down for any reason, he pumps them back up," Sanchez said. And during practice, "everyone wants to work at the same level he's working at."
"Jorge is not only a great teammate but a great friend, definitely a team player -- what every coach wants," Sanchez said.


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Leavenworth KS 66027
http://www.fesconnect.net/Nrogers4 Visit Website
"Prior to being a Protection Plan Member, I saw no light at the end of the tunnel. Utilizing DebtZero within my membership since 2012, has helped me to pay off three credit cards totaling over $15,000 and reduced the payoff time by four years. I saved thousands of dollars in interest and watched my credit score skyrocket. In addition, my DebtZero system shows me that I will be mortgage and debt free in seven years. Who doesn't want that?"
"Having a will and trust was something we talked about on several occasions, but we never took the time to get it done. Being the parents of two children and having various assets and real estate, we knew it was something we really needed. The step-by-step process was easy and made it less painful that we had feared it would be. The decision to finally do what we should have done a long time ago has given us the peace of mind we desired."
"Before becoming Protection Plan Members, we didn't realize how many aspects of our finances could possibly be out of our control. Now we are confident that our credit and assets are fully protected and that our family's financial future is secure. The FES Protection Plan makes it easy for everyone to organize their financial and personal affairs. Your credit, identity and family are too important not to protect."
"Challenging economic times severely damaged my credit. I knew the importance of having great credit and all the options it would afford me, so I decided to become a Protection Plan Member. Within one year, my credit score went from a 522 to a 749, enabling me to buy a home, a new car and to regain control of my financial responsibilities. Thank you FES for providing such a valuable service!"


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Fregosi suffers stroke on MLB alumni cruise
Former All-Star, manager recovering in Miami after episode in Caribbean
Former All-Star shortstop and big league manager Jim Fregosi suffered a stroke during a Major League Baseball alumni cruise, and he was flown to Miami from the Cayman Islands on Tuesday.
Fregosi, 71, had the stroke last weekend, but doctors in the Cayman Islands had to stabilize his condition before he could be flown back to the mainland, where his recovery continues.
Fregosi has been a special assistant to the Atlanta Braves' general manager the past 13 seasons.
Originally signed out of high school by the Boston Red Sox, Fregosi was an Expansion Draft selection of the Los Angeles Angels in December 1960. He was a six-time All-Star as a shortstop during an 18-year career, playing for the Angels, New York Mets, Texas Rangers and Pittsburgh Pirates. After 11 years with the Halos, Fregosi was the key player the club sent to the Mets for a young Nolan Ryan on Dec. 10, 1971.
In June 1978, Fregosi went from a backup role on the Pirates to the manager of the California Angels. During 15 seasons as a manager, Fregosi managed the Angels to the American League West title in 1979, the first postseason appearance in franchise history, and guided the Philadelphia Phillies to the National League pennant in 1993. He also managed the Chicago White Sox from 1986-88, and the Toronto Blue Jays in 1999 and 2000.
Fregosi managed the Cardinals' Triple-A affiliate after being fired by the Halos during the 1981 season and before being hired by the White Sox. Between the White Sox and Phillies managerial tours, he was a big league scout for the San Francisco Giants.
At Serra High School in San Mateo, Calif., Fregosi was a teammate of former big league third baseman Tim Cullen and former scout Gary Hughes, who signed John Elway to the Yankees and is now a special assistant with the Red Sox.


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Emily Williams wants to
The University of Californiainvests millions of dollars in the fossil fuel industry. By investing,the University of
The University of California currently has investments in the fossil fuels industry, including coal mining and burning, petroleum extraction, and natural gas extraction. The Associated Students of California call upon the Regents of the University of California, in its commitment to leadership in sustainability, to divest from fossil fuels by taking the following actions regarding the General…
With this Cause Mother Nature already put Fossil Fuels in the ground. Leave them be there are cleaner solutions for our environment . Why dig and pull out a gravesite? Blessings
Call for divestment from fossil fuels
Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is in bed with dirty energy?! Let's see if we can get him to disassociate himself from these…Read More
Wonderful! One of our campuses has a petition for divestment; let's support…Read More


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Collection Items
MapColton's map of the seat of war in Virginia : showing minutely the interesting localities in the vicinity of Richmond.
Map of the seat of war in Virginia | Seat of war in Virginia Relief shown by hachures. Shows some fortifications. Prime meridians: Greenwich and Washington. LC copy hand col. in red to show Virginia boundaries. "Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year [1862], by J.H. Colton, in the Clerks Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York." LC copy signed in ink in upper right corner: Millard...
- Contributor: Colton, J. H. (Joseph Hutchins) - Fillmore, Millard
- Date: 1862