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Jay Taylor's notesback to listing index
ZFS Best Practices Guide - Siwiki[web search]
ZFS Best Practices Guide
[edit] ZFS Administration Considerations
[edit] ZFS Storage Pools Recommendations
This section describes general recommendations for setting up ZFS storage pools.
[edit] System/Memory/Swap Space
- Run ZFS on a system that runs a 64-bit kernel
- One GB or more of memory is recommended.
- Approximately 64 KB of memory is consumed per mounted ZFS file system. On systems with 1,000s of ZFS file systems, provision 1 GB of extra memory for every 10,000 mounted file systems including snapshots. Be prepared for longer boot times on these systems as well.
- Size memory requirements to actual system workload:
- With a *known* application memory footprint, such as database application, you might cap the ARC size so that the application will not need to reclaim its necessary memory from the ZFS cache.
- Identify ZFS memory usage with memstat
- Consider dedup memory requirements
- For additional memory considerations, see Memory and Dynamic Reconfiguration Recommendations
[edit] Storage Pools
- Set up one storage pool using whole disks per system, if possible.
- Keep vdevs belonging to one zpool of similar sizes; Otherwise, as the pool fills up, new allocations will be forced to favor larger vdevs over smaller ones and this will cause subsequent reads to come from a subset of underlying devices leading to lower performance.
- For production systems, use whole disks rather than slices for storage pools for the following reasons:
- Allows ZFS to enable the disk's write cache for those disks that have write caches. If you are using a RAID array with a non-volatile write cache, then this is less of an issue and slices as vdevs should still gain the benefit of the array's write cache.
- For JBOD attached storage, having an enabled disk cache, allows some synchronous writes to be issued as multiple disk writes followed by a single cache flush allowing the disk controller to optimize I/O scheduling. Separately, for systems that lacks proper support for SATA NCQ or SCSI TCQ, having an enabled write cache allows the host to issue single I/O operation asynchronously from physical I/O.
- The recovery process of replacing a failed disk is more complex when disks contain both ZFS and UFS file systems on slices.
- ZFS pools (and underlying disks) that also contain UFS file systems on slices cannot be easily migrated to other systems by using zpool import and export features.
- In general, maintaining slices increases administration time and cost. Lower your administration costs by simplifying your storage pool configuration model.
- Note: See the Additional Cautions section below prior to Nevada, build 117 bug id 6844090.
- If you must use slices for ZFS storage pools, review the following:
- Consider migrating the pools to whole disks after a transition period.
- Use slices on small systems, such as laptops, where experts need access to both UFS and ZFS file systems.
- However, take great care when reinstalling OSes in different slices so you don't accidentally clobber your ZFS pools.
- Managing data on slices is more complex than managing data on whole disks.
- For production environments, configure ZFS so that it can repair data inconsistencies. Use ZFS redundancy, such as RAIDZ, RAIDZ-2, RAIDZ-3, mirror, regardless of the RAID level implemented on the underlying storage device. With such redundancy, faults in the underlying storage device or its connections to the host can be discovered and repaired by ZFS.
- Avoid creating a RAIDZ, RAIDZ-2, RAIDZ-3, or a mirrored configuration with one logical device of 40+ devices. See the sections below for examples of redundant configurations.
- In a replicated pool configuration, leverage multiple controllers to reduce hardware failures and to improve performance. For example:
# zpool create tank mirror c1t0d0 c2t0d0
- Set up hot spares to speed up healing in the face of hardware failures. Spares are critical for high mean time to data loss (MTTDL) environments. One or two spares for a 40-disk pool is a commonly used configuration. For example:
# zpool create tank mirror c1t0d0 c2t0d0 [mirror cxtydz ...] spare c1t1d0 c2t1d0
- Run zpool scrub on a regular basis to identify data integrity problems. If you have consumer-quality drives, consider a weekly scrubbing schedule. If you have datacenter-quality drives, consider a monthly scrubbing schedule. You should also run a scrub prior to replacing devices or temporarily reducing a pool's redundancy to ensure that all devices are currently operational.
- ZFS works well with the following devices:
- Solid-state storage devices that emulate disk drives (SSDs). You might wish to enable compression on storage pools that contain such devices because of their relatively high cost per byte.
- iSCSI devices. For more information, see the ZFS Administration Guide and the following blog: x4500_solaris_zfs_iscsi_perfect
- Storage based protected LUNs (RAID-5 or mirrored LUNs from intelligent storage arrays). However, ZFS cannot heal corrupted blocks that are detected by ZFS checksums.
[edit] Hybrid Storage Pools (or Pools with SSDs)
- There are two possible ways to accelerate your ZFS pool through hybrid storage. By using "cache" devices, you may accelerate read operations. By using "log" devices, you may accelerate synchronous write operations.
- For more information about cache devices, please see #Separate_Cache_Devices
- For more information about log devices, please see #Separate_Log_Devices
[edit] Using Storage Arrays in Pools
- With MPxIO
- Running the Solaris 10 5/09 release is recommended.
- Enable MPxIO by using the stmsboot command. The paths will change (under /scsi_vhci), but ZFS can handle this change.
- ZFS and Array Replication Interactions Template:Draft
- ZFS does not support the ability for a Solaris host to have both the the ZFS storage pool contained on the Master Volume and a controller-based (or host-based) snapshot of said ZFS storage pool accessible on the Shadow Volume. This Shadow Volume can be accessed on another Solaris host, if the storage array supports multiple hosts, or the snapshot Shadow Volume is used as the source of remote replication, where ZFS storage pool can then be accessed on the secondary node.
- If the SNDR unit of replication is a ZFS storage pool (replicated as an SNDR I/O consistency group), all ZFS storage pool and file system properties, such as compression, are replicated too.
- The TrueCopy snapshot feature does not retain write-order consistency across all volumes in a single ZFS storage pool. To address this issue, within TrueCopy, you must create a single I/O consistency group for all volumes in a "named" ZFS storage pool. The other solution is to do the following:
# zpool export <entire ZFS storage pool> # TrueCopy snapshot # zpool import <entire ZFS storage pool>
[edit] Additional Cautions for Storage Pools
Review the following cautions before building your ZFS storage pool:
- Do not create a storage pool that contains components from another storage pool. Deadlocks can occur in this unsupported configuration.
- A pool created with a single slice or single disk has no redundancy and is at risk for data loss. A pool created with multiple slices but no redundancy is also at risk for data loss. A pool created with multiple slices across disks is harder to manage than a pool created with whole disks.
- A pool that is not created with ZFS redundancy (RAIDZ or mirror) can only report data inconsistencies. It cannot repair data inconsistencies. A pool created without ZFS redundancy is harder to manage because you cannot replace or detach disks in a non-redundant ZFS configuration.
- Although a pool that is created with ZFS redundancy can help reduce down time due to hardware failures, it is not immune to hardware failures, power failures, or disconnected cables. Make sure you backup your data on a regular basis. Performing routine backups of pool data on non-enterprise grade hardware is important.
- A pool cannot be shared across systems. ZFS is not a cluster file system.
- The size of the replacements disk, measured by usable sectors, must be the same or greater than the disk being replaced. This can be confusing when whole disks are used because different models of disks may provide a different number of usable sectors. For example, if a pool was created with a "500 GB" drive and you need to replace it with another "500 GB" drive, then you may not be able to do so if the drives are not of the same make, model, and firmware revision.
- Today, pool capacity cannot be reduced in size. CR 4852783 addresses the ability to reduce pool capacity.
- A disk that is part of a pool cannot be relabeled or repartitioned.
- Consider that a BIOS or firmware upgrade might inadvertently relabel a disk so carefully review the upgrade changes that might impact the disks of your pool before the upgrade.
- Other hardware upgrades or changes might change the device paths of the devices in your pool. In general, a ZFS storage pool on Sun hardware can handle these changes, but review your hardware manual to see if the pool should be imported or possibly other preparatory steps taken, before upgrading the hardware.
[edit] Simple or Striped Storage Pool Limitations
Simple or striped storage pools have limitations that should be considered. Expansion of space is possible by two methods:
- Adding another disk to expand the stripe. This method should also increase the performance of the storage pool because more devices can be utilized concurrently. Be aware that for current ZFS implementations, once vdevs are added, they cannot be removed.
# zpool add tank c2t2d0
- Replacing an existing vdev with a larger vdev. For example:
# zpool replace tank c0t2d0 c2t2d0
- ZFS can tolerate many types of device failures.
- For simple storage pools, metadata is dual redundant, but data is not redundant.
- You can set the redundancy level for data using the ZFS copies property.
- If a block cannot be properly read and there is no redundancy, ZFS will tell you which files are affected.
- Replacing a failing disk for a simple storage pool requires access to both the old and new device in order to put the old data onto the new device.
# zpool replace tank c0t2d0 ### wrong: cannot recreate data because there is no redundancy # zpool replace tank c0t2d0 c2t2d0 ### ok
[edit] Multiple Storage Pools on the Same System
- The pooling of resources into one ZFS storage pool allows different file systems to get the benefit from all resources at different times. This strategy can greatly increase the performance seen by any one file system.
- If some workloads require more predictable performance characteristics, then you might consider separating workloads into different pools.
- For instance, Oracle log writer performance is critically dependent on I/O latency and we expect best performance to be achieved by keeping that load on a separate small pool that has the lowest possible latency.
[edit] ZFS Root Pool Considerations
- A root pool must be created with disk slices rather than whole disks. Allocate the entire disk capacity for the root pool to slice 0, for example, rather than partition the disk that is used for booting for many different uses. A root pool must be labeled with a VTOC (SMI) label rather than an EFI label.
- A disk that contains the root pool or any pool cannot be repartitioned while the pool is active. If the entire disk's capacity is allocated to the root pool, then it is less likely to need more disk space.
- Consider keeping the root pool separate from pool(s) that are used for data. Several reasons exist for this strategy:
- Only mirrored pools and pools with one disk are supported. No RAIDZ or unreplicated pools with more than one disk are supported.
- You cannot add additional disks to create multiple mirrored vdevs but you can expand a mirrored vdev by using the zpool attach command.
- Data pools can be architecture-neutral. It might make sense to move a data pool between SPARC and Intel. Root pools are pretty much tied to a particular architecture.
- In general, it's a good idea to separate the "personality" of a system from its data. Then, you can change one without having to change the other.
- A root pool cannot be exported on the local system. For recovery purposes, you can import a root pool when booted from the network or alternate media.
- Consider using descendent datasets in the root pool for non-system related data because you cannot rename or destroy the top-level pool dataset. Using the top-level pool dataset as a container for descendent datasets provide more flexibility if you need to snapshot, clone, or promote datasets in the root pool or a top-level dataset.
- Keep all root pool components, such as the /usr and /var directories, in the root pool.
- Create a mirrored root pool to reduce downtime due to hardware failures.
- For more information about setting up a ZFS root pool, see ZFS Root Pool Recommendations.
- For more information about migrating to a ZFS root file system, see Migrating to a ZFS Root File System.
[edit] ZFS Mirrored Root Pool Disk Replacement
If a disk in a mirrored root pool fails, you can either replace the disk or attach a replacement disk and then detach the failed disk. The basic steps are like this:
- Identify the disk to be replaced by using the zpool status command.
- You can do a live disk replacement if the system supports hot-plugging. On some systems, you might need to offline and unconfigure the failed disk first. For example:
# zpool offline rpool c1t0d0s0 # cfgadm -c unconfigure c1::dsk/c1t0d0
- Physically replace the disk.
- Reconfigure the disk. This step might not be necessary on some systems.
# cfgadm -c configure c1::dsk/c1t0d0
- Confirm that the replacement disk has an SMI label and a slice 0 to match the existing root pool configuration.
- Let ZFS know that the disk is replaced.
# zpool replace rpool c1t0d0s0
- Bring the disk online.
# zpool online rpool c1t0d0s0
- Install the bootblocks after the disk is resilvered.
- Confirm that the replacement disk is bootable by booting the system from the replacement disk.
- For information about formatting a disk that is intended for the root pool and installing boot blocks, see [[1]]
[edit] Storage Pool Performance Considerations
[edit] General Storage Pool Performance Considerations
- For better performance, use individual disks or at least LUNs made up of just a few disks. By providing ZFS with more visibility into the LUNs setup, ZFS is able to make better I/O scheduling decisions.
- Depending on workloads, the current ZFS implementation can, at times, cause much more I/O to be requested than other page-based file systems. If the throughput flowing toward the storage, as observed by iostat, nears the capacity of the channel linking the storage and the host, tuning down the zfs recordsize should improve performance. This tuning is dynamic, but only impacts new file creations. Existing files keep their old recordsize.
- Tuning recordsize does not help sequential type loads. Tuning recordsize is aimed at improving workloads that intensively manage large files using small random reads and writes.
- Keep pool space under 80% utilization to maintain pool performance. Currently, pool performance can degrade when a pool is very full and file systems are updated frequently, such as on a busy mail server. Full pools might cause a performance penalty, but no other issues. If the primary workload is immutable files (write once, never remove), then you can keep a pool in the 95-96% utilization range. Keep in mind that even with mostly static content in the 95-96% range, write, read, and resilvering performance might suffer.
- For better performance, do not build UFS components on top of ZFS components. For ZFS performance testing, make sure you are not running UFS on top of ZFS components.
See also ZFS for Databases.
[edit] Separate Log Devices
The ZFS intent log (ZIL) is provided to satisfy POSIX requirements for synchronous writes. By default, the ZIL is allocated from blocks within the main storage pool. Better performance might be possible by using dedicated nonvolatile log devices such as NVRAM, SSD drives, or even a dedicated spindle disk.
- If your server hosts a database, virtual machines, iSCSI targets, acts as a NFS server with the clients mounting in "sync" mode, or in any way has heavy synchronous write requests, then you may benefit by using a dedicated log device for ZIL.
- The benefit of a dedicated ZIL depends on your usage. If you always do async writes, it won't matter at all, because the log device can only accelerate sync writes to be more similar to async writes. If you do many small sync writes, you will benefit a lot. If you do large continuous sync writes, you may see some benefit, but it's not clear exactly how significant.
- If you add a log device to your storage pool, it cannot be removed, prior to zpool version 19. You can find out your pool version by running the "zpool upgrade" command. The Solaris 10 9/10 release includes pool version 22, which allows you to remove a log device.
- With two or more nonvolatile storage devices, you can create a mirrored set of log devices.
# zpool add tank log mirror c0t4d0 c0t6d0
- In a mirrored log configuration, you can always detach (unmirror) devices, but as mentioned above, you cannot remove your last unmirrored log device prior to pool version 19.
- Log devices can be unreplicated or mirrored, but RAIDZ is not supported for log devices.
- Mirroring the log device is recommended. Prior to pool version 19, if you have an unmirrored log device that fails, your whole pool might be lost or you might lose several seconds of unplayed writes, depending on the failure scenario.
- In current releases, if an unmirrored log device fails during operation, the system reverts to the default behavior, using blocks from the main storage pool for the ZIL, just as if the log device had been gracefully removed via the "zpool remove" command.
- The minimum size of a log device is the same as the minimum size of device in pool, which is 64 MB. The amount of in-play data that might be stored on a log device is relatively small. Log blocks are freed when the log transaction (system call) is committed.
- The maximum size of a log device should be approximately 1/2 the size of physical memory because that is the maximum amount of potential in-play data that can be stored. For example, if a system has 16 GB of physical memory, consider a maximum log device size of 8 GB.
- For a target throughput of X MB/sec and given that ZFS pushes transaction groups every 5 seconds (and have 2 outstanding), we also expect the ZIL to not grow beyond X MB/sec * 10 sec. So to service 100MB/sec of synchronous writes, 1 GB of log device should be sufficient.
[edit] Memory and Dynamic Reconfiguration Recommendations
The ZFS adaptive replacement cache (ARC) tries to use most of a system's available memory to cache file system data. The default is to use all of physical memory except 1 GB. As memory pressure increases, the ARC relinquishes memory.
Consider limiting the maximum ARC memory footprint in the following situations:
- When a known amount of memory is always required by an application. Databases often fall into this category.
- On platforms that support dynamic reconfiguration of memory boards, to prevent ZFS from growing the kernel cage onto all boards.
- A system that requires large memory pages might also benefit from limiting the ZFS cache, which tends to breakdown large pages into base pages.
- Finally, if the system is running another non-ZFS file system, in addition to ZFS, it is advisable to leave some free memory to host that other file system's caches.
The trade off is to consider that limiting this memory footprint means that the ARC is unable to cache as much file system data, and this limit could impact performance.
In general, limiting the ARC is wasteful if the memory that now goes unused by ZFS is also unused by other system components. Note that non-ZFS file systems typically manage to cache data in what is nevertheless reported as free memory by the system.
For information about tuning the ARC, see the following section:
[edit] Separate Cache Devices
In addition to the in-memory ARC cache, ZFS employs a second level, L2ARC on-disk cache. In a typical configuration, there would be large pool of spindle disks, and a smaller number of SSD's or other high performance devices dedicated to cache. Using L2ARC cache devices may accelerate read operations, especially when some data is read repeatedly, and cannot fit in the system memory ARC cache. This is particularly likely when active processes are consuming the system memory, and in high performance machines which may already be maxed out for RAM. For example, if a machine maxes out at 128G ram, and requires 120G of ram for active processes, and frequently needs to read some data files from disk, then performance could likely be increased by adding a few hundred G of SSD cache devices.
- You can add cache devices with the "zpool add" command.
zpool add tank cache c0t5d0 c0t6d0
- It is not possible to mirror or use raidz on cache devices, nor is it necessary. If a cache device fails, the data will simply be read from the main pool storage devices instead.
[edit] RAIDZ Configuration Requirements and Recommendations
A RAIDZ configuration with N disks of size X with P parity disks can hold approximately (N-P)*X bytes and can withstand P device(s) failing before data integrity is compromised.
- Start a single-parity RAIDZ (raidz) configuration at 3 disks (2+1)
- Start a double-parity RAIDZ (raidz2) configuration at 6 disks (4+2)
- Start a triple-parity RAIDZ (raidz3) configuration at 9 disks (6+3)
- (N+P) with P = 1 (raidz), 2 (raidz2), or 3 (raidz3) and N equals 2, 4, or 6
- The recommended number of disks per group is between 3 and 9. If you have more disks, use multiple groups.
For a RAIDZ configuration example, see x4500 with RAID-Z2 and Recipe for a ZFS RAID-Z Storage Pool on Sun Fire X4540.
[edit] Mirrored Configuration Recommendations
- No currently reachable limits exist on the number of devices
- On a Sun Fire X4500 server, do not create a single vdev with 48 devices. Consider creating 24 2-device mirrors. This configuration reduces the disk capacity by 1/2, but up to 24 disks or 1 disk in each mirror could be lost without a failure.
- If you need better data protection, a 3-way mirror has a significantly greater MTTDL than a 2-way mirror. Going to a 4-way (or greater) mirror may offer only marginal improvements in data protection. Concentrate on other methods of data protection if a 3-way mirror is insufficient.
For a mirrored ZFS configuration examples, see x4500 with mirror and x4200 with mirror.
[edit] Should I Configure a RAIDZ, RAIDZ-2, RAIDZ-3, or a Mirrored Storage Pool?
A general consideration is whether your goal is to maximum disk space or maximum performance.
- A RAIDZ configuration maximizes disk space and generally performs well when data is written and read in large chunks (128K or more).
- A RAIDZ-2 configuration offers better data availability, and performs similarly to RAIDZ. RAIDZ-2 has significantly better mean time to data loss (MTTDL) than either RAIDZ or 2-way mirrors.
- A RAIDZ-3 configuration maximizes disk space and offers excellent availability because it can withstand 3 disk failures.
- A mirrored configuration consumes more disk space but generally performs better with small random reads.
- If your I/Os are large, sequential, or write-mostly, then ZFS's I/O scheduler aggregates them in such a way that you'll get very efficient use of the disks regardless of the data replication model.
For better performance, a mirrored configuration is strongly favored over a RAIDZ configuration particularly for large, uncacheable, random read loads.
For more information about RAIDZ considerations, see When to (and not to) use RAID-Z.
[edit] RAIDZ Configuration Examples
For RAIDZ configuration on a Thumper, mirror c3t0 and c3t4 (disks 0 and 1) as your root pool, with the remaining 46 disks available for user data. The following RAIDZ-2 configurations illustrate how to set up the remaining 46 disks.
* 5x(7+2), 1 hot spare, 17.5 TB * 4x(9+2), 2 hot spares, 18.0 TB * 6x(5+2), 4 hot spares, 15.0 TB
[edit] ZFS Migration Strategies
[edit] Migrating to a ZFS Root File System
In the SXCE (Nevada) build 90 release or in the Solaris 10 10/08 release, you can migrate your UFS root file system to a ZFS root file system by upgrading to build 90 or the Solaris 10 10/08 release and then using the Solaris Live Upgrade feature to migrate to a ZFS root file system. You can create a mirrored ZFS root pool either during an initial installation or a JumpStart installation. Or, by using the zpool attach command to create a mirrored ZFS root pool after installation.
For information about installing a ZFS root file system or migrating a UFS root file system to a ZFS root file system, see the Installing and Booting a ZFS Root File System
[edit] Migrating a UFS Root File System With Zones to a ZFS Root File System
Keep the following points in mind when using ZFS datasets on a Solaris system with zones installed:
- In the Solaris 10 10/08 release, you can create a zone root path on a ZFS file system. However, supported configurations are limited when migrating a system with zones to a ZFS root file system by using the Solaris Live Upgrade feature. Review the following supported configurations before you begin migrating a system with zones.
- You can use ZFS as a zone root path in the Solaris Express releases, but keep in mind that patching or upgrading these zones is not supported.
- You cannot associate ZFS snapshots with zones at this time.
For more information about using ZFS with zones, see the Zones FAQ.
[edit] Manually Migrating Non-System Data to a ZFS File System
Consider the following practices when migrating non-system-related data from UFS file systems to ZFS file systems:
- Unshare the existing UFS file systems
- Unmount the existing UFS file systems from the previous mount points
- Mount the UFS file systems to temporary unshared mount points
- Migrate the UFS data with parallel instances of rsync running to the new ZFS file systems
- Set the mount points and the sharenfs properties on the new ZFS file systems
[edit] ZFS Interactions With Other Volume Management Products
- ZFS works best without any additional volume management software.
- If you must use ZFS with SVM because you need an extra level of volume management, ZFS expects that 1 to 4 MB of consecutive logical block map to consecutive physical blocks. Keeping to this rule allows ZFS to drive the volume with efficiency.
- You can construct logical devices for ZFS by using volumes presented by software-based volume managers, such as SolarisTM Volume Manager (SVM) or Veritas Volume Manager (VxVM). However, these configurations are not recommended. While ZFS functions properly on such devices, less-than-optimal performance might be the result.
[edit] General ZFS Administration Information
- ZFS administration is performed while the data is online.
- For information about setting up pools, see [ZFS Storage Pools Recommendations].
- ZFS file systems are mounted automatically when created.
- ZFS file systems do not have to be mounted by modifying the /etc/vfstab file.
- Currently, ZFS doesn't provide a comprehensive backup/restore utility like ufsdump and ufsrestore commands. However, you can use the zfs send and zfs receive commands to capture ZFS data streams. You can also use the ufsrestore command to restore UFS data into a ZFS file system.
- For most ZFS administration tasks, see the following references:
- zfs.1m and zpool.1m, provide basic syntax and examples
- ZFS Administration Guide, provides more detailed syntax and examples
- zfs-discuss, join this OpenSolaris discussion list to ask ZFS questions
- You can use "iostat -En" to display error information about devices that are part of a ZFS storage pool.
- A dataset is a generic term for a ZFS component, such as file system, snapshot, clone, or volume.
- When you create a ZFS storage pool, a ZFS file system is automatically created. For example, the following syntax created a pool named tank and top-level dataset named tank that is mounted at /tank.
# zpool create tank mirror c1t0d0 c2t0d0 # zfs list tank NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT tank 72K 8.24G 21K /tank
- Consider using the top-level dataset as a container for other file systems. The top-level dataset cannot be destroyed or renamed. You can export and import the pool with a new name to change the name of the top-level dataset, but this operation would also change the name of the pool. If you want to snapshot, clone, or promote file system data then create separate file systems in your pool. File systems provide points of administration that allow you to manage different sets of data within the same pool.
[edit] OpenSolaris/ZFS Considerations
- Most of the general pool and storage recommendations apply to using ZFS in the OpenSolaris release.
[edit] OpenSolaris/ZFS/Virtual Box Recommendations
- By default, Virtual Box is configured to ignore cache flush commands from the underlying storage. This means that in the event of a system crash or a hardware failure, data could be lost.
- To enable cache flushing on Virtual Box, issue the following command:
VBoxManage setextradata <VM_NAME> "VBoxInternal/Devices/<type>/0/LUN#<n>/Config/IgnoreFlush" 0
- <VM_NAME> is the name of the virtual machine
- <type> is the controller type, either piix3ide (if you're using the normal IDE virtual controller) or ahci (if you're using a SATA controller)
<n> is the disk number.
- For IDE disks, primary master is 0, primary slave is 1, secondary master is 2, secondary slave is 3.
- For SATA disks, it's simply the SATA disk number.
- Additional notes:
- This setting can only be enabled for (virtual) SATA/IDE disks. It cannot be enabled for CD/DVD drives. iSCSI behavior is unknown at this time.
- You can only enable this setting for disks that are attached to the particular virtual machine. If you enable it for any other disks (LUN#), it will fail to boot with a rather cryptic error message. This means if you detach the disk, you have to disable this setting.
[edit] Using ZFS for Application Servers Considerations
[edit] ZFS NFS Server Practices
Consider the following lessons learned from a UFS to ZFS migration experience:
- Existing user home directories were renamed but they were not unmounted. NFS continued to serve the older home directories when the new home directories were also shared.
- Do not mix UFS directories and ZFS file systems in the same file system hierarchy because this model is confusing to administer and maintain.
- Do not mix NFS legacy shared ZFS file systems and ZFS NFS shared file systems because this model is difficult to maintain. Go with ZFS NFS shared file systems.
- ZFS file systems are shared with the sharenfs file system property and zfs share command. For example:
# zfs set sharenfs=on export/home
- This syntax shares the file system automatically. If ZFS file systems need to be shared, use the zfs share command. For example:
# zfs share export/home
For information about ZFS-over-NFS performance, see ZFS and NFS Server Performance.
[edit] ZFS NFS Server Benefits
- NFSv4-style ACLs are available with ZFS file systems and ACL information is automatically available over NFS.
- ZFS snapshots are available over NFSv4 so NFS mounted-home directories can access their .snapshot directories.
[edit] ZFS file service for SMB (CIFS) or SAMBA
Many of the best practices for NFS also apply to CIFS or SAMBA servers.
- ZFS file systems can be shared using the SMB service, for those OS releases which support it.
# zfs set sharesmb=on export/home
- If native SMB support is not available, then SAMBA offers a reasonable solution.
[edit] ZFS Home Directory Server Practices
Consider the following practices when planning your ZFS home directories:
- Set up one file system per user
- Use quotas and reservations to manage user disk space
- Use snapshots to back up users' home directories
- Beware that mounting 1000s of file systems, will impact your boot time
Consider the following practices when migrating data from UFS file systems to ZFS file systems:
- Unshare the existing UFS file systems
- Unmount the existing UFS file systems from the previous mount points
- Mount the UFS file systems to temporary unshared mount points
- Migrate the UFS data with parallel instances of rsync running to the new ZFS file systems
- Set the mount points and the sharenfs properties on the new ZFS file systems
See the ZFS/NFS Server Practices section for additional tips on sharing ZFS home directories over NFS.
[edit] ZFS Home Directory Server Benefits
- ZFS can handle many small files and many users because of its high capacity architecture.
- Additional space for user home directories is easily expanded by adding more devices to the storage pool.
- ZFS quotas are an easy way to manage home directory space.
- Use ZFS property inheritance to apply properties to many file systems.
[edit] Recommendations for Saving ZFS Data
[edit] Using ZFS Snapshots
- Using ZFS snapshots is a quick and easy way to protect files against accidental changes and deletion. In nearly all cases, availability of snapshots allows users to restore their own files, without administrator assistance, and without the need to access removable storage, such as tapes. For example:
$ rm reallyimportantfile /* D'oh! $ cd .zfs/snapshot $ cd .auto... $ cp reallyimportantfile $HOME $ ls $HOME/reallyimportantfile /home/cindys/reallyimportantfile
- The following syntax creates recursive snapshots of all home directories in the tank/home file system. Then, you can use the zfs send -R command to create a recursive stream of the recursive home directory snapshot, which also includes the individual file system property settings.
# zfs snapshot -r tank/home@monday # zfs send -R tank/home/@monday | ssh remote-system zfs receive -dvu pool
- You can create rolling snapshots and zfs-auto-snapshots to help manage snapshot copies. For more information, see the Rolling Snapshots Made Easy blog or the ZFS Automatic Snapshot blog by Tim Foster.
- ZFS snapshots are accessible in the .zfs directories of the file system that was snapshot. Configure your backup product to skip these directories.
[edit] Storing ZFS Snapshot Streams (zfs send/receive)
- You can use the zfs send and zfs receive commands to archive a snapshot stream but saving ZFS send streams is different from traditional backups, for the following reasons:
- You cannot select individual files or directories to receive because the zfs receive operation is an all-or-nothing event. You can get all of a file system snapshot or none of it.
- If you store ZFS send stream on a file or on tape, and that file becomes corrupted, then it will not be possible to receive it, and none of the data will be recoverable. However, Nevada, build 125 adds the zstreamdump(1m) command to verify a ZFS snapshot send stream. See also, RFE 6736794.
- You cannot restore individual files or directories from a ZFS send stream, although you can copy files or directories from a snapshot. This limitation means enterprise backup solutions and other archive tools, such as cp, tar, rsync, pax, cpio, are more appropriate for tape backup/restore because you can restore individual files or directories.
- You cannot exclude directories or files from a ZFS send stream.
- You can create an incremental snapshot stream (see "zfs send -i" syntax). This is generally much faster than incremental backups performed by file-level tools, such as tar and rsync, because ZFS already knows which blocks have changed on disk, and it can simply read those blocks as large sequential disk read operations, to the extent physically possible. Archive tools, such as tar and rsync, must walk the file system, checking every file and directory for modifications, in order to choose which files have changed and need to be included in the incremental backup.
- Another advantage of using a ZFS send stream over a file-based backup tool is that you can send and receive a file system's property settings.
- If you have random access storage (not tape) to receive onto, and you don't need to exclude anything, then zfs send and receive can be used to store data, provided that you pipe the zfs send command directly into the zfs receive command.
[edit] Using ZFS With AVS
The Sun StorageTek Availability Suite (AVS), Remote Mirror Copy and Point-in-Time Copy services, previously known as SNDR (Sun Network Data Replicator) and II (Instant Image), are similiar to the Veritas VVR (volume replicator) and Flashsnap (point-in-time copy) products, is currently available in the Solaris Express release.
SNDR differs from the ZFS send and recv features, which are time-fixed replication features. For example, you can take a point-in-time snapshot, replicate it, or replicate it based on a differential of a prior snapshot. The combination of AVS II and SNDR features, also allows you to perform time-fixed replication. The other modes of the AVS SNDR replication feature allows you to obtain CDP (continuous data replication). ZFS doesn't currently have this feature.
For more information about AVS, see the OpenSolaris AVS Project. View the AVS/ZFS Demos here.
[edit] Using ZFS With Enterprise Backup Solutions
- The robustness of ZFS does not protect you from all failures. You should maintain copies of your ZFS data either by taking regular ZFS snapshots, and saving them to tape or other offline storage. Or, consider using an enterprise backup solution.
- Sun StorEdge Enterprise Backup Software (Legato Networker 7.3.2) product can fully back up and restore ZFS files including ACLs.
- Symantec's Netbackup 6.5 product can fully back up and restore ZFS files including ACLs. Release 6.5.2A offers some fixes which make backup of ZFS file systems easier.
- IBM's TSM product can be used to back up ZFS files. However supportability is not absolutely clear. Based on TSM documentation on IBM website, ZFS with ACLs is supported with TSM client 5.3. It has been verified (internally to Sun) to correctly work with 22.214.171.124.
tsm> q file /opt/SUNWexplo/output # Last Incr Date Type File Space Name --- -------------- ---- --------------- 1 08/13/07 09:18:03 ZFS /opt/SUNWexplo/output ^ |__correct filesystem type
- For the latest information about enterprise-backup solution issues with ZFS, see the ZFS FAQ.
[edit] Using ZFS With Open Source Backup Solutions
- ZFS snapshots are accessible in the .zfs directories of the file system that was snapshot. Configure your backup product to skip these directories.
- Amanda - Joe Little blogs about how he backs up ZFS file systems to Amazon's S3 using Amanda. Integration of ZFS snapshots with MySQL and Amanda Enterprise 2.6 Software can also take advantage of ZFS snapshot capabilities.
- Bacula - Tips for backing up ZFS data are as follows:
- Make sure you create multiple jobs per host to allow multiple backups to occur in parallel rather than just one job per host. If you have several file systems and/or pools, running multiple jobs speeds up the backup process.
- Create a non-global zone to do backups. Having multiple zones for backups means that you can delegate control of a backup server to a customer so they can perform restores on their own and only have access to their own data.
- Use a large RAIDZ pool (20 TB), instead of tapes, to store all the backups, and which allows quick backup and restores.
- Use opencsw (from opencsw.org) and/or blastwave (from blastwave.org) for packages, which makes it very easy to install and maintain. If using opencsw, run "pkg-get -i bacula" and it installs all the prerequisites. If using blastwave, run "pkgutil -i bacula" and it installs all the prerequisites. On the clients, install opencsw and bacula_client on the global zones, and backup the local zones from the global zone.
- On the server, the "director" configuration file, /opt/csw/etc/bacula/bacula-dir.conf, contains the information you need about what clients are backed up. You can split configurations into sections, such as "core" for the base system, "raid" for my local larger pools, and "zones" for my zones. If you have several zones, break up "zones" to a per-zone job, which is easy to do.
- For more information, see Bacula Configuration Example.
- The OpenSolaris ndmp service project is proposed to take advantage of ZFS features, such as snapshots, to improve the backup and restore process. With this addition, an enterprise backup solution could take advantage of snapshots to improve data protection for large storage repositories. For more information, see ndmp service.
[edit] ZFS and Database Recommendations
The information in this section has been consolidated into a separate ZFS for Databases section.
[edit] ZFS and Complex Storage Considerations
- Certain storage subsystems stage data through persistent memory devices, such as NVRAM on a storage array, allowing them to respond to writes with very low latency. These memory devices are commonly considered as stable storage, in the sense that they are likely to survive a power outage and other types of breakdown. At critical times, ZFS is unaware of the persistent nature of storage memory, and asks for that memory to be flushed to disk. If indeed the memory devices are considered stable, the storage system should be configured to ignore those requests from ZFS.
- For potential tuning considerations, see: ZFS Evil Tuning Guide, Cache_Flushes
[edit] Virtualization Considerations
[edit] ZFS and Virtual Tape Libraries (VTLs)
VTL solutions are hardware and software combinations that are used to emulate tapes, tape drives, and tape libraries. VTLs are used in backup/archive systems with a focus on reducing hardware and software costs.
- VTLs are big disk space eaters and we believe ZFS will allow them to more efficiently and securely manage the massive, online disk space.
- OpenSolaris - the COMSTAR project delivers both tape and disk targets, so a ZFS volume can look like a tape drive.
- Falconstor VTL - has been tested on Thumper running ZFS. For more information, see: Sun Puts Thumper To Work
- NetVault from BakBone - This backup solution includes a VTL feature that has been tested on Thumper running ZFS.
[edit] ZFS Performance Considerations
See the following sections for basic system, memory, pool, and replication recommendations:
- ZFS Storage Pools Recommendations
- Should I Configure a RAIDZ, RAIDZ-2, RAIDZ-3, or a Mirrored Storage_Pool
[edit] ZFS and Application Considerations
[edit] ZFS and NFS Server Performance
ZFS is deployed over NFS in many different places with no reports of obvious deficiency. Many have reported disappointing performance, but those scenarios more typically relate to comparing ZFS-over-NFS performance with local file system performance. It is well known that serving NFS leads to significant slowdown compared to local or directly-attached file systems, especially for workloads that have low thread parallelism. A dangerous way to create better ZFS-over-NFS performance at the expense of data integrity is to set the kernel variable, zil_disable. Setting this parameter is not recommended.
Later versions of ZFS have implemented a separate ZIL log device option which improves NFS synchronous write operations. This is a better option than disabling the ZIL. Anecdotal evidence suggests good NFS performance improvement even if the log device does not have nonvolatile RAM. To see if your zpool can support separate log devices use zpool upgrade -v and look for version 7. For more information, see separate intent log.
See also ZFS for Databases.
For more detailed information about ZFS-over-NFS performance, see ZFS and NFS, a fine combination.
[edit] ZFS Overhead Considerations
- Checksum and RAIDZ parity computations occur in concurrent threads in recent Solaris releases.
- Compression is no longer single-threaded due to integration of CR 6460622.
[edit] Data Reconstruction
Traditional RAID systems, where the context of the data is not known and data is reconstructed (also known as resilvering), blindly reconstruct the data blocks in block order. ZFS only needs to reconstruct data, so ZFS can be more efficient than traditional RAID systems when the storage pool is not full. ZFS reconstruction occurs top-down in a priority-based manner. Jeff Bonwick describes this in more detail in his Smokin' Mirrors blog post.
Since ZFS reconstruction occurs on the host, some concern exists over the performance impact and availability trade-offs. Two competing RFEs address this subject:


text:
Burmese pythons—an invasive species in south Florida—could find comfortable climatic conditions in roughly a third of the United States according to new "climate maps" developed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Although other factors such as type of food available and suitable shelter also play a role, Burmese pythons and other giant constrictor snakes have shown themselves to be highly adaptable to new environments.
The just-released USGS maps can help natural resource agencies manage and possibly control the spread of non-native giant constrictor snakes, such as the Burmese python, now spreading from Everglades National Park in Florida. These "climate match" maps show where climate in the U.S. is similar to places in which Burmese pythons live naturally (from Pakistan to Indonesia).
A look at the map shows why biologists are concerned.
The maps show where climate alone would not limit these snakes. One map shows areas in the U.S. with current climatic conditions similar to those of the snakes' native ranges. A second map projects these "climate matches" at the end of this century based on global warming models, which significantly expands the potential habitat for these snakes.
Biologists with Everglades National Park confirmed a breeding population of Burmese python in the Florida Everglades in 2003, presumably the result of released pets. Python populations have since been discovered in Big Cypress National Preserve to the north, Miami's water management areas to the northeast, Key Largo to the southeast, and many state parks, municipalities, and public and private lands in the region.
"Wildlife managers are concerned that these snakes, which can grow to over 20 feet long and more than 250 pounds, pose a danger to state- and federally listed threatened and endangered species as well as to humans," said Bob Reed, a USGS wildlife biologist at the Fort Collins Science Center in Colorado, who helped develop the maps. "Several endangered species," he noted, "have already been found in the snakes' stomachs. Pythons could have even more significant environmental and economic consequences if they were to spread from Florida to other states."
Control of exotic species is often prohibitively expensive once they have become established. Therefore, prevention through screening and risk assessment is of great importance, especially when protecting continental areas from invasive reptiles, said USGS invasive snake expert Gordon Rodda, also of the Fort Collins center. USGS scientists and their partners are seeking to compile the scientific data necessary to guide management efforts to prevent further introductions, control existing populations of snakes, and contain their spread.
Burmese pythons have been found to eat endangered Key Largo woodrats and rare round-tailed muskrats. "This makes it that much more difficult to recover these dwindling populations and restore the Everglades," said park biologist Skip Snow, "and all the more important that pet owners be responsible in their choice of pet and dispose of it properly should they need to. Releasing them into the environment is bad for that pet, bad for native species, and also illegal."
Currently, scientists with the USGS and Everglades National Park are investigating the behavior and biology of these snakes - that is, what are their requirements for survival? This information will help refine predictions of where the snakes might go next and their likelihood of survival. USGS researchers are also conducting a risk assessment for nine species of giant constrictors (including boa constrictors and yellow anacondas) that are prevalent in the pet trade and as such, potential invaders in the United States.
Due to be completed by early 2009, the assessment evaluates the risk of invasion for these species and the potential for social, economic, and environmental impacts. The two agencies are also developing and testing tools to control invasive snake populations and prevent their spread, especially to the Florida Keys where several listed species would be threatened by the presence of pythons or other constrictors.
Story Source:
Materials provided by US Geological Survey. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Cite This Page:

subset: commoncrawl


text:
So many movies, so little time. This year several new animated movies are coming to a theater near you. How do you choose which to see? Don't choose… just see them all! Many of these trailers were previewed with Christmas releases last month and this month. Zootopia may just be the funniest of the trailers. We also have Angry Birds and Snowtime!
Kung Fu Panda 3
First up–Next week Jack Black brings his awesome panda back to the big screen in Kung Fu Panda 3. Look for the voices of Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Dustin Hoffman, Seth Rogen, Lucy Liu, David Cross, Bryan Cranston, Wayne Knight, Kate Hudson, J.K. Simmons, and the great James Hong.
Here's the trailer for Kung Fu Panda 3:
Kung Fu Panda 3 is in theaters January 29, 2016.
This great looking French Canadian production features every kid's favorite thing–the snow day. How fun is that?
Snowtime! hits theaters February 26, 2016
Zootopia features the voices of Idris Elba, J.K. Simmons, Alan Tudyk, and Tommy Chong. Check out this great trailer, which was previewed in December with Star Wars: The Force Awakens:
March 4, 2016.
The Angry Birds Movie
Your favorite cartoon birds arrive in theaters this summer with the voices of Peter Dinklage, Jason Sudeikis, Maya Rudolph, Keegan-Michael Key, and Bill Hader.
Check these out:
The Angry Birds Movie is in theaters May 20, 2016.
C.J. Bunce


text: BESIDE THE PASSAIC 2008, I bought a 4x5, threw it into the trunk and set off to photograph what and who I met along the Passaic River in New Jersey. The river is 80 miles long, it took me 5 days to drive its length, photographing as I went. From it's source in Morris County, the Passaic runs through the swamps of New Jersey. It then flows past Paterson, Nutley, Passaic, and East Rutherford, towns that comprise the sprawl outside Newark, until it drains into Newark Bay. Working with the 4x5 is like working with a time machine. All cameras are time machines, in that they preserve a moment in time. The 4x5 does this, but it also forces the photographer to slow down, to work at a less than modern pace. It facilitates meditation. Each frame seems important.


text:
Tk::Menu::Item - Base class for Menu items
require Tk::Menu::Item;
my $but = $menu->Button(...);
my $what = $but->cget();
package Whatever;
require Tk::Menu::Item;
@ISA = qw(Tk::Menu::Item);
sub PreInit
my ($class,$menu,$info) = @_;
$info->{'-xxxxx'} = ...
my $y = delete $info->{'-yyyy'};
Tk::Menu::Item is the base class from which Tk::Menu::Button, Tk::Menu::Cascade, Tk::Menu::Radiobutton and Tk::Menu::Checkbutton are derived. There is also a Tk::Menu::Separator.
Constructors are declared so that $menu->Button(...) etc. do what you would expect.
The -label option is pre-processed allowing ~ to be prefixed to the character to derive a -underline value. Thus
$menu->Button(-label => 'Goto ~Home',...)
is equivalent to
$menu->Button(-label => 'Goto Home', -underline => 6, ...)
The Cascade menu item creates a sub-menu and accepts these options:
A list of items for the sub-menu. Within this list (which is also accepted by Menu and Menubutton) the first two elements of each item should be the "constructor" name and the label:
-menuitems => [
[Button => '~Quit', -command => [destroy => $mw]],
[Checkbutton => '~Oil', -variable => \$oil],
A callback to be invoked before posting the menu.
Specifies whether sub-menu can be torn-off or not.
Scalar reference that will be set to the newly-created sub-menu.
The returned object is currently a blessed reference to an array of two items: the containing Menu and the 'label'. Methods configure and cget are mapped onto underlying entryconfigure and entrycget.
The main purpose of the OO interface is to allow derived item classes to be defined which pre-set the options used to create a more basic item.
This OO interface is very new. Using the label as the "key" is a problem for separaror items which don't have one. The alternative would be to use an index into the menu but that is a problem if items are deleted (or inserted other than at the end).
There should probably be a PostInit entry point too, or a more widget like defered 'configure'.
To install Tk, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm Tk
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Tk
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.


text:
What's your opinion on this article?
The recording-breaking opposition to the embargo saw Israel isolated as the only country to vote in support of the U.S. Palau, the island nation that got behind the U.S. last year, abstained in the 22nd UN annual vote, along with Micronesia and Marshall Islands.
Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla conveyed Havana's disappointment at the Obama administration, stressing that the human cost of the embargo is "incalculable." Upon assuming the presidency Barack Obama pledged to take steps to improve U.S.-Cuban relations, but diplomat Rodriguez said the sanctions had actually tightened under Obama.
"Our small island poses no threat to the national security of the superpower," Mr. Rodriguez said. "The human damages caused by the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba are incalculable."
Mr. Rodriguez also stated that the sanctions had been classified as "genocide" under the Geneva Convention of 1948 and the total cost to the Cuban economy was estimated at $1.1 trillion.
Several other nations spoke out against the U.S. embargo at the UN vote. China's Deputy UN Ambassador Wang Min urged the U.S. to "change its policy toward Cuba" as the "call of the international community is getting louder and louder."
Moreover, Bolivia's UN ambassador Sacha Llorenty Soliz decried the embargo as "sullying the history of mankind."
In the name of human rights?
The U.S. mounted its defense in the face of overwhelming opposition and a barrage of criticism, claiming the sanctions were in place "urge respect for the civil and human rights."
Seeking to justify the financial penalties that have been held in place for 53 years, U.S. diplomat Ronald Godard said the U.S. was being used as a "scapegoat" for Cuba's internal issues.
"The international community cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly [and], impedes independent journalism," Mr. Godard said to the assembled UN countries.
Moreover, Mr. Godard added that the U.S. had sent $2 billion in remittances to Cuba in 2012 and underlined that the U.S. provides a large portion of the food aid to the island.
The U.S. began imposing economic penalties on Cuba when Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 and nationalized property owned by American individuals and corporations. The measures were ratcheted up three years later by the U.S. government to a full embargo on Cuba.
Last year Washington took action to ease travel to and from Cuba, granting 16,767 visas to Cubans in the first half of 2013—80 percent more than were issued in the same period in 2012.
Related news:
The U.S. Fails to Isolate Cuba Once Again (FCN, 07-07-2009)
Fidel Castro: A friend of revolution (FCN, 06-16-2009)
The Good Samaritan: A Study of Cuba (FCN, Minister Farrakhan, 03-27-2006)
Black journalists get close-up view of Cuba (FCN, 06-11-2002)
Pope to U.S.: Lift Cuban embargo (FCN, 02-03-1998)


text:
National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson today released her annual report, urging Congress to greatly simplify the tax code and recommending measures to reduce the burden on taxpayers who are struggling to pay their tax bills.
The report takes note of the serious financial difficulties facing many Americans in light of the ongoing economic downturn. It is imperative for the IRS to consider the circumstances of taxpayers facing economic hardship before initiating enforcement actions, Olson wrote.
When the IRS contemplates taking an enforced collection action such as a levy, a lien or an asset seizure, both the tax code and IRS procedures require that IRS personnel consider whether the collection action will impose an economic hardship on the taxpayer. Despite these requirements, current IRS guidance provides little direction to help IRS employees identify taxpayers who are experiencing economic hardship and prevent undue economic burden, Olson wrote.
Call for Tax Simplification
The report designates the complexity of the tax code as the most serious problem facing taxpayers. According to data compiled by Olsons office, U.S. taxpayers and businesses spend about 7.6 billion hours a year complying with tax-filing requirements. If tax compliance were an industry, it would be one of the largest in the United States, the report says. To consume 7.6 billion hours, the tax industry requires the equivalent of 3.8 million full-time workers.
The report estimates that U.S. taxpayers spend $193 billion a year complying with income tax requirements, an amount that equals 14 percent of the total amount of income taxes collected. One count shows the number of words in the tax code has reached 3.7 million, and over the past eight years, changes to the tax code have been made at a rate of more than one a day including more than 500 changes in 2008 alone. Individual taxpayers now find the tax rules so overwhelming that more than 80 percent pay transaction fees to help them file their returns about 60 percent pay a preparer to do the job and another 22 percent purchase tax software.
Two examples of tax law complexity:
Olson recommends that Congress substantially simplify the tax code. The report includes a series of recommendations, including recommendations to repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax; streamline education and retirement savings tax incentives; simplify the family status provisions of the tax code; simplify the rules under which workers are classified as employees or independent contractors; reduce sunset and phase-out provisions and revise the overall penalty structure. More broadly, Olson recommends six core principles on which fundamental tax reform should be based. (For details, see Most Serious Problem: The Complexity of the Tax Code and corresponding items in the Legislative Recommendations section of the report.)
Working with Taxpayers Who Are Experiencing Financial Difficulties
The report makes three principal recommendations to reduce burden on financially struggling taxpayers:
1. Make greater use of collection alternatives when economic hardship is present. While enforced collection actions like levy and seizure authority are important collection tools that allow the IRS to address serious incidents of noncompliance, a review of IRS historical enforcement data show that more enforcement actions do not translate into commensurate increases in revenue collection. One example: The number of levies issued by the IRS increased by 1,608 percent from FY 2000 to FY 2007 from 220,000 levies to about 3.76 million levies yet the increase in the total collection yield during the period was slightly less than 45 percent. By contrast, historical enforcement data indicate that collection alternatives, such as offers in compromise and partial-payment installment agreements, may be more effective at collecting liabilities from taxpayers having difficulty paying their tax debts. (For details, see Most Serious Problem: The IRS Needs to More Fully Consider the Impact of Collection Enforcement Actions on Taxpayers Experiencing Economic Difficulties.)
2. Simplify the cancellation of debt minefield that many taxpayers who default on debts must navigate. Most financially distressed individuals who lose their homes to foreclosure or cannot pay off their car loans, credit card balances, student loans, or medical bills probably do not realize that their delinquency may increase their tax liabilities, but it often does. If a creditor writes off a debt, the tax code generally treats the amount of the canceled debt as taxable income to the debtor. Congress has carved out a number of exclusions, including an exclusion for insolvency and a recently enacted exclusion to help some (but not all) homeowners whose mortgage debts are canceled when their houses are foreclosed upon and sold or whose loan balances are reduced as part of a mortgage loan modification. However, taxpayers do not receive the benefit of these exclusions automatically. A taxpayer must file Form 982, Reduction of Tax Attributes Due to Discharge of Indebtedness (and Section 1082 Basis Adjustment), to claim an exclusion. Form 982 is extremely complex, and very few taxpayers or preparers are familiar with it.
IRS data show that approximately two million Forms 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt, are issued to taxpayers and the IRS each year reporting canceled debts. In an economic downturn, the number of taxpayers defaulting on credit card bills, car loans, home mortgages and other debts can be expected to rise. Olson estimates that tens of thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who qualify to exclude canceled debts from gross income do not file Form 982 to claim allowable exclusions. Instead, some of these taxpayers unnecessarily include the amount of the canceled debt in gross income, and other taxpayers who fail to include it unnecessarily face IRS examinations and tax assessments.
Olson recommends that Congress change the law to remove taxpayers with modest amounts of debt cancellation from the cancellation of debt income regime, and she recommends that the IRS develop an insolvency worksheet that taxpayers can file with their returns and create a centralized unit dedicated to handling cancellation of debt issues. (For details, see Legislative Recommendation: Simplify the Tax Treatment of Cancellation of Debt Income, and Most Serious Problem: Understanding and Reporting the Tax Consequences of Cancellation of Debt Income.)
3. Implement a screen to protect low income Social Security recipients from continuous, automated tax levies. Under the Federal Payment Levy Program, the IRS is authorized to levy (or withhold) 15 percent of any federal payment made to a delinquent taxpayer. Using this authority, the IRS levied against 1.8 million payments to Social Security recipients in 2008. TAS estimates that more than 25 percent of these taxpayers had incomes below the poverty level and more than one-third would likely be classified by the IRS as unable to pay if their cases were subject to human review. However, the automated levy system does not use built-in screens to identify and shield these taxpayers. The report contains a research study recommending the implementation of such a screen. (For details, see Research Study: Building a Better Filter: Protecting Lower Income Social Security Recipients from the Federal Payment Levy Program.)
Finally, taxpayers who are unable to make their tax payments and face enforced collection action will generally qualify for assistance from the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS), which Olson heads. (See information below about contacting TAS.)
Other Issues
Olson reiterates her longstanding recommendation that Congress regulate unenrolled tax preparers to protect taxpayers from preparer errors and exploitation. She notes that 62 percent of taxpayers use preparers, yet anyone can now be a preparer with no training, no licensing and no oversight required.
The report also proposes a comprehensive framework for reforming the penalty provisions in the tax code, which have increased from about 14 in 1954 to more than 130 today. More specifically, the report recommends quick congressional action to remedy particularly harsh consequences of a penalty enacted in 2004 to combat tax shelters. Section 6707A of the tax code imposes a penalty of $100,000 per individual per year and $200,000 per entity per year for failure to make special disclosures of a listed transaction. The penalty creates what Olson calls unconscionable results and may have the effect of bankrupting middle class families who had no intention of entering into a tax shelter. Under the law, the IRS must impose the penalty where a taxpayer fails to make the special disclosures even if the taxpayer had no knowledge that the transaction was listed or even questionable, even if the taxpayer derived no tax savings from the transaction, and even if the transaction is not listed until years after the taxpayer entered into it and filed a return reflecting the transaction. A taxpayer who does business through a wholly owned S corporation is subject to a penalty of $300,000 ($200,000 at the entity level and $100,000 at the individual level) for each year in which the transaction is reflected on a return. The IRS is currently considering this penalty in hundreds of cases.
Overall, the report discusses 21 problems facing taxpayers, makes dozens of recommendations for administrative change, proposes 17 recommendations for legislative change and analyzes the 10 tax issues most frequently litigated in the federal courts during the past fiscal year. It also contains a second volume that presents in-depth studies on three subjects the penalty regime in the tax code, the development of a filter to protect low income Social Security recipients from automated levies and strategies to improve tax compliance by tax preparers and their clients.
About the Taxpayer Advocate Service
The Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS) is an independent organization within the IRS whose employees assist taxpayers who are experiencing economic harm, who are seeking help in resolving tax problems that have not been resolved through normal channels or who believe that an IRS system or procedure is not working as it should. If you believe you are eligible for TAS assistance, you can reach TAS by calling the TAS toll-free case intake line at 18777774778 or TTY/TDD 1-800-829-4059. For more information, go to www.irs.gov/advocate.
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text:
PPM Software
Project-based organizations seldom have the luxury of managing just one project at a time. Projects invariably exist in an environment of competing projects, not just in terms of managing on a day to day basis, but also when it comes to selecting between competing project investment opportunities. Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is a term that covers various approaches to treating projects as part of an overall portfolio. Most PPM tools and methods attempt to establish a set of values, techniques and technologies that enable visibility, and provide some degree of standardization enable organizations to manage the evolution of projects from concept to completion.
Epicor supports Project Portfolio Management both within our software applications and through bi-directional integration with Microsoft Office Enterprise Project Management (EPM) and Project Portfolio Server (PPS).
PPM Solutions to Meet Your Business Goals
- Obtain visibility of forthcoming potential projects using the Opportunity Management functionality.
- Drive analysis and portfolio reporting though Project dimensions and classifications in line with PMBOK guidelines.
- Use flexible Business Process Management directives to control and manage the evolution of projects in accordance with internal controls.
- Manage on-going resourcing across a portfolio of projects within organization units.


text:
Janthina at Sales Events
Janthina Images has participated in many sales events from its inception. We began in December of 2008 with a presence in the Midtown Miami Shops in conjunction with the Art Basel Event and continued with the Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale Gift Shows, the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show, Ft.Lauderdale Home Show, and the 20th Anniversary Indialantic Art Festival in the Melbourne area. We look forward to many more opportunities to present our work and images. It is our sincere pleasure to do so and to share our love of Florida, its historic lights, and its natural heritage most especially the wilderness of the everglades and its wildlife. Always remember that every image has a story behind it and we welcome the chance to tell it. We look forward to meeting you at our next event.Read More


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Over the past 17 years, Shahzia Sikander has worked within the tradition of Indo-Persian miniature painting – creating a dialogue with a traditional form of art while engaging in a transformative task. Over the years, she has built a practice which seeks to understand miniature painting's historical significance as well as its contemporary relevance. This artist's book, which features many paper changes, gatefolds and a die-cut cover, brings the reader through Sikander's practice, which now embraces various media, from drawing and painting to animation. It accompanies Sikander's first major solo museum exhibition in Europe – at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin – and provides an overview of her work up to 2006. It features essays by the noted Harvard cultural theorist Homi Bhabha and the exhibition curator and noted writer on Modern and contemporary art, Sean Kissane.
Juncosa, Enrique., Bhabha, Homi K.., Kissane, Sean., Sikander, Shahzia. Shahzia Sikander. Catalogo Della Mostra (Dublino, 28 Marzo-7 Maggio 2007) Ediz. Inglese. Italy: Charta, 2007.
Please inquire for more information


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Kansas State loses but gains share of Big 12 title
STILLWATER, Okla. -- Coach Travis Ford can't be certain whether NBA prospect Marcus Smart has played his last home game at Oklahoma State.
If he did, he went out with one of his typical beyond-the-box-score plays, changing the game and the Big 12 championship picture.
Smart scored 21 points, but perhaps none of his plays were as big as the charging foul he drew that turned the momentum as the 13th-ranked Cowboys beat No. 9 Kansas State 76-70 on Saturday.
After officials had stopped the game to review a Smart jump shot and rule that it was not a 3-pointer but a 2, he got between Angel Rodriguez and the sideline and drew the foul as Rodriguez tried to catch an inbound pass.
Smart ended up with six points -- plus drawing Rodriguez's foul -- during the decisive 14-1 run for the Cowboys (23-7, 13-5 Big 12).
"The momentum changed for us, and we opened the game up," Smart said.
Smart's heady play came as no surprise to Ford, who has seen his freshman point guard develop into a Big 12 player of the year candidate without needing to be his team's leading scorer.
"He is going to be in the middle of the action and more times than not, he's going to make a positive play. ... That's just his game," Ford said. "That's just his nature. That's the way he plays."
Le'Bryan Nash contributed 24 points and Markel Brown scored 16, including seven free throws in the final 2 minutes for Oklahoma State.
The Wildcats (25-6, 14-4), who came into the day tied with rival Kansas for the conference lead, still ended up sharing their first regular-season conference title since 1977 in the Big Eight when the fourth-ranked Jayhawks lost at Baylor later Saturday.
K-State led by as much as nine in the second half and was up 61-57 following Rodney McGruder's three-point play with 4:45 remaining. The Cowboys didn't allow another field goal for more than 4 minutes and hit 13 straight free throws during crunch time to come away with the win.
It was 61-59 when Smart drew the charge, then got fouled by Thomas Gipson on a 3-point attempt and hit two free throws to tie it. Nash followed with a driving layup to put the Cowboys ahead to stay at 63-61 with 2:47 remaining.
Kansas State coach Bruce Weber called Rodriguez's charge the "big, changing play" of the game.
"I bet if you went and watched it, it wasn't an offensive foul. So, that changed the game, the momentum a lot," Weber said. "But then they made plays and we didn't."
McGruder led the Wildcats with 22 points. He had a big game when the teams met in the Big 12 opener, scoring 28 points and making all five of his 3-point attempts to lead K-State to a victory. He couldn't match that this time, connecting on only six of his 15 shots.
Thomas Gipson chipped in 15 points and Angel Rodriguez scored 10, but also struggled to a 3-for-16 outing.
"They've got some pretty good athletes that can guard and defend, and they made their focus -- there's no doubt -- to make sure that Rod and Angel were jammed up as much as possible," Weber said.
The Wildcats allowed Oklahoma State to shoot 57 percent while making just 39 percent of their own shots, but still managed to hang in until the final minutes for a chance to stretch their winning streak to seven and -- more importantly -- win an elusive conference title.
"It's been fun. It's been a blast," Weber said. "I just hope, for their sake there's some more good things to come."
After McGruder's three-point play and Rodriguez's charge, Kansas State missed eight straight attempts. Smart said there had been some build-up to the call, with referees warning both Smart and Rodriguez to stop pushing off.
"At that moment in time, he gave me a little nudge that was enough for the referee to blow his whistle," Smart said. "Actually, I wasn't trying to fall. I actually slipped and it just looked like I fell, like I tried to make it a flop. But I actually slipped. It was a nudge but it wasn't enough to make me fall."
The Wildcats will be the No. 2 seed in next week's Big 12 tournament. Oklahoma State will be the third seed and face Baylor in the opening round.
Shane Southwell and Martavious Irving hit 3-pointers to get the Wildcats going after trailing 36-30 at halftime, and soon they put together a 14-1 blitz to charge into the lead. Rodriguez had two baskets and two free throws during the run, and Nino Williams made a jumper along the left baseline to put K-State up 50-41 with 13:12 left.
The Cowboys responded by pushing the pace in transition, and Nash had a two-handed slam and a pair of layups during an 11-0 comeback. Smart's three-point play off a driving runner along the right side of the lane put OSU back up 56-53 with 6:21 remaining -- and fans chanted "One more year!" to the NBA prospect as he hit the free throw.
Smart said he has tried to block out that kind of chatter all year long.
"If I was them, I want him to come back. No question," Ford said. "But I've seen him in a different perspective probably a little bit. I want what's best for him. I've read, and everybody thinks he's gone for sure. He might. I don't know. It has not been discussed. I wouldn't be surprised either way."
Game Information
- Referees:
- Doug Sirmons
- David Hall
- Rick Randall
2022-23 Big 12 Conference Standings
|Kansas State
|Iowa State
|Oklahoma State
|West Virginia
|Texas Tech


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The week leading up to the race was kind of erratic with Jocelyn being in town. This pushed my usual weekend long run forward to Monday of this week, which wasn't ideal, but I was willing to sacrifice a bit of performance in this race in order to get in the training necessary to do well at the Leadville 100 later in the summer. Additionally, that long run went pretty badly. I just felt terrible, got really dehydrated, and, despite magically finding four Endurolytes on the top of Sugarloaf Pass, ended the run in a fairly depleted state. I chalked it up to good end-of-100 simulation.
My Tuesday running was predictably crappy after a long run like that, and, although I felt quite good on the climb up Green on Wednesday, the warm-up was horrible and my shake-out that evening was just as bad. I rallied a bit with my "taper" runs on Thursday and Friday (easy, flat 2hr and 1h20 runs), and went into this race feeling ready to go. But, clearly, I wasn't very willing to back off the training very much; I ran 152 miles in the seven days before the race. Even so, I wanted Paul Dewitt's course record of 3:39:12.
Crossing the Mineral Belt bike path Duncan, Bryan, and I all ran together with Dennis less than a minute in front of us. As we turned onto the steeper, rockier, looser climbing I consciously backed off the pace a bit and let Duncan and Bryan go at it a few yards ahead. Any time the trail turned particularly steep I would instantly catch back up, so I just let the gap ride. I was very wary of pushing too hard too early as I wanted to be as strong as possible on the Mosquito climb and on the sneaky climbs in the second half of the race because these were where I struggled the last time I ran this race.
Right before the first aid station (3.8 miles) the three of us were still running together and Dennis was still ~1 minute up. At the station I dumped a cup of water on my head as the sun was blazing and chased Duncan down the hill to start the circumnavigation of Ball Mountain. Bryan lingered at the station but quickly caught me on the downhill. I followed closely in his wake, but on this shortish downhill section (~400' of loss) I started getting my first side cramps of the day that would prove to be my undoing.
On the ~700' climb up to Ball Mt Pass (12,000') I ran with Bryan before passing him right before the top where I yelled at Duncan who I saw had just headed straight down the other side of the pass instead of turning left onto the singletrack that traverses the north side of Ball Mt and heads back down to the aid station. I have absolutely no idea why that incorrect road was marked with flags, because the singletrack was marked, too. Very weird.
On the downhill to the aid station, Duncan and I ran fairly comfortably, but I started cramping again, so I popped an S! cap and hit my first gel shortly after the station. Despite this, the cramping continued on the extended downhill (~700' vertical) to the bottom of the Mosquito climb. We ran this section fairly solid, but I could never really get going because my sides/ribs kept cramping, pretty hard at times. Bryan caught us right at the bottom of the hill and the three of us ran into the aid station still together. Bryan again spent a little extra time in the aid station, and Duncan and I tackled the hill together with him a few yards in front.
So, the downhill was miserable. I grunted and groaned and massaged a lot trying to get my ribs and obliques and diaphragm to loosen but nothing was working. I was often partly doubled-over, grinding my fist into my side(s), all while trying to sprint down exceedingly technical trail with little oxygen. It was fun. Unfortunately, I was hardly in a state to acknowledge/return many of the very nice things all of the people hiking up the pass were taking the time and breath to say to me.
At the bottom of the hill, my legs felt predictably dead from the downhill, but my main problem was still the cramping. At the aid station, I filled my bottle and was told Dennis had a 6 minute lead. I asked for salt, any salt, table salt, but none was to be had. So it goes. Initially, the run up the hill back to Ball Mt was quite poor. There is a long switchback where I was able to confirm Dennis' six minute advantage, but there seemed to be very little I could do about it. I just felt like I was surviving. Ah, the joys of mountain racing!
Shortly after the Ball Mt aid I walked a few short yards in order to hit my last gel and try to regroup and get my head back in the game. This loop around Ball is a bread and butter 2hr run for me during the week, so I was very familiar with the trail and things were actually going okay until I hit the downhill on the backside where it was the usual cramp-fest again. By time I had grunted my way up the final rolling (oh, what a euphemism) hills to the last aid station I was pretty out of it mentally. I would occasionally be chugging along, realizing that I wasn't actually running that hard, so I would launch into a more race-like effort but it would eventually tail off for whatever reason until I would realize again how slow I was going. I was seriously lacking focus and salt.
At the final aid I stopped and chugged two cups of water (my bottle was out) and then took off down the four mile hill to the finish. I struggled off and on again with cramps until the end, but in general I kind of finally got my shit together the last few miles and was able to run a solid 23min split to the finish.
Kyle and I have always maintained that on any given day he and I are extremely vulnerable to getting our asses handed to us at the 50K and below distances. This was a good example of that. However, the main reasons that happened to me today were completely my fault, and completely in my control: not more thoughtfully packaging my salt, and not tapering significantly (in reviewing this past week, I now see that the only thing I did differently than a standard week is that I didn't run big vertical on Thursday; I did still run 2hr, though). Simply put, I have more important goals later in the summer. A big hats off to Dennis, though, and he simply outran me, fair and square.
Team CRUD folks representing; these guys somehow make it fun to go charge up frigid, snowy Cheyenne Canyon at 5am on Thursday mornings during the winter.


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Authorities will "facilitate peaceful protest"
Paul Joseph Watson
May 7, 2013
Hertfordshire Police have confirmed that the 2013 Bilderberg Group meeting will take place at the Grove luxury hotel in Watford, United Kingdom early next month as over 100 of the world's most influential power brokers will meet clandestinely to discuss global policy behind closed doors.
Although the site of the meeting had been known amongst Bilderberg sleuths for weeks, police confirmation appears to diminish any chances that the location was a red herring designed to throw activists off the scent.
"A Hertfordshire Police spokesman confirmed the event was taking place but declined to comment on operational policing details," reports the Watford Observer.
The spokesman added that the force would "facilitate people who want to undertake peaceful protest."
The police's insistence that demonstrations will be allowed (despite a "security exercise" which is expected to surround the hotel grounds and keep prying eyes away), bolsters the view that Bilderberg has learned from previous years when protesters and journalists were treated with disdain, leading to negative press attention.
According to the Observer, the dates of the conference are June 6-8, although it is expected that most of the attendees will leave on the morning of the 9th as is routine.
As we reported yesterday, Alex Jones will travel to the United Kingdom to cover the protest unless he is barred from entering the country by UK authorities who have previously prevented other media personalities such as Michael Savage from entering based on their political viewpoints.
Any attempt to deport Jones will be seen as an embarrassing PR disaster for both UK authorities and the Bilderberg Group, who previously attempted to get Jones kicked out of Canada back in 2006 only for the incident to cause a huge media spectacle.
It remains to be seen how much attention the British press will bestow on a group that habitually relies on a castrated and compliant media to either ignore its existence or play down the Bilderberg as a mere "talking shop," despite innumerable instances of the group wielding its influence with scant regard for democratic transparency.
In 2010, former NATO Secretary-General and Bilderberg member Willy Claes admitted that Bilderberg attendees are mandated to implement decisions that are formulated during the annual conference of power brokers.
In 2009, Bilderberg chairman Étienne Davignon even bragged about how the Euro single currency was a brainchild of the Bilderberg Group.
Back in February, Italian lawyer Alfonso Luigi Marra requested that the Public Prosecutor of Rome investigate Bilderberg for criminal activity, questioning whether the elitist organization's 2011 meeting in Switzerland led to the selection of Mario Monti as Prime Minister of Italy.
Last month, Honorary President of the Supreme Court of Italy and former Senior Investigative Judge Ferdinando Imposimato accused the Bilderberg Group of being behind terrorist attacks in Europe.
Hundreds of activists are expected to descend on Watford and Infowars invites as many people as possible to make the trip in order to force the mainstream press to give Bilderberg the attention it deserves, thereby dismantling the shadowy group's much cherished veil of secrecy.
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.
This article was posted: Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 9:50 am
Tags: bilderberg, foreign affairs
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text: Pillow boxes are the perfect package for small or fragile objects because they can be surrounded in tissue and easily inserted into the pillow package. With this project, we are using eco-friendly, blooming and plantable seed paper that comes in a variety of colors. Decorate the pillow box with raffia, ribbons, flower sprigs and stickers. Have fun personalizing the pillow box to reflect your unique style. And if you love the idea of a plantable seed wedding favor but don't have time to do it yourself, check out the ready-made plantable seed wedding favors boxes and favor tags personalized just for you. Project Supply List 8 1/2 x 11 plantable seed paper or decorative paper scissors or X-Acto knife blunt knife or bone folder How To Make This Project 1. Download the free project template. Trace template onto plantable paper. TIP: Use plantable paper, so that your guests can take the pillow box home and plant it. Wildflowers will grow right from the paper! 2. Cut out plantable paper and score along lines as shown. Fold along score lines. 3. Apply adhesive to the side fold and press in place. Pop out the end flaps to create a small pillow. Ideas for Filling the Pillow Box Fill the box with small treats like candies or chocolate-covered pretzels. Or insert special notes of greeting for the guests, small objects like a gift card or light items like hand-chosen tea sachets or small bags of coffee. Other Favor Resources For ready-to-go wedding favor ideas, check out these plantable seed wedding favors. And for more information about seed paper, check out How Plantable Paper Works. Written by Heidi Reimer-Epp, founder of Botanical PaperWorks, and author of An Introduction to Papermaking, 300 Papermaking Recipes, The Encyclopedia of Papermaking and Bookbinding.


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Survey: Small Business Owners Cautious of Going Overboard on Holiday Gifts
Small business owners don't want to be Scrooge, but a pessimistic outlook this holiday season means many are cutting back on gifts, parties and bonuses.
A new survey from American Express OPEN indicates that less than a third of small retailers think holiday sales will be strong this year – down from 41% last year – and 34% of all small businesses expect this season will be weak. The government shutdown and other economic uncertainties are weighing heavily on small business owners' minds, says Alice Bredin, Small Business Advisor to American Express.
"What we're seeing this year is that business owners are nervous about spending any money they don't absolutely have to," says Bredin. "They feel they need to put away for a rainy day."
As a result, many business owners are cutting back on holiday giving. Only 27% of business owners will be giving end-of-year bonuses, down from 35% last year. Additionally, just under a third of small businesses will be throwing holiday parties this season, while 40% celebrated the holidays in 2012.
Despite their cautiousness, business owners still recognize the impact of holiday giving on team spirit, says Bredin.
"Business owners want to give – they know it's important to give back to the people they know are critical to their success and who they work closely with," says Bredin.
In this vein, while business owners are giving out fewer bonuses overall, they're actually being more generous with the select employees who are receiving bonuses. In 2013, the average bonus is 13% of salary, up four percentage points from 2012. Nearly 40% of business owners say they're increasing bonus sizes from last year.
Bredin says business owners can rationalize these increases because many have cut back on staffers over the past few years.
"In challenging times, business owners will retrench, in a sense … They're putting all their resources in fewer pools," says Bredin.


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For this swap, each participant makes any 12-1/2" block pattern they want for each of the other participants, but they make the block in that person's request colors. (Wow - that's convoluted, but hopefully you understand what I mean.) I asked the other group members to make my blocks in all grays and whites (mostly because I was having trouble deciding which colors I would want! I want them ALL!!!).
Here are the amazing blocks I received from my NuBees Hive! I couldn't even wait to press them - I just had to get 'em on the design wall and take a photo to share with y'all. How COOL is this?!?!?
And I made these for them:
Thanks to Melissa, Deb, Diane and Shelley for the gorgeous blocks and a super-fun swap!
I'm curious - do you participate in any online swaps? Which have been your favorites?
Happy Stitching!


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While it is always difficult coming back to the school routine after the holidays, Montessori students are eager to learn, and most settle back into lessons with grace and ease. Winter weather has its drawbacks, though. During the warmer months, our playground is full of kids playing after school. This time of the year, it seems like as soon as school is over, they rush home to get out of the cold, wet, weather.
If this is true at your Montessori school, you might try implementing a winter after-school program to help beat the winter blues and promote a sense of community. Recruit parents and interested teachers to provide fun, enrichment classes for one hour after school, one day a week, for four to six weeks.
Ideas for classes:


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Since its invention in 1965, booksellers have depended on the ISBN system used internationally to facilitate the distribution of books and to track sales. However, the digital revolution is changing even this long-standing publishing tradition. eBooks do not need, and mostly do not have, ISBN numbers (the cost of acquiring an ISBN ranges from $25 to $250). In a world that has become increasingly less analog, the perceived need to have a universal system is rapidly diminishing. Instead of one global identification system, there are now many. According to The Economist,
"Amazon has introduced the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN). Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) tag articles in academic journals. Walmart… has a Universal Product Code (UPC) for everything it stocks—including books. Humans are also getting labels: the Open Researcher and Contributor ID system (ORCID) identifies academics by codes, not their names. And ISBNs are not mandatory at Google Books."
This breaking up of the system has resulted in less-than-reliable numbers when it comes to tracking the growth of self-publishing. "Self-published writers are booming; sales of their books increased by a third in America in 2011," the article continues. "Digital self-publishing was up by 129%. This ends the distinction between publisher, distributor and bookshop, making ISBNs less necessary."
However, as Porter Anderson points out in Publishing Perspectives, that number estimating eBook growth at 129% is simply a guess. No actually knows the true number due to the anonymity that foregoing ISBNs affords. Anderson also points out that "boom" in self-publishing does not always equate in success for authors. There's more writing out there, yes, but just how fruitful is self-publishing for writers? Without hard data, it is impossible to say for sure.
Should we be concerned about this or not? I think the question Anderson poses is a good one: "[I]s there something inherently wrong — or somehow too determinedly journalistic — in wanting to be able to quantify, categorize, and track the progress of the industry through the "tagging" of its output?"
What do you think? Is time to end ISBNs?


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Monster-Size Marine Crocodile Discovered
A fossil found in the African desert is the biggest of its kind.
The biggest sea-dwelling crocodile ever found has turned up in the Tunisian desert. The whopper of a prehistoric predator grew to over 30 feet long (nearly ten meters) and weighed three tons.
Paleontologists have dubbed the new species Machimosaurus rex and describe it Monday in the journal Cretaceous Research.
Although the recovered remains are fragmentary, enough remained in the 120-million-year-old rock to identify the reptile as the largest known member of a peculiar lineage of crocodiles that spent their lives almost entirely at sea.
"This is a neat new discovery from a part of the world that hasn't been well-explored for fossils," says University of Edinburgh paleontologist Stephen Brusatte, who was not involved with the new study.
The fossils, including a skull and a smattering of other bones, were discovered by Federico Fanti of the University of Bologna in Italy and colleagues with support from the National Geographic Society.
Big Bite
Scientists are awaiting the discovery of a more complete skeleton to figure out exactly how large Machimosaurus rex was. But assuming that the new species had similar proportions as its close relatives, Fanti estimates that Machimosaurus rex stretched about 31 feet (9.6 meters) in length.
While not as large as some of its later, distant relatives that lived in freshwater, that makes Machimosaurus rex the biggest ocean-dwelling member of the crocodile family tree.
The biggest freshwater croc ever, Sarcosuchus imperator, lived 110 million years ago, grew as long as 40 feet (12 meters), and weighed up to eight metric tons (17,500 pounds). Since the time of this and other giants such as the alligator Deinosuchus, many crocodile lineages have died out, leaving today's saltwater crocs closely related.
The carnivore's teeth may hint at what it fed on in the ancient ocean. "Machimosaurus rex had stocky, relatively short and rounded teeth," Fanti says, "and a massive skull capable of a remarkable bite force." This cluster of features leads Fanti to suggest that the croc was a generalist hunter that took a variety of prey, including large marine turtles.
"It would likely have been something of an ambush predator, hanging around in shallow water hunting turtles and fishes and maybe waiting for some land animals to come a little too close to the shore," Brusatte adds.
Tough Survivor
For scientists, the most important aspect of Machimosaurus rex isn't so much its size as when it lived.
Paleontologists have long debated whether or not there was a mass extinction at the end of the Jurassic period, 145 million years ago. The group that includes Machimosaurus, called the teleosaurids, is among those thought to have died out.
The discovery of Machimosaurus rex in later rocks from the Cretaceous hints that if there was a mass extinction, it didn't kill off life planetwide. "The new find adds to growing evidence that a lot of marine reptiles made it across the boundary and through the supposed extinction," Brusatte says.
Rather than being a rapid extermination, the extinction may have been a more drawn-out transition. "In our interpretation," Fanti says, "the end-Jurassic event was global in its effects but was mostly likely a complex sequence of local biological crises that are still poorly documented."
One of the outstanding mysteries is why the marine crocodiles didn't reclaim their former glory. Even though the family of Machimosaurus rex survived for longer than thought, they didn't appear to thrive as they had in the Jurassic.
While Machimosaurus rex was certainly impressive in size, Brusatte says, "it may have just been a dead croc walking."
Machimosaurus and other ancient crocodiles will be featured in "Crocs - Ancient Predators in a Modern World," at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C., from Jan. 27 to May 8, 2016.
Read Brian Switek's blog Laelaps on NationalGeographic.com. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.