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text: An open-source project dedicated to cataloguing a huge range of computer security flaws has closed its doors as of Tuesday, according to an announcement on the Open-Source Vulnerability Database\u2019s blog.The OSVDB, which was founded in 2002, was meant to be an independent repository for security information, allowing researchers to compare notes without oversight from large corporate software companies.One of its founders was HD Moore, a well-known hacker and security researcher, best known for his development of the Metasploit framework, a software suite widely used for penetration testing. Moore recently left security firm Rapid7 for a forthcoming venture capital firm that will focus on infosec startups.Network World interviewed Moore via email and got his take on the life and death of OSVDB.What was the original idea behind the OSVDB project?The origin of the OSVDB project was a conversation between myself, RFP [Rain Forest Puppy, a noted white hat hacker], Steve Manzuik, Chris Wysopal, and a few others who were concerned about what would happen to the Bugtraq database after the Symantec acquisition of SecurityFocus (its previous owner). The irony is that Bugtraq\/SecurityFocus under Symantec has now outlived OSVDB.+MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Microsoft's focus on Windows 10 upgrades is a mistake + What is Amazon cloud\u2019s Lambda and why is it a big deal?The group argued a bunch about what OSVDB should be, who should fund it, and how it would be built. A few months later, the project lost momentum, and the original group of researchers (including me) kind of gave up on it.And what happened then?A few months later Jake Kouns took over, creating the Open Security Foundation as a parent organization for OSVDB, with Forrest Rae rewriting the codebase from scratch, and Brian Martin (jericho) getting involved. A number of security folks were heavy contributors to the content over the years (myself included in the early days). In terms of funding, there wasn't a lot direct cash investment that I know of, but companies like Digital Defense donated developer time and servers for hosting. Jake and the team did a great job of getting visibility for the project, but struggled to get help with the backend codebase, and started to sour on the community in general.So what went wrong?There was a shift from "open source" meaning the data was open, to "open sourced" meaning that they owned it all, and Jake started to complain about how the community was not contributing enough. Once a year or so, Jake would threaten to close down the project, and made comments about how it was better to hire low-rate overseas editors than to work with the security community. By 2005 or so, it was pretty clear that the future of OSVDB was not going to be open.Jake eventually started Risk Based Security, which had an exclusive license to the OSVDB content, monetized it, and theoretically put some money back into hosting and operations. A number of blog posts were written complaining about people "stealing" the data, large companies running web scrapers, and generally going against Jake's view of the project.+MORE FROM HD MOORE: Metasploit's HD Moore from (almost) rags to (not quite) richesWhy shut it down now?The biggest problem was the name: OSVDB starts with the word Open, but the content was becoming more and more difficult to access. Bulk downloads were first put behind a login, then disabled entirely. The web site was put behind CloudFlare with captchas to stop scrapers. All of that culminated with this year's shutdown.The project (as OSVDB) was semi-dead for the last few months. I think they stopped taking external contributions in the middle of last year. Starting around February the entire public web site redirected to the blog.It was as good a time to kill it as any given the status.What are the effects on the security community going to look like?Dozens of security products use OSVDB references (including Metasploit), which now all point to a defunct web site. Many vulnerabilities have no identifier besides the OSVDB ID. All of those need to be updated to point somewhere else. Since the content is commercial only, it also wouldn't be legal for someone to host a mirror.OSVDB had a great data model and was ridiculously complete. This required a huge amount of effort to keep up with new vulnerabilities and maintain changes to old ones.There is a lot of discussion happening (twitter, irc, and 1:1 calls) about what to replace it with and what a replacement would look like. There are some minimal efforts to provide bare-bones identifiers (DWF, OpenWall's generator, etc), but no coordinated effort to build a comprehensive historical vulnerability database. There are a number of companies who could bootstrap a new database with their commercial datasets (qualys, tenable, rapid7, secunia, ibm, etc) but it isn't clear if any of them are interested.

subset: commoncrawl


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I did not become a Christian so I would have to fight for my constitutional freedoms all over again.
Growing up in Alabama being black, knowing how that felt and the way I was treated in an all-white world of power and control, I had to fight for equal rights under the Constitution. How ironic now as a Christian to have those same thoughts and feelings again and to have to try and wrestle control of my constitutional rights from the secular community.
Many reading this may not understand where I came up with this concept of calling Christians "the new Negro."
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The reason is because there are undeniable similarities. Jim Crow laws were passed to keep me from having my constitutional rights and my rights under the Declaration of Independence of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Even though the Constitution gave me those freedoms, man was smart enough to be able to keep me from living those freedoms by saying I was "separate but equal."
Today, my constitutional right of freedom of religion is being eroded again by laws such as the Hate Crimes Bill and repeated attacks by the politically correct crowd. Threats that came along as a result of an African American wanting to get out from under Jim Crow laws were formidable and scary and designed to keep African Americans quiet. The same thing is happening to Christians today.
TRENDING: North Korea deports runaway U.S. soldier after he broke the law there
"Speechless: Silencing the Christians," by Don Wildmon, lays out determined strategy of coalition of liberal secularists, homosexual activists and Fortune 500 companies
Another way secular society is trying to control Christians is by the fallacy of the separation of church and state. That establishment clause was intended to protect the church from the state, not to keep the church from participating in the state. Christians' ignorance of the meaning of the establishment clause has allowed us to be controlled just like the African Americans were in the 1950s and '60s.
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Many may question why I'm writing this article because they can't see the fight in our society and world concerning the overt attack on Judeo-Christian values.
If you don't believe one could be attacked for one's stand on Judeo-Christian beliefs alone, take the case of Miss California, Carrie Prejean. Look at her refusal to compromise her Christian values. She has been vilified and demonized and lost her title simply because of her constitutional right to freedom of religion. What is so encouraging is that she will not compromise; she will not give up her values and would rather please God than take what the world has to offer her.
Sarah Palin is another example.
The politically correct crowd has a very difficult time dealing with Sarah because of who she is. Mrs. Palin is a pro-life, pro-gun, pro-traditional-marriage, pro-hunting, white, conservative, Christian male who happened to have been born a woman! The politically correct crowd knows exactly what to do with a white male with those attributes, but a woman?
She is the perfect picture of the politically correct woman – strong, beautiful, able to both buy and fry the bacon, take care of the family, run an entire state and still take care of her baby. But because of who she is, and because she does not subscribe to politically correct thinking, she has been attacked for no other reason than her Judeo-Christian values, just as African Americans were attacked for no other reason than their skin color.
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If you still don't think Christians are being attacked for our beliefs, consider Pastor Ake Green in Sweden and Pastor Stephen Boisson in Canada and many other men of God around the world who have been jailed and had their nonprofit status threatened because they dare to call homosexuality a sin. The sad commentary is many Christians have backed off our God-given responsibility to tell the truth because secular society has deemed the truth "political." Marriage is a church issue, pornography is a church issue, homosexuality is a church issue, and divorce is a church issue. The problem is, as soon as the secular elites named them political, the evangelical church – especially the white evangelical church – retreated and held up the cowardly white flag.
If you don't think Christians have become the new Negro, just look at Christmas! We are no longer able to celebrate Christmas in schools. Even though as taxpayers, our tax dollars help pay for our broken educational system, we are forced to celebrate winter break and the fabulous "holiday tree!"
How about the wonderful greeting, "Happy Holidays!"? Department stores are afraid to put up signs with the word "Christmas" on them. Don't mistakenly think this is anything new. Secular society began taking Christ out of Christmas when they started calling it "Xmas" – and we let it happen.
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In my wonderful state of Washington just last year, Gov. Christine Gregoire and the state legislators allowed an Atheist Manifesto to be put up right next to the Nativity scene of our Lord Jesus Christ! I have to say straightforward: the state of Washington is the armpit of the United States, and our lovely legislators are supplying the odoriferous scent to the armpit.
Because 2008 was such a disaster, this year there will be no Christmas or religious displays in the Capitol rotunda, period. Oh, except they will put up a huge holiday tree.
Can anybody tell me where common sense is? Everyone in the world knows it's a Christmas tree. This nonsense is all in the name of tolerance toward whom? It's certainly not toward those of us who hold strong Judeo-Christian values. As Christians, it's an attack on what we hold dear. But just like the Negroes, Christians should understand they are not equal under the Constitution's right to freedom of religion.
The only difference between Christians and African Americans is that Christians put up with this intolerance while standing behind the false disguise of humility and love. We are obsessed with showing the world our love when our primary job is to tell them the truth. The Bible does not say, "Sensitivity shall set you free." It says, "The truth shall set you free." Are we not the truth-tellers?
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When are we as believers, like the African Americans that came before us, going to say, enough is enough? No more "separate but equal!" Our battle cry is "We are the salt of the earth, onward Christian soldiers and to God be the glory! For in unity we will stand and we will not be stopped!"


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I recently had a need to create a permanent SSH tunnel between Linux servers. My need was to allow regular non-encrypted MySQL connections over an encrypted tunnel, but there could be many other uses as well. Google can identify plenty of resources regarding the fundamental SSH commands for port forwarding but I didn't ever find a good resource for setting up a connection and ensuring that it remains active, which is what I hope to provide here.
The SSH commands for port forwarding can be found in the ssh man page. The steps described here will create an unprivileged user named 'tunnel' on each server. That user will then be used to create the tunnel and run a script via cron to ensure that it remains up.
First, select one of the servers that will initiate the SSH connection. SSH allows you to map both local and remote ports, so it doesn't really matter which end of the connection you choose to initiate the connection. I'll refer to the box that initiates the connection as Host A, and the box that we connect to as Host B.
Create a 'tunnel' user on Host A:
[root@hosta ~]# useradd -d /home/tunnel tunnel [root@hosta ~]# passwd tunnel ## Set a strong password [root@hosta ~]# su - tunnel ## Become the user 'tunnel'
Now create a public/private key pair:
[tunnel@hosta ~]$ ssh-keygen Generating public/private rsa key pair. Enter file in which to save the key (/home/tunnel/.ssh/id_rsa): ## hit enter to accept the default Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase): ## don't use a passphrase Enter same passphrase again: Your identification has been saved in /home/tunnel/.ssh/id_rsa. Your public key has been saved in /home/tunnel/.ssh/id_rsa.pub. The key fingerprint is: 6f:30:b8:e1:36:49:74:b9:32:68:6e:bf:3e:62:d3:c2 tunnel@hosta
Now cat out the id_rsa.pub file which contains the public key that we will need to put on host b:
[tunnel@hosta ~]# cat /.ssh/id_rsa.pub ssh-rsa blahAAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAABIwAAAQEA......6BEKKCxTIxgBqjLP tunnel@hosta
Now create a 'tunnel' user on Host B and save the public key for tunnel@hosta in the authorized_keys file
[root@hostb ~]# useradd -d /home/tunnel tunnel [root@hostb ~]# passwd tunnel ## Set a strong password [root@hostb ~]# su - tunnel [tunnel@hostb ~]# mkdir .ssh [tunnel@hostb ~]# vi .ssh/authorized_keys ## Now paste in the public key for tunnel@hosta
At this point you should be able to ssh from tunnel@hosta to tunnel@hostb without using a password. Depending on your configuration, you might need to allow the user 'tunnel' in /etc/ssh/sshd_config. You might also set some SSH options like the destination port in ~/.ssh/config.
Now, create this script as hosta:/home/tunnel/check_ssh_tunnel.sh
createTunnel() { /usr/bin/ssh -f -N -L13306:hostb:3306 -L19922:hostb:22 tunnel@hostb if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then echo Tunnel to hostb created successfully else echo An error occurred creating a tunnel to hostb RC was $? fi } ## Run the 'ls' command remotely. If it returns non-zero, then create a new connection /usr/bin/ssh -p 19922 tunnel@localhost ls if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then echo Creating new tunnel connection createTunnel fi
Save that file and make it executable:
chmod 700 ~/check_ssh_tunnel.sh
This script will attempt to SSH to localhost port 19922 and run the 'ls' command. If that fails, it will attempt to create the SSH tunnel. The command to create the SSH tunnel will tunnel local port 13306 to port 3306 on hostb. You should modify that as necessary for your configuration. It will also create a tunnel for local port 19922 to port 22 on hostb which the script uses for testing the connection.
Now just add that script to the user 'tunnel's crontab to check every few minutes, and it will automatically create a tunnel and reconnect it if something fails. When it does create a new connection it will send an email to the 'tunnel' user, so you can create a .forward file to forward those messages to you.


text:
Story highlights
Rebels have downed Ukrainian planes flying at high altitudes
A pro-Russian rebel commander shows off anti-aircraft missiles
The border region with Russia is very porous, unguarded in many places
Some contend that larger weapons have come into Ukraine from Russia
Under a blazing sun in early June, a group of pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine were digging amid pine woods near the town of Krazny Liman.
Their grizzled commander was a bearded man in his 50s who would not tell us where he was from, but acknowledged that he wasn't local. He was proud to show off his unit's most prized possession – a truck-mounted anti-aircraft unit that was Russian-made.
He told us the weapon had been seized from a Ukrainian base.
A few miles away, in the town of Kramatorsk, rebel fighters displayed two combat engineering tanks they said they had seized them from a local factory. Eastern Ukraine has long been a center of weapons production. They had parked one of the tanks next to the town square.
These were just two instances of how the rebels in eastern Ukraine were steadily adding more sophisticated weapons to their armory, including tanks, multiple rocket launchers – and anti-aircraft systems.
In early June, they began to target Ukrainian planes and helicopters, with some success.
The day after we met the commander in the pine woods, an Antonov AN-26 transport plane was brought down over nearby Slovyansk.
Several Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters were also hit in this period, as was an Ilyushin IL-76 cargo plane near Luhansk – it is about the size of a passenger jet.
Forty-nine military personnel were killed when the IL-76 crashed short of the airport.
For the most part, these aircraft were flying at relatively low altitudes, and were targeted by shoulder-launched SA-7 missiles and anti-aircraft guns. The pro-Russian rebels had taken control of several Ukrainian military depots and bases and stripped them of their weapons.
The SA-7 was standard Soviet issue. Relatively easy to operate, it is effective to altitudes of some 2,500 meters (8,000 feet).
But it and ZU 23-2 anti-aircraft batteries, which rebel units also obtained, are a world away from the SA-11 or "Buk" system that seems increasingly likely to have been used to shoot down Flight MH17 on Thursday.
Stealing a Buk
Could the pro-Russian rebels have acquired a serviceable Buk from a Ukrainian base and operated it? The evidence is circumstantial; a great deal of Ukrainian military hardware is in poor condition or redundant.
But on June 29, rebels raided the Ukrainian army's A-1402 missile facility near Donetsk. Photographs show them examining what they found.
The Russian website Vosti ran an article the same day titled "Skies of Donetsk will be defended by surface-to-air missile system Buk."
The article claimed: "The anti-air defense point is one of the divisions of the missile corps and is equipped with motorized "Buk" anti-aircraft missile systems."
Peter Felstead, an expert on former Soviet military hardware at Janes IHS, says that "the Buk is in both the Russian and Ukrainian inventories, but it's unclear whether the one suspected in the shoot-down was taken by rebels when they overran a Ukrainian base, or was supplied by Russia."
He told CNN that the Buk "would normally operate with a separate radar that picks up the overall air picture. This was almost certainly not the case with MH17," making it more difficult to identify the target and track its course.
Among the pro-Russian rebels are fighters who served in the Russian army. It is possible that some were familiar with the Buk, but Felstead agrees with the U.S. and Ukrainian assessment that Russian expertise would have been needed to operate it.
"The system needs a crew of about four who know what they're doing. To operate the Buk correctly, Russian assistance would have been required unless the rebel operators were defected air defense operators - which is unlikely."
It is now the "working theory" in the U.S. intelligence community that the Russian military supplied a Buk surface-to-air missile system to the rebels, a senior US defense official told CNN Friday.
Russia has denied that any equipment in service with the Russian armed forces has crossed the border into Ukraine. And Aleksander Borodai, the self-described prime minister of the Donetsk People's Republic, said Saturday his forces did not have weapons capable of striking an aircraft at such a high altitude.
But someone in the border region where eastern Ukraine meets Russia has been using an advanced anti-air missile system.
Late Wednesday, the day before MH17 was presumably hit, a Ukrainian air force Sukhoi Su-25 combat jet was shot down close to the border with Russia.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry told CNN that the plane was flying at 6,200-6,500 meters (about 21,000 feet) and was hit near a town called Amvrosiivka, which is only some 30 kilometers (20 miles) from where MH17 was hit and 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the border with Russia.
The Ukrainian military alleged the missile had been fired from Russian territory. It was the first time that a combat jet flying at high speed had been hit and came two days after an AN-26 – flying at a similar altitude in the same area – was shot down further north, in the Luhansk area.
Smuggling on the black roads
The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that weapons could not be smuggled across the border "secretly." But they can.
By early June, rebels controlled several crossings along a stretch of border more than 200 kilometers (125 miles) long. The border area is open farmland that was neither patrolled regularly nor even marked in many places.
Dozens of unmonitored tracks known as black roads – because they have been used for smuggling – cross the border. Additionally, the Ukrainian border guard service was in disarray after an attack on its command center in Luhansk early in June.
On the road east toward the border through the town of Antratsyt there was no sign of a Ukrainian military or police presence. The pro-Russian rebels had already begun to bring across heavy weapons at that point.
A CNN team visited the border post at Marynivka in June, soon after a five-hour firefight involving border guards and members of the self-declared Vostok battalion of rebels who had been trying to bring over two Russian armored personnel carriers.
They had been abandoned during the battle.
The unknowns are these: Just how much weaponry has been brought in from Russia, how was it obtained, and did it include the SA-11 Buk?
In June, the U.S. State Department claimed that three T-64 tanks, several rocket launchers and other military vehicles had crossed the Russian border. Ukraine made similar accusations, saying the weapons had gone to Snezhnoe, a rebel stronghold close to where MH17 came down.
The State Department said the tanks had been in storage in south-west Russia, suggesting collusion between the Russian authorities – at some level – and the rebels. It said at the time that the equipment held at the storage site also included "multiple rocket launchers, artillery, and air defense systems."
It added, notably, that "more advanced air defense systems have also arrived at this site."
Moscow rejected the claims as fake.
NATO has also released satellite images which, it said, showed tanks in the Rostov-on-Don region in Russia early in June, before they were taken to eastern Ukraine. The tanks had no markings.
Even so, some experts, such as Mark Galeotti at New York University's Center for Global Affairs, say the evidence is largely circumstantial. NATO's images did not show the tanks actually crossing into Ukraine.
Wherever they came from, Russian language websites soon featured calls for people with military skills to call a number associated with the separatist Donetsk People's Republic if they could help operate or maintain the tanks.
One answered, "I served in the military engineering academy…and am a former commander in the intelligence."
But the separatists' greatest vulnerability was always from the air.
The Ukrainians had already shown, in driving them away from the Donetsk airport at the end of May, that they could use airpower to devastating effect. And they had begun to fly at higher altitudes to avoid shoulder-launched missiles.
To hold what remained of their territory, the pro-Russian rebels needed to be able to challenge Ukrainian dominance of the skies.
Whether they received help from across the border to do so, and in what way, is the question that governments around the world want answered.
READ: Is this any way to secure a plane crash scene?
READ: Who should investigate MH17 crash?
READ: Athlete, soccer fans, vacationing family among Malaysia Airlines crash victims


text: Regulations aimed at protecting the security and privacy of organizations and individuals are well meaning. But sometimes these standards, or how they're interpreted, can be more than a nuisance\u2014they can actually contribute to weaker security.[Thinking outside the IT audit (check)box]Here are few examples, from security executives and analysts, of internal and external compliance standards that are potentially problematic, and how they can be addressed so that they don't cause problems while they're trying to provide solutions.Encryption and HIPAAMany organizations and security executives are under the mistaken impression that compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requires encryption, and this can actually lead to security problems, says Paul Proctor, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner Inc.In fact, HIPAA requires the appropriate use of encryption, which is quite a different standard and can mean the difference of millions of dollars, Proctor says. Aside from the overspending of time and energy on encryption, the misunderstanding related to HIPAA can have a negative impact on certain business processes, affect application performance and even cause users to bypass certain controls because they're annoyed at security, he says.Decisions such as over-encrypting data "tend to have a ripple effect, of which lowering security is only one," Proctor says. "The answer is to develop a risk management process that allows thoughtful consideration of what you should do" to be compliant with regulations. "Organizations can make poor decisions if they don't have a formal risk management process\u2014and most don't."Password-Protected PDFsSometimes the regulatory environment has companies spending money on tools that aren't effective, and makes life more difficult for customers. When Tony Hildesheim, now senior vice president of IT at Redwood Credit Union, was working at another organization, internal regulations mandated that no account information be printed on any document."This also required that if you emailed a customer information, it had to be in a password-protected PDF," Hildesheim says.This caused multiple problems. "Many financial institutions truncate the account number so that the whole number is not printed on any material," Hildesheim says. "Without an account number present on a piece of paper, it is hard to help the customer, many of whom no longer can tell you their account number."[GRC: Trying to take the bite out of risk]The other issue is that with the company's email scanning solution, it was having a difficult time scanning the password-protected PDF. "Therefore, the security measure we put in place to ensure no data [such as credit card numbers] is emailed out of the company is rendered useless because the system cannot break into a PDF," Hildesheim says. "We had to change the procedure, train the staff and fight with the audit department."Regulations "are often written in response to a very specific or perceived risk that may or may no longer exist, has other mitigations or whose likelihood is so remote that it is a non-threat," Hildesheim says.Overzealous Virus ScanningSeveral years ago Proctor and other Gartner analysts were visiting a large credit union to discuss security strategy. The firm had just experienced a computer virus attack when a user had connected an infected PC to its corporate network and inadvertently spread the virus."So they created a blunt rule that said every machine the comes into the organization from outside had to have a full virus scan," Proctor says. "This was done at the security desk and it took two hours for each machine. When we showed up for our meeting we couldn't get in" because of the delays. "The meeting was cancelled because of this silly decision. And who knows how many pieces of the business were impacted because of this rule."[Passing PCI firewall audits: Top 5 checks for ongoing success]It likely had a negative impact on the organization's security posture because of increased resentment toward security, Proctor says. The solution, again, is to more clearly think through how compliance standards should be implemented and their potential impact on all aspects of the business.Vulnerability Scoring and PCIThe PCI standard requirement for a "clean scan" is a huge burden on businesses, says Adrian Sanabria, senior security analyst at 451 Research. "It steals focus away from more effective risk-reduction work and encourages a dangerously false sense of security," he says. Earlier versions of the PCI security standards "required businesses to show that all vulnerabilities rated a 'CVSS score of 4.0 or higher' be resolved," Sanabria says. "This is a hugely labor-intensive process that yields very little return on security."The key issue here is the ineffective nature of vulnerability scoring, Sanabria says. "The automatic score given to a vulnerability\u2013provided it isn't a false positive\u2013is often highly inaccurate," he says. "It is simply a best guess' without some extra work to factor in each organization's unique context. The vast majority of effort often goes into fixing vulnerabilities that aren't a threat at all, and potentially ignoring ones that could be critical, but were scored under PCI's threshold."Many times larger organizations have a person entirely dedicated to coordinating tasks and obtaining clean scans, Sanabria says. "That's one person's time dedicated to a tiny fraction of PCI," he says. "Newer versions of PCI have tried to correct this issue by implementing a new requirement in which each organization applies custom rankings to each vulnerability that affects them. Now these organizations will have to dedicate a second person to the task of vulnerability management."Encrypted Data BackupsOne compliance effort that makes a difficult situation even more difficult is the requirement for encrypted backups. Hildesheim knows of companies required to maintain such backups of data.[5 myths of encrypting and tokenizing sensitive data]"This sounds like a reasonable precaution if you are storing your [backup] tapes in a public store," Hildesheim says. "But consider that management and likelihood that seven years from today the encryption is able to be decrypted. Never mind that the password or key would have to be stored somewhere securely and cataloged. The encryption algorithm or software would have to still be in a form that could decrypt the data."This is even more confounded when regulators require that backup media be encrypted, even if it is stored in a controlled storage vault to which only your company has access, Hildesheim says. "One of the answers that many of the regulators are wanting to see in place is encrypted electronic backups," he says. "This again sounds good, until you realize that most have a local store and offsite store which is in a shared environment, or cloud."Multiple International RegulationsFor companies that offer their services primarily through the cloud, such as learning and talent management solutions provider Saba, the need to comply with a host of federal and industry regulations can create complexities that potentially hinder security.Saba complies with standards such as ISO27001; privacy requirements such as Safe Harbor, EU Directive and other geographic privacy requirements; Life Science Validation Environments; FISMA, etc., says Randy Barr, chief security and information officer.Some of these regulations are stricter than others and create challenges that are important to address in order to provide adequate security, Barr says.For example, some require employees to work in the U.S., or have U.S. citizenship. "It's difficult to keep track of individuals who work abroad, and having to do so for some of the groups within our company can be challenging," Barr says. "If Saba wasn't prepared for such regulations, our ability to provide security across the board would be in jeopardy. It's important that all departments take the time to understand the security programs that we've communicated rather than just reviewing compliance requirements and saying it must be done."[The race toward compliance is 'not optimal']Saba is able to meet all of its customers' security requirements, Barr says, but not without a huge amount of extra effort because of the complex compliance requirements. It's working with the Cloud Security Alliance to find more effective ways to comply with standards without draining resources. In addition, it has formed a Saba Security Council to provide a consensus-based forum to support the overall Saba Security program. "Discussions around meeting the requirements of [regulations] are discussed in these quarterly meetings," Barr says.ISO Regulations and RoadblocksThe ISO\/IEC 15408 regulations requiring Common Criteria testing can hinder security, says Robert Schadey, CISO and director of infrastructure services at 1901 Group, an IT services management provider."The Common Criteria guidelines and specifications developed for evaluating the security within a product ensure that security standards are agreed upon and [testing is] in place," Schadey says. For the most part, Common Criteria validates the claims of vendors' security features with an assessment of potential threats, he says."However, the overall length of time for testing and costs has caused a roadblock for most of the industry," Schadey says. "Our focus has shifted to providing a services-based approach for our federal customers. Services are delivered via dynamic hosting environments whereby the infrastructure layer may not be under a customer's control."[Security and vulnerability assessment: 4 common mistakes]This can make it difficult to ensure that the intent of the Common Criteria security measures are in place without analyzing each vendors' cloud implementation against Common Criteria security functional requirements (SFRs) and identifying the security gaps to determine if the cloud provider is acceptable, Schadey says."The loss of control at the infrastructure layer can cause security problems," he says. "The other issue that hinders security is the timeframe it takes to test the products and have them available for selection off the Common Criteria Products List."


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:: back door herb garden
35 comments:
Loving your herb garden...so clever! I need to do one for our home, adding to the project list. ;) Great tip on finding the tubs at a tractor and farm store, hadn't thought of that and now know where I need to get a bigger tub than I had last year for my Christmas tree. :) Have a wonderful day Carrie and enjoy all your herbs! Are you going to dry them before winter?ReplyDelete
Hugs and love,
I love it its gorgeoous!ReplyDelete
so pretty and practical, my favorite combination.ReplyDelete
hope you have a lovely weekend, my friend.
I have always wanted a herb garden... maybe a little one on the window sill. I would grow fresh cilantro... can it be grown in the winter time? Let me know and maybe I will go for it. thanks!ReplyDelete
What a super cute herb garden! Somehow galvanized tubs just go perfectly with herbs. Looks like yours did splendidly this summer. I'll look forward to hearing if they make it through the winter indoors - the idea of fresh herbs all year is delightful. Sadly, I don't have enough sun that comes through my windows to make it possible here. Alas... Hope your week has been a good one!ReplyDelete
- AnonymousSeptember 12, 2011 at 9:42 AM
Your herb garden is so pretty. I bet it smells nice too when you walk past it.ReplyDelete
Have a great day!
I love this idea!! I would love to try it next year. I've been venturing all the way out to the garden to get my herbs. This would be so handy, and pretty! Thanks for sharing the idea!! :)ReplyDelete
That is such a cute idea. I need to get started on one.ReplyDelete
Dear Mama Wren,ReplyDelete
My name is Shirley and I write for Funchkins: The Funky Art of Design blog. We featured your container herb garden on our blog a couple of days ago, you can visit the post here: http://funchkins.com/2011/11/04/compact-kitchen-door-herb-garden/#.TrQUwvQr27s
Kind regards,
w: funchkins.com
e: firstname.lastname@example.com
t: @funkyFunchkins
- AnonymousJanuary 8, 2012 at 5:12 PM
Love it~ can't wait to try it.ReplyDelete
I pinned the Back Door Herb Garden to Pinterest awhile ago, and it has gone viral! More than 500 repins off my pin alone! Great work!ReplyDelete
Cute idea! Does this need to be positioned in sun or shade?ReplyDeleteReplies
Mine sits on my deck which has an Eastern exposure it gets early morning sun & late afternoon shade...I think they need at least some sunshine.Delete
What a great idea! I came over via Pinterest when I saw your herb garden. I always wanted to plant one so now I know how.ReplyDelete
Thanks for posting.
I love this idea! I also, found it on Pinterest.. What different herbs do you have in there? I can make out the Basil and it looks like Mint on the top photo? I thought mint would probably take over, I didn't realize you could plant it all together like that, that's why I was wondering what all you had.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousFebruary 21, 2012 at 7:59 PM
What herbs did you use??ReplyDelete
How does the water drain out from the largest tin? Is that a problem for you?ReplyDelete
Hi! I don't see a pin-it button on this. Could I pin it?ReplyDelete
- MaribethMarch 23, 2012 at 6:48 PM
So cute!ReplyDelete
Getting ready to move into our new house with a nice big deck off the kitchen. This will my first project once I'm sure the Spring weather will hold! Thanks!
- AnonymousMarch 27, 2012 at 11:39 AM
LOVE it!! Such a great idea! I can't wait to make my own! Which herbs did you use? Did you start with seeds or small plants? Any tips for planting? Thanks so much for your input! :)ReplyDelete
Love this idea!!!! We are doing a stock tank veggie garden, and this would look awesome right next to it! Thanks for sharing it!ReplyDelete
Hi, do you happen to know the sizes (either by dimension or by gallon) of your tubs? ThanksReplyDelete
I love this! I too saw it on Pinterest. Thanks for sharing. I plan on making mine tomorrow! I will have to bring it in at night so the plants don't freeze, but hopefully they will thrive as well as yours did!ReplyDelete
Thanks for such a great idea! We made our back door herb garden yesterday, and I posted it on our blog. Check it out here! http://stopgardentime.blogspot.com/2012/04/backyard-herb-garden.htmlReplyDelete
- MichelleApril 30, 2012 at 6:31 PM
I saw this on Pinterest and then made one! It looks great. Thanks for the idea and the great instructions.ReplyDelete
I love this! Do you remember the dimensions of the tubs?ReplyDelete
Beautifully done. They might smell awesome.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousAugust 26, 2012 at 8:51 PM
How did you attach the buckets to one another.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousDecember 8, 2012 at 5:44 PM
A couple of years ago, I made what I called a "teapot". Large in circumference flower pot (not to deep)and I planted 2 different kinds of mint, stevia, and lemon balm. To make tea, I just picked an assortment. It was very attractive in the pot too. Sorry, I don't have a picture of it anymore. I gave it away as a gift.ReplyDelete
- AnonymousJanuary 15, 2013 at 6:04 AM
Great idea. Got it off Pinterest. Definitely one to try. ThanksReplyDelete
- AnonymousMarch 1, 2013 at 1:49 PM
So I'm guessing you just stacked the buckets right on top of the soil and planted seeds around them? Also found this on Pinterest and I'm going to be starting my own garden this year. Very cool idea and thanks for sharing!!ReplyDelete
I absolutely LOVE your photos and your idea! I'm hosting an EVERYTHING GARDEN Linkup and would love to have you linkup with us! Here is a post explaining it: http://teachersofgoodthings.com/calling-all-gardeners/ReplyDelete
Hope you come on by on Tuesday, March 26th to linkup with us!
- Marlene AlelnAugust 16, 2013 at 5:55 PM
I am so looking forward to making the bucket herb garden. I can't do some thing but this is great. Looking forward to drinking my coffee there.ReplyDelete
I just wanted to say that I saw this last year after I had already planted my pathetic patio herb garden and I couldn't wait to do this this year. I have had SOOOO many compliments on this from my neighbors and it is such a cute idea! I did lettuce in the big tub and herbs in the second one and they are just loving it. Thanks for the great idea!ReplyDelete
Thank you for this nice sharing. Great post.ReplyDelete
I love seeing your lovely faces & reading your sweet comments. Thanks for taking the time to visit me : ) * I do my best to respond by e-mail, if I miss you please forgive me. peace & love * Carrie


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Six years ago, when University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign officials announced plans to enroll more undergraduates from outside the state, the public outcry was so intense that the plan was scrapped within a week.
But despite the university's pledge then to keep out-of-state enrollment to about 10 to 12 percent, there has been a rapid increase in students from other states and especially other countries. A full 25 percent of students in this fall's freshman class are nonresidents — a share expected to be the new normal for the state's flagship public university, officials told the Tribune.
Although the proposed change in 2006 was met with complaints and calls for legislative hearings, families now may be more willing to accept that the cash-strapped university, facing a decline in state funding, is relying on the significantly higher tuition paid by students from across the country and abroad.
The effect of that shift is clear on the Urbana-Champaign campus. Though today's undergraduate enrollment of 31,900 is 3,600 higher than a decade ago, there are 200 fewer students from Illinois. Meanwhile, the number of international students has soared. U. of I. enrolls 4,447 undergraduates from other countries — up from 649 in 2000.
"We should serve our own state students first," said parent Tom Slivovsky, who has a son at U. of I. and another at Rolling Meadows High School. "It is unfortunate that because of the state of Illinois' finances, University of Illinois' admissions office may need to consider international students and their fees in their place."
The university offered admission to just under 68 percent of Illinois residents who applied for this fall's freshman class, the lowest percentage in the past five years. About 77 percent of out-of-state residents and 46 percent of international students were admitted.
But it's not just that U. of I. is looking elsewhere for students; Illinois students are increasingly turning the university down. Just 45 percent of residents offered admission to this fall's freshman class accepted the spots, a decline from 53 percent five years ago and the lowest percentage in at least 10 years, possibly ever.
A Tribune analysis of U.S. Department of Education data, reported in Friday's paper, found that Illinois' high school graduates are increasingly leaving the state for college, attracted in large part by competitive tuition in nearby states. For the fall 2010 semester, about one-quarter of all first-time students went to schools outside Illinois — up from 17 percent a decade ago.
"I don't see it as a good thing," said Kevin Coy, a college consultant at Homewood-Flossmoor High School in the south suburbs. "We would like to see more kids going to our in-state institutions."
Historically, U. of I. has drawn a relatively small percentage of freshmen from outside the state compared with other institutions in the Big 10. And though the number has grown, it is still among the lowest. The percentages of nonresident freshmen at the University of Michigan, Penn State University and Indiana University have been around 40 percent.
U. of I. admissions director Stacey Kostell said that although the university had tabled the notion of increasing the number of out-of-state students, some of the initial increase happened accidentally. It then became a more intentional enrollment strategy under former President Michael Hogan as state funding declined, U. of I. tuition continued to rise and more Illinois high school graduates opted to leave the state.
U. of I. is still getting about the same number of applications from Illinois students — roughly 17,000 last year — and still admitting about the same number, between 11,000 and 12,000 in recent years. But the university is admitting thousands more nonresidents and international students than in the past — not just for financial reasons, but also to diversify the campus, Kostell said.
"There have been conversations about where we would like to go as far as enrollment. People are comfortable where we are. I think that allows us to serve the population of Illinois, but still have a nice mix," Kostell said.
She said there are no plans to further lower the percentage of students from Illinois. "We would have lots of discussion before we went below 75 percent," she said.
Diane Dean, an Illinois State University education professor who studies college student migration, criticized U. of I.'s enrollment trends.
"It is a concern," said Dean, who is working on an update to her 2006 study of Illinois student migration out of state. "What it shows me is that (U. of I.) is moving further away from its founding mission and purpose, which is to serve this state first."
Kostell said admissions officials are concerned about the students who are declining offers from U. of I., particularly for financial reasons. The university added $12 million to its financial aid budget this year, for a total of $66 million.
U. of I.'s base tuition has gone up 144 percent since 2000, to $11,636 this year. That doesn't include $3,324 in fees and an additional $5,000 for students in popular programs such as business or engineering. With room and board, the total cost can run upward of about $30,000 a year.
Meanwhile, colleges and universities in neighboring states are offering in-state or reduced-rate tuition to Illinois students as well as automatic scholarships to students with top academic credentials, sometimes making it cheaper to leave the state than to stay. The University of Iowa offers up to $4,700 a year for high-achieving students, for example, while the University of Missouri at Columbia gives top nonresidents discounts of up to $5,500.
Chicago-area guidance counselors interviewed by the Tribune all remarked that families increasingly are looking for the best buy when it comes to college.
"U. of I. is not the bargain that it once was," said Jim Conroy, college counselor at New Trier Township High School. Of the 190 New Trier students offered admission to this year's freshman class, about half enrolled.
While in-state applications have remained steady to U. of I., some suburban high schools said fewer of their students are applying. Of the students in the Lyons Township High School class of 2008, 226 students applied and 80 enrolled. In last year's class, 152 applied and 45 enrolled.
The same is true at Downers Grove South High School, which also has fewer students applying to U. of I. — 99 students last year compared with 126 students in 2007, despite similar class sizes, said college counselor Anita Carpenter.
"There are so many choices for kids to go now, and these neighboring states have such great (tuition) reciprocity," Carpenter said. "Our kids will get into most schools. It is now paying for the school that has become increasingly difficult. They are looking to see who will give the most money.
"It's all about the finances now with these kids."
Concern about finances cuts both ways.
At the U. of I., nonresident students pay significantly more — up to $34,022 in tuition and fees this year, not including room and board, books and other expenses. International students must pay a surcharge of up to $2,800 on top of that.
A review of U. of I.'s tuition revenue shows how international students are paying more than their share. Although they make up 14 percent of undergraduates, they contribute 24 percent of the tuition revenue at Urbana-Champaign — or nearly $104 million last year. Five years ago, tuition paid by international students totaled about $31 million.
Cheng Wan, president of U. of I.'s 3,800-member Chinese Students Association, said his parents are paying the steep tuition so he can have a first-rate education. His parents are scientists in Beijing, and Wan, a physics major, plans to follow in their footsteps.
"China gives a good elementary and high school education, but a higher education, Chinese universities don't do a very good job," Wan, 22, said. "The academic environment is really important … so that is why I chose to come to the U.S."
Sen. Ira Silverstein, D-Chicago, who called for legislative hearings in 2006 when the university talked about increasing out-of-state enrollment, said he realizes the benefits of a diverse environment but is disappointed by U. of I.'s latest enrollment figures.
"I am a little troubled to find out that enrollment is down for Illinois citizens," Silverstein said. "I appreciate diversity, but we still have to give first choice to our Illinois residents who are paying taxes for the school.
"The university should come to the Legislature or give us some statistics about what is going on over there."
Karen DalSanto, whose son graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 2010, is among the Illinois families that feel slighted by U. of I. Her son, Jack Edelbrock, had an ACT score of 34, was a National Merit Scholar, played varsity water polo and was named the top science student in his high school class.
He was rejected from U. of I.'s biomedical engineering program and instead offered a spot in the civil engineering program. He turned it down to study biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, where he is now a junior with straight A's, according to his parents.
"We were floored," DalSanto said. "He did everything that counselors told him he needed to go."
The year Edelbrock applied, U. of I. admitted 133 residents, 69 nonresidents and 29 international students to biomedical engineering, the university's most competitive program.
Also unhappy is Bernard Turnoy, whose son is a junior at Deerfield High School with plans to study engineering. "The number of nonresidents and international students is now a little preposterous for a state school," Turnoy said.
As his son prepares to look at competitive colleges and universities on the East Coast, Turnoy is bothered by what he sees as a loss for the state.
"I know some pretty talented kids who were not able to get into the U. of I. It's pretty shocking in fact," he said. "We are pushing our best and brightest out of Illinois, not to return. That not only does the state, but the whole region, a disservice."
All of this is on the minds of high school seniors as the January application deadline approaches. Students who applied by Nov. 1 will learn of the decision Dec. 14.
Seniors at Noble Street College Prep, a charter school in Chicago, listened Monday as U. of I. assistant admissions director Oscar Rodriguez described how students from across the world go to Urbana-Champaign to study engineering, business and dozens of other subjects.
Afterward, students discussed their anxiety about whether they would get admitted and the increase in nonresident students.
"It's good that it's diverse so you see different points of view and perspectives," said Nestor Solis, 18, who wants to study business.
"It makes the school a better place," agreed 18-year-old Javier Castro.
But they couldn't convince classmate Grace Berrios, 17. "It's good for the school," she said, "but not for Illinois students."
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Six years ago, when University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign officials announced plans to enroll more undergraduates from outside the state, the public outcry was so intense that the plan was scrapped within a week.


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WASHINGTON – Summoned to success by President Barack Obama, the Democratic-controlled Congress approved historic legislation Sunday night extending health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans and cracking down on insurance company abuses, a climactic chapter in the century-long quest for near universal coverage.
"This is what change looks like," Obama said a few moments later in televised remarks that stirred memories of his 2008 campaign promise of "change we can believe in."
Widely viewed as dead two months ago, the Senate-passed bill cleared the House on a 219-212 vote. Republicans were unanimous in opposition, joined by 34 dissident Democrats.
A second, smaller measure — making changes in the first — cleared the House shortly before midnight and was sent to the Senate, where Democratic leaders said they had the votes necessary to pass it quickly. The vote was 220-211.
Far beyond the political ramifications — a concern the president repeatedly insisted he paid no mind — were the sweeping changes the bill held in store for nearly every American, insured or not, as well as the insurance industry and health care providers that face either smaller than anticipated payments from Medicare or higher taxes.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation awaiting the president's approval would extend coverage to 32 million Americans who lack it, ban insurers from denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions and cut deficits by an estimated $138 billion over a decade. If realized, the expansion of coverage would include 95 percent of all eligible individuals under age 65.
For the first time, most Americans would be required to purchase insurance, and face penalties if they refused. Much of the money in the bill would be devoted to subsidies to help families at incomes of up to $88,000 a year pay their premiums.
For the president, the events capped an 18-day stretch in which he traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of his signature domestic issue. According to some who met with him, he warned that the bill's demise could cripple his still-young presidency, and his aides hoped to use the victory on health care as a springboard to success on bills to tackle stubbornly high unemployment that threatens Democratic prospects in the fall.
Obama watched the vote in the White House's Roosevelt Room with Vice President Joe Biden and dozens of aides, exchanged high fives with Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, and then telephoned Speaker Nancy Pelosi with congratulations.
"We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things," he said later in the White House East Room. "We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.
Crowds of protesters outside the Capitol shouted "just vote no" in a futile attempt to stop the inevitable taking place inside a House packed with lawmakers and ringed with spectators in the galleries above.
Across hours of debate, House Democrats predicted the larger of the two bills, costing $940 billion over a decade, would rank with other great social legislation of recent decades.
"We will be joining those who established Social Security, Medicare and now, tonight, health care for all Americans, said Speaker Nancy Pelosi, partner to Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in the grueling campaign to pass the legislation.
"This is the civil rights act of the 21st century," added Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the top-ranking black member of the House.
Republicans readily agreed the bill would affect everyone in America, but warned repeatedly of the burden imposed by more than $900 billion in tax increases and Medicare cuts combined.
"We have failed to listen to America," said Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, leader of a party that has vowed to carry the fight into the fall's midterm elections for control of Congress.
The final obstacle to the bill's passage was cleared at mid-afternoon when Obama and Democratic leaders reached a compromise with anti-abortion lawmakers whose rebellion had left the outcome in doubt. The White House announced he would issue an executive order pledging that no federal funds would be used for elective abortion, satisfying Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan and a handful of like-minded lawmakers.
A spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops expressed skepticism that the presidential order would satisfy the church's objections.
Republican abortion foes also said Obama's proposed order was insufficient, and when Stupak sought to counter them, a shout of "baby killer" could be heard coming from the Republican side of the chamber.
The measure would also usher in a significant expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state health care program for the poor. Coverage would be required for incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level, $29,327 a year for a family of four. Childless adults would be covered for the first time, starting in 2014.
The insurance industry, which spent millions on advertising trying to block the bill, would come under new federal regulation. They would be forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions and from canceling policies when a policyholder becomes ill.
Parents would be able to keep children up to age 26 on their family insurance plans, three years longer than is now the case.
A new high-risk pool would offer coverage to uninsured people with medical problems until 2014, when the coverage expansion would go into high gear.
For the president, the events capped an 18-day stretch in which he traveled to four states and lobbied more than 60 wavering lawmakers in person or by phone to secure passage of his signature domestic issue. According to some who met with him, he warned that the bill's demise could cripple his still-young presidency.
After more than a year of political combat, Democrats piled superlative upon superlative across several hours of House debate.
Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York read a message President Franklin Roosevelt sent Congress in 1939 urging lawmakers to address the needs of those without health care, and said Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Richard Nixon had also sought to broaden insurance coverage.
Republicans attacked the bill without let-up, warning it would harm the economy while mandating a government takeover of the health care system.
"The American people know you can't reduce health care costs by spending $1 trillion or raising taxes by more than one-half trillion dollars. The American people know that you cannot cut Medicare by over one-half trillion dollars without hurting seniors," said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich.
"And, the American people know that you can't create an entirely new government entitlement program without exploding spending and the deficit."
Obama has said often that presidents of both parties have tried without success to achieve national health insurance, beginning with Theodore Roosevelt early in the 20th century.
The 44th president's quest to succeed where others have failed seemed at a dead end two months ago, when Republicans won a special election for a Massachusetts Senate seat, and with it, the votes to prevent a final vote.
But the White House, Pelosi and Reid soon came up with a rescue plan that required the House to approve the Senate-passed measure despite opposition to many of its provisions, then have both houses pass a fix-it measure incorporating numerous changes.
To pay for the changes, the legislation includes more than $400 billion in higher taxes over a decade, roughly half of it from a new Medicare payroll tax on individuals with incomes over $200,000 and couples over $250,000. A new excise tax on high-cost insurance policies was significantly scaled back in deference to complaints from organized labor.
In addition, the bills cut more than $500 billion from planned payments to hospitals, nursing homes, hospices and other providers that treat Medicare patients. An estimated $200 billion would reduce planned subsidies to insurance companies that offer a private alternative to traditional Medicare.
The insurance industry warned that seniors would face sharply higher premiums as a result, and the Congressional Budget Office said many would return to traditional Medicare as a result.
The subsidies are higher than those for seniors on traditional Medicare, a difference that critics complain is wasteful, but insurance industry officials argue goes into expanded benefits.
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text: The 2013 Mazatlán Forum - Crossing Borders: Examining Political, Economic, and Social Assumptions in the US and Mexico The Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology (DSPT) sent representatives to Mexico to join top Mexican intellectuals for conversations examining political, economic, and social assumptions at work in Mexico and the U.S. in the first annual Mazatlán Forum. The videos of all the sessions of the Mazatlán Forum are now available online! You can watch DSPT Fellows and Faculty engaging Mexican intellectuals in the following sessions: Welcome and Keynotes - Fr. Michael Sweeney, OP; Dr. Luis F. Aguilar, Director of the Institute of Public Policy and Government at the University of Guadalajara,... Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (DSPT)DSPT | Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology


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Jenike & Johanson is the world's leading company in powder and bulk solids handling, processing, and storage technology. Over the past 55 years, we've tested over 13,000 unique powders and bulk solids and worked on more than 7,500 projects, giving our team the broadest real-world and in-depth experience in the industry to address a wide variety of bulk material handling and engineering needs.
Our Mission
To create value by assisting clients improve the efficiency, reliability, and safety of their operations by preventing, eliminating, or reducing problems related to bulk material flow, storage, conveying, or processing.
Our Vision
Jenike & Johanson is the world's foremost technology company in the field of bulk material handling, providing service and tools to those seeking a scientific understanding of powder and bulk solids flow behavior in industrial applications.


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Don't worry about the accurateness of your oven temperature, says Bittman & Palmer
Last night, I read an interesting article by Brian Palmer who also quotes Mark Bittman to say that we shouldn't worry so much about the accuracy of our oven temperatures.
Here's the link to the article, but also reproduced fully below.
Ignore Your Oven Dial (by Brian Palmer)
You can't control the temperature of your oven very well, so stop worrying about it.
"Preheat oven to 350 degrees." I hate this phrase. First, as George Carlin pointed out, it's linguistically absurd—you don't preheat an oven, you heat it. More importantly, however, it gives you a false sense of how much control you have over your oven. It's also plain terrible advice, in many cases. Join me, if you will, on a brief history of oven temperatures.
For most of human history, bakers had very little control over the heat of their ovens and hearths, and they knew it. The earliest ovens were giant pits filled with hot coals or burning wood, and though technology improved over the millennia—brick or ceramic chambers eventually came into fashion—the basic concept remained the same through the beginning of the 20th century. As a result, estimating oven temperature was more art than science. Bread bakers, for example, dusted a little flour on the bottom of the oven after heating it. If the flour turned black without catching fire, the oven was hot enough. Others placed a strip of paper in the oven and timed how long it took for the paper to turn brown. The most common method seems to have been holding one's arm in the oven until it became intolerable. (If you could count to thirty, the oven wasn't hot enough for bread.)
Recognizing these technological limitations, recipe writers in the 19th century described only three temperatures: "slow," for thin and delicate foods with low water content, "moderate," for muffins and cookies, and "hot," for crusty breads. Meats and vegetables usually got the slow or moderate treatment. (There was some variation in terms—you might see "high moderate" or other nuanced alternatives to the big three—but recipes almost never stated degrees.) By the 1920s, new models of gas and electric ovens gave cooks slightly more control over their hot boxes, but the dials still typically only offered low, medium, and high settings. It was primitive, sure, but, somehow, bread still got baked.
Around the end of World War II, manufacturers started including temperatures on their dials, featuring hash marks indicating 10- or 25-degree increments. It's not particularly surprising that this development came when it did. The war victory, driven largely by scientific and industrial advancement, convinced Americans that they could control every minute aspect of their lives. British manufacturers did something similar, only slightly less specific: Their postwar oven dials were notched with 10 "gas marks." Baking recipes of the era instructed cooks to bake for 30 minutes at "gas mark six" or "gas mark seven." As time passed, oven thermostats became even more precise. Modern, electronic ovens often let you punch in your preferred temperature in 5-degree increments.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that 350 on the dial means 350 in the oven. You'd be wrong, though. When you set an oven to 350 degrees, there isn't a single spot inside of it that stays at 350 degrees for the duration of a bake session. The modern gas or electric oven has an automatic thermostat that, by design, lets the temperature drop a predetermined number of degrees below your chosen temperature before switching the heat on. The heat then surges the oven well past the desired temperature before shutting off again. A 350-degree residential oven is designed to stay between around 330 and 370 degrees—and that's if it's well-calibrated, which few ovens are. And that's just at the location of the internal thermostat—the rest of the oven is a different story. Every oven has hot and cool spots so difficult to predict that oven design has become something of a mystical pursuit.
Most of the conventional tips to help you better understand your oven are a waste of time. Television chefs urge viewers to buy an oven thermometer to make sure their hot box isn't lying to them, but, unless your thermostat is consistently and significantly off in the same direction, the variability in temperature throughout the chamber makes this trick pretty useless. Obsessives have their ovens professionally recalibrated annually, but this does nothing to address the temporal and spatial fluctuations of heat that are features of how ovens work.
The old, vague system is much better than the myth that you can micromanage your oven temperature down to the degree. An oven is an insulated box with a fire in it—there's only so much control you can have over that setup, and we might as well be honest about it. Plus, once we recognize that oven temperature is a major and largely uncontrollable variable in how our precious baked goods turn out, we might relax a little about the other aspects of the process. What's the point of measuring flour down to a hundredth of an ounce, or buying a plunger measuring cup to ensure that you don't leave a few drops of honey clinging to the side of a container, when you're just throwing your food into a black box of unknown temperature?
The 350-degree instruction is often just a default, anyway. Around the time that manufacturers put temperature dials on ovens, cookbooks had to convert their old terminology into degrees. A "moderate" oven became 350 degrees, and few writers bothered to test if 350 was really better for an individual recipe than, say 360 or 380.
Mark Bittman, New York Times food columnist and author of How To Cook Everything (the Joy of Cooking for our generation) agrees that "oven temperatures are a convention."
"I tend to think of oven temperatures in maybe four ranges," Bittman says. "[R]eally low, under 275 degrees; moderate, between 275 and 350; high, over 350 but under, say 425; and maximum. But I don't think about those numbers ... I just think 'what am I trying to do here? Blast this stuff or treat it gently, or something in between?' "
Food manufacturers take a more technical approach, but even the exhaustively tested instructions on a box of cake mix are usually wrong.
"When you're developing cooking instructions for a major food manufacturer, you have two different groups looking over your shoulder," says Brian Smith of Booth Smith Food Technology, a consultancy that helps food companies design and bring new products to market. "The technical people want the product to be as good as it can be, but the marketing people don't want customers calling them up complaining about burned cake."
And the marketing people almost always win. The ideal baking temperature as determined by an industrial test kitchen is often significantly higher than what it says on the box. But food-makers assume that you're not vigilant enough to pull your cake, cookies, or brownies out of the oven before they're toast. You're often better off setting the oven 50 or more degrees above the recommended temperature, and watching your food like a hawk.
Or you could give up on the numbers, and follow Bittman's advice: "Cooks should get used to the visual and olfactory (and even aural) cues that food gives off while it's baking or roasting." And if you're not confident enough to trust your eyes, nose, and ears, use a thermometer—not the kind that sits inside your oven, but the kind you stick in the food as it's cooking. "The instant-read thermometer, used frequently, solves most issues," says Bittman.


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I have a basic php/mysql cms. When I go to save a textfield that contains the char "&" it seems to be updating the database with "&"
I'm sure it suddenly started happening, could this be a mysql update or configuration issue or…?
I have a basic php/mysql cms. When I go to save a textfield that contains the char "&" it seems to be updating the database with "&"
Hi there,
This might be an encoding issue.
Let me understand your problem:
You have a CMS.
You enter text into your CMS (for example to update a page on your site).
You save your changes.
You look at your website and see that the & characters which you entered in the CMS are being displayed as &
Is that correct?
No, it's the text that is actually updated to the database that is converted to the &
The text field has "&", the updated table contains "&"
Right, because the CMS is likely encoding it to be stored into the database. When it is read from the database, the & is the appropriate HTML entity for displaying purposes.
Granted, it is unnecessary to encode & in a database, but it is absolutely necessary to encode it when writing it as output for a user to see on your site.
not mysql
likely a php function
Thanks guys, I'll look into the php then… just wanted to rule out mysql. Strange how it's suddenly started happening, almost like a version update of php or mysql had triggered the change in processing
Have you recently upgraded the CMS? Could be part of the CMS upgrade. On a side note, I've asked that this thread be moved to the PHP forum.
Homemade CMS! Tracked down the problem, htmlspecialchars being applied. Doh!
That would do it. It is true that you DO NOT need to do that when inserting into the database, but you SHOULD be doing that when you are writing the database values to the page for a user to see.


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Skip to main content
A Library for the World's Children
Sweet and sour
Read with ICDL Reader
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Language: Hindi
Created by:
Rijuta Ghate (Illustrator)
Pratham Books Team (Translator)
Madhav Chavan (Author)
Abstract: Learn about why things taste sweet and sour through a series of questions and answers.
Publisher: Pratham Books
Published: 2009
Published in: India
Contributed by: Pratham Books
Note: While we have determined that we have rights to redistribute this book on this website, we are not authorizing you or anyone else to further redistribute this book. These books are for your personal use only.
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Source: Todd Holmberg, 785-532-6425, firstname.lastname@example.com
Web site: http://www.k-state.edu/mccain/
Photos available. Contact firstname.lastname@example.com or 785-532-6415.
News release prepared by: Nellie Ryan, 785-532-6415, email@example.com
Monday July 20, 2009
MANHATTAN -- Kansas State University's 2009-2010 McCain Performance Series will feature something for everyone to enjoy: Broadway, comedy, swing music, ballet and more.
Season tickets are now on sale, with discounts available for K-State students, faculty and staff; military members; and youth 18 and under. More information also is available by calling the McCain box office at 785-532-6428 or online at http://www.k-state.edu/mccain
Individual tickets will go on sale Monday, Aug. 24.
Several performances will feature the popular McCain Pre-Performance Talks and Post-Performance Dialogues.
The 2009-2010 McCain Performance Series will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18, with Chicago's The Second City, a comedy troupe known for hilarious satire and improvisational mayhem. Famous alumni of The Second City include Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Chris Farley and Mike Myers.
Other performances in the series, all starting at 7:30 p.m. and all in McCain Auditorium unless otherwise noted, include:
* American pianist Jon Nakamatsu, Thursday, Sept. 24. Nakamatsu rose to global stardom in 1997 when he was named gold medalist of the 10th Van Cilburn International Piano Competition; at the time, he was a high school German language teacher without formal conservatory training. He is the only American to have received the Van Cliburn award since 1981.
* L.A. Theatre Works, America's premiere radio theater company, Thursday, Oct. 1. The company will present two masterpieces of science fiction and adventure: "War of the Worlds" and "The Lost World." The cast features actors from television shows such as "Star Trek" and "The X-Files."
* The Orquestra De Sao Paulo, Saturday, Oct. 10. The group is considered the most outstanding orchestra in Latin America and will perform works of well-known Brazilian composers. Guest artist of the evening will be internationally-acclaimed percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie.
* "Rain: A Tribute to the Beatles," Sunday, Oct. 18. The audience will have the opportunity to experience what Beatlemania was all about as Rain covers the Fab Four from the group's early beginnings to their hard-rocking rooftop days. The performance will use a variety of multimedia, including historical footage of the Beatles on large, backdrop video screens.
* "Tap Dogs," Tuesday, Oct. 27. The high-octane Broadway sensation features extreme tap dancing by six "brawny blokes" in faded jeans, flannel shirts and Australian work boots on industrial-size metal sets.
* Brasil Guitar Duo, Tuesday, Nov. 10, in All Faiths Chapel. Winner of the 2006 Concert Artists Guild International Competition, the duo blends the traditional sounds of Bach and Scarlatti with the Brazilian sounds of samba and maxixe.
* "The Shaolin Warriors," Thursday, Nov. 19. This theatrical production includes the skill, stunning movement and spectacular imagery of kung fu. The group is made up of disciples of the Shaolin schools who are known for their prowess in martial arts.
* Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, Friday, Dec. 4. The Grammy-nominated group will perform a holiday swing music show featuring rollicking big band arrangements of favorites such as "Jingle Bells," "Blue Christmas" and "We Three Kings." Big Bad Voodoo Daddy's music combines influences from swing, blues, rock and New Orleans jazz.
* Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2010. Skaggs, a 14-time Grammy Award winner and a Country Music Association entertainer of the year, will perform with his band, Kentucky Thunder, which has been named the International Bluegrass Music Association's instrumental group of the year eight times in the last 10 years.
* "The Best of Momix," Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010. The company of dancer-illusionists will perform highlights from their most popular shows, including "Opus Cactus," "Lunar Sea," "Passion," "Orbit" and "Botanica." Momix is known for conjuring up a world of surrealistic images combining astonishing movement and athleticism.
* Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Friday, Feb. 19, 2010. The 10-member a cappella vocal ensemble, first brought to worldwide popularity through Paul Simon's "Graceland," has received two Grammy Awards and has been nominated eight additional times in the folk and world music categories. Mombazo's sound was further popularized by their commercials for Life Savers and 7-Up, "Lion King II" soundtrack and collaborations with Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart and Phil Collins. The group's sound combines native South African musical traditions with gospel music.
* "Annie," Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2010. An orphan, Annie, and her dog Sandy are placed in the lap of luxury as part of a publicity campaign for Oliver Warbucks. One of America's most beloved musicals, the show features such Broadway classics as "Hard-Knock Life" and "Tomorrow."
* Flamenco Vivo Carlota Santana, Friday, March 5, 2010. The company of authentic Flamenco dancers and live musicians brings universal themes of pride, sorrow, love and passion to the stage through pure form, rhythms and intensity.
* "Darwin the Dinosaur," 3 p.m. Sunday, March 28. This special theater experience features electroluminescent crayon-like creatures that light up the stage, revealing a heartrending tale of a dinosaur discovering the true meaning of love.
* The Ahn Trio and DJ Spooky, Friday, April 9. Korean-born and Juilliard-educated, this sister piano trio fuses its work with dancers, pop singers, disc jockeys, painters, photographers and lighting designers. The evening will be based on the trio's CD, "Lullaby for My Favorite Insomniac," which recently climbed to No. 8 on the Billboard charts. The performance will also feature Paul D. Miller, or DJ Spooky, who is a composer, multimedia artist, writer and noted authority on digital culture.
* "Jesus Christ Superstar," Monday, April 19, 2010. The first masterpiece from the legendary writing team of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber features such hits as "I Don't Know How to Love Him," "Hosanna," "Everything's Alright" and more. Ted Neeley, star of the motion picture and original Broadway production, will appear in the title role.
* The Moscow Festival Ballet's "Cinderella," Sunday, April 25. With music by Prokofiev, the Moscow Festival Ballet performs a full-length version of this favorite rags-to-riches story.


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Using hundreds of love rocks shaped by the surf and collected along the Maine coast, this artist designed and photographed the artwork for this Heart of Hearts print.
Printed in Maine on soft white matte stock and surrounded by an acid-free white matte with full backing so you can just pop it into your favorite standard sized frame.
Each 5″ x 7″ print is packaged in a protective cellophane sleeve.
Copyright © 2016 Ellen Thayer


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Paving Stone Driveways – A Great Choice!
Many people do not even consider pavers when thinking about a new driveway or replacing an existing one. Although most people agree that from an aesthetic standpoint, pavers are the most appealing choice, misconceptions about the performance and cost have helped to create a perception that pavers are only a viable solution in warmer climates or in affluent neighborhoods. Hopefully, I can help you to re-evaluate this notion.
Concrete paver driveways perform extremely well in northern climates. A properly designed and installed paving stone driveway will evenly distribute heavy loads as well as handle seasonal fluctuations better than alternative paving materials. This is because a paving stone driveway, installed on a proper aggregate base is a durable system that works with nature by contracting as required during the winter freeze-thaw cycles.
In terms of cost, paving stones typically have a higher initial price, this is due to the additional labor needed to install a higher quality material. In residential driveway applications, pavers are generally installed piece by piece and need to be trimmed to fit. When it comes to paving material quality, Unilock paving stones are at least twice as strong as standard poured concrete, and have a lower water absorption rate which equates to a long life span. In addition, the lifecycle cost of a paver driveway is lower than the alternatives. Although cleaning and sealing is often recommended, it is not required and with limited maintenance, a paver driveway will outlast most other paving materials.
Once performance and cost concerns are addressed, pavers stand on their own. There is no better way to create a great first impression than a paver driveway. Pavers offer so much versatility in design that you can create your own look and feel with a little bit of creativity and planning at a low additional cost. Here are just a few examples:
Even basic isn't basic:
Although a standard 4"x8" paver can seem ordinary when compared to some of the alternatives, it offers a very traditional and clean look that stands the test of time. (A herringbone pattern is one of my personal favorites.)
Don't worry – it's a tumbled paver:
Every driveway is subject to daily wear and tear. The time worn appearance of tumbled pavers like Brussels Block® has proven to be the most popular and adaptable paver in the industry today because it presents a very relaxed appearance. With several color choices, a tumbled paver can easily stand alone or be combined with other products to create a design for any setting.
Paver quilting is the answer:
Are you looking to accentuate an architectural feature or craft a truly distinctive creation? Paver quilting is a process of combining shapes, colors and styles in different ways to create unique designs and combinations. This can transform your driveway from a place you park to a work of art. My experience is that combining Unilock SelectTM pavers together with each other or with tumbled pavers gives you a lot of opportunities to create your own look-and-feel.
Small details make a big impact:
Even if you don't have a lot of area to work with, adding some small details can make a big visual impact. Simply changing the color of the soldier course border, adding an accent, changing the pattern or even the orientation of the pattern, can completely change the look.
The art of texture:
Texture is another effective element of landscape design. Texture can be used in many ways to reinforce your overall design intentions. Texture utilizes light very effectively to stimulate your visual senses. By using paving stones with varying textures by themselves or in combination with each other you can create a visual concert of beauty no matter what angle the light is coming from. I have found that Unilock Select pavers give you many texture opportunities.
So, if you are in the market for a new driveway or just getting ready to replace an existing one, you owe it to yourself to take a look at paving stones. Not only will they provide you with an immediate WOW factor, but something that will outlast most other paving surfaces. And finally, the curb appeal of a brick paver driveway will also give you incredible return on your investment. It's no mystery that homes with interlocking brick paver driveways sell much faster than similar homes with just basic asphalt!
Unilock offers many unique and beautiful products that have been specifically designed to withstand the wear and tear of driveway traffic. Whether you drive a small mini or a large SUV, Unilock products will stand the test of time.


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Charles Spurgeon loved John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. He first read the book as a young boy, and he began his commentary on the classic with these words: "Next to the Bible, the book I value most is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I believe I have read it through at least a hundred times. It is a volume of which I never seem to tire; and the secret of its freshness is that it is so largely compiled from the Scriptures." As Spurgeon said elsewhere, he loved Bunyan because Bunyan bled Bible.
But he did have one qualm with the great book:
I am a great lover of John Bunyan, but I do not believe him infallible; and the other day I met with a story about him which I think a very good one.
There was a young man, in Edinburgh, who wished to be a missionary. He was a wise young man; he thought—"If I am to be a missionary, there is no need for me to transport myself far away from home; I may as well be a missionary in Edinburgh." . . .
Well, this young man started, and determined to speak to the first person he met. He met one of those old fishwives; those of us who have seen them can never forget them, they are extraordinary women indeed. So, stepping up to her, he said, "Here you are, coming along with your burden on your back; let me ask you if you have got another burden, a spiritual burden."
"What!" she asked; "do you mean that burden in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress? Because, if you do, young man, I got rid of that many years ago, probably before you were born. But I went a better way to work than the pilgrim did. The evangelist that John Bunyan talks about was one of your parsons that do not preach the gospel; for he said, 'Keep that light in thine eye, and run to the wicket-gate.' Why—man alive!—that was not the place for him to run to. He should have said, 'Do you see that cross? Run there at once!' But, instead of that, he sent the poor pilgrim to the wicket-gate first; and much good he got by going there! He got tumbling into the slough, and was like to have been killed by it."
"But did not you," the young man asked, "go through any Slough of Despond?"
"Yes, I did; but I found it a great deal easier going through with my burden off than with it on my back."
The old woman was quite right. John Bunyan put the getting rid of the burden too far off from the commencement of the pilgrimage. If he meant to show what usually happens, he was right; but if he meant to show what ought to have happened, he was wrong.
We must not say to the sinner, "Now, sinner, if thou wilt be saved, go to the baptismal pool; go to the wicket-gate; go to the church; do this or that."
No, the cross should be right in front of the wicket-gate; and we should say to the sinner, "Throw thyself down there, and thou art safe; but thou are not safe till thou canst cast off thy burden, and lie at the foot of the cross, and find peace in Jesus."
Sermon: "The Dumb Become Singers"
HT: Tony Reinke


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Pro Bike: Theo Bos's Cervelo S3 aero road bike
An insight to how Cervélo uses their Test team
Multi track world championship medalist, Theo Bos, rides for the Cervélo test team and as the team's name implies, testing equipment is a true part of the rider's job.
Bos rides Cervélo's S3 aero road frame, which is claimed by the brand to be more aerodynamic than half of the ProTour peloton's time trial bikes.
Bos' S3 is decidedly standard. According to Damon Rinard, Cervélo's race engineer, the team doesn't even hand select their bikes from stock they simply place an order and receive the batch. This means that, depending on size, when a bike is built it could go to you or Carlos Sastre or Thor Hushovd, and whom they go to isn't pre-determined before they're built.
The riders are allowed to choose their own handlebar curve, stem length, their position, saddle, gearing and crank length. This isn't always the case, and especially wasn't within European teams just a few years ago.
"There's a philosophy at Cervélo Test team: rider centred, coach driven, success oriented," said Rinard. "That means that the riders are at the centre."
The 3T Rotundo Bos uses has a classic bend
The shaping on the new Pro Q rings is quite subtle, but said to still give advantage to a rider's power stroke.
One of the only prototype items we could find on Bos' bike was a set of pre-production Rotor Q-Rings. The concept of the Q-Rings is to provide maximum gear ratio at the most powerful point of the rider's pedal stroke, which is the opposite of what Shimano to did with Bio-Pace.
Bos' rings differ in by way of the exaggeration of their shape, it's much more subtle than the current production version of the Q-Rings. Rinard said that the new shape is called Pro Q.
"Rotor developed the rings over last season and through the winter and we saw it at the Test team for the first time in January at our training camp in Portugal," he said. "We had just a few prototypes that went through race engineer testing in its un-anodised form and everything was good, so now it's anodised and on the bikes for training and racing."
Bos uses the Pro Q rings in their #4 bolt pattern position for both the small and large chainrings.
The S3 has a revised cable routing through the top of the top tube
Though not a full redesign the team and production S3 frames now feature shifter cable routing though the top of the top tube versus ports in the side of the downtube.
Now instead of the cable housing entering the frame, as it previously did, it stops at the entry point and the cable is funnelled through a stainless steel internal guide. The stainless tube is a permanent structural piece of the frame, says Rinard. The tubes are lined with standard nylon tubes and as a system cables can quickly and easily be inserted and routed through the frame without fishing for cables or housing in the frame. The system doesn't gain weight over the previous either.
"It makes it real easy for the mechanic," says Rinard. "They just shove the cable in and it comes out and it's a lot better for the rider because we've reduced friction by 30-percent."
Bos uses a SRAM PC-1090R chain. The PG-1070 11-28-tooth cassette was special for ATOC's brutal stage 6
Many of the Test team riders, Bos included, selected SRAM's 11-28-tooth cassettes for the severity of the Palmdale to Big Bear Lake stage at Tour of California. Gear choice is up to the rider and Cervélo had to put in a rush request for more of the 11-28-tooth cassettes the night before the race's queen stage.
"We were in the wind tunnel developing the P4 and this feature of the S3 is a result of that," said Rinard. "All of the work that went into the P4 makes it the fastest UCI legal bike that you can buy and one of the details on the P4 are the chainstays.
The frame uses a standard 1 1/8in fork steerer to keep the front end as narrow as possible. Stiffness is bolstered through the use of Cervélo's SmartWall tubing technology, which describes lateral ribs of high modulus fibre that run the right and left lengths of the bike's main tubes.
The chainstays are flared for aerodynamics, a byproduct is added stiffness
Out back, the most interesting innovation is the uniquely bugled chainstays.
"We've updated the S3's chainstays to make them more aerodynamic," said Rinard. "You can see by the dimensions that they're fairly wide laterally. The side benefit is that the chainstays being wider, naturally makes them stiffer. So we get a stiffness increase and an aero drag reduction.
Aerodynamic, stiff, but probably the greatest benefit to thank the Cervélo Test team for is the new easier cable routing — thanks team.
The Cervélo test program
Cervélo race engineer, Damon Rinard with Bos' S3
BikeRadar spoke to Rinard, who also serves as Cervélo's advanced research and design engineer, at length at the Amgen Tour of California to get a run down of Bos' bike and how the Cervélo test program works.
"I spend most of my time in Toronto doing design work and research for V-WD (Vroomen-White Design)," said Rinard. "When I can I get together with the team, usually not at a race, but before a race that's when the best research is done. But Cervélo Test team has the word test in its name because we do a lot of testing but the races are, hopefully, not where we do our testing."
Rinard and the team gather data and product information before the races. The team uses a four-step protocol. The first is a natural design based product development, which is akin to what any other manufacturer does when developing a new product.
The second is 'race engineer testing' or simply Rinard's own lab and ride based testing, where he evaluates what the product in a manner that best emulates how the team will use it.
"It can consist of anything I can think of," said Rinard. "Usually I ride the thing myself; we make up laboratory tests. In Vroomen-White Design we have a test lab that's at my disposal, so we can measure things, weigh things and stress things there."
The third step is putting it on the Test team's training bikes for the riders to evaluate and give their feedback. It gives both the riders and the team's mechanics a chance to get their hands on the product and use it as they would for racing.
"The riders on the test team know that a third of their job is product development," said Rinard. "Cervélo Test team has three pillars: racing, product development and fan access. The riders know that these components are their job, not just an annoyance."
The fourth step only happens if everything is perfect in the first three steps.
"We race it," said Rinard.
The fifth step, which is then out of the team's hands, is production, should Cervélo or the partner decide that the product is ready for the market.
Complete bike specifications
- Frame: Cervélo S3
- Fork: 3T FundaTeam
- Headset: Cane Creek S8 IS
- Stem: 3T ARX Team, 140mm
- Handlebars: 3T Rotundo Team, 42cm
- Tape/grips: 3T
- Front brake: SRAM Red
- Rear brake: SRAM Red
- Brake levers: SRAM Red
- Front derailleur: SRAM Red
- Rear derailleur: SRAM Red
- Shift levers: SRAM Red
- Cassette: SRAM PG-1070, 11-28-tooth
- Chain: SRAM PC-1090R
- Crankset: Rotor 3D Road
- Bottom bracket: Rotor BB1
- Pedals: Speedplay Zero stainless
- Wheelset: Zipp 404
- Rims: Zipp 330 tubular
- Front hub: Zipp 88
- Rear hub: Zipp 188
- Spokes: Sapim CX-Ray
- Front tire: Vittoria Corsa EVO CX
- Rear tire: Vittoria Corsa EVO CX
- Saddle: fi'zi:k Arione CX
- Seat post: Cervélo S3
- Bottle cages: Elite Custom Race
- Computer: CycleOps Joule
- Other accessories: 2x 5mm stem spacers
Critical measurements
- Rider's height: 1.9m (6'3″)
- Rider's weight: 77kg (169.75lbs)
- Saddle height, from BB (c-t): 820mm
- Seat tube length, c-t: 540mm
- Seat tube length, c-c: 480mm
- Tip of saddle nose to C of bars (next to stem): 600mm
- Head tube length: 180mm
- Top tube length: 580mm, horizontal
- Total bicycle weight: 7.03kg (15.49lbs)