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Entrepreneurs are bound to hit a few snags on the road to success, but it's often those very snags that teach them the most about running a business. Learning where successful entrepreneurs went wrong (or right) can help new business owners avoid common pitfalls and get a valuable leg-up on the competition.
With that in mind, we pored over hundreds of Shopify Success Stories to find actionable advice from seasoned entrepreneurs and established business owners. After careful consideration, we narrowed our selection down to the 40 you'll find below.
If you find a piece of advice that resonates with you, click the Tweet link to share it with your followers!
1. Blu Kicks
via blukicks.com
"Leverage tools and software to free up time to focus on growing the business." - @BluKicks (Tweet)
Speed up your workflow with these 6 free online tools for small business owners.
2. Just Spotted
via justspotted.dk
"We have benefitted from being personal in our communication and creating a story around Just Spotted. We did not want to be another generic webshop without a soul." - Just Spotted (Tweet)
Your about page is one of the easiest to tell your brand's story. Don't neglect it!
3. Cover-Up
via Cover-Up
"Clearly define your goals. If you don't, you'll never be able to tick them off and measure how you've performed." - @Cover_Up (Tweet)
These 32 easy-to-follow KPIs are a great way to measure your success and keep your business moving in the right direction.
4. Glam Seamless Hair Extensions
via Glam Seamless
"Shopify is a great platform that has awesome SEO tools that make all the difference. Use them! SEO is very important and taking time to work on it will take you far." - @GlamSeamless (Tweet)
Read The 10 Step Local SEO Audit That You Can Do On Your Own.
5. No More Pain Ergonomics
"Help solve your customer's problems. Put yourself in their shoes and think about they are looking for, and what will appeal to them during their research." - No More Pain Ergonomics (Tweet)
Not sure if your product idea makes sense? Read 6 simple ways to validate your business idea.
6. Angelus Direct
via Angelus Direct
"Use social media and take advantage before it's too late. We have over 50k followers on Instagram, 10k on Facebook, and 20k on YouTube. They are a revolving door of sales. We show potential customers how to use our product and display artists and fans on our page for support." - @AngelusDirect (Tweet)
Social media is becoming more and more important to driving sales. Here are 10 businesses who are doing it right.
via BEARD KING
"Focus on developing the message and brand experience you want to create for your customers." - BEARD KING (Tweet)
Need an example? Check out how Nordstrom made itself synonymous with customer service.
8. Emmy's Organics
via Emmy's Organics
"Pictures are everything. We invested in a DSLR camera, basic light kit and white back-drop. It wasn't a big investment for a lot of return." - @emmysorganics (Tweet)
You can also take great photos using your smartphone. Watch this video to find out how to take great product photos.
9. Devon Maryn
via Devon Maryn
"You must work with influencers, bloggers, editors, reviewers, etc. to get a steady stream of referral traffic to your site. Word of mouth spreads best and fastest this way, and each influencer gives a different perspective on what makes your product unique and different." - @devonmaryn (Tweet)
Bloggers are a great way to get the word out. Read our list of 6 practical and proven ways to drive traffic to your online store.
10. Teaglad
via Teaglad
"My biggest recommendation for new store owners is to figure out how they're going to acquire customers before jumping in and setting up every aspect of their business." - @TeaGlad (Tweet)
Writing a business plan is an important first step for any business. Here's a comprehensive guide to building yours.
11. 3sixteen
via 3sixteen.com
"Find a way to tell a story about your products. One of the things we're most proud of is the fact that our denim looks better the more you use it; few things in life can boast this characteristic." - @3sixteen (Tweet)
Setting yourself apart from the crowd is an important part of running a successful brand. Here's how to connect with your customers and make more sales.
via MUMAhealth.com
"Speak to someone who currently runs an online Shopify store and pick their brains for any questions related to online sales." - MUMA (Tweet)
Forming a mastermind group can put you in touch with other like-minded business owners.
13. Clever Travel Companion
"We recommend doing your PR yourself. Using hired PR has never worked for us, it seems most people like hearing from store owners and they want a personal story. It takes a lot of work to identify media to pitch, but it pays off." - @clevertravelco (Tweet)
Creating your own press kit is easier than it sounds. Here's a step-by-step walkthrough.
14. jimmyCASE
via thejimmyCASE.com
"Spend lots of time on Google Analytics." - @thejimmycase (Tweet)
Learning how to set up and use Google Analytics can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. Check out our easy-to-follow guide.
15. Earth Garden
"We actively nurture [our] community through engagement and communication, offering resources and responding individually. A customer that feels included will come back! - @EarthGardenMag (Tweet)
Find out How One Man Listened to His Community, Then Built a $40k Per Month Ecommerce Business in Under a Year.
16. Bedford Slims
via bedfordslims.com
"Dive deep into Shopify's extensive apps and tools. There's a lot of great ways to enhance your store presence." - @BedfordSlims (Tweet)
Browse through the Shopify App Store to find new, free ways to enhance your store and make life easier as a business owner.
17. Regal Gentlemen
"Be very selective of who you hire into your company. You want to try and build up a great ethos so when those people start to hire they will once again hire the right people. Your employees are your front door, these are the people your customers will first see when dealing with your business." - @RegalGentleman (Tweet)
Find out how to hire and train the right employees.
18. GirlyGoGarter
"Trial and error. You definitely learn from just doing. We have had our bumps in the road, but they have simply taught us lessons and new ways to do things!" - @GirlyGoGarter (Tweet)
Failure is inevitable. Just make sure you learn how to fail well and learn from your mistakes.
19. Jamie Clawson
via jamieclawson.com
"Whether you're a big company or small, transitioning from another platform or brand new, take advantage of all of Shopify's assets. The support, themes and apps can easily make your store look like a million bucks in a small amount of time." - @JamieClawson (Tweet)
Visit the theme store to find a bold new look for your store.
20. Christmas Shirt Company
"I used to think haggling was something that belonged only to history, but once I started my own business I realized it's still very much alive in the B2B world." - @xmasshirtco (Tweet)
You can usually find a little wiggle room with your wholesale supplier. We've covered this in chapter 11 of How to Find a Product to Sell Online.
21. Bewdly Coffee Company
via bewdly.com
"Avoid paying for advertising. Once your product starts to sell, you'll notice it will start to gain traction through word of mouth." - @bewdlycoffee (Tweet)
It's possible to get coverage without paying a dime. Here's our guide on hacking the press.
22. Jammy Pack
via jammypack.com
"Free shipping, both ways. Shoppers would rather the price include whatever you need to make up [the cost]." - @goJammyPackGo (Tweet)
Offering free shipping is easier than it sounds. Here are 8 resources to help you get started.
23. Paper Anniversary
"Listen to your customers! Generating honest reviews is the most powerful feedback. No matter how spectacular and cutting-edge you think a new design or product is, that gets you nowhere if it's not what your customers are looking for. Let the customer be your guide." - @paper_gifts (Tweet)
As many as 79% of consumers trust product reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Find out why online store owners should embrace online reviews.
24. MSTRMND Collective
"I can only speak from personal experience, but for anyone out there just starting your online store, I'd highly suggest getting some exposure from blogs/websites that relate to your product. That has been the driving force for our sales, and took little to no effort." - @TheMSTRMND (Tweet)
Putting your product in front of influential users on social media can have a profound impact on your sales. Find out how True Rivalry made it happen.
25. Child of Wild
via childofwild.com
"Utilize social media. It's free! At any given point I can post to instagram and potentially have 205k eyes looking and reading. That has never been accessible before. We are literally rewriting business books because of these free avenues." - @child_of_wild (Tweet)
Child of Wild does a fantastic job at marketing through Instagram. Here's how to build a massive following just like them.
26. Nursery Tree Wholesalers
via nurserytreewholesalers.com
"Quality, original blog posts will add informative content to your site while increasing your site's page count, making it more valuable to customers and thus more valuable to search engines. Use the blog that comes built in with Shopify!" - @homedecorbonsai (Tweet)
Nursery Tree Wholesalers' blog is full of great tips on how to raise a healthy bonsai. Here's why every ecommerce business needs a blog (and 9 ideas to get you started).
27. Brooklyn Bambini
"If you love what you want to sell, and you believe deeply in its value, [...] then relax - it will work!" - @brooklynbambini (Tweet)
Starting a business around something you're passionate about makes it easier to stay focused and motivated. Read about how 4 handmade goods store owners turned their passions into profit.
28. Craft & Vision
"A well managed and growing mailing list, and the willingness to give things away and surprise people, has kept us moving forward." - @CraftAndVision (Tweet)
Email is becoming more and more important to small businesses. Find out how to build an email list that builds your ecommerce business.
29. Stand Out Designs
"I would like to share the advice my brother gave me when I started this business: 'You need to do three things to be successful. Focus, focus, and focus.'" - @StandoutD (Tweet)
Hustle is an important aspect of success. Check out our tips on staying productive on the weekends,
30. The Great Cookie
"Absolutely use the Shopify ecommerce university. I relied on this resource almost every single day when starting up this store and now read every Shopify blog and tutorial." - @TheGreatCookie (Tweet)
The Shopify Ecommerce University is full of valuable and actionable lessons and tutorials. Don't miss out.
31. Luxire
via luxire.com
"Outpricing the competitor does not always work." - Luxire (Tweet)
Lower prices isn't a sure-fire way to win customers. Find out how psychological pricing is your golden ticket to selling more.
32. Drink Water
via wedrinkwater.com
"Automate every single part of your business possible." - @WeDrinkWater (Tweet)
Automating your small business is easier than you might expect. IFTTT, a handy online service, can really help.
33. Craft Beerd
via craftbeerd.com
"Tax - make sure to collect it." - @craftbeerdSD (Tweet)
Tax is an often overlooked aspect of running a business, but it's not something you should ignore. Find out if you need to be charging sales tax for your small business.
34. Soaring Heart
via soaringheart.com
"Don't stop testing. Change your banner, watch what happens. Add new photos and watch what happens. Test your copy, is it working? Change you meta descriptions to a new pitch, add a different call to action, make button blue that was green before. Test, test, test. Keep a log of what you are changing, what you are hoping to see, and what the outcomes are. This will help you more than you know." - @SoaringHeartWA (Tweet)
A/B testing is an incredibly effective way of fine-tuning your online store and maximizing sales. Check out our simple guide to getting started.
35. Jaqet
via jaqet.com
"Create your brand identity and vibe from the very beginning of a potential customer coming to your website. The experience of your store should not be under valued. Take advantage of how easy Shopify makes it to give your store a unique and special feel." - @jaqet (Tweet)
You need to set yourself apart from your competitors, and a strong brand identity is the best way to do it. Here are 5 brand strategies to uniquely position your ecommerce business above the competition.
36. Let's Hug It Out
via letshugitout.com
"Never ever give up on your dreams and your passions. Life is too short and you are here for a powerful purpose and you deserve to lead a life of your dreams but if you quit on yourself you are hurting no one but you." - @hugitouttees (Tweet)
Perseverance is one of the most common traits of successful entrepreneurs. Check out the full list and learn how you can adopt them.
37. Awesome Drinks
"Selling a product that's complicated to describe in text? Create a YouTube video and put it on the product page so you can get that viewer additional information and see you, the owner, so they can relate to you as a human and not just a store." - @awesomedrinks (Tweet)
Ecommerce videos are a popular way to provide more information and demonstrate your brand's personality online. They're also great at boosting sales.
38. Jackalope Trading
"Do everything you can to promote yourself - cards, stickers, social networking.. Everything helps. A lot of my sales come from my social networking sites - I post pictures of my newest items and direct them to my site." - @jackalopetradng (Tweet)
Packaging inserts are a smart way to sneak some extra branding into each purchase. It's also super easy to accomplish.
39. Holy Crap
via holycrap.com
"Set goals and use Shopify reports and Google Analytics to analyze results and tweak your marketing activities. Don't worry about everything being perfect before getting started – it won't ever be perfect. Be flawsome!" - @HolyCrapCereal (Tweet)
Reviewing your analytics is an integral component of growing your store, adjusting your tactics, and earning more sales. Check out our post on how to track your marketing campaigns in Google Analytics.
40. Rubber Moon Art Supplies
via rubbermoon.com
"If you are able to do video marketing and connect with your customers through demonstrations or product sharing, we highly recommend this." - @Rubbermoon (Tweet)
Video marketing is becoming more and more popular (and effective). Here are 7 ways to leverage YouTube marketing to improve sales.
Want to be included in the next roundup? Submit your Shopify Success Story by filling out our short questionnaire. If you've got your own advice to share, post it in the comments section below!
About The Author
Jordan Simas is a copywriter, all you can eat sushi lover, and content creator at Shopify.


text:
AOA members' TAYE discounts good until July 31
Think About Your Eyes (TAYE) is the national consumer-facing advertising campaign designed to change public behavior with regard to how they think about vision health and how they think about their eyes.
This year's campaign is scheduled to kick off August 4 to coincide with the all-important time of year when parents focus on getting their children ready for school. The advertising will reach 95 percent of Americans ages 25 to 54, running on 20 cable TV networks in prime time, on drive-time radio in every U.S. market, on top-ranked Internet sites such as YouTube and CNN, and in national publications such as People and Sports Illustrated. All of the messaging is designed to inspire consumers to schedule a comprehensive eye exam and—if they don't already have a regular eye doctor—to go to thinkaboutyoureyes.com
TAYE is offering a discount to AOA members who sign up to be listed on the TAYE site before July 31, just in time to be included in the next round of advertising. A regular listing is available for $200 for a year, $50 off the regular price. A premium listing is $399 for a year; its regular price is $500. To get the discount, use the code 'aoamember14' at sign-up.
Since July 2013, the TAYE campaign has run paid advertising reaching 120 million Americans, urging them to get their eyes examined annually. The campaign, managed by The Vision Council, has generated 925,000 visitors to thinkaboutyoureyes.com, 76 percent clicking through to its practice locator—or more than 700,000 searches for doctors.
TAYE's success is being measured by growth in annual eye exams, explains Ed Greene, CEO of The Vision Council. From July, 2013, through March, 2014, the campaign generated a 4.3 percent increase in total eye exams. The first quarter of 2014 saw even stronger results, with a 7.2 percent year over year increase in total eye exams and a 9.1 percent increase in exams in independent private practice locations. TAYE is driving consumers to act, adds Greene.
The ads are paid for by campaign underwriters and individual eye care providers who choose to become listed on the TAYE practice locator. As of June, 2014, approximately 5,400 practices were listed, including the practices of 2,200 AOA members. One satisfied participant is Fred Dubick, O.D., president of the California Optometric Association.
At Optometry's Meeting® in June, both outgoing President Mitchell T. Munson, O.D., and incoming President David A. Cockrell, O.D., urged the House of Delegates to encourage participation in TAYE, noting the TAYE campaign messages make eye exams and optometry top of mind.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Herbal Therapies Used by People Living With HIV: Turmeric
Part of A Practical Guide to Herbal Therapies for People Living With HIV
Before the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), there was some interest curcumin, based on results of test-tube studies. Subsequent studies in PHAs gave disappointing results.
Turmeric is usually sold in the form of capsules in which the curcumin content has been standardized to a particular percentage. The trials mentioned above used doses of curcumin ranging from 2,500 mg per day to 4,800 mg per day. These doses are substantially higher that those used to treat inflammation. At high doses, curcumin can cause stomach upset and perhaps even ulcers. People with low platelets levels or who are using anticoagulents should use curcumin with caution. Curcumin is sometimes blended with other herbs to improve absorption.
This article was provided by Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange. Visit CATIE's Web site to find out more about their activities, publications and services.


text: Hi, I have a couple of questions: 1. I'm running a cluster of 100 i386 cpus with channel bonding 100BaseT ethernet. I use RedHat7.2 and NFS mounted file server as user storage. Occasionally some process enter a " D " state forever and the only way I figured out to get rid of them is to reboot the node. What may cause this problem and is there more intelligent solution to it? 2. I'm planning to rebuild the cluster and to boot nodes through the net. I cannot afford Scyld or PBSPro so I am looking for a solution for a diskless cluster with mpich and OpenPBS. I believe that if I keep a local hard disk I should be able to provide the 'local space' required for OpenPBS to run. Any comments? 3. I'm shopping for a parallel debugger and accurate parallel profiler with minimal overload on the performance. Jumpshot seems to be inappropriate for profiling 100 cpus job. Any recommendations? Thanks in advance, -- Ted Sariyski


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Kobye - The Kobe That We Used To Know (Gotye- Somebody That I Used To Know Parody)
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Results 561 to 570 of 2006
Thread: Making your own power cards
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 03:26 AM #561
Novice (Lvl 1)
Originally Posted by Veilheim
- Join Date
- May 2008
- Posts
- 28
For starters, advice on layout modifications is always welcome. Furthermore Pointing out editing mistakes is also greatly appreciated, (I would rather you email me those, in order to not clog the thread). But most importantly I need to have the powers in txt format, in order to facilitate cut/paste of power descriptions. If you find a good link for this please let me know!
Thanks for the support!
I will do my best to have all the powers out within 1-2 weeks.
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 05:18 PM #562
Novice (Lvl 1)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Posts
- 9
Complete Fighter Cards
These two archives hold the .jpg files of the complete set of Fighter cards. Including Paragon Paths and Class Features.
These were used with Randal's template in MSE. I tried to keep the body text as clean as possible, so any action type, attack parameters etc. that had a box on the side to place the info are not represented in the body text unless there's something special about them. Even so it made it hard to fit everything on the card sometimes (Kensei Weaponsoul dance being the hardest).
In regards to the action icons, I used the weapons surrounded by a circle to represent utility, special action, or support abilities. Ones without the circle are attacks.
Enjoy. If someone has Illustrator/Photoshop, etc and wants to put these images onto a sheet, please be my guest. I don't have those programs myself.
EDIT: also, if someone wants to host these somewhere, be my guest.
MSE creates images that are 7.5" high. To make them the size of playing cards they should be scaled to 3.5" high x 2.5" wide.
Have fun with the new edition!
Last edited by Netminder69; Friday, 6th June, 2008 at 05:48 PM.
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 07:44 PM #563
Novice (Lvl 1)
Originally Posted by sunspot
- Join Date
- Mar 2008
- Posts
- 23
A general request that you incorperate backs to them, please?
Thank you for all your hard work
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 08:09 PM #564
Novice (Lvl 1)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Posts
- 5
I did not see this power card thread when I made this thread:
Or I would have put the information here instead. Now that I am more educated, here is another little file I put together for making your own power cards.
I put together an Excel file for my own personal use to make and fill in trading card size blanks for the character powers in 4e. After looking at all the powers in the Player's Handbook, it appears as if most of the powers are pretty consistent through most of the levels. With this in mind I decided to attach a little database to my power card blanks to create a generator so that once I enter a character's powers it will be there for any future characters.
I liked it so much that I decided to throw a few directions on it and I added to my website for all to use. I am posting it here so that you guys can use it for your own games. Please take a look and let me know if this is something you can use, and give some constructive feedback. It meets my needs but I know some other player's are more demanding.
The link is:
There are screenshots in the other thread I referenced.
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 08:44 PM #565
Novice (Lvl 1)
- Join Date
- May 2008
- Posts
- 4
Unrelated website, but that excel sheet is awesome.
How long did it take to make?
Thank you very much for this.
EDIT: Loving the sheet however a few questions.
1) How do i add more power slots seeing as there is only 6.
2) I just added the 4th power, and all of the "cards" afterwards seem to have become that card, is this meant to happen?
3) Is it possible to order the drop down menu?
4) Is it possible to add in power levels? (On the drop down menu as well)?
Last edited by halo99; Friday, 6th June, 2008 at 09:24 PM. Reason: Used the sheet for a bit
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 09:54 PM #566
Novice (Lvl 1)
Originally Posted by Iceman75
- Join Date
- May 2008
- Posts
- 28
I've added to my folder a pdf with Nytmare's excellent card backs.
It's a separate file, just reverse page and print.
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 10:07 PM #567
Novice (Lvl 1)
Originally Posted by halo99
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Posts
- 5
Yeah the website is not exactly related, outside the magic theme, but it is the only webspace I have access to so I took advantage, and a little traffic never hurts. At least I did link straight to the files without all that crappy popup stuff people do.
I'll try to answer your questions, and keep in mind that the database file hasn't exactly been "user-friendlyed" yet. :-)
1. There should be 9 power cards. It would be relatively advanced to add more cards to the existing page, which is why I added the drop down menu. Setup the cards for the powers you want and print it, then setup for the next cards. All the data stays in the database so you only have to use the name box to find it again.
2. The power on the cards have to be reselected right now after every power added and every sort of the database. I just enter the powers I want all at one time, and then choose the ones I want to print right before printing.
3. You can order the dropdown menu by sorting the database page. You can sort it anyway you want using the Excel Data sort function but there is already two sorts "macro'd" using the dropdown on the database page.
4. Now that you pointed it out, I do see where I didn't have the power level on my cards. I will see about fixing that and adding it to the dropdown menu. Having not gotten to play yet, this kind of information is great. Levels to be added.
It took me about 8 hours with the programming and formatting to complete the file. I did it basically for my own uses but I was so happy with its simplicity and use I added it to the greater web so that other's could use it if they want. I hope you enjoy it and I'll fix the file and get a new one up in a few hours.
Friday, 6th June, 2008, 11:28 PM #568
The Set (dnd_powers_set.rar)
This set consists of 1127 cards in total, including the powers from classes, paragon paths, epic destinies, feats and races (from the PHB and the MM, as well as Dragon issues 364 through 367), as well as blank cards to fill in for the different item types (though you can also use the template to make finished cards for different items).
By popular demand, I have included things like second wind, power attack and various class features. I'd rather not muddy the waters like that (for example, second wind isn't supposed to interact like that with effects that recharge encounter powers) and further increase each player's hand size, but the information is there on cards now for those of you who want it.
Also contained in the set are swordmage powers from the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide, and the barbarian powers from Dragon 368.
If you're using a template based on Randolph's "D&D" game file, you can probabably still use the set, but you will have to reenter some of the information.
There is also a separate set (contained in bard_n_druid.rar) that includes the powers for saric's bard and malcolm_n's druid. I've made a few cosmetic changes to them ('1 [w]+...' to '1[W] +...', etc. , but that's as far as my editting went (except for a few isolated cases like the bard's Mind Fog power, which was missing a target line and listed the targets in the attack line).
The Template (mse-template-Ander.rar)
The template should work properly with MSE versions 3.0.6 and 3.0.7, and includes a style option for completely bland (or more printer-friendly, if you will) and not quite so bland cards (see attached samples). Comes with its own MSE game file.
Installing the Template
In case you are unfamiliar with MSE and aren't sure how to load a set, here are some short instructions to point you in the right direction.
- Download and install MSE version 0.3.6.
- Put everything from 'mse-template-Ander.rar' into the 'data' directory of the MSE installation.
- Extract and open the 'core_complete.mse-set' contained in 'core_complete_set.rar'.
If you have never dealt with .rar archives before, you may need to get WinRar or some other compression tool that supports .rar files.
If you have previously used MSE, you might have to delete the 'mse8.config' file found in your '...Application Data/Magic Set Editor' directory.
If you have problems with MSE itself, you might have to download the Windows 9x fix, even if you are using Windows XP.
Power Card PDFs
If you are so inclinded, you can download the whole set in PDF form.
I'd still advise you to use the MSE option because you can easily make your own corrections as needed, add your own cards, and specify exactly which cards you want to print. But if, for some reason, you cannot get MSE to work, maybe you can get some use out of these PDFs.
With the 30/06/08 update, these cards are out of date. There are PDFs further down the thread, at least to the point of the 05/07/08 update.
Browsing the Set
You'll probably find browsing the set most comfortable sorting by the 'Power Class/Type/Level' column. The 'source' column might be hidden by default. If that is the case and you want to have it shown, you can activate it in the menu under 'Cards->Card List Columns...'.
Printing the Cards
MSE assumes a paper size of A4. There are some tips on getting it to work properly for other sizes further down the thread.
Edit (07/06/08): fixed a few errors in the set.
Edit (08/06/08): corrected erroneous information about compatibility.
Edit (09/06/08): a few more fixes to the set; also added the warforged DDI material.
Edit (14/06/08): corrected a few more errors and incorporated the PHB errata.
Edit (14/06/08 #2): another small fix to the set; added short installation instructions.
Edit (14/06/08 #3): added link to the power cards as PDFs.
Edit (18/06/08): changed PDF link to an up-to-date versions (thanks to Colawley).
Edit (30/06/08):
- More fixes: Added the missing Shadow Veil and Bolstering Strike Powers. Fixed errors in Frontline Surge, Deadly Payback, Raven's Glamour, and Hurl through Hell.
- Added powers for saric's bard.
- Added powers for malcolm_n's druid.
- Added powers for the swordmage.
- Added wizard illusion powers from dragon 364.
- Added warlord pack master powers from dragon 364.
- Populated the cards' 'source' field.
- Added powers for class features, second wind, and power attack.
Edit (05/07/08):
- Fixed a few errors (mostly cosmetic, with the most glaring ones being a wrong icon for the Nimble Strike exploit, and removal of the 'DRUID' placeholder card).
- Incorporated errata for the powers from Dragon #364 (please let me know if I missed any).
- Added powers for the artificer playtest from Dragon #365.
Edit (25/09/08):
- Added the remaining powers from Dragon up to issue 366.
- Added swordmage powers from the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide.
- Incorporated the latest errata to the core powers.
- A few more error corrections.
Edit (30/10/08):
- Added the powers from Dragon 367.
- Added the barbarian powers from Dragon 368.
- Moved the fan-made bard and druid to their own set.
- A few more error corrections.
Last edited by Ander00; Friday, 31st October, 2008 at 10:16 AM.
Saturday, 7th June, 2008, 01:05 AM #569
Novice (Lvl 1)
Originally Posted by Ander00
- Join Date
- Sep 2003
- Location
- West Los Angeles
- Posts
- 9
Has anyone made a PDF of these?
Saturday, 7th June, 2008, 09:09 AM #570
Novice (Lvl 1)
Originally Posted by MrJamela
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
- Posts
- 4
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AMD A8-7600 Kaveri APU Review - HSA Arrives
The AMD Kaveri Architecture
Kaveri: AMD's New Flagship Processor
How big is Kaveri? We already know the die size of it, but what kind of impact will it have on the marketplace? Has AMD chosen the right path by focusing on power consumption and HSA? Starting out an article with three questions in a row is a questionable tactic for any writer, but these are the things that first come to mind when considering a product the likes of Kaveri. I am hoping we can answer a few of these questions by the end of this article, but alas it seems as though the market will have the final say as to how successful this new architecture is.
AMD has been pursuing the "Future is Fusion" line for several years, but it can be argued that Kaveri is truly the first "Fusion" product that completes the overall vision for where AMD wants to go. The previous several generations of APUs were initially not all that integrated in a functional sense, but the complexity and completeness of that integration has been improved upon with each iteration. Kaveri takes this integration to the next step, and one which fulfills the promise of a truly heterogeneous computing solution. While AMD has the hardware available, we have yet to see if the software companies are willing to leverage the compute power afforded by a robust and programmable graphics unit powered by AMD's GCN architecture.
(Editor's Note: The following two pages were written by our own Josh Walrath, dicsussing the technology and architecture of AMD Kaveri. Testing and performance analysis by Ryan Shrout starts on page 3.)
Process Decisions
The first step in understanding Kaveri is taking a look at the process technology that AMD is using for this particular product. Since AMD divested itself of their manufacturing arm, they have had to rely on GLOBALFOUNDRIES to produce nearly all of their current CPUs and APUs. Bulldozer, Piledriver, Llano, Trinity, and Richland based parts were all produced on GF's 32 nm PD-SOI process. The lower power APUs such as Brazos and Kabini have been produced by TSMC on their 40 nm and 28 nm processes respectively.
Kaveri will take a slightly different approach here. It will be produced by GLOBALFOUNDRIES, but it will forego the SOI and utilize a bulk silicon process. 28 nm HKMG is very common around the industry, but few pure play foundries were willing to tailor their process to the direct needs of AMD and the Kaveri product. GF was able to do such a thing. APUs are a different kind of animal when it comes to fabrication, primarily because the two disparate units require different characteristics to perform at the highest efficiency. As such, compromises had to be made.
Continue reading our review of the new AMD Kaveri A8-7600 APU!!
GPUs perform best using high density transistors running at lower speeds, as more parallel units can be packed into a chip. The lower clock speeds are not necessarily a hindrance to these massively parallel processors, so the focus is primarily that of maximizing transistor count to die space. CPUs on the other hand seem to work better with more spacing between transistors and being able to run at a higher clock speed without breaking any power and TDP envelopes. These are generalizations, but the truth of the matter is that CPUs and GPUs are very different beasts when it comes to design considerations at a very low level.
The 28 nm bulk/HKMG process at GF is more of a compromise that is optimized for good performance for both the GPU and CPU. It offers good enough density and good enough speed to make for a competitive product in the marketplace. It is a bit more biased towards the GPU portion, as the CPU takes a hit when it starts to run at the higher TDPs. So at 95 watts, the CPU portion of Kaveri is running as fast as it can while being constrained by TDP concerns. Even though 28 nm HKMG in theory should offer a little more headroom than the previous 32 nm PD-SOI based process, in the end Kaveri will run oh-so-slightly slower than the previous generation Richland in terms of raw CPU clockspeed. The GPU portion will run significantly slower than the previous VLIW4 based part in Richland. These are not necessarily bad things, because the efficiency improvements in both the CPU and GPU offset the clockspeed disadvantages.
Steamroller Improvements
Some years back AMD decided to go the CMT (clustered multi-threading) route for multi-threaded efficiency vs. die cost. The first product to sport these new cores was the Bulldozer based FX-8150. The results were not very positive. The part showed some real issues with power consumption, heat production, and single threaded performance. While it did very well in heavily multi-threaded apps, it was not exactly a winning formula. The next update to the architecture was Piledriver. This is found in both the Trinity/Richland line of APUs as well as the FX 8300/6300/4300 series of parts. Piledriver had some small improvements in performance per clock, but the biggest improvement was power. Piledriver did not get as hot or pull as much power per clock as did Bulldozer.
Kaveri introduces the new Steamroller architecture for the CPU portion of the APU. Steamroller is another improvement over Piledriver, especially in terms of performance per clock. Kaveri is comprised of two Steamroller modules which each contain two cores, so a two module unit can address four threads. The front end of the module was reworked in a very significant manner to improve not only single thread performance, but also multi-threaded performance as well.
The biggest improvement is the addition of another decoder. Previous iterations only had one instruction decode unit per module, so each module was limited to one thread per clock. We can see right off the bat that single threaded performance will suffer because a good portion of the execution units in each core will be waiting for instructions every clock. Multi-threading also suffers because each module only addresses half of the potential threads vs. core count.
AMD did not just stop there. They improved essentially every piece of the front end, as well as how the D-caches handle and store data. The integer and floating point units look to be left untouched, but every other aspect of the chip was touched upon and improved by AMD's engineers. The integer and floating point/SIMD units were seemingly fast enough for the job, but they just could not be fed data and instructions effectively and efficiently.
AMD showed us estimates of a peak 20% improvement in performance per clock. They then told us that in most real-world situations that number is likely to be 10%. Still, this is a pretty big jump in single thread performance, and it will be able to handle multi-threaded loads more efficiently as well.
Power does not seem to be an issue with this design, though as mentioned in the process section AMD did take a hit in CPU performance in the high TDP range. With more tweaking of the process we can expect faster parts to be released down the line, but for the now the A10-7850K will be the top SKU for this introduction. Also, AMD will be offering these products in the 15 watt TDP range later on this year. That is a pretty significant range of TDPs for essentially a single design. AMD did disclose all of the power saving features, but they seem to be very comparable to what was introduced with Richland.
Definition of Compute Cores
AMD is coming out with a new description for cores with Kaveri. Compute cores were bandied about during the tech day, and they actually make a bit of sense. At CES, NVIDIA came out with their "192 core" Tegra K1, but that actually seems a bit of a misnomer as compared to how AMD is defining "cores". Those Tegra cores are more akin to SIMD units than standalone cores. My understanding is that a single SMX unit could be considered a "compute core".
On the other hand, AMD's GCN compute clusters can be defined as cores in a more historical sense. The top end APU has a total of 12 compute cores; 4 of them are the CPU cores in the Steamroller modules, while the other 8 are the GCN units. Each GCN unit contains 4 x 16 wide vector units (SIMD), a single scalar unit, branch and message unit, a scheduler, texture and texture fetch units, and a bunch of cache. Each GCN unit has around 146 KB of cache divided between vector registers, a scalar register, local data share, and L1 cache. It also has such basics as a program counter, which certainly fits in with their traditional definition of cores. Each GCN unit can theoretically assign new jobs/work to the CPU when needed. While you certainly can't boot up an OS from a GCN core, it can do a significant amount of work independently from the CPU.
Video News
"Now that it is 2014, AMD has marked off the PCI-E 3.0 checkbox for their OEM partners and have opened the door for future, higher performing FX processors utilizing the FM2+ socket infrastructure."
Editor - should this be FM3+ ??
Not that we know of. FM2+ is what Kaveri is based on, and it supports PCI-E 3.0. That socket should be around a long time.
I think the issue was when reading "higher performing FX processors utilizing the FM2+ socket infrastructure."
First thing comes to mind is the FX-xxxx series, not the Axx-xxxx series. hence the reference to AM3+. maybe change "FX" to "steamroller" or some other reference outside of "FX"?
well it seems the person was refering to FM3+ not AM3+ socket.. my bad. got confused :P
Sources at AMD have stated that FX branded processors will be back, but AM3 is a dead end. These things point to AMD eventually releasing a FX processor on FM2+. Now, this FX processor will be a APU and not the traditional FX products we have seen so far.
why are you the only reviewer who didnt get the a10? also what about comparisons with iris pro, is that still in the works?
TR doesn't get A10 either
We definitely were not the only ones to NOT get an A10 part, but we were short on time after CES to go out and source one from a different place, that's for sure.
CPU wise, not much of an upgrade. Kaveri is sill relegated to low end PC's and laptops.
Sadly, this seems true. I understand now why there won't be an FX Steamroller CPU; it's just nowhere near competitive to the Intel counterparts. As a longtime AMD enthusiast, I am saddened by this, but by the same token, if I were the CEO of AMD, it would be hard for me to make a business case to invest the engineering resources to catch up (strictly referring to integer performance). The future seems to be phablets, tablets, and convertibles.
but that is kinda the point isnit? race to the bottom.
Most users but the cheapest option possible, that is why there are so many people with atom (pre silvermont) and low end celeron systems, constantly complaining how shity their laptop is.
A good enough cpu {and lets face it modern day low end cpu's are more than powerful enough for 90% of home users} with a good entry level gpu for around $600 will be the biggest sellers. It's just good business. AMD pushing the low end by making said low end systems good enough to play games at very decent quality will encourage the pc gaming ecosystem to once and for all dominate the console.
The money(Profits) have never been in High End gamimg, for Intel, at least, and have never been in high end gaming. Intel has always developed for the server, and mainstream market. Intel bases it chips for the enthusiast market arouund its server SKUs, with the server specific functionality removed, or fused off! Intel has always subsidized its gaming SKUs, with its profits from its server, and mainstream sales! AMD can not afford to do this subsidizing, and never really could, to the degree that Intel could! The whole profitable part of the market has shifted to the Moble Tablet/Phone, and low cost laptop/chromebook markets, that is where the money is, and AMD currently can only remain viable as a ongoing concern, by shifting its resources towards the GPU/APU market where it beats Intel, and competes with Nvidia! AMD does provide Intel with plenty of competition in the LOW cost, low to midrange(With Karvei) CPU/APU market! Intel is in deep trouble, in the low cost x86 market, and currently is not a factor in the Mobile CPU/APU market!
Loan AMD half a billion to restart its high end development, and you better have a few billion in reserve for a revolving line of funding, beacuse that is the level of subsidizing that gaming high end development costs!
Put your big money where your pouts are!
Edit: gaming high end development
TO: gaming high end CPU development
well this cements amd's mobile shift they probably have nothing to compete with intel's performence on the desktop/server side till excavator or after... I will give them credit though they were handed a bunch of lemons and made the best lemonade they could.
Congrats to AMD! A $120 Kaveri and siblings that beats higher priced Intel i3/i5 at PCMark8 and even the i7-4770k at games like Battlefield 4.
The last time AMD won in PCMark8 over equivalent Intel CPUs they took the majority of market share and with HSA acceleration, TrueAudio and Mantle, they are likely to do it again.
Erm....which graphs are you looking at? Get off the weed
Probably referring to the 7850k APU
I've always wondered with AMD how long it would be before they try and make a push to have a GDDR5 memory slot included on Fusion Motherboards. Presumably it would give the built in GCN cores quite a boost in performance and gaming.
Intel IPC has been at a virtual standstill since Sandy Bridge (2009) with most of the improvements that do exist coming from tangental features such as dynamic turbo/power modes.
AMD, what the hell are you doing?? Five years. Intel has gifted you five_goddamn_years of making virtually zero IPC progress, and you still can't catch them?
It's like a modern version of the goddamn tortoise and the hare with the hare deliberately doing everything it can to stall on purpose, and yet is still unable to lose the race.
To be fair in the end, the tortoise won the race. Though your point still stands.
I also don't think Intel is stalling for them to catch up (though that would be nice). Intel just plain doesn't care, they consider ARM the threat now. They know AMD isn't going to be catching up for quite a while. Given the way things are going, they can just sit on new stuff until someone actually comes to compete.
Intel is not in the technology improving business, they are in the technology Milking business, Milking those customers for Profit business!!
I'm sure AMD would be just fine if they had Intel's budget.
Everyone is focusing on the APU stuff.
I'm surprised that im about to update my 1st gen i7 940 to a haswell 4770k, and the actual performance gain is *only* 2x. For a 5-6 years update cycle, that is quite disappointing :/
quick question btw, is there a haswell cpu around that price range with no gpu but more power? i wish i could drop the GPU entirelly and spend the same or a tad more money on a faster cpu.
You can find some models that don't have the GPU portion but they aren't going to run faster than the models WITH processor graphics. :/
Haswell-e is not due yet, Sandy-e or the newer Ivy-bridge-e are the only options. Because Ivy-e uses the same platform as Sandy-e I decided to go with a 4770k for now and I'm saving for when Haswell-e is released. From what I've read that will have a fairly decent performance improvement. Ivy-e is not much better than Sandy-e just like the Sandy/Ivy-Haswell improvements are minimal.
Please do not forget to define AMD's mobile tablet based APUs use of the Mobile/Full versions of openCL, openGL, etc, as Nivida's Tegra K1, now supports the desktop/descrete GPU, full versions of openCL, etc., on Nvidia's new mobile Tegra K1 based platforms! AMD needs to offer Full version support of OpenCL, etc. drivers on any SKUs that compete with the Nivida Tegra K1s! In the Future, with respect to any reviews of Mobile devices built around the AMD Kaveri mobile APUs in competition with the Nvidia Tegra K1 based mobile devices based "APU Type" CPU/GPU systems, please make sure to tell the reader if the mobile device will allow loading of a full Linux distro, and if that mobile divice's CPU/GPU APU, or "APU" type(Nvidia k1, etc) system supports the full openCL, etc. versions of the drivers! I am seriously looking for the K1 based tablet devices, and their K1 based ability to run full desktop style applications via full version openCL, OpenGL driver support, to allow me to run Blender 3d(Light Mesh Modeling) and Gimp for graphics, on a mobile tablet, that can run a full Linux Distro. Full openCL, openGL driver support on a Tablet/Mobile processor(K1, YES), (Kaveri, ??), is big news, and I look forward to your device reviews.
here's the problem, One chip, one price, just like how the Nvidia didn't get the consoles.. all three.. they will not be able to beat the price/performance point. I own two NVidia cards. from a business stand point, this spells bad news for Nvidia and anyone else in the smaller factor market. lots of power, all in one, less Watts. this is not high end. I hope they release high end chips but.. I'm beginning to think its not going to happen in the economy
What did the post, that you replied to, have to say, about what you are talking about? the Poster needs full Linux capability, and full OpenCL, OpenGL from a Mobile "APU"/APU type device(tablet) Nvidia's K1, can provide FULL openCL, openGL support, and the poster hopes AMD can provide an equivalent level of support, with its competiting SKUs!
The poster will buy any tablet, even it was made by marvin the martian, if it meets the posters needs, the poster wants a tablet that runs a full linux rooted distro, that can run Blender 3d, and gimp(both reguire Full OpenGL, and Maybe some Full OpenCL support, and run under windows[Hell no], or Linux)! the Poster would prefer a mobile x86 AMD platform(if it has full OpenGL, openCL, etc. support like The K1), but will use the K1 if there is A blender 3d, and Gimp, Arm based build available, to run on the linux distro based ARM platform! The K1 will compete very well in its intended form factor against the AMD kaveri tablet APUs! BUT no Blender 3d, no Gimp, and No full linux rooted distro, on the tablet, NO BUY!
The Poster's statement was poorly written and incredibly verbose making it more difficult to distill relevant content.
Good upgrade when compared to the previous generation... it is matching and at times even beat the A10 5800K despite being a lower end part. Yes, it doesn't beat a core i3 in single threaded stuff but the multi-threaded performance is decent.
It seems AMD is still in the business of shooting them self in the foot with an RPG.
After the Phenom II series of CPU, their new core module design has lead to around a 50% lower IPC on each core.
For example, compare the fx8350 to the X6 1100t it beats it in overall performance by a very small margin, and largely fails against it when it comes to single threaded performance, all while having a 700MHz across 8 cores, lead over the Phenom II.
AMD is still using that flawed design, and it can barely compete with a dual core, core i3. This is a low end part and thus it will not attract high end users, and it will not attract gamers.
It is very niche because it will struggle to even attract general computer users as the most common tasks done by general/ entry level users, rely more on single threaded performance *which the core i3 offers nearly twice the single threaded performance.
Furthermore, this CPU is unlikely to attract even casual gamers, as the games they commonly play, do not even need the GPU horsepower of the APU, and if they are into running demanding games, they will likely want to run them at high settings. But it will be too much to ask to have them give up nearly half of their single threaded performance for slightly better GPU performance (keep in mind that browsers and many other common applications are still single threaded.
AT implies AMD has one more bulldozer-design before passing at a new architecture, the Excavator.
I think someone at AMD must have realized that speed demon CPU architectures aren't appropriate for nowadays' computing demands and will fall back to a wide and high IPC core. They may do as Intel with Conroe and fall back to their mobile architecture: a modified (wider and cache-beefed) Jaguar. That however takes time, so in 2016 maybe we'll see a competitive AMD CPU.
Bone stock Phenom II on 32/28nm would be a better CPU than the FX line, but that train left the station years ago.
For me I am just annoyed, I currently have a Phenom II x6 1075t overclocked to 4GHz and, and to match its performance, an 8350 would have to be overclocked to nearly 5GHz
While there are some things that it does faster, overall the core module crap has lead to a slower CPU because the vast majority of the computing we do, still rely heavily on single threaded performance.
This is why intel has been dong so well. virtually every new generation increased IPC. after the pentium 4 and pentium D, they made sure to never sacrifice IPC for a higher core count.
AMD on the other hand slowly increased ICP until the Phenom II, and then took a massive dive in order to make an 8 "core" CPU.
AMD's core module is the equivalent of going to the pizza shot and ordering 2 large pizzas, and the shop simply just putting an extra crust over the top of a single large pizza. sure it is more food but it is no longer as good and it is not 2 large pizzas.
I cannot see AMD as a valid choice now until they step away from this core module crap and go back to improving IPC
High core counts are of very little benefit. multiple CPU cores do not scale perfectly, 1 core at twice the ICP will perform better than 2 cores at half the IPC each.
AMD should have built upon the Phenom II and made it 28nm or smaller, and optimized it to improve IPC
Amen to that.
According to HWbot a Phenom II x6 1075T @ 4.2Ghz gets close to stock FX8350 multi threaded performance whereas most FX 8 cores at over 4.5Ghz beat the the 1075T. FX IPC changes according to how many cores are loaded if you only use 1 core the stock FX 8350 gets around 1.23(A Phenom II x4 I had got 1.25 at 4Ghz) points in single threaded Cinebench test but once you use all 8 cores it will only just get over 7 points which points to the fact that once 2 cores in a module have to work at the same time they slow down due to the resource sharing. So no your 1075T is not better than an FX8350 it's close but not better.
BTW with very repetitive parallel work loads like crunching prime numbers/video encoding an FX 8350 will catch up to and sometimes beat an i7 3930k/3960X/4930k/4960X.
@ Ryan and PCPer team.
Are you planning to compare Kaveri vs Richland vs FX series at the same clock to see how the IPC truly compare?
It would be nice to see Steamroler B vs Piledriver B vs Piledriver A cores?
A-B refering to APU vs non APU which contains also L3 cache that is missing from Kaveri.
Heck, you can even through in the first Bulldozer to give us a view of how much improvement has the Bulldozer series brought over time.
Strange thing about those kaveri's 8 compute "Cores" (on the GPU side a least) is that they(the ACEs) can actually do context switching, which no prior AMD GPUs could do, according to what Charlie the D., says "Once a GPU can context switch, it is essentially a very wide heterogeneous CPU, and that is exactly the point of Kaveri." and "...just wait until the software catches up...", so there is not a lot of software out there compiled to take advantage of AMD's version of HSA, (hQ) and atomics, and such, but as soon as the SDKs, frameworks, APIs, begin to take advantage of AMD's special brand of HSA, things should look different. The Benchmarking software will have to account for this in some way (when needed), and will have to be re-run to measure this New AMD HSA tuned hardware once the changes work their way into the software ecosystem!
I wonder how this will affect the Ray tracing benchmarks, in particular, being able to have 8 of the GPU Cores/ACEs that have the ability to context switch between their own ( hQ max depths of up to 8 threads per ACE), all doing ray tracing, in addition to the 4 ARM cores, and their SIMD instructions! Kaveri is still, pending the release of truely compatible, and optimized software, very much a wait and see siduation.
People may not like Charlie D., but his techinical hardware analysis skills are top notch!
I would say also add the phenom II in there
Run them all at 3GHz, or match the clock speed of the slowest CPU, then benchmark the single threaded and multi core performance of each
comparing everything from the Phenom II, to the kaveri.
Im not a computer engineer (although sometimes i wish i was given the ODD decisions made by these companies...) but i have to agree that a Phenom II die shrink/tweak would have been best for AMD...at least for the FX line and left the "experimental" , module architecture for the APU line until HSA was fully implemented. A die shrunk Phenom II x4 and x6 with an updated memory controller would still have been able to compete at the time bulldozer was released if they kept the costs low enough.....it just boggles my mind that no one in-house wouldnt have seen this?? They could have even labeled it "Phenom III" instead of resurrecting the FX label. The only thing really keeping Phenoms back nowadays is a few instruction sets and the memory controller!! That architecture at 4ghz+ would have been a hell of a thing!
amen to that! PII is still there best architecture. They should have just improved it and their high end cpus would be a far different story.
Ryan, you are an expert on PC technology.
It would be great if you could provide your daily use impressions of the AMD A8-7600 65W/45W APU system vs Intel core i3-4330 system.
Newegg is selling the Intel Core i3-4330 for $140 dollars. The AMD A8-7600 APU is priced at $119.
The two systems are in the same price range.
No the posting system would not confirm that the post was made, in fact it displayed an error message after each post attempt, and assuming the post itself was not properly posted, the poster continued to try to post!
And Now that the poster thinks about it, maybe the error message was actually concerning the Failure of the post affirmation message, and not the posting mechanism that did its job of posting after each cryptic error message!
So maybe the logic of the posting system needs to be changed to not fully complete the posting transaction, unless the affirmation message transaction completes without Throwing an error!
this post took more than one try also, this posting system breaks down after the post counts reaches past one page in length!
I'll look into it!
Conversation at work as follows.
AMD is giving a copy of BF4 away with a purchase of the A10-7850. It has been posited that Kaveri will be "good enough" for a low cost system to play BF4 because it's coming with the processor. I've tried to temper their enthusiasm with my own experience running a GTX660 with an i5-3570k.
What is game play going to be like with just the newest APU on a 1920x1080 display?
I assume hybrid CrossFire will also be possible, but what is the max card that could be used (Some thought as high as a Radeon 7850)? I was skeptical, I wasn't sure you'd even be able to run a 77xx card and get any good out of the iGPU.
Good article and insights as always. Keep up the great work.
i don't think this CPU should be placed against a Intel's GT2, price-wise and also platform-wise, yeah sure it makes sense... but generation-wise it definitely doesn't.. instead i think it should be compared with Intel's GT3 or even Intel's GT3e
Well, I can't say that I'm not a little disappointed in amds latest desktop offering. That said, I'm now very excited to see how this new manufacturing process and low power tuning have worked for their new mobile kaveri. I don't expect amd will ever conquer the high end cpu market again but I think they have all the tools to dominate in tablets and convertable notebooks. Its a matter of where Read leads the company. Either way, great review josh and ryan, I look forward to mobile reviews of kaveri (I hope) by second quarter.
Anyone else curious about the power consumption of the 45W setting during other benchmarks after seeing the gaming power consumption chart?
Cause that one looks peculiar.


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WASHINGTON, April 24 (UPI) -- Time's annual list of influential people is awash in presidential ambition -- past, present and future.
Joining nine-time honoree President Barack Obama and eight-time honoree Hillary Clinton are several rising stars who may end up on presidential ballots in the coming years.
Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, two Republicans whose names are regularly in the mix for 2016 talk, both made the list.
"The real secret to Rand's rapid rise from a Bowling Green operating room to the center of American politics is his authenticity," writes Paul's colleague from Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "It's a trait that's obvious to anyone who has seen him come out of a D.C. television studio in Ray-Bans and shorts, or hold the Senate floor for half a day to get answers from an imperious White House."
Meanwhile Walker, who enraged Democrats in his blue state by taking on unions shortly after his 2010 election, managed to survive a special election recall effort two years later.
"One of the most difficult challenges is standing up for what you believe in when faced with relentless public attacks," wrote New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who surely knows something of how Walker feels. "Scott Walker faced that test and passed it with flying colors."
And though New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand may not be looking to leave the Senate just yet, there are those who see the Oval Office in her future.
"She can go as far as she likes," wrote former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, a Republican for whom Gillibrand worked as an intern. "If Kirsten Gillibrand wants to be a rock star, she'll be a rock star. But she'd make a great President."
Notably absent, however, are a number of politicians who have made no secret of their presidential ambitions. Christie, considered the GOP's best chance at 2016 until last fall's "Bridgegate" derailed his campaign before it got started, only appears to author Walker's entry.
Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida -- both of whom have looked like they could make a run for the White House by repairing the GOP's fractured relationship with Latinos -- have somewhat faded from the spotlight, and neither earned a place on the list. Nor did former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who said just this week that he was "thinking about running for president."
While a potential Clinton campaign has overshadowed nearly any other Democratic hopeful, none of those whose names are on the "just in case Hillary doesn't run" list were tapped by Time. Neither Vice President Joe Biden, who has been open about his desire to succeed his boss in the West Wing, nor Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, beloved by progressives but unwavering in her position that she won't run in this election, were named.
Only Secretary of State John Kerry, who unsuccessfully ran against President George W. Bush in 2004, made the list, and he is unlikely to try again.


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Congratulations to Eve Mallon MRICS from Faithful + Gould for winning this year's Project Management award.
A highly skilled Project Manager who has a notable ability to establish excellent working relationships with clients, whilst at the same time exceeding expectations of the business.
Eve played a pivotal role in the development of the partnership with the University of Glasgow, assisting on complex programmes of work within the public and private sector.
Eve has championed the importance of continual evolvement of technology and more efficient ways of working, especially on large programmes of work, which move at a face pace and require proactive monitoring and reporting across several work streams.
As Chairman of RICS Matrics Glasgow, Eve, has driven various profile-raising events from careers talks to diversity initiatives.


text: Anyone else out there attending this event? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Join us for the Oklahoma Supercomputing Symposium 2004, Wed Oct 6 - Thu Oct 7, here at OU (CCE Forum). To register for the Symposium, go to http://symposium2004.oscer.ou.edu/ and follow the links. Some 400 people have registered for the Symposium, from 38 academic institutions, 40 companies, 18 government agencies and 2 non- governmental organizations, in 17 states and Canadian provinces. The Symposium is free, with meals provided, and it's a great way to meet leaders, potential collaborators, colleagues, and potential future employers and employees, from academia, government and industry. Our speaker list includes: * Sangtae Kim, new Division Director, Shared Cyberinfrastructure Division, Director for Computer & Information Science & Engineering, National Science Foundation * S. Ramakrishnan, Director, Center for Development of Advanced Computing, India * Stephen Wheat, Principal Scientist, Intel Corp * Joerg Schwartz, Senior Program Manager, Sun Labs * Steve Modica, Principal Engineer, SGI * Ian Lumb, Grid Solutions Manager, Platform Computing Inc. * Kurt Snodgrass, Vice Chancellor, Information Technology and Telecommunications, Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education * Mark Musser, Senior Solutions Architect, Oracle Corporation * Viswa Sharma, Chief Technical Officer, CorEdge Networks * Anil Srivastava, Executive Chairman & Chief Strategic Officer, AcrossWorld Communications * Krzysztof Kuczera, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Kansas * Ed Seidel, Director, Center for Computation & Technology, Louisiana State University * Mary Fran Yafchak, IT Program Coordinator, Southeastern Universities Research Association * Art Vandenberg, Director of Advanced Campus Services, Georgia State University * Dennis Aebersold, Chief Information Officer, University of Oklahoma * Amy Apon, Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Arkansas * Richard Braley, Professor & Chair, Department of Technology, Cameron University * Paul Gray, Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Northern Iowa * John Matrow, System Administrator/Trainer, High Performance Computing Center, Wichita State University We'll also have a vendor exposition, where you'll have an opportunity to learn about existing and emerging HPC technologies. Also, if you know of any students -- grad and undergrad -- who might be interested in the Symposium, this is a great opportunity to introduce them to conferences, especially because it's free. Our academic sponsors include Oklahoma EPSCoR, the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce, and the OU Department of Information Technology, the Ou Vice President for Research, and the OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER). And if there are colleagues or students that you think might be interested, please forward this note to them. -- Brett Morrow, NSSL/SPC Alternate Program Manager INDUS Corporation National Severe Storms Laboratory (405) 366-0515 Brett.Morrow at noaa.gov http://www.induscorp.com


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If you have or know a solar project, please submit it to us for consideration as a featured project using Submit an Item. http://www.solaripedia.com/302/submit-an-item.html
The vegetated roofs on a Mill Valley, California, home hop, skip and jump their way down three levels following the slope of the hillside. The living roofs cover tiers of two homes that are woven together by a connecting stair so that the multigenerational family living there can share one floor but retain separate living quarters. Using salvaged and recycled materials, architect Scott McGlashan designed a super-insulated home that utilizes passive solar heating and cooling, an efficient hydronic radiant heating system, on-demand water heaters, and a water-saving on-demand hot water recirculation system, along with photovoltaics.
By P.J. Bremier, Marin Magazine,
March 2009 - Scott McGlashan had a hard time convincing his clients to add a living roof to the plans for their eco-friendly, energy-efficient home in Mill Valley until it solved one of the main design challenges: concealing a second unit.
His clients, a Tiburon couple, bought the canyon property several years ago with their son and daughter, intrigued by the idea of living alongside their children and grandchildren. "We jumped at the chance to get our family together," McGlashan's client says. "My wife and I (now) see a lot more of our grandkids."
They had hoped to build three homes, McGlashan says, "but the (Mill Valley) planning commission was adamant there only be two. My clients didn't want to share a house and they didn't want to look out on another house, either. They really wanted the second unit to 'disappear.'"
So, while the couple's son and his family moved into the property's existing home, they began planning their new home with their daughter and her two sons.
They hired McGlashan, a Berkeley architect, to come up with a solution that would marry a flexible floor plan with respect for privacy and a design as green and energy-efficient as possible.
The result was a three-story tiered home, each level topped by a living roof of colorful wildflowers. All the homes (units) have a separate entrance and utility hookup, yet all three families share a large solar array designed for net zero energy usage.
The grandparents occupy the top story of the newly constructed house, enjoying an open floor plan for kitchen, dining and living space along with a private sitting room, his-and-her offices and a master bedroom suite. A front deck traverses the length of the top floor's large windows, which frame a view of Mill Valley looking toward San Francisco. A heavily tinted glass roof, its upturned edges inspired by the wingtips of local soaring raptors, masks a carport below the windows. A living roof cleverly conceals from view the lower, offset second unit. Consequently, all visual attention is gracefully directed outward.
The middle floor, which holds the couple's guest/workout room, is flexible-use; it shares a Jack-and-Jill bathroom with the second unit, and that unit can legally "borrow" three bedrooms and a play space. In the future this level can be incorporated into the main house or become more securely partitioned and rented out as a studio or three- or four-bedroom apartment.
San Francisco designer Julie Massucco, who oversaw the finishes for both new units and furnished the upper house, balanced the desires of both clients. "The daughter wanted a lively, nontraditional and low-maintenance design for her space and her parents wanted a somewhat modern look, but not minimalist, more warm and comfortable," she says.
Massucco pulled colors from the surrounding grasses and maintained harmony between the three floors by establishing a palette of greens and using coordinated hardware. To keep it environmentally green, she specified natural fabrics, low-VOC paints, water-based finishes and eco-friendly cabinets and whenever possible used local vendors. Upstairs, the owners' furnishings were reupholstered for cleaner lines, and in the lower level unit, recycled glass countertops were installed.
For McGlashan, building to last was just as important as greenness of materials. "In my mind, that's one of the more ecological things you can do," he says. "The exterior is made of integral stucco so there's no need to repaint; the fascias and trim are made of durable copper; and the roof should significantly extend the life of the protected membrane."
He used Forest Stewardship Council–certified wood throughout, including White Tigerwood flooring from San Rafael's EcoTimber and Douglas fir for windows, stair treads and custom doors. He also hand-carved a decorative column, a fireplace mantel and an entry bench out of beams salvaged from old projects. "Before I was an architect, I was a cabinetmaker, carpenter and boat builder," he explains. "I still love getting my hands back into a project."
Other green features include super-insulation, passive solar heating and cooling, fly-ash concrete, efficient hydronic radiant heating, on-demand water heaters, and a water-saving on-demand hot water recirculation system. "And considering the context, neither the upper level home nor the second unit is huge," McGlashan says, acknowledging the high resource consumption typical of some large homes. "Approximately 5,500 square feet is shared between them."
Special features in the upper unit will allow the couple to age and stay in place—a small elevator, wall blocking for future bathroom grab bars, accessible hardware, and a convenient foot pedal for the kitchen sinks. "They really love the Pedal Valves," says McGlashan. "They wish they had one at every sink."
Outside, the house was integrated with the topography to minimize grading and habitat disruption. The living roofs, which the owners originally thought might be too fussy but now admire, "make up for the habitat removed to make way for the (new) house, meaning little or no net loss of bird, plant, or insect habitat," says McGlashan. "They also reduce storm water runoff and help keep the house cool in summer."
The canyon is maintained by hand-pulling invasive Scotch broom, and three pet pygmy goats help keep the grasses trimmed and fire-safe. Garden paths are illuminated by LED or fluorescent lighting, shielded to minimize light pollution.
A simple set of stairs connects both homes and all families, allowing the grandparents, parents and cousins to be in easy contact. "Sometimes, the kids will stop in to say hi or maybe just wave as they go skipping down the stairs on their way somewhere else," their grandfather says. He pauses and smiles. "It makes all the extra effort involved in building this house worth it."
The Vegetated Roof
By Scott McGlashan -
The semi-intensive green roof was designed to balance weight, plant variety, and water efficiency. With no prior experience on green roofs, McGlashan Architecture did a crash course on the subject, gathering information from many sources to ensure a successful design. For the architect, the biggest challenge was getting a handle on the many overlapping fields of responsibility that converge on a green roof: roofing, landscape design and installation, material and soil suppliers, engineering, plumbing, sheet metal, etc.
For a first project in an emerging industry, the learning curve is steep. Along with a thorough study of the emerging literature (thanks, GRHC!), we consulted with, among others, Charlie Miller in Philadelphia and Brent Bucknum (formerly) at Rana Creek in Carmel, CA before we settled on a relatively simple section: 6-8" of lightweight soil over filter fabric over a Miradrain drainage mat over a root barrier over a Gaco Western cold liquid applied membrane, all supported on plywood decking and wood framing. The roof slopes are between 1/2" and 2" per foot. Irrigation is supplied with a Netafim Techline drip system. Completed in February, 2009, the roof continues to amaze and delight the owners.
Relevant books:
California Mediterranean
Green Roofs in Sustainable Landscape Design
EcoRegion-Based Design for Sustainability
McGlashan Architecture (Berkeley, California, USA)
Mill Valley Hillside Home Photo Gallery


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The International Finance Corporation hosted a 'Hard Talk' on Tuesday, February 25, 2014 entitled 'Presumption of Openness: Can Open Data Contribute to Economic Growth and Prosperity?' Rufus Pollock, Director and Co-founder of Open Knowledge Foundation, and Gavin Starks, CEO of Open Data Institute, provided insight as guest speakers about what constitutes open data, how it contributes to economic growth, and the ways in which it can contribute to The World Bank Group's twin goals of poverty eradication and shared prosperity.
Open Data
Essentially, open data is both a concept and a category of data. It is the idea that some data should be freely available to everyone to use and repurpose without restrictions from copyright, patents, or other controls. It is defined by three characteristics: (1) ease of access to data, (2) ability to reuse and share data, and (3) universal participation- anyone can use the data. As a category of data, open data refers to data— big and small— that are comprised of anonymous and non-personal information and to content, such as images, text and music.
In terms of poverty reduction, both Pollock and Starks believe that the potential benefits of open data are numerous and powerful. As urbanization, globalization, and fragmentation all continue to shape societies, they argue that data can help governments, the private sector, and communities to be more efficient, resourceful, and effective.
Benefits for Governments
Firstly, as populations become increasingly urbanized, infrastructure within urban environments will need to improve. However, it's not feasible or necessary to build more hospitals or water pipes to accommodate growing populations. Instead, it will be crucial to use existing infrastructure more efficiently— and big data can help us to do so. Real-time traffic and public transportation information can be used by cities to plan new train lines, traffic lights and ambulance routes. Water and power data can help identify which services consumers are most willing to pay for, control peak demand periods, and channel resources towards new city sectors.
Providing a personal example, Starks told the audience about a collaboration between Mastodon C, a start-up housed at the Open Data Institute, and Open Health Care UK, another start-up established by a doctor and a programmer. The two organizations tracked the number of generic and brand-name statin prescriptions administered by every family doctor in England and then mapped the results. They found that there were considerable geographic variations in prescriptions that were not wholly explainable by clinical motives and estimated that had doctors adhered to generic drug guidelines, the National Health Service in England could have saved more than £200 million.
Benefits for 'The Public'
Citizens can also benefit in real ways by accessing and helping create data. The same data used by cities to plan infrastructure can be accessed on smartphone apps to inform users when the next bus is coming or how to avoid an accident. Consumers can also save money and make better-informed purchases by comparing prices, quality ratings, safety data, and the environmental and labor practices of producers online.
These kinds of revelations are not possible without access to open data. Opportunities are everywhere.
Changing Norms
Starks also noted that behavior change is the hardest component of the open data movement. Data can help us reveal potential interventions, but translating knowledge into action requires shifts in behavior and perception. He stated that it took the UK government a while to respond to the statin prescription study because many consultations were needed within government ministries.
Pollock agreed with Starks and further noted that the first instinct of governments and private firms is to 'protect' their data and maintain its secrecy. Organizations understand the value of their data and want to retain that value as proprietary.
He pointed out that this is ironic because open data has the ability to contribute to economic growth and investment as individuals and firms work with the data, producing new products and services and improving the efficiency of existing markets. The number and scale of profitable ideas and businesses that might emerge from open data are hard to overestimate. A shift towards making data open by default, he says, is necessary to unlocking its economic potential.
Starks concurred, saying that for the developing world, grounding infrastructure projects in openness will allow those sectors to leap-frog from inefficient, expensive, or polluting systems to more efficient and modern ones by exposing waste or negative externalities through the data.
Questions Remain
There remain, according to Pollock and Stark, two major questions regarding open data: a technocratic question about how to make and retain the anonymity of data and a social question about how to develop norms around data that instill the values of privacy and equal access.
Pollock asserted that the G8 countries were in a particularly important position with regard to open data because if they shift towards open data, then other countries will be encouraged to follow
Photographs courtesy of the World Bank's Flickr Collection, available here and here.
Accessing information in
Accessing information in Africa is more expensive than food, due to poor infrastructure development and investment that's why most Africans live below the poverty lines.


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We who live in Southern California know how urban sprawl has pushed wildlife from native environments. Sometimes the wildlife push back and return to areas they once had to themselves. Enlightened policies have created areas that protect wildlife and provided safe accommodation when wildlife venture back to where they once lived.
Take this thinking and consider how government sprawl has encroached into spheres once regarded as religious. Matters like contraception, once a private matter or between individuals and their religion, are now provided by government mandate and religious organizations are told to comply.
In these cases, government has become the urbanizer and religion pushes back and demands accommodation. In fact, the more a government promotes its own utopian social ideals, the more there will be conflicts between the state and religions that have their own visions of the ideal.
Thursday, January 16 is Religious Freedom Day by presidential proclamation. The date recognizes the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, our country's first legal safeguard for religious liberty, adopted on Jan. 16, 1786. This document by Thomas Jefferson ensured freedom of conscience instead of religion imposed by the state.
Our nation has strong debates over how and when either a religious or a secular position should prevail. I offer my own thoughts for a truly libertarian understanding of religious freedom.
First, religious freedom means the freedom to speak your convictions, even on controversial religious or moral matters, without government repercussions. This in turn will have a leavening effect on society's own sense of tolerance of those who express values outside the current mainstream or the thinking du jour.
Second, it means freedom to persuade others to convert to your faith and the freedom to convert from one faith to another faith or to profess no formal religion at all — all without punishment, retaliation or pressure.
In affirming this, we are a light to nations that ban religious conversions or oppress those not of the majority faith and relegate them to second-class status.
Third, religious freedom bestows a right to hold any political or governmental office regardless of your religious beliefs. Religious tests are banned by the U.S. Constitution (Article 6, paragraph 3). But we've often seen religion or its moral convictions raised as a political barrier. Remember the dispute over John F. Kennedy's Catholicism and recent concern over Mitt Romney's Mormonism.
A fourth freedom is the right not only to believe as you choose but also to practice the moral tenets of your faith. This means doing what faith demands and refusing what others demand when it violates faith's convictions.
Freedom to practice your faith is not unlimited the way freedom to believe is. But once a person establishes that a practice or a prohibition rises from his or her belief system, the burden of proof should shift to the government. No conduct based on religious convictions should be restricted by the government unless it proves a compelling state interest that justifies a limit on religious liberty. This is a vital in light of the current debate over whether religious organizations opposed to contraception should be required to provide coverage in one form or another.
Finally, religious freedom means government should not tax what is dedicated to God and necessary to the furtherance of faith or mission. This includes houses of worship, land dedicated to religious purposes, hospitals, schools and more. As we observe Religious Freedom Day, we honor our nation's legacy of religious independence by upholding our right to exercise our beliefs free from prejudice or persecution. We remember that religious liberty is not just an American right, it is a universal human right to be protected at home and around the globe.
Don Shoemaker is pastor emeritus of Grace Community Church of Seal Beach


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LOS ANGELES, April 17 (Reuters) - Britney Spears is going
"Ooh La La" for the Smurfs with a song for upcoming summer
movie "The Smurfs 2," movie studio Sony Pictures said on
"I have always loved the Smurfs as a kid and now my boys are
the biggest Smurfs fans EVER. I wanted to surprise them with a
song in the movie," the pop singer and mother of two said in a
Her recording "Ooh La La" will play at the end credits for
"The Smurfs 2," a part animated, part live family comedy due for
release on July 31.
Spears, 31, is working on a new studio album following her
"Femme Fatale" release in 2011, and is in talks for a long-term
contract to perform in Las Vegas.
She released her latest single "Scream & Shout" in November
last year in collaboration with rapper Will.i.am and quit her
job as a judge on "The X Factor" earlier this year after failing
to boost the audience for the TV talent show.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Jill Serjeant and
Vicki Allen)