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- Feature10 tips for managing storage for virtual servers and virtual desktops
- FeatureBrighter outlook for storage budgets
- FeatureSpace and time are still backup bugaboos
- FeatureIntegrate the cloud with your backup app
- FeatureEx-StorageTek, ex-Sun, ex-Oracle storage engineer looking for work
- FeatureBlock vs. file storage to support virtual server environments
- FeatureCapacity optimization is storage's newest hot topic
- FeatureFilling the storage information gap
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Brighter outlook for storage budgets
Budget concerns have eased slightly, and many storage managers are eyeing solid-state storage and cloud storage services. How does your shopping list compare to that of your peers?
The last time we reported the results of our biannual Storage magazine/SearchStorage.com Purchasing Intentions survey we suggested that storage managers could finally exhale after a year of nail-biting suspense over whether storage budgets would continue to fall. Last year's results were slightly encouraging, and the latest survey indicates the budget situation has improved once again. We're not saying storage managers are flush with funds, but the days of beating about the sofa cushions for loose change seem to be over.
The average storage budget clocked in at a healthy $3.1 million; when compared to 2009, our average respondent storage budget grew by a modest 0.6%. Enterprise-sized companies are seeing the largest boost with an average 2.5% increase, followed by midsized companies with 1.6%. But times are still pretty tough for smaller companies as they reported a -0.6% change in their budgets. These numbers hardly compare with those from four years ago when overall budgets grew by 5.2%, but they're still promising considering recent dreary results.
Twenty percent of those surveyed said price is the main factor when selecting a primary disk vendor. Although not the top criteria (features was No. 1 at 30%), that's the highest ranking we've ever seen for price. For smaller companies, price was the No. 1 factor for the first time. All in all, it looks like 2010 has been a year of struggle for smaller businesses, while much of the storage action seems to be happening midmarket, with midsized companies looking to add even more new disk capacity than anticipated last spring.
|About the survey
The Storage magazine/SearchStorage.com Purchasing Intentions survey is fielded twice a year; this is the eighth year the survey has been conducted. Storage magazine subscribers and SearchStorage.com members are invited to participate in the survey, which gathers information related to storage managers' purchasing plans for a variety of data storage product categories. This edition had 609 qualified respondents across a broad spectrum of industries, with the average company size measured as having revenue of $1.3 billion.
Disk systems still center stage
Budgets may be inching upward, but storage demands and disk capacity growth continue to grow by leaps and bounds. Once again, disk capacity jumped by double digits and respondents said managing disk capacity made storage configuration and data protection more challenging.
Respondents will add an average of 40 TB of disk capacity this year. That's the same figure reported last spring but 17% higher than noted on last fall's survey. Over the last couple of years we've seen an up-and-down pattern where new disk capacity numbers are high in the spring survey and then drop off in the fall. This time, 2010's spring and fall numbers are the same, so it's safe to assume there were no corners to cut this year.
As expected, larger companies plan to add the most capacity: an average of 81 TB, down slightly from the spring. Midsized companies have been busy, adding an average of 53 TB, which is a big jump from the 35 TB anticipated just six months ago. Likely feeling their budgets squeezed, small companies plan to add 19 TB of additional disk capacity, well off the 25 TB expected last spring, but in line with last year's number.
Click here to get a PDF of the Purchasing Intentions Survey storage budget, disk storage and cloud services results.
FC vs. iSCSI vs. SSD
Fibre Channel (FC) arrays still represent the biggest chunk of already installed storage systems with 52% of the pie. But the slice has been shrinking from a high of 70% in the spring of 2008. During that same period, iSCSI systems increased from 27% to 38%, while NAS and multiprotocol each picked up a couple of points. With the addition of higher performing SAS disks, iSCSI systems have reduced the performance gap compared to FC and continue to provide economical high-density storage.
It's hard to consider iSCSI an upstart or an SMB-only product anymore. Forty-four percent of respondents either deployed or plan to deploy an iSCSI system this year -- the highest number we've seen. iSCSI growth has been steady if not spectacular, and now there's growing interest in using iSCSI storage in conjunction with virtualized server environments.
Much of iSCSI's growth appears to be coming from midsized firms; 52% of those surveyed are installing iSCSI this year, a six point jump from a year ago. But larger organizations are also increasingly opting for iSCSI; 39% have deployed iSCSI or plan to -- a four-point increase vs. last fall. While attracting larger outfits, iSCSI has maintained its solid presence in small companies, with 42% taking the iSCSI route this year.
iSCSI is still most popular for end-user storage, but it's almost as widely used for backup and email. And if there were confidence issues with early iSCSI systems, users seem quite comfortable with the mature products available today as 44% run their companies' mission-critical applications on iSCSI.
Where those disk dollars go
Whether they're Fibre Channel or iSCSI, midrange systems account for the biggest chunk of storage system spending. Overall, storage managers say 45% of their systems dollars are designated for midrange arrays, pretty much the same figure we've seen for the past three years.
But complete systems don't account for the biggest portion of all disk-related spending. In a trend we saw developing all the way back in the spring of 2007, storage managers continue to earmark the largest percentage of their disk budget (36%) to buying disks to add to already installed systems. Four years ago, FC arrays won this race hands down with a 59% share, but today that number has dwindled to 17%, just a couple of points higher than new NAS systems (15%) and new multiprotocol arrays (13%).
As for who storage managers are buying their arrays from, EMC Corp. is still king of the hill with 31% of respondents noting they've bought an array from EMC or intend to buy one before the year is out. Second-place Hewlett-Packard Co., with 29%, has certainly narrowed the gap (which has been as high as 11 points on past surveys). IBM, Dell Inc., NetApp and Hitachi Data Systems round out the rest of the top six choices.
Solid interest in solid state
It's expensive, its reliability might be suspect and it's too soon to tell if solid-state storage can make it in enterprise environments, but the technology is really, really hot.
Fifteen percent of respondents are using solid-state storage -- almost double the number reported one year ago. Add to that another 9% who are implementing solid state this year (triple the fall 2009 number) and the 32% who are evaluating it, and you have some pretty impressive numbers for a fledgling technology. Last year, 54% had no plans related to solid-state storage, but that figure dipped to 45% this time.
So far, the most popular place to put solid-state drives (SSDs) is in traditional arrays (61%); that's not much of a surprise as practically every disk system vendor currently offers an SSD option, and a growing number of vendors -- including Fujitsu, Intel Corp., Pliant Technology Inc., STEC Inc., Seagate and Toshiba among others -- make solid-state storage in standard disk formats like SATA and SAS. Approximately 44% of those questioned use SSDs in their servers, while 26% have implemented solid state in the form of caching appliances that sit in front of hard disk systems.
However, price is still a deterrent for plenty of storage managers and it's the top reason (57%) for not implementing solid-state storage. Thirty-seven percent of respondents passed on solid-state drives because their hard disk performance is sufficient, while 31% feel they just need to learn more about solid-state storage before making a purchase.
Cloud coverage increasing
If you think the whole cloud storage deal is simply too much hype, you might be partly right. But many of your colleagues see it as a reality. The numbers are up across the board and doubling -- or nearly doubling -- for all types of cloud storage services.
Twenty-three percent of respondents use some form of cloud storage for primary or nearline storage vs. 14% last spring. The most popular application is for disaster recovery (DR), with 11% using cloud services to bolster their DR plans. Last spring, 4% trusted some of their data center primary data to the cloud; this time around, users have more than doubled (9%). Seven percent use cloud storage for some nearline data, while 6% park remote-office data in the cloud.
And it looks like cloud storage usage could pick up significantly. Seventeen percent of those surveyed indicate their firms will use a cloud storage service for DR in 2010; storing primary and remote-office data in the cloud is in the works for 11%, while 10% are thinking cloud for nearline data.
Although those percentages aren't staggering, the numbers for cloud storage service usage do indicate that users are shedding some of their apprehensions about shipping data off site.
Storage virtualization advances slowly
If you're waiting for "the year of storage virtualization," 2010 isn't shaping up that way. There may never be a definitive turning point for storage virtualization as its adoption is decidedly more evolutionary than revolutionary. Going virtual is still a major undertaking for a storage shop, and while the move to virtualized storage might be inevitable, it's just not going to happen that fast.
Thirty-two percent of respondents report their shops have virtualized at least some of their storage systems, a slight dip from last spring's 35%, but higher than in previous surveys. While the numbers haven't shifted seismically, they have drifted in the direction of virtualization with steady increases over the past two to three years.
Few companies have taken the full virtualization plunge. Seventy-four percent say some of their block storage has been virtualized, while 73% have virtualized some of their file storage systems. Both of those figures are higher than what we've seen previously, suggesting that more organizations are running pilots or doing limited implementations of storage virtualization technologies.
Tape redux
While its overall numbers continue to trend downward, tape remains a viable part of most companies' data protection schemes. A third of respondents plan to reduce their reliance on tape this year, while 22% will increase tape usage. The latter is one of the lowest figures we've seen, while the 33% cutting back on tape is the highest.
So it's hardly a rosy picture for tape vendors, although LTO-5 is showing some signs of possibly breathing a little life into the technology. For those who plan to purchase tape libraries, 20% would outfit those rigs with LTO-5 drives -- a relatively high number considering LTO-5's newness. LTO-5's 1.6 TB capacity (compressed) makes it an ideal fit for long-term archival, but it also advances another trend we've tracked: tape libraries are getting smaller. The average number of slots in planned tape library purchases has dropped again, this time to 92, which is an all-time low on our survey.
It looks like data deduplication is also taking its toll on the beleaguered tape market. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed will spin off at least some backup data to tape -- a drop of 14 points compared to three years ago. With the help of dedupe, users can keep more backup data nearby on disk for longer periods of time and that means less of it hits tape.
Click here to get a PDF of the Purchasing Intentions survey tape as backup format and disk-to-disk backup strategies standings.
Backup = Disk
General spending for disk-based backup is still behind pre-recession levels. With 39% increasing their 2010 disk-to-disk (D2D) spending (about the same as last spring and a few points lower than fall 2009), it looks like a combination of maturing D2D technologies and budgetary constraints have slowed spending just a bit.
Using disk as a file-system target for backup is still the most popular D2D application with 47% having that current setup. Dedupe is in use at 25% of companies, and another 29% will implement data dedupe this year.
When asked specifically about their spending plans for deduplication technologies, 38% will spend more while 33% expect to maintain current spending levels. The portion of respondents who indicated "no plans" for dedupe reached an all-time low of 20%.
We keep expecting continuous data protection (CDP) to take off, especially as it's so well suited to provide data protection for virtualized servers, but its flight has been delayed yet again. Only 9% will buy a CDP product this year and the overall plans for CDP show only a one point hike for those who will increase their spending.
If CDP is still struggling to find its place on the backup scene, cloud -- or online -- backup appears to be carving out a niche fairly quickly. Thirty-four percent of respondents use some form of cloud backup vs. 19% a year ago and 13% in 2008. Email and databases are still the two most popular applications to back up into the cloud, but there's significant interest in backing up user files and laptops using cloud services.
Backing up virtual servers remains a persistent problem for backup administrators, many of whom are still using traditional backup techniques to safeguard their company's virtual servers. But that's changing: one-third use traditional backup agents loaded into virtual machines (VMs), a decline of approximately 11 points from a year ago. Although marked for extinction, 22% still use VMware Consolidated Backup, and about 10% have turned to VM-specific backup products (an increase of four points vs. a year ago). Approximately 6% use CDP for their virtual servers.
Users still stumble over the complexity of backing up virtual machines (25%), while 22% find they're backing up too much stuff from their virtual environments. Another 18% have run into issues getting file access for recoveries.
|Top 5 vendors
Purchased/plan to purchase a disk system from:
Purchased/plan to purchase storage switches from:
Purchased/plan to purchase tape hardware from:
Purchased/plan to purchase backup software from:
Disaster recovery on an even keel
Anticipated spending for disaster recovery is about the same as in previous surveys going back through 2009, so it's holding its own but still falling short of its pre-recession peak.
Remote replication is still the key storage spend for DR. It edged out off-site tape storage a couple of years ago and has been extending its lead ever since. This year, it's favored 48% to 28%. Broken down further, it's clear that companies are relying less on tape for data recoveries during a disaster. Only 23% will increase spending on off-site tape storage, although 45% expect to keep off-site tape charges at 2009 levels. In contrast, 39% (a little less than last spring) will increase spending for remote replication technologies; a scant 4% will reduce that spending; and only 16% (the lowest number we've seen) don't have remote replication in their 2010 disaster recovery plans.
Reason to be optimistic
It would be easier to be optimistic about storage purchasing if the budget numbers were just a little more upbeat. But they are up -- very modestly so -- for two consecutive surveys, which means the purse strings are loosening. What's more apparent, perhaps, is how data storage managers have focused on technologies that deliver the proverbial bang for the buck and help them manage their storage more efficiently.
BIO: Rich Castagna (email@example.com) is editorial director of the Storage Media Group.
Dig Deeper on Storage market research reports
Storage budget picture brightens
European storage budgets still down; disk storage systems are biggest spend
Storage managers find new capacity needs despite budget growth
Survey: Storage spending in 2010 to stay flat, but lack of decline is a good sign


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Posted by Editor on 12/20/02
Hamilton 2003 Website Agreement Signed
The 2003 Road Worlds organization has confirmed that they have an agreement in place for a website producer. The company who will produce the website is Canoe.ca, the internet arm of the Sun-Media Publishing Group. We have no further details of the agreement, other than that Canoe has said that they expect to have an initial website operational by Christmas (ie, mid next week). The address for the Worlds website is www.hamilton2003.com.
|Return to Canadian Cyclist homepage | Back to Top

subset: commoncrawl


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How Do You Deal With Fear Versus Danger?
It's the TED radio hour from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. And today on the show, we're asking this question - what's your biggest fear? Can you describe the day of a launch? Like what happens on that day?
CHRIS HADFIELD: Oh, yeah. It's beyond butterflies, it's...
RAZ: This is Chris Hatfield. He's...
HADFIELD: ...An astronaut - a retired astronaut. I was 21 years an astronaut. I've launched off the planet three times.
RAZ: And the thing about those space launches - the odds of a catastrophic accident were 1 in 35.
HADFIELD: It's like a - that feeling in a roller coaster, I think, where you get into that little chunka, chunka, chunka chain thing that drags you up the hill to make the ride begin. And the closer you get to the top, you see more and more of the world. And there's sort of this - OK, nothing bad is happening right now, but this process is leading to something. And our process is, like, 20 years that leads to - it's 20 years of chunka, chunka, chunka up the hill. And that last day is where suddenly you're - you come over that crest, and you're away.
FLIGHT COORDINATOR: This is the FC performing a launch status check at this time. All systems verify red, or it don't count. And go for launch, OTC. All...
HADFIELD: So you wake up in quarantine somewhere where they've been preventing you from catching a head cold. There's sort of a wedding feel to it of all of these practiced and unusual places where there's a whole bunch of expectant people. And you're wearing clothes you don't normally wear. And it builds. It builds in complexity. And it definitely builds in danger until, finally, after all of the preliminaries, you are wearing the right outfit, and you're sitting in the right seat.
There's an enormous amount of fuel gurgling and jostling in the tanks down underneath you in between you and the earth. And somewhere there's a spark and, bam, some unseen giant just stuck his foot in the small of your back and is now hurling you...
HADFIELD: ...With a lot of vibration and very little pity.
HADFIELD: And you're along for that ride.
RAZ: So what's the scariest thing you've done, Chris?
HADFIELD: (Laughing) The scariest thing I've done is ride a rocket ship to space.
RAZ: Today on the show - what we fear - ideas about making sense out of our fears, and the possibilities we find when we actually embrace them. And over the next hour, five TED speakers who reveal the things that scare them the most, like...
KAREN THOMPSON WALKER: ...Just people, what people are thinking.
JOE KOWAN: One of my most vivid fears is being on a plane imagining it crashing.
STEPHEN CAVE: I'm scared of speaking on the phone.
RAZ: Is there anything that you're afraid of right now?
DAVID BLAINE: No.
DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) Ground control to Major Tom.
RAZ: So in the case of Chris Hadfield, he probably never would have made it up there in the first place if he hadn't learned something about fear and really how to deal with it. Oh and if you were wondering, Chris Hadfield is, in fact, that astronaut.
HADFIELD: (Singing) This is ground control to Major Tom. You've really made the grade.
RAZ: He recorded a pitch perfect cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" on the international space station. And he was just one of 200 or so people who have ever been on the space station. Chris Hadfield picks up the story from the TED stage.
HADFIELD: It's an amazing experience, but how do you deal with the danger of it and the fear that comes from it? How do you deal with fear versus danger? And having the goal in mind - thinking about where it might lead to be able to launch and go help build a space station where you are on board a million pound creation that's going around the world at five miles a second - to be able to look down the jaw-dropping gorgeousness of the turning orb like a self-propelled art gallery of fantastic constantly changing beauty that is the world itself.
And you see, because of the speed, a sunrise or a sunset every 45 minutes for half a year. And the most magnificent part of all of that is to go outside on a spacewalk. You are in a one person spaceship - that is your spacesuit. And you're going through space with the world. It's an entirely different perspective. You're not looking up at the universe, you and the Earth are going through the universe together. And you are holding on with one hand, one link to the other 7 billion people.
RAZ: Do you remember a time early on in your career as an astronaut where, like, the first time that you were afraid of something - not just nervous but afraid?
HADFIELD: Yeah. Fear is an autonomic reaction to perceived danger. I mean if they grabbed you right now and stuck you in the cockpit of the space shuttle and said OK, we're launching in 15 minutes.
RAZ: I would say stop, don't.
HADFIELD: And if you - and you can't stop it, and if you touch any of the wrong switches, you kill yourself and everybody on board, then you would be, rightly, terrified. But in our case, it's the opposite. They say OK, you're preselected. You're choosing yourself, but also 15 years from now, we're going to put you in the cockpit. We're going to teach you so much about every single switch that you will know them more intimately than anything you've ever know anything in your life.
And so you're so aware - it's like you're playing a harp. And I think if someone handed me a harp, and told me we were now playing in the symphony, I'd be kind of terrified, too. But if you spend the years in advance and instead it becomes more like beautiful music that you're part of and less like just a daunting, scary, petrifying thing. And the only time I really remember that happening in my career as an astronaut was watching a huge meteorite burn up in the atmosphere while I was in orbit.
RAZ: Wow.
HADFIELD: I was looking down at the world. I was looking at Australia at night which is nice because everybody lives on the coast. It's kind of like a necklace. But I was looking at Australia in the night by myself, and then a big meteorite came blundering into the atmosphere. And at first, my reaction was oh, look at that, a shooting star from space. And it was a big one. It took several seconds to burn out. So it was quite scenic. But then immediately after sort of marveling at the beauty of it, I recognized that that was just a dumb rock from the universe that was probably going, you know, whatever 20 miles a second that just came screaming in between me and the planet.
And it could have just as easily been 100 miles higher and smacked right into the side of us - a completely random event that I couldn't have done anything about. No matter how much I trained, that would've obliterated our crew and our vehicle right away. And that - the randomness of it, the lack of the ability to do anything about it - that sent a shiver up my back of just straight animal fear.
RAZ: Why you do it? I mean, why take the risk?
HADFIELD: I think if you're going to take any risk in life, if you're going to expose yourself to any danger, it's worth asking why. For me, if I'm going to take a risk, I want it to be for a purpose. I want it to have a reason. And also, something that I have some control over, so that I can help be master of my own destiny and fate, at least to some degree. That's sort of the essence of exploration.
RAZ: The last time Chris came back from space, it was in a Russian capsule called the Soyuz, and he was hurtling back to earth at 755 feet per second.
HADFIELD: And in essence, you are riding a meteorite home. And riding meteorites is scary, and it ought to be. But instead of riding into the atmosphere just screaming, like you would, if suddenly you found yourself riding a meteorite right back to earth - instead, 20 years previously, we had started studying Russian.
And then once you learn Russian, then we learned orbital mechanics in Russian. And then we learned vehicle control theory. And then we got into the simulator and practiced over and over and over again. And in fact, you can fly this meteorite and steer it and land in about a 15 kilometer circle anywhere on earth.
So in fact, when our crew was coming back into the atmosphere inside the Soyuz, we weren't screaming, we were laughing. It was fun. So we came thundering back to earth, and then, eventually, the Russians reach in, drag you out, plunk you into a chair, and you can now look back at what was an incredible experience. You have taken the dreams of that nine-year-old boy which were impossible and dauntingly scary and figured it out to reprogram yourself - to change your primal fear so that it allowed you to come back with a set of experiences and a level of inspiration for other people that never could have been possible otherwise.
RAZ: Do you think most of our fears are irrational?
HADFIELD: I think fear is good. I think fear keeps you alive. You know? If a saber-toothed tiger comes bursting out of the bushes, you want to be the fastest running person around. And you want, you know, to have superhuman strength and all the rest of it. But most people, through their entire lives, respond to a perceived danger - sort of amorphous danger.
And we put it behind the category of I'm afraid of - getting married, driving a race car. I'm afraid of whatever. It's easy to say. But in a modern, much more constrained world where the saber-toothed tigers very seldom come jumping out of the bushes, I should maybe try and change my caveman fear reaction to things. If I can evolve it some and, instead, experience the opportunities that exist in life, and don't let those primal fears be the main dictator of the life that results.
RAZ: Astronaut Chris Hadfield, you can find his talk at ted.com
HADFIELD: (Singing) Though I've flown one hundred thousand miles...
RAZ: Did he ever, like, get in touch with you and say hey, you know, nice job or...
HADFIELD: Oh, yeah. He said it was the best cover of the song ever done.
RAZ: Wow.
HADFIELD: Yeah, that's what I thought.
RAZ: Bowie told you that? Oh my god.
HADFIELD: Yeah, he sent us an e-mail.
RAZ: The best cover of Bowie ever, from Bowie.
HADFIELD: Well, I had a pretty good sound stage up there.
RAZ: More stories and ideas about fear in a moment. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the TED radio hour from NPR.
Copyright © 2014 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio record.


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Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Relief
Try these exercises to relieve the wrist pain of carpal tunnel syndrome.
Finding relief from the wrist pain of carpal tunnel syndrome isn't just a personal matter; it's an economic issue. Not only does carpal tunnel syndrome lead to sore wrists and hands, and sudden, sharp shots of pain up the forearm, it also tanks productivity at work and – because of difficulties grasping and holding – increases the risk of dropping heavy objects. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor says carpal tunnel syndrome is the cause of nearly half of all missed work time. Fortunately, some simple carpal tunnel exercises can help.
Causes of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
"There are numerous causes of [carpal tunnel syndrome], however, and several conditions imitate it," says Eric Matteson, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Causes range from injuries or arthritis to chronic diseases, such as diabetes or hypothyroidism, to temporary conditions, such as pregnancy. So how can you tell if you are developing it?
At first, you may feel your fingers and hands are weak, numb, tingling or burning. That's when you need to start treating the symptoms to keep carpal tunnel syndrome from progressing and becoming a debilitating problem that requires surgery.
What To Do If You Have Carpal Tunnel Symptoms
Carpal tunnel relief is possible. "If you have hand or wrist pain and numbness, see your doctor to find out the true cause and evaluate treatment options," says Dr. Matteson. If it turns out carpal tunnel syndrome is the likely cause, your doctor may have you wear a splint, take regular breaks to rest your hand, give you a shot of cortisone in the wrist, or advise you to use a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) to relieve the swelling and pain.
If your hand and wrist get sore after using a computer mouse, set an alarm on your computer to go off every 15 minutes as a reminder to lift your hand off the mouse, wiggle your fingers yourself and stretch your hand muscles. Also, try a few hand exercises to improve blood flow to the wrist and hand.
Carpal Tunnel Exercises
1. Make a fist. Slide your fingers upward until they are pointing up straight. Repeat five to 10 times.
2. Make a fist. Release your hand and fan out your fingers, stretching them as far as you can. Repeat five to 10 times.
The Arthritis Foundation is the leading organization
providing support and funding research to improve the
lives of individuals with arthritis. You can help!


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Computational Nanoscience, Lecture 1: Introduction to Computational Nanoscience
Published on
In this lecture, we present a historical overview of computational science. We describe modeling and simulation as forms of "theoretical experiments" and "experimental theory". We also discuss nanoscience: "what makes nano nano?", as well as public perceptions of nanoscience and the "grey goo" phenomenon. Finally, we describe the process of setting up a computer experiment: choosing your model, making relevant assumptions, and interpreting your resutls.
UC Berkeley
Cite this work
Researchers should cite this work as follows:


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I'm getting the infamous Run Time Error '3021', and am having no luck resolving the issue. I have browsed countless forums and tried many different solutions, but none of them have worked for me.
This program is designed to send e-mails to appropriate people (determined by their field office location and "Mail Type"). It opens the recordset, loops through the records until it finds a person that matches BOTH criteria, sends the e-mail, and continues to loop through and sending messages to the appropriate people. The e-mails are sent through our smtp server to avoid the annoying Outlook security warnings.
The program cycles through the records as it should, but when it gets to the EOF, it throws the error. I have stepped through the code numerous times to try and understand what the heck is going on, but I'm only getting frustrated.
The error is thrown on the line "Loop Until MailType <> "3" Or..."Code:With r If MailType <> "3" Then Do Until MailType = "3" And Location = "Lubbock" .MoveNext Loop If MailType = "3" And Location = "Lubbock" Then Do Call SendMail(r, d) .MoveNext Loop Until MailType <> "3" Or Location <> "Lubbock" End If ElseIf .EOF Then MsgBox "E-mails sent." End If End With
For each time it runs through the loop, I hold my mouse over the MailType and Location variables to check the values it is finding. When it gets to the EOF, the variables return no value (meaning it is as .EOF), but it still throws the error. It doesn't even make it to the ElseIf statement.
The code runs PERFECTLY on my local hard drive, but when I try to run the code from the db that is saved on the server, the error is thrown. The code is identical, and the database is set up exactly the same. It is a mystery to me why it doesn't work on the server, but will on my PC.
It may be that I have not set up my loops correctly, but I'm not sure. Any help/advice y'all can give me will be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.


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Slightly smaller than Song Sparrow, looks duller and blurrier overall. Breast is plain gray; immatures sometimes show faint, blurry streaks. Wings are brighter rufous (reddish-brown) than other sparrows. Breeds in cattail marshes and other wetlands; found in a vareity of shrubby habitats during migration and winter, but often in wet areas. Typically not in flocks with other sparrows. Beware of juvenile Song Sparrow, but Swamp typically doesn't show such distinct streaking. Rarely visits feeders.
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Classes, Screenings & Support Groups
Breastfeeding Your Infant
Taught by a lactation expert, this class explores the advantages and benefits of breastfeeding including nutrition, positions that are comfortable, common problems, pumping and storage of breast milk. This class is ideal for pregnant moms in their third trimester.
Your partner is encouraged to attend, please include their name as additional attendee.
Refund & Class Re-Schedule Policy
No refunds for classes. Payment required at time of registration. Every effort will be made to reschedule participants into desired class. A $20.00 reschedule fee will apply for changes. Classes may be canceled due to ill instructor or low enrollment.
Cost: $60.00
Register for any three fee-based* classes during one transaction and receive a 20% discount.
(* some exclusions may apply)
(* some exclusions may apply)


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Maximum security is an obligation
Registration and identification
During the registration process, customers are asked to give their name, date of birth and address. This is to prevent minors from gaining access to the gaming products on the website, to avoid betting manipulation or money laundering, and to verify winnings payments.
If you would like to get in touch with an independent third party regarding any issues in relation to bwin, please contact https://www.ecogra.org/srs/dispute.php.
Payment systems
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Entertainment and responsibility
Prevention of gaming addiction
With the specific characteristics of the internet in mind, the GVC Holdings PLC has set up a joint research project in cooperation with Harvard Medical School and the Cambridge Health Alliance. The aim is to develop a comprehensive package of measures designed to prevent gaming addiction. The use of empirical studies should make it possible to detect conspicuous gaming behaviour at an early stage and take countermeasures quickly and individually.
The experience gained during the course of this project is continually incorporated in the design of the gaming products offered by ElectraWorks Limited.
Corporate Social Responsibility
The GVC Holdings PLC attaches great importance to corporate social responsibility. As a member of the Group, ElectraWorks Limited endorses a sustainable corporate policy based on the pillars of economic responsibility, ecological responsibility and social responsibility. ElectraWorks Limited does not consider economic and social responsibility to be incompatible with one another. On the contrary, particularly in the age of the Information Society, entrepreneurial activity depends on social acceptance.
The European Gaming & Betting Association (EGBA) was founded in February 2004 in order to ensure fair market access based on standardised conditions across Europe for all online gaming providers in the EU.
Standards were developed for this purpose, with the GVC Holdings PLC making a substantial contribution in its role as founding member.
All EGBA members have committed themselves to fully implement the guidelines set forth in the "Code of Conduct". For the sake of consumer interests, independent inspection bodies regularly verify compliance with the provisions, which comprise numerous security aspects, responsible gaming activities, the protection of minors, fraud control, and fair, non-misleading advertisement.
Further information on EGBA and the "Code of Conduct" is available at www.egba.eu.
The GVC Holdings PLC together with EGBA (European Gaming & Betting Association) founded the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) in January 2005. This move was prompted by what is known as the Hoyzer affair: At the time, the state-owned German betting provider Oddset lost millions through manipulated football games due to a lack of control mechanisms. The outcome of each game was decided by blatant mistakes on the part of the goalkeeper and the team's defence.
The objective of IBIA is to offer customers a fair sports betting product by preventing insider bets and betting fraud.
Using large-scale databases, IBIA is in a position to preventively recognise in real time whether sports events could have been manipulated and, in the event of manipulation, to pass on this information to sports organisations promptly and unbureacratically.
More details on this non-profit organisation are available at www.eu-ssa.org.
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Pittsburgh's lively downtown area has a wealth of idyllic backdrops and impressive architecture for the perfect engagement photo session. The Steel City has relatively small city limits, so it's easy to get all the shots you need in a reasonable amount of time. Pre-wedding Pittsburgh is a great place for pictures! Plus, the city's surrounding neighborhoods, boroughs and bridges also offer a great way to capture your memorable day!
An ideal starting point for your Pittsburgh engagement photo session is, naturally, the heart of the city – Point State Park. Home of the famed "Golden Triangle" area, this popular Pennsylvania state park includes a pleasant expanse of well-manicured lawns, historic Revolutionary War era forts and the fountain – favored among picture-taking Pittsburghers and out-of-towners alike. This fountain sprays water from an underground river up to 150 feet in the air – the best place for multi-position shots of your engagement session. You and your photographer can create plenty of memorable photographs from the fountain area. Depending on your vantage point, you can select surroundings to fit your taste. Majestic, modern homes dot the Mt. Washington hillside – choose this background for added depth & dimension to your engagement photography. Are you and your partner sports nuts? Simply face south, where your photographer can include pictures of Heinz Field or PNC Park, home of the six-time Super Bowl champion Steelers and Pirates, respectively. Your photo shoot can also include the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins' home, too – Mellon Arena is just a short jaunt through the center of the city. The arena is known for its retractable dome and is eligible for inclusion of the National Register of Historic Places. Back at the fountain, you can of course situate your snapshots to include the aforementioned Golden Triangle – Pittsburgh's downtown area, with a unique blend of traditional & contemporary architecture. Stand at the old Fort Duquesne outline and face the fountain for truly memorable shots. Just a few of Pittsburgh's photo-friendly, favorite pre-nuptial backdrops include the Gothic-style glass skyscraper PPG Place the soaring US Steel Tower and the famed Fifth Avenue Place.
Once you're satisfied with your Point State Park engagement photography, it's time to reach new heights – literally – as your picture tour winds its way up to Pittsburgh's Mt. Washington neighborhood Perched on a hilltop overlooking the Golden Triangle, this area captures the unique landscape, character and beauty that contribute to Pittsburgh's perennial inclusion on "America's Most Livable City" lists. Head across the Smithfield Street Bridge from downtown, catch East Carson street and turn west on PJ McArdle Roadway. This slowly meandering street eventually puts you several hundred feet above downtown and all three rivers – the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio. Grandview Avenue is a great spot for your engagement photography – there are numerous "pull-off' areas that provide an unforgettable environment for your Pittsburgh photo session – and any future bride and groom! Other excellent locales include the Duquesne and Monongahela inclines. These "hillside trains" have plenty of lookout area and open space for gorgeous shots of Pittsburgh. You're literally on top of the city from these two inclines. Plus, as you'll see soon, they're a great place to embark on even more engagement photos – from a ground-level perspective. This neighborhood is well-known – much like Pittsburgh's downtown – for its varied mix of architectural styles. Romanesque churches, contemporary homes and centuries-old buildings are just some of the breathtaking backdrops you'll find as your celebratory snapshot session winds through the area. But no matter where your pictures are taken on Mt. Washington, you're virtually assured of an album-worthy entry. Mt. Washington has been rated the most beautiful urban vista in the United States – and it's easy to see why. Your hardest decision will be deciding which pre-wedding photos NOT to keep!
From Mt. Washington, you can complete your snapshot schedule with an easy trip back toward Pittsburgh's South Shore – incline-style! Board either the Duquesne or Monongahela incline. This slow-moving, single-track train puts you on the doorstep of another Steel City marvel. Pittsburgh's Station Square area has an industrial past with a bright-looking future. Your photographer has abundant backdrops to complete your engagement photo session. Try a shot with three of the city's 446 bridges. The Fort Pitt, Smithfield and Liberty bridges show impressive scale and refined attention to detail. They're favorite photo spots for a variety of events – including your engagement photography. Station Square is also a popular embarkation point for hitting the city's three rivers. You can board the Pittsburgh Gateway Clipper Fleet for a leisurely trip around Point State Park. This is a great chance to capture the Allegheny River side of the Golden Triangle – a crucial component of any Steeltown picture agenda. Even a brief trip along the Allegheny makes you realize why Pittsburgh is called the City of Bridges. The Roberto Clemente and Rachel Carson bridges are just a few of the spans connection downtown Pittsburgh to the city's North Side. The Gateway Clipper moves slowly enough for your photographer to focus on capturing festiveengagement photos. Enjoy Pittsburgh from a romantic, riverfront vantage point aboard one of the fleet's five ships. The 1,000-passenger Majestic is a wise choice for your photo session; it has a spacious upper deck and extra room for achieving that perfect, sought-after snapshot.
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President Paul Kagame used his August address before the East African Community Media Summit to cast the domestic press "as an important partner in our country's development" while accusing Western journalists of misrepresentation that "derails our progress or even fuels conflict." The dual theme--calling on domestic journalists to advance a government agenda while depicting international news media as adversaries--has become common among regional leaders. But critical journalists are seen as foes, not partners, by Kagame's government. The authorities have engaged in several years of aggressive harassment of critical journalists, forcing many into exile, landing some in prison, and sowing self-censorship among the rest. CPJ identified three imprisoned journalists when it conducted its annual worldwide survey on December 1, and at least two others who were detained for significant periods during the year. Red lines appeared to be easily crossed and harshly punished: The authorities detained a radio presenter for nearly 100 days after the journalist mistakenly used a phrase deemed offensive to survivors of the 1994 genocide. Although Kagame spoke in support of media reform at the summit, three bills backed by the Rwandan press remained stalled in parliament. The bills would provide access to government information, create a media ombudsman independent of the government, and establish a public broadcaster.
Facing criminal prosecutions and harassment, numerous Rwandan journalists fled the country between 2007 and 2012.
Among those being held was Stanley Gatera, editor of the private weekly Umusingi. Gatera was serving a one-year jail term on charges of inciting divisionism and gender discrimination. The authorities arrested Gatera in connection with a June column that suggested men might regret marrying Tutsi women solely for their beauty.
Hopes that an amended penal code would lift restrictions on the press were dashed in June. The revised code includes penalties of up to 10 years in prison for supposed media crimes.
|Journalists face up to nine years in prison under a broadly written provision banning material seen as denying or "rudely minimizing" the Rwandan genocide.
Public order
|Journalists face up to 10 years in prison under a provision banning material seen as undermining public order or territorial integrity. Fines up to $24,000 may also be imposed. The amount is prohibitive in a country with an average annual income of $570, according to World Bank data.
The new broadcasters join a field of 13 other private stations. But few provide critical news coverage, according to CPJ research.
February 2012:
|The Kenyan-based Nation Media Group launches KFM Rwanda, a Kinyarwandan- and English-language radio station.
July 2012:
|Tele 10 and Family TV become the first Rwandan-run private TV stations to be launched since 1994.
November 2012:
|A South African cable business channel, CNBC, begins operations.


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Nokia Lumia 900 – build
We're big fans of the Lumia 800's polycarbonate unibody design and the Lumia 900 is equally as sexy in both blue and matte black, without straying into iPhone clone territory. At 11.5mm thick, it's a smidgeon thinner than the Lumia 800 and the 4.3in screen trumps the 800's 3.7 incher. But the Lumia 900 does make for a larger Nokia smartphone meaning less pocket space.
Nokia Lumia 900 – screen
The Lumia 900's 4.3in AMOLED screen doesn't boast as high a resolution as some of the phones launched this week at CES – such as the LG Spectrum – but 800x480 is plenty of pixels to show off those lovely Windows Phone 7.5 Mango live tiles.
And with the new screen size, it's clear Nokia was listening when we grumbled that the big and bold OS should be given a bigger stage in our Lumia 800 hands-on. Nokia's thankfully kept the ClearBlack tech and Gorilla Glass for the Lumia 900's screen though.
Nokia Lumia 900 – power and performance
Without spending some quality time with the Lumia 900 (which packs a 1.4Ghz single-core Scorpion processor), we won't know for sure if Stephen Elop was right to say that dual-core this and quad-core that isn't everything. But in both our hands-on and full Nokia Lumia 800 review, that lonely core coped just fine with browsing, apps and transitions.
Since the Lumia 900 will get 4G connectivity in the US, Nokia's chosen a massive 1840mAH battery for the handset but since we're stuck with 3G for the time being there's nothing for us to get too excited about just yet.
Nokia Lumia 900 – camera(s)
Alongside the 8MP rear facing camera – with Carl Zeiss optics, wide-angle lens and 720p video skills, as on the Lumia 800 – Nokia's added a 1.3MP front facer with wide-angle lens for video calls. We're nearly always impressed with Nokia's photo skills and the Lumia 900 was no exception – our shots of Nokia's CES stand came out clear and bright (no mean feat), with the shutter button speeding things up, and giving our premium compact a run for its money.
Having said all that, Nokia's not mentioned anything about releasing the Lumia 900 outside of the US so we'll just have to sit tight for word on an international rollout of one of the best-looking Windows Phone handsets we've seen yet.
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The REST API provides a RESTful interface to persist JSON objects to the datastore. All entities are accessed, queried and stored as resources via well defined HTTP methods.
Support for REST is in its early stages and will be enhanced in future releases.
The REST API automatically exposes the persistent class in RESTful style, and requires minimum configuration as detailed in the sections linked below.


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Today, HTC has released an official statement regarding the availability of the One in major markets and its delay. The company states that it "has seen unprecedented demand for and interest in the new HTC One" and will be making the handset available in the UK, Germany and Taiwan next week. Other major markets including Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific will get the One "before the end of April."
"HTC has seen unprecedented demand for and interest in the new HTC One, and the care taken to design and build it is evidenced in early reviews. The new HTC One will roll out in the UK, Germany and Taiwan next week and across Europe, North America and most of Asia-Pacific before the end of April. We appreciate our customers' patience, and believe that once they have the phone in their hands they will agree that it has been worth the wait."
When HTC had unveiled the One back in Feb, it had hoped to make the handset available in most markets by March. However, things have not really gone as the Taiwanese maker had planned with delays due to shortage of supplies of the handset's camera components.
By the time the HTC One will be available in nearly all the major markets, the Samsung Galaxy S4 would have also hit shelves in the major markets, which will definitely make things tough for the Taiwanese maker. While the HTC One may have a better in-hand feel and other nice features compared to the Galaxy S4, it lacks the marketing and brand presence that Samsung's Galaxy S series enjoy nowadays.