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It is a testament to our naïveté about culture that we think that we can change it by simply declaring new values. Such declarations usually produce only cynicism. ~ Peter Senge
Peter Senge is one of my favourite Thought Leaders. You will probably know that he has been around for a while but his message, at least for me, is as relevant to our current time as it was when he first introduced his book, The Fifth Discipline, twenty something years ago.
So far, in my experience anyway, we have not been great students of his philosophies…or we have been great students but just, well, crappy at the execution part, proof perhaps that naïveté also lives in our belief that any of this stuff is easy.
There was a time when everyone was jumping onto The Learning Organization bandwagon. This usually happened when times were good, when organizations felt a little more ebullient about their prospects and generous toward their employees. And then when things started to look a little gloomy, heads turned back to the way things were. Budgets were cut and the Learning part of the organization dried up while the focus snapped back in line with the notion that wisdom and decisions could only come from the few and learning for the many was a luxury no one could afford.
I'm thinking though that it is in the difficult times that leaders need to embrace the concepts of the Learning Organization and to build a culture of shared leadership.
I must confess that not being particularly academic in my own learning process, I found The Fifth Discipline a little dry. Having said that, I also think the five main components of a Learning Organization continue to make great sense and are actionable, to greater or lesser degrees, by everyone regardless of whether we lead in large organizations, small ones, or are simply striving to lead a meaningful life.
Each of the Learning Organization components, personal mastery, mental models, team learning, shared vision and systems thinking allow for the opportunity to create lives and organizations that are resilient, flexible, inclusive and dynamic. The question often is though, how do we to start?
Here are some of my thoughts about that:
Personal Mastery: is, for me, the place where everything really begins. Taking the time to study and understand our reality, and our purpose, serves not only ourselves but also everyone with whom we come in contact.
Practically speaking, there are a lot of instruments available on the Internet that will help us confirm what we might already inherently know about ourselves or uncover some things we didn't know. However we do it, the key to successful personal mastery, I think, is to trust in the information we receive; to be curious and ask questions either formally or informally; to observe the impact we have on others when we interact with them; and to act on any new knowledge we get about ourselves.
Mental Models: are, simply put, about assumptions and biases in our thinking. There is a proverb that says, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail".
This speaks to the dangers of clinging to, and operating from, narrow perspectives. I believe the goal for leaders in this century is to widen the lens of their thinking by challenging not only their own assumptions but also the beliefs and biases on which their organizations operate. I hazard to say that if we were each to bring heightened awareness to our assumptions, our ability to be receptive to change would be that much greater.
Team Learning: There are many books written on the topic of teams, and an amazing array of teams within organizations too. It can get pretty complex. But suffice it to say that in an age where shared leadership is, or will become, critical, the need to understand the dynamics and functional operation of teams is pretty great. Here, I think it starts with gaining an understanding of what a truly successful and highly functional team looks like. In my observation, it always seems to come down to how team members communicate with each other; how they manage conflict and; how they examine their successes and more particularly, their failures.
Shared Vision: I expect this one is pretty familiar to most people. And yet its usefulness is so often diminished because the vision is developed at the top of the organization and seldom shared by those who are expected to work toward its achievement. To me, a Shared Vision is just that…shared. It may start with one person but if it is going to come alive and guide the company's activities, it must be embraced and shared by all. It doesn't have to be a sweeping statement with big words either. For example, Zappos.com, the online department store's vision is, Delivering Happiness. It is a clear, simple statement that provides great direction to anyone who works there. To me, the message is, if what you do delivers happiness, it's probably the right thing.
Systems Thinking: When most people talk about Senge's model of a Learning Organization, they usually start with Systems Thinking. I keep it to the end because really this is about paying attention to the connections between and among a variety of elements that make up the whole. In organizations, we have this tendency to create silos of operation where people make decisions based only on their own needs. When this happens, others are affected, (often negatively) and that creates unnecessary and unproductive tension within the organization.
So, I suppose a place to start with respect to systems thinking is to ask, Who will be affected by what we are about to do? How do we involve them? Why should we care?
Really, systems thinking is kind of like the plumbing in an old apartment complex. If there is a breakdown in one person's apartment, it can affect the water supply to all of the others.
Some people may think the concepts put forth in The Fifth Discipline are old too. But, I think that they are timeless. If more organizations were to embrace and enact these philosophies, they would find ways to remain pliable and resilient in even the most treacherous of time.
That's what I think anyway. What do you think?
*note: this post was originally published in 2010


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Our Zen sangha recently discussed a koan called "Kyogen Mounts The Tree". It's about a sage named Kyogen who describes a man hanging onto a tree branch with his teeth, while dangling over a steep cliff. The koan did not specify why this man could not grab on to the branch with his arms and hands — perhaps he was disabled? And just how did the guy get into this predicament? That would require a sensible answer, and koans are not in the business of providing sensible answers.
Anyway, according to the koan story, someone else came along and saw the poor fellow up in the tree, hanging on for life. The sojourner did not make any attempt to rescue Kyogen's friend — perhaps there isn't much that could have been done in ancient times, a time without cell phones and body harnesses and helicopters. So, the passer-by decided to ask the hanging man a question: Why does Bodhidharma come to China from India? This question puts Kyogen's man in a quandry — if he stays quiet, he "fails" — presumably he misses his chance to spread the dharma and perhaps attain his own enlightenment (for it is in teaching that we learn the most). But by staying mum, he keeps alive the hope that somehow, something will rescue him. If he does decide to answer, he goes down into the chasm, and dies on the rocks below. But in the few seconds of his fall, he might attain enlightenment (or at least bring the passer-by to it — assuming that Kyogen's man has a good answer).
Various members of our group argued that the answer is obvious: let go and answer the question! Being a true Zen student means taking the risk, accepting the worst, and letting go. Even if that means making a sacrifice for the cause. We should not get hung-up on what seems most obvious — i.e., putting self-preservation first. The fear and struggle caused by mindless self-preservation holds us back; it can be worse than the consequence itself. This would seem most consistent with the Buddha's teachings that grasping and desire are the ultimate cause of suffering, and it also comports with modern notions of "letting go" of obsession. Of all the things that inspire us to grasp and desire, self-preservation has to be among the top. But Zen likes wisdom, and when someone asks for wisdom (Bodhidharma going to China certain must have had something to do with wisdom, we think), maybe that is the most important thing.
Of course, I took the contrarian position — I opined that Kyogen's man said it all by saying nothing. His silence was the more eloquent answer (especially given how Bodhidharma supposedly sat in silence facing a rock wall in a cave for 9 years straight!). Koans attempt to use words to transmit wisdom (in however distorted a fashion), including the paradoxical wisdom that the wisest things are beyond words. The lesson that the passer-by gains from Kyogen's silent hanging man is beyond whatever he might say in a second or two of falling to his death.
That all sounds good, but what I really wanted to say is that being alive and conscious of it IS the main event !!! Why shouldn't we struggle to preserve precious life, even if some suffering is involved? In a way, the Buddha's teachings on suffering amount to a prescription for euthanasia. If you really don't want to suffer at all, just go and kill yourself! Yes, sure, it makes sense to say that we cause unnecessary suffering by engaging in excessive grasping and desire. I've heard Zen teachers try to make Buddhist teachings palatable by turning the Buddhist strictures into a question of balance. But balance and subtlety is NOT what Zen and Buddhism seem to be about (if you want balance and subtlety, you need to go to Taoism).
Still, most religious traditions present their followers with the possibility of dying for the cause, even if they don't recommend it to most people in most situations. The main western theistic faiths, Christianity, Islam and Judaism, all present stories of saints and heros who gave up their lives in the name of a holy principal (Jesus being the most obvious poster-boy, although with the footnote that it might be easier to go to the cross when you are a Son of God).
I can't recall any myths or stories from any of the eastern spiritual traditions that directly address this issue, but some of Zen's koans present potentially fatal situations to the student (including the familiar koan about the monk hanging on the side of the mountainside with hungry tigers gathered above him and below, so the monk uses his last moments to enjoy a dangling strawberry). These traditions don't so much appear to be encouraging fealty to an ultimate principle; instead, they appear to be teaching calm and equanimity in all situations, even one that demands death. But there may be some stories, such as Kyogen's quandary, that suggest that the attainment of Enlightenment is a prime directive to be pursued even at the cost of death.
But let's get something straight — whenever a spiritual system recommends or at least suggests the possibility of dying for the cause, it also presents the compensation of a promise of eternal life. Modern Buddhists deny that Buddhism is an any way tied to life beyond death, but that is just modern Western revisionism at work. Old-school Buddhism CERTAINLY focuses on re-incarnation and the goal of "avoiding re-birth". Just read the Tibetan Book of the Dead if you want to see what was on the mind of real Buddhists in the lands where it thrived for over a millennium.
One can argue that Buddhist re-incarnation does not promise the preservation of the self, with all its memories and feelings and unique personality; only the karma of the self is passed on. In some instances that might be understood, but in the more popular manifestations of Buddhism amidst the masses, mythologies involving a personal agency that survives beyond the immediate life become more common, e.g. in the Pure Land traditions. And the idea of "Nirvana" is never described in detail (by contrast, an unfortunate tendency of some Christian leaders is to paint a glowing picture of Heaven, e.g. "Answers to Your Questions About Heaven"), but certain implies some form of happy existence or transcendence beyond the boundaries of physical reality.
So, Buddhism is not excused from the "be willing to die for the faith, if you want happiness forever" club.
But what about joining this club? How should informed modern people approach it? A lot of those people today take the atheist (or very agnostic) tack; they stick to positivism, and reject anything that can't be proven in a rational, scientific fashion. Not to say that an atheist would never die for a cause; they might well find it rational to sacrifice their own life if it will preserve the life of many others. But they certainly would not entertain any notion of life beyond death in making such a decision.
I myself look at the life beyond death question as a great mystery, something akin to a koan. There is no one answer that seems completely right while all others are clearly wrong. The arguments against it seem just as compelling as the ones in favor. On some days, it is clear to me that the grave is the bitter end; on others, hope seems undeniable. About the best analogy that I can find is from quantum physics. We live almost like a quantum particle in "super-position". We are all possibilities simultaneously, all very real; and yet we are none at all. We are both dead and alive after death, sort of like a Schrodinger's Cat.
Obviously, it's not as easy to be a hero or a saint who sacrifices one's life for a cause (or even for the betterment of other people) when you aren't really sure about the next life. It might be even worse than being sure that we are totally extinguished by death, as the atheist / positivists are. I really think that we need new forms of religion, forms that are honest about the inherent uncertainty of transcendence. I think that it would be comforting to share the mix of hope and emptiness with others. It would seem somewhat less absurd if we could share our "quantum feelings" about this. Just as quantum particles become somewhat more "real" when they exist in relation to other particles, such as in an atom.
For now, I think that the hanging man's silence was the more important thing than any words he could have spoke about Bodhidharma. His hanging on for dear life IS EXACTLY why Bodhidharma came to China. "Bod" came to help Chinese people live. And die, when the time came for that. He thought he had some things to say — and NOT say — that could help them with all of that.
So, keep on grasping that tree branch of being ! But when the time comes to let go, then just let go. If life after death is quantum, then there is at least a chance that transcendence awaits below.


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|Getting Closer to Serve You Better
|With the objective to reach out to serve more customer with better services, Shaury focus on engaging all segments of its customers more interactively with its service campaign of "Getting Closer to Serve You Better".
Acting on this initiative, Shaury sets up Adventure Flavours, Spice Runner and The Schefz as its wholly owned marketing arm to focus on retail marketing with a supportive role to provide better services dedicated to retail customers such as hypermarkets, restaurants, hotels, fast-food chains and related businesses. We believe in getting closer to our customers to understand their needs better in order to proactively address those challenges imposed by changing market trends.
One of the challenges is to acknowledge the growing potential for halal compliance products and services in the food industry.
With this objective in mind, Shaury's factory was designed and built to be fully halal compliance with certification from Jakim. We are planning to expand our halal products and services to a greater scale to grow along with the rising market demand for halal compliance food products in the near future.
|Serving Our Customers Even Better
|Shaury focus on two distinct market segments of customers with the objective to fulfill their needs with fresher quality products, better services and shorter delivery time as follows:


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Valued up to $221 million over three years, Morpho Detection was selected for this contract following successful completion of two previous ILS contracts first awarded in 2005. This sole source contract covers acquisition of Performance Based Logistics (PBL) services including preventive, corrective and excepted maintenance actions on TSA's entire fleet of Morpho CTX EDS. The largest supplier of hold baggage EDS systems to TSA and airports around the world, Morpho Detection's field service teams help ensure maximize system life and performance through a proactive, onsite maintenance program.
"Morpho is honored to continue our decades-long work helping TSA achieve their high standard for system maintenance and performance," said Karen Bomba, president and CEO, Morpho Detection. "Morpho has made significant investments in recent years to deliver the highest level of service reliability, while aggressively managing costs for our customers. This contract is a reflection of these efforts."
In addition to CTX EDS, this contract covers all service requirements for Morpho's MUX™ multiplexing networks and software to enable central station and airport-wide networking capabilities.


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1 Kanal Modern Residence by Ahsan Farhan Associates(450 sqm House)
Project by Ahsan Farhan Associates
Art, Design or Architecture is better done as a passion. We endeavor to bring life to our passion through technology and enriched concepts.
Architecture and design is something, we find, being evolved with in ourselves. In this regard, Nature and surrounding environment have always been a source of inspiration.
Designing a space is based on establishing relationship between existing and conceived environment, keeping in mind clients' requirements, form and the theme.
Designed spaces (interior or open) and forms (buildings) do express themselves and they speak too. They develop a strong relationship with the inhabitants and users. Understanding of this particular point forms the basis of visualization that enables us to draw the first line in any design project.


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To hear our city and county commissioners these days you'd get the impression that every mill levied against us is baked with love and that every public service provided is absolutely essential to our well-being.
Now I don't spend a lot of time in the belly of the beast. I'm just a front line foot soldier sitting here in my third line trench, and from where I sit these acts of municipal kindness feel like upright pianos with cast iron innards being heaved at me. I've tried my best to get them to see what they're doing, but it's not working too well. I've occasionally thought I'm invisible, but the cashiers at Wal-Mart or Reebles, my neighbors, and my friends all say "Hello" when they see me out and about. Maybe our leaders can't see me because I don't genuflect in their presence or fawn all over them. It's probably time for another approach. Let me try this. "I love you commissioners." "You're the absolute best." "You're the cat's pajamas." How's that?
I've gone as far as I can go. I'm going back to making my case. Commissioners, please. Stop it! You're killing me with your kindness.
I'm really not against the concept of government. I like it, particularly the idea of self-government, which I've been led to understand is supposed to be the American ideal. What I'm decidedly against is government, whether it's Federal, State, or Municipal, that all too often does things it has no business doing and fails to do many of the things it should.
Sometimes it amazes me. Our leaders seem to have enough money to subsidize a public golf course to the tune of six figures annually, but couldn't find enough to subsidize reduced cab fares for the city's elderly and handicapped a couple of budget cycles ago. The commissioners said they were simply eliminating a duplicate service. The net effect of the decision was one transport service for the elderly and disabled and two golf courses, one getting a public subsidy and another having to compete with the subsidized links.
How is it our leaders have enough time to consider having taxpayers foot the bill for overpriced property on Highway 50, but can't seem to find the time to deal with slumlords who prey on renters and cost their neighbors in higher property taxes and then add insult to injury by failing to pay their fair share and depressing property values?
There must be some sort of chemical mix in the water down at city hall and the county courthouse that causes our leaders to take leave of their senses just about the time they have to make a decision. I think they must be using them in every government office in the country.
Last night I read about a bill the California senate just passed. It's titled Senate Bill 432. In their superior wisdom, a small band of public spirited politicians have mandated that all hotels, inns, bed and breakfasts, etc. in the state start using fitted sheets on their beds. According to the politicos, the reason for the mandate was worker safety. For any hotel, inn, or bed and breakfast that has the temerity to defy the legislators there will be criminal penalties. The California innkeepers say the decision will cost them close to $20 million and that the costs will be passed on to their guests. Will the mandate improve safety conditions for the state's hotel workers? No, but that doesn't matter.
The California House is going to consider the proposed legislation sometime this month. I'm sure the Senate will send the proposal, along with enough chemicals to ensure the bill's passage.
A couple of months ago, the cities of San Francisco and Santa Monica considered legislation banning the practice of male circumcision. When religious groups, particularly Jews, objected, the lawyers stepped in and argued that "So long as a law has no discriminatory intent, states and the federal government may, therefore, regulate behavior in ways that contradict individuals' religious beliefs and practices." In other words, Jews can object all they want. They can argue they've been circumcising their male children since Abraham instituted the practice 4,000 years ago, but it may not do them any good.
The measure is going to be on the cities' respective ballots in November.
I see these things being played out in my home town, in California, and in Washington, D.C. and I feel like my head is spinning. The country is drowning in debt and deficits. So is California. So is Emporia. And what are our leaders doing? Drinking chemically laced water, mandating fitted sheets, banning circumcision, subsidizing golf, pandering to slumlords, and printing money. It makes me want to scream from my housetop, "Stop the insanity!" "Stop killing me with your kindness!"


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Homeless Shelter Housing Hundreds Each Night & Facing Foreclosure Files Civil Rights Suit Against City Of Atlanta, Two Civic Groups
In Atlanta, Georgia, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:
- Leaders of an Atlanta homeless shelter fighting foreclosure announced during a Thursday rally they filed a complaint against the city and two civic groups, accusing them of violating their clients' civil rights. Civil rights advocates, residents and other supporters joined hands and surrounded the Metro Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless Peachtree-Pine shelter, vowing to keep the center open.
- "We have to save this building," Anita Beaty, the task force's executive director, said during the protest. "This building is our emergency respite and home." The complaint, filed May 6, accuses the city of discriminatory practices that violate federal fair housing rules. It asks the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to withhold about $20 million in federal housing and community development funds. Peachtree-Pine houses hundreds of people each night.
Source: Homeless shelter announces civil rights complaint during rally.


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Word Routes
Exploring the pathways of our lexicon
2013 Spelling Bee: Vocabulary Questions in the Spotlight
May 29, 2013By Ben Zimmer
It's time once again for the Scripps National Spelling Bee, and the big news going into this year's competition is the inclusion of vocabulary questions along with the traditional spelling questions. Even though the new multiple-choice questions testing contestants' knowledge of definitions will only appear in the off-stage computerized portions of the Bee, it's still a controversial shift in format. Continue reading...


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If we close our eyes, we can see roads. Try it yourself— for just a moment, close your eyes and visualize the way to Northampton, Pittsfield, Greenfield or Springfield from your front door. It's not hard to see mental images of roads, is it? They just appear because they are engraved into our neural systems.
We carry the "environment" inside ourselves. The "environment" is part mental construction, part everything else.
This truth is self-evident, but—after studying the ways we comprehend and fit into the designs of nature for over thirty years—I have yet to read much, or participate in many discussions, about it. True: the concept of "nature deficit disorder" has gained currency, which is good; but, the larger issue of getting more than individuals over the disorder—and getting vast populations over it—can't even be imagined yet. Individuals can take a long hike every couple of days, or garden, and get over it. But how do the people of NYC, or any other urban inhabitation on earth, get over it? Do these populations even want to get over it? Is there a candidate for public office anywhere running on a platform of ensuring that all citizens get over nature-deficit disorder? Is getting over it "good for the economy?" Can it be considered a "market-based solution?" Is there anyway that Wall St. investors can "financialize" the process, or corporations turn it into a product, or universities turn it into a hot new major? Read the rest of this entry »


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The Academy was founded over 18 years ago and has grown to become one of the area's most highly regarded establishments in the dance field. The ethos of the Academy is to promote enjoyment, a love of dance and community spirit whilst at the same time achieving excellent results in a happy, non-competitive and relaxed environment.
The Academy specialises in Ballet, Modern Theatre, Tap, Acrobatic Arts and Theatrical Dance for both girls and boys and offers a consistent high standard of teaching catering for all levels and abilities. Aspiring adults are also catered for by offering ballet and tap lessons for both the novice and the more experienced dancer, as well as DDMIX.
Read more about The Academy Read more about Our Classes


text: 5 reasons why Bubble Ball is for you! Do you fancy bumping, rolling and bashing you friends or colleagues around a football pitch whilst inside a giant inflatable ball? If you answered yes then Astro Ball is for you, you and 13 of your mates can hire these … Read Post Posted: 14/10/14


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This is the home page of Hadick Enterprises, LLC, the business side of Mickey Hadick.
What We Do
We write and publish books, doing business as Parkside Books.
We design, build and host websites using WordPress, HTML5 or SharePoint Online.
We do digital marketing, with expertise in content strategy, Google Analytics and Conversion Optimization.
And we fancy ourselves experts in creativity, so you can really as us anything.
Contact Us
The best way is to email me, email@example.com.
The Rest of This Website…
…is an experiment I'm running on building apps via websites.


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Location: Kiev, Ukraine
PortaOne is looking for an Oracle professional to participate in a new exciting project of deploying high availability billing solution based on Oracle Real-Time Application Cluster.
You will have a chance to play a leading role in the application design, implementation and deployment. This position may require business travel to the company headquarters in Canada as well as international travel to perform on-site services for customers.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
- 5+ years Oracle experience required
- 2+ years of experience in Oracle DBA position required
- 2+ years of experience with Unix and Oracle deployment in Unix environment
- Strong SQL and PL/SQL skills
- Experience with performance tuning on all levels (server, database, individual SQL statements)
- Knowledge of software development methodologies and practices
- Excellent knowledge of the English language - verbal, written, technical
- Self-motivated, detail-oriented and able to work well both independently and as part of a team
Desirable Skills and Abilities
- Experience with high availability database solutions and Oracle RAC
- Oracle on Linux experience, experience with disk arrays/NASes
- Database modeling
- Porting MySQL->Oracle
Main Duties and Responsibilities
- Recommend schema, triggers and stored procedures for a performance intensive real-time billing application
- Build and test the Oracle RAC environment
- Create, maintain, and manage multiple databases to facilitate development, testing and production roll-out of the application
- Perform database troubleshooting and tuning
We offer exciting projects, work within professional IT team, comfortable working environment and competitive compensation based on professional skills and working experience. PortaOne office in Kiev will provide: lunch, English lessons, health insurance.
Please send your resume to email@example.com with subject: Oracle Architect.
Toll-free calls (phone & Skype)
+1 866 747 8647
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+1 604 628 2508
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"It's a wildly leftist novel of love, war and death; Townsend Warner chucks the
lot into her simmering story, but it remains skilfully crafted. Brilliantly
entertaining and far ahead of its time. " — The Guardian
"Sophia Willoughby leaves her disloyal husband. Both of her young children die of smallpox. Sophia flees to Paris, where she enters a relationship with her husband's mistress, a woman raised in czarist Russia. It is 1848, and Sophia finds herself caught in the revolutionary crossfire. It is a long, hard fall from the landed gentry of her native England to the bloody streets across the Channel…Anxiety, harsh, impossible choices and the fugitive life — these are Warner's stations of the cross." —Los Angeles Times
"As the denouement of Summer Will Show, where elegance burns into fervor, seems to me the most triumphal single moment in revolutionary fiction, so the whole elaborate, fine-spun novel seems the most skilful, the most surefooted, sensitive, witty piece of prose yet to have been colored by left-wing ideology." –Mary McCarthy, The Nation
"Sylvia Townsend Warner has always possessed a cachet lifting her fantasies above mere prettiness and artifice…now she has produced a more imaginative work which begins with no indication of how it will end, and becomes by turns a period comedy of manners, a stylized comedy of temperaments and at last the drama of a woman's conversion to a new order of life…It is a very difficult thing to begin a book on a light and mocking note, make it gradually grow deeper and more resonant, and charge it finally with passionate sound; but Miss Warner has done it with unmistakable success." –The New York Times
"This book is indeed a woman's handiwork, with a woman's insight, malice, exquisiteness; in its wit, its instinct for style, its drawing-room urbanities, it will suggest at one time or another the work of a Rebecca West, a Virginia Woolf, an Elinor Wylie." –Louis Kronenberger, The New York Times
"Townsend Warner has to be one of the great under-read British novelists of the twentieth century. This, my favourite of her novels, has a disaffected Victorian wife falling for her husband's charismatic mistress, and discovering revolutionary politics along the way." —Sarah Waters
"There is need for a respectful tone in speaking of Miss Warner, for she manages certain things superlatively well…Her imagination and verbal skill place her far above the average contemporary novelist; Summer Will Show is filled with original phrasings and apt figures of speech." –Ralph Thompson, The New York Times
"We learned to expect excellence of [Warner]…when she published Summer Will Show…She has an extraordinary capacity for being subtle without holding her narrative to the plaintive, precious, minor key that usually accompanies subtlety in modern novels." –Charles Poore, The New York Times
"The novel of [Sylvia Townsend Warner]'s with the strongest lesbian subtext is Summer Will Show; it's also, I think, her best book. It's a novel of female fascinations, in which a conventional Victorian wife, Sophia Willoughby, follows her philandering husband to Paris, only to find herself falling in love with his charismatic storytelling mistress, Minna." –Sarah Waters, Out Magazine
"Playing the game of choosing the century's finest writers, England's literary pundits conspicuously failed to mention Sylvia Townsend Warner. The omission was, frankly, bizarre…Shame on the list makers, then, for such aberration. It's almost as bad as leaving Jane Austne out of a roundup of early 19th-century British novelists." –The New York Times Book Review
"Her novels, short stories, poems–and now letters–are the work of a minor artist, but an artist blessed with a poised, felicitous command of language and the ability to portray both the ordinary and the odd with charming, compassionate wit." –Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
"The unifying elements in her work were always a compassion and understanding for those whose lives were constricted, foreshortened bereft of promise…Miss Warner was one of the most stylish, one of the most civilized and cultivated of writers. Idea and word worked together like engaged gears. Trying to suggest her quality, reviewers drew comparisons between her and Jane Austen or Elinor Wylie or Katherine Mansfield." –New York Times
"Set in Paris during the revolutionary spring of 1848, Summer Will Show tells of the struggle of Sophia Willoughby, a woman set adrift by the death of her children, for self-understanding, commitment, love. With the arrival of Minna Lemuel, her husband's mistress, the novel unexpectedly takes a turn that gives it greater dimension and weight. In Minna, Warner created one of the more memorable female characters in modern fiction. Summer Will Show…demonstrates the same virtues of wit and compassion that grace all of her work." –Newsday
"Warner will be mostly known to American readers I imagine, for the many short stories that appeared in the New Yorker from 1936 almost until her death in 1978. Her offbeat, whimsical talent was in fact well suited to the short story, but her output was actually surprisingly large and included also novels, biography, poetry and translations. She was such an original, so indifferent to fashion, that she may never be assigned a place in mainstream literature but will be rediscovered and rediscovered again and again." –The New York Times Book Review


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Friday Nights At Pacha London
8500+ Music Fans Worldwide Cant Be Wrong
Mark Boyes Presents Justine Riddoch
"Keep Pushing On 2010"
One of the biggest club anthems of all time gets a 2010 re-boot! Huge mix package and sublime vocals make this one of this years essential selections
The Allnighterz Feat Honey Brown & Lady Chanyai
"Body Groove 2010"
What started life as a cheeky bootleg in 2008, finally see's the light of day with these official release mixes.
Tom Ferguson Feat Sam Noon
"Yellow Brick Road"
One of this years biggest anthems in Ibiza, "Yellow Brick Road" finally gets its release on Bless UK Records, with a massive mix package
Rick Restanques Feat Linda Lee Hopkins
"Too Hot"
Featuring the sublime vocal talents of Linda Lee Hopkins (Bob Sinclar), this club anthem comes with an amazing mix package. Check It out!
One Of The Best Shows On The Radio
• BLESS015 - Rick Restanques - Too Hot


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1. Cute Crochet Chat (celebrating the art of crochet and all its creativity) has reviewed The Crochet Dude Drew Emborsky's new crochet pattern book—Hug It Out! and is giving away a copy of the same! Giveaway ends March 19!
2. AllFreeKnitting.com (free knitting patterns for happy stitching) is giving away: a Knook Beginner Set and 4 books:
The AllFreeKnitting.com giveaway ends March 22!
3. Are you a Raveler? Then you're qualified for this giveaway! The good folks over at Unraveled (news, events, & other notes from Ravelry.com), are offering up a big book prize package: 25 lucky winners each win 26 books, and two of those books are from Leisure Arts—
Storybook Dolls to Knit by Anita M. Wheeless
Urban Edge by Shannon Mullett-Bowlsby
Giveaway ends March 23!
And remember, if you don't win, you can always get the product you're coveting on Leisure Arts.com!


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With the growth of ecommerce via the internet there is growing awareness both among the buyers and the merchants about making the net an even safer place to do business. This is mainly due to the fact that with the growth of web based transactions there emerged innumerous cases of fraudulent practices, sales of replicas, misuse of credit cards, bank accounts and misappropriation of cash. Although certain effective steps have been taken to stop such malpractices and wide misuse of net transactions, it is still not sufficient to stop the racketeers from swindling money from unwary web buyers. Thus, Google brought out its unique Google Checkout for assisting the web purchaser and preventing them from becoming victims of fraud.
Google Checkout is a recent arrival and one of the better known financial organizations PayPal had been in the market with a vast network in almost all major countries. Hence, when the Google Checkout was introduced to the web there were rumors that it was going to be a direct competitor of PayPal. However, things turned to be somewhat different as Google Checkout's main aim was to provide complete anonymity to the purchaser's credit card or debit card or bank account.
Google Checkout out is rather quite simple and one only has to click on the shopping cart icon on the Google website. In case a person is still not sure he may gather information from the Google Checkout website. To start with, one can shop for any items that are available only at the participating stores. Then after dropping all items in the shopping cart and completing ones purchase the person can click on the Google Checkout button. A person wishing to purchase through the Google Checkout method needs to fill up a form giving the details of his debit card, credit card or bank account. Under no circumstance does Google disclose the identity of your card or bank account to the merchants. In fact, the Google stands as guarantee between the buyer and the seller. It has clear cut policies to refund your money in case of fraud, but the same should be reported to Google within 60 days.
However, Google Checkout is for one time transactions between the purchaser and the seller of the merchandise. It also do not allow stored fund to be used for future transactions. In case of PayPal this is quite possible. Again, Google Checkout does not allow payment of fund from person to person and this is easily done through PayPal. In spite of that it is emerging as a good user friendly option for web shoppers who want some protection for their hard earned money. No doubt it is adding new merchants who likewise wish to keep their goodwill and want genuine buyers.
E-Commerce Related Articles
- A Glimpse Into The Historic Roots Of E-commerce
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- Essential Tools To Gain Success In An Online Business
- Features An E-commerce Website Should Have
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- Newsgroups
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- The Email Industry
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- Trends In E-commerce
- Understanding Payment Processing Statements
- What To Look For In Shopping Cart Software


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My friend and reporting colleague Lisa Brothers Gutierrez has one less kitty padding around the place these days. Lisa has written a touching tribute to that pussycat who came into her family's life to teach important lessons about living, losing and love. We encourage you to respond with stories about precious pets that may be gone but are fondly remembered. This is Lisa's blog:
The "experts" say having a pet teaches children responsibility and that is true. They don't often say that having pets can teach children about the frailty of life and how to deal with death. My son has lots of pets; correspondingly, he has lost more than his fair share to illness and age. Most recently my mother's tabby cat Samantha Jean "Sammie" succumbed to old age after 21 years of life.
As you can probably imagine, she had the usual ailments– arthritis, failing eyesight and sense of smell –but she still enjoyed her food and got around fine (often darting into the house before we could get in and shut the door). And even though we were expecting her demise, it still cast a sad pall over our home when she died.
I told my son that Sammie's passing is a blessing. She's no longer feeling the infirmities of her age. And, for those who believe in an afterlife, she may even be in a better place.
And, while I don't relish discussing death with my son, I'm grateful for all the pets who've brought us happiness and laughter and who've taught me that giving a little of my heart is worth the love you receive before they die. I believe these lessons also help us deal with losses in our human famlies. I'm also grateful that my son is learning this now early in life and that I have the help of our furry companions (in life and death) to teach him the value of life and love.
Thank you Sammie Cat: June, 1986–Oct. 7, 2007.


text: Monthly Archives: January 2017 Fun February Events in the Galveston Area 2-3 – Houston Symphony: West Side Story at Jones Hall for the Performing Arts, at 615 Louisiana St, in Houston. 2, 9, 16, 23 – Galveston's Own Farmers Market Thursday… Written by Heath Murry January 24, 2017 No Comments SETH 5 Star Texas Advantage Program The SETH 5 Star Texas Advantage Program provides eligible homebuyers a Grant for Down Payment and Closing Costs when purchasing a home. Buyers also receive a 30 year fixed rate… Written by Heath Murry January 23, 2017 No Comments Real Estate Word of the Day: Survey Survey: The process by which boundaries are measured and and areas determined; the on-site measurement of lot lines, dimensions and position of houses in a lot, including the determination of… Written by Heath Murry January 19, 2017 No Comments 47 Easy Ways to Make Your Home Sell Faster Throughout the House Open the draperies, pull up the shades, and let in the sunlight. Create a positive mood. Turn on all lights, day or night, and install higher wattage… Written by Heath Murry January 12, 2017 No Comments Real Estate Word of the Day: Broker Broker: One who acts as an intermediary between parties to a transaction. A real estate broker is a properly licensed party (individual, corporation or partnership) who, for a valuable consideration… Written by Heath Murry January 9, 2017 No Comments League City Listed One of the Fastest Growing Cities A little over one year ago, League City reached a population of 100,000 people and counting. WalletHub recently conducted a study of 2016's Fastest Growing Cities in the U.S. and… Written by Heath Murry January 4, 2017 No Comments About our blog Our agents write often to give you the latest insights on owning a home or property in the local area. Recent Posts 4 Ways to Stay Warm Without Raising Your Electric Bill… Rent to Own vs. Buy Real Estate Acronym for Happy Holidays… How Changing Jobs Affects Buying a Home… Archives June 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 May 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016


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Welcome to 2020! The West Hartford Democratic Town Committee is a dedicated group of local individuals that care about their community and want to see everyone from all walks of life and with diverse beliefs and backgrounds thrive.
Please enjoy our website. There are events, posts on issues, photos, helpful information and so much more. You can donate online to our town committee and you can contact us here.
We have regular meetings on the third Thursday of every month on the third floor in the West Hartford Town Hall in the evening. Please feel free to join us at any time and be a real part of the process. If you would like to volunteer or join us – you can learn more here.
Thank you for being a part of the solution – not part of the argument!


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'Pay attention please, nurses. The next six months will be the most important of your lives'
It's the final year of training for three young nurses at The Nightingale Hospital.
Helen is at a crossroads in her life as she battles with her domineering mother over both her love life and her future career.
Dora can't stop loving Nick, who is married to her best friend, Ruby. But Ruby is hiding a dark secret with the potential to destroy Ruby's marriage.
Millie is anxious about her fiance, sent to Spain to cover the Civil War, and things only get worse when she encounters a fortune teller who gives her a sinister warning.
With war looming in Europe, and the East End of London squaring up to the threat of Oswald Mosley's blackshirts, the women of the Nightingale have to face their own challenges, at work and in love.
Publisher: Arrow, Oct 2013
Reviewer: Jen Kendell
A wonderful story of life in Pre-War times. Shows the true dedication of the nurses – the long hours they worked and their personal stories interwoven alongside this were engrossing and sometimes very sad. A very good and well written story, The Author obviously researched those times thoroughly and it was a very believable novel – I really enjoyed it.


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GPO and PowerShell support in #AzureAD and #Intune? Tech Preview released – #EnvokeIT Workspace Client
Finally… we're pleased to announce that we now have released the Tech Preview of the EnvokeIT Workspace Client service!! 🙂
What is this and why did we build this SaaS device configuration service?
Have you also tried to roll-out Windows 10 with Azure AD and potentially also Microsoft Intune and lack capabilities like Group Polices to control registry and files or to run PowerShell scripts?
We've solved that for you! The EnvokeIT Workspace Client is a device configuration client built on the cloud and for the cloud! Now you have all the capabilities that you require to deliver a modern Windows 10 Out-of-the-box delivery using Azure AD!
Have a look at our "quick" overview video or just sign up for a free Tech Preview tenant and you'll be up and running within minutes!
The service is built for Windows on Azure and leverages the latest technology to ensure that you can adopt the Windows and Azure AD architecture without lacking what you need from good old Group Policies!
Here are some examples of what the service can solve for you:
- You want to remove the Windows "bloatware" for all your Windows 10 devices, no problem
- If you want to specify and ensure that all your users have the same company background, you can do that!
- If you need to configure application settings for all users, no problem!
- Do you need to have an updated User Guides or other material easily pushed to your users desktop, no problem!
- If your web applications require that they are put in Local Intranet or Trusted Sites in your browsers, then you can push that out!
- Does your Windows application require specific local settings files to be pushed to the clients, no worries we've got you covered there as well!
- Do you need to push out Microsoft Edge policies you can do that as well! For a complete list of built-in Group Policy objects that you can configure see this list.
- If you need to do special configuration of the OS, applications or user settings you can do that through PowerShell scripts, you write the scripts and our agent makes sure it's run in user or system context. Configuration possibilities are endless with PowerShell script support!
Read more at the site or sign up for your own trial tenant!
And if you need any assistance in your Windows 10, Office 365 or Enterprise Mobility Project just contact us at EnvokeIT: email@example.com or send an email to me directly: richard.egenas at envokeit.com
#Azure November newsletter
Once again I'm amazed of the pace that Microsoft releases new innovative and great service in Azure! Just love it! 🙂
Free e-book: Enterprise Cloud Strategy
What if you were able to achieve both efficiency and innovation in your business domains and applications across your entire portfolio? What if you could take advantage of the cloud and all its resources and features? With a good road map and strategy, you can. Download the free e-book, Enterprise Cloud Strategy, and find ways to build your own road map to success.
Advancing our ambition to democratize artificial intelligence
Microsoft recently announced a new partnership with OpenAI, a nonprofit AI research organization co-founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman and Ilya Sutskever. Together we hope to make significant contributions to advance the field of AI, and make it more accessible to every developer and every organization. Read more about the partnership and why OpenAI chose Azure as the primary cloud platform from Harry Shum, Microsoft Executive Vice President of AI and Research and Sam Altman, co-founder, OpenAI (and be sure to watch the video about why they chose Azure). Also, visit the Azure Blog for more information.
Connect(); // 2016: Keynotes and technical sessions available on demand
Missed the Microsoft Connect(); developer event? Catch up on all the news and keynotes or dive right into any of the technical sessions on Visual Studio, .NET, Xamarin, DevOps, Azure, Data with Intelligent Apps, UWP, developing for Office and more! Browse the on-demand content.
G-Series instances now available for Azure Cloud Services
G-Series instances are available in Azure Cloud Services in all regions where G-Series instances for Azure Virtual Machines are currently offered. They feature the latest Intel Xeon processor E5 v3 family and provide unparalleled computational performance, substantial memory, and robust local solid-state drive (SSD) storage.
VMware backup now available in Azure Backup
VMware backup in Azure Backup helps protect virtual machines running on the VMware platform, on-premises or in the cloud. If you run backups on-premises, this new capability helps you meet requirements for operational recovery. If you back up your information to the cloud, you can meet long-term compliance rules and have an offsite copy of your data. For more information, visit the Operations Management Suite | Protection & Recovery webpage.
In-Memory OLTP for Azure SQL Database generally available
You can use In-Memory OLTP, a feature of Azure SQL Database, to achieve incredible performance gains (up to 30 times) for transaction processing and data ingestion in Premium databases, with no or minimal changes to the application. Memory-optimized tables, memory-optimized table types, and natively compiled T-SQL modules are now available in all Premium databases, including databases in Premium elastic pools. For more information, read the Microsoft Azure SQL Database provides unparalleled performance with In-Memory technologies blog post.
Azure SQL Database Long-Term Retention in public preview
For applications with compliance or operational requirements to retain data, Azure SQL Database now offers Long-Term Retention (LTR). With just a few clicks, you can easily enable your databases to create weekly backups stored in your own Azure Backup vault and extend the retention period built into SQL Database from 35 days to up to 10 years. The backups in the vault are restorable and are automatically deleted after your configured retention period. For more information, visit the Azure Blog.
Azure Content Delivery Network adds new features for better performance, real-time management, and mobile users
Azure Content Delivery Network is a multi-CDN platform that offers massively scalable, secure delivery of content with accelerated performance. New capabilities include the ability to set up real-time alerts about delivery anomalies, such as bandwidth and cache status, and a mobile rules engine where you can customize rules and features targeted to mobile devices, such as device model and operating system. Visit the Azure Blog for more information.
Azure Active Directory Domain Services generally available
Azure Active Directory Domain Services offers scalable, high-performance, managed services such as domain join, LDAP, Kerberos, Windows Integrated Authentication, and Group Policy support. With the click of a button, administrators can enable managed domain services for Linux and Windows virtual machines and directory-aware applications deployed in Azure infrastructure services. By maintaining compatibility with Windows Server Active Directory, Azure Active Directory Domain Services gives you an easy way to migrate traditional on-premises applications to the cloud.
Azure HDInsight introduces advanced security capabilities in public preview
Azure HDInsight has several new key security capabilities. It integrates with Azure Active Directory and Azure Active Directory Domain Services for enterprise-grade authentication and identity management. HDInsight also integrates with Apache Ranger for a central policy and management portal where administrators can maintain fine-grained control policies over Hadoop data access, components, and services. Data processed by HDInsight is stored in Azure Data Lake Store or Azure Storage. Both offer server-side encryption to secure data at rest.
Azure Data Factory adds more connectors and achieves higher speeds
Azure Data Factory allows you to bring data from a rich variety of locations into Azure for advanced analytics and predictive modeling. We recently added support for FTP/S, Amazon S3, Amazon Redshift, and Parquet file format. Load speeds have also been greatly enhanced: you can now load into Azure SQL Data Warehouse at 1.2 GBps and load into Azure Data Lake Store and Azure Blob Storage at over 1.0 GBps.
Azure Analysis Services in public preview
Built on the proven analytics engine in Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services, Azure Analysis Services delivers enterprise-grade Business Intelligence semantic modeling capabilities with the scale, flexibility, and management benefits of the cloud. For more information, visit the Azure Blog.
#AzureAD a leader in the 2016 Gartner IDaaS MQ! – #EnvokeIT
This is really cool and I love Everything about Azure!
Great work Microsoft! 🙂
Gartner released their Magic Quadrant for Identity and Access Management as a Service (IDaaS) for 2016 and Azure Active Directory was placed in the "leaders" quadrant, and positioned very strongly for our completeness of vision. We have worked with Gartner to make complimentary copies available, which you can access here.
Read more about this here!
If you have any queries or need help with your identity and access management strategy or Azure AD implementation contact us at EnvokeIT, we're ready to assist you!
Microsoft Azure IaaS Operations Guidance – #AAD, #RBAC, #ARM, #Microsoft, #Azure
Here you can find a ton of great guidance material for Azure operations by mzbowe! Really good summary!
This is a collection of Azure Infrastructure installation and operational guidance resources I provide to my customers. By keeping these links up to date with each engagement, all of my customers may benefit. Hopefully you can too! The latest Azure updates will always be at Azure service updates. Make it part of your operational procedure to review that monthly, if not weekly! In 2015, there were over 500 updates. Wow!
The goal of this guide to highlight core installation and operational procedures for an Azure IaaS deployment which predominantly will consist of Compute, Network and Storage resources. This article Azure Infrastructure Services Implementation Guidelines, gives a pretty good run down of what needs to be created and in what order. The resources I will keep updated below pretty much follow most of those resources in the last link. But for now, there is a very important piece of that puzzle missing. For the newer Azure Resource Manager (ARM) model of deployment, we need to plan, design and create Azure Resource Groups. Once we have Resource Groups, we can delegate administration with Role Based Access Control (RBAC).
Besides all this, if you just need to ramp up and learn more on Azure, go to the Azure Learning Paths page. Check it out and learn something new! I also have my Azure Certification resources (Slides and Videos) from MS Ignite 2015, to get you certified and ready to go!
- aka.ma/Certification/70-533 | Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Certification Prep
- aka.ma/Certification/70-534 | Microsoft Azure Architecture Certification Prep
Azure Active Directory
- How Azure subscriptions are associated with Azure Active Directory
- This is an important link to read and understand. Microsoft Azure does not equal Azure Active Directory. If you create a brand new Azure subscription, you will have an Azure Active Directory tenant by default. But, sometimes companies have Office 365 first, without an Azure Subscription. With Office 365, you get an Azure Active Directory tenant for free. That is your cloud directory. It can be standalone. Or many companies will synchronize or federate with their on-premises identities. But, an Azure AD tenant for Office 265 is not necessarily tied to an Azure Subscription. An Azure subscription is just another service like Office 365. If your company is going to have both, then the KEY goal is that both of those connect to the same Azure Active Directory tenant. So if you started Office 365 and made the primary domain name contoso.com, then when you login to create an Azure subscription, make sure to do so with a Global Admin account in the contoso.com Azure AD tenant that you use to administer Office 365. See Manage the directory for your Office 365 subscription in Azure.
- Azure Active Directory editions
- Before you get too excited about everything you discover on the azure website, make sure you know what version you have. There are many flavors and enterprise agreements. Depending on the version you have, you may have more or less services available to you. Azure Active Directory Premium will get you the whole kitchen sink. But there are different ways to get that as well e.g. an Enterprise Mobility Suite license.
- Hybrid Identity Design Considerations
- The Four Pillars of Identity – Identity Management in the Age of Hybrid IT
- Azure Active Directory Authentication Protocols
- Authentication Scenarios for Azure AD
- Azure Active Directory federation compatibility list: third-party identity providers that can be used to implement single sign-on
- Azure AD terminology
- Getting started with Azure Multi-Factor Authentication in the cloud
- Azure AD Privileged Identity Management
Azure AD Operational Guidance
- Administer your Azure AD directory
- Assigning administrator roles in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD)
- Create or edit users in Azure Active Directory
- Azure AD Password Reset for Users and Admins
- Managing access to resources with Azure Active Directory groups
- View your access and usage reports which is part of
Microsoft announcing SQL Server on Linux – #SQL, #Microsoft, #DB, #PaaS
This is sooo cool and further shows how Microsoft has changed over the past years!
It's been an incredible year for the data business at Microsoft and an incredible year for data across the industry. This Thursday at our Data Driven event in New York, we will kick off a wave of launch activities for SQL Server 2016 with general availability later this year. This is the most significant release of SQL Server that we have ever done, and brings with it some fantastic new capabilities. SQL Server 2016 delivers:
- Groundbreaking security encryption capabilities that enable data to always be encrypted at rest, in motion and in-memory to deliver maximum security protection
- In-memory database support for every workload with performance increases up to 30-100x
- Incredible Data Warehousing performance with the #1, #2 and #3 TPC-H 10 Terabyte benchmarks for non-clustered performance, and as of March 7, the #1 SAP SD Two-Tier performance benchmark on Windows1
- Business Intelligence for every employee on every device – including new mobile BI support for iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices
- Advanced analytics using our new R support that enables customers to do real-time predictive analytics on both operational and analytic data
- Unique cloud capabilities that enable customers to deploy hybrid architectures that partition data workloads across on-premises and cloud based systems to save costs and increase agility
These improvements, and many more, are all built into SQL Server and bring you not just a new database but a complete platform for data management, business analytics and intelligent apps – one that can be used in a consistent way across both on-premises and the cloud. In fact, over the last year we've been using the SQL Server 2016 code-base to run in production more than 1.4 million SQL Databases in the cloud using our Azure SQL Database as a Service offering, and this real-world experience has made SQL Server 2016 an incredibly robust and battle-hardened data platform.
Gartner recently named Microsoft as leading the industry in their Magic Quadrant for Operational Database Management Systems in both execution and vision. We're also a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Data Warehouse and Data Management Solutions for Analytics, and Magic Quadrant for Business Intelligence and Analytics Platforms, as well as leading in vision in the Magic Quadrant for Advanced Analytics Platforms.
Extending SQL Server to Also Now Run on Linux
Today I'm excited to announce our plans to bring SQL Server to Linux as well. This will enable SQL Server to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server and Linux, as well as on-premises and cloud. We are bringing the core relational database capabilities to preview today, and are targeting availability in mid-2017. Read more…
#Citrix #XenApp 7.8 & #XenDesktop 7.8 Available for Download – #EnvokeIT
Citrix has no released XenApp & XenDesktop 7.8 for download! If you wonder how this new release could help you then contact us at EnvokeIT for more information!
Customers with active Software Maintenance (SWM) or Subscription Advantage (SA)–effective February 17, 2016–can download XenApp 7.8 and XenDesktop 7.8 on Citrix.com.
The XenApp and XenDesktop 7.8 release greatly simplifies application management, delivering a 90% time savings over traditional methods. It enhances the user experience, while introducing scalability improvements, enabling a 40% memory reduction and a 20% increase in CPU efficiency for select behavior. Plus new features strengthen security and compliance.
Simplify app management and delivery through new AppDisk technology
The 7.8 release includes exciting, new AppDisk app layering technology that lets you package and manage applications independent of your master desktop or server image. AppDisk alleviates the management complexity of multiple, departmental-based images by instantly layering applications onto your golden image based on different employee needs, making it easier than ever to deliver, install or update an application without changing or impacting the pristine, master image.
Save 90 percent of testing time by integrating AppDNA compatibility testing with AppDisk
Extending the app layering benefits of AppDisk, AppDNA for AppDisk instantly assesses the compatibility of the AppDisk applications with the associated master image, provides step-by-step remediation guidance to make any app compatible, while also reordering multiple assigned AppDisk layers for peak performance. Now you will be able to validate and remediate any OS or inter-app compatibility issues before delivering AppDisk applications to your user community.
Microsoft acquires Xamarin! – #Microsoft, #Xamarin, #Mobility, #EnvokeIT
This is really cool and something that I personally love! Great move by Microsoft!! 🙂
If you have any questions about this acquisition or if you need assistance with your mobile app development contact us at EnvokeIT!
Microsoft to acquire Xamarin and empower more developers to build apps on any device
As the role of mobile devices in people's lives expands even further, mobile app developers have become a driving force for software innovation. At Microsoft, we are working to enable even greater developer opportunity and innovation by providing the best experiences to all developers, on any device, with powerful tools, an open platform and a global cloud.
As part of this commitment I am pleased to announce today that Microsoft has signed an agreement to acquire Xamarin, a leading platform provider for mobile app development.
In conjunction with Visual Studio, Xamarin provides a rich mobile development offering that enables developers to build mobile apps using C# and deliver fully native mobile app experiences to all major devices – including iOS, Android, and Windows. Xamarin's approach enables developers to take advantage of the productivity and power of .NET to build mobile apps, and to use C# to write to the full set of native APIs and mobile capabilities provided by each device platform. This enables developers to easily share common app code across their iOS, Android and Windows apps while still delivering fully native experiences for each of the platforms. Xamarin's unique solution has fueled amazing growth for more than four years.
Xamarin has more than 15,000 customers in 120 countries, including more than one hundred Fortune 500 companies – and more than 1.3 million unique developers have taken advantage of their offering. Top enterprises such as Alaska Airlines, Coca-Cola Bottling, Thermo Fisher, Honeywell and JetBlue use Xamarin, as do gaming companies like SuperGiant Games and Gummy Drop. Through Xamarin Test Cloud, all types of mobile developers—C#, Objective-C, Java and hybrid app builders —can also test and improve the quality of apps using thousands of cloud-hosted phones and devices. Xamarin was recently named one of the top startups that help run the Internet.
Continue reading here!


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#Todays3 is our collection of material that we think should be highlighted and discussed more. Whether it is science, politics, history, religion or anything else for that matter. It might not always be current, but it is always relevant. We don't endorse any of these articles and their sole purpose is to create debate.
We look at John McCain, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Initially praised as a war hero, questions have been raised over the years about his willingness to go to war;
-1) Firstly, there is his account of being a Prisoner of War in Vietnam;
-2) Then there is the issue of his track record when it comes to wanting the US to go to war;
-3) Some have even questioned his war credentials;
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Evolve III unveils products, triple-booting tablet and cordless desktop
Evolve III products, include triple-boosting slate
Evolve III have had plans for their Maestro range for a while now but details are surfacing and it sounds like a winner. Firstly we have the Maestro S which is a triple-booting slate that is promising to bring Android, Windows 7 and Meego OS. Sporting a 10.1-inch, 1024x600 capactive touchscreen, it is powered by an Intel Z670 Oak Trail processor clocked at 1.5GHz and runs on a battery that Maestro is promising will give ten hours charge when running Windows 7 or up to 18 hours when in Meego mode.
The Maestro C gives you the above but with a swiveling kickstand and is designed for flyers, a convertible tablet that comes with a wireless keyboard that can serve as a protective, hardshell case.
Finally we have the NGen, a next-gen, all-in-one PC powered by an Intel Core i7 Sandy Bridge CPU. The WiDi-enabled desktop includes a 21.5-inch, 1920x1080 LED, Intel HD graphics and a 2.0-megapixel front-facing camera. When on the scales, 13-pounds. Being cordless, it can be folded up and transported quickly or even mounted on a wall. Content is able to be synced between all three devices with a Wormhole account.
Pricing on the above Maestro-based products we have the Maestro S and C for AUD$800 (US$860) and AUD$825 (roughly US$886) respectively. Whilst the NGen should come in at around US$1500.
Last updated: Apr 7, 2020 at 11:22 am CDT
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