SoftLayer, Dedicated Server Web Hosting Firm, Implements SOA

Dallas, Texas - (The Hosting News) - March 17, 2008 - On-demand, dedicated web hosting solutions firm, SoftLayer, has expanded its data warehouse capacity, while improving its backend system performance with service oriented architecture (SOA), by adding an application layer processing cluster.

The data warehouse expansion included the installation of multi-petabyte storage arrays from EqualLogix (now Dell) in its Dallas, Seattle, and, when launched, Washington D.C. facilities to serve as the backend data storage powering all of SoftLayer's on-demand service offerings. Servers from SuperMicro provide the processing power for the new SOA infrastructure. Together, these improvements have been engaged to accelerate deployment of new features and increase performance for all SoftLayer customers (whether they use the SoftLayer Application Programming Interface (API) or the SoftLayer Portal to manage hosted IT infrastructure) and allow the company to maintain its leadership in bringing new products and services to market.

Nathan Day, Chief Technology Officer at SoftLayer noted, ''Delivering world-class services on time, every time, requires an internal infrastructure that, up to now, simply did not exist in the market place. We have created a new model for the industry that combines scalable and flexible data storage with scalable and flexible application processing.''

SoftLayer used industry-standard best-practices to create its SOA to deliver on the architectural style's two fundamental concepts: - Enable a set of simple, ubiquitous, and open communication interfaces - Deliver data using an open schema (e.g. XML) through the interfaces SoftLayer's SOA allows data to be captured, processed, and presented to users in a form chosen by the system administrator, delivering on the company's commitment to give customers total control. The architecture is highly scalable, with the capacity to process millions of transactions per hour across thousands of physical and virtual servers, as well as with any number of related services.

Mr. Day added, ''Our goal is to virtualize all datacenter elements including the hardware, security, network, and embedded services to drive our vision of Serverless IT.''

This new expansion comes on the heels of SoftLayer's recent investment of over $5 million, in the completion of an upgrade of its core networking infrastructure, as well opening a second datacenter facility in Dallas. The new facility features 220 new racks, more than doubling SoftLayer's server capacity in Dallas. It has its own multiple power feeds supported by independent UPS systems and generators for failover, while leveraging the same network operations (NOC) as the existing SoftLayer facility.

As part of this expansion, a major core network backbone upgrade was completed to better serve all customers using the Dallas facilities. The upgrade included: Addition of three new Cisco 7600-S routers utilizing the latest RSP-720 Supervisor Engines; Upgrade of all existing 6500-E switches utilizing the latest Sup720-3CXL Supervisor Engines; DDOS and IDS protection with multiple Cisco Guard and Tipping Point installations; Continued deployment of 40g to the rack (20g public and 20g private) utilizing Cisco 3560-E rack switches.

The upgrade is anticipated to significantly improve performance for all SoftLayer customers as the new Cisco equipment provides increased CPU speed, more memory, and far greater routing capacity than the previous generation of equipment. SoftLayer continues pushing innovation by deploying the latest technologies and increasing its investment in retrofitting the existing environment.

Located in the INFOMART in Dallas, Texas, SoftLayer was formed in June 2005 by a team of industry executives seeking to deliver low cost next generation on-demand hosting services for the small to medium enterprise (SME). Utilizing proprietary software, coupled with the industry's first network-within-a-network topology, the company delivers the power and control to securely manage IT environments while providing comprehensive scalability.

To learn more, please visit: www.softlayer.com.

Two tables, count records and filter by x or y (2 replies)

Hello!

I'm working on a big project but I can't get any help. I would be very happy if someone could help me out.

I have two tables called onkormanyzat and cko. They both have an ID column called ok_id. They also have a telepules (town) and a bemutato_resztv (participated) column which can be 'Igen' or 'Nem'. I would like to get all the telepules (towns) from both cko and onkormanyzat and count the ones which have 'Igen' in participated (bemutato_resztv). But i don't want to have duplicate towns (telepules). It is poosible that only one table has that town with Igen and the other doesnt. So if any of the tables with the selected telepules has 'Igen' it counts.

$query = "SELECT cko.megye,onkormanyzat.ok_id,
COUNT(cko.ok_id) FROM onkormanyzat JOIN cko ON
(onkormanyzat.telepules = cko.telepules)
AND cko.bemutato_resztv='Igen'
GROUP BY cko.megye";

I tried this one, but it only counts the telepules or ok_id (at this time) if both the telepules is in both tables and if cko has bemutato_reszt='Igen'.

COUNT telepules from both tables (cko,onkormanyzat) when any of them has bemutato_resztv='Igen' without duplicate telepules.



Thank You!

Benedek Rakovics
CoreSTAT Consulting Bt.
Skype: corestat.consulting

Apple Macbook Pro Still a Mac

It’s been a little more than a week since the Fedex man dropped off my new Santa Rosa Macbook Pro with the Intel Penryn processor. I had dreams of replacing the Mac OS with Windows Vista but decided to try the OS X for a week to see what the fuss was all about. Boy, am I glad I did. OS X kicks Windows ass!

I now understand why Mac sales are growing at a rate higher than the PC industry. The Mac OS is superior to Windows in almost every way. Because Apple makes both the hardware and software, the Mac just works - there are no compatibility issues to deal with. The system has not crashed once since I had it - not even during the time when I accidentally opened 30 Quicktime windows.

One of my biggest reasons for getting a Mac was that it can run Windows. This is a huge selling point for Windows users - knowing that they can load Vista if they so desired. I think it’s a key reason why Mac sales have been so great. However, once you live with the Mac OS for a little while, you’ll understand what all the fuss is about. I will not be installing Vista on this Macbook.

Publish Videos Direct To YouTube with iMovie

If you’re into shooting videos, you’ll love the Macbook Pro. The built in iSight camera and iMovie software allows you to shoot, edit and publish your video direct to Youtube. It makes Windows Movie Maker look like a joke! The setup is perfect for the video podcaster. Here’s a little video I put together with Ashley using the iSight and iMovie. The entire process from filming to YouTube took 10 minutes.

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Nail it on the First Handshake

a few seconds, even a moment, is all it takes to make an impression

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/online-business-articles/nail-it-on-the-first-handshake-365173.html

Ethernet not found

I recently installed Slackware 12.0 and during installation I did not configure any network settings as I didn't know them, after I booted linux, there was no eth0 found,my ethernet is an Intel PRO/100 VE, i figured the best module to load was eepro100,and I added it to the modules loaded during boot, there were no errors loading it,but after running ifconfig -a and netconfig there is no eth0 found in the /dev/ folder. what should I do to fix this?

5GB Free from Microsoft

Would you like to grab 5GB of free file hosting space from Microsoft? Last week Microsoft publicly launched their Windows Live SkyDrive service which will give you that 5GB of storage at no cost at all. This is a ‘bit of a surprise because during the test period they were only providing 1GB of space and it was only expected to increase to 2GB of space after it was launched.

To grab you free space, you must have a Hotmail or Live address, then login to the SkyDrive web site.

The file size limit per file you upload is 50MB so that still gives you a lot of room to work with. Internet Explorer users can install an upload tool to make working with the service a little easier. You will be able to upload right from the browser. For us Firefox users, we will just have to hope somebody develops an extension that will do the same.

For Microsoft, here is what I need to use this service on a day to day basis:

• Give me a upload/download tool that is not just for Internet Explorer
• Drop the plug for all the other “Live” services at the top

Go give SkyDrive a test drive for yourself at skydrive.live.com.

Extra: New Bookmarklet Makes it Easy to Add to MySpace!

© Mitch Keeler - like this? visit Mitchelaneous.com | FirefoxFacts.com | WebHostingShow.com

 

5GB Free from Microsoft

Would you like to grab 5GB of free file hosting space from Microsoft? Last week Microsoft publicly launched their Windows Live SkyDrive service which will give you that 5GB of storage at no cost at all. This is a ‘bit of a surprise because during the test period they were only providing 1GB of space and it was only expected to increase to 2GB of space after it was launched.

To grab you free space, you must have a Hotmail or Live address, then login to the SkyDrive web site.

The file size limit per file you upload is 50MB so that still gives you a lot of room to work with. Internet Explorer users can install an upload tool to make working with the service a little easier. You will be able to upload right from the browser. For us Firefox users, we will just have to hope somebody develops an extension that will do the same.

For Microsoft, here is what I need to use this service on a day to day basis:

• Give me a upload/download tool that is not just for Internet Explorer
• Drop the plug for all the other “Live” services at the top

Go give SkyDrive a test drive for yourself at skydrive.live.com.

Extra: New Bookmarklet Makes it Easy to Add to MySpace!

© Mitch Keeler - like this? visit Mitchelaneous.com | FirefoxFacts.com | WebHostingShow.com

 

Web Hosting Mergers and Acquisitions - February 2008

Laguna Niguel, CA -  Alentus Corporation acquired John Macleod’s AO Technologies’ Columbus Ohio Data Center. It is rumored that Alentus is picking up a company across the pond. AO provides high-end dedicated and streaming media services

Leeds, UK -  Masternaut Three X, acquired FibreCity for GBP 6 million ($12 million USD). Deal added 25,000 sq/ft data center.  The acquisition of FibreCity enables Masternaut Three X to provide more extended hosted back-office solutions.

Dallas, TX - Affiliated Computer Services, Inc. (NYSE: ACS)announced an agreement to acquire sds business services GmbH, a Germany-based provider of data center, infrastructure services, and application-related solutions from Waterland Private Equity Investments. ACS will pay approximately $67 million (euro 46 million), including the assumption of liabilities, to purchase sds. The acquisition is expected to close in March 2008 following regulatory approval.

Charlotte, NC - TITAN Technology Partners, a provider of hosted and managed industry solutions, acquired Singapore based ESP Consulting.  ESP operations is and managed services provider focused on delivering SAP solutions.

Belfast, Ireland - IUTV Media plc today acquired of Tibus, a leading Ireland web development company from Anderson Spratt Group Holdings for GBP 5 million ($10 million USD).

Chevy Chase, MD - Opus8 Inc. affiliate, Clear Day Acquisition Corp., has acquired a controlling interest in Lore Internet Systems. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  Lore services includes, managed datacenter hosting and co-location. The acquisition has approximately doubled Pro Net's size and it is now providing shared and dedicated hosting for over 100,000 domains.

Sao Paulo, Brazil  - Universo Online S.A. (UOL) acquired the "clients" of web hosting company Digiweb  UOL is now the third-largest provider of web-hosting services company in Brazil. See my March 6, 2008 blog for additional information and comment.

Rochester, NY - Layer 8 acquired the Web hosting and information technology support services branch of DigiNex. RACD

Obviously not all inclusive - but from the NCC files.

More about Tom:

New Commerce Communications

E-Mail Tom Direct

Drupal for online survey site

Hi All

I am thinking about creating an online survey site for a specific community (and some specific functionality). The typical interaction would be as follows:

1. Survey author creates a survey
2. and sends a permanent link to it and/or asks the site to send a one-time link to a set of email addresses
3. The link allows to answer the questions without logging in and in case of one-time link allows for it only once
4. Site performs some calculations and allows the survey author see the calculation results. E.g. "According to the current survey results, you should do X, but maybe also Y, the pattern tells, that Y is mostly perceived as X".

I know some PHP and did small modification to drupal modules in the past. Therefore, I believe I can implement the calculations part. I am unsure about the email sending, flexible survey formats and single-login links.

Is Drupal right for me? Any specific modules to have a look at?
If Drupal is not a good option, could you advice anything better for this case?

Thank you for you time
Artem.

P.S.
The result is going to be similar to SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang, but simpler, with the specific questionnaire format and specific calculations performed.

select statement for multiple databases (no replies)

Hi guys!

I would like to make a complex MySQL Select-Statement!

The Situation:

I have many databases with the same MySQL Structure (some tables with same keys etc).
All Databases have the same prefix (vb_)

I want to do a query on the table posts (vb_posts), existing in each database.

The Problem:
I want to have all posts, sorted by the date/time (column post_datetime) and I need all rows in one select. And I need to know some more columns and the database the row belongs to!

I don't know if there's a solution in just one query.

I also thought about making a query for each database and put it into an Array (The Script is PHP based). But I need a high performance solution and I don't know if Array's will affect the performance!

Presently I make an update of a new table every 15 minutes and get put all posts in there, but I don't think this is the best solution, isn't it?

I hope you can help me!

Greetz
Robert

I am trying to evaluate versioning capabilities

Hi there,

I am doing a detailed comparison of Drupal VS other CMS's. Actually, I am trying to evaluate Drupal's versioning capabilities : I mean ability to have different versions of a content at the same time with different status. Se for example what Typo3 can do here or what eZ publish can do here.

I have browsed through the projects and groups but was not able to have a full picture of what Drupal can do. My feeling is that there is no real versionning API available for all contents (CCK?) but possible workarounds (wiki).

Can you give me links towards modules, projects, resources, discussions or groups speaking of this subject ? Or maybe can you give you point of view on the subject ?

Thx

Alex
http://www.ineation.com

The Makings of an Ergonomic Chair

Do you spend most of your time in front of your desk, doing all sorts of tasks on your computer? Did you know that an average office worker is expected to spend 70,000 hours of his or her lifetime seated on a chair? Isn't it just right that you spend all those hours in comfort?

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/shopping-articles/the-makings-of-an-ergonomic-chair-365191.html

Suitability for selling custom documents

I'm planning a site that will deliver products in the form of customized documents for each customer/order. So, I will need each customer/order to have assigned unique permissions for the documents that fulfill the order(s) for that customer. Ideally, I want to be able to customize a form for each product and feed that into a payment process (could be shopping cart, but I think most customers will order one product at a time). I'm not sure that I can get a CMS to automate that entire flow from end-to-end, but I do need the ability, during the process, to assign a document to a specific customer, such that only that customer will be able to find and download the document. (It would be nice to have a system that gave each unique customer a page that would contain all such documents, for repeat business, etc.) The documents will be created offline and then uploaded to the site in order to fulfill the order. For standard documents, I would like the system automatically to process the order and then give the customer access to the standard document (which I would only upload once to the site, with periodic replacement by an updated document).

Can anyone give me guidance on how suitable Drupal would be for this type of need?

Thanks!

Webhosting Day 2008 - Disguising the Sales Pitch, a Presenter's Paradox

I'm sure I have commented in the past (and most people would probably agree intuitively) that there's something disappointing about attending a hosting conference session that turns out to be a thinly veiled sales pitch. Maybe it just seems a little dishonest, even a bit condescending.

But sitting through my fifth not-quite-a-sales-pitch of the day, (this one delivered by AXIGEN, and preceded by similar performances from VisionApp, Q-Layer, Microsoft and Parallels), I came to a bit of a realization.

It's really a difficult position a presenter is in. On the one hand their expertise, and presumably their best material, has to do with their product. But they're prevented by whatever rules of decorum from pursuing that angle outright.

Let's take for granted that people go into a session called "virtualized hosted solutions for business messaging - the AXIGEN alternative" accepting that they're going to be hit with a sales pitch. The fact that they're there at all (and in this case there are probably something like 150 people in the room) is pretty convincing evidence that they're interested in the product they're going to be pitched (in this case, AXIGEN, a Linux mail server).

The sort of "brief history of SaaS services" approach many of these presenters take to putting their products in context, and the "brief company history" approach to introducing those products seem to me to be a missed opportunity. Or at least, a rather gentle treatment of an opportunity. I can't help but think that 20 minutes ago I left the exhibit hall, where right now, I could probably walk up to the AXIGEN booth and have a hands-on experience with the product right there. Why not bring that into the presentation? Here, I'm left wondering about simple things like what the user interface looks like.

I'm sitting next to Steve Higashi through this session. He works with Web hosting provider Vistapages, and he's watching the presentation with interest, but frustrated interest. "A case study would go a long way toward making this work," he says. In this case, pretending it's not a pitch is actually hurting the presentation. There are obvious questions here that aren't being addressed. How does it compare to exchange, or one of the other Linux mail servers.

He ends the presentation with the suggestion that we start "playing" with AXIGEN, and provides a link to a live online demo of the product. I don't think this weakens my point. In fact, I think it's a nod to the need for a better understanding of the product than can be communicated in the not-a-sales-pitch mode of presenting.

I'm not indignant, mind you. I can accept that event sponsors, when given a soapbox, are going to use that opportunity to pitch their product. It's all-but-inevitable, and I'd say just about everybody expects it from this sort of event. And I can accept that this sort of presentation is going to fall short on the "issues and trends" kind of information.

The problem, as I see it, is whatever sense of integrity or propriety that keeps these presenters from making an honest sales pitch, using whatever tools they have. I think in trying to give a presentation that won't sound like a sales pitch, presenters tend to ruin the sales pitch. Which tends to ruin the presentation, since the pitch is what everyone is waiting for.

Is it a problem that can't be solved? Of course I understand that Webhosting Day would be a tough sell at $385 Euros a head to listen to marketing material for two days. But if conference organizers can't or won't develop session content themselves, then let's loosen the reins on the sales pitch. The same old thing tends to get dull after a while.

By the way, this isn't a shot at AXIGEN. The presentation was not necessarily better or worse than any other. It was just a good example of a pretty pervasive problem at the perfect time.

Webhosting Day 2008 - What's New This Year?

I've personally attended each of the three Webhosting Day events, now. And things have changed mightily since the original in 2006. What hasn't changed, of course, is the event's oddball setting.

I'm trying, I assure you, to keep from writing too much this year about how "weird" my surroundings are. It's a given at this point that Webhosting Day is held at an amusement park. That it is an always odd, occasionally bizarre setting for a Web hosting conference should just be part of the scenery.

In defense of my own over-attentiveness, I really would challenge anyone to put themselves in these circumstances - sit down to cover the event and expect the incongruous images (a Windows Server 2008 banner hanging next to a stack of pirate treasure chests, for example), and the general weirdness, to just drop from their mind.

But I digress.

Right now I'm sitting six feet away from a human-sized birdcage with a disco-ball bottom, all of which is hidden behind a sparkling gold curtain with a fringe. Things like this are just all over this place.

Okay, now I'll stop. Really.

What's most notable about this Webhosting Day is the event's ongoing progression in the direction of credibility. That's not to say that it hasn't arrived at credibility, but that it's a growing concern. For an event that really seems to be learning as it grows, Webhosting Day is showing a lot of progress.

Some of that is apparent just in the layout of the thing. Last year's (perfectly sufficient) registration area is now a (perfectly sufficient) coat check. This year, registration took place at the amusement park's own entrance. That is, things are happening on a bigger scale here now.

According to the opening address, the event is dealing with close to 1,000 attendees, several hundred more than organizers were expecting even a week or two ago. That was apparent at registration, and beyond. There was a bit of a bottleneck signing in, as organizers handled the extra people, and the sessions saw the same roughly 30-minute delay as registration.

The attendance has led to Internet connection problems, too. Webhosting Day has had connection problems in the past. At last year's event, a connection was hard to come by - particularly because the venue doesn't have much an Internet connection to speak of. This year, Intergenia brought in a satellite link (it did last year, but that link caused some serious problems), and is working to provide a working, if over-taxed link.

(Keeping that link alive means blocking out certain bandwidth-intensive sites, such as YouTube and, unfortunately, Flickr, which has put a hold on me posting event pictures online. I will have use of an unfettered connection at some point, so keep checking back.)

The other big change is in the exhibit hall. Like the registration area, it has moved on to bigger and better things, located now in the "Wuze Town" area. While the exhibit hall at last year's event seemed more like an afterthought, this year's area is the real thing, dominated by elaborate displays from primary sponsors Microsoft and Parallels.

Finally, the sessions have been divided up differently. This year there are no "main" sessions overlapping with the workshops, forcing attendees to choose between workshops and main sessions. This year the main schedule takes place in the morning, with workshops in the afternoon. Attendees still have to choose between overlapping workshops (four are scheduled for any given time slot), but it's certainly more possible to feel like you've attended the whole event.

Webhosting Day 2008 - My Generalization Debunked; My Suspicion Confirmed

Approximately an hour and a half after being driven to my inspired "just let them pitch it" conclusion, which I described in a blog entry yesterday, I saw a presentation that went against my feeling that presenters in general are unwilling to make (or are discouraged, directly or indirectly, from making) a sales pitch, and confirmed my feeling that an outright sales pitch would serve the presentation better.

At yesterday's 4:45 session "Server 2008 and IIS7 - New Hosting Opportunities with Microsoft Hosting," Microsoft Deutschland's Web platform architect evangelist Bernhard Frank took the opportunity to deliver a pretty unfettered sales pitch.

Granted, he had the built-in advantage of being scheduled to deliver a session on the features of a piece of software that is generally of interest to Web hosting providers, which sort of fundamentally made the "infomercial" feel more like information and less like a commercial. But an even more fundamental fact of the situation was the simple fact that it was a good presentation.

That is, it was interesting and engaging throughout. And I believe that a lot of that had to do with Mr. Frank apparently not feeling like he was under any pressure to carefully soften the message with a lot of possibly-irrelevant contextualizing. What we got instead was an unapologetically straightforward look at the features and functions of Microsoft's new products. No harm done.

There was a bit of PowerPoint, which I suppose is pretty inescapable as far as seminars go, but he cut that off at one point to project his laptop on to the big screen as he logged into a remote server and updated a website to include a FastCGI module by changing config files, and apply an application to a live site.

And the presentation concluded with a video showing how Mambo could be set up on a remote Windows server in about seven minutes, using the advanced Windows hosting package, in a process that did away with a lot of time-consuming troubleshooting and many pages of documentation-reading.

Maybe this is no real revelation, but I couldn't help but feel impressed with the degree to which we'd actually been provided practical information. Then again, maybe that's an indictment of typical boring tradeshow fare. I think I'll hold off on making a sweeping generalization either way this time.

And yes, I realize that the intricate workings of the newest Microsoft applications is not interesting information to everybody. But as I mentioned in the other post, the name ought to be enough to steer the profoundly uninterested in the direction of a different session.

Losing Sight of the Little Things?

This post was guest blogged by Alan Johnson, who has just started to accept private ads over at The Rating Blog.

For online entrepreneurs, just like for anyone else, the little things play an extremely important role. You will, for example, end up remembering more than a few moments you’ve spent with your beloved ones down the road, even if, at that point, you didn’t necessarily see them as something special.

Far too many entrepreneurs end up letting their busy lifestyle get the best of them and, unfortunately, most end up realizing just how wrong they were when it’s far too late. Everyone knows that success has its price, but how much are you really willing to pay?

Take it from a person who has “been around the block” for a while: you should never make the huge mistake of underestimating the importance of little things, and helping you understand just that is what the article is all about.

Too Busy Is An Excuse, Nothing More

First of all, I’ll start with the little things most people end up neglecting in life, such as the quality time you spend with your children, wife or husband. In today’s world, it’s easy to use the fact that you are busy as an excuse but really, who are you trying to fool here?

If you think that the only thing you represent to your children is a walking paycheck, you couldn’t be more wrong. Do you know what your children actually need? They need you, as a father or as a mother, they need your personal involvement and they need you to listen.

Do You Really Listen?

So you’ve had a hard day at the office, it isn’t the first time and it will most likely won’t be the last either. A lot of people make the mistake of using their busy lifestyle as an excuse for not listening. They come home tired, too tired to get involved and too tired to listen. They think that, compared to their own issues, the problems their children are facing at school or in everyday life are not really that important.

But guess what: they may not seem important to you, but they are most definitely important to your children, and that’s the only thing that counts. “I’m tired, please don’t bother me”, “Daddy has had a hard day”, “I’m far too busy, maybe next week”, does this sound familiar?

I will tell you this much: you will, at a certain point, regret each and every time you had such an attitude. So you’re making a killing and are able to secure a certain lifestyle for your family? Sorry to burst your bubble, but there are far more important things than that. Your children need you, they don’t need expensive gifts.

Money Can’t Buy Everything

Down the road, you won’t remember tax season and you most definitely won’t remember the TV shows you’ve watched. Treasure each and every moment spent with your beloved ones because, in the end, that’s really the only thing that counts.

You see all sorts of seemingly successful people who would like to make you think that career is everything but, in fact, most of the times, they are empty inside and that’s not a pretty picture. It’s the little things we experience everyday and, a lot of times, don’t pay attention to which make everything worth it. Family, that’s what counts; everything else is scenery.

I’d like to end this article by telling you this much:

You can deplete my bank accounts, you can take away my home, you can take away my car, you can take away every single thing I’ve ever bought and I will not be afraid to start over. Money can be made, properties, cars and all sorts of other objects can be bought. But on the other hand, take away my family and I’m a nobody.

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(IT) Business Analyst - Process Mapping/Gap Analysis/SDLC

Location: Sydney, New South Wales   

Business Analyst - Financial Services - SDLC Our client is a true market leader in the Financial Services Industry have a requirement for a Lead Business Analyst to join their Business Systems area to work on a new project across their Advisor/Web SystemsAs a Business Analyst you will be responsible for :Liaise with relevant business users to understand and review existing processesMapping existing processes - As IsConducting gap analysis and identifying To Be processesDefine and document business requirements/functional specificationsReview relevant solutions - internal development/3rd Party Products .Liaise with business , technology staff and vendors to advise and implement appropriate solutions through the full SDLCWork closely with Project Manager and fellow business analysts to identify and raise potential risks and issuesAssist in planning and coordinating testing activities when appropriate.Ideal Candidates for this role should demonstrate: Previous experience working as a Business Analyst minimum 3 years +Solid experience of process mapping - gap analysisPrevious experience delivering software solutions through the SDLC Solid documentation skills - business requirements/functional specificationsPrevious experience working within the Financial Services Industry Ability to liaise and interface with all levels of the business communityExcellent interpersonal and communication skillsThis is a great opportunity to join a new project from its initial phases with the scope

Type:ContractLocation:Sydney, New South WalesCountry:AustraliaContact:Justin DymockAdvertiser:Abraxas TechnologiesReference:JS1083870/JD/BA569

Basics Of Mortgage Website Design For Professionals

Url:
http://blog.mariah.com/2007/12/mortgage-website-design-basics/ Notes:

Generating leads for your mortgage company is not easy. The first step in building a successful online mortgage marketing campaign is building a high conversion mortgage website. Understanding basic mortgage website design principles makes this easier.

Tags: web  website  marketing  mortgage  design  site  lead  leads  websites  generation  

Interview Coaching and Resume Help

Url:
http://career-wise.com.au/happiness.html Notes:

Career-Wise provides a complete career direction program and a job search program plus many bonus resources.Being "on-purpose" with your career unlocks your passion – that spark and energy which drives your career development and learning and at the same time makes you someone employers want to hire and retain

Tags: online  search  career  job  tips  consultants  coach  personality  counsellors  ressume  

Social Bookmarking Service Multiple packages starts from just $1.50

Hi all,

I will submit your website manually upto 100 Social Bookmarking sites:

Quote:

---

del.icio.us
furl.net
stumbleupon.com
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myweb2.search.yahoo.com
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bluedot.us
...
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Benefits of Social Bookmarking are:

a. More Targeted Traffic
b. Faster Search Engine Indexing
c. Higher Search Engine Ranking
d. Better Page Rank

Here are the packages I am offering here:



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I can accept Paypal only. For payment info please post here. I will PM you the details.

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You always get a second chance

The maxim "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" (attributed to W. Triesthof), has been applied to the art of selling, to good posture, to well being, and, of course, to web design. Still, on the web, this adage is flat wrong. When trying to impress millions of individuals, two eyeballs at a time, there are millions of chances to make a first impression.

Which is why, several month into this blog, I am fixing my home page. It may be too late for the readers of this blog, but I probably still have a chance with the rest of humanity.

My original design had two pages - Home page, and About page. The Home page listed links to the main sections of the site. The About page added a little technical, personal and contact information, and a pitch for contributions.

This design has two problems. First, the home page is scrawny, making the page look empty and uninviting. Second, the contributions pitch, on the About page, is likely to be much less viewed, compared to the Home page. Considering the relative potential importance of contributions to the future development of the site, the pitch should be more visible.

So I tried a second design, combining the two original pages. This time, I only needed one column in the table, the page size is more appealing (IMHO), and there is more room for the contribution pitch (so I can explain the purpose, instead of just asking). I also moved that part higher up in the page. I like this design much better.

However, I ran into yet another web site, and adapted it for my needs as well. This one uses two columns in a table to direct the viewer to accomplish various desired action. It's a bit sparse, but gets all the information across in an organized fashion. This last design looked even better!

So, I decided to try and duplicate the last design with the markup tools of PmWiki, with a little bit of color thrown in as well.  And here it is. When I figure out how to set the font family and font size, I will improve the page even more.

Finally, I copied the page into an existing group, with its headers and footers, here - which resulted in a repetitive visual, since the footer and side bar already include the 'Donate' button.

Sadly, I have to say that the PmWiki page looks a lot better than any of my 'adopt, extend and modify' ones. It may be an indication that professional tools are superior to hand coding, or a testament to my web design prowess. Either way, I will probably stick with it in one way or another. The only problem is that PmWiki's PHP processing takes a few miliseconds more, making the site a bit more sluggish.

You are invited to check out the different designs, opine on their relative merits or lack thereof, or offer better ones. Bear in mind, though, that the focus should be on the design, not necessarily the text.

Here are the links again:

Home and About

Combined

Table view 

Table by PmWiki

PmWiki Table with header and footer 

A Simple Approach to Entertaining

Carmen Parmeter wanted to do something different this year for her birthday -- so she called her granddaughter. The 83 year old wanted to throw a party for her friends, but needed some inspiration.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/recipes-articles/a-simple-approach-to-entertaining-365178.html

What is the Georgian Bay Unesco Biosphere Reserve?

Canada is well know for it's for it's vast area of wilderness, national parks and wildlife resrerves

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-articles/what-is-the-georgian-bay-unesco-biosphere-reserve-365200.html

Long initial site load times?

I have spent the past several weeks learning Joomla, preparing to use it for my website. However, I've run into an issue which seems to make Joomla a bad choice, and I'm now looking for a new CMS. I'd like feedback to see if Drupal has the same problem.

The problem with Joomla is that when a Joomla site has not been visited for several hours, it takes 15 to 30 seconds for the site to begin loading; after this initial load, the site then loads quickly for subsequent visitors. For example, if nobody has visited the site all night long, then the first person to visit it in the morning will see his browser sit there for 20 seconds or so before the site begins loading. After that, things will go at normal speed. This delay doesn't seem to be a function of web host, ISP, browser, browser cache, etc. It looks like a Joomla issue, something to do with the Joomla code initiallizing.

People who have sites which have an adequate amount of traffic (1 visit per hour) don't see this issue. But my site is going to be very low traffic (website for the children's ministry of a medium size church) so this will be an issue for me.

Does Drupal suffer from the same problem?

Massage in St Paul

There are a lot of things to do in Saint Paul, Minnesota. You can go to the Roller Derby, listen to beautiful music by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, visit the Mississippi River or Lake Como. You can also receive an incredible massage in St. Paul. Massage in St. Paul is widely available from independent Certified Massage Therapists, Massage Establishments, and a number of Day Spas.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/massage-in-st-paul-365205.html

Mobile Phones: in the Sun

If you travel a lot, chances are you'll spend quite a bit on mobile phone roaming charges. Like almost everything else in the UK, international roaming charges are expensive, but there are ways to reduce the amount you spend.

Read Full Article Here: http://www.articlesbase.com/cell-phones-articles/mobile-phones-in-the-sun-365190.html

Keeping Busy with a Webmaster Forum

Making money online can be hard, but it’s not a challenge that you need to face on your own. There are countless blogs out there — like John Chow dot Com — that offer useful advice on search engine optimization, maximizing your profits, and understanding the latest developments in the blogosphere. While blogs are great for this sort of thing, they’re not as good at developing a sense of community as a forum.

The BzImage Webmaster Forum addresses this rising need, offering a community of webmasters, internet marketers, and dot com moguls in the making that can help answer your questions. And you can answer their questions in return. In ordering this review, the team behind BzImage believes that “the members of JohnChow will benefit by joining our forum and posting with us to create the ultimate friendly webmaster forum!” That statement is telling of what you can expect to find within the BzImage Webmaster Forum.

Webmaster Forum Sections

The BzImage forums are broken up into several sections, each of which is further divided into few sub-forums. The idea is that these forums can encompass everything that a webmaster would want to know. The main sections in the webmaster forum are Search Engines, Marketing, Business, Tech & Gadget Forum, Design & Development, and BzImage News & Discussions.

Within these sections, you’ll find sub-forums for everything from Google and MSN to blogging and domain discussion. To get a sense of what sort of topics you should expect, here is a screenshot from the General Internet Business forum.

From what I can tell, BzImage is fairly comprehensive in scope. There is a marketplace for registered members only, where webmasters are able to buy and sell domains, logo design services, and so on. At the time this review was written, there were just over 2500 members and 3200 posts. That’ll probably grow a bit after this post gets published.

Making Money From a Forum

The best kind of income is passive income. The beauty of running a successful forum is that you don’t need to produce any of the content yourself; the forum members do this for you and they do so willingly. This is an ongoing source of traffic. All you have to do is assign some forum moderators and the site should run itself.

The BzImage webmaster forum is monetized through two sets of ads. Shown above are the four 125×125 button ads placed in the header. These are visible on every page. Along the right sidebar, there are three 250×250 square ads, but these are only visible on the main page.

By and large, these ads are not intrusive at all, ensuring a fairly good user experience. I know that there are other forums that embed ads right into member posts, so this is a much more subtle approach.

The Internet is International

That’s not to say that the forum posts are going to be completely ad-free! You have to realize that the vast majority of members are budding online entrepreneurs, just like you. They are just as motivated to promote their websites as you are, so user signatures can feel a little spammy. BzImage limits the signature to one image and three links.

Reading through a few random threads, you can tell that English is not the first language of many BzImage forum members. This can be pretty frustrating for some users (like me), while others are willing to overlook the errors. That’s up to you to decide.

Members are offered several opportunities to promote themselves. There are the aforementioned signature links, but I also found that the information underneath each username to be a bit much. Depending on the status of the member, they are able to display their avatar, mood, a link to their latest blog post, forum rank, iTrader rating, join date, post count, and rep power. It ends up feeling pretty cluttered.

On a side note, you’ll also notice that each thread can be rated. Other vBulletin-powered forums have this feature too, but BzImage is highlighting it quite a bit more.

The BZ Image of Webmaster-ing

What makes or breaks a forum are its members. If the forum has a large member base, active discussions, and thoughtful threads, people are willing to overlook design problems and a little bit of extra clutter. On the design front, the BzImage Webmaster Forum is nothing special, but the content can certainly be valuable to webmasters and other online entrepreneurs.

While there, you can also check out the blog (Talk about a fat header! The actual content doesn’t start until after the fold!) and the BzImage web hosting service.

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Webhosting Day 2008 - The New SaaS Battle Lines

One thing that has come out of this conference is that Google is being treated with a lot of credibility as a threat to Web hosts. Now that we all agree (interesting in and of itself, I suppose) that Web hosts are clearly in the business of offering hosted applications, and Google has been extremely consistent in executing on its strategy of delivering hosted software.

And it is, of course, important to note that Google is not in the business of partnering with ISPs or hosting providers. Google is going it alone, and is succeeding at securing the market - hosted email, definitely, and to a fairly menacing extent other small business apps.

One of the remarkable things about that, and one of the things noted Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels, in his Tuesday keynote presentation, is that from the Web host's perspective, that makes Google the new "evil empire."

The company doesn't want to partner with distributors. It wants to control everything from user activity to user data to payment. And it doesn't appear to have any intention of leaving any business out there for anyone else (meaning Web hosting providers).

Once considered the "evil empire," Microsoft is now the nice guy in the SaaS market. Microsoft has always been friendly to the partner model, from OEMs to VARs and now more attentively to hosting partners. Now, the company is almost by default carrying the banner for smaller service providers into the battle for the business of small business.

It's a battle between giants - big as they come - and if you're a smaller hosting provider, you're either in the ring with Microsoft, or you're on the sidelines, probably cheering for Microsoft.

That metaphor maybe got a little confused. Basically, you don't have to be a Microsoft partner to want "partner-hosted solutions" to beat "one company operates the whole Internet" as far as SaaS models go.

From Serguei's perspective, the answer to the challenge is something akin to "use Parallels products," generally. More specifically he says you should be paranoid about efficiency, and about providing an automated and self-managed solution. And that mans an automated and virtualized architecture.

And make sure you own your customers. Hosts are in the enviable position right now of having the customer relationships that every builder of business applications covets. When adding those applications to your own offering, hang on to those customer relationships. Only resell solutions in a white-label model, he says, where you continue to own the customer.

Ultimately, Microsoft and Google are going to offer everything that hosting providers used to offer - domains, a Web presence, email, and everything else. For more complex business solutions, there's still room for hosting providers to make those customer relationships evolve.

Who let YOU in? International Hosting Law.

As Liam noted in his blog, I’m at Webhostingday.  This is my first hosting event outside the U.S.  As the title above suggests  - the question I’m getting the most is “why are you here?” or with a bit more meat:  “what use are you to hosts and other internet infrastructure providers who are outside of the U.S.?”

Sidestepping the jurisdictional issues (I’m a member of the bars of the District of Columbia and State of New Mexico), this question goes to the fundamental issue facing all hosts, and the Internet in general:  who’s law applies?

Let me answer that in a typical lawyer fashion:  it depends.  Let’s say I’m representing a company in Ohio.  They have a disgruntled customer in Maine.  I’m going to argue that Ohio law applies, since that’s where my client is based.  Let’s say there’s the same set of facts, however the customer in Maine has money in a bank we’re trying to get.  I’m going to argue that Maine law applies.  U.S. law supports both arguments, particularly in the business to consumer context.

In the international context, the arguments are relatively similar, except it’s much more difficult to get courts of one nation to apply the laws of another.  This is VERY true of U.S. courts, who will almost never apply the laws of a foreign jurisdiction, or, for that matter, even cede that a foreign court may have come to a more reasonable decision.

However the Internet is global, and my clients, and the attendees at Webhostingday, have clients all over the world.  So, to make the example above more complicated, how does a datacenter in Cologne leasing space to my client in Ohio, deal with my client’s problem customer in Maine?

The answer that applies 75% of the time is by using a common contract.  In the hosting industry, along with many other Internet industries, a consensus has developed about what is, and what isn’t, acceptable in contracts.  Except in their extreme forms, most hosting contracts (at least those that I’ve written) can be distilled down to very basic principles.  These principles have wide application in almost every country that has accepted the principle of doing business by contract.  By creating contracts that hew to these principles, it is much more likely that they will be enforced by courts from the U.S. to Uruguay.

So what about the other 25%.  The other 25% tends to involve issues, such as privacy, reseller and redistribution rights, and price floors, on which many countries disagree.  As companies move up the value chain, and create more varied products and services, their ability to sell over the internet with a standard contract that applies to all customers regardless of country, decreases.  In that case, typically my clients will engage me to prepare a standard contract, and we’ll work with attorneys in targeted countries, or geographic areas, to create a specific contract.

So that, I think, is the general answer to “what can you do for non-U.S.” hosts.  As to other reasons why I’m here:  I’ve done several transactions in the past year where, thanks to the weak dollar, my clients were either acquiring a company in the U.S., or being acquired by a company in the E.U.;  I have clients in the E.U. who have encouraged me to come; and finally, to Liam’s point in a recent blog entry, I’ve always wanted to ride roller coasters as much as I desired without waiting in line.  Just don’t tell my daughter.

IPTV Households Forecast to Grow 52.2% Annually...

The IMS Research study IPTV: A Global Market Analysis - 2008 Edition reveals that as a whole, an estimated 13 ... a combination of IPTV, VoIP, Internet, mobile and premises security in addition to advanced services

Posted in IPTV News, Events, Jobs, Providers - TVover.net ( 332 links from 144 sites) by SunnysGlimpse

Creating a LAN

Trying to create a small [2 computer] LAN in my home. I have a tower computer that uses a ethernet card hooked to my DSL router, and the DSL router is attached to my wireless router. I have a wireless laptop that uses the wireless router. I am able to access the printer on the tower thru the wirless laptop when I am using Win XP, I am trying to be able to do the same thing using my Mandriva 2008 [on my tower computer] and my laptop [using SLED 10.0]. Any help appriciated:study:

ip capturing

in a 3 tier architecture, how do i capture the ip addre of my clients at the OS level.

Is there a way to export a LOGO image to other format?

I installed ucblogo and was wondering if it is possible to save the logo-generated image in some image format such as svg, png, bmp etc.??

pentolubaya hit Sidorarjo!

Jumat, 2008 Maret 14

6054846

Daftar jajanan sidoarjo :
Depot Talenta - jln.Ahmad yani.
jualan pangsit mie, ayam grg kampung, bebek goreng, burung dara, rawon, pecel.

Depot BR - di Perumahan Pondok Jati, Blok BR-3, Sudoarjo,
jualan Mie Ayam.

Mie Goreng Djowo Pak Adi, di Ruko Delta Sari Baru,
jualan Mie Goreng/Kuah/Nasi Goreng.

Ikan Bakar GEC,di Pasar Ikan Tambak Oso Sedati,
jualan Semua Jenis Sea Food.

Warung Wak Yam, Jalan Raya Utama menuju Sidoarjo (ada dua, satu di dekat bursa Kupang Sidoarjo, satunya di Buduran).,
jualan Ikan Bakar & Masakan Jawa.

Bagor,di Jl Sudirman Bogor,
jualan Nasi uduk,pepes tuna,pepes udang.dll

Nasi Uduk Bu Saring,di Taman Pinang Indah,
jualan Nasi Uduk.

outlet rasa Bu Asob,Perum Deltasari Waru blok BD, masuk perum deltasari ada taman langsung kekiri, terus ada bunderan taman terus aja udah keliatan di pjok tempatnya......,
jualan buryam, sayur asem, nasi timbel.

Jenis dari pentolubaya

Selasa, 2008 Maret 11

6054846

pentolubaya terdiri atas 3 jenis yaitu :
1. pentol kecil
pentol ini berbahan dasar daging dan hanya berharga rp 150 rupiah. pentol ini merupakan salah satu favorit dari para mahasiswa dan mahasiswi di Ubaya.
2. siomai
siomai menempati urutan favorit ketiga setelah pentol kecil dan gorengan. Harga dari siomai ini adalah rp 150 rupiah. bentuknya kecil dan dapat menggugah seleramu.
3. gorengan
gorengan menjadi salah satu favorit dari para penggemar pentolubaya. gorengan yang renyah dan gurih mampu menempatkan diri di dalam citarasa dari para penggemarnya. gorengan ini hargganya lebih murah dari siomai dan pentol kecil yaitu rp 100 rupiah.
4. pentol puyuh.
pentol puyuh adalah yang paling mahal diantara item pentolubaya yang lain. pentol puyuh ini berharga rp 500 rupiah dimana di dalam pentol terdapat puyuh yang dapat menggugah selera.
enjoy!

get a blank screen after /usr/sbin/alsaconf

I get a blank screen after /usr/sbin/alsaconf when trying to get sound back. I lose my sound after rebooting or turning on the PC.
Questions :
1) How to fix the black screen problem?
2) What can I do to keek the sound activated permanently?

Please help anyone.
cabreu@frontiernet.net

URL based restrictions

i have my servers with RHEL 4 and Oracle database. I have the applications running on the app server. I need to restrict access to the Oracle forms in the application server based on the client IP, eg. give permission to around 10 machines to access a particular form through a URL and restrict others from accessing the same.

how do i do this? do i need to go in for squid? or can it be done by configuring the httpd.conf file?

AshK Dupre movie?

An article this morning in the LA Times is implying that Miz Dupre's MySpace profile may be less than reputable. One of AshK's close childhood friends was interviewed for the article, and she claims that she never heard or saw any evidence of the drug use, abuse, or poverty that was on AshK's MySpace page. While she saw Ashley infrequently after she left their idyllic hometown, she believes that they were close enough that Ashley would have clued her in on something if there was trouble. A peek into Ashley's past life reveals that she grew up as a normal teen who enjoyed cheerleading and singing kareoke. Several of the homes in the neighborhood where she grew up retail for $1.5 million. AshK has led people to believe that she grew up in a rough and tumble neighborhood spotted with shady characters and poverty-stricken inhabitants. Far from that, this neighborhood is an upscale development with manicured shrubs and long, winding driveways. Unfortunately, the spotty past makes for a better screenplay. Is this was little Miz AshK has in mind? (She hasn't done a very good job of hiding it, if it was supposed to be a secret.) Granted, I suppose we could just blame Eliot Spitzer. He's the one who got caught, anyway. Read the full article here.

Algonquins of Barriere Lake Urgent Request

From the Inbox, a call to action on behalf of the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (also known by our Algonquin name, "Mitchikanibikok Inik") who accuse the federal government of interference on band matters.

Additional information at end of document.

 

NOTICE: CANADA AND QUEBEC ARE ORCHESTRATING A COUP USING THE SQ TO REPLACE OUR CUSTOMARY CHIEF AND COUNCIL WITH A DISSIDENT GROUP IN ORDER TO GET OUT OF SIGNED AGREEMENTS WITH OUR FIRST NATION

Urgent Request—March 13, 2008

CALL FOR SUPPORT

We are known as the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (also known by our Algonquin name, "Mitchikanibikok Inik") we are a First Nation community of approximately 500 people, situated in the province of Quebec, 3 hours drive north of Ottawa, Canada.

We, the Barriere Lake traditional people have always lived under our customary laws, which we have codified as our Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin.(Barriere Lake Customary Governance Code). This is what our great grandparents left for us, for our children, grandchildren and the coming generations. Our responsibility is to make sure that our customary laws will always be respected and protected.

Our Feast is where we give thanks for what we feed our families, the foods that come from our lands and waters. The Three String Wampum, this is where we shake hands to our Brothers and Sisters and their children and to all living things. This is where our teachings come from.

We have a big responsibility; To Protect Our Land, To Protect Our Animals, Fish and Birds.

To defend our hunting way of life so our teachings and our feast, will continue to exist for our children, grandchildren and the coming generations, along with our Language and Beliefs.

Today as the traditional people of our community, we are fighting back to defend our customary laws from being violated and disrespected by individuals who no longer respect our customs, including how we govern ourselves. We will honor what our great grandparents left us, nobody is going to take our customary laws and side with the federal government to gain money from our rights and interests.

To All People Who Support Traditional Indigenous Peoples & Customary Governments: This is a Call for Support and an Update on Our Situation

Our customary laws are meant so we live in harmony on our Lands and with each other. It is only when individuals living in our community, violate and disrespect our customs, that harmony is broken.

Despite repeated warnings to stop, a dissident faction has continued to violate and disrespect our customs and have broken our community's harmony. Therefore, on March 4, 2008, the majority of our eligible community members of Mitchikanibikok confirmed that we will not accept these dissidents living in our community. Now the federal government is trying to impose them on us by using the Surete du Quebec dressed in riot gear to force us to allow the dissident group into our community. The Government of Canada wants to replace our Customary Chief and Council because our leaders are demanding that the federal government honour the agreements they entered into with our First Nation, which are:

• The 1991 Trilateral Agreement.

• The 1997 Memorandum of Mutual Intent & Global Proposal to Rebuild our Community.

\

• The Special Provisions inserted into our Contribution Agreements until the Third Party

Manager took over our administrative affairs.

The Government of Quebec wants to replace our Customary Chief and Council because our leaders are demanding that the Quebec government honour the 1998 Bilateral Agreement and negotiate the implementation of the Joint Recommendations adopted by the Quebec negotiator, John Ciaccia, and our negotiator, Clifford Lincoln, particularly paying our First Nation $1.5 million annually in Revenue Sharing.

The federal government is trying to impose a minority dissident group over our First Nation in order to try and get out of their obligations under the signed agreements with our First Nation. This is a repeat of what they tried to do to us in 1996-97.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP!

We Need Monitors/Witnesses:

We need outside supporters with video cameras to monitor and witness how the Surete du Quebec (SQ) are conducting themselves in our community.The SQ have arrested ten of our people so far for defending our community from the dissident group who is collaborating with the governments to take over our community.

The SQ have pepper sprayed children, pregnant mothers, and other vulnerable members without regard to their health or safety.

The SQ have refused to take our complaints against their behavior and tactics.

If you can bring a video camera and be a monitor to witness please contact, Marylynn Poucachiche at (819) 435-2113. We will have to arrange accommodations for monitors/witnesses.

We Need Donations and Supplies:

The federal Department of Indian Affairs has placed our community into what is called "Third Party Management" (TPM). This means our Customary Chief and Council have no say in how our First Nations' administrative affairs are managed. The Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) decides how our band funds are spent.

We are trying to keep our Elementary School open on a volunteer basis, the Third Party Manager removed the certified teachers from our community on February 20, 2008, while we were trying to get negotiations started with DIA to get Algonquin language and culture into the curriculum and to have a role for our Education Committee in running the school.

We need food for breakfast and lunch program we offer to the children who attend the school.

For SUPPLIES we need the following:

• Potatoes

• White Flour

• Rice

• Oatmeal

• Baking Powder

• Lard

• Cooking Oil

• Dry Cereals

• Margarine

• Crackers

• Macaroni

• Spaghetti

• Tomato Sauce

• Tomato Paste

• Canned Tomatoes

• White Peas

• White Beans

• White/Brown Suger

• Salt

• Pepper

• Soup Base

• Mustard

• Ketchup

• Coffee

• Tea Bags

• Canned Milk 2%

• Canned Goods

• Powdered Juice

• Bread

• Cookies/Snacks

• Coffee Whitener

Other items: Toilet Paper, Kleenex, Batteries 'AA' Copying Paper, Pencils, Erasers, Note Books, Colored Construction Paper, HP Printer Cartridge # 21 and HP Printer Cartridge #56. If you can provide a cash donation towards milk, eggs, meat, etc. please contact Marylynn Poucachiche at (819) 423-2113.

Communicate Your Support:

You can write to the following federal Ministers calling on them to stop trying to illegally replace our leadership and honour the signed agreements they entered into with our First Nation:

• Prime Minister Stephan Harper

• Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian & Northern Affairs Canada

• Lawrence Cannon, Local Member of Parliament responsible for our Reserve and Minister of Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

You can write to the following Quebec Ministers calling on them to stop the federal government's attempt to try to illegally replace our leadership and honour the signed agreements they entered into with our First Nation:

• Premier Jean Charest, Government of Quebec

• Benoit Pelletier, Quebec Minister Responsible for Native Affairs

• Claude Bechard, Quebec Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife

• Line Beauchamp, Quebec Minister for Sustainable Development, Environment & Parks

To contact us please use the following:

Marylynn Poucachiche, Spokesperson Home: (819) 435-2113, marylynnpoucachiche@hotmail.com

Letter to Minister Chuck Strahl From A/Chief Benjamin Nottaway

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

March 10, 2008

Honourable Chuck Strahl

Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada

10 Wellington Street

Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H4

Re: Andre Cote Letter of March 10, 2008

Dear Minister Strahl:

This is to acknowledge receipt of the above noted letter from your Quebec Regional Director General, Mr. Andre Cote.

As our Elder, Harry Wawatie informed you on February 4, 2008, there has been no leadership change in our community. Our Elder and former

Chief, Harry Wawatie, also confirmed to you that under our customs, Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinagewin, our current Customary

Council remains as follows:

• A/Chief Benjamin Nottaway

• Moise Papatie

• David Wawatie

• Jean Paul Ratt

• Jean Maurice Matchewan

As Mr. Cote's letter acknowledges, we are governed by our own customs and not by the Indian Act. Our Mitchikanibikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin sets-out the procedures and process for our First Nation to select its leadership. Our customs do not give a role for the Department of Indian Affairs (DIAND) to decide on the composition of our Customary Chief and Council. In fact, Mr. Cote's letter also acknowledges that DIAND's role is simply to register the results of what our First Nation has decided in regard to leadership selection.

Nevertheless and given the impact of your actions, before you take such steps you need to act carefully. We wish to advise you that Mr. Cote is mistaken in his belief that there has been a leadership change in our First Nation. As Elder Wawatie's letter of February 4, 2008, informed you, please review the Report of Mr. Justice Rejean Paul of May 15, 2007, which was the basis upon which Mr. Cote issued his earlier letter of May 29, 2007, recognizing our Council. There have been no changes in circumstances since the issuance of his Report to warrant any changes in DIAND's previous decision.

Accordingly, we urge you to reconsider your decision. We further submit that you ought to consider having a judicial inquiry into this matter including the conduct of your officials within the Quebec Regional Office, which appears to be directed at impeding our First Nation's efforts to get DIAND to abide by its agreements and obligations, which are the subject of current proceedings in Federal Court. Therefore, we do not accept Andre Cote's decision to work with the minority dissident faction within our First Nation, made up of supporters and employees of DIAND's third party manager. We consider it a violation of our customs as codified in our Mitchikanikbikok Anishinabe Onakinakewin.

As was the case in 1996 when the Quebec Regional Director General made the same mistake, be advised we will not recognize those individuals named in Andre Cote's letter as having any authority for our First Nation, nor will we cooperate with them. They are not welcome in our community.Should you decide to uphold your government's responsibilities and obligations under the 1991 Trilateral Agreement, the 1997 Memorandum of Mutual Intent and the Special Provisions of our previous

Contribution Agreements, we are prepared to meet with you.

We await your timely response.

Sincerely,

Acting Chief Benjamin Nottaway

A/Chief Benjamin Nottaway

Algonquins of Barriere Lake

Rapid Lake, Quebec J0W 2C0

Contact: Marylynn Poucachiche

Phone: (819) 435-2113

E-mail:

marylynnpoucachiche@hotmail.com

We are known as the Algonquins of Barriere Lake (also known by our Algonquin name,"Mitchikanibikok Inik") we are a First Nation community of approximately 450 people, situated in the province of Quebec, 3 hours drive north of Ottawa, Canada. The socioeconomic conditions of our community are extremely poor:

• We have been marginalized onto a tiny 59-acre reserve at Rapid Lake, which is overcrowded, dusty and badly eroding.

• Our unemployment rates are in the range of 80-90%.

• There is a housing crisis in our community – on the average, there are 7 persons per home, but the actual numbers go as high as 18 per house.

• Our formal education levels are low and the incidence of diabetes is high.

On the positive side, our community has managed to maintain our language, customs and traditional way of life.

PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU WANT MORE INFORMATION!

Algonquins of Barriere Lake Customary Chief and Council

Additional information: Logging and land claims, Language and culture, Ongoing federal government meddling, Pro-govt media coverage

What a day for a Day Dream

We are a nation seeking the fulfillment and satisfaction of our eager and hungry souls. We seek peace, yet in our quest we find ourselves constantly trapped within a ravaging war. We seek equality and justice, yet we are encountered with a frustrating amount of "isms", inequality, and injustice. We look to obliterate poverty, yet we simply obliterate our self image and become distraught. We are herds following the few "elite" herders; whom claim to know the reason, the truth, and what we must do to exit this Hades. These herders are actually hoarders; which money is their vice. We must be honest with ourselves, because honesty reigns supreme only in the heart. The secular world seeks not honesty nor does it search for truth; as it may claim. Rather, it seeks death, lies, deceit, scandals, and all of the downfalls of man. Thus, as we are presented with this substance we must come to the common consensus that we must be our own rulers, we must make our own ways, and in a day dreamer's mind we must create our own prosperity.

Stamped with an Oversimplified Seal of Approval

In his book, The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto outlines his view on how he envisions the third world rising above its state of un-development and utilizing what he calls "dead capital" – that is, capital that is stagnant, unable to be tapped into as a resource in order to serve its purpose in the eternal capitalist cycle of capital yielding more capital. His perspective entails enforcing a formal system of property to those squatters in the third world that have little to no legal protection over the preservation of their property, by legitimizing the almost "natural" system of pseudo-property-squatting (possession is 9/10 of the law idea) that already exists for the majority of third-world occupants. In this, squatters would be made the legal owners of the land they have been inhabiting and would thus be brought more effectively into the world economy, now being able to seize on their property as live capital. (1) However, what De Soto argues, despite the compelling ideology behind it, is no solution for massive inequality, and only serves to create another false panacea for the poor.

De Soto's arguments fail to take into account a number of significant details regarding the implementation of this property entitlement system. One of the most key factors that is mostly completely ignored in his work is the existence of cultural, social, and historic difference between the countries of the third world and the example he uses to frame his system of property evolution – that of 19th century American western expansionists. De Soto does take a system of incentives into account in Capital; however, he fails to recognize that different cultural groups will react differently to the same incentive. Capitalism is rooted in an ideology that breaks down relationships to economic arrangements between individuals, yet – many of these informal economies are based upon the relationships one has with one's family and neighbors. Daniel Etounga-Manguelle, a Cameroon scholar, writes

"African thought rejects any view of the individual as an autonomous and responsible being. The African is vertically rooted in his family, in the vital ancestor, if not in God; horizontally, he is linked to his group, to society." (2)

Simplifying each and every culture as the equivalent of the other and claiming a future of action consistent with each other makes the assumption that human nature is universal and has not been shaped by key social, historical, geographic factors etc., something that contradicts de Soto's sometime Marxian rhetoric. De Soto's plan is likeable by many right-wing economists and leaders because it includes no necessity towards distribution of wealth or debt relief. Additionally, it ignores the important social history of inequality, especially of that fostered by colonialism – something I see as a gross injustice towards the conditions that exist today because of it. Additionally, De Soto sets up his argument in a way that implies that capitalism is a natural evolution to the way the world peaks, something that anthropologist Eric Wolfe quite lengthily disproved back in the 80s. In fact, capitalism is largely history's greatest accident – and the supposed causal relation between an informal economy and poverty historically inaccurate.

Implementing De Soto's "plan", furthermore, would open up a myriad of new points, largely raising the question of whether de Soto's "natural" property rights would indeed be so natural at all. Who would be legitimized? Those who act as landowners over these plots, or those who actually occupy them? De Soto makes no assertion as to how to make this distinction. What may seem simple may in fact be much more complicated, as Staffan Gernier asserts:

"Should we legalize the claims of the workers at the occupied Argentinean factories that went bankrupt during the last crisis or protect the claims of the creditors in the bankrupt's estate, or should we perhaps acknowledge and defend the formal factory owner's right to appeal the bankruptcy?" (3)

In fact, De Soto's property system has largely been effectual in the countries in which it has been attempted – in Peru, few of those newly propertied landowners who applied for loans were granted any, and of those who were, loans were mostly granted from the government on the basis of need, not from the private sector, which de Soto claimed would come running to newly propertied individuals to lend money. To them, the land was still worthless, a waste of money and resources better spent. Additionally, under de Soto's plan, the government (such as in Phnom Penh and Manila) had registered previously untitled slums, causing rich developers to rush to gain legitimate titles to these lands. They offered low prices to slum inhabitants, who, desperate for money, gave up what should have been their crowning capital achievement in exchange for paltry penny change. This ultimately led to the eviction of many of these people from the slums they once lived in. (4) Finally, a system of property allows for a government to tax its people, which, in Planet of Slums, Mike Davis points out would actually birth the existence of a new underclass – those who are propertied, but weighed down by the burden of taxes, a burden that is already heavy due to low wages and unsafe work conditions. (5)

Obviously, De Soto has oversimplified a global problem to the extent that his solution proves incapable of dealing with the cold hard reality of the matter – that dredging the third world out of poverty is more complicated than the assigning of a piece of paper with a seal of approval and hoping it works.

The Malay Malaise

I just don't get the Malay people sometimes. They often behave more uncivilized than the Africans who live in jungles. Racist comment or pure fact? That is the question. Of course, in my opinion, its a pure fact. Last year, we all saw them torture and abuse human rights when they manhandled and tormented thousands of Indians who took to the streets to protest the "apartheid" in Malaysia.

Today however, the world saw another protest in Penang, a state that wants to remove this "apartheid" that has engulfed the country. This protest was carried led and carried out by UMNO, the ruling Malay party in Malaysia who didn't accept the removal of the extra rights the Malay people have been receiving all this while, in what the government run media calls a "peaceful demonstration". Peaceful my balls! Some shops had to be shutdown in order to maintain stability and to avoid these Malay people from behaving even more uncivilized that they already are.

Whatever it is, the moral of the story here is that UMNO should live up to its own words. UMNO has said repeatedly in the past and in present, that street protests are illegal, especially after the elections and people who cannot obey these orders, shall face the full brunt of the law. What makes them think that the law does not apply to them? It looks to me like this double standards in Malaysian law will continue to exist for a very long time, and the world's top governing bodies should put pressure on Malaysia to remove its own form of "apartheid" against the Chinese and Indians. I'm in no mood to go on about this as the world already knows what goes on in this country. To all Malays who support this "apartheid", just remember, your days of illegal and "haram" activities are numbered!

press release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts
Madeleine Dash, Sex Workers Action New York (SWANK), 877-776-2004 x 2 swank@riseup.net

Audacia Ray, 718.554.1714
Sarah Bleviss, Sex Workers Outreach Project NYC (SWOP-NYC), swop.nyc@gmail.com http://www.swopeast.org/
Prostitutes of New York (PONY), pony@panix.com
Desiree Alliance, http://www.BoundNotGagged.com; http://www.desireealliance.org

Sex Workers Blow Spitzer a Farewell Kiss

New York, NY - In the wake of former Governor Spitzer's resignation, sex workers and human rights advocates remain concerned about the representation and future of "Kristen" and other sex workers, who do not have the legal and social privileges that will be afforded to Mr. Spitzer. The identity of the sex worker implicated in this case has already been made public, a situation mirroring many a sex worker's worst nightmare. "Kristen's" exposure may entail not only bring her legal repercussions, but invasion of privacy, financial hardship and social opprobrium.

Rather than continuing to sensationalize Spitzer's actions and those directly involved, we urge the press and the public to shift their focus to the legal climate under which sex workers operate, while respecting "Kristen's" agency to have chosen sex work as a viable source of income. "Everyone wants to know how high her rates were, all the salacious details, but the real issue at stake here is that the hypocrisy of criminalizing sex work has been exposed! It's a part of our society, of every society, and we need to take this opportunity to stop with the value judgments and start coming up with policies that respect the human dignity of all people, sex workers and all workers. " says Dylan Wolfe of SWANK (Sex Workers Action New York).

Former Governor Spitzer took a lead role in developing the NY State Anti-Trafficking Law as well as other initiatives that stigmatize sex workers and their clients. It is the stigma of sex work that leads many individuals like "Kristen" to keep their occupations a secret, creating further isolation and opportunities for exploitation. This same stigma compromises the safety and well-being of people like "Kristen" when their private lives become public knowledge. Sex workers are then forced to work further underground, rendering them more vulnerable to abuse, while denying them access to the basic civic participation, health and social services available to other people. "Hopefully Mr. Spitzer's unfortunate public decline will send a message to all like him who pass laws that endanger the safety of sex workers while indulging in the service themselves," Sarah Bleviss of SWOP said, "Sex workers clearly provide them a very valuable service; it's time for lawmakers to return the favor." Too little attention has been paid to what the repercussions of this case will be for those most directly concerned, sex workers, and more generally to the impact of laws and attitudes that marginalize them. It is time for a change.

Spitzer pushed through penalty enhancements against clients of all sex workers. Sex worker advocates fought against such provisions because these policies drive people who need help further underground. Often prostitution is wrongly conflated with trafficking and vice-versa. People are trafficked for many kinds of work, be it domestic labor, farm work or other jobs, and this kind of exploitation undoubtedly needs to be addressed. The majority of men, women and transgendered people working in sex work, however, are 'normal' members of society who have used their own intellectual agency to decide to make a living in a sexually-oriented way. Laws, like the Mann Act (against inter-state transportation for the purposes of commercial sex), are too often used for punishing sex workers and their clients rather than those who profit from their exploitation.

Sex workers make a living in an industry with the potential for high risks and little by way of protection from abuse. The stigma surrounding our work can be lethal at its most extreme: we are often the targets of notorious serial killers, like the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway who targeted prostitutes because he thought he "could kill as many of them as [he] wanted without getting caught." If sex work were decriminalized and legitimized as a form of paid labor like any other, or seen simply as an intimate exchange between consenting adults, the associated harms would be greatly diminished. Furthermore, sex workers could access their basic human rights and social services without fear of legal reprisal or personal upheaval. "Eliot Spitzer has represented himself to the public as a law and order man, and ironically, has been in the vanguard of further criminalizing sex workers and clients. . . However, it's a shame that so much time, energy, and tax payer resources are being spent to criminalize consensual sex between adults. It's time to decriminalize prostitution." says Sarah Blake of Prostitutes of New York (PONY).

Incoming Governor Paterson and other law-makers need to create policies that actually reflect the realities of their own lives and those of their constituents, including sex workers, rather than the harmful legislation of morality, whereby private matters become public scandals.

What Constitution?

If you haven't heard already, Washington D.C. is aiming to violate not just the Second Amendment (the right to bear arms) with its draconian laws and attitudes towards its citizens, but also the Amendments supporting an American's right to privacy. Though there is no explicitly stated 'right to privacy' in the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court has ruled there is an implication of such a right resident in the First (privacy of belief), Third (private property, or privacy of home), Fourth (as the Third), Fifth (privacy of one's affairs), Ninth (privacy as a right not specifically enumerated by the Bill of Rights), and Fourteenth (due process) Amendments; the D.C. Mayor and Police Chief seek to violate these as well.

While they're at it they may as well declare martial law.

What I'm talking about is the "Safe Homes Initiative" (read about it here and here); a program announced by D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fentry and Police Chief Lanier yesterday (March 13, 2008). In another example of liberal Orwellianism, the program actually renders a home less safe.

"Safe Homes" allows police to search private residences door-to-door for handguns and drugs. That's right – D.C. is going to send police officers door-to-door to search a for guns and drugs. Without probable cause to search or a warrant signed by a judge. That flickering flame you hear in the background is the U.S. Constitution being consumed by fire.

Sure, officers are supposed to ask for permission to search the premises; liberal thugs and socialist apologists can cite that as a loophole for the program to pass Constitutional muster. But what happens when the officers are not given permission? Am I to expect they would simply walk away without further incident? Clear thinking folk are suspicious of such a tactic; what happens when you're stopped at a sobriety checkpoint and refuse the officer? It's not very pretty after that, is it?

Too, there is the sham of amnesty. The plan is touted with an amnesty clause similar to the gun buy-backs wherein if a handgun is found, the officers won't arrest the property owner (in D.C. it is illegal to even own a handgun – a blatant Second Amendment infringement). The police will investigate the origins, and to the extent possible, the use of the confiscated handgun; if it is found to have been used in a crime, charges will be filed. So the program isn't really offering amnesty, is it? Oh, and never mind the trivial infringement of the Fifth Amendment with such a plan.

The Fifth Amendment protects an American from self-incrimination. How is filing charges against the property owner not an infringement of this right? Sure, if the property owner wasn't the one committing the crime, he or she still abetted the criminal by stashing the handgun, right? So the amnesty provision of the program is a lie of omission; we are told that folk who turn over the handguns are immune to prosecution, but not that the immunity covers only the possession of the handgun; it appears the authorities are free to charge whomever they can relative to the firearm's illegal use.

What isn't mentioned is one of the other facets of the D.C. gun ban; long gun storage. In D.C., residents who own long guns (rifles and shotguns) are compelled by law to lock the weapon with a trigger lock or in a safe; in either case the weapon is to be unloaded. The "Safe Homes" program doesn't specify what protections are afforded a citizen should an officer happen to find an unlocked or loaded long gun. In the absence of such direction, I imagine the homeowner will be charged and the firearm confiscated.

This program is vulnerable to the dreaded "racial profiling" argument that is preventing us from safely securing our airports and airlines. D.C. could have an ugly lawsuit on its hands from such a profiling practice. Though in this case it's not racial profiling, it's class; only those sections of D.C. where there are a higher proportion of lower class citizens will be searched. The neighborhoods of rich and affluent (such as the neighborhoods where the city council members live?) won't be searched. So the program is not really about keeping homes safe, it's about taking away handguns from the folks who need it most for personal and home defense.

Adding to this stinking pile of fascism is the fact that this program begins March 24th, just after the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in D.C. v. Heller. D.C. has tried to legislate handguns out of the hands of private citizens for over thirty years; now that it looks like the legislation will be struck down as un-Constitutional, the mayor and police chief want to physically remove them, forgetting their civics lessons about inalienable human rights.

Let me touch on something less high minded and more insidious; one of the program's goals seeks to undermine parental authority in addition to the annulment of private property rights. Lanier has the notion parents are not in charge of their own children and cannot control them.

Lanier says, "It [the program] focuses on parents or legal guardians who think their children have a gun in the house and are uncomfortable with searching for it themselves."

The way I read that statement means that Fentry and Lanier do not believe a parent is capable of running his or her own home or rearing his or her own children in D.C. In a fine example of nanny-state interference, Lanier admits she feels like the state can do a better job. Were I a parent, I'd be insulted on so many different levels by her arrogance.

Keep in mind it's not just D.C., my friends; Boston is conducting a similar program this month and Philadelphia is considering it. Nothing spreads so fast as fascism, eh?

Liberal thought and action in this country stopped surprising me some time ago; I've come to expect the most socialist thought and position from our folk on the left and have not been disappointed. It's been something of a sport for me to watch them twist themselves around questions of personal responsibility, liberty, and freedom in order to explain to Americans how socialism is really just an advanced and more compassionate form of capitalism. But this – this surprised me. Even in my most gloom-and-doom scenarios I never envisioned 2008 as the year openly socialist forces in this country turned openly fascist. I guess we can add the names Fentry and Lanier to those of Clinton, Obama, FDR, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler in the annals of history.

To circle this tractor-trailer completely, let me opine a bit further. We must carefully weigh our options for Congress and President this coming election in November 2008. With this program in D.C., Boston, and perhaps Philadelphia it is becoming clear this ballot is not about the economy, the Iraq War, or some ubiquities and unexplained change. This election is about direction, about fundamentals, about the essence of what it is to be an American; do we want to lose our republic to the tyranny threatening at our door, or do we want to keep it?

We can only keep it if we throw off such programs as "Safe Homes", fire public administrators like Lanier, vote out or impeach public officers like Fentry, reject the notion that socialism is matured capitalism, and demand with the authority of our Founding Fathers that our rights be respected.

I, for one, want to keep it.

american non-election pre-election election

There are only really two ways in which you might not be aware of America's pre-election non-election election during which candidates who will be standing for president, um, stand to stand for president ... of course even if they lose the non-election pre-election election they can still stand anyway, presumably as a rank outside independent with close affiliations to their party.

1. The first way would require being deceased, which to be honest isn't great;
2. Be in a coma, not great either;
3. I suppose you might be in some sort of prison camp outside of international law, but then that would be three so scrub that.

To be honest I get election fatigue just thinking about it!  Although I'm not actually in America, American, or even have any desire to be either, so what would I care?

I care because if you listen to the BBC you would think that this was the 51st State, they're giving this non-election pre-election election so much coverage you'd think that we needed to be seriously informed about the candidates, their policies, their financial clout and their preference of bloody tampon ... apologies that was vulgar and unnecessary, but honestly, we really really really don't need to know.  It's not like we can influence the outcome of this or the election proper.

Despite a couple of e-mails to which they responded:

Its certainly a story that we know most viewers expect us to cover but we accept that deciding the level and detail of coverage is subjective and far from an exact science. As a result we do appreciate your feedback and will bear it in mind as the election progresses.

It was clear from the e-mail that they've received a lot of complaints.

Of course they're still bloody at it though ... bringing us all the 'high drama' as they no doubt see it, leading the news with it in fact.  For example, on the day of the vote in the house of commons on the so-called Lisbon Treaty (AKA EU Treaty / EU Constitution) it was the American political story that led the news, not the highly controversial and malignant treaty.

Today we're hearing about some lassie that's had to resign because she said something to the effect that Obama what's-his-name has attracted a lot of support because he's black.  Probably not the brightest thing for someone in politics to say, but no-less true for it.  Of course the same could be said for Hilary "I married a top bloke who likes to sleep around, bu'hey you know my judgement's just fine ... now where's that nuclear button?" Clinton in so-far as she will have people supporting her just because she's a man woman.

I think somebody needs to get them there priorities sorted out.  I may not believe in the UK, but I know we're not part of America. 

Honestly though, it's driving me mad!