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I am currently Squad Lead at the startup ANDigital which is a whole new concept in Digital Professional Services. I specialise in building high performance development teams that deliver significant value through consumer and enterprise software utilising Agile/Lean product development processes.
ANDigital is a fresh and exciting new startup, with an amazing group of talented people, who can help you with SKALING your organisation digitally (closing your digital SKILLS gap, whilst transforming your capacity to SCALE.) We work in 'squads' which allows us to mix with your own people, to help you rapidly scale up, but also make you become digitally self sufficient going forward. We also have an brilliant new ACADEMY which offers amazing training for both you and us.
As a Squad Lead I represent ANDigital as the most senior member of the team while onsite with our clients. I work hand in hand with clients to formulate and deliver exceptional digital and e-commerce products through the adoption of Enterprise Agile delivery framework. I support, lead and inspire our ANDigital delivery teams as part of ongoing client engagements. I coach and mentor our delivery teams in best practice Enterprise Agile delivery frameworks suitable to the client organisation. I provide direct line management for my multi-skilled team of 12 people, covering UX, development and product owner roles. I provide coaching and mentoring to the team members – mix of ANDigital and client people, across product owners, analysts, developers, UX, Dev Ops and testers. I undertake important management activities for the professionals in your team, including communications, mentoring, skills development, performance management, scheduling and people management.
Hyphen is a startup that integrates with all the major ad buying platforms to collate data into a secure cloud-based business intelligence suite complete with bespoke dashboards. This enables Hyphen to quickly identify opportunities that improve acquisition and retention marketing efficiency. I provide strategic technical advise about how best to leverage cloud based open source technologies to deliver a secure, scalable and cost effective SAAS based BI platform.
I was hired to create a development team within Metro as previously IT had been a slow moving centralised DMGT group function. My main goals were to put development at the heart of the business and promote lean thinking.
I re-platformed metro.co.uk from a bespoke CMS to the WordPress VIP platform on time and under budget during 2012. Leading the team that developed the responsively designed web app that drives metro.co.uk, which was a core component of its 350% growth.
Initially using SCRUM we then moved to Kanban combined with Lean Startup principles to streamline workflows and make the majority of product decisions based on data. This combined with an automated deployment and test environment allowed us to release almost everyday.
I was also instrumental in shaping the technology decisions for the internal startup Metro Play (sold to 666 Bet), which was a incorporated standalone gaming business within DMGT. I created their development process and hired an additional team and then ensured they delivered against their revenue goals.
ET was a Software House in The City of London, specialising in delivering turnkey online mortgage solutions to the Finance Sector. With over 150 clients including confused.com, Fish4, Go Compare, This Is Money, GMAC-RFC, L&G, and Charcol. The Evaluate system was .net/c#/SQL Server based, built from the ground up over a 2 year period from the beginning of my employment.
I also worked on the Comment project for Evaluate's sister company Comment Technologies. 'Talk', our bespoke .net/SQL Server based platform contains all the features you know from Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace, plus a range of unique back-office tools to allow you to leverage the vast amounts of data communities generate. 'Talk' is fully white-labelable, offering full control over look and feel, content creation and moderation, thru to powerful analytics, built using best of class, finance sector developers and Microsoft technologies.
For both projects I was responsible for architecture, build and deployment including the building and ongoing management of a team of 25 Agile developers.
Utilyx are the UKs leading specialists in energy and carbon, providing expertise and delivering solutions to major energy users from the industrial, commercial and public sectors. With comprehensive experience across the entire energy and carbon supply chain, they provide a complete range of specialist services to generators and developers of renewable energy projects. They combine energy and carbon experience with the best principles of risk management to deliver real, tangible results to their clients. Their services are designed to optimise performance across the short, medium and long-term.
I joined Utilyx as a Data Analyst and then moved to the Software Team for my sandwich year. For my dissertation I wrote COMET a commodity trade management system which is currently managing £3 billion of mark to market commodity exposure. Before leaving I completed a mark to market report in MS SQL which drives the dashboard that many large procurement managers use for understanding.
Enron Energy Services (EES) was a business unit of Enron Corporation, whose purpose was to provide gas, electricity, and energy management directly to businesses and homes. Enron Energy Services signed contracts with large commercial and industrial customers guaranteeing a fixed amount of energy savings off their historical bills. Enron contracted to share the savings, split installation costs and/or assumed they could exceed these savings and pocket the additional savings for themselves.
I worked for EES as a data analyst and streamlined their procurement spreadsheets using a mixture of advanced formulae and VBA. Left to go to university just before it went bust.
While working at ANDigital we used multiple languages/frameworks/web servers for both internal projects and external client work. Our goal was to be able to continuously deploy each of the services that we were involved with. I came to the conclusion that scripted virtualisation for local development put us on the right track to achieving this goal. The below outlines my learning from getting this process working.
Vagrant is a handy wrapper for VirtualBox which allows you to programmatically setup underlying OS, mapped drives and define provisioning scripts. It also configures your local networking so you can see it as localhost. This can be checked into to your source control for ease of distribution as well as inbuilt change control.
Ansible is a configuration management tool that connects via SSH and programatically runs scripts for you. You use a simple language to define what each step will do and has default helpers for a lot of different tools such as Docker. The great thing about Ansible is that you can use it for both provisioning of servers and deployment of code. This is also checked in to a repository for distribution and change control.
The advantage of using Ansible is that you can utilise very similar scripts for provisioning across every environment. The task based approach allows you to construct subtle differences but increases confidence of consistency. Automation of deployment also helps ensure that from your local environment through each stage that code lives in the same places executed in the same way.
Ensuring that your development machine has the correct versions of packages, build and test tools can be quite a challenge. Especially when working on multiple projects with subtle differences. Having a script that configures these takes away a lot of the upfront setup and ensures you are running the same versions as your continuous integration servers.
This is a such a common cry from developers and something we are slowly moving away from. As our local servers run a VM which is almost identical to development and production testing locally is much more realistic. It also forces developers to consider that there code will be running on a server. This is an important mindset that helps move away from this issue.
The main pushback I have encountered is from people using a fully fledged IDE which contains a web server. I think that these two approaches can work in tandem which a push to your local server before checking code in as an extra step. I have also put an IDE within the server for an even higher level of consistency.
The quicker that you can find a problem the easier and cheaper it is to solve. The lack of context switching required as you are awaiting feedback from test and regression is also a real bonus.
No longer can it be the operations teams responsibility to push code to production, developers should comprehend the impact that their code makes on all environments and local virtualisation really helps this mindset. Being able to switch between different environments with a simple vagrant up is definitely a future I want to be part of.
For 275 days after his birth my son Jack lived in the intensive care units of various London hospitals. A large team of consultants, doctors, nurses and cleaners worked together 24/7 to support Jack's daily needs whilst solving his long term health problems. Managing complex projects is a large part of my job so being a geek I couldn't help but analyse the key mindsets and approaches that positively contributed to Jack's journey. I believe that the concepts below can be applied to managing any complex long term problem and I hope you find them useful.
In Jack's case this was the ability for him to go to a normal school without any assistance. This context provided assistance to making harder short term decisions.
Doctors are rarely able to give you a 100% answer to complex questions. I have come to appreciate this way of thinking as it avoids setting you up for disappointment. This reflects the reality of the unknown and changable nature of environments.
Communication between all of the parties involved in 24/7 care is a constant challenge. This can be helped by writing things down, putting them on walls and doing as much as possible face to face.
Planning for the worst ensures you really think about all options. This is a great mind hack to be happier with outcomes that aren't the best case scenario.
Over longer periods of time it is essential to write down decisions and observations so anyone can revisit the context and data around decisions if they weren't involved in them at the time.
Every baby is unique and collecting data is a great way to understand their current state compared to their history. Once you have established a baseline it is easier to empower people to act if thresholds are broken. Overall population baselines are also useful over a longer term view.
All monitors should be highly visible and when something deviates from the established baseline then they should alarm. Alarms should have clear levels between their various states.
A daily conversation with all of the people that are going to be involved in the care of the child are essential. This coupled with data enables distributed decision making. Face to face conversation ensures everyone gets the chance to contribute.
There is a decent amount of trial and error in solving complex problems. There are standard approaches which give you options for the next step but only by trying and measuring will you actually find out how effective they are.
Knowing who to ask if you are blocked or have an emergency is essential. This coupled with having access to people with greater levels of experience can really help move things forward.
The last 8 months have been an incredible journey and I am unbelievably grateful for everyone who has helped us along the way. This process has broadened my approach, understanding and mindset for managing complex projects. I am thankful to the systems that have enabled Jack to have the smile that now warms my heart on a daily basis.
Having to fill a set number of pages by a daily deadline creates scarcity of time. The focus required to achieve this creates tunnel vision that both helps and hinders. It helps editorial climb their daily mountain but the bandwidth tax of doing this reduces their cognitive capacity for change. This theory formed after reading Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir. The Guardian review sums up the main premise of the book well:
"Scarcity captures the mind," explain Mullainathan and Shafir. It promotes tunnel vision, helping us focus on the crisis at hand but making us "less insightful, less forward-thinking, less controlled". Wise long-term decisions and willpower require cognitive resources. Poverty (the book's core example) leaves far less of those resources at our disposal.
The editorial process is driven by risk aversion, due to a lack of ability to change a printed product after the deadline. Banks of subs check and recheck work and a single person runs each section as well as an overall editor. These create multiple bottlenecks which adds significant overhead, coupled with low levels of autonomy which increases the queuing further. Most of the paper remains a work in progress until the last possible minute.
Many of the systems that enable editorial processes are very old and not built for the current world we live in. Complex to change and expensive to run, this is the final piece holding back progress. Change requires running multiple concurrent systems. Each of these is tightly coupled with other complex systems and risk aversion is high. Cost to achieve this change is very high in monetary terms, training and complexity.
Complex process coupled with complex systems and a reduced cognitive capacity for anything outside of their deadline has been holding back editorial progress for years. I believe this is one of the reasons why newer entrants without this legacy have fared so well. They don't have any of these previous constraints. Change is possible but usually underestimated due to the multiple layers of complexity and need to continue the existing process whilst building the new one.
This needs to be concise, measurable and most importantly achievable. A strong reason behind why that goal was chosen will help motivation. Everyone should be clear on what they can do to affect the goal. This should be the main job of leadership.
Should have as much autonomy as possible in how they affect their goal. This is key to enabling faster decision making which increases learning velocity. Proximity is the best hack to maximise face to face communication. This is the most effective way to ensure a common understanding.
The biggest challenge is building the right product/feature, at the right time, using the right technology. The biggest waste is building things that people don't want or need now.
Ensure it is small, releasable and gets you both closer to your goal and provides valuable feedback.
Paper/whiteboards are a great place to start as they allow the quickest iteration. Later prototypes are most effective when viewed in the medium they will be delivered in e.g. In browser/device.
They are great for making a high level view of major deliverables visible. If they constantly need updating they are too granular.
Designing and building prototypes with a goal of getting as much feedback as possible before development begins.
Both should inform the other but there is no master due to constraints on both sides.
Any earlier can be wasteful due to risk of new data from earlier releases or prototypes. Pair up on ticket writing using face to face communication and attach any prototypes/mockups/wireframes.
An agile journey must start somewhere and a fixed process like Scrum/Kanban is a great place to begin. However as the team and process matures your aim should be to reduce this to the minimum possible for your environment.
Slack/Trello are great examples of products that allow a participatory conversation without the cognitive overload of email.
The simpler you start the quicker you can get real feedback. Avoiding over architecture allows you to combat scaling issues when required, usually by following established patterns. This avoids adding unnecessary complexity early on which can seriously hamper your ability to learn fast.
The ability to pick up, modify and release a service with complete confidence that it won't impact anything else helps you move faster. They also allow you to prototype new technologies in a production environment. Focus on automation up front to minimise overheads of running multiple services.
The less we build the better we build what we do. Cognitive overload of working on multiple things at a time has a huge impact on quality.
Queues are very ineffective, the more queues you have and the more items they contain the worse they perform.
Feedback should be constructive, open and honest. As we release everyday we have two demos a week and our Slack channel is constantly open for feedback. This is where work is prioritised, discussed and tweaked.
It's ok to loose a battle based on opinion to come back and win the war with data. Make sure you are measuring the right things, this takes time but is worth the investment. Then look for anomalies or what I call "data smells". Following these to their cause will give you great insight into your product.
Hacks days/afternoons are a great way to kick start this process. Give people the a fixed time with a clear direction and see what they come up with.
Don't get frustrated, embrace the fact that some people aren't as far along the journey as you and help them take those next steps.
An opinion is always useful to speed up the ideation phase. Logic around environmental constraints should shape the final decision.
Each environment has a unique set of constraints. Use these to aid quick decision making. This should give you time to focus on what you need to change long term to be most effective.
During my time at Metro the only constant was change. We were able to embrace this and use it to our advantage. Iterative learning based approaches helped us maintain consistent growth. Delaying every decision until we had the best data possible kept our failures small and valuable. Building great products is about forming a team around an achievable goal and iterating based on the best feedback available at each stage.
Evolution of the Metro.co.uk homepage over the past four years
Click to view slideshow.We gather a lot of information from WordPress, Facebook, Twitter and Omniture into a MySQL database. This data is passed through a stored procedure to return five different sorts:
Score |
((Tweets + Facebook Interactions) * Social Multiplier) + Views |
Trending |
Score Now – Score 30 Mins Ago |
Social |
Tweets + Facebook Interactions |
Date |
Date descending |
Coefficient |
((((Tweets + Facebook Interactions) * Social Multiplier) + Views + Editorial Boost) * Hour Coefficient) + Tag Boost |
We also pass in the following to modify the results depending on the channel, e.g. news, that the data sits within.
Hours to return |
e.g. From 24-336 since publishing |
Filter Subcategories |
e.g. Football,Oddballs,Weird,Food |
Boost Tag |
e.g. arsenal-fc |
Social Multiplier |
e.g. 10 |
Content Type |
e.g. Blog or Post |
Remove Tags |
e.g. tottenham-hotspur-fc |
Coefficient |
e.g. 0-4 * 3, 4-12 * 1. 13-24 * 0.5, 25-48 0.3 |
The coefficient sort now takes input from the articles that the editors place at the top of each of the channel pages of the site. This editorial boost allowed us to keep everything feeling much fresher until the data catches up. We have also built our own real time page view tracking system with Node and Redis to get around the time lag in Omniture of 30-60 mins.
We recently centralised all of the settings so that they are easy to view and change. I focused on optimising the cluster of content returned and timeframes to retrieve within to get them working with publishing patterns per channel. The ability to cluster content of similar channels has helped ensure we offer a wider variety of content at different stages of the user's journey.
Using different sort methods coupled with this clustering has reduced duplication. The design has also helped by using different image ratios and colours for different sections of that page that may contain the same content. We have standardised the bottom of all pages to be the same. This means if we are able to improve performance then it is felt across the entire site.
The last addition was the ability to boost by tag. This has enabled the article based algorithm to be much more relevant. At this level of granularity we decided context is much more important than freshness. Moving the tag boost outside of the coefficient enabled this to be clustered at the top but we limit this to the five most recent related articles.
Our API is able to deliver everything that the front end needs for rendering including title, image and excerpt. This has also enabled us to use this data in multiple places such as the native Tablet and Phone Editions and the glance journalism experiment Metro10 and MetroVision. Our feeds finally go through an additional layer that allow us to add sponsored content at fixed positions for traffic driving purposes.
The great part of all of this is that the maths is still very simple and can be explained to anyone who is interested. Having a set of values to tweak per channel has enabled us to have enough options to slice the data for use in multiple contexts. It has taken 12 months and a full redesign to really see this come to life but I hope it will be a part of Metro for years to come.
My talk at the WordPress VIP Big Media Meetup on this.
For the last two years I have been focused on the design, build and growth of Metro.co.uk utilising the WordPress VIP platform. Our approach consists of constant experimentation with both product and content which has returned a large set of data mixed with editorial feedback. This has been refined into a list of product guidelines to help us remain focused on growth. These are based on my experiences and our audience so yours may differ.
With a single well written/planned/timed story able to deliver millions of page views and course through the veins of social networks for weeks this should be the number one focus.
The better the experience of product and content the more likely people are to visit your site, share your content and form habits around its consumption.
Our data has shown that the closer to the article body or top of channel pages the better contextually related content perfoms. Once you are below these areas users are more open to a wider set of content to continue their journey.
Our testing revealed content placement is almost as important as content selection (as long as it is relevant and recent). This is one of the reasons we have moved to an algorithmic approach for large areas of the site.
Our newsfeed delivers over 10% of the page views of our site, this is pretty impressive considering it used to be blank space at the bottom of every article and channel page.
We tried and failed with this during our swipe phase. 5-7% of users delivered 20% of our page views but that didn't increase their overall time on site. However it complicated everything we built hampering our ability to learn fast. It also didn't quite fit into commercial or editorial strategies. This frustration/learning was what inspired the algorithm and scroll based newsfeed you now see.
Simple algorithms are a great way to optimise editorial workflows especially around content positioning. However these are only as good as the data behind them. Often you have to wait for this to be gathered before acting on it. Using editorial intuition is a great way to shortcut this process. Especially if you can make it run off existing priorities then process change isn't required to participate.
They deliver so much of your traffic don't question, just do what they recommend.
Google and Facebook are always hungry for quality content. Gaining momentum requires constant feeding. They both have overall scores for domain as well as article urls so focusing on keeping this high means a better chance to gain and then maintain momentum.
The higher up the page something is placed the more people will see it. However the lower down the page someone is the more open they are to being tempted by some more content, advertising or interactions (e.g. poll vote, comments)
Most of our traffic comes from mobile rather than desktop so it is logical to prioritise. This has formed a major part of our growth strategy.
The more people understand the goal and are able to affect it the more powerful it is. A goal that contains a why will always beat a goal that just contains a what.
This gives a much better overview of actual performance. Allows you to take out traffic fluctuations, just make sure you have enough data.
Due to fluctuations in traffic and browsing habits. Also good to look at monthly and quarterly trends over longer periods as quite often they exhibit patterns that aren't found at lower levels. It was asking questions around unexpected trends/data that helped teach me most around product growth.
Have these scheduled to your team and stakeholders via email. Also very useful if you break something when fixing something else. Great safety net to minimise impact and spot any unexpected growth.
The best way to change a habit is build off an existing trigger. New features that leverage existing habits will get much higher adoption than building new habits/process.
Segmenting users based on mindset is a great way to understand data. e.g. Social browsers are likely on a multi site journey in a chromed browser on a mobile device. So they are only looking for a single story from your site so optimise for that. No point in worrying about pages/visit focus on getting more return visits via a social follow.
Our top share buttons get clicked on 4 times more than our bottom share buttons. Social proof around number of others already shared also promotes more sharing.
More likely to click on related, in article links and masthead channel links. Continue to deliver great content around a niche to form habits. Particularly useful around passion centres e.g. Premier League clubs.
Quality trumps quantity every time, Google knows if you users are clicking through.
This is why A/B testing headlines is a great idea. It is the single piece of the editorial process that can have the biggest impact on growth. We also have SEO and socially optimised headlines to ensure we cater to both needs.
These are the principles that I have applied to the product development of metro.co.uk over the past two years. The key takeaway is that constant experimentation is a great way to unlock growth if your environment supports it. The hard part is achieving that without adding too much complexity. Complexity inhibits your ability to learn and learning is central to any successful product growth strategy. Building a set of guidelines has enabled us to move faster and helped foster our continued growth.
One for the future.
We don't have a lot of data on this yet but there seems to be a correlation between micro interactions such as poll votes and habitual use. My theory is that by engaging different parts of the brain you become more memorable. These simple actions form the basis of new habits around content consumption. I think this is a major opportunity for future growth.
Metro 10 was born out of a desire to experiment with native mobile news reading experiences that solved a different problem to our already fully responsive website. We had an algorithm that allowed customisation and decided to use this as our data source. The concept of restricting the volume of content would help us differentiate from our infinite web experience. We also wanted our users to engage with each article fully before moving on and not just get into a state of skimming which we had seen with infinite lists online.
Our goal was to minimise the time to launch so we decided a hybrid approach would help this. Utilise the native elements for caching and navigation but a web view for the article body. As our CMS stores all of the HTML and other markup in a single blob stripping this out was too much work for the first iteration of an idea that was unproven. Our initial ideas were based on simple mobile interaction patterns. Swipe to dismiss, interaction based personalisation and full bleed images as our tablet edition had experimented successfully with this. We decided on an Android first approach as we had Java skills in house and we also wanted to iterate quickly once it had launched. The turnaround in the Play store would allow us to do this.
I hadn't written any code in four years and getting back in the saddle was a rewarding experience. Leaning a new language and platform at the same time took a little time but the tools and ecosystem are pretty mature. Initially I got out my little black Moleskin notebook and started sketching. Putting something down on paper helped me to start to visualise flow and basic function. I am no UX designer but I find sketching a really valuable first step in any design process.
Once we had a basic idea we jumped into a rapid prototyping phase. This involved a lot of copying and pasting from Stack Overflow and some working from home to get some focus to get the bare bones of an app together. It was buggy as hell but being able to show people on a phone and see there reaction was priceless. I then involved Matt our UX designer and he started to iterate on the design. We were lucky that the concept was simple and allowed very quick iterations. The design quickly morphed from a list that looked very web based to a full bleed image that felt more mobile first.
It was at this stage I got a few more of the team involved. When rapid prototyping it was good to be solo and really iterate quickly but once we were locked on an idea we needed stability and to start on a refactoring process to move towards a proper architecture. I believe in emergent design where you don't over architect things up front but as you learn more of the systems and domain build what is most appropriate. This can save a lot of time as you only build what is necessary and refactor once you are sure of its value.
The next phase of development to our first alpha was frustrating at times but also very rewarding. We kept the requirements process very fluid as things would change on a daily basis. This was a challenge but having written user stories which were quickly out of date and fought with automation of testing we decided keeping things simple was the best approach. Guerrilla usability testing has been key to shaping the UX. As the initial idea was pretty out there putting it in real peoples hands in the real world was priceless. We quickly learnt that people liked the limited number of stories, enjoyed the full screen design but having to dismiss every story Snapchat style wasn't something that they felt comfortable with. The paradox of choice was blinding them. With 10 possible stories to read and only one visible at a time and only one chance to read it they couldn't decide whether it was interesting enough.
We decided to strip the user experience back to its most basic and only give people 10 stories at at time that they can scroll through left and right. With this approach people were quickly able to grasp the concept and understand the navigation. Calling it Metro10 ensured that we kept to our goal of just the 10 most popular stories right now. Throughout this process there have been a lot of tension between what constitutes our MVP. Due to a fixed timeframe we had to make some compromises around fluidity of design. The biggest was to leave all interactions via gestures rather than fluid animations. The level of complexity rose exponentially with these.
We were able to get validation of our ideas without them. Learning if the concept works is the most important and all of the underlying data, service and business layer need to work no matter what the front end looks like. Overall it has been a great experience in taking a concept from paper to reality in less than two months. There have been lots of zigs and zags along the way but that is what makes this job interesting.
Responsive design was a key enabler of the strategy that enabled Metro to grow to 34m monthly uniques. It put the end user first and ensured our content looked the best it could at the time of render. We worked from the mobile screen up to the desktop and this enabled us to make quick design decisions. Key principles like this are a cornerstone of rapid project delivery.
Changing the mindset of the business to make mobile a first class citizen was a big challenge. However once they had agreed on a mobile first paradigm we were able to tackle the hard questions up front and once this allowed the development team to focus on how best to approach the responsive elements.
Image resizing was a key part of keeping our file sizes low and having a fast perceptive render. We also dropped our custom font on mobile due to render speeds. An adopted an adaptive approach that only delivered the HTML necessary for the page to render and prioritised mobile for speed reasons.
Mobile first ensured we spent our time focussing on the main content that the user had come to read. We went for the simplest option of not including the sidebar of content on mobile as it would only add page weight. The volume of clicks in this area also justified it not being included. Users have a sidebar blindness and unless it is the main navigational feature will rarely get used as the brain turns it off to focus on reading the main content area.
We are currently going through a new redesign process which will give a new lick of paint to what we achieved two years ago but the principles remain the same.
The below is a presentation delivered at the Google HTML5 Roundtable about Metro's journey into responsive design
Metro10 is the first Android App that I have been involved in from concept to release in the Google Play store. It was designed, developed, tested and deployed in the first three months of 2014. We spent the entire process learning and here are details of 10 things that we learnt as part of the process.
Starting with a paper and a pen is a great way to iterate quickly through ideas. Sketches are one of the easiest forms of communication at this stage. There lofi form means you are usually more comfortable with changing them.
We went through many stages of adding complexity to Metro10 but we always came back to the simplest implementation. With the lack of space on a mobile screen and wide audience we intended to go for this was what kept redefining our approach.
We managed to get a version on a phone within 3 days that had our initial concept on it. This helped us put it in front of a much wider set of people very early in the process. It didn't run off feeds, ran out memory quickly and had random image sizes but was key to getting a wider set of people giving us feedback on our concept.
As we had a prototype early I just started going up to people and giving it to them without any instructions. Watching their frustrations and listening to the questions they asked provided amazing feedback to help shape our product.
We probably spent close to half the time on the app stopping out of memory errors due to cropping and displaying of images. By making sure you manually clear the copy of the image that is attached to the image view we managed to fix this.
We ended up using the WordPress image resizer to resize all of our images to the specific screen size before they got to the device. This helped speed up processing and ensured we only downloaded the image size we needed.
Android treats 7″ tablets as very large phones rather than small tablets. This can mean your app needs some adjustment to look good on the larger screen.
Google allow you to set up a community on Google+ which will give pre-release access to members. This was a great way to get feedback and manage the roll out of the app. It really made this part of the process a pleasure.
We used both JUnit tests and front end automation to quickly get feedback on every change. We moved away from the Android unit tests due to speed issues with the emulator. We managed to integrate those and the front end framework with our CI environment though the management of emulators again provided some interesting challenges.
Emulators provided a great way for us to get started quickly but using a mouse to control features proved tricky. We also saw different behaviour on emulators and real devices over the time period.
The best way to learn something is by doing it, by starting with a set of constraints and a focus on simplicity and I am very happy with the results we got with Metro10. We have now passed 500 downloads, are maintaining over 100 daily active users and still have over a four star rating.
We have been working on automating large parts of the content ordering on Metro.co.uk since our responsive redesign in Dec '12. This has grown from managing a few widgets across the site to controlling the majority of the homepage. The below describes the process we went through to achieve this.
The first step was to get data out of its separate repositories and in a place that allowed manipulation. We began to collect page views and social interactions from APIs provided by Twitter, Facebook and Omniture into a MySQL database. The basic initial equation we used to figure out what was popular was:
We decided to give the social signals a significant multiplier as a share action gave a much stronger signal of how much the content was liked than a page view. Based on this thought process we started with a very high multiplier of around 50 but reduced this to 25 after looking at the results over a period of time. This was calculated every half hour after fresh data was collected. The main issue with this approach was the frequency of change within the top stories. So we changed ordering to be based on the rate of change between the previously calculated score. We called this trending and it gave a really interesting snapshot of what was popular on the site and this improved the frequency of change.
When we redesigned the site this sat right below the top five stories on the homepage. When we check the stats we were surprised that the number of clicks were almost identical to the clicks on the top module that were editorially selected and also had very large clickable images. Clearly people were interested in what other everyone else was interested in. This data also proliferated across our sidebars and into our Tablet and Phone Editions via an API. It updated 24/7 and required no manual intervention so no matter what time you visited the site it displayed a mix of fresh popular content. Based on the numbers we decided to see if this could be extended to run more of the site.
One of Metro's competitive advantages is that it runs a very lean digital operation. We want people to spend their time finding and writing great content rather than worrying about placement. A relatively small volume of our traffic goes to our channel pages (e.g. News) or looks at sidebars due to the volume of mobile traffic we pull in. So we decided to experiment further with this concept and get it to run the rest of the homepage. We had placed a timebased feed at the bottom of the homepage and had been very surprised with the number of interactions. Just being time based wouldn't work for the homepage as we needed a measure of popularity, freshness and time.
I sat down last December and started prototyping approaches to take. We had to give new stories a chance to be featured before they had as much data. We also didn't want one huge story to be at the top for too long. After much deliberation/time spent running around Hyde Park I decided I would use a coefficient based on story age to boost posts in the early stages and penalise them once they had been live long enough to have an unfair advantage.
Hours Since Publish | Coefficient |
0 | 25 |
1 | 15 |
2 | 5 |
3 | 3 |
4 | 1 |
4-8 | 0.7 |
9-12 | 0.3 |
13-24 | 0.05 |
25-36 | 0.02 |
We had also been talking about how we could distribute content around the site better. Especially at the bottom of articles as this is where the majority of our traffic comes. This is when we placed the same timebased feed from the homepage underneath every article in what used to be empty space. We were amazed once again at the level of interaction this received and decided to optimise the data behind it.
The main idea was rather than restricting the stream to just articles from the specific sub-category (e.g. Sport/Football) you were in, we could use the highest level category and boost the subcategory you were in. Eg see all of Sport but have all Football stories closest to the top. This would give other very popular sports stories a place as well as aiding circulation around the site.
I then added an option to allow you to pass in the channels that a user visited the most and using the same logic to prioritise their content near the top. Again not excluding content but rather ordering it in a way that was most appropriate for the person viewing. This is going to form the basis of our new Android App with it just displaying the top ten stories based on your browsing habits.
The final twist was to use the data that we had collected on the backend to style the front-end. Our News Feed now changes its imagesize depending on if a story is trending or has been flagged by editorial. This give prominence to the popular stories as the algorithm pushes them further down the list and keeps the styling changing 24/7. As we use data from existing editorial placements it also means that there is no extra work to manage. We have worked on optimising the placement on this and we are now getting over 3 million News Feed lazy loads being requested weekly and over 500,000 extra page views. Considering this area of the site used to be blank this is a tidy return on investment. The latest enhancement is to grey out stories you have read to give an even bigger prominence to stories you have yet to consume.
The other large jumps in interactions were triggered by:
The hardest part of this process was getting all the data in the right place from the APIs in the first place. Once this was present and we had a nice API around this the rest of this process was a iterative effort between editorial and development. There are a lot of moving parts but the benefits of having a site that reacts to users behaviours and works 24/7 is something that we feel is hugely worthwhile.


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Runners in West Linn, Clackamas, Oregon City, and all parts of the SW Metro area now have a brand new local store to check out for new running shoes, clothes and gear!
Portland Running Company opened its newest set of doors yesterday at their brand new West Linn store at 22000 Willamette Drive.
Owners Dave & Paula Harkin were still hard at work making the space perfect when I dropped in yesterday to check out the new place. But they've got all the basics in place and ready for runners...the shoe wall is up, there's an amazing selection of clothes, socks and training aids such as hydration units and nutrition options. The first thing I noticed, though, was how big the space was! Paula was bubbling with excitement as she described their plans for the store, events they'll host there, and the variety of running routes in the area.Paula told me they're a sponsor of this weekend's Old River Ramble (previewed here by Joe) and they're also hoping to plan a Run With Paula event based out of the store for this summer or fall.
In addition, they hope that area runners will think of their store as a home base--park your car and leave your keys safe and sound at Portland Running Company while you get in your run. From the store you could explore the tough hills up Skyline, Summit or Hidden Springs, or get some good flat mileage in on the wide sidewalks along HWY 43 up through S. Young Park and on further to Lake Oswego's George Rogers Park, or follow River Rd and enjoy riverfront views on your route to Mary S. Young. Dave and Paula actually live in West Linn, so they're feeling right at home and will give you first hand descriptions of the routes they'll suggest from the store.
Paula is looking forward to meeting their new runner or walker neighbors. "We would love to host a weekday and a weekend run from our West Linn store. Great fun with a lot of cool people, mixed paces. Walkers too." They are looking for group run leaders, too--which I can tell you from experience is a lot of fun.
Then, when you're done with your run from the store, you've got your choice from neighboring businesses offering four perfect post-run treats: Cold Stone Creamery, Starbucks, Taco Del Mar, and Elements Therapeutic Massage.
The store is just off Willamette Drive close to where Highway 43 meets I-205 in the West Linn Central Village shopping plaza.Please stop in and support Portland's newest locally-owned running store--run by runners!

subset: commoncrawl


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Journey with Nature
Plains Pocket Gophers
Children of Indiana Bicentennial Park
Attention teachers, parents, kids of all ages! A new park is being created to celebrate Indiana's Bicentennial in 2016! The Nature Conservancy is developing a website for the Park, which will include customized sections for students, teachers, parents, and the public.
The Children of Indiana Bicentennial Park will inspire you to start your own journey with nature!
The Plains Pocket Gopher is the kind of rodent that prefers life underground - a situation for which it is well-suited. Its small eyes, tiny external ears, powerful front legs for burrowing and long claws for digging provide them the perfect tools to live beneath the soil.
However, it is the mouth of the gopher that holds its best instruments. Large incised teeth are just as good for tearing into vegetation as they are for digging the gopher's deep tunnel systems. Close behind the incisors are the lips which allow them to dig with their teeth without getting soil in its mouth. With all the mouth-digging, how, exactly, does a gopher eat without consuming a bunch of soil? A clue is in its name.
The Plain pocket gopher is named for the large external, fur-lined pouches in both cheeks. The cheek pouches are filled rapidly with the forepaws, using a wiping motion that forces the food into the open end of the mouth. Food is transported in these pouches, and what is not eaten is stored in caches in the burrow system.
The gopher's tunnel systems can extend in all directions and measure up to several hundred feet long. The telltale signs of their presence are the sandy mounds created on the surface as the gopher excavates dirt from the tunnel. Though viewed by some as eyesores on their pristine lawns, gopher tunnels are quite beneficial. Their burrowing not only increases soil aeration and water infiltration, but reduces soil compaction as well.
Though many people may not appreciate all this hard work, the plains pocket gopher is a species of special concern in Indiana and is protected by law. The Department of Natural Resources would appreciate being contacted before any attempts are made to eradicate these rodents from your yard. The Wildlife Conflicts Information Hotline can also be helpful.
Interesting & Fun Facts about Plains Pocket Gophers
- The Plains Pocket Gopher's coloring is anywhere from a sandy brown to rich chocolate. Their fur generally matches the color of the soil they inhabit - which are usually sandy or silty soils.
- Unlike the greater number of burrowing mammals which spend much of their time above ground searching for food, the pocket gopher rarely comes out on the surface.
- Gophers like to feed on the roots, stems and leaves of various plants. While they do eat grasses, they prefer forbs - herbaceous, flowering plants - such as alfalfa, dandelion and prickly pear cactus.
- When stocking food, the Plains Pocket Gopher empties its pouches by bringing both forefeet to its cheeks to force out the food.
- Gophers are just as fast running backwards as they are forwards in their underground tunnel systems.
- When backing up in their burrow, gophers use their tails as a kind of feeler to find their way.
- Gophers are natural gymnasts; their loose skin allows them to do somersaults in their tunnels if in need of a quick getaway.
- Plain Pocket Gophers are solitary creatures. Males will only seek out females during the mating season, and when over, will return to live its life on its own. Both sexes are also territorial and do their best to keep their burrows a good distance from others.
Information gathered from the Illinois State Museum, South Dakota Department of Agriculture and eNature Nature Guides
Plains Pocket Gopher Quick Facts
- Scientific name: Geomys bursarius
- Size: as tall as one foot; as much as one pound for adults
- Coloring: sandy to chocolate brown fur, depending on location
- Habitat: open to sparse forests; prefer sandy and silty soils
- Diet: herbivore; roots, stems & leaves of various plants
- Predators: preyed upon by coyotes, weasels, hawks, owls and snakes
- Behavioir: solitary & territorial; interacts with others during mating season alone
- Reproduction: mating begins very early spring, 1 - 3 per litter; born April-June; offpsring leaves after 2 months
More information found at the Animal Diversity Web.
Where to Find Them in IN
Though some Hoosiers may find them in their yards, pocket gophers are usually seen in the northwest and prefer prairie habitats if available.The Conservancy's Kankakee Sands is home to a number of rare & threatened species, including the plains pocket gopher. You can also find these little critters on the NIPSCO Savanna and Tefft Savanna Complex preserves. A visit to the trails may offer you a glimpse of these toothy creatures.


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Kingdom | Phylum | Class | Order | Family |
Scientific Name: | Mesocnemis singularis | |||
Species Authority: | Karsch, 1891 | |||
Common Name(s):
Red List Category & Criteria: | Least Concern ver 3.1 | ||||||
Year Published: | 2010 | ||||||
Date Assessed: | 2009-05-01 | ||||||
Assessor(s): | Clausnitzer, V., Suhling, F. & Dijkstra, K.-D.B. | ||||||
Reviewer(s): | Dijkstra, K.-D.B., Clausnitzer, V., Suhling, F., Samways, M., Samraoui, B., Boudot, J.P., Kipping, J. (Odonata Red List Authority) & Allen, D. (IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Unit) | ||||||
Justification: The species is assessed as Least Concern in view of its wide distribution, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a threatened category. In northeastern Africa, records from Sudan (Tsuda) and Ethiopia need confirmation. For the time being listed as Data Deficient in this region. |
History: |
Range Description: | The species is widespread in sub-Saharan Africa. The record from Gambia is unlikely, and that for Ethiopia is probably a georeference error. In central Africa, it is known from Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Zambia, for Equatorial Guinea and Congo assumed. In eastern Africa, it has been recorded in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi, where it is common and widespread. It is assumed to occur also in Malawi. In southern Africa, this species is widespread in large perennial rivers in the region, through the Orange River basin to the Western Cape. It is not found in the arid southwest or at the Cape. In western Africa, the species is known from Sierra Leone to Nigeria. |
Countries: | Native: Angola (Angola); Benin; Botswana; Cameroon; Congo, The Democratic Republic of the; Côte d'Ivoire; Gabon; Ghana; Kenya; Liberia; Malawi; Mozambique; Namibia; Nigeria; Sierra Leone; South Africa; Tanzania, United Republic of; Togo; Uganda; Zambia; Zimbabwe |
Range Map: | Click here to open the map viewer and explore range. |
Population: | Population size is unknown. |
Population Trend: | Unknown |
Habitat and Ecology: | Sunny rivers and streams in savannah, bush or forest, preferably with large rocks. Also inhabits rocky shores of large lakes. |
Systems: | Terrestrial; Freshwater |
Major Threat(s): | Water pollution and agriculture are considered to be potential threat to the species. |
Conservation Actions: | Monitoring of this species is needed. |
Citation: | Clausnitzer, V., Suhling, F. & Dijkstra, K.-D.B. 2010. Mesocnemis singularis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2014.3. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 25 April 2015. |
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America Disarmed: Inside the U.N. and Obama's Scheme to Destroy the Second Amendment
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Europe's Security Response to the Cyber Age
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2012 US Department of Defense Strategic Guidance - Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for the 21st Century Defense
Early Observations on Possible Defenses by the Emerging Threat Agent Project
Surveiller et punir: l'escalade sécuritaire au Canada
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WHAT IT IS: Uplifting sea-salt scrub gently polishes and refines skin to a healthy glow.
WHAT IT DOES: • Physically exfoliates with minerals and sea salts. • Softens and conditions skin with sunflower oil.
WHY YOU NEED IT: • Leaves skin with a radiant glow. • Does not leave a greasy residue. • Great for feet, legs and all-over body use.


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New Moon Movie and Twilight Movie Happy Earth Day Twifans, be green today!! No plastic bags, recycle, use less water for your shower and dishes! Be good to your planet!
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text: Thanks, both of you. When you have film cameras, digital cameras and all the accompanying batteries, memory cards and paraphenalia that comes with this territory, it gets a bit overwhelming to break new ground, such as a PDA. Anyhow, I shall now be off to the races. If anyone knows of an answer or path to my other question, concerning PDA photographic exposure data, I would be appreciative. TCrowe |


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An Open Letter to Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush
This is a parlous and dangerous time. And because of the eternal meme of literally demonizing anyone who defeats a Republican for the presidency, the CNS writer also, reflexively and inadvertently, advanced the cause of religious bigotry and world fundamentalist war. Continue reading


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Key things you need to know aboutDr. Hawkins:
Dr. Hawkins' Experience
Research training, expertise and qualifications
Dr. Hawkins' Specialties
- Rheumatology
- View 1 specialty and 2 board certifications
Procedures Dr. Hawkins Performs
- Joint Drainage
- Myofascial Trigger Point Injection
- See all 4 procedures
Conditions Dr. Hawkins Treats
- Adhesive Capsulitis
- Antiphospholipid Syndrome (APS)
- See all 42 conditions
More About Dr. Hawkins' Background
Hospital Quality
The right hospital is as important as the right doctor
- Kettering Medical Center - Sycamore
- 4000 Miamisburg Centerville Road
- Miamisburg, OH 45342
9 Facts About Hospital Quality
Patients' risk of dying during a hospital stay for heart bypass surgery could be 85.2% lower, on average, at a hospital rated 5 stars compared to a hospital rated 1 star for that procedure. Choosing the right hospital is critical to your health. View Slideshow
Patient Satisfaction
Patients' feedback on their experience with Dr. Hawkins
Likelihood of recommending Dr. Hawkins to family and friends is 4.9 out of 5
See More Survey Results
8 Facts About Patient Satisfaction Surveys
Patient satisfaction surveys provide a standardized way of reporting about healthcare experiences. But there can be more than meets the eye when reviewing scores. Here's what you should know
Appointments & Offices
Check insurance plans, locations and make an appointment
Accepting new patients?
- Yes
- Dayton Arthritis/Allergy Center
- Dayton Arthritis/Allergy Center
- 3075 Governors Place Blvd Ste 110
- Dayton, OH 45409
- Sycamore Primary Care Group
- Sycamore Primary Care Group
- 2115 Leiter Rd Ste 300
- Miamisburg, OH 45342
7 Tips to Prepare for Your Appointment
The key to a successful appointment is communication. To get the most out of your visit, prepare ahead of time so you can lead the conversation with your doctor. These 7 tips will get you ready


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A note about relevant advertising
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A plush comfortable environment for personal fitness, with limited membership, and top of the line "Nautilus" equipment kept spotlessly clean! Comfortable personal fitness for men and women, in an enviornment and with amenities that you would only expect at the finest resort fitness clubs! Come and experience a friendly, welcoming atmosphere where you are greeted with your first name and not a number or a card reader. We are very different & so much more than the big-box franchised fitness clubs in Portland. If you are now a member of one of the "big box clubs" and do not like crowds... or are uncomfortable working out because you are unsure about when the equipment or showers were last cleaned...(oooh) or you are intimidated by high-pressure sales tactics or complicated looking machines, or just tired of waiting in line to use your favorite piece of equipment... Now you have a better choice! Your uncrowded personal Fitness gym, Elite Sante Fitness, for men and women!
Located right above "Olena's Spa & Laser Center", off SE 82nd Ave, north of Johnson Creek. A comfortable and comprehensive Spa that does all spa and salon treatments, as well as Laser work, including laser hair removal, brown spot and spider vein removal and laser facials.


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The New Hampshire Department of Education, Rhode Island Department of Education, and Vermont Department of Education have developed a common set of Grade-Level Expectations, known as the New England Common Assessment Program Grade-Level Expectations (NECAP GLEs), and test specifications in Mathematics, Reading, and Writing. Building on the success of the NECAP collaboration in Mathematics, Reading, and Writing, the states have developed common assessment targets and test specifications for Science. Grade-Span Expectations (GSEs) for high school students in Mathematics, Reading and Writing have been developed for grades 9-10 and 11-12. The GSEs include expectations that are assessed on the State assessment and others that will be a local curriculum and assessment option. All GLEs and GSEs are incorporated into the NH Curriculum/Frameworks documents approved by the State Board in June 2006.
NECAP was administered in October in grades 3-8 and 11 in Mathematics and Reading. Writing was assessed in grades 5, 8, and 11 at the same time. Science is administered in grades 4, 8, and 11 each year in May.
In the 2014-15 school year, New Hampshire will begin rolling out new assessments aligned to the NH College and Career Ready Standards (CCRS). Students in grades 3 through 8 and one grade in high school will be tested in Mathematics, Reading, and Writing. The new assessments are being used to gauge how well students are mastering the standards – and ultimately how ready students are for college and career education and training.
2011 Assessment Snapshot A comparison of New Hampshire Students with the Nation and Surrounding States (includes information for NAEP, NECAP, SAT, ACT, and AP) |
NECAP Assessment Service Center (877) 632-7774 |
Microsoft PowerPoint format. You can download a free reader from Microsoft.


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Alternative Burger Recipes
Must-Make Chicken, Pork, and Turkey Burgers For the Beef Averse
by Nicole Perry
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Must-Make Chicken, Pork, and Turkey Burgers For the Beef Averse
While an all-beef burger is pretty darn hard to beat, these unconventional burgers give the all-American classic a run for its money. These burgers, which run the gamut in style from Southwestern crab cakes nestled between buns to Asian-inflected options (mushu pork or tandoori chicken burgers, anyone?), are bound to satisfy even those who swear by the bovine standard. Keep reading, get inspired, and then fire up the grill!
Source: Aida Mollenkamp, A Better Happier St. Sebastian, The Gouda Life, The Little Ferraro Kitchen
Link Love
- Your guide to the best cinnamon rolls of your life — Food52
- What do you think of Japan's meatless burger? — Grub Street
- The very best way to make kabobs at home — Southern Living
- Candy sushi will class up your candy consumption — FWx
- The ultimate Spring produce guide — PureWow
- Once you try skillet s'mores, you'll never go back — HuffPost Taste
- Eat clean with this healthy barley bowl — POPSUGAR Fitness
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After a time, the path petered out, but Clover still walked resolutely forward, trying her best to ignore the rustles and scuttling noises in the trees. Explorers couldn't be frightened after all, even tho the group of young ponies had gone farther into the forest than they ever had before.
Just after climbing over a fallen tree, Clover hissed, "Look!" at the others, pointing with her horn. It was a filly just like them, but with a strange glow about her so that she showed up clearly against the darkness of the forest. She was a few yards ahead, walking quickly in the direction of the centre of the forest. Ooc: She looks like this. |
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Price: $299.95
Product ID : WESRB/PR/CUSB
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RIGblaster Pro USB
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Albany, NY - This afternoon, judges in the state's highest court questioned sanctions taken against a former Syracuse judge accused of molesting his 5-year-old niece 40 years ago.
While attorney Robert Tembeckjian, who is representing the State Commission on Judicial Conduct, admitted it was rare to order the permanent removal of a judge from the bench for an incident that happened long before he ran for the job, he said it was required by the gravity of the act in this case.
The former Family Court judge in question, Bryan Hedges, is accused of molesting his niece in 1972, when he was 25 years old and in law school. Hedges admitted that the girl, who was deaf, walked into his room while he was masturbating and touched his hand. He said he continued to masturbate for two to four seconds, with her hand on his hand, before he stopped and covered himself.Hedges walked off the job in April, on the day he found out he was under investigation from the commission. He then submitted retirement papers later that week, months before the commission formally sanctioned him.
Hedges, who became a judge in 1985, is asking the Court of Appeals to overturn the commission's sanctions.
His lawyer, Robert Julian, said Hedges would sign papers ensuring he would not run for another judgeship and that his petition to the court is a "reputational issue."
During today's oral arguments, judges asked why the commission sanctioned Hedges after he retired.
Tembeckjian gave them three reasons:
- First, he said the sanctions were the only way for the commission to ensure that Hedges will never again be allowed to return to the bench.
- Second, he said the sanctions were necessary to uphold the integrity of the judiciary.
- And lastly, he said the sanctions would send a message to aspiring judges that such acts of "moral turpitude," no matter when they happened, will not be tolerated.
Tembeckjian argued that Hedges broke "a sacred trust" when he victimized a deaf child who had no way to communicate because she hadn't yet learned sign language. He also claimed Hedges never apologized to his niece, though he admitted in a secretly recorded conversation with her mother that the act was "abhorrent."
Julian argued that the commission violated his client's right to due process and that his hearing before the commission was "prejudicially conducted."
He also contended that Hedge's career of public service--in the military, as an attorney and as a judge--should be taken into consideration by the court.
"I'm taught that everyone is entitled to redemption," he said.
The Court of Appeals will release their decision affirming or reversing the commission's sanctions at a later date.


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Static and dynamic coupled perturbed Hartree-Fock vibrational (hyper)polarizabilities of polyacetylene calculated by the finite field nuclear relaxation method


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Backyard Baseball:
Backyard Baseball Description:
This game reminds me of playing baseball in the sandlot down the street where you try to hit the ball as hard as possible and outscore your opponents (in most cases your neighbors).


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Do love the new Smashbox Lights on Lips Glam Box from Nordstrom!
I look forward to Spring as it means a new Smashbox Glam Box Nordstrom Exclusive. This year there are two sets to choose from the only difference being you get the customize your shade of lipstick and choose from Posy or Mandarin shades.
Take a peek!
Loving the shadow palette in this kit!


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"Over the years, AllNursingSchools.com has built up a deep base of articles and expertise around the LPN and we wanted to bring all of that valuable content together in a resource center. We want to give our readers the most comprehensive look into an LPN career and we think it's especially timely as people start to think about changing or starting new careers in today's down economy. With the aging boomers and a growing population, health care services is really a good place to be looking these days," says Herman Chiang, Product Manager at All Star Directories.
All students and nurses interested in pursuing a career in nursing now have a one-stop site to help them get started in this rewarding industry. Learn more about nursing careers and degree schools at www.AllNursingSchools.com.
*Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
About All Nursing Schools
All Nursing Schools is a comprehensive online publisher of accredited nursing degree programs and nursing career resources. Since 2001, All Nursing Schools has been helping match millions of highly qualified prospective students with the schools that best meet their educational needs. All Nursing Schools strives to be the finest resource available to prospective students and nurses, and is one of several unique Web sites owned by All Star Directories, Inc.
About All Star Directories
All Star Directories, Inc. is one of the Internet's fastest growing publishers of online and career school directories, matching millions of highly qualified prospective students with the schools that best meet their educat
Source: PRWeb Copyright©2009 Vocus, Inc. All rights reserved |


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dc.contributor.advisor | Wu, Ying | en_US |
dc.contributor.author | Wu, Wenzhong | en_US |
dc.date.accessioned | 2012-09-04T13:14:41Z | |
dc.date.available | 2012-09-04T13:14:41Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2012 | en_US |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10161/5765 | |
dc.description | Dissertation | en_US |
dc.description.abstract |
The Duke storage has been developed as a dedicated driver for the storage ring based free-electron lasers (FEL) and a high flux Compton gamma-ray source, the High Intensity Gamma-ray Source. The storage ring can be operated from about 250 MeV to 1.2 GeV, which can produces FEL lasers over a wide range of wavelengths and gamma-rays with a tunable energy from 1 MeV to 100 MeV. The Duke light source facility conducts world-class researches across a wide range of scientific disciplines and technological applications.

 In a storage ring, beam instabilities can cause a signifcant degradation in machine performance. In the Duke storage ring, coupled-bunch instabilities (CBIs) are the main source which limit ultimately achievable beam current in multi-bunch operations. In order to to suppress CBIs in the Duke storage, we developed a bunch-bybunch longitudinal feedback (LFB) system which is based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA) embedded system. During the design and implementation of the LFB system, several novel methods and techniques are developed in numerical analysis of feedback control and kicker cavity design/fabrication. High current are realized at low energies by using the LFB system. In addition, after the successful commissioning of the LFB system, a analog transverse feedback (TFB) system has been upgraded to a digital one using the same technique as the LFB system.

The LFB system has been routinely operated for HIGS. Additional,the LFB and TFB feedback systems become an useful diagnostic tools in researches of electron beam dynamics, FEL lasing process, and background of HIGS. The control of CIBs in different operation modes are studied using the feedback system. Furthermore, based on the TFB system, a novel bunch cleaning method has been developed to reduce the background of gamma-ray.
 | en_US |
dc.subject | Physics | en_US |
dc.subject | Coupled-bunch instabilities | en_US |
dc.subject | Duke FEL light source | en_US |
dc.subject | Duke storage ring | en_US |
dc.subject | HIGS | en_US |
dc.subject | Longitudinal feedback system | en_US |
dc.title | Feedback Systems for Control of Coupled-bunch Instabilities in the Duke Storage Ring | en_US |
dc.type | Dissertation | en_US |
dc.department | Physics | en_US |


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Grammar : Comma
I wrote this sentence: The character I hate the most is Shane, from, "The Walking Dead." Why would you place commas before and after from?
1 answer
You wouldn't. No commas are needed in this sentence. Book and movie titles should be in italics. If italics aren't possible, then underline the title.
The character I hate the most is Shane from The Walking Dead.
link comment | answered Aug 27 '13 at 09:18 Lewis Neidhardt Grammarly Fellow |


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"I don't fear death because I don't fear anything I don't understand. When I start to think about it, I order a massage and it goes away." - Hedy Lamarr
Stress relief! Great circulation of blood and lymph! Relaxation! Better Energy flow! Listening to your inner voice! A clear vision of your life! A better sleep at night after the massage! Connection with Your Light Within!
You deserve it all! Healing touch comes from genuine love. The heart chakra is connected with the hands. The heart chakra is the center of love and healing, channeled from the Divine. Therefore healing touch is divine; it's not from me, it's through me.
Hands of light give you peace and power
Your massage will be blended with healing energy (Reiki and Shamanic energy boost attunements) in a very unique and powerful way; if you wish we will start with a prayer for your highest good.
Relaxing music, aromatherapy, crystals or hot stones will add to the deepness of your connection with the peaceful, joyful, relaxed you.
The magic is in you - feel it, breathe it, be it!
My vision and mission is to help you connect with YOUR LIGHT WITHIN.


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Follow Forever*Cottage: Email * Facebook * Instagram * Pinterest
I like it! Clean and fresh, and I like the little pops of red! Congratulations!
Fresh yet classic,just like you, myfriend! Congrats on the new lookand the road yourjourney is takingyou. Happy to bewalking alongside,cheering you on!xo Suzanne
Your new blog design looks very pulled together and professional. Love the fun font on the "by" and your signature, and the pop of color!
I love the clean crisp blog design - love the font, the stripes down the side, and the touches of pink.
"BEAUTIFUL!!!"Cant wait to see more of your projects here...
Love your new classy design!
Looks great friend and I love that pic of you!
Your site looks amazing!
Love the new look! Wishing you lots of success and happiness with all your endeavors.pve
i love it jill!!!!
Love the new look! Very pretty!
Fantastic blog design!I love the diagonal stripes.Camille
looks great jill!! so clean and hip. love it!!
Nice...looks fabulous!HugsSueAnn
I always love to hear your thoughts! Please share!


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Genere/forma: | Negatives Film negatives |
Persona incaricata: | Joe Willie Wilkins; Sonny Boy Williamson; Willie Love; James Peck Curtis; Dudlow Taylor; Herb Langston |
Tipo materiale: | Graphic, Photograph, Picture, Risorsa internet |
Tipo documento: | Materiale visivo, Archival Material, Internet Resource |
Tutti gli autori / Collaboratori: |
Ken Hubbell; Arkansas History Commission. |
Numero OCLC: | 47210910 |
Note: | Title supplied by donor. |
Descrizione: | 1 copy negative : b&w ; 13 x 10 cm. (5 x 4 in.) |
Titolo della serie: | Persistence of the Spirit Collection. |
Joe Willie Wilkins was born in 1921 in Davenport, Mississippi. His father was Papa Frank Wilkins. He learned to play the guitar when he was quite young and became known as "The Walkin' Seeburg" because he could perform requests so easily. He became Sonny Boy Williamson's accompanist in 1941. During the 1970's, he became part of the Memphis Blues Caravan for the reorganized King Biscuit Boys.
Sonny Boy Williamson was a famous blues musician during the 1940s and 1950s. He was born between 1899 and 1910 under the name Aleck Ford and was also known as Rice Miller or Aleck Miller and grew up in Mississippi and taught himself how to play the harmonica. In 1965, he returned to Helena and appeared again on "King Biscuit Time" and died May 25, 1965.
James "Peck" Curtis was a drummer with Sonny Boy Williamson [a.k.a. Rice Miller]. He was also known as "Peck", "Four by Four"and one of the "King Biscuit Boys." Peck was raised on a farm and went to Helena in 1929. As a talented musician that played drums, jug, and washboard, Peck toured with travelling shows, ministrels, carnivals, and also worked with the Memphis Jug Band in 1933. He worked with Sonny Boy Williamson on the King Biscuit Time KFFA Radio show in Helena and with Houston Stackhouse from 1947 to the 1960s. Peck died November 1, 1970 at Helena, Arkansas.
Documenti simili
Soggetti correlati:(14)
- Wilkins, Joe Willie, -- b. 1921.
- Williamson, Sonny Boy, -- -1965.
- Love, Willie.
- Curtis, James Peck, -- 1912-
- Taylor, Dudlow.
- Langston, Herb.
- King Biscuit Flour time (Radio program)
- KFFA (Radio station : Helena, Ark.)
- African American musicians -- Arkansas -- Helena.
- Blues musicians -- Arkansas -- Helena.
- Radio programs -- Arkansas -- Helena.
- African Americans -- Arkansas -- Helena -- 1940-1950.
- Blues music -- Arkansas -- Helena -- 1940-1950.
- Radio stations -- Arkansas -- Helena -- 1940-1950.


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Winthrop University and the Richard W. Riley College of Education strongly encourage its students to participate in long term (one semester or one year) study abroad during their undergraduate careers. Study abroad is excellent preparation for work and citizenship in a diverse society and an increasingly globalized world.
With proper planning, a semester or year abroad can be seamlessly integrated into a four-year degree plan allowing students to experience the world and graduate on time.
For most semester and academic year programs, students pay regular Winthrop tuition, room, and board and are able to use their scholarships, grants and loans toward the cost of study abroad. Students can also apply for additional financial aid.
Winthrop University students can participate in more than 20 semester or academic year programs abroad and transfer credit back to Winthrop. The College of Education has identified at least two programs that are well-suited for students majoring in all education degree programs.
More information about program options, financial aid, credit transfer, and application deadlines can be found on the International Center's website: or browse program options through the Winthrop Study Abroad Programs portal.
Recommended plans of study and other information are linked below:
Study Abroad options and recommended plans of study for the following programs are available from the College of Visual and Performing Arts:
Study Abroad options and recommended plans of study for the following programs offered cooperatively with the College of Arts and Sciences are available on the relevant department's web site:


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Team Donnie D
New Kids On The Block "Step By Step" - Who's the guy rocking the Public Enemy shirt in the pop video? Oh, of course it would be Donnie Wahlberg, NKOTB's requisite bad boy member. He rolls into the video on a motorcycle for god's sake. That little smirk Mark's big bro is rocking while he's cruising is kind of attractive, though. I can almost forgive that teased-to-heaven semi-fro atop his head.
RELATED: Friday Face-Off 100 Sexiest Artists Edition: Rihanna vs. Beyonce


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I enjoy playing Minecraft with the online applet and the downloaded applet, but I noticed that what I can do with the downloaded application I cannot do to the online applet, such as change the directory of the saves. For example, I play Minecraft off of a flash-drive, and would like my saves to stay there. However, I cannot do this in the online applet. Is it possible to do it, and if so, how? Thank you.
Take the 2-minute tour
Arqade is a question and answer site for passionate videogamers on all platforms. It's 100% free, no registration required.
The generic way in Windows 7 (and 8) to the question "how do I tell this application to put its files somewhere else" is to use a junction. A junction is somewhere between a hard link and a symbolic link (or a shortcut in windows). Creating a junction in place of where you expect the directory to normally go will instead redirect the files sent to that directory to somewhere else. In this case, we want to create a junction from the usual minecraft directory of %appdata%/.minecraft to a flash drive that is mounted (for example) as E: To do this, open the run dialog (WINKEY + R) and type
(Make sure the original minecraft directory doesn't exist first). Now when you run the applet, it will place the files in E:\minecraft. |


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Fast Company RED Scarlet Officially Ready to Bite at Canon, Nikon's DSLR Heels We love technology here at Fast Company. And we're big on design too. Which is partly what makes RED's digital cameras quite so awesome, since they mix the two exquisitely. And the newly official RED Scarlet may even change the DSLR game too. Read More » By Kit Eaton
Fast Company Will HDTVs Be Intel Atom-Powered? We're all familiar with Intel's tiny, low-power Atom CPU—without it the netbook revolution probably wouldn't have happened. But Intel has just pulled the covers off its next-gen Atom system on a chip, and it has a new target device: Your TV. Read More » By Kit Eaton
Fast Company Wi-Fi N and WHDI Battle for Wireless HDTV Across Your Home Today semiconductor Amimon announced its new WHDI 2.0 chipset, that will enable compatible hardware to transmit 1080p video 100 feet around your home. At the same time, research by In-Stat suggests that the technology will be beaten by standard 802.11 N Wi-Fi. Read More » By Kit Eaton
Fast Company Sony's New HD Camcorder: World's Smallest, But Expensive Sony's new HDR-TG5V takes the palm-held digital camcorder category to the pinnacle of the technology. The device is heralded as both the world's smallest and lightest in its class. Undoubtedly, it's a fabulous camcorder, but it comes at a fabulously high cost. Read More » By Kit Eaton
technology Canon's Rebel T1i Out: Does 1080p Video At Entry Pricing Canon's Digital Rebel cameras have always been hard-hitters among entry-level DSLRs, but Canon is poised to sew up the market with its new T1i—a camera that's a clear response to Nikon's D90. Primarily, it's because the T1i not only has the same 15.1 megapixel sensor as its semi-pro Canon EOS 50D cousin, but it can record video in 1080p full HD. Read More » By Kit Eaton ADVERTISEMENT
Fast Company Canon's Compact SX1 Shoots 1080p Video, But There's a Catch Canon unveiled it's latest "prosumer" digital camera ahead of the PMA trade show next month, and it includes the ability to shoot full high-definition 1080p video. That's a feature only recently introduced in the higher-end Canon 5D Mark ii and the Nikon D90, which retail for between $1,000 and $3,000 before lenses. The SX1 is expected to sell for $600. But there's one catch. Read More » By Kit Eaton
Fast Company Sony Claims Victory in Skinniest LCD TV War, and Competitors Wonder Why Sony says its new Bravia ZX1 is the world's thinnest LCD TV at 9.9mm. Certainly Samsung and JVC, each with 7mm-deep offerings, take issue with that. Yet the ZX1, after all, sounds like a technological masterpiece. Read More » By Kit Eaton
Fast Company LG Announces LED-Lit LCD A couple of weeks back, I blogged about Samsung's [SEO:005930] gorgeous Series 9 LCDs. Those sets featured a trio of killer features — the now-popular 120Hz refresh rate for smooth on-screen action, a powerful and even LED backlight, and localized dimming to achieve pitch blacks. Now LG [SEO:066570] is announcing a similar competitor dubbed the 47LG90. Read More » By Chris Dannen
Fast Company Samsung Releases 1080p Projector Announced nearly a year ago, Samsung's [SEO: 005930] fancy SP-A800B DLP projector will finally be available in the United States this summer. The bulbous black device will feature 1080p picture and a native contrast ratio of 10,000:1, as well as a 95% aperture ratio, 16-microsecond response time, and 1,920x1080 resolution. It's also reportedly super-quiet, and comes with a spiffy two-year warranty. No word on MSRP from Samsung just yet, but all specs and rumors point to a ten thousand dollar ballpark. Read More » By Chris Dannen


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Festivus is now going stronger than ever and we can't tell you how thrilled we are with your great participation. Therefore, I'm excited to tell you that we have something even more thrilling for you today for day two: a Parrot AR Drone.
The AR Drone is an incredible, iOS-controlled Quadricopter. That's right, it has four rotors and it connects to Wi-Fi, so you can not only control it incredibly well, but also see what it sees thanks to two onboard cameras. That thing is sick, slick and it's as good as it gets. It works both outside, or inside thanks to a special cover that will keep the rotors from causing damage.
Best of all, the real thrill is that you can control it from iOS (or some other platforms that you probably haven't heard of, like Android), and that's probably the most amazing part. The app uses your iDevice's accelerometer to control the Parrot, which makes it incredibly fun (at least, we loved it), and it even allows you to play all sorts of games to keep the fun going.
Needless to say, it's going to be really hard to give this away, but we're going to do it. If you want a chance to win this beast, launch the AppAdvice app now on iPhone or iPad and sign up in the giveaway tab. If it's your first time, make sure to check out our guide on how to participate.
You can learn all about the Parrot AR Drone, and where to get it directly on Parrot's website.
Happy Festivus, and Good luck!


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I might have preeclampsia. I blogged about my dr appointment. 38 Weeks pregnant. Let me know what you think. http://mothertobee.blogspot.com Do I have it?? Should I be induced?? I've been told being induced was really painful bc the contractions were a lot more intense. Have you ever been induced?? Have you had or know someone who has had preeclampsia??
© 2015 Created by MyBestBirth Admin.


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$15.87 *
Catalogue No: TU032
Shop Product Code: 256053C
Usually despatched within 10 - 12 working days
Department: Wind & Brass - Tuba
Publisher: Warwick Music
This product includes pieces featured in grade exams. Click on a grade to view the full syllabus.
ABRSM Tuba from 2013 | 8 |
* Estimated prices
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A 47-year-old man has turned himself in to York Regional Police following a fatal hit-and-run in Vaughan early Thursday morning.
Police had been searching for a suspect after a female pedestrian was hit by a dark-coloured vehicle just after 6:30 a.m. on Dufferin Street, just south of Rutherford Road.
It's believed the woman was crossing on the north side of the intersection, at Dufferin Street and Apple Blossom Drive. The force of the collision threw her nearly 20 metres.
The unidentified woman, believed to be 52 years old, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Witnesses reported that the driver of the vehicle in question left the scene.
A stretch of Dufferin Street, between Rutherford Road and Ten Oakes Boulevard, was closed in both directions as traffic reconstruction experts investigated. Traffic was rerouted onto residential streets Thursday morning, as backlogs formed on Rutherford Road and Dufferin Street.
Driving conditions were clear and the road was dry at the time of the incident, police noted.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Const. Blair McQuillan of York Regional Police reiterated that remaining at the scene of a collision is a legal requirement, not an option.
"People need to be aware of the fact that they are responsible, they need to stop, they need to render assistance," said McQuillan. "There are laws surrounding that and there are legal ramifications surrounding failing to remain at the scene."
Charges against the man are pending, police said.
With a report from CTV Toronto's John Musselman


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JEFFERSON CITY — Testimony at a House committee hearing grew heated Wednesday about whether the state should regulate the association that monitors junior high and high school sports and activities.
The Missouri State High School Activities Association, headquartered in Columbia, is the governing body for most school activities within the state. The association has been criticized for making controversial eligibility rulings, closing meetings and for making unfair rules about when and where students can compete.
This was the third hearing on the proposed oversight, and some legislators said they were getting frustrated.
Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, said the association is funded by member schools, and since schools get money from state taxes, the state has the responsibility to monitor the agency.
"The fact that we've been told more than once we have no business doing this quite frankly offends me," Wilson said.
Those who oppose state oversight, including former Missouri judge Gary Schmidt, said schools already monitor the association's regulations, so government supervision is unnecessary.
Supporters of state oversight said the current system is unfair to large schools and there is no way to guarantee if the agency is being consistent with its decisions about student athletics.
Some oversight supporters, such as lawyer and former MU basketball captain Joe Scott, called the agency's current system unfair and argued that although the association says it's voluntary, schools can't leave without a consequence.
"If you elect to say, 'Well, we don't have to belong to this,' you have no one to play, you have no place to go to a band meeting or a debate or anything; you're out," Scott said.
Most of the state's public and private schools are involved with the association.
Committee member Rep. Joe Aull, D-Marshall, used to work with the association and defended its existence.
"I fail to see what's wrong with schools saying, 'OK, if we're going to compete with each other we're going to make rules so that we're all going to be on the same playing field,'" Aull said.
Supporters said most school activities have to be done through the group.
"It's not voluntary if everybody has to be a member to be involved in any extra-curricular activities, so we need to get away from the idea this is a voluntary organization," Wilson said.
The association has 772 member schools, including 582 senior high schools.


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A rocket-propelled grenade and gun attack on an American patrol in Baghdad late yesterday killed one US soldier and wounded another from the 4th Infantry Division, a military spokesman said.
In a separate clash, several people were injured when a stone-throwing mob of Iraqi ex-soldiers charged at US soldiers near a former military airport in central Baghdad, demanding jobs and back pay.
And in another announcement, the American army said a soldier from its 1st Armoured Division had drowned in a swimming pool in Baghdad.
A spokeswoman said the accident occurred late on Friday afternoon and was being investigated.
The casualties bring to 98 the number of non-combat deaths among US soldiers in Iraq since May 1, when Washington declared major fighting over. Eighty-nine US soldiers have been killed in action in the same period.
- Reuters, AFP
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