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Yummy Plummy Crumble
Wholesome and easy to make, this is a warm farmhouse dessert the whole family will love.
|Fruit Filling:
|1/2 cup whole wheat flour
|1/3 cup sugar
|1/2 cup rolled oats
|1 tablespoon all natural cornstarch
|2 tablespoons poppy seeds
|5 cups plums, pitted and sliced into 1/2" wedges (10-12 plums)
|1/2 cup sugar
|1 teaspoon lemon zest
|1/2 teaspoon salt
|1 teaspoon lemon juice
|2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
|1/2 cup organic low-fat blueberry yogurt
|1/2 cup organic low-fat plain yogurt
Preheat oven to 375 F. Grease and flour either a 8"x 8" baking dish or tart pan. For the topping, combine in a bowl flour, oats, poppy seeds, 1/2 cup sugar, and salt. Using a fork, stir in butter and yogurt. Leave in crumbles both large and small. Put in freezer for 10 minutes.
For the fruit filling, whisk together sugar and cornstarch. Stir in plum wedges. Add lemon zest, lemon juice, and blueberry yogurt. Transfer fruit filling mixture to a baking dish. Remove crumble topping from freezer and crumble on top of fruit. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Crumble should be golden brown and fruit bubbly. Makes 8-10 servings.


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Weird scienceFriday, August 29th, 2008
Science has always interested me, I discovered one great thing about having five children was being able to use having children as an excuse to do weird science experiments. I think we were one of the few houses in the neighborhood where homemade volcanoes, crystal growing, sea monkeys and microscopes were a regular part of our days. In the blogosphere there are many who share their love of all things scientific.
You could spend hours on the main site of Science Blogs reading blogs on a number of different topics related to science. While I recommend the whole site, there were a few blogs that I found especially interesting.
Angry Toxicologist first drew my attention because of the name. Visions of the Toxic Avenger came to mind, but the content when I visited was what kept me reading. I found the post on "Stupidity about cancer and meat" to be especially interesting since as an avid griller, the information shared was not only eye opening but done in a manner that made the whole discussion about HCA risk understandable.
Math is not one of my strong suits, yet I enjoyed both the math and the personal posts written on Good Math -Bad Math. I had no idea that the topic of math could create that much fun or that much discussion.
I'm a political blogger, so I tend to like "ranters" the subtitle of Mike the Mad Biologist caught my attention, "Mad rantings about politics, evolution, and microbiology." How does one manage that all in one blog? Mike does…I especially enjoyed his post about molecular evolution.
Part of the Wired network the Wired Science blog is also a recommended read. Right now the main focus is on Tropical storm Gustav and it's possible impact on the U.S. Energy Industry. The post on subliminal cues is also a very thought provoking piece.
The debate over is Pluto a planet or not is one I've followed, a post on that over at Live Science was of special interest to me, but there are quite a few other topics focused on that might interest you. In addition to the material on the blog some of the science news feeds shared there make this blog doubly worth the click.
There is an informational/educational aspect to blogging that I think at times gets missed. Blogs like this are not only great sources of information and discussion but they also give us the ability to learn just a bit more about this world we live in.
When she's not playing with test tubes and Petri dishes, Lisa Renee can be found on Glass City Jungle or by email at email@example.com.

subset: commoncrawl


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Washington's pre-paid tuition program could lose some of its financial stability if state universities start adopting differential tuition for more expensive majors, a new report states.
Last year, the Legislature passed a bill allowing the state's four-year schools to charge higher tuition for certain programs such as engineering that cost more to provide.
That plan may help colleges balance their budgets, but a state actuary said it could cause problems for Washington's Guaranteed Education Tuition program, or GET, which is set up to anticipate college costs.
If tuition is differentiated, those costs could change more than originally expected.
This year's price for one GET unit was $163, and it takes 100 units to cover one year of tuition and state-mandated fees at the University of Washington or Washington State University. That doesn't include room and board.


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A line of Ritz-Carlton employees stretched down the hotel hallway, and applause erupted as a group of public school educators walked by.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. uses the "wall of applause" to show appreciation — a central message during a recent training session with Georgia education officials working on a broad initiative to create family-friendly schools. With research showing a clear link between parent engagement and student success, education officials say it's essential that parents are involved, and they must make sure families feel welcome at schools that can sometimes feel like fortresses.
"Often people will say 'thank you' or 'we appreciate you,' but there's that old adage of actions speak louder than words," said Michelle Sandrock, who oversees the state's parent engagement program and coordinated the recent training at The Ritz. "It's one thing to have someone say 'thank you,' but it's another to have someone stop what they are doing, come over and clap for you."
The Ritz-Carlton has long been known for rolling out the red carpet for its guests, with a dedication to customer service and satisfaction. It's those lessons that educations officials hope to bring from the hotel to the classroom.


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Full detailed profile on Cristian Vega Played by David Fumero on One Life To Live Daytime Soap Opera.
David Fumero
Birthday: 1972-12-29
Cris, Layla and Lisa Williamson are gathered in Evangeline's hospital room in Maryland. Layla's mother explains talking to Bennett Thompson. Layla admits by law they can leave Evangeline on life support indefinitely. Lisa doesn't want to watch her daughter wither away and leaves to get the doctor. Layla falls into Cris' arms and cries, "My sister's going to die." Lisa and the doctor return. Once the doctor knows Layla and Lisa are sure about their decision she gives them time to say goodbye. Cris and Layla wait outside while Lisa says her goodbyes.
Out in the hallway Layla tells Cris, "I can't say goodbye to Evangeline." Cris promises that Evangeline will always be with Layla. When Lisa appears she allows Cris to go in next.
Inside the room Cris promises he'll never forget Evangeline and everything she gave him. "You believed in me," Cris cries. "You gave me my life back and I'd give anything right now if I could do the same for you." Layla comes in next. She holds Evangeline's hand and promises to carry her with her until the day she dies. Cris puts a comforting hand on Layla's shoulder as her mother and the doctor appear. "The papers are signed," Lisa says. "It's time." The doctor turns off the machines, Evangeline's hand goes limp and Lisa, Cris and Layla break down in tears.
In Evangeline's hospital room in Maryland Layla tells Cris, "I can't believe I have to fight my mother to end my sister's life." A hospital recommended lawyer arrives and Layla explains the situation. She looks over Evangeline's living will and reminds Layla the will was never finalized. The lawyer suggests they can try to make the courts believe her sister wanted this but that could take a long time. After she leaves Cris admits to Layla he doesn't know what he'd do if it were his brother. He vows to be there for her no matter what she decides. Mrs. Williamson appears and says, "I've spoken to a lawyer and know exactly what we're going to do." She's not going to fight Layla anymore and states, "If you're dead set with what's on that paper I'll do it. I'll let my baby go."
Still at Evangeline's bedside Cris professes his love for her and wishes he could save Layla and her mother from the heartache of having to make such a heartbreaking decision. Cris explains his love for Layla and the need to move forward. "I've never felt so powerless," Cris says and talks about the guilt Layla carries for being with him. "I have the same guilt," he admits and wishes he knew for sure that Evangeline gave them her blessing. "But that's not going to happen. You're not coming back," Cris sobs. Layla arrives and shows Cris Evangeline's living will. After Layla assures Cris that Evangeline wouldn't want to live like this Cris suggests they call a lawyer.
At the hospital in Maryland Mrs. Williamson assures Layla that Evangeline didn't have any papers drawn up but Layla is sure Evangeline would've filed a living will. She accuses Layla of giving up and threatens to have her barred from Evangeline's room. After her mother leaves Layla admits she wants Evangeline to live too, just not like this. Cris urges Layla to go home and talk to her mother.
Cris goes in to see Evangeline. He wonders if he and Layla are being selfish. If they can't look past the machines and see the woman they love. He wishes he knew if she'd get better, if she'd want to keep living like this. Cris takes her hand and cries, "I need you to know. I've never stopped loving you."
In Maryland Cris and Layla watch over Evangeline. Layla doesn't know what to do. She rants about how her mother views her. Layla has to do what's right for her sister! Just as she brings up Evangeline's living will Mrs. Williamson appears and asks, "Are you talking about killing your sister again?" Layla begs for information on Evangeline's living will.
In Evangeline's hospital room in Maryland Cris and Layla go to her bedside. Layla's mom appears and tries to be positive about Evangeline's condition, claiming it's only an infection. Cris wants to talk to a doctor, which irks Mrs. Williamson. A doctor comes in, looks Evangeline over but says there's no change. Layla and Cris corner the doctor who admits Evangeline needs to be on a ventilator or she won't be able to breathe. Layla can't believe Evangeline will never breathe on her own again. The doctor urges the family to make a decision. Layla can't begin to know how she's going to make this decision since she's in charge of Evangeline's living will. Mrs. Williamson wonders if this is what Layla's wanted all along. Then she wouldn't have to feel guilty about being with Cris! "You've always wanted what Evangeline had," Mrs. Williamson says then storms back to Evangeline's bedside. Cris assures Layla her mother didn't mean what she said but Layla knows she meant every word. Layla cries but Cris promises they'll figure it out together.
In Maryland, Cristian and Layla arrive at her mother's place. Suddenly the lights come on! Layla hugs her mother and blurts that she and Christian are getting married! Layla tells her mother they waited two months to tell her because of the way she feels about Cristian. Her mother says he put her sister in a coma. Layla protests that he wasn't to blame, and says they came to get her blessing. Her mother says it's fine, but says she can't tell Evangeline because she's gone; she's back in the hospital.
« Back to Cristian Vega profile


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The planets are making it easy for you to make difficult decisions. You know what needs to be done and you know if you don't do it no one else will either. You're clearly motivated to make a difference.
or email firstname.lastname@example.com
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|Apple Notebooks Apple's notebook computers including MacBook Pro, MacBook, MacBook Air, PowerBook, and iBook.
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|Thread Tools
Member Since: Oct 25, 2004
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 201
Mac Specs: 13.3" 2.26 GHz MBP, 2GB RAM, 640GB HD
i have never owned or really spent time using a mac prior to getting an ibook. the reason why i got an ibook was because i wanted to take advantage of wireless internet in my house and i like the notion of having a portable computer. i also wanted to get a computer i could carry around when i go to school. i was looking at the toshiba a70 which had the 15 inch widescreen lcd and some of the dell models like the 1150 which was very well priced but heavy and kinda ugly. my friend who is a mac user recommended my an ibook because of his love for the operating system ease of use and the size of the 12 inch ibook.
my friends who were windows users recommended i stick with pc simply because of the availability of software as well as price. the ibook during the summer of 2004 was expensive as it did not include the airport card at that time. basically i held off from getting a laptop that summer until the fall came along. apple decides to drop their price of the ibooks and include airport express. i went to the mac store near my place to take a look at the ibook and i was not impressed with the brightness of the lcd. i felt it was not as bright as the toshiba and dell computers i was looking at.
i was getting real confused and didn't know which way to go. should i cough up a couple hundred dollars more for a toshiba or go for a dell?? i ended up going with the ibook because i realized weight was an important factor for me as well as the fact the only competitor for the ibook in it's price range was the dell 700m. however, the dell 700m was still about 300 dollars more than the ibook. i bit the bullet and ordered my ibook. i customized my ibook to have a 60 gig hard drive and went to a computer store and bought a stick of 512mb kingson ram.
initial impression:
sharp looking laptop and i found the OS did a good job with font smoothing and rendering of jpegs. i just found that everything seemed to look "nicer" on a mac and i think it has something to do with the operating system, please forgive me cuz i'm not an technical wiz. i found that it was very easy to adjust the settings and set up programs on Mac OS X versus Windows XP. if i had to describe it, mac os x is dummy proof. i liked that a lot and i am fairly experienced with microsoft windows. i did find my ibook sluggish and not as zippy as a windows machine and ic an still say that till this day. however i do find that OS X is more stable where i can open up a whole bunch of programs but the computer will not operate sluggishly like my P4 desktop. one thing i have to note is that when i use my ibook on highest performance it makes a huge difference in speed compared to automatic and battery saver. so for those who have never adjusted their power settings, try it out especially when ur hooked up to a plug at home.
i like the ilife software that comes with my computer and it is an excellent package that symbolizes mac quality. i find the programs for mac are well designed and easy to use. a big plus for any user like me who likes simplicity.
i have been using my windows xp desktop and have to admit it would be hard for me to use windows now that i have used mac. i am not saying this as a mac fanatic but coming from a person who uses computers for word processing, internet and managing my digital files like jpegs and mp3s.
i will say that a mac is a good investment because i feel that i can use my laptop because the software does not get outdated as fast as windows software does. just look at all the people still using old mac machines compared to users using old windows machines.
recommend it 100%
now i will admit that macs do cost significantly more than a windows machine. if all you do is word process and surf the web, heck you can use a very inexpensive pc and i wouldn't blame you if could not justify buying a mac. as a person like myself who can justify spending more because i do use a computer a lot, i will strongly state that both systems, windows or mac, do the job. it's a matter of preference. however, hopefully with intel chips coming into upcoming mac computers, prices may drop a bit more to make them more competitive.
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Member Since: Nov 17, 2005
Posts: 262
Mac Specs: 1.83 MBP
I guess I like reading up on how much people are enjoying their products. More please!
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Member Since: Feb 09, 2005
Location: Near San Diego, CA
Posts: 2,339
Mac Specs: MacBook Pro 13" | MacBook Pro 13" | Mac Mini 2GHz C2D
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Member Since: Oct 25, 2004
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 201
Mac Specs: 13.3" 2.26 GHz MBP, 2GB RAM, 640GB HD
next computer i want is an imac 20 inch!!!!!
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Member Since: Feb 02, 2004
Location: PA
Posts: 12,456
Mac Specs: MacBook
So, to sum up:
1.) Before anyone makes a decision to get a Mac (or Windows system if you are Mac user), find out what you use your computer for and decide if your current system does this.
2.) If your current system does not do what you want it to do, research your alternatives first. Don't just flippantly dump one problem for a host of new ones. Try a Mac out first at the store, see if a friend has one, use this vast well of knowledge we call the internet to get more information on them, etc...
3.) If you do decide to get the Mac, realize this very important fact.....
You are not using Windows, so don't try to make the Mac act like Windows.
You will need to realize that you need to find the Macintosh way to complete your task, not the Windows way.
And that would be the best advice I could give any potential Mac buyer.
Posting and YOU|Forum Community Guidelines|The Apple Product Cycle|Forum Courtesy
mac: a waterproof raincoat made of rubberized fabric
MAC: a data communication protocol sub-layer, also known as the Media Access Control
Mac: a brand name which covers several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc.
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One of the programs I have (running in classic mode) is WriteNow- a word processor designed for OS 7 (that was two different kinds of CPUs ago!). The copywrite notice says 1994! And don't forget Mac OS now is really UNIX. Classic mode is a masterful piece of engineering from Apple, allowing us to use older (to a point) software.
Ask your PC buddies if they would take a 6 year old PC laptop and run XP on it. They'd think you're nuts!
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Member Since: Nov 19, 2005
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 320
Mac Specs: White 2ghz Core Duo Macbook, 2ghz RAM, 60gb Hard drive, SuperDrive
But about price. Do read this article: http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/edit...ges3/index.php
In there, it states [truly], that it would cost you 273 dollars to purchase the software included (iLife, AppleWorks, Quicken 2005, and two games). Take that from 500 dollars, and the Mac mini costs about, 227 dollars.
Keep in mind that the dell comes with a 'revolutionary' word perfect, not worth much.
Add seventy five dollars to the 227 (for a crt and keyboard/mouse), and the mac is cheaper than a dell. Not to mention it's got more ram and a better processor.
302 = Mac mini without included software, but w/ monitor and keyboard/mouse
399 = Badly specced dell with a monitor, and wordperfect software included in price.
I rest my case.
Macbook: 2ghz Core Duo, 2gb Ram
Don't forget to use the User Reputation System
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Posts: n/a
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Member Since: Nov 19, 2005
Location: North Carolina
Posts: 320
Mac Specs: White 2ghz Core Duo Macbook, 2ghz RAM, 60gb Hard drive, SuperDrive
Macbook: 2ghz Core Duo, 2gb Ram
Don't forget to use the User Reputation System
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Member Since: Nov 29, 2004
Posts: 39
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Who's Bad: The Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute Band
It takes extreme courage to be a tribute band.
With an open invitation for comparison to one's musical idol, the stakes are high and the chances for failure to deliver a reasonable resemblance of perceived perfection are higher.
Chapel Hill's longtime Michael Jackson tribute band, Who's Bad, has navigated through those odds with such practiced accuracy that the octet has earned countless mentions of being the closest experience next to seeing the King of Pop himself.
The group's impressive theatrical performances and spot-on instrumental and vocal recreations have carried it around the world, selling out more than 50 venues in the United Kingdom during its 2010 tour, including London's O2 Arena.
The eight-piece also sells out regularly throughout the U.S., thanks in large part to receiving high-profile gigs alongside artists such as Aretha Franklin, The Four Tops, The Backstreet Boys, Boyz II Men and Pitbull.
Who's Bad: The Ultimate Michael Jackson Tribute Band will perform Friday at the Music Farm, 32 Ann St., with Super Deluxe. Tickets are $15-$17 and are available at the door or online at Ticketfly.com. Doors open at 8 p.m. with the show starting at 9 p.m.
Go to MusicFarm.com or call 577-6989 for more information.
The Royal Tinfoil
It's painful, but you would never really know it when you hear it. In fact, there's something very primal and afflicted but still happy - happy in a psychotic, cackling kind of way; the kind of thing that makes you feel afraid and uncomfortable yet loose and excited, like a haunted house with a great soundtrack.
Perhaps the simplest way to describe The Royal Tinfoil's music is to call it madly upbeat, but even that seems cliche.
The Charleston-based trio formed in early 2011 and has quickly made its presence known in the local music scene by performing multiple shows each month. The band's music is an assortment of folk, punk and blues that rolls off the tongue as easily as it trembles down your spine.
There's a certain maniacal spirit to it all that brings the bluesy ghosts and mystery of the band's style and lyrics to life without sounding too over-thought or cheesy.
The Royal Tinfoil will perform Thursday at The Pour House, 1977 Maybank Highway, with Can't Kids and Jordan Igoe. Tickets are $6 in advance, $8 the day of the show, and are available at the door or online at CharlestonPourHouse.StrangerTickets.com. Doors open at 9 p.m. with the show slated to begin at 9:45 p.m.
Go to CharlestonPourHouse.com or call 571-4343 for more information.
Same as it Ever Was
Knoxville, Tenn.-based tribute act Same as it Ever Was has spent the last decade re-creating the music of its idols, Talking Heads, and so far the group shows no signs of slowing down.
With a catalog that covers all the biggest hits to the rare, little-known B-sides, Same as it Ever Was delivers near replicas of the experimental post-punk band's songs while also seeking to embody the eccentrically liberated attitude the iconic band represented.
Same as it Ever Was tours extensively through the Southeast nearly year round and will stop in Charleston for back-to-back performances at The Pour House, 1977 Maybank Highway, on Saturday and Sunday night. Tickets for each show are $10-$12 and are available at the door or online at CharlestonPourHouse.StrangerTickets.com. Doors open at 9 p.m. both nights.
Go to CharlestonPourHouse.com or call 571-4343 for more information.
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Armageddon Online needs your support. A donation goes a long way on an independent site like this, and with continued efforts we can keep growing.
Despite the explosion of exoplanet discoveries in recent years, one find remains elusive: A planet that's not only the right size but also in the so-called Goldilocks zone where it's not too hot or too cold for water to be in liquid form on the surface.
The sheer number of Earth-size planets gives astronomers a starting point to narrow down which ones are in the habitable zone.
Fressin and his team came up with their figure by conducting a fresh analysis of data collected by NASA's Kepler spacecraft, which was launched in 2009 to track down other Earths. They estimated at least one in six stars in the galaxy hosts a planet the size of ours, translating to at least 17 billion Earth-size worlds.
Using a different method, a team from the University of California, Berkeley and University of Hawaii separately came up with a similar estimate. They calculated 17 percent of distant stars have planets that are the same size as Earth or slightly larger.
The findings were presented at the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, Calif.
Meanwhile, the Kepler spacecraft continues to spot planets as they pass between Earth and the star they orbit. It found 461 new candidate planets, bringing the total to 2,740 potential planets, said mission scientist Christopher Burke at the SETI Institute.
Most of the new Kepler finds were driven by discoveries of Earth-size planets and super-Earths. Four of those are thought to reside in the Goldilocks zone, but more observations are needed.
Fressin said it's clear that rocky planets abound outside the solar system.
"If you look up on a starry night, each star you're looking at — almost each one of them — has a planetary system," Fressin said.


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Engaging Minds, Empowering Communities
If you're interested in taking your academics a step further, you're in the right place. Your involvement in the community greatly benefits Winston-Salem and Forsyth County while making your academic experience at Wake Forest more well-rounded and meaningful. For example, see how, as an education major, you can apply the theories you are learning in a classroom. Find an opportunity to examine the mental health conditions you have learned of as a psychology major. There are even opportunities available for majors such as economics, foreign language and the sciences.
The Institute for Public Engagement can help you find the appropriate opportunity based on your interests, year and field of study. Get started below to gain a greater understanding of the needs of our community while enriching your academics with hands-on, real-world engagement in your field of study.
Learn more about:


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Rhinestone Accessories
Beauty in all forms, our Rhinestone Accessories combine both visual elegance and application ease. Rhinestone accessories like our Oval Rhinestones with Setting or Swarovski Pear Sew-On allow you to transform any project into a unique creation.
2 1/4" x 2 1/4" rhinestone dress ornamentFrom $24.98/PCS
art deco oval rhinestone buckleFrom $33.31/PCS


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Black and White Cookie BarsBy Jennifer McHenry on June 18, 2015I bake a lot of cookies. One glance at BoB's recipe index will show you that pretty quickly. I bake so many, in fact, that I have a container in my kitchen dedicated solely to cookie scoops of various sizes. Occupational hazard, I suppose. But still… so many cookies. I'm also a fan of simplicity. And I'm honest enough to […]Read more
Lemon Raspberry MuffinsBy Jennifer McHenry on June 15, 2015In my current berry craze, I often find myself with a lack of baking focus. When I see summer fruits in all their glory, I tend to procure as many as possible with no real idea what I'm going to do with them. Inevitably, I end up with a whole slew of fruit and a feeling of urgency to make […]Read more
A Big AnnouncementBy Jennifer McHenry on June 12, 2015I've been sitting on a little secret, my baking friends. No, make that a big secret. I've written a cookbook! Oh, that feels good to say out loud. It's still amazing and overwhelming and quite unbelievable to be able to say that. Just seeing my name on that cover is enough to make me do a double take. Let me […]Read more


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NORTH IDAHO DEFEATS LADY DRAGONS IN NJCAA TOURNEY OPENERNovember 15, 2012
HCC Sports Information
WEST PLAINS, Mo. – The No. 17 Hutchinson Community College volleyball team couldn't overcome 46 unforced errors on Thursday as seventh-seed North Idaho College swept the Lady Dragons 25-20, 25-15, 25-19 in the opening round of the NJCAA Division I Volleyball Championship at the West Plains Civic Center.
The 10th-seeded Lady Dragons (27-9) will play 15th seed Wallace State (33-7) at 10 a.m. on Friday in an elimination match. HCC will have to win two matches to advance to Saturday and place in a sixth-straight nationals appearance.
"The bottom line is that you can't make 14, 15, 16 unforced errors at nationals and expect to compete," first-year Lady Dragon coach Patrick Hall said. "Those kinds of errors cost you. They are deflating for your team. You have to be able to control them here."
Hutchinson, which dropped its third-straight national tournament opener dating back to 2008, suffered 14 unforced errors in the opening set and 16 in each of the second and third sets. North Idaho (26-5) had only 18 unforced errors.
North Idaho (26-5) out-hit Hutchinson 33-28 and out-blocked the Lady Dragons 5-3. The Cardinals had eight service aces to HCC's three.
"I knew we were trying, but we weren't executing like we needed to," sophomore setter Scout Heizer said. "Once the other team got ahead of us, we got into our own heads."
Added freshman hitter Teresa Wade: "We got to thinking about it too much. We would think one thing and do another thing wrong. That was most of it. They hit shots really well."
Wade led the Lady Dragons with nine kills, hitting .304. Sophomore Shayne Haley had seven kills.
Heizer finished with 12 assists and eight digs. Ashlyn Westerman had 11 assists and 13 digs. Freshman libero Samantha Lackey had a team-high 15 digs.
North Idaho ran a diverse attack with its middles. Yang Yang had 13 kills and an ace to lead the Cardinals. Kaitlyn Malloy had nine kills and five total blocks.
"I wasn't expecting some of what they ran," Lackey said. "It was hard to adjust to the block where they were going to hit."
North Idaho jumped out to a 7-2 lead in the first set, but the Lady Dragons settled in with an 8-3 run to tie it at 10-10 after a Haley service ace. An Oberlin kill on an overpass later tied the set at 15-all when the Cardinals went on a 6-0 run to lead 21-15 after back-to-back stuff blocks by Malloy. Four-straight points, three by kills from Haley, Mariah Dickson and Wade, pulled HCC within 21-19. At 22-20, the Cardinals pulled off three in a row to close out the set. Haley got off to a great start for the Lady Dragons with five kills in the set.
Leading 8-7 in the second set, North Idaho went on a 5-1 run to lead 13-8 and force Hall to call a timeout. It wasn't until 15-9 in the second when HCC scored its first block of the match on a double-block by Gabby Rushton and Jade Nelson. HCC continued to be bit by unforced errors. Hutchinson had just six kills in the second set. North Iadho's Yang had five on her own.
Yang continued to pound away at HCC in the third set with six kills, but HCC had the early advantage at 7-6 after a Rushton kill. North Idaho went on a 4-1 run to lead 10-8 with Yang putting down two kills. HCC tried to rally with a Lackey service ace and stuff blocks by Oberlin and Nelson to pull within 13-12. But Yang started a 3-0 run to give North Idaho a 16-12 lead. The Lady Dragons never recovered.
"We saw too much tentative play today." Hall said. "We made some plays as well as you can do them. Our passing was pretty good. I was pleased with our passing, but why we didn't get the ball to the middle, I don't know why we didn't' make it happen today. It was about the error potential."


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Huntington native, former Ashland Oil exec Brothers dies
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Huntington native and former Ashland Oil and Marathon Ashland Petroleum executive J.A. Fred Brothers died Oct. 9 in Columbus, Ohio.
He was born Nov. 10, 1940, a son of the late John and Genevieve Brothers and sibling of Gloria Brothers.
Brothers earned his bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in chemical engineering from Virginia Tech and also attended the advanced management program at Harvard Business School.
In 1967, Brothers began a career with Ashland Oil, later Ashland Inc., and had responsibilities with Ashland Chemical in Columbus, Ohio, Valvoline Oil in Lexington, Ky.; and SuperAmerica in Minneapolis, later Speedway as part of Marathon Petroleum. He negotiated the merger of Ashland's petroleum division with Marathon Oil to form Marathon Ashland Petroleum and coordinated the relocation of the corporation to the greater Cincinnati area.
Brothers served on various boards included the Children's Hospital of Columbus, Columbus Museum of Art and the Defense Enterprise Fund in Washington, D.C. He was a Distinguished Eagle Scout, a member of Virginia Tech's Committee of 100 and was elected to the university's College of Engineering Academy of Excellence.
He retired in 1999 as executive vice president of Ashland Inc. In retirement, he and his wife, Paula, divided their time between Columbus, Naples, Fla., and international travel. He also enjoyed fishing, hunting and golf.
He is survived by his wife, Paula; children Fred II (Kim) of Columbus, Sherry Dean (Bobby) of Columbus and Becky Price (Greg) of Chattanooga, Tenn.; and nine grandchildren.
A memorial celebration and reception will take place at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18, at First Community Church in Upper Arlington, Ohio.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to Kobacker House in care of the OhioHealth Foundation, 180 E. Broad St., Fl. 32, Columbus, OH 43215.
Online condolences may be expressed at Schoedinger Funeral Home's website, www.schoedinger.com.


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Facilitating Employee Rewards Management at Microsoft
Integrating business processes into Office applications by using Business Connectivity Services
Technical White Paper
Published: November 2010
The following content may no longer reflect Microsoft's current position or infrastructure. This content should be viewed as reference documentation only, to inform IT business decisions within your own company or organization.
Technical White Paper, 1.87 MB, Microsoft Word file
Products & Technologies
At Microsoft, the tool that managers and HR personnel use for managing employee rewards lacks certain capabilities because of architectural constraints. Limitations include difficulty of reward calibration, double data entry, and no offline and ad hoc reporting capabilities.
To address limitations and bring benefits to the business, Microsoft IT prototyped a new rewards management solution by using Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, along with Excel.
Introduction to the Calibration Process
Current Rewards Management Tool
New Rewards Management Solution
Executive Summary
Microsoft offers many types of rewards to eligible employees, such as merit increases, salary adjustment, promotions, bonuses, and stock. Managing these rewards according to the guidelines and budgets set for each country, organization, employee salary plan, and pay level is a complex process. Every year, managers and HR personnel determine each reward's guidelines and limits at all levels. This process, called calibration, is time-consuming and requires many calculations and close examination of statistics.
The current rewards management tool is a Windows® Forms application. Although the tool works as designed, it presents several limitations. To address these limitations, Microsoft Information Technology (Microsoft IT), the HR department, and the Microsoft® Office and Microsoft SharePoint® product teams collaborated to create a new solution in a prototype scope. The new solution is based on Business Connectivity Services (BCS), a set of services and features in Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010.
BCS (formerly named Business Data Catalog) provides read/write access to external data from line-of-business (LOB) systems, Web services, databases, and other external systems within SharePoint 2010 and Office 2010 applications. The new solution uses Microsoft Excel® 2010 spreadsheet software as the user interface (UI) for rewards management. It uses BCS technology to cache and synchronize employee data, in addition to various business rules, between users' local computers and the back-end systems (Web services and databases).
This technical white paper covers:
Functionality and architecture of the current rewards management tool.
Architecture and design of the new rewards management solution based on BCS.
Business benefits of the new solution.
Products and technologies used in the new solution.
Deployment and installation process of the new solution.
Best practices that Microsoft IT learned from prototyping the BCS-based solution.
This document shares the experiences of Microsoft teams in creating the Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 BCS solution. Because of the significant amount of knowledge that the teams gained, their experiences can provide relevant guidance to organizations that want to increase the effectiveness of automating business processes and help ensure alignment with business objectives through the Microsoft technologies described in this document.
This document is intended for enterprise business decision makers, technical decision makers, IT architects, and managers of LOB applications. Although this document provides recommendations based on the experiences of Microsoft teams, it is not intended to serve as a procedural guide. Each enterprise environment has unique circumstances. Therefore, each organization should adapt this information to meet its specific requirements.
Note: For security reasons, the names of internal resources and organizations used in this paper do not represent real names used within Microsoft and are for illustration purposes only.
Introduction to the Calibration Process
Managing employee rewards is a complex and business-critical function at all companies. Microsoft is a global enterprise and has sophisticated business rules for rewarding employees in different countries with different incentive plans, and at different pay levels, based on employees' performance for the review period and potential long-term contributions to Microsoft.
The calibration process during the annual review period uses these business rules—set by HR—to ensure that each organization (business unit or group) rewards every employee appropriately. At the same time, the process ensures that each organization meets the guidelines and budgets set for it. Moreover, each organization customizes the calibration in accordance with its specific business strategy.
Major business rules or functions for the calibration process include:
Employee rating, ranking guidelines, and related business rules.
Merit-increase guidelines, targets, and minimum/maximum ranges.
Adjustment-increase guidelines, targets, and minimum/maximum ranges.
Promotion guidelines, minimum/maximum ranges, and level-change business rules.
Bonus guidelines, targets, and minimum/maximum ranges.
Stock award guidelines, targets, and minimum/maximum ranges.
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)–related business rules.
Rules and process for reward exceptions.
Rules and process for final approval.
Current Rewards Management Tool
The current tool was designed to support a cohesive experience for employee assessment, calibration, ratings, and rewards.
As shown in Figure 1, the tool is a three-tier application where the UI layer is a Windows Forms application that reads data from, and writes data to, back-end Web services. The Web services query and update employee records, business rules, and other reference data from and to databases.
Figure 1. Architecture of the current rewards management tool
In the current architecture, Microsoft IT implemented a Windows Forms application by using the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. Each user must install the application on his or her computer. To minimize network traffic between a user's computer and the Web servers that host Web services, when the tool starts, it retrieves and caches all necessary reference data, business-rule data, and employee records under an organization that the user has permissions to access. This client component implements most of the business logic and rules for rewards management. Hence, when the user assigns or changes one or more employees' rewards, the corresponding business rules validate the changes without calling Web services.
Figure 2 provides additional detail about the client component of the current rewards management tool.
Figure 2. Design of the client component
Web Servers
Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Web services return employee records and business-rule data from the employee rewards database to the Windows Forms client application, and they save data changes passed from clients to the databases. Business validation logic in the Web services helps ensure data integrity (rewards Web services) and data-access permissions (user security Web services) before the data is saved to the databases.
All Web services calls are implemented as synchronous methods. Thus, users receive error messages when Web services calls fail for both business errors and system errors, and users can take actions based on the nature of the errors. In addition, the Web services serialize employee records and other data records into a byte array and return the byte array to clients in order to minimize the size of data transferred on the network.
In the current architecture, employee rewards data and business-rule data are stored in Microsoft SQL Server® 2008 databases. The databases store all data needed for managing employee rewards, in addition to historical data for past performance-review periods.
Because of architectural constraints, the current rewards management tool lacks some of the capabilities that the business needs.
Difficulty of Calibration
During the calibration process, mangers and HR personnel need to enter and adjust numbers for employee rewards numbers before they are finalized and saved into the databases. These users must ensure that each employee receives the appropriate rewards based on his or her performance rating, and that the entire organization meets the budget and the guidelines. The tool does not effectively facilitate the process, because it does not enable users to enter different numbers for each reward and analyze the result to see the impacts to the budgets and guidelines.
Often, users export calibration reports from the tool into an Excel file and use Excel to model employee rewards. However, Excel does not have any rules or guidelines for working with this data. Users cannot model the rewards in real time and see updated guidance and statistics based on employee reward assignments and impacts to the budgets.
Double Data Entry
After users complete calibration and finalize each employee's reward numbers in Excel or in another application, they must re-enter the data into the tool manually and submit the data for higher-level or final approval. This double data entry is a time-consuming process for a large organization that has hundreds of employees.
No Offline Capability
To use the Windows Forms–based rewards management tool, users must be online and connected to the corporate network, because the tool must connect to back-end Web services for data reads and writes. Many managers travel around the globe during the performance-review period, and they need to be able to work on employee rewards when they are offline, so that they can meet the deadline for completing the performance reviews for their organizations.
No Ad Hoc Reporting
The current rewards management tool provides a standard set of reports for managers and HR personnel to see some of the reward statistics for their organizations, such as salary summary statistics (actual amounts and percentages). However, for any additional reports or charts that users want, such as bonus summary statistics by pay level or peer group, they must ask the development team to design and build it into the tool for the next release. The business needs a flexible ad hoc reporting capability to effectively manage employee rewards.
New Rewards Management Solution
Business Connectivity Services is a set of enterprise services and features that enable Microsoft Office application (Excel, Microsoft Access® database software, Microsoft Outlook® messaging and collaboration client, Microsoft Word, Microsoft InfoPath® information gathering program, and so on) and SharePoint user experiences for enterprise business processes and data from back-end LOB systems. Through creating a business entity model, BCS enables users to read and write business data, such as employee rewards, from and to multiple external systems. These external systems can include SQL Server databases, Web services, .NET assemblies, and even third-party LOB systems like SAP and Siebel.
Because BCS is part of both Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010, it resides on both client and server computers. Figure 3 shows the high-level architecture of BCS components on both client and server sides.
Figure 3. High-level architecture of BCS components
The key for a BCS-enabled solution is to define an entity model that can connect to external systems and map data from external data structures into the BCS data structure. This entity model is called External Content Type (ECT). A solution can contain as many ECTs—created through Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010 or the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2010 integrated development environment (IDE)—as necessary. ECT metadata, including the assembly (.NET code for defining the entity model) is published and stored in the Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 metadata store. The published ECT model can then be downloaded and installed on a user's client computer through Microsoft SharePoint Workspace 2010 or a stand-alone packaging tool that the Microsoft BCS product team provides.
At run time, the BCS runtime component on the client or on the server invokes the ECT model to communicate with external systems. In the case of the client, the data from external systems is cached in a Microsoft SQL Server Compact database on the user's computer. The cache data can then be displayed and manipulated in Microsoft Office applications (Excel in this case) through the BCS application programming interface (API). The changes that a user makes to the cached data through Microsoft Office applications are queued on the user's computer, in the same SQL Server Compact database. The BCS runtime component then updates the changes to external systems through the ECT model.
The new rewards management tool uses the BCS framework, together with Excel as the UI, to address the limitations of the current tool. This Excel/BCS solution for rewards management includes 15 ECTs (for employee data, business-rule data, and other reference data) for the BCS runtime to connect to existing rewards Web services (external systems) and to retrieve and cache employee data and business-rule data. Employee data is rendered as an Excel worksheet through an Excel add-in via BCS local cache APIs. Managers and HR personnel can assign, calibrate, and manage their employee rewards completely within Excel. They can enforce all business rules based on rule data cached in the BCS local store, even when they are offline.
Business Benefits
The new rewards management solution will improve user experience and productivity, as follows:
Users can model rewards in real time through a familiar Excel interface and see updated guidance based on rating and ranking changes, while seeing the impact to the budget.
Data updates in Excel go to the rewards back-end systems, thus eliminating the need for double data entry.
Users can work offline and synchronize the changes later. The BCS conflict detection capability prevents a user from overwriting another user's changes.
Users can see a list of selected employees (in an Excel worksheet) and various statistics (in the Excel task pane) on one screen. The statistics that the tool displays depend on the fields that the user selects. Statistics are dynamically updated as reward values change.
By using native Excel functionality, such as pivot tables and charts, users can create various reports for the data cached by BCS.
Through Excel templates, business groups can create and set up standard reports without requiring assistance from the development team. Excel templates also enable faster designing of specific user experiences, such as a separation of rewards management for managers and HR specialists.
In addition, in the prototyping of this new rewards management solution, Microsoft teams took advantage of existing rewards Web services and incorporated existing business-rule data objects and validation code into the Excel add-in solution to enforce business rules while users work in Excel to change employee ratings and rewards. As a result, the teams delivered and validated the new solution prototype in a relatively short time, and they demonstrated that BCS technology can adapt to the existing design of Web services even though the design is not optimal to the BCS framework.
Figure 4 illustrates the architecture of the new solution for rewards management. Changes to the original architecture occurred only on the client component, yet those simple changes can address the limitations in the current tool and provide business benefits. As indicated in the diagram, the green boxes are BCS components that are already installed on users' computers when they install Office 2010. The blue boxes are the components developed for the new solution.
Figure 4. Architecture of the Excel/BCS rewards management solution
The process of the new solution works as follows:
After the ECTs developed for the new solution are installed on a user's computer, the BCS synchronization process (BCSSync.exe) immediately invokes the entity model to retrieve data for each ECT defined in the model from external rewards Web services based on the user's data-access permissions (obtained through user security Web services). The user must be online to access the rewards Web services. Retrieved data, such as employee records for an organization, is stored in a SQL Server Compact database that the BCSSync.exe process creates as the local data cache for the user. To maintain security, the data in SQL Server Compact is encrypted through the user's certificate.
When the data for all ECTs is downloaded and stored, the BCS synchronization process runs periodically to synchronize the user's local cache from the rewards server for the changes made on the server side. The BCS framework enables the new solution to define synchronization frequency for each ECT differently. That is, the user can define longer (hours or days) synchronization frequency for less-often-changed entities such as domain-reference and business-rule data, and shorter (minutes or hours) synchronization frequency for employee rewards data that changes frequently during the review period.
With employee, business-rule, and other reference data cached on the user's computer, the user can start the rewards management tool by starting Excel. The Excel add-in (installed separately on the user's computer) for rewards uses BCS APIs to retrieve data from the SQL Server Compact database and binds the data into an Excel worksheet so that the user can see it. The user can then use native Excel functions to manipulate and analyze the data.
When the user makes changes in the worksheet to assign or update one or more employee rewards, such as percentage of salary merit increase, promotion amount, or stock-award shares, corresponding business rules or logic validates and processes these changes. The solution achieves this by associating the value change event of an Excel cell to an existing business-rule or validation logic code. Moreover, the solution uses the native Excel lock feature to prevent the user from changing some employee data, such as employee number, job title, and e-mail address. In this step, all of the user's work in Excel can occur offline.
When the user is ready to submit changes to the back-end server, he or she submits the changes to a local queue stored in the SQL Server Compact database. The same BCS process (BCSSnyc.exe) selects each change from the queue and sends the change to back-end rewards Web services. If the user is offline or the back-end Web services are not available, the BCS process will retry each change until the user is online or the Web services are available. If the user is not ready to submit the changes to the back-end server and wants to save his or her changes as a draft, he or she can save the Excel file normally.
Design of the Excel Add-in
In the new solution prototype, the teams redesigned the existing Windows Forms application into an Excel add-in to enable managers and HR personnel to use the Excel UI for managing employee rewards. The Excel add-in performs the following main functions:
Render employee records and related guidance and statistics as an Excel worksheet and task pane.
Use BCS APIs to retrieve employee and business-rule data from the BCS local cache, and to write back any changes to the BCS local update queue.
Invoke existing business logic code when users change employee rewards, to ensure that the changes meet corresponding guidelines and minimum/maximum ranges.
Figure 5 shows the high-level design for the Excel add-in component where it replaces Windows Forms controls with Excel controls such as ribbon, worksheet, and task pane objects; replaces Web services proxy objects with BCS API calls; and uses all other objects in the middle for business logic. This approach demonstrated the ability of BCS technology to work with existing designs and code to deliver a new solution.
Figure 5. High-level design for the Excel add-in component of the solution
Figure 6 shows the Excel-based UI for rewards management. The upper part of the window is an Excel worksheet that displays employee records for the user's organization. The lower part of the window is the task pane. When the user selects performance rating or ranking columns, or merit or promotion columns, or bonus or stock-award columns for an employee, the related guidelines and organization-wide statistics appear in the task pane. When the user changes the employee rating, ranking, salary, bonus, or stock awards, the corresponding guidelines and statistics are updated automatically. The user can build additional statistics and charts based on employee data by using native Excel functions such as pivot tables and pivot charts.
Figure 6. Excel-based UI design for the rewards management solution
When a user starts Excel, the Excel add-in creates a custom Rewards tab on the Excel menu bar. When the user clicks the Rewards tab, he or she can use the various buttons on the ribbon to manage employee rewards.
Design of ECTs for Rewards Management
The key for the BCS-enabled solution for managing employee rewards at Microsoft was the design and development of ECTs. Designing ECTs is a process to model data entities that the Microsoft Office or SharePoint solution will use. The number of ECTs and the data structure for each ECT depend on the nature of the application data, the uses of the data in the application, and the interfaces of the external systems.
Because the data for ECT entities comes from external systems (rewards Web services in this case), the simplest way to model entities is to design them as the same as the data types that the external systems return. This method requires no data mapping from one structure to another structure. However, this method is not always possible, especially when external Web services return data types that are complex with a deep hierarchy. This is the case for rewards management. The existing rewards Web services return a serialized byte array, for employee data and business-rule data, that must be deserialized on the client side into custom data-table types (extend system.Data.DataTable class). The out-of-the-box BCS framework does not support these complex and custom data types.
Therefore, in the ECT implementation at Microsoft, developers define a relatively flat data structure, with simple data types, for employee and business-rule entities. Developers convert and/or map the data from the custom data tables (after deserialization) into the flat ECT structure. When users update data through ECTs, developers then convert data back in custom data-table types and send the changes to the back-end rewards Web services.
Every ECT must have at least two methods defined. The first method is the Finder() method, which takes no parameters. The BCS runtime component (BCSSync.exe) invokes this method to download all data from the external systems. (In the case of the employee ECT, it returns all employee records that the user has access to.) When an ECT is installed on a client computer, the installation process creates a subscription based on the Finder() method for the BCS runtime to periodically synchronize the ECT.
The second method is the SpecificFinder() method, which returns the specific instance of employee data based on entity identifier (employee number in this case). The BCS runtime uses this method to synchronize or update the employee instance from or to the back-end server. For data entities that users will update on their clients, like employee records, the developer must define an update() method on these ECTs so that the BCS runtime can invoke and send updates to the server. Similarly, if users need to create new records of an entity, the developer must define a create() method in the corresponding ECT. For all reference data entities that users will not change on the clients, such as review periods, the developer does not need to define update() or create() methods for the ECTs.
In implementations of all ECT methods, a developer can add any business logic to validate or process data before he or she invokes external Web services. With BCS, a developer can put certain business logic in ECTs that run on both client and server.
There are two ways to design and create ECTs:
SharePoint Designer. If external systems return relatively flat and strongly typed data types, a developer can use SharePoint Designer to generate ECTs. SharePoint Designer generates ECTs based on external system interfaces—operation and data contracts in the case of Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web services.
Visual Studio. The more powerful approach is to use the Visual Studio IDE to design and create ECTs. Visual Studio 2010 includes a project template specifically for creating a BCS model. This is the approach that the Microsoft teams used in their solution.
Figure 7 displays all ECTs that were designed, developed, and published into the SharePoint Server metadata store for the rewards management solution. A developer can view the published ECTs from the SharePoint Server Central Admin console.
Figure 7. BCS ECTs for the rewards management solution
Deployment of the ECT Model
Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 provide two ways for deploying ECTs for download and installation on users' computers. The first deployment process is through SharePoint Workspace, which is installed on users' computers as part of Office 2010 installation. The second deployment process uses a tool to deploy the new solution on user's computers. In this new solution prototype, Microsoft teams use the second deployment process, as shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8. ECT deployment process through the BCS solution packaging tool
This deployment method involves the following process:
Developers publish ECTs from the Visual Studio IDE to the SharePoint Server metadata store. For Visual Studio to publish ECT metadata to the SharePoint Server metadata store, it must run at the same server where SharePoint 2010 is installed.
Developers use SharePoint Designer to export the published ECT model into a file on a shared drive. The file is an XML file with an extension of .bdcm, which is called the Business Data Connectivity (BDC) model file. Developers can run SharePoint Designer from any other computer, as long as it can connect to the SharePoint server that stores the ECT model.
Developers run the BCS solution packaging tool, available at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/odcsps14bcspkgtool, which reads the model file and generates a Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) installation package.
Users then run VSTO setup.exe to install the ECT metadata and assembly into the BCS local data store (SQL Server Compact). In addition, a subscription is created for each installed ECT for BCSSync.exe to synchronize ECT data periodically with the external systems. The default frequency of data synchronization is six hours.
From the users' perspective, this is a simple and transparent installation process. Users only click once when running VSTO setup.exe to install all ECTs exported from SharePoint Designer. The installation also immediately starts the BCSSync.exe process to run ECTs and download ECT data directly from external systems into the BCS local data cache.
Use of BCS APIs
The BCS rewards management solution uses BCS APIs to retrieve, refresh, and update employee data, and to detect conflicts in data changes. For developers, understanding and using BCS APIs is essential to building a BCS-based solution. This section provides code examples to illustrate the use of BCS APIs at Microsoft.
IEntity is the main BCS interface to ECTs that developers defined for the solution. IEntityInstance represents a specific data instance for the entity that developers wanted to get data from. Each ECT has a unique entity name within an entity namespace. Each entity instance is identified by a unique ID that developers defined when they defined the ECT. In this case, it is the employee number.
Figure 9 shows code for retrieving all employee records from the local cache store.
Figure 9. Example code to retrieve all employee records from the local cache store
As shown in Figure 10, updates to an employee record (an employee ECT instance) through the BCS update method for an entity instance will create an update operation in the BCS local queue. Thus, changes to 10 employee records will entail 10 operations queued in the local cache. The BCS runtime component processes one operation at a time.
Figure 10. Example code to update employee records to the local cache store
ISynchronizationManager is the main interface for the BCS entity synchronization process. Each operation (IOperation) is a change to entity data that the BCS runtime will process. After processing, each data update operation will have one of the following statuses:
Pending. Indicates that the operation is pending because external systems are unavailable. BCS will automatically retry until it is successful or encounters an error.
In Error. Indicates that external systems failed to process the operation for such reasons as business validation error, data integrity error, and data conflicting error. A data conflicting error means that the entity instance data changed on the server side before this update operation.
Note: If an operation is processed successfully, the operation is removed from the queue, and the application will not be able to query the operation through Synchronization Manager.
Figure 11 shows how the new solution queries the BCS cache for all pending or failed operations because of unavailable external systems, errors, or data conflicts.
Figure 11. Example code to query status for pending or failed operations from the local cache store
Users sometimes want to refresh their local cache explicitly from external systems, instead of waiting for the BCS runtime to synchronize periodically. Figure 12 shows the BCS APIs to force data refresh for all ECTs.
Figure 12. Example code to force data refresh from external systems
The first time an ECT is deployed and installed on a user's computer, the BCS runtime creates a subscription in its local data store. The BCS runtime uses the subscription to synchronize the ECT data with external systems. In the example code in Figure 12, ISubscriptionManager is the interface to get all subscriptions (ISubscription) created in the BCS data store. With this subscription object, the new solution can enable tasks that include the following:
Change synchronization frequency for the ECT.
Add more query parameters to filter data returned from external systems.
Get the status of the last refresh.
Request a refresh immediately (as shown in Figure 12).
Get the number of instances synchronized for the ECT.
Best Practices
During the design, development, and deployment of the new rewards management solution, Microsoft IT gained practical and real-world experience with applications based on Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 BCS technologies. The following best practices for using BCS technologies can help Microsoft customers who are looking for solutions to address similar business problems.
Spend Sufficient Time Designing ECTs
ECT design is important to a successful BCS solution. ECTs directly affect the behavior of the BCS runtime. Badly designed ECTs can cause the BCS runtime to stop responding or throw an out-of-memory exception.
Microsoft IT learned that lesson when it designed a big ECT that returned all business rules as a single instance for the ECT. The single instance contained all business-rule data as a byte array of about 40 megabytes (MB), which caused the BCS runtime to peak at a memory of 600 MB. Microsoft IT then redesigned the system into a few more ECTs based on a rule category. Each category ECT returns a number of entity instances equal to the actual number of rules. The BCS runtime synchronization process works much more efficiently on smaller ECTs than it does on bigger ones.
Use Strongly Typed Types and a Relatively Flat Structure as Much as Possible to Define ECTs
Strongly typed types and a relatively flat structure work well with BCS. An organization may be able to use SharePoint Designer to generate ECTs, which will save significant development time. Creating ECTs with many entity attributes is a time-consuming and tedious process in Visual Studio.
Determine How Much Data Can Be Downloaded and Cached on a User's Computer
The amount of data that a user's computer can download and cache determines how an organization implements the Finder() method for an ECT. The data returned from external system calls sets the limit for the number of records that can be downloaded. If an ECT design needs more data than the limit, the external systems must be changed to meet the requirement.
In the Microsoft rewards management solution, a user can download and cache the employee records for his or her organization only. Thus, two users have two different sets of employee data downloaded to their local cache. The existing rewards Web services authenticate the user and return only the employee data that the user is allowed to access. In other words, the data filtering occurs at the external systems, and the Microsoft ECT implementation does not need to filter the data based on users' permissions. If this is not the case for another organization's solution, that organization must consider additional design and development time for filtering ECT data for the local cache.
Handle External System Exceptions Carefully
At some point, an organization's ECT implementations for the Finder() and SpecificFinder() methods must invoke external system methods to retrieve data. And that organization will need to catch and handle exceptions thrown from external systems in its code. However, the organization will need to throw an exception back to the BCS runtime after it handles the exception. Otherwise, the BCS runtime will assume that the call to the external systems is successful and return zero rows of data. It will remove the data already in the local cache because it will attempt to synchronize with the server side. Microsoft IT does not want this behavior, and it does not want the local data cache to be deleted because of the external system exception.
In one of the Microsoft ECT implementations, Microsoft IT must reference an assembly developed by another group to perform additional business logic and data transformation. During the deployment of the ECT—with or without SharePoint Workspace—Microsoft IT found that the referenced assembly is not deployed at the client computer as part of the ECT installation. As a result, BCS fails to run the ECT and fails to download the data. At the time of this writing, Microsoft IT is working with the BCS product team to determine the problem and find the right solution. The workaround is to add the third-party assembly into the Global Assembly Cache as part of the installation of VSTO.
Test and Debug ECTs
The BCS runtime process runs the ECTs in the background, and ECTs cannot be debugged from Visual Studio when they are running on the clients. The Microsoft IT recommendation is to test and debug ECTs on the server side by creating external lists in SharePoint Server. When an administrator views and changes the content of an external list on the SharePoint List page, he or she runs the ECT code associated with the external list. The administrator can debug the ECT from Visual Studio running on the same SharePoint server.
Understand BCS API Entity Operation Mode
On the client-side application that uses BCS APIs to manipulate ECT entity instances, an administrator can use four operation modes to manage ECT data. It is important to understand the meanings of the following operation modes because they affect how the solution gets the required data:
OperationMode.CacheWithoutRefresh. When this operation mode is used for an entity instance, BCS returns the entity instance from the cache. If the entity instance is not in the cache, BCS refreshes the cache from external systems and returns the cached copy. If the BCS cannot contact the external systems, it throws an exception.
OperationMode.CacheWithImmedicateRefresh. With this operation mode, BCS refreshes the entity instance in the cache first from external systems and returns the cached copy. If BCS cannot contact the external systems, it still returns the cached copy. If the entity instance is not cached and BCS cannot contact the external systems, BCS throws an exception.
OperationMode.Offline. With offline operation mode, BCS never contacts external systems, even if the cache contains no data. BCS returns the entity instance from the cache. If the entity instance is not there, BCS throws an exception.
OperationMode.Online. For online operation mode, BCS never uses local cached data and always contacts external systems to get a copy of the entity instance. If BCS cannot contact the external systems, it throws an exception.
The core function of Microsoft IT is to understand business problems and use the right products and technologies to design solutions to solve those problems and bring business benefits. Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 with Business Connectivity Services provide the foundation and framework for efficiently managing employee rewards and annual performance reviews at Microsoft. Managers and HR personnel who use the solution prototype can manage enterprise data from multiple external systems through the familiar Excel UI. The solution facilitates business data and process availability anywhere and anytime, hence increasing business productivity.
The BCS synchronization infrastructure solves many problems associated with data copies, changes, and conflicts. One of advantages of BCS synchronization over other data synchronization frameworks is that an organization's solutions can embed business and data validation logic into the synchronization process. Another BCS benefit is the ability to synchronize composite data from multiple disparate systems through ECT design, instead of the point-to-point data synchronization that many other synchronization frameworks provide.
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products or services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Order Centre at (800) 933-4750. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information via the World Wide Web, go to:
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Earth Matters
Express-News and mySA staff keep you up to date on energy, the environment, and green living in San Antonio.
Posts filtered on Category
Mountain biking for Lost Maples?
Some mountain biking employees of Texas Parks and Wildlife are visiting Lost Maples State Natural Area this week to determine if the limestone washes, canyons and ridge tops would be appropriate for mountain biking. Superintendent John Stuart thinks the terrain is too steep and is concerned about his staff having to spend too much time […] [Read More]
Flat Rock Ranch
There is a 1,300 acre cattle and goat ranch 45 miles west of San Antonio near Comfort that uses mountain bikers and trail runners to help make ends meet. Now in it's 10th year, Flat Rock Ranch has 26 miles of the best single track around. For $6, visitors are given access to the trails […] [Read More]
The fun side of Green Living
(Colin McDonald/Express-News) One of the easiest ways to convince people to care about nature and their environmental impact is to get them outside to have fun. Despite San Antonio's low lying topography and lack of any large body of water, the city and surrounding area has quite a bit to offer. Once a week this […] [Read More]


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Eye for an Eye.They should have given him the death sentence and saved society from years of expense.
When these women are released into society,who funds their rehab,transportation costs,childcare costs and housing and food costs?We the people do.
Anyone who lives in the eastern part of Jefferson County and StClair county should know who these people are who are running this scam on the taxpayers. Eventually these crooks will be exposed for their dishonesty.The taxpayers are being scammed by these people who use Gods name and continue to perpetrate this lie.These poor women who look to this organization for help are just being used and we the people are being ripped off.
Good riddance.
Cry me a river.My experience with the court system has not been positive.Attorneys delaying tactics,judges wasting time and playing little courtroom games,plus we the people pay for it all.I'm with you JC,the lawyers need to bow out of the picture and let folks work things out between themselves.After all,what attorney actually produces anything of value?
Funny how the authorities overprice all confiscated drugs to make themselves look vital and important when they arrest these folks,but in reality the total take from those plants would be much less than a half million dollars.
Robertos,since you're so smart and know so much.What percent of those Hispanics you claim voted for Bush were illegal aliens voting illegally in an election held for citizens?Can you give us another made up figure?
In addition to polluted rivers,we have the market cornered on litter bugs.Just look at all the garbage scattered along the roadways.Attn pickup truck drivers: Your truck bed is NOT a trashcan.Your trash will blow out and become an unsightly mess!
She doesn't need a psychiatrist to prove she is crazy.Her actions speak volumes.jsu86,are you kidding me??.
And he was released from Florida jail because of........??
Brew a better beer and they will come.
Why is what I choose for myself necessarily your business?Huh?Stick your nose in your own business and leave me to choose how I live my life.
Going to break into the school and retrieve an item of mine that I left inside the school.How does anyone think that thats okay?If the building was open and people were allowed to freely come and go into the building,then yes.To go in through a window is clearly breaking and entering,criminal trespass,at least.Do they need bus drivers so badly that the county is looking past what looks like a property crime?
Amen and the same applies to all races.Never underestimate the importance of having a father in the home.
Borg should be cited for having a lousy head rug!
Are they running a speed trap? Thats the word on the street.
Could it be from the new water source recently connected to Springville?Is the new water source contaminated perhaps explaining the dingy color in the commodes?


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NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly half of young women say the first time they lived with a guy, they weren't married.
That's the finding of a government survey released Thursday.
The results are a marked changed from 1995 when only 34 percent said they moved in together. Now it is 48 percent. Back then, 39 percent said they married first, compared to 23 now.
Experts say the numbers show living together is increasing used as a testing ground for marriage. About 40 percent of the women who lived with a guy went on to marry him within 3 years.
The survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention questioned more than 12,000 women younger than 45 from 2006 to 2010.
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On June 10, 2010, YIVO launched the online version of The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, www.yivoencyclopedia.org. The program from that evening that is presented here includes remarks by Jonathan Brent, YIVO's executive director; Gershon Hundert, the encyclopedia's editor in chief; and Joseph Steinberg, whose charitable trust is the website's principal sponsor. Jeffrey Edelstein, the encyclopedia's project director, then gave a demonstration of the site's features.
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MGM Names Ken Schapiro Chief Operating Officer
The former co-founder and managing principal of Qualia Capital LLC starts immediately, co-chairmen and chief executive officers Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum announced Monday.
Ken Schapiro has been appointed chief operating officer of MGM, effective immediately, Co-Chairmen and Chief Executive Officers Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum announced Monday.
"Ken's background, experience and proven track record make him an undeniable asset to MGM. We believe his skills and energy will be integral in helping us build the new MGM," said Barber and Birnbaum in a joint statement.
"While it is difficult to leave the business I co-founded with my partner Amir Malin, returning to an operating role to work with Gary and Roger at the new MGM from this early stage is too exciting a challenge to pass up," said Schapiro.
Schapiro is the co-founder and a managing principal of Qualia Capital LLC. Before co-founding that company in 2003, he was President and Chief Operating Officer of Artisan Entertainment.
Read the full release after the jump.


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Beehive Cheese has teamed up with Rooster's Brewing Company for the 8th Annual Birds & the Bees and the Flowers & the Trees party. This year the celebration will benefit Red Butte Garden!
Stroll through Red Butte Garden while enjoying a delicious spread of small plates, craft brews and award-winning Beehive Cheese. Watch the sun set and listen to live music by local musician Pat Briggs.
Friday, September 12 from 6-9PM
Tickets are $60 each and must be purchased online through Beehive Cheese. Space is limited!
CLICK HERE to purchase your tickets.
Thank you Beehive Cheese and Rooster's Brewing Company!


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Wednesday4 days after
Tuesday3 days after
Sign of
the (Lap) Times: Budds CreekMillville has a new addition; Anderson rides the Husky; Top Jimmy gets some help from a familiar name and much more. 450 Words: With TimeOver the years, Ryan Dungey has learned how to handle not winning every race. BTOSports.com Observations: Budds CreekSteve Matthes on the tight first turns; Baggett after Aldon Baker and more. Breakdown: Deciding FactorsFormer pro Jason Thomas on how the weather will play into the 450 Championship race. Racer X Films: Remastered, Budds CreekUnique look at Round 7 of Lucas Oil Pro Motocross. 250 Words: Leader of the PackJustin Bogle has become Mr. Reliable for GEICO Honda. But he knows as the head of the team, he needs to get a win. Unsung Hero: Josh GrantHave you noticed? JG has been darned consistent this summer.
Monday2 days after
Open Mic: 250 InterviewsAnderson, Jeremy Martin, Seely, Bogle, Musquin and Peters talk Budds Creek. Open Mic: 450 InterviewsTomac, Roczen, Short, Brayton, Nicoletti, Goerke and Noren discuss their weekends. BTOSports.com
Racer X Podcast: Budds CreekSteve Matthes is joined by Jason Weigandt and Jason Thomas to break down Round 7. Budds Creek GalleryHot pics from Budds by @Cudby Monday Conversation: Ryan DungeyThe Dunge was better on Saturday. We asked why.
Sunday1 day after
SaturdayRace Day
On TV
|450 and 250 Moto 1
|450 and 250 Moto 2