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The Factory, The Tailor Of Inverness
Pleasance Courtyard (Venue 33)
The Tailor of Inverness
Assembly Rooms (Venue 3)
THE SECOND WORLD WAR cost 45 million lives worlwide; and when it finally ended, many of those who had lived through it could hardly believe that they – and the world – had somehow survived in recognisable form. Badac's new show The Factory takes us straight into the heart of that darkness, onto the very borderline of death and survival as it was experienced by the millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and political dissidents sent into the horror of the Nazi death camps.
For an unforgettable 50 minutes, in the dank layers of cellars beneath the Pleasance, we, the audience, become fellow-prisoners, shouted at, harangued, told to line up and move on right into the final gas-chamber itself, alongside the three trembling, terrified, and eventually naked companions who are the members of the cast. It is a horrific experience, driven home by a script of simple repeated strands of shouted dialogue – "tell me what they will do to us", "if we do nothing they will kill us" – that land like hammer blows in the brain.
Something tells me that those who already care about man's inhumanity to man will be deeply moved and affected by this piece, whereas those who care more about the dust on their designer t-shirts will simply be irritated; and there is sometimes a sense of a young company gaining credit for artistic seriousness by simply choosing a subject of unparallelled horror, and turning up the volume. But there is some subtlety here, too, in the relationship between prisoners and those chosen from among them to be their guards; and the moment when we say that this story no longer needs to be retold will be a moment of immense danger, for a civlisation that once said "never again", and meant it.
The father of the Scottish writer and actor Matthew Zajac was another survivor of the war, a Polish tailor who somehow found himself, in the late 1940's, living and working in thhe "cool air of Inverness". The Tailor Of Inverness is Zajac's solo account of his own long journey towards the truth of his father's wartime story, as Mateusz Zajac survived, and sometimes complied with, both Nazi and Soviet occupation, to find himself eventually into the allied forces. Zajac's script is not perfect; sometimes it becomes too much of an unprocessed history lesson, and it loses shape and structure in the middle.
But in Ben Harrison's graceful production, the telling of the tale is both strongly theatrical and visually compelling, with subtle use of light and sound, video and still images, and the wonderful live fiddle music of Gavin Marwick. And the show's painful journey towards the truth fits irresistibly with this year's festival theme of Artists Without Borders; as Zajac searches for the essence of his father not only along the shifting border between Poland and Ukraine, but also in the more subtle and disturbing borderlands between Nazis and allies, friends and enemies, good men and bad.
The Factory until 24 August, The Tailor of Inverness until 25 August
pp. 199, 234
ENDS ENDS c
Deep Cut, Architecting, Finished With Engines
Deep Cut 4 stars ****
Architecting 5 stars *****
Finished With Engines 4 stars ****
Traverse Theatre (Venue 15)
THE MORE A NATION is supposed to represent some of the best and highest human values, the more bitter the disappointment of its people when it transpires that the founding myths are false, and the values often betrayed. For perhaps a century before, during and after the Second World War, most people in Britain considered it obvious that whatever its faults, Britain was obviously the home of freedom, and the most decent and democratic of countries. And although there have been many moments of disillusion since the 1960's, it's still impossible not to hear a note of almost bewildered disappointment in the voices of people like Des and Doreen James, the couple at the centre of Sherman Cymru's powerful new documentary drama Deep Cut, which opened this year's Festival programme at the Traverse over the weekend.
Like the parents of the three other young recruits who died in baffling circumstances at the Deep Cut barracks in Surrey between 1995 and 2002, Des and Doreen had entrusted their young daughter, Cheryl – only 17 when she enlisted – to a British Army which they assumed would operate to the highest ethical and peofessional standards. Instead, when their daughter was found dead from a single gunshot wound, close to a woodland guard-post where she had been working alone, what they experienced was a long decade and more of cover-up, obfuscation, botched investigation, and blatant dishonesty, compounded by such a lack of basic courtesy that they never even received a letter of sympathy from the camp commandant.
There's nothing dramatically obscure or complex about the style in which writer Philip Ralph and director Mick Gordon tackle the teling of this heartbreaking story. The scene is set in the James's living-room in Wales, and uses their own words, and other documentary material, to tell the story of Cheryl's life and death from the point of view of her father, Des – beautifully played by Ciaran McIntyire – with strong interventions from his wife Doreen, and from a superb Rhian Blythe, playing not Cheryl, but her army friend Jonesy.
What the play has, though, is a terrific narrative and moral energy, and a straightforward integrity that makes its final cry for truth and justice almost irresistible. And it's also, in its way, a beautifully-observed fanfare for the common man; for people who – untouched by power, its smooth manners, and its sleazy moral compromises – are sometimes able to see the truth, and to speak it, far more clearly than the establishment figures they challenge.
If there is one nation on earth, though, that above all others believes it has a special role as the land of the free and a beacon of democracy, then it is the United States of America; which is why the young TEAM company of New York's latest show Architecting, co-produced with the National Theatre of Scotland's Workshop, is such a sensationally timely piece of American self-analysis and deconstruction. The title, I think, refers to the ancient human business of nation-building, and the physical structures that reflect it; but for the most part, Architecting represents a brilliant, witty, surrealist encounter – part cabaret, part movie-fantasy, part dramatic poem – between a young New York architect and the American south, as experienced in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.
Full of strange, sexy drifts into song – country, blues, abstract – that reflect a profound truth about a civilisation whose deepest feelings often find expression through popular music, Architecting is rooted in the idea of a dialogue between Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With The Wind, and a modern film crew, working in New Orleans, who cannot cope with the fierce, complex truthfulness of her portrayal of the slave-based civilisation of the Old South, now largely written out of the American national myth, or treated with a contempt perhaps reflected in the nation's utter failure to respond adequately to the New Orleans disaster.
This whole theme, of course represents a tough stretch for a young, all-white company entirely based in New York; and it would be foolish to suggest that the show is perfect – it certainly should know when to shut up, about ten minutes before it finally does. But imperfect or not, this is a craggy, complex gem of a show, that says a huge amount about our screen-image-driven, American-dominated civilisation, and the point of crisis it has reached. And it does it while also achieving some extraordinary moments of humour and beauty and pure theatrical energy, in which the still, sad music of humanity – and the true erotic pulse of heart meeting heart, difference meeting difference – can be heard, beneath all the clattering roar of our old and dying world.
By comparison with this New-York-meets-New-Orleans torrent of brilliance, Alan McKendrick's Finished With Engines – first produced at the Arches Theatre in 2006 – looks like a relatively single-minded indictment of American military attitudes, albeit a memorably strange and surreal one. Performed by Stephanie Viola and Drew Friedman of the fine American company Riot Group, the show features two sailors – Megan and Hemingway – at a marine observation post just off a South Sea island which, it seems, is about to be blown away in some cataclysmic demonstration of US military power.
In a series of ten short scenes, the two embody and negotiate the odd mixture of earthy, sometimes brutal realism and total, naive self-delusion that often characterises the thinking of doomed imperial powers, and particularly of their more humble servants. At first, Megan seems like the ruthless realist and survivor, Hemingway like the naive fool. But in the end, it seems her delusions are the more lethal; and not only to the world she inhabits, but also to herself.
Deep Cut and Architecting until 24 August, Finished With Engines until 10 August
pp. 194, 184, 200.


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14 Minutes of SaaS
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E105 – Georg Petschnigg – 5 of 6 – New and Old Amsterdam
Transcript: E105 – Georg Petschnigg – 5 of 6 – New and Old Amsterdam
Georg Petschnigg: Having a tool for great thinking – Paper. Having a great tool to see inspiration and hold onto it – Collect. Having a tool to show, you know, your work -Paste. Having a great tool to deliver your ideas – Transfer. Right. So, we have a tool for thinking, seeing, showing and delivering. These are sort of the pillars of the creative process.And that's an incredibly exciting proposition, right? Because the world hasn't…doesn't understand that this exists yet. But it does. Like, we built it!
Stephen Cummins: Welcome to 14 minutes of SaaS! The show where you can listen to the stories and opinions of founders of the world's most remarkable SaaS scale-ups!
This is the fifth and penultimate of a six-episode series recorded with Georg Petschnigg at the Web Summit in Lisbon. We find out how Fifty Three, although it built great tools, never shipped the manual to creativity until it joined up with WeTransfer – a company that better understood the power of content. We learn that hand-writing is not dead … and that in this world of selfies and personal branding, there's still seemingly much more people in this world that care far more about creating for others. But we start with Georg's perspective on how the landscape has, to a large extent … the physical landscape … shaped many of the core cultural characteristics of born and bred Amsterdammers. And why the city has evolved into a sophisticated, multilingual environment that champions pragmatism, openness, collaboration, and tolerance … And also why, with native and adopted New Yorkers, there's a sense of grandiosity, energy, individual risk taking .. and a sense of infinite possibilities seems to be much more pervasive in that massive city.
Stephen Cummins: Do you feel there's a connection there? When you talk about, for example, you know, the first stock exchange … and any of that model from, you know, ships … some more likely to come back, some with bigger, more valuable payload if they do come back et cetera. Basically the model for investment and venture, you know, …And then Wall Street in New York. And then the fact that, you know, Amsterdam is very open and so is New York by US standards, it's very open, very liberal.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah.
Stephen Cummins: And also there's something a little bit hard-nosed or direct about Amsterdammers and New Yorkers in some ways in the way they communicate…
Georg Petschnigg: The two big differences … It's true, both cities are very… very open. Amsterdam is very open minded. And in New York, it's also very open minded, also very direct. But they came out of a different origins. The origin in Amsterdam is, like … look, you know, the people have won the land, and they fought the water together. Right? So, and when you start looking around, you see the windmills and you see, like, you know … Amsterdam, that area exists because people fought the water together! So the tolerance and the frankness in people as a result … that they had to work together! That is, like, it by necessity.
Stephen Cummins: The Zuiderzee is just, like, incredible.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah. So, because if they don't work together, the water is going to win, right? And everyone loses, right? So that is like actually sort of a really interesting, you know, cultural phenomenon. In New York, like, it was like, you know … there's still the rest of the country, right? There's so much space still in the United States. Like, if you pissed someone off, like, well, just travel West, right? There was a way out … in many ways. Like, so there is sort of, it's a different. You know, I would say it's, you know … there is a grandiosity about that!
Stephen Cummins: Yeah.
Georg Petschnigg: Right there is like 'We're gonna, you know, we're the capital of the world!' Right? There is sort of that… that like in many ways like, you know, the resources and the scale, and the infinite plains. Like, you know, there's still so much more of America to find. Like when you're like on the east coast right … and essentially, like, so there's a certain directness and, you know, the pioneers … They would make their way to the West Coast. So, there's just so much more space. You don't have to agree with people in the US, right? You can just pack up and keep going, right? And that is something like. Oh god there are so many differences, like … you know, bicycles everywhere versus screeching subways, right?
Stephen Cummins: Massive. Yeah. Yeah,
Georg Petschnigg: But that is also again like … the quality of life in Amsterdam is remarkable, right? And I think, you know, you end up making, I think … it does impact also like sort of … when you look at a lot of, like… you know … in the US, there's been a huge push on growth at all costs. Again, that speaks, I think maybe partially to the grandiosity. What I've noticed is like, you know, there is more of a measured-ness in the Netherlands to this in terms of the approach, right? Privacy plays a huge role, right? You know, just you know, growing responsibly. Like even having that type of discussion, right? Something that just wouldn't necessarily occur in the United States. It does happen in the Netherlands.
Stephen Cummins: It's interesting because you … culturally, personally … and I'm sure you enjoy the great things about the great city of New York … you seem culturally more in tune with the Netherlands, because you would think in a sustainable way, I think. You do think about growth, but you think about it … you don't think about it at all costs. You're not really about the money.
Stephen Cummins: I know that's a cliché …. and all entrepreneurs wanna say that. But you're actually not really about the money. You're pretty confident that comes along anyway if you introduce value into the world. But you are very much about doing something meaningful. And doing something long-term and sustainable. You're not building this to spike and jump off at some point. Is that a …
Georg Petschnigg: No. No. That's correct. I mean, again, like going back to the beginning of our interview … like, I grew up in preserving an historic castle. Right.
Stephen Cummins: Okay.
Georg Petschnigg: It's, like, that seems like a completely reasonable thing to do, right? Whereas, you know, the American response would have been just tear it down and build a casino, right? I don't know, I may be over simplifying here but …
Stephen Cummins: Of course.
Georg Petschnigg: …. There's like you know … this trade off between preserving and tradition and… holding onto the collective … versus like forging out, conquering the frontier and doing the new, right?
Stephen Cummins: What is it? The Joni Mitchell song about paradise and they put up a parking lot? Just that pragmatism. Well, not that the Dutch were not pragmatic either. But it was business first, I guess.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah,
Stephen Cummins: Business first in New York, yeah.
Georg Petschnigg: yeah. So that's like … I have to admit there is no greater feeling than standing up at the right frontier with the right group of people and taking that first step, right?
Stephen Cummins: Fantastic.
Georg Petschnigg: There is no greater feeling than that …. But you know, then… then what does it mean? Like when you're there, and you make your discovery … it's like build something that lasts!
Stephen Cummins: What's your vision for where WeTransfer gets to? Now that Fifty Three is, you know, has worked its way through, or is working its way through, that complex integration. Where would you see yourself in a few years time? Where would you like to be?
Georg Petschnigg: We are right now in a very critical and exciting phase which is like, you know, launching and getting out this. Our set of tools, you know …
Having a tool for great thinking – Paper. Having a great tool to see inspiration and hold onto it – Collect. Having a tool to show, you know, your work -Paste. Having a great tool to deliver your ideas – Transfer. Right. So, we have a tool for thinking, seeing, showing and delivering. These are sort of the pillars of the creative process. So we want to… to really launch and bring into the market that set of tools. And we needed to let, you know, the world know that actually there is now… a set of tools for your innovation, for your invention, for your creativity. You don't just have to make documents. You don't just have to make like, you know, photoshop files, right? Actually, everyone … meaning everyone from individuals to your enterprise, right, can be creative. And you have now a set of tools for that, right?
And that's an incredibly exciting proposition, right? Because the world hasn't…doesn't understand that this exists yet. But it does. Like, we've built it! And we need to now get it out, right? And that's sort of like essentially with, you know, what the team is going to be focused on for the next one to two years. Right.
Stephen Cummins: And would that be part of your role?
Georg Petschnigg: That is my job, right? To verbalize, like, where essentially our new products are headed. So there's the transfer product and then we have our additional products. Where those are headed is part of my job, but then of course, like I work with, you know … the CMO on the marketing side, I work with, you know, my counters on the transfer team … or work like on our core technology team … our service team. I mean, look, you know, we have an executive team. They are more people working on WeTransfer.
Georg Petschnigg: But launching that. And getting that, you know, into the world now is essentially what we're focused on. So what I hope is that in like, in two to three years from now … what that really means is that, you know, that, we hear the phrase, "Like I'm not creative" less and less and less.
Stephen Cummins: Because people are all creative to some degree. They're not equally creative … because just kind of you know … but, they all have a certain level of creativity. To be creative is to be … is part of what it is to be human.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah. WeTransfer has, like, this great "editorial and content" team … where like, we've never done "editorial and content". Like, what does this mean to us? So we ended up building, inside of the Paper, the Paper store. Which is essentially a collection of creative prompts and creative journals and it … essentially is this little world that …
Stephen Cummins: You've created a marketplace?
Stephen Cummins: Really?
Georg Petschnigg: It's not a market … I mean, it's not … it's more of a store front of little journals and creative exercises. So you can learn everything from doing better handwriting, to drawing portraits, to mind-maps, to… there are visual drawing meditation exercises. But it's essentially a single place where you can get started with your creativity.
Stephen Cummins: And these are third parties building them on your tools?
Georg Petschnigg: No. No. We commissioned. We did them in-house. And so, I mean, we've been working with so many different, you know… you know, designers and educators and artists in the world. So it was actually … so the first 25 journals that we launched, we essentially either did them ourselves or commissioned them with our audience, our customers. But the crazy thing is….
Stephen Cummins: So, like, ecosystem is everything for you right now?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah but the remarkable thing is like … so we've been running like Paper for seven years. But I only realize now that we never shipped the manual, right, to "Creativity." You know, people would come to Paper and be like, "Listen, you know, I sort of, know like I'm excited about drawing … and I'm stimulated by the blank page. The much bigger market is people who don't know how to draw and just need a place to start! So it is one of those things where we, like, now with the launch of the Paper Store, just saw quite a dramatic change in how people are using a product, and taking up the product. Because now…
Stephen Cummins: And you can see the change? You've been able to measure it?
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah, yeah, yeah!
Stephen Cummins: How long ago did you launch it?
Georg Petschnigg: We launched .. I think it's three weeks ago, but it's very clear like in terms of metrics.
Stephen Cummins: In three weeks, you're seeing a dramatic…
Georg Petschnigg: Oh yeah.
Stephen Cummins: Wow. And the response. You seeing people just wanted it. You could feel that! It's like a product market extension fit moment or something…
Georg Petschnigg: It is an extension. Our conversion to a subscription doubled!
Stephen Cummins: Wow!
Georg Petschnigg: And again, it makes sense..
Stephen Cummins: That's huge.
Georg Petschnigg: …Because we… That's what I mean … we were sort of shipping the missing manual, right? But it's like the manual people were all looking for. For how to really unlock your creativity, right? And now it's there.. and it's beautiful! And it's such a funny thing. Like, we didn't know we would learn about content joining up with WeTransfer. And we did. And we sort of wanted to do it too.
Stephen Cummins: You thought it might be the other way, maybe.
Georg Petschnigg: We're like … you know what let's do this content thing too. You know, and so, you know, Chris and Max and Allan, like, the team, like, they just like they just ran with it. And it's a beautiful place. Again, it's just early. But even in that early … when you're looking at what are the top downloaded journals. One is around… the top one is about handwriting!
Stephen Cummins: Are you serious? How counter-intuitive that is to my mind?
Georg Petschnigg: The second one is about drawing portraits. Not selfies. Portraits!
Stephen Cummins: That doesn't surprise me as much. Okay.
Georg Petschnigg: Right. And the third one isn't about diagrams, okay?
Stephen Cummins: That doesn't surprise me too much either, but the first one really surprised me.
Stephen Cummins: But that's validation that we still love to wield tools.
Georg Petschnigg: Yeah! But it's also like, you know, people want a quiet place to think. They want to create for others. You know, they want to be able to read their ideas. That can show them to others. That's where handwriting is important, right? And that's like … we didn't know, like, where would people go? What would they gravitate to? But if I just, like, line up great handwriting, you know, drawing, creating a portrait of someone else and diagramming, expressing your thoughts. That this is where people go, right? I mean, it just shows that humans are just great creators.
Stephen Cummins: What an insight as well. To be able to even get that stack rank. To even know that, yeah, coz that informs your future designs. That informs where you're going on so many levels. And I wonder how many people ….. there's some great minds there … you know we're looking at the forum (in the Web Summit in Lisbon) which is where the speakers are. It's all founders and, but I don't think any of them would have guessed that if you'd put up 10. Well, if you put up 10 options of course, somebody would. But I don't think anybody would intuitively feel that would have been the number one.
Georg Petschnigg: No.
Stephen Cummins: Because we've forgotten. There's something beautiful about that .. you know facilitating that relationship. But in a way that also integrates with the digital ages. That allows us to transfer things, to share things. To collect things as you said. And then to put something else on top of that and… and to express ourselves in a way that we can best express ourselves. There must be research around that?
Georg Petschnigg: There is. There's a lot of research on it. Like the simple thing is, like, you know, I mean you can go all the way back to the development actually of the typewriter. And the development of the typewriter in part was developed for the typist office, right, where people then stopped writing by hand. And you had then a secretary type stuff for you, right? Yes, it was more efficient. You were able to send out more communications, right? But it was a step back in terms of what would feel like a personal communication. You know, having like something typed up in courrier typeface, signed at the end. Like the signature became the substitute for sort of this whole thing was written by hand but, you know … something was lost.
Stephen Cummins: In the next episode, 106 of 14 Minutes of SaaS, the final instalment in our series of 6 with Georg Petschnigg, we hear about the immense influence dance has had on so much of what he does. And as is the traditional with all guests on this show, he has some great advice for entrepreneurs
Stephen Cummins: You've been listening to 14 minutes of SaaS. Thanks to Mike Quill for his creativity and problem solving skills, and to Ketsu for the music. Thanks also to Anders Getz for the transcript. This episode was brought to you by me, Stephen Cummins. If you enjoyed the podcast, please don't forget to share it with your network, subscribe to the series, and give the show a rating.
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We hosted 4 new groups and 3 returning groups here on the island in June 2018. The fishing, as usual, in June was excellent. The rainy season begins and species such as Wahoo and Dorado start to really show up. The Yellowfin Tunas were still around in numbers, a bunch of Roosterfish releases around the island here, Marlin at Hannibal Bank, and some nice Cubera Snappers released as well. Thanks so much to our clients for the business!


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Home›Exams›ACT›Grammar Rules for the ACT English Section
Although the conventions of standard English appear innumerable, they originate from several basic rules that form the foundation for more sophisticated structure and language. These grammatical guidelines comprise sentence structure and formation, punctuation,and word usage.
The eight parts of speech—noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection—are the basis for structuring a sentence. Additionally, within any sentence, the parts of speech serve a variety of purposes—subject, object, indirect object, predicate, complement, article, or modifier. Not every sentence will contain all the parts of speech, but every sentence must have a part of speech acting as the subject and another as the predicate. To illustrate:
"Leslie and Gina have planned a shopping trip this weekend."
The proper nouns "Leslie" and "Gina" are the subjects in the sentence (whom the sentence is about) and "have planned" are the helping verb and action verb serving as the predicate (the section of the sentence that tells about the subject).
This example also contains the conjunction and, which joins the compound subject; the article a; the object shopping tripconstructed with the adjective shopping and noun trip; as well as the pronoun this and noun weekend, which act as a modifier, indicating when the trip will take place.
Know the parts of speech and how they can work together in a sentence, and you'll have discovered the foundation for sentence structure.
Sentence Formation
With these foundational components, you can then create different types of sentences:
simple— one subject and predicate
compound— two or more subject/predicate clauses within one sentence
complex— one subject and predicate along with at least one dependent clause acting as a modifier
All sentences must be independent clauses, clauses that have a subject and predicate. To include more information within one sentence, you can add dependent clauses. These clauses also have a subject and predicate, but they cannot stand alone as a complete sentence. Instead, they modify the main subject and predicate, answering such questions as where and why. For example:
"While I was watching the evening news, a storm warning appeared on the television screen."
The independent clause in this sentence is, "a storm warning appeared on the television screen." The dependent clause, "While I was watching the evening news," explains when the warning appeared.
When you have determined what parts of speech will best communicate your point and you have decided how simple or complex the sentence will be, you must decide which punctuation marks are necessary to complete the structure. End punctuation marks include: *
a period for a declaration
a question mark for an inquiry
an exclamation point for an emotionally charged point
Punctuation marks within the sentence further define the sentence type. That is, when you create a compound sentence using one of the coordinating conjunctions like and or but, you must include a comma in front of the conjunction. It is the comma plus the conjunction that indicate the sentence is made up of two independent clauses. Commas serve other purposes within a sentence such as to set off introductory material and to separate items in a list.
The semicolon, colon, apostrophe, parentheses,* and **quotation marks are several of the remaining punctuation choices. Each has a distinct purpose worth reviewing so that as you write, you know your options for both parts of speech and punctuation to articulate your message in clear and rhetorically effective ways.
Word Usage
One final consideration is word usage. That is, know your spelling rules and their exceptions or routinely use a credible reference source when in doubt about a word's spelling or the correct use of a word. Correct usage often involves the following:
homographs—words that are spelled alike but hold different meanings, (e.g., bass meaning low sound or bass meaning a type of fish)
homophones—words that are spelled differently but sound alike, (e.g., two meaning the number, to, the preposition, or too meaning also or in excess).
When building sentences, you can start small, such as:
With thought and practice, that short, simple sentence can grow into a longer, complex one that provides your readers with exactly what you want them to see and understand. That abbreviated thought could become:
"With practice and patience, I understand increasingly more challenging material; such knowledge enables me to speak confidently and to share that comprehension with others."
Northam wants special legislative session on guns
Brown College of Court Reporting


A Professional and Personal blog exploring Web Trends, Technology, and Strategy within the Service & Support and I.T Industries.
So here is an interesting application called "The Spiceworks Help Desk" that is being provided for free. I have not tested the application yet but apparently you can utilize the application to keep track of Help Desk tickets and to also keep track of inventory. It does not appear to incorporate all of the ITIL disciplines like Problem, Change, or Configuration Management. However, this tool maybe the ideal fit for a small business over investing in large ITSM solutions like BMC's Remedy.
Spiceworks is such a great tool, i use it day in day out.
The helpdesk just plain rocks.
All IT admins should use it.
Outsourced Call Center to handle inbound calls, telemarketing and other phone-related business needs.


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Home > World
Trump outlines plans for first day in office, meets with Cabinet hopefuls
>> Reuters
Published: 22 Nov 2016 10:07 AM BdST Updated: 22 Nov 2016 06:18 PM BdST
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks to members of the news media from the front steps at the main clubhouse at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, U.S., November 19, 2016. Reuters
US President-elect Donald Trump outlined plans on Monday for his first day in office, including withdrawing from a major trade accord and investigating abuses of work visa programs, and met with Cabinet hopefuls at his Manhattan office tower.
Trump met with Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, Democratic US Representative Tulsi Gabbard and former Texas Governor Rick Perry. But he announced no further appointments, keeping candidates and the public guessing about the shape of the administration that will take office on Jan 20.
Fallin, Gabbard and Perry were the latest of dozens of officials who have made their way across the opulent lobby of Trump Tower for talks with the Republican president-elect in a relatively open - and unconventional - transition process since his election victory on Nov 8.
Trump, who has not held a news conference since his election, issued a video on Monday evening outlining some of his plans for his first day in office, including formally declaring his intent to withdraw from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, trade deal, which he called "a potential disaster for our country."
The 12-nation TPP is Democratic President Barack Obama's signature trade initiative and was signed by the United States earlier this year but has not been ratified by the US Senate.
The president-elect said he would replace the accord with bilaterally negotiated trade deals that would "bring jobs and industry back onto American shores."
"My agenda will be based on a simple core principle: putting America first. Whether it's producing steel, building cars or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here on our great homeland, America, creating wealth and jobs for American workers," he said.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday the TPP "would be meaningless without the United States."
Trump said he would cancel some restrictions on producing energy in the United States on his first day in office, particularly shale oil and "clean coal," which he said would create "many millions of high-paying jobs."
He promised to direct the Labor Department to investigate abuses of visa programs for immigrant workers. The main US visa program for technology workers could face tough scrutiny under Trump and his proposed attorney general, US Senator Jeff Sessions, a longtime critic of the program.
Trump had made eliminating regulations and withdrawing from the TPP central to his campaign, but he sent mixed signals during the campaign about his views on visa programs including the main H-1B visa for high-tech industry workers.
'We've got to get it right'
Trump has so far picked two Cabinet members and three top White House advisers, but aides said he was not expected to make further announcements on Monday.
"They could come this week, they could come today, but we're not in a rush to publish names," Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser, told reporters. "We've got to get it right."
Trump spoke often with reporters camped out at his New Jersey golf course over the weekend, but has not held a traditional news conference to talk about his priorities. He held an off-the-record meeting with a group of television anchors and executives on Monday afternoon and was scheduled to meet with print media representatives on Tuesday.
The Washington Post reported that four participants at Monday's meeting described it as a contentious but generally respectful session.
They told the Post that Trump singled out reporting of his campaign by CNN and NBC that he considered to be unfair.
Trump also returned to Twitter on Monday night, saying "many people" would like to see Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage as British ambassador to the United States. "He would do a great job!"
Farage, who helped lead the successful referendum fight for Britain to leave the European Union, spoke at a Trump rally during the US campaign and visited the president-elect after his victory.
Trump's first meeting on Monday was with Iraq war veteran Gabbard, a representative from Hawaii who backed U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders in his unsuccessful 2016 Democratic presidential nominating contest against Hillary Clinton.
The "frank and positive" discussion focused on the war in Syria, counterterrorism and other foreign policy issues, Gabbard said in a statement. She did not say whether a Cabinet role was part of the discussion.
Gabbard has veered from Democratic Party positions at times, backing policies cracking down on immigration to the United States by Muslims.
Fallin told reporters she was not offered a position but discussed "a wide range of topics" with Trump. The Republican governor's spokesman said that included a focus on the Interior Department, an agency whose responsibilities include oversight of oil and gas leases on public lands.
Former Republican US Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts told reporters he had a "great" meeting about veterans' issues with Trump.
Trump also met with former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and Elaine Chao, the US labor secretary under former President George W Bush, advisers said.
Trump's transition team said Perry, the former Texas governor, was being considered for Cabinet posts including defense, energy and veterans affairs.
Trump, a New York businessman who has never previously held public office and who was the surprise winner over Clinton this month, has so far named senior leaders of his national security and law enforcement teams.
In addition to Sessions, they are US Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas as CIA director, and retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as White House national security adviser.
For Thanksgiving, Trump planned to travel on Tuesday to Mar-a-Lago, a golf resort he owns in Florida, a spokesman said.
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Total run time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
Julian Hall entered the comedy industry in 2003 as the the comedy critic for the .Independent newspaper, a position he held for 11 years. In that time he also wrote for The List and other magazines and penned a book called The Rough Guide to British Cult Comedy.
In 2014 he moved away from journalism to PR or as he puts it "game keeper turned poacher". He now offers PR, publicity and marketing advice to performers looking at taking a show up to the Edinburgh Fringe. You can contact him through his website or email address.


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