If Andy Lees isn't the guy charged with saving Microsoft, he's certainly in the top three.
As president of the company's Windows Phone division, Lees is working to extend Microsoft's desktop hegemony to a realm where it doesn't yet exist: mobile. With Windows Phone 7, Lees is looking to create a third mobile ecosystem that is a viable alternative to Google's Android operating system and Apple's iOS. Key to the success of that effort: Winning users in big developing markets like Asia.
Ina Fried: So, yeah, you guys have been out with Windows Phone 7 about a year now.
Ina Fried: The new version just came out. Still not seeing a lot of these phones, so where are you with kind of the effort to get yourselves back in the phone business?
Andy Lees: Well, obviously, we launched V1 and our main objective with V1 was to go out and have a whole new point of view, and a people-centric point of view, in our user experience. We felt we achieved that. There were a few gaps in terms of functionality. And so, less than a year later, we have 7.5, or Codename Mango. And I think that's been critically acclaimed as filling those gaps and leapfrogging the competition in many areas. We're just in that position at the moment where we're waiting for new phones to come out, and so new phones from Samsung, HTC, and of course one of the things that we did in the last twelve months is our partnership with Nokia. And next week, it's going to be Nokia World where they're going to announce their phones and how they're going to really take, make the most out of the Windows Phone opportunity.
Ina Fried: Now in the last couple of weeks, we've seen the latest from your competitors, we've seen Apple with both the new version of iOS making it to market and the iPhone 4S, I think they sold four million in a weekend. Are you guys selling that many every six months?
Andy Lees: Well, we haven't announced exact numbers, but the, certainly, I think, as our new phones come on, we're eleven months into market, we sold more in the first twelve months than Android sold in the first twelve months. So, we're waiting for those new devices to come out and new partnerships to take, and we think that our unit volume will climb from there.
Ina Fried: What are the things — you've talked about kind of doing the things technologically, to get where you wanted to be, and having done that over the last year, year and a half. What are the things that Microsoft and its partners need to do to get to scale on the phone side, to get a significant share of the business? 'Cause it's not about getting nice reviews, right?
Andy Lees: Well, I mean, getting nice reviews is really important, because if you don't have something that's different to everybody else, then how can you go through and expect customers to go and buy? So, I think having a different point of view, different style of user experience, the key things are built in in what we call people centric are important. It's also important that the partnerships and the commitment from the partnerships, from people like Nokia, who's going to be investing very, very aggressively, they bet the whole company on the success of their devices running Windows Phone, will be a big accelerant. And so those, as those things come on stream, that will help our overall unit volume and position in the market.
Ina Fried: When I talk with developers and a lot of hardware makers, carriers, you know, and ask them, you know, "Who's number one, number two in the market?" obviously they don't have a hard time. When I say "Who's number three in the market?" I get generally the answer, "We're waiting to see." When I ask them, "Who's going to be the third player a year from now, two years from now?" you know, they're not willing to count out RIM, they're not willing to guarantee you guys'll be there. Obviously HP and webOS is no longer there. But, is it concerning to you that a couple years into this effort, people still aren't ready to even call you guys the serious number three player?
Andy Lees: Well, I think if you look at we are twelve months in, or eleven months in to our new effort here. And actually I think the partnerships and the work that we're doing is starting to be recognized. It was Gartner and IDC, both predicted that we would become number two by 2015. So people are starting to see the stars line up. And I don't mean to say that's going to be automatic, we need to earn that position, but I think we're absolutely putting the right things in place to do that.
Ina Fried: How concerning is it to you, I was at the financial analyst meeting at your hardware developer conference, and Steve Ballmer said that, you know, sales haven't been what they like. I covered Microsoft for seven years, in general when Steve isn't happy that's not a good thing. How concerning is it that, you know, as much as you guys have made progress on the technical front, things on the business side haven't flowed in quite the way that you would've liked.
Andy Lees: Well, so let's, let's look at what we've achieved so far in our first twelve months. First of all, the reviews of the product, the customer satisfaction ratings, are very high, much higher than other platforms. Our return rates are very low, our quality is very high. The number of applications that we've got, which is a measure of support, has been the fastest adoption of any platform, new platform ever, with over 30,000 applications in eleven months. So all of those things have gone well. The partnership with Nokia is really very important to us because it becomes an accelerant. They still sell an awful lot of phones and we think that we're going to enable them to continue to grow their unit volume, and turn around their fortunes as we work with them. We also, two weeks ago, signed an agreement with Samsung. A lot of the press around that was really to do with the patents. But actually the other part of the agreement is how we're going to be investing together from an R&D perspective, and also a sales and marketing perspective. And so you'll see that ramp up in 2012, as well. HDC has been a strong partnership for Microsoft for a long time, and they're also ramping up in terms of the number of devices and the sales and marketing that they're putting in place. And then finally we announced new partnerships with new OEMs that have never shipped Windows products before, like ZTE, Fujitsu, etc. So, those are the things that are the leading indicator as to what's likely to happen next. You know, when you start out, you start with a level and then these things line up and then you get your unit volume. So, we've work to do, but certainly those are better predictors of the future.
Ina Fried: One of the theories that I have is that, you know, Windows Phone 7 really strikes me as a very easy, approachable interface for first-time smartphone buyers, but a lot of the people that recommend that first-time smartphone are experienced smartphone users, and they tend to be the Android owners, the iPhone owners. Do you guys think you have a recommender challenge to win those loyalists, so that they're in your camp when they're telling their moms, their dads, their friends, their cousins, what to buy?
Andy Lees: I think people recommend a little bit of what they use. And so there is a cycle, but — that once you start to use a product, that you'll then go through and recommend it. And certainly, with the satisfaction ratings that we have, as we build unit volume, I think that as an issue will go away, because our reputation will build with it. I think Android does appeal to a certain type of user. It is very tech based as opposed to being very people based. You know, you're presented with a grid of icons and a sea of applications; whereas, we present other people in your life, we present things you want to do in your life. The user interfaces, it's really very, very different.
Ina Fried: And one of the things that, if you just look at the numbers, Microsoft was in the phone business before Windows Phone 7, and actually Microsoft's overall market share has gone down, but part of that has to do with the fact that when Windows Phone 7 shipped a year ago, it actually was in fewer markets than its predecessor, Windows Mobile, had been in. And some of the key markets that you haven't been in are the ones that we're in right now, in Asia. That's starting to change with Mango, right?
Andy Lees: Right, so in fact, there's a number of dimensions to this. There's the price points, so we are dramatically broadening the set of price points in Mango-related phones, that we can reach, and that's particularly important because going lower down in price point opens up more addressable market. But the other one is the number of languages, number of countries that we are in. One of the things that we did in Windows Phone 7 is, is the core user experiences are all built into the phone, and it's people-centric user experience. And so as we go into different countries, it's important that all of that still works. And we're announcing today for the first time that we'll be going into China in 2012. And so, what we'd like to do is show you a demo, where you can see that what we're doing is not just translating the user experience from English into Mandarin, we want to celebrate things that are unique about the language. So perhaps we can take a look at the demo and see what that looks like. …Derek's going to help show off this demo.
Derek: So we wanted to give you a quick peek of what we've been doing, specifically with a new version of Metro, which is our user interface for Windows Phone, that's been refreshed for East Asian languages, specifically Mandarin today. So, let's go ahead and switch over to the demo machine. You also notice this is the same familiar Windows Phone start screen. The thing that you'll notice right off the bat is that we've actually taken advantage of local language and local style. So we're actually taking advantage of vertical text on the top right where we have things like the date. And so we wanted to take the celebration of the local language, the local culture, and actually bring that to the phone, and do it in a way that would be unique. So we're not actually just porting the user experience, but we're in fact bringing it around. I can now go ahead and pop into the email experience, which I'm, it's not so easy to navigate for a native English speaker, but we have here the same email experience that you have on Windows Phone. But again, we've add some local touches. So, I can pivot between my unread mails, my high priority, all that stuff is available right here. But the really interesting thing is when we pop into, for instance, this email, you actually know that the name of the person is actually put vertically, as well. And so we again have found the right touches, and we've actually touched about 700 different screens in Windows Phone, to make sure that they were customized in this way, to celebrate the East Asian languages. If I were to go ahead and reply on that, you'll notice that we have all new keyboards, and one of the things the team has been telling us, which I would be challenged to demo, since I don't speak Mandarin, is that we have an autocomplete system similar to what we've had with Windows Phone 7, where it doesn't just recommend the next letter, but it actually will start to put letters together and suggest groupings of words and popular phrases. And we're told by the team that because of this, we'll actually be able to go about two to three times faster than, for instance, on iOS, or on Android, doing text completion with things like Mandarin.
Ina Fried: And I'm not an expert either, but my understanding is, you know, as hard as we think it is, you know, in the states and in other western languages to enter text on a software keyboard, it's that much more of a challenge when it takes multiple keystrokes to enter a character.
Derek: That's exactly right. Now, we wanted to pivot over a little bit and actually show a second demo. And this one is really about how, with Windows 7, we tried to more and more endeavor to have a Microsoft company effort, in terms of the assets that we're bringing to bear on the phone. And so one of the things we wanted to do is actually show you what the Windows Phone experience looks like, and actually talk through a couple of the scenarios that we're doing, not just with our own experience, but also with developers and indeed with groups in Microsoft like Xbox. So this is actually the Windows Phone experience now in English, for user care. You'll actually notice that, like we talked about yesterday, we have these things called "Live Tiles," this is the different approach that I think Walt was talking about yesterday, where information comes forward and you don't have to go hunting into them. So, instead of having an application that's represented by, for instance, a static icon, it actually will tell me things like the weather. My Fourscore app actually has my latest leader board. My "all recipes" app actually shows me the latest recipe of the day. And we even have really convenient ways for developers to write their applications so that components of the app can come to the start screen. So, you'll actually notice on the bottom left, I have British Airways, and that's actually my boarding pass. So, unlike other phones where you have to kind of launch the app and find the boarding pass section and find it, we actually use an app shortcut in this case, so that just that part of the application is available to me on the start screen, and I can get to it.
Andy Lees: Now what this does, is it sort of shows, we have this people-centric UI, and applications, instead of it just being about silos where you give this grid of icons and sea of applications, they extend the functionality, but they maintain the totality of the system. Which is completely different to other smartphones today.
Ina Fried: And I think that's something that other, you guys kind of were first with, and other folks have been gravitating to. But one of the things that I think, and I think this is the next part of the demo, is that you guys can bring to bear is the company as a whole. And actually, from my way of thinking, Windows Phone is one of the first products from the company that really reached across the company and brought in different parts.
Derek: Yeah, one of the things that we really wanted to do is take advantage of assets that we had. So Bing, our search engine; Internet Explorer 9, which is now available not just on the PC but on the phone; and indeed things like Xbox, and have those available across the different screens that you're using. I'm going to go ahead and fire up one of the Xbox Live games. One of the things that we do with the Windows Phone is that we have a standard set of minimums, so that games indeed work on every single Windows Phone device in a similar way. This is actually a brand new game that has not yet been released, but is coming this holiday, called Kinectimals. And the really interesting thing about Kinectimals, is that it takes off from the experience that is on the console today. So, we have the Kinect, which is actually the fastest-selling consumer electronic item of all time, and then about one in ten of the Kinect users actually have Kinectimals.
Ina Fried: So Kinectimals for those who don't know is a game that's already on the Xbox, it lets you have your own virtual pet, play with it, etc. And now you're going to have a phone version.
Derek: Exactly. But, what we wanted to do is have a different approach where it's not just a complete port of the experience that you have on the Xbox, but indeed is a companion experience. And we'll see more and more of these companions. So, I'm going to go ahead and choose a cub here, I'm going to get a Bengal tiger. Now, the tigers are very friendly, they're very soft and furry and so what better name for a cub than Walt. So we'll open that up right here. So this is my cub, named Walt.
Ina Fried: I'm sure he's loving that.
Derek: Yes, absolutely. So, we'll go ahead and load that up. And so the cub will actually load in, and I can start playing with my cub. And so, the whole idea here is that, you know, you got a couple minutes to kill in between meetings or maybe with your dentist or the doctor's office or whatever, and so you can start training this cub to do things. So, in this case I'm going to actually figure out, you know, maybe make this cub do some backflips, or well, yeah, a backflip is good. So, it actually has all these different tutorials, you can play catch, you can pet, you can do all these kind of thing, and the cub actually gets smarter over time.
Ina Fried: And now, can you transfer the interactions and the value, whatever leader points you get, from that back to the console version of Kinectimals?
Derek: Yeah, so what we have is, you know, we don't actually look at these applications with these games in this case as silos. They are all tied to my Xbox Live ID. I get gamer points, I get achievements, I can compare with my friends. And as you'll see in a moment, we can actually take the work that I'm doing here, and bring it over to the console. So one of the things that we also want to do, of course, is make this really easy so that I can, you know, try out Walt for size, see what Walt's up to. Maybe I actually want to use my camera. And so it takes advantage of unique features of the phone. So, actually, you know what? Can you help me out by just holding out your hands like this? Actually just pivot, yeah, that's perfect. So we're going to, we're going to see how Walt looks with Ina. Okay, so I've got my camera here, I'm going to go ahead and take a picture. Fantastic, we got stage lighting, that's perfect. I'm going to go ahead and accept this photo. And what we'll actually do is process the picture, and indeed I can actually take little Walt here, and actually pop over, spin in 3-D, get the tilt just right, and just like that we've got you with Walt. I can share that up to Facebook. I'll choose not to do that for many reasons right now. [laughs] And so we got all of that right here. So that's just an example of how we again use the unique features of the phone, in this case, to have photos and things like that. So, it's really easy for people to take photos, share them with their friends, and experience this in a new way. Now the final thing we want to do is of course customize this a little bit. And so one of the things that we'll do is we can actually go in and find all sorts of things to add. So we've got shopping experience, we've got bars, drink, foods. I'm going to actually do two things, I'm going to buy a collar, 'cause I want this to be really distinctive. So, I'm thinking the pink chain collar is going to look fantastic.
Ina Fried: I'm sure Walt loves that.
Derek: Yeah, it looks really good. And so that's one. Okay, and now I'm going to actually go over and grab a pendant as well, and I think rubber duck, what do you think? So we'll add the pendant, we've got that. Now what we want to do is actually take this over to the console. And so, what I'm going to do, is actually load this up and I'm going to actually export this to the console. So, I'm going to take this and I'm going to choose Xbox 360 Transfer. And I've got two options here, I can transfer from or I transfer to.
Ina Fried: So here you're taking it from the phone and putting it on the console.
Derek: And what ends up happening is it actually takes all the information associated with this cub in this case, and puts it into a tag. And so now if I go ahead and switch over to the Xbox console, we can go ahead and switch the screen. Great. We've actually got Kinect up and running here, and we have this picture of the Kinect app, that's called the scanstone. And so I'm going to go ahead and actually select my scanstone here. Which is a place where I can actually import stuff. [game plays] So I'm going to go ahead and take that, hold that up. And then instantly, our favorite cub Walt actually appears, complete with the pendant and the collar and all that stuff. So it's really easy to move this stuff back and forth.
Andy Lees: So what we're, what we're seeing here is how, you know, people's lives will include multiple different devices. And so, enabling them to, you know, spend time on Xbox, have a companion on the phone, so, so far the Xbox Live has been making the phone better, but now the phone is actually going to make Xbox better. And the same is true with how we work with the PC and tablets, etc.
Ina Fried: And you mention the PC and tablets, and one of the things that Microsoft has done that's a little different, when you look at your nearest competitors, both Apple and Google have said the phone and the tablet are similar, but they're different than the computer. So they have one mobile operating system that powers their phone and their tablets, and then a desktop operating system that powers their notebooks and desktops. Microsoft's taken a different approach. You guys say the phone is different, and you have one operating system, Mango, Windows Phone 7, for the phone, and then you're saying Windows is the right operating system for tablets and computers. Why is that?
Andy Lees: Well, first of all, we believe that everything that you want to do on a PC you should be able to do on a tablet. Particularly given people often dock tablets, they may want to connect to the keyboard, they may want to connect up a mouse, if they want to use touch on a PC. They should be able to go backwards and forwards. And that's some of the work that we're doing in Windows 8, which was announced at the Build Conference. We will share more technology between the PC and the phone over time.
Ina Fried: 'Cause right now you can't write one application and have it run on the phone and the tablet and the PC without doing a fair bit of work.
Andy Lees: Actually, you don't need to do much work. What we did is we built the developer tools and you can take a huge chunk of the code that you have written, and what you do is you just make changes to the user interface. And depending on how you've written it, then you can take up to 80, sometimes 90 percent of the code across with you, so all your logic and things are kept with you. But you want to celebrate what's unique about the user interface. So, we demoed, for example, at the Build Conference an application that actually started out as a web application for Silverlight. They then made some modifications, they modified the code onstage, and there's like three or five lines of code. And made it into a full-blown Windows 8 application. And then they took the same application and made a small number of changes to the user experience, the UI, and then just took that code and ran it on the phone. So, sharing components, you know like the browser that Derek talked about, enables us to get the best of all worlds.
Ina Fried: Now that's the software piece. And I want to talk a little bit about the hardware makers, because unlike Apple and more like Google, you guys have an approach where you don't make your own hardware, you rely on HTC and Samsung and now Nokia, and other partners, to make the hardware. Historically, or history, as much history as there is in a year, in this first year, I would say it's fair to say that you guys have not gotten the latest and greatest when it comes to hardware, from the device makers. Is that changing? What does Microsoft have to do to make sure you're getting the latest and greatest screens from Samsung, processors from Qualcomm, etc.?
Andy Lees: Right. Well, obviously in our view on — one of the things that we wanted to do was to stop problems like fragmentation. And so, we locked a lot of things down, and then we've been building an architecture that allows the hardware manufacturers and software vendors and in some cases mobile operators, to all add their value, but not in a way that's chaotic. And when we do that, and the way we've architected it, allows us to leapfrog our competitors. An example of that is, you know, how we do hardware acceleration of the browser. We put some building blocks in there and no matter which phone that you choose, whether it's a low cost phone or an expensive phone, it all works in a consistent way. So, we have these things called chassis in this architecture to do that. So we allow the OEMs and increasingly Mango allows that, and some things we'll do in 2012 will extend that further, to enable us to leapfrog. So let me show you an example. So, I have a couple of phones here that are quite different in terms of how they look, the style of them, the specifications of them.
Ina Fried: And these are new Mango phones.
Andy Lees: These are new Mango phones. They have very different price points that they are available for. And yet the user experience, they both will run the Xbox game that you've just seen, so they'll both be able to do high end graphics, but the performance that you get is very consistent as to how they work. But doing this in a way that still allows the OEMs to differentiate is really the secret source. So, we don't have the downside of the chaos that can often, and the fragmentation that can appear in other platforms.
Ina Fried: Now, in your right hand is the Samsung Focus S, I believe.
Ina Fried: And that is, you know, a higher-end phone. Do you think that when consumers walk into the store, that phone that's in your hand is going to stack up against the iPhone 4S, the Galaxy Nexus that Andy Ruben showed last night?
Andy Lees: Absolutely. And I think we'll have a range of phones because the user experience that we have from the cheapest phones through to the most expensive phones with high end cameras, super bright screens, lots of memory, and all of the other options that you would want, front-facing camera, etc. So we're enabling that through architecture, so that they get to do all of that differentiation and that enables us to get the best of both worlds.
Ina Fried: I definitely want to get to folks' questions, but I have one or two more things to question you about. One is, you know, Nokia. They're obviously, I think you guys have said, your most important partner. They're the only hardware maker that's devoted to you guys. I mean, they're still going to do some of their own stuff, especially at the low end, but unlike, from what I recall, every other Windows phone maker, they're not also making Android devices.
Ina Fried: You know, we've heard this year, we haven't seen anything yet. How important is what they're doing? And how quickly is it going to come on?
Andy Lees: Well, you have to wait just one more week, because next week Nokia, at Nokia World, are going to be announcing their plans to roll out Windows Phones, amongst other things. And so, we're very excited for them to be in the market. Certainly they have a lot of resources in many parts of the world, that'll be a huge accelerant to us. We're very excited in fact that they've chosen, they did an evaluation when they were looking at their future strategy, as to whether they should go Android, or whether they should go Windows Phone or a mixture. They saw our roadmap both for this year and for next year, and I'm assuming that they saw the roadmap for Android and they talked about how the products are going to come together, and they decided to bet the whole company on Windows Phone based on that. So, we're very excited about that. And we also, seeing from the other hardware makers, that they see that as an accelerant, we're not buying their competitor or anything. So, as a result, that really allows us to partner with other OEMs, which helps Nokia in turn, but makes a more vibrant ecosystem.
Ina Fried: Last night, Andy Rubin's pitch to the hardware makers, that he made, you know, via the stage, was basically that you guys aren't allowing enough customization. That there just isn't enough room to really shine as a computer maker, as a phone maker, as a device maker. What do you, what do you feel like allows Windows Phone makers to make their phones unique? I mean, I see different hardware sizes, but I actually don't see a lot that makes that HTC phone look different from that Samsung phone.
Andy Lees: Well, so, and there are different things that you can do in hardware and software. So, for example, if one phone wanted to be NFC and the other one didn't, you can do that. Different cameras, etc. What we do is we allow OEMs to add, but not replace. And we provide a core set of experiences and a platform within which they can replace, they can extend. And that's a far better methodology than having people ripping out parts of the system to improve upon them, because then what happens is you get fragmentation. So, I think that when you see this in the store, you will see a whole bunch of unique software and some unique hardware features that HTC has versus the Samsung, and vice versa. And next week, when you see the announcements from Nokia, you will see them doing the same things. They'll have differentiating hardware and software. So that's not a limitation. I think the biggest issue is the fragmentation that their model provides.
Ina Fried: And you guys are obviously making the case to your hardware partners that, "Hey, Google's going out and buying one of your competitors," do you think that change in the market is going to get any of them to drop Android? Or are you just looking for more of their time and attention and resources within those same hardware makers?
Andy Lees: We're not forcing anybody to drop anything. Certainly, we've seen a lot more motivation from hardware manufacturers since Google made that announcement. I think they're very nervous about what's going to happen. And I'm looking forward to making a few announcements of some new OEMs that are coming on board. And I think some of that was motivated by what they see in terms of the pace and the innovation we put in the software. Some of that they see because of the investment that Nokia is, is putting in place. And some of it, frankly, is also because of what Google is doing.
Q: So, the question I have is Andy Rubin last night mentioned a hope for a patent piece, particularly in this smartphone market. And from all appearances, Microsoft doesn't seem to be very interested in that goal. Case in point is, you know, by making up for it, perhaps a deficiency in sales, you know, Microsoft is now extracting value from the Android environment through patent licensing. So, my question is, you know, is Microsoft, does Microsoft see any interest in moving towards, to this patent piece, or whatever kind of model that Andy had mentioned because this isn't an issue just for Google. It's a major issue for patents, or major issue for small and medium businesses. So, you know, where does Microsoft stand?
Ina Fried: So patent piece, you guys are fine with patent piece as long as people pay you for piece, right?
Andy Lees: Well, no, here's what's important, is if you are a software based business, you need to be able to protect your intellectual property. And there's two mechanisms to do that. One is through patents and another one is through copyright. If something infringes on your patents, then it's much easier to copy something than it is to invent it for the first time. That's what patents are really about. So, we, Android reads on a whole bunch of patents that we own, inventions that we made, and so as a result, our philosophy here is, we're not trying to stop Android, we just want to make sure that the principle of protecting intellectual property, which enables all software businesses, it means that you don't have to be an advertising business that gives software away in order to make money. You're allowed to be just a software business. So what we do is we have a licensing program for the patents. And that way, if somebody decides to go and to use the patents, we enable that and let them pay for it. It's critically important for businesses like ourselves, that want to be a software business, and want to make money from selling software, that you can protect your intellectual property.
Ina Fried: And you guys have gotten patent deals at this point with Samsung and HTC, both of which are paying you a royalty for every Android device they ship. You're not, you're not in charge of the patent P&L, you're in charge of the Windows Phone P&L. How much does it bother you that Microsoft right now is making more money from selling Android phones than they are from selling Windows Phones?
Andy Lees: Well, you know, the, what's important here, as I said, is to have the principle that the patents that people own, through the inventions that they provide, are protectable, and that they get a level of return for those inventions. And that's certainly what we are doing. We're not here to stop competition in any way, shape or form. And we want to enable people, and that's why we have a licensing program.
Ina Fried: But it's got to be your goal, at some point, that Microsoft makes more money off selling its own phone software than off licensing the patents to a rival.
Andy Lees: Yeah, I don't know where the, you know, one making more money than the other comes from. We certainly want to sell a lot of Windows Phone.
Ina Fried: When, speaking of that, when we get back a year from now, what would it look like? What does success look like for you? What does it mean when you say, "This is the year we want to gain scale"? What does that look like?
Andy Lees: It looks like, as gaining market share in terms of overall unit volume, we're starting to see partners come on stream and to bet more aggressively using Windows Phone as a foundation of their products. Like, you know, the number of portfolio products that somebody like Samsung, HTC, the number of products that Nokia brings to market, to satisfy the broadest possible set of users. We want very high satisfaction ratings with our end users, and we want developers to have a thriving ecosystem.
Ina Fried: So if you gain a point or two of market share a year from now, are you happy? Or do you really see this a year that you guys can gain significant percentages of market share?
Andy Lees: Well, we're not allowed to provide forward predictions, but certainly our goal is to gain market share over the next 12 and 24 months.
Ina Fried: Significant market share?
Ina Fried: All right. Other questions for Andy? Be thinking of them. I'll ask a couple more, but I'd love to hear from all of you, what you would like to see from Microsoft in the phone market. When you look at what the most significant things that are coming into the phones. I mean, one of the things you guys said, when you sort of laid out the roadmap for Windows Phone was, these are going to have the power that your PC or your Xbox had a couple years ago. And built Windows Phone Mango to look like what you could do from that. What are the things that are going to come into the phone capability-wise over the next year or two, that we can't do with our phones today?
Andy Lees: Well, you know, we see this, what we would call the point of convergence, because the technology in the middle of the phone is not two years behind the PC, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. And in fact, enabling that technologically is very important, so the compute power that's on tap, the connectivity on tap, enables all sorts of different scenarios. The thing that's also interesting about the phone is the utilization of sensors to provide location, so that you can find out about the world around you — new sensors so that you can use things like augmented reality, through vision and sound — will enable all sorts of new scenarios. And this is where the hardware and the software and the cloud really work together, in really a unique way. And so, for example, on Mango, as you've seen, you know, you can start asking it questions about the world around you, you can say, "I want to go for a movie" and then you find out what movies are available, where they are near you, and then you want to find a restaurant near you. So.
Ina Fried: Yeah, I've been hearing a lot about this, talking to your phone thing. Is that going to be big?
Andy Lees: Well, certainly you can talk to your Windows Phone in Mango. We hooked that up into Bing, and so as a result you get the full power of the Internet to answer your questions, not just a limited set of services. I don't know if it's going to be the major source of input. There's the whole social element of what it's like to be talking out loud to your phone. I think it's useful in some scenarios, in cars, it can be very useful for you to be able to talk to your phone, and it talk back to you in that way. So, not all the time, but sometimes it can be very useful.
Ina Fried: What about payments? We haven't heard a lot from Microsoft, we hear Google with NFC and Google Wallet. We hear a fair amount about this idea of payments coming to the phone. Where does Microsoft see its role in terms of that?
Andy Lees: Well, we'll provide the technological building blocks so that payments can easily be done on the phone. We're not trying to compete with other people that want to provide services on that, so we will have a platform approach rather than necessarily trying to own all of the transactions.
Ina Fried: NFC's one technology, but it does still strike me that it's the case that, you know, if there's a new acronym to come, whether it's NFC, LTE, all these acronyms come first to the other platforms. Is that by design? Will that start to change? Do you want to be seen as the first phone maker to bring X hardware innovation?
Andy Lees: Yes, we do. And I think we do that via architecting, to be able to leapfrog. So, we're putting the right pieces in place, that enable the manufacturers as described before, to start adding their own hardware support by using device drivers, in much the same way as we have done on the PC. The PC has introduced all sorts of innovations, first through an architecture of extensibility, and we're bringing that to the phone.
Q: So, there is a whole lot of content, ecosystem built around — and yesterday, Andy also talked about that that is the critical reason that their tablets probably — how do you see forward – – shipment? Is there anything that you're doing special and going forward, content market, especially consuming through Windows Phones? And how will you look at content partnerships on Windows platform?
Ina Fried: So on the content side, you guys have generally gone with the, you know, a la carte model on video, and you've gone with the subscription or a la carte model on music. So, there's a Zune pass for those of you who aren't as familiar. I don't think it's in every geography, but at least in many, where you can have a music subscription on the video side, at least from Microsoft directly, it's an a la carte. Is that enough on the content side? Are you guys keeping up? Do you want to let partners do some of that? Obviously Netflix, that kind of thing.
Andy Lees: Yeah, we've been lucky to have, you know, Netflix was first on Windows Phone, versus other platforms. Having a consistent and predictable target is really very useful for people providing content. Because you don't want to have to relay out things for different form factors. So, content is important. I think that what we're doing with music and video is a la carte, we're working through partnerships to be able to provide those things. We do provide the music service ourselves, and we're expanding the geographic footprint that that's available in, with Mango, and we'll continue to do that into the future. Of course, on the Xbox, we've just announced a whole bunch of new partnerships, to bring more video and TV and movies, etc. And having that as part of the Microsoft fold does enable us to, you know, work with those partners to bring them across all of the different clients that we would have on different form factors.


text:
National Committee on Carved Stones in Scotland (NCCSS)
About Carved Stones
Pictish & Early Medieval
Later Medieval
Gravestones & Memorials
Architectural Sculpture
Public Monuments
Researching the condition of Alasdair McLeod's Tomb, Rodel, Harris. Crown copyright Historic Scotland
Research — understanding what is significant about carved stones, and continuing to ask further questions — is fundamental to a sustainable future for carved stones. The NCCSS aims to encourage research on Scotland's carved stones, in all their diversity, and publication in appropriate media targeted at a wide range of audiences.
In 2014/15, informed by its critical analysis of the issues facing carved stones, NCCSS contributed to the production of a Scottish Archaeology Research Framework for carved stones, part of the Future Thinking for Carved Stones project grant-aided by the Royal Society of Edinburgh and Historic Scotland (organised by Dr Sally Foster, University of Stirling and Dr Katherine Forsyth, University of Glasgow).
Future Thinking on Carved Stones in Scotland: a Research Framework by Dr Sally Foster, Dr Katherine Forsyth, Dr Susan Buckham and Dr Stuart Jeffrey aims to to link, inspire, mobilize and help direct the efforts of anyone with an interest in or responsibility for carved stones in Scotland. As well as an online wiki format the 2016 ScARF panel report can be download as two PDFs: the original text [5.4MB] and 39 Case Studies [2.8MB]
Listen to the Stones by Dr Adrian Maldonado and Dr Susan Buckham is based on the original text above and provides a popular introduction to the carved stones ScARF
Previous NCCSS research initiatives:
The NCCSS has a long-standing track record in supporting carved stone research, with earlier initiatives including:
Cover of Able Minds and Practised Hands, the proceedings of a conference sponsored by the NCCSS. Available to buy from http://maneypublishing.com/index.php/books/sma23/
Able Minds and Practised Hands (2003, organised by Historic Scotland, NCCSS and The Society of Medieval Archaeology). Published as S Foster and M Cross (eds) 2005. Able Minds and Practiced Hands Scotland's Early Medieval Sculpture in the 21st Century. Leeds: Maney
St Andrews Sarcophagus (1997, organised by Historic Scotland and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.). Published as S Foster (ed) 1998. The St Andrews Sarcophagus: A Pictish Masterpiece and its International Connections. Dublin: Four Courts Press
Conservation of Historic Graveyards (2001, organised by Historic Scotland and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland)
Post-Reformation Gravestones (1994, organised by NCCSS and The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland).
The NCCSS celebrates examples of research carried out by others that contribute to our shared knowledge and appreciation of carved stones.
Examples of good practice:
Lest Scotland Forgets: University of Stirling's ongoing project to create a database of Scottish war memorials.
Select bibliography:
WELLS, G. BISHOP B., 2005. Researching Your Graveyard. Available at: http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/researching-your-graveyard.pdf. Historic Scotland.
GULLANE AND DIRLETON HISTORY SOCIETY, 2009. Life and Death in Dirleton Parish. A Social History Derived from Kirkyard Memorials. Gullane and Dirleton History Society.
HISTORIC SCOTLAND Iona Research Conference
HYGEN, A., 2006. The Rock Art Project 1996 – 2005. Final Report from the Directorate for Cultural Heritage. Available from: Oslo: Riksantikvaren.
PENMAN, M., ed, 2013. Monuments and Monumentality across Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Donington: Shaun Tyas.
RITCHIE, A. (ed). 1994. Govan and its Early Medieval Sculpture. Stroud: Alan Sutton Publishing
TARLOW, S., 1999. Bereavement and Commemoration: An Archaeology of Mortality. Wiley-Blackwell
THOMSON, G., 2100. Lettering on Gravemarkers in Britain & Ireland. Dublin: Wordwell Ltd.
NCCSS website grant-aided by Historic Scotland

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Every month learn about a neighborhood park in Philadelphia and its Park Friends Group as part of a new park profile series on the My Philly Park blog. This month: Matthias Baldwin Park in Logan Square.
Matthias Baldwin Park is one of those hidden jewels in Philly. Surrounded by a lush canopy of trees, townhouses, and apartment and condo buildings, stumbling upon this park can be a happy surprise, a welcome getaway in what's a fast-growing Center City neighborhood.
But this two-acre park wasn't always so hidden. When it officially opened in 1991, its immediate neighbors were parking lots and a defunct rail line. It's safe to say that Matthias Baldwin Park has withstood the test of time amid the Center City development boom.
Matthias Baldwin Park came to be in the early nineties as the Percent for Art component of a proposed, but ill-fated development project. Despite its failure, the plans for the park survived and opened in 1991. Designed by landscape artist Athena Tacha and called "Connections," it features a series of terraces that range from 6 inches to 7 feet that are filled with perennials, reedy grasses, and low-maintenance shrubs. A loop path lined with benches surrounds the terraces, allowing visitors to enjoy a walk through the park or to take a seat and take in the urban meadow.
But after the park's opening, it went without a dedicated group of stewards for more than a decade. "The park only finished in 1991, but for many years there was no one around to pay any attention to it or appreciate it," recalls James Fennell, president of Friends of Matthias Baldwin Park.
In fact, it wasn't until 2011 that the park changed its name to honor Baldwin, who was an 18th-century businessman and abolitionist. That effort to recognize Baldwin was pushed forth by the Friends of Matthias Baldwin Park, which formed in 2007 as part of the Philadelphia Park Friends Network.
Today, the friends group has blossomed to about 60 members. While it still serves as a quiet, green space in the heart of the bustling city, Matthias Baldwin Park is no stranger to events and programming, thanks to the active Friends group. Each year, the park plays host to Parks on Tap, the traveling beer garden that gives back to Philly's parks. The Friends group used proceeds raised to launch a new website for the park and to purchase more plants for the terraces.
And given the large dog population in the neighborhood, they were inspired by Powers Park in Port Richmond to host their own Howl-o-ween, an annual dog costume parade in the park each October.
Today, Matthias Baldwin Park is enjoyed by many, from local college students, seniors, dog walkers, families, and residents of the nearby townhouses, high-rise apartments, and condominiums that have popped up around the neighborhood in recent years.
"For 30 years, this was a neighborhood where you went from point A to point B and you didn't really care about what happened here. Now, we have a very diverse group of people who use the park," says Owens. She gestures to the dog walkers, people lounging in the grassy areas, and folks passing through on their walk home from work.
Lend a hand at Matthias Baldwin's monthly cleanups.
Parks on Tap visits Matthias Baldwin Park from June 26-30, 2019.
Member meetings are open to the public, whether a member or not, and held the first Thursday of the month at 7pm in the Tivoli Condominiums community room (1900 Hamilton Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130. Enter on 19th Street).


You are here: Home / Sustainable Storytelling / Get Dieselpunk(ed)!
[dropcap2]B[/dropcap2]ut, in remaining true to punk form, I'm sticking it to the wikipedia man (who oddly started as a subversive sort of fellow years ago) by posting a link to the buried wiki along with some other great resources for getting dieselpunk(ed).
A great place to begin your journey both punk and diesel is to check out the friendliest nerd hollow the aether has to offer — Dieselpunks.org The site serves as much more than a forum. Search its articles and discussions for some of the best music, art, and culture links to all things DP. Along with DP.org there is also The Gatehouse. These two sites together create the heart and soul of DP (not Dr. Pepper, which will always be my first DP love).
As far as I am aware, The Gatehouse Gazette is the only strictly dieselpunk journal. Check it out or you're merely reading with gas.
There are several provocative personal blogs out there for getting your eyes greasy with dieselpunk, but the two I know the best are Lord K's blog and Dieselpunk Larry's blog.
I love the aesthetic, but 'dieselpunk' is just a name for it invented by two people on the internet. Have to agree with the wikipedia nerds on this one.
Everyone else calls it retro-futurism. That's what it's called. It's focused on the Golden Era and deco, sure. But it's retro-futurism.
The dieselpunk-name-inventors trying to extend it to even cover Mad Max, which is a defining work of post-apocalyptic fiction, and not dieselpunk or 'petrolpunk' as they called it, just because gasoline was a big plot point, really hammers home what the term really is. Free-form invention by fans on the internet.
Thanks @jellydonut for the thoughtful response. Isn't retro-futurism the term used in reference to everything from clockpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, etc.? My take has been that people desire to break down retro-futurism into distinct sub-genres based on eras. Steampunk is the most well accepted at this point. Wikipedia has embraced this term even though it is also retro-futurism.
You are indeed correct that all of these aesthetics and countercultural movements are indeed retro-futurism. The sticky wicket is how do I communicate the difference between a 1940's anti-natzi retro-futurism from a 1860's post-apacolyptic Civil War retro-futurism?


ruthdelacruz | Travel and Lifestyle Blog : Friday Fun!
What's a pretty good sign that your day at work or school is going to be rough?
If I see my boss in a bad mood. Maybe my team members then felt the same way. Bosses create the atmosphere of the work environment.
What's a pretty good sign that your day at work or school is going to be terrific?
If there would be a free food or treats! Anything extra ordinary in a day!
What's a pretty good sign that you should probably eat out? If I need catching up with my friend and I have money to spend!
What's a pretty good sign that you're going to spend more money than you should? This always happens.. when Im out shopping, or basically even online shopping! Shopping is an emergency!
What's a pretty good sign that someone you've just met is going to be a pretty good friend? If the first throw of conversations are light and sincere.
Have you ever played a practical joke on anyone? If so, what did you do and who was your victim? Yes, back in High School, I have a partner in crime, my friend Ella. Our favorite victim is our classmate Diane, we used to tie her bag straps in her deskchair; so everytime the bell rang and she got up to pick her bag, the deskchair would go with it.
What do your salt and pepper shakers look like? Typical, glass and stainless steel covers. Im into modern and simple stuff for our kitchen.
Where is the next place you plan to visit (on vacation or business)? I plan to go to Hong Kong Disneyland this year! Just for vacation, but if my company would send me to some other place outside the country, why not?
What kind of lotion or cream do you use to keep your hands from getting too dry? I have different lotions for each part of my body. ;) For my hands, I use Bath and Body Works.
Make up a dessert, tell us its ingredients, and give it a name. This is the cake I made back in College for our finals. I hope I remember everything right.
flour, baking powder, egg, chocolate powder, butter, salt, unsweetened chocolate, milk, sugar, strawberries.
Bake a plain chocolate cake. Make a chocolate ganache. Do layering with sponge cake and ganache. Top with strawberries! Decorate with strawberry slices on the side too! And now I would have to call it, 'Berry Delicious Cake!
© ruthdelacruz | Travel and Lifestyle Blog : Friday Fun!


Searching for "Expert" job or career in Saudi Arabia (KSA)? Welcome to CareerDP, your all in one easy to use job site that can assist you to any job search. We wish you a good luck and have a prosperous career.
Data as of 2019-04-21 (Latest) with id 141356.
If you are switching jobs: When you change your job, choosing the best corporation and the environment in which it is possible to work will most likely be only half of the job you should perform for the change of your career. It's also very essential to find a way to elegantly leave your prior job. It is suggested that you maintain genuine contacts with ex - colleagues and bosses.


明日は江上さんが本帰国ですが | Hibiscus New Lifestyle (MM2H) Sdn Bhd.
Tomorrow Mrs Egami will move back to Japan. Although she goes back to Japan but she became Hibiscus's member today. We did the termination of MM2H, closing bank accounts, disposal of the free tax car and settlement of custom tax on her behalf. Thank you Egami-san. We have booked the taxi to pick you up tomorrow morning. Please be home safely and take care!


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Why customer stories are a crucial piece of marketing strategy
As internet marketing has moved away from banner ads and pop-ups, marketers have moved towards advertising and marketing that tells stories. Seth Godin has said "Great stories succeed because they are able to capture the imagination of large or important audiences." Stories have, after all, been the basis of human interaction for millennia. But why should marketing be focused on stories?
Stories are engaging
"Because we know how stories move forward from one point to another, we quickly engage with stories," says Margarita Hakobyan, CEO and Founder of Movers Corp. "We identify the character that we are rooting for, and we stick with the story to the end to make sure that the character gets a positive resolution. We look for clues as to how the resolution can arrive."
While the business itself can often be the protagonist of the story, many business stories can evoke a ubiquitous "you" who reflects the company's ideal customer.
When taking this direction, the business can tell stories about how "you" have a problem that needs to be solved. In this situation, the product becomes the solution to the customer's problem. Anyone who watches TV has seen this type of storytelling many times. A classic example is a mom who is trying to wash her child's dirty clothing, but can't get all the stains out until she tries the particular brand of laundry detergent that is being advertised.
Stories have narrative flow
We know how stories go and how content marketing works. We are conditioned to enjoy stories, with their peaks and valleys, their obvious beginnings, middles, and ends. Most stories are formulaic in one way or another, and they either build on our preconceived notions, or work by subverting them. Stories might make us laugh in surprise or draw closer to the storyteller with interest – or both – and a large part of why they do this is their movement.
When building your story, whether it is a single tweet or a long blog article, make sure it has a beginning, middle, and end. Know what your story is, what the conflict is, and what the resolution is. Make sure that once the resolution has been described, you move very quickly towards the end; the reader is there for their Aristotelian catharsis. Once that has been achieved, they're ready to move on.
Stories build trust
Since we are so familiar with how stories go, we understand that the protagonist should be trusted and engaged with, while the antagonist should be mistrusted. When a business tells a story and positions themselves as the protagonist, they are positioning themselves sympathetically to the audience. Engaging stories also provide an opportunity to earn quality links and a free publicity from industry leaders and trade publications.
This is used every day in news media and press releases where journalists and copywriters tell a story to the reader. The reader feels sympathy towards the protagonist because the story positions them sympathetically.
Stories have a known format
Because viewers and readers are comfortable with the basic format of stories, they are a quick and easy way to engage the reader without feeling like the company is trying to sell something immediately. There are a number of different stories a company can tell on its basic webpage. The story of how the company came to be, the story of the business's mission, and the story of the different entrepreneurs behind the company are all fair game.
It is important, however, that companies start with the story of how they are going to help their customers. There's nothing more frustrating to a busy consumer than clicking through to a website and finding a landing page that goes on and on about how the company was formed and how great the company is, but gives absolutely no hint on what the company actually does.
Now, once you've committed to telling a story, don't assume that your story has to happen in words. While many stories are written down, stories can be told through any form of communication. Pictures, videos, and mixed media presentations can all be used to tell a story.
When a business opens itself up to marketing that is based around storytelling, it will find that communicating with its customers is easier. If the business is telling good, engaging stories, they will naturally generate comment and discussion, as opposed to awkward questions set at the end of articles designed to get customers to leave comments. The company will also be ideally positioned to share its marketing through social media, a platform which is incredibly story-focused.
Since stories engage us at the most fundamental level, using them in marketing is common sense. They have been incorporated in visual ads for a very long time, and the design of the Internet means that it's easier than ever to incorporate story telling into text based marketing.


When Chula Vista lawyers review evidence and documents related to your Southern California automobile accident, they will have an idea of how much compensation insurance companies may be willing to pay out to settle your claim.
any physical impairments to any particular body parts.
All of the above factors and others will be reviewed until a settlement can be hammered out. To maximize the value of your claim, you should acquire the assistance of injury lawyers. Your lawyers will help gather pertinent evidence to prove the extent of your injuries and help you pursue all compensation to which you are entitled. To learn more about evaluating a personal injury claim, please visit our article library.
Take Control of Your California Injury Claim by Contacting Chula Vista Injury Lawyers Today!
California injury lawyer Mark C. Blane and his legal team aren't like some of the other personal injury lawyers you may have met with or seen ads for around town. Our goal is to educate our clients - even those whose cases we don't take - so that you not only understand the legal process ahead of you but the basics of Chula Vista injury law and your legal rights. You can get started by ordering one of our FREE injury guides including Wolf in Sheep's Clothing: What Your Insurance Company Doesn't Want You to Know and Won't Tell You Until It's Too Late! or The 10 Secrets You Need to Know About Your Injury Case Before You Call a Lawyer. Contact us today to schedule your appointment - 888-845-6269 or 619-813-7955. We are proud to serve San Diego's Spanish speaking population and even offer our FREE California personal injury book en Español.


The steps to point your domain name to your website.
If you have bought your domain name from a different company to your hosting, then you will have to point your domain to the hosting.
When you pay for your hosting the web hosting company will send you a welcome email that should contain the Domain Name Servers listed in the email. If the domain name servers (DNS) are not listed then you can contact the hosting company and ask them to send you the DNS servers. There is usually two domain name servers.
Once you receive these 2 domain name servers you are ready to point your domain name to your website.
The next step is to go to the company you bought the domain name from and log into your account. When you bought your domain name you would of received a username and password. If you can't find this information simply go to the login section of the domain name website and click forgot password. You will be asked to put your email address in; which will be the email address you gave them when you bought the domain name. If all else fails you will have to contact the domain name company to retrieve these details.
Once you have your log in details for the domain name; log into the control panel and go to the domain name settings. In the domain settings simply copy and paste in two domain name servers (DNS) from your hosting company. Make sure you delete the old domain name servers; if there is any. Done!
It may take 24-48 hours for this to process. Once processed your website should be visible by typing in your domain name.
If you buy your web hosting and domain name together from the same web hosting company then you will avoid this step in setting up your website!


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New Bars, News
Here's what to expect when Big Poppa's opens
Jared Merlino (left) & Lewis Jaffrey are set to open Big Poppa's in late June.
"We're going to totally revamp — everything you can see right now is going to change," Lewis Jaffrey tells us.
He's talking about the space on Oxford Street where, until just a week ago, Hello Sailor stood. Jaffrey, with fellow owner Jared Merlino, are set to open Big Poppa's in late June.
We sat down with Merlino — whom you may recall from such venues as The Lobo Plantation, and the forthcoming Kittyhawk — and Jaffrey, who has been a manager with the Swillhouse group for the last four years (you may recall him from The Baxter Inn), to ask them just what we should expect from the new restaurant and bar when it opens.
And given that both The Lobo Plantation and The Baxter Inn both featured in the nominations for international awards at Tales of the Cocktail's Spirited Awards last year, this an opening with a lot of promise.
Big Poppa's is Jaffrey and Merlino's take on a casual Italian restaurant and cocktail bar, so expect a convivial, buzzy atmosphere — like the best Italian joints always have.
"Italian places always have that energy to them, don't they?" said Merlino. "You just feel welcome there, and it marries well with a big wine list which is something we've always wanted to do."
"We want it to be a casual, relaxed atmosphere where we don't take anything seriously except for the food and the drinks. The service is fun and relaxed, but competent and professional," said Jaffrey.
Restaurant service will take place on the ground floor, right where you walk in off Oxford Street; down the stairs, the bar will be in the same place as it stands now, but bigger and with a focus on cocktails and a cocktail lounge vibe.
Merlino has a pretty full slate of work right now: not only does he own the award-winning Sydney rum bar, The Lobo Plantation, he's also due to open Kittyhawk in the Sydney CBD in May. So whilst he'll be very much involved in what's happening at Big Poppa's, you'll be seeing a lot of Jaffrey.
"This is my baby, I'm going to be here 24-7," he said. "Making drinks, making sure the drinks are up to spec, the food upstairs is delicious.
"It's what we do. It's why we love it. I didn't own a bar to sit and drink in it," said Jaffrey. "I own a bar so I can entertain other people in it, be a host, and show them a good time and be involved in all the banter."
Oh, and did we mention the music? "We're going to be playing hip hop exclusively throughout the venue," said Jaffrey.
The ground level: everything will change
The first changes to note with Big Poppa's will be the focus on opening up the ground floor to the street.
"We're going to reinstate the bifold windows so they open out to Oxford Street," said Jaffrey. "A nice long, big communal table — this will probably be the only table we take bookings on. We're going to have big share dishes, [so] it's going to be the centrepiece."
There will be a dedicated space for restaurant service, and a small, six seater bar area on the ground floor — the idea being to have a buzzy atmosphere to draw attention in off the street.
"The idea is to create a sit-at bar up here so you're creating a vibe," said Merlino.
"If people want to sit and have food, they can have their starters at the bar top [for instance]. It's going to be real dynamic, which is important for this kind of space," Jaffrey said.
The kitchen will be closed off from view so the focus is on the room. "The only thing you're going to be able to see is this beautiful back bar," said Jaffrey of the two-man bar they're building from scratch.
The food — think Italian, think cheeses
Expect to see a one metre tall fridge stocked full of cheese.
"We're going to have 15 to 20, 30 cheeses on rotation constantly. The food is going to be heavily based around cheese and modern Italian type cuisine," said Jaffrey.
"The idea behind this space is we wanted to build something [where] we'd love to go eat and drink — cheese being the hero product here. Not just cheese boards; the idea is we do cheese by weight, so people can come in and custom make their own cheese boards, but incorporating those cheeses into elements of the food as well," said Merlino.
The menu is going to be on the small side to keep things casual, they said, with around 12 main dishes and three dishes rotating in and out — and a good hit of the cheese selection being incorporated into the menu.
"Not overly complicating, not trying to reinvent the wheel with the Italian food, we're just doing something delicious," Merlino explained.
The drinks — think Italian (again), think wine
You're eating Italian food, so the intimate ground floor bar is going to helping to lubricate that quest.
"The drinks upstairs will be real classic Italian, before- and after-dinner — so Americanos, Sgroppinos, Bellinis," said Jaffrey. "Real simple, classic Italian drinks that you would have to set yourself up for the meal."
And the space is going to be a temple to the duo's love of wine, with a wall of wine that will help block some of the noise expected to be coming from the downstairs lounge.
"We're going to build big wine store here, at the top of the stairs, so it's going to block some of the heavier sounds from downstairs," said Jaffrey. "And you're going to be able to see 200 bins worth of wine up here, so when you're in this space, it feels like a restaurant."
"We're big fans of wine, and we love rose wine as well," said Jaffrey. "So we're going to hero rose but not just one rose by the glass but several, more than one prosecco by the glass, champagne by the glass — so we're going to have options. It seems so obvious, but so many people don't seem to bother."
Down the stairs, it's the cocktail lounge
"It's very important for us that people realise we're not going to reopen Hello Sailor — we want to do something new," said Jaffrey. "So a big part of that was changing the feel for down here. We can't move the bar, we can't change too much of that, but we can change everything else."
Expect to see two arch-shaped grand banquettes on the left hand side when you descend the stairs. They've reoriented the seating to face the bar, and the surrounds are going to be "real plush, really comfy," according to Merlino.
One wall will see lovers seats and low tables, "so it's a real lounge sort of vibe."
The drastic change that they will be making is increasing the working space of the bar downstairs. By extending the bar out by 700mm, they'll be turning what is currently a two man bar into a four man bar. "It's a huge difference for speed of service and the kind of drinks we're going to be able to prepare, and how the bar is going to work," Jaffrey said.
And again, all the fridges are custom-built, and a lot of tweaking of the current layout is happening.
"We've custom made everything for this because it's the only way to make the space really sing. [It's] economical and ergonimcal — the bartenders are going to find it a real pleasure to work in because everything is going to be at hand where they need it.
"Those small little details can make a huge difference to speed of service and the kind of drinks we can produce."
The back bar will see eight tiers of shelves divided into two sets, meaning, well, there's quite a lot of stock going in.
"There's going to be a lot of gin and rum and whisky laying around," said Jaffrey. "The bar is 4.4 metres by eight tiers [of spirits]. That's almost the size of The Baxter Inn — we just love stocktaking!"
The key idea for downstairs is to have the cocktail lounge exist as an extension of what they're offering upstairs.
"The focus for us is that we want people to be able to get a good cocktail between 12 and three [in the morning], and here you can come at 2am, we can let you in, and you can come down here and have a Daiquiri and a cheese plate. That's why we jumped at the opportunity when it came up," said Merlino.
That's why getting the bar working efficiently has been a key priority for the outfit.
"At full tilt, we think we'll get seven behind [the bar], whereas at the moment it's really only built for two to three and it's hard on three," said Merlino.
In terms of what you can sip, think classic cocktails.
"Initially we're just going to launch with a solid menu that let's people understand that we're capable of making everything, and then within a few months we'll see the dynamic," said Jaffrey. "We can guesstimate as much as we like; when the customers come into the venue, they dictate what you have to do whether you like it or not, and we can feed in as much of our culture as we want, but realistically you have to tailor it to what they want."
Big Poppa's is due to open in late June at 96 Oxford St, Darlinghurst.
Tags: hello sailor, Jared Merlino, Kittyhawk, Lewis Jaffrey, Swillhouse, The Baxter Inn, The Lobo Plantation
Australian Bartender April 18, 2016
Here are the recipients of the 2019 Outstanding Contribution award
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Get the recipe for Caffe Bartolo's Summer Love
Sam Bygrave March 4, 2019
Caffe Bartolo: go inside the latest from the award-winning Jared Merlino
Australian Bartender January 29, 2019
Former Swillhouse owner Jason Scott opens Peppi's Cellar in New York
Sam Bygrave January 29, 2019
The Healthy Bartender: Juggling body, mind and spirits in the era of wellness
Amy Spanton January 25, 2019


The Ignitor has been proven for over fifteen years in race cars, off-road vehicles, national rental fleets, parcel delivery services and by backyard mechanics. The Ignitor is the ideal choice for collector car restoration because it fits entirely under the distributor cap for a neat, clean look. For positive ground ignition only. The Ignitor is made in the U.S.A. and is backed by a 30 month factory warranty. *For vehicles with vacuum advance only.
It is not unusual for the ignition rotor to fail after installing a Pertronix kit. This unit produces an increased degree of power through the system which can cause rotors to crack. Therefore, we include a FREE distributor rotor with improved brass contacts (over original style) in the Pertronix kits we supply for this application. Reference #DRB101.


Connecting these lines would greatly reduce congestion at Downtown Crossing and State St stations during rush hour. Because it would improve access between the red and blue lines, this connection would increase any returns to further investments in transit in areas served by those lines and in our city as a whole. Please take advantage of this worthwhile investment.
Sign the petition: Red-Blue Connector!
Thanks for your support! We just passed 250 signatures on our #RedBlueConnector petition! How much closer can we get to 500 before we present it to the @MassDOT & @MBTA #FMCB Joint Board Session tomorrow at noon? Please sign & keep sharing!


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Lindsay Gottlieb Speaker & Booking Information
Cleveland Cavaliers Assistant Coach
Book Lindsay Gottlieb for your Next Event
Lindsay Gottlieb Booking Agent Contact Details
Contact AthleteSpeakers today at 800-916-6008 to book Lindsay Gottlieb for a keynote speech, corporate appearance, grand opening, product announcement, moderated Q&A or for an exclusive meet and greet. The booking agents at AthleteSpeakers work on your behalf to get you the best price for your desired sports celebrity.
AthleteSpeakers has built very close direct relationships over the years with top athletes, agents, publicists and managers. We specialize in assisting small, medium, and large companies as well as event planners with booking athletes like Lindsay Gottlieb for speaking engagements and appearances at trade shows, golf outings, casinos, conferences, conventions, and corporate events. For years, companies have turned to AthleteSpeakers to get Lindsay Gottlieb's booking fee, appearance cost, and booking agent contact information.
Lindsay Gottlieb Biography
Lindsay Gottlieb is part of a group of pioneering female coaches in the NBA today. Gottlieb accepted a position as an assistant coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2019. She entered the NBA with major credentials as the former head women's basketball coach at the University of California. In eight seasons with the Golden Bears, Gottlieb compiled a 179-89 record. She led the program to seven NCAA Tournament appearances. In just her second season on the job, Cal went to their first Final Four in school history. Gottlieb's team also won the Pac-12 regular season title and she was named conference Coach of the Year. Before coming to Cal, she spent three seasons as the head coach at UC-Santa Barbara. The Gauchos won two Big West Conference titles under her watch.
Disclaimer: AthleteSpeakers assists companies seeking to hire talent like Lindsay Gottlieb for speaking engagements, appearances, product endorsements, and business sanctions. Our speakers bureau does not claim to exclusively represent Lindsay Gottlieb. Our booking agency can help with finding an athlete or sports celebrity that aligns with your upcoming events date, location, and budget. When an organization request booking details for a celebrity like Lindsay Gottlieb, we work closely with the client to make sure the proposed dates does not interfere with the requested athletes schedule. We then confirm the sports celebrity fee based on the details of the request. The fees listed on the speaker profile are rough estimates based on the previous market rate for the talent. Our team then works with Lindsay Gottlieb's agent, manager or assistant on the booking request. For parties interested in hiring Lindsay Gottlieb, we recommend filling out the booking request form so our booking agents can help with making your next event a success.
Videos of Lindsay Gottlieb Speaking
Shawn Marion Retired Four-Time NBA All-Star
Koby Altman Cleveland Cavaliers General Manager
Kevin Love All-Star Forward For The Cleveland Cavaliers
Kendrick Perkins Center For The Cleveland Cavaliers
Tyler Zeller Center For The Cleveland Caveliers


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One of the best parts of my job is having the time to sit down with students, sometimes ones that are not in any of my classes, and philosophize together. A few days ago, one of the graduate students here at HBU lamented that he no longer was sure that the positions that seemed intuitive and reasonable to him were at all intuitive and reasonable to a non-philosopher. He worried that the "that's nonsense!" trigger in his mind had been ruined by philosophy.We laughed and moved on. But this feature of philosophy – its strangeness – has been with it from the beginning. In Theaetetus, Socrates recounts the story of the slave girl laughing at Thales, the first Greek philosopher, for falling in a well while staring at the stars. Socrates then argues that philosophers will seem to be useless and full of strange ideas whenever they appear in public. He laments in the Phaedo dialogue that most people consider philosophers worthless. Often philosophy seems like a never-ending parade of strange ideas. But is it?
The life of contemplation is more satisfying than the life of consumption.
Some ideas are more real than the things we use to understand them.
It is impossible to be an evil person and also be happy.
There are good reasons to believe in God, even if there were no religious texts affirming His existence.
The ability to name the things in the world is a dangerous, dangerous power.
I'm sure that many students find it baffling that anyone would hold these beliefs, and perhaps the strangeness of philosophy has dulled my ability to tell when I am talking nonsense. But I consider the world to be a strange, surprising place. It is not so surprising that the discipline devoted to wisdom adopts some of the strangeness of the world and lets us see that strangeness more clearly.
I, for one, am happy devoting my time to such an endeavor.


With your many choices of speakers and keynotes out there, it can be hard to decide. Let us make is simple for you….Dustin Reichert. Author, Speaker & Entertainer, Dustin's dynamic personality is perfect for capturing attendees personalities. And his hypnotic expertise and you've got the perfect entertaining, engaging keynote for your conference or training event. Each program can be shaped to your event theme and needs and times adjusted all he way up to a half day and full day training option.
10-88! OFFICER DOWN….NOW GET BACK UP!
This Keynote title and subject line is titled after Dustin's soon to be published book "10-88!: Officer Down" which details Dustin's journey before and after being shot in the line of duty and eventual healing from his emotional battle against PTSD. This thought provoking story leads the attendees on a journey of inspiration to help themselves to NOW GET BACK UP and continue to strive for improvement regardless of the circumstances. This is a perfect keynote for any time of group and any size.
We use our subconscious everyday but have no clue on how to use it to our advantage. And most of us have goals in our lives that we want to achieve and often don't know how to light that fire. Dustin will take the attendees on a journey into their subconscious and show them the power of their own mind. Then he will show them how to use that power to achieve those goals. This is an energetic and engaging keynote presentation uses real life and humor to bring home the message while demonstrating the power of the mind through hypnosis and suggestion. Your attendees will find themselves drawn to Dustin's magnetic personality as she shows them this proven method to success.
Dustin will take your attendees on the journey of the mind and top it all off with hypnotic examples that will blow their understanding out of the water. Then we'll wrap it all up and bring the message home to match the overall theme and focus of your event and the important, proven methods of success.
This fun program is about teambuilding, or "teaming" as Dustin calls it. It combines Dustin's experience in all things comedy, improvisation and teambuilding to better strengthen connection your team needs. This is a fun Keynote, but much better half or even full day program. Depending on the length of the program, Dustin works with you to build the perfect presentation and teambuilding activities for your team. This program is structured in a manner to be semi-customizable. After a detailed phone meeting with Dustin, he would put together the perfect combination of pieces for his presentation for you. All programs will be fun, energetic and memorable and will show attendees the benefits of working together with a positive attitude.
This program is generally best suited for half day minimum.
Structure and organizational skills are important components in the formula for being successful. But too often we hit the ceiling in our minds and we end up working against ourselves and those around us without even realizing it. The mundane of the repetitive daily process can sometimes hold us back. This interactive program is best fit for a half day or full day program. Dustin will take his experience in improv and talk about using improvisation in our lives to strengthen the mind and get the stagnant cells firing again. In a half or full day experience, he and his team of improv experts will break the groups up into manageable groups and run them through a series of improv activities that are stimulating, fun and memorable. The focus will be on expanding the strength of the mind for success with a secondary focus on the dynamics of working together with all personalities. Attendees who utilize the principles learn how to change directions when needed without the normal anxiety related to sudden change, regardless of who they are working with.
A high percentage of people are tremendously fearful of the idea of speaking in front of groups. Its actually a common thought that people tend to fear public speaking more than they fear death. Dustin wants to change that. He has some proven methods to help reduce the fear and break down the fears and anxieties associated with public speaking and presentations. This programs is perfect for groups of 5-30 but can be easily tweaked for larger groups. Components of the program include understanding the fears and anxieties, techniques for reducing and even eliminating the speech anxieties, and strengthening their overall speaking techniques to build personal confidence. And he does it in his fun and energetic fashion and which helps reinforce the positive side of speaking in their subconscious minds.
Sometimes you need some good old entertainment and fun to release the pressures of your conference or training to clear the mind. What better way to do it than doing it through laughter? Dustin is a Master Hypnotist with tons of training and experience in the world of comedy hypnosis and comedy improv. His unique ability to connect with just about anyone helps put your group at ease and the laughter starts almost immediately the moment he opens his mouth. He explains all about hypnosis and the fun we are going to have, somehow creating a desire for many attendees to volunteer for the fun. Although the most fun is on the stage, those in the audience have almost as much fun as they are amazed and entertained by the volunteers. As Dustin gets the volunteers to open up their creative side, he takes care of them and even gives some "gifts' at the end with specific positive and motivated hypnotic suggestions they take away with them. All of Dustin's content is clean and appropriate for families, even if you don't have family there. He says there is no need to be dirty, sexual or immoral. There is so much fun to be had without that!
This is no ordinary Game Show, this is an EXPERIENCE! Dustin and his team offers a fantastic program called The Game Show Experience for your event. This super energetic program can be used as an add on to any program, as a stand-alone "teaming" (teambuilding) option or even as an entertainment for your event opening night, as a kick off, mid convention entertainment, etc. Dustin and his team of other Professional Game Show Hosts that are outgoing and entertaining, all embedded in the improv world. We utilize Professional Game Show Systems that really give it a genuine experience. We combine the personality of the host with the energy of fun ice breakers, interactive group trivia, prizes and our variety of fun game show games. This is a great combination of energy and fun for the perfect outcome for your event.


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Team from Elizabeth, New Jersey set to play in the Little League World Series
ELIZABETH, New Jersey (WABC) -- A team from Elizabeth, New Jersey is heading to the Little League World Series, and they have an excited city behind them.
The Elmora Troopers and their coaches are in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, one of just 16 teams from among 7,000 across the world who will play for the Little League championship.
"Oh my God, it's a dream," said Troopers Vice President Jose Rojas. "Don't pinch me, I don't want to wake up."
On Saturday in Bristol, Connecticut, the Elizabeth team defeated the squad from Haverstraw in Rockland County, 19-4, to punch their ticket to Williamsport.
Elizabeth fans have been turning out by the busloads to support the kids. In Georgina Alvarez Escobar's house, baseball became religion for her son Derek, a pitcher on the team.
"Practice, pitching classes, everything, hitting classes, I'm like OK," said Escobar. "I said someday they better pay off, and they paid off."
"We're on the grand stage," said Rojas. "Age 12 is where it all happens. Williamsport is everybody's dream as a Little Leaguer, right. You want to get there."
"I was like, oh my God, we're doing this, I can't believe we're doing this," said Escobar. "I said my husband's going to lose his job. No work, no pay, but he's not missing out on this."
The Elmora Troopers have a GoFundMe page to help raise money, to make sure parents and families can be there to celebrate a milestone that will impact this amazing team for the rest of their lives.
They will take the field Friday night to open the Little League World Series against the regional champions from Oregon.
* More New Jersey news
* Follow us on YouTube
sportselizabethunion cityworld seriesbaseballlittle league


You can change the order in which the questions in one category appear relative to those in other categories for the same survey definition. You may want to change the order of questions if you add a new question manually after you create other questions.
When you create questions using the survey creator, the system sets the Order field for the first question to 101, the second to 102, and so on. When you create a new question outside of the survey creator, the Order is set to 100 by default, which means it appears before all questions generated by the survey creator.
Navigate to Survey > View Surveys and open the appropriate survey definition.
In the Metric Categories related list, edit the values in the Order column.
To change the order of questions within a category, complete the following steps.
Open the Assessment Metrics related list.
Edit the values in the Order column.


We always welcome visitors. There are no set visiting hours. However, we would like to be considerate of other patients.
Yes, children are able to visit but need to be supervised by an adult while on the premises.
Physicians generally see patients upon 2-3 days of admission and rounds every couple of days. However, our nursing professionals are in constant contact with all of the physicians that visit the facility. Check with our nursing staff for further information.
No, but we encourage labeling their clothes when it is done at the facility.
All of the rooms already have free cable television in them, we just ask that patients be respectful of the resident next to them in the evening.
Will Part A cover my stay in the facility?
Is there any private rooms available to use?
We have 2 private rooms available, but subject to availability.
Yes, pets are able to visit as long as they are not aggressive, leashed at all times and need to be supervised.
Patients may have a pass that is issued and approved by the physician, which can be arranged through nursing staff.
Unfortunately, we only have metered street parking.
We encourage patient to have a couple of tops and bottoms for daytime and for sleeping and rubber soled shoes and/or slippers. We advise that patients do not keep valuable jewelry or large amounts of cash in the facility.


An appeals court has upheld the acquittal of women's human rights defender Azza Soliman and 16 others who witnessed the killing of Egyptian activist Shaimaa Al-Sabbagh. Read more.
In the wake of the closing of the Titan and Pollyanna blogs, we are continuing the charity corner here. This week, the we refer you to Rabbis for Human Rights. The head of the organization Rabbi Arik Ascherman was nearly murdered by a settler last week while protecting the Palestinian olive harvest. Please read his description of the incident and make a generous donation to this worthy cause.
This week we call on you to help the Nukak tribe of Colombia. Over half the members of the tribe have died since contact in the 1990's. They have been granted a reserve, but it is not respected by coca growers who supply the cocaine trade. Campaigning for the Nukak's rights has already made a huge difference. After campaigns led by Survival and local indigenous organisations, the Colombian government created a Nukak reserve in 1993 and enlarged it in 1997.
What the Nukak want now is for the boundaries of their reserve to be respected and for them to be able to live there in peace.Please open the link and act on their behalf.
This week we call your attention to child slavery. Please open this link and act on one or more of the cases provided. Estimates suggest a quarter of those in slavery are children. Among other abuses, these children are sexually exploited, forced to work, and even made to participate in armed conflict. All children deserve protection and the right to a childhood. Take action now to help end child slavery.
The return to democracy in Myanmar appears to be a fraud. On Sunday 8th November the people of Burma go to the polls in what has been billed as a landmark election. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy is expected to win and so could form the next government.
Does this mean democracy has finally come to Burma? Should we be celebrating? Sadly not. As you might expect with the Burmese military, all is not as it seems.
Burma Campaign UK has published a detailed briefing paper with everything you need to know about the election. Here is an example of what we may expect to continue: After almost eight months in hiding, prominent student unionist Kyaw Ko Ko has been detained for his role in organizing student protests in Myanmar. He is a prisoner of conscience who must be immediately and unconditionally released. Please act.
This is a second UA on Ali Aarrass, who is on hunger strike. Ali Aarrass was admitted to hospital on 27 October, two weeks after prison medical staff first recommended this. He is now back in Salé II prison, near Rabat, and is still in poor health. Please act.This may not be possible from Israel.
On October 20, 2015, members of the Frente de Mujeres Defensoras de la Pachamama (FMDP, Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders of Pachamama), an organization of rural women defending mother earth and human rights, along with Lina Solano, president of the Latin American Women's Union (ULAM), were physically and verbally assaulted and arbitrarily detained by dozens of police and government security agents.
Dalit folk singer and activist S Sivadas, popularly known by his stage name Kovan, was arrested on 30 October over two satirical songs which criticize the Tamil Nadu state government and chief minister.
Kovan faces charges including sedition, provocation with intent to cause a riot and public mischief. If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Please act and explain to the government in India that suppression of freedom of expression is not consistent with claiming to the be world's largest democracy.


Welcome to the first day of Neat and Tangled's February release week! Today, we're showing off Mail Background, a 6x6 red rubber cling background stamp. This is a new type of product for Neat and Tangled, and we're hoping you'll love it!
I couldn't help but pair the letter background and that snail mail sentiment with the sloooooowest critters around - they've been in my digi shop for awhile, but I'm excited to bring them over to the land of physical stamps.
I stamped the background and simply colored each heart in red. What a quick and easy job! I then cut out the middle to make room for the sloth+turtle. The sloth usually holds a little flag, but I cut that out and gave him an envelope to hold instead. This is part of the Love Mail die set, also part of the new release.
I used another new set for the sentiment, Typed Sentiments. You'll love that one, I promise. This sentiment works so perfectly with the envelope background, and I heat-embossed it onto black cardstock to really make it pop.
I hope you like it! Don't forget to leave me a comment before you go! Danielle will pick a winning comment from among the design team's blog posts this week - you could win a $25 gift card to the NT store. And check out what everyone else made on the Neat and Tangled blog this morning - click!
that is so darn cute.
Cute critters, these look so happy to be delivering love letters together, great colour work. Thank you for sharing.
Sweet card! Love the background stamp with all the envelopes, and your adorable sloth and turtle! So cute with the little envelopes!
How cute and perfect sentiment for the sloth and turtle.
Such a cute card! I love the turtle and sloth with the black and white background stamp!
How cute, the two little friends! Can't wait to see what's next!
Awww!!! Your card is totally cute!!!
I love the idea of using the sloth and turtle for a snail mail card! So cute!
So adorable. Love the sloth riding the turtle! Perfect with snail mail background!
I love how you combine these two cute slow friends and made them deliver a bit of love on the card. very fun design.
This card!!! LOVE!!! What's that sloth saying? "Wheeee!" He's never moved so fast in his life! lol!!! This was the card I chose to repost on FB and IG... love it!!
I love everything about this adorable card! The fun sloth and turtle to the great mail background.
Eeeek!!! This is so adorable!! And these cute (if slow) critters are the perfect match for the sentiment!


Enjoy a short preview of "The Gulf Coast" and read about your journey's route below. These videos are not for TV size screens. NO REFUNDS ON DOWNLOADS.
Bike-O-Vision is proud to herald the grand return of the Gulf Coast after the tragic devastation of Hurricane Katrina and Horizon Oil Spill. The news media so often leaves us with graphic images of destruction and never revisits the places later to see their recovery. Well, if this visual journey doesn't convince you the area is a world-class destination for natural beauty and culture, nothing will. You ll cycle along the sugar-white sand of the Gulf Islands National Seashore and the Forgotten Coast of Florida s panhandle. See historic Mobile Bay in Alabama and no tour would be complete without zig-zagging through the gay old streets and alleys of N'awlins French Quarter. Of course there s more to the Gulf as you ll soon see for yourself... 99 minutes of tasty fun.