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Ultimate Webshots Converter
Ultimate Webshots Converter (also known under the short name "UWC"), is a Webshots pictures converter (see www.webshots.com).
It is able to show and save into JPEG files the pictures contained in the following files :
.WBC and .WBP - Webshots Collections
.WBZ - Downloaded Webshots pictures
.WB1 and .WBD - Webshots pictures
It can do batch conversion, rename strange webshots filenames into the title of the picture, allows you to browse through webshots pictures and collections, and extract whole or individual pictures.
UWC is available in 4 versions :
UWC 1.6 (Windows) - Stable version, recommended
Available in bulgarian, chinese, czech, dutch, english, farsi, french, german, greek, hebrew, hungarian, indonesian, italian, japanese, korean, polish, portuguese, russian, serbocroat, spanish, turkish.
UWC 2.0 (Windows) - Alpha version, not all features for the moment
kUWC (Linux) - Developed by Serge Weinstock
xUWC (Mac OSX) - Developed by Yuriy Gorvitovskiy
Download UWC Version 1.6.6 for Windows
Download kUWC Version 1.0.3 for Linux
Other Versions / Operating Systems
New developer for a mac version
I am pleased to welcome today Yuriy Gorvitovskiy, which joins the UWC project to develop a mac version. It was the only major OS on which UWC was not available.
Time goes by...
I started UWC back in 2002, when I was in High School. For years, it has been my main project and has entertained me a lot. I spent hours, even days, in front of an Hex Editor to understand how the Webshots files were made, and improve my program. As more and more people downloaded it, they suggested new features, which I took a lot of pleasure to implement and receive feedback on. For two years now, the program has been quite mature, and there has been only a few bugs to fix. Now I am working full time, and do not have time and motivation anymore to work on UWC. This does not mean it is the end for UWC (this website will stay online till the Internet dies ;)) but I wont make any update nor bugfix.
If you are interested to work on bugfixes on UWC 1.6 (written in VB6) or development on UWC 2.0 (written in C++/Qt), please contact me (my e-mail adress is in the about dialog of UWC), I will be happy to give you a developer access to the code repository on sourceforge, so that UWC will continue to improve.
For all these years, thanks goes to all the developpers who have helped me in reverse engineering, translators who have made possible for UWC to spread that easily all over the world (More than 130k downloads for UWC 1.6 !), and users that suggested me great features and helped me with the debugging !
Setup for UWC 1.6.6 has been updated to include Swedish language, thanks to Mikael Hiort af Orn�s.


Here are the details for Moorleaze - Wells ideal for a cottage holiday in Frome, Somerset. To book or find out more please use the Booking Info or Availability buttons below.
Spacious living/dining room with well-equipped country-style oak kitchen area. Double bedroom with 5ft bed and en-suite shower room with toilet. First floor: Two twin bedrooms. Bathroom and toilet.
Magnificent indoor heated swimming pool (50ft x 17ft, depth 4ft) with seating, showers and changing facilities.
Spacious well-equipped cottages...with an idyllic rural setting amidst a chorus of wildlife Conveniently located for Longleat, Bath and the Mendip Hills and Gorges, Moorleaze nestles on the border of Somerset with Dorset and Wiltshire. Enjoying a tranquil setting with stunning views all around, it provides the perfect retreat at any time of year. Built from local stone and boasting every modern convenience, the cottages offer spacious and superbly fitted accommodation, presented to 5 Star standards. The 76-acre grounds include farmland, woodland, orchard and two lakes, whilst the glorious views encompass fields and gently wooded hills. A haven for wildlife, deer and hares abound, often coming within yards of the cottages. Buzzards, kestrels, tawny and barn owls, pheasants, swallows and many other species nest here. The lower lake is stocked with carp, tame enough to feed from guests' hands - so no fishing! The idyllic village of Witham Friary, complete with an unspoiled pub, is a few minutes' stroll and found fame as the setting for the television series Building the Dream.
"a sure-fire child pleaser", and it's just as popular with adults, an ideal break at any time of the year. The village public house is within walking distance. Shops 6 miles.


Black helmet on white. this helmet is used to practise cyclism.
Black bicycle helmet on white background.
hod on white background. The hod is black.
Plastic clamp isolated on white. A multipurpose tool.
Briefcase lying on white. An object used to carry things.


Get your copies of Legend of the Ztarr in print, just in time to have them autographed at upcoming 2012 events!
Legend of the Ztarr creator, Sara E. Mayhew, will be speaking at CSICon in Nashville, TN, October 25th-28th and at Eschanton in Ottawa, ON, November 30th to December 2nd, 2012. Also check out some of her other prints, posters, and tees available to be signed.


I'm not a mother yet, but I have a lot of wonderful friends and family members that are mothers. I also know women who want so badly to be a mother, but it just hasn't happened yet. I see a lot of women that compare themselves to other women and/or mothers that seem to "have it all together" and feel as though they don't measure up. This is how I fell upon the idea for this short series of "Beautiful Mother" stories.
If you know anything about me as a photographer by now, I hope it is that I am passionate about capturing "real" moments. So, what's better than sharing the real, true, honest stories of women that are beautiful inside and out? That aren't afraid to say that their life isn't perfect. That being a mother can be hard and messy. Women that can give encouragement, support, and hope to other women that have been, or are currently in, similar shoes by sharing their own story.
First up is Dana and her story is definitely worth reading. Her faith is inspiring and the love she has for her family is beautiful. Enjoy!
I'm Dana...I'm a stay at home Momma to three absolutely amazing, strong, beautiful, talented, stubborn, hard headed, fabulous children.. 13, 3 and 1.
I'm 41, I'm tired, I'm strict, I'm so very Blessed By Grace and wouldn't have it any other way! Here's my "In a nutshell" story because I know I could actually write a book on my trials and blessings and exactly how good God is to me!
I first became a Mother on April 22 of 2003 through adoption. That day was the first best day of my life. I know, I know, that's so cliche. However after praying, begging, and begging some more that God would allow me to have a child (for several years), I was finally realizing it was not God's plan. I was finding peace in His plan when, Voila, God did have a plan for me to be a parent! I remember sitting on the porch one morning and hearing Him plainly say to me "how dare you doubt me, I've given you many children", and He indeed had. I was always surrounded by my fabulous nieces and nephews (and still am today, just many more than before). Weekends, summer breaks, and many times in between I was given the pleasure to have them with me. I was already Blessed to have them so close in my life...talk about feeling like a selfish brat!! Once that real peace took over and I was totally satisfied with God's plan for me a beautiful baby boy named Hayden would be the first little man to wrap his fat little arms of unconditional love around my neck and call me Momma!
Hayden has brought and continues to bring me so much joy. He got saved and baptized last fall, he's hilarious, brutally honest, intelligent and I love spending our summers at the baseball field with him. He tries my patience and sometimes I fail him and thats okay. People say "we're raising children" and the fact of the matter is we are not raising children... We are in fact raising adults who just happen to be children at this moment. We'll have moments we fail them as parents and they'll have moments they fail us as children. That's part of life...you pick up, say a little prayer and move on.
Fast forward seven years, one divorce, and a remarriage.
About four and a half years ago I woke up in the middle of the night and literally carried my ta-ta's to the restroom!! While I had never been pregnant, I was old enough to know the symptoms. Ha! JOY oh JOY!! I'm pretty sure I pee'd on 5 pregnancy test sticks with all of them saying the same thing and me saying "Do Whaaaat???" Miscarriages are no fun. They're heartbreaking and physically painful. Not one, but two....still not God's plan yet.
After a whole lot of praying and getting my backsliding life back together God gave us Jax! About three or four months into his pregnancy I realized that pregnancy isn't really all its cracked up to be. I say that with a happy heart! A lot of women love being pregnant.. I, in fact, did not overly enjoy it! Aside from those precious moments of hearing his heartbeat, watching the ultrasound screen and feeling him move around and watching my stomach contort to all kinds of shapes, that was all I enjoyed. The heartburn, the punch throwing, elbow jabbing and crawling in and out of my rib cage in his now large space of my body all.night.long. wasn't all that enjoyable to me. Many people say "oh, once you hold that little love against your body that all fades away and you forget all about it." Bologna...I remember every single bit of it to this day. C-Sections, those are fun also... tending to your new bundle of joy hunched over because your gut is stapled shut and you can't stand straight.. Yes, I remember. BUT...But it is all so very much worth every single high blood pressure, hormonal attitude, swollen feet and sleepless nights! They are truly worth every bit of it!
Did I get way off track..probably, that's also part of being a Momma! Anyway, Jax is fabulous. He just turned three, he's a little spoiled, he's potty training, and he loves shaking everyone's hand at church on Sunday morning. He says please and thank you and he, like his big brother, tries my patience. I tell him all the time it's a good thing he's so sticking cute cause I'd beat him most days if he was ugly!
After Jax was about a year old we decided that if we got pregnant again by the time I was forty (yes we're crazy), then great. If not, then Daddy was going to go snip snip. At 39 1/2 I was pregnant with CC. Yes y'all, if you think God doesn't have a good sense of humor, think again!!
At our 18 week ultrasound at the "old people doctor" (high risk doctor because, you know, I was almost 40) we were overjoyed to find out we were having a girl. Within minutes the ultrasound tech was out the door and the doctor was in and had "that look" on his face. Something wasn't right... "I'm sorry to tell you that her stomach is in her chest cavity." Words, words, more words. "Do you have any questions for me?" Ummm no, we're in shock!!! Nothing makes you hit your knees like finding out there is something wrong with your child. I've prayed a many of prayers in my lifetime and never had I prayed so much as I did with her.
We learned the ins and outs of CDH, Congenital Diaphramtic Hernia. CC didn't have a left side diaphram. 1 in 2500 babies are born with this and never had I heard of it.
On March 11, 2014, 4 weeks early Miss Claudia Caroline made her way into the world. That was a crazy whirlwind of events! Daddy running around the halls trying to locate us, 15-20 people crowded in a surgery room, my team of folks and her team of folks. She was born, immediately intubated, and whisked away to the NICU. The next three months of major ups and downs were spent at Kosair and on our knees. Many, many people joined us in prayer for our Little Lady. She fought hard for her life and God was, yet again, so very very good to us. She is almost 14 months old now and doing well. She has a feeding tube because she has an oral aversion and refuses to eat by mouth.. A drama queen from the word go, ha!! She is our beautiful, strong, happy little miracle from God. If you don't already know and wanted to read about her journey, look her up on Facebook under CC's Journey. There are many blessings there... like her Daddy's salvation with God!
All three of my children's birth stories are different from one another. All three of my children are living proof of the power of prayer and God's Grace for even a mere sinner like me!
Kelli, the fabulous photographer whose blog you are reading gave me a sample list of questions for her "Mother's Project." One of the questions is "What does "home" mean to you?" I thought on this question for awhile then it hit me like a ton of bricks!
In all my greatest and all my weakest moments as a Mother, if I give my children anything in this world I pray that it's faith in God! Not a God, your God, or my God but the one and only God. The master, father, creator, alpha and omega. If I do that then my job as a mother has been done to the best of my ability. Pray for me, won't you...Pray for all the Momma's in this world!


Despite eight hits, the Dodgers were unable to score a single run. The Pirates got just one hit off Dodgers pitcher Rich Hill on Wednesday, but it was a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 10th inning.
Hill had a perfect game through eight innings and did not allow a hit through nine innings of a scoreless game. Hill went out to the mound to start the 10th, but Pirates second baseman Josh Harrison ended it by hitting a 2-1 pitch just over the left-field wall.
It was the first-ever walk-off homer to break up a no-hitter in extra innings.
Hill's perfect game was broken up in the bottom of the ninth when Dodgers third baseman Logan Forsythe botched a ground ball hit by Jordy Mercer. It was the first time in MLB history a perfect game was broken up in the ninth inning because of an error.
Hill was the fourth pitcher to take a perfect game into the ninth inning since the last MLB perfect game was thrown by Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez on Aug. 15, 2012.
The perfect game was preserved in the eighth inning, thanks to a remarkable diving catch by Chase Utley. The 38-year-old Dodgers second baseman robbed Josh Bell of a base hit by snaring his line drive to lead off the inning.
With battery mate Austin Barnes calling the game, the 37-year-old Hill continued his marvelous season despite the hard-luck loss. When Hill went out for the 10th inning to become the first pitcher to take a no-hitter into extra innings since Pedro Martinez did it on June 3, 1995.


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The Pavilion Podcast
By Pavilion, Brandon Barton, Tom Alaimo
The Future of Sales Engagement and Angel Investing feat Max Altschuler
Ep 38: The Future of Sales Engagement and Angel Investing feat Max Altschuler
...away, right everybody. Welcome toanother episode of the revenue Collective podcast. This is your hostTom Alamo, new host, co host for the show, so really excited to be joininghere. And we've got a great episode for today. Had to bring out the big gunsfor the first episode that I'm bringing and I've got Max Altshuler. If you'rein SAS, if you're in sales marketing, go to market strategy. You almostdefinitely know whom axes or know him personally if you don't. He is the vicepresident of sales engagement at Outreach. He is the founder and CEO ofSales Hacker, which is now owned by outreach, and he is recently then namedthe founder and general partner at the G t M Fund Max. There's no other way toput it. He's a legend. He's just a legend in the B two b SAS marketing andsales world from creating sales hacker. You know, having early early careers atat you to me at LegalZoom founding Sales hacker, and he's really got oneof the best networks out there in B two B and in SAS, and we talked about a lotof things. We talk about his new role and outreach as the VP of salesengagement. So we talk about what that means and where the world's heading. Interms of sales engagement, we talk about his new founding of the go tomarket fund and what he's doing there a little bit about his angel investingand investments, how he spends his time recommendations around sales tech,things like that. So it's a great conversation, really. Think you'regoing to get a lot of value. I feel smarter every time I talk to Max. Ithink you're gonna enjoy that before we get into the episode. I wanna tell youvery quickly about our sponsor. So this month sponsor for the podcast is sixcents. Success to the number one account engagement platform helps youidentify accounts that are in market for your solution. Prioritize yourefforts, engage buyers the right way with highly relevant messaging andmeasure what actually matters with the six cents platform, you're able to getinto more deals, improve when rates increase overall pipeline and optimizebudget. Spend toe. Learn more. You can visit six the number sixth sense dotcom slash revenue collected. If you do find this episode valuable. You coulddefinitely We want you to support our sponsors. We love. If you left us areview on apple podcasts as well revenue collected podcasts. Withoutfurther ado, let me get into this conversation with Max Altshuler. Allright, Max Alschuler. Welcome to the podcast brother had been doing doingall right. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Absolutely. So are you inAustin nowadays? I am just getting settled here. Yeah,you You seem to kind of have the co vid lifestyle. I feel like years beforeKobe did, I felt like I always saw that you were in a different city. You know,you're in, whether with Seattle or New York or Austin or wherever you were inthe world. You always seem to be living life to the edge. So I didn't know ifyou were kind of settling in tow. Austin got a house there, and like like,really trying to lock in there for the long term. Or if this is just anotherstop along the way, this is as settled as it gets. All right, We We bought abought a house, furnishing it, doing it right. You know, we went up to Seattle.We went up there because of the acquisition. So, you know, me and mywife both want Arizona State, where some people they want to get back tothe sun. 2 to 2 years in Seattle. Even before Kobe hit, we had come up a plantwith a plan where I would move down to Austin and just I was on living on aplane anyway. So it was a difference if I spent the week a month that I wasnormally in Seattle, you know, on a plane to Seattle on. I'm fine with that.I'm a road warrior, so it's all good, but yeah, Austin is is home for theforeseeable future indefinitely. I love...
...it. Is outreach planning to be remotemoving forward after cove it or is that still TBD? I don't know. I think, uh, I thinkwe'll probably back in the office and, uh, in a large capacity. And imaginejust getting a lot of people, like feed off the energy Me included. I love that.I mean, like, the remote, the remote things. Nice as long as, um, as long asyou get on a plane once in a while, you know, see your people. I missed that alot Did I was feeling the same way. I feel like it's hard to get this tobring the same energy to a team you know, through zoom and through slacklike that you would in a sales pitch or in a room. Or, you know, the weeklysales meeting or wherever it is. It's, I feel like I'm getting better at it,but it's it's not natural, at least for someone like me. Thio be stuck in aroom in one place for so long and not seeing interact with people. Yeah, wemiss it. I mean, remember going toe outreach offices right when the Becausethe acquisition went through and, uh, no manage. The type of guy walks aroundthe office fist bumps. Everybody switches desks, you know, once a monthto make sure he's in different areas of the office. So it's healing, hearingand seeing, you know what's going on with the Bible, like what? The energyis like all the different teams and you know, the salesforce buzzing and youjust get that the serendipity, serendipitous moments, you know, we getto cross paths with someone who have a drink with someone or have lunch withsomeone or whatever it is and catch up, you know, with them on what they'reworking on. And then who knows what happens from there? So I missed that. Imissed the energy, Mr People, and, well, I'm excited to get back to that, but,you know, remote school, too. It's got its perks. Yeah, totally, man. Why? Iwanna I wanna kick off the podcast just by showing some gratitude. I mean, youare one of the goats of just the whole B two B sales world. You've had a hugeimpact and huge impact on me. Personally, I was telling Scott Barkerthis a couple weeks ago that you and him and a few others have really kindof shaped the type of career that I wanna have, you know, and really tryingto focus on the sales community, right? That's one of the reasons I went toGong. That's one of the reasons why getting more involved in revenuecollective in my own podcast, etcetera. So you've really changed. I feel like alot of the way that business gets done and the way that people approach salesin the B two b world, and it really changed that landscape. So, first andforemost, I appreciate all of the work and effort and creativity that youbring to the field. Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate that.That's nice of you to say. I'm just I'm just having fun with it. Yeah, So yousay on LinkedIn in your headline that, you know, you spend almost 100% of yourworking hours helping people make money and build exceptional careers? Can youelaborate on that a little bit And and some of the different buckets thatyou're playing and to help people do that. All right. Yeah, definitely. Um Ithink when you get to the root of what I dio, I help people sell. I help helppeople navigate their career path in sales. I help people understand whatcompanies to go work for and had to choose. A company had to choose a boss,had a work, you know, with amazing CEO or visionary. If if that's what youwant out of life. I wrote two books on on the topic packing sales and salesengagement again that help people sell more. But another book called careerhacking to focus on the career side and and really, you know, people are tryingtoe find their way. That might be lost right now when we're trying tounderstand, like, what do I do next? And you know, it's, ah, a lot of people,I think get him where they can and then trying to figure out after the fact,like, What should I do now? And I think that's ah, that's a good way of doingit. I think if you get in as an SDR now, you're in the room Now you're in theoffice there in the company. Now you're in tech and it exposes you to thecustomer, exposes you to other areas of...
...the company. You know when when we goback in the office, you know, one of my biggest piece of advice is, you know,if you're asked you are you got the building, you don't know if you wannabe in a e or what you want your path to be and and continuing sales or not,start getting lunch with other people in the business and asking them whattheir day to day looks like. And I've seen a lot of SDR is going to beproduct marketers. Product managers demand Gen customer success You name.It doesn't always have to be, you know, the way you So yeah, I just really finda lot of joy and helping people with their careers and helping and andreally the end game helping people make money so that they could do whatever itis they want to do in their lives that makes them happy or hold them backbecause I think, you know, money, money buys freedom in a lot of ways, andthat's what it's always been important to me is having the freedom to do whatI want to do when I want to do it. Everything else you know kind of stemsoff that. So you know, if I could help people make money so they can pay offtheir parents medical bills, then fantastic you by the happiness thatthat provides essentially, uh, or put your kids through college or take yourkids to Disneyland or fire kids. The new pair of Jordans or whatever it isit's gonna, you know, make them really happy. That's hopefully what I helppeople do on a daily basis. And how often are people, I imagine just, youknow, bombarding you with LinkedIn messages, asking for help, asking foradvice, asking for introductions like you. And maybe, you know, someone likeScott Lease jumps to mind where I feel like you're ultra accessible. And I'mcurious if if that's how you spend a lot of your time just really trying tobe a giver because, you know, one it probably feels good to help people intoif you're seeing, is that that's really how you have, you know, probably helpedto build out such a great network. But do you find yourself spend a lot oftime doing some of those tasks that you know, don't really in the short run,benefit you at all, just answering questions and helping introduce peopleand things like that? I dio and it's, I would say, a sacrifice. And sometimes Iquestion why I want to do it. But you know, I think it's helpful, and I thinkyou know, I'm I'm gonna keep doing it. I want to keep doing it. I was, uh, Iwas online this weekend. I probably spent a half hour. Now we're goingthrough lengthen messages, and I don't think a lot of people do that. I thinkthey think they're time is better spent on other things, and then they might beright. But, you know, if I get in opportunity toe to help some folks, Ithink that's really fulfilling for me. And, uh, you know, if I'm doing thethings that fulfill me, I take a lot of pride and passion in that. Then, uh, Ithink that's what makes me, you know, truly content on a day to day, week toweek basis. So I don't mind taking my time out. My schedule do those things,and it's getting harder and harder every year. I've got a 16 month old,and, uh, you know, we're trying to have more kids in a quick succession here,so I get less and less free time as it goes. But I'll still try and prioritizethose things as much as I can, especially if people are reaching outand being, um, you know, original. And, you know, it's not just like a messpitch. Pick your brain type thing. Yeah, So I wanna I wanna talk about whatyou're doing in the new role to say Congrats on, you know, being maybe thefirst ever VP of sales engagement. I haven't seen one before, so I I'd loveto hear. I'd love to hear your you know, what that path has been like. I mean,obviously what outreach is doing is amazing. And really, I would saycreating the category leading the category of sales engagement eso I'dlove to hear. What does that new role mean? You know, like, how what do youdo on a day to day To help, you know,...
...advise other companies on their salesengagement and maybe even advise outreach on how to use the tool betteron more efficiently as well. Yeah, definitely. I mean, when youcreate a company in a category and you're the first company in thatcategory past 100 r r. And you know, you're the number one on ah, lot of theaccolades and and lists that come out there you gotta gotta lead by example.We've got more and more companies that air coming to us of our customerssaying, Hey, you know, we love outreach. We're seeing the power. But you know,we have so many questions on how you guys are doing it at your company. Andso we've got our own operational excellence that we want to make sureyou know, not only were, um, drinking our own champagne and and getting themost you set of our own product under our own roof, but then sharing thosebest practices with our customers and with customers of any sales and givinga platform, I mean, I think they should be doing the most amazing things theycan out of the sails engaging platform. And if you're on one that doesn't allowyou to do it, then you know, you probably kind of know what to do next.And if you are, then fantastic, you get value out of it. But, you know, we'rereally starting to go through Ah, period here, where you've seenSalesforce and Microsoft, you know, trying to come out with their ownversions. Um, you're seeing lots of folks in the space raised money, andand, uh, you're seeing a lot more of broader ecosystem develop in terms ofcapabilities of, you know, the software that's being built, so there needs tojust be a lot more education around. How to get the most out of it. Uh, youknow who better than me to do that? I wrote a book, my first book, HackingSales in 2015 on all things sales technology. And we showcased a lot ofthe up and coming sales technology at the time and then the second book onsales with sales Engagement and wrote that all about everything that we'vedone in our own kind of sales engagement. Best practices to date. Aswe come out with more product lines and the space, the space gets bigger andthe the chasm gets crossed, so to speak, you need a lot more education. So it'sa little bit of a hybrid role between sales and marketing, which is which iswhere I would like to be, like the creative side. And then, you know, themass market side of marketing and then the, you know, ability to work withcustomers in a white glove way and getting the weeds with them and reallyget to know them. So puts me in a great sweet spot, and then being the I don'tknow, I'm probably the the second face of our company. Next to Manny, but alsohave you know, 50,000 followers on lengthen and quite a following throughmy you know, sales hacker. Um, putting me in the evangelist position is isalso ah, probably a smart place to be is Well, yeah, I got to say that that's gotta beI don't know if that was part of the strategy, you know, in the early daysof sale Sacher, but has to be really one of the main value points of you. Isthe network the following, the expertise, the connections, everythinglike that I'd love to learn more about, like so I've used outreach. I loveoutreach. As a salesperson myself, I'd love to hear What is it that either youguys are using the product for Or that you would suggest that some of the, umor, uh, you know, forward looking customers air using right, Because alot of people might think of it is just like this tool that we can build out,you know, sequences for and you know, we can use it for prospecting for ourstr team, and maybe that's about it. But like, what? What arm or creativeways? Forward looking way strategic ways that your best customers or youguys are using it. Oh, man, I mean our A es. Use it to prospect, get multithreaded and do account pay sales are customer success. Team uses it,combined with a litany of different data sources to understand healthscores on our customers. And you know,...
...when we need to be reaching out how weneed to be reaching out and make sure we're in touch and providing that whiteglove experience from a supporting success side. Our marketing team, aLeVar demand Gen and Legion really is set up with outreach as the commandcenter or the the way that, you know, we trigger all of our our follow upsoff of. So, for example, if we do a virtual event, we're a nonalignedconference. All the follow ups that happened, how follow up from Reps andthey followed immediately and all that happens through outreach. So, you know,we're using it in in you know, every area of our business that we can, andwe're still uncovering ways toe use it even mawr, whether it be follow upsequences that trigger off of, you know that what the ease air doing or whetherit be helping us forecast or understand how to create our account plans. Men,there's just so much. It's funny that you ask that because I'm just workingthrough a bunch of content right now on this on this very topic. And I'm like,Oh, man, what do I which one do a surface? I don't want to give you toomuch information because we're coming out with some cool stuff soon. That'sgreat. That's great. And you mentioned that, you know, Salesforce andMicrosoft even are starting to get into the space and come up with their owntools. Like, Do you see that as more of a market validation is that, you know,concerning thio the space that a giant can come in and try to replicate it anduse it as you know, and add on or a free add on to, you know, the CRMproduct or something like that. How do you view, you know, some of thosegiants get into the space? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely market validation, youknow, it's not necessarily something you could just throw a bunch ofengineers at. It's not something that you know you could just buildingoverlay on toe, you know, CRM. And then it's done. We've got some of the bestengineers in the world, you know, being Seattle based, we get the perks ofbeing a bit a higher. The top 0.1% engineers from Microsoft and Amazon andcompanies like that on top of that, raised 289 million in funding. You know,when we live and breathe this as our business versus some of these biggercompanies that, like they don't even think they know what the customer justsaying, thinking they're doing and then they're trying toe, you know, replicatewhat we've done fairly blindly. I don't think that works. We've seen time andtime again. Big companies go into spaces that are, you know, platformsand not have had the success, Um, that many thought they might have just hadright off the bat. And I think we built a fairly robust producto defenseagainst that. And it's not even just the product, but it's the industryknowledge the you know, supporting success teams. It's, you know, oursales reps. It's it's everybody in our business who lives and breathes sales,engagement versus, you know, some of the bigger companies that just they'vegot a lot going on. I got another gold and and teams and resource is andthings like that that get distributed. So it's not something that you know,we're super worried about it. And I think it's great market validation forsure. Do you ever miss getting into the trenches more? And I don't know, maybein your role. Now you're getting in and even pre sale, you know, starting tokind of sell the vision of what, you know, sales engagement could be to acompany. But do you miss the like, getting in there and working with, youknow, a prospect and working through deals? And, you know, landing a majordeal like some of those highs that you get is a sales pro. I mean, as being,you know, running sales hacker, and then, you know, running the marketingfor outreach. For a while, I imagine you were a little removed from them. I'm actually in a lot of our mawrstrategic deals, so I still get I still get that high on. And then we have whatare called boom emails. What happened...
...when we close the deal over 10,000. Ina r r une email goes out to the company that says, You know, new logo one orexpansion or win back or whatever it is. And then, uh, it details The a R Rdetails the reps that were on the deal of details. You know, everything elseon there, and it's it's something that just builds camaraderie, morale,excitement. Everybody gets to see who's signing up. But you know, in ah ah, lotof those deals, the reps will go in and tell a little story about how they wonor you know what it took thio what the learning experience was, which I alsofind super valuable. But e think you'll find me in quite a few of those. I'm ina ah lot of our deals helping out wherever I can, whether it's makingintroductions through the network, providing kind of sales guidance orassistance, or just really understanding the angles and and youknow what plays we should run or you know where we should make sure we presswhen you know in a heavy compete deal or in a outside I see P deal or in anenterprise deal where, you know, I might be my my experience inunderstanding our product intimately and doing some of this sounds.Engagement work might come in handy. And how do you balance? You have thisincredible network, right? You wanna be able to leverage that for a sale or fora deal, but not tapping it too much. So, like, if you if we're in a deal on,let's say I'm in a e for you. And you know, we're working this deal and youknow, the VPs sales or, you know, the CEO and you, you know, you've had themas a speaker Thio sales hacker before something like that do you have to meether? How much you get involved there and like, press those lines? There's akind of understood that because you're known as being kind of the sales andsales hacking guy, and you're selling a sales engagement platform that you cando it and you can do so in kind of a tactful way to add value to theconversation and, you know, try to link the two parties together. Yeah, I mean,having been in sales for a long time, I think I'm a fairly good at reading theroom at this point. So yeah, you're absolutely right. And I'm not justgonna go in there and be like, Hey, we know each other by my product. Here'smy product by my product. It's about helping hand or helpful friend or, youknow, consultant in the and seeing if somebody who can come and support andhelp their business And, you know, you're a trusted adviser in A in a way,so being very tactful, still leading with value, still not going aroundpeople asking for permission type stuff, but being ableto leverage the networkis is definitely a superpower. And being ableto provide value to folksthat is separate from just the outrage deal cycle. I think you know Ed's tothat. So we've got lots of different ways. Thio, you know, provide value andhelp people build their brands, helping people make connections, how peoplemake hires, whatever it is that we're able toe leverage to brokerconversations that I think people feel really good about. So there's beenplenty of times where, you know, we've been looking to sell to a company andand you know I could reach out, see if they're ready. They're not. In themeantime, they need a you know, rev ops higher or head of sales development orahead of inside sales. Or they need to hire some A s. And then in those cases,I'm able to use the network to help them, you know, find those hires orsome candidates. And then when it is time for their evaluation, not only dowe already have a relationship, but I've been able to provide value forthem beforehand. So I think we do, ah, lot of things like that where you know,again, I I just genuinely like helping. And so it's not. It doesn't feel likeI'm really going out of my way. Yeah, and you probably have so manypeople that you have deposited so much...
...value to again, whether it's a higheror an introduction or help with something, or you let them be a speakersomewhere that when you come around and you do come across with an ask or justmaybe even just kind of feeling out a situation, they're ready and welcome intheir warm to you about it because you've already added value. There youbuilt the report. They see you. They trust you, etcetera. So I think that'sanother thing that can't be overestimated for someone that islooking to build out their network or already has a strong network of oftrying to be able to, you know, keep putting others first. So that one, youknow, again, it feels good. And it's helpful. But it does kind of turnaround and repay you. You know, karma repays you on the back end, too. So Ithink you're a great example of that. Yeah. Business karma is riel, and I'm abig believer in it. So let's talk about the go to market fund. That just thatwas fun. That just got announced what, like a week ago? And I thought it was Ithought it was a really cool idea. Maybe you could just give us a quick32nd run down of what it is. And we could talk about, you know, theinception of how that came in to be and where you're looking to make some ofthose investments and how that's gonna all work. Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, goesback to the V p of sales engagement conversation. I, uh I recognize thatwe're going through kind of a, I don't know, a revolution might be an extremeword or are what not? But I'm gonna use it anyway. But of of GTM. So there aremore sales technology and marketing technology companies coming out thanever before. We see money's going into it. Everything is being changed from,you know what the status quo was used to have a data source, a CRM in amarketing automation platform. And now you've got so much technology thatallows you to Dr Revenue faster and more efficient than ever before. Andit's pretty incredible. And sometimes, you know, if you don't have ah processin place and you're not thinking about it the right way, you can overload it.You know there's ability. It quote says, technology is a magnifying glass. So,you know, if you magnify a a good process, it could be amazing. But ifyou magnify a bad process, I mean it could be become terrible, and it could,you know, end up screwing you over self. There's needs to be, ah, lot ofeducation still around GTM, and I think the VPs sales engagement role allows meto be, you know, one of the places that are are pillars of education in modernGTM and one of the key thought leaders in that. But I also think that there'sstill so much room for other folks with experience in GTM, especially in B twob sas to get involved in a bigger way. And we're in the really early stages ofsass in general. I think we're in the first pitch of the first inning. Youknow, the first game of, ah, you know 1999 Yankees season, you know, talkingabout playoffs too. So we're really early. You're even starting to seeother SAS companies that have existed starting to get disrupted, which is whysome of these big ones were starting toe to Dio, you know, acquisitions ofcompanies that already cannibalizing them. And, you know, it really started,what with what? Like Salesforce and Adobe and some of these companies, youknow, 15, 20 years ago, so again early stages attended a lot left to be built,and GTM is still one of the hardest things. So if you could find people whohave experienced in the, you know, broad area of go to market, whetherthat be, you know, customer success, sales and marketing, and then breakingdown even further brand content demand JIN rev ops sales development. There'sso many different areas that these companies need support. If you can getthat, then the money that you get from...
...a B C from you know becomes even, youknow, more compelling arm or more useful. You can be more efficient withthat capital. So thinking through the whole thing, my role, it outreach andthen you know what, What? That evolves to overtime. I wanted to find a way togive some of these GTM leaders who are my friends in the space access to thestartups that I was investing in any way with my own personal capital. Andthen Angel List came out with their rolling funds feature and made it allreally easy in, you know, ah, year ago, two years ago, five years ago, 10 yearsago, I would have need needed to hire, you know, 1 to 2 people, done a bunchof legal and tax stuff and head back office and whatever else. And now Angelis rolling fun. They take care of all that for me. So my job is literallyjust raised money to ploy money. And, uh, I've got access toe a lot ofdifferent companies through having built a media company in the B two bsas space. And I've got, ah, a lot of friends in the gpm space who wereinterested in in, ah, joining me on this, uh, really fun adventure. So weraised about two million to invest in B two B sax companies will come in at theseed, or a stage will come in with 50 K checks, 40 different companies thisyear. And, yeah, that 68 different GTM leaders who are investors in the fundand should be a cool, cool network, A lot of fun. Uh, booty and and Iran overa gang are in there. So some of the guys from from your team, but yeah,it's a really great group. I think we have some really, really special people.When it comes to doing certain things at that's s companies, for example,everybody is probably one of the best content and brand CMOS. You know, I'veseen we have Holly Firestone, who has an awesome name, but also, you know,that laughing community, uh, you know, from scratch and then took over thetroubled or community four or five years ago. So has seen, you know, builttwo of the most amazing communities and be to be fast. So, you know, if we helpcompanies that inevitably you're going to need those things that we havepeople in our network who can help with them. And so the thought process there isthat, you know, instead of a normal VC where they're so far removed, they'vebeen a VC for two decades, you know, right? They're not running theTrailblazer community. They're not building a fast, be to be fast growingB two B SAS company. You kind of have this extra leg up as people that areactually practitioners and what they're trying to do and be able to advise onthat. So is that the kind of the thought that you might invest in acompany? They need help building out their brand, for example, that beautycomes in and you know, he makes himself available to them, or there's nosituation where they're ramping up their sales engagement. You makeyourself available to them is that kind of the process? Exactly. So you know,we've got the people with the expertise behind us now is where you gonna goSpend hours and hours and hours with that company? No, probably not. But youcan help them, you know, put together a game plan, you know, in, uh, 30 or 60minute coaching session for a company. He's got skin in the game on and, youknow, make himself available to answer questions in our slack group that wehave with our LPs and are start ups. So we invested. So they've got, like,direct access in those ways, which I think is this super beneficial. And then who chooses, You know, which40 companies you're gonna invest in, Is it? Is it you and some of the limitedpartners? Nope. It's just May. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, I've I've I've got thetrack record and the proven experience and and, you know, and we raised thisthing, it was just like, Hey, you're gonna trust me to go make the rightcalls based on you know what I've done in the past. Outreach gang drift,bambora, carbon health. Quite a few...
...good ones in there with pretty highmark ups. And then, ah, you know, a lot of ones that I think we'll do reallywell. But too early to tell because I've only been investing for less thanfive years now, So metadata is up. 10 X, uh, arm or catalyst is another one.Anyway, I've got the track record, so hopefully everybody trust me. They giveme their money. They probably dio Yeah, yeah, we're We're conviction overconsensus here. Yeah. So how did you even let's? Let's even then take itback. Right, Because I think I saw you've invested in something around 55different companies and some huge names that you just dropped. So how did youeven get started in that? As being someone that was You're in sales. Yourunning a media company? You obviously had a great network. We're doing thingscreatively. But how did that first opportunity even present itself to you? Yeah, it's funny. The first investmentever made was, um, was outreach. Uh, kidding, man. He got intrude to methrough Lars Nelson, who was a mutual friend. I was running sales hacker man.He was just starting a company in the sale space. He pivoted from therecruiting space. So as any good CEO would you know, he wanted toe kind ofknow, right? Who's who do we need a kind of hitch our wagon to toe?Understand this space well, or network well, and, um many. And I met in UnionSquare in San Francisco in December of 2014, and, uh, I am caffeine free, so Iprobably in orange juice or something like that. And he had a coffee andtalking shop, and, you know, I love the space um, was friends with At the timeI was It was very close with TK from tout APP, which no longer exists. Theyrequired by market out. But t k s out there somewhere. Great dude. And I wasclose with a lot of the other players in that space and under the space verywell. But Manny was coming at it from a really unique angle. They were aproduct and customer success led company in the space and man. He hadbeen a product person for Microsoft and Amazon previously, and they were makingeverybody that signed up for average go through these Siris of on boardingvideos and conversations with one of the other founders. And I just thoughtthat that friction and that barrier to use their platform in the beginning wasgenius because everybody else would just feel like, Alright, sign up, jumpin there, start playing around. And like for that early in the company. Tocare that much about customer development, I thought was I thoughtwas something that's like, All right, as your company scales the culturetrickles down from the founders and the CEO like this is something that willalways be like deeply rooted into outreach, which is so necessary and hasproven necessary as the company has grown. On top of that, I met Manny andthe guy's a bulldog like Grew up in Ecuador, came over the U S. A 20learned English and I got over here, put himself through college, puthimself through Harvard, put himself and, uh, I got a job. Microsoft got jobat Amazon and started this company. You know, the adversity that that he'sfought through, you know, I'll probably never know. So there was a good bet,even though there was no traction or anything at the time, You know, you youhave to just bet on the space and you have to bet on the founder. And I thinkthat was Ah, that was a no brainer. You know, when I met a meet and an idiot,gone was another no brainer. It's like you're here to guys that just, like,know how to get done. And I meet was super proven, obviously. And, uh, Ilike what they were working on space they're working in. So, you know, uh,on some deals, I really just haven't had to do mental backflips at all.Sometimes they're just like, you know, this is a no brainer. Um, and maybe theother people, they weren't because there were a lot of nose and a lot ofpasses on on outreach, you know, before and during when I met them and I helpedthem raise their their seat. After I...
...invested, they were talking thio, MHScapital, who was in a seed investor in you, to me, which was the first companyI was at in Tech. And it was funny, I I set one of the, you know, me cofounders up with a license of outreach because he asked me to help him withsome consulting stuff at his company called Sprig, which was a food deliveryservice in San Francisco that was blowing up at the time back in like2014 eggs was and and HS had invested in sprig because they invested in youand me also, and they did well for him. And so they called me up for diligenceon outreach, and I was like, I like it so much, I put my own money, and thenthey did the seed. And then the rest is history. So once, once, uh, man, he wasable to get some real capital behind him on that team. They were off to theraces, and then they triple triple, triple, double, double. I mean, theydid, uh, the hybrid path. So where they are now, that's amazing. And so wasthat. Was that always in the in the plans in some way for that that saleshacker acquisition? Because I haven't seen when I saw it, it was it made somuch sense. But I wouldn't have ever predicted it because you don'tgenerally see SAS companies buying media companies, right? I mean, I don'tthink so. So I'm curious. If that was something that maybe just came from therelationship and maybe part of the talent, right, he wanted to get you andand some of your employees is part of the growth as well. Yeah, we had no, uh, no idea that thatwas gonna happen when I made the investment, for sure. I mean, it was wedid the acquisition 3, 3.5 years later. But, um, as, uh, I think a good CEOprobably does. And maybe maybe, you know, venture back CEOs don't do this,but I think like bootstrap founders probably dio bootstrap sales Hackerdidn't raise any money, But I always had this spreadsheet of potentialacquirers and my relationship strength with those potential choirs. And I hada broken down in a couple different buckets. So bucket one with sasscompanies. And those were like, LinkedIn, hub spot, outreach, drift,You know, other sales engagement platforms, you know, Marcato, thingslike that. Then I had another bucket for consulting and training companies.There were a lot of those, but it's like the Sandlers Miller Hyman's evenlike winning by design. And then there was the research and advisory firmslike the Forrester. Serious decisions. They were separate time topo a coupleof those on then, uh, and then I would even include, like the, um, Informa andthe u B u B m s of the world like big conference businesses. And it was likeit was the company named and like who I knew. What? The company. What? Myrelationship strength waas was like, Ah, high enough level person at thatcompany, etcetera, etcetera. And And I have had conversations with some othercompanies earlier in 2018 that didn't end up going anywhere or kind of like await and see mode. And I went to unleash, which was outrageousConference 2018 Day. And I had 15 minutes of Manny rightfully sout. Hejust raised a $65 million Siri's D and a half a billion dollar valuation. Hewas there to see customers, so I got 15 minutes of them and I said, Hey,congrats on the round. What keeps you up at night? He says marketing said,Okay, cool. I got a 80,000 person list of B two b sas people, a media company,you know that have run over the past five years, and you've got best inclass sales software. Let's make this thing happen. He's like, Well, I can'tafford You'd like to just raise it a half million dollar valuation like I'lltake stock. He's like, E thought you...
...just wanted to let go of retire inMiami and, you know, I was like, I'll come back to work for this So I had agood, good life towards the end of sales Hacker. They're way ahead, like,kind of hired out. Ah, lot of the day to day stuff. And, uh but, you know,when you were chilling, Yeah, but we had a We had a plateau. We had a nicebusiness, but it wasn't a phenomenal business. And if I wanted to turn itinto a phenomenal business, I have to take some risk. And so it was. Eitherit was either potentially cannibalized the good business to go for aphenomenal and try and build a couple lines of businesses off of what we hador sell for, you know, stock and upside, and then build big with somebody else.So I ended up making a lot of sense for outreach in sales hacker and, uh, and Imet with the rest of the team over the next few weeks. And then we had to dealdone in three months. And, you know, once we came to terms after, like, Idon't know, four weeks of back and forth, which included, like, two weeksof Manny being away because you happen to get married at that time in in ItalyWay got it done pretty quickly and, uh and then, yeah, I started workingprobably six weeks before even at the deal. Done and then, uh, off to theraces. Ever since it's been it's been good. That's amazing. I love it. Andwould you say that, You know, given your success and kind of the route thatyou've taken that you know, you see these other people and I'm looking atsome other folks that I think are part of the They go to market fund. Youmentioned some folks from Gong. I think I saw, you know, Justin Welch. I thinkit's also a few other folks that have built out kind of those brands as welland really built out their networks. I mean, I guess you know, part of thepart of your job is to do the job well, right? I guess that's the mostimportant part. Like if you have a number two hit as a VPs sales, yougotta hit it. If you have revenue, our pipeline goal as a VP of marketing likeyou've got to hit it. But would you agree that you have to nowadays buildsomething outside of your day job like you? It's all it's not. It's as closeto this necessary as as you think, in terms of, like wanting to have thoseopportunities to get involved with something like the GTM fund or findthat next great gig or be, you know, around for an angel investment orwhatever it might be that that's just such a key part in today's age. Oh, we're not. It's Ah, it's definitelyuseful to have a brand. I mean, if you want to be considered for, like thenext hot startup job, it's definitely helpful. If you're talking to twopeople who do their jobs really well and one person has a well known brand,the other one doesn't you're probably going to go with The person is a wellknown brand nowadays that's becoming, I mean, easier to do,but more and more necessary. And the markets are making everybody look goodat their job, by the way. So like, you kind of need that, like, added benefit.But if you're good at your job, you're really good at your job. You'reprobably gonna get, you know, the next job anyway. You know, for me, I like todiversify. I'd like to have a lot of different things that I like to changeof pace. I don't play golf. I don't ski and snowboard on the weekends. I don'twatch Netflix or binge watch TV shows. I'm either working on this stuff that Ilove, which is, you know, this'd industry sales stuff, or I'm hangingout with family and friends down here in Austin. So, like I, you know wheresome people have that hobby or that other thing that they spend. You know,five or 10 hours a week on like that could easily be the GTM fun for May. SoI think that's why you're able to do it. And you know, I and I have had, like,almost I almost like Road Open F a Q for lending because people like, Well,how could you do both at the same time? I'm like, Well, just because they'rethey're in the same industry doesn't mean it's any any less than, like the the sales leader who does to invest inreal estate on the side, or the sales leader who, like, you know, has ah,family restaurant or something like...
...that, or someone who plays golf everyweekend or go skiing or snowboarding every weekend. I guess I probably themless time on some of the stuff I do on the side, then, Ah, lot of those folks.So I'm able to balance my time pretty well. And because it's a creative toeverything else, you know, it just kind of goes hand in hand. It works out alot of my LPs that I build better relationships with. I'll buildrelationships with over time, but they're all outrage customers orpotential customers. You know how valuable those relationships are Justin those cases, pretty amazing. So, yeah, I mean, everybody internally hadsigned off on it because they understand that as well. Yeah, I mean, it's all a compoundeffect, right of the stronger your network is that the more you know aboutthe space, the more new connections you have. The budding companies that arecoming up now on Lee helps what you're doing, and it helps your company. Itotally agree. Um, just as we're wrapping up, I'd love to hear justwhile we're talking about some of these smaller, younger companies. Do you haveany sales technology? That's that's top of mind for you right now. Any anycompanies or tools that you are, the team is using that you find beneficialthat maybe people haven't heard of or they think are you think is undervaluedright now, man, I like the two. The three things that I used on a day today basis, sir. Linked in gang and outreach. So those air, those are thebig ones. So you're you gotta you gotta fresh new job in the right place. Shutout, Thio. Yeah, but you know, other than that big fan of what lavender isdoing, try lavender dot com. They're doing some cool stuff that air, thatair hooking in tow. Outreach coming soon, man. Who else? That That Zatz on the day today side? I don't know I mean, there's there's a lot, there's there's too muchI could spend an hour on this, but I'd rather just I would rather fly through it. Yeah,well, we'll leave it at that. The go to stack of LinkedIn outreach and gone andthen for kind of an up and comer that I don't think a lot of people have heardof lavender. So you guys can check that out as well. But the problem with theproblem with that line of questioning for me is that, like, I'm inevitablygonna leave out somebody who's gonna be Dude, what about us? Yeah, yeah, I'mjust like a to this point. I'm just like I'm just gonna like it's gonna runover it. You know, I really do like guys that sonar There's another reallyinteresting one as well. Helps get understanding what's going on andwhat's getting updated in in, uh, in salesforce so that when you updatesomething that you know an integrated platform, it will show your admin endsand your rev Ops team Like what? What happened? What changed inside ofsalesforce. So it leads to, like, less confusion across platforms. Nice. Ilove it, man. Well, look, I'll let you jump here. I appreciate your time.Congrats on all the new excitement going on both professionally andpersonally. Anything that you're excited about coming out here inFebruary or March that you want to let people know our otherwise Just let usknow where we can hit you up on LinkedIn or otherwise. Yeah, we'll be,um we'll be launching a couple programs that outreach stay tuned for, obviously,our annual conference on leash and some other things. Some big productannouncements to GTM fund. If you know anybody who's raising and b two b sas,send them our way DTM fun to dot com. And then, uh, yeah, just, uh, trimmingon LinkedIn. If you like the episode or want to chat or, uh or I'll see in therevenue collected slack. I love it, man. Max Altshuler. Appreciate you coming onthe show, brother. Thanks for having me, man. Thank you for listening to thatepisode of the revenue Collective podcast. Hope you learned a lot fromMax again. We want to thank our sponsor. This episode was brought to you by sixcents powered by AI and Predictive...
Analytics. Six cents helps you uniteyour entire revenue team with a shared set of data to achieve predictablerevenue growth. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with afriend, a colleague, a coworker customer, Abbas. And please let us knowhow we did give us a review on Apple podcast. That helps us to grow the show,get better guests and make this show is great as we can for you. Thanks. We'llbe back next time for another episode, please.
Episode · 1 week ago
Ep 183: Kicking Off A New Sales Year w/ Tom Alaimo
Part of the TGIM (Thank God It's Monday!) series hosted by Tom Alaimo.
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Ep 181: Driving Urgency In Deal w/ Jason Saline, VP Sales CB Insights
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Spitfire Audio Releases Fractured Strings
US Chamber string library introduces a novel approach to articulations 23/09/22
Spitfire Audio has released Fractured Strings, created in close collaboration with Bleeding Fingers Music, the Emmy Award-winning and BAFTA Award-nominated composer collective, hand-selected and mentored by Hans Zimmer.
They say that it introduces a novel approach to articulations as a new kind of chamber string library featuring a 10-piece ensemble inspired by the Arctic and brought to life in the unparalleled acoustics of Lyndhurst Hall in London's AIR Studios. Here's their press release with the details...
Being billed as a journey through Earth's frozen worlds, home to unique and remarkable wildlife, it is little wonder that Santa Monica, CA, USA-based Bleeding Fingers Music were looking for a library that could not only support scenes of frozen silence but also scenes of action, tension, crisis, and drama when composers Hans Zimmer, James Everingham, and Adam Lukas started scoring the small screen wonder that is Frozen Planet II, the 2022-broadcast British nature documentary series co- produced by the BBC and The Open University as a sequel to 2011's Frozen Planet. Putting it this way, James Everingham and Adam Lukas collectively comment: "Early on in the process of scoring Frozen Planet II, we looked at the patterns of splintering ice and the individuality of snowflakes; in creating FRACTURED STRINGS, we worked closely with the Spitfire [Audio] team and London's best players to represent these natural phenomena in musical performances -- creating a toolkit that became the foundation of our score for the show."
Serious demands demand serious solutions, so a small section of London's finest string players were brought by the Spitfire Audio team tasked with bringing Bleeding Fingers Music's requirements to life in the unparalleled acoustics of Lyndhurst Hall -- home to many a blockbuster film scoring session by Hans Zimmer and many more -- in London's legendary AIR Studios. The ten players concerned closely collaborated with the Bleeding Fingers Music team and Spitfire Audio's own collective of composers, conductors, and engineers there to create a vast suite of intricate decorations, leaps, and swells.
So who better to formally introduce the finished FRACTURED STRINGS, then, than Spitfire Audio co-founder Paul Thomson -- truly no stranger to the wonderful world of music-to-picture scoring himself as an English composer for film, television, and video games, as well as a music technologist to boot: "This is our latest collaboration with Bleeding Fingers [Music], and it is a set of unique and original content made for the BBC show Frozen Planet II. It showcases a huge amount of string articulations and gestures -- wispy, ice-y, ethereal fragments that we have never before recorded, and that you can't play very easily with existing string libraries."
Indeed, its resulting sound makes for a sublime companion to other outstanding Spitfire Audio libraries recorded at AIR Studios -- such as ALBION NEO (https://www.spitfireaudio.com/albion-neo), OLAFUR ARNALDS CHAMBER EVOLUTIONS (https://www.spitfireaudio.com/olafur-arnalds-chamber-evolutions), and SPITFIRE CHAMBER STRINGS (https://www.spitfireaudio.com/spitfire-chamber-strings), yet FRACTURED STRINGS truly lives in a world of its own making -- as evidenced by the numerous key features highlighted in the various display modes available in its easy-on-the-eye UI (User Interface). Its seven diatonic modes each play their part in the musical proceedings; Paul Thomson duly draws attention, however, to one mode in particular: "Something new that we've developed specifically for this library is called SCALE MODE, and it intelligently selects the right samples, so that you can conform to a specific scale that you enter on the UI. As I play softly, I get the smallest interval, but if I play harder, I get a wider interval. So while the engine is selecting the correct samples to conform to the scale that you've entered, they're then split by velocity, so as you play -- just from the pressure that you're putting on the keyboard -- you can get these really amazingly creative and inspirational different kinds of textures. We've also got dynamic control, so you can shape things as much as you want in that way as well."
And as if that was not exciting enough in itself, FRACTURED STRINGS also comes complete with no fewer than 54 Violin articulations -- comprising 15 Statements (Up/Down/ Same note); 10 Splinters (Up/Down); 14 Rotations (Up/Down); seven Dispersals; three Declamatory Shorts; two Pizzicato Strums; and three 7th Reaches -- and 51 Celli articulations -- comprising 15 Statements (Up/Down/Same note); 10 Splinters (Up/Down); 14 Rotations (Up/Down); seven Dispersals; three Declamatory Shorts; and two Pizzicato Strums -- to its notable name; picking up on some of those technological breakthroughs, Paul Thomson adds: "Again, the approach here is to stay within this sound world of these kind of really beautiful gestures, so -- to that end -- we've recorded three different styles of Declamatory Shorts. Staying within the same sound world, we have these Splinters, and these are, again, a kind of beautiful, ice-y gesture -- things that, when performed, you can immediately hear the emotion behind them, but they're very difficult to reproduce using standard string libraries. Rotations are a really inspirational way of getting something that has a feel of aleatoric style, but it's very tightly controlled and defined -- and you get the same thing when you play it back, so it's not picking randomly, because you're actually controlling the intervals that you're getting, so you definitely get the same thing when you play it back again, but it gives you the ability to improvise something within the parameters that you've given the UI."
Ultimately, that UI provides easy access to a wealth of key features, including 15 signal paths, mic settings, and an already-familiar (Evo) GRID mode -- not forgetting 42 Violin Fractures (orchestral flourishes, covering 10 varieties of chords), nine Solo Violin articulations (arpeggios across a range of chords), and nine Solo Celli articulations (arpeggios across a range of chords). Combining to offer a spectrum of sounds and textures that really reflect the planet's fuller-voiced, more melodic moments -- from microscopic to grand gestures, FRACTURED STRINGS is a library with potential beyond the world's end.
Ending on a high note, Bleeding Fingers Music co-founder and CEO Russell Emanuel notes: "Creating these instruments in partnership with Spitfire Audio is what sets our scores apart on tent-pole projects like those for the BBC Natural History Unit." As a toolkit that became the foundation of the score for Frozen Planet II, clearly FRACTURED STRINGS succeeded in its musical mission of not only supporting scenes of frozen silence but also scenes of action, tension, crisis, and drama -- designed as it is to infuse any gestures, leaps, and cellular motif anyone might compose with warmth, colour, and humanity.
RRP: £249 / $299 / 299€
Promo Period: £199 / $229 / 229€
Fractured Strings
Spitfire Audio Social
More From: SPITFIRE AUDIO
Spitfire Audio Releases Flutes Collection 20-Jan-23
The Professional Composer's Guide - Hardback 06-Dec-22
New Spitfire Audio Library 25-Nov-22
Spitfire Audio Releases Originals Wurli 18-Nov-22
Orchestral And Cinematic Percussion Library 11-Nov-22
Entire Analog Mixing Soundchain Replicated
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MATTHS takes a look at the new collab


Do You Know How to Say Received support in Different Languages?
Please find below many ways to say received support in different languages. This is the translation of the word "received support" to over 80 other languages.


text:
The Info List - Operation Storm
Republic of Serbian Krajina
AP Western Bosnia
Commanders and leaders
Zvonimir Červenko
Ante Gotovina
Mirko Norac
Miljenko Crnjac
Ivan Basarac
Petar Stipetić
Luka Džanko
Atif Dudaković Mile Mrkšić
Mile Novaković
Slobodan Kovačević
Stevan Ševo
Čedo Bulat (POW)
Milorad Stupar
Slobodan Tarbuk
Fikret Abdić
Croatia: 130,000 soldiers
ARBiH: 3,000 soldiers ARSK: 27,000–34,000 soldiers
AP Western Bosnia: 4,000–5,000 soldiers
174–211 killed
1,100–1,430 wounded
3 captured 560 killed
4,000 POWs
Serb civilian deaths:
214 (Croatian claim) – 1,192 (Serbian claim)
Croatian civilian deaths: 42
Refugees:
150,000–200,000 Serbs from the former RSK
21,000 Bosniaks from the former APWB
22,000 Bosniaks and Croats from the Republika Srpska
4 UN peacekeepers killed and 16 wounded
Croatian War
of Independence
Borovo Selo
Zadar riot
Split protest
Kusonje
JNA campaign
Banski dvori
Široka Kula
Saborsko
Otkos 10
Dalmatian channels
Vance plan
Paulin Dvor
Orkan 91
Voćin
Devil's Beam
Bruška
ECMM helicopter downing
Miljevci Plateau
Liberated Land
Vlaštica
Medak Pocket
Maestral 2
Varivode
Timeline of all major events
Log Revolution
Events in Serbia
Bosnian War
Siege of Srebrenica
Sarajevo JNA column
Tuzla JNA column
Vrbas '92
Corridor 92
Korićani Cliffs
Croat–Bosniak War
Battle of Žepče
Kravica
Štrpci
Deny Flight
Ahmići
Trusina
Sovići/Doljani
Dobrinja
Mokronoge
Neretva '93
Stupni Do massacre
Križančevo Selo
1st Markale
Tvigi 94
Washington Agreement
2nd Kupres
Vrbanja Bridge
Vozuća
2nd Markale
Deliberate Force
Mistral 2
Southern Move
Operation Storm (Serbo-Croatian: Operacija Oluja, Операција Олуја) was the last major battle of the Croatian War of Independence and a major factor in the outcome of the Bosnian War. It was a decisive victory for the Croatian Army (HV), which attacked across a 630-kilometre (390 mi) front against the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK), and a strategic victory for the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina (ARBiH).
The HV was supported by the Croatian special police advancing from the Velebit Mountain, and the ARBiH located in the Bihać pocket, in the Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina's (ARSK) rear. The battle, launched to restore Croatian control of 10,400 square kilometres (4,000 square miles) of territory, representing 18.4% of the territory it claimed, and Bosnian control of Western Bosnia, was the largest European land battle since the Second World War. Operation Storm commenced at dawn on 4 August 1995 and was declared complete on the evening of 7 August, despite significant mopping-up operations against pockets of resistance lasting until 14 August.
Operation Storm was a strategic victory in the Bosnian War, effectively ending the siege of Bihać and placing the HV, Croatian Defence Council (HVO) and the ARBiH in a position to change the military balance of power in Bosnia and Herzegovina through the subsequent Operation Mistral 2. The operation built on HV and HVO advances made during Operation Summer '95, when strategic positions allowing the rapid capture of the RSK capital Knin were gained, and on the continued arming and training of the HV since the beginning of the Croatian War of Independence, when the RSK was created during the Serb Log revolution and Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) intervention. The operation itself followed an unsuccessful United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission and diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict.
The HV's and ARBiH's strategic success was a result of a series of improvements to the armies themselves, and crucial breakthroughs made in the ARSK positions that were subsequently exploited by the HV and the ARBiH. The attack was not immediately successful at all points, but seizing key positions led to the collapse of the ARSK command structure and overall defensive capability. The HV capture of Bosansko Grahovo just before Operation Storm, and the special police's advance to Gračac, made it nearly impossible to defend Knin. In Lika, two guard brigades quickly cut the ARSK-held area (which lacked tactical depth and mobile reserve forces), isolating pockets of resistance, positioning a mobile force for a decisive northward thrust into the Karlovac Corps area of responsibility (AOR), and pushing ARSK towards Banovina. The defeat of the ARSK at Glina and Petrinja, after a tough defence, defeated the ARSK Banija Corps as well, as its reserve was pinned down by the ARBiH. The RSK relied on the Republika Srpska and Yugoslav militaries as its strategic reserve, but they did not intervene in the battle.
The HV and the special police suffered 174–211 killed or missing, while the ARSK had 560 soldiers killed. Four UN peacekeepers were also killed. The HV captured 4,000 prisoners of war. The number of Serb civilian deaths is disputed—Croatia claims that 214 were killed, while Serbian sources cite 1,192 civilians killed or missing. During and after the offensive, 150,000–200,000 Serbs—or nearly the entire Serb population of the area formerly held by the ARSK—fled and a variety of crimes were committed against the remaining civilians there. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) later tried three Croatian generals charged with war crimes and partaking in a joint criminal enterprise designed to force the Serb population out of Croatia, although all three were ultimately acquitted and the tribunal refuted charges of a criminal enterprise.
In 2010, Serbia sued Croatia before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), claiming that the offensive constituted a genocide. In 2015, the court ruled that it was not genocidal, and it affirmed that the Serb population fled as a direct result of the offensive, although ruling that Croatia did not have the specific intent to displace the country's Serb minority, nor was it found that ethnic cleansing or civilian targeting took place. However, it was found that crimes against civilians had been committed by Croatian forces. As of November 2012[update], the Croatian judiciary has convicted 2,380 persons for various crimes committed during Operation Storm.[citation needed]
2 Prelude
3 Order of battle
4 Operation timeline
4.1 4 August 1995
4.1.1 Sector South
4.1.2 Sector North
4.5 8–14 August 1995
5 Air force operations
6 Other coordinated operations
6.1 Operation Phoenix
6.2 Operation Maestral
7 Assessment of the battle
8 Aftermath
9 Refugee crisis
9.1 Return of the refugees
10 War crimes
11 Footnotes


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Guest column: The 2016 session: Working for our communities
Columns | June 7, 2016
Kerry Donovan
Daryl Wilson |
A midnight thump of the gavel May 11 ended 120 days of floor work, months of bill reading and my second session as the state senator from Senate District 5. Making sure the voices of the seven counties I represent are heard among the noise of special interests and partisan politics is not easy. Your backing, however, through your emails and phone calls made a huge difference in having our communities' stories break through this session.
Despite a tough political climate in an election year, I put the needs of our counties in Senate District 5 at the forefront. With your help, we became the first state in the nation to create a Public Lands Day, sending the signal that our public lands should be set aside not for one person but instead for the collective good. After hearing from so many of you, I successfully carried a bill to address the mounting costs of health care in our region by examining the creation of a single geographic rating. This study is due by the end of summer and will help ultimately give us a pathway toward bringing down health care costs.
From Public Lands Day to a new agricultural conservation water right to working with great institutions such as Western State Colorado University and Colorado Mountain College to help them move forward to securing resources to address legacy mine cleanup, I am proud that with your support, and by building relationships with fellow senators across the aisle, a number of my bills that reflect the values and needs of our communities made their way to the governor to be signed into law.
From Jan. 13 to May 11, my colleagues and I succeeded in lifting up other priorities designed to level the playing field for all hardworking Coloradans. Such bills that I supported include providing our veterans with expanded opportunities to re-enter the workforce, helping rural schools recruit and retain great teachers, expanding access to affordable housing through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program and bolstering the Building Excellent Schools Today program, which has been so critical to repairing and building schools in our rural communities. As a body, we passed a balanced budget that includes funding for several important items, like bringing down our alarmingly high suicide rate through greater resources and preventing K-12 public school funding from being cut.
While there were wins for our communities, there were disappointing losses. Two of the most disappointing involved bills I worked on. One would expand access to broadband internet in rural communities, and the other would create emergency grants for areas experiencing significant job loss. While both bills had initial support in the building, they unfortunately were undone by special interests and partisan politics.
In a 21st-century world with a globalizing economy, our rural communities are finding it more difficult to compete. That's why I remain committed to working on these critical issues — because we must bridge the rural digital divide and we must ensure that all Coloradans outside the metro areas are able to compete and succeed in the communities they call home.
While it was a tough session filled with spirited debate, I am proud of my work at the Capitol on behalf of the people of Senate District 5 and remain optimistic that when we do come together, there is no shortage of the good we can do for our communities. This spring, I will be in your communities to hear your thoughts and to ask you if Colorado is working for you. In those meetings, I want to hear from you what we can do better to make sure we have an economy that is working for everyone and make sure that our Colorado way of life is protected.
Over the summer, I hope to run into you at a community event, and if I don't, please never hesitate to call me. This fall, I will again do a listening tour to decide together with you what bills would best help our communities. It is an honor and privilege to represent you at the state Capitol, and I thank you for your ongoing support. Please continue to stay in touch!
Kerry Donovan is the state senator for Senate District 5. The district represents seven counties on the Western Slope and the Arkansas Valley, including Chaffee, Delta, Eagle, Gunnison, Hinsdale, Lake and Pitkin counties.
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Oakland's African-American Male Achievement
Photo Credit: Oakland Unified School District
EBCF's role with AAMA program is particularly intensive and successful.
EBCF has often played a pivotal role in connecting donors with innovations in education and other fields. In 2009, then Oakland school superintendent Tony Smith had an aggressive agenda to improve equity for the city's 40,000+ students. Building on EBCF's history of connecting national and regional donors to Oakland initiatives, we partnered with the superintendent to raise nearly $7 million to support this vision.
Our role with Oakland's African-American Male Achievement (AAMA) program was particularly intensive and successful. Oakland's school district was the first public district to create a department to address the striking disparities in educational outcomes for young Black males, a program whose innovations and successes since 2010 have served as a national model.
EBCF played the formative role in either finding or encouraging 18 donors – corporations, individuals, and other foundations, both local and national – to contribute more than $2.6 million to the start-up effort. The Foundation also oversaw the initial operations of the program with local nonprofits, developed specific funding proposals and reported back to funders on how their grants were being used, managed data collection, and ensured that the entire collaboration worked smoothly.
One of the Foundation's fund holders, Kaiser Permanente, donated $800,000 to launch the program. Though our role in incubating AAMA is complete, we continue to help manage the annual grant of $400,000 that Kaiser makes to sustain and deepen the program.
AAMA has provided innovative teaching and support for African-American boys and young men, and has elevated the school district's focus on their successes. As a result, high-school graduation rates for these young men have risen from 50.3% to 60.5% — dropout rates have declined to 23.5% from 30.7%; and suspension rates have dropped by more than one third.


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Q: What's the difference between select distinct count, and select count distinct? I am aware of select count(distinct a), but I recently came across select distinct count(a).
I'm not very sure if that is even valid.
If it is a valid use, could you give me a sample code with a sample data, that would explain me the difference.
Hive doesn't allow the latter.
Any leads would be appreciated!

A: Query select count(distinct a) will give you number of unique values in a.
While query select distinct count(a) will give you list of unique counts of values in a. Without grouping it will be just one line with total count.
See following example
create table t(a int)

insert into t values (1),(2),(3),(3)

select count (distinct a) from t

select distinct count (a) from t
group by a

It will give you 3 for first query and values 1 and 2 for second query.

A: I cannot think of any useful situation where you would want to use:
select distinct count(a)

If the query has no group by, then the distinct is anomalous.  The query only returns on row anyway.  If there is a group by, then the aggregation columns should be in the select, to identify each row.
I mean, technically, with a group by, it would be answering the question:  "how many different non-null values of a are in groups".  Usually, it is much more useful to know the value per group.
If you want to count the number of distinct values of a, then use count(distinct a).

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