Learning needs assessment has a fundamental role in education and training, but care is needed to prevent it becoming a straitjacket It might seem self evident that the need to learn should underpin any educational system. Indeed, the literature suggests that, at least in relation to continuing professional development, learning is more likely to lead to change in practice when needs assessment has been conducted, the education is linked to practice, personal incentive drives the educational effort, and there is some reinforcement of the learning. 1 Learning needs assessment is thus crucial in the educational process, but perhaps more of this already occurs in medical education than we suspect. The key lesson might be for those who design new systems of education and training: for example, the postgraduate education allowance system in general practice was felt to fail the profession because it did not include needs assessment and so led to ad hoc education to fulfil the time requirements of the system rather than the needs of individual doctors or the profession as a whole. On the other hand, basing learning in a profession entirely on the assessment of needs is a dangerous and limiting tactic. So a balance must be struck. Summary points Learning needs assessment is a crucial stage in the educational process that leads to changes in practice, and has become part of government policy for continuing professional development Learning needs assessment can be undertaken for many reasons, so its purpose should be defined and should determine the method used and the use made of findings Exclusive reliance on formal needs assessment could render education an instrumental and narrow process rather than a creative, professional one Different learning methods tend to suit different doctors and different identified learning needs Doctors already use a wide range of formal and informal ways of identifying their own learning needs as part of their ordinary practice These should be the starting point in designing formalised educational systems for professional improvement Learning needs assessment in medicine In 1998 both individual and organisational needs assessment became part of government policy in relation to the continuing professional development and personal development plans of all healthcare professionals. 2 Thus, it has a role in the clinical governance of the service 3 and is therefore much more than an educational undertaking. This integration of needs assessment, education, and quality assurance of the service was first made explicit in 1989 in relation to clinical audit, which would identify practices in need of improvement and ensure that educational and organisational interventions were made to address these needs. 4 Accordingly, audit was described as "essentially educational" and the educational process surrounding it described. 5 Long before these recent developments, needs assessment outside medicine was presented as an important part of managed education and learning contracts, which are the predecessors of the personal development plans to be developed for all NHS healthcare professionals. 6 In his descriptions of adult learning Knowles assumed (he did not claim to have research evidence) that learners needed to feel a necessity to learn and that identifying one's own learning needs was an essential part of self directed learning. 7 In medicine a doctor's motivation to learn would therefore derive from needs identified during his or her experience of clinical practice. So the pedigree and practice of learning needs assessment, if not the evidence, are well established. The definition of need As in most areas of education, for many years there has been intense debate about the definition, purpose, validity, and methods of learning needs assessment. 8 It might be to help curriculum planning, diagnose individual problems, assess student learning, demonstrate accountability, improve practice and safety, or offer individual feedback and educational intervention. Published classifications include felt needs (what people say they need), expressed needs (expressed in action) normative needs (defined by experts), and comparative needs (group comparison). 9 Other distinctions include individual versus organisational or group needs, clinical versus administrative needs, and subjective versus objectively measured needs. 10 The defined purpose of the needs assessment should determine the method used and the use made of findings. Furthermore, even though the concept of educational needs assessment is enshrined in practice, policy, and the educational canon, several factors indicate the need for careful planning and research in this subject (see boxes 1 and 2 ). Exclusive reliance on formal needs assessment in educational planning could render education an instrumental and narrow process rather than a creative, professional one. This is especially so in a profession where there is inherent unpredictability and uncertainty. Members of any profession require wide knowledge and depth of experience -- the relevance of some of which might not have been obvious at the time of learning. Certainly, learning needs can and should be identified on the basis of what has been experienced and of what more experienced members of the profession know to be relevant, but this must not deter other, more general or even speculative, learning that, at the time, seems to answer no specific need. Possibly no specific learning needs assessment would ever send a person to a large international conference on a generic subject (such as endocrinology, medical education, or management). It is, nevertheless, important that doctors attend such meetings and return with the unexpected and expected benefits that they accrue. Box 1 : Need for careful planning in needs assessment There is little evidence that needs assessment alone enhances educational effectiveness and outcomes, so it must be placed within the wider process of planned learning, relevance to practice, and reinforcement of learning in the appropriate context Formal needs assessment can identify only a narrow range of needs and might miss needs not looked for, so breadth and flexibility of needs assessment methods should be embraced In professional education it is not necessarily defensible to focus all learning on identified needs -- wider professional learning not related to a specific need is also of fundamental value where practice is not predictable Individual and group learning needs are different -- group learning needs may produce an average picture that fails to address important needs and interests of individual members of the group -- so a balance is required. Each approach has its uses and effects, but each must be used for the right purpose Identifying individual learning needs, often not shared by others, may lead to an unimpressive cost-benefit analysis in terms of individually targeted use of educational resources if used inappropriately. Individual learning needs assessment is best used in the context of learning that occurs on an individual basis -- such as in the relationship between general practitioner registrar and trainer Methods of needs assessment Although the literature generally reports only on the more formal methods of needs assessment, doctors use a wide range of informal ways of identifying learning needs as part of their ordinary practice. These should not be undervalued simply because they do not resemble research. Questionnaires and structured interviews seem to be the most commonly reported methods of needs assessment, but such methods are also used for evaluation, assessment, management, education, and now appraisal and revalidation. 11 Together, these formal and informal methods might make an effective battery where there is clarity of purpose. The Good CPD Guide details 46 formal and informal methods of self assessment (see box 3 ). 12 Peer review Non-clinical activities Academic activities Conferences International visits Journal articles Medicolegal cases Press and media Professional conversations Research Teaching The methods listed are both formal and informal, planned and opportunistic, showing that day to day work and encounters have the potential to generate needs as much as do formal methods. Formal needs assessment methods include critical incident techniques, gap analysis, objective knowledge and skills tests, observation, revalidation, self assessment, video assessment, and peer review. Such methods are often used to identify group needs. 14 15 Formal identification of needs can also arise from audit, morbidity patterns, adverse events, patient satisfaction surveys, and risk assessment. Most of these tools use quantitative methods that can generate computerised data and cover wider population ranges, but these are often unable to probe into the personal agendas and opinions of individuals. Types of needs assessment Methods of needs assessment can be classified into seven main types, each of which can take many different forms in practice. Reflection on action is an aspect of experiential learning and involves thinking back to some performance, with or without triggers (such as videotape or audiotape), and identifying what was done well and what could have been done better. 18 19 The latter category indicates learning needs. Reflection in action involves thinking about actual performance at the time that it occurs and requires some means of recording identified strengths and weaknesses at the time. The Canadian MOCOMP programme uses formalised reflection as its basic process. 20 Similarly, PUNs and DENs (see box 3 ) are well known in British general practice. Self assessment by diaries, journals, log books, weekly reviews This is an extension of reflection that involves keeping a diary or other account of experiences. 21 However, practice might show that such documents tend to be written nearer the time of their review than the time of the activity being recorded. Peer review This is rapidly becoming a favourite method. It involves doctors assessing each other's practice and giving feedback and perhaps advice about possible education, training, or organisational strategies to improve performance. The Good CPD Guide describes five types of peer review -- internal, external, informal, multidisciplinary, and physician assessment. 11 The last of these is the most formal, involving rating forms completed by nominated colleagues, and shows encouraging levels of validity, reliability, and acceptability. 22 23 Observation In more formal settings doctors can be observed performing specific tasks that can be rated by an observer, either according to known criteria or more informally. The results are discussed, and learning needs are identified. The observer can be a peer, a senior, or a disinterested person if the ratings are sufficiently objective or overlap with the observer's area of expertise (such as communication skills or management). Critical incident review and significant event auditing Although this technique is usually used to identify the competencies of a profession or for quality assurance, it can also be used on an individual basis to identify learning needs. 24 The method involves individuals identifying and recording, say, one incident each week in which they feel they should have performed better, analysing the incident by its setting, exactly what occurred, and the outcome and why it was ineffective. Practice review A routine review of notes, charts, prescribing, letters, requests, etc, can identify learning needs, especially if the format of looking at what is satisfactory and what leaves room for improvement is followed. The difference between needs assessment and assessment Needs assessment is not the same as assessment in the sense of examination of learning. Assessment systems that lead to academic or professional awards should show certain minimum characteristics, including measurement of performance against external criteria and standards, a decision on adequacy by an assessor, and standardised data gathering. 25 Needs assessment might sometimes have these characteristics, but it also might be based on practice, reflection, professional judgment, discussion, and informal data. Needs assessment methods that are limited by the standards of assessment will fall into the trap of assessing only a narrow range of needs. Learning for needs The main purpose of needs assessment must be to help educational planning, but this must not lead to too narrow a vision of learning. Learning in a profession is unlike any other kind of learning. Doctors live in a rich learning environment, constantly involved in and surrounded by professional interaction and conversation, educational events, information, and feedback. The search for the one best or "right" way of learning is a hopeless task, 1 especially if this is combined with attempting to "measure" observable learning. Research papers show, at best, the complexity of the process. Multiple interventions targeted at specific behaviour result in positive change in that behaviour. 26 Exactly what those interventions are is less important than their multiplicity and targeted nature. On the other hand, different doctors use different learning methods to meet their individual needs. For example, in a study of 366 primary care doctors who identified recent clinical problems for which they needed more knowledge or skill to solve, 55 different learning methods were selected. 27 The type of problem turned out to be the major determinant of the learning method chosen, so there may not be one educational solution to identified needs. Much of doctors' learning is integrated with their practice and arises from it. The style of integrated practice and learning ("situated learning") develops during the successive stages of medical education. 28 The components of apprenticeship learning in postgraduate training are made up of many activities that may be regarded as part of practice (see box 4 ). 29 Senior doctors might also recognise much of their learning in some of these elements and could certainly add more -- such as conversations with colleagues. Thus, educational planning on the basis of identified needs faces real challenges in making learning appropriate to and integrated with professional style and practice. The first step in all of this is to recognise the needs assessment and learning that are a part of daily professional life in medicine and to formalise, highlight, and use these as the basis of future recorded needs assessment and subsequent planning and action, as well as integrating them with more formal methods of needs assessment to form a routine part of training, learning, and improving practice.


So as a Facebook fan, is there a way to fix this? Yes. It requires a few steps to set up, but yes. And then it's super handy. How to see all the updates from the Facebook Pages (and Friends) you love Currently, the best way to accomplish this is to use Interest Lists on Facebook. Update 11/5/12: There is another option that Facebook is rolling out which is the "Get Notifications" option you can/will see when you go directly to a Page and click on the gear icon. Because FB is just now rolling it out, it's possible you don't have this option yet (as of today, I don't) but I'll keep you posted as soon as I know more. (Check out Inside Facebook's post about it for more info.) Interest Lists basically let you create a personalized feed in which you will see all the updates from exactly the people and Pages you want. After you set up an Interest List (or lists), then when you login to Facebook, click on the list(s) you want to view from your Home page, you can be sure to see all the updates from the Pages and people on that Interest List as they are posted. How to set up an Interest List Once you do, scroll down until you see " Interests " in the left column. If you don't see "Interests" in the left column, click on "More" at the end of the left column and "Interests" should appear. Click on "Add Interests..." to create a new Interest List (you'll see here I already have created an Interest List called " Faves ..."). In the next window, click the "Create List" button. First you'll get some suggestions of pages that Facebook thinks you might want to add to your new list (see below). To include any of them on your new list, simply click on them. Once you do so, you'll see a check mark appear in the bottom right corner of the profile pic. (If you make a mistake and add something you didn't mean to, just click it again to deselect it.) Tip: I highly recommend you choose your own Page (if you have one) so you can keep tabs and make sure you are indeed seeing all posts on this list. (It's just good to subscribe to all your stuff so you know what your readers/followers/fans are seeing.) Now, I assume these are not the only pages you want to add to your new list. (Please note, Facebook can be buggy here, so hang with me. A note about the workaround at the end of this explanation, but ideally this is how it should work...) Ideally, once you have selected the suggestions Facebook presented (above), you should be able to add more to this list by navigating through the options in this window. For example, perhaps you know of a Page you want to add but it didn't come up in your suggestions. You can search for it by typing it in the search bar up top. Once you see it, click on it to select it. Go ahead and type in more page names you know off the top of your head. (The others should remain checked even if you navigate away from them.) And then you might want to select some of your Friends by clicking on the "Friends" link in the left column. Yes, you can have a mix of Friends and Pages on one Interest List. Cool, huh? Once you click there, your Friends should pop up on the screen. Add any of them to your list by clicking on their profile pic. And maybe you want to choose some of your Subscriptions or browse some of the categories Facebook suggests (again see left column in image above). So go ahead and select all the Pages, Subscriptions and/or Friends you want to add to this list.  Then once you've selected everyone you want to include on this list, click the Next button in the bottom right corner of the window. On the right side in the next window you should see all the people and pages you just selected. Workaround: Now this is where Facebook can get buggy. If you realize not all your selections are on the list, you might have to add People and Pages in batches, checking after each to make sure they are showing up as shown above. If this happens to you, simply click the "Previous" button at the bottom right of the screen. Once you go back, work through the above steps again, this time clicking "Next" after each group (suggestions, search entries, Friends, etc.) to make sure they were indeed added. I know it's a pain, but it's the only workaround I've found when Facebook is temperamental. OK, workaround is done. Back to our regularly scheduled program... Once you've got everyone on your new list that you want, enter a name for your list. Then choose who you want to be able to see the list (Public, Friends, Only Me) and then click the "Done" button in the bottom right. Once you are done, you will be taken back to your Home page. Again, look in the left column under "Interests" to see the link to your new list. Or, access all your lists here . How to make your Interest List easily accessible Once you've created your Interest List, you want easy access to it right? The long way to get to it is to scroll down on your Home page (of your Personal Profile) and click on it under "Interests." The faster way is to add your Interest List to your Favorites so you can get to it quick as a wink. As a Favorite, it will show up in the top left corner of your Home page. To add a list to your Favorites, from your personal profile's Home page, scroll down until you see "Interests" in the left column. (Again, if you don't see "Interests", click the "More" link at the end of the left column and it should appear.) Hover over the list you want to add to your Favorites until you see the edit icon (pencil) appear. Click on that pencil. Then click on "Add to Favorites." Doing this will bump up your Interest List link to the top of your Home page (see above) so when you login, you can go directly to your list. Bonus: If you want to be super on top of things, hover over your list name again (under Favorite) until you see the pencil icon once more. Click the pencil icon and then click "Rearrange." You'll see three lines appear to the right of the items on your Favorites list. You can drag and drop your Interest List where you want under Favorites, like, just below your News Feed (which has to stay put). I don't know how you could make it any easier to get to. How to create a list and add Pages or Friends on the fly or individually So now let's say you have your list created, but as you are browsing your News Feed or as you are bopping around the internet, you come across a Facebook Page you want to add to your list, or you remember you want to add that new Friend. Simple. (If you have trouble with this, you may have to switch your "Using Facebook as..." options.) How to add a Page to an Interest List on the fly If you already Like a Page and want to add it to a list on the fly (like when you're browsing your News Feed), simply hover over the Page name, then hover over "Liked" and then click "Add to Interest Lists..." when the menu pops up. Just choose the appropriate list. Or, another alternative is to go directly to the page itself and click on the gear icon until you see the option to "Add to Interest Lists..." Not only can you add the Page to an existing Interest List, you also have the option to create a brand new Interest List right from here. Just select "New List..." How to add a Friend to an Interest List on the fly If it's a Friend you want to add to your Interest List, they must allow Subscribers . To add a Friend to a list, I've found it works best to go directly to their main Profile page and then complete the steps required for adding a Page (click the gear icon and then "Add to Interest Lists...") like so: A few more tidbits If you own a Facebook Page, consider sharing this post with your readers so they understand how Interest Lists work. There is so much confusion about this issue and so many are probably missing your posts ! If you found this post via another blogger, consider adding their Facebook Page to one of your Interest Lists so you don't miss their posts. You can subscribe to my Faves list if you'd like. It's a handful of pages on a variety of subjects. You do not have to Like a page or Subscribe to a person in order to include them on an Interest List. Kinda makes Facebook Page Likes sort of not an accurate representation of how many people may be actually following your posts, right? Interesting... Amy! Once again you knock my socks off. I am in the stage of enhancing my Facebook page and there you are, posting content about Facebook update. Yey! Perfect timing. Thank you for all your blog content, you help me tremendously. Thanks so much Amy! I stumbled across your site a month or so ago an am so happy I did! I just shared a link to your site through Pinterest and my Business Facebook page. I appreciate all of your helpful tips and will spread the word. ~ Julie (EAB Designs) So glad you wrote this post! Curious: do you think Facebook is phasing out the old style lists ( https://www.facebook.com/bookmarks/lists )? They were certainly easier to add friends to, and are what I've used so far for my private "people/pages I follow" list. This is great Amy and I will definitely be sharing it with my friends and followers. Just one question. I subscribed to a list that a few bloggers created and I noticed the posts are in kind of random order but I usually sort my newsfeed to "recent" so I can see them in chronological order. Is there a way to make interest lists sort posts in order? Thanks! Actually Amy, now that I've played with interest lists in my personal FB account more, I've discovered that the posts are in fact in chronological when I click on the interest list. {The random posts were when I tried to subscribe to a list from my blog's FB page. When I did that, my blog's newsfeed has a group of posts from the interest list together but in random order -- weird -- must have something to do with the fact that you aren't supposed to be able to subscribe to an interest list from a blog's page.} I'm with the others commenting about how frustrating it is to not be able to create interest lists from blog FB pages. I prefer to comment from that account too Super helpful! Have you done a post on the idea of creating a Facebook group as an alternative to a page? I'm seeing some bloggers talk about that as a way to get more visibility for their posts, but I wasn't sure about the downsides....I'm pretty sure you get a lot more updates when you're part of a group, right? I wouldn't want to annoy people! Amy, thank you for your step-by-step instructions, especially for those of us who are technologically=-challenged, hehe. I have a question: this setting (interests) that you just taught us, will it send emails to me so I alwasy know what is going on, even if I don't log to facebook? I used to received them automatically but somehow now I dont anymore, it has been a few months already. this facebook changes almost everyweek so I really have no clue... thanks for your help, I just discovered you thru mrs. january. Thank you so much for such a thorough explanation. I just went in this evening to do this. I love being about to click on my various interest lists to see the posts that I am looking to see at a particular moment. Sharing this tutorial on my wall for sure. Thanks Amy. This makes sense and no sense all at the same time. So basically, if I like a page I won't be guaranteed to see it in my feed. ( I pretty much have caught on to that because I only see about 10 of the same blogs I have liked on FB and they are the same everyday) Also I can tell that only about 200 of my 800 followers see what I post. So here are my issues with the interest list, I have to now go to my feed, my pages feed and my interest list to make sure I can keep up with all that I want to follow. Secondly, it looks like the interest lists have to be made under your primary account and not your page so I cannot leave comments under my blog facebook page but under my personal page. It's just all very irritating. I know this isn't your problem. I just don't understand why we can't just have all the blogs we follow show up in our stream. Thanks for letting me vent. But do you know how to comment on your interest list under you page and not your personal account? I know, it's frustrating to me too. I keep reminding myself that Facebook is free, so they can do what they wanna do. Yes, using Facebook as your Personal Profile as opposed to your Page is definitely another frustration. If I find a workaround, I'll let you know (or if any of you all, know of a workaround, holla!). Hi Amy, I've noticed that I can't create an Interest List from my own Page-CozyCondoLiving. I have to do it from my Home Page-Lisa Allen. I have purposely kept the two separate since my Home Page is for family/friends and my CCL page is for followers. I like to make comments on pages I am following as CozyCondoLiving so that bloggers know who I am. I don't want to comment as Lisa Allen. So, if I make an Interest List from my Home Page I would ONLY be able to use it to view and not to comment or "Like". That is a bummer! Have you noticed this yourself? Do you have any suggestions for what I could do? None of these things work for me with all posts. I do not see posts from any of my friends and/or pages if they post via a service like dlvr.it, HootSuite, NetworkedBlogs, etc. I see all the posts they post directly, but if they use a service it doesn't show up in my feed, my interest list, or any other list (though I can see it happening in the ticker if I'm watching). Do you happen to know of a workaround for this issue? I have repeatedly petitioned help from Facebook, but of course I have never been given any. Thanks! No, unfortunately, I don't know a workaround. We are largely subject to Facebook's algorithms unfortunately. I'll be interested to see how the newest function to get notifications works once it's rolled out though.


The ruins of ancient Troy will be examined by a cross-disciplinary team of scientists in an expedition led by UW-Madison classics professor William Aylward. The ruins of ancient Troy,  sacked by the Greeks through trickery and a fabled wooden horse, will be examined by a cross-disciplinary team of scientists next year. The  expedition will be led by University of Wisconsin-Madison classics professor William Aylward. Aylward is an archaeologist with long experience digging in the ruins of classical antiquity, including Troy itself. The new international project at Troy, to be conducted under the auspices of and in cooperation with Turkey's anakkale Onsekiz Mart University, will begin a series of summer-time expeditions beginning in 2013. "Troy is a touchstone of Western civilization," says Aylward. "Although the site has been excavated in the past, there is much yet to be discovered. Our plan is to extend work to unexplored areas of the site and to systematically employ new technologies to extract even more information about the people who lived here thousands of years ago." William Aylward Troy and the Trojan War were immortalized in Homer's epic poem The Iliad centuries after the supposed events of the conflict. The site was occupied almost continuously for about 4500 years, from the beginning of the Bronze Age to the 13th century AD, when it was abandoned and consigned to myth. It was rediscovered in the 1870s by the wealthy German businessman and pioneering archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann whose work at Troy laid the foundations for modern archaeology. "Our goal is to add a new layer of information to what we already know about Troy," says Aylward, who is contributing an international team of archaeologists and scientists to conduct what promises to be the most comprehensive dig since Troy's discovery more than 140 years ago. "The archaeological record is rich. If we take a closer look with new scientific tools for study of ancient biological and cultural environments, there is much to be found for telling the story of this world heritage site." The site of Troy is in modern Turkey and is situated on the Dardanelles, a crossroads between East and West and a flashpoint for conflict in both ancient and modern times. The archaeological site is a complex layer cake of history and prehistory, with 10 cities superimposed one atop the other, some with clear evidence for violent destruction. Following the demise of Troy at the end of the Bronze Age, the site was re-settled by Greeks, Romans and others, who all claimed Homer's Troy and its cast of characters -- Achilles, Helen, Patroclus, Priam and Ajax -- as their own cultural heritage. The ancient city was visited by the Persian general Xerxes, Alexander the Great, and Roman emperors, including Augustus and Hadrian. Homer's epic poems about a lost age of heroes and the legendary Trojan War have endured as sources of inspiration for art and literature ever since. Although archaeologists have been digging at Troy for almost 140 years, with the exception of a 50-year hiatus between 1938 and 1988, less than one-fifth of the site has been scientifically excavated. With about 4500 years of nearly uninterrupted settlement at a crossroads between Europe and Asia, Troy is fundamental for questions about the development of civilization in Europe and the Near East. "Troy deserves a world-class archaeological program," says Aylward. In its heyday, Troy's citadel, with walls 12 feet thick and more than 30 feet high, was about 6 acres in size. A walled lower town covered an expanse of 50 acres, much of which is unexplored. Mysteries abound. Ancient Troy's royal cemetery, for example, has yet to be discovered and archaeologists are eager to add to the single example of prehistoric writing known from Troy, a small bronze seal from the Bronze Age. In future work at Troy, Aylward plans an array of collaborations in order to deploy powerful new scientific techniques to reveal the hidden record of the ancient city and its inhabitants. New methods to examine chemical residues on pottery from ancient kitchens and banquet halls, for example, may reveal secrets of ancient Trojan culinary proclivities, and genomic analyses of human and animal remains may shed light on diseases and afflictions at a crossroads of civilization. Much of the new work in the area of "molecular archaeology," which includes DNA sequencing and protein analysis, will be conducted in collaboration with the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center, which has become an active partner in the new Troy project. This past summer, researchers from the center participated in reconnaissance for future studies.


App Synergy: How To Make A Travel Journal Last weekend, I took a small vacation to Montreal . While I like to travel, I am not an ambitious sightseer. The exception to this is when the sights I see involve food. I love food. It was a real treat to visit the Jean-Talon Market (French: March Jean Talon), which is a historical farmer's market located in Montreal's Little Italy district. I decided to use this gastronomic excursion as the object model for this week's app synergy use. Step 1 -- Capture Your Memories One of my coworkers, Stella Violano , told me about an app called 645 Pro . She bragged that it allowed photos to be taken in RAW and TIFF formats. Being an amateur photographer, I had no idea what she meant, but I was finally able to try the app out on my trip to the market. 645 Pro Screenshot -- Random Market While I have yet to scratch its potential, I definitely see the appeal. All of the settings are located directly on the camera. While some may be unfamiliar with the different options, there are no confusing menu layers to navigate. I found the response time to be quicker than that of Apple's camera app and took some nice shots with it. The nicest thing I can say about 645 Pro is that it made me to want to learn more about "real" photography. I even started reading the 32 page user manual. Until I find something better, 645 Pro will be my new default camera app. I find it poor form to share pictures I've taken of strangers. To get a glimpse of the Jean-Talon Market, check out this picture from the National Geographic Society . It can be found within the app, A Taste Of Montreal . The app hits my sweet spots, as it combines journalistic storytelling with mouth-watering photos of Montreal's cuisine. I had some excellent meals in Montreal. A Taste Of Montreal shows me what I missed and whets my appetite for my next trip there. Jean-Talon Market Step 2 -- Mark Up Your Memories Another useful Montreal-specific travel app is Montreal: Travel Guide , by eTips LTD . This travel guide has some cool features, like the use of Augmented Reality (AR) and the presence of zoomable offline maps. My main interest in the app, for the purposes of this article, was its Metro map. Montreal Metro Map The map provides a basis for modification by PhotoPen , a photo annotation app. It's a simple way to mark up your photos and share them. Although it's not difficult to guess where the Jean-Talon Market is on the map, I may not always remember the name and location of the market. PhotoPen allows me to make a quick note to myself, which also results in a personalized contribution to my journal. Map Annotated By PhotoPen Step 3 -- Collect Your Memories When it's time to create your journal, you have some options. There are a number of journaling apps available for your iDevice. Day One is a popular choice. Earlier in the week, it received a significant update , which allows you to finally add pictures to your entries. You can also add weather information, location/GPS data, and check in to Foursquare . Unfortunately, you can only add one photo per entry. On the bright side, the results look great and really add to what was already a fantastic app. I created the following entry with a shot I took of some delicious oysters. Day One used the photo's metadata to fill in the location and date. Day One Now Has Photo Support As good as Day One is, you may not be satisfied with its single photo diary style. You may instead envision a scrapbook type app, which allows you to intermix photos and text. For that, check out Maxjournal , which allows you to add up to 30 photos for each journal entry. You can then rotate the photos and position them in between the text. Due to its simplicity, aesthetics, and superior syncing, I prefer Day One. But in terms of adding multiple photos, Maxjournal has Day One beat. Please also note that Maxjournal is iPad only, while Day One is universal. Incorporate Multiple Photos In Maxjournal Finally, one of my readers in India reminded me that journals don't need any text at all. He creates pure photo journals using iPhoto. I previously discussed the iPhoto journal feature in my Mother's Day article . In that article, I had already imported all my photos into an album and then sent the entire album to a journal. It's a little trickier to create a journal from individual photos, if no album already exists. From the main photos page, touch a picture to enter the single photo browsing mode. From there, tap on the share icon and choose the journal option. To add multiple photos to the journal, select "Choose," which allows you to add up to 200 thumbnails for sharing. You can then send them to a new journal. If you want to add them to an existing journal, you need to go one step deeper in the menu and tap on the bar that says "New >." This gives you the option to choose from preexisting journals. Personally, I find the user experience to be a bit clunky, especially for an app made by Apple itself. However, it can produce some good looking photo journals. Creating A Photo Journal In iPhoto Traveling is a lot of fun, and it can be even more fun to document those travels and the memories associated with them. Hopefully, this article has given you a first step toward creating your own travel journal. If you would like to share your experiences with me, please send a note to leonard@appadvice.com. I'd love to hear your stories and see your photographs, especially if they involve food.


Search form Is there any love for Hawkwind? Submitted by tiggerlion on 14 November 2012 - 9:22pm We are all living in the 70s, after all! I confess, I loathed them at the time. A friend dragged me along to a gig in Liverpool. I wasn't keen even when he promised a stripper. They were all muddy noise and bad smells to me. The 'stripper' turned out to be the six foot two Stacia, whose breasts are not human. The sight of her in the weird lighting effects gave me nightmares for years. Some bloke got up and spoke some nonsense I couldn't quite catch. All in all, I was unimpressed. Still, my friend persevered and they grew on me. I found I could tolerate their lyrical gibberish. They were one of those groups in the early 70s that were neither prog nor rock nor jazz nor pop. Their grooves were colossal. There was a lot of parping & squawking. Yet, there was a group collective that was really very disciplined. My favourite album is In Search Of Space. The opener, You Shouldn't Do That is sixteen minutes that Sun Ra would be proud of. Master Of The Universe is earning them big money from the latest Ford car advert & good on them. We Took The Wrong Step Years Ago features the loudest acoustic guitar I've ever heard in my life. I positively enjoy listening to all six tracks. ... loving the Hawkwind for many years, especially the excerpt on the first Greasy Truckers album, just immense... and as Lando says, Space Ritual... Lemmy in Hawkwind is one of the two reasons that I started playing chords on me Rick4001 (Lemmy in Motorhead is the other...) We may have been at the same gig, although I'm sure they played there a number of times. I saw them in either 1973 or 74. I thought it was pretty awful. You sum up the musical content well. The much vaunted lightshow was pretty disappointing - perhaps it wasn't working properly that night - but it seemed to mostly a projection of planet Earth plus some strobe lighting. The visuals, including the album covers, were provided by Barney Bubbles. He got a lot better, especially when he worked for Stiff. The covers for This Years Model & Do It Yourself are great! He also directed videos for EC & Squeeze that were excellent. OOAA All throughout the gig I was somewhat perplexed by the sight of a - to my 15-year-old eyes at least - quite elderly couple sat in the front row. I couldn't imagine that they'd really enjoyed Sonic Attack very much. After the show I went up and asked them if they'd had a good time. "Oh yes," one of them replied, "we're Mr and Mrs Brock." Lets see; serious grooves, monster riffs, primitive synthesisers, naive '1st time on acid' adolescent sci-fi lyrics, blokes who look the person who sold you an underweight 1/8th, blobby psychedelic lights and proper epilepy-quality strobes, and a fanatical greebo / old-freak audience (anyone who likes to get out of it, really). What's not to like? Anyone who doesn't at least appreciate all of this has no heart, and, as Nigel Molesworth once said, I DISKARD THEM. And threw everything at it. Michael Moorcroft, Stacia & Bubbles. They got a proper krautrock bassist, they employed their roadie. The band founder members met whilst working fair grounds. They knew how to put on a show. They were more than a mere band, they were a travelling circus! Avoid the 1970 debut album, they hadn't really found their sound (or established their milieu, if you will) at that point. All you need are the second, third and fourth albums plus the magnificent Space Ritual double live set. There are some really great moments after 1974, but from that point on they basically repeated themselves, with ever diminishing returns. So it's part of the selfmythologising - there's lots of that in song titles and so on. Oh, and I'd get the debut as well - first 5 albums are the best run they ever had. Hall of the mountain grill is almost Pink Floyd in places. You can pick up the expanded editions for a few quid each. Personally I'm less keen on PXR5 and Quark Strangeness and Charm (although Hassan I Sabbah is a must have track) - the start of trend following as they tried to go New Wavey. Their metal period is probably their worst, although I do like "Live Chronicles". The triple Epoch Eclipse is a pretty good compilation - all the stuff you want, and some alternative takes make it worth while even if you go back and get the full albums later on. In Plymouth around the late 80s, as a callow youth. Walked into the Academy, and almost the first thing I saw was someone falling down the stairs. He got up to reveal a T shirt with the message "Say Yes To Drugs" and proceeded into the auditorium. You had to be well pickled to appreciate fully. Englands half-assed answer to The Grateful Dead or something. "Say yes to drugs", and apparently all your teeth fall out. And to the man that suggested that Stacias "norks" were "not a pretty sight" (never heard that word) - I have to report that this may very well be an error in your judgment.'Cause they always looked Ok to me. In fact as gimmicks go, they were considerably better than OK. I remember seeing a documentary where Lemmy claimed that Stacia, with whom he apparently shared a room on tour, used to pick "goggle eyed" boys from the audience. So you may have missed out there. Not least because under the present conditions, it would have made a very amusing trial. Right, so what you're saying is, it's perfectly acceptable for a full-grown woman to have sex with a sixteen year-old boy. And you imagine a "smile" on the face of the abused child after his harrowing ordeal - humiliatingly abducted in a public place, taken to a dingy backstage area, forced to strip naked and sexually service a woman old enough to be, at the very least, his mother's sister? Probably plied with narcotics? I find the whole thing odious and reprehensible, and consider your comment a belwether post for the sad decline of the Afterword blog, once a safe haven for pastry-fanciers and ukelele-botherers. Euro psychedelia was much better musically than the US's west coast version, IMHO. As noted before, barring a few bits where they wig-out properly, I find the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, (etc.) too much like generic bar bands, with insufficiently groove, jazz or gritty noodling for my tastes. Spirit were OK, mind, and Todd Rundgren's psychedelic phase was much more like it. You want hippie wierdness and proper evocations of the psychedelic experience, stick with Gong, Hawkwind, and their offshoots - and Todd's "A Wizard, A True Star". Stoned bluegrass music is most definitely isn't. Particularly their poppier moments....PXR5...Astounding Sounds etc.....the Hawklords album, half of which is ace, the other not....the live version of Shot down in the night taken from the Live 79 Tour (i think)...and this, from their mid-to-late period in 1992 I've only knowingly heard two Hawkwind songs in my life. One is the obvious one. The other is Night Of The Hawks. If my memory is not mistaking me, it actually got some airplay on Radio One when it was released as a single. It's pretty primitive stuff. I bloody love it! Been a bit of a fan but not seen them live. They topped the bill that night but had the misfortune of being preceded by a young upstart band from Essex who basically blew them away. Wilko skittering across the extended stage wings, Brilleaux at his growling best. After that, preparing myself for "sonic attack" by a load of prog lords didn't seem the best way to spend the rest of the night so repaired tentwards along with many others. too bad you didn't wait around to see them - maybe the weather was a factor. Actually I can't recall if it rained on the Friday. It fair bucketed down on Saturday night during Yes, but they were still amazing. Lou Reed didn't appear, though he was on the bill. Nor sadly did Richard & Linda Thompson. Wishbone Ash were the headliners on Sunday, but couldn't top the magnificent set by Robin Trower. under a copy of the Reading Evening Post about 4 oc'clock in the middle of Caravan and had the weirdest dream through Soft Machine and the Mahvo's. I do recall the Albertos redeeming the evening though. Those were the days when you bagged a spot and stayed there all day. Not like the nomadic musical grazing that is Glasto today.


The digital world is a remarkable place, and not only because of the vast number of diverse voices and opinions it supports. It is a place full of vibrant ideas and communities around them. For example, Reddit can have millions of users and still be a counter-cultural site full of people who can find communities by subscribing to the things they care the most about, now matter how niche the subject matter. It's also a place where smaller contributions from many can empower real action. Kickstarter has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for projects that likely never would have become realities. Similarly, charitable acts have never been closer than a click away. Whether raising money for people in need through crowdfunding platforms, or helping people organize to do service work in the real world, it's never been easier to make a difference for someone you've never met before. But the digital world can also be a crowded place. Things can change, and fast. The state of the industry is that of flux, with things constantly moving forward. Mashable 's Innovation Index is a way to look back at the best of the digital world in the last year. To do so, we've selected 14 key influencers in a variety of categories who will curate the five most innovative companies, products or ideas in their category. But we know that this effort can't possibly cover the entire digital sphere. And that's where we want you to come in. There's room for your voice in the Innovation Index, so we're offering up one curator spot to a member of our community. What category is missing from our list? We want you to let us know what you think should be represented and why you should be the person to curate it. We'll pick one person to join the Innovation Index and help us recognize the best in digital in the past year. To enter, simply fill out the form below with your answers -- we'll announce the winner on November 26. We can't wait to see your responses, and look forward to choosing one of you to be part of Mashable's Innovation Index! About Mashable Mashable is a leading source for news, information and resources for the Connected Generation. Mashable reports on the importance of digital innovation and how it empowers and inspires people around the world. Mashable's 20 million unique visitors and 6 million social media followers have become one of the most engaged online news communities. Founded in 2005, Mashable is headquartered in New York City with an office in San Francisco.


Welcome to Windows 7 Forums . Our forum is dedicated to helping you find solutions with any problems, errors or issues you are experiencing with Windows 7 . The Windows 7 forum also covers news and updates and has an extensive Windows 7 tutorial section that covers a wide range of tips and tricks. All of a sudden I could not find my sent mails in the Sent Items Folder. I looked for help from the forums and got a suggestion to create another profile to test whether I can see my sent mails there. I followed the instructions but there was not enough to lead me through so I don't think I completed creating a profile. Then I got another suggestion to purchase the Registry Booster to clean up my registry. After I did that I was able to see my sent mails again. However I still continue to see the Outlook Data File Popup with the message "This data file has not been configured. Select an existing file to configure or try the name of a new file to create". After I clicked "OK" then I got another pop up to prompting me to choose a file from the Libraries.Documents directory. I clicked "Cancel" then I got another pop up with "Properities for this data file must be defined prior to use". I clicked "OK" and then I got the Outlook Data File Popup and the same subsequent popups again. After clicking through I was able to start my Outlook but when use the registry Booster to scan I got more error messages. So apparently these errors from Outlook is mucking up my registry. Anyone has any idea about this problem? Please help. Your assistance is greatly appreciated. Thank you. Helen. Firstly, you certainly do not need any registry boosters to solve Outlook data file issues - was this a recommendation made by someone, or was this suggested to you by an automated pop-up? If its the latter, is there any chance you could be infected by some sort of malware? To solve the Outlook issue, do you know where your Outlook data file is being stored? Can you do a search on your computer for all files with this extension: .pst Post back here with your findings. Also, can you tell us about your current system : what anti-virus software are you using. I'm a bit concerned about this Registry Booster : generally speaking, in most cases you really do not need/want to be mucking with the registry at all. Thank you kindly for your help. I'm afraid I have purchased the software online and used it. It found more than 300 errors fromt the registry and fixed it. After that, I was able to see the latest sent mails from the Sent Items folder again. When I checked with Microsoft support I got a pop up about this Registry Booster. They claimed that they are Microsoft Partner. I thought that they are legit. I'm using Norton antivirus, do you think Norton would detect the malware from the registry? When I did a search on PST file, I found the following: For 3 email accounts that have not been active under my original Profile the files are stored under C:\Users\UserName\My Documents\Outlook Files. For the current active email account under the same original Profile, the files are stored under C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsof\\... For the new Profile (I don't think got as far to create a user account yet) that I tried to create for testing purposes, the files are also stored under C:\Users\UserName\My Documents\Outlook Files. Scanpst.exe is installed on your computer when you install Microsoft Outlook 2010. The Inbox Repair tool tries to correct any problems by resetting the data file structure and rebuilding the headers for Outlook items. If you are using an Exchange account, the tool does not connect to or analyze the data saved on the Exchange server. Important You must exit Outlook before using the Inbox Repair tool. It is not accessible within Outlook. In the Enter the name of the file you want to scan box, enter the name of the .pst or .ost file that you want to check, or click Browse to select the file. To specify the scan log options, click Options , and then click the option that you want. Click Start . If errors are found, you are prompted to start the repair process to fix the errors. A backup file is created during the repair process. To change the default name or location of this backup file, in the Enter name of backup file box, enter a new name, or click Browse to select the file that you want to use. Click Repair . Start Outlook with the profile that contains the .pst file that you tried to repair. In the Navigation Pane, click Folder List . Keyboard shortcut To open switch to the Folder List, press CTRL+6. In the Folder List , you might see a folder named Recovered Personal Folders that contains your default Outlook folders or a Lost and Found folder. The recovered folders are usually empty, because this is a rebuilt .pst file. The Lost and Found folder contains the folders and items recovered by the Inbox Repair tool. You can create an Outlook Data File (.pst), and drag the items in the Lost and Found folder into the new data file. When you have finished moving all the items, you can remove the Recovered Personal Folders (.pst) file, including the Lost and Found folder, from your profile. Notes If you are able to open the original Outlook Data File (.pst), you may be able to recover additional items from your damaged .pst file. By default, the Inbox Repair tool creates a file with the same name, but with the file extension of .bak. The .bak file is located in the same folder as your original .pst file. You may be able to recover items from the .bak file that the Inbox Repair tool could not recover. Make a copy of the .bak file, and give the file a new name with a .pst extension, such as bak.pst. Import the bak.pst file, and then move any additional recovered items to the new .pst file that you created. From your description, it doesn't sound malware related so I wouldn't be overly concerned with that. The apparent registry errors are more of a concern. What is the name of this software that you purchased? I concur with Irene : try the repair she suggested. In addition, can you also try to scan for system errors on your PC. To do this, please follow these steps: 1. Click Start Orb, and then type cmd in the search box 2. Right-click on cmd and choose the Run as administrator option 3. This will open up a cmd (DOS) window 4. Type sfc /scannow anf hit enter This will check and attempt to repair any issues with the system files. Let the process finish, and then post the results here. Open Outlook and see if you get the same pop-up message. If you do, please post a screen capture image of the message here. Thank you so much for your kind help. I tried the Scanpst on all the files and it hung a few times but finally manage to complete the repair . However, after the repair , I started Outlook again but still got the same error. I think the error was caused by me creating a new profile but the activity was incomplete so it's still looking for some files. I did go in and delete this profile from Outlook by going into the Control panel, Mail, Show Profile and Remove. Now I only see 1 profile from the Control panel. But when I used the Scanpst and browsed I could see that the outlook files associated with the new profile are still there. So the Remove did not remove everything cleanly. If my assumption is correct, is there anyway I can go in and delete the new profile and all of the related files associated with it so that hopefully I can remove these error messages. I'm concerned that whenever Outlook start up looking for these files it will muck up the Registry. I think that's why I did not see the latest sent mails before and after I ran the REGISTRY BOOSTER it cleaned up the registry and I could see the latest sent mails again. Thank you very much for your suggestion. I just tried Irene's suggestion to run the SCANPST. It took a long time, so I ran out of time and I have to go to work now. I will try your suggestion later on today and report back to you. However, the SCANPST did not remove the error messages. I am almost certain that these have something to do with my creating a new profile but not completing properly. Could you offer some insight? Thank you both for your help with my problem with Outlook. I have continued to receive the same error messages from Outlook 2010 due to the fact that I did not add another Profile correctly. Eventhough I have removed the profle I still continue to receive the error messages every time I started Outlook. These error messages seem to have caused user related errors in the registry which subsequently caused Outlook not to display the latest sent messages in the Sent Folder. When I did the Scanpst before I could still see file from the 2nd profile still there. I think that's why the system keeps complaining and gives me these errors. Is there any way that I can completely clean up the 2nd profile that I did not correctly created?


Outlook 2007 keeps cycling through send routine over and over =?Utf-8?B?aG0=?= Guest Posts: n/a 's Computer Specifications 15th Oct 2007 I have an costumer who has a problem sometimes, when he try to send an email, the mail is placed in the outbox folder, and when outlook starts the send/receive routine, it just keeps on cycling through the send job... ??1 out of 1 job completed?_ ?݃?݃?. ??1000 out of 1000 jobs completed?_ and just keep on growing and growing, and newer stops? The mail is newer send. Absolutely no error messages or anything??? The only way to stop it is to ??crash stop?_ outlook itself, and then he has to run scanpst to get access to his outlook again. I know this hasn??t anything to do with the first problem, but no wonder, he find this frustrating? But I guessing the scanning deletes the message from the outbox, and therefore fixes the problem. We tried different SMTPs, and antivirus programs, and every time I have left, it seemed the problem has gone away, but reappeared later. (He is running 2007 Office on a Windows XP machine.) Roady [MVP] Guest Posts: n/a 's Computer Specifications 15th Oct 2007 This is commonly caused by either your virus scanner or by having a too short Send/Receive interval configured. If you have a virus scanner that integrates with Outlook, disable this integration and try again. Also make sure that your automatic send/receive interval is set to at least 5 minutes (but 10 or longer is better). If you are on a slow connection or have multiple accounts configured you should modify it accordingly but no shorter than 10 minutes. "hm" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message news:0AEADB81-41BE-4112-B8F0-(E-Mail Removed)... > I have an costumer who has a problem sometimes, when he try to send an > email, > the mail is placed in the outbox folder, and when outlook starts the > send/receive routine, it just keeps on cycling through the send job... > > ??1 out of 1 job completed?_ ?݃?݃?. ??1000 out of 1000 jobs completed?_ and just > keep on growing and growing, and newer stops? The mail is newer send. > Absolutely no error messages or anything??? > > The only way to stop it is to ??crash stop?_ outlook itself, and then he has > to run scanpst to get access to his outlook again. I know this hasn??t > anything to do with the first problem, but no wonder, he find this > frustrating? But I guessing the scanning deletes the message from the > outbox, and therefore fixes the problem. > > We tried different SMTPs, and antivirus programs, and every time I have > left, it seemed the problem has gone away, but reappeared later. > > > (He is running 2007 Office on a Windows XP machine.)


Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald III About a year and a half before, Doctor Dohmler had some vague correspondence with an American gentleman living in Lausanne, a Mr. Devereux Warren, of the Warren family of Chicago. A meeting was arranged and one day Mr. Warren arrived at the clinic with his daughter Nicole, a girl of sixteen. She was obviously not well and the nurse who was with her took her to walk about the grounds while Mr. Warren had his consultation. Warren was a strikingly handsome man looking less than forty. He was a fine American type in every way, tall, broad, well-made -- "un homme trs chic," as Doctor Dohmler described him to Franz. His large gray eyes were sun-veined from rowing on Lake Geneva, and he had that special air about him of having known the best of this world. The conversation was in German, for it developed that he had been educated at Gttingen. He was nervous and obviously very moved by his errand. "Doctor Dohmler, my daughter isn't right in the head. I've had lots of specialists and nurses for her and she's taken a couple of rest cures but the thing has grown too big for me and I've been strongly recommended to come to you." "Very well," said Doctor Dohmler. "Suppose you start at the beginning and tell me everything." "There isn't any beginning, at least there isn't any insanity in the family that I know of, on either side. Nicole's mother died when she was eleven and I've sort of been father and mother both to her, with the help of governesses -- father and mother both to her." He was very moved as he said this. Doctor Dohmler saw that there were tears in the corners of his eyes and noticed for the first time that there was whiskey on his breath. "As a child she was a darling thing -- everybody was crazy about her, everybody that came in contact with her. She was smart as a whip and happy as the day is long. She liked to read or draw or dance or play the piano -- anything. I used to hear my wife say she was the only one of our children who never cried at night. I've got an older girl, too, and there was a boy that died, but Nicole was -- Nicole was -- Nicole -- " He broke off and Doctor Dohmler helped him. "She was a perfectly normal, bright, happy child." "Perfectly." Doctor Dohmler waited. Mr. Warren shook his head, blew a long sigh, glanced quickly at Doctor Dohmler and then at the floor again. "About eight months ago, or maybe it was six months ago or maybe ten -- I try to figure but I can't remember exactly where we were when she began to do funny things -- crazy things. Her sister was the first one to say anything to me about it -- because Nicole was always the same to me," he added rather hastily, as if some one had accused him of being to blame, " -- the same loving little girl. The first thing was about a valet." "Oh, yes," said Doctor Dohmler, nodding his venerable head, as if, like Sherlock Holmes, he had expected a valet and only a valet to be introduced at this point. "I had a valet -- been with me for years -- Swiss, by the way." He looked up for Doctor Dohmler's patriotic approval. "And she got some crazy idea about him. She thought he was making up to her -- of course, at the time I believed her and I let him go, but I know now it was all nonsense." "What did she claim he had done?" "That was the first thing -- the doctors couldn't pin her down. She just looked at them as if they ought to know what he'd done. But she certainly meant he'd made some kind of indecent advances to her -- she didn't leave us in any doubt of that." "I see." "Of course, I've read about women getting lonesome and thinking there's a man under the bed and all that, but why should Nicole get such an idea? She could have all the young men she wanted. We were in Lake Forest -- that's a summer place near Chicago where we have a place -- and she was out all day playing golf or tennis with boys. And some of them pretty gone on her at that." All the time Warren was talking to the dried old package of Doctor Dohmler, one section of the latter's mind kept thinking intermittently of Chicago. Once in his youth he could have gone to Chicago as fellow and docent at the university, and perhaps become rich there and owned his own clinic instead of being only a minor shareholder in a clinic. But when he had thought of what he considered his own thin knowledge spread over that whole area, over all those wheat fields, those endless prairies, he had decided against it. But he had read about Chicago in those days, about the great feudal families of Armour, Palmer, Field, Crane, Warren, Swift, and McCormick and many others, and since that time not a few patients had come to him from that stratum of Chicago and New York. "She got worse," continued Warren. "She had a fit or something -- the things she said got crazier and crazier. Her sister wrote some of them down -- " He handed a much-folded piece of paper to the doctor. "Almost always about men going to attack her, men she knew or men on the street -- anybody -- " He told of their alarm and distress, of the horrors families go through under such circumstances, of the ineffectual efforts they had made in America, finally of the faith in a change of scene that had made him run the submarine blockade and bring his daughter to Switzerland. " -- on a United States cruiser," he specified with a touch of hauteur. "It was possible for me to arrange that, by a stroke of luck. And, may I add," he smiled apologetically, "that as they say: money is no object." "Certainly not," agreed Dohmler dryly. He was wondering why and about what the man was lying to him. Or, if he was wrong about that, what was the falsity that pervaded the whole room, the handsome figure in tweeds sprawling in his chair with a sportsman's ease? That was a tragedy out there, in the February day, the young bird with wings crushed somehow, and inside here it was all too thin, thin and wrong. "I would like -- to talk to her -- a few minutes now," said Doctor Dohmler, going into English as if it would bring him closer to Warren. Afterward when Warren had left his daughter and returned to Lausanne, and several days had passed, the doctor and Franz entered upon Nicole's card: * Diagnosis: Divided Personality. Acute and down-hill phase of the illness. The fear of men is a symptom of the illness and is not at all constitutional. . . . The prognosis must be reserved. And then they waited with increasing interest as the days passed for Mr. Warren's promised second visit. It was slow in coming. After a fortnight Doctor Dohmler wrote. Confronted with further silence he committed what was for those days "une folie," and telephoned to the Grand Hotel at Vevey. He learned from Mr. Warren's valet that he was at the moment packing to sail for America. But reminded that the forty francs Swiss for the call would show up on the clinic books, the blood of the Tuileries Guard rose to Doctor Dohmler's aid and Mr. Warren was got to the phone. "It is -- absolutely necessary -- that you come. Your daughter's health -- all depends. I can take no responsibility." "But look here, Doctor, that's just what you're for. I have a hurry call to go home!" Doctor Dohmler had never yet spoken to any one so far away but he dispatched his ultimatum so firmly into the phone that the agonized American at the other end yielded. Half an hour after this second arrival on the Zurichsee, Warren had broken down, his fine shoulders shaking with awful sobs inside his easy fitting coat, his eyes redder than the very sun on Lake Geneva, and they had the awful story. "It just happened," he said hoarsely. "I don't know -- I don't know. "After her mother died when she was little she used to come into my bed every morning, sometimes she'd sleep in my bed. I was sorry for the little thing. Oh, after that, whenever we went places in an automobile or a train we used to hold hands. She used to sing to me. We used to say, 'Now let's not pay any attention to anybody else this afternoon -- let's just have each other -- for this morning you're mine.'" A broken sarcasm came into his voice. "People used to say what a wonderful father and daughter we were -- they used to wipe their eyes. We were just like lovers -- and then all at once we were lovers -- and ten minutes after it happened I could have shot myself -- except I guess I'm such a Goddamned degenerate I didn't have the nerve to do it." "Then what?" said Doctor Dohmler, thinking again of Chicago and of a mild pale gentleman with a pince-nez who had looked him over in Zurich thirty years before. "Did this thing go on?" "Oh, no! She almost -- she seemed to freeze up right away. She'd just say, 'Never mind, never mind, Daddy. It doesn't matter. Never mind.'" "There were no consequences?" "No." He gave one short convulsive sob and blew his nose several times. "Except now there're plenty of consequences." As the story concluded Dohmler sat back in the focal armchair of the middle class and said to himself sharply, "Peasant!" -- it was one of the few absolute worldly judgments that he had permitted himself for twenty years. Then he said: "I would like for you to go to a hotel in Zurich and spend the night and come see me in the morning."


Fitting A Saddle Fitting a saddle is one of the rider's most basic concerns, and there are many important criteria to meet regarding the horse's comfort, the rider's position, and the optimal transmission of aiding between the rider and the horse. Fitting a saddle: The relevance of the tree All horses have the same basic width of spinal column and angle of spine in relation to the horizontal. The height and shape of the wither, and the proportions of the ribcage vary quite dramatically between breeds of horse, but they still tend to fall into three basic types. Ideally the tree of your saddle will mirror this basic spinal pattern so that the saddle sits in balance. This means that the entire panel surface is in contact with the horses back, distributing the weight evenly, and avoiding pressure points, rocking or bridging: Rocking is when the tree shape is incorrect i.e the angle curves too much, like a banana, and the whole saddle rocks back and forth with the horse's movement. Bridging is also when the tree shape is incorrect, but this time the angle doesn't curve enough and the saddle only contacts the horse's back at the back and the front of the panels. These places are then taking all the weight, and are likely to cause discomfort and pain due to the pressure points. Interestingly, the vast majority of saddles are built on the same mass-produced tree. This tree is not shaped to the horse's spinal column, due to short-cuts taken in the manufacturing process, and a basic lack of understanding of the shape of the horse's back by saddlers (who are usually not riders themselves). It is held together with metal struts and features recessed stirrup bars. Stirrup bars are designed like this for the comfort of the rider, but for the horse they invariably become pressure points, and often horses have hardened lumps and even white hairs on the corresponding place on their back. When fitting a saddle, we feel that it is important for the it to have a tree that provides a consistent weight-bearing structure, so the weight of the rider is distributed evenly. We know that for the horse's spine, the tree structure is crucial, it can't be improved with different panel types or padding. Like the tale of the princess and the pea , an incorrect tree shape will always impinge on the horse sooner or later. We have had the good fortune to discover a little-known design of saddle that addresses beautifully the above issues of fitting a saddle. Strada saddles (above) have a tree made with carbon fibre and wood and they are designed to fit the universal spinal shape of the horse. They are made in different widths i.e the panel angle alters to accommodate the different types of horse, and they fit all horses with reasonably healthy musculature like a glove. These saddles also have panels made of thermo-reactive memory foam so that although they mould themselves to the individual horse's back, they return to their original shape after use, unlike wool-filled panels which invariably take on the unevenness of the horse's back over time. Positioning the Saddle Once you've understood what your looking for when fitting a saddle, you also need to consider where you are actually placing it on the horse's back. When you place your saddle on the horses back and slide it back, to find the right place, the main thing to be aware of is the position of the scapula in relation to the saddle. When a horse moves his leg forward, the scapula rolls back, and if there is a saddle in the way, eventually the cartilage of the shoulder joint will be damaged. To feel this, cup your hand over the top edge of the scapula and get someone to lift the horse's leg out - you will feel how it comes back. For this reason the saddle must be placed so that the scapula is visible and you can watch it moving back and forth unrestricted. Horses with the saddle on their shoulder like in this photograph, will start to shorten their stride in front to try and avoid the friction. We find that in general saddles very often come forward against the shoulder during work, even if they are placed correctly to begin with. Go to Using a crupper to keep the saddle in place for more on this. Putting the saddle on Keeping your horse happy with his saddle can be quite a challenge. If he has had a damaging saddle previously in his life he will anticipate that he is going to be hurt again, and even if you have subsequently taken care correctly fitting a saddle, it can be difficult to convince him otherwise. Always put it on as gently as you can and do the girth up very gradually. If you are putting it on a young horse get him used to the saddle-cloth first, and don't do everything in one day. It's better to assume that he need's more time than go by a lack of reaction. Watch his eye and see if he is accepting the process or tuning out. Young horses tune out easily and it can be difficult to see it happening. The saddle-cloth one day, then the saddle-cloth and saddle without girth the next, then the saddle-cloth, saddle and the girth the next again is a good speed of progression. You, or someone else is going to be putting the saddle on thousands of times throughout the horse's life. There is very little advantage in rushing the process and ending up with a difficult horse later on. Look at How to prevent bridle problems for a guide to resolving problems with horses who are already difficult. Train Your Horse The Holistic Way How To Train A Horse Without Force is a unique guide to training horses through energetic connection and gymnastic training. Part 1 covers everything on the ground, from handling to the lungeing technique that develops strength, straightness and engagement. Comes with a free eBook supplement on Horse Trauma. Click here for more details. Do You Have A Horse Story To Share On HHT? So many people have been through wonderful experiences with horses, whether in training or otherwise. If you've made a change in a horse's life - or one has made a change in yours - tell us about it here . Learn How To Trim Your Own Horse's Feet The Simple Seven-Step Natural Trim is a comprehensive step-by-step guide to a cutting-edge barefoot trim. Click here to find out more. What people say about HHT: "The riding instruction is outstanding, if instructors in the UK taught this way there would be a lot of happy riders and horses." "The riding tuition exceeded my hopes and expectations by a long way; giving me an exciting new facet to horsemanship which is lighter. more subtle, more elegant and more meaningful. It is as if a new door has opened bringing more sunlight and air." "My goodness - what a change has taken place in my riding. I think that I'm starting to sit 'into' the horse rather than on top of him. I felt my horse's movements in a way that has almost never happened before"


Search Read Ownership ain't what it used to be I recently signed up for Spotify , a music service that allows you to find, and listen to, whole tracks and albums. It's less social than LastFM, say, but more focused around the specific music you want - whereas LastFM uses the artist you like as a springboard for finding other artists, Spotify uses it just to give you that artist's music. It brought back to me some considerations I'd had about the nature of ownership. My generation will have a distinctly different concept of ownership to that of my daughter's generation. For my generation you partly constructed your identity around what you owned - your bookshelf, record collection and DVD archive were important aspects of who you were (as anyone who has read Nick Hornby's High Fidelity will appreciate). But for the digital generation this strong link with ownership has been broken. It took time and money to build up any of those collections. Therefore they demonstrated a commitment which was worth exhibiting. In a digital world this effort is greatly reduced, and as a result so is the emotional attachment one feels towards them. How often would people say that their book collection or record collection would be the things they would want to save from a burning house? This simply doesn't apply anymore - you can just download again (iTunes keeps a record of what you've purchased or you just download ahem, free, versions from BitTorrent). But even more than this, the need to own anything is reduced. Imagine a service like Spotify greatly increased so you could find any artist, and with mobile devices, get access anywhere. Why do I need to own any of these tracks then? I can get them whenever I want, and isn't that the point of ownership, to have access under your control? Obviously there are some things you still need to own (clothes, cars, phones, etc), but if so many previously coveted items move to cloud services, what will the next generation cherish? I think the answer is evident already in where they spend their time - it's in their identity. This was one of the functions of owning these items in the first place after all. For the digital generation things that cannot be easily duplicated will be important - this will be the MySpace or Facebook page they have generated over a long time, the network they have created. These represent the 'things I'd save from a fire' in an online world. Comments Hey Martin, I agree with all this - but in addition to representing your identity these modern-day assets are cherished because they are also just really useful in your everyday life. I guess it comes down to what is irreplaceable these days - and it's not virtual objects themselves, but the record of their locations: bookmarks, addresses, file locations, contact info. If you don't know where they are, you have really lost them. ( Or at the very least you're looking at a lot of googling to find them again ) So, if the Facebook servers burned down, and you could google to retrieve one thing, what would it be for ? : ) Hi Matt, I couldn't give a toss if the FB servers burned down - what I would miss most in an internet fire would be a) this blog and b) the network I have established in Twitter. The former because I would never get back all the content I have put in on here, the latter because my network has built up over 18 months or so. As you say, both of these are about identity, but also, really useful - indeed essential probably for my professional life. Doc, Yep, it's a virtual world alright, but i don't see the impending cloud culture a bad thing. Yes, having a tactile history at hand is reassuring and often a reminder of who we were, are and wish we'd been - though i do see such items/possessions a little like a safety blanket - fuufy if you will - and maybe this and later generations will be liberated from the shackles of ownership. Perhaps my sons will have to affirm their identity through their actions and general character more than I. Of course this is wishful thinking - both are submerged into fake video (do we say Video now?) worlds - and don't fully appreciate how to covet their belongings. Blimey, Jenkins and Burton both make it to my blog after 4 years. I don't think it's a bad thing either - but it is a fundamental change in how we relate to stuff and how we express our identity. Also a lot of businesses are still going on the ownership model (cf Zavvi) - it ain't a horse worth betting on. Now get back to work. I definitely feel "ownership" of my blog, as you said in the comment above--which is why when Blogger recently (finally) added an export feature, you can bet that I immediately backed up my four years of blogging in, like, three different places!:D Is there a stronger culture of identity though ownership ( clothing, labels, sports shoes, phone brands, jewellery/bling) among cultures who fall on the wrong side of the digital divide, or are otherwise digitally disadvantaged*. I wonder if forward-thinking archaeologists are really displeased with this trend? The reason I wonder about this is because archaeologists painstakingly construct our understanding of the past through the artifacts we've left behind. In an increasingly digital society built on storage technology that is not expected to survive more than 20 or 30 years, what will be left of our music, our literature, our art, and our science? What will our descendants in a thousand years be able to say about our lives?


Marketing plan - how to write Adopting a customer focused business ethos is a proven method to increase the chances of a sustainable and profitable future. The marketing planning process is at the heart of any truly marketing orientated company, and ensures the customer is at the centre of key decisions. The plan is a detailed written document which can be used to promote a single product of form the annual business strategy. Marketing-made-simple.com has split the marketing plan into three steps which are easy to follow and relevant to both small and large businesses. The marketing plan should provide direction for all relevant members of the organization and should be referred to and updated throughout the year. The main purpose of the marketing plan is to provide a structured approach that ensures the marketing manager considers all the relevant elements of the planning process which could otherwise be missed if a more rushed approach is adopted. Stage 1: Research & planning This section includes the following: Statement of your current situation and scope of the plan Research into potential / current customers Examining the marketing environment Identifying opportunities for growth Current business situation Summarise where you are at the moment, possible items include: Financial results Sale figures and trends Market share Customer satisfaction Level of repeat business The marketing environment Examining both the internal and external marketing environments can identify both opportunities and threats to the business and is a core component of the plan. The whole area is usually broken down into the macro, micro and internal environments as summarised in the diagram below. The macro-environment A commonly used method of quantifying the macro external environment is with a PEST analysis. PEST is an acronym which divides the macro-environment into four areas -- Political, Economic, Social, and Technological, examples of which are shown below. Political environmental factors Trading agreements Tax rules Employment regulation Environmental legislation Legal issues Economic environmental factors Recession Interest rates Exchange rates Rate of inflation Population wealth Growth of the housing market Social environmental factors 'Green' behaviour Eating habits Shifts in attitude Population demographics Attitudes to career Technological environmental factors Emergence of new communications channels Improved production processes Advances in computing and the internet New technologies such as electric vehicles Automation Reduced cost of materials Micro-environment The micro-environment includes factors which are still not directly under the control of the company, but more directly relevant to strategy such as consumer trends, stakeholders, suppliers and competitors. Some example items are listed below. Summary of your market segment Market growth, trends and competition Potential new markets Direction from shareholders Supplier costs and service quality Changes is consumer behaviour Understanding your customers and market Ensuring a thorough knowledge of the consumer is vital for successful marketing planning. Use the primary and secondary (first and second hand) market research information at your disposal to describe your customer. The more accurate your picture of your consumer, the better you'll be able to design products which cater for their needs and the easier it will be to communicate with them. If you have a broad customer base, you might need to split your customers into groups (segmentation). Understanding your competitors Internal environment The internal marketing environment includes factors that the business can directly influence. This can include: The organisational structure The strengths and weaknesses of a department Financial stability and resources Staff morale Spare production capacity Client base Pricing structure Selling channels Staff skills Identifying opportunities in the marketing environment Once you have completed the internal and external environmental audit, you can summarise your findings using a SWOT analysis which can be used to make key decisions. SWOT analysis A ' SWO T analysis' is a useful way of summarizing the results of the environmental audit and presenting the current status of a business. SWOT simply stands for the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats which have emerged from examining the macro, micro and internal marketing environments. For example, here is a SWOT analysis for a fictional electric car manufacturer Strengths Our electric motors are cheap to produce and maintenance free Charge time is class leading Production capacity can be increased R&D department is class leading Weaknesses Batteries are heavy, slow to charge and provide limited mileage Dealer network is small Customer trust in the segment is low Market is highly competitive Opportunities Government grants are available Road tax breaks for electric cars Market is growing rapidly Battery technology is evolving Threats Tesla has secured a large government grant The big players are investing heavily Hybrid and diesel technology is evolving fast Stage 2: Marketing strategy This section includes the following elements: Development of mission statement Statement of objectives Strategy and tactics to accomplish the objectives Mission statement Your mission statement is a formal commitment and focus for the business. It should explain to customers concisely what the nature of your business is and where you are going, and also provide a motivational tool for employees. It should be aspirational, something to strive for, yet obtainable and relevant. Once this has been defined it should form the focus for your business strategy. Vision statement A vision statement is a more long term, ideal-world statement which outlines where you would like to take the business in the long run. Objectives Combined with the mission statement, your objectives should be the key statements that drive your business. The most successful goals follow the SMART acronym. Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. What do you want to achieve by the end of this year? Where do you want to be in one, five, ten years? Objectives must be quantitative in order to accurately measure success. For example, 'sell 600 units in the next year' or 'increase customer retention by 20%'. Selecting a suitable strategy Selecting a strategy for growth - the Ansoff Matrix Most businesses need to grow, and the Ansoff Matrix (below) is a method of determining the best course of action if growth is your priority. Product development Creating a range of similar products, for example shaving foam if you are already manufacturing razors Diversification Developing a new product for a completely new market Example tactics: Market research Product research and development Selecting a pricing strategy Once you have determined the product and market you want to be in, the next problem will be setting a price. Porter's model discusses three strategies for competitive advantage based on price. Three generic strategies for competitive advantage - Porter's model Cost leadership: A good quality product at a lower price than the competitors Differential strategy: A product or service which is perceived as unique within a particular market Focus strategy: Delivering focused attention to a particular segment to deliver service which competitors cannot compete Determining which products to invest in If you have a product range it is likely that some will do better than others. The Boston Consultancy Group matrix is a method of determining which to invest in, and which to drop, shown below. High market share Low market share High market growth Stars Question marks Low market growth Cash cows Dogs Stars High growth products with a strong market presence. Probably need high investment to maintain position. Cash cows Low growth products with a high market share. Probably don't need much investment, but require management to maintain profitability. Question marks Products which have potential, but may require investment to yield decent profits. Dogs Rarely worth investing in, dogs should at least break even to be retained. Tactics - the marketing mix The marketing mix is a selection of customer focused business elements which work together as a toolkit to market your product or service. The tactical section of a marketing plan summarises how you intend to use each element of the marketing mix, which can be summarised in seven 'Ps' as shown in the illustration below. Product Product refers to the items you are selling or the service you are providing. Your product based tactics link back to your overall strategy - if your strategy is market penetration (see the Ansoff matrix), then there may be little need to do anything to the product. However if you have chosen product development or diversification, then a certain amount of research and development, and product design will be needed. Price Comparable pricing -- if you are not the market leader, competitors will have set a price expectation which can be followed Market penetration strategy -- deliberately low pricing in order to enter or control a market quickly. Place Place refers to the method of getting your product to the consumer - this could be a dealership or an online shop. How will you attract more retailers to sell your product? How will you maintain a premium appearance? How will your distribution network function? How many countries should you operate in? Promotion Promotion is much more than just advertising - this is the discipline of marketing communications. What is your branding strategy? Which promotional channels will you use? How will you divide up the budget? Will billboards work better than TV ads? What should be the discount for special offers? How will you generate positive PR? Should you out-source the creative work? Physical evidence This element of the marketing mix is mostly used to promote services. If you're not selling anything tangible, how will people know what they're getting? This is where physical evidence comes in. Examples of physical evidence include a brochure for a holiday tour, customer testimonials for a dentist, or a portfolio for a website design company. Segmentation, targeting & positioning When using the marketing mix, it is important to keep in mind the three generic stages of marketing - segmentation, targeting and positioning. Segmentation is the detailed breakdown of your customers into as much detail as practical, targeting then ensures all elements of the mix are tailored to your identified consumer group. Positioning the process of ensuring potential and current customers perceive your company in the way you would like them to. Stage 3: Actions, measurement and controls How will you monitor progress? Who will do which jobs? When will each element be completed? How will you adjust the plan? What will be the budget? This section discusses action plans, controls, measurements and reporting. Actions Developing an action plan An action plan is core to the marketing process -- a constantly evolving document which is cascaded to the relevant people and monitored regularly. Most action plans are relatively short term documents which focus on the coming year, but longer term implications should also be considered. Action planning is a stages approach: Clarify goals, and ensure they are SMART Link back to your objectives and tactics Set criteria for success Prioritize Set timings Determine who will complete each action point Monitor the progress of the plan and review regularly An example action plan is shown below Measurements, controls and reporting The final stage of the action plan is the implementation of measurements and controls and reporting results. Many models for monitoring the performance of businesses have emerged, many of which address the needs of key stakeholders and allow them to evaluate the overall success of a company. The balanced scorecard approach for monitoring company performance The balanced scorecard approach is a widely used method of monitoring overall performance and ensuring daily work is focused on the strategic objectives. The scorecard is a "strategic planning and management system...which is used to align business activities to the vision and strategy of the organization, improve internal and external communications, and monitor organization performance against strategic goals". This approach encourages open communication throughout the business and allows tracking of performance throughout the year. Reference: http://www.balancedscorecard.org Traditionally, businesses have tracked success based on just one measure -- financial results. However the scorecard system views the business from four external perspectives to gain a more relevant approach to performance metrics. Learning & growth -- how you are innovating and improving to meet your goals Business process -- how critical processes are measuring up Customer perspective -- usually measured in terms of time, quality, performance and cost Financial perspective -- financial performance from the stakeholder point of view Each element is tracked using four items which are listed individually: Objectives - as identified in stage 2 of the marketing planning process Measures - how will success be measured? Targets - specific quantifiable targets Initiatives - how to make the targets more readily achievable Key performance indicators ( KPI s) Depending on your industry, you may also have certain specific metrics which determine success, these could include: Market share analysis Sales analysis Quality control Financial results Market research Marketing information systems CRM - New customers acquired, retention Service levels Brand awareness Competitor performance Benchmarking Profitability Gap analysis Gap analysis is another useful tool which answers two questions: Where are you? Where do you want to be? It can be useful to identify where you are with the following facets of the business: Organisation Business direction and marketing mix Business processes Information technology Requirements vs capability Market potential vs existing usage Your business vs competition Feedback Now that you have an accurate picture about the success of your plan it's important to feedback this information in order to fine tune the strategy and update the courses of action accordingly. Final words The marketing planning process is a comprehensive method for examining your business, your market and the environment in order to develop a strategy to exploit opportunities. It is a vital process which should be used by almost every company to ensure a profitable and sustainable future.