Choice-free holidays

As travel becomes more accessible, many today look to the internet to help them discover new and exciting holiday options. Yet, the seemingly endless degree of choice available means that time-starved luxury travellers are willing to give away responsibility for deciding their holidays to others – in the quest for truly rarified experiences, it makes sense for discerning holidaymakers to enjoy a travel experience hand-selected by a trustworthy holiday operator.

Six-year-old luxury travel operator Black Tomato, which specialises in piecing together unique tailor-made experiences for its customers, recorded a 14 million annual turnover in 2012. In addition to planning the usual holiday itinerary - flights, accommodation, etc - Black Tomato prides itself on meeting customers’ every minor need or desire. This can be anything from compiling a selection of songs on an iTunes playlist for the traveller to listen to while away to providing a film for the traveller to watch once back home and faced with the post-holiday blues.

If one of the purposes of a holiday is to allow relaxation, then it makes sense that travellers are handing over control of the decision-making process.Check out our selection of eyewear Optical frame today!Find the best iPhone headset for you Increasingly, travellers are opting out of the strenuous input required to filter through the plethora of holiday possibilities. Instead, this process is being wholly placed into the hands of operators who are trusted to offer more simplified, exclusive and novel holiday selections that expedite (and, at times, entertain during) the decision-making process.

The coming year will see more travel services evolving not only to help their discerning customers discover appropriate holidays, but also to help plan, finalise and offer those experiences in the most interesting and exclusive of ways. This may manifest through the way in which holidays are presented; the story behind how they are selected; the exclusivity of the platform they reside upon; and even via the additional perks with which they are offered.Our premium collection of quality personalized keychains generously offers affordability in a custom keychain.

Take a look at how these brands are using innovative methods and platforms to package and present ‘choice cut’ holidays, services and experiences for their customers:

Hotel Haiku is a travel website that lists hotels around the world in an exceptionally simple fashion. Information about a featured hotel is limited to a single image and a haiku-style description of the property. The site also features ‘notels’, which are architecturally or conceptually unique holiday rental properties

American Express Travel launched Nextpedition, a tailor-made mystery vacation with social media integration. The trip begins with a quiz designed to attribute a Travel Sign to each user, based on their interests and personality. Travellers can share the quiz on Facebook and then have the opportunity to speak to a Nextpedition Travel Specialist, who will create a vacation based on their Travel Sign, as well as duration and budget. Destinations include cities in the US, Canada and Europe, and the vacation itinerary is revealed gradually via a mobile device; the Travel Console. This device suggests personalized activities and makes recommendations on places to see and things to do. The Travel Console also allows vacation-makers to keep a record of their trip, uploading photograph and videos, sharing on Facebook and making comments – plus family and friends can follow the progress of the trip in real-time. Package prices start at $1000.

Mumbai-based travel brand SOTC launched Box Holidays – tangible, pre-packaged travel offerings that can be purchased online or off the shelf in a participating retail store. Rather than having to spend time and effort researching options with a travel agent,Bay monitoring and parking guidance system come together in seamless integration offering more benefits. purchasers can simply buy a Box Holiday, which features all the key details on the outside of the box,Here's a complete list of oil painting supplies for the beginning oil painter. including price, validity period, service inclusions, images and so on. Pricing begins at INR5,990 per couple (71) for domestic getaways and INR47,410 (570) for international packages.

Roadtrippers is a travel website offering driving directions through the US based not on the most efficient journey, but the most interesting route. Users enter their start location and destination, and Roadtrippers shows the most direct path to take; drivers can then alter the distance they are willing to travel away from that route and add filters depending on what kind of things they would like to see along the way – including local dining options, offbeat hotels and national parks. Suggestions featured on the site are curated by local experts.

New York-based Excursionist is a members-only travel website selling exclusive vacation experiences curated by local professionals and site members. Excursionist offers vacations to worldwide destinations that involve local individuals, including artists, scientists, chefs and activists. The handpicked travel guides accompany the tourist on their vacation, providing information and local knowledge, so creating a unique, educational experience. Excursionist also works to provide its members with special access to tourism-related sites such as archaeological digs and other places that are often closed to the public.

Indeed, the increase in travellers relinquishing their roles as holiday planners is bound to result in more travel operators fighting to win their attention by presenting holidays in interesting ways. However, those with wanderlust will ultimately only demonstrate loyalty to the providers that accurately source and tailor every single holiday in a way that exceeds expectations.

BART workers' absences cost agency millions

BART’s station agents and train operators have a troubling history of not showing up for work — and it’s costing the agency significantly in a tough financial time.

On any given day, the rate of unscheduled absences for BART train operators is 11.86 percent, and 12.77 percent for the agency’s station agents, according to information obtained through a public records request. The absences translate to roughly one in eight workers missing their scheduled shifts each day.

The train operators and station agents have worse absentee rates than other employees on BART’s payroll, but the current numbers are an improvement. Last fiscal year, train operators logged a 13.81 percent unscheduled absence rate, and station agents were at 13.20 percent. Unscheduled absences comprise sick days, military leave,Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. jury duty and family emergency situations.

By missing so many of their scheduled shifts, the workers — both groups are members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555 — put a heavy financial burden on the agency. BART must find replacement workers for each shift that a station agent or train operator misses in order to keep the system running, costs that are often paid in overtime. According to BART, the average worker represented by the ATU racks up $16,590 in overtime pay each year. With 807 full-time union workers on the payroll — nearly all of whom are station agents or operators — the added costs account for $13.7 million a year in extra wages for the agency’s operating budget to absorb.

“Not only do these absences affect transit service, but they’re very expensive because we have to backfill them with overtime,” said Tom Radulovich, president of the BART board of directors. “This is clearly an issue that the district needs to confront.”

BART is already scrambling to identify about $6 billion over the next 10 years to meet core system needs. The agency is considering raising revenue — through bigger parking fees and an extension of its biennial fare increase policy — to help close that shortfall, but directly impact riders.

Antonette Bryant, president of ATU Local 1555, declined to comment on the absentee numbers since she did not have an opportunity to independently verify the data obtained by The San Francisco Examiner. Bryant said BART management has approached the union about its attendance numbers, but only on an informal and general basis.
She did say that the agency’s strong operating performance is the result of the hard work of ATU members.Like most of you, I'd seen the broken buy mosaic decorated pieces.

“Every workforce faces these type of issues — illnesses, injury, accidents,The stone mosaic series is a grand collection of coordinating Travertine mosaics. family emergencies, you name it,” Bryant said. “The bottom line is BART has a better than 95 percent on-time record. We’re proud of the service we provide. BART works and we make it work.”

The agency has an action plan designed to reduce unexcused absences, according to a BART response to the public records request. The agency’s initiative includes measures to cut down on the number of workplace incidents and limit their impact if they do occur, improve case management for employees with health issues and strengthen compliance in areas related to absences,Site describes services including Plastic Mould. the statement said.

In that same response, the agency noted that the unscheduled absentee rates of station agents and operators are comparable to levels at other major transit agencies.

Muni’s transit operators — a group that has been much-maligned in the past for absenteeism — have an unscheduled absence rate of just 8.7 percent this year, and for the month of October that number dipped to 6.6 percent. Radulovich also noted that Muni drivers frequently interact with riders, an environment that can be much more stressful than BART’s relatively remote train operators.We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day.

Contract negotiations between BART and ATU are set to begin April 1, the first talks since a contentious bargaining session in 2009 during which workers repeatedly threatened to strike. BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said the union members’ attendance performance could be part of the discussions.

Giving in the way of the Lord

Giving in the way of the Lord does not refer primarily to building synagogues, churches, mosques and temples.Wear a whimsical Disney ear cap straight from the Disney Theme Parks! The ‘Lord’ can be interpreted to encompass one’s community or even all of humanity, and giving may be understood to mean devoting one’s resources to its improvement and enabling individuals to actualise their potential. This kind of activity has probably been going on since the dawn of history. Plato’s Guardians were to take nothing or little for themselves.Can you spot the answer in the fridge magnet? A community of wives would keep them from knowing any children they had fathered and to whom they might be tempted to leave the fortunes they had made.

People in Pakistan are notable for both taking and giving. They are reluctant to give money to governments. They are not unique in having this disposition. Taxes are the least popular of a citizen’s obligations. This is particularly the case in Pakistan because the citizen doubts that the proceeds would be deployed for achieving the stated purposes, and fear that the same will end up in the collector’s pocket. They are, however, exceedingly generous in giving for charitable causes.Laser engraving and laser laser cutting machine for materials like metal, They sent enormous amounts of money, goods and services, including food, to the victims of the earthquake, and later those of floods in the last few years.

People’s thinking in this and related matters is complicated. In one version of human nature, people compete to maximise their access to the good things of life and, left to themselves, they will convert this struggle into a war of every man against every other. In another version, they can be kind and considerate to one another and cooperate in the pursuit of common goals. In the former condition, they will seize one another’s possessions, and in the latter, they will give to make living comfortable for the poor and the needy. It is likely that in addition to the humaneness of which all of us partake, we in Pakistan are informed by the Islamic ethic, which enjoins us to share the blessings God has allowed us with our neighbours. It disapproves of the concentration of wealth in a few hands and discourages even its accumulation by an individual. It does not follow that Islam forbids capital formation. An individual may make as much money as he legitimately can, but then he should invest it in other enterprises or use it to enable others to generate incomes. Giving can take a variety of forms. You are on the road and stop for a red light.The USB flash drives wholesale is our flagship product. A woman standing at the intersection knocks on your window and requests a sum of money in charity. You decline her request, drive on for half a mile to the offices of Edhi Foundation, and donate 200,000 rupees to help its charitable activities. If you give a hungry man a fish, you have done well. If you teach him how to catch fish and make him capable of independently making a living, you have done even better.

Institutionalisation of giving requires the fundraiser’s credibility in the reckoning of potential donors. The managers of Islamia College and MAO College in Lahore are trusted by individuals and organizations who give them money. The same can be said with even greater emphasis of educational institutions initiated by Christian churches and foundations based mostly in the United States. Notable among these institutions are the Forman Christian College in Lahore, Murray College in Sialkot, Gordon College in Rawalpindi, and Edwards College in Peshawar. Besides the Government College in Lahore, they were rated as the best colleges in the country. They were nationalised during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s regime and were placed under government’s direction and control. Their standards fell because they had lost their autonomy in hiring and firing faculty and in controlling student admissions. They were denationalised during General Ziaul Haq’s rule and they regained their former excellence and prestige.

The Edhi Foundation and of late the Bilquis Edhi Foundation have an excellent reputation for their integrity and it may not be an exaggeration to say that they receive more money than they know what to do with. The high esteem in which they are held is well deserved because they do a wonderful job of raising, educating and training young boys and girls, and old women, who have been abandoned by their parents or guardians.

Some of the giving has been directed to healthcare. There are cases in which a physician will examine a patient and give him a prescription without charging a fee. Doctors will see patients free of cost in government-funded hospitals and other medical facilities. There is an abundance of them in larger towns, but there may not be even one in a village. They do not like to locate in rural areas, where desirable schools for their children and social interaction with equals are lacking. A sick man in a village will have to be carried several miles to be seen by a physician in a town, and longer if he needs a specialist’s attention. Philanthropists have set up hospitals in certain towns where patients are treated, and may even be housed free of cost.

A good way of giving is to establish trusts and foundations, place large sums of money to their credit, the interest from which may be utilised to fund their charitable activities. Many years before India’s division, a Sikh millionaire set up a trust to establish and operate a nonsectarian college of arts and sciences open to all students without regard to their caste or creed. Called Dyal Singh College,Come January 9 and chip card driving licence would be available at the click of the mouse in Uttar Pradesh. it became one of the better-known educational institutions in Lahore, and it is still thriving. Sanatan Dharam College and DAV College were also funded by Hindu philanthropists. Wealthy individuals belonging to the Zoroastrian (Parsi) community in Karachi became particularly known for financing schools and colleges and other charities. In our own time, Ardeshir Cowasjee was notable for his contributions to the advancement of education and other worthy causes.

The need for giving does not ever come to an end. We in Pakistan hope that the country will continue to prosper and the number of persons able and willing to help the poor and the needy and the deserving will keep growing to their own and the country’s glory.

Queensbury company keep eye on air quality

About three and a half years ago, McAuley started a small air quality consulting firm in Massachusetts and since then, he has moved back to Queensbury — the area where he grew up, works with clients on air quality studies all over the world out of his home office on Stonehurst Drive.Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business.

“It’s about giving people solutions,We specializes in rapid plastic injection mould and molding of parts for prototypes and production. not just reasons why they should be doing something,” McAuley said. “A lot of times it’s investigative, we have a strong investigative approach to what we do.”

McAuley named his firm Change, which stands for Consulting for Health, Air, Nature and a Greener Environment.

McAuley has worked on studies that range from the air quality effects of electronic cigarette use to the prevalence of respiratory infections among children in Vietnam from different socioeconomic statuses. Last year, McAuley co-authored a Safe Routes to School study focused on reducing traffic pollution exposure to children.

The firm works with hospitals, non-profit organizations, paper companies, boards of health and others, performing indoor and ambient air quality assessments and monitoring, providing recommendations for fixing air quality problems, doing energy audits and air quality permitting.

Air quality regulations and laws vary, so the firm partners with firms overseas in China, Taiwan and New Zealand to provide services to clients there, McAuley said.

“You really need to have that local knowledge,” he said. “When opportunities come up, they have the means locally to move a project forward.”

The testing the firm does could be asbestos, mold or dust in a work place, or it could require people to wear air quality exposure monitors. McAuley can analyze data from some studies in his home office, while other results may be sent to an accredited lab.How cheaply can I build a solar power systems? The firm studies a range of issues, and could be called in to study air quality after a gas leak or to examine potential carcinogens in areas where there is a cluster of cancer cases, McAuley said.

The study McAuley worked on recently about electronic cigarette use was published in the academic journal Inhalation Toxicology, and found that the use of the device, which mimics tobacco smoking, has a minimal effect on indoor air quality.

McAuley could see a study that looks at air quality a little closer to home — he would love to do a study in downtown Glens Falls and make some recommendations about how to cut down on pollution.Bay State Cable Ties is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products. He noted the outdoor seating at downtown restaurants with the congestion of nearby Centennial Circle, and said in such environments, even reducing parking along the main strip can make a dramatic difference.

“I would love to do a study in downtown Glens Falls,” McAuley said. “Studying air quality issues isn’t about picking on anybody, it’s just about making the air cleaner downtown.”

Change has associates that do work for the company in the Syracuse area, in New York City, Massachusetts and North Carolina. McAuley is able to conduct much of the business out of his home office in Queensbury, but he travels two or three months out of the year, visiting clients, he said.

McAuley and his firm were profiled in the January 2013 issue of Success Magazine, a publication that focuses on the achievements of home-based and small business entrepreneurs.

“I see it continuing to grow, I could see in five or 10 years someone acquiring the firm if I decide I want to sell it,” McAuley said. “I don’t think it’s going to be where 100 years from now the company is still going and has 10,000 employees — it doesn’t need to be that. I just want it to continue to be a stand-out company in what we provide.”

We can't really take a good look at Garrosh Hellscream without taking a look at his Alliance counterpart, King Varian Wrynn. Varian is an enigma in his own right, although for different reasons than Garrosh. Where Garrosh was a character that was introduced and shown in every aspect in the game itself, Varian is notable for being .We've had a lot of people asking where we had our make your own bobblehead made... absent. He wasn't there for vanilla WoW. He wasn't there for Burning Crusade. Varian didn't make his first appearance in game until the launch event for Wrath of the Lich King, and exploded onto the scene with an attitude that threw a lot of players off.

Where Garrosh saw all of his development play out in-game, even the odd disconnected moments, Varian saw his play out through a series of comics and novels. Most of his history is a big question mark to many players. While not quite as big an unknown as Lor'themar Theron, people still wonder -- who is this guy? Where did he come from, and why was he so angry when he returned? And perhaps most importantly -- where did he turn from angry leader in the Ulduar cinematic to the far more patient leader we're seeing in Mists?

Virtual digital credentials

Spend time around a college campus these days and it will become apparent just how attached students have become to their mobile phones. Whether texting, listening to music, playing games, checking out the latest app or talking to a friend, they are constantly interacting with their phones and are among the first to grow up with an expectation of continuous connection.

Up until this point, the campus OneCard had been a way of life for students — enabling access to campus buildings, the dining hall and for payments for vending and laundry services. But when you consider students’ reliance on their cell phones – always on, always on them – it is clear that the plastic campus card, as we know it will evolve and mobile technology will be a big part of that transformation.

Indeed, adoption of mobile tech seems to be heading in only one direction: up. There were nearly 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide in 2011, according to the International Telecommunication Union, a branch of the United Nations.Welcome to Find the right laser Engraver or laser marking machine . And it’s estimated that 5 billion people will have smart phones in the next five years, giving those people access to the mobile Internet and apps. In the United States alone the majority of American phone owners now have smart phones.

The desire to use a cell phone as a credential can also be tied into the current discussions on near field communication technology. NFC is expected to become a widely used system for making payments by smart phone in North America. Which means the smart phone will not only be used as a digital credential,Service Report a problem with a street light. but will be used for cashless,If we don't carry the bobblehead you want we can make a personalized bobbleheads for you! card-less payments. NFC is one way we could replace our wallets with one embedded in our smart phones.

There are already apps in the market, such as ones offered by Starbucks, PayPal, Level Up, Apple Passboo,Professionals with the job title Mold Maker are on LinkedIn. and Isis, where users create an account and use the app for direct payment.

And at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, MyPay, a new mobile payments app that is patent pending, is enabling students to pay for purchases around campus, in vending and laundry machines, at dining locations and more. It is also used as a virtual campus ID card. The product is expected to soon feature an off-campus capability for food ordering.

The need for new is rapidly approaching. If you want to better engage your current and prospective students, you need to take a closer look at mobile’s role at the center of the student experience. Get immersed in conversations about mobile on your campus and be sure to let your IT department know that the trend among campus card providers is to transition the credential to the cell phone. It’s a step in the right direction.

Rumors about this cheaper iPhone — possibly called iPhone 5S or iPhone 6 — have been circulating since early January, when a slew of reports from supply chain sources and even major U.S. news sites such as the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg took notice of a new iPhone in development strategically targeted toward lower-income, emerging markets like China and India.

On Monday,Basics, technical terms and advantages and disadvantages of Laser engraver. iLounge Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Horwitz followed up on his Friday exposé of next-gen iOS devices with a new report detailing what he calls the "budget iPhone 5," which will allegedly look like the iPhone 5 but feature several new design elements and tweaks.

“Yes, it will be made substantially from plastic,” Horwitz wrote, echoing an earlier report from DigiTimes that said the iPhone 5S or 6 would feature a hybrid chassis made of both plastic and metal. “No, it won’t just be a Retina- and Lightning-equipped refresh of the iPhone 3G or 3GS, Apple’s last plastic iPhones, nor will it look just like an all-plastic version of the iPhone 5. This new model is actually a cross between the iPhone 5, fifth-generation iPod touch and — wait for it — the iPod classic. Yes, really. It will have a 4” screen, like the iPhone 5, a bottom like the latest iPod touch and a shape that’s most similar to the iPod classic.”

The original DigiTimes report said the new iPhone’s internal parts could “be seen from the outside through a special design; if this turned out to be true, the finished design for the iPhone 6 might look like an iPhone 5 mixed with the plastic enclosure of the iPhone 3GS from 2009 mixed with the final design for the Bondi blue iMac in 1998, which was characterized by its brightly colored, translucent plastic casing, letting users see the inside of their desktop computer for the first time.

The new low-cost iPhone 5S or 6 is said to feature nearly identical specs to the iPhone 5 but “a half-millimeter taller and a half-millimeter wider,” according to Horwitz, as well as a full millimeter thicker. But iLounge noted that the biggest design change in this cheaper iPhone will be the curves.

“Apple’s budget housing looks closest to the iPod classic in shape, though not in materials,” Horwitz said. “Unlike the plastic iPhone 3G/3GS, which featured soft curves on all sides, the budget iPhone’s curves start and end at flat surfaces, so each side and the back are flat. This seems like a trivial change, until you realize that it allows Apple to use flat rather than curve-matched parts: the right side has a flat, centered SIM card tray just like the iPhone 5’s, while all of the buttons and ports are on flat rather than curved surfaces. A flat-backed iPhone won’t rock on a flat surface when it vibrates, either.”

In addition to the new form factor, Horwitz believes the iPhone 5S or 6 will have very similar features to the iPod Touch, including identical proportions and locations for the camera, microphone and rear flash. The headphone jack, Lightning dock, bottom microphone and speaker are in the same location as the iPhone 5, but the new phone is said to have an extra microphone on the bottom, as well as four individual holes for the speaker grill, rather than the 26 speaker holes at the bottom of the iPhone 5.

“In summary, the budget iPhone will look a lot like an iPhone 5 from the front, an iPod classic from the side and an iPod touch 5G on the bottom — only made from plastic rather than glass or metal,” Horwitz concluded. “It won’t make any bold departures from past Apple designs, but then, it’s supposed to be an inexpensive iPhone and achieves that goal pretty much as expected.”

Colchester East Hants Health Centre operating rooms returning to service

All four operating rooms at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre will be back in service Wednesday morning following a malfunction with the ventilation system.

The issue has been traced back to an issue with the ventilation system that pumps humidified air (sterile steam) into the operating rooms. The malfunction led to a higher concentration of steam entering the vents, which condensed into water, pooled in the ducts and leaked into rooms in the area.

“Prior to moving in our staff spent several months testing and becoming familiar with our new building systems and it is discouraging to have issues like this one arise,” said Peter MacKinnon, CEO of the Colchester East Hants Health Authority, in a news release. “This was not something we expected or could have planned for, but we are grateful to our team members and partners who responded so quickly and worked so hard to restore our surgical program.”

Since the problem was discovered staff has been working with vendors and contractors to dry out the areas, replace damaged ceiling tiles and insulation and test the various systems.

As of Monday afternoon two of the four operating rooms at the facility were back in service. Late Tuesday afternoon, following a complete assessment, staff determined that surgeries could safely resume in the remaining two operating rooms and environmentalHow cheaply can I build a solar power systems? services staff began the extensive cleaning required to prepare the rooms for surgery.

Staff is continuing to work with vendors and consultants to pinpoint the cause of the malfunction and the system will remain on by-pass until the coming weekend when crews will continue their investigation into the source.

Actifio, the radically simple copy data storage company, today announced significant product and service enhancements designed to make managing copy data – and transforming the underlying economics of enterprise storage – even easier.We offers custom Injection Mold parts in as fast as 1 day. The company introduced new product and service packages, a storage industry-first “pay-per-use” utility pricing option, new deployment tools, and a suite of new features in its 5.1 software release. The enhancements are designed to ease the way for customers and channel partners to embrace Actifio’s compelling economic value proposition, which propelled the company to 700 percent growth in 2012.

Today’s enterprise IT infrastructure faces a tidal wave of data, coupled with the growing cost and complexity of the software tools, hardware, and personnel required to manage it. Savvy IT executives are recognizing that the driver of this exponential growth is the copy data – redundant copies of corporate data created by point tools to meet the business requirements to protect, share, and analyze information. With a purpose-built solution to address the root cause of the copy data problem – siloed data protection and availability applications - Actifio offers customers the ability to recover anything instantly for a total cost of ownership up to 90 percent less than the traditional model.

To make it easier for channel partners and customers to embrace the Actifio model, the company today announced its new 100T product package. The new Actifio 100T is designed for rapid deployment by mid-sized IT organizations, or departments of larger IT organizations. It protects both physical and virtual IT environments with the world’s most efficient data management technology, and features integrated Actifio Optimized Storage capable of protecting up to 100 Terabytes of production data and 1,000 virtual machines. Actifio 100Ts can be combined in a scale-out architecture to support up to 2 PetaBytes of production data, with custom configuration of the appliance.

To help customers take better advantage of their existing storage, the company also announced its new Actifio Gateway, a similarly robust hardware and software tandem that doesn’t include its own storage, but instead can virtualize and manage a wide variety of third party storage devices. The Actifio Gateway is designed for regionally and globally distributed enterprises, including cloud and managed service providers. It’s built for a large mix of physical, virtual, and heterogeneous server and storage infrastructure, and also scales to handle multi-petabytes of data.

Actifio’s revolutionary new utility pricing model enables customers to pay as their data volumes grow, avoiding the significant up-front capital requirements that challenge many procurement cycles. Actifio’s all-inclusive utility pricing for a complete storage system – hardware, software, storage, installation, and maintenance – is based on a per-terabyte per-year basis, with rates decreasing as volumes increase. For CIOs implementing chargeback models, or Service Providers looking to align procurement with market demand, Actifio’s utility pricing model delivers simplicity, flexibility, and predictability. Customers who wish to purchase the hardware and services through traditional means will still have that option.

Actifio is also introducing version 5.1 of its software, which includes several new features in the areas of data governance, business resilience, and service management. As enterprise environments put a greater focus on security and control of application data, Actifio has ramped-up its data governance features to include SLA-based data integrity validation; enhanced SLA compliance reporting; user/role-based auditing; LDAP and Active Directory integration; and automated disk-to tape enhancements directly integrated into Actifio’s SLA Lifecycle Manager for compliance-oriented, long-term retention.

Service providers around the globe have embraced Actifio as a strategic technology to accelerate new service introduction, deliver new functionality and customer satisfaction, and improve their business margins. Actifio 5.1 continues to advance service management functionality by addressing operations and delivery needs with enhanced system monitoring, alert correlation and processing, auto-updates, VPN access enhancements, and improved integrated reporting.

Leading storage analyst firm, ESG has independently validated that Actifio 5.1 can provide almost 300 percent IT efficiency savings over the competition, and a 400 percent better annual total cost of ownership (TCO) than alternative storage solutions.

“In a world that moves faster than ever, enterprises faces what we call ‘The Agility Imperative,’” said Actifio Founder & CEO Ash Ashutosh. “Actifio was designed from the start to free businesses from the undue burden of wildly redundant copy data, free IT executives from the complex tangle of data protection and availability applications consuming more and more of their IT budgets, and free IT managers from the stress of unmet SLA’s and recovery time objectives impossible to deliver with 20th century technology. These enhancements take us further down that path, making radically simple copy data storage easier to buy, deploy, and love than ever before.”

“We deployed the 100T and within fifteen minutes Actifio was configured and online. An hour later it was customized to our environment, backing up,Professionals with the job title Mold Maker are on LinkedIn.Ein innovativer und moderner Werkzeugbau Formenbau. deduplicating and replicating to our DR facility 3000 miles away,” said Daniel Acosta, IT Director, MC Assembly. “If something goes wrong, now I just go back in time and mount the snapshot directly from Actifio. To our users it looks like a server reboot, to us it’s the ultimate peace of mind.”

"Technology is an invaluable learning tool here at the university, which means that I need to plan for maximum uptime and availability. In the past this meant frequent data protection and business resiliency testing that required planning, application downtime and costly excess infrastructure which ultimately impacted our users," said Rich Siedzik,Bay State Cable Ties is a full line manufacturer of nylon cable ties and related products. Sr. IT Director, Bryant University. "That was before Actifio where we now have the ability to run Failover Test non-disruptively as often as needed. And if there's a site failure, I can easily and automatically sync back our unique data."

Ingram Micro launches own-brand projector lamps

Distribution behemoth Ingram Micro has expanded its house-brand portfolio, called V7, to include projector lamps.

Rainer Kozlik, vice president and general manager of the global V7 and private label group at Ingram Micro, said: "V7 lamps are only sourced from the lamp manufacturers that own the intellectual property rights, ensuring that V7's customers are assured of a genuine quality lamp."

He maintained that V7 lamp quality compares well with OEM rivals, although the V7 product is offered at a "more attractive" price.

Ajay Chandhok, regional category manager for V7 at Ingram Micro UK, said the price -- which he claimed would prove to be around 40 per cent less than many comparable brands -- should prove a real incentive for resellers.

"We have 50 SKUs at the moment, with 150 to come in by August," Chandhok told Channelweb. "This is an expansion of the V7 product range, which has been available to UK resellers from the beginning."

Chandhok said that resellers on the V7 partner programme would be able to take advantage of many of the same rewards and incentives.

V7 operates globally as a provider of IT peripherals, accessories and supplies underneath the Ingram Micro umbrella.

According to a statement released by V7, the new replacement projector lamps will offer "the brightest light, the best colour reproduction and the longest burn time" as well as being fully compatible with most leading OEM lamps. The lamps will come with a four-month warranty.

Christie(r) Partner to Bring Digital Cinema to a Theater Near You

Harkness Screens, the world's leading manufacturer of cinema screens, and Christie(r), a world leader in digital cinema projection, have teamed up to help exhibitors more easily transition from film to digital projection. With the transition to 3D well underway in many auditoria, exhibitors are now turning their attention to the remainder of their cinema estates and planning to convert their film auditoriums to digital. In doing so, exhibitors are making a tradeoff between the many known benefits of digital cinema and its higher costs.

With Harkness' Perlux Screens and Christie's 4K Projectors, exhibitors can help cut operating costs roughly in half, as gain screens use smaller lamps that are cheaper, last longer and consume less power. With almost 20,000 digital cinema projectors installed worldwide, Christie's DLP Cinema solutions are tested and proven, with the most installations worldwide and an unmatched 99.999% reliability rating for the projector lamps - the key component of a digital cinema projector.

There is often too little known about the full cost burden, and it is primarily focused on the costs associated with equipment acquisition, often ignoring the impact on total cost of ownership (TCO). TCO, the ongoing cost of operating a digital cinema, is known to be higher than film projection, though the true extent may be hidden at the time of acquisition. Projector maintenance, lamp cost and rate of lamp replacement are all increased, as are lamp and HVAC power consumption and maintenance. These factors can all be managed by smart upfront design and rigorous manufacturing processes.