Today, Star Wars Celebration kicked off in Orlando—but one very special member of the Star Wars cast, the dearly missed Carrie Fisher, could not be there to stand alongside her fellow actors. Instead, we have this beautiful tribute to a mother, a princess, a general, and a hero beloved by all.
Played at the end of this year’s 40th anniversary panel, the tribute, accompanied by messages from George Lucas, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, and Fisher’s daughter Billie Lourd, the special video concluded with a heartwrenching live performance of “Leia’s Theme,” conducted by John Williams.
Four months on from Fisher’s tragic passing last December, it’s a reminder of how much her colleagues, her fans, and the whole world still adore her.
In today’s business, it is increasingly necessary to share workspaces, labs, tools, and any other type of resources. Making the most of the available resources has become a competitive advantage for modern businesses. Booked is open source software written in PHP and MySQL that helps organizations and groups efficiently manage, record and track resources of any kind. It allows you to create schedules so users can find schedules available for resource use.
via Planet MySQL Install and configure a corporate Open Source Booking System on Centos 7
These guys seem hell-bent on pulling this tree out of the middle of a desert path with their SUV, but the tree is having none of it. But this plant isn’t merely interested in staying put, it wants revenge.
Cloud supported management systems are establishing themselves more and more as a part of the day to day business. But not all businesses take this route. There are still small, and medium-sized businesses (SMB) that are quite hesitant when it comes to using the cloud. But especially for SMB, CRM systems come with plenty of advantages. They don’t only profit from price advantages, but also from competition advantages over their competitors. There are lots of reasons for using cloud CRM.
The customer is in the center of business activities.
An Overview of the Most Important Reasons for Cloud CRM
Quick Introduction
Easy to Use CRM Solutions in the Cloud
Location Independency / Mobility
Profitability for SMB
Simple Scalability
Better Integrability
1. Quick Introduction Without Any Ado
For people responsible for IT, the introduction of new systems is always a big challenge. Parts of the business IT have to be newly projected, and a smooth transition has to be organized. The daily business has to keep going, and the effect of the new introduction should be as little as possible. Even with proper preparations, this often doesn’t work completely smoothly, as there’s a short-term lack of staff resources. Experience reports when it comes to the introduction of cloud CRM often show that this doesn’t have to be the case. The CRM software can be implemented in the SaaS model (Software-as-a-Service) relatively quickly and can be used productively from the get-go. This is simply because most businesses don’t have a uniform solution for marketing, distribution, and customer service. Often, the different sections work with island-like sub-systems. Data redundancies and inconsistencies are the norm. In many cases, the exact same tasks are done multiple times by different sections, because there is a lack of comprehensive structures. With a cloud supported CRM system, however, everyone immediately sees the advantages that it brings to their own section. Cloud CRM systems are optimally designed for SMBs.
2. Simple and Modern CRM Solutions in the Cloud
I don’t think anyone wants to make mistakes in customer service, to avoid the risk of losing clients. But unfortunately, this is common practice. Often, working space is full with post-it notes on tons of different processes, as there’s a lack of options to systematically capture and follow them all. Workers get lost quickly. CRM solutions in the cloud were developed for practice, and are orientated towards common tasks in day to day business of customer service and distribution. Of course, the distribution agency plant, and the marketing area are also tied into the workflow. This way, marketing workers can systematically capture qualified leads, and forward them to the distribution. After the first contact with a distribution worker, this lead can be taken into his contact management. This makes sure that the business doesn’t lose any more prospects. Cloud CRM solutions have clearly structured, and easy to use user interfaces that match the standards of modern web applications. Thus, users learn to handle the software quickly. In the end, this results in a higher acceptance and shorter training periods for cloud CRM.
3. All Services Are Location-Independent and Usable on Mobile
One of the biggest advantages of a cloud-based CRM system is in the location-independent usability. No matter if you are in a branch of the KMU, or any other place with an active internet connection – a user can basically access the data of the cloud CRM from anywhere around the world. This includes mobile usage on the go via tablet computers and smartphones. For field service workers, this is the fastest way to inform themselves about all activities regarding a customer, or real-time developments in a sales region. Teamwork also becomes possible over larger distances.
4. Cloud CRM Solutions Also Save Costs
Aside from the improved business communication and the better information quality thanks to real-time data, the main reasons for using a cloud CRM are economic. Not only the relatively low entrance costs in comparison to on-premise solutions are positively noticeable, but also the fact that there are no IT costs. As a SaaS system, cloud CRM is maintenance-free. The business that uses it does not have to get any hardware or software for cloud CRM, and doesn’t need to take care of the system’s administration either. All backups are created automatically.
Programs and data are stored on the cloud provider’s servers, who also secures the CRM system’s availability, including the business data saved in the cloud. The SaaS concept for cloud CRM comes with another, completely different, merit as well: Updates and upgrades are permanent, so there are no inconvenient migrations. The workers always have the newest version of the CRM system available to them.
5. Cloud CRM Solutions Can be Adjusted to Any Need
With typical CRM systems, new users for new task fields mean lots of work for an administrator, who has to integrate them into the system. In contrast to that, cloud CRM lets you unlock new permissions for the customer and contact management, and integrate new users into work processes in just a few mouse clicks.
Aside from the Ad-hoc set up of new users, the easy scalability is one of the main advantages of cloud computing, because services can be adjusted to your needs dynamically. When businesses grow, additional features and modules can easily be added at any time. Still: the user only uses the functions that he really needs, and the provider bills by the rate of use: depending on the amount of users actively working with the CRM, the number of used functions, and the used storage. This way, the business only pays for what is really uses, and nothing more.
6. Better Integrability With Other Cloud Solutions
Another major reason to use cloud CRM is that professional office software like Office 365, or popular email marketing tools, like Mailchimp, already run in the cloud as SaaS solutions. Cloud CRM is more integrable with other cloud solutions than with on-premise implemented CRM systems. Cloud-based systems among each other have access to real-time data, so they are always up to date. To start an email campaign, for example, no tedious data transfer is required. The annoying duds, caused by outdated data and other inconsistencies, are a thing of the past.
Conclusion
Cloud CRM offers plenty of advantages to small and medium sized businesses, with mobile and location-independent work becoming increasingly more important to them. Using Cloud CRM, workers can now work together even more efficiently, by sharing documents and coordinating their tasks and deadlines much easier than before. Always having a full overview on all current customer activities makes for more transparency, increases productivity, and boosts the efficiency in customer service and distribution. Last but not least, using Cloud CRM allows you to lower the IT costs significantly, as the business only pays for what it actually uses, and doesn’t have to invest in quickly obsolescent hard- and software.
How do you feel when you see a major historic document right before your eyes? And what about seeing dozens of images that testify about the past? A series of images by Henryk Ross from the Nazi-occupied Jewish ghetto could make you feel the connection with the past you’ve never felt before. The series of images is very strong and emotional, and it could draw tears to your eyes. Some of them are also very graphical and not easy to digest.
It’s not about the photos of war and destruction; at least these are not the only things you’ll see. Ross managed to document daily lives of these people and smiles on their faces despite the conditions in which they lived. And he did it all secretly, risking his life. According to the Polish laws, the images are under public domain and can be shared. So we are sharing them, along with their incredible story.
Henryk Ross was a news and sports photographer from Poland. In 1939, German forces invaded Łódź, the city where he lived and worked. From then on, he became a staff photographer for the Department of Statistics for the Jewish Council (Judenrat). His official job was to take identity photos and propaganda shots for the Nazis within the Polish Łódź Ghetto. But he secretly managed to capture a lot more. Daily lives of people and day-to-day events in the ghetto remained eternalized in his photos. From heartwarming pictures of parents and children to the chilling images of death and starvation, he captured it all. And what’s fascinating, he kept it as a secret all along while he remained in the “good graces” of the German occupational administration.
The photographer used his coat to cover the camera. He would open it quickly when he wanted to take the shot, press the shutter and then hide the camera again. He also photographed through holes and cracks. He said that his wife Gloria was his assistant because she would look around to see if there were Germans nearby.
In 1944, the Holocaust was at its peak and the entire ghetto was liquidated. Fearing that he might experience the same fate, Ross did what he had to do. He took around 6000 negatives, put them in a tar-sealed box and buried them in the ground near his home. It was too dangerous to keep them accessible, and he could have only hoped that they would survive to tell the story.
In 1945, the Red Army liberated Poland. And Ross didn’t forget about the historical treasure he kept buried in the ground. He returned and dug the box out. Unfortunately, underground waters and moisture damaged a lot of negatives beyond repair. But still, around half of them survived to tell about the lives of Łódź Ghetto Jews.
Henryk Ross excavating his box of negatives and documents
Young girl
Children looking out the window
Babies lying on floor mat, probably in the hospital nursery
Deportation in winter
Deportation in winter
A wedding in the ghetto
Portrait of a couple
Three men after the liberation by the Red Army
Police and a woman behind barbed wire
A sick man on the ground
Skulls and bones on the ground
A boy searching for food
A nurse feeding children in an orphanage
Woman with her child (ghetto policeman’s family)
A man walking in winter in the ruins of the synagogue on Wolborska Street (Destroyed by Germans in 1939)
A man who saved the Torah from the rubble of the synagogue on Wolborska Street
The photographer survived to testify during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in 1961. He died in 1991, and his photos live to this day. They are in the Art Gallery of Ontario, testifying about the every side of life in the Łódź Ghetto. They tell the story of death and suffering, but also the story of hope, occasional joys, hopes, dreams, and smiles of these people. And it’s what makes them even more moving than I could have imagined. Ross once said that he buried his negatives in the ground in order to keep the record of the Jewish tragedy. And I salute him for the bravery and keeping a significant piece of history alive to this day.
I was introduced to Hugo’s Amazing tape several years ago by a colleague. He uses the tape to keep board game boxes closed for storage, and it has quite a following in the board game and collectible card game community. The tape is flexible, reusable, and has the fantastic quality of only sticking to itself. These qualities make it ideal for securing something that you need to wrap and unwrap repeatedly. Hugo’s Amazing Tape is available in rolls of various lengths & widths, allowing the user to cut a length to fit their needs.
I have found many household uses for Hugo’s Amazing Tape. I have used the tape as a sort of clamp, to secure oddly shaped objects together while glue dries. I have used it to secure small parts within an assembly to prevent them from falling out of place during storage. It is also perfect for securing rolls of gift wrapping paper, and for securing spools of thread, twine, or rope. I’ve also used it on all of my board game and puzzle boxes. Hugo’s Amazing Tape won’t leave sticky residue, and it doesn’t bind, crush, or decay like a rubber band. It is an indispensable addition to my household tool box.
Positive thinking has a ton of benefits, from expanding your creativity to boosting your health, but if you’re prone to a more negative outlook, it can be hard to see the glass as half full. Here’s how you can retrain your brain to become a more positive thinker.
Just like any life skill, learning to become positive takes practice and effort. You’re not going to transform into someone who always sees everything as good overnight, but you can focus your effort in a couple ways to move towards a more positive mindset.
Do something nice for someone else. When we help others, even strangers, it feels good. Open a door for the person after you, offer to take a tourist’s photo so their whole group can be in the shot, or ask someone who looks lost if they need directions.
Celebrate small victories. Look for little joys or wins in your day-to-day life. Maybe the sun was shining just right on your walk to work or you finished a project the moment before your boss messaged you about it.
Be kind to yourself. Negative thoughts about our own insecurities or perceived failures can be especially tough to deal with, so make an effort to be kind to yourself instead of beating yourself up over a mistake. Think about things you are good at or that you do well as a reminder of who you are as a whole.
Your goal to become more positive doesn’t have to end in you seeing the silver lining in every situation, especially if that’s just not your personality. But you can work towards being a bit more positive, which leads to enjoying life more each day.
The MySQL Development Team is happy to announce the first GA release of InnoDB Cluster–our integrated, native, full stack HA solution for MySQL. You can see highlights of the changes and improvements made since the RC release here, and you can download the GA packages from our MySQL APT (Ubuntu, Debian) and YUM (Redhat, OEL, Fedora) repositories or from dev.mysql.com.…
The ceiling area once housing the computers. Image: Ohio Inspector General
Adam Johnston and Scott Spriggs may well go down as Ohio’s cleverest inmates.
The pair were incarcerated at Marion Correctional Institution, a low-security, 2,500-capacity facility which used inmate labor to recycle old computers as part of the non-profit RET3 program. Spriggs and Johnson managed to squirrel away dozens of RET3 parts and construct two new machines inside MCI.
According to the 50-page Ohio Inspector General report, the fully functional computers were “hidden on a plywood board in the ceiling above a closet” and subsequently “connected to [Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s] computer network.” But wait—there’s more.
Here’s how far they had to carry the stolen parts. Image: Ohio Inspector General
Somehow Spriggs and Johnson were able to run ethernet cables through the ceiling and down to the network switch, where it was connected to port 16, and the inmates were able to obtain internet access via credentials belonging to Ray Canterbury, a retired prison employee who now works for ODRC as a contractor. Once connected, they were able to download articles on “home-made drugs, plastics, explosives, and credit cards.” Johnson, according to the report, also “accessed an article online from the Bloomberg.com site detailing how to submit fraudulent tax returns and have the refunds wired to debit cards,” and stole the identity of another inmate and used his name and social security number to apply for five credit cards.
But wait, there’s more.
As one does with an internet connection, the inmates used their unfettered access to download a shitload of porn, ferrying it to inmates via a thumb drive. But the inmate caught with said thumb drive told investigators that “it was not just pornographic movies. It was like the new releases, TV series” as well as music.
Oh yes, there’s still more.
On these two homebrew machines investigators found a litany of software useful for hacking and encryption, as well as brute force password crackers, an email spamming program, and a Java-based tool used to commit man-in-the-middle attacks. Likely this cornucopia of illicit programs was how the pair were able to issue “passes for inmates to gain access to multiple areas within MCI” and gain access to “unauthorized inmate records including disciplinary records, sentencing data, and inmate locations.” Ho-lee fuck.
Given that oversight at MCI is clearly lacking, the only way these two masterminds were caught at all was due to employee bandwidth throttling. Remember Ray Canterbury? An automated message informed MCI staff that on Friday July 3, 2015 “a computer operating through the ODRC computer network had exceeded a daily internet usage threshold.” The credentials were tied to Canterbury, who only worked Monday through Thursday. Considering the level of sneakiness required to build computers from scratch, run network cables, and steal someone’s identity, not looking up employee schedules is a spectacular own-goal.
The ring of prisoners involved with this data heist have been shipped off to other facilities, and MCI are shouldering the blame for not only allowing it to happen, but failing to notify Ohio State Highway Patrol as regulations apparently dictate.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from WRGB: The discovery of two working computers hidden in a ceiling at the Marion Correctional Institution prompted an investigation by the state into how inmates got access. In late July, 2015 staff at the prison discovered the computers hidden on a plywood board in the ceiling above a training room closet. The computers were also connected to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s network. Authorities say they were first tipped off to a possible problem in July, when their computer network support team got an alert that a computer "exceeded a daily internet usage threshold." When they checked the login being used, they discovered an employee’s credentials were being used on days he wasn’t scheduled to work. That’s when they tracked down where the connection was coming from and alerted Marion Correctional Institution of a possible problem. Investigators say there was lax supervision at the prison, which gave inmates the ability to build computers from parts, get them through security checks, and hide them in the ceiling. The inmates were also able to run cabling, connecting the computers to the prison’s network. Furthermore, "investigators found an inmate used the computers to steal the identify of another inmate, and then submit credit card applications, and commit tax fraud," reports WRGB. "They also found inmates used the computers to create security clearance passes that gave them access to restricted areas."