First Time

... or GBP 3100 which keeps me on track for the ultimate goal of $10000. This is very similar to last year where Feb was just slightly better than Jan. In one year I have managed to double my earnings. I will be putting up another [...]



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Buy the dips on this earning report by UCTT
When you look into the earnings they really only missed by .01 EPS and for a stock trading now afterhours at $13+ a .26 EPS exluding .04 eps in charges is pretty impressive earnings report. The Gross Margin in 4th qtr increased to 15.2% ...

Week 17 Earnings Report
It looks like the April 2007 Google PageRank update is finally underway! I've been waiting for this since....forever! While I'm not confident enough yet to say officially what my new PageRank is yet, let's just say that things are looking good.As the update has started, the Predict My Pagerank competition is now closed and no more entries will be accepted. The final three entries received were:Alex Radich rated my site under numerous categories and predicted a PR3.Hidden Conspiracies renamed me 'Kumiko Pink' and predicted a PR5.The Million Dollar Experiment Down Under was the first reviewer to notice my mad photoshop skills and predicted a PR5. With the competition now closed, I'll hopefully be announcing the winner within the next week. The lucky winner will receive US$30 paid via PayPal and the extremely rare cha
nce to write their own post on this site.Overall, what did people predict?PR1 - 1 entrantPR2 - 2 entrantsPR3 - 4 entrantsPR4 - 3 entrantsPR5 - 6 entrantsPR6 - 4 entrantsPR7+ - None!!One other thing that I predict to do big things next week is the Feed My Feed scheme that encourages bloggers to subscribe to your RSS feed. I've already seen this program starting to spread on a number of sites and not only have my RSS subscriber numbers increased, but it has benefited my Technorati ranking too. I really like this scheme as it doesn't only give you a linkback, but gets people subscribing to your blog which is a great way to get your content on people's screens. Don't miss out on this one.Here's my Week 17 earnings report:(Totals are since the start of this site on 31st December 2006 and
are in US$. Numbers in brackets represent this week's incre!
ases/dec
reases)Adsense - $162.07 Banned!PayPerPost and sponsorships - $218.21 (+$61.71)FriendFinder - $99.59 (+1.99)myLot - $10.17 (+ $0.19)SlashMySearch - $16.95 (+ $0.75)TOTAL: $506.99 (+ $64.65)ALEXA RANKING: 60,992 (- 8,324)TECHNORATI RANKING: 4,649 (-374)My earnings breakdown comments:PayPerPost and sponsorships: Readers who have joined PayPerPost through the 'Review My Post' promotion stand to earn a whopping $262.50! Reading and writing about this site can make you money!FriendFinder: Another small increase, but all those small increases have added up and I've finally fulfilled their requirements to get a check sent out.myLot: Reached their payout level this week and will be paid in May.SlashMySearch: Cents. I'm really starting to reconsider whether they're worth it.

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You may argue whether the crimes of perjury, subornation of perjury, >>>> and obstruction of justice warranted his impeachment, but that he >>>> committed those crimes is a simple fact. >>>> >>>> In Libby's case, he was convicted by a ...



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Scooter Libby's Sentencing Guidelines
The Perjury guideline is here. It also is a level 14 but "If the perjury, subornation of perjury, or witness bribery resulted in substantial interference with the administration of justice, increase by 3 levels." ...

Innocent and Executed: Four Chapters in the Life and Death of …
Following up on a handful of investigations spearheaded by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) with a group of committed cooperating attorneys, the Innocence Project, The Justice Project, and students at Columbia, ...

1 economic opportunity in America, the largest market segment in the world, the chief purchasing officers of just about everything consumer, corporate or small business? I'm talking about marketing to women.



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Chief John Littlechild, SB ,Catharine 'Kitty' Eddowes and the …
Women recipients of secret correspondence such as Mary Kelly might well have to wait until a 'runner' collected the letter from the shop , placed it in the hands of a trusted agent or 'middleman' at some distance away, and then upon ...

Marketing and Web Services
On my latest library visit I picked up a marketing book (Marketing Genius by Peter Fisk) to get ideas for, in my case, marketing of a web service and its features. With so many similar services on the web, what is required to have your voice heard? I'll write down notes as I proceed thru the book and by the time I'm thru hopefully there will be an answer, or at the least, a good understanding of the requirements involved in the process. Sessions limited to around 15 minutes per post and will leave it as-is and proceed the following day.How do you succeed in markets that are incredibly complex and uncertain, intensely competitive and fast changing, and where users constantly demand more?Extraordinary people visualize not what is possible or probably, but rather what is impossible. And b visualizing the impo
ssible, they begin to see it as possibleCheri Carter-ScottPrice discounts won't work to beat the competition. The user is in control; it is easier than ever to switch between services with your data. Google corporate 10-step philosophy follows.Kodak used to know where it stood. Kodak bashing. There is a very funny Kodak "Winds of Change" video on YouTube, that has Kodak coming back in full force. Atleast on video.Impact of Technology = Power x Bandwidth x Network x DiversityKids can cope with complexity far better than adults (Research by Martin Lindstrom in BrandChild): they can do 5.4 things at the same time while adults can manage 1.7 (men even less).Identification of best opportunities: Hot Spots, Cool Places, White Spaces and Black Holes. Works from sheep farming to corner shops... More sophisticated approach (to market mapping) considers the likely evolution of markets in terms of economic, competitive, customer, technological, social and political change -- each mappi
ng what is certain, likely and possible.Scope, define, explo!
re, eval
uate.1. Change Driving, 2. Game Changing, 3. Market Shaping.(+ new market spin-off effects)The most succesful companies can set the pace (of the market) to their own advantage - be it fast or slower, they can exert influence that conditions how others behave.We have no patent on anything we do and anything we do can be copied by anyoelse... but you can't copy the heart and soul of a business. That's created by people. People who know what they are doing,w hy they are creating a special experience for every customer, and how to make it their personal third place Howard Schultz (Starbucks)Market vortex:Consider the future, identify key change, impacts, interjections, create new change, map business to market change (rhythm)Campaigns are dead. Doesn't work in a diverse and devolved world.Power Profile: Consider marketing activities, who is who, bias, competition comparison, harness customer powerReverse marketing:Consider marketing activities, map the steps, start with the cust
omer, add what matters most to them, make it flexible, customize.Creating tomorrow while delivering today (hook title from expectations)The web enables total transparency. People with access to relevant information are beginnign to challenge any type of authority. The stupid, loyal and humble customer, employee, patient or citizen is dead Kjell Norströn and Jonas RidderstråleToday: short-term, profit, inside outTomorrow: long-term, value, outside inIntelligent, logical thinking does not deliver the balanced, holistic approach that today's organizations require. Long list of A does not (necessarily) equate to B follows.Creating value: Consider the future (your business, profits), calculate their value, allocate value, prioritize, manage value creationSustained, profitable growth is the foundation of value creation. Revenue on google adsense is a rollercoaster. Can you meet sustained growth, if you base your business on ad revenue?Marketing activity impact:Awareness, Prefer
ence, Satisfaction, Loyalty, ReputationAddress:1. Where and !
how to c
ompete2. What to focus your effort on3. How to capture the value you create4. How to get a better return on spendIn every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Travel documents and passports are as important to terrorists as bombs and guns.  Islamist terrorist Ramzi Yousef used a stolen passport to enter the US, claim asylum, and bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.  Yet three years after the 9/11 Commission recommended use of Interpol’s lost and stolen passport database we still do not.  [...]



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Thinking about networks of policies
I have just returned from XXXX in west Africa, where I have been working on PRSP M&E. One of my continuing concerns while there was to get a handle on the complex context in which PRSP M&E activities are taking place. As in most countries the PRSP exists in a complex policy context, it does not stand on its own. It links into, or is expected to link into, a number of other policies and associated implementation processes.

I think the relationship between policies is an area that deserves some serious thinking about, in M&E terms. There are at least two types of relationships that need to be considered:
1. The overlap in objectives of different policy documents.
2. The connection between policies created by information flows between them, once they are implemented and monitored

Policies can overlap in their objectives, this is fairly clear. New policies are often expected to overlap with existing polices. For example, new and specific policies in particular ministries might be expected to help articulate relevant sections of a PRSP. We can measure this overlap in at least two ways: (a) By examining the overlaps in sets of indicators used for M&E of both policies. The PRSP M&E Plan in XXXX has a useful table showing how a number of policies overlap in this respect. (b) By getting owners of two policies to rank the relative importance of their own and the other's policy objectives, and see how their rankings compare. I have done this with a UK NGO, to assess the alignment of a country level strategy with project specific strategies within the same country.

Policies can also be linked by information flows between them, once their implementation begins. In the best case, policy documents are integral parts of high level management cycles. They are plans, which are to be followed by implementation and then hopefully some sort of review processes. And then even more hopefully, some sort of revised policy. In other words, a higher-level version of the project management cycle (i.e. a policy management cycle). Where there are multiple policies, the M&E outputs of one policy management cycle can feed into the planning stages of another policy management cycle. For example, the Annual Progress Report (APR) of the PRSP (Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper) in country XXX is meant to inform the contents of the government's annual budget, as in many other countries. There is now some discussion about when is the best time for the APR to feed into the budget planning discussions, which take place in stages over a period of months.

In some cases there is a relative clear directional nature of these linkages. The APR is expected to influence the budget more than the budget influences the APR. In other cases the net direction of influence is less clear to me, at this stage at least. The World Bank's PRSC (Poverty Reduction Support Credit) includes indicators about the progress made with M&E of the PRSP. The APR should provide evidence of progress made with M&E of the PRSP, and help trigger flow of funds from the WB to the government. But the presence within the PRSC of specific indicators about PRSP M&E capacity may also shape how the PRSP is monitored. Whether it does or not, I have yet to find out.

There are of course many other policies that the PRSP might be expected to influence, and some of those may in turn be expected to influences the PRSP. Somehow these need to be identified and the desired linkages identified. Then we need to know enough about the stages of their respective policy management cycles to identify how and whether the linkages do actually work or not. Without this all the government's efforts put into "communicating the results" of the PRSP begin to look like a shotgun blast into the sky.

Right now I feel we have a very partial and incomplete view of how government and donor policies are and should be interlinking, through exchanges of information between their M&E stages and planning stages. It is the scale that is daunting, including the long cycle times that make them difficult to see as whole processes. The longer the cycle time of any policy management process the less likely that it will function in the same in ways as it was before. Right now we donâ??t know how the upcoming PRSP review and revision process will look like.
from "Rick on the Road" at http://mandenews.blogspot.com/