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  • Finding: Social CRM Vendors Don’t Walk The Talk

    I first posted this on the Destination CRM blog, thanks to Josh Weinberger @kitson. Update: The below is a partial view of the industry, do see this larger index of Social CRM vendors.

    Surveying the Social CRM Industry
    Business partner Ray Wang (focused on enterprise strategy) and myself (customer strategy) of the Altimeter Group is undergoing a major project for a client in the nascent Social CRM arena.  We’re surveying the landscape to learn about a variety of vendors in the space, their capabilities and deployments. A small portion of our survey is to see who’s eating their own dog food, and truly demonstrating they understand the ’social’ aspect of social crm and living it.

    Companies Who Sell Social Products Should Demonstrate Credibility By Living It
    While critics may be quick to dismiss the mere inclusions of a blog or community to a product landing page, the message goes much deeper. Social CRM isn’t just about bolting on a new plugin to your system like a new air foil on your minivan but instead a new way of doing business. The promise of social crm says that companies are truly listening to their customers wherever they are, responding, anticipating, and making the commitment to improve products and services. Vendors that are assisting brands with this promise to the market need to demonstrate they fully understand the ramifications of social crm –not just a keyword checklist of the buzzword du jour.

    Criteria: How We Graded the Social CRM Vendors
    There are four major areas of grading, from very tactical ability to 1) Simple sharing of social content from the corporate product page 2) Surfacing a developer or business community, and a look inside of the discussions in each community, with bonus points for integration with product page. 3) Thought leadership with relevant blogs on the subject, and a gauge of their level of interaction and any twitter accounts they may have. 4) A subjective look at the overall page experience in the context of a company that’s offering a ’social experience’.

    Findings: Overall, Social CRM Vendors Aren’t Walking the Talk
    We’ve decided to make our findings public, at least for this part of our client deliverable to see how different vendors that are in the Social CRM space are walking the talk.

    Sharing Features on Product Page (out of 1 point) Community and Integration (out of 1 point) Thought Leadership: Blogs, Twitter (out of 1 point) Overall Social Experience (out of 1 point) Final Score (out of 4 points)
    Salesforce 0 0 0 .25 .25/4
    Microsoft Dynamic 0 0 0 .5 .5/4
    SAP CRM .5 0 0 0 .5/4
    Jive (Community Platform) 0 0 .5 .5 1.0/4
    Oracle/Siebel Social CRM 0 .5 .5 0 1.0/4
    RightNow CRM 1 0 .5 0 1.5/4
    Lithium (Community Platform)* .75 .75 .75 0 2.25/4

    To pass, companies need to receive greater than a .5 in each category for a total score of 2.0 plus making Lithium the only vendor to pass.

    For details, see the data, and our justifications on this Google Sheet.

    Highlights From Study
    The product pages are devoid of true social interaction, and none of them actually surface discussions about how the market is even talking about them. Marketing machine Salesforce demonstrated they aren’t engaging in a social experience on their own product pages and SAP and Microsoft’s typical enterprise looking design stayed consistent with ‘boring’ social experiences. Although Oracle’s bland web experience looks like it’s designed for the media-phobes, there is links to community and thought leadership blogs. Despite the overall meager findings, there were a few social hopefuls such as Lithium (Altimeter client*) who integrated social throughout the experience followed by RightNow Technologies who demonstrated thought leadership through executive blogs. Honorable mention to Jive engaging online video that captures the spirit of the Social CRM movement. We know that soon every webpage will be social, even if you don’t choose for it to be, so companies should enable features that allow websites to have conversations. Social CRM vendors that want to demonstrate to the market they are experts at this space should gear up to demonstrate they’ve the ability to do as they preach –as for now, it doesn’t show.

    *Altimeter Client. At the Altimeter Group we practice open leadership (also the topic of Charlene’s upcoming book) and disclose our relationships with clients, given their permission. We hope you will trust us more if we do.


  • ING: Here’s Why The Friday Unemployment Report Was Total Bunk

    Econ Edge Employment 10

    Add ING analyst Rob Carnell to the list of folks that just refuses to believe Friday’s shocking unemployment report.

    His basic contention, via FT Alphaville, is that the report was too good to be true, ergo it must not be true.

    In our view, the only potential fly in the ointment of this labour report is how believable it is. Payrolls has been making very, very slow progress in recent months, and such a dramatic turnaround will raise eyebrows, and may not be taken at face value by many. An improvement in the payrolls series always looked on the cards from last month. But most of the labour market data in the run up to this release had been consistent only with a very small step forward, so we may need to see this backed up again next month before concern about the labour market can really be filed away as ‘last year’s worries’.

    Further support for the turnaround in the employment sector came from hours worked – which gained 0.2 hours on the month, helping to push weekly earnings higher. Hourly earnings continued to decline and now stand at only 2.2% YoY. But they lag employment growth by up to two years, so it would be a bit early to expect much improvement here.

    In contrast to the weak November non-manufacturing ISM survey’s employment index yesterday, which registered only a small increase from very low levels, the service sector apparently generated 58K jobs in November. Strong gains in temporary help jobs (usually a retail sector phenomenon) were a big factor here, so anecdotal reports of relatively soft retail sales in November may see some of these jobs rapidly removed after the end of the year, once sales have finished (if demand does not improve).

    We are also slightly curious about the apparent surge in government jobs, which on revision have risen by more than 50K in the last two months. When state and local finances are in such a deep mess, even the Obama fiscal package is unlikely to have generated this rapid turnaround in the public sector. More believably, goods producing, construction and manufacturing jobs all saw continued large falls.

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  • Natural Gas Is Getting So Sexy, Even Hollywood Has Noticed

     

     

    You know natural gas is getting sexy when Hollywood rolls in. Get ready for Haynesville, a movie about thrills and perils of a natural gas boom town in Louisiana.

    Haynesville: As the Haynesville boom erupts, the film focuses on three lives caught in the middle of the find: A single mom takes up the defense of her community’s environmental protections, an African American preacher attempts to use the riches to build a Christian school and a salt-of-the-earth, self-described “country boy” finds himself conflicted as he weighs losing his land to an oil company’s offer to make him a millionaire.

    Check out the movie's official site here, and definitely see the trailer below. (Tip via The Energy Collective)

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  • This week’s Nintendo downlodables: Ball Fighter, Rayman, Shinobi, Street Fighter Alpha 2

    Nintendo’s rolling out a few downloadable classic games for the Wii and DS this week. The original Rayman game’s coming to the DSiWare service alongside another mix of handheld games and apps. The Virtual Console service is

  • Autotechnik + Tuning brings the rain with its Thunderstorm BMW M3

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    Autotechnik + Tuning Thunderstorm BMW M3 — Click above for image gallery

    Autotechnik + Tuning has done a job on the BMW M3, but if you don’t look closely, you might miss it. Echoing a sentiment we love, they declare “At first glance you cannot estimate the scope of retrofitting.” However, while we appreciate their tuning philosophy, we’re not so sure about their tuning math.

    ATT adds a supercharger and remaps the engine software, all of which bumps the M3’s horsey count from 414 to a nice, round 500. To get that bad boy in your engine bay will cost you a tear-shedding €11,749 ($17,455 U.S.). But that’s not all: a new exhaust, KW coilovers, and ATT-TEC Le Mans wheels on 20-inch rubber will add more than €7,000 ($10,399 U.S.) to the line at the bottom of the invoice. Those are the kind of numbers that’ll give you a concussion, especially when we’re talking about an 86-horsepower improvement.

    Either way, you can read about it in ATT’s own words in the presser after the jump, or check it out in the gallery of photos below, and if nothing else, at least that’s free.

    [Source: Autotechnik + Tuning]

    Continue reading Autotechnik + Tuning brings the rain with its Thunderstorm BMW M3

    Autotechnik + Tuning brings the rain with its Thunderstorm BMW M3 originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • What Bust? Gold Heading Upward With Jaw-Dropping Volume

    The SPDR Gold Trust ($GLD) is having an amazing day.

    Just when it looked like the gold bubble had burst, in came the program traders to save the day with massive buying volume.

    30 million shares and counting have exchanged hands as gold tries to erase its $25 drop from earlier today.

    GLDchart1207am

    goldAMchart

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  • My Boyfriend is Protective & Controlling

    Sometimes women know when they have a boyfriend or husband who is extremely protective, and sometimes they don’t recognize the signs.  It’s easy to mistake relationship habits like constant phonecalls, gifts, and effusive language as “love” instead of attempts to be controlling.

    The best relationships have a balance of independent decisions and listening to input from your partner.  You shouldn’t always do exactly what your boyfriend wants you to do.  He should trust you to make decisions that are best for you and the relationship without putting pressure on you to do what he wants.

    Image: sxc.hu

    Image: sxc.hu

    Controlling boyfriends usually have deep underlying insecurities, which they subconsciously solve by pairing with a partner who they can control.  They feel powerful and falsely confident when they know that their girlfriend is doing exactly what they want them to do.  They feel good knowing that they “own” someone and the relationship can quickly sour if the girlfriend attempts to express any independence.

    It’s important to be aware of the signs that you are in a controlling relationship because it is a serious relationship that can quickly get out of hand.  Here are important boyfriend behaviors to look for:

    • Constant phonecalls and text messages
    • Unnecessary and expensive gifts
    • Checks your phone and reads your email
    • Questioning you about your whereabouts
    • Not allowing you to see certain people or go certain places
    • Not trusting your decision-making abilities
    • Encouraging activities that involve just the two of you
    • Encouraging you to cut off relationships with other people
    • Not allowing you to express your opinions/emotions
    • Anger when questioned about his motives

    If you notice that your boyfriend is engaging in these behaviors and you feel uncomfortable with the situation, then it is extremely important that you address it as soon as possible.  If he gets into a habit of thinking that he can control your life and tell you how to act, then it will be extremely difficult for him to change and for the relationship to transform into a healthy one.

    It’s extremely important to remember that you are a person outside of your relationship.  You have needs and wants, and you also make mistakes sometimes. You don’t need your boyfriend to make decisions for you or decide who you are.  You need to decide for yourself.  Regardless of how much he loves, he is not there to control your life.  He is there to be a healthy and supportive part of your life while you move forward with independent goals and values.

    Post from: Blisstree

    My Boyfriend is Protective & Controlling

  • Gran Turismo 5 demo coming to PSN on Dec 17, GT Academy returns [w/VIDEO]

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    Click above to watch the video after the jump

    Just when we thought we were going to wait until the end of March to get our hands on Gran Turismo 5, our friends at Joystiq tell us that Polyphony Digital will release a demo version of hotly anticipated racing game on December 17. The demo will be available on the Playstation Network for download both in Europe and North America, giving long-patient fans a taste of what the full game will be like when it finally arrives in stores.

    And as cool as it is that the demo arrives within two weeks time, even cooler is the fact that gamers will be given the opportunity to compete for some nifty prizes. All you have to do is post your best time trial by January 24, 2010. The best time from the U.S. and Canada wins a trip to the Indianapolis 500. A sweet prize, no doubt, but it doesn’t come close to the top Euro prize. The best driver from select European countries gets to enter the GT Academy. After completing training the lucky skilled gamer will race in the European GT4 Cup in a non-virtual race-spec Nissan 370Z. How amazing is that?

    It would be even better if GT5 actually shipped on December 17, but it looks like we won’t be racing one of the world’s best driving simulators until March at the earliest. Hit the jump to view a slick video that contains more information about the GT Academy.

    Gallery: Gran Turismo 5

    [Source: Joystiq]

    Continue reading Gran Turismo 5 demo coming to PSN on Dec 17, GT Academy returns [w/VIDEO]

    Gran Turismo 5 demo coming to PSN on Dec 17, GT Academy returns [w/VIDEO] originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • UT Associate Dean Robert Moore Named Executive Director of UT Space Institute

    KNOXVILLE — Dr. Robert “Buddy” Moore, associate dean for research and graduate programs for the College of Veterinary Medicine, has been named executive director of the University of Tennessee Space Institute, UT Knoxville Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek announced today.

    Robert MooreMoore will begin serving on Jan. 1, 2010. Dr. Stephen Corda, who has been serving in the role as interim associate vice president and chief operating officer since July, will return to his faculty and research post at the institute.

    “Dr. Moore is a very well respected and proven administrator who will lead the institute’s research and instructional mission with an eye for building new partnerships and graduate enrollment. He is a proven leader who can help implement strategies to enhance interdisciplinary projects and take advantage of opportunities,” said Cheek. “His experience with the university and several key research centers provides a broad framework for enhanced collaboration with UT, as well as other universities and public and private partners.”

    Moore joined the UT Knoxville faculty in 1981 as an assistant professor of microbiology. He later served as the head of the department of microbiology, helping to grow individual and collaborative research programs. In 2001, he was named associate dean for research and graduate studies for the College of Veterinary Medicine. Along with overseeing the college’s research and graduate programs, he directs the Center of Excellence in Livestock Diseases & Human Health. He also directs the Comparative and Experimental Medicine (CEM) Graduate Program, a joint program of the college and the UT Health Science Center’s Graduate School of Medicine. The CEM program has seen a dramatic increase in faculty participation, student enrollment and assistantships as well as support for shared projects about human and animal health.

    Moore has a bachelor’s and a master’s from Clemson University and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. Before joining the UT faculty, he served as a staff fellow at the National Institutes of Health. Throughout his career, he has published significant research and has been an associate editor of the Journal of Immunology and editor of Infection and Immunity.

    The UT Space Institute, located in Middle Tennessee, is a graduate education and research institution that was established in 1964 to focus on research in engineering, physics, mathematics and aviation systems. Nearly 1,500 graduate degrees — including more than 180 doctorates — have been awarded through the institute in partnership with UT Knoxville’s College of Engineering.

    At the recommendation of UT Interim President Jan Simek at its annual meeting last June, the UT Board of Trustees approved a new organizational structure that placed reporting responsibilities for the institute with the Knoxville chancellor.

    C O N T A C T :

    Karen Collins (865-974-5186, [email protected])

  • Alum Celebrates Family Legacy with Gift to College of Business Administration

    Joe Crafton

    Joe Crafton

    KNOXVILLE — Alumnus Joe Crafton, president of CROSSMARK, a leading provider of services to the consumer goods industry, has provided a gift to the College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in recognition of the impact UT has had on his family.

    His gift supports technology in the college’s new James A. Haslam II Business Building and shopper marketing efforts in the college’s Department of Marketing and Logistics. To commemorate his generosity, the college has named the Crafton Family Terrace in the Haslam Business Building in his family’s honor.

    “It is especially meaningful to have the terrace named after my family,” said Crafton, a 1984 graduate of the College of Business Administration. “From the Crafton Family Terrace, there is a clear view of the alma mater colleges of my wife, Wendy, who graduated in 1984 with a humanities degree; father Joe Sr., who graduated in 1950 as an engineer and lived in the stadium dorm; mother, Patti, who was a Torchbearer, graduating in 1955 in education; my brother Nick, a graduate in engineering, and another brother Hugh, a business graduate. Not to mention the numerous extended family members who graduated from UT. The Crafton Family Terrace also provides an ideal view of where my wife and I first met — Neyland Stadium — and her beloved Smoky Mountains in the distance.”

    By giving to the college, Crafton hopes to perpetuate its tradition of excellence in consumer goods sales and marketing education and encourage future students to pursue careers in the industry. His gift is part of UT’s Campaign for Tennessee $1 billion fundraising effort.

    This gift was very personal for Crafton on several other levels.

    “Before Haslam was built, business classes were held in the Glocker Business Administration Building. It was in Glocker where I developed my passion for marketing and supply chain management that led to my career in consumer goods marketing. Glocker, however, was technologically challenged to provide students with a state-of-the-art learning environment. I wanted to ensure that future generations kept pace with global advancements,” he said.

    Crafton also sees shopper marketing as a way to differentiate college graduates in the workplace.

    “The consumer goods industry is investing incremental time and dollars in reaching the consumer when he or she is in a shopping mode. As a founding member of UT’s Shopper Marketing Forum, my planned gift will go toward advancing superior student education in areas having greatest demand,” he said.

    Richard “Dick” Reizenstein, emeritus associate marketing professor, was instrumental in reconnecting Crafton with the college.

    “Dick was an associate dean of the college when I was a student. He re-involved me in the college through his Executive-in-Residence (EIR) program. On one of my EIR visits to meet with students, I saw the plans for Haslam and realized the exceptional leverage the building provided the college. I’m glad to be associated with it,” Crafton said.

    The Campaign for Tennessee — the most ambitious effort in the university’s 214-year history — places UT among the ranks of the nation’s largest public and private institutions that have sought this level of private support.

    The campaign, which launched its silent phase in 2005, will secure private gifts that, in turn, will contribute substantially to the distinct, but linked, campuses in the UT system. Funds raised through the campaign will directly support the objectives of UT’s strategic plan. Among those objectives are improved student access and success, research and economic development, outreach and globalization.

    C O N T A C T :

    Cindy Raines (865-974-4359, [email protected])

  • Tony Hawk: Critics didn’t give Ride a fair shake

    Video game critics aren’t among Tony Hawk’s favorite people right now. The pro skateboarder recently struck back at critics who slammed Robomodo’s Tony Hawk: Ride, saying that they just weren’t ready to give the game a fair

  • Yahoo Doesn’t Want You To Know Its Spying Price List; Issues DMCA Takedown

    Last week, well-known privacy activist, Chris Soghoian, got a lot of attention for revealing some data on how often Sprint was sharing GPS data with the government. However, perhaps an even more interesting part of his detailed writeup about various service providers and how they provide data to the government, was his attempt to uncover how much various service providers charge the government. This was interesting, in that it showed how giving the government private data could be a bit of a profit center for some firms. Soghoian uncovered some price lists, but Yahoo and Verizon refused to reveal their price lists, claiming that doing so would “shock” or “confuse” customers. That was odd, since other firms did reveal their price lists, and the results weren’t all that shocking or confusing.



    Of course, it didn’t take long for someone to leak Yahoo’s spying price list (or, more accurately, its “compliance guide for law enforcement,” which also includes some pricing info) to Cryptome.org. Other, similar documents were also posted to Cryptome from other service providers, but the only one who freaked out appears to be Yahoo. Robert Ring alerts us that Yahoo sent a DMCA takedown request to Cryptome over the document. Cryptome appears to have just posted the takedown request along with its ongoing email discussion with Yahoo’s lawyers, while leaving the original document in place.

    Of course, by now, you can rest assured that Yahoo’s document has been copied in all sorts of places, just by nature of Yahoo’s attempt to hide it. It makes you wonder why the company even bothered in the first place.

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  • Treasuries Are King Ever Since The Crisis Started

    This lovely chart, courtesy of EconomPic, showcases how different types of assets have done since the beginning of the financial crisis, or in this case, June of 2007. Credit and equities are showing upward trends since March of 2009, but take a close look at REITs.

    The winner: treasuries.

    Asset Class Returns Since Crisis

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  • Chevy Volt: The Song

    Chevy Volt and Me song — Click above to watch the video

    The Kraft company recently held a competition inviting the public to name its new Vegemite cream cheese spinoff. The name that won, and made it to shelves, was “iSnack 2.0.” Really. It took one day of public cacophony to encourage Kraft to change the name to “Cheesybite,” but we hear you can still find jars of iSnack 2.0 if you’re inclined. Why do we bring this up? Because sometimes we wonder what insights marketers are using to make product roll-out decisions.

    And what’s that got to do with the Chevy Volt? The Chevy Volt’s new theme song, Chevy Volt and Me. In this case, we know what the thought process was. Said the Volt’s director of global marketing,

    Our goal is to craft that education [about the Volt] in a manner that is family friendly (as it should be because we are America’s original mass /heart brand), entertaining and simple to understand for a rather sophisticated product.

    A Volt song helps us to achieve those objectives. ‘Chevy Volt and Me’ explains what Volt is all about as a better EV in simple friendly terms.

    All right then. So it ain’t Eye of the Tiger or Diesel Power, but it is catchy. Fast-paced, too, so you better pay attention because there’s a lot in it. Follow the jump to watch a video of the Volt’s gestation, made by the folks at the GM Volt site and set to the new tune. We dare you to listen to it once and not find yourself humming for the rest of the day, “It’s so simple like a dimple plug it in and see.”

    [Source: GM-Volt.com]

    Continue reading Chevy Volt: The Song

    Chevy Volt: The Song originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 12:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • The Case for Partitioning Your Mac’s Hard Drive

    I’ve been partitioning my hard drives since my very first Mac — a used Mac Plus back in 1992. Yes, I divided the Plus’s commodious 20MB external SCSI HD into two partitions so I could boot either System 6 (for speed) or System 7 (for Internet support).

    I’m not as big an aficionado of partitioning as I once was, although all of my Macs since the Plus have had partitioned hard drives, including the unibody MacBook I’m typing this on, which has two HD partitions. That’s down from the four or five I used to configure back in the days of PowerBooks and OS 9.

    Reasons to Partition

    Partitioning means formatting the hard drive with two or more virtual volumes, which appear on your Desktop and function as if they were separate drives. I have a number of reasons for using multiple partitions.

    • I like to be at least potentially able to install two different bootable operating systems on the same Mac — for instance, I have both OS X 10.5.8 Leopard and OS X 10.4.11 Tiger installed on my old G4 PowerBook (plus OS 9.2 to support Classic Mode in Tiger). Installing multiple boot systems makes version upgrades less of a dice-roll or leap of faith. Retaining a known-reliable older system installed is good insurance against disrupted work flow if the upgrade doesn’t go as smoothly as hoped. Also you may have favorite apps that aren’t supported by the latest OS version, of do a lot of testing of beta and/or alpha software, which has the potential to bollix things up.
    • Troubleshooting is easier if you have two bootable partitions. For instance, you can usually run diagnostic and repair utilities from one partition on another, which goes much faster than booting from a CD or DVD, and diagnostically if a problem goes away when booted from a different system install, it’s more likely a software issue.
    • By dividing up critical data, there’s less likelihood of catastrophic data loss due to file corruption. For example, a partition used strictly for document storage is unlikely to be affected by a serious system crash. Also if you have files that you want sharable without hassle among multiple users or across a network, you can create a partition volume for them with “Group” and/or “Others” read or read and write access.
    • Partitioned drives make it easier to find particular files if you always store certain types of files on particular volumes.

    Boot Camp Requires Partitioning

    • If you’re running Boot Camp or one of the third-party virtualization solutions for Windows support, having Windows installed on a separate drive partition is a tidier way to proceed. In fact, Apple’s Boot Camp obliges you to have two (but no more) partitions. Boot Camp Assistant (OS X 10.5 Leopard and newer) automatically creates a discrete FAT 32, NT, or NTFS formatted Windows partition, but an important caveat is that Boot Camp Assistant doesn’t work on already partitioned disks, so with Boot Camp you’re limited to two partitions.
    • Since OS X supports both the Apple HFS+ file system and the standard Unix UFS file system, creating a UFS-based partition will allow the drive to be accessed by Unix systems over a network.

    Downsides to Partitioning

    Some folks tout using a partition for file backups, a practice I’m less enthusiastic about as it will be no help if the hard drive itself fails.

    Other potential disadvantages of partitioning are that as smaller volumes fill up, fragmentation can increase, there will be less free space for swap files when running applications that depend a lot on virtual memory, and partitioned drives are more complex to restore after serious crashes.

    As I mentioned above, while I still partition, I don’t go as ape with it as I used to, partly because there are fewer advantages to multiple partitions with OS X’s excellent support for multiple users and today’s drive formatting schemes than there were back in Classic Mac OS and HFS formatting days, and partly because hard drives are so much bigger and faster than they used to be (plus there’s the two-partition Boot Camp limitation, if that applies).

    The most convenient time to partition your hard drive is when you first set up the Mac, although these days you can partition and change partition sizes without erasing and re-initializing the drive using OS X Disk Utility or third-party partitioning software like Prosoft Engineering’s $99 Drive Genius 2 or Coriolis System’s $44.95 iPartition.


  • Gold ETF Fund Flows Quadrupled In November

     

    Net cash inflow into the SPDR Gold Shares Exchange Traded Fund (Ticker: GLD), hit $1.15 billion during November according to data compiled by National Stock Exchange. This was 4.2x  the $272 million inflow during October, but still below September's mammoth $2 billion inflow.

    Altogether, a net $13.6 billion has flowed into GLD this year so far. GLD had the second largest inflows of any ETF during November. Clearly sentiment was roaring for gold last month.

    etf

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  • RIA Services Link Listing #1

    Starting a new link listing series around interesting posts/content related to RIA Services. Hope you find these useful, and if you’d like to share something please send them along…
    [Full post continued here…]

  • Dear Mark: Feast or Famine Diet?

    plate2 Dear Mark: Feast or Famine Diet?Among the questions I get from MDA readers are those that ask about timely diet trends – you know, the latest regimens highlighted in the media or promoted by high profile stars and athletes. Some are bookstore blockbuster plans like The Zone, while others are the latest celebrity diet du jour. As my wife and – well, everyone who knows me – can tell you, I’m always up for talking, debating, deconstructing, and fully dissecting any version or concept of diet under the sun. (Thankfully, my wife at least finds it endearing after all these years.) But it’s a treat when a diet trend comes up I can actually find common ground with. Take this question from reader Jim.

    Dear Mark,

    I saw something this week about a “feast or famine” diet. From what I get, people alternate eating a small amount and eating as much as they want. I’m still kind of a newbie and wondered what you thought of it. Thanks! Love the PB!

    The feast or famine diet (also called alternate day fasting) isn’t really a new idea (even discounting Grok’s experience), but it got recent press after the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published results of a small study this fall. Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago designed an alternate day regimen that restricted food on “famine” days to 25% of estimated energy needs. Sixteen obese participants went through a 10-week program: a 2-week control period, 4-week alternating day 25%/”controlled intake” period, and 4-week alternating day 25%/”self-selected intake” (albeit with diet counseling) period. The results? (Can you guess, IFers?) Subjects lost weight consistently in both 4 week periods and showed improvement in key blood markers (total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides and systolic blood pressure).

    A few years ago a neuroscientist named Mark Mattson published study results supporting the same famine-feast regimen. In commentary for The Lancet, he questioned the conventional wisdom that supported “grazing” for calories throughout the day, citing humans’ evolutionary development within an intermittent fasting existence. Mattson, a central researcher in calorie restriction and intermittent fasting, has produced research demonstrating the benefits of both practices, benefits which include enhanced memory, reduction in neurological oxidative stress (with associated risk of neurological conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s), neuron resilience, and an improved regulation of glucose and insulin levels.

    As an intermittent fasting routine, the feast-famine diet promises to upregulate metabolic systems while decreasing the overall caloric intake and oxidative stress associated with food intake and digestion. In the Primal Blueprint model, I highly recommend it. As Mattson and other researchers have noted, our systems evolved to expect periods of scarcity. We weren’t designed for the constant eating (and associated physiological stress), couched as healthy “grazing,” that we’re told to practice today. Dr. William Davis of the Heart Scan Blog, a blogroll friend of mine, did a great sequence a few weeks ago on grazing, fasting and postprandial patterns. As he emphasizes, the postprandial (aka “after eating”) period is the most damaging for artery plaque buildup. In our society, we’re encouraged to be starting the next meal before the previous one has even been fully absorbed. Our systems rarely, if ever, have the chance to return to zero. Fasting allows for that resetting.

    The common criticisms of the feast or famine routine (or any form of fasting) revolve around images of all-out gorging. Apparently, too many experts believe that anyone who fasts for even 24 hours will be found in a gluttonous mountain of pizza boxes and Snickers wrappers at the end of restriction time. There are people who might go this route, but I’ll bet you a nickel they won’t continue the alternating day routine. The practice takes a certain amount of discipline, yes. But it also takes energy. Gorging yourself on the worst foods will leave you so sluggish and miserable the next day that you’ll likely drop the program. That said, if you return to a diet (say, the PB) that keeps your glucose and insulin pretty steady, you’ll feel the best benefits of the fasting routine (lightness, focus, energy) instead of the carb hangover.

    Finally, I want to stress that if you’re interested in the benefits of a feast-famine routine, you don’t need to commit to an alternating day diet. Nearly any form or degree of intermittent fasting provides benefit. Do what feels manageable in the beginning. Skip breakfast one day. Reduce your calories by half for a day. Every IFer I know (myself included) developed – and advanced – their routines over time and manage it with ease now.

    As always, thanks for your questions and comments, and keep ‘em coming!

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    1. Dear Mark: Don’t Call it a “Diet”
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    3. Dear Mark: Post-Workout Fasting

  • Announcement: New Recipe Theme for the Cookbook Contest

    grok recipe book 1 Announcement: New Recipe Theme for the Cookbook Contest

    Enter your best Primal Blueprint recipes for your chance to win prizes and be featured in the Reader-Created Cookbook

    The new theme: Primal Soups!

    We’ve received some delicious Primal breakfast recipes from readers:

    Almond Banana Pancakes

    No Oat Oatmeal… It’s Noatmeal!

    Omelet Muffins

    Frittata Aleta

    All of these recipes will be featured in the Reader-Created Primal Blueprint Cookbook and the entrants have a chance to win an über cool Primal prize package.

    If you’d like to participate in this contest send in your own favorite Primal recipes that relate to the current theme – Primal Soups. Click here for all the details.

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    Related posts:

    1. Announcement: New Recipe Theme for the Cookbook Contest
    2. Contest Video: Bodyweight Basics
    3. Contest Video: Primal Blueprint Bodyweight Exercises

  • Killzone 2 downtime scheduled for tomorrow

    Quick heads up for the Killzone 2 players out there. Don’t be surprised when the game’s multiplayer service drops out for a while tomorrow. Guerrilla is scheduling a little downtime to upgrade their servers.