Reading the Beautiful Mysteries of Louise Penny

Great novels, each one, and now I am left with the agony of waiting for the next installment. A whole year? I cannot wait that long! Write quickly, dear Ms. Penny, write quickly!

Penny's novels are rich and full, intelligent and entertaining, and worthy of all the many awards they've garnered (including the Agatha Award for Best Novel, and the Dilys, Arthur Ellis, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero Awards).

Set in the province of Quebec, Penny uses the history of old Canada to set up her characters, and illustrate their differing personalities and backgrounds. She then takes on huge themes -- memory, guilt, hope, love, friendship -- that are amplified but never overtaken by the murder mystery the quietly heroic and hugely kind Inspector Gamache must solve, time after time -- and time and again in the tiny but absolutely enchanting village of Three Pines, with its lively citizenry of artists, a poet (rude beyond belief but with a core of gold), a gay couple, a retired psychologist running a bookstore, and a slew of minor originals, including a young man nicknamed "Old" and his wife, nicknamed "the Wife."

Not all the stories take place in Three Pines (there is only so much murder a small village can tolerate -- or produce) and although at first I missed the small town atmosphere and charm (blooming bushes! crackling hearths! bottles of wine and loaves of bread and boards of cheese and long walks along the rustic river), Penny makes sure her characters eat well no matter where they are, and her writing guarantees that atmosphere never takes a back seat.

In her latest, The Beautiful Mystery, Gamache finds himself behind centuries-old stonewalls, soaking up the beauty of Gregorian chants and the ugliness of murder (along with the delights of rich stews, breads, cheeses, and wild blueberries dipped in dark chocolate). In Bury Your Dead, he is in Quebec City for Winter Carnival; but except for a few mentions of revelers and Caribou (a fatal drink made from vodka, brandy, sherry and port), the focus is on an old library of the tiny English community, and its connection to the hero of Quebec and French separatists, Samuel Champlain. Penny never skimps on her research of food, history, location, or psychology and the result is books that are absolutely addicting.

But not only are we drawn into Penny's novels by the places and the food and the murder itself (always a bit strange and fascinating) but because Penny writes books about people whom we come to know as friends -- compelling friends, who deserve our interest and ignite our caring.

With that caring comes pain. Not all of Penny's characters come through the darkness imposed by murder and make it through to the light on the other side. Penny doesn't write feel-good, frothy novels with everything falling neatly into place by the finish, but instead she creates real scenarios that expose the tolls exacted by real living, where good is not always rewarded and evil not always punished. Penny shows us that lives can be overtaken by the tolls of abuse, deceit, greed, and revenge -- and lives lost.

I finish reading the novels of Louise Penny with feelings of great satisfaction, renewed awe, and just a bit of anxiety: She leaves a question (or two, or three) unanswered but persistent, and we poor readers must wait! We must wait for the next novel to find out how and where, when and if, justice will be delivered, love affirmed, and happiness awarded to those that have waited too long for it. Waiting, waiting -- must I really wait a whole year to find out what happens next to Gamache, his sidekick Beauvoir, and the friends that surround them, the enemies that invade them?

Yes, I must wait. But in the meantime, I can reread the seven novels that came before. Because there are new clues to be found, I am sure; there are people to meet again, and see in a new light; and there are places to return to (food and hearth, wine and conversation!). And always, always there is murder. Awful murders, wonderful novels.

Give website a periodic checkup

When was the last time you gauged the overall health of your business website? If it's been a while, you're not alone.

Best practices in website design, development and optimization are constantly changing, and it can be hard to keep up. With all the hats that business owners wear, it is not always possible to keep current on the latest trends and fads.

The good news is you don't have to be on the cutting edge. Just like diet and exercise, there are certain things that never go out of style, and robust websites that drive business still come down to a set of core fundamentals. Consider these five questions as a starting point for making sure your website is in good working order and serving the interests of your enterprise.

1. Is your site designed according to visitor profiles? Depending on your specific business, your website may need to speak effectively to multiple audiences or types of visitors. Examples include existing customers, prospective customers, suppliers, distributors and employees. Consider organizing your online content by visitor profile to streamline navigation and reduce the number of clicks it takes for someone to get to the information they are seeking.

Some companies take this approach a step further by building distinct portals, sometimes with password protection, for internal versus external users, retail versus wholesale users, or patients versus health professionals, just to give a few examples.

2. Is your site optimized for your keywords? Even though basic knowledge about search-engine optimization is becoming more common, I still see a lot of business websites that are "optimized" for the company name. The problem with this is that by the time someone types "Arcadia Lawn Care" into Google, they are already aware of your company and actively trying to reach you, so that search probably does not add visibility to your brand. Instead, think of likely words someone might use while searching for your type of company, such as "lawn mowing services Springfield."

If you do nothing else, be sure that the title tag of your homepage combines your company name with your most likely keywords, e.g. "Arcadia Lawn Care landscaping and mowing services, Springfield IL," preferably in 70 characters or less. You can check your homepage title tag either by hovering your mouse over the tab at the top of your browser or by right-clicking on the page, selecting "view page source," and searching for the word "title."

3. Is your site searchable by engines? Once you've organized your site for your visitors and optimized your pages for keywords, you'll want to make sure that search engines are seeing your website correctly. One way to do this is to use Google Webmaster Tools. Once you have it set up, you can use their "Health" features such as "crawl errors," "fetch as Google," and "index status" to make sure all of your intended content is visible to the engine.

4. Is your site searchable by humans? Any site with more than five pages of content could potentially benefit from adding a site search feature. Many users simply prefer to type "hours" into a search box on your homepage, rather than click around to see if that information is listed under "About" or "Locations."

Recent entrants into this space include Swiftype, a free service which enables nonprogrammers to add a search function to their websites, complete with auto-complete, customized search results and real-time analytics. This kind of functionality allows you to see what questions your visitors are asking and then immediately make those answers easier to find.

5. Is your site loading quickly and consistently? Consider using a downtime and response time monitoring service. The more critical your website is to your business, the more you need to know immediately if your site goes down or slows to unacceptable levels. You might think the worst-case scenario is getting a call from an unhappy customer about your website being down, but actually, the worst-case scenario is that you never get that call because that customer simply clicked on the next website and called your competitor instead.

Services such as Pingdom can provide an early warning system, giving you a head start on fixing any availability problems. If you sign up for a free account, you'll be able to monitor one website and receive 20 text message alerts when your website does not respond. You'll also be able to see response time reports, which can warn you about slow loading speeds for your users. Generally, you want to make sure your website pages load in less than 2 seconds.

Taken together, these five questions provide the vital signs for your business website, equivalent to temperature, pulse, and blood pressure. Make sure you put first things first by addressing these fundamentals for a healthy online presence.

My Technology Is Smart

My friend called me last week and said that she was at an editor's lunch in New York City. When her colleague left the table for the restroom, my friend immediately reached for her smartphone to check texts, email, and her Twitter feed. Then she stopped herself. She put her phone down, lifted her head, and looked around. And she saw something interesting: All of the single people in the restaurant (those sitting alone) were either on their phones, Blackberrys, iPads, or laptops. No one was looking around. Not a single person.

It dawned on my friend this is the new normal. No one looks around anymore. No one looks up from their screens. And although they live in a big city -- THE Big Apple, in fact -- the people around her live in the small world of their own screens. They meet no one new. They don't ask for directions on the street and they don't talk to people near them in the coffee shop. They're busy with their time-consuming technologies.

My wife and I were talking about this the other day and we realized that no one knows anyone's phone number any more. There are thousands of digits in any given iPhone, but not a single seven-digit number in anyone's head. My mother-in-law doesn't know her own daughters' numbers. I don't know my own sister's. Basically, why memorize something that a cell phone already knows?

And although I send hundreds of emails each month, I don't know anyone's real or electronic addresses. I have no idea how to send a letter to any of my five siblings because, address-wise, I don't know where they live. I literally don't.

And speaking of location, Nokia did a study four years ago that showed that a quarter of the world's population can't get around their own home towns or cities without GPS units, and the percentage of map-crippled individuals has to be growing. Many people literally don't know where they are or how to get anywhere around them. The art and relationship of map, navigation, and spatial memory is quickly being lost.

If using our brains in complicated ways, if memorization and challenging recall help to stave off Alzheimer's and the effects of Parkinson's, why are we allowing for these trade-for-brain technologies in every area of life? Why can college students not use a real dictionary or thesaurus? Why would I use a phone to do simple multiplication? And should we eventually have everything taught to us via 140-character life-lesson-text-messages?

What I'm really asking is: How did we get here? Why is our society the way it is now?

Well, because things are easy -- easy on the brain, easy on the memory, easy on effort. Why try when you don't have to try? Why work at anything? Wait, why work at all?

There's an app that allows two iPhones to "bump" and trade digits so the owners don't even have to type in any numbers. Sounds good. Maybe, pretty soon, no one will even have to take beginning math. Maybe they won't have to even know numbers anymore. What comes after the number 17? Who cares?

And with instant messaging there's no need to know how to spell or use the conventions of grammar. It's easier to email. It's easier to text. It's easier to use the GPS on the dashboard.

How industries are embracing efficiency

Deprive your body of water and you'll be dead within a week. The survival rate is similar for some of the largest industries equally dependent on water to grow food and make goods such as jeans, beverages, electric power, homes, chemicals and even computer chips.

While many people depend on these products, at the same time, many local communities are competing with manufacturers for limited water resources. For example, the computer chip maker Intel estimates it takes 16 gallons of water to produce a single chip, which explains its huge appetite for water in 2011: some 8.3bn gallons from local water systems. Comparatively, the average American uses about 100 gallons of water each day; the average African just five gallons.

Competition for water is only expected to increase, as highlighted recently at the World Water Week conference. For companies in these water intensive industries, addressing these competing demands and implementing an effective water management strategy has become essential.

At Intel, an increased focus on environmental issues came in the 1990s, as the computer industry grew rapidly. Since then, while their consumption of water has increased each year, so have their efforts to reduce the impact to local communities, according to Todd Brady, the company's global environmental manager.

For these efforts, in 2007, the US Environmental Protection Agency recognised the company as a water efficiency leader. And by 2011, some 80% of the water it used was recycled and sent back to local water systems, where it was used for irrigation, in other industrial purposes, or for drinking water. This journey, according to Brady, was a process of engaging employees, local communities and industry partners.

"The semi-conductor manufacturing process goes through hundreds of steps," Brady explained, "and in between those steps we have to rinse off the surface of the wafer with ultra-pure water." When searching for ways to reduce and reuse the water used in this process, one of the first places Intel looks is inside, soliciting ideas from the engineers who are closest to the manufacturing process.

Intel encourages employees to come forward with ideas on conserving resources, and then matches the best ideas with a grant to develop them. "We thought we would eventually run out of ideas, but the programme is still going strong," says Brady. Most of these innovations, he adds, not only save on resources but also money, providing a payback in three years or less.

Among environmental impacts, water use is a particularly local challenge, more so than greenhouse gas emissions, the impact of which may be several states away, says Brady. To compound this challenge, Intel has located several of its largest fabrication plants in areas that are particularly water-constrained, such as Arizona and Israel.

Rather than offer a one-size-fits-all approach, Intel attempts to tailor its water management solutions for each municipality in which it operates. "We engage with the community and the water districts early on to understand their needs, discuss our needs and find solutions that work for both of us," he says.

At the Israel location, for example, working with the local government, Intel was able to change some of the chemicals used in its manufacturing so the water from this process could be treated and reused for irrigation on local farms.

The company has also learned to be as transparent as possible. "By opening your books to what you are doing, you build trust. Otherwise there is suspicion and mistrust," says Brady.

Earlier this year, Intel collaborated with engineering firm CH2M Hill and Arizona State University to help develop the website WaterMatch. The idea is to maximise the reuse of so-called "greywater". This is wastewater that can be treated and reused for industrial or agricultural purposes, but not for drinking water.

The website, which is free to use, will match entities that have excess wastewater, like water treatment plants, with those that can use it in lieu of taking fresh water from local supplies. CH2M Hill showcased the website at World Water Week.

Intel has made steady progress to conserve the amount of water used in its manufacturing. Still, the company failed to meet its most recent goal to cut the water required per chip below 2008 levels by year-end 2011. The challenge, says Brady, is the pace of technical innovation and the increasing complexity of the products each year. As you pack more transistors on the chip, you increase the number of steps that use water to rinse and clean the chip, he explains.

The takeaway here for Intel and others, he says: "You must be proactive, be strategic in your thinking. You can't just look at issues year-to-year. You must consider where your business and products are going over the next decade and how you can intercept that to achieve the goals you've set."

Pinot’s Palette continues expansion

Pinot’s Palette, a national Paint and Sip franchise known for providing guests with an entertaining evening of art and wine, is experiencing unprecedented growth in 2012 with the signing of 15 franchise agreements and the opening of four studios including The Woodlands.

The company is on track to open an additional 10 studios by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, a studio opened in Sugar Land and studios in the Memorial City Mall area in Houston and a studio in The Woodlands are expected to open by early October, which will mark the brands sixth studio in the Greater Houston Area and the company’s tenth location overall. Eight more studios will open in Atlanta, Ga.; Tyler and San Antonio, Texas; Chicago, Ill.; Oklahoma City, Okla., Fort Collins,Louisville, Ky., and Lafayette, La., before the end of the year. Additionally, agreements were recently signed with five new franchisees to develop studios in Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo.; Tulsa and Oklahoma City, Okla., and Allen, Texas.

“This is an exciting time for Pinot’s Palette. Entertainment art is a rapidly growing industry and we have a vibrant, energizing brand that is poised for expansion in cities across the country,” said Craig Ceccanti, chief executive officer, Pinot’s Palette. “The combination of our superior customer service, innovative technology, simple operations and in-depth marketing strategies allow our franchisees to execute our ‘Paint. Drink. Have Fun.’ promise and deliver a social setting that appeals to the masses.”

At Pinot’s Palette, guests sign up online to attend a two or three hour painting class where they are instructed by a local, trained artist how to recreate the featured painting of the night. Pinot’s Palette supplies art supplies, plates and wine glasses and guests are encouraged to bring their own wine and snacks, although some studios offer adult beverages for purchase. Franchisees have access to extensive painting libraries of tested artwork as well as the ability to create their own paintings to respond to guests’ changing taste in artwork and local trends in their respective communities.

“We are looking for professionals with strong community ties and a passion for creating memorable experiences to help grow the company into new markets,” said Ceccanti. “Our proven systems and extensive corporate support differentiate us from our competitors and make us an ideal franchise opportunity for entrepreneurs looking to bring a strong Paint and Sip concept to their city.”

In addition to pre-opening, training, and ongoing support, franchisees are equipped with Pinot Technology Suite (PTS), an automated communication system designed to streamline administrative tasks. The proprietary PTS system has evolved to be the hub of studio management, integrating all aspects of the business from point of sale transactions, tracking reservations, artist scheduling, payroll and more. Easy to use business reporting tools and real time guest information is readily available at the franchisees and employees fingertips allowing the business to run more efficiently.

County workforces less diverse than residents

As suburban metro-area counties grow more diverse, their workforces have not.

In Carver, Scott, Washington and Anoka counties, minorities hold between 2 and 5 percent of county jobs, while the overall minority populations range from 9 to 15 percent. The 849-member Carver County workforce included 16 people of color this year; just 56 of 1,760 Anoka County workers are minorities.

Officials cite familiar reasons for the numbers: tight budgets that have curtailed hiring or caused job cuts, commuters who face limited transportation options, and resources that remain scarce for outreach in minority communities. One county also acknowledged that its top officials haven't pushed diversity hiring as a high priority.

But as current employees retire, suburban areas are beginning to face up to the challenge of hiring more minorities and making their workforces reflect their communities, where 60 percent of the region's minority population now lives.

"Changing the system of how you operate takes a real commitment," said the Rev. Paul Slack, president of ISAIAH, a Twin Cities faith coalition that works on housing and economic issues. "They've been able to say for a long time that we tried. They now have to say that effort wasn't good enough."

It isn't an insurmountable challenge, activists contend.

Hennepin and Ramsey counties, for example, have minority workforces of 21 and 22 percent, respectively, and minority populations of 29 and 33 percent.

When waves of Hmong, Somali and Latino immigrants came to the Twin Cities, leaders in those two counties were quick to realize that a commitment to diversity "wasn't just a nice thing to do, but the right thing to do," said Louis King, a longtime activist who currently runs a nonprofit center offering minority-oriented job skills training.

Other counties "should shamelessly steal ideas from their success," he said.

Of the seven metro-area counties, Carver has the smallest overall minority population, at 9 percent. Diversity recruiting "is not an area we've been asked in a real powerful way to pursue" by our leaders and elected officials, said Doris Krogman, the county's employee relations director.

Jobs are posted at workforce centers and elsewhere, officials attend job fairs and "we are happy when we see people of color coming through to apply for jobs," Krogman said. The county also has a good record of retaining minority employees, she said.

A lack of worker diversity is a source of frustration to Jack Kemme, Scott County's employee relations director. The county is experiencing an influx of people of color, but finding a talent pool with the requisite skills to fill a shrinking number of county jobs has proved difficult, Kemme said.

"In our last resident survey, most felt the community as a whole is open to people of diverse backgrounds," he said. "We just need to keep recruiting. If we get a larger base of diverse employees, it becomes its own recruiting source."

In Washington County, reduced state aid the last few years resulted in a hiring freeze, putting minority recruiting on the back burner, said County Administrator Molly O'Rourke. With a minority population that has doubled in the past decade, however, the county has hired a consultant to rework strategic planning to put more emphasis on recruitment and retention of minority employees, she said.

"People tend to like to live where they work. You look at the radius around our government center in Stillwater and the population base is mostly white," she said. "Most of our minority population lives along the western edge of the county, and it's easier to get to downtown St. Paul instead of Stillwater. We need to reach out to those folks."

About 4.7 percent of Wash-ington County employees are people of color, while the county as a whole has a minority population of about 14 percent. However, the latter number is inflated by the inmates in state prisons in Stillwater and Oak Park Heights.

In Dakota County, 9 percent of county workers are minorities. Employee Relations Director Nancy Hohbach said the county prepared a plan to encourage diversity hiring after a boom in the minority population starting in 2004. The county trained managers in cultural competency and established a diversity trainee program, she said. The numbers are also helped by having government centers in Hastings, Apple Valley and West St. Paul instead of a single, central location.

USA Today unveils page-turning agenda revamp

USA Today, the nation's second-largest newspaper, is actualization an check of its printed and agenda editions for the additional time in beneath than two years.

USA Today's book adaptation will acquaint a redesign on Friday. It changes the logo for the aboriginal time in its 30-year history and about doubles the amount of pages that use color. Editors will aswell use blush added generally to do things such as highlight argument in key portions of stories.

The newspaper, the aboriginal above circadian to use blush if it launched in 1982, will aswell affection added cartoon and photos. The newspaper's foreground page and area fronts will action a "ball" figure that will accommodate a altered clear or photo anniversary day to reflect noteworthy news.

Meanwhile, Gannett Co.'s flagship civic circadian is alteration the attending and feel of its website and adaptable apps. Readers will accept to bang or feel through pages as if they're perusing a agenda magazine.

The page-turning archetypal allows USA Today to advertise full-page alternate ads that abutment video. They will arise amid account pages. On adaptable devices, readers will cast through pages with a feel swipe, while on the Web, users will cross aback and alternating by beat on appropriate or larboard arrows.

But even as it makes changes, USA Today is afraid charging for access, even admitting such an online pay bank has helped added newspapers including some at Gannett addition apportionment revenue.

The move, says management, is strategic.

The newspaper's accommodation is one of the aboriginal tests of Larry Kramer's management. The 62-year-old architect of banking account account MarketWatch was called admiral and administrator in May.

His arrangement comes as hundreds of newspapers civic accept already adapted to a archetypal that requires readers to pay for online or adaptable access. Pay walls accept helped admission apportionment revenue. The New York Times Co., for instance, launched one in March 2011. By the end of June, it had 532,000 agenda subscribers companywide, which helped addition annual apportionment acquirement by 8 percent from a year earlier.

Kramer defends the accommodation to accumulate USA Today's agenda agreeable free-of-charge. He says USA Today differs from Gannett's 80 bounded newspapers, which began putting up alleged "metered" pay walls this year. Those newspapers are starting to crave readers to pay for online admission afterwards account a assertive amount of belief on the Web for free.

"Their account is capital in a altered way," Kramer said advanced of the redesign's barrage on Thursday. "We're aggravating to acquaint new forms of burning of news, and we accept to accord it to humans for chargeless to get them to try."

The move is aswell an accepting of USA Today's abnormal business model. Added than bisected of its 1.7 actor paid copies anniversary day are subsidized by hotels and acclimatized to guests for chargeless in apartment or lobbies. Readers may be beneath acclimatized to paying for it than, say, The Bank Street Journal.

USA Today hasn't awash abounding agenda copies partly because it hasn't put up a pay wall. In the six months through March, the latest aeon for which abstracts is available, it awash an boilerplate of 35,000 agenda copies a day in the anatomy of agenda replicas of the book copy and e-reader versions after ads, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. By contrast, the Times awash 437,000, although that included subscriptions to its website, which USA Today does not allegation for.

One above advantage of the page-turning model: It gives advertisers chargeless administration to appear up with business letters that yield up an absolute page in agenda form. An advertiser could, for instance, appearance video and action a array of links accoutrement altered aspects of its product. That would accomplish them added like television and online video ads, which accomplish decidedly college acquirement than accepted website banderole ads.

USA Today's access is a cogent change from the cost-per-click business archetypal begin on a lot of bi-weekly websites, area acquirement is based on the tiny allotment of readers who in fact bang on ads.

"We were ashore with an ad ecosystem that is bound to little boxes on pages. I capital to change that," said David Payne, Gannett's arch agenda officer.

Payne said advertisers would acknowledge accepting the bare canvas of an absolute page to advance their products, rather than aggressive with the ataxia of added ads and stories. "If we can serve up affluent media ... (the device) becomes just addition television," he said.

USA Today endure revamped its printed copy and website in March 2011, if it broadcast advantage of reader-friendly capacity such as biking and affairs trends and advised agreeable for smartphones and book computers.

Gannett is in the bosom of its own revamp. CEO Gracia Martore, who took over from Craig Dubow endure October, appear a three-year turnaround plan in February.

Analysts apprehend Gannett to admission acquirement hardly this year to $5.24 billion, for the aboriginal accretion aback 2006. It is accepted to addition net assets to $531 million, for the aboriginal admission aback 2010.

On Thursday, Gannett's banal rose as abundant as 2.8 percent to hit a new 52-week top of $17.61, afore giving aback some of the assets and closing at $17.46.

Some analysts are acquisitive that Kramer would advice animate the company's a lot of accepted newspaper, even as book bi-weekly ad acquirement declines industrywide. Advertising dollars are more abounding to online outlets of news.

"USA Today is their flagship product. It has been beneath arrant burden on the acquirement ancillary for three or four years now," says Douglas Arthur, an analyst with Evercore Partners. "It needs a above re-launch and I'm acquisitive this re-launch has the legs that we're expecting."

Google Testing New Eyewear

The eyewear is unique as it has a tiny camera embedded in it. The camera helps to deploy the "heads-up display" through which data can be projected into the users' vision. The display is located above the right hand side of the glass and features an inbuilt camera.

The idea behind this new Internet enabled eyewear is much like a wearable smartphone, which will allow the user to receive calls, take pictures, send messages, record a video, use Google Maps and perform other functions via voice-activated commands. In addition, another interesting feature called time-lapse capability helps to take photographs every 10 seconds and one does not need to take out the phone while clicking the snapshots.

The eyewear will be able to perform most of the functions of a smartphone or a computer. Thus, Google will offer consumers a hands-free experience.

However, given the hefty pre-order price of $1500, Google will have to devise a plan for adoption (either price reduction or a subsidy of some sort, or collaboration with a fashion brand to sell it as a fashion item). The sales strategy remains unclear as of now and the initial product will likely be taken by geeks alone.

According to experts, wearable computers or smartphone devices are the next step in mobile electronics. The tech companies are also blending the fashion quotient to market their new unique devices. The success of these wearable computers depends on the fashionable accessibility of such devices.

A number of tech companies are exploring the segment. Sony for one has come up with a smartwatch that one can wear on their wrist to check emails and access music stores in addition to checking time. Apple is also developing a wearable computer.

Google is known for its research and development focus, which empowers it to launch new and innovative products. In the present case, 'Google Glass', as the eyewear is being called is still in development Therefore, customer adoption remains unclear.

Many purchasers and payers of health insurance are initially skeptical of DPC. It is because DPC sounds more expensive than the per member per month costs for primary care that one assumes in their baseline model. they think that if you are paying $x per year to a physician and many of those covered lives won’t go to the physician in a given year, it sounds like it would be more expensive than a traditional fee-for-service model. The big difference that overcomes the skepticism is the nature of the ongoing patient-provider relationship. The extra time a DPC physician is able to spend with a patient allows them to address 85-90% of most common CPT codes. This contrasts where they normally refer out at a much higher rate. It is common for DPC practices to reduce as little as 40% of the most expensive facets of healthcare. As you’ll see in the gallery below, Qliance has shown they can reduce them by as much as 80%.

The traditional hamster wheel model a mainstream primary care doctor deals with makes them a referral machine. After all, in a typical 7-minute encounter with a patient,the doctor doesn’t have much time to do more than see a symptom and refer patients to specialists or prescribe a drug. I have heard estimates that an individual primary care doctor refers out as much as $10 million of value in referrals/prescriptions/tests. It’s not hard to understand why primary care physicians are ripe to be bought out by organizations that want to tap that $10 million. Though their practices are a loser on a standalone basis, like a carton of milk in the back of the grocery store, they get people in the door to refer them to high margin procedures and tests.

Use your smartphone for added tasks in the car

Pioneer’s AppRadio belvedere is aggressive because it aims to accommodate the smartphone able-bodied above just Bluetooth hands-free calls and music playback. As its name suggests, the focus is on amalgam apps from both iPhone and Android devices. It does what it claims, at atomic for the a lot of part.

With a seven-inch affectation that offers ample icons and calmly accessible card screens, Pioneer did a nice job with the attending and feel of the user interface. Except it’s somewhat decrepit by the ceaseless admonishing screens about how chancy absent active is. They pop up frequently, and aren’t helped by the approved notification on your smartphone allurement you to acquiesce or avoid the chargeless AppRadio app to interface with the unit.

This comes off as overkill, abnormally back the assemblage can’t play video while the car is moving.

Of course, the focus is on app integration, but that goes hand-in-hand with how the belvedere works with accordant smartphones. Pairing the buzz to the arch assemblage via Bluetooth is the aboriginal step, and the buzz has to be acquainted in at all times because AppRadio leverages the abstracts affiliation to use some of the apps it runs. You can, however, accomplish and yield calls if the buzz is unplugged, but the assemblage doesn’t abutment Bluetooth audio streaming.

In short, the iPhone is about absolute because the included 30-pin adapter does the legwork. Android, on the added hand, is a alloyed bag. The amount of Android accessories clearly accurate is small, and even outdated, in some cases. The Galaxy Nexus is currently the alone handset active Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on the list.

Some Android handsets crave an MHL affiliation that fuses micro-HDMI and microUSB together, while others are carefully micro-HDMI. Pioneer includes all the all-important cables, but the admission can still be finicky. While this can get frustrating, Android’s burst blend isn’t Pioneer’s fault.

On the brighter side, hands-free calling works beautifully through the stereo system, and that includes music, too. AppRadio defers to the built-in music apps on both iOS and Android, but added third-party music apps plan altogether fine, complete with metadata assuming up onscreen.

Pioneer aswell touts the amount of apps AppRadio supports, but the bolt is that some are duplicates in altered languages or for altered countries. For example, there are 12 altered iGo aeronautics apps, 22 NavFree apps, 17 NavMii apps and seven Navitel apps. Out of 80 apps, as abounding as 60 are just for navigation. The accuracy is, MotionX and Waze (both aswell supported) are bigger again all those others.

Seeing the Pandora figure on the home awning is aswell a connected aggravate because the accepted music alive account continues to be shut out of Canada. Pioneer isn’t to accusation for that, either, but it could do added to get developers to plan with the platform. Livio Radio is included as an Internet radio app, but not TuneIn. Radio is abundant on AppRadio, back it pulls down all your account’s agreeable for simple access.

The accomplished apriorism abaft AppRadio is nice, and it goes added than a lot of aftermarket manufacturers have, but it’s the little things that add up afterwards a while. With a little added abutment from developers and bigger execution, Pioneer could accomplish absolute after-effects with this platform.

Phillip Lim bolsters print

Fashion abode 3.1 Phillip Lim is acceptable cast book abstracts and out-of-home ads with an iPhone and iPad appliance that lets users admission absolute cast agreeable and articles aloft scanning it with their device’s camera.

The characterization is appearance baddest brochures, attending books, book ads and billboards with Agent 3.1 icons that can be scanned with its app to acknowledge added agreeable on a adaptable Web site. Digital watermarking seems to be an arising trend a part of affluence marketers back it does not baffle with the architecture of book campaigns, but can appoint ambition consumers on mobile.

“While I accept the action abaft the app was artlessly to add layers of ambit to two-dimensional acquiescent book assets and appoint consumers in a address different to the device, I aswell accept the beheading in fact accomplishes a abundant accord added than the cast even advised it to,” said Scott Forshay, adaptable and arising technologies architect for Acquity Group, Austin, TX.

“This beheading makes a definitively adventurous account about customer behavior on accessories by absolutely flipping the Software on what we accept arise to accept are able app interfaces, workflows and all-embracing in-app user experiences,” he said. “Instead of employing a acceptable unidirectional assurance action with agreeable and business at the affectation forefront, the cast and its bureau chose to put buying and ascendancy of the user acquaintance in the easily of the absolute user.

The Agent 3.1 app lets consumers collaborate with 3.1 Phillip Lim book abstracts on their adaptable accessories through the camera. It is accessible for chargeless in the Apple’s App Store.

Each book actual links to a specific adaptable page with appropriate content.

When users browse Agent 3.1-enabled materials, they can alleviate absolute content, abstruse items, artefact knowledge, artist inspiration, behind-the-scenes admission and appropriate offers. There are aswell custom looks that can arise and users can boutique the items.

Furthermore, it seems that the app will let consumers collaborate with the new cast banana book alleged Kill the Night that was aggressive by the abatement 2012 collection. Consumers can assurance up to accept a archetype on the 3.1 Phillip Lim Web site.

Using technology from Digimarc, baddest marketers are acceptance their articles apparent on book pages to be bought via adaptable (see story).

Also, Starwood Hotels & Resorts congenital Digimarc watermarks in book ads in the April affair of Saveur annual that displayed new agreeable and beat about Starwood’s Hawaii backdrop (see story).

In addition, British accoutrement and accessories characterization Alfred Dunhill acclimated Aurasma technology in its account ads placed in luxury-focused magazines.

Consumers who browse the watermarked ads with the Aurasma smartphone app saw a video that corresponded to the man on the ad (see story).

3.1 Phillip Lim’s use of a cast app rather than a third-party app can advice it accumulate a seamless acquaintance through its commercial channels.

“Upon launch, the user is artlessly presented with a accurate lens through which to acquaintance the brand, after abyssal hindrances, and appoint with an arrangement of agreeable on their own agreement as the beheld book estimation of the brand’s artistic eyes is provided added ambit and comes to activity on the device,” Mr. Forshay said.

“The adaptable average is abnormally ill-fitted to abate acceptable book for arch brands by acceptance the customer to acquaintance a three-dimensional assurance with the content,” he said.

Wireless Optical Networks Eyed for Vehicles

LED-based wireless optical networks in cars could decidedly cut the weight of base beneath the hood, not alone extenuative on fuel, but aswell acceptance cartage to tap into arresting or bittersweet spectrum bands in aerial lighting to watch movies or play music.

Radio abundance signals are currently acclimated for smartphones, for hands-free headsets for the disciplinarian and passengers, and for multimedia-related applications such book PCs, but RF advice suffers from a chock-full bandwidth. In contrast, wireless systems account from an absolute and able spectrum.

Although optical wireless has been explored for some time in aviation, scientists in the University of Warwick's Department of Engineering are exploring its use in clandestine vehicles. It can be acclimated to acquaint amid locations central a car's engine compartment, such as amid temperature sensors and the engine administration system, or amid the anchor and speed-control systems.

Optical wireless can artlessly use a basal LED, such as those acclimated in flashlights, to forward data. In situations area it’s best for the axle to be invisible, bittersweet ablaze can be acclimated instead. It can be installed in the aerial lights for in-car entertainment.

The above advantage of optical wireless is the weight of base it can abolish from cars, advice into cogent ammunition accumulation over the lifetime of a vehicle, the advisers say. But it aswell reduces accomplishment costs, as LED and bittersweet ablaze sources are not big-ticket to make, and it cuts aback on the amount of advancement and acclimation wires.

Combined, all these factors spell cogent advantages over the accepted systems for in-car data, which, in the engine, are about chestnut wire-based or carbon cilia systems.

"Optical wireless is almost alien at the moment. But it's not harder to brainstorm a day if cartage can watch TV streamed through a axle advancing from their aerial light, or if locations of the engine can 'talk' to anniversary added after wires," said UW assistant Roger Green. "We accept that this technology is assertive to appear into its own."

I'll accompaniment up foreground that this is no acumen to drift to Server 2012, but I'm including this new affection actuality because it addresses a pet annoyance of mine. In Windows Server 2008, selecting Server Amount as an accession advantage was an all-or-nothing proposition. If you congenital a server amount box and after regretted that decision, your alone recourse was to clean the box. And conversely, if you congenital a abounding UI server and capital to yield advantage of the bargain advance apparent and achievement that you adore with Server Core, again you were appropriately out of luck.

In Server 2012, the Server Amount and abounding UI accession options are no best an all or annihilation proposition. That's acceptable account for aegis acquainted admins, because it makes the action of hardening a Windows server arena a analytical server role abundant easier.

In the lab, we congenital up a DHCP server that was aswell active the File and Storage Casework role application the abounding UI option. The abounding UI server of advance had the abounding carapace loaded with 56 active services, application a PowerShell command to backslide the server to a command band alone adaptation of the aforementioned server, we were able to afford 11 active casework from the DHCP server, for a absolute of 45 active services. Aegis acquainted admins could amalgamate the OS even more, but as a quick hit aegis strategy, the adeptness to backslide aback and alternating amid Server Amount and abounding UI is an awfully air-conditioned new advantage for server administrators.

Using our Windows 8 applicant in the lab, we had no botheration deploying a individual DirectAccess server through NAT. The best allotment about application Windows 8 with Server 2012 DirectAccess is that you can use a self-signed affidavit to encrypt the Kerberos barter amid the applicant and the DirectAccess server. Win7 audience accessing a Server 2012 DirectAccess server still charge to use PKI.

On the whole, DirectAccess is awfully bigger in Server 2012. The check is, in adjustment to apprehend abounding of those improvements, you charge to arrange Windows 8 forth with it.

Mexico's gas squeeze is Texas' gain

Mexico's national oil monopoly has been issuing critical alerts seemingly every week, warning of natural gas shortages lasting hours or even days and crimping supplies to homes, power plants and factories.

And yet, the country has some of the world's largest natural gas reserves and easy access to a cheap and plentiful U.S. supply.

"There hasn't been enough energy planning in this country," said Raul Monteforte, a former senior official with Mexico's Energy Regulatory Commission who's now development director for Fermaca, a private Mexican transportation pipeline company. "Huge errors of omission have brought us a gas crisis."

The gas squeeze will only worsen as many of Mexico's new and existing electricity plants abandon coal and other fuels in favor of natural gas, gobbling up much of the available supply.

Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, as the monopoly is called, will prove unable to get much more of the gas produced in its own fields to market.

Amid renewed political pressure to further open Mexico's energy industries to private interests, energy planners have launched a frenzied expansion of the country's woeful pipeline system. As much as 3 billion additional cubic feet per day of U.S. natural gas, most of it from Texas, will feed the new grid.

Central Mexican cities have been the worst affected by the critical shortage, but even companies in Monterrey, the industrial powerhouse that abuts the sprawling Burgos Basin gas fields, have been slammed.

"Such obstacles can't be permitted, even less so ones provoked by a state monopoly," Caintra, a leading Monterrey business association, declared in a full-page newspaper ad. "We demand an immediate solution."

Using an offshore Pemex subsidiary supposedly free of Mexican congressional oversight and constitutional restrictions, planners are rushing to build two new U.S. pipelines - to the Arizona border south of Tucson and from near Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande - to push that U.S. gas deep into the Mexican heartland.

Officials say the new pipelines will be completed by the late summer of 2014.

But Monteforte and other critics contend that plans for the lion's share of the expansion - shipping South Texas gas into the Mexican heartland - will assure Pemex's grip on gas consumers for decades to come.

"If it flies I think Mexico's gas market will remain in the hands of Pemex," said Monteforte in criticizing the Texas pipeline proposal.

His company is building and will own a 225-mile pipeline from the border at El Paso to near Chihuahua City, he said.

"This will kill the opening of the gas market we've fought for since the 1990s," he said.

The new U.S. pipelines, being contracted by Pemex's MGI gas trading firm, will connect to a privately owned system being built across northwestern Mexico and to the much larger Los Ramones duct that will run from near the border at McAllen deep into central Mexico.

After sharp increases in the late 1980s and early '90s, Mexico now imports some 15 percent of its natural gas supply from the United States, said Michelle Foss, program manager of the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology in Houston. By 2010, Mexico had increased its U.S. gas imports by 200 times what it did in the early 1980s.

Now, Mexico's imports seem poised to spike again, perhaps bolstering prices for dry natural gas.

"Mexico will take all they can get and, as in the 1990s, could help to rebalance our market," Foss said.

Project proposals for the South Texas pipeline - called the Agua Dulce to Frontera - were expected Monday. Pemex says the winning bid will be announced Sept. 18.

"For us it's urgent to bring that gas," said Guillermo Ortiz, a Mexico City executive who heads the energy committee at Canacintra, a leading Mexican industrial chamber. "They took a long time to contract for the pipelines. These types of situations are really hurting the consumers."