Looking for:
Windows 10 1703 download iso itasca bankrate mortgage

Demand usually drops by 7. Miracle Whip ] 49 [ 1 litre jar. DuraFlame Color 14 oz. Cascade Dishwasher powder 2 49 50 oz. Mugabe said the step he was cdhtemplating results from what he claimed to be Britaints violation of the peace agreement worked out in London last month. Britain rejected demands by Patriotic Front,guerrillas that all South African troops be withdrawn and that the Rhodesian army be confined to bases, an informed source said.
The letter says pump prices are not likely to rise fast enough this month to reduce demand to the supply level. The 4. Great Canadian Winter Sale’ Flyer delivered to your homes today. The Royal Albert China did not arrive for the sale We will gladly take your order and fill upon receipt of the merchandise. The delay will be approximately 6 weeks.
Our apologies for any inconvenience this error may cause. Sears Spring tashio. Choice ot White. Pink, mH Blue or Coral. Ideal for blouses, dresses and tops. Priced extra low at Sears now! Includes a variety of attractive color combina- tions. Ideal for women’s and KB MU children s fashions. Your choice of colors cm width. Ideal lor blouses; bridal A A or evening wear.
Mint or Yellow. Medium weight just right lor blouses, tops and dresses. In your choice of spring B shades. In Lilac. Green, Rose or Tropical Rose. Available in your choice of Green, Brown. Cream or Blue solid colors plus four multi-color checks. Sears: Fabrics In effect now through Saturday, January 12, while quantities last. Simpsons-Sears Ltd. But if these beans are cooked with onions and a bit of bay leaf, the dish is considered cooked in Connecticut style.
Baked with maple syrup instead of molasses is the Vermont style. Several other regions of the United States add a tomato or chili sauce to their baked beans, and many people have especially good recipes for baked kidney beans, baked limas and baked peas.
Here are some recipes to add depth to your w inter menus. Drain beans and place in large saucepan; add 6 cups water. Simmer uncovered over low heat one-and-one-half hours or until tender. Turn beans with liquid into bean pot or 2-quart casserole. Add 2 cup additional water and remaining ingredients; mix well. Cover and bake in degree F oven for 4 hours, stirring occasionally. Serves 6 to 8. To peel fruit, cut slice from top, then cut off peel round and round, spiral fashion.
Go over fruit again, removing any remaining white membrane. Slice oranges crosswise, one-fourth-inch thick. Slice onions one-eighth-inch thick and separate slices into rings. Alternate orange slices and onion rings on greens and garnish with green pepper and ripe olives, if desired.
Serves 6. Try to use fresh stock from chicken or fish. The effort is worth the extra flavor. If you use canned stock or clam juice, don’t add salt until you taste the finished soup.
Canned stocks tend to be salty. And frozen vegetables can go in, too. The loose frozen type in poly bags usually are cheaper than the ounce packages. Hoard any bits of cheese, such as Swiss, Gruyere or Parmesan, that have dried out.
For the Bouillabaise that follows, remember you can whittle the work down to size by making the tomato sauce portion of the recipe well ahead of serving time. Italian or pear shape tomatoes, or 1. Make a bouquet garni of the bay leaf, parsley stalks and orange zest. Add it, and a pinch of thyme or basil and a good pinch of saffron to the pot. Simmer the mixture 15 to 20 minutes. In a separate pot, place the clams or mussels with one cup of water.
Cook over high heat until the shells open. Twenty minutes before serving, bring the tomato mixture to a rapid boil. Boil the soup quickly for five minutes and add the more tender fish, such as red snapper, petrale, scallops and raw shrimp or prawns.
Cook the soup another five minutes, until the fish is tender. Put the clams into the pot. Serve the soup to six with Rouille on the side. Note: For this soup, use a combination of firm, lean fish, such as halibut, cod and sea bass, and tender fish, such as red snapper, petrale, scallops and shrimp.
Crush the mixture with a pestle until it has a creamy consistency. Add two to three tablespoons fish broth.
Cut the semi-frozen block into one-inch cubes. Saute the onions and the garlic in the oil until they are iendcr. In a food processor or blender, puree the shrimp, white sauce and sherry. Fold them into the stew. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serves 10 to Note: three cups chicken stock or bouillon and one bottle eight ozs.
Also, a can Add one-fourth cup milk and a dash of salt and cook until the mixture is thick. Last January I baked a ham that had been purchased in a tin. We had too much meat that time, so it was not used at all. I have stored it in the freezer ever since. My question is, has it been kept too long to recook and eat now, after almost a year?
I do not want to make anyone ill. If we must freeze cured meats, they should be kept no more than two months. Any leftover cured ham can be covered and safely stored in the refrigerator for up to seven days without loss of quality. I am not totally condemning the ham that you froze for about a year, but it certainly would be taking a chance to eat it Q.
I have an unopened canned ham that I’ve kept in the refrigerator for a few months. If so, how long? The refrigerator shelf life of unopened canned hams that are labelled perishable is usually six months. All others should keep well in a cool dry place and keep their quality for a year. If you freeze your canned ham, the meat may not spoil but the freezing temperature and dampness may damage the seal of the can and corrode the metal.
This could eventually cause spoilage by allowing the entry of spoilage microorganisms. Also, as we answered in the previous question, freezing for a long period is not advisable for cured meats. My mother and I for years have been baking whole hams. Just before baking time is up, we remove the ham from the oven and, with near-burnt fingers and a lot of mess, remove the rind from the ham.
We then score and decorate the top with pineapple and cloves, spoon on the glaze and finish baking the masterpiece. My question is, will it work as well to remove the rind from the ham before baking, leaving the layer of fat intact? The skin or rind is retained during the greater part of baking a ham to keep the fat intact and to prevent some drying and overbrowning. Some also believe it imparts flavor to the meat. The ham was just as tasty and moist as if the rind had been left on.
If you bake the ham with a sweet juice that has to be basted on, the surface may get too brown if the rind has been removed, but otherwise I see no real problem in doing this. I bought a cheaper cut of ready-to-cook smoked picnic ham and discovered that it was overly salty, but otherwise tasty. I would buy it again if the saltiness could be remedied. Do you have any suggestions? Try soaking the whole unbaked ham in a large bowl or kettle of cold water at least six hours or overnight, changing the water two to three times.
If the sample is too salty, soak the whole ham in fresh cold water for a few hours more. Fannie originals taste revolution Hearty soups make otle-dlsh meals when they’re paired with crusty bread or crackers.
Haddock Stew combines fish with lima beans, com and shrimp. The Pacific Coast Bouillabaise has tangy tomato base. The dish? Com sticks. Long, slow baking gives the rice a golden color and a thick creamy texture.
Serve warm or cold, with heavy cream. She was assisted by food writer Jeri Laber. Beard recommended her for the job to Knopf Editor Judith Jones, Cunningham said, and what ensued was a job of more than four years, testing recipes, updating, but trying to hew to the original Fannie Farmer point of view. Those have been dropped, in favor of fresh.
The cocktail chapter is gone, a brief wine guide has been added, there are a lot fewer gelatin salads none using flavored gelatin , and more ethnic dishes tacos and paella, for example. This is the kind of book that tells you how to use everything from apples to zucchini, with the kind of recipes that become favorites. Pudding serves six to eight.
Mix the flour, salt and pepper and roll the oxtail pieces in it. Brown the meat in the shortening, turning so that all the sides are colored. Transfer the meat to a covered casserole and cook the onions in the fat remaining in the skillet.
When they are lightly brown, add them to the meat in the casserole. Stir, add the bay leaves, cover and bake for three hours. Remove the bay leaves, cool the whole dish, and remove the fat. Reheat and serve. Serves four. Doris Waddell Maryland Dr.
In large mixing bowl, add hot water to butter, sugar and salt. Stir until butter melts. Let mixture cool to about degrees F. Chop olives coarsely.
Stir in olives, chilies, yellow cornmeal and enough flour to make a thick dough about 3 cups. Turn dough onto heavily floured board and knead until dough is smooth and elastic and has lost most of its stickiness 10 to 20 minutes , adding more flour as needed. Shape dough into a ball, place in greased bowl, cover and let rise until double, about hours. Punch dough down; knead several times.
Shape into two loaves and place each in a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan. Cover, let rise in a warm place until almost doubled, about 45 min. Bake in degree oven for minutes or until loaves are browned and sound hollow when tapped. Cool on racks before serving or storing. Makes 2 loaves. Janet Gagnon of Fredericton says she believes that changing the names of some kinds of fish would boost their sales.
If crab were called rock salmon, it would sell as rapidly as it does in Britain where it is used in fish and chips. She says one reason people avoid fish is they don’t know how to prepare it. They weren’t served seafood when they were youngsters and never became accustomed to enjoying It.
If you mention beef to someone, they think of a nice steak or roast of beef on a plate, not a cow. The reduced price on some lines has been in effect since and could be considered as regular price. Guest speaker is Dr. Judith Cutler, president of B.
Division, CDA. Bookings should be made before Saturday. For information phone Thermopylae Club meets at 8 p. Thursday in St. Visitors welcome,’ film on early clothing shown. Nelson’s Music Centre, Government, Victoria.
Mail entry or apply in person to festival office before deadline. Last minute applications will be accepted at festival office from 10 a m. Your Good Health Dear Dr. All I know is it is a bone disease and that I need high doses of calcium. Please tell me more about it. We think of bones as being very solid structures. The form of the shoe would collapse in years if there were not the bronze to hold it rigid.
Calcium is like the bronze. The word Itself means “bone softness. Rickets is the same thing. My legs tire easily, especially when bending over or walking upstairs. I have read of new treatments besides surgery. What are they and how successful are they? Whether you are a candidate for this would have to be a judgment call by your physician, who sees them firsthand. While effective, there is a tendency for the varicosity dilated veins to reappear.
I cannot say whether your leg discomfort is related to your varicose veins or not. Such veins are superficial in nature.
Dear Dr. Donohue: I have had varicose veins since I was I am now I was advised a few years ago not Dear Dr. Donohue: A friend of mine was told that instant tea is bad for the colon. Is this true? I have no idea why it should be bad for the colon large intestine. Never heard of this. Entertain your friends this winter and play your tavorite songs! But when beef prices go up, as they have and probably will again, it will pay to think pork when you think “pot roast.
A whole fresh picnic will weigh between four and six pounds, which may seem more meat than you need. When you run across a ‘good buy on fresh picnic shoulders, take one home. First remove the hock just wiggle the thing a little to find the joint , then cut through the space between the joint. There really is a space. Fresh pork hock is great cooked in a pot of sauerkruat along with a few sausages and then served with boiled potatoes, good mustard, pickles and cold beer.
Next remove the skin and most of the fat from he picnic shoulder. Use the skin to flavor a pot of beans and save the fat for larding roasts or slice it thin to line pate molds.
What’s left is a nice, large, meaty piece of pork for a pot roast and, perhaps, a meal of pork hash. When nicely browned on all sides, remove the meat and set it aside. Put the onion, garlic, mustard seed, cinnamon and nutmeg in the same pan.
Cook over low heat until the onion is soft. Push the onions to the side of the pot and return the roast. Baste occasionally with pan juices. About 30 minutes before the roast is done, add the potatoes, onions and celery. Reduce the pan juices over high heat to about one cup.
Skim off fat. Mix cornstarch with a little cold water and add to the pan juices, stirring constantly. Pour the juices over the roast. Garnish with orange slices and chopped parsley. Serves 8 to I was reading an article in the paper and said to him. One man was pointing a gun at them. Women who run around alone at odd hours are just asking for it. I used to work nights when I was a nurse, and I came home at odd hours.
These men are psychopaths. It is up to the women to stay out of their way. The conference is a government-industry body which helps simplify and co-ordinate regulations. The contract compels companies to state delivery dates and forces them to reimburse consumers for reasonable food and lodging costs if delivery is delayed beyond the agreed date or time.
Will you please comment? They are the ones who are doing the raping. There are no rules that guarantee safety. Sometimes passers-by do nothing to help. If the victim is in a secluded spot and the rapist has a knife at her throat, it is best to submit. If you like, make indentations on top of the mixture with the back of a large spoon and break an egg in each to bake along with the hash.
Bake at degrees until heated through and eggs are set. Lavisso set the record here early last year in a contest against the Halifax chef, who managed 8, flips an hour. Lavisso does for a living.
He feels confident that, through practice, he will flip at least 9, pancakes. The current world record of slices in 20 seconds is held by a British chcf. It says that Italy leads with an estimated 1. Following were France with about 1. Verbalization can be immensely helpful. I do this for fun!
I am still in a state of shock. I hope you will keep this to yourself. Give yourself the break you deserve with a 7 day Holliday Company Reno package. Visit San Francisco. Solvang, Disneyland. Palm Springs.
Las Vegas and Reno, all fully escorted by one of our professionals. Phone us for a detailed brochure. Departs Jan. All sales must be final on clearance items please. Shop early for the best selection. Hydro engineers about the geothermal power potential of the remote Mount Meager area, about SO kilometres west of Pemberton.
Joe Stauder, generation planning engineer for B. If testing gave the green light. Stauder said drill cores brought up from the test hole showed rocks containing precipitated silica deposited in fractures, an indication of hot fluids at lower levels. Three pulp mills here, needing about tons of chlorine a day, resorted to trucjts because of the B.
Railway strike. The truck deliveries are scheduled when school buses are not operating and will avoid the high traffic periods of 7 a. If it gets much colder, you could actually carry the chlorine in a water bucket. It was this property that made it so dangerous in the First World War, because it settled in trenches. A rail car holds about 90 tons. Robert Jackson wants to promote a young boxer named Mack Truck. Red Delicious A mV. Classified is ready to help!
Hutchison Chi S, Hickey Tor Wi Ison Chl Salming Tor Ruskowski Chi Edmonton, Chippertield 16 Siltanen. Semenko 9. Penalties — Connor Edm minor, malor, Murdoch nyr major. Dave Maloney NYR NY Ranoers, Bothwell 2 Larose 4.
NY Rangers. Messier Edm 14 IS. Third Period 5. Hedberg 29 Duguav. Attendance – 17, Buffalo, McKegnev 14 Smith. Hait 2. Wilson 13 Corv. Markell 14 08 3. Second Period 4. Lukowtch 28 Cameron 5.
Gare 40 Van Boxmeer, Perreault 6. Gare, 41 Martin. Perreault 12 38 Penalties — Melrose Wpg. Gould Buf Melrose Wpg , Martin But Third Period 7. McKegnev IS Gare Buffalo Attendance – Ruskowski 14 Wilson 3. Brown 3 Trimper. Kas- Zvcki Tor Sedlbauer Chi Third Period 4. Kaszycki 8 5. Toronto, Boschman 14 Salming 6. Chicago, Mulvev 30 Wilson. Attendance – 9. Division S: Gorge FC vs. Gordon Head Lions. Oak Bav Acorns.
Division 1: UVk Nordicas vs. UVlc vikettes. Strikers I vs team to be named Saturday. Division 2. Nanaimo vs. Saltspring vs. Strikers Goroe F. Oak Bav Hardware. Kulai Field. Buckle Electric vs G.
Princess Mary. Braefoot Sch. Denny s Automotive vs Cordova Bav Bobcats. Willows Sch ; J. Pemberton Pk. Exhibitions — Lans. While Caps vs P. Dura Construction. Holly wood Pk ; Soofce Vikings vs L. Gold- stream Chevron, Spencer nl; J de F. Langford Esso vs J. Dairy Queen, Spencer »2; G. Shelbourne Plaza Drugs vs Lans. Eve Opt Blues. Van- treight Pk. Torquay Sch. Gordon Head Pool; Lans Eve. Boxers vs Pros.
Richmond Sch. Opt Raiders. Eve Opt Rangers. Mva cinfh Pk. Auto Transmission. Suburban Realty. Greenglade Sch. Hyacinth Pk 11 00AM. Cup plavdown. Cowl- chan image 2 vs Gordon Head Lum’s Greenhouse. Sherman Rd. Cordova Bav United vs Gorge F. Loch side Pk. Opt Pintos vs L. Quadra Electric. Hollywood Pk, DIV. Vantreight Pk.. Cedar Hill Esso vs P. Eve, Opt. Hampton Pk. Realty vs. King John Inn.
Edward Milne Sch.. Columbia Ready Mix vs Pemn suia Cobras. Bavs United Unicorn. Cup plavdown, G. University Heights Esso vs Gorge F. Newport Meats vs Cordova Bav Bears. Henderson Pk. Uplands Sch. Tire BYE. Sidney Sch. Ridley Bros vs Goroe Canadians. Oavld Cameron Sch. Duncan Mt. Prevost Lions vs J. Roval Roads, Sherman Rd ; G. Trev’s Drywall. Reynolds Sch 2; Juan de Fuca F.
Eagles vs J. Dvko Masonarv. Colwood Sch. Victoria Floral Delivery, Richmond Sch. H Mercury Marine vs Sooke Blue javs.
Hillside Gulf vs J. Lambrlck Sch. Opt Rovers. Glen Lk Sch. Hyacinth Pk. Saanich Klwanis. Greeng lade Sch. H Menzies Plumbing. Arctic Installations.
Lake Hill Elem. Eve Opt. Kickers vs Lans. L Victoria Public Savings. Deken E lectrlc vs Goroe F. Waves vs Cordova Bav Spartans. Lansdowne Sch. Laos Eve. Sounders vs P. Dick Reid Excavating. Thorne Lennon Electric vs Goroe Buccaneers. Northridoe Sch. Athletics, Lochside Pk. Reynolds Pk District Cup plavdown — L.
Gorge F. U 3 ravelworld. Kulta Field. Lans Eve Opt Tigers vs P. Liddell Construction, Lansdowne Sch. Central Jr. Coplev Bros vs Bavs United Titans. Rosedale Park. Sooke Coasters vs Pen insula Thunderbirds. Edward Milne Sch. Gordon Head A N A. Vets vs J de F. Sooke Forest Prods.. Lambrick Pk. SA — District Cup plavdowns — J. Acme Gutters SB vs B. McLaren Electric. Sangster Sch. Peter Pollen vs Duncan Eagles. Revo olds Sch North; Pros. Prescription Optical bve Div. Campus View Sch ; Lans. Opt Colts vs Gorge Canadians.
Pem- bertson. Lochside Pk. H Acme Comm. Cosmos vs Lans. Olympics, Juan de Fuca Pk. Reynolds Pk Div. IB — Olstrlct Cup plavdowns — B. U Rowdies vs Gorge Buccaneers. Mikes, Hampton Pk.. Prosoect Lake Hotsours vs L. Prospect Lake Pk ; j. Rovals, Lam brick Pk «4. Lambrlck Pk «3; L. Cup plavdown — Lans. Patriots vs B. Metro Tovofa. Carnarvon Pk. Penair Ranoers vs Gorge Rovals 2B. Vickerv Construction vs Laos. Opt Da Vinci.
Henderson Pk ; G. Saunders Hitchman vs L. McKenzie Esso. Majestic Pk. Pros pect Lake Pk ; Lans. Legion 9 vs Duncan Legion. Juan deFuca Pk ; Cowkhan Moose bve. DataTech extends string DataTeeh ran up its 12th straight victory Wednesday setting the stage for a big match tonight against first- place Henderson Realty. Gord Hoshal scored 20 points for Cuckoo Clock. In another game Wednesday.
Willis School. Electric clock, Electric remote trunk release. Rear window defroster. Styled steel wheels with steel belted radial tires. Tinted glass and much more. Actual consumption wjtl vary. Urban winter consumption will be significantly greater.
The more you look, the more you like. Anderson is The Eagle — and not because his shooting eye shares qualities enjoyed by the American national bird. It came in reply to the innocent query: “Were you nervous? A glance at stats reveals the once-awkward kid, who Anderson Football drills start Saturday Youngsters in the nine to fourteen age group are being invited to try. Tryouts for junior bantam and peewee teams start this weekend at Glanford Park.
No experience is necessary and equipment is supplied. Practices start at p. Saturday and Sunday. For further information call or Last year, he averaged more than 10 points an outing and is up to He scored 16 points in each of UVic’s 79 playoff wins over Calgary Dinosaurs.
In Shields’ books. The Eagle is one of the good guys. There was never any danger of Ted starting when he came here.
He moved down here full-time, got a job and worked hard in the summers. Reni Dolcetti and high-scoring Billy Loos won’t be back next time. He and Nanaimo’s Gerald Kazanowski will have to provide the maturity on the front line. He likes scoring.
I used to be in there strictly for defence. They haven’t won here in three years. Donaldson, a running back, was selected in the second round by Edmonton Eskimos while Murray, a place-kicking specialist, was taken in the third round by Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Murray, a lop soccer and rugby player at Spectrum Community School, went the full four years under schol- atship and this year he kicked two field goals as Tu- lanc lost to Penn State in Ihe Liberty Bowl. He has the speed and is a solid pounds on a six-foot frame but he never played minor football and the short stint at Tulane is the only experience he has had.
Contacted at his Victoria home Donaldson said he was excited at the prospect of trying for a job in the CFL and was just as excited for good friend Murray. Murray is still attending school in Tulane but will be back in Victoria in May. Ken Ciancone. Dakota St. Sheldon Paris. Kansas St. Joe Hawco. Ross Francis. Ken Valle- vand. Derr V Donaldson. Western Ontario. Paul Gohier. Stewart Fraser. Dan Kearns, DE. Simon Fraser.
Rob Bunce. Chuck Toth, DB. U S Inter national. Vernon Pahl. Jack Kutaslewich, OG. Darch Krogh. Pacific Western Ski-Birds will take you to the heart of Western Canada’s snow country where the runs are long the action is hot and the skiing is great. And our Special Ski Bird discount fares can save you a bundle. For complete information and Pacific Western’s full colour Ski-Bird brochure, contact your travel agent or fill in the coupon today and return to: Pacific Western Airlines P.
Box V7B 1WI. It’s, take me where the stum runs deep, please send complete information and Ski Bird brochure. Trans Canada Highway at Chemainus P. Albert L. He delivered a paper and held a news conference on the phenomenon at the 36th annual meeting of the American Academy of Allergy. Some 1, physicians and research scieniists specializing in allergic diseases are attending the meeting.
Rita loved being outdoors, camping, boating and fishing. Her greatest joy was her family, and she loved nothing more than spending time and sharing stories with them. Her laugh was unmistakable and her smile lit up the room.
She loved helping people and worked as a social worker senior aide for Walworth County, as well as being involved in her church and community. She was often found in the garden, where her plants never failed to grow. Family and friends remember her home as a welcome place with an always open door.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Henry S. Walworth St. Visitation and interment private. For information, call Morizzo Funeral Home at The family also invites you to visit www.
Bruce Allen Johnson: The funeral service will be at 7 p. Thursday, Oct. Crystal Lake Ave. There will also be a brief visitation at the church from 6 p. Interment will be in Hillcrest Cemetery in Irene, S. Alice E. Keisler: The funeral services will be at 11 a. The visitation will be Thursday morning at the church from 10 a. For information, call Miller Funeral Home at The viewing followed by a Mass celebration will be at 9 a.
Interment will be in Evergreen Cemetery, Barrington. Arthur Alwyn Myatt: The memorial visitation will be from 1 p. William Frank Reynolds: The memorial service will be at 11 a. Hurlbut Ave, Belvidere, with a memorial gathering from 10 a. Rita T. Siok: The visitation will be from a. Rider Landon Bud Strobel: The memorial visitation will be from 1 to 4 p.
Grant Highway, Marengo. Penalty for early withdrawal. Supervalu Target United Contint. Wal-Mart Walgreen Waste Mgmt. Wintrust Fincl. Lower ratings typically result in higher interest rates. A rendering provided by Kahler Slater Inc. An ongoing lawsuit over the project delayed a groundbreaking set for Wednesday.
With a final court date set, Centegra pushed back the groundbreaking to late December or early January as a precaution. The details regarding the project are not available at this time, and Fitch will assess the impact of the project on the rating.
If operating performance does not improve in the near term, negative rating pressure is likely. Visit NWHerald. Construction will begin next spring.
The building is expected to be completed by fall Iden said his business was outgrowing its existing Elgin building. The company also makes its own line of custom ratchet straps and tie down assemblies. Its third-quarter earnings plunged 44 percent, and it cut its forecast, again. Most of the decline is in its mining gear business, where revenue is expected to fall 40 percent. Until this year, rising commodity prices had fueled a mining boom. Caterpillar has already been shutting factories and cut its workforce by about 13, people and temporarily laid off thousands of salaried workers.
It said it also has cut its capital spending plans for the year. At the end of the quarter, it employed , people full time worldwide. Even with the slowdown, it still posted operating profits in each of its units. Besides mining gear, Caterpillar makes construction and forestry equipment and large power generators.
Friday at the UniCarriers Americas facility in Marengo. The forklift operator course provides a way for businesses to comply with Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards. The training provides participants with knowledge in powered industrial truck forklift operation and teaches the skills required to operate a lift truck in a correct and professional manner. Trucks covered are Industrial Truck Association Classes 1 through 5.
Another class will be held Nov. Participants get a certificate of completion at the end of the course. To register, call For information on forklift training or other safety programs, contact the MCC Shah Center at or shahcenter mchenry. This column addresses some of the common errors employers make with final pay.
For example, if your vacation year runs from Jan. For example, if employees earn a bonus based on profits each quarter and an employee leaves in the middle of the quarter, he or she is entitled to 50 percent of the bonus amount.
It is best to get a promissory note at the time the loan or cash advance is made so collecting after termination is easier. If you allow employees to borrow against future vacation earnings, the money equivalent cannot be deducted from their final paycheck. A better practice is to allow the employee to take the time, but reserve paying for the time until.
Yes, the cost has gone up — but not as much as in the past. Out-of-state prices, as well as the costs to attend public two-year colleges and private institutions rose but they also avoided big spikes, said Sandy Baum, co-author of the report.
These more moderate increases could lessen concern that an annual rapid growth in tuition prices is the new normal. There are grants, tax credits and deductions that help ease the cost of going to college. About twothirds of full-time students get grants, most from the federal government. That means students have to foot more of the bill themselves. The net price is what they actually pay after grants. There were years this decade that saw the net price going down, but it has gone up the last two years.
Her organization represents the presidents of. The College Board is a notfor-profit membership group that promotes college access and owns the SAT exam.
The report spells out the large declines in state appropriations given to public institutions in recent years. These cuts have been blamed for rises in college costs. Other causes often cited range from the high cost of health care for employees to the demand by students for flashier campus amenities.
The Focus, according to Ford, beat the perennial No. A Polk spokeswoman confirmed that the number provided by Ford was accurate, but declined further comment. If the Focus beats Corolla. The Japanese automaker has said it sold a Corolla hatchback under the Matrix name, and it sells cars that are nearly identical to the Corolla under different names in countries outside the U.
Toyota has contended that if all the other nameplates are added in, the Corolla is the winner. Ford on Wednesday claimed that crown for its Focus compact during the first half of the year, based on registration data gathered by the R. The Dearborn, Mich. Algonquin Rd. Reach her at or email karlad hrtechniques. You are allowed to ask the employee to sign an authorization at the time the final deduction is made, but former authorizations do not hold at termination, except for loans, education or cash advances.
Employees have the right to receive final pay on the next scheduled company pay date. In those. For years, filmmakers, artists and charities have used the power of the Internet to generate money for projects. But in the coming year, with the blessing of Congress, startups will be allowed to raise money this way by selling stock to smalltime investors.
And critics warn that investment crowdfunding is ripe for fraud. The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday took a step to-. The SEC voted to send the proposal out for public comment. Final rules could be approved next year. Those with higher incomes could invest up to 10 percent.
Companies also would be required to provide information to prospective investors about their business plan and financial condition, as well as a list of their officers, directors and those who own at least 20 percent of the company. Crowdfunding is hardly new. Sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo have for years helped fund projects through donations raised online.
In return, supports can receive a gift, such as a T-shirt or a song named after them. Or they can simply feel satisfied knowing that they helped a good cause. But under the law enacted last year, businesses would be able to offer investors a piece of the company for the first time. Fundraising over the Internet could be a pathway to getting in early on the next big trend. Experts warn that nearly 55 percent of startups fail within five years. Third-quarter net income rose 12 percent as the company delivered planes to customers at a quicker pace.
It has already sped up the assembly of two of its planes — the and — and on Wednesday announced plans to boost production of its new Dreamliner, too. Boeing raised its profit guid-. South won, But when his shot glanced off the left post, optimism temporarily shifted to fear. Video online Watch highlights of the Crystal Lake South vs. Win or lose. Grabowski cut into a deficit, finishing on a feed from Orlando. And after being outplayed by the second-seeded Trojans for much of the match, the Gators suddenly had new life.
Yes, they can. Cutler is a significantly better quarterback than McCown, and no one is pretending otherwise. Cutler has one of the best arms in the league and a hair trigger to match. Cutler has the kind of gunslinger mentality that leads to magic moments and shattering disappointments. McCown is like a coach on the field. Cutler has franchise quarterback potential, McCown does not. Fortunately, none of that is particularly relevant at the moment.
While Cutler was clearly playing the best football of his career when he suffered a severe groin injury Sunday against the Redskins, he was nowhere near achieving his full potential and was still making the occasional big mistake. There has been dramatic improvement on the offensive line, at tight end and at wide receiver. Louis and Minnesota. But the No. It was a tough loss to take for the Chargers, who put more shots on net than Larkin and had several prime scoring opportunities in the second half.
The match was scoreless. This year, as a No. Youel and Wallace had. Six singles players and six doubles teams from the area will compete at state beginning Thursday at sites across the northwest suburbs. Bum was laid to rest today at a spot that he picked out on his ranch. LuvyaBum — sonofbum Wade Phillips.
No explanation was given. Here are some worse options they could pursue: 1. Trade for Brandon Weeden 2. JaMarcus Russell 3. Tim Tebow left. Three losses later, the season feels as empty as what Geraldo found. Am I depressing you? Am I painting a bleak landscape? I only do it to lift you up again. The good news following the bad: You have the Blackhawks. You have the Bulls. You have the defending Stanley Cup champions. You have a team that might be in the hunt for an NBA championship this season.
And you have You Know Who. Derrick Rose has been lighting it up for the Bulls during the preseason. So, yes, Rose as savior. Deal with the concept. The best spectator sport of all this season might be watching angry, resentful people crawl back to Rose.
This is a fantastic opportunity for the Bulls and Hawks to get more notice in the historically dark months of October, November and December. And January and February, come to think of it.
The post-Cup hangover of occurred because salary-cap issues led to a roster bloodletting. This time, there was much less turnover.
Fans have every right to believe the Hawks will pick up where they left off. Oh, there will be challenges. As many as 14 Hawks might compete for their countries in February, though 10 is a. Will there be any fallout from that? Will there be injuries? Will NHL contenders with fewer Olympic players benefit from the rest?
Of course, you recall. A nice problem to have. While the Cubs try to hire a manager and the Sox wonder whether theirs is the right man for the job, the Bulls and Hawks have oak trees for coaches. The Bulls have some issues, too. The Bulls are going to have to find other people besides Rose who can score, something they struggled to do two years ago.
Can everybody survive the season? Can Rose? Those are scary questions, but life could be a lot worse. You could have mediocre Bulls and Hawks teams, a sinking Bears product and the specter of more bad baseball on the North Side and lingering doubts on the South Side. Write to him at rmorrissey suntimes. To get it done, on both sides of the city, wow, that would be special.
Especially for me because I live there all. I want to go back to managing. His tumultuous relationship with then general manager Ken Williams was well documented, but Guillen says it was only personal and not baseball-related. He said he appreciated Williams after he left the Sox and went to manage the Marlins, who fired him after one season in when the backlash caused by his praise of Fidel Castro caught up to him.
Honesty is the best thing. A lot of people thought Kenny and I fought but we never fight about the ballclub. Maybe some personal stuff, but about the ballclub we never did. We were professional about it. A lot of things happened in Miami , I wish Kenny was there to handle the stuff the way it should be handled.
But it depends what they want. The St. Mike Napoli hit a three-run double right after the umps reversed a blown call, Jon Lester made an early lead stand up and the Red Sox romped past sloppy St. Louis, , Wednesday night for their ninth straight Series win. The Red Sox also capitalized on two errors by shortstop Pete Kozma to extend a. Next Game 2: St. Louis Wacha at Boston Lackey , p. Thursday, Fox Series winning streak that began when they swept St. Louis in Boston never trailed at any point in those four games and, thanks to this embarrassing display by the Cardinals, coasted on a rollicking night at Fenway Park.
It got so bad for St. Serious-minded St. The six-man crew correctly ruled that Kozma had not caught a soft toss from second baseman Matt Carpenter on a slow grounder by Ortiz.
A season before Major League Baseball employs full replay, fans got to see a wrong get righted. The normally slick-fielding Cardinals looked sloppy at every turn. The Cardinal Way? More like no way. Two days after Meriweather was told he would miss time for repeated violations of player safety rules, hearing officer Ted Cottrell reduced the punishment to one game. Meriweather was flagged for a helmet-to-helmet hit when tackling receiver Alshon Jeffery on a yard completion with about two minutes left in the third quarter.
He also was penalized for a helmet-first hit on Brandon Marshall in the end zone on an incomplete pass with a little more than four minutes remaining in the game. Jumpers from just beyond the free-throw line, followed by baseline dunk after baseline dunk. But coach Tom Thibodeau crushed any hope that Noah might be ready for the regular-season opener on the road against the Miami Heat on Tuesday. It [stinks]. A little groin injury, I have to be smart. I want to be out there as soon as I can. All Hinrich could do was jog on the court.
Thibodeau said. Hinrich was hoping to get back on the court for the last exhibition Friday against the Denver Nuggets, but even that appeared doubtful. Notes: Derrick Rose shook off poor shooting early to hit clutch shots late, and Carlos Boozer had 20 points and 13 rebounds to lead the Bulls over the Thunder.
The Bulls remained the only unbeaten team in the preseason behind Rose, who hit three 3-pointers in the final 4 minutes. He scored 26 points on 6-of shooting in 34 minutes.
Luol Deng had 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Bulls. Write to him at jcowley suntimes. North won, While their win two weeks ago against Woodstock made the Thunder confident they could replicate their performance Wednesday in the Class 2A regional semifinal, the stakes this time were completely different.
We want it. In the second half I thought we were going to get back in it. Goalkeeping was kind of an issue tonight. Freshman forward Edder Tapia finished off the scoring on a cross from Chris Niese. They believe in themselves. Youel and Wallace know there are potentially lower seeded and even unseeded teams with the potential to knock them off. They should know: They were not seeded last year and beat two seeded teams at state. Gators coach Don Nead said it was deserved.
Laktash and Rasmussen were this season, with two of those losses coming against Youel and Wallace at the FVC and sectional tournaments. Laktash will be making her third trip to state in doubles, the previous two with South grad Rachel Siemon. Rasmussen will be playing at state for the first time. Their goal was simply to make it. As the parent turned and walked away, Reddish, then also a varsity assistant, smiled. Even at the lowest levels, undefeated volleyball seasons in the FVC are rare.
Once girls start playing at the varsity level, parity takes over and unblemished records become anomalies. But after tasting that success to start their high school tenures, outsides Krissy Pratt and Kassi Dvoracek, libero Annie Fox, setter Sydney Nelson, middle Rachael Schoepke and right side Maddy Cysewski refused to settle.
Two Central seniors — middle hitter Lauren Leverenz and setter Natalie Ricca — were playing on varsity when their classmates went undefeated as sophomores. Still, Leverenz and Ricca had an impressive run. Central has not lost a division match since. They wanted to be just like outside hitter Carly Hayes, middle blocker Kathryn Chrystal, right side hitter Rachael Thornquist, setter Kelly Farrell and libero. Paige Economos.
The Tigers came to matches decked out in Central gear, leaning over on the bleachers and cheering. This group has a knack for making things easier for one another. It is the first time since the crosstown rivals have met, so South is one team this Tigers squad never has played, much less beaten. Six minutes in, senior Niko Mihalopoulos headed a cross from Jack Bessey across the 6-yard box to Gonzalez, who found the lower corner. Just one minute passed be-. Bessey scored his second in the 27th minute, when he finished off a low cross from David Pardo, and Gonzalez scored seven minutes later when he gathered a clearance and finished to the lower corner.
Mihalopoulos scored a pair of goals before the end of the half off through balls from Matthew Kitsis and Gonzalez, and Amir Dajani scored off a cross from Michael Zembrzuski. We know our strengths, weaknesses, we know each other like brothers. We look sharper now.
Paul Novacovici scored a goal and had an assist for Hampshire, and Jose Cruz added an assist. The loss for Harvard ended a season in.
Ali Frantti led the way for R-B, recording 17 kills, seven digs and three aces. Kelsey Burlini had 22 assists and nine digs, and Jenna Mazur added 11 digs in the win. It shows how much time spent on each page, and how the visitor went to sections on Legs, Boots, and About Us, but not to Arms. By combining that kind of specic visitor information with broader aggregated visitor data, including conversion rates and sales, she says, CastCoverz learns about consumer interest in product mixes, and demand from dierent regions of the country.
By monitoring how many visitors click the About Us section, she learns how many visitors want to know more about the company as well as its products. The retailer also gathers customers e-mail addresses when they check out with Google Checkout, the only payment method oered on its site.
That helps it track customers repeat activity. And it learns through social media and other communications with customers that many come back repeatedly to buy cast covers as gifts, such as when a friend or someone in their sons or daughters local high school suers a sports injury.
By combining such information with Spring Metrics data on how visitors arrive at its site and shop for products, CastCoverz can more eectively promote product combinations on its site and through targeted marketing campaigns, Giacomazzi says.
For example, it may promote packages of products likely to sell in certain regions and during particular seasons, such as decorative and waterproof leg-cast covers promoted in winter e-mails to customers in northern areas, a customer segment that orders leg cast covers more often than consumers who live in less icy climes. Its all about selling to customers when theyre ready to buy, Giacomazzi says. Thats what analytics can help retailers do, if theyve got the technology and expertise to bring their data to heel.
CastCoverz, a small web-only retailer that sells decorative and waterproof covers for medical casts placed on broken arms and legs, has learned from its analytics applications that what it had thought of as a tiny niche is bigger than expected, and that consumers shop for these products in unanticipated ways. When building this business I had expected it to be a lot of onetime sales, and that I wouldnt have a lot of repeat customersbut I was wrong, says Annette Giacomazzi, who launched CastCoverz.
Analytics, she says, has enabled her to build customers interest in a variety of products and generate repeat orders, she says. Annette Giacomazzi, owner, CastCoverz: Its all about selling to customers when theyre ready to buy.
The dashboard, which she pulls up on her computer screen daily, also continually updates the number of visitors to the site and sales conversion rates. I can watch all this in real time, Giacomazzi says. Giacomazzi reads o details of a recent site visit: From Stamford, Conn. Each year, the barriers to enter the e-commerce marketplace for vendors gets signicantly lower and, therefore, so does the technology barrier to entry for retailers.
There are more vendors with more applications that are easier to use, cheaper to implement and contain more functionality than even 18 months ago. Open source software has become increasingly popular for smaller retailers. And while there is a tendency to think that open source means free, that is not the case. Nor is open source going to be an end-to-end solution to technology challenges.
But open source does provide retailers with comprehensive and cost-eective options. The challenge with open source is to be sure you either have the programming skills in-house or you choose a developer or systems integrator that can do the job. The prevalence of Software-asa-Service and cloud, or network, applications can lower or defray 20 Internet Retailer.
Many options exist for retailers who want to go big by taking advantage of the capabilities of other storefronts, shopping channels or dropshippers. Not actually owning the software or hardware is now viewed as increasingly acceptable and less risky, from senior managements perspective. It may even be viewed as the more desirable option. Online merchants today seldom need to develop, buy or host the software, especially since almost every e-commerce technology, including complex back-end systems, can now be obtained as SaaS.
More and more, smaller retailers are looking for end-to-end e-commerce systems. They are viewing their business more holistically and often, more as multichannel. The more frontto-back functionality that an application can provide, the easier the integration and, usually, the more cost-eective.
For example, e-commerce platforms with order management system capabilities are becoming standard requirements. In other cases, retailers are looking for vendors that oer technology, fulllment and customer service in one. The market drives innovation Since the number and variety of e-commerce and multichannel businesses is also expanding, more vendors are innovating and www. Our numbers speak for themselves.
Ai is committed to transactional intelligence. That means planning, designing and developing ecommerce solutions that deliver big results. Visit us online to learn more: www. One could always sell anything online, of course. But now, more vendors have tools for retailers of specialty verticals such as subscriptions and continuity programs, sharing, and others.
E-commerces rapid growth and increasing importance to the bottom line are making it cost-eective for vendors to include more and more features and functionality in their out of the box applications, making these applications available to smaller retailers within their price range. As the needs of the big players become the norm, they become standards for smaller merchants, and that demand allows for vendors to invest in turning those features into commodities.
Many aordable applications now contain the tools a small or medium-size retailer needs, right out of the boxsuch as search engine optimization capabilities, advanced search, guided navigation and rich imaging. Also available is functionality that includes more robust merchandising, promotions, and basic personalization, account management, order management and improved reporting. Even better, retailers are taking advantage of out-of-the-box integrations with popular third-party vendors from marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay to social sites like Facebook to tools such as analytics and ratings and reviews.
Exploring other alternatives Many options exist for retailers who want to go big by taking advantage of the capabilities of other storefronts, shopping channels or dropshippers. Amazon and eBay have always been available as partners for smaller merchants. If auction sites are losing their popularity, there are more online shopping malls for retailers of all types and sizes. The dierence in the costs of doing it yourself vs.
Many retailers now work with dropshippers, rather than purchasing inventory and fullling orders themselves. This gives them more product options and requires less of an investment, in part because there are no warehousing costs or pick, pack and ship sta needed. Of course, the downside is you lose control. Finding the right partner is imperative. Having an international presence is more accessible to smaller merchants now. Before, they were limited to using the postal service. Now, as shipping internationally becomes more common, there are vendors that enable retailers to ship without having to know and deal with all the rules of international shipping, or deal with internal technical integrations.
Today, there is a good deal of competitive intelligence that was www. You cant afford to have your hardwon business collapse if your webmaster gets hit by a bus. Cross-train, communicate, dene your standard operating proceduresand have a Plan B in case Plan A zzles.
Know your competition. Dont necessarily compare yourself against Target or Saks. Find the other smaller merchants that would appeal to your customer. Dene your voice. Having a voice is an smaller merchant advantage. Dont let it go to waste. Look at Woot or ThinkGeek. They arent small and independent anymore, but their personalities shine throughout their site.
They take a conversational tone in product descriptions, FAQs and e-mails. This can help create a loyal following. Find your niche. You cant be all things to all customers.
If youre selling T-shirts, curate your products to reect your image. If youre selling home goods, sell the ones that map to your customer base. Turn small into an advantage. Take advantage of accessible technology; react quickly to changes in the marketplace.
Focus on your business needs before your technology. While very important in achieving your goals, dont put the technology cart before the business horse until you know what you need. Best in class might be more than you need. Be realistic when assessing your needs and your limitations, and nd an application that ts where you are now and where you want to be over the next few years. Tempting as it may seem, dont necessarily go for a Cadillac application when a Ford will do the trick.
Keep it simple. Dont over-design or over-engineer. Prepare for reasonable contingencies but dont try to prepare for everything. Complicated systems are hard to implement and hard to maintain. Things change at the speed of light. A year plan will be useless in three years, unless the plan for year two is: reassess the year plan.
Plan your multichannel needs for three years out. Then revisit. Multichannel success requires people, not just technology. Technology is a necessary tool but it is only as good as the people using it.
Be sure that you are continuously evaluating, developing and enhancing your team. There is a wealthor maybe a delugeof information available to anyone who bothers to look for it, and a lot of it is free. Whitepapers, webinars, articles on the Internet, along with tradeshows and conferences, all provide the data and knowledge to everyone, regardless of the size of their company.
Government web sites, such as the U. E-commerce marketplace data-gathering companies such as Hitwise, comScore and Google Trends can provide insightful information, enabling merchants to compare themselves against companies in their vertical and those that are of comparable size.
The key to real success is translating all that data into actions that match your business strategy. They understand how to buy keywords on Google and do so with abandon.
SEO is more of a challenge, which requires the comprehensive and ongoing eort to embed keywords into all aspects of the web site.
Some of this is a technology issue, some of it is having the right people and right number of them to do the work, analyze the results, test and repeat. Also, smaller merchants tend not to focus on customer retention and increasing the average order value.
Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to people who are jacks of all trades but masters of none. Basic skills can take a merchant part of the way down the road to success but more expertise is needed to take reach the destination.
Customer service is a critical function that is hard to do well. Its costly and most smaller merchants cant aord the comprehensive, high-quality customer service that a larger competitor can. For example, Bed Bath and Beyond will send a return authorization with every order; Newegg will do so for selected orders those with high return rates ; most smaller retailers cannot aord to do either.
Sometimes, the desire to squeeze every dollar out of a sale and to give the minimum amount back results in unfortunate policies that smaller merchants could avoid, including charging a restocking fee and forcing customers to go to the manufacturer with a return after 15 days. These can hurt customer retention.
Performing customer service inhouse provides the opportunity to have a more personalized service, to keep a stores personality, and to better resolve any issues based of sta expertise.
Also, it is a great opportunity to up-sell. But handling returns makes it more dicult, logistically. Live chat is becoming increasingly popular with smaller merchants but most of the bigger retailers seem to shy away from it.
Perhaps they have invested so much in an eective customer service function that they dont feel live chat is a worthwhile or necessary tool. Live chat is a helpful tool, but can be expensive if deployed across the whole site and can be annoying to shoppers if it is too intrusive. Create appropriate rules that will initiate chat if a customer is abandoning their cart or they are stuck in Internet Retailer Challenges for the smaller merchants So, while new, cheaper technologies are providing advantages to the smaller merchants that didnt exist previously, there are still challenges.
The sophistication of online shoppers results in their expectation of the same quality user experience, regardless on the size of the merchant. After all, the beauty and the curse of the web is that a small business can appear to be a big one.
Therefore, the customer will not accept a sub-par shopping experience, from the usability and design of the site to the ease and reliability of delivery. Smaller retailers understand the importance of customer acquisition and spend a lot of money on search www.
They worry more about getting the rst customer and compete on price for that customer and dont focus on creating loyal customers. Often, they dont maximize their use of e-mail marketing, which is a very costeective tool with high ROI. Improving loyalty can be laborintensive and smaller merchants often dont have people with the bandwidth or perhaps skills for this. More eective merchandising, appropriate upsells and cross-sells, promotional strategies, database segmentation, the right e-mail marketing, analysis of demographics, and how to market to them all require honed skills.
Smaller merchants often have employees. And give the customer the option to initiate chat at any time. Insight into inventory is another challenge for most smaller merchants. Their real-time knowledge of their inventory can range from non-existent to not optimal. The smaller the business, the harder it is to have current information on inventory, and often it is a manual process. This is not only an ordering problem but it almost always becomes a customer service problem.
Often, the main problem is lack of communication between the front end and the back end. Another potentially daunting aspect of e-commerce for a smaller merchant is the increasingly complex legal environment of doing business on the web.
Dierent states not to mention dierent countries For example, its quick and easy to leverage social media. Sometimes, smaller merchants can do this better than large companies because they are not so restricted in determining their voice.
There is no corporate image to contend with, no large committee of stakeholders to approve every action and no legal department to sign o. The CEO can just decide and do. Technology, security and legality Smaller merchants also tend not to pay enough attention to their current technologywhether homegrown or purchased.
By not keeping up with technology developments and upgrades, merchants systems quickly achieve legacy status, leading to bigger technology investments in the future in order to compete with their peers.
A common failure for smaller merchants is scalability. While their technology can handle their business most of the year without incident, any sudden spike Christmas, the Oprah eect can render their system inoperable and often unable to quickly recover.
Another danger of using dated technology is not being up to date with security. Unfortunately, hackers and viruses are up to date, so its imperative that small online merchants provide the same quality of security as any big company.
While big companies have certainly had their own security problems, they understand that it is their responsibility to address security. Sometimes, smaller merchant businesses do not focus on it as much as they should. Often, security tools are included 24 Internet Retailer.
By their nature smaller and more nimble merchants can react more quickly to new trends in the e-commerce world. What is PCI-compliance? How to handle customs issues? In some ways, it is even tougher for the smaller merchants because they dont have legal and tax departments dedicated to guring all this out to their best advantage. Smaller merchants also can get mobile quickly. From mobile marketing to a mobile app to a mobile web site, there are quick and relatively inexpensive options for getting in the game and competing with the big stores.
There also is strength in numbers and retailers can join forces with other smaller companies. There are sites like Etsy that create a common marketplace for companies with niche products.
And there are aliate marketing programs that can help you expand your reach for a fee. Other marketplaces for getting products to the consumers include Amazon and Buy.
Given all these options, the temptation might be for an smaller merchant to overestimate the opportunity and the revenue potential of e-commerce growth, and to underestimate the amount of preparation, work and money required. It is important for you to understand what your strategy is, dene your objectives, determine your requirements and create your plan. Then execute. The advantages of being small Given the availability of stateof-the-art technology, it does not take that much for someone with ambition and an idea to create a viable e-commerce business.
Many providers have tools that enable small retailers to get an e-commerce site up in days, making it hard for shoppers to tell if a merchant is a mom-and-pop business or a bigger player. All were built for success by americaneagle. And in recent years, as Internet connections have gotten faster, and more online activities compete for their time and attention, their expectations for a smooth and speedy experience on your web site have grown.
Yet to compete for their mindshare and loyaltyand their dollars youve taken steps to make your web. But all of this comes at a price it slows down your web site. And that can have serious implications. Also, when your site suers latency, or page-loading delays, due to the number of marketing campaign tags, it can cause friction with your information technology department, which is often charged with improving your sites performance.
They point the nger at you for causing all the slow-downs, and you get frustrated by their inability to make improvements. Maybe theyve even gone so far as to set limits on what campaigns you can. Youve probably also implemented a number of online campaigns to increase awareness of your brand and deliver a more personalized experience. And with each of those campaigns comes 26 Internet Retailer. Furthermore, Google factors web site speed into its ranking algorithm, so a slow-loading site will suer lower ranking in web searches.
The reasons most site owners and marketers havent taken adequate measures may include a decit of time and resources, and budget constraints that prevent them from purchasing tools and technologies. A general lack of understanding about what corrective measures to take is also a contributor. If the scenario above sounds at all familiar, then keep reading. This article is intended to shed some light on how to address latency, by oering advice on how best to measure site performance and providing some practical steps you can take to improve the speed of your site.
If so, you can work with your web designer to overcome some of those problems. How about dierent connection speeds? Does a signicant portion of your customers live in areas where high-speed broadband connectivity is still limited? If so you might want to tailor your site to themunless they represent only a small portion of your customer base. Where your visitors are.
Are your visitors in your backyard, or across the country? Or even overseas? You should use testing services that will show site performance for various access nodes and paths, so you can tell if your site performs well for local trac but is quite a bit slower for trac coming from other, far-o places.
This might indicate that you need to have platform servers in other locations to accommodate those visitors. Peak and off-peak trafc times. What are the variations in trac load that your site can accommodate, and when are you more likely to see peak trac numbers? If you can pinpoint certain times of day, or even specic dates when trac volumes spike, you can enact temporary adjustments to improve performance during those times while keeping your site intact during other, less busy periods.
Look beyond the home page. Dierent features and functionalities will load on dierent pages of your site, so dont assume that the way your home page loads is a good representation of your whole site. You need to evaluate dierent pages separately, and consider any applications that might be slowing particular pages down, such as user reviews on product pages or too many images on search results pages. Evaluate whether tags are slowing down your site. You can determine if third-party tags, used by external www.
Where to look for performance issues In order to accurately measure page load speedand determine the right xthere are a variety of factors to consider: Server-side vs. You can address the server side by adding more servers or using acceleration technologies, but you dont have a lot of control over client-side issues.
For example,. This is not recommended as a permanent x because of the loss of tracking data, but it can show you if tags are contributing to site latency. For example, one of our clients thirdparty tags were aected by Hurricane Irene this past summer, and they saw their web site speed up considerably when they were forced to turn the tags o. There are providers that can evaluate the amount of time tags take to load; and tools that simulate a slow-loading tag, which will give you an idea of the potential drag on your sites performance.
As youre evaluating the areas outlined above, its important to remember that you should never look solely at performance averagesa mistake people often make.
If you only consider average performance you may have a false perception that your site performs just ne, and you can miss out on determining the real problems. As an example from work conducted by web analytics consultancy Semphonic, a look at Site As page transmission speeds shows that the average was 1, Kbps kilobits per secondwhich isnt too bad compared to its competitor sites, which ranged from Kbps to 2, Kbps.
Yet a closer look at Site As site statistics shows that the maximum transmission speed was 1,, and the minimum was 31 Kbps. This is a pretty big variationand the worst-case scenario is quite a bit slower than the average. So look at the full picture, not just the average.
How to strike that balance will differ for every retail site. There are ways to improve performance without sacricing the experience, but its important to rst look at the trade-os people are currently making between functionality and the negative impacts of slow page loads. When tags are removed, marketers have no idea how well their campaigns are performing and what contribution theyre making to an actual purchase.
Before you jump the gun and remove all the third-party tags from your site, strip your product pages of compelling images or add a bunch of servers where they may not be needed, consider the following ve options, which might give you the performance boost you need now.
Optimize page code. This was the number one response people gave on our survey for how theyre addressing latency. Optimizing page code, or shrinking the Javascript, involves merging the separate sets of instructions that tell the page what to do. It stands to reason that downloading lots of small scripts takes longer than downloading one large script. Marketing professionals might have some trepidation, given that this is in the domain of the I.
But quick xes can be done, even by those with limited programming knowledge. All that needs to be done is to open the Javascript les and copy and paste them all into one le. If this sounds a bit daunting, there are a number of online resources that provide an easy guide to merging les dynamically, such as Smarty. Address site functionality.
Site performance will vary from page to page, depending on what applications and functionalities you havesuch as site search, shopping cart, check-out, live chat, etc.
This can be particularly true if you rely on hosted solutions. For example, Internet Retailer Measuring latency: Four steps to acceleration So, given all thats been discussed above, how can you go about speeding up your site beyond some of the simple tweaks you might already have made? Theres no simple, black and white answerthe most www. Respondents also identied the key steps theyve taken to improve site performance, including optimizing page code, improving performance monitoring and reducing page weight.
There are many ways marketers currently address page load speed, all of which are eective, except the idea of reducing or removing thirdparty tagsa common misperception. Or, as was the case with one company, perhaps the additions to your installed internal search database grew by volumes over recent years, to a point that it dramatically limited performancein which case, a clean-up of the database would likely speed up performance.
Reduce the weight of social media apps. Social media plug-ins, while increasingly popular for their potential viral impact, have recently been identied as a contributor to site latency.
❿
❿
Windows 10 1703 download iso itasca bankrate mortgage – Uploaded by
Saturday, Oct. Attendance – 17, Who knows? Sizes P. Roval Roads, Sherman Rd ; G. Winds strong and gusty northeasterly easing off in the afternoon and evening. It uses transaction-level insight to help retailers and others develop customized, measurable campaigns to acquire, maximize and retain their most valuable consumers.❿
❿