Mediaboss Marketing

By J. Daniel Pearson For the News-Gazette

After last weeks heavy rains caused a two-day postponement of his teams 7A-2 regional quarterfinal game with St. Cloud, Osceola High baseball coach Scott Birchler was worried about his teams focus when the game finally was played Saturday afternoon.

I could not be prouder of our kids," Birchler said. We had to postpone this thing twice and this time of year is tough because kids are thinking about prom, graduation, the end of school and about a million other things. I was hoping they would put that aside and come out focused and thats what happened.

After pitcher Jake Grenus retired St. Cloud in the top of the first on just six pitches, Osceola wasted little time in grabbing a 5-0 lead. Hadrian Cortes and Armen Calilao led off the inning with back-to-back doubles. Edwin Bonilla brought home the first run of the game with a groundout before Bay McIntosh scored Calilao with a double. Omar Colon then hit a massive three-run homer to deep left center.

Big innings in your first at-bat really can build some momentum, Birchler added. After Omars home run, everything seemed to snowball from there.

The Bulldogs, 16-13, did fight back. Chris Caballeros solo home run in the second made it 5-1. In the top of the third, St. Cloud managed to scratch out another run as Chase Ritters two-out, bloop single to center scored Sean Anderson.

But in the bottom of the third, it was some sloppy play by the Bulldogs and a little luck by the Kowboys that quickly squashed any momentum St. Cloud was building. Osceola added two runs without hitting the ball hard. A hit batter, a throwing error on a bunt attempt, a walk and a two-run single by Cortes that barely found the outfield grass made it a 7-2 game.

Osceolas big bats provided the final margin in the bottom of the fourth. Bonilla opened the inning with a double and came around to score on McIntoshs second double of the game. Tony Lima made it 9-2 with a sharp single and after Rod Weismore walked, freshman Frank Toro hammered a home run to dead center field to make it 12-2.

Grenus retired the side in order in the fifth to pick up a complete game win. For the contest, Grenus allowed just two runs on three hits. He walked one and struck out four. Jake really didnt have his best stuff today, Birchler said. But he had a nice rhythm on the mound and worked through it.

For the Kowboys, 19-5, Cortes led the way with three hits and an RBI. St. Cloud ace Abel Del Valle took the loss, giving up nine runs (seven earned), on eight hits, three walks and five strikeouts in three and a third innings of work.

Original post:
OHS rolls into baseball semifinal round

One of the things Buffett consistently refers to when evaluating the quality of a business is the amount of cash it produces relative to the amount of cash it needs to maintain the business. Buffett calls this cash flow that is produced "owner earnings", which is basically free cash flow. Buffett defines owner earnings as the cash flow a business produces less the capital expenditures a business has for maintaining the business (he excludes growth capex).

Free cash flow is the easiest way to approximate Buffett's "owner earnings" definition, and in some ways it's more conservative because it typically includes both maintenance and growth capex.

For weeks, I've noticed that Check Point Software (CHKP) has been at the top of the list in Value Line's weekly "Biggest Free Flow Cash Generators" screen. CHKP has generated an astounding 71 times more cash than it has needed to invest back into the business (more than two times the ratio of the next highest stock). That is an incredible cash flow machine.

Check Point is a leading provider of software that protects computer networks from malicious attacks. I haven't done any detailed research on the business itself, and it's not extremely cheap, but from an EV/FCF basis, it looks somewhat attractive, especially given the incredible growth the company has experienced. In the last 10 years, here are the average annual growth rates:

Here are some of the key metrics:

Free Cash Flow

Look at the incredible amount of operating cash flow relative to the capital spending, which of course leads to significant free cash flow. The company is currently priced at around 9 times free cash flow (using EV/FCF), which is excellent in and of itself. But it has grown its free cash flow at an average rate of 16.7% per year over the last 10 years.

This FCF has allowed the company to buy back about 20% of it's shares over the past decade, a trend that will likely continue. The company pays no dividend, but given the extremely high internal returns it generates, that is actually a positive for shareholders. Better to keep the money in the business to continue compounding.

Margins

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Check Point Software (CHKP) is a Free Cash Flow Machine

Twine, easy-to-use free software, brings interactive-fiction game development to the people.

These days, regular folks across the world are using free software to easily create homespun music, Webisodes, and movies, so why not interactive fiction? A little program called Twine (download for Windows or Mac) that brings a DIY ethos to text-based Web games has slowly emerged as a huge player in the indie-game scene. If you're new to Twine, it's freeware that lets users develop their own interactive stories and games. It enables players to determine their own adventures by clicking on hyperlinks scattered throughout the text.

Originally developed by Chris Klimas, Twine has been used by myriad storytellers to great effect. A directory site called TwineHub lets users upload their completed stories and games for the enjoyment of others, and it is packed to the gills with submissions. From the teeming mass of Twine games, I've selected a few of the best or most interesting:

Howling Dogs (by Porpentine)

Opening scene from Howling Dogs

Bklyn Trash King (by Ben Esposito)

Opening scene from Bklyn Trash King

Hypnagogue (by Mitch Alexander)

Opening scene from Hypnagogue

If any of the above stories inspire you to create your own Twine game, then download the freeware and follow these simple directions:

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Choose your Twine adventure

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By: How2Tutor

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how to upload images on google | How to upload pictures to google images 2013 - Video

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Moxie Software, Inc., the leading provider of customer-centric enterprise social software, today announced the availability of Social Knowledgebase, the first application that combines collaboration technology with knowledge management.

Social Knowledgebase allows enterprises to tap into the collective knowledge of their employees to enhance service levels by getting the right answers to customers faster. By bridging the gap between knowledge workers and contact centers, Social Knowledgebase enables enterprises to deliver the exceptional customer experiences that socially connected consumers expect.

How Social Knowledgebase Works

Social Knowledgebase is a single application that combines the capabilities of Moxie Softwares industry-leading knowledge management application with its collaboration software. The product allows users to recommend and promote content from the collaborative application to the knowledge workflow, where it can be certified and published to employees or customers. Social Knowledgebase gives companies the ability to easily harness the power of employees tribal knowledge to both dramatically reduce costs and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Key features of Social Knowledgebase include:

Watch video.

Insights into Social Knowledgebase and its Benefits:

People are more productive when collaborating to find a specific answer that benefits employees and customers, said Tom Kelly, president and CEO of Moxie Software. The result of purpose-driven collaboration is actionable knowledge. Organizations analyzing big data are really after big knowledge intelligence they can put to use making their enterprises more agile to efficiently serve customers by creating superlative customer experiences.

Social Knowledge is about harvesting the potentially rich stratum of information created in social networking sites and discussion forums, said Johan Jacobs, research director at Gartner. It is about sifting through this input to decide what is appropriate and applicable to your organization, and using that information as input in the development of product- and service-specific content. (Report: Use Social Knowledge to Enhance Your Customer Self-Service, Nov. 11, 30, 2011).

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Moxie Software Ushers in the Era of “Big Knowledge:” Brings Crowdsourced Intelligence to Customer Experience