Filmfunds Acquires Duran Duboi Us And 3d Liveflix, Places Bid On Duran Duboi France

Filmfunds Prepares To Ask Millions of Movie Fans,

“What Film Do You Want To See In 3D?”

Los Angeles – Having launched a production arm to help bring promising new films to market, FilmFunds today announced the acquisition of Duran Duboi US, an independent California-based company whose patented 3D LiveFlix technology, combined with FilmFunds’ own digital crowd-sourcing technology, will allow FilmFunds to poll public opinion on the most popular films audiences want to see in 3D, then offer conversion services to content owners. Its acquisition of Duran Duboi US moves FilmFunds a significant step closer toward becoming a one-stop shop for filmmakers.

FilmFunds has also placed a formal bid for Duran Duboi France, currently in Chapter 11. The company, headquartered near Paris and part of Quinta Industries, is the internationally renowned visual effects company behind such hit films as Alien: Resurrection, Amelie, La Vie En Rose, A Very Long Engagment, Crank, Hannibal Rising, Underworld and Black Gold. In its bid, FilmFunds has ensured the completion of outstanding projects undertaken by Duran Duboi France, including the Luc Besson-produced film The Boy with the Cuckoo-Clock Heart. FilmFunds’ bid is structured to continue a quarter-century of visual expertise and deliver expert post-production and visual effects services to the website’s filmmakers.

With the in-house ability to convert 2D projects to 3D, and access to more than 60 million movie fans, FilmFunds will ask its members: Are the right movies being made in 3D? Which movies do you want to see in 3D? Voting by the FilmFunds community will determine the most popular projects for conversion and, based on this enthusiastic audience, the company will approach studios and other content owners – with both the data to prove an audience for a 3D version of the film, as well as the conversion technology. FilmFunds aims to partner with studios on a project by project basis to bring promising 3D films to life.

“While popular films like Star Wars and Titanic will soon be coming out in 3D, there are many others that have a built-in audience, if only studios and filmmakers had an easy-to-use, crowd-sourcing social marketing tool to prove it. Now they do. FilmFunds looks forward to working with content owners to help identify and convert the most beloved 2D films for 3D-hungry audiences everywhere,” offered FilmFunds Co-Founder and Chairman Carl Freer, a respected technology entrepreneur and visionary.

With the acquisition of Duran Duboi US, its president, Christian Paris, will transition to vice president of FilmFunds, helping to approach online content distributors like Netflix, as well as traditional distributors, in supporting 3D-converted projects. “I look forward to marrying our proprietary technology with that of FilmFunds, which truly offers a 21st-century solution for filmmakers,” said Paris. Having spent ten years as a U.S. representative for various European visual effects and sound technology companies, in 2010 he launched 3D LiveFlix, which recently provided the 3D conversion for Conan the Barbarian.

About Duran Duboi US and 3D LiveFlix
Duran Duboi US (DD US) is an independent California-based company created in 2002 by Christian Paris. DD US marketed visual effects services in Hollywood for Duran Duboi France for eight years and then for Quinta Industries for five years. It went into the business of visual effects as 3D conversion became more popular and created 3D LiveFlix to propose conversion solutions to film libraries, studios and independent filmmakers. Investing in R&D, it owns a unique process of conversion for theatrical release, home video and handhelds. 3D LiveFlix has exclusive branch partners in Paris along with India, Mexico and Hawaii. For more information, please visit www.duranduboi.com or http://www.3dliveflix.com.


About Duran Duboi (France)
Duran Duboi, founded in 1984, is widely acknowledged as a pioneer of the digital audiovisual post-production industry. Serving the film, TV and advertising communities, Duran Duboi Studio offers a full spectrum of services including digital audiovisual post-production, visual effects, 3D animation, pre-visualization and commercials. For more information, please visit http://www.quintaindustries.com.

About FilmFunds
Headquartered in Los Angeles, FilmFunds offers a 360-degree solution for Hollywood to test nascent film projects, helping move content through the pipeline by creating an audience for it, while giving fans a unprecedented opportunity to be part of the green-light process. FilmFunds utilizes crowd-sourced social marketing research to replace the costly live test-screening model used since Hollywood’s Golden Era. A social environment where Hollywood filmmakers can meet their real audience, with the most accurate, state-of-the-art diagnostics guiding their efforts to improve and build support for their product, FilmFunds is a place where film lovers have a chance to make it their movie. For more information, please visit http://www.FilmFunds.com.

Media contacts:
Ron Hofmann / Steve Wilson
(310) 550-7776
rhofmann@bwr-la.com / swilson@bwr-la.com

BWR Public Relations
9100 Wilshire Boulevard
Fifth Floor
West Tower
Beverly Hills
CA 90212
310-550-7776 (Ph) | 310-550-1701 (Fax)

Cloud Expo Europe 2012 Conference and Exhibition will demystify Cloud for business and the public sector

Get your head in the Cloud but keep your feet on the ground

London - Dr Werner Vogel, CTO of Amazon.com and one of the world`s leading Cloud experts, joins more than 100 other world class speakers in demystifying the Cloud for businesses and the public sector in a remarkable free conference and exhibition next month - Cloud Expo Europe.

Amazon CTO, Dr Werner Vogel heads a stellar line-up of speakers - that also includes senior executives from HSBC, Honda UK and Mitchells & Butlers - in helping businesses strip away the jargon and the hype from Cloud computing in order to exploit this fast growing IT phenomenon. Cloud Expo Europe, 25th & 26th, Olympia National Hall, London, will also feature special sessions for small and medium-sized businesses and public sector organisations who are keen to exploit the cost, flexibility and efficiency gains that can be secured via a switch to a cloud-based IT strategy.

In total, Cloud Expo Europe 2012, features more than 130 world class speakers spread across seven packed seminar theatres as well as over 100 leading suppliers. This line-up is reckoned to be “the largest most comprehensive gathering of Cloud expertise ever assembled in the UK”. As access to all this content – worth literally hundreds of pounds to delegates - is also free, the event is set to draw a huge crowd of IT architects, managers and directors as well as technologists in C-suites.

The keynote theatre is packed with leading thinkers and shapers of the modern Cloud including Dr Werner Vogels, the CTO of Amazon.com, Stephen McGibbon, the regional CTO, EMEA, at Microsoft, David King, the global CTO of Logica, Joe Weinmann, Hewlett-Packard’s world wide lead on the Cloud, and former NASA IT chief and CEO of Nebula Chris Kemp. These inspired keynotes are supported up by a range of practical, problem-solivng sessions and real life case- studies.

Backing them up are six further theatres, which will give a sharp focus to some of the issues of the Cloud including:

• Cloud & virtualisation infrastructure & platforms
• Management, services and applications
• Mobile, wireless and communications
• Security and governance
• Cloud service providers and Channel theatre
• The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) theatre

The exhibition features some of the biggest, and the most innovative names in Cloud computing including Firehost, b2Net, CA technologies, Citrix, Claranet, f5 Networks, Oracle, Peer1, Rise Partners and Techgate. The applications and solutions on offer range from data centres to disaster recovery, from hosting to hardware, and clustering to connectivity. “Every issue for every level of practitioner is covered at Cloud Expo Europe,” said Event Director, Maggie Meer. “Big or small, private or public, whether you are committed to or still exploring how to deliver effective cloud and virtualisation strategies on time and on budget, then this is a must-see event".

“Cloud Expo Europe is not about abstract theorising. It is about practical content and proven expertise from a host of practitioners – about getting your head around the Cloud but keeping your feet firmly on the ground.”

Andy Burton, chairman of CIF, welcomes people to join the discussion on the future of Cloud Computing and what issues need to be addressed in order to achieve unhindered adoption of private, public and hybrid cloud solutions.

“The rapid adoption and growing interest in cloud computing makes Cloud Expo Europe highly relevant, by bringing the industry together to address end user concerns such as transparency, accountability and capability.”

Leading analyst Gartner says the global cloud services market will top $90bn in 2014 – with the UK hitting $6bn - more than double the current market. Gartner reckons that nearly half of businesses expect to have most of their IT running through cloud computing over the next four years.

To register for free:
http://closerstill.circdata-fusion.co.uk/CEE/CEE12.aspx?source=pressrelease1onwebsite

For more information, please contact:

Cloud Expo Europe,
Red Publishing and Events & Closer2Media,
Unit 17, Exhibition House,
Addison Bridge Place,
London,
W14 8XP

Maggie Meer
+44 (0)20 7348 5275
maggie@cloudexpoeurope.com

Thomas Standley
+44 (0)207 348 5273
thomas@cloudexpoeurope.com

Royal Photographer Julian Calder to Speak at Grays of Westminster Grand Christmas Dinner

Grays of Westminster Grand Christmas Dinner at The Institute of Directors, London with one of the world’s best portrait photographers, Julian Calder – 6.30pm, Friday 2nd December 2011

London – The exclusive London-based Nikon-only dealer, Grays of Westminster is to hold their Grand Christmas Dinner at the Institute of Directors, London on Friday 2nd December 2011.


The evening will be spent with one of the world’s best portrait photographers, Julian Calder. Following the superb three-course Christmas dinner in the magnificent period restaurant at the Institute of Directors (IoD) at 116 Pall Mall, there will be a rare opportunity to listen to Julian Calder’s extraordinary stories as he presents some of his magnificent portraits. This promises to be an exceptional experience.

HM The Queen by Julian Calder

About Julian Calder

Julian Calder has photographed numerous stories and assignments for leading national and international magazines. He specialises in portraits and his work has been published around the world and has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London. His portraits of the Royal family formed the core of the Jubilee edition of Keepers of the Kingdom. Julian, who has been a professional photographer for over 30 years, was recently commissioned to take 16 official portraits of Her Majesty The Queen and HRH Prince Philip wearing the Orders of Great Britain and the Commonwealth, all taken on a D3X.

Julian Calder

“We are delighted to have booked Julian Calder to show some of his work and share some of his experiences with us at our Grand Christmas dinner,” says Gray Levett, founder of Grays of Westminster.

Institute of Directors (IoD) at 116 Pall Mall

The grand Regency building, 116 Pall Mall, with its sweeping marble staircase and vast walls covered in 18th and 19th Century canvases provides a spectacular backdrop for the evening, and the period restaurant is a most fitting venue for this elegant, traditional Christmas celebration.

• Venue: Institute of Directors (IoD) at 116 Pall Mall.
• Date: Friday, December 2nd, 2011
• Champagne reception: 6.30 p.m.
• Dinner: 7.15 p.m. (Traditional Christmas Dinner or a Vegetarian Option)
• Julian Calder's talk in the Morning Room: 9.15 p.m.
• Cost of the evening: £155 per ticket or £95 if you are a subscriber to Nikon Owner magazine

Booking Information
Grays of Westminster Christmas events are extremely popular and early booking is highly recommended. To book a place at the Christmas Event, please email Gillian Greenwood, gillian.greenwood@graysofwestminster.co.uk by email only with your full name, Nikon Owner subscription number if available, postcode, daytime mobile and landline, your menu choice (traditional or vegetarian) and the name of any guest you would like to bring with you. Please note there are limited places available, so do reply as soon as you are able to, in order to ensure you have a place. It is important to note that we are unfortunately unable to take telephone messages with regard to your booking.

For more information, please contact:

Gray Levett
Grays of Westminster
40 Churton Street
London
SW1V 2LP

+44 (0)20 7828 4925
info@graysofwestminster.co.uk
http://www.graysofwestminster.co.uk

Nikon Awards Crystal Trophy to Grays of Westminster for 25 Years of Outstanding Contribution to Nikon Users

Nikon UK awards Nikon-only dealer, Grays of Westminster, for its outstanding contribution to Nikon users at the company’s gala luncheon at The Goring, the exclusive five-star hotel in Belgravia where Kate Middleton stayed before her marriage to Prince William

London - On Tuesday 26th July, Grays of Westminster, the legendary Nikon dealer, was presented with a stunning, heavy crystal trophy by the Managing Director of Nikon UK, Mr. Michio Miwa, during a celebratory luncheon at the exclusive Belgravia, London hotel, The Goring.

The trophy, which features a 3D image of the legendary Nikon F camera laser-etched into the award, reads:

“Presented to Grays of Westminster to celebrate their 25th Anniversary and their outstanding contribution to Nikon users.” – Nikon UK Limited

Grays of Westminster was founded a quarter of a century ago by Gray Levett who had the idea of creating a world-class camera store which would offer a service, second to none. The concept began to take shape and ultimately came to life as Grays of Westminster.

In a letter to Gray Levett, Mr. Makota Kimura, the President of the Nikon Corporation, Japan wrote: “Grays of Westminster is a well-known and respected business that has become almost a household name amongst professional photographers during the past twenty-five years. This is no doubt a result of your commitment to your customers and understanding of the Nikon brand.

“I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on such a momentous occasion and would like to express our gratitude for your support of the Nikon brand. I am looking forward to a continued mutually beneficial relationship during the coming years.”

The distinguished actor David Suchet CBE and long-term customer sent a message with his regrets, “Thanks so much, but sadly can't be with you, filming Great Expectations for the BBC, playing Jaggers. Have a wonderful celebration. Congratulations!!! Love David.”

Amongst those taking part in the celebrations was Richard Young, the UK’s most successful celebrity photographer; Mike Maloney OBE, Britain’s most decorated press photographer; Andrew Main Wilson, Chief Operating Officer of the IoD (Institute of Directors); founder, Gray Levett; co-director, Uri Zakay; Gillian Greenwood, Nikon Owner magazine director and author of In the Company of Legends …a history of Grays of Westminster, as well as senior staff from Nikon UK.

Receiving this award, Gray Levett said: “This is a significant moment in our history. I am delighted and honoured to receive this beautiful crystal trophy from Nikon. Grays of Westminster started a quarter of a century ago from humble beginnings with just £100 and no stock to speak of; to be accepting this award in the grand surroundings of The Goring today is something I could have hardly imagined.

“Grays of Westminster has what is probably the widest range of new, second-hand and vintage Nikon in the world. From the very beginning we aimed at offering our customers the very best service and the finest in Nikon equipment. This tradition continues today. The fact that we have survived over the last twenty-five years has been made possible by our very loyal customers, the hard work of all of our staff and our strong relationship with Nikon UK and Nikon Japan.”

About Grays of Westminster

The legendary award-winning Grays of Westminster is a charming period shop, specialising exclusively in Nikon. Grays of Westminster offers knowledgeable advice and information on Nikon kit, whether new, second-hand or vintage, to customers who visit the shop in person, as well as a fast and reliable mail-order service on any Nikon item which is available to all world-wide destinations. Grays of Westminster also provides a vast range of photographic training sessions for its customers including subjects such as Mike Maloney’s Photographic Workshop at the House of Lords; Heather Angel’s Wildlife & Natural History Workshops; Simon Stafford’s Definitive Flash, Portraiture, Landscape and Macro Training Sessions; Michael Eleftheriades’ panoramic and colour-calibration seminars.

Grays of Westminster is situated in a quiet location in central London yet within walking distance of Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace.

For more information, please contact:

Gray Levett
Founder
Grays of Westminster Exclusively…Nikon
40 Churton Street
London
SW1V 2LP

+44 (0)20 7828 4925
info@graysofwestminster.co.uk
http://www.graysofwestminster.co.uk

Submitted by: WorldWidePR.net

Models of Diversity to Hold a Make-Over Day at Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity

The parents of children with cerebral palsy and some of their teenage children with cerebral palsy are to be treated to a special make-over at East Grinstead-based Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity thanks to Models of Diversity

East Grinstead - Models of Diversity, the campaign that advocates for more diversity in models, is to hold a make-over day at Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity in Station Road, East Grinstead on 14th July 2011, from 1pm - 3pm.

A hairdresser and a make-up artist will treat about 10 parents of children with cerebral palsy and other neurological problems, plus a few of the older disabled children themselves, to a full make-over. Then, their photo will be taken as a memento of the day by the award-winning photographer, James Lyon. The hairdresser, make-up artist and photographer are all giving up their time for free.

Model of Diversity's founder, Angel Sinclair

Model of Diversity's founder, Angel Sinclair, was recently appointed Vice President of the Advance charity and Advance is Model of Diversity's only chosen charity.
Angel Sinclair, on the make-over day: "It's very important that people recognise the hard work that carers put in - they are the forgotten heroes. So this is a way of us giving something back to the parents, to make them feel good about themselves."

"Our parents are amazingly selfless people who are always giving. Every one of them is beautiful so it's fantastic to give them this opportunity to look really gorgeous and to have a photograph to remind them of just how beautiful they are," says Linda Scotson.

About Models of Diversity
Models of Diversity advocates for more diversity in models, and demands that the fashion and marketing industries recognise the beauty in women of all races, ages, shapes, sizes and abilities. Their mission is to change the face of fashion and modelling. They sponsor modelling workshops for people with disabilities, campaign against the tragic effects of the size zero culture, and fight inequality in the representation of real men and women. They look at catwalk shows, advertising and the glossies and rarely see a true representation of real people. http://www.modelsofdiversity.org

About Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity
Advance Centre teaches the parents of brain-injured children how to deliver The Scotson Technique (TST), a drug-free respiratory-based exercise to help nourish the brain with extra oxygen that it needs for more normal development. The technique, developed by Linda Scotson after 15 years of research into breathing and recovery of function after brain injury at University College London, Psychology Department, has been extremely successful in helping brain-injured children overcome movement, learning and behavioural difficulties. The Advance Centre teaching institute is based in West Sussex in the UK with centres in Slovakia, South Africa, Namibia and the Philippines.
http://www.advancecentres.com

For more information, please contact:

Advance Centre
..for The Scotson Technique
The Bradbury House
6 Station Road
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 1DJ
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1342 311137
Fax: +44 (0)1342 305159
info@advancecentres.com
http://www.advancecentres.com

Submitted by: WorldWidePR.net

Scalability and Backup Recovery found to be Key in Virtualisation Adoption, reveals Survey

So why the hesitancy?

London — A survey conducted by Symantec on 3,700 information technology managers in 35 countries, entitled “Virtualization and Evolution to the Cloud” revealed key points in what benefits businesses expect from implementing a virtual strategy. While there were many findings, some specific findings also showed two-thirds of enterprises list performance degradation as a somewhat/extremely large factor in their hesitation to place business-critical applications into a private cloud.

An excerpt from the Symantec whitepaper stated performance can be a factor that either drives virtualization or inhibits it. While virtualization/cloud computing can help streamline operations and save money, sacrificing performance is not an option. Any gains in other areas will be negated if customers and employees are unable to work within a fast, secure environment that provides maximum uptime. Among organizations that have implemented storage virtualization, 84 percent of respondents stated that one of their goals in doing so was to improve storage performance or speed. In contrast, two-thirds of enterprises list performance degradation as a somewhat/extremely large factor in their hesitation to place business-critical applications into a private cloud.

One key question in the survey asked how important the following goals were at the time of implementing server virtualisation and showed the following:

• 88% said somewhat/completely important to improve the scalability of our servers
• 87% said somewhat/completely important to reduce expenses
• 85% said somewhat/completely important to improve up-time and availability
• 83% said somewhat/completely important to improve recovery readiness
• 83% said somewhat/completely important to improve server speed

This hesitancy to fully implement a virtual environment is very much highlighted in another survey which was published in a whitepaper sponsored by EMC and carried out in conjunction with Computing.

• 5% have virtualised 96-100% of their IT infrastructure
• 17% have virtualised 70-95% of their IT infrastructure
• 16% have virtualised 50-69% of their IT infrastructure
• 21% have virtualised 30-49% of their IT infrastructure
• 16% have virtualised 10-29% of their IT infrastructure
• 10% have virtualised 10% of their IT infrastructure
• 15% have virtualised none of their IT infrastructure

The above statistics show that companies are only gradually going to a virtual environment, and by doing so hope to reduce expenses, improve scalability, improve performance and increase disaster recovery preparedness.

Technical Presales Consultant at Diskeeper Corporation Europe, Mandeep Birdi comments “From these statistics we know virtualisation to some degree is now very much a part of many organisations, but whilst implementing server virtualization, IT management need to also consider ways to ensure optimal performance in their virtual infrastructure. A major problem inherent in virtual infrastructures is that windows based virtual machines can generate excess I/Os as a result of fragmentation This unfortunately results in large performance drops on the host through these unnecessary I/Os and this can impact the success of the migrations. Our software solution, V-locity® virtual platform disk optimiser was specifically developed to address this issue.”


About Diskeeper Corporation - Microsoft Gold Partner
Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies®: CIOs, IT Managers and System Administrators of Global Fortune 1000 and Forbes 500 enterprises rely on Diskeeper® performance software to provide unparalleled performance and reliability to their business laptops, desktops and servers. Diskeeper 2011 includes the breakthrough IntelliWrite® fragmentation prevention technology. V-locity® 2.0 virtual platform disk optimizer for VMware ESX and Hyper-V eliminates the barriers to full virtual efficiency and maximum I/O performance on virtual servers. Diskeeper Corporation further provides real-time data protection and real-time data recovery with Undelete® data recovery software (http://www.undelete.com). InvisiTasking® technology enables any process to run completely invisibly in the background, fully tapping the power of otherwise unused idle resources (http://www.invisitasking.com).


For more information, please contact:

Dorian Culmer
Public Relations Manager - United Kingdom
Diskeeper Corporation Europe
Suite 226, Shaw House
Pegler Way
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 7AF
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1293 763 060
d.culmer@diskeeper.co.uk
http://www.diskeeper.com
http://www.twitter.com/DiskeeperEurope
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diskeeper-UK/153866791341541

Models of Diversity Founder Angel Sinclair Appointed Vice President of Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity

(left to right) Angel Sinclair, founder of Models of Diversity with Linda Scotson, founder of Advance Centre of The Scotson Technique

Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique to be Models of Diversity's only chosen charity

East Grinstead - Former model and founder of Models of Diversity has been appointed Vice President of the Sussex-based Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity by its founder, Linda Scotson.

When Angel saw how The Scotson Technique had improved the life of Linda's son Doran, born with severe brain damage and cerebral palsy, she was so moved that she wanted to support Advance to enable many more children like Doran to be similarly helped.

The Scotson Technique, developed by Linda Scotson in 2002, is a unique, gentle, deeply restorative rehabilitation therapy for children and young adults with cerebral palsy, autism, brain injury or other neurologically related conditions.

At Doran's birth, Linda Scotson was told that he would never walk or talk. However, thanks to The Scotson Technique, Doran - now aged 32 - has run two half marathons and is also an artist and he can hold a very good conversation. He has a great sense of humour and is very charismatic.

An additional personal reason that Angel decided to support Advance is because she has a nephew, Curtis, aged 20, with cerebral palsy and has helped Curtis' parents with respite for most of his life.

Angel Sinclair, the founder of Models of Diversity and Sinclair Model Management, is a former model herself and appeared on Gok’s 'Miss Naked Beauty' in 2008. Angel was struck by the great variety of beautiful women participating in the event and how that contrasted with the narrow range we see in the fashion industry. That’s when she decided to promote the use of models that reflects diversity in society, in terms of race, shape, age and ability. Angel campaigns for equality on the catwalk and her portfolio of models includes people of all races, ages, shapes, sizes and abilities - and that includes those with disabilities such as cerebral palsy. At a recent fund-raising fashion show for another charity, one of the models on the catwalk was Doran Scotson himself!

As Vice President, Angel's responsibilities will include both raising funds and raising Advance's profile. Advance will now be mentioned in Angel's e-mail signature as Model of Diversity's only chosen charity, and a link to Advance's website will be included on the Model of Diversity's website.

"I feel honoured to take on this role which I will do to the best of my ability and will raise much needed funds for this wonderful charity," says Angel on her appointment as Advance's Vice President.

"We are so lucky to be supported by Angel - a vibrant woman who has the warmth and compassion to want to help us, and the drive and energy to make things happen," says Linda Scotson, Advance's founder.

About Models of Diversity
Models of Diversity advocates for more diversity in models, and demands that the fashion and marketing industries recognise the beauty in women of all races, ages, shapes, sizes and abilities. Their mission is to change the face of fashion and modelling. They sponsor modelling workshops for people with disabilities, campaign against the tragic effects of the size zero culture, and fight inequality in the representation of real men and women. They look at catwalk shows, advertising and the glossies and rarely see a true representation of real people. http://www.modelsofdiversity.org/


About Advance Centre for the Scotson Technique Charity

Advance Centre teaches the parents of brain-injured children how to deliver The Scotson Technique (TST), a drug-free respiratory-based exercise to help nourish the brain with extra oxygen that it needs for more normal development. The technique, developed by Linda Scotson after 15 years of research into breathing and recovery of function after brain injury at University College London, Psychology Department, has been extremely successful in helping brain-injured children overcome movement, learning and behavioural difficulties. The Advance Centre teaching institute is based in West Sussex in the UK with centres in Slovakia, South Africa, Namibia and the Philippines. http://www.advancecentres.com

For more information, please contact:

Advance Centre
..for The Scotson Technique
The Bradbury House
6 Station Road
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 1DJ
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0)1342 311137
Fax: +44 (0)1342 305159
info@advancecentres.com
http://www.advancecentres.com

Survey Reveals How the Stressful Work Environment of IT Managers Can Be Improved

Help desk calls, hangs, freezes and crashes cut by up to 25 percent with new performance software

London — a survey receiving almost 400 respondents carried out on IT and business staff revealed healthy percentage reductions of computer freezes, hangs and crashes, as well as reduced help desk calls when they installed Diskeeper® data performance software on their IT systems. The survey also revealed that the automated defragmentation and disk management tools Diskeeper brings is an essential component of their IT arsenal.

The survey, which was broken down into three categories – system reliability, system performance and business improvements and benefits, was conducted on IT Managers and Business Development Managers. Questions included specific reliability issues such as I/O activity, system crashes, file corruption, data loss, and help desk issues.

Key survey results (400 respondents – IT and Business Managers):

• 18% reduction in the number of helpdesk calls
• 26% reduction in system hangs and/or freezes
• 25% reduction in system crashes
• 21% reduction in program and/or system conflicts and errors
• 25% reduced filed corruption and data loss
• 35% reduction in unnecessary I/O activity
• 26% reduced hard drive failures

This information is also in-line with an earlier survey carried out last year by Vanson Bourne on 100 IT Managers – Slow computers, lost password and system crashes ranked highest respectively for IT complaints.

“These problems hamper IT managers and companies in one form or another on a day-to-day basis. Any solution which can comprehensively address them should be paramount. Just one of these issues could easily justify implementing some kind of third-party solution. The cost for companies is huge, although it just might be a little camouflaged on first inspection.” Thomas Doria, New Business Development Manager at Diskeeper Corporation Europe.

Some of the survey respondents commented on their use of Diskeeper as follows:

“By drastically reducing hard drive failures and I/O times we have been able to keep our servers on the job longer with no performance degradation.”

“Reliability and improved performance are the primary benefits and deciding factors as to why we choose Diskeeper”

“Faster backups; reduced backup times by hours and reduced the amount of time it took to restore a file”

About Diskeeper Corporation - Microsoft Gold Partner
Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies®: CIOs, IT Managers and System Administrators of Global Fortune 1000 and Forbes 500 enterprises rely on Diskeeper® performance software to provide unparalleled performance and reliability to their business laptops, desktops and servers. Diskeeper 2011 includes the breakthrough IntelliWrite® fragmentation prevention technology. V-locity® 2.0 virtual platform disk optimizer for VMware ESX and Hyper-V eliminates the barriers to full virtual efficiency and maximum I/O performance on virtual servers. Diskeeper Corporation further provides real-time data protection and real-time data recovery with Undelete® data recovery software (http://www.undelete.com). InvisiTasking® technology enables any process to run completely invisibly in the background, fully tapping the power of otherwise unused idle resources (http://www.invisitasking.com).

For more information, please contact:

Dorian Culmer
Public Relations Manager - United Kingdom
Diskeeper Corporation Europe
Suite 226, Shaw House
Pegler Way
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 7AF
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1293 763 060
d.culmer@diskeeper.co.uk
http://www.diskeeper.com
http://www.twitter.com/DiskeeperEurope
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diskeeper-UK/153866791341541

Submitted by: WorldWidePR.net

Diskeeper Corporation: Disaster Recovery Drives Virtualization Strategy

But many IT personnel are not aware of the hidden costs

London — A survey conducted last year by Techtarget showed 33% percent planned to use a virtualization strategy to take advantage of the disaster recovery and high availability benefits. 23% also viewed virtualization’s benefits as a backup and data protection solution. A separate survey this year conducted by Coleman Parkes and commissioned by CA Technologies showed downtime costs businesses more than 127 million person-hours per year.

“Ensuring uptime is at the top of every IT administrators list. With virtualization you can automatically move virtual machines from one host to another and even from one data centre to another – so they’ll stay up and running, with little or no downtime, in case of a failure,” says Mandeep Birdi, Senior Presales Consultant at Diskeeper Corporation Europe.

However, more that 30% of both VMware and Microsoft virtualization users identified backing up VM data as a challenge, and also indentified storage management, I/O bottlenecks and server availability monitoring as major virtualization challenges.
Another survey conducted by Diskeeper Corporation Europe of 500 IT personnel showed 80% were aware of the major problems of I/O bottlenecks.

Mandeep Birdi comments, “Effectively shared resources are of critical importance in a virtual environment, but are severely impacted by three key barriers: I/O bandwidth bottlenecks due to accelerated fragmentation on virtual platforms, virtual machines competing for shared I/O resources and not effectively prioritized across the platform and thirdly, virtual disks set to dynamically grow do not resize when data is deleted – an issue known as bloating. Instead free space is simply just wasted. These problems can result in actually costing the company unnecessary spend on additional hardware as well as time in dealing with the issues”.

The survey also highlighted that 25% of respondents are not dealing with the problems of I/O bottlenecks, while 5% said they just purchase more disks/spindles.
Adding to this, Mandeep Birdi also reported that many IT users who are migrating to or have migrated over to a virtual environment, and have typically employed a SAN, are being told they don’t need to defragment the SAN, and that there isn’t an I/O bottleneck issue. He comments “This is false, the I/O bottleneck issue can have a huge effect on performance, and if the customer is not aware that this is what’s occurring in the SAN environment, it can again end up costing the company a lot of money with thinking they have to purchase more hardware, when in fact this might not be the case at all.”

About Diskeeper Corporation - Microsoft Gold Partner
Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies®: CIOs, IT Managers and System Administrators of Global Fortune 1000 and Forbes 500 enterprises rely on Diskeeper® performance software to provide unparalleled performance and reliability to their business laptops, desktops and servers. Diskeeper 2011 includes the breakthrough IntelliWrite® fragmentation prevention technology. V-locity® 2.0 virtual platform disk optimizer for VMware ESX and Hyper-V eliminates the barriers to full virtual efficiency and maximum I/O performance on virtual servers. Diskeeper Corporation further provides real-time data protection and real-time data recovery with Undelete® data recovery software (http://www.undelete.com). InvisiTasking® technology enables any process to run completely invisibly in the background, fully tapping the power of otherwise unused idle resources (http://www.invisitasking.com).

For more information, please contact:

Dorian Culmer
Public Relations Manager - United Kingdom
Diskeeper Corporation Europe
Suite 226, Shaw House
Pegler Way
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 7AF
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1293 763 060
d.culmer@diskeeper.co.uk
http://www.diskeeper.com
http://www.twitter.com/DiskeeperEurope
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diskeeper-UK/153866791341541

Submitted by: WorldWidePR.net

IT Manager and Microsoft Certified Partner Brian Le Flem reveals his personal experience with Diskeeper

Diskeeper improves server performance at the Northern Ireland branch of BITC

London — IT Manager and MCP Brian Le Flem recently gave an account of his personal experiences using Diskeeper® data performance software, and why he took it from a home user application to implementing it in his IT network at BITC. The Northern Ireland based company which helps local businesses act responsibly and make a positive impact on their local communities implemented Diskeeper as a result of Brian’s past experiences of the product.

“My commitment to Diskeeper actually started prior to my becoming an IT Manager. I have been using Diskeeper at home for many years, and my initial reason for using it was that I had noticed my PC getting slower over time. After I installed Diskeeper, I noticed an immediate improvement, and it soon felt like my PC was new again.”

Brian continues: “When I secured my current role as IT Manager, one of the first things I did was to get Diskeeper for our Network, as I knew it would increase performance at work… I stand by my initial perception, as our File Server is still running perfectly, with no lag in access times or Backup Times, so I know Diskeeper is doing the job I purchased it for!”

“We are a medium-sized organization with 3 HP G5/G6 Servers running Windows 2003 & Windows 2008; the roles include our Domain Controller, Exchange 2007, and Citrix. We have approximately 45 workstations connected to the Network… Having Diskeeper on our Servers and PCs keeps them working optimally. Without Diskeeper, our PCs & Servers slow down over time, but I know that having Diskeeper keeps our equipment working like new. Also, having the central console makes deployment and management of Diskeeper easy, and with the new IntelliWrite® and I-FAAST® technologies, there is no work required on my part – An optimized system with no extra work for the IT Staff? A no-brainer for any company.” Brian Le Flem, IT Manager and MCP, BITC.

A whitepaper entitled “The Impact of Disk Fragmentation on Servers” backs up this endorsement with proven tests and makes the following statement:
“The single, consistent result that appears in all of our tests is that defragmented server drives using Diskeeper deliver better performance. Every application that touches the hard drive will benefit from a good tool that defragments and manages the files on your servers.” To download the whitepaper click here: http://downloads.diskeeper.com/pdf/The-Impact-Of-Disk-Fragmentation-On-Servers.pdf?APID=pps0006991

About Diskeeper Corporation - Microsoft Gold Partner
Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies®: CIOs, IT Managers and System Administrators of Global Fortune 1000 and Forbes 500 enterprises rely on Diskeeper® performance software to provide unparalleled performance and reliability to their business laptops, desktops and servers. Diskeeper 2011 includes the breakthrough IntelliWrite® fragmentation prevention technology. V-locity® 2.0 virtual platform disk optimizer for VMware ESX and Hyper-V eliminates the barriers to full virtual efficiency and maximum I/O performance on virtual servers. Diskeeper Corporation further provides real-time data protection and real-time data recovery with Undelete® data recovery software (http://www.undelete.com). InvisiTasking® technology enables any process to run completely invisibly in the background, fully tapping the power of otherwise unused idle resources (http://www.invisitasking.com).

For more information, please contact:

Dorian Culmer
Public Relations Manager - United Kingdom
Diskeeper Corporation Europe
Suite 226, Shaw House
Pegler Way
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 7AF
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1293 763 060
d.culmer@diskeeper.co.uk
http://www.diskeeper.com
http://www.twitter.com/DiskeeperEurope
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diskeeper-UK/153866791341541

Beanprint.com Hits 1 Million Business Card Sales

The millionth card rolls off the printing press

Business Cards, Leaflets, Greeting Cards, Calendars, Model Cards and Post Cards printing company’s growth is ahead of expectations

Redditch, Worcestershire – Beanprint.com has hit the major milestone of a million business cards sales ahead of the company's expectations. After just two months of the launch of their new online business card editor, the millionth card came off the press and struck the magic milestone.

The former CTO and co-founder of the business directory Scoot.com, Chris Chedgzoy, owner and founder of Beanprint.com, has done it again!

“Sales growth has been phenomenal,” said Chris. “We hoped our new editor would go down well with our customers but we’ve been taken aback by how quickly it has grown, and it looks like continuing simply by recommendations alone.”

Beanprint.com has become well known for producing one-off calendars and for offering fulfillment services for artists, photographers and glamour models. But this is quite seasonal work so the transition to printing business cards for the rest of the year and utilizing their high quality printing equipment was a clever move.

“Fast delivery and customer service is critical,” Chris said. “We treated our new business card service the same as we do our calendars, producing and dispatching the orders the same day we receive them. This. I believe, is what has made our business grow at the speed it has.”
During March, Beanprint.com appointed APC-Overnight to handle the delivery to their fast growing customer base. “Next-day delivery is a key element to our business model,” Chris continued. “Internet customers expect to receive their goods the very next day. The days of having to wait 5 working days is history.”

About Beanprint.com:
Beanprint.com specialises in short-run high quality colour printing services offering Business Cards, Leaflets, Greeting Cards, Calendars, Model Cards and Post Cards. From a one-off to a full production run, they utilise the very best of the latest digital printing press technology to enable them to offer the high quality products only traditionally found in large production. They take the guesswork out of charity calendars by offering fulfillment of production and produce calendars as the orders come in, including handling the shipping. There are no minimum order requirements, so customers are not left with calendars they can’t sell after the promotional period.

For more information, please contact:

Chris Chedgzoy
Beanprint.com
Millsborough House
Ipsley Street
Redditch
Worcestershire
B98 7AL

Tel: +44 (0)1527 69789
chris@beanprint.com
http://www.beanprint.com

Submitted by: WorldWidePR.net

Diskeeper’s Data Performance Software Cuts Four-Day Backup Time in Half

In addition to increased backup data transfer speeds, since installing Diskeeper, drive failures have decreased, fewer drives have been replaced on the SAN, and Diskeeper has also improved access times

London — David Anderson, Network Manager for Cramlington Learning Village School, gave his feedback on how Diskeeper® dramatically cut their server backup times in half. The school, which has been graded 'outstanding' in the last three OFSTED inspections, had the problem of backup times taking four days to complete.

“Symantec BackupExec V12.5, our primary backup application, was taking considerable amount of time to backup due to file fragmentation. Microsoft 2003 Windows and other free defrag tools were not providing an adequate level of defragmentation when working with our large terabyte drives,” comments David Anderson.

He further states: “We tried and tested numerous products and found Diskeeper had the best results... Diskeeper was not only easy to deploy but also proved to decrease the time our backups now take, by an average of 50%... Our backup software showed improved data transfer speed going from 500m/bits per minute to now 1Gb per minute. We have Diskeeper installed onto ten MS Windows 2003 servers which have numerous SAN drives attached to each one. We use an EMC CX3-10 SAN.”

It was also noted by Mr Anderson that the Support Contract Company had said there shouldn’t be a problem with fragmentation related issues. “Our Support Contract Company said there shouldn’t be an issue with fragmentation. However, since installing Diskeeper, drive failures have decreased, and we also don’t have to replace as many drives on the SAN as often as before. Diskeeper also helps with improved access times.”

A recent survey carried out with the existing customers of Diskeeper Corporation Europe, showed over 75% have implemented or are planning to implement a SAN solution. The same survey also revealed that 80% were aware of the detrimental effect of fragmentation on I/O performance.

Mandeep Birdi, Technical Presales Consultant of Diskeeper Corporation Europe comments: “I think Diskeeper is vital for file servers and backup servers, and now that we are preventing over 85% of fragmentation from happening, this means preventing latency of backup times. Our intelliwrite® fragmentation technology also reduces the I/O bottleneck which has a huge effect on performance. So we are, in effect, not only reducing backup times but also improving disk I/O performance as well within the SAN environment.”

About Diskeeper Corporation – Microsoft Gold Certified Partner
Innovators in Performance and Reliability Technologies®: CIOs, IT Managers and System Administrators of Global Fortune 1000 and Forbes 500 enterprises rely on Diskeeper® performance software to provide unparalleled performance and reliability to their business laptops, desktops and servers. Diskeeper 2011 includes the breakthrough IntelliWrite® fragmentation prevention technology. http://www.diskeeper.com

Diskeeper® - Innovators in Performance and Reliability technologies®

For further information, please contact:

Dorian Culmer
Public Relations Manager - United Kingdom
Diskeeper Corporation Europe
Suite 226, Shaw House
Pegler Way
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 7AF
United Kingdom
+44 (0) 1293 763 060
d.culmer@diskeeper.co.uk
http://www.diskeeper.com
http://www.twitter.com/DiskeeperEurope
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Diskeeper-UK/153866791341541

Internationally Acclaimed Wildlife Photographer Heather Angel Demonstrates How to Photograph Endangered Animals and Plants

The Heather Angel Wildlife and Natural History Workshop, now in its 15th year, will be held at Saint Hill Manor, Sussex, on Saturday 23rd July, 2011. The Manor is one of the finest historic sandstone buildings in England, set in fifty-nine acres of landscaped gardens and a wooded lake, and provides the perfect location for this workshop.

London – Professor Heather Angel, the author of over sixty books and the recipient of numerous awards, will be holding an exclusive wildlife and natural history workshop in coordination with Nikon UK and Think Tank camera bags at Saint Hill Manor on Saturday 23rd July, 2011. The event is sponsored by the revered Nikon dealer Grays of Westminster, currently celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary year. Grays of Westminster specialises exclusively in Nikon, offering what is probably the widest range of new and second-hand Nikon in the world.

The workshop will be of benefit to the newcomer and the experienced photographer alike, appealing to all photographers interested in capturing the infinite variety of nature, both rare and commonplace. The schedule for the day includes comprehensive lectures, demonstrations and the opportunity to handle and use a large range of new Nikon camera equipment and Think Tank camera bags. Heather Angel’s previous workshops at Saint Hill Manor have attracted participants from all over the world, including the USA and Japan.

Heather Angel frequently visits dangerous and inhospitable places in her quest to provide organisations such as the WWF, Kew Gardens and the British Council with images of endangered animals and rare plants. Heather will reveal how she prepares for trips, what equipment she takes and how she works to meet her targets. She will show how digital cameras have enabled her to capture some special macro shots with innovative lighting and focus stacking. One of Heather Angel's images of a red panda is featured in the set of Royal Mail stamps to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the WWF, launched in March 2011, and the attendees will gain an insight into how memorable photographs can help to raise awareness of threatened wildlife.

A recent first class British postage stamp used this photograph of a Red Panda by Heather Angel

Highlights of the day include:

• Nikon Total Imaging System – a talk by John Clements
• Practical Macro session with Heather Angel inside and in the garden
• Outside Practical session with John Clements
• Photoshop Techniques with Giles Angel
• Outside Practical session with the birds of prey and flying falcons
• Dinner on the Manor terrace (weather permitting)

Booking details:

The ticket price includes refreshments, lunch and the evening meal, and costs £245.00 (£185.00 for Nikon Owner subscribers) per person for the day. The workshop starts at 9.15 a.m. and runs until 5.00 p.m., followed by dinner. Bookings can be made online here:

https://www.graysofwestminster.co.uk/secure/angel-workshop.php

About Grays of Westminster

The legendary award-winning Grays of Westminster is a charming period shop, specialising exclusively in Nikon. It offers what is probably the widest range of new and second-hand Nikon in the world. It is situated in a quiet location in central London and offers a fast and reliable mail-order service on any Nikon item - available to all world-wide destinations. Tax free shopping to non-European Community residents is also available.

For more information about the workshop or Grays of Westminster please contact:

Gray Levett
Grays of Westminster Exclusively…Nikon
40 Churton Street
London
SW1V 2LP

+44 (0)20 7828 4925
info@graysofwestminster.co.uk
http://www.graysofwestminster.co.uk


Submitted by: http://www.worldwidepr.net

Institute of Directors Expands its IoD Office Solutions at 116 Pall Mall

The fully managed office solutions service at the most prestigious business address in London has proved so popular that it is now undergoing an expansion programme due to increased demand

London - The Institute of Directors’ fully managed office solutions service -- IoD Office Solutions -- has been so successful since its launch in April last year, that it is expanding its services throughout 2011. By the end of the year, many more companies will be able to avail themselves of Address and Mail Forwarding, Virtual Office, Hot Desk Office or Platinum Office from the IoD’s prestigious Pall Mall SW1 address, all at highly competitive rates and with no set up costs or long term commitments.

All the new offices will be fully equipped with award-winning, ergonomically designed furniture including the Resolve Canopy which helps define space, modulate privacy and provide acoustic benefits by reducing noise distractions, and Aeron chairs with their innovative posture-fit design. The telephone switchboard has also just been updated to the most advanced system available.

“In today’s tough economic climate, managed offices are an attractive solution to businesses in that they provide flexible working and are a great way to reduce costs and avoid long term financial commitments,” says Andrew Main Wilson, IoD Chief Operating Officer. “I think the success of IoD Office Solutions which has prompted the current expansion is not only down to the office’s first class facilities but also because we treat all clients like VIPs and ensure they are provided with absolutely everything they need.”

IoD Office Services is an ideal solution for those who often travel and so have no need for conventional office space; for those who are looking to test the market before committing to permanent office premises; or those who wish to expand from a professional city centre location.

About IoD Office Solutions
IoD Office Solutions provides address mail forwarding, virtual office and hot desk managed office services at the Institute of Directors’ prestigious SW1 address. The service is available in a range of packages and comes complete with numerous office support facilities including a receptionist and telephone switchboard, broadband internet, fax-copier-printer, advanced phone features, conference calling, IT assistance and catering services. Other benefits include waived IoD membership (with IoD Platinum Office for term of contract), and attractive discounts on other IoD services and on food and drink. For further details, visit: http://www.iod.com/officesolutions



For further information, please contact:

Clare Jones
Senior Marketing Executive
IoD Office Solutions
116 Pall Mall
London
SW1Y 5ED

020 7451 3300
officesolutions@iod.com
http://www.iod.com/officesolutions

Submitted by: WorldWidePR.net