Free Download Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami - After Dark

The novel is built on the notion that very late at night, after the lamps of logic have been snuffed and rationality has shut its eyes, life on earth becomes boundariless and blurred. Individuals who were separate during the day begin to lose uniqueness, to leak distinctiveness, melting into a soft psychic collective. As the hands of the clock slice deeper into the shadows, physics weakens, yielding to metaphysics, and the rigid you and I of things breaks down. During the wee hours, we’re all in this together, our spirits spooned like lovers’ bodies. Alienation, a recurring motif in the works of Murakami, is the central theme in this novel set in metropolitan Tokyo (though this is not explicitly stated) over the course of one night. Main characters include Mari, a 19-year-old student, who is spending the night reading in a Denny's. There she meets Takahashi, a trombone-playing student who loves Curtis Fuller's "Five Spot After Dark" song on Blues-ette; Takahashi knows Mari's sister Eri and insists that the group of them have hung out before. Meanwhile, Eri is being watched in her sleep by someone sinister. Eri also suffers from social withdrawal, a condition often referred to as hikikomori. Mari crosses ways with a retired female wrestler, now working as a manager in a love hotel (whom Takahashi knows and referred to Mari), a Chinese prostitute who has been beaten and stripped of everything in this same love hotel, and a sadistic computer expert. The story takes place in a world between reality and dream. Haruki_Murakami_-_After_Dark.pdf Haruki Murakami - Kafka on the Shore.pdf Haruki Murakami - Dance Dance Dance.pdf

DSS (Decision Support Systems)

Gaining Competitive Advantage with Computerized Decision Support

(To subscribe to receive audio articles, click here for the audio article feed.)

2007
by Dan Power

http://www.b-eye-network.com/view/6501

The implementation of a decision support system does not necessarily yield competitive advantage. This article covers the three criteria that must be met in order to use your DSS to such an advantage.

Many companies have isolated decision support capabilities that are hard to use or hard to access. For example, a data mart may have been built for accessing customer data, a project management system may exist for tracking large-scale projects, or Excel analyses may be routinely used in a specific business decision process. In general, managers are experiencing information overload and are having difficulty finding the right information when it is needed. Potentially, innovative decision support systems (DSSs) can yield competitive advantage for an organization or at least maintain an organization’s competitive position.

Evidence indicates managers can now use sophisticated data-driven and document-driven DSSs to obtain information that was buried for many years in filing cabinets or archived on computer storage systems. Model-driven DSSs can reduce waste in production operations and improve inventory management. Knowledge-driven DSSs can help managers evaluate employees or help technical staff diagnose problems. Communications-driven DSSs can support teams working all over the world. Inter-organizational DSSs can support a company’s suppliers and customers. Real-time decision support systems are now possible for tactical decision support.

A decision support system creates a competitive advantage if three criteria are met. First, once the DSS is implemented, it must be used and it must become a major or significant strength or capability of the organization. Second, the DSS must be unique and proprietary to the organization. Third, the advantage provided by the DSS must be sustainable until an adequate payback is received, usually at least three years. Managers who are searching for strategic investments in information technology need to keep these three criteria in mind. Just because a vendor says a product will create a competitive advantage doesn’t make the claim true. A competitive advantage means an organization does something important much better than its competitors.

The widespread use of computer technology has changed the way companies do business. Information technology has altered relationships between companies and their suppliers, customers and rivals. Porter and Millar (1985) discuss two specific ways that information technology can affect competition: by altering industry structures and by supporting cost and/or differentiation strategies. A common approach used to identify opportunities to change the structure and profitability of an industry is to examine five competitive forces. Michael Porter (1979) argued that the power of buyers, the power of suppliers, the threat of new entrants, the threat of substitute products and the rivalry among existing competitors determines the profitability of an industry. How a company uses information technology can affect each of the five competitive forces and can create the need and opportunity for change. For example, information technology has altered the bargaining relationships between companies and their suppliers, channels and buyers. Today it is easy for information systems to cross company boundaries. These inter-organizational systems have become common and, in some instances, they have changed the boundaries of the participating industries. Decision support systems can reduce the power of buyers and suppliers. Decision support systems can erect new barriers that reduce the threat of entrants. Decision support systems can help differentiate products and services and reduce the threat from substitutes. Also, decision support systems can help managers reduce the cost of rivalry actions and, in some cases, reduce the need for competitive actions and reactions.

Decision support systems can potentially help a firm create a cost advantage. Decision support systems can provide many benefits including improving personal efficiency and reducing staff needs, expediting problem solving and increasing organizational control. Managers who want to create a cost advantage should search for situations where decision processes seem slow or tedious and where problems reoccur or solutions are delayed or unsatisfactory. In some cases, DSSs can reduce costs where decision makers have high turnover and training is slow and cumbersome, and in situations where activities, departments and projects are poorly controlled.

Also, DSSs can create a major cost advantage by increasing efficiency or eliminating value chain activities. For example, a bank or mortgage loan firm may reduce costs by using a new DSS to consolidate the number of steps and minimize the number of staff hours needed to approve loans. Technology breakthroughs can sometimes continue to lower process costs, and rivals who imitate an innovative DSS may nullify or remove any advantage.

Decision support systems can potentially create a differentiation advantage. Providing a DSS to customers can differentiate a product and possibly provide a new service. Differentiation increases profitability when the price premium charged is greater than any added costs associated with achieving the differentiation. Successful differentiation means a firm can charge a premium price, and/or sell more units, and/or increase buyer loyalty for service or repeat purchases. In some situations, competitors can rapidly imitate the differentiation, and then all competitors incur increased costs for implementing the DSS.

Finally, decision support systems can be used to help a company better focus on a specific customer segment and hence gain an advantage in meeting that segment’s needs. Management information systems and decision support systems can help track customers, and DSSs can make it easier to serve a specialized customer group with special services. Some customers won’t pay a premium for targeted service, and larger competitors also target specialized niches using their own DSSs.

It is important to recognize that some firms have no competitive advantage. Firms can achieve a competitive advantage by making strategic changes, and firms can lose a competitive advantage when competitors make strategic changes. Implementing computerized decision support does not necessarily create a competitive advantage. In fact, most decision support does not have such a broad enterprise-wide impact.

Decision support systems can be important and useful and very necessary, and yet not provide a competitive advantage. Many consulting firms and vendors focus on gaining competitive advantage from a data warehouse or a business intelligence system, and that can happen. Many DSS projects do not, however, deliver such results and the projects probably were not intended to create competitive advantage.

A now classic study (Kettinger et al –1994) identified a number of companies that had gained an advantage from information systems. Some of those systems were decision support systems, but most were transaction processing systems. The following DSS examples are from their paper: Air Products, a vehicle scheduling system; Cigna, a risk assessment system; IBM, a marketing management system; Owens-Corning, a materials selection system; and Procter & Gamble, a customer response system. Most companies wisely do not provide many details on their success with computerized decision support. Competitive responses and technology have had a negative impact on how some of the aforementioned systems are perceived today.

If a company is trying to develop a decision support system that provides a competitive advantage, managers and analysts should ask how the proposed DSS affects company costs, customer and supplier relations, and managerial effectiveness. Managers should also attempt to assess how the proposed strategic system will impact the structure of the industry and the behavior of competitors. Finally, companies must continuously improve their information and decision support technology to gain and maintain any competitive advantage.

Decision Support Systems and Intelligent Systems, 7e. by Turban and Aaronson. Power Point Presentation on each chapter.

This book Software Rules: How the Next Generation of Enterprise Applications Will Increase Strategic Effectiveness for reading ufff.

In Software Rules, Oracle senior executive Mark Barrenechea describes for business readers how, over the next few years, the total integration of software functions into \"E-business suites,\" will radically transform the business landscape. Download the book:
http://rapidshare.com/files/688024/0071385169.rar or
http://mihd.net/ge2c0u

ClickBook - print your booklets and forms for Free!

I've come across a usfull programm which helps to print different texts in a form of booklets, posters, banners, business cards and etc.
Very helpful for teachers!!!
It has about 170 ready-made templates. You can create your own ones.
It can safe up to 75% of paper!!!
It works with hundrerds of applications.
You may create PDF files!!! More on www.clickbook.com You can download it there or Get the program from: http://rapidshare.com/files/69326269/ClickBook-10.0.2.3.rar

choose there the button FREE download!Let's hope the latter is not a free trial:) = my hint: Do not forget to read the instructions included within the rar file :-)


Password to all archives here: englishtips.org where you can find lots of free English books.

Download Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL

Looking for "Cambridge Preparation for the TOEFL"? I found this
PDF/mds CD | 350 MB in 19 part.rar files | Rapideshare
Cambridge Preparation for TOEFL Exams (Book and CD)

There are two ways of gettin it.
--------------------------------------------
In full size book (199 Mb): it seems without CD. Copy the link into a web address and chose there the button FREE.

part1
part2
part3

Another source is below:

Cambridge Preparation for TOEFL Exams eBook links

http://rapidshare.com/files/52815949/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52815950/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52815951/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52815953/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52815954/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52819416/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52819417/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52819420/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52819422/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52819424/Cambridge_TOEFL_preparation.part10.rar


TOEFL CAMBRIDGE PRACTICE CD Links

http://rapidshare.com/files/52824870/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52824871/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52824872/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52824873/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52824874/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52828001/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52828002/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52828003/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/52828005/TOEFL_CAMBRIDGE_PRACTICE_CD.part09.rar

My hot blogs for interesting reading

Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.
Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don't need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald's, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don't really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner's 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there's a good economic reason for that too, and we're just not getting it yet. Read Freakonomics For Free

Freakonomics blog on NYT
Why Are Women So Unhappy?
In addition, Stevenson and Wolfers released a new study, “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” that is bound to generate a great deal of controversy. By almost any economic or social indicator, the last 35 years have been great for women.Hmm controversy issue.
One more interesting view on Gender and Authority - Opinion on NYT
Contrary to popular wisdom, China's rapid growth is not hugely dependent on exports

Presentations in ppt on E-commerce and ERP

I found very nice presentations of University level on Electronic Commerce and Enterprise Resource Planning. Definitely recommended. GET THEM from pdfarticles.blogspot.com

Communicating with more confidence easy guide

Wanna see or download the book GET IT
Content:
1 What is communication? What makes a confident communicator? The benefits of confident communication; When confident communication can help; How can you improve communication skills?
2 Good communication starts within us: What influences us? What about the internal factors? Attitudes and perceptions, Values, Prejudices, Preconceived ideas, Handling criticism, Giving constructive criticism, Handling criticism in a personal relationship.
3 Building confidence: What is self-esteem? How can we improve our self-esteem? Your inner voice.
4 Your appearance – clothes and grooming: Clothes; Colour; Attending an interview,
Giving a presentation; Good grooming is essential; Make up
5 Body language – greetings and introductions: Get the right inner voice; Greetings and introductions.
Eye contact, The smile, The handshake; The friendly handshake, Building rapport through the handshake.
6 Body language in different situations: Entering a crowded room; Look for the lone person; Join a queue; What if you get stuck with the bore? Personal space; interviews; Giving presentations; Overcoming nervousness; Meetings: First, where to sit; Other ways to enhance your power; Eye contact
7 Body language – postures, gestures and stance: Beware mannerisms; Nervous body language, Assertive body language.
8 Opening and structuring conversations: Open questions; Closed questions, Gender differences; How men break the ice; How women start conversations; Building conversations.
9 How we speak: The structure of speech; The four-part statement;
10 Watch your language: Don’t be too apologetic; Tone, pitch and pace.
11 Listening skills: Casual listening; Critical listening; What stops us listening? So how can we improve our listening skills?
12 Getting on someone’s wavelength: Personality traits.
13 Communicating with angry people: Get the right body language and inner voice; What to do next; The 7 Step approach; What if you’re right and they’re wrong? How men communicate problems; How women communicate problems.
And just for relax you can check out e-book How to Make Women Laugh READ OR DOWNLOAD

Learn English! Here you can download the best English language study books!

Free e-books, tutorials, tools, podcast, mp3 etc for learning English.

The textbooks with direct download check this
free course books, multimedia and so on for learning English Use SEARCH BOX:)

The best study books for advanced learners you can download HERE
Download free books on TOEFL from HERE
http://www.ebookee.com/culture-language.html
Do not forget that all those books can be English self-study books as they contain recommendations and answers keys.
MY FAVORITE podcasts:
English as a Second Language podcast with lots of mp3 HERE and one more HERE
The texts with mp3 on englishconversations.org
The best English writing tips from the Purdue University HERE
Tags for English learning here on del.icio.us
Blog with free e-books
Blogs on learning English
Nice blog on English learning
http://top2learn.blogspot.com/