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Qantas’ decision to split its international and domestic operations sent shockwaves around the airline in July, but one team was already preparing for the job of splitting IT systems.

The restructure complicated an already nuanced technology operation whose tentacles touch every part of the airline – from freight to frequent flyers. It was also a catalyst for improvement as it exposed weaknesses in outsourcing, enabled the relocation of IT people to where they were needed most and, ultimately, saved $30 million.

It all began when the airline looked to outsource parts of the project, exposing gaps and weaknesses in the technology operations.

”We had many sources of truth and this old state created complexities,” said Qantas IT financial controller Larry Morrissey.

”We had multiple sources of data, which led to lots of reconciliation, and also lack of consistency in what we were reporting to the business.”

So the airline made an early decision to install a project management application in October 2011 that would provide visibility of all legacy systems as well as help with the difficult task of prioritising projects along domestic and international lines, explained Qantas chief information officer Paul Jones.

The CA Clarity PPM system would also ”liberate” the knowledge locked away in spreadsheets and silos.

”By having this single source of truth it allowed us to have a look at the entire portfolio and relating that to which projects make sense in an international and domestic sense,” Jones said.

Qantas now more accurately aligns IT spending with commercial goals, according to Jones, because the project management application centrally stores technology project information such as where it is installed, phases of implementation, and upcoming projects.

”That means it’s easier to take a portfolio view across the entire airline rather than everyone having their own pots of technology,” he said.

The new system also gives visibility to the distributed technology operations where seven outsourcers – IBM, Fujitsu, Telstra, Optus, TCS, Satyam and Amadeus – manage 80 per cent of the carrier’s technology systems and support.

The remaining 20 per cent is provided in-house where, from August 1, IT staff were relocated inside the various divisions – from catering, freight, engineering, international, domestic and loyalty – assembled into mini businesses, each with its own chief executive.

”The airline is very complicated so you need IT people with the customers,” Jones said. ”Every sub-part of the airline [needs] tech people working day-by-day.”

He said five technology strategies added value to the airline: IT staff located within divisions, technology modernisation programs, single project view, employee engagement and IT cost reduction.

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Behind this pile of predictions is a paperless office.NBN Co predicts the country’s new high-speed broadband network will transform the economy by sprouting paperless offices across the country. But, for the immediate future at least, paper is here to stay.

Real estate agency Dougmal Harcourts, on the New South Wales south coast, is counting on becoming a paperless office on the back of its early national broadband network (NBN) adoption. It recently invested in iPads and remotely hosted storage applications, and shifted its offices out of the Kiama CBD – so staff can work from anywhere.

It had previously accumulated 20 filing cabinets of documents to satisfy its licence obligations as it needs to keep records of every transaction for five years.

”The possibility of being able to hold all that data in a safe and secure place with cloud backup is one of the things the NBN enhances,” said Sue Spence, the realtor’s managing director. ”It’s not our main consideration but it’s certainly one of several that led us down this path.”

NBN Co says its high-speed broadband fibre can now support multiple telephone lines, which will allow small businesses to provide more reliable services.

”Ours is still definitely a face-to-face industry but more and more we can run services online that traditionally a real estate agent is doing face-to-face,” Spence said.

But it is the iPad, not the NBN, that is hastening print’s decline, according to Kyocera managing director David Finn.

”Before the iPad erupted onto the scene, the industry pundits were saying the paperless office or reduction will occur in 20 years’ time,” said Finn, whose company continues to sell printing machines. ”Who knows how much that is going to accelerate?”

Increased viewing quality on the iPad and other mobile devices meant people were definitely printing less, he said, but businesses would use paper for at least the next 15 years.

”[NBN Co] has this vision that everyone will be connected, but there will still be people with more devices at home just to receive information and print documents.”

The paperless toilet will arrive before the fully digital office, he predicted. ”The paperless office is a myth.”

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This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

KATIE Falkiner, a North Melbourne resident and lover of good food, is dreaming up her perfect neighbourhood grocery shop. The City Grocer, when and if it is realised, will be stocked full of quality, local produce. Fruit and vegetables will be seasonal – not necessarily organic but as fresh and local as possible. Customers will know where it’s been grown.

There will be artisan dairy and bread offerings, and meat from specialist producers such as Warialda beef. The staff will be attentive and knowledgable. The aisles will be generously proportioned and tactics to entice impulse buying will be kept to a minimum. There will be a noticeboard for feedback and the shop will open late into the night.

Falkiner and her business partners, three long-time friends, are so confident the City Grocer is everything North Melbourne has been missing, they’re planning to ditch their careers to turn it into a reality. All they need is the right retail space. They had better find one quick.

Across Melbourne and in Victoria’s regional centres, successful grocery shops of the type Falkiner and pals envisage are popping up. As a sector of the community becomes increasingly interested in the path their food travels to the table, and as the consequences of Australia’s supermarket duopoly come under the spotlight, a new band of small-scale grocers and producers are combining forces.

In Elwood’s bustling Ormond Road shopping strip, Leon Mugavin is renovating. His five-year-old business, the Leaf Store, is thriving. His customer base and sales are up 15 per cent over the past year. Coles and Woolworths might want to take a leaf out of Mugavin’s book. Bursting at the seams, he is knocking out a wall, maximising his retail space for a bigger range of produce and pantry lines. A stunning floral counter is being booted to new premises up the road; the area formerly occupied by blossoms will accommodate fourth and fifth registers.

Many of the Leaf Store’s lines are also sold at monthly farmers’ markets. There are green apples from Wandin and organic red Otway potatoes from Warrnambool. Customers also have access to quality produce from boutique Victorian wholesalers, such as olive oil from Chapman Hill, olives and pulses from Mount Zero in the Western District, and dairy products from Schulz Organic Farms, The Butter Factory in Myrtleford and 180 Acres – to name just a few. In the bread section there is an abundance of loaves from Dench and Irrewarra Sourdough, and several gluten-free lines. ”We don’t call [the Leaf Store] a farmers’ market,” Mugavin says. ”But we are a bit like a seven-day-a-week farmers’ market.”

Mugavin had 15 years’ experience wholesaling fruit and vegetables before he opened Leaf in 2007. ”It was way back in 1997 that I read an article in a newspaper about the future of food retailing and it talked about stores like this, and that planted the seed,” he says.

At Mount Evelyn in the Yarra Valley, Angela Gioffre has opened one of Victoria’s newest independent grocers, spurred by the success of her fruit and vegetable delivery service, Organic Empire. She didn’t just buy the shop building; she bought the farm – 2½ acres of land out the back has been certified organic and soon Gioffre will begin growing vegetables such as Tuscan cabbage and white eggplants.

The Organic Empire Food Store opened in mid-August. The closest supermarket is a small IGA a five-minute drive up the road. Gioffre opens the store only three days a week but business has been booming. ”I can’t believe it,” she says. ”We’ve had people come from all over Melbourne. We don’t advertise, but we have a big email list and I presume it’s through that.”

But some others entering this niche retail space have little or no experience in groceries. In Ascot Vale, Paul Hateley and Hamish Gadsby have developed their business, the Happy Apple, over five years. Hateley says the long-time friends decided to open an ”old-style, village grocer” after returning to Australia from Britain. He worked in senior roles for multinationals Danone and Coca-Cola, and Gadsby had been working for adidas. While living in Clapham in London, Hateley developed a love for the small, independent grocers that specialised in gourmet products. Like the Leaf Store, the Happy Apple started as a typical greengrocer but has since expanded its offering.

Perusing the shelves and refrigerators at the Union Road store is a joy. In the freezer are pies, made from the Happy Apple’s fruit at the cooking school up the road. Boutique Victorian brands compete for shelf space, ensuring customers stumble, with regularity, upon new producers. Doodles Creek mayonnaise? Bullfrog Gully eggs? In the cheese cabinet, next to offerings from growing brands Meredith Dairy and Yarra Valley Dairy, is Locheilan farmhouse cheese, which hails from Wunghnu, a dot on the map near Shepparton.

Agrifood consultant David McKinna says the boutique producers are defying the gloom that shrouds much of the local food-processing sector. He defines ”boutique” as companies with an annual turnover of less than $20 million. ”You also define them by the specialness or niche nature of their product,” McKinna says. ”Invariably, they start out as passionate foodies producing products at home and then grow into successful businesses.” He points to Locheilan cheese as an example. ”They were a small dairy farm that were too small to make money, so they started making cheese and selling it through farmers’ markets; now they’re moving into providores and independent supermarkets.”

But McKinna says retailers who are making money from boutique products are unlikely to ever worry ”the big boys” because higher prices cut out a swath of Australian shoppers, with 80 cents in every grocery dollar currently spent at Coles and Woolworths.

Bronwynne Calvert, who owns Irrewarra Sourdough with her husband John, isn’t waiting for the big supermarket chains to knock on her door. Irrewarra hand-shapes 17,000 sourdough loaves each week, up from about 5000 loaves in 2005. Demand already outstrips supply and the family had to open a second factory late last year. Bronwynne says quality would suffer if the company tried to expand much more: ”We would probably have to mechanise.” She is also reluctant to relinquish control of distribution and pricing.

Irrewarra Sourdough is stocked in small grocery stores, providores and markets and, increasingly, in independent supermarkets in better-off areas where, Calvert says, people ”can afford to care about the quality of ingredients in their food”.

Supermarkets such as McCoppins in Clifton Hill and the Renaissance IGAs in Hawthorn are some of Irrewarra’s bigger retailers. Irrewarra has recently begun supplying the Yarraville FoodWorks on Anderson Street. Owner Marc Heine is rebranding the supermarket the Village Store. He is typical of a growing number of independent supermarket proprietors trying to differentiate themselves from the big two by offering in-demand boutique products while trying to remain price competitive on everyday items.

Demand is so strong for some boutique products that producers exercise near-complete control over distribution. Soon after Mugavin set up the Leaf Store, he had to beg the Calverts to supply him with their sourdough. Bronwynne says there are risks in supplying a new retailer. ”We look at the range of products they are selling. We look at things like whether they have enough car parking space.” Most importantly, they make sure they share common values with the proprietor. ”We decided to supply Leon because he was so passionate and knowledgable about food. And he harassed us.”

Mugavin points to another example of the strength of the artisan food market. ”During the $1 milk wars between Coles and Woolies, our sales of organic milk went up.”

The Leaf Store stocks unhomogenised milk from Schulz Organic Farms in Timboon, among others. It retails for about $3 a litre. Owner Simon Schulz says his business grew 120 per cent between 2010-11 and 2011-12. ”The recent issue about permeate has added another string to our bow.” He does not feel he’s competing with the $1-a-litre milk suppliers, or for those who buy it. ”It’s an entirely different product.”

There are signs that Coles and Woolworths are taking note of the strength of the boutique market. McKinna says the Thomas Dux stores are Woolworths’ testing ground for gourmet products. In June, Coles announced plans to sell more ”hidden local gems” in some of its stores. But whether these are genuine attempts to expand product range and support local producers is a moot point to small grocers doing well. And they’re not averse to stealing some ideas themselves. The Happy Apple has recently introduced a loyalty-card program and an online shopping option for customers.

In Castlemaine in central Victoria, married couple Eva Bodno and Matt Williams are unconcerned about rumours (hearsay, according to one local councillor) that Coles and Woolworths have both bought land on the outskirts of the growing town.

Until now, their four-year-old business Green Goes the Grocer has faced supermarket competition only from IGA. Specialising in local and organic produce, they are doing so well they’ve had to triple the size of their coolroom and take on more staff, and recently they spent $2500 on a shipping container for extra storage space at the back of the store.

Bodno estimates turnover has quadrupled since their first year of operation. ”I don’t think our customers are the type of people who shop in supermarkets,” she says. As if to make the point, a woman and her daughter enter Bodno’s store, apparently for the first time, and exclaim at the price of her sweetcorn (two heads for $6). Williams shrugs as the woman and her daughter leave; $3 a sweetcorn is simply the price of buying organic produce at a time of year when Queensland supplies have been affected by flooding. Bodno and Williams’ regular customers are willing to pay $3 and they have more and more regulars.

”At first we knew everyone’s names,” Williams says. ”But now we can’t keep track.”

Local championsThe Leaf Store, 111 Ormond Road, Elwood. 9531 6542.

What we love The Leaf Store’s efforts, through in-store newsletters and social networking, to acquaint customers with local producers and under-loved fruit and veg. The current star of the store’s ”Campaign Ugly” is celeriac. Sign up to the store’s Facebook page or Twitter for recipes. Online store coming soon. Open seven days.

Foodie find Honey from JC + MK Dawson (Kyneton), and Myrtleford Butter.

Happy Apple185 Union Road, Ascot Vale. 9370 8426.

What we love Like Leaf, the owners source quality fresh fruit and vegetables (and tell you where it’s from) and a good range of boutique Victorian breads, dairy, meat, preserves, condiments and pantry lines. New online store allows customers to shop from home. Open seven days. thehappyapple南京夜网.au/store

Foodie find Doodles Creek mayonnaise (Bowral).

Green Goes the Grocer, 29a Templeton Street, Castlemaine. 5470 5511.

What we love Focus on organic produce but owners also champion a local low-food-miles project. Two logos are used in store to identify produce: one for food produced within Mount Alexander Shire and one for food produced further afield but within 160 kilometres of the Castlemaine post office. Open Monday-Saturday.

Foodie find Taranaki Farm eggs from grass-fed, pasture-raised chooks.

Organic Empire Food Store138 Monbulk Road, Mount Evelyn. 9737 6977. Open Mon, Thurs, Sat, 10am-2pm.

What we love Owner Angela Gioffre is taking the ”farmer-direct” slogan literally. Soon locals will be able to pop into her store for vegetables picked that day from her organic farm out the back. Gioffre has plans to stock local game meat soon.

Foodie find Mock Red Hill Apple Cider Vinegar.

Also see …

■ Radical Grocery Store, 6 Wilson Avenue, Brunswick. 9077 5512 Specialises in vegan, organic and Fair Trade food.

■Maldon 50K Local, 63 Main Street, Maldon. 0402 711 082. As the name suggests, nearly all products sold here are grown within 50 kilometres of Maldon.

■Geelong Fresh Foods, 171 Pakington Street, West Geelong. 5221 6004. Quality fruit and vegetables are the main emphasis, but there’s a great deli and a good range of local food, including fresh La Madre and Zeally Bay bread.

■Bendigo Wholefoods, 314 Lyttleton Terrace, Bendigo. 5443 9492. Organic and local foods with a nod to global ingredients. Suppliers include Glenloth Free-range Poultry (Wycheproof), Buloke Park Olives and Holy Goat Cheese.

■ Village Store, 6 Anderson Street, Yarraville. 9687 8375. Stocks a range of artisan bread, Jonesy’s Dairy Fresh Milk and Angus Pure grass-fed beef (Bordertown).

■Cardamone Gourmet, 143 Station Street, Fairfield. 9481 0586. Known for its amazing deli (house-made antipasti and meats), fridges with local and imported cheeses and the in-house Marisa’s Kitchen, which whips up take-home meals and offers catering.

■A. Bongiovanni & Son, 176-178 Victoria Street, Seddon. 9689 8669. Good range of Victorian dairy and meat offerings, including Wurrook Superfine Prime Merino Meat from Victoria’s western plains.

■Aussie Farmers Food Warehouse, 391 Settlement Road, Thomastown. 9466 4477. Owned by a collective of Goulburn Valley farmers selling fruit and vegetables direct.

■LaManna Direct, 10 English Street, Essendon Fields. 9026 9205. A ”new kind of supermarket” with 100 per cent Australian fruit and veg.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

Spring buyers were out in force at the start of yesterday’s auction season, with some properties fetching much higher than expected prices.

The auction clearance rate was an impressive 63.9per cent, with results in last night for 228 of the 334auctions.

“It was the highest number of auctions for 10 weeks,” the senior economist of Australian Property Monitors, Dr Andrew Wilson, said. “With two weeks above 60 per cent, the results confirm the growing momentum in the Sydney housingmarket.”

Among the happy vendors were Adam and Amelie Cornelius, who sold their renovated three-bedroom cottage in Newington Road, Marrickville, for $1,030,000.

“We were hoping for mid-9s and it really exceeded what we were expecting,” Ms Cornelius said.

About 60 people packed into the small backyard, with 12 registered bidders. As the planes roared overhead, six bidders were active. In the end, a young family nabbed the double-fronted freestanding home on 290square metres.

Belle Property Newtown agent Joseph Tropiano said there was a shortage of quality homes for sale. “So those who have got into the market early are going to get some good results,” he said.

APM says there have been 14 sales above $1million in Marrickville in the past year, but this is the only one without off-street parking.

The vendors, who are moving to Perth, have spent about $80,000 on improvements since buying the property for $830,000 in 2009.

A Lane Cove home sold for $182,500 over reserve. “It’s awesome and I’m so excited,” the selling agent, Soraya Wheatley, of LJ Hooker Lane Cove said. There had been 13 registrations, 10 active bidders and 123 groups through.

In the east, investors paid $910,000 for an old two-bedroom fibro on a 620-square metre block at 15 Brisbane Street, Chifley, and plan to rent it out for $750 a week before knocking it down and building a duplex. “There were seven registered parties, but six bidders,” Natalie Zulian of Ellison Zulian Property said.

“We had 78 groups through the door, 13 contract holders and some very happy vendors.”

Scan Sydney Tower to see an interview with the happy vendors.

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This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

While there is movement in Perth’s property market, this spring is starting with a shortfall in properties listed for sale.Perth’s property market is running low on homes to sell as it heads into the traditionally busy spring period, putting price rises on the horizon.

Warmer weather and the end of the football season has historically seen a flurry of people wanting to sell or buy property and after three years of a sluggish market Perth real estate agents are predicting this will be the best spring for some time.

“When the sun’s out, the flowers are out [and] people decide around spring time ‘let’s make a move’ [in the property market],” Professionals Real Estate WA chief executive David Hobbs said.

“In winter people hibernate, they ride out the cold and wet. It really is a good time for real estate agents [in spring].”

Activity increased by one-third during spring, Mr Hobbs said.

“Sales will be up dramatically, there’s no doubt that there is real movement in the market now,” he said.

“We’re seeing records in a couple of our offices.”

Australia Property Monitors senior economist Andrew Wilson said while last spring was flat due to an “affordability hangover” the next few months would be the best in several years.

However, unlike last year, this spring is starting with a shortfall in properties listed for sale.

There were only 10,700 properties – including houses, units and land – for sale as of yesterday, according to the Real Estate Institute of WA.

About 12,000 is considered to represent a healthy market.

Listings were at 17,000 only 12 months ago and reached a peak of more than 18,000 in May 2010.

Ray White WA chief executive Mark Whiteman said the city was at risk of not having enough stock as more buyers become interested.

“We’re listing at least as many properties as we’re selling,” he said.

A survey of Perth real estate agents revealed suburbs likely to have the most activity this spring are those along transport corridors, near train stations, in the inner city and a few kilometres from the coast.

Homes priced in the lower to mid price range also would be more popular as buyers remained cautious at the top end of the market.

“[The market] is still very price driven and price sensitive,” Realmark Real Estate principal John Percudani said.

“There’s strong investor activity in the apartment sector, in particular in the CBD and inner city.

“I think you’re going to see a lot more activity in areas such as Pearsall, Kingsley and Padbury in the north. They’re areas that provide very good value for money.

“South of the river, Willetton and adjacent suburbs are still very attractive.”

Mr Percudani said buyers were facing living cost pressures and were now enquiring about costs beyond the property purchase.

“People are very focused now on the cost of living, so proximity to community facilities, transport … rates and utilities … have been a big focus in terms of overall affordability of the home.

“What type of heating and cooling is in that home? Has it got an expensive pool to heat? Does it have a lot of garden or is it economical?

“All those running costs of the home are of high consideration, particularly in the medium [price] point of the market.”

Mr Percudani said cost of living also was influencing buyers to favour inner city areas over outer suburbs.

Harcourts chief executive officer Stuart Cox said coastal suburbs typically did well during spring but this year suburbs set back a few kilometres would fare better because they were close enough to the beach without costing a fortune.

Cockburn Central, with the new Fiona Stanley Hospital, shopping centre and apartment complexes, also was very active.

Mr Whiteman added Belmont, Rivervale, Mt Lawley and North Perth to the list of suburbs expected to have a busy property season this spring.

Mandurah and Rockingham also would pick up, he said.

While competition among buyers for the few properties on sale threatens to push up prices, the industry is not expecting any significant rises for the next six months.

“We may start to see, as sales move up … the median price range will rise [but] that’s only because we’re starting to see a few more sales in the top end,” Mr Whiteman said.

Dr Wilson said spring often encouraged buyers at higher price points, which drove up the city’s median price, causing a statistical anomaly.

“[Perth property prices] rose 1.7 per cent in the first six months of this year and we’d expect that to continue and that sort of momentum to build on through the remaining of this year,” he said.

“This will probably be the best spring market for the last few years.”Comment at WAtodayFollow WAtoday on Twitter

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

Any biographer who labours on a book for 13 or 14 years should be pitied rather than praised, says Jeffrey Meyers, an American literary scholar and author of 50 books, including 22 biographies.

“It’s just inefficient,” he says. “They become resentful. I’ve reviewed a lot of biographies and you can tell when the author feels his life has been eaten up by his subject.”

Professor Meyers, who lives in Berkeley, California, is so efficient that he researches his subjects for six months, then writes three pages a day until he finishes a 400-page biography in three or four months.

Meyers is in Australia to give the Seymour Biography Lecture. His intriguing subject is the discovery of secret lovers while researching the biographies of Joseph Conrad, Wyndham Lewis, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Robert Frost.

The poet Frost, for example, was widowed in his early 60s in 1938 and was considered an old man whose sexual and emotional life was over.

“But I’d seen Frost read when I was a student and he was in his 70s and still a vigorous man,” Meyers says. “When I wrote the book [published in 1996] I was about 60 and I asked myself, am I willing to give up my sexual life? I assumed he had a sexual life and so I asked, with whom?”

Meyers learned Frost had a 25-year affair with his married secretary and wrote many of his love poems for her. He tracked down the woman’s daughter, who as a girl had watched her father drive his car while Frost sat with his arm around her mother in the back seat.

“When I went to her house she said, ‘I’ve been waiting all my life for you to come’. She didn’t want to tell the story but she was willing to relieve herself of the secret she had kept all her life.”

Some of his best research, Meyers says, was for Inherited Risk, a double biography of the Australian-born actor Errol Flynn and his son Sean, a war photographer who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970.

He traced a path to a Cambodian woman who was researching missing journalists and learned that Sean Flynn had been beheaded in a Vietcong prison camp.

Most recently he published a biography of the filmmaker John Huston and a collection of letters the English novelist Iris Murdoch wrote to him over 20 years.

He puts his productivity down to experience, enthusiasm, organisation and his wife’s editing.

“We have very interesting intellectual arguments when I think one way and she thinks another,” he says. “I’m very pleased with what I write and she says, ‘It’s a piece of crap, throw it out and start again’.”

Jeffrey Meyers will lecture on The Search for Five Women at the National Library on September 13 and the State Library of NSW on September 20.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

ELLYSE Perry’s quest to simultaneously continue her football and cricket careers will continue for at least another year with the dual-international joining W-League side Sydney FC.

Perry was effectively given an ultimatum by Canberra United coach Jitka Klimkova at the end of last season’s championship-winning campaign, saying she would have to commit exclusively to football if she wanted to stay with the club.

That alone was a cause of contention in both the football and cricket communities – both of whom remain largely supportive of her unique efforts – but Canberra insisted it was a matter of lifting the professionalism and commitment of their players.

However, Perry, who represented the Matildas at last year’s World Cup, was not short of interest from across the league and in the end linked up, as expected, with her home-town club.

“My family is here, I study at Sydney University and my cricket is based in Sydney,” Perry told The Women’s Game website. “It was difficult to constantly commute three hours there and then three hours back for games and training and I was missing training sessions for both sports.”

In an interview with the Herald in May, Perry said she held no grudges against Canberra.

“I’ve been very fortunate to be involved with Canberra United for the last three W-League seasons but there’s some changes at the club and the coach, Jitka Klimkova, has some different ideas about how the team needs to be run,” she said at the time. “I fully respect her philosophy, it’s certainly her prerogative to change, but … I’ll have to start looking for a new club.”

The fallout at the time was considerable, especially in football, where identities such as former Socceroo Francis Awaritefe decried Canberra’s move as “stunningly stupid” and a “spectacular own goal by Canberra United and football in general”.

Perry will start training with her new teammates this Saturday in preparation for the new W-League season.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

Steve Johnson in strife. Steve Johnson (foreground) makes his ill-fated contact.

MERCURIAL forward Steve Johnson will miss Saturday night’s Geelong-Fremantle elimination final after his club elected not to risk an additional ban by challenging the decision at the tribunal.

Sydney defender Heath Grundy will go to the tribunal tonight to attempt to exonerate himself and play in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying final against Adelaide, although he is not at risk of an additional suspension if he fails. St Kilda’s Leigh Montagna is also challenging a one-match ban for rough conduct against Carlton’s Andrew Walker.

Grundy was charged with striking Geelong forward James Podsiadly, after catching him in the jaw with his elbow.Match review panel chairman Mark Fraser last night defended the decision to sideline Grundy for this week’s first week of the finals.

“You see Grundy throw the arm and the elbow out . . . it gets him (Podsiadly) to the head and you see his head spin around and then Podsiadly grabs his jaw. We thought there was enough impact in that for a forceful strike,” Fraser told the AFL website.

As well as the Johnson penalty, the Cats also accepted a reprimand to Paul Chapman for striking Sydney’s Ben McGlynn.

Gold Coast veteran Campbell Brown will miss the first six matches of 2013 after accepting a six-match ban for forceful front-on contact to Adelaide’s Aidan Riley. He risked an additional two matches if he challenged the decision at the tribunal.

GWS playing assistant coach James McDonald accepted a one-match ban for rough conduct against North Melbourne’s Jamie Macmillan, while his teammate Curtly Hampton accepted a reprimand for tripping the Kangaroos’ Ryan Bastinac.

St Kilda’s Stephen Milne and Tom Simpkin and Carlton’s Andrew Walker and Mitch Robinson all accepted fines for wrestling. All except Robinson must pay $900 for a first offence, whereas the Blues player must pay $3000 because it was his third offence.

Gold Coast’s Trent McKenzie and Brisbane’s Amon Buchanan both accepted $900 fines for negligent umpire contact, while North Melbourne pair Cruize Garlett and Jack Ziebell accepted $1950 fines for reckless umpire contact.

TRIBUNAL — TUESDAY 4 SEPTEMBER

Heath Grundy (Syd) striking James Podsiadly (Geel). Intentional, low impact, high contact. 225 points down due to good record to 168.75 (1 match).

Leigh Montagna (StK) rough conduct to Andrew Walker (Carl). Reckless, low impact, body contact. 125 points up due to bad record to 137.5 (1 match).

SANCTIONS ACCEPTEDPaul Chapman (Geel) striking Ben McGlynn (Syd). Reprimand + 60 points.Steve Johnson (Geel) rough conduct to Dan Hannebery (Syd). 1 match.Campbell Brown (GC) forceful front-on contact to Aidan Riley (Adel). 6 matches.Trent McKenzie (GC) first offence negligent umpire contact. $900 fine.James McDonald (GWS) rough conduct to Jamie Macmillan (NM). 1 match.Curtly Hampton (GWS) tripping Ryan Bastinac (NM). Reprimand + 60 points.Cruize Garlett (NM) first offence reckless umpire contact. $1950 fine.Jack Ziebell (NM) first offence reckless umpire contact. $1950 fine.Andrew Walker (Carl) first offence wrestling Stephen Milne (StK). $900 fine.Stephen Milne (StK) first offence wrestling Andrew Walker (Carl). $900 fine.Tom Simpkin (StK) first offence wrestling Mitch Robinson (Carl). $900 fine.Mitch Robinson (Carl) third offence wrestling Tom Simpkin (StK). $3000 fine.Amon Buchanan (BL) first offence negligent umpire contact. $900 fine.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

Victorians are today being treated to a welcome blast of warmth.

But hold on to your hats – they’ll probably get blown off tomorrow. And snowed on later this week.

Bureau of Meteorology senior meteorologist Phil King said the state was expected to experience a typical topsy-turvy spring week, starting today with temperatures five to six degrees above average.

The mercury is expected to hit 24 degrees in Melbourne today, and as high as 28 in Mildura and the north-west of the state, where the forest fire danger rating is expected to border extreme.

But Mr King said a strong cold front would cross the Great Australian Bight today and reach western Victoria by this evening.

The bureau issued a severe weather warning at 11am today for all Victorian districts for destructive and damaging winds, which are expected to start buffeting the state late this evening and into tomorrow.

Alpine areas and parts of the north-east, west and south Gippsland and east Gippsland forecast districts are expected to be lashed by winds averaging between 80 and 100km/h, with peak gusts of up to 140km/h tomorrow morning.

“We may see winds gusting up to around 100-120 kilometres an hour in the Melbourne region and over much of the state,” Mr King said.

“This looks like a large-scale event, the first really windy spring period that we’ve had with strong to gale-force northerly winds.”

The strong northerly winds are expected to keep overnight temperatures high, with the mercury not expected to drop below 16 degrees tonight.

“Then we will see another low pressure system and another front move across Bass Strait on Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning,” Mr King said.

“Although the winds may moderate a little bit on Wednesday afternoon, they will come back just as vicious on Wednesday evening and then ease later during Thursday morning.”

Cooler conditions are expected to return on Thursday, when snow is forecast to fall down to 1500 metres, lowering to 1100 metres on Friday.

Mr King said this was typical spring weather.

“When you get warm conditions and then a rapid change in temperature, it’s often accompanied with wind,” he said.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

Brad Scott of Australia celebrates winning the silver in the Men’s 1500m – T37 Final on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images) (L-R) Ellie Cole, Maddison Elliot, Katherine Downie and Jacqueline Freney of Australia pose on the podium during the medal ceremony for the Women’s 4x100m Free – 34pts final on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Aquatics Centre on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

British Prime Minister David Cameron cheers on Eleanor Simmonds of Great Britain as she wins the Women’s 200m Individual Medley – SM6 final on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Aquatics Centre on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Stefan Rousseau-WPA Pool/Getty Images)

Weizhong Guo of China compete in the Men’s High Jump – F42 on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

A view of the Bronze medal match in the Men’s Singles Table Tennis – Class 2 match between Sergey Poddubnyy of Russia (L) and Fabien LamIrault of France (R) on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at the ExCel on September 03, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)

Flavio Reitz of Brazil celebrates a jump in the Men’s High Jump – F42 on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

Estele Salas of Mexico competes in the Women’s Javelin Throw – F52/53/33/34 Final on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

Arian Iznaga of Cuba and his guide Yaseen Perez Gomez compete in the Men’s 200m – T11 heats on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)

Silver medalist Alvise De Vidi of Italy, Gold medalist Toni Piispanen of Finland and bronze medalist Mohamed Berrahal of Algeria pose during the medal ceremony for the Men’s 100m – T51 on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Olympic Stadium on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

(L-R) Anastasia Diodorova of Russia, Fuying Jiang of China, Natalie Jones of Great Britain, Eleanor Simmonds of Great Britain, Verena Schott of Germany, Oksana Khrul of Ukraine and Elizabeth Johnson of Great Britain compete in the on day 5 of the London 2012 Paralympic Games at Aquatics Centre on September 3, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Apple has confirmed it is opening a store in the the Canberra Centre.After months of speculation, Mac fans will get a bite of the Apple on Saturday when the technology giant opens its first store in Canberra.

This morning Apple officially confirmed one of the city’s worst-kept secrets and most-anticipated retail debuts.

The store at the Canberra Centre will be the 16th to open in Australia and the company will also open another store in Garden City, Perth, on the same day.

The 10am weekend launch is expected to draw queues of faithful fans who will wait outside the store’s floor-to-ceiling glass doors for the chance to examine iPads, iPhones, computers and related paraphernalia.

They might even get a free souvenir T-shirt.

The store is expected to spruik everything from the latest Macbook to pricey designer iPhone cases and Wi-Fi-enabled ”smart scales” that work with fitness apps.

Punters will get the chance to part with their cash through the Apple store app, which allows them to buy things on the spot via their iPhones, bypassing the cash register.

They can also use the app to get help from staff and book tech sessions.

The store will run free help sessions and workshops on topics such as video editing, getting started with Apple products and music production.

It will also run Canberra-specific events, such as a flower photography and photo-editing workshop on September 14 which is designed to coincide with Floriade. Mac fanatic parents can enrol their kids in a three-day school holiday camp – taking place in 90-minute sessions every day – to learn movie making.

The Canberra Centre store goes into the second-floor spot formerly occupied by clothing retailer Esprit and will be several doors down from the rumoured Zara fashion store – another much-hyped debut on the territory’s retail scene.

It will be in direct competition with an existing Apple dealership, MacOne, on the other side of the shopping centre. Official stores are a lucrative business for Apple. Chief executive Tim Cook has said they generated $US4.1 billion ($A4 billion) in the last financial quarter, up 17 per cent from the same quarter the year before. The 372 Apple stores around the world draw an average of 17,000 visitors a week and turn over an average of $US11.1 million in revenue.

The Canberra Times will launch its iPad app later this month.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.

Do your research before buying a work vehicle.A common tax deduction for most businesses is motor vehicles. The sections of tax law relating to motor vehicles are some of the most complex. There are at least four different methods that can be used to claim motor vehicle expenses, and each method has its own rules.

Q. I am a self-employed contractor and use my car for business, as well as private purposes. I am looking at buying a RAV4 – probably a 2010 model – for approximately $23,000 and was wondering if I need to know of any tax implications or if there are any claims I can make on purchase etc? Some people have even suggested I rent a car for a certain number of years. I’m not entirely sure what they mean by this though?

A. As you will be buying a passenger vehicle rather than a commercial vehicle you will need to maintain a log book for 12 weeks to maximise the amount you can claim as a tax deduction. The log book will establish a percentage for business use. You can claim this percentage of all of the costs of the car.

The types of costs include fuel, registration, insurance and repairs. The cost of the vehicle can also be claimed depending on how you finance the purchase. The renting that people have been talking about might refer to a method of finance called hire purchase.

Where you pay for the vehicle with cash or use hire purchase the $23,000 cost will be claimed in two stages. Small businesses buying vehicles from July 1 this year can claim a tax deduction for the first $5000 in the year the vehicle is purchased. The balance of the $23,000 cost can be claimed as depreciation over a number of years.

If you instead use a lease to finance the purchase you can claim a tax deduction for the lease costs you pay each year. Unfortunately under this method you will not be able to claim the upfront $5000 deduction.

Q. I bought a used Toyota Prado for my business on December 1, 2011 for $34,000. Can you please provide the prime tax rate to be applied and are there any other allowances I can claim such as investment allowance?

A. The investment allowance applied to new assets purchased up to December 31, 2009. This means as the Prado was used, and purchased after the cut-off date; you are not eligible to claim the investment allowance. You will also not be eligible for the new $5000 tax deduction as this only applies to vehicles purchased after July 1 this year.

By prime tax rate I believe you are referring to the depreciation rates that can be used to claim the cost of a vehicle. A claim could be made for depreciation if you either used the one third of running costs method or the log book method. If this is the case you can claim 15 per cent of the cost of the vehicle in the first year and 30 per cent of its reducing value each year after that.

Questions on small business tax or other issues can be emailed to [email protected]南京夜网.au.

This story Administrator ready to work first appeared on Nanjing Night Net.