Tag Archives: UTC

Michael Hall: Dropping Letters Hackfest

Mmmmmm, Pie....

We only have 2 days left in the Ubuntu Core Apps Hack Days!  I hope everybody who has participated has enjoyed it and found it informative and helpful.  If you haven’t participated yet, it’s not too late!  Come join us in #ubuntu-app-devel on Freenode’s IRC network anytime from 9am to 9pm UTC and ping either myself (mhall119) or Alan Pope (popey) and we’ll help you get setup and show you where you can start contributing to the Core Apps.

Today we get another chance to play while we work, because the focus is going to be on Dropping Letters, a simple, fun, yet surprisingly addictive little app written by Stuart Langridge.  Stuart has since handed off development of the app to others, but not before having it already in perfectly usable state.  Because of it’s simplicity, our list of dogfooding requirements wasn’t very long:

  • Start a new game. DONE!
  • View high scores.

Short as the list may be, it’s only half done!  We still need to integrate a high scores screen, which means we need you Javascript and QML developers!  Dropping Letters also needs to be tested, which means Autopilot, which of course means we have something for you Python hackers too!  So come and join us today in #ubuntu-app-devel and help make this great game even better.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Michael Hall: Ubuntu Terminal Hackfest

We’re back again for another Ubuntu Core Apps Hack Day!  As always you can find us in #ubuntu-app-devel on Freenode IRC from 9am to 9pm UTC, you can ping me (mhall119) or Alan Pope (popey) and we’ll help you get setup with a development environment and a copy of the Core Apps source code so you can start hacking.

Today’s app is one that was most requested when we announced Ubuntu on phones, and has since proven to be one of the most often used by developers and testers the like.  That’s right, I’m talking about the Terminal!  The Terminal went through very rapid development, thanks to the herculean efforts of one very talented developer, and the ability to re-use the KTerminal QML component from KDE’s Konsole project.  Because of both, the Terminal app has been dogfoodable for a while now.

  • Issue commands. DONE!
  • Use case: ssh into another computer. DONE!
  • Use case: edit a file with vi. DONE!
  • Use case: tail a log file. DONE!
  • Use case: apt-get update. DONE!

But that doesn’t mean that the work here is done.  For starters, we need to make sure that changes to the KTerminal code are submitted back upsteam, something we could certainly use some help from somebody who is familiar with either Konsole’s development specifically or KDE in general.  We also want to improve the availability of special keys like the function keys and ctrl+ combinations that are oh so useful when interacting with the command line, so anybody with QML/Javascript experience or who is familiar with the on-screen keyboard specifically would be able to help us out quite a bit here.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Michael Hall: Ubuntu Document Viewer Hackfest

Last week was certainly an exciting one, between the Ubuntu Edge campaign announcement and several coworkers being at OSCON, I wasn’t able to keep the Hack Days going.  So we’ve decided to pick up where we left off this week, covering the remaining Core Apps on our list.  Just like before we’ll be hanging out in #ubuntu-app-devel on Freenode IRC from 9am to 9pm UTC, and will be more than happy to walk you through the process of getting started.

Today we’re going to work on the Document Viewer, a necessary app for most people, which is at the same time both simple and very complicated.  The app itself doesn’t require a lot of functionality, but it does need a lot of behind-the-scenes components to load and render documents of different formats.  Great progress has already been made on our dogfooding requirements list:

  • Load a text file. DONE!
  • Load an image file. DONE!
  • Load a PDF.
  • View the file. DONE!
  • Forward/back pages on PDF.
  • Pinch to zoom.

Until just yesterday, there wasn’t a released version of our desktop PDF library (Poppler) that had Qt5 bindings.  However, with the release of Poppler 0.24 yesterday, we should not be ready to start implementing the PDF support.  We also need to replace the existing C++ wrapper used to launch the app with the new Arguments QML component, but when we do that we’ll need another QML plugin that will give us the mime-type of the files that are being loaded.  And of course we need to make sure we have full Autopilot test coverage for all of these parts.  So whether your skill set is Python, QML, Javascript or C++, there is something you can contribute to on this app.

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Time: Hwclock and System Time

By Lost in Cyberia

Hey everyone. Upon studying linux trying to learn it inside and out, I’m reading about the issue of time. Hardware clock time vs the more commonly referenced System Time. What causes the two to grow apart, and what causes the time itself to stray away from UTC? at present my clock is a second and some fractions off. What causes this?

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at The UNIX and Linux Forums

Congress OK Sought to Sell Boeing C-17 Globemaster to Kuwait

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency — the outfit responsible for coordinating military sales contracts between the U.S. and its allies, and getting Congress’ OK on such sales before they can proceed — notified Congress of no fewer than five such upcoming “foreign military sales” contracts Wednesday. The biggest of the sales involving actual arms was a proposed sale [link opens in PDF] to Kuwait of a single Boeing C-17 Globemaster III transport aircraft.

The aircraft, equipped with F117-PW-100 engines from United Technologies subsidiary Pratt & Whitney, is expected to cost approximately $371 million all-in. DSCA told Congress that in addition to securing the revenues for Boeing and UTC, selling this plane to Kuwait is a good idea because “Kuwait continues to be a key ally and strong supporter of U.S. foreign policy and national security goals in the Persian Gulf region. The proposed sale will enhance the United States foreign policy and national security objectives by increasing interoperability among the Kuwait Air Force (KAF), the United States Air Force, Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and other coalition forces.”

Additionally, noted DSCA, adding a second C-17 to Kuwait‘s Air Force “will allow the KAF to better participate in humanitarian support operations.”

link

The article Congress OK Sought to Sell Boeing C-17 Globemaster to Kuwait originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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From: http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/04/18/congress-ok-sought-to-sell-boeing-c-17-globemaster/

Image: Fires in Victoria, Australia

There are a number of fires burning in Victoria, australia and smoke and heat signatures were captured from them by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. The image was taken on April 9, 2013 at 04:35 UTC (12:35 a.m. EDT). The smoke plumes appear as a light brown color and the fires appear as a red area. In the southeast, smoke is streaming over the Tasman Sea.

From: http://phys.org/news284904129.html

United Tech Subsidiary Wins Ballistic Armor Contract

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

With a stock price that’s up 0.8% after Wednesday trading, Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies looks bulletproof today. Helping it get that way is a new contract that UTC subsidiary LifePort just won from the U.S. Air Force.

On Wednesday, UTC announced that USAF Special Operations has contracted with LifePort to outfit its fleet of Sikorsky HH-60G PAVE HAWK helicopters with a bulletproof Improved Ballistic Armor Sub System to protect helicopter pilots from ground fire. The PAVE HAWK is a variant of UTC‘s famed UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, preferred by U.S. special forces.

According to UTC, LifePort is currently “the only company in the marketplace today able to” manufacture “qualified armored flight seat pallets based on strict USAF specifications.” It’s also apparently able to manufacture them quickly. UTC says it will have the entire USAF HH-60G fleet outfitted with the new ballistic armor before the end of September.

Financial terms of the contract were not disclosed.

The article United Tech Subsidiary Wins Ballistic Armor Contract originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith and The Motley Fool have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Circor Switches CEOs

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Burlington, Mass.-based Circor International named Scott Buckhout, formerly President of United Technologies‘ Fire and Security business, as its own new president and chief executive officer on Tuesday.

Buckhout takes over from acting President and CEO Wayne Robbins, who has been holding down the fort since former CEO Bill Higgins stepped down back in December. Going forward, Robbins will continue serving as Circor’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

In a statement announcing the new appointment, Circor Chairman of the Board David Dietz praised Buckhout’s experience “improving the performance of manufacturing businesses such as Circor’s, identifying and successfully integrating and rationalizing acquisitions, and driving organic and acquisitive growth” while at UTC.

Investors seemed pleased with the appointment as well. Circor shares rose 0.6% in Tuesday trading following the announcement and closed at $41.41.

The article Circor Switches CEOs originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith and The Motley Fool have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools don’t all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Pall Corporation Names Akhil Johri Chief Financial Officer

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Pall Corporation Names Akhil Johri Chief Financial Officer

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) today announced that its board of directors will appoint Akhil Johri as Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective May 1, 2013. Mr. Johri, 51, is currently Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer for United Technologies Corporation’s (UTC) Propulsion & Aerospace Systems group, a $27 billion unit consisting of industry leaders Pratt & Whitney and UTC Aerospace Systems.

“Akhil is a highly regarded and accomplished executive with a proven track record of financial leadership for global industrial technology and aerospace businesses. His strong background in strategic finance and operations combined with his investor relations and business development experience makes him an ideal fit for Pall,” said Larry Kingsley, Pall’s President and CEO. “We are thrilled to add someone with this experience who is as versatile as Akhil to our Executive Management Team.”

During a 26-year career with UTC, Mr. Johri has held various executive positions of increasing responsibility. Prior to his current role, he served as CFO for UTC’s Carrier Transicold and UTC’s Fire & Security units as well as for Carrier Asia Pacific Operations. He led Corporate Investor Relations for UTC and has been very involved with UTC’s Financial Leadership Development program. He also has extensive experience in leading operational restructuring activities, geographic market expansion, acquisition integration and supply chain optimization.

Mr. Johri is a graduate of the premier Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and is a Chartered Accountant.

Pall President and CEO Larry Kingsley, who was recently named interim CFO, will continue in that role until Mr. Johri officially joins Pall.

About Pall Corporation

Pall Corporation (NYSE: PLL) is a filtration, separation and purification leader providing solutions to meet the critical fluid management needs of customers across the broad spectrum of life sciences and industry. Pall works with customers to advance health, safety and environmentally responsible technologies. The company’s engineered products enable process and product innovation and minimize emissions and waste. Pall Corporation is an S&P 500 company serving customers worldwide. Pall has been named a “top green company” by Newsweek magazine. To see how Pall is helping enable a greener, safer, more sustainable future, follow us on Twitter @PallCorporation or visit www.pall.com/green.

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Nagios snmp_check problem

By mancora

Hi,

I am configuring nagios for snmp monitoring and I havent go further after getting a timeout error from the monitoring console from Nagios.
As far as I can see everything is well configured. But this is my first nagios implementation and I am not sure as I am learning on the way.
I am making snmpgets from the command line which are succesfull but Nagios system gets a timeout. Any idea what is the problem. Any tip hardly appreciated.

details from behavior and configuration below.

Thanks!
————————————————————————————————–
Linux nagios01 3.2.0-33-generic #52-Ubuntu SMP Thu Oct 18 16:29:15 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Packet nagios3

Package nagios3:
i 3.2.3-3ubuntu1

———————————————————————————————-
Error from web interface

nagios02

CPU Load

UNKNOWN 2013-03-29 16:18:43 0d 21h 28m 14s 4/4 External command error: Timeout: No Response from 192.168.1.250:161.

CPU Stats

UNKNOWN 2013-03-29 16:14:58 0d 22h 21m 36s 4/4 External command error: Timeout: No Response from 192.168.1.250:161.

—————————————————————————–
Test from CLI

sudo /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_snmp -H 192.168.1.250 -C pedropicapiedra -o .1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11.9.0,.1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11.10.0,.1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11.11.0 -l ‘CPU usage (user system idle)’ -u ‘%’

SNMP OK – CPU usage (user system idle) 0 % 0 99 | CPU usage (user system idle)=0 iso.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11.10.0=0 iso.3.6.1.4.1.2021.11.11.0=99

sudo /usr/lib/nagios/plugins/check_snmp -H 192.168.1.250 -C pedropicapiedra -o .1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10.1.5.1,.1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10.1.5.2,.1.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10.1.5.3 -w :70,:70,:70 -c :90,:90,:90 -l load

SNMP OK – load 0 1 5 | load=0 iso.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10.1.5.2=1 iso.3.6.1.4.1.2021.10.1.5.3=5

—————————————————————————–

Service Definition

define service{
use generic-service
name CPU-stats
check_command snmp_cpustats!supersecreto
service_description CPU Stats
host_name nagios02
notification_interval 0
…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The UNIX and Linux Forums

United Tech Subsidiaries Win $36.8 Million for Aircraft Work

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The Department of Defense announced Wednesday that it awarded United Technologies subsidiaries a combined $36.8 million in three separate contracts.

UTC subsidiary Sikorsky Aerospace Maintenance won the largest award — a $15.9-million modification to a previously awarded firm-fixed-price contract to perform depot-level maintenance work on aircraft operated by adversary squadrons — the second such contract it has won so far this month. Adversary squadrons are comprised of U.S. pilots flying — importantly — either foreign-built planes (such as Russian MiGs), or older U.S. planes no longer in active service, flown in a style similar to those flown by foreign air forces. The unusual “air forces” involved in this training require specialized knowledge in how to maintain their planes. Wednesday’s award extends Sikorsky’s contract to maintain these planes through December 2013.

Sister company Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. won a separate $10.1 million award under a previously signed basic ordering agreement to perform engineering work necessary to convert a single UH-3H helicopter into a UH-3D Trainer Aircraft. This work should be completed by October 2014.

Finally, UTC‘s Pratt and Whitney subsidiary was awarded a $10.8 million firm-fixed-price, sole-source contract to supply aircraft engine compressors and spare parts to the Air Force. Completion date: December 30, 2016.

The article United Tech Subsidiaries Win $36.8 Million for Aircraft Work originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

United Technologies Leads a Sluggish Dow to Record Highs

By Dan Carroll, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The markets are setting up for a record close to end this shortened week — U.S. markets are closed tomorrow. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has surpassed its previous record high again, climbing 36 points, or 0.25%, as of 2:25 p.m. EDT, with most of its component stocks in the green. Even though economic indicators released today were disappointing to Wall Street, investors have happily looked past them and reaped the rewards of another day in this recent bull run.

Slow growth continues
Fourth-quarter economic growth didn’t inspire anybody today, as U.S. GDP grew just 0.4% over the period. That’s better than the 0.1% it grew during the third quarter, but it’s still a sign that the economy is not nearly out of the shadow of the recession. With consumer confidence still shaky and jobless claims rising last week, investors would have been forgiven for pulling back today.

Yet Wall Street has been happy to keep on buying, and United Technologies has led the Dow higher today. Shares of the conglomerate have risen 0.9% so far after the company completed its sale of the electrical power systems unit of recent acquisition Goodrich to French industrial firm Safran. UTC pulled in $400 million in the deal, which was the second divestment of a Goodrich unit since UTC purchased the company for more than $16 billion last year. The move made sense for UTC, considering the economies of scale that come with size — and in the industrial sector, size is power.

Fellow industrial stock and aerospace manufacturer Boeing is having a different sort of day, however. Shares of the company have fallen 0.7% to rank among the worst Dow laggards as shareholders express caution regarding recent optimism about the 787 Dreamliner’s battery fix. The aircraft recently made a successful test flight with the new design, and things are looking up for the company’s newest jet. Boeing CEO James McNerney said today that testing of the redesigned batteries will be completed in the near future and that passenger flights will return soon.

Despite the turmoil surrounding the 787 saga, however, Boeing’s stock has remained among the best of the Dow year to date. Since the year began, shares have soared more than 15% to rank the stock among the top third of the index. Investors can only hope the optimism over the 787 can keep that momentum going.

Today’s hardest-hit sector has been financials. Among the Dow’s stocks, JPMorgan and Bank of America rank near the bottom of the index with shares of the stocks losing 0.7% apiece. For Bank of America’s stock, 2013 hasn’t been anywhere near as good as its Dow-leading 2012: Year to date, the stock has only risen just more than 1%. JPMorgan has done much better, and while the company still faces investigations from numerous regulators over recent trading losses and other issues, ratings agency S&P has confidence in the bank. S&P upgraded JP Morgan …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Pentagon Hands Out $84.4 Million in Small Contracts

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

The Department of Defense announced a series of small (in defense contracting terms) contract awards to a series of publicly traded companies Thursday. Among them:

  • United Technologies subsidiary Sikorsky won the largest award, a $26.9 million firm-fixed-price foreign military sales contract to convert an unspecified number of UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters for use by the Royal Thailand Army. This contract should be completed by April 30, 2016.
  • In other helicopter news, Boeing won a $17.9 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract to perform design and engineering work on the CH-47 Advanced Chinook Rotor Blade. This contract funds work through March 18, 2017.
  • One contract that sounds like it involves helicopters — but doesn’t — is the $7.6 million DARPA contract that UTC subsidiary Goodrich just won. In this cost-plus-fixed-fee award, Goodrich will work on Phase 3 of the “Hybrid Multi-Material Rotor (HMMR) program” — a DARPA project to develop new hi-performance rotors for submarine screws. Goodrich’s expected completion date on this work is Sept. 30, 2014.
  • Raytheon was awarded $8.8 million in a firm-fixed-price contract to replace obsolete Pulse Code Modulation (PCM) Encoders in Tomahawk missiles. The PCM Encoder samples flight test missile guidance and avionics telemetry data stream, encodes and formats the data, and provides telemetry information to ground monitoring stations. Raytheon should complete work on this task by March 2015.
  • In the day’s smallest award, International Business Machines won an $8.1 million firm-fixed-price, incrementally-funded contract to support of the Army Learning Management System through March 21, 2014.
  • And finally, Sanofi subsidiary Sanofi Pasteur VaxDesign Corporation was awarded $15.1 million to perform research and development work on an in vitro biomimetic immune system for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The objective here is to find better ways to test immune responses to difference agents in the lab, to facilitate development of vaccines and immunotherapeutics. Completion date on the work: March 24, 2017.
 

The article Pentagon Hands Out $84.4 Million in Small Contracts originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of International Business Machines. and Raytheon Company. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Jono Bacon: Recent Ubuntu Community Refinements

Our community is at the heart of how we build Ubuntu. Recently there were some concerns expressed about some aspects of our community and I have been working with various community members and internally at Canonical to resolve some of these issues to make things smoother.

I just wanted to summarize some updates:

  • Regular, transparent planning – we want to improve how we plan the delivery of work items, and make that planning more nimble. While the major decisions are reserved for primary discussion at UDS, we want to regularly and transparently checkpoint progress on those projects, and ensure things are moving along. To do this the engineering managers at Canonical will perform this planning on a monthly basis with our community. An an example, with my team, we will decide at UDS what major projects we will work on and document the work items in those blueprints, and every month I will ask the team to commit to delivering an agreed set of work items that month and update the blueprints accordingly. This will make it easier to understand who is working on what, what needs to be done, and areas in which people can participate. This entire process will be completely open and transparent and I would like to encourage our wider community to use the same approach. As an example, this could be a useful technique for our LoCo community to use for planning their work too around advocacy campaigns. All of this work will continue to be tracked openly in status.ubuntu.com.
  • Training our engineers – our engineers at Canonical are expected to openly and transparently perform all work that is not considered customer/company confidential. While this expectation is clear, there are sometimes cases when this doesn’t happen (e.g. if someone joins Canonical without the experience of working in an open environment and isn’t really sure how to do this). I have prepared an internal slide deck with these expectations and workflows clearly laid out; my team will be working to ensure everyone gets the deck, reads it, and gets an answer to any of their questions.
  • Regular leadership problem solving meetings – one problem we have today is that we don’t have a regular problem solving meeting in our community in which our governing leaders are present at. Instead our different leadership boards (e.g. Community Council, Forums Council) tend to resolve issues pertinent to that specific board. We think it could be useful to have a meeting every two weeks that has representatives from our different governance boards and our community can join and raise topics for discussion. We are going to run the first one of these sessions tomorrow (Tue 19th March 2013) on Ubuntu On Air at 8pm UTC. We invite you to bring your topics there on IRC for discussion.
  • Online UDS refinements – as I blogged about last week we have released a survey to gather feedback about how to refine and improve UDS. We have already made some plans for some improvements but …read more
    Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

United Tech Confirms Earnings Outlook

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

United Technologies  is sticking to its guns, and doubling down on its earlier predictions for 2013 earnings and revenues.

In a statement released Thursday morning, the industrial conglomerate confirmed that it expects to earn between $5.85 and $6.15 per share this year on sales of $64 billion to $65 billion. The company further advised that on the crucial “cash profitability” metric, it expects free cash flow to be “equal to or in excess of net income attributable to common shareowners.”

Mathematically, what this works out to is free cash flow that could range anywhere from $4.95 billion to as high as $5.2 billion — or more. However, in order to satisfy shareholders, the number had better be the “more” variant. Last year, UTC generated $5.26 billion in free cash flow, so anything less than that number this year would likely be viewed as bad news.

On the other hand, investors focusing on GAAP earnings will note that even the low end of UTC‘s earnings outlook would represent a modest 3.3% increase in per-share earnings from last year, and the high end — 8.6%.

Investors appear to be hedging their bets. United Technologies shares are modestly higher in Thursday trading, up 0.2%, to $93.29.

 

The article United Tech Confirms Earnings Outlook originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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United Technologies Scores Big With Embraer Deals

By Rich Smith, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

If future buyers of Embraer‘s latest “E-Jets” wind up wondering who exactly built their planes, the confusion would be understandable. Judging from a series of announcements out of aerospace supplier United Technologies today, it almost seems like UTC is delivering Embraer a “ready-to-assemble” plane kit!

In a trio of one-upon-the-other announcements, UTC confirmed that it will be supplying the electrical systems for Embraer’s jets. And the auxiliary power units. And the engines. And the wheels and brakes, too.

Embraer’s second generation of E-Jets will feature “electric power generation, emergency power generation, primary power distribution and secondary power distribution” manufactured by UTC. UTC will also supply APS2600 auxiliary power units to keep the electrical systems pumped full of ions. And, for main power, E-Jets will feature fuel-efficient PW1700G and PW1900G “PurePower” engines from UTC‘s Pratt & Whitney unit. Meanwhile, E-Jets will stand firmly on the ground upon UTC-built main and nose wheels, brought to a stop by UTC‘s proprietary DURACARB carbon braking system.

In related news, Embraer reiterated today that it has selected Honeywell to supply its Primus Epic 2 integrated avionics system for the new planes, a contract originally announced last month.

The article United Technologies Scores Big With Embraer Deals originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Embraer-Empresa Brasileira. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 – 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Jono Bacon: Ubuntu Q&A This Week

This week’s live video Q&A is in a slightly later time slot this week on Wednesday at 8pm UTC (click here for the time in your location this week).

As usual everyone is welcome to bring any and all questions to the Q&A.

To join, head over to Ubuntu On Air at 8pm UTC on Wednesday and you can ask your questions in the embedded chat box.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu

Boeing Takes Off With the Dow

By Dan Carroll, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Fresh off last week’s record-setting streak, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is showing no signs of slowing down. As of 2:15 p.m. EDT, the Dow has picked up 40 points, or 0.29%, as it continues to explore uncharted heights. Most stocks are in the green today despite worrying figures from China. Let’s get to the biggest stories of the index today.

Chinese concerns don’t slow industrials
Chinese inflation figures nosed up 3.2% year over year last month — a 1.2 percentage-point gain over January and a worrying sign for a nation trying to get a handle on rising prices. The world’s second-largest economy is already grappling with a spike in housing sales that has sent prices soaring, as well as a slowdown in industrial production for the first two months of 2013. After the Chinese government announced intentions last week to tax new-home sales sharply, industrial players have expressed concern that the market could be in for a slowdown.

That’s bad news for the Dow’s top manufacturing companies, but stocks in the sector aren’t feeling the heat today. Caterpillar and United Technologies rank near the top of the Dow with gains of about 0.6% apiece. These two industrial leaders have taken wildly different paths in 2013: While Caterpillar’s stock has fallen more than 3%, UTC has pleased shareholders by gaining nearly 10%. Caterpillar’s cheap valuation — particularly for a blue-chip stock with plenty of growth prospects in China, despite the recent slowdown — could tempt turnaround investors looking for a dip to buy on.

UTC‘s fellow conglomerate General Electric isn’t feeling the love today, however. Shares of GE have fallen 0.7% to lead all Dow laggards lower after company CEO Jeff Immelt warned shareholders in an annual letter that the volatile U.S. political situation could threaten investment and spending. Immelt cited the debt and tax reform and other issues while saying dividend raises and share buybacks were priorities for the company in the near future. Investors didn’t take kindly to Immelt’s words, though with GE pushing into emerging markets in Africa, the Middle East, and other developing economies, American politicians won’t shut down this stock‘s growth prospects.

Today’s leader has expressed considerably more confidence than Immelt. A senior executive at Boeing announced his company’s confidence that it has a permanent fix for the 787 Dreamliner’s battery problem that first grounded the airliner fleet. Boeing also announced that it sees a strong market for aircraft going forward, with plenty of demand spurring its decision to increase production.

With great opportunity comes great responsibility. For Boeing, which is a major player in a multitrillion-dollar market, the opportunity is massive. However, the company’s execution problems and emerging competitors have investors wondering whether Boeing will live up to its shareholder responsibilities. In this premium research report, two of The Fool’s best industrial-sector minds have collaborated to provide investors with the must-know info on Boeing. They’ll update the report as key news …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Jono Bacon: Online UDS Day One: Feedback Welcome!

I just wanted to post a quick blog entry thanking everyone who joined the first day of our inaugural online Ubuntu Developer Summit today. Overall we didn’t see many glitches in our plan of how to run the event, and we also gathered some fantastic feedback for things we can improve and extend upon next time.

If you want to see what happened in the sessions today, you can view the schedule and view any of the recorded hangouts.

Before we get into the second day tomorrow, I just wanted to invite any comments and suggestions for what worked well, what worked less well etc, to see if we can make any adjustments for the second day. Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

If I don’t see you until tomorrow, we look forward to beginning Day 2 at 2pm UTC tomorrow! Be sure to see the schedule and join us in the sessions!

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu