'Scandal': The 12 most OMG moments ... so far

scandal season 2-abc.jpg">"Scandal" is a show that lives and dies by the jaw drop. You know what we mean, those moments that leave you barely able to catch your breath, panting, hungry for more. But not all OMG moments are made equal.

As we try to ignore our Olivia Pope withdrawals (only one month until Season 3 returns, guys!), we've put together the definitive ranking of the 12 most totally insane moments on "Scandal" so far. Pop yourself some popcorn, pour a glass of red wine and get ready. Because here we go.

12. Cyrus is revealed to be behind Amanda Tanner's death

Oh, hey Season 1 twist. Look at you being cute and trying to shock with the reveal that President Grant's ( Tony Goldwyn) chief of staff Cyrus Beene ( Jeff Perry) was the man behind Amanda Tanner's (guest star Liza Weil) death. And, yeah, it was shocking -- for Season 1. But we've got people eating through their wrists now. This just seems like child's play.

11. Huck pulls out Quinn's tooth

The torture scenes between Huck ( Guillermo Diaz) and Quinn ( Katie Lowes) were tough to watch -- in part because of what it meant for that relationship, but also because, yuck. When he just went in and yanked out that tooth? Shivers.

10. Cyrus pimps out James - and it works

For a man who almost had his husband killed, it seems silly to suggest that Cyrus' lowest moment was when he coldly used James ( Dan Bucatinsky) as bait for Daniel Douglas Langston's ( Jack Coleman) wandering eye. But, here we are. The fact that it worked and the devastating outcome it lead to? Well, that's just icing on the OMG cake.

9. Mellie's rape by her father-in-law

As the show slowly began to soften Mellie ( Bellamy Young) in Season 3, this revelation, via flashback, of her rape at the hand of her drunk father-in-law was plenty divisive. And plenty shocking. The possibility that Fitz'a first born may actually be his half-brother? Yikes.

8. Sally Langston kills husband Daniel Douglas

That devastating outcome from Cyrus' pimping we were mentioning earlier? Yeah, that's this. Another dead body on his conscience and a wildly unstable Vice President of the United States with blood-stained hands. The effects of this one are still unclear, as Season 3 went into hiatus just as this occurred.

7. The truth behind Defiance

Olivia ( Kerry Washington), Mellie, Cyrus, Hollis Doyle ( Gregg Henry) and Supreme Court Justice Verna Thornton ( Debra Mooney) rigged Fitz's election? Consider us as shocked as he was.

6. Fitz gets shot in the head

This startling event made clear that not a single person on "Scandal" was safe. It also was the impetus behind Nos. 7 and 5 on this list.

5. Fitz kills Verna

After learning the truth about Defiance, and that she'd been the one to order his assassination attempt, a vengeful Fitz smothers Verna in her hospital room. Just to be clear, in America of "Scandal," both the President and Vice President are murderers. Let that sink in.

4. Mama Pope chews through her own wrists

Sure, there are bigger shocking moments regarding Olivia's presumed-dead mother ( Khandi Alexander), but this one ranks simply because it elevated "Scandal" to the upper echelons of Grand Guignol. I mean, we literally watched as a desperate woman gnawed through her own wrists like a deranged vampire.

3. Mama Pope comes back from the dead

That look on Olivia's face when her mom shows up right outside her apartment is killer. Imagine seeing your mom, when you've thought she was dead for years. Terrifying.

2. Who Mama Pope really is

And then imagine learning that your once-thought-dead mother, who you've just been reunited with, is an international terrorist who tricked your father into shooting down a plane.

1. Dad?

All that said, the biggest, baddest, most OMG moment came at the end Season 2. After months of wondering just who the threatening Rowan ( Joe Morton) really is, Liv spells it all out for us: "Dad?" It was a cliffhanger that left us salivating for three months. It changed the world of the show. It's the No. 1 Most OMG "Scandal" Moment ....so far.

Dropbox gets a major pay day

Dropbox got a huge financial lift last week with reports it had received approximately $250 million in new funds. re/code speculated it could actually end up being as much as $400 million. Whatever it was, it was a big number.

The Wall Street Journal appears to be the first publication to have broken this story (requires log in). re/code reported there could be additional money coming from other sources, possibly a couple of mutual funds, which could drive the overall amount even further.

These reports said the funding was on top of the $250 million the company received in 2011 and the company valuation was set at a hefty $10 billion, up from $8 billion in 2011. It certainly proved the power of cloud companies to attract big money, and could set the stage for an IPO at some point.

Last year Dropbox made several nods to business when it rebranded Dropbox for Teams as dropbox for business. It also beefed up the security controls, but they remain for now rudimentary at best. Later in the year, it enhanced the Dropbox APIs making it possible to program Dropbox functionality outside of the Dropbox service.

Larry Hawes, principle at Dow Brook Consulting, told me at the time that he considered that a significant move shifting Dropbox from a commodity sync and share application to a full-fledged business platform, but Hawes warned at the time that Dropbox still had a long way to go to win over a skeptical IT department, that still perceived it--for the most part--as a nuisance.

"Dropbox has such a bad reputation with IT that it will take a massive effort to change the existing perception that it is not an enterprise-ready service, even if it is. Especially in terms of security and privacy," he told me at the time.

But in spite of Dropbox's entree into the business side of the equation and these nods to business, it remains for now, for the most part, very much a consumer tool with a limited functionality. It does sync and share very well, but that's really all it does. I'm a Dropbox user and I see the power of it all the time, from the ability to get my files on any device, any time, to the way it becomes a drive in your file manager, whether in Windows or Mac.

It's a highly useful tool, and while it might not have a great business reputation, it has millions of users, many of whom are using Dropbox at work with or without permission from IT. That means there is a huge potential business customer base that could be flipped to business users if Dropbox can find a way to enhance its security and administrative controls beyond the basics it started with last year.

One thing Dropbox has done is convince its financial backers that it has tremendous potential to earn big money down the road. To do that though, it has to move beyond the consumer commodity features and try to figure out a way to get the more lucrative business customers. It seems clear Wall Street is betting it can.

For more information:
- see the TechCrunch article

Related Articles:
Box, Dropbox, IBM and more
Dropbox: Safe for business use?

What's the deal between Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh? Competition, baby

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Maybe now that their intense, dramatic and endlessly entertaining coaching rivalry has reached its biggest stage yet - an NFC Championship Game Sunday, with a berth in the Super Bowl at stake - perhaps it's time to listen to Pete Carroll and Jim Harbaugh when they say they don't hate each other.

But listening and fully believing are two different things. After all, these two have quite a history.

Carroll, 62, and Harbaugh, 50, have been battling each other for supremacy for seven years, first in the then-Pacific-10 Conference, where Harbaugh's upstart Stanford program helped end Carroll's University of Southern California dynasty, and now in the NFL, where they have battled for NFC West pre-eminence, Carroll as head coach of the Seattle Seahawks and Harbaugh as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers.

Ever since their famous "What's your Deal News?" confrontation in a postgame midfield handshake after Stanford's statement rout of USC in 2009, everyone has assumed that there is a component of animosity in the rivalry.

This week, both coaches are saying that's not the case.

CHAMPIONSHIP PREDICTIONS: BELL: PLAYOFFS: Schedule and results Montana has some advice for Kaepernick Seahawks or 49ers?

"Animosity? No," Harbaugh said. "That's erroneous. Erroneous. It's football. It's competition. It's winning."

As coaches in the same college conference and the same pro division, they've had conversations, right? Do they get along?

Harbaugh chuckled.

VIDEO: NFC Championship Game preview

"We've had football," he said. "Competition. Winning. That's sports. That's what we've had. Great competition."

Carroll was asked Thursday at his team's headquarters in Renton, Wash., what's the deal with his relationship with Harbaugh?

"What's the deal, huh?" Carroll said. "We have not been friends over the years. We don't know each other very well. It's a very, very confined relationship in that regard.

"For whatever reason, you guys have had a field day with thinking that it's something other than it is. I have great respect for what Jim's done. I think he's a tremendous football coach. So that's it. That's where it stops and starts. All the rest of this stuff, you guys have had a blast with it. But there's nothing there, you know?"

It's not the easiest thing to penetrate the relationship. Neither coach is likely to sit for probing, personal questions. Harbaugh's public comments usually are dispensed from a podium, often in short answers, sometimes on the wacky side. The frenetic Carroll might issue more complete sentences and chat away from the podium a little, but it's rare that he will sit still long enough to dissect a subject that doesn't directly relate to winning football games.

NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: PELISSERO'S PREVIEW: SHERMAN: Seahawks D aims to be 'best of all time' More NFC Championship Game thoughts Five story lines to watch

So what's their deal? A Carroll confidante told USA TODAY Sports the defining factor in their relationship is that two competition junkies have been pitted against each other regularly and the full force of their win-win mentalities butting against one another creates sparks.

"I think they're two insanely highly developed competitors," said Yogi Roth, who played college football with Carroll's son at Pittsburgh, coached under Carroll at USC and wrote a book with Carroll. "Ask Pete to describe himself, he'll say, 'I'm a competitor.' That's who he is - back against the wall, all the time. He doesn't need a bully to set the tempo.

VIDEO: Championship Sunday story lines

"The angle to me is, here are two of the most competitive guys in all of football, and we think they hate each other. But competitors love what the other guy brings out of them," says Roth, now an analyst with the Pac-12 Networks. "I think these guys thrive on the stuff that is said about them, because they want the biggest matchup, the biggest game and the biggest moment. It's like in basketball, you want to take the last shot. Both of these guys, in a pickup basketball game, would want to take the last shot."

In the case of Sunday's game, taking - and making - the last shot would mean getting to the Super Bowl. Neither coach has won a Super Bowl, though Harbaugh has been closest.

In the head-to-head matchup, Harbaugh leads. He was 2-1 against Carroll in the Pac-12 and is 4-2 against him in the NFL.

Though their personalities are as different as sandpaper (Harbaugh) and silk (Carroll), they have both taken their teams to the top with a focus on tough defense, smash-mouth running offense and, in the past two years, dynamic dual-threat quarterbacks, the 49ers' Colin Kaepernick and the Seahawks' Russell Wilson.

"I think Pete and Harbaugh have great respect for each other because they've both done it that way," Roth says. "They've both added new elements, whether it's the quarterback run game or maybe developing guys who other people passed on. They just go about it differently. Jim is a more aggressive personality. Pete's more of a laid back guy. Similar approaches, different personalities."

Both have been historically great at what they do.

In a seven-year span at USC, Carroll's teams went 82-9 - 13-0 once, 12-1 three times and 11-2 three times, though some of those victories were later vacated because of NCAA rules violations.

Harbaugh is the first NFL coach to reach a conference championship game in each of his first three seasons as head coach.

They had very different playing careers - Carroll was a college safety at Pacific not good enough for pro football; Harbaugh was a star quarterback at Michigan, a first-round draft pick and had a long pro career. But they have both built reputations as players' coaches.

"He understands us as players and what we need to help make this a better football team," 49ers star linebacker Patrick Willis says. "Since he's got here, it's always been about us, about the team, the team, the team."

Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman has played for both coaches. He played college ball under Harbaugh at Stanford.

Sherman has a lot in common with Carroll. They're both energetic, fun-loving, loose.

"He's not soft, but he's easy-going," Sherman says. "He allows guys to be who they are. Coach Pete lets you shoot baskets before meetings and have fun and enjoy the game. He makes the game a lot more fun than it used to be."

Asked if Harbaugh, whose approach was influenced by his no-nonsense college coach, Bo Schembechler, allowed Sherman to be himself at Stanford, Sherman laughs. "A lot less so," he says.

Their stories are curiously intertwined.

Carroll was born in San Francisco, was reared in the Bay Area and returned there in the mid-90s for two years as defensive coordinator for the 49ers under head coach George Seifert.

But years later, it is Harbaugh, a native Midwesterner, who is the Bay Area's most prominent coach.

In 1989, Carroll, then the Minnesota Vikings' secondary coach, was a candidate for the head coach job at Stanford. The job went to Dennis Green.

But years later, it was Harbaugh who performed the miracle at Stanford. He took a team that had gone 1-11 in 2006 and in four years erected a powerhouse that challenged, then surpassed the program that had dominated the Pac-10 and later Pac-12 for nearly a decade - Carroll's USC.

When Harbaugh coached at the University of San Diego before coming to Stanford, he recruited a quarterback from the Los Angeles area named Nate Carroll - Pete's son. Nate went to USC instead and is now an assistant for his dad in Seattle.

Harbaugh and Carroll first clashed in 2007, when Harbaugh, just hired at Stanford, said in the summer that he had heard 2007 would be Carroll's last season at USC. Carroll responded Harbaugh should get his facts straight. Said Harbaugh: "We bow to no man; we bow to no program here at Stanford."

That fall, Harbaugh and Stanford made major news. A 41-point underdog, Stanford went down to Los Angeles and shocked the No. 2 Trojans 24-23. In the aftermath, Carroll expressed only respect toward Harbaugh. "Jimmy had them ready to play," he said. "Give credit to Stanford."

The next year, at Stanford, USC issued payback, a 45-23 pasting in which there was some odd gamesmanship in the closing seconds. Harbaugh sent in a placekicker to kick a meaningless field goal and Carroll then called timeout to ice the kicker. Then Harbaugh changed his mind, sent in his offense and Stanford scored a touchdown on an 18-yard pass.

That set the stage for the one everyone remembers, the famous "What's your deal?" game of 2009. USC, after seven remarkable years, was fading, and Stanford was rising. When they intersected on Nov. 14 in Los Angeles, Stanford creamed the Trojans with a power run game 55-21.

With 6:47 left, Stanford running back Toby Gerhart scored on a 6-yard run to make it 48-21 and Harbaugh kept the offense on the field to try for a two-point conversion.

According to the book Rags to Roses: The Rise of Stanford Football, published this year by The Stanford Daily, Gerhart at that point approached Harbaugh and asked what was going on, and Harbaugh replied, "I want to put 50 on those (expletive)."

The two-point try failed, but Harbaugh got his 50 and more when Stanford scored another touchdown.

As the two coaches approached each other at midfield, they had a brief handshake and strained conversation.

Carroll: "What's your deal? You alright?"

Harbaugh: "Yeah, I'm good. "What's your deal?"

Carroll, turning away: "Nice game."

After three more games, Carroll was done at USC, taking the offer to coach the Seahawks.

And after one more season at Stanford - a 12-1 season capped by a 40-12 win over Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl, Stanford's first Bowl Championship Series victory - Harbaugh was gone to the 49ers.

Contributing: Jim Corbett and Tom Pelissero in Renton, Wash. VIDEO: Deaf Seahawks fullback inspires

Now, Carroll's and Harbaugh's deal is the NFC West.

Carroll's Seahawks won the division in 2010 (though with a 7-9 record) and this season. Harbaugh's 49ers won it in 2011 and 2012.

Carroll has never coached a team to the Super Bowl. Harbaugh took the 49ers there last year and lost to his older brother, John, who coaches the Baltimore Ravens.

With a chance to get back to the Super Bowl, Harbaugh said this week he'd cut off a finger to be able to play in Sunday's game and would contemplate sacrificing an arm or an eye.

"There's nothing better than playing," he says. "Coaching is the second-best thing, though, because you are competing."

When it comes to Harbaugh vs. Carroll, whatever they say, the competition remains compelling.

2014 A2Hosting Promotion & Coupon Codes Are Released at HostingReview360.com

HostingReview360.com has introduced the new A2Hosting promotion in 2014 which comes with 2 coupon codes bringing an up to 51% discount that decreases the price of the companies' shared hosting packages to $3.92/mo.

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) January 14, 2014

The web hosting review site HostingReview360.com has introduced the new A2Hosting promotion in 2014 which comes with 2 exclusive coupon codes bringing an up to 51% discount that decreases the price of the companies' shared hosting packages to $3.92/mo. This is regarded to be one of the most favorable promotions that the company has ever carried out.

A2Hosting has been offering a wide variety of products including shared, managed VPS, Cloud VPS, dedicated server and reseller hosting, among which the shared service is powering most of the customers' websites. There are 2 shared hosting packages named Prime and Prime+SSD, and the only difference between them in feature is that the latter uses SSDs and Railgun Optimizer for free.

The regular price of the 2 packages starts from $5.99/mo and $8.99/mo. As the company offers a 17% discount by default, visitors subscribing to the services directly can get the price down to $4.97/mo and $7.46/mo.

In the current promotion, A2Hosting provides this promotional link which has already had the Deal Now BHSCODE activated automatically. Designed for people who only need a short-term plan to reduce risks, this code brings a 51% discount for both packages and cuts the price of the 1/6/12 month(s)' subscription down to:

Prime: $5.39/mo, $4.90/mo and $3.92/mo.
Prime+SSD: $6.86/mo, $6.37/mo and $5.39/mo.

Another coupon code offered by the company is BHSA2CODE which is suitable and beneficial for webmasters planning to use the services for a long time of at least 2 years. This unique code comes with a 34% discount with which the effective price of the 24-month and 36-month billing of the packages is:

Prime: $4.61/mo and $3.95/mo.
Prime+SSD: $6.59/mo and $5.93/mo.

Both of the packages cover unlimited RAID 10 disk space, monthly data transfer, databases (MySQL and PostgreSQL) and email addresses, support to host unlimited domains on a single account, and include advanced technologies like SSH, SFTP, shared SSL, PHP 5.5, MySQL 5.5, Apache 2.2 and Perl 5.10.

In addition, A2Hosting provides customers with free access to the following features.

1) A2 SiteBuilder, cPanel control panel & Softaculous application installer.
2) CloudFlare CDN, server rewind backups & HackScan.
3) Solid State Drives & Railgun Optimizer (included in Prime+SSD only).
4) $25 Bing/Yahoo search credits, $20 Bidvertiser ads credits, Constant Contact and iContact email marketing trial & SubmitNET SEO suite 30-day trial.
5) 99.9% uptime & 30 days full refund guarantee.

About HostingReview360.com
HostingReview360.com is an independent web hosting review site that releases reviews to reveal the secrets in the industry and to help webmasters focus on their own businesses without worrying about the selection of hosting platform.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/a2hosting-coupon-discount/2014/prweb11487177.htm

Siddhi Yoga Offers €50 Discount Coupon for Yoga Teacher Training in Goa and Dharamshala

Goa, India (PRWEB) January 13, 2014

Siddhi Yoga, a reputable yoga teacher training academy in India, is offering a €50 Best Buy coupon to all customers who register for a yoga training course at its Goa and Dharamshala schools.

The €50 discount voucher is available for anyone who signs up for a course via the company's website at http://www.siddhiyoga.com/.

Obtaining the coupon is fast and easy. Interested people simply need to visit the website and fill in name, email address and country in the online form. The coupon will be then be emailed to them with information on how to redeem the discount for a course at the Goa and Dharamshala schools. The offer is limited to one coupon per person.

"We like to reward people who want to pursue their love for yoga, and hope the discount will give them the encouragement they need to follow their dream," says Madhur Rajpal, spokesperson for Siddhi Yoga Academy.

The discount follows from the recent price structure changes in January 2014, which sees people receiving bigger discounts the earlier they book.

Siddhi Yoga also recently added new courses and destinations to its offering. In 2013, the yoga academy launched its Yoga Teacher Training in Dharmshala, a quaint Himalayan town in India.

"Extending our courses to Dharmshala was a natural evolution for Siddhi Yoga Academy. The town is the spiritual home of yoga, and is also home to his Holiness, the Dalai Lama. It was only natural that we would want our students to experience this," he said.

The teacher training program at Siddhi Yoga Academy includes many different types of yoga such as the famous yoga styles of hatha, iyengar, bikram, vinyasana and ashtang. It also offers other blends of yoga merged with aerobics and other fitness regimes. For yoga lovers who are starting on the path to become a yoga instructor, the yoga teacher training courses in Dharmshala provide RYT 200 and RYT 300 certification in any style they choose.

But in India, where there are countless yoga academies to choose from, what truly sets Siddhi Yoga apart is the teachers. Siddhi Yoga Academy boasts the best teachers in the yoga field, with all teachers certified with ERYT200 and ERYT500.

"Our teachers are not only exponents of yoga who have honed the practice for decades under the guidance of the great yoga gurus of India; they also know the yogic art of teaching," said Rajpal.

At the end of the day, students of Siddhi Yoga are finding that teaching yoga classes is an excellent way to make extra income doing what they love - whether they teach classes as a full-time career or as a supplement to another full-time job.

"Becoming a yoga teacher means you can design a career that works for your lifestyle."

For more information about Siddhi Yoga and yoga teacher training in Dharamsala, visit http://www.siddhiyoga.com/.

About Siddhi Yoga
Siddhi Yoga is the culmination of great knowledge, noble purpose, and likeminded people. It brings to fore the lost art of creating balance in one's life. Using yoga, meditation, kriyas, relaxation and healing, the practice at Siddhi Yoga brings about transformational changes in its students - making them feel invigorated, free spirited, and healthy; apart from giving them yoga teacher training.

Top 10 Android app updates this week: Copy, Pandora, Snapchat

pandora app-snapchat/">

Welcome back to our weekly Top 10 Android App Updates column, where we take a look at the most upgraded apps for the week. I've found that one of the best ways to discover useful apps is to look at what people are actually updating, not focus on which apps have the most installs. As in the past, we're going to filter out minor updates for the super popular apps that have over 10 million installs, but I'm going to make an exception for apps that had significant updates. I hope you enjoy this weekly feature and discover some apps that you might find useful.

PushBullet - Version 13

What's new in this version:

• Dismiss your phone's notifications or disable mirroring right from Chrome! (Android 4.3+)
• Notification mirroring (desktop notifications) duplicate filtering improved.
• View your sent pushes in the app! (from the drawer)
• Devices and contacts you can push to load a lot faster.
• Fixed a bunch of little issues. :)

Copy - Version 2.5.02

What's new in this version:

• Major UI Redesign.
• Major PhotoCopy updates.
• Enhancements and fixes for file transfers.
• Bug fixes & optimizations.

Falcon Pro - Version 2.1.1

What's new in this version:

• New: Account switcher in tweet composer.
• Improved: Faster transition animations.
• Removed: Interactions due to API change.
• Fix: Conversations after API change.

Pandora - Version 5.1

What's new in this version:

• Set and forget - customize how often your alarm repeats throughout the week.
• Need a few extra minutes of shut eye? Hit snooze to catch more ZZZ's.
• Use with the sleep timer to listen to music you love morning and night.
• Other small improvements and bug fixes.

ES File Explorer - Version 3.0.9.1

What's new in this version:

• Support auto device discovery(Bonjour) in LAN.
• Support GIF on cloud.

Overlays - Version 1.8.1

What's new in this version:

• Added French translation.
• Fixed selecting gallery image as profile icon bug.
• If Home button is enabled as start service - it will also function from main app settings screen.
• Crashes and bug fixes.

Evernote - Version 5.7

What's new in this version:

• Improves on-boarding.
• Bug fixes and improvements.

Snapchat - Version 4.1.05

What's new in this version:

• Improves Find Friends functionality.
• Allows Snapchatters to opt-out of linking their phone number with their username. This option is available in Settings > Mobile #.

Budget Helper - Version 2.01

What's new in this version:

• Complete redesign.
• Fix for crash when entering amounts containing a comma.

Contacts+ - Version 3.21.5

What's new in this version:

• More customization: you can now choose between Round/Square pictures in the main contacts view.
• Toggle between dialer search/textual search.
• Quick action buttons to call, text and email: long press (press and hold) on a contact picture will pop quick action buttons to quickly call, text or email your contact.
• New menus & a new setup wizard.

I was first introduced to Android with the Samsung Fascinate and I've been hooked ever since. I love the customization that Android offers the user to personalize their phone. I enjoy writing and have been blessed with the opportunity to share this passion for Android with others.

Creating A Sense Of Urgency: Why Marketing Must Behave Like Sales

What's the quickest way to prioritize a global marketing team and align an organization to create a culture of success? Quite simply, look at your sales team.

Sales departments operate under a near constant sense of urgency, which gives them an extraordinary degree of focus and the need to make decisions quickly. Salespeople are always striving to meet predetermined monthly, quarterly and yearly sales targets. For many people in sales, this process is intensified by the reality that their compensation is tied to meeting and exceeding those targets. As a result, members of a sales department (almost to a fault) have an intense focus Deal Now which next immediate priority, decision and step will better enable them to meet their goals. They also measure their results, review/adjust their strategies, and stay focused on their goals.

Let's compare that reality to the one often experienced by those in marketing, for example. Most marketing departments have a long list of priorities and complex strategies from what can be a dizzying host of different internal and external clients. They must balance between being the convenient internal go-to for projects that span the gamut from the inconsequential to the most intensely public. Marketers also have to balance core business impact functions such as driving product adoption, pipeline and brand relevance, often resulting in being very loaded down with more projects than they can conceivably handle.

The result for both the marketing department itself and, really, all the internal tributaries that flow into it these types of projects is the kind of confusion that can make it difficult to maintain focus on objectives that matter the most: those that will ultimately drive sales. And with the velocity of today's business, it's all too easy for this to become standard operating procedure, as marketing maintains a dead sprint on a treadmill of work that will not demonstrably benefit the business.

If marketing is empowered to view its mission through a "sales-focused" lens, it will be able to focus its efforts on the marketing campaigns that meet two primary objectives: increasing velocity and adoption of new products introduced into the market and adding qualified opportunities to sales pipelines. Everything that marketing does, including driving brand relevance and awareness, should ultimately contribute to these two areas. In marketing, sales is my No. 1 customer. I have worked to have our teams talk less about brand impressions and numbers of people at events (all important and relevant) and more about qualified pipeline opportunities. This simple change better aligns us with sales and gives sales confidence that we "get it."

Marketers also need to develop measurable goals that can be monitored regularly to allow for course corrections along the way. Sales leaders are constantly looking at trends and patterns in weekly forecasts pipeline, wins, losses, what products are getting traction, and so on, and using the information to adjust strategies along the way to make sure of a successful outcome. In marketing we now produce a dashboard that has daily, weekly, monthly and semiannual data refreshes for key metrics so we can monitor results and adjust if/as needed. If marketing can speak the same language as sales, that's half the battle. And, of course, marketing sometimes might need to step out of its comfort zone and make decisions quickly to align with the fast-paced action happening in sales.

It is critical for members of sales and marketing to realize that their objectives are essentially the same. That realization not only is hugely transformative for the people in those departments, it also can have a major impact on the entire business. Amazing things happen when marketing and sales are in tune with each other. Very quickly, an internal alignment forms across an entire company that champions creating real benefits for partners and customers. Time-consuming distractions fall away, and often the wins start accumulating. Partners in particular cherish this synergy and alignment as extended sales forces.

And where to start doesn't have to be complicated. For example, sales teams know that customer loyalty is primarily won through experience with a company and/or brand, and therefore the entire organization must be focused on consistent delivery of the brand promise. Marketing teams must take ownership of this need for consistency and work to provide coordinated strategies across marketing teams connecting directly with sales teams and functions. This coordinated effort will drive improved brand perception, which is the driver for customer acquisition/retention and partner loyalty. This integration should encompass an understanding of creative online and offline marketing strategies that balance sales enablement and brand awareness. The challenge for marketers is to align all of a company's marketing resources to relevantly connect brands with consumers. Sales teams have been doing this for years, providing deep relationships and points of contact for customers.

Is an internally aligned, highly focused marketing organization that inspires different departments, divisions and teams to work together to deliver real, measurable results for clients and customers possible? Yes, with work, of course. If you want marketing to ultimately deliver sales, think like sales.

Overstock.com Fined $6.8 Million for Allegedly Misleading Price Comparisons

Discount website Overstock.com has been fined $6.8 million by a California judge because of allegedly misleading Coupon Codes comparisons on its website, the company said in a statement.

But the company called the ruling "unjust" and vowed to appeal.

Seven California district attorneys first brought the case against Overstock in 2010, charging the company regularly overstated comparison prices on its site. In one example, the site allegedly advertised a patio set for $449.99, claiming its list price was $999. The customer received the item with a $247 Walmart sticker, the complaint said.

During the proceeding, it was alleged that Overstock regularly listed jewelry comparison prices at three times its cost, court papers said.

In a tentative California Superior Court ruling issued Jan. 3, Judge Wynne Carvill said "[it is] misleading to set [average retail prices] based on the highest price that can be found without regard to the prevailing market price and without disclosure of the practice."

It enjoins Overstock from, among other things, setting ARPs based on a "formula, multiplier, or other method that would set the ARP on any basis other than the actual price offered in the marketplace." It also mandated that Overstock provide more information on how price comparisons were derived.

In a statement, Overstock executives complained they were being unfairly singled out.

"Since 2008 I have been an integral part of the process by which we log, verify, and advertise 'compare-at' prices," said Overstock.com president Stormy Simon. "I am aware of the lengths we have gone to get this right on the millions of products that flow through our website. We will follow the ruling, while noting that the effects on our current practices will be small because, as we are the gold standard, we are already fanatical about getting this right."

Overstock.com general counsel Mark Griffin complained the ruling could "reconstruct entirely the manner in which retailers advertise prices by creating a new and radical expansion of the standard regarding industry practices."

"Traditional retail stores will have to make lengthy disclosures on paper price tags disclosing their methods of price comparisons," said the Overstock statement. "The ruling also could prohibit a retailer from using common reference terms like 'compare,' without going through a prohibitively difficult and often impossible validation process."

CEO Patrick Byrne also argued that the new rules would hurt the market for "unique items," as opposed to items like brand-name televisions.

"When we go to Nepal and buy some Tibetan singing bowls from an NGO that serves women at risk, bring them home, and sell them with the tiniest markup possible, it can be really, really hard to say what the precise compare-at price is," he said.

The penalty imposed covers each day Overstock advertised price comparisons not in accordance with court's mandated practices. From March 2006 to September 2008, the court imposed a penalty of $3,500 per day, and from September 2008 through September 2013, the penalty is $2,000 per day. The total amounts to $6.8 million-less than half of the $15 million originally sought by the district attorneys.

Where to find the best cruise deals for 2014

According to early reports from travel sellers, 2014 looks to be a strong year for cruising.

"[We are] coming off the best year in company history, and we are already seeing that 2014 is projected to be an even better year," said Brad Anderson, co-president of Avoya Travel. "Most cruise lines have already reported extraordinary advanced bookings in 2014."

But there are still deals to found in 2014, especially for flexible travelers.

"There has been an increase in inventory in the Caribbean and so there may be additional opportunities for customer savings on Caribbean cruises," Anderson said. "Europe will continue to have some extraordinary values, but on select dates and itineraries. So, with some flexibility ... consumers should find great values in both of those destinations ... Across the board, it is better to book early on all destinations and ships in order to get the best value, cabin category and itinerary."

READ MORE: Bookings surge for European river cruises

Shari Marsh, owner of Cruise Holidays and Land Vacations in Raleigh, N.C., also said good deals might be found in the Mediterranean.

"There continues to be less desire for the standard seven-night Med [cruise]", she said. "And the cruise lines still have plenty of inventory to fill ... Air will be a deciding factor."

Michelle Weller, vice president of sales and customer support for Travel Leaders in Houston, said that the Promo Code are available during the first two months of the year.

RELATED: Royal Caribbean's Quantum is most-anticipated new ship

"Royal Caribbean is offering up to $400 onboard credit, reduced deposit and reduced pricing if you book before Feb. 28," she said. "Crystal has some Mediterranean sailings starting at $1,710 per person all-inclusive. That's a phenomenal price for Europe. Oceania is doing great free airfare and two-for-one deals but they have to be booked by March 31. Princess has three-for-free deal: if you book by Feb. 28 you get $100 excursion credit, a free bottle of wine and a free 8x10 framed photo. Another favorite deal is the two-for-one discount on Viking River Cruises."

This item was written by Johanna Jainchill, who covers the travel industry for Travel Weekly. Jainchill is serving as Guest Editor of The Cruise Log while USA TODAY Cruise Editor Gene Sloan is away.

All agree that getting in early is the key factor.

"I had someone call me for pricing on a Fourth of July Caribbean cruise last week," Weller said. "She didn't book right away and when she called back, the cabins were sold out so she had to opt for the next step up in pricing."