Today's 5

Plastic Money !!!!!!!!!!

2007-04-06T04:47:00.000-07:00

The Internet offers some significant advantages to shoppers, and is becoming increasingly popular with both adults and young people. It can give you access to products and services which are not available in your local stores. It can save time, and help you avoid crowds. It can save you money, as some kinds of products are substantially cheaper in other countries. It can help you research product details and make comparisons of prices and features, before you physically visit a store for a demonstration.Purchase by credit card is the usual method of payment, which has restricted the ability of young people to shop online. Recent developments in the introduction of pre-paid Payment cards that can be credited with money by adults, are likely to stimulate suppliers to target more products and marketing at a youth market, fuelling a rapid growth in children buying goods online. Done Card, Itz Cash are the bigger player in cash card business in India. This allows people to buy products / serivices anywhere, every where.
www.donecard.com
www.itzcash.com

For family Internet usage
Keep personal information confidential. For example don't give out your name, age, or phone number.
Get to know the services and websites that your child uses.
Don't believe everything you read or see online.
Encourage children to tell you about anything they find that is suggestive, obscene, threatening or makes them feel uncomfortable.
Don't immediately blame the child if they receive or access something obscene - this may have been done accidentally.
Use the Internet as a family activity and if possible, keep the computer in a family room rather than in a child's bedroom.
Try to get to know your child's online friends as you would their other friends.
Try not to use the PC or the Internet as an electronic babysitter.
Set your own golden rules and after discussing them, stick them at the side of the computer.
Enjoy surfing!

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2006-12-06T07:15:00.000-08:00

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2006-12-05T09:44:00.000-08:00

Did you know ?

2006-09-22T10:43:00.000-07:00

DID YOU KNOW?

The main library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

Did you know ?

2006-09-17T14:10:00.000-07:00

Each king in a deck of playing cards represents a great king from history. King of spades represents King David, king of clubs depicts Alexander the Great, king of hearts represents Charlemagne and while the king of diamonds shows Julius Caesar.

Did you know ?

2006-09-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

DID YOU KNOW?

Upper and lower case letters are named ‘upper’ and ‘lower’, because in the time when al original print had to be set in individual letters, the ‘upper case’ letters were stored in the case on top of the case stored smaller, ‘lower case’ letters.

Hic Hic Hurray

2006-09-17T13:32:00.000-07:00

HIC HIC HURRAY: A woman wearing traditional Bavarian clothes drinks beer during the opening ceremony of the Oktoberfest in Munich on Saturday, while a decorated horse-drawn carriage makes its way through the streets of the German city. Millions of beer drinkers from around the world will come to the Bavarian capital for the world's most famous beer festival consuming 5.5 million litres of beer in the process

Mars spacecraft settles into orbit

2006-09-13T23:04:00.000-07:00

The most powerful spacecraft ever sent to Mars has settled into a nearly circular orbit, a move that allows scientists to begin studying the planet in unprecedented detail.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter fired its thrusters for 12 minutes on Monday to adjust to its final position six months after it arrived at the planet. Its altitude ranges between 150 kilometre to 315 kilometre above the surface.

"Getting to this point is a great achievement," said Dan Johnston, Deputy Mission Manager at the space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the $ 720 million mission.

Over the next several months, the orbiter will deploy its 33-foot antenna and remove a lens cap from one of its instruments.

It will begin collecting data in November, and scientists expect the resolution of those images to be nine times higher.

The unmanned orbiter safely slipped into orbit around Mars in March after a seven-month, 499-million-kilometre journey. It joined three other spacecraft currently flying around the planet and two rovers rolling across the surface.

Several weeks after entering orbit, a high-resolution camera aboard the spacecraft beamed back a test image showing the planet's southern highlands and cratered surface.

The orbiter spent the last half-year repeatedly dipping in to the upper atmosphere to shrink its orbit in a tricky process known as aerobraking. (AP)

Irwin's widow thanks fans for support

2006-09-13T23:02:00.000-07:00

The American widow of "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin on Wednesday thanked his fans for their kindness and support following the death of her "soul mate," and announced plans for his public memorial next week.

In her first public statement since Irwin's death, Terri Irwin said she "would like to thank everyone for the overwhelming outpouring of love, support and prayers for my family."

She said a public memorial service would be held next Wednesday on the grounds of the family owned Australia Zoo wildlife park in Queensland state.

Public service

A private service involving family and friends was held around a campfire at the park on Saturday. Irwin was fatally stabbed last Monday by a stingray's barb while filming a TV show off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

Although larger venues for the public event had been suggested, Terri Irwin said her husband would have wanted the service held at the 5,500-seat auditorium, called the "Crocoseum" he built himself.

"I realize that the Crocoseum has a limited capacity ... but I cannot see how a memorial service would work in any other place other than the Crocoseum, which he built here at the zoo and of which he was so proud," the statement said.

"I would therefore ask that everyone please bear with me in this wish and help me to make this happen."

Irwin's death sparked an outpouring of grief in Australia, with thousands of fans turning out to the 25-hectare (60-acre) Australia Zoo to lay flowers, candles, cards, stuffed animals and messages of support scrawled on the exuberant entertainer's trademark khaki shirts.

Live broadcast

Thousands more are expected to turn out for Irwin's memorial, for which free tickets will be distributed in advance, according to Peter Lang, a spokesperson for Australia Zoo.

Large television screens will be set up at venues in Queensland's capital, Brisbane, and the nearby Sunshine Coast, and the event will be broadcast live in Australia, the United States and Asia, the statement said.

Terri Irwin, originally from Eugene, Oregon, and her eight-year-old daughter, Bindi, will speak at the memorial service, along with Irwin's father, Bob, and his close friend and manager, John Stainton. The couple also have a son, Bob, 2. (AP)

Steve Irwin

2006-09-12T03:59:00.001-07:00

A LIFE-long friend of Steve Irwin today told how the Crocodile Hunter pulled a deadly stingray barb from his own chest before losing consciousness and dying.

Friend John Stainton said he had viewed footage of his friend's last moments and the images were "shocking".

"It's a very hard thing to watch because you're actually witnessing somebody die ... and it's terrible," he said.

"It shows that Steve came over the top of the ray and the tail came up, and spiked him here (in the chest), and he pulled it out and the next minute he's gone.

"That was it. The cameraman had to shut down."

Irwin , 44, was filming a television program on the Great Barrier Reef off far north Queensland when the drama unfolded yesterday.

Mr Stainton said Irwin's wife, Terri, who rushed to Queensland from a holiday in Tasmania after being told of the tragedy, was putting on a brave face for the sake of her children.

"I think she's being very strong," he said in Cairns, where Irwin's body has been taken.

"I think for the children's sake she has to be strong because they're at a very impressionable age, as you know.

"Bindi's eight and little Robert's coming up to three, so he may not totally understand, but Bindi certainly does.

"She's very mindful of how she has to control her emotions to get the kids through it."

Terri Irwin remained at the family home on the Sunshine Coast with her children today and Mr Stainton said she had no plans to go to Cairns.

The loss of an Australian icon has made headlines around the world and sparked tributes from all walks of life, with NEWS.com.au readers among the many keen to pass on their condolences.

Irwin was killed while shooting footage for a new show he was doing with Bindi.

Terri would have the final say on whether film from the project was made public, the head of the US TV company that broadcasts his show said today.

Film of the death has already been handed to Queensland police preparing a report for the Coroner.

Billy Campbell, the president of Discovery Networks, which owns the Animal Planet channel, said talks on the footage would take place with Terri at a suitable time.

"It's still too early," Mr Campbell said. "We'll have to take a look at it."

Surf Lifesavers national marine stinger adviser Lisa-Ann Gershwin said there had only been 17 fatal stingray attacks worldwide. "I think it's just an extraordinary freak accident that has happened to his heart," she said.

"A lot of people will be afraid by this, but they need to keep in mind that this was a freak accident, it was a terrible tragedy but it is not common."

Dr Gershwin said stingray stings to the legs or arms were common and, while painful, were not normally considered dangerous. She said there were many different types of stingrays, with barbs on their tails up to 30cm long, and they poisoned victims with a range of toxins.

Fire Down Below

2006-09-11T04:12:00.000-07:00

ELECTRIFYING FEET: A Bulgarian girl performs barefoot over smouldering embers during the ancient ritual of fire dancing, Nestinari, at Varvara village, around 450 km southeast of Sofia. The Nestinari dance is one of the most authentic rituals that has its origins in Bulgaria before Christianity. The dancers were abstainers and mediators between the sky and the earth. The prayed for health, prosperity and rich harvest. The fire is lit in the afternoon by the main fire dancer. The dancing itself is performed after sunset to the accompaniment of a drum and bagpipe.

FACTS: Do you know?

2006-09-08T04:59:00.000-07:00

WORD WITHOUT VOWEL: RHYTHM

CROCODILE: Only animal & reptile which sheds tear while eating .

BRAIN: Organ of body which has no sensation when cut .

BOOK WITHOUT LETTER 'e':

GADFY , written by Earnest Wright in 1939 is a 50,000+ word book, which doesn't contain a single word with ' e ' in it

No of Alphabets, which SOUND AS WORDS: They are

B Bee
C Sea
G Zee
I Eye
Q Queue
R Are
S Yes
T Tea
U You
Y Why

Sonia, Nooyi among most powerful women

2006-09-01T02:02:00.000-07:00

PepsiCo's chief executive-designate Indra Nooyi has been named the fourth most powerful woman in the world, while Congress chief Sonia Gandhi is the 13the most powerful, according to the World’s Most Powerful women list released by Forbes magazine.

India-born and educated Nooyi, who was recently selected to become the top honcho of the cola giant, made a gigantic leap this year in the Forbes Top 100 Most Powerful Woman List from her 28th rank in 2005.

Sonia Gandhi, who was No 3 in the 2004 list right behind Condoleezza Rice and Wu Yi and ahead of Laura Bush and Hillary Rodham Clinton, has been ranked 13th this year.

Nooyi, who migrated to the United States in 1978 after a brief stint a textile outfit in India, has been showered with praises by the magazine.

Nooyi’s profile reads as "few people could handle either the presidential or the chief financial officer job at a $100 billion company."

Interestingly, Sonia Gandhi’s profile on the website says that she "heads the Left-leaning party of Jawaharlal Nehru, where she acts as the Opposition leader to Manmohan Singh, the pro-business prime minister."

"Gandhi is still widely revered, especially among the country's poor millions. Gandhi frequently expresses concern that India's astounding economic growth is leaving the poor behind, and that her country is not doing enough to help its farmers," the profile said.

According to the list, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who did not even figure in last year's choice, overtook US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice to become this year's most powerful woman.

The other Indians in the prestigious list are joint managing directors of ICICI Bank Lalita Gupte and Kalpana Morparia, who has been put at 93rd position in the list of 100 women.

Vidya Chhabbria, chairman of the Jumbo Group based in Dubai, is positioned at 95.

The list has 53 women from the United States and five from Britain including Melinda Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (at 12th position) and US Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton is at 18.

The US First Lady Laura Bush is found at 43rd most powerful position while Queen Elizabeth booked her place at 46th position followed by Myanmar's pro-democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some of India's other neighbours have also made the cut.

China's Vice premier Wu Yi was placed at third position on the power ladder while Chairman of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission Sima Samar was ranked 28th.

Bangladeshi Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, who is facing an opposition protest led by her bitter rival Awami League's Sheikh Haseena, is positioned at 33 while People's Bank of China's Deputy Governor Wu Xialong was at 35.
Haier Group chairman Mian Mian Yang, also from China, was rated 70th most powerful woman in the world.

KNOW NOOYI

Nooyi, who went to the US from India to attend Yale School of Management, has been PepsiCo's president and CFO since 2001.

She will take her place in an elite group of 11 female CEOs running Fortune 500 companies

Patricia Woertz at agricultural processor Archer Daniels Midland Co. ranks first. ADM is ranked 56th in the Fortune 500, while PepsiCo, the world's second-largest soft-drink company after Coca-Cola Co, is ranked 61st.

She is expected by many on Wall Street to continue the company's record of strong, consistent growth

Nooyi's elder sister Chandrika Tandon founded Tandon Capital Associates, a consulting firm that has helped the American banking industry save about $700 million.

Younger brother Krishnamurthy Tandon is a well-known investment banker in Wall Street.

source ibmlive.com

mobile phones

2006-08-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

1. Which company launched the first mobile phone?

a) Motorola
b) Nokia
c) Samsung

Its first mobile phone was called the DynaTAC 8000X. It only boasted of one-hour talk time and eight hours of standby time, so that if one wanted it 24 hours a day, one would have to charge up three sets of batteries every day.

2. Which film first featured a mobile phone?

a) Wedding Planner
b) Who Framed Roger Rabbit
c) 16 Candles

The English film 16 Candles. It featured the DynaTAC 8000X. In it, Samantha Baker's lover
Jake Ryan has a cellular phone in his dad's Rolls Royce.

3. Who invented the camera mobile phone?

a) William Kelly
b) Philippe Kahn
c) Jeremy Watt

Philippe Kahn. Kahn invented the camera phone in June 1997. The first commercial camera phone was the J-SH04 made by Sharp Corporation and marketed by J-Phone (Vodafone) in Japan in November 2000.

4. What is the nickname for a large, obsolete mobile phone?

a) Radiophone
b) Vodaphone
c) Brick

In cellular terminology, it is referred to a large, heavy and usually obsolete mobile phone.

5. Who invented the mobile phone?

a) Adrian Girzone
b) Joel Engel
c) Martin Cooper

Dr Martin Cooper, a former general manager at communications giant Motorola, is said to be the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make an analogue mobile phone call on a portable mobile phone in April1973.
The first call he made was to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs head of research. AT&T's research arm, Bell Laboratories, introduced the idea of cellular communications in 1947. But Motorola was the first off the block with a mobile phone.

compiled by Suresh

Cell phones won't keep your secrets

2006-08-31T12:36:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The married man's girlfriend sent a text message to his cell phone: His wife was getting suspicious. Perhaps they should cool it for a few days.

"So," she wrote, "I'll talk to u next week."

"You want a break from me? Then fine," he wrote back.

Later, the married man bought a new phone. He sold his old one on eBay, at Internet auction, for $290.

The guys who bought it now know his secret.

The married man had followed the directions in his phone's manual to erase all his information, including lurid exchanges with his lover. But it wasn't enough.

Selling your old phone once you upgrade to a fancier model can be like handing over your diaries. All sorts of sensitive information pile up inside our cell phones, and deleting it may be more difficult than you think.

A popular practice among sellers, resetting the phone, often means sensitive information appears to have been erased. But it can be resurrected using specialized yet inexpensive software found on the Internet.

A company, Trust Digital of McLean, Virginia, bought 10 different phones on eBay this summer to test phone-security tools it sells for businesses. The phones all were fairly sophisticated models capable of working with corporate e-mail systems.

Curious software experts at Trust Digital resurrected information on nearly all the used phones, including the racy exchanges between guarded lovers.

The other phones contained:

One company's plans to win a multimillion-dollar federal transportation contract.

E-mails about another firm's $50,000 payment for a software license.

Bank accounts and passwords.

Details of prescriptions and receipts for one worker's utility payments.

The recovered information was equal to 27,000 pages -- a stack of printouts 8 feet high.

"We found just a mountain of personal and corporate data," said Nick Magliato, Trust Digital's chief executive.

Many of the phones were owned personally by the sellers but crammed with sensitive corporate information, underscoring the blurring of work and home. "They don't come with a warning label that says, 'Be careful.' The data on these phones is very important," Magliato said.

One phone surrendered the secrets of a chief executive at a small technology company in Silicon Valley. It included details of a pending deal with Adobe Systems Inc., and e-mail proposals from a potential Japanese partner:

"If we want to be exclusive distributor in Japan, what kind of business terms you want?" asked the executive in Japan.

Trust Digital surmised that the U.S. chief executive gave his old phone to a former roommate, who used it briefly then sold it for $400 on eBay. Researchers found e-mails covering different periods for both men, who used the same address until recently.

Experts said giving away an old phone is commonplace. Consumers upgrade their cell phones on average about every 18 months.

"Most people toss their phones after they're done; a lot of them give their old phones to family members or friends," said Miro Kazakoff, a researcher at Compete Inc. of Boston who follows mobile phone sales and trends. He said selling a used phone -- which sometimes can fetch hundreds of dollars -- is increasingly popular.

The 10 phones Trust Digital studied represented popular models from leading manufacturers. All the phones stored information on "flash" memory chips, the same technology found in digital cameras and some music players.

Flash memory is inexpensive and durable. But it is slow to erase information in ways that make it impossible to recover. So manufacturers compensate with methods that erase data less completely but don't make a phone seem sluggish.

Phone manufacturers usually provide instructions for safely deleting a customer's information, but it's not always convenient or easy to find. Research in Motion Ltd. has built into newer Blackberry phones an easy-to-use wipe program.

Palm Inc., which makes the popular Treo phones, puts directions deep within its Web site for what it calls a "zero out reset." It involves holding down three buttons simultaneously while pressing a fourth tiny button on the back of the phone.

But it's so awkward to do that even Palm says it may take two people. A Palm executive, Joe Fabris, said the company made the process deliberately clumsy because it doesn't want customers accidentally erasing their information.

Trust Digital resurrected erased e-mails and other information from a used Treo phone provided by The Associated Press for a demonstration after it was reset and appeared empty. Once the phone was reset using Palm's awkward "zero-out" technique, no information could be recovered. The AP already used that technique to protect data on its reporters' phones.

"The tools are out there" for hackers and thieves to rummage through deleted data on used phones, Trust Digital's chief technology officer, Norm Laudermilch, said. "It definitely does not take a Ph.D."

Fabris, Palm's director of wireless solutions, said the company may warn customers in an upcoming newsletter about the risks of selling their used phones after AP's inquiries. "It might behoove us to raise this issue," Fabris said.

Dean Olmstead of Fresno, California, sold his Treo phone on eBay after using it six months. He didn't know about Palm's instructions to safely delete all his personal information. Now, he's worried.

"I probably should have done that," Olmstead said. "Folks need to know this. I'm hoping my phone goes to a nice person."

Guy Martin of Albuquerque, New Mexico, wasn't as concerned someone will snoop on his secrets. He also sold his Treo phone on eBay and didn't delete his information completely.

"I'm not that kind of valuable person, so I'm not really worried," said Martin, who runs the www.imusteat.com Web site. "I guarantee that three-quarters of the people who buy these phones don't think about this."

Trust Digital found no evidence thieves or corporate spies are routinely buying used phones to mine them for secrets, Magliato said. "I don't think the bad guys have figured this out yet."

President Bush's former cybersecurity adviser, Howard Schmidt, carried up to four phones and e-mail devices -- and said he was always careful with them. To sanitize his older Blackberry devices, Schmidt would deliberately type his password incorrectly 11 times, which caused data on them to self-destruct.

"People are just not aware how much they're exposing themselves," Schmidt said. "This is more than something you pick up and talk on. This is your identity. There are people really looking to exploit this."

Executives at Trust Digital agreed to review with AP the information extracted from the used phones on the condition AP would not identify the sellers or their employers. They also showed AP receipts from the Internet auctions in which they bought the 10 phones over the summer for prices between $192 and $400 each.

Trust Digital said it intends to return all the phones to their original owners, and said it kept the recovered personal information on a single computer under lock and disconnected from its corporate network at its headquarters in northern Virginia.

Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, a respected computer security expert, said phone owners should decide whether to auction their used equipment for a few hundred dollars -- and risk revealing their secrets -- or effectively toss their old phones under a large truck to dispose of them.

What about a case like the Lothario whose affair Trust Digital discovered?

"I'd run over the phone," Zatko said. "Maybe give it an acid bath."

source cnn

Flip you for it

2006-08-31T12:34:00.000-07:00

One street performer pushes another into a back flip Wednesday on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, Scotland, during the Edinburgh Festival

source cnn

Hot stuff

2006-08-31T12:30:00.000-07:00

In Sofia, Bulgaria, a boy draws in the air by twirling fire-chains using Poi, which are traditional Maori dance props from New Zealand, on Monday.

source cnn

NASA aims for Wednesday launch

2006-08-31T12:18:00.001-07:00

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida -- After a week of weather delays, NASA officials on Thursday set a Wednesday launch time for space shuttle Atlantis on its mission to resume construction of the international space station.

The launch decision was made after a check of Kennedy Space Center following Ernesto's pass as a tropical depression on Wednesday found no serious damage.

"We're back," said NASA spokesman Bill Johnson. "There was no water intrusion in any operational areas, and so basically we came through this one unscathed."

The launch time was set for 12:29 p.m. EDT on Wednesday. If the shuttle doesn't lift off then, NASA has launch opportunities in the following two days.

Atlantis' six astronauts, who flew in their training jets back to Houston earlier this week, planned to return to Florida Saturday morning. The countdown was set to begin Sunday morning.

Tropical Storm Ernesto's approach and a lightning strike on the launch pad last week had forced NASA to delay the launch.

source AP

Meeting the bloggers face to face

2006-08-28T00:17:00.000-07:00

Blogs are an established part of the online world - with a new blog said to be created ever half a second. But who are the bloggers that have become celebrities within the so called blogosphere?

What motivates them? And what do they think of their celebrity status?

I was flying through the airport at Washington when an airport security worker stopped me. The microphone, tape recorder and all the wires in my bag obviously attracted her attention.

She asked what they were for, so I explained that I was making a radio series about bloggers.

She pulled a face. There is a perception that bloggers are sad, joyless people in their underwear who sit in front of their computers all day.

I put this to Glenn Reynolds, whose political blog Instapundit attracts up to half a million hits or page views in a single day.

"Well I am only one out of those three," he told me. Which? Sad? In his underwear ? Or glued to the computer? "Just the computer, thank you," he said.

More personal

The fact is that there are millions of bloggers out there, providing commentary, and notes on a particular subject or a more personal online diary.

Many of them would not be able to lay claim to literary or artistic merit - meaningless meanderings, 'a disgorgement of the bowels' is how someone, rather uncharitably, described many personal blogs.

But that is to ignore those people who have found a voice on the internet, a voice which speaks to the many people who regularly read their sites.

A form of natural selection is underway: if a blog is any good then people will (eventually) find it.

To be honest, I wasn't all that sure about what to expect when I set out on my travels.

Reading someone's blog gives you a sense of their personality but would that match up when I met them in person?

Knocking at each blogger's door always gave me a certain thrill and I had to fight back an urge to rush in and greet them as if they were long lost friends.

Varying degrees

That is part of the attraction. Many of the bloggers I spoke to - certainly the personal ones - are offering a window onto their lives which they talk about with varying degrees of intimacy.

Anna Pickard, the author of Little Red Boat (her whimsical musings on what it is to be... well, Anna Pickard) sticks to subjects like her journey on the bus into work and draws the line when it comes to talking about her relationships, family and friends or her employer.

But that is not the case with Petite Anglaise, the nom de plume of a single mother who lives in Paris with her daughter "Tadpole".

She has blogged about her break up with Tadpole's father "Mr. Frog" and learned to her cost that it is perhaps unwise to write about what goes on at work.

She got the sack shortly before I met her.

The relationship between bloggers and their readers is fascinating.

What personal bloggers are writing is more than a diary; it is a diary which is read instantaneously by scores, if not thousands, of people, as Anna Pickard is only too aware: "It is easy to forget sometimes that this is a very public forum. You start to think of it as 'Yeah, this is my private diary.

"This is my space. This is my group of friends. Oh, I know who's reading this'."

The reverse is true: "You don't know who's reading this. You never know who's reading this. So you do have to be careful."

Own thoughts

An important part of many bloggers' relationship with their readers is "the conversation" they have with their commenters, the people who write in with their own thoughts, which are then published on the site.

You don't know what is going to happen: a piece about the pattern on your bedspread might strike a chord with readers who offer their own views, provoking yet more comment and perhaps propelling the conversation in an entirely new direction.

That is not to say that the whole experience is a frivolous waste of time.

James Lileks, a journalist from the American Mid West, has made an art of writing very funny and entertaining pieces on everyday subjects from bin bags to bagels.

His site is a brilliant example of what you can do on the internet, including his blog The Daily Bleat, a regular podcast from The Diner, home movies which you can download and a glorious collection of 1950s ephemera.

His advice is simple: "You can be joyless, you can be mono-maniacal, but joyless monomania is what does it.

"If you are very serious about arts criticism, for example, people will come to that. They won't expect laughs, but they will come to that.

Successful bloggers

"And if you are hilarious about one aspect of the world and that's all you write about, people will go to that. But if it's just a grim slog everyday to read your acidic sharp little misery about something on the subway, you are going to lose them."

The successful bloggers I met certainly aren't sad or joyless although some of them are perhaps a little bit on the obsessive side.

Maybe that's what you have to be in order to keep up writing a blog day after day, week after week. Would I be prepared to write a blog myself then? No. I don't think I could keep up the pace.

source bbc

Spammers manipulate stock markets

2006-08-27T12:19:00.000-07:00

Spam messages that tout stocks and shares can have real effects on the markets, a study suggests.

E-mails typically promote penny shares in the hope of convincing people to buy into a company to raise its price.

People who respond to the "pump and dump" scam can lose 8% of their investment in two days.

Conversely, the spammers who buy low-priced stock before sending the e-mails, typically see a return of between 4.9% and 6% when they sell.

The study recently published on the Social Science Research Network say their conclusions prove the hypothesis that spammers "buy low and spam high".

The researchers say that approximately 730 million spam e-mails are sent every week, 15% of which tout stocks. Other estimates of spam volumes are far higher.

Mass marketing

The study, by Professor Laura Frieder of Purdue University in the US and Professor Jonathan Zittrain from Oxford University's Internet Institute in the UK, analysed more than 75,000 unsolicited e-mails.

All of the messages touting stocks and shares were sent between January 2004 and July 2005.
The e-mail messages had either been received by Professor Zittrain or been posted on a newsgroup, known as Nanas.

Nanas is used to alert network administrators about new spam messages and the action they can take against them.

The researchers were then able to compare the estimated size of an e-mail campaign with trading activity and share prices immediately before and after the first arrival of a spam message.

The team found that a spammer who bought shares the day before starting an e-mail campaign and then sold them the day after could make a return on his or her investment of 4.9%.
"If he or she were to be a particularly effective spammer, returns to this strategy would be roughly 6%," they wrote.

Conversely, if someone who received the message chose to invest $1000 (£530) in a promoted company they would be left with $947.50 after two days.

Victims of a large e-mail campaign could be left with $930 after two days.
On average a victim loses $52.50 for every $1000 invested.

However, real losses would be even greater, the team suggest, because the victim would also have had to have paid fees to buy and sell the shares.

"Our analysis shows that spam works," the team wrote.
"Among its millions of recipients are not only those who read it, but who also act upon it"
Security firms advise e-mail users to install a spam filter, delete unsolicited messages and never to respond to offers.

source BBC

US woman to be first female space tourist

2006-08-26T12:30:00.000-07:00

August 26, 2006 (Dallas):

An Iranian-born

woman says will become the world's first female space tourist on September 14, joining a Russian crew on a mission to the International Space Station.

Anousheh Ansari will join the crew of the Soyuz TMA-9, which will launch from

Kazakhstan

, according to the home-technology company, Prodea Systems Inc, run by Ansari's family.

"This is a dream that I've longed for since childhood," Ansari said on Friday.

"I'm fascinated by the mystery and beauty of the cosmos. I deeply believe that the long-term survival of the human race will largely depend on our achievements in space exploration."

Russia

's space agency announced Ansari's trip Tuesday.

To replace Japanese businessman

Officials said she would replace a Japanese businessman who failed a medical test.

Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin and

astronaut Miguel Lopez-Alegria are also scheduled to be on the trip.

Ansari is expected to return to Earth 10 days later with Pavel Vinogradov and Jeff Williams, who have been on the space station since April 1.

Ansari's company is sponsoring her trip. She is the chairwoman, and her husband is chief executive.

The company helped fund a competition, renamed the Ansari X Prize, for the first privately financed manned spacecraft to make a suborbital flight.

According to the company, Ansari immigrated to the

United States

from

Iran

as a teenager and earned degrees in computer and electrical engineering.

source ndtv

Computers

2006-08-26T00:23:00.000-07:00

Today computers are an integral part of our lives, both at work and home. find how much you know about this very essential gadget.

Who invented the first computer mouse?

a) Douglas Engelbart
b) Jack Kilby
c) Robert Noyce

a) Douglas Engelbart
Invented by Douglas Engelbart of Stanford Research Center in 1964, the first prototype computer mouse was made to use with a graphical user interface 'windows'. Engelbart received a patent for the wooden shell with two metal wheels (computer mouse U.S. Patent # 3,541,541) in 1970. It was nicknamed 'the mouse' because the tail came out the end. There is also the cordless mouse, which is not physically connected at all. Instead they rely on infrared or radio waves to communicate with the computer.
Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit, which is otherwise known as the chip.

Which is the first high-level programming language?

a) Fortran
b) BASIC
c) Algol

a) Fortran
Fortran or formula translation, the first high level programming language, was invented by John Backus for IBM (International Business Machine), in 1954, and released commercially, in 1957. It is still used today for programming scientific and mathematical applications. FORTRAN began as a digital code interpreter for the IBM 701 and was originally named Speedcoding.

Xerox is also associated with the invention of one of these...

a) Microprocessor
b) Floppy Disk
c) Ethernet

c) Ethernet
The Ethernet, a system for connecting computers within a building using hardware running from machine to machine, was invented by Robert Metcalfe in 1973. He was a member of the research staff for Xerox, at their Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). Xerox's motivation for the computer network was that they were also building the world's first laser printer and wanted all of the PARC's computers to be able to print with this printer.

Which company launched the 1st floppy disk?

a) Apple
b) IBM
c) Intel

b) IBM
In 1971, IBM introduced the first 'memory disk' or the 'floppy disk'. The first floppy was an 8" plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide; data was written to and read from the disk's surface. The nickname "floppy" came from its flexibility. The 'floppy' was invented by IBM engineers led by Alan Shugart.

Which company launched the first printer?

a) HP
b) Xerox
c) Remington-Rand

c) Remington-Rand
In 1953, the first high-speed printer was developed by Remington-Rand for use on the Univac computer. In 1938, Chestor Carlson invented a dry printing process called electrophotography commonly called a Xerox. The original laser printer called EARS was developed at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center beginning in 1971. In 1992, Hewlett-Packard released the popular LaserJet 4, the first 600 by 600 dots per inch resolution laser printer. In 1976, the inkjet printer was invented, but it took until 1988 for the inkjet to become a home consumer item with Hewlett-Parkard's release of the DeskJet inkjet printer, priced at a whopping $1000.

compiled by Suresh

Pluto no longer a planet

2006-08-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 24, 2006 (Prague):

Pluto which has been considered a planet since 1930 was stripped of the title.

Leading astronomers from around the world finally defined what would be considered a planet and what would not.

Under the new guidelines, Pluto gets disqualified partly because it is too small and partly because its orbit overlaps with Neptune.

The need for definition was felt because astronomers have discovered a number of bodies that also have claims to the status of planets like Xena or Sedna in space beyond Pluto or the asteroid Ceres or even Pluto's satellite Charon.

Till Thursday, many believed that many of those bodies would be upgraded so that we would end up with 11-12 planets.

But instead, the astronomers decided to follow stricter norms, Pluto and the others will now be called dwarf planets.

source www.ndtv.com

Britney is 'too stimulating'

2006-08-24T06:49:00.000-07:00

A POSTER showing a naked and pregnant Britney Spears has been banned from Japan's subway, because bosses deem it "too stimulating" for young people.

The picture, from the cover of the August edition of Harper's Bazaar magazine, shows the singer naked, but protecting her modesty by covering her breasts with her arms and crossing her legs at the knee.

An official says: "We thought some of our customers would find it to be overly stimulating."

The poster will go on show, but censored below Britney's elbow, with a statement that reads: "We apologise for hiding part of a beautiful image of a mother-to-be."

Meanwhile, Paris Hilton's raunchy music video has been forbidden in India. Officials in the country felt the promo for Stars Are Blind - which features Paris writhing around on a beach in just a skimpy bikini - was far too explicit and have slapped an adult certificate on it.

source www.thesun.co.uk

The world's third richest man and his company.

2006-08-23T07:50:00.000-07:00

Lakshmi Niwas Mittal's big dream of being the world's biggest steel producer has finally come true. After a much publicised and dramatic five-month long battle, the Arcelor board unanimously accepted Mittal's offer making Arcelor-Mittal the largest steel combine in the world. The world's third richest man and his company.

Mittal's first overseas venture was in...

a) Mexico
b) Thailand
c) Indonesia

Mittal Steel was born after which two companies merged?

a) Ispat International and LNM Holdings
b) International Steel Group Inc and LNM Holdings
c) Siderurgica del Balsas SA and LNM Holdings

Mittal Steel is present in how many countries?

a) 10
b) 12
c) 17

In India, Mittal plans to set up a steel plant in...

a) Jharkhand
b) Orissa
c) West Bengal

How much did Mittal's London mansion cost?

a) $102 million
b) $125 million
c) $128 million

Answers

1. c) Indonesia

Mittal moved to Indonesia (from India) in 1976 and with his father's backing founded Ispat Indo. In 1992, he went to Mexico and bought the country's third largest steel producer, Sicartsa for $220 million. This was followed by more acquisitions in Mexico, Canada, Germany, and Ireland.

2. b) International Steel Group Inc and LNM Holdings

Mittal Steel was formed in December 2004. The same year Mittal acquired International Steel Group Inc an Ohio based company, thus becoming the world's most global steel producer with a net worth of over $22 billion. Siderurgica del Balsas SA, is the second Mexican firm that Mittal bought in the nineties.

3. c) 17

It owns steel-making facilities in 17 countries, spanning four continents and employs 179,000 people. Revenue for 2005 was $28.132 billion. It shipped 49.178 million tonnes of steel during 2005, ahead of Arcelor (45 Mt in 2004), and Nippon Steel (31.3 Mt in 2004). Its shares are listed on the New York and Amsterdam stock exchanges.

4. a) Jharkhand

In 2005 Lakshmi Mittal flew into Jharkhand to announce a $9 billion investment to build a greenfield steel plant with a 12 million tonnes per annum production capacity.

5. c) $128 million

The 12-bedroom mansion in located London's Kensington Palace Gardens. Mittal bought it from from Formula One car racing boss Bernie Ecclestone. The property has garage space for 20 cars, Turkish baths, a ballroom, an oak-paneled picture gallery and an ornate basement pool.

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Compiled by Suresh

Credit cards

2006-08-22T02:51:00.000-07:00

Credit cards
Which is the world's first credit card?
Take the Today’s 5 and find out how much you know about the credit card and its origins.

1. Which is the world's first credit card?

a) American Express
b) Diners Club
c) MasterCard

2. Which was the first payment card to be issued in the People's Republic of China?

a) MasterCard
b) Visa
c) American Express

3. Which was the first credit card company to introduce the multi-application smart card based on open standards-based technology?

a) American Express
b) Discover
c) Visa

4. Who introduce the world's first traveller's cheque?

a) American Express
b) Citibank
c) Bank of America

5. Which is the largest independent credit network in the

United States

?

a)Visa
b) Discover
c) American Express

1. b) Diners Club

Diners Club: In 1950, the Diners Club issued the first credit card (invented by Diners Club founder Frank McNamara) in the United States (restaurant bills only). The first Diners Club credit cards were given out in 1950 to 200 people (most were friends and acquaintances of McNamara) and accepted by 14 restaurants in New York. The cards were not made of plastic; instead, the first Diners Club credit cards were made of a paper stock with the accepting locations printed on the back. The companies who accepted the Diners Club credit card were charged 7 percent for each transaction while the subscribers to the credit card were charged a $3 annual fee.

2. a) MasterCard

MasterCard: In 1987, MasterCard became the first payment card to be issued in the People's Republic of China. In 1988, the first MasterCard was issued in the Soviet Union. With over 37 offices around the world and having it headquarters in New York, MasterCard was the first to introduce the co-branding strategy in the credit card industry. MasterCard was previously called as Interbank Card Association (ICA).

3. c) Visa.

Visa: In 1998, Visa together with Standard Chartered Bank introduced the Smart Card. Visa traces its history back to 1958 when Bank of America launched its blue, white, and gold BankAmericard in California.In 1970, an association, National BankAmericard, Inc., was formed of those American banks issuing BankAmericards.In 1974, Bank of America's international licensees chartered an international company, IBANCO, to administer BankAmericard, Inc. outside the

United States

. In 1976 BankAmericard changed its name to Visa, a simple, memorable name with an international flavor that is pronounced the same way in almost every language.

4. a) American Express:

The company introduced the world's first traveller's cheque in 1891. American Express entered the Credit Card business in 1958 when it issued its first charge card. Within five years, more than 1 million cards were in use at approximately 85,000 establishments within and outside the United States.

5. b) Discover:

Discover Financial Services, a business unit of Morgan Stanley & Co, operates the Discover Card brands. With approximately 4 million merchant and cash access locations, Discover Business Services is the largest independent credit network in the United States with its Corporate Headquarters Riverwoods, Illinois. Discover Card was started by Sears, around 1984. Sears spun off Dean Witter Discover Co. in 1993. Morgan Stanley acquired Discover Card when it merged with Dean Witter in 1997.

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The Infosys saga

2006-08-21T03:34:00.000-07:00

Infosys Technologies is one Indian company that has changed the way the world looks at India. It is an emblem of India's supremacy in information technology. But how much do you know about India's favourite company? Find how much you know about this IT giant.

1) Which was the first company that N R Narayana Murthy launched?
a) Softronics
b) Infosys Technologies
c) Integrated Software Research Ltd

2) Which was Narayana Murthy's first job?
a) Patni Computer Systems
b) IIM-Ahmedabad
c) SESA

3) What made Murthy change his beliefs from communism to capitalism?
a) His arrest in Bulgaria for espionage
b) The poverty he saw in India
c) He never believed in communism

4) Who was the first founder employee of Infosys?
a) Nandan Nilekani
b) N R Narayana Murthy
c) N S Raghavan

5) Who was the lead manager to the Infosys IPO on the Nasdaq?
a) JP Morgan Securities Inc
b) Merrill Lynch & Co
c) NationsBanc Montgomery Securities

Answers

1) a) Softronics
According to a Business Today article, Infosys wasn't N R Narayana Murthy's first entrepreneurial venture. It was actually a company named Softronics, which Murthy founded in 1976 in Pune. It was an IT consulting firm. He shut it after a while and took up a job at Patni Computer Services as the had of its software business.

2) b) IIM-Ahmedabad
Narayana Murthy was born on August 29, 1946. One of the eight children born to a physics teacher in southern India, he hailed from an average middle-class family. He studied electrical engineering and obtained a master's degree in 1969. After his studies, he worked in the computer department of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
His first real job overseas was in 1971 when he took up employment with SESA in Paris. He worked with a team to design a real time operating system for handling air cargo for the Charles de Gaulle airport. In 1974, at the age of 26, confident that he had gained a lot of insight into the world around him, he decided to return to India.

3) a) His arrest in Bulgaria for espionage
While travelling on a train through Bulgaria, his belief in communism received a major blow. He was arrested for talking to a passenger about capitalist ideas on the train, and was put in jail.
After 2-3 days, he was released because India was considered a 'friendly' country by Bulgaria. Murthy has said that this experience shook his faith in communism, and made him determined to create an enterprise that combined the best features of capitalism and socialism

4) c) N S Raghavan
Nadathur Sarangapani Raghavan, or NSR, was employee Number One at Infosys. The oldest amongst the founders, a passable singer and a great cook, NSR was the first person Narayana Murthy spoke to about founding Infosys. Infosys was born with NSR's house in Matunga as its registered office. NSR, now retired, continues to be a Trustee of the Infosys Foundation. Murthy himself was employee Number Four. Today Infosys has over 53,000 employees.
Infosys was originally founded by seven people, although only six of them are now with Infosys. Ashok Arora, the seventh founder, quit Infosys in 1989 before the company went public as it was going through tough times. Arora later moved to the United States to work with a consulting firm. The six other original founders are N R Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, N S Raghavan, S Gopalakrishnan, S D Shibulal and K Dinesh.
According to Business Today, Sharad Hegde was Infosys' first non-founder employee. Like Murthy and Nilekani, he too was a former Patni employee and Infosys' tech-guru in its early years. He left Infosys a few years ago and is planning to set up a golf resort near Bangalore. His wife, Anu, who left the company in the early 1990s, was an expert in quality and processes. The two met in Infosys and were Infosys' first 'office romance,' says Business Today.

5) c) NationsBanc Montgomery Securities
NationsBanc Montgomery Securities was picked by Infosys as its lead manager for Nasdaq listing in 1999. Rumour has it that NationasBanc was the only one to actually that the Infosys services business model was sound, while others said that the company needed to have a strong products base.
Infosys listed on the Indian stock markets in February 1993. It was listed at a premium of Rs 86, that is an issue price of Rs 96. It is said that the then finance minister -- and current prime minister -- Manmohan Singh facilitated the Infosys IPO. The issue was subscribed 1.06 times, and its lead managers were SBI Capital Markets and Vallabh Bhansali's Enam Financial Consultants.

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Footwear

2006-08-19T10:43:00.000-07:00

How did Adidas get its name?Take the IQ five and find out how much you know about the footwear industry.

1) How did Adidas get its name?

a) From the place where the company was started
b) From a combination of nickname and last name of the founder
c) From the family name of the founder

2) Which footwear company's logo is known as the Vector?

a) Bata
b) Reebok
c) New Balance

3) Which is the only Indian company that is among the top 5 manufacturers of leather footwear of the world?

a) Bata
b) Liberty Footwear
c) Lakhani

4) Which footwear firm was established in Czechoslovakia but is a household name in India?

a) Bata
b) Lumberjack
c) Woodland

5) Which famous footwear brand does M&B Footwear Pvt Ltd produce in India?

a) Picasso
b) Lee Cooper
c) Florsheim

check your IQ

1) = b) From a combination of nickname and last name of the founder.
When the founders of the German sports shoe business 'Dassler Brothers' went their separate ways in 1949, no one would have guessed that they would start two of the biggest global brands of the century. Rudolph founded Puma, while Adolph started Adidas -- a combination of his nickname, Adi, and the start of his last name. The famous three stripes were introduced to the shoes in 1949.

2) = b) Reebok.
In 1958, the company J W Foster & Sons became Reebok -- named after a fleet-footed gazelle. Sport stars Allen Iverson and Andy Roddick are some of Reebok's brand ambassadors.

3) = b) Liberty Footwear.
With a turnover of more than $100 million, Liberty is the biggest Indian footwear company producing more than 60,000 pairs of footwear a day. The company has some of the best brands under its belt which include Coolers, Gliders and Force 10.

4) = a) Bata.
Bata was established on August 24, 1894 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia by Tomas Bata. The company first established itself in India in 1931 and commenced manufacturing shoes in Batanagar in 1936. The Batanagar factory is the first Indian shoe manufacturing unit to receive the ISO 9001 certification in 1993.

5) = b) Lee Cooper.
M&B Footwear signed an exclusive license deal with Lee Cooper of the United Kingdom for manufacturing and marketing shoes under the internationally renowned Lee Cooper brand. M&B also bagged the Indian manufacturing and marketing license for Levi's footwear.

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