Creative accounting: the consolidation of debts

There is another side to the recent debate about graduate student labor.
Just like welfare, the discomfort of most graduate student stipends are an impetus to finish.
They have the option to mortgage their future with loans (if they can get one), but that adds to the dis- comfort.
As you are "discovering" yourself in graduate school often real life events creep in like marriage and parenthood.
This makes it harder to take that $20-25K post- doc 3000 miles away from your spouse's job.
The recent nanny-gate controversy highlighted how punitive the system is to people just starting out.
With first year college costs 18 years from now estimated at $75,000 they are not only sacrificing their current well being by holding out for an academic or industry position in their field that allows a middle class lifestyle, they are also sacrificing their children's chances. Wouldn't it also be nice to save something for retirement?
In this scenario it is everyday easier for students to need loans and consolidation of loans.
Student Loan Consolidation can assist in finding an honest lender whose area of expertise is finding the perfect student loan.
Their debt management professionals can consolidate accrued student loans into a single low interest monthly payment.
The Expert Advice, Lead Stories, and Student Loan 101 columns aid in defining student loan types, the student loan application, how to consolidate, and the advantages of consolidating student loans.
The key benefits they can offer are:

• Lower your monthly student loans

• Decrease student loan expenses with a fixed interest rate

• Take advantage of tax-deductible interest rates

• Free student loan consolidation advice and tips

• Search for student loan professionals in your area




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The Main attractions of Maine

A U.S. venture capitalist wants to lease Mir from the Russians, renovate it, and turn it into a vacation spot for other millionaires. The price will be about $40 million for the first visitor, but then about $25 for others.
I guess also third generation visitors will have to pay a nice amount.
If you, like me, cannot afford a few millions for a vacation, there are other wonderful places where you can relax and bring your family (including your pets).

Winter is the season when Maine truly sparkles!
Maine is a winter playground for alpine skiers and snowboarders of all ages. The state is also home to some of the best cross country skiing on the East Coast…
From the first hint of spring through the lazy days of summer, Maine is an outdoor wonderland. You can explore the coast, mountains, woods, rivers and lakes by kayak, bike or seaplane.
With the crisp air of autumn comes the chance to experience a quintessential fall weekend in Maine. From quiet coastal villages to lakeside golf courses to scenic mountain passes, Maine offers a variety of settings for nature’s brilliant show.

What about Maine vacation rentals?
You can easily browse all the main places of Maine!
What about Aroostook County?
You’ll find an abundance of natural, cultural and recreational resources that will make for a memorable vacation in any season.
And Greater Portland & Casco Bay?
Southern Maine, offers scenic beauty, recreational opportunities and a wealth of historic and cultural attractions.
May be Kennebec & Moose River Valleys?
The Upper Kennebec and Moose River Valleys offer incomparable opportunities for hiking, bicycling, canoeing, kayaking, whitewater rafting, fishing, hunting, cross country skiing, snowmobiling and fall foliage viewing.
Or Maine Lakes & Mountains?
From the colorful wild flowers of spring and the bright sunlit hillsides of summer to the brilliant palette of fall and the stunning white snows capes of winter, it’s a region of great scenic beauty. It is also the home to outstanding recreational pursuits.
The Maine Highlands?
It is a region of superlatives. Here you will find the most plentiful moose and deer in Maine; more parkland than anywhere else in the state.
In any one of this places you have a good choice.
You can also find a last minute special offer for very restricted budgets, but not less amazing than all the other offers.
This type of vacation besides being cheaper than the hotel room, it is also the best alternative if you want to enjoy your holidays with the full family.
Nothing is more comfortable after an intense day to come back to a real "home".
And you can choose and book directly from your home or office whenever you feel like!



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As sparkling as a diamond can be...

What I like about Ebay is not only the fact that I can make good bargains, but also that I can find everything I want just sitting at my computer and that with a few clicks of the mouse I can buy and actually receive everything from every part of this world directly at my address.
Buying made easy in every way.
But, of course, I learned my lessons in the painful way.
Who has not been cheated on Ebay?
People who bid and never pay, people who sell and never deliver, people who deliver what you didn't order, or a different item and so on.
It is true, you can open a controversy, but when it comes to small sums it is not even worth and when it comes to big sums...your liver goes bust...
So, first rule, just buy from a trustable place, second rule, be careful of what you buy and how much it is worth.
You do not want to risk to pay more, don't you?
Ebay is the place you go to ACTUALLY save money...
For example if you want to invest in diamonds, be very careful.
In principle on Ebay you just buy something you see on a picture and of course you do not want to buy a diamond and receive a piece of glass...
Diamond House Arizona, Loose Diamonds Section. has open a new eBay store and with that, launched a new campaign to promote the store. Almost all the items are for 30%-50% discount, and the items quality is super high and with fine taste.
You can directly contact Adam, Diamond House Arizona online sales director, with a kind and gentle way to support the customers with every need (you can read on the feedback page of the store the comment the customers leave for him).
And then there is Robert, the customer support director, who will always be kind and support the toll free number calling customers.
Besides the ebay store has the lights always on and there's always someone to answer the customers and support them.
And do not forget the 30 days money back, and the ability to upgrade the diamond you bought even after a year and receive the same price you bought it, deducted out of the total price.
Moreover the store will hold items on each and every category within the upcoming weeks and the customers can use the "YOU ASK, WE FIND" option to send requests and the Diamond House Arizona will take care to their needs.
Well, it is almost too good to be true! But you can see by yourself.
The only thing you need is THE MONEY to buy...





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Good Marketing

Good Marketing is forgetting the things you are writing about...

Good news for saving people

I am somebody who loves to save.
I cannot understand the ones who spend, and , of course, they cannot understand me.
What I like best is thinking how much money I was able to save.
And, of course, when I spend I never fully enjoy it, because there is a remote place in my heart who regrets I had to part with some of my money.
But after you saved your money, you also want to see it carefully kept and looked after.
It is almost like those small plants you buy and plant in your garden.
You want them to grow and to grow strong.
The same is with those small euros I deposit in my bank.
I want them to grow and possibly to make fruits (and nice fruits) that of course I am going to save and let them grow to make new fruits.
They say you will never enjoy your money!
How blind they are! I already enjoy just thinking to save it...
But the banking part is sometimes painful, not only sometimes, lately very often.
If you have the disgrace to finish in the hands (more and more) of unscroupolous investors, you will see your nice, small, promising, euro plants to get ill and die sooner than you think.
So, what is the good news?
I found a place Savings-Accounts.com a guide to finding your new high yield savings account where you have a list of the major banks with ALL the details you need.
Well, I and the people like me, can finally choose in the privacy of their own home or office, the suitable place where to grow their money.
I already found out things that I didn't know, and, I can assure you, it is a nice reading....and the electronic way to transfer money makes it so easy to transfer any sum you like...

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On the folly of trusting cell phones

How many hours you spent trying to find out who called you that precise moment and that precise day?
You came to the conclusion it was impossible, that is the best way to call and be unknown...That is what you think.
That is what you won't think anymore after knowing about the best Reverse Cell Phone Look Up website.
Yes, you can "Get the data from thousands of sources, public and private, quickly and conveniently right to your screen - they have records for more than 70% of all cellular numbers and over 95% of unlisted phone numbers in the US..."
ReverseMobile.com, a recognized and trusted online records information provider, lets you utilize a network of multiple data sources to find the exact records you are looking for. You can get the data from thousands of sources, public and private, quickly and conveniently right to your screen.
What can they find for you?
ISP providers, ISP services, ISP delinquencies, names, old address, date of birth, social security, telephones, cell phone numbers, listed telephone numbers, unlisted telephone numbers, 800-900 numbers, adoption records, arrest records, attorney records, background checks, bankruptcy records, birth records, child support lookup, court records, credit reports, criminal files, criminal indictments, death records, divorce records, driving records, DUI files, estate records, family history, FBI files, federal dockets, and more...

Well, you see, never trust a cell phone...
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Cypherpunks

More and more, the Information Age is looking more or less like the hype doctors want you to think it is: the most radical extension of minds and bodies into representational space since humans first learned to talk. What it could become, however, is not nearly as clear. Will it be a time of unimaginably refined surveillance and control of those minds and bodies? Or a time of freely and furiously propagating connections among them?

Would you like to belong to the family?
Before he retired seven years ago, a wealthy man at age 34, May was a reasonably illustrious corporate physicist. Now he's a Cypherpunk, part of a loose-knit band of scrappy, libertarian-leaning computer jockeys who have dedicated themselves to perfecting and promoting the art of disappearing into the virtual hinterlands.
Do you have some unique friends?
Why not make a crossword puzzle about them and put it on your MySpace page?
You do not know how?
Crossword Puzzles will help you with a guide to show you exactly how to create a hilarious crossword for all your MySpace friends!

Or sign up to the Free Crossword Contest.
Be one of the first to complete the puzzle and win cash or prizes!
To receive an email notification about the date and time of the contest, simply register as a member (it's free). Do it right now, while this site is still young and growing for great odds of winning!
.
You can just start playing crosswords puzzles (there are many quite difficult)
The will teach you how to play ,how to create a crossword .
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An old adagio.

Well, it was a common saying: when somebody talks about sex all day long, that means he is not getting enough or none at all.

We never heard the word freedom as much as lately.
It looks like everything depends on that.
The world is divided between the ones who want to take our freedom and the ones who want to fight for getting back our freedom.

Freedom is a wonderful thing, but doesn't fill your stomach.
If you are without a job, or you fear to loose it, it doesn't cheer you much the thought that somebody is fighting for your freedom.
You would rather have no freedom at all, but a pay at the end of the month.

This is where we have come to.
We forget that most wars were fought not for ideals, but for lack of food.

I never believed in people who were so disinterested as to risk their life and future just for an ideal.
Behind every ideal there is a catch.
And the one behind wars is so easy to see...


Patrizia

The pursuit of knowledge

I think most of the people in my place wouldn't have written this post.
Because I have an audio book website since the year 2000.
And it is something I am very proud of, and more than anything something I really believe in.
That is the main reason I write this post.
Because I do not see somebody else's audio book club website as a threat.
I am happy there are others who love the electronic format for books and believe in it.
Data is not necessarily information, but it is better than nothing.

Since thousand of years the purpose of teaching has began with giving opportunities.
The more opportunities, the more culture was spread.
We came from an age when most people couldn’t read or write to one when analphabetism is not so wide spread any more.
That was thanks to the fact that books were published and not hand written.
The fact that culture became cheaper meant that more people could have access to it.
That didn’t mean that all who could have access to it became suddenly cultured people.

As regarding interactivity, I agree, ebooks should be used in their full potential, which is not only text.
I think the most successful ebooks are the audio ebooks.

When I was a child I loved reading, and I would have liked to have a speaking book with images and may be small movies.
I guess interactivity would be perfect for children books and scientific books.
And ,since it is possible to easily download a book from the Internet,culture is really accessible to most.
On AudiobookGeek.com you can have a wide choice of audiobooks and even rent them.
You can find thousand of the hottest and newest titles, unlimited download and rentals.
And what is good on the Net, if you decide this is the right moment to read and listen, you just download, WITHOUT WAITING!

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Receive your mail wherever you are

How?
It's simple: using Mail Drops.
They are also known as letter boxes, mail box rentals, accommodation addresses, remailing services, and mail forwarding services.
Mail drops are nothing else than businesses which allow clients to use their addresses for a small fee.
They receive mail and re-mail it regarding to instructions.
The reasons for using alternative addresses can be various and not all related to secrecy. Some have to do with convenience or practicality.
Now a days the need for more privacy is becoming extremely apparent.
W find ourselves becoming more and more vulnerable to government snooping.
New technology in the hands of the bureaucrats provides sophisticated methods of penetrating our affairs. Our mail is a good example.
But not only.
The government is claiming in court that it doesn't need a search warrant, and doesn't need to notify you, before it can tap your e-mail if it is stored on a third party's server (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, or even an intermediate machine which is forwarding e- mail on to its final destination). Apparently, the government is interpreting a very dated law called the Stored Communications Act of 1986 -- written before most people had e-mail -- to allow this.
It seems that this is another example of a "public/private loophole" -- a term I've coined to describe situations in which government attempts to circumvent constitutional restrictions by enlisting private companies to do what government is constitutionally proscribed from doing.
Postal authorities use a little known surveillance technique known as the "mail cover", which operates informally and allows them to investigate your mail without having to first obtain a court order, a requirement in most countries.
'The mail cover' is simply an instruction to the mail carrier requesting that they note the return addresses on mail delivered to any address under investigation.

This is far worse than a court order to open mail, as it's totally indiscriminate. It means that whoever sends a letter or package to the marked address can end up on the suspect list.

Besides the need of privacy, which other categories of people would need a mail drop?
All categories of people who frequently travel or spend long periods away from their home.
Lately, mail lost or stolen in the delivery process or from domestic mailboxes has become a problem. A mail drop could be able cut the risk.
There are also people that for various reasons could desire to keep their address secret.
Or there could be people that simply prefer not to deal with the post office.
A small new business just starting from a residential premises can benefit from having a prestigious address. Arranging a mail drop address in a high profile international area can provide the answer.

For all these people, or millions of others with different reasons, arranging a mail drop is simple, fast and no identification is needed.
Maildropguide.com offers a remailing service at a very convenient price.
No ID is needed to use their services. Mail drops have an actual street address unlike P.O. Box numbers and this always makes a better impression.
This gives the impression that you are writing from that location. Post offices rarely offer remailing services.

Mail drops will accept courier service packages on your behalf. Post offices won't. Mail drops will forward your mail to whichever address you have requested them. Mail drops are completely independent from the government and this ensures absolute privacy.
If you are a business owner operating a maildrop they offer very inexpensive opportunity for lifetime listings (Only $40).
Well, the reasons to use a maildrop services are many and alluring. Why not trying?


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The advantages of Googling

Google is in many ways most dangerous website on the Internet for thousands of individuals and organisations, writes SecurityFocus columnist Scott Granneman. Most computers users still have no idea that they may be revealing far more to the world than they would want.

I'm not putting down Google. Far from it: it's a great search engine, and I use it all the time. I couldn't do my many jobs without Google, so I've spent some time learning how to maximize its value, how to find exactly what I want, how to plumb its depths to find just the right nugget of information that I need. In the same way that Google can be used for good, though, it can also be used by malevolent individuals to root out
vulnerabilities, discover passwords and other sensitive data, and in general find out way more about systems than they need to know. And, of course, Google's not the only game in town - but it is certainly the biggest, the most widely-used, and in many ways the easiest to use.

Throwing back the curtain Most people just head to Google, type in the words they're looking for, and hit Google Search. Some more knowledgeable folks know that they put
quotation marks around phrases, or put a "+" in front of required words or a "-" in front of words that should not appear, or even use Boolean search terms like AND, OR, and NOT. Greater Google aficionados know about Google's Advanced Search page, where you get really specific.

The page that Google provides for its Advanced Search is nice, and it's certainly easy and full of necessary tips, but if you really want to master all the tricks that Google offers the dedicated searcher, you need to learn at least some of what is detailed on the Google Advanced Search Operators page. For instance, let's say you just type the word "budget" into a Google search box, without the quotation marks. You're going to get over 11,000,000 hits, so many that it would take a tremendously long time to find anything troublesome from a security perspective.

Now try that same search, but include the search operator "filetype" along with it. Using the filetype operator, you can specify the kind of file you're looking for. Google's Advanced Search page lists several common formats, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Adobe Acrobat PDF, but you actually search for far more than those. Let's change our search from just "budget" to "budget filetype:xls" (again without the quotes; in fact, just ignore the quotation marks unless I mention otherwise) and see what we get.

63,000 hits and counting Hmmm ... now we're down to 63,000 hits. Still an overwhelming number, but if you start looking through the first couple of pages, you'll notice some items of interest if you were an attacker looking for information you shouldn't have. Let's add another operator into the mix.

The "site" operator allows you to narrow down your results to a particular subdomain, a second-level domain, or even a top-level domain.
For instance, if you wanted to find out what Google has indexed at SecurityFocus on the topic of password cracking, try this search:
"site:www.securityfocus.com password cracking", which gives you 449 results. I often use this trick even when a site provides its own search engine, as Google's index is often far better than the search that many sites include.

Let's try our search, but stick to the .edu top-level domain, so we're looking for "budget filetype:xls site:edu". 15,200 hits. Not bad. Things are starting to look very interesting.

Let's introduce another tool into your toolbox: the ability to look only on pages that use a certain word or words in their title by incorporating the "intitle" operator into your search. At SecurityFocus, this query would narrow our results list down to only five, an incredible tightening of our search: "site:www.securityfocus.com intitle:password cracking" (note that "password" is the only word that must be in the title; "cracking" should appear on the page as a search term, but not in the title, since I didn't place "intitle:" prior to it).

Enter the bad guys.
Bad guys know about the "intitle" operator, but they know something else
that makes it even more powerful. Often Web servers are left configured to list the contents of directories if there is no default Web page in those
directories; on top of that, those directories often contain lots of stuff that the website owners don't actually want to be on the Web. That makes such directory lists prime targets for snoopers. The title of these directory listings almost always start with "Index of", so let's try a new query that I guarantee will generate results that should make you sit up and worry: "intitle:"index of" site:edu password". 2,940 results, and many, if not most, would be completely useless to a potential attacker. Many, however, would yield passwords in plain text, while others could be cracked using common tools like Crack and John the Ripper.

There are other operators, but these should be enough to make the picture clear. Once you start to think about it, the potentially troublesome words and phrases that can be searched for and leveraged should begin to multiply in your mind: passwd. htpasswd. accounts. users.pwd. web_store.cgi.
finances. admin. secret. fpadmin.htm. credit card. ssn. And so on. Heck, even "robots.txt" would be useful: after all, if someone doesn't want search engines to find the stuff listed in robots.txt, that stuff could very well be worth a look. Remember, robots.txt just indicates that the website doesn't want search engines to index the files and folders listed in robots.txt; nothing inherently stops users from accessing that content once they know it exists.

Sensitive information
A couple of websites have even sprung up dedicated to listing words and phrases that reveal sensitive information and vulnerabilities. My favorite of these, Googledorks, is a treasure trove of ideas for the budding attacker. As a protective countermeasure, all security pros should visit this site and try out some of the suggestions on the sites that they oversee or with whom they consult. With a little elbow grease, some Perl, and the Google Web API, you could write scripts that would automate the process and generate some nice reports that you could show to your clients.
Of course, so could the bad guys... except I don't think your clients will ever see those reports, just the end results.

Even the Google cache can aid in exposing holes in systems. Couple the operators outlined above with Google's cache, which can provide you with a look at files that have changed or been removed, and attackers have an incredibly powerful tool at their disposal.

Responses
As I said at the beginning of this column, the fact that it is actually quite easy to find dangerous information using just a search engine and some intelligent guesses is not exactly news to people who think about security professionally. But I'm afraid that there are many uneducated folks putting content onto Web servers that they think is hidden to the world, when it is in reality anything but.

We have two seemingly opposite problems at work here: simplicity and complexity. On the one hand, it has become very easy for non-technical users to post content onto Web servers, sometimes without realizing that they're in fact placing that content on a Web server. It has even become easier to Web-enable databases, which has led in one case to the exposure of a database containing the records of a medical college's patients (and by the way, the search terms discussed in that article are still very much active at Google, one year later).

Even when people do understand that their content is about to go onto the Web, many do not fully think through what they're about to post. They don't examine that content in light of a few simple questions: How could this information be used against me? Or my organisation? And should this even go on the Web in the first place?

Well, of course ordinary users don't think to ask these questions! They're just interested in getting their content out there, and most of the time are just pleased as punch that they could publish on the Web in the first place. Critically examining that content for security vulnerabilities is not something they've been trained to do.

Points of failure
On the other side of the coin we have complexity. For all the ease that has come about in the past several years, no matter how simple it has become for Bob in Marketing to publish the company's public sales figures online, the fact remains that we're dealing with complex systems that have many, many points of potential failure. That knowledge scares the hell out of the people who live security, while Bob goes blithely on successfully publishing the company's public sales figures ... and accidentally publishing the spreadsheet containing the company's top customers, complete with contact info, sales figures, and notes about who the salespeople think
are good for a few thousand more this year.

For instance, FrontPage is touted by Microsoft as an extremely simple-to-use Web publishing solution that enables users to "move files easily between local and remote locations and publish in both directions".
Unfortunately for those average Joes who buy into the hype, FrontPage is still a very complicated program that can easily expose passwords and other sensitive data if it is not administered correctly. Don't believe me? Just search Google or "_vti_pvt password intitle:index.of" and take a look at what you find.

FrontPage is not the only offender, but it is certainly an easy one to find in abundance on our favourite search engine. Now think about all the other programs out there that people are using every day. Personal Web servers that come with operating systems. Turnkey shopping cart software.
Web-enabled Access databases. The list goes on and on. Take a moment and start to think about the organisations you oversee. See the list of potential problems tumble off into infinity. Oy.

Sure, it's possible for the folks creating Web content to tell Google and other search engines not to index that content. O'Reilly's website has a marvellous short piece titled "Removing Your Materials From Google" that should be required reading for anyone who even thinks about putting anything on or even near a Web server. Of course, as I mentioned above, relying on robots.txt to protect sensitive content is a bit like putting a sign up saying "Please ignore the expensive jewels hidden inside this shack". But at least it will get folks thinking.

Understand the threat
And really, that's what it comes down to: we have to get folks thinking.
Sure, those of us responsible for security can try to shut everything down and turn everything off that could pose a threat - and we should, within reason.
But those pesky users are going to do their job: use the systems we provide them, and some we don't provide. We need to help them understand the threats that any Web-enabled technology can provide.

Print out this column and hand it out. Show them how easy it is to find sensitive content online. Talk to them about appropriate and inappropriate content.
Try to get them on your side so they trust you and come to you with requests for help beforehand instead of coming to you after the fact, when it's too late and the toothpaste is out of the tube. Finally, realise that humans have an innate need to communicate and will seize on any tool to do so, and if that means talking to your users and setting up a wiki or bulletin board or other collaborate tool, then do so.

Google and other search tools have made the world available to us all, if we just know what to ask for. It's our job as security pros to help make the folks we work and interact with aware of that fact, in all of its far-reaching ramifications.

In case of Emergency

Here are a few tips in case of Emergency.
The idea is that you store the word 'ICE' in your mobile phone address book, and against it enter the number of the person you would want to be contacted In Case of Emergency.
In an emergency situation ambulance and hospital staff will then be able to quickly find out who your next of kin are and be able to contact them.
It's so simple that everyone can do it. Please do.
And please do not forget that you can also have the services of air ambulance in the worst case scenario.
AeroCare provides Air Ambulance services and is a nationally recognized throughout the world.
AeroCare Air Ambulance Service offers 24 hour emergency and non-emergency ambulance services throughout the world.
Their philosophy is to provide out patients with the highest level of aero medical care including medical services at the most cost effective price.
They offer commitment to quality and cost effectiveness, achieved by combining highly trained medical personnel and state-of-the-art equipment with highly trained Flight Crews and well maintained fleet of aircraft, thus ensuring that your air ambulance service will be the best it can be.
Their Flight Coordinator's specialize in assisting their customers in all aspects to insure a smooth, safe, and efficient transfer of the patient.
AeroCare's expert staff has received full accreditation by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS) on March 29, 2003.
AeroCare flights are operated by R&M Aviation and other FAA certificated air carriers. R&M Aviation is a FAA Part 135 certificated Air Carrier and a wholly owned subsidiary of AeroCare Medical Transport System, Inc.

You can also look for an online quote.


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Critical thinking

"WSJ writes:

Critical thinking means being able to evaluate evidence, to tell fact from opinion, to see holes in an argument, to tell whether cause and effect has been established and to spot illogic. "

Critical thinking is the exercise of the brain.
It is moving neurons and synapses.
The more you exercise your brain the more critical you become.
It is where progress and innovations come from.
It is elaborating other people's ideas, finding the good and the bad.
Discharging the bad and developing the good.
Without critical thinking, man would not have evolved.
Critical thinking is the meaning of our lives.

However, critical thinking would not exist without communication.
Ideas make new ideas and from new ideas, this world grows.

Critical thinking should be encouraged by every democratic and progressive society.
That is why "Today’s democracies" do not do it...

About Fertility

Sustained reductions in family size in the context of peace and social progress-were first witnessed in late eighteenth- century Europe.
During the interwar period, a number of European states reported fertility patterns that, if continued, would lead to an eventual stabilization and indefinite population decline thereafter.
These low fertility regimens were entirely voluntary: heretofore, such low birth Rates had virtually always been attended by war, pestilence, famine, or disaster.
Europe experienced a baby boom after World War II, but low fertility has now returned with a vengeance.
There are no reliable methods for anticipating just how low fertility levels may sink, or how long low fertility may persist in various locales.
One consequence, however, is already clear: it will force a great aging of the populations affected.
All of the developed countries are already "graying."
A final surprise involves what we might call America's "demographic exceptionalism." The U.S. is the singular and major exception to the demographic rhythms characterizing virtually all other affluent Western states.

In Western Europe, total populations are anticipated to decline between 2000 and 2025, with a substantial shrinkage in the under-55 population and pronounced population aging.
In the U.S., overall population aging is much more moderate; the overall population is projected to increase, and a higher number of young people are expected in 2025 than today.

Part of this difference is attributable to a significant divergence in fertility patterns and partly in the availability of first class structures offering home and in vitro fertilization.

Randy S. Morris M.D. is a certified IVF specialist based in Chicago Illinois. Dr. Morris specializes in invitro fertilization, PCOS and PGD.
Although they are best known for their IVF and PGD programs, you will find that they offer much, much more.
They have In Vitro Fertilization Services ,Treatment of Recurrent Miscarriage,Treatment of Female Endocrine Problems,Treatment of Other Reproductive Problems,Reproductive Surgery,Ovulation Induction / Superovulation,Complete Diagnostic Testing,Radiology (X-ray) Services.

U.S.-Western Europe income differences are not tremendous. One might think that fertility would be higher in societies that devote more public resources to child support, but social welfare programs are far more generous in most of Western Europe than in the U.S.

So how can we explain this fertility discrepancy? Possibly it is a matter of attitudes and outlook. There are big revealed differences between Americans and Europeans regarding a number of important life values.
Attitudes about individualism, patriotism, and religiosity seem to separate Americans from much of the rest of the developed world.
While the rest of the developed areas gradually drop off the roster of the world's major population centers, the U.S. actually rises, from fourth largest in 1950 to third largest in 2000, which it is projected to remain in 2050 as well.

From a purely demographic standpoint, the U.S., virtually alone among developed nations, does not look set to be going off gently into the night.


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Blog Ads: the Internet of Ads

New technologies like RFID and smart computing promise a world of networked and interconnected devices that provide relevant content and information whatever the location of the user.
Everything from tires to toothbrushes will be in communications range, heralding the dawn of a new era, one in which today’s Internet (of data and people) gives way to tomorrow’s Internet of Ads.
It seems that we are standing on the brink of a new computing and communication era, one that will radically transform our corporate, community, and personal spheres. With continuing developments in miniaturization and declining costs, it is becoming not only technologically possible but also economically feasible to make everyday objects smarter, and to connect the world of people with the world of ads.

Every one hundred words, twenty will be about something we have to see, try, experience, buy.
Just like on TV the new future of the Internet will be the future of the new commercial ERA.
The Internet has proven invaluable for activists with high ideals and low budgets. And yes, Web searches can locate a lot of information within seconds. But let's get a view on what has been happening to the World Wide Web overall.

More and more, big money is weaving the Web, and the most heavily trafficked websites reflect that reality. Almost all of the Web's largest-volume sites are now owned by huge conglomerates. Even search-engine results are increasingly skewed, with priority placements greased by behind-the-scenes fees.

These days, "information superhighway" sounds outmoded and vaguely quaint.
The World Wide Web isn't supposed to make sense nearly as much as it's supposed to make money. All glory to electronic commerce!

The Web was primarily a resource for learning and communication. Today, according to the prevalent spin, the Web is best understood as a way to make and spend money.

What has happened to the "Information Superhighway"?
It has got bigger and bigger.
It began as a network among few "informatic gurus" and grew into a network of life.
It is the Cyber space, the Virtual life, the mirror of the world.
There is nothing like a "good" or "bad" Internet.

The Internet is the real and only democratic place on this earth.
It gives space and voice to ALL.
Being them people who look for high level information or those who want to chat and look at YouTube.
But one thing is clear.

The few people grew to a huge number and that number will grow and grow.
The Internet IS and Will be more and more the new MEDIA.
If customers go to the Internet, ADS will follow them.
And companies want customers, don't they?

I love Education

If education does start to change and modernize, it will become the dominant source of social change in the 21st century.
People must be able to access and apply information to contexts never thought possible before.
They will be able to build "a new culture for the academy."
"The revolution in information technology is bringing and will bring significant changes in how we perform our functions as teachers and scholars, and how students learn. Those changes create an imperative for new institutional structures and a new academic culture."
"It will offer new opportunities for cooperation across institutions...and for
collaborations across fields of science."
"I believe that one of the most dramatic changes will take place in the way we teach. In a current lecture class, students sit passively, receiving information." "With information technology the possibilities open to making the task of learning into a complex, active, and intellectually challenging engagement with a subject."
Campuses will not disappear as students turn to "virtual" universities.
Rather, "My own prediction envisions greater interdependence rather than independence among cutting edge researchers.
Teamwork and collaboration will become ever more important as research
questions draw on the expertise of diverse fields of knowledge."
Under this system, students might visit campuses "for shorter periods of concentrated interaction with faculty and research collaborations."
One of the results is that "the faculty of the future will need to be adept at drawing out the individual intellectual and creative talents of each student in guiding him or her beyond the mastery of information to the use and extension of knowledge."

It is in this view that landmark education was born.
The Landmark Education graduates aspire to educate themelves by using the language that celebrates, shares, and empowers the designing and living of extraordinary lives for everyone.
What do they offer?

landmark education

landmark forum

landmark seminars


National Science Board ChairmanKelly urges that "we need to continue to be more agile in identifying and adequately supporting the most promising areas for research. We need to enable broader cross-disciplinary, cross-sector, and cross-institution collaborations among researchers and their students, even while providing strong support to traditional fields."
"We should be quick to seek opportunities to employ the latest in technology in research and learning in an environment of free and open inquiry."
"It is our obligation to provide our future citizens with a healthy infrastructure of cutting edge scientific research and graduate education not just for today but to serve the next quarter century and beyond."


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What if the dream is not a dream anymore?

"The sentiment now in the financial press is -- like that expressed by my banker correspondent -- that the US economy is indestructable."J.K.

They couldn't dream or fancy anything else.
Because otherwise it would be an economy's suicide.
What if some of us began to suspect that this kind of society is struggling to death, that all what they believed and planed is going to find its natural end?
What if suddendly you had the doubt that you cannot go on consuming more and more forever?
That whatever energy you can find, cheap and abundant, if you overuse it will anyway, sooner or later have an end?
What if we will have so many cars and so many roads that there is no place any more for any human?
So many houses that there is no place for a tree?
What if somebody found out that YES there is an alternative way of living?
That consumerism is good till a certain point, but it cannot go on forever and ever.
You cannot go on producing more and more, because people cannot go on consuming more and more.
Fun is getting boring.
Having more and more produces more and more problems.
Of storage or even worse of disposal.
What is too much IS too much.
What if you suddendly find out that it is utterly stupid to work 18 hours a day to have a new car, a new home, new clothes, when your old ones are still good and may be more comfortable?
That it is nicer to work less and enjoy life more.
That fun is not always spending, but doing the things you like and the things you really like sometimes cost nothing.
What if suddendly we found out that HAVING is much less fun than BEING?

Jewish singles

If you are a lonely man and you think that a Jewish woman wouldn't be what you are looking for, may be you will change your mind in this website:

Jewish Dating Site

I can assure you that you could hardly find a better place to look for a friend or something more (that is up to you).
The choice is huge and you can immediately be in touch with the person you choose, chatting, talking on the Voip phone.

What can you ask more?
Yes, you can ask to find a nice, honest, devote, morally oriented person.
But talking about a Jewish dating site, you can be sure this IS the prerogative.
Welcome to Jsingles.com, a safe, fun online community for Jewish singles seeking friendship, romance or marriage.
Join jsingles.com today and enjoy a full set of features including
two-way matching, audio/video instant messenger, private email, advanced search, new member alerts, prayer exchange, bible search, and more.
They have thousands of single Jewish profiles.
You can try, because you can join for free.
Alerts will let you know when members are interested in you.
You will be able to share photos and private emails.
Once you become a member of jsingles.com you will be given a rich set of search criteria that will help you narrow your choices down to just the right person. You will be able to search on anything from ethnicity, religion, age, location, smoking, drinking and so on.
Remember to upload your photo with your big beautiful smile. Profiles with photos are shown first to other members and get clicked 20 times more than profiles without photos.
You can also use the feature: Private Photos.
If you need to be discreet with your photo then you can use the Private Photo Sharing feature. You can send a private photo through private email so only the members you are interested in can see you.
If a picture is worth 1K words, You won't certainly need words in this web site!


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Bad credit loans

Americans saving less than nothing.
Spending could outstrip income in 2005, which hasn't happened since the Depression
- Tom Abate, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, January 8, 2006

Given how much red ink households racked up in the first 11 months of last year, Lansing said the nation's personal savings rate could well be negative for all of 2007.
That, he added, would be "the first such occurrence since the Great Depression."
The lack of real savings and the economic cushion it affords means many families will be unable to weather any sustained downturn.
The savings situation is made far worse by the enormous balance of trade deficit, public and private debt.
If your credit history has entries like default on payments of previous loans or country court judgments, you become a borrower with bad credit. So, when you apply for a loan, your case becomes that of Bad Credit Loans.
Bad credit loans may be the only option for people who have a questionable credit history or those who have yet to establish a credit history.
There are two types of bad credit loans: bad credit loans that are secured and bad credit loans that are unsecured. Each type of bad credit loan has its own pros and cons.
You can have a bad credit from several factors, such as loss of job, irregular and late repayments, and credit card debt.
In such a situation, bad credit loans are the only future providing the much-needed money for your various needs.
Bad credit loans can also be used for emergencies due to hard financial circumstances or for leisure. Moreover, such loans are available even to those people who have bad credit or no credit.
With slowing economic growth in the U.S., unemployment is on the rise. In this situation a "bad credit loan" could be the only choice.
Or you could need a Bad Credit Loan for your child's education.
One of the excesses that proceeded the Depression were zero-down, interest-only, home loans very similar to today.
One of the reforms put in place after the depression was a requirement for a conventional mortgage.
At Credit Loan you can get all the real answers to your urgent questions.
And remember, a bad or good credit loan is a positive solution if you can take advantage out of it, that means if you can have a profit out of a debt.
The high road may be harder, but it leads to a better place.

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The Market is a God that sucks

Markets must rule, some right-wing prophets tell us, because of "globalization," because the moral weight of the entire world somehow demands it.
The new god makes great demands on us, and its demands must be appeased.
None can be shielded from its will.
The welfare of AFDC mothers must be entrusted unhesitatingly to its mercies.
Workers of every description must learn its discipline, must sacrifice all to achieve flexibility, to create shareholder value.
The professional, the intellectual, the manager must each shed their pride and own up to their flawed, lowly natures, must acknowledge their impotence and insensibility before its divine logic.
We put our health care system in its invisible hands, and to all appearances it botches the job.
Yet the faith of the believers is not shaken.
We deregulate the banking industry. Deregulate the broadcasters. Deregulate electricity. Halt antitrust. Make plans to privatize Social Security and to privatize the public schools.
And to those who worry about the cost of all this, the market's disciples speak of mutual funds, of IPOs, of online trading, of early retirement. All we have to do is believe.
Then, one fine day, you check in at Ameritrade and find that your tech portfolio is off 90 percent. Your department at work has been right-sized, meaning you spend a lot more time at the office-without getting a raise.
You have one kid in college to the tune of $30,000 a year, another with no health insurance because she's working as a temp.
Or maybe you lost your job because they can do it cheaper in Alabama or Mexico.

That's when it dawns on you: The market is a god that sucks.
Yes, it cashed a few out at the tippy top, piled up the loot of the world at their feet, delivered shiny Lexuses into the driveways of their ten-bedroom suburban chateaux.
But for the rest of us the very principles that make the market the object of D'Souza's worship, of Gilder's awestruck piety, are the forces that conspire to make life shitty in a million ways great and small.
The market is the reason our housing is so expensive.
It is the reason our public transportation is lousy.
It is the reason our cities sprawl idiotically all across the map.
It is the reason our word processing programs stink and our prescription drugs cost more than anywhere else.
In order that a fortunate few might enjoy a kind of prosperity unequaled in human history, the rest of us have had to abandon ourselves to a lifetime of casual employment, to unquestioning obedience within an ever-more arbitrary and despotic corporate regime, to medical care available on a maybe/maybe-not basis, to a housing market interested in catering only to the fortunate.
In order for the libertarians of Orange County to enjoy the smug sleep of the true believer, the thirty millions among whom they live must join them in the dark.
But it is not enough to count the ways in which the market sucks.
This is a deity of spectacular theological agility, supported by a priesthood of millions: journalists, admen, politicians, Op-Ed writers, think-tankers, cyberspace scrawlers, Sunday morning talk-show libertarians, and, of course, bosses, all of them united in the conviction that, no matter what, the market can't be held responsible.
When things go wrong only we are to blame.
After all, they remind us, every step in the economic process is a matter of choice.
Virtually any deed can be excused by this logic.
The stock market, in recent years a scene of no small amount of deceit, misinformation, and manipulation, can be made to seem quite benign when the high priests roll up their sleeves.
Since those lovable little guys acted of their own free will when they invested in Lucent, PMC Sierra, and Cisco, today there is no claim they can make that deserves a hearing. What has happened is their fault and theirs alone.
Free to choose is a painfully ironic slogan for the market order.
While markets do indeed sometimes provide a great array of consumer choices, the clear intention of much of the chatter about technology, "globalization," and the "New Economy" is, in fact, to deny us any choice at all.

Liberally taken from

"Off-shoring and the Free Market"

Bosley, John

The Magic of the Internet

Only a few years ago, the Internet was virtually unknown in the mass-consumer market.
Today, it is a phenomenon reshaping global communications for millions of people. Almost every industry is touched by the Internet's fanatical momentum.
It is growing faster than any other new technology industry in history, and it has the potential to change the way people interact on Earth.
In many ways, the Internet's communications properties have acted as a catalyst to its own growth, making it a self-fueling entity.
PCs essentially have become the most important tool of empowerment and [have] driven a whole wave of productivity and additional communication and research and sharing.

The Internet has changed our life, the way we do everything.
We are "always on" and "always looking, searching, buying".

Once, when we had to insure our car, we just went to the next office of our Insurance Company, we asked and we got what they wanted us to have.
Internet means to be able to choose.
But, since the offer is huge, how to choose the best?
There are a lot of websites now, where you can browse and look and compare.
Most brokers websites compare quotes from their small panel of insurers, but Quotezone compares quotes from these websites to give a much better overall comparison.
The quotes are returned in real time, so you dont have to wait for an email/phone call to see your results.
You get over 20 different quotes from different websites in 2 minutes.
They promise to give cheap quotes for UK.
And what's better than a comparison among Van insurances?
They don't just search direct insurers but also brokers.
Normally when you get an insurance quote online, its from a broker.
The broker will find you a policy from an insurance company and charge you a certain price for it.
However, if you go to another broker , they might sell you the same policy , but charge more for it!
So if you are looking for a Cheap Van Insurance all what you have to do is to click on my link.
You can try and get a quote and really see how convenient it is.

And the beauty of it is that today you do not have to go anywhere, just sit in front of your computer and: IT'S DONE!
And they promise this is just the beginning.


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RSS

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, a method for allowing Internet users to automatically obtain up-to-date information from their favorite sources.


The concept was conceived in 1999, but unknown to most of us until 2004, the year of the weblog. The bloggers who hounded the presidential candidates and humbled Dan Rather used RSS to broadcast their words.
Now,nearly every media company in the world is imitating them, with RSS ''feeds" sent from their websites to millions of subscribers.

2007 is shaping up as the year of the podcast and the vlog -- audio and video programming created by independent authors and posted on the Internet.
Again,it's RSS time. A fan of Al Franken need never miss his radio show.
He can use a bit of RSS-based software to check for each new episode and automatically download it for later listening.

Consumers can enjoy the benefits of RSS without paying a dime. Software to let you subscribe to RSS website feeds can be downloaded free; one such program is built into the popular Firefox Internet browser.
You can also get free podcasting and vlogging programs.
The latest version of Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes software includes listings for about 20,000 podcasts.
Click a button, and the iTunes music player locks onto the correct RSS feed and downloads the podcasts of your choice.

HDTV and Home Theater

HDTV PRICES FALL TO ALMOST AFFORDABLE LEVELS

Though hardly low enough to prompt impulse purchases, the prices of high-definition TV sets have fallen for some 32- and 36-inch models, and HDTV sales are up 50% through August, while prices are down 22%.
A CBS executive said that, in the spite of slow development of HDTV program offerings, high-definition TV is "a business now", not just a hobby.
But there are still a lot of issues, that are more technological than business,that need to be resolved.
One issue waiting for resolution is the question of how content suppliers can prevent the recording and illegal reuse of high-definition entertainment fare.
A whole new generation of homeowner options are appearing for accessing video - multi-TV video servers (both embedded systems and PC-based systems), tablets, PDAs - and broadband (DVD quality bitrates) streaming video (IP/Ethernet).
The vast majority of these systems are not MPEG 6Mhz RF channel based.
They are based upon ethernet, and transports that look like ethernet (802.11 wireless, HomePNA, HomePlug).

An ethernet TV (10/100/1000), stripped of all of today's connectivity options, analog coax, analog RBG, analog component, and the newly standardized cable FCC connectivity option - 1-way hybrid analog-digital MPEG RF coax - would probably be $100 cheaper (list). Is that a scenario interesting to consumers/manufacturers?

Comcast Exceeds One Million HDTV-Capable Set-Top Boxes; Demand
for HDTV Service Propelled by Super Bowl
- Feb 2, 2005 11:34 AM (PR Newswire)

PHILADELPHIA, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- As Super Bowl frenzy reaches a fever pitch, Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), announced it has now deployed more than one million high-definition television (HDTV)-capable Digital Cable set-top boxes in customers' homes, adding more than 800,000 of them in 2004 alone.
In addition, Comcast has experienced a 143% increase in the number of customers connecting HDTV sets to Comcast's HD service during January 2005 versus January 2004.

In 2007 WE ARE THERE.
We arrived to the Home Theater and finally to HDTV
The personal computer has moved out of the office and den into the living room, kitchen and bedroom.
The arrival of the more flexible personal computers is aimed at permitting the industry to make big inroads into the consumer market as digital television replaces conventional analog TV, a move that is expected to lead Americans to spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next few years on things like new big-screen displays and home-theater-in-a-box sets.
Examples of this are the ones you can find browsing Electronics Catalog

Wireless networking will level the playing field by letting any electronic device
communicate with any other, allowing the current cable and satellite providers of television signals to control not just how movies are viewed in the home but also to some extent how video games and music are played.
Seeing classic films in their original form, for example on a Samsung HL-S6187W 61 Widescreen (16:9) - Resolution: 1920 x 1080 Pixels reveals the vast difference between what we are used to and quality home theater.
Most Americans now would rather watch films at home than in theaters.
"I just prefer to stay home and watch movies," said Mark Gil, 34, of Central Square, N.Y. "It's cheaper. ... By the time you're done at the movie theater with sodas and stuff, it's 20 bucks."
That is why devices like Pioneer PDP-5070HD PureVision 50' Plasma HDTV are getting more and more popular.


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The future of music

"We're entering an era of ubiquitous wireless broadband, where data will be available to us wherever we go. In that kind of world, we will not need iTunes. I doubt most people will want to buy or "own" music at all. It will be far more useful to pick from a giant online library and listen to whatever we want wherever we are."


We are also entering the era of the "download or stream and consume" instead of "download and orderly store".
Too much music, too much new music, how to choose?
The best is NOT TO CHOOSE.
Why should you listen to the music of yesterday instead of the music of today?
Or why should you store it, when it is available whenever, wherever you like it?

Broadcasters React to Los Angeles Earthquake

Los Angeles was hit by a massive earthquake centred 20 miles
northwest of downtown LA in the San Fernando Valley.
Telecommunications services throughout the area were disrupted by the early morning quake although emergency service communications on the whole remained operable.
The effects of the quake on America's second city were felt as far away as Las Vegas (275 miles east).
Broadcast stations were understandably busy covering the event.
Interest from international broadcast stations was also high "After-shocks" are occurring, but except for a few fallen ceiling tiles and a slightly disturbed 21 meter auto tracker, we are doing fine,” said Grant Koehler, a spacecraft controller for GE at the site.

It appears that not all Americans sympathized with the plight of their fellow countrymen. ABC Television said that they received hundreds of phone calls that continuous news coverage interrupted their soap opera viewing.


And this is how Soap Operaaffects everyday life.
More important than an earthquake.

So, I would forecast a bright future for this www.soaps.com website.
It is quite well made.

Easy and fast to load, very easy to navigate.

You find:

The list of Shows to choose.
The latest News
The daily Update
The Newsroom
The message Board

And you can regisyer for FREE!

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The other side of Interactivity

Men And Women Get Interactive

Long suffering men should get ready to lock up their credit cards.
Women are finding more ways to spend their money! 1 in 4 women questioned embraces the idea of shopping through interactive digital satellite television.

The next generation of Web Deals

Do you want to make money?
Of course everybody wants it.
The problem is knowing how and not risking too much.
How does it sound to be able to win betting on both sides of the coin?
Just visit your "Sport Broker".

Yes this could be a new, interesting opportunity for the ones who want to invest and NEVER loose.
How is that possible?
Are you looking for a long-term investment program?
You will not make millions overnight.
But this is something that can provide you a high return on your investment or additional side income, like an annual return of 50% or more on your investment.

Let's make an example to make it clearer:
1) You have a starting bankroll of $1000,
2) You conduct 1 transaction a day,
3) It gives you a profit of .5%,
4) You invest your entire bankroll each day.

Cumulatively speaking, you should expect your bankroll to be at around $6000 in 365 days or 1 year.
Of course, this can be more or less because on some days, you may get an arb with a higher return rate, but on other days, you may not get any.
You will also run into situations where your bankroll is spread out among a couple of sportsbooks and some money will sit idle in one account while there is an existing arb in another account.

What is the concept?
Sport Arbitrage is betting on both sides of an event/game with 2 different sports books and coming out with a profit no matter what the outcome is.

The problem is that you cannot sift through all of the sports books out there as well as compare all of their lines. It is practically impossible to compare the hundreds of lines between all the sports books out there.

But a software can do it easily for you.

Sport Arbitrage will sift through the hundreds of lines offered by the sports books on the list and compare them. If the program finds an arbitrage, it will make a sound and create a Pop-up that will alert of you of the arbitrage. You can then simply go to the sports book and place the investment yourself.

Easy, isn't it?
And you can try it for free...
FREE 1 Week Trial Period - You WILL believe!



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Once "macho" always "macho"

New TV viewing survey from ASTRA finds women are frustrated by men's channel flicking habits.
A survey carried out by ASTRA, the digital satellite operator, has today revealed that women, driven mad by their partner's channel flicking habits, are confessing to hiding the remote in a bid to regain control. It's not just the fact that 50% of men claim to rule the remote, it's what they do with it that matters!

The highlights are:

a.. 39% of women complain partners click from one channel to other
b.. 25% of men spend less than 2 secs on one channel
c.. 50% of men claim to rule remote
d.. One in five women hide the remote
e.. 1in 4 women keen to shop through interactive digital satellite TV
f.. Documentaries & comedy - Britain's favourite TV programmes
g.. SEXIEST TV presenters - Jamie Theakston & Cat Deely Channel surfing was top of the list of annoying viewing habits listed by women about their men. 39% of women complained that their partnersliked to click from one channel to another.
What's more, nearly a quarter of all men spend less than two seconds on each channel before clicking to the next.
And when asked what would make them stick to a channel, sport wins over an attractive woman with 60% of men saying something sporty, and 44% an attractive female.
Cars (41%) were also high on the list.

B as Building contractors

" Building Contractors are associated with many works, related to the construction of apartments, factories, offices, schools, and also in the construction of the new buildings."
That is how it begins in Encyclocentral.com
And here you can find any detailed information about them.
That their work can be divided in three segmenta, and which is which, their role, how long and how much they are supposed to work,the working conditionsand so on...
You can also find a link to U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, Construction site.

There you can furtherly read ALL what you can dream of knowing about it.
I find all this quite useful, even though I am not directly interested in it.
The Internet is the biggest change in human communications since the printing press. Every day, this rapidly growing global network touches the lives of millions of People. Students log in to take virtual field trips to the Mayan ruins. Entrepreneurs get the information they need to start a new business and sell their products in overseas markets.
Caregivers for people with Alzheimer's Disease participate in an "extended family" on the Cleveland FreeNet. Citizens keep tabs on the voting records and accomplishments of their elected representatives.
The explosion of the Internet has generated economic growth, high-wage jobs, and a dramatic increase in the number of high-tech start-ups.

What we need is ordered and easy reachable information.
What we are looking for, at a click (or two) of the mouse...

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Our future alternative brain

I read a very interesting article this morning:
"Brain chip reads man's thoughts" by Reese

"I remember the movie Firefox with Eastwood, where a prototype MIG fighter operated in part by thought was stolen by the West. Was that the first mainstream silver screen use of thought-directed control and military hardware? While I'm sure the medical usesfor this technology are endless, some degree of oversight seems prudent. Cybernetic warriors on the battlefield is an idea just around the corner, maybe we (as a race) should not turn that corner."


[Image of the brain::The 'chip' reads brain signals]

A paralysed man in the US has become the first person to benefit from a brain chip that reads his mind.
Matthew Nagle, 25, was left paralysed from the neck down and confined to a wheelchair after a knife attack in 2001.
The pioneering surgery at New England Sinai Hospital, Massachusetts, last summer means he can now control everyday objects by thought alone.
The brain chip reads his mind and sends the thoughts to a computer to decipher.

Mind over matter

He can think his TV on and off, change channels and alter the volume thanks to the technology and software linked to devices in his home.
Scientists have been working for some time to devise a way to enable paralysed people to control devices with the brain.
Studies have shown that monkeys can control a computer with electrodes implanted into their brain.
Recently four people, two of them partly paralysed wheelchair users, were able to move a computer cursor while wearing a cap with 64 electrodes that pick up brain waves.
Mr Nagle's device, called BrainGate, consists of nearly 100 hair-thin electrodes implanted a millimetre deep into part of the motor cortex of his brain that controls movement.
Wires feed the information from the electrodes into a computer which analyses the brain signals.

The signals are interpreted and translated into cursor movements,offering the user an alternative way to control devices such as a computer with thought.

Motor control

Professor John Donoghue, an expert on neuroscience at Brown University, Rhode Island, is the scientist behind the device produced by Cyberkinetics.
He said: "The computer screen is basically a TV remote control panel, and in order to indicate a selection he merely has to pass the cursor over an icon, and that's equivalent to a click when he goes over that icon."
Mr Nagle has also been able to use thought to move a prosthetic hand and robotic arm to grab sweets from one person's hand and place them into another.
Professor Donoghue hopes that ultimately implants such as this will allow people with paralysis to regain the use of their limbs.
The long term aim is to design a package the size of a mobile phone that will run on batteries, and to electrically stimulate the patient's own muscles.

This will be difficult.

The simple movements we take for granted in fact involve complex electrical signals which will be hard to replicate, Dr Richard Apps, a neurophysiologist from Bristol University, the UK, told the BBC News website.
He said there were millions of neurones in the brain involved with movement.
The brain chip taps into only a very small number of these.
But he said the work was extremely exciting.
"It's quite remarkable. They have taken research to the next stage to have a clear benefit for a patient that otherwise would not be able to move.
"It seems that they have cracked the crucial step and arguably the most challenging step to get hand movements.
"Just to be able to grasp an object is a major step forward."
He said it might be possible to hone this further to achieve finer movements of the hand.
Matthew Nagel's story was featured in a Frontiers programme on BBC Radio Four on Wednesday 13 April, 2005, at 2100 BST.

America's decay

As strange as it can be the biggest threat America is facing now is NOT terrorism

Right, it was like what had happened in the auto industry 20 years ago, when you had French auto producers, Italian auto producers, Japanese auto producers and the big three here, and they all competed for national market share. But then that market went global -- as did the market for TVs and the market for telecommunication devices and the market for computers -- and then companies had to compete on a world
scale. The same thing is happening with cities and the talent they compete for.

And when all this hysteria about national security, homeland security started to happen, what really drove the United States to its position of greatness wasn't the fact that They had a big market or lots of raw materials or their American ingenuity. What really made America great for the better part of a century and a half has been their openness to people from all over the world. That's what built their textile industry, that's what built their railroad industry.
It was because they accepted people like Andrew Carnegie in the steel industry, David Sarnoff in the electronics industry, Adolphus Busch in the beer industry, and so on.

And according to analysts' statistics for the high-tech revolution, 30 percent of the companies in the Silicon Valley area were founded by an Indian or someone born in a Chinese-speaking country. Whether it's eBay or Yahoo or Google or Hotmail, what drove America's high-tech revolution and other industries was the ability to attract the world's best talent.


But what are the current problems the U.S. faces in terms of attracting that sort of talent? What's the difference between now and, say, five years ago?

There are two factors interacting here. The first, which would have happened anyway, is that other countries realized how important talent is and cities in those countries have become really effective in competing for talent.
So the playing field has been leveled. In the past, people would have said, "Absolutely, my first choice is to move to New York or Boston or San Francisco or Seattle or Chicago ..." Now cities like London, Dublin, Amsterdam and Stockholm have become extremely attractive to talented people, not because of any particular public policy but because of the way they've developed over the past decade.
And I'm not just talking about the relocation of Americans, I'm talking about the location decisions of people on a world scale.
So many foreigners have visa troubles now, even great scientists, artists and musicians.
And once they're living and working in the U.S., they can't go home to visit relatives for five years because if they're not a resident they have to get their visa renewed every time they enter or exit the country.
Which means it's a huge problem to leave the U.S. even for a short period of time because they're not sure they'll be able to get back in again.
Not surprisingly, there's a general sense in the world that the United States
isn't as welcoming.
And in particular, the recent U.S. restrictions have hit hard at foreign students who compose the critical backbone of their high-tech industries.
They couldn't have high-tech industries in the United States -- no matter how much they want to say they would -- without foreign-born engineers and computer scientists.
They just wouldn't have them. They couldn't run them because they don't produce enough talent of their own.
Fifty percent of the computer scientists in the United States are foreign-born, which is a huge number.
But it makes sense. If you have a billion kids in India and China and a billion kids are trying to learn engineering and math and computer science, there are going to be a lot of really talented and smart kids, even if they're distributed at the same ratios as U.S. kids.
And in the past that gave the U.S. a great advantage because they were able to attract the lion's share of the brightest, most technically sophisticated, entrepreneurial, motivated kids in the world.
No, it's not that any one country is going to emerge as the next great superpower and attract all the best talent.
It's not like "It's going to be the EU" or "It's going to be China." That's silly. But if these increasingly competitive countries take 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 percent of the
talent that used to come here, when you add that up over 10 to 20 countries, that's a huge loss.
Roosevelt said, "I'm going to make sure that these working-class people get to be part of the industrial economy. I'm going to build an industrial society that allows people to organize and bargain collectively, raise their wages, has affordable housing, get long-term mortgages, provides occupational safety and health, Social
Security in their old age and welfare in their spells of poverty.
And I'm going to make sure that their kids can go to college."

All what they are doing now is to dismantle the New Deal. And this will have consequences...

Liberally taken from William Law "The Flight of the Creative Class"

Digital markets

This is an account of how the truly gigantic international flows of cash, greatly facilitated by computers and telecommunications, are changing economic institutions and theories.
The computerized high finance centers on so-called "derivative products".
These are (among other things) ways of buying and selling debt streams with given properties.
For example, a company in need of short-term cash might exchange a bundle of 30-year home mortgages (which provide money with high reliability but at low rates of return and over a long period) in favor of a bundle of junk bonds (which provide money with lower reliability but at higher rates of return and on a variety of schedules).
The business of home mortgages is highly alluring, not for its profitability, but for the fact that it means a highly safe investment.
And the business is based on the need of the people to assure a "future" to themselves and to their family.
The need to OWN a place where to live in order to make it comfortable, nice and safe.
But how to choose among the most alluring proposals?
If you are a mathematic guru, you can calculate how much it really costs you, how safe you are, if it is better for your incame a long term or a short term loan.
If you are not, our digital society comes to your rescue.
When I made my first mortgage I looked for informations on the Net.
It was too early then.
Luckily enough I found on my husband's Visual Basic IV ( long time ago) a very interesting exercise: How to make a Mortgage calculator.
It was easy and it was great and it was very useful.
Today you can find it already made.
At Home equity loans you can easily find Mortgage Rates and a
mortgage calculator.
Not only, you can find also expert advice and tips for "Borrowing Intelligently" or understanding the big difference between prequalified and preapproved and everything else you might be interested in knowing...

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

I like it private

« Obamavision The revolution will be YouTubed »

Obitvision

Art Buchwald has died – and announced the news himself in a video on NYTimes.com: “Hi,” he says/said, “I’m Art Buchwald and I just died.”
There was still a twinkle in his eye.

The Times says this is the first of a new effort to go to the prominent to ask them on tape how they want to be remembered. It’s an absolutely wonderful idea. (I do wish, though, this tribute did not start off paying tribute to The Times for having the idea.)

How is it to be you?

That is what people want to know.

How is it to be you dying?

I guess I prefer not to know and not to show.

I like it private…

Wireless RFID Tags

Shoppers leaving Wal-Mart Stores these days are used to long check-out lines. In a few years, however, those lines well might be history.

Wal-Mart is introducing radio frequency identification (RFID) tags to its products--small devices that emit radio waves containing information about product size, price, etc. Though this scenario is still far in the future, such tags could let the world's largest retailer add up the prices of purchased goods as shoppers leave the store and deduct the tab directly from their accounts. Whether such futuristic practices materialize or not, one thing is certain: RFID has begun to acquire a buzz that positions it as the next revolution in the world of retailing.
How real is this revolution? And what does it mean for retailers and
customers?
RFID is a potentially powerful technology that several organizations--including retailers and government organizations--are seriously looking at implementing to ramp up the efficiency of their supply chains.
Still, several hurdles remain. One big question is whether the benefits will be immediate or be spread out years into the future.

In current systems, you may know there are 10 items on the shelf, and that information is compiled in an enterprise planning software system.
With RFID, you know there are 10 items, their age, lot number, expiration date and warehouse origin.
"It's like knowing there are 1,000 people in a city,".
"With RFID, you know their names."

Among the key issues yet to be resolved:

Cost of tags RFID Chips (It's a chicken-and-egg conundrum,if more companies were forging ahead with RFID installations, tags would be cheaper)
Standards in flux (potential suppliers are holding out until those standards are set)
RFID Tags

There's little experience in the field when it comes to integrating multiple RFID systems from various partners in the supply chain Barcode RFID

German supermarket chain Metro is researching how wireless technology can boost retail.

The collection of technology in Metro's Future Store initiative aims to boost store efficiency, enable targeted marketing and cut long queues,among other things.
The Future Store is an experimental store, but it is one that involves real customers using real technology in real time.
As example Bluetooth RFID

"A lot still needs to be done, but the potential is great,"
Morris A. Cohen, co-director of Wharton's Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management.
If you want to know more about an interesting subject like RFID Wireless Tags you can find everything at:
RFID Journal and can read the appropriate articles.

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Reinvention of Media

"Everyone has - and always has had - interests and hobbies and opinions. Everyone has always been a "producer" as well as a "consumer" of culture, and the Internet offers new (if not necessarily better) opportunities for self-expression. And that's good. But it doesn't amount to a reinvention of media. Today's new media, as Steven Johnson writes, "are not historically unique; they draw upon and resemble a number of past traditions and forms, depending on their focus."

In that sense, media weren't reinvented for long. Let's say television is not so much different in substance from the ancient Greek Theatre.
Both are the performance of actors seen by a "public".
Nevertheless nobody would deny the importance of TV.
Not certainly for the content broadcasted, for that of course the Greek are still much better.
The difference is in the footprint.
While the first was available to "few elected people" the second is seen buy the majority.
And that will make the difference of the Internet compared to the traditional TV. The footprint AND the interactivity.
With the Internet the consumer can really be at the same time "producer". And the Internet offers undoubtely NEW AND BETTER opportunities for self expression.

My next holyday...

What I like when I have to make a ppppost is that I come to know websites that I wouldn't have seen in another way.
It's the way to find things I didn't even know that existed.
That is a big limit of Search engines.
They show Always the same websites, and most of the time, things you are not interested in.
The really interesting ones are mostly hidden and difficult to find.
People should read more advertising blogs, it is the way sometimes to find gems.

One of them is the one I found today.
A beautifully made website where they list by owner vacation rentals.
That means that if you want to rent something to spend your holydays in California, it is there just a few mouse clicks away.
Easy to navigate, with nice pictures, maps, explanations, name and address of the people you can contact and so on...
And IT IS FREE.
The alternative would be contacting an agency, possibly a local one and of course chosse among their choices, pay their prices and so on (we all know).
And it is perfect also for the owners who want to list their property.
In a few words, it is what we want the Internet to be.
The big Network where one end can easily meet the other end...
My only regret: Why isn't here in Europe somebody willing to copy them?
I would be customer number one.
For now I have to plan something in California for next year...


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The Infrastructure of Democracy

The Infrastructure of Democracy
Strengthening the Open Internet for a Safer World
March 11, 2005

I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.

1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all - increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.

Global politics, global voices


Patrizia

VoIP is the natural evolution of the Internet.

The Internet created the "visual and writing society". VoIP will create the "Talking society".

But for doing so VoIP must be what the internet is: OPEN.

1. Open, transparent environments are more secure and more stable than closed, opaque ones.
2. While Internet services can be interrupted, the Internet as a global system is ultimately resilient to attacks, even sophisticated and widely distributed ones.
3. The connectedness of the Internet – people talking with people – counters the divisiveness the miriades of VoIP companies are creating.
Close Networks that cannot communicate among each other.

Absurdly what they proposed against the Telecom Monopoly was a cheap and more restrictive copy of it.

At least with the old telephone system people all over the world could communicate using the same devices.
With the actual VoIP people can connect to people inside the same Network.

Of course they could tell me they can communicate with the rest of the World using a termination.
But I AM TALKING OF VoIP and not PSTN.

I want a World on IP, not part on IP and part on PSTN.
I agree it cannot be done immediately, but in between for reaching the goal the VoIP infrastructures and codecs and devices must be intercommunicating one with the other.

No More new Monopolies, if the Internet is the Infrastructure of Democracy, VoIP must provide a democratic infrastructure.

Open and not closed networks.

Skype looks like the most democratic of VoIP, they talk about P2P, but if you do not use Skype, if , for example you choose a provider like Vonage, you will never be able to reach any of the Skype users.



And you will be obliged to use a termination for the rest of your life.
Where are the democratic infrastructures of VoIP?




PS.Resist attempts at international governance of the Internet: It can introduce processes that have unintended effects and violate the bottom-up democratic nature of the Net.

Not any "more" is "better".

When Gutenberg invented the printing press, it revolutionized how people accessed information by allowing printed text to be reproducible.
A similar revolution occurred with the advent of the Internet. The Internet provides users with billions of pages of information at the touch of their fingertips.
It was Alta Vista,Lycos, Inktomi that ruled the roost. They all got seduced by the portal concept and attempted to exploit their customers with paid placements and useless presentation.
Google came from nowhere with a better technology and scattered the field before it.
They didn't need a huge amount of capital or major advertising (low entry barriers). They just had a better product, better searches, and more credibility than their incumbent competitors.
The world did indeed beat a path to their door.
If Google doesn't get it right, I expect the very same thing to happen to them.

Given how many people worldwide now rely on search engines it is clear how important is to be listed and well positioned in them.
But how?
Search Engine Optimization Information could be one answer.
They explain what Search Engine Optimization is. How it works and they even offer Search Engine Optimizations packages that perfectly suit the customer.
The SEO Consultation Option Includes:

Keyword Research and Recommendations
Pre-optimization Ranking Report
Website Analysis
Content Analysis
Web Page Optimization
Link Analysis and Recommendations
Recommended Submissions, including exact link text / descriptions.
5 Hours Technical Phone Support
3 Months E-mail Support

This is especially made for businesses that either have their own in-house web developers or use an outside design firm capable of implementing SEO procedures.



This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Davos 07: Declining trust in leaders

Equal justice means that I have exactly the same rights as my neighbor, but he has a little bit less rights than me.
Everybody agrees on the top priorities (how couldn't he?).
In what we disagree is who has to loose in order to fulfill the needs of our changing society.
Priorities:

eliminating poverty, 13% That should be a little less rich and a little less poor.
But who is going to be less rich? "the others"

economic growth, 12%, How and when? Of course we have to produce more at a more competitive price. But who is going to produce and sell, who is going to buy?
Answer number first: WE, answer number second: the Others.

closing the gap between rich and poor, 11% The same as number first. The Others are going to be less rich in order that the poor get less poor.

protecting the environment, 10%Who is going to save on energy, cars, electricity, mobile phones...

restoring trust 9%Who has to get more honest? The OTHERS

human rights 4% Don't forget the meaning of equal justice...

overcoming drugs, 4% Easy to say, impossible (almost) to do...

integrating social issues, 4% Remember Equal Justice...

overcoming AIDS, 3% In principle, it is somebody else's problem...(as long as it doesn't touch us)...

reducing organized crime, 2% With equal justice, we would have just a few lunatics as criminals, wouldn't we?

equality for women, 1%. I am a woman, no comment on this point...

All this for explaining that it is ALWAYS somebody else's fault and duty and matter.
But if anyone of us would once ask himself: what am I doing to make a slightly better world? and WOULD just try to do something, may be we WOULD see better results than just complaining and blaming the same...
We say "Piove, governo ladro..."

New Media Trends

Robin Good looks ahead to 2007 and writes:



Video: As if 2006 hadn't seen enough of it, the online video publishing and sharing space will see further innovation and growth. Better and easier tools will facilitate small and large publishers abilities to post, edit and aggregate quality content online. In this scenario the greatest opportunity it still represented by those companies that will be providing the tool and means to facilitate the filtering, selection and distribution of quality video content out of the ocean of low-quality stuff being dumped out there. Video search engine and directories are in particularly favorable position to provide breakthrough tools and facilities to let quality content finally surface. One of my most wanted tools, the online video interview recorder, will also likely become a reality next year for the benefit of many online reporters and video producers.
...
Mobile Group Text Messaging: Smart mobs are coming. Though the US has been lagging behind due to a number of industry idiosyncrasies and standard issues, the lure of many commercial opportunities along with the examples brought by the first early entrants, has pushed many to look more seriously into the monetization opportunities to be tapped. Mobile group messaging is hot and though the market isn't yet ready for the many useful applications it will soon allow, you can be sure that in 2007 too we will see a lot of innovation and new announcements in this space.

VoIP the "narrowband application" that likes broadband possibilities

Remember? VoIP is not only saving money...
Once when you talked about Communication you meant essentially talking, face to face.
Later the telephone arrived and communication meant also talking long distance.

Once typing meant using a type writer, later the computer arrived and typing was using a word processor.

But a computer is not a type writer, as much as VoIP is not telephony.
The computer is a new World of New features, one new everyday.
And VoIP too is a full World of new features.
Communication is not anymore just talking, it involves all our senses.
And this is just the beginning.
The limits are the limits of our imagination.

That is why even though VoIP is a narrowband application, will be a Broadband user.

Patrizia from a World on IP

Dental Implants

Yes, I HAVE a dental implant.
I had it fifteen years ago, when it was something quite new (at least in Italy) and I can assure you I am quite satisfied with it.
It's like having my own teeth, better, because I know these will last longer than the others.
I think that when I will loose my other teeth I won't have any doubt: I will choose another implant.
Of course it must be done IN THE RIGHT WAY, by an expert dentist.
If you live in Italy I could give you the address of mine, but if you don't, you can have a look at the Dental Implants directory which will help you to find the right professionals.

Normally getting a dental implant takes the work of two dentists.
First a dental surgeon (usually an oral surgeon or periodontist) places the dental implant post into your jawbone.
Then a restorative dentist (usually your general dentist or a prosthodontist) places a dental crown on top of this dental implant post. Dental implants can also be used to anchor bridges, partials and dentures.
Getting a dental implant starts with an evaluation by any one of the above dentists.
And in this directory you can browse by State.
You can also find an explanation about dental implants. What they are, how they work, when to do them.
Reading the most frequented questions you can also clear your eventually doubts.

So, if you are looking for a good ,lasting job, do not just go to the first unknown dentist...you could regret it...


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Narrowing the digital divide

The new ITU head says the ITU is going to focus on security and narrowing the digital divide, and that ICANN and other key players should keep doing what they are doing.
"Fri Jan 12, 1:04 PM ET
GENEVA (Reuters) - The Internet should continue to be overseen by major agencies including ICANN and the ITU, rather than any new "superstructure," the new head of the International Telecommunications Union said on Friday.

Hamadoun Toure, who took up the reins of the United Nations agency this month, said the ITU would focus on tackling cyber-security and in narrowing the "digital divide" between rich and poor countries.

"We all must work together, each agency has its role to play. We must come to a better cooperation ... and avoid setting up a superstructure which would be very controversial and very difficult to put into effect,"

Let's hope it is not just words (as usual)...

Tips for refinancing your car

Refinancing means finding a new lender for an existing loan, often for a better rate, but also to extend their term, skip a few payments, add or remove a co-applicant, and add products (like insurances) to a loan.
Do you want to lower your interest rate and reduce your monthly payment for free?
It pays to make a visit to:Car RefinanceThey have a collection of prominent national lenders, so that they can find a lender that will provide you with the rate, term, and amount to fit your lifestyle.
And it is going to cost you just nothing.
You can start a refinance process applying for a loan, finding the one that best suits you and just save...
You can find examples of how much you could actually save.
Not only. You can also protect your family purchasing a Gap insurance,
or an extended warranty, or a
Credit Life and Disability Insurance .
Generally, rateGenius refinances your current auto loan for the amount left in the current term. Anyway, your term is flexible and may be shortened or lengthened to accommodate your particular refinance needs.

You can also see what their customers say:
if you have any doubts.

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

--

Will we ever get rid of Monopolies?

An irony is that while the phone companies are screaming to regulators that VoIP is killing their rate base and the like, hardly anyone bothers to mention that to use VoIP you gotta have a broadband Internet connection, and for most people that's DSL.


And where do most folks get their DSL from? Ta dah! The phone company!


Much of the competition talk really relates only to all of the gadgets and services, not to the fact that they're mostly being provided by a relatively small (and shrinking) group of very large telecom conglomerates, who are trying to set all of the rules of the game across the board.

Blogging for dollars, fame and FUN.

What is it about the future that leaves us unable to ever quite guess how it's going to turn out? The question comes up, this time, because of the recent, much discussed ascent of Web logs, or blogs.
The blogging phenomenon illustrates how some very smart people ended up being both very right and very wrong about a future just beyond the horizon.

A year ago, blogs -- outside of the small circle of people who actually wrote and read them -- were regarded as the daily diaries of people with no real lives to chronicle in the first place. No more.
Think, for instance, of how much has been written lately about the role of blogs in the presidential election campaign..
Blogs are noteworthy because of what they reveal about the evolution of something called XML.
Five or so years ago, XML was going to be technology's Next Big Thing.
XML was the catalyst that would enable .Net, and with it, a new generation of remarkable Web services.
XML, in its first incarnation, didn't go away, it also didn't make for any sort of Internet revolution,.
RSS, it turns out, is actually a kind of XML.

Because of blogging, RSS is very hot right now, and it's spreading quickly.
Many newspapers, use RSS as an additional method of making their content available online.
In other words, thanks to blogs, XML -- in the form of RSS -- has finally arrived.

Who Are You? Blogger, Designer, Coder, or Internet Entrepreneur?
If you are going to live your dream, outsourcing and capitalizing on all that the internet has to offer, you must know yourself as an internet entrepreneur.

You may start your journey blogging for adsense dollars and text-link-ads, but you’ll find that you want to make better use of your time.
If that is so look at:
J.R.'s Seeds For Wealth

What is it all about?
His business model is very simple.
Think of bloggers as journalists.
Think of the Net as a big newspaper.
What makes bloggers interesting is that they'll print what journalists won't because they don't have editors telling them they're crossing a line!
I like reading bloggers - it makes life interesting.
Clearly bloggers are not held to the same standards as journalists and to include them in something like a Net Newspaper dilutes the *ahem* reputation that journalists have.
In many cases, companies and politicians share information off the record with journalists - and that relationship is maintained because journalists know they'll lose access if they break confidence.
Bloggers just don't give a shit and will "print" anything they want, rarely holding back sensitive information.
Journalists think blogging makes everyone one of them, but not everyone wants to be a journalist.
AS BLOGS become big business, Internet giants have begun trying to profit from the new forms of journalism.
So why not profit out of it?
How?
Building a Network of Bloggers, like a newspaper (embracing not only news but everything which involves the Internet, including advertisement)with a sort of independent journalists.
In the end:
Good blogging is good journalism. Bad blogging is spending all day writing about your cats...


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VoIP Components

In the VoIP network there must be a functionality similar to the one of the PSTN Network.
To connect the VoIP network to the PSTN there is the need of a Hardware called Gateway.

The components of a VoIP Network usually are:

IP PBX

END USER DEVICES

VOIP GATEWAYS/GATEKEEPERS

IP NETWORK


IP PBX

It is the call processing server.
It terminates all VoIP calls on the PSTN Network.
It is usually software based.



END USER DEVICES

They usually are:

VoIP phones

They use the TCP/IP protocol to communicate with the IP network,
they have an IP address for the subnet on which they are installed.

Usually, VoIP phones use DHCP to auto-configure themselves, with the DHCP server telling the phone about the location of the configuration server, which most of the time is identical to the call processing server.

Softphones

They are software application running on computers,
They are usually installed in mobile devices.
They have the same base features as VoIP phones.



VOIP GATEWAYS/GATEKEEPERS

Sometimes you can use indifferently the name Gateway or Gatekeeper.
The last usually performs the Call admission and bandwidth control.
But it is also possible to find all functions in one only hardware.
The main function is to transform the analog call to digital and to create VoIP packets.
They can have additional features as voice compression, echo cancellation, packets prioritation.

Each call is a single IP session transported by a Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP) that runs over UDP.


IP NETWORK

The IP backbone provides the connectivity among the end elements.

The IP Network provides smooth delivery of the voice.

The IP network must treat voice and data traffic in a different way.
To assure good quality of transmission it must be able to prioritize the different traffic types.

Classic Circuitswitching telecommunications dedicate channels, reserving bandwidth as it is needed out of the trunk links interconnecting the switches.
For example, a phone conversation reserves a single DS-0 channel, and that
end-to-end connection is used only for the single conversation.

IP networks are quite different from the circuit-switch infrastructure in that it is a packet-network, and it is based on the idea of needed availability.
Class of service ensures that packets of a specific application are given priority.
This prioritization is required for real-time VoIP applications to ensure that the voice service is unaffected by other traffic flows.

Marketing: the lifeblood of small companies.

The Internet has been a potent empowering tool for individuals and small companies.
Small businesses in rural areas are now able to advertise their products and ideas inexpensively and to wide audiences.
This has enabled these businesses to grow, and, in turn, our economy benefits in substantial ways.
Today, the unbridled forces of competition, technology, and globalization have converged to spur greater innovation, unleash new discoveries, and rekindle the belief that our potential is without confines.
Every day we are seeing new ideas, new inventions, and new imperatives that are dramatically reshaping our world.
But, even though ideas and inventions are important, without marketing they are like a tea bag without hot water.
In the market place everybody claims to have found THE SOLUTION for successful small business marketing.
But we all know that there is no single solution that is right for every small business.
Guerrilla Marketing could be an excellent choice for most small businesses, and when coupled with the right coaching and implementation, it could dramatically help any company to reach its full business potential.
How is it done?
The basic concept is simple – reach customers and potential customers through untraditional methods. The proof of its effectiveness, though, is this - books, guides, and articles on this topic rank among the all time number one best selling materials for marketers. And best of all, guerrilla marketing does not cost you a lot of money. The primary investments required are just time, energy and imagination.
The idea is to find ways to reach a particular target group that don’t necessarily involve bombarding them with a lot of extra information. Instead, finding what the company has to offer to its customers in ways to enter into their daily lives.
So, the basic idea is being able to:
Identify a target market
Reach them through their daily routines.
First you begin with individual coaching sessions.
If that isn't succesful, you can join other marketing classes, where you can learn marketing tips and techniques like:
Your marketing plan
Your business identity
Marketing tools for business growth.
If you want to have a glimpse, you can have a look at some Marketing Concepts


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The Future of the Internet.

The internet is a tool, not a replacement for life.

The Internet is a powerful tool, the most powerful tool we ever had, it increases options and possibilities. It connects people to
each other and increasingly things to each other.

We still do not realize it, but we (Internet users) are all "wired" and always "on".
Our life has more or less become a "Flat" connection to a virtual world.

We used to have friends and colleagues in the place we live.
Now we have friends and colleagues all over the world.

“The most radical changes will likely involve the workplace, because of
the economic incentives involved, and processes of artistic creation, because the internet is such a fabulous new medium of creation and distribution."

“Nearly everything will change because of the internet, and especially as the internet becomes ubiquitous and all pervasive, different from the discrete experience it is now on a computer. The ‘always on’ internet, combined with computers talking to computers, will be a more profound
transformation of society than what we've seen so far.”


"The astounding array of information available on the Internet is much larger than anyone could have ever expected.”

“Humanity has had books for hundreds of years, but does not have universal literacy. Creativity may bloom but that does not mean it will be seen or appreciated by all.”

The Internet is just a tool, as with everything else, there are enthusiastic who take advantage of it immediately and there are the ones who cannot or do not want to.

They will come later...

Being connected is our destiny, either we want it or not...

Tech Trek

In the 23rd century universe of "Star Trek,'' people talked to each other using wireless personal communicators, had easy access to a vast database of information and spent hours gazing at a big wall-mounted video screen.

On 21st century Earth, that future is already here.
Indeed, 40 years after "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry outlined his vision for the groundbreaking science-fiction TV series, some of the once-futuristic personal technology depicted in the voyages of the starship Enterprise have become a reality.

Moreover, "Star Trek" has influenced a generation of engineers and scientists, inspiring them to engage in the future they saw on TV and to "make it so."

Today, the Internet links personal computers in homes, schools and businesses. And computer technology is incorporated into every modern convenience, from automobiles to watches.

Techzoogle is a new site tailored to the latest technology, trends, gadgets, computer and software.

On the first page you find a detail explanation about The OQO Model 02: The World Smallest Windows Vista capable PC
The OQO model 2 is the world’s smallest ‘real’ portable computer.
While it has a keyboard, which is more like a glorified 'thumb board', it also has an active digitizer, so it's compatible with both the older Windows XP Tablet PC edition, and the extensive handwriting/Tablet features that are just built-in to Windows Vista.

So to enter data, you could easily write emails and see them incredibly accurately turned into text. Given that Vista has built-in voice recognition technology that is also surprisingly good, you should also be able to just dictate as well, providing you’re in the right environment.

And it weighs only a pound!Ic can easily fit into a pocket.
That will be the real "pocket PC".

On the right side you can browse by category all the latest technology .

Whether it was because they were inspired by the show or because "Star Trek" writers often based science fiction on science fact, today's popular personal technology gadgets resemble or have similar functions to the show's nonworking props.



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The digital home

Technology firms are pushing a futuristic vision of home entertainment not because consumers are desperate for it but because they themselves are.
Computer, software, consumer-electronics, telecoms, cable and internet companies are in fact out of touch with consumers.
That is because the “digital home”, a concept and category hugely hyped in executive circles but still rarely heard in discussions among consumers, represents their greatest hope for revenue growth.
Demand from corporate buyers of technology has barely recovered from the dotcom bust and is widely expected to be unimpressive for years.
By contrast, the homes of consumers appear to technology vendors as a barely tamed analogue wilderness.
Computers have already led to small revolutions in boosting productivity in the office and helping people to communicate and to be creative,so they think that computers will have a similar effect on the way people consume entertainment.
Their first challenge in stimulating any sort of consumer interest is the difficulty of merely explaining what the digital home is supposed to be.
Confusingly, when vendors talk about the digital home they mean a home in which all sorts of electronic devices—from the personal computer (PC) to the TV set-top box, the stereo, the game console and, in some versions, even the garage door and refrigerator—are connected, both to one another and to the internet.

“When you ask customers what they want, they will never tell you. You have to show them first,” says Microsoft's Mr Mundie.
That is why Microsoft has, since 1994, had an impressive (or, to some people, intimidating) mock digital home on its campus in Redmond, Washington State, which it updates with the latest gadgets.
Market's dilemma
It may seem ironic, therefore, that vendors are refusing to make their technologies interoperable, thus potentially killing their own vision.
On the other hand, it makes sense for each to try to make its own proprietary technology the winner, in order later to grab a disproportionate share of the market.
This would at the same time help them to parry their biggest threat: Microsoft.

Global is local

"It is hard to imagine 'markets' that are purely local, though some must surely exist.
Labor, supplies, components, money, and consumers are increasingly sourced throughout the world. Even the owner of Mom's Apple Pies, a bakery in Reston, Virginia that sells its products locally, claims she must obtain apples from parts of the world other than Virginia, because of their inherent stability in cooking and impact on taste.
Then she mentions that her best workers are immigrants from other countries!"


Jim O'Donnell
Georgetown U.

But, then, when you need a search for "local" results, even if "global" issues, where should you go?
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Not being aware of what keywords your visitors are using to search for your products and services often brings your customers to abandon their searching.

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• Defining what your customers are searching for
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This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

United communications in a disunited world

"The Web has become so synonymous with inter-networking that people forget what we really have is a variety of computer networks of different kinds. The most popular messaging software in the world runs on one of these closed networks: it's called SMS.

In the 1990s, people found it useful to think of One Internet because thinking of a single, unitary computer network appeared to imbue the technology with its own agency and purpose. The One Internet is popular with today's Californian hive mind set, who view technology as a short-cut around all kinds of messy social and political problems - and that's the thinking behind Web 2.0 utopianism, too.

But out in the real world, it doesn't work like this. Limits are invariably imposed on technology by economic or social factors. For example, the reason dark fiber isn't exploited, and that we don't have terrific gigabit speed ISPs here in the US (after billions of dollars were invested laying the fibre) is simple. It's because a) it isn't economic for a private company to exploit it - there's no money in it - and b) because there isn't a consensus for the state to subsidize their operation, either. In South Korea, where government directs capital more explicitly, things are different, and you can see a tentative change in attitude to this here, with the growth of the Muni Wi-Fi movement. Limits are also imposed because the public finds a technology unpalatable: nuclear power and GM food are good examples. The only sure thing is that limits are, eventually, imposed."

By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco

Plasma, LCD, HDTV screens

After all, plasma television sets and LCD screens are the ultimate status symbol of the moment.
They offer three features that drive people crazy with desire. First, they're big, shiny, flat, sleek, thin, futuristic and - to use the technical term -wicked cool. Second, they are rectangular, like a movie screen.
When you watch a movie on DVD, you don't have to endure the existential angst of knowing that you're missing 25 percent of the frame, as you do on a conventional square television. Finally, plasma sets are generally insanely expensive, which only makes them more desirable.

So if somebody offered to sell you a brand-new 42-inch plasma screen for a cheap price, you'd probably assume that it had, ahem, fallen off a truck. But HDTV screens has what you are probably dreaming.
By happy coincidence, an enhanced-definition set precisely matches the resolution of DVD movies: 480 lines of resolution.
(Superb though their picture quality may be, DVD's aren't high-definition.) A wide-screen plasma and a wide-screen DVD movie, especially when played on a so-called progressive-scan player, are a match made in heaven, a real movie theater in your home. High-definition material looks great, too; despite the slightly inferior resolution, HDTV plasmas reproduce the more brilliant color palette of high-definition shows.
Have a look at all HDTVs.

Samsung LNS4092D 40' LCD HDTV with ATSC Tuner, Dual HDMI for example has understood that for thousands of consumers, the primary appeal of plasma screens isn't the picture, but the bigness, flatness and coolness.

And what about Sony KDS-50A2000 Grand WEGA 50' SXRD 1080p Rear Projection HDTV ?

And Panasonic TC-32LX60 32' LCD TV ?

If you are having trouble justifying the purchase to your spouse, pull out a calculator.
Point out that if the two of you start watching films at home instead of going out to the movies once a month, your thin, sleek, incredibly cool plasma or LCD screen will pay for itself - in only 14 years.

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

The VoIP revolution

Om Malik's VoIPDaily posted a relatively
long essay about the origins of VoIP.

The VoIP Insurrection
What just happened?

The $3 billion dollar budget at Bell Laboratories did not include a Single project addressing the use of data networks to transport voice when VocalTec Communications released InternetPhone in February 1995. As of 2004, every project at the post-divestiture AT&T Labs and Lucent Technologies Bell Labs reflects the reality of voice over Internet Protocol.
Every major incumbent carrier, and the largest cable television providers, in the United States has announced a VoIP program. And even as some upstart carriers have used VoIP to lower telephony prices dramatically, even more radical innovators threaten to lower the cost of a phone call to zero-to make it free.

The VoIP insurrection over the last decade marks a milestone in communication history no less dramatic than the arrival of the telephone in 1868. We know data networks and packetized voice will displace the long standing pre-1995 world rooted in Antono Meucci's invention.(I HAD to change date and Name, because Meucci WAS the real inventor of the telephone) Once and for all the true story behind the telephone invention.
It remains uncertain whether telecom's incumbent carriers and equipment Makers will continue to dominate or even survive as the information technology industry absorbs voice as a simple application of the Internet.

The roots of the VoIP insurrection trace back to four synchronistic Events in 1968. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled MCI could compete with AT&T using microwave transport on the Chicago to St. Louis route.
The same year, the FCC's Carterfone decision forced AT&T to allow customers to attach non-Western Electric equipment, such as new telephones, and modems, to the telephone network. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency issued a contract to Bolt Beranek and Newman for a precursor to the Internet. And in July 1968, Andrew Grove and Gordon Moore founded Intel.
Innovation in the communication sector remained the proprietary Right of AT&T for most the 20th century, but events in 1968 breached the barriers that kept the telecom and information technology industries apart.
For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, AT&T had manned Berlin Wall separating telecommunications and computing, but eventually, these two enormous technology tracks would be unified.

Two entrepreneurs barely out of their teens, Lior Haramaty and Alon Cohen, founded VocalTec Communications in 1993 based on the promise of packet voice technology they observed as members of the Israel Defense Force.
Most military command and control used the highly survivable TCP/IP Distributed data networks since the 1980's. The challenge of transporting voice over the networks arose as an imperative to support certain very sensitive voice commands like "drop the bomb", but the idea of commercializing packet voice did not occur to anyone until the arrival of Lior and Alon.
How could slicing voice into 50 millisecond packets improve the telephone business?
The tradition bound telephone industry types or "bellheads" spent their Time before 1995 improving the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) not replacing it.

Advances in communication from writing and paper to the printing press, telegraph, and telephone shape human progress.
Some might have viewed VoIP as an interesting toy in 1995, but no one presently doubts it will dominate the communication future.
The economies of scale associated with growing customer awareness and competition will produce a Moores Law like virtuous cycle of communication innovation.

Walamu's Classifieds

Another challenge to the hegemony of newspaper publishers is the classified market.
It is inevitable that newspaper publishers will see erosion in their classified ad share (and profitability) over the next five years as the number of alternatives to traditional print classified ads grows.
And the threat doesn't only come from giants like Google, but from specialized websites like Walamu.com- The World's Largest College Classifieds Network.
Walamu helps students save on textbooks and lets them know about information relevant to their college quickly.
After joining they can browse and find all what they are looking for, concerning their life, books, and everything they are interested in.
They can easily search by Categories, Date listed, Price Range and Universities.
But what is the story behind Walamu?
It's the story of a poor college student, poor of means but rich of inventive.
To find the books he needed, he used to search among "sales" wherever he had a chance to find them.
As we say "need is the mother of all invention", from his personal, frustrating experience he got the idea of something like an online sale for students' classifieds.
He realized this would make it so much easier for students to get the things they need and cut costs because shipping would no longer be involved. On a shoestring budget, this very frustrated and at the same time motivated college student came up with what has come to be known as Walamu.com, the world’s largest college classifieds network.
But you can read more about this at the Walamu Blog .



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Once and for all the true story behind the telephone invention

An article from "The Guardian":

Bell did not invent telephone, US rules

Scot accused of finding fame by stealing Italian's ideas

Rory Carroll in Rome - Monday June 17, 2002 - The Guardian

Italy hailed the redress of a historic injustice yesterday after the US Congress recognised an impoverished Florentine immigrant as the inventor of the telephone rather than Alexander Graham Bell.

Historians and Italian-Americans won their battle to persuade Washington to recognise a little-known mechanical genius, Antonio Meucci, as a father of modern communications, 113 years after his death.

The vote by the House of Representatives prompted joyous claims in Meucci's homeland that finally Bell had been outed as a perfidious Scot who found fortune and fame by stealing another man's work.

Calling the Italian's career extraordinary and tragic, the resolution said his "teletrofono", demonstrated in New York in 1860, made him the inventor of the telephone in the place of Bell, who had access to Meucci's materials and who took out a patent 16 years later.

"It is the sense of the House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci should be recognised, and his work in the invention of the telephone should be acknowledged," the resolution stated.

Bell's immortalisation in books and films has rankled with generations of Italians who know Meucci's story. Born in 1808, he studied design and mechanical engineering at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, and as a stage technician at the city's Teatro della Pergola developed a primitive system to help colleagues communicate.

In the 1830s he moved to Cuba and, while working on methods to treat illnesses with electric shocks, found that sounds could travel by electrical impulses through copper wire. Sensing potential, he moved to Staten Island, near New York City, in 1850 to develop the technology.

When Meucci's wife, Ester, became paralysed he rigged a system to link her bedroom with his neighbouring workshop and in 1860 held a public demonstration which was reported in New York's Italian-language press.

In between giving shelter to political exiles, Meucci struggled to find financial backing, failed to master English and was severely burned in an accident aboard a steamship.

Forced to make new prototype telephones after Ester sold his machines for $6 to a secondhand shop, his models became more sophisticated. An inductor formed around an iron core in the shape of a cylinder was a technique so sophisticated that it was used decades later for long-distance connections.

Meucci could not afford the $250 needed for a definitive patent for his "talking telegraph" so in 1871 filed a one-year renewable notice of an impending patent. Three years later he could not even afford the $10 to renew it.

He sent a model and technical details to the Western Union telegraph company but failed to win a meeting with executives. When he asked for his materials to be returned, in 1874, he was told they had been lost. Two years later Bell, who shared a laboratory with Meucci, filed a patent for a telephone, became a celebrity and made a lucrative deal with Western Union.

Meucci sued and was nearing victory - the supreme court agreed to hear the case and fraud charges were initiated against Bell - when the Florentine died in 1889. The legal action died with him.

Yesterday the newspaper La Repubblica welcomed the vote to recognise the Tuscan inventor as a belated comeuppance for Bell, a "cunning Scotsman" and "usurper" whose per- fidy built a communications empire.

Home monitoring system

"Businessman Gerd Maier was in Dusseldorf, Germany, on Tuesday when he received an alert on his cell phone informing him that someone had entered his vacation house in Valencia, 80 miles southwest of Barcelona, police said.
He quickly turned on his laptop and, thanks to security cameras connected to the Internet, was able to see a tattooed man stuffing goods into trash bags..."

This is still new and incredible to many, because most people do not understand the real importance of the story – they probably consider it a tale of how someone managed to do the impossible when the real point is that it was straightforward.
This is possible with the right Residential Alarm Systems
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You can read the testimonials and you'll have an idea of what I am writing about.

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Communist or Conservative?

"Not so long ago, it seems like only a million years, I used to consider myself a liberal. I was sure that anyone who attacked welfare was a stingy reactionary at best. My first response to any injustice or inequality was to call for a new law or maybe even a government program. I felt that crime was the result of the criminal’s environment"


There is still a third step.
The first being a Liberal, ( in Europe we would say a Communist) the second a Conservative and the third understanding that whatever you are, you are always yourself and between being a Communist or a Conservative there is just a little bit of time, some years, some delusions. Changing ideals means to believe something can still be done. What we did wrong can be redone and changed.
But in the third stage you understand that there is good and bad in whatever you think and do.
It is not right to be a Communist, but it is not right to be a Conservative.
Both have a good and a bad side.

In between there is the human being, who doesn't work unless he is obliged to, who is trying to improve his living standards in the right or the wrong way, who doesn't create the market incentives but is in a way a victim of them.

Life is not just a technological ladder.
The best intentions often fail and what is done today is undone tomorrow.

However we must do what everyday brings us, and do it as well as we can, and better, if possible, than anybody else.
Either as Communists or Conservatives.

Patrizia

The new frontier of the second millenium: Cyberspace

Businesses and entrepreneurs are rushing into cyberspace like forty-niners driven mad by gold fever.
Why?
The attraction for business is obvious: almost anybody with a personal computer and a modem can set up a base of operations on the World Wide Web, a global network of computers that is the Internet. Web pages can be seen by millions of users on the Net, an expanding universe of networks that has doubled in size annually for a decade and now spans 150 nations.
This is the dawn of a radical new commercial era in which a single medium combines elements that used to be conveyed separately: text, voice, video, graphics.
There are more than 100,000,000 Web sites already, and the number doubles every year.

The Web will become the virtual, but real world in which publishing, banking, retailing and deliverers of health care, insurance and legal services will find their space.
It is in this view that Experienced People was born.
It is the UK Internet Site that brings together Top People and Top Employers.
It offers opportunities , explains working from home, a guide to buying a web business, and why not? A webmaster glossary .
In a few words, all what you need NOT to miss the chance...

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Fashion

There are no functional reasons why clothes should regularly change shape.
Following the tenet that form follows function dresses used to be quite large and comfortable.
Fashion is something that can become unfashionable.
An ephemeral attraction for a particular style at a specific time for a number of people.
An attraction deliberately created by commercial enterprise.
We are all prisoners of style and period.

The stupidity is not in the clothes or in the fashion, but in the people who blindly follow it.

SEO Marketing

"A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular."
--Adlai Stevenson

Imagine if one company controlled the card catalog of every library in the world. The influence it would have over what people see, read and discuss would be enormous. Now consider online search engines.

Few people realize that 95 percent of all Web searches in the United States are handled by two companies, Google and Yahoo, either directly or through other sites that use their technology.
While search engines are indispensable for finding information online, the technology on which they are based serves to narrow the field of sites that people see.
Google's use of links to find content essentially turns the Web into the world's biggest popularity contest - and just as in high school, this can have negative consequences. Google's great innovation in online searching, and the main reason it is so successful, is that its technology analyzes links among Web pages, not just the content within them. Behind Google's complex ranking system is a simple idea: each link to a page should be considered a vote, and the pages with the most votes should be ranked first. This elegant approach uses the distributed intelligence of Web users to determine which content is most relevant.
The company's technology is so strong that its competitors have adopted a similar approach to organizing online information, which means they now return similar search results. Thus popular sites become ever more popular, while obscure sites recede ever further into the ether.

This winner-take-all system is not unique to the Web, but technology seems to encourage it. That would explain the predominance of one or two sites in almost every category of online information, be it eBay for auctions or Amazon for books. When people are given lots of choices, they tend to concentrate their attention on only a few. (Studies show, for example, that the majority of users don't click past the first page or two of results when looking for information online.)

The two most important RULES to remember for effective SEO and internet marketing are:

1) Content is King!
2) Link Popularity is Queen!


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Of course, HOW you build links and content is the key.

SEO - Search Engine Optimization - Services

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This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

So Many ideas, so few companies

So Many Ideas, So Few Companies

By ESTHER DYSON

Outsiders revere Silicon Valley as some kind of secular miracle: money plus ideas equals profits, which turn into ever more money plus ideas. Many players in the Valley, who have never seen a real business cycle, think they've finally found the formula for perpetual growth.
Other countries and regions are desperately trying to figure out how to create their own Silicon (Geographical Feature here). Hungary is trying to sponsor a Silicon
Park near the Danube -- but will it find the requisite entrepreneurs to fill it up? Silicon Valley is a wonderful example of the dynamism and fluidity of a successful market -- where resources flow friction-free to the best people and ideas.
But our fascination with the market may be overblown. We need new companies, not just new ideas. Like people, companies tend to get tired and inflexible as they age. We need a steady supply of companies that not only develop and exploit new markets but also bring a fresh spirit to the business world (as Apple, Microsoft et al. have done in this era).
Freedom is great, but so is the commitment to seeing a product through to customer
hands, developing a cohesive team and molding a group of workers into a company.

The New World of Work

"Information-worker software needs to evolve. It's time to build on the capabilities we have today and create software that helps information workers adapt and thrive in an ever-changing work environment.
Advances in pattern recognition, smart content, visualization and simulation, as well as innovations in hardware, displays and wireless networks, all give us an opportunity to re-imagine how software can help people get their jobs done."


Bill Gates: The New World of Work

Over the past decade, software has evolved to build bridges
between disconnected islands of information and give people
powerful ways to communicate, collaborate and access the data
that's most important to them.


But the software challenges that lie ahead are less about getting access to the information people need, and more about making sense of the information they have -- giving them the ability to focus, prioritize and apply their expertise,visualize and understand key data, and reduce the amount of time they spend dealing with the complexity of an information-rich environment.
Information-worker software needs to evolve.
It's time to build on the capabilities we have today and create software that helps information workers adapt and thrive in an ever-changing work environment.

At NetSimplicity, work revolves around customers that are looking for scheduling software solutions to streamline their businesses, save time and greatly reduce the costs associated with scheduling.
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We are evolving toward a diverse yet unified global market, with customers, partners and suppliers that work together across cultures and continents.
The global workforce is always on and always connected -- requiring new tools to help people organize and prioritize their work and personal lives.
Business is becoming more transparent, with a greater need to ensure accountability, security and privacy within and across organizations.
All of these changes are giving people new and better ways to work, but they also bring a new set of challenges: a deluge of information, constant demands on their attention, new skills to master and pressure to be ever more productive.
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This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

The origins of the Internet

Paul Baran was born in 1926 in a house in a corner of Poland that had been claimed by three different nations during his parents' tenure and was brought to America by his family at the age of 2.

Baran resolved to design a communications system that could survive a nuclear attack and save the second-strike deterrent.
He took inspiration from another idea of MIT's McCullough-a parallel computer system with adaptive redundancy.
Like the human brain, such a system could reconfigure itself to work even after portions were destroyed. But using the noise-prone analog circuits of the time, it was impossible to build the necessary switches. Baran concluded that all the traffic would have to be digital.
Moreover, the digital traffic would have to be broken into short message blocks now called "packets," each containing its own routing information, like a DNA molecule, and able to replicate itself correctly whenever a transmission error occurred.
With many additions and permutations, his original design is today termed the Internet, and it is shaping the emerging history of the 21st century.

In a sense, Baran's current projects merely fulfill the far-reaching logic of his original concept, elaborated at RAND between 1960 and 1962 and published under the title "On Distributed Communications" in 11 compendious volumes in 1964: a survivable "network of unmanned digital switches implementing a self-learning policy at each node, without need for a central and possibly vulnerable control point, so that overall traffic is effectively routed in a changing environment."

To fulfill this scheme, Baran specified all the critical functions of the Internet: packets with headers for addresses and fields for error detection and packet ordering. He described in detail the autonomous adaptive nodes found in Arpanet IMPs (interface message processors) designed by Bolt, Beranek & Newman (BBN).

Baran also included features only recently and selectively introduced, such as encryption, prioritization, quality of service, and roaming ("provisions to allow each user to 'carry his telephone number' with him"). He described a web of peer nodes each connected to three or more other nodes, and he offered the first of the distributed routing algorithms that have multiplied over time.
Thus Baran not only conceived the essential technical features of the Internet, he also prophesied the cliff of costs over which digital technology would take the networking industry. Baran stressed the key economic drivers that impelled the prevalence of the Web as the universal Net.

The system of communications that Baran attacked in the early 1960s at RAND was the imperial establishment of AT&T. As Baran explains, "While AT&T did have digital transmission under examination, it was in the context of fitting directly into the plant by replacing existing units on a one-for-one basis. A digital repeater unit would replace an analog loading coil. A digital multiplexer would replace an analog channel bank-always a one-for-one conceptual replacement, never a drastic change of basic architecture. I think that AT&T's views on digital networks were most honestly summarized by AT&T's Joern Ostermann after an exasperating session with me: 'First, it can't possibly work, and if it did, damned if we are going to allow the creation of a competitor to ourselves.'"

In 1972 the company sealed its fate by turning down an opportunity to buy the entire Arpanet. As Larry Roberts explained in {Where Wizards Stay Up Late}, "They finally concluded that the packet technology was incompatible with the AT&T network." So it was and so it still is. The existing phone system remains the chief obstacle to the final triumph of the Net. But the logic of digital communications is inexorable. It will displace all the existing establishments of television and telephony.

WASTED FOREVER...LIKE WATER OVER A DAM

Liberally taken by Inventing the Internet Again - George Gilder Essay

'You've Got Mail,' More and More, and Mostly, It Is Junk

Spam - those annoying and unwanted commercial messages that cram your e-mail box each day - is projected to triple in the next five years.

Industry experts say there is very little that can be done to stop the torrent of unwanted pornography offers, invitations to join get-rich schemes, and free gift offers.
There is currently no effective software available that can block all unwanted e-mail, although some programs cut down on volume, and some major Internet providers offer to block random messages sent from some known mass-mailers.

Image spam is a technique where the spam message consists of an image and a small amount of text that looks like it is 100% text-based, when in fact it is an image that looks exactly like a regular email message.
In addition, while all image spam messages may look the same to an end-user, spammers have programs to automatically create each image to have slightly different coloration, speckle patterns, or fonts. This causes messages to appear unique when received and processed by spam filters.

To help defeat these attacks, BorderWare developed Intercept™ Image Analysis a new patent-pending technology. Intercept Image Analysis is an image classification technique, to be used in addition to the existing and effective threat detection techniques to specifically combat image spam.

Most anti-spam solutions are inneffective when trying to fight image spam
, but BorderWare's "Intercept Image Analysis" inspects over 30 attributes about each image, to adapt, learn and defeatnew image spam campaigns.

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Genuine debate on the Web

"There is an appetite for genuine debate on the web, but it is often drowned out by the howling of people who seem to regard the very existence of professional critics as an outrageous affront. The subtext is this: anyone can be a critic, so anyone who has the temerity to be paid for the privilege deserves to be put in the stocks.

This is just one front in a wide-ranging battle between the blogosphere and so-called old media. In an ideal world, there should be room for both print critics and online ones, with plenty of overlap between them. Good writing is good writing, wherever it appears. But the campaign is in its early days and there are several years' worth of grievances to thrash out before a peace treaty can be agreed."

The virtual world has been seen often as something to put upside down established values, more as a revolutionary place than a place where the real world reflects.
In a few words, it was born not to be a copy of the actual world, but a "democratic place" where there are no hierarchies, where everybody is entitled to say what he thinks and in the way he likes it.
The structure of the Internet as a decentralized network has created space to voices that wouldn't have had the chance to be heard (and in certain cases, it wouldn't have been so bad, I agree).
We are beginning to be over-educated; at least everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching - that is really what our enthusiasm for education has come to.
"although a firestorm of invective can be very amusing, it's only when critics and readers meet halfway that enlightening debate can happen - and surely that's the whole point of the exercise."

I think we sometimes MISS the full point.
People very often do not talk to "meet halfway", they mostly talk to read themselves.
The "arguments" are but the "accidental content" to write about.
And all "social networking" very often is just a way to "show how good I am" and see "how good you are".

That of course doesn't mean that there can be good and healthy discussions, but I am not so optimistic about the increasing number of them.

360 Mobile

"Mobiles are becoming the next platform. Mobile phones are not only more visible but they are also becoming more powerful.
Mobiles phones are now becoming replacements for watches, cameras, photo albums, MP3 players and even credit cards. In emerging markets, they are becoming the lifeline for millions' bringing forth not just connectivity to those who've been deprived of it for long but also the potential for increasing incomes and opportunities. The next big thing will be around mobiles and data. The promise of 2000 when i-mode became the envy of the world is all set to be realized.

Mobiles are becoming portal multimedia computers which are available to us all the time, and can be connected to data networks wherever we are. I believe that in countries with lack of infrastructures, it is the mobile which will be the primary device for people to connect to the Internet. Mobile data services are going to be the next big opportunity."

So: how to choose the best deal and the best MOBILE?

Compare Mobile Phones is the place to go.
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This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Storage Explosion

Bill Burnham writes:

"I found a recent article on Tom's Hardware to be fascinating. The article details the increases in storage capacity and performance over the last 15 years. Some of the numbers involved are mind boggling. In the last 15 years, the storage capacity of top-end hard drives has increased 5,907X from 130MB in 1991 to 750GB in 2006.
...
The price difference is even more dramatic. In 1991 a megabyte of storage cost about $7.00, now it costs $0.000527. That�s a 13,274X price improvement or a 99.9925% price drop in 15 years.
...
Storage capacity is clearly the most abundant and faster growing component of the "big three"(processing power, bandwidth, and storage) today and it looks as though the relative disparity between the three may even increase further in the short term."

Cheap storage will change the full picture of video streaming and IP TV.
It won't be like the TV we are used to, but more the TV we dreamed of.
Not stream to see, but download to store and see later, when it suits us.
Like a Video on Demand.
This will solve the biggest problem of the lack of available bandwidth in most places of this world.
It doesn't affect the quality of the video the fact that it is streamed with a certain size.
The computer gets it and shows at the requested speed.
So, welcomr the new set top boxes which store and stream later.

Sex, sex, but SAFE sex

Our society has become a copulating country, but not an erotic one.
The race is maintained and sex, from healthy animal sex down to pornography and, more recently, to video nasties, has become more fashionable, more of a pastime than it was some years ago.
But the alluring, sex-charged, electric atmosphere is still light years away.
A few girls do not regard a party as a success if they have to return home after it to sleep in their own bed.
It does not really matter whose bed it is, as long as it is not theirs.

Another change in the social climate of sex has been that such antiquated ideas as jelousy and fidelity are allegedly going out of fashion.
To regard a woman as your own property (that is how jelousy and fidelity have been interpreted) is an insult which offends against all feminist principles.

This is all very straightforward and honest, even if it is not very romantic.
And most of everything it is NOT GOING to be SAFE.

But also for this the Internet comes to our rescue.
Where to find aids to a SAFE sex better than ONLINE?
Besides the easy and fast way, you can also enjoy good discounts.
You can find durex condoms at half price at Undrecovercondoms.com and not only...
Undercover Condoms is the ideal place to shop for condoms, dental dams, and other safer sex products online. They are always adding new and innovative products, so it pays off to check out their new condoms page!
They also have a Top 10 Condoms list and a Condom Selector
Your privacy IS safe and also your budget, since they even offer free shipment!

You really have no excuse to ignore safety. It doesn't take long, and you could regret it later...

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

The individualization of consumers

Since they created what is called "marketing" they have tried to make us believe that good marketing was producing what people liked, while in reality it was creating what they thought most people liked or what most people were "induced" to like.
A subtle, brainwashing way to "convince" consumers to consume, was spreading as "commercial information" nothing else than "commercial consumerism".

The dream is not anymore to actually "be" somebody, to excel in something, to think, to invent, to deliver.
The dream has become to "have". The latest gadget, not because you like it, or you need it, but because it is a "must have".

This new form of slavery to a false progress has created a huge number of passive consumers who eat the same thing, wear the same clothes, read the same papers, look at the same TV's programs, in a few words, are nothing else than the clones generated not by a new scientific way of reproduction, but by a new psychological way of "production".

The "mass market" needs a "mass" to be successful, to produce huge revenues.
And the "Mass of clones" is created by commercials that propose a new "model" to which the "mass" dreams to resemble.

In this jungle the Internet looks like the new way of "individualization" of consumers.
Offering a choice, an alternative, a different model, it could produce the dawn of the new "individualism".
A content made by individuals, not aimed to brainwash, but to amuse.
In which creativity plays the big role, that is WHAT the new Internet Entertainment should be.

The computerization of our future

Computers have come in our life and without them we have no future.
A big essential part of our future is our health, so it is undeniable that computers and plans are involved in today's life to provide a promising future.

When it comes to health it is very important that we have a good insurance plan, because statistics say that our expectations for life are growing, but we do not know how good we will be at the age they expect us to live.

It is a MUST that we think today for tomorrow and in the way that best suits our income.
A good Health Insurance Knowledgebase is though essential.
That is what you can find there and explained in a very clear, easy understandable way.
You can search to find what you're after,(if you already have an idea) or choose a category to view listed questions.

Application Process

Basic questions

Insurance Alternatives

Understanding Group Health Insurance


In ten clear points they have listed all the most important and frequent questions, so that, reading the variuos appropriate answers you can make an idea of your needs and what a good health insurance should provide.
For example you can find what is the multiple plans option, or what is a rate guarantee What is minimum participation, what are carve outs, who is an eligible employee, what are the rating options, what are small group underwriting guidelines, what is Dependent Contribution 25 percent and so on...

And that is not all.
You can also find: Health Insurance Quotes, Individual and Family, Short-Term, Group, Student, Dental, Medicare, Travel, International.

So, if you want to live long and WELL, it pays to think before...

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

I am my brain's publisher

I am what most of journalists, writers, poets are, nothing else than somebody who writes down what passes in his brain.
Some people have gorgeous things, some other not so much so, and a few have something which would be better just to keep as it is: pure imagination.

Now, virtual reality, virtual writing, has given to most of us the possibility to express ourselves, to show what passes in our brain, to be our brain's publisher at almost no cost.

Communication is our goal and our despair.
Man is done in a strange way, he is alone, but dreads to be alone, he likes to communicate, but sometimes he dreads to explain what he thinks.

Writing is different. Virtual writing is like an imagination that has done one step more towards reality.
It is real, but you cannot touch it as you would with the paper.
It is imagination, but you can read it as on the paper.

It is the paperless reality and the dreamless imagination.
You can see with your mind eyes, but also with your real eyes, nevertheless
it doesn't really exist.
It exists as long as your computer is on, or the web page is on.
It would take very little to send it again in the dreamy world where it came from.

Come to Heaven

There are many places on this world you could define Paradise, but very few you could call Heaven.
One of the few is Dubai.
It is one of the richest and most beautiful city of the Middle East and it is the living proof that oil IS NOT the main source of success in the Middle East.
The revenues from oil account for only 6% of its GDP. Dubai is fully focused on international investment as a pillar of its economy.

Dubai is the Western city of the Middle East.
Nevertheless it keeps its oriental touch in its building, in its shops, in its way of living.
That Oriental touch we dream when we dream of the Middle East.
The oriental touch of luxury and magnificence you could dream of when you read the "Arabian Nights" or the "Stories of 1000 and one night".

And all this was and is possible thanks to Sheikh Mohammed.

“I do not know if I am a good leader, but I am a leader. And I have a vision. I look to the future, 20, 30 years. I learned that from my father, Sheikh Rashid. He was the true father of Dubai. I follow his example. He would rise early and go alone to watch what was happening on each of his projects. I do the same. I watch. I read faces. I take decisions and I move fast. Full throttle.”

And thanks to his vision Dubai is unlike any other international property investment market that ever existed.
Why not investing in dubailand?
Dubai Venture offers to you for sale the finest selection of off-plan properties at excellent value prices.

And, as a real Heaven, you won't pay income taxes in Dubai, while enjoying the real luxury life and an extraordinary weather all year long!


This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Marketing

"Fred tells how he’s seen web 2.0 startups get more traffic in a day from favorable blog mentions than web 1.0 companies got in their entire lifetime from expensive portal deals. So, he reasons, the cost of promotion is much lower than it used to be as well.

I think Fred is right about the immediate past; I think he’s partly wrong about the future."

Tom Evslin



Everything is true and everything can be false.
It is more difficult or is it easier, is it more expensive or is it cheaper?
It could be both.
You have a great idea, but that is not all.
You have to convince the others that your idea is great, especially if you are the first and the only one to have that idea.
In the past all geniuses achieved glory after death, because they were so much forward that the contemporary people couldn't understand them.
So, if you fail, you can always think that you are either a genius or a simple failure.
And if you are successful you are just a normal guy who had that idea a little bit earlier than the others.

Regarding marketing, we must consider that there is one thing that never changes and that is that the day is ALWAYS just 24 hours of which the average consumer spends most working.
The "entertainment time" is more or less the same.
So, the more media you introduce, the more his time will be divided, or the more groups will favor one instead of the other.
Media are changing because people's tastes are changing (or vice versa) and marketing HAS to follow consumers.
Once a commercial on TV reached a huge number of people (especially when you had just one or two channels) now it does always less.
First because people get used to the same message and do not see it anymore, second because tastes are changing, third because people got to the Net more than to TV (young people).

So, you can be lucky and be successful or you can be unlucky and not being successful.
It is getting harder to forecast...

Il Network decentralizzato

Il Network decentralizzato (Internet) e' perfetto per la VoIP
L'Internet e' un Network decentralizzato (end to end Network).
Quelli che inventarono un network con una caratteristica del tutto innovativa, un Network che si sviluppava senza bisogno di una unita' centrale, capirono che con una minore dipendenza dal centro avrebbero creato un Network piu' flessibile, piu' funzionale e piu' adatto ad applicazioni che richiedevano un minore controllo su eventuali errori di trasmissione.
Non pensarono allora alla telefonia via Internet, ma tuttavia crearono un Network perfetto per la trasmissione della voce, trasmissione che e' totalmente insensibile alla perdita di piccoli frammenti di dati e funziona perfettamente anche con eventuali esigui ritardi (che, essendo di piccola entita' e quindi impercettibili, non limitano la conversazione).
In poche parole, senza la caratteristica della inesistenza di una unita' centrale, senza la possibilita' di usare protocolli diversi come UDP (user datagram protocol, inteso per la trasmissione di dati di piccola dimensione che possano viaggiare senza una perfetta frequenza) e RTP (real-time protocol creato specificamente per evitare l'errore checking) al posto del TCP, applicazioni come la telefonia via Internet e i video game online, sarebbero molto difficili da implementare e avrebbero un prezzo proibitivo.
Siccome il checking (controllo) degli errori eventuali e' fatto all'inizio e alla fine del Network, i programmatori hanno la possibilita' di sostituire i protocolli (linguaggi) che ritengono piu' idonei per le loro applicazioni.
E questo fa si' che l'Internet, il Network mondiale decentralizzato e' oggi il medium ideale per le comunicazioni.
Cio' nonostante i networks delle compagnie telefoniche sono tuttora dei netwoks centralizzati creati per un solo compito: trasmissione della voce.
Ricavano un maggior flusso di denaro dalla trasmissione della voce che da quella di dati, anche se il volume della trasmissione dei dati eccede notevolmente quello della voce.
La qualita' della trasmissione della voce via Internet diventa sempre migliore al punto di essere notevolmente superiore a quella del vecchio sistema telefonico.
Inoltre apparecchi "intelligenti" alle due estremita' del Network possono trasformare la comunicazione da semplice telefonata a reale trasmissione di voce, dati e immagini.
La comunicazione diventa interattiva e coinvolge oltre al semplice senso dell'udito anche la vista e la trasmissione di documenti.
La diretta conseguenza della creazione di un network mondiale e ubiquitario come l'Internet e' quella di rendere il mondo piu' piccolo e i popoli piu' vicini e la trasmissione di voce e immagini non puo' che completarne l'impresa.
Ieri era possibile da Milano arrivare a New York o Tokio o Pechino con la voce.
Oggi e' possibile essere a New York, Tokio o Pechino anche con la propria immagine e soprattutto con una spesa irrisoria.
L'internet e' prossimo a rendere obsoleta l'intera funzionalita' delle compagnie telefoniche.
E questo non e' neppure tutto.
Con la tecnologia odierna, l'Internet puo' dare al consumatore un intrattenimento visivo migliore della televisione via cavo, satellite o terrestre.In poche parole, l'Internet e' sul punto di sostituire tutti i Networks costruiti per uno speciale scopo.
Piu' un network e' specializzato e meno si puo' utilizzare per nuove applicazioni.
E questo e' il motivo per cui uno puo' usare un cacciavite per migliaia di diverse applicazioni e un apribottiglia solo per una funzione.
E' questo e' anche uno dei motivi per cui si possono contare sulla punta delle dita i servizi che una compagnia telefonica puo' offrire con il Network centralizzato.
Senza parlare del costo proibitivo rispetto ad un Network decentralizzato.
Il sistema odierno che regola la trasmissione analogica della voce e' affidabile al 100%, perche' l'utilizzatore occupa una linea dall'inizio alla fine della conversazione.
E questo include anche i momenti in cui la linea non viene utilizzata (pause nella conversazione) che, secondo recenti statistiche, possono arrivare fino al 70% della intera durata della conversazione.
E questo e' uno dei motivi per cui una telefonata consuma spazio prezioso nel Network.
Al contrario la trasmissione della voce come "pacchetti" attraverso Internet si avvantaggia di ogni spazio libero nel Network.
E si possono avere "pacchetti" che vanno in entrambe le direzioni sulla stessa linea. Questo e' il motivo per cui i network per la trasmissione di dati sono notevolmente piu' efficienti e soprattutto molto meno costosi.
Le compagnie telefoniche non prevedono nei loro piani aziendali un Network decentralizzato.
Sono dipendenti dal ricavato del "Voce network". Si trovano improvvisamente davanti alla prospettiva della perdita della larga fetta di mercato (e conseguente profitto) della telefonia, la loro per lungo tempo "mucca da mungere".
( La televisione e la radio si confronteranno presto con la stessa prospettiva)
Inoltre e' alquanto improbabile che pensino di usare un Network decentralizzato, perche' questo significherebbe abbandonare un modello che ha prodotto grandi profitti per un lungo periodo.
Come puntualizzato da Clayton Christensen, si trovano di fronte al " Dilemma del progresso".
I protagonisti del mercato raramente (mai) abbracciano tecnologie che vadano contro ai loro stessi interessi.
Questo e' dimostrato dal fatto che nessuna delle applicazioni vincitrici sul mercato di questo ultimo decennio -email, web browsing,commercio elettronico, instant messaging,audio streaming, condivisione di files peer to peer e cosi' via, siano state portate sul mercato da alcuna compagnia telefonica.
Di conseguenza e' molto difficile che le nuove tecnologie siano portate sul mercato da qualsivoglia delle vecchie "compagnie telefoniche". E' molto piu' probabile e fattibile che siano nuove forze imprenditoriali che si affacciano sul mercato.
Ci sono due scenari per la soppravvivenza delle compagnie telefoniche.
Nel primo non sopravviveranno. I loro network raggiungeranno lentamente l'oblivio, la bancarotta giudiziale.
Nel secondo scenario cercheranno di esercitare la loro forza coercitiva nei confronti dei governi che hanno sempre legiferato nei loro ( e nei personali dei politici preposti) vantaggi.
Bloccheranno in questo modo il progresso del Network decentralizzato.
In questo secondo scenario l'Internet sara' traformato in un Network controllato da un'unita' centrale che permettera' applicazioni che non vadano contro gli interessi delle grandi compagnie monopolizzatrici.
Le nazioni che permetteranno questo secondo scenario relegheranno i settori dell'economia che dipendono dalla comunicazione ad una posizione da "terzo mondo", mentre le nazioni che difenderanno l'esistenza del Network decentralizzato raggiungeranno velocemente una posizione di primo piano.
Nessuna Nazione che abbia un governo razionale puo' permettersi il secondo scenario.
Non puo' permettere che tecnologie moribonde possano dirigere e dettar legge sul mercato.
In poche parole: nessuna nazione che si rispetti ed abbia a cuore il futuro dei suoi abitanti, puo' permettersi di bloccare il progresso.
Telemedicina, insegnamento a distanza, news multicasting e molte altre applicazioni ancora in via di sviluppo, sono in lista di attesa.
E' nostro preciso dovere fare spazio per tutti nel Network decentralizzato.

Struggling to loose weight?

Everybody knows healt food and exercise can do miracles.

There is a website where you can find good tips to reach a perfect fitness and keep it.

You can find:

The right food list.
Eight ways for more satisfaction with less calories.
Ten practical tips to improve your health .
Five ways to protect your back in the gym.
Ten ways to meet your weight resolutions

Here are a few additional tips:

1) Plain food and PLAINLY cooked and NOT too much of it.
2) Permanent weight loss is a lifelong commitment.
3) Eat before shopping. If you go to the store hungry, you are likely to make unnecessary purchase.
4) Cut out those intimate little dinners for two- unless there is someone with you.
5) Fat is not a moral problem. It's an oral problem.
6) It's not the minutes you spend at the table that make you fat, it's the seconds.
7) Overeating, the destiny that ends our shapes.
8) Small is beautiful.
9) Restructure your kitchen. Get rid of everything that isn't good for you. In other words, if it ia not there, you are not going to eat it.
10) Always count the calories.

Even if a good reducing exercise consists in placing both hands against the table edge and pushing back, also others can be helping to reach the goal.

Yoga and Pilates. Two types of floor exercise that involve stretching and core muscles work. Do you know the main differences?
I didn't and it was quite interesting reading the explanations. Both involve mind and body.
If you combine your Pilates and yoga with healthy eating and some everyday walking you will reach weight loss and better spirit.

source: Nubella, Healty eating, healty living.





So, if you really want to achieve your fitness women, just click my links.
And do not forget: never believe it is easy...



This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

It's our TV...

It’s our TV now and the winners will be those who create and enable it.
The new TV will come in many flavors, as many as the tastes of the people.
We will still have the passive audience who will just turn on whatever monitor they have and simply watch.
Consuming whatever we say” the Convent passes".
Then we will have the ones who make the "Best of" and this will be the majority.
Because it is like a blog where you concentrate the best of other blogs on a certain subject.
Then we will have the "creative TV" the one made with few means but a lot of imagination, which will be sometimes great and sometimes not so great.
And of course we will still have the traditional good TV.
Commercial or educational, it depends.
One thing will be common to all: the possibility for the audience to say what they think.
Sometimes it could even be something like a video game, where you have more possibilities.
It's like the "comment" in a blog.
Some love it, some just ignore it.
Also that comes in many flavors...

Home Security

"We forecast that in the next few years our society will be degenerating..."
It was written five thousand years ago in a Hieroglyphic found in Egypt.
We have been degenerating since then, may be the full story of our humanity has been the story of our degeneration...

And the degeneration of our society includes the degeneration of our living habits.
More and more people are looking for an easier life, to be lived working as little as possible, as well as possible.
One way to achieve it can be getting hold of others people's properties...
That is why is getting more and more important to find the way to defend ourselves and our belongings.
Have you ever got afraid that something bad could happen to you? Did you wish you had an Wireless Alarm System to prevent thieves or murderers to enter your property? Home Security
is the best way to secure your house.
FingerPrint Door Locks are to most reliable Locks on the market today. You do not need to worry about losing your keys anymore and don't take the risk to hide the keys in your garden.
You can leave the keys behind. Just upgrade to a reliable Electronic Biometric Fingerprint Lock today.
It is as simple as to install as a regular door knob.

The next step could be a secure lock that will open just for you.
Bio-knob Fingerprint Door Lock
is an advance-technology biometric door lock shaped like an elegant doorknob. At the center of the outside knob is a tiny sensor that registers the pattern of users thumb or fingerprint patterns.
If you really do not want to have the hassle of a complicated Alarm system you can try with a simple Decoy Camera that can work as a deterrent or distraction.
These are but a few tools that you will be able to find in BrickHouse Security .
They have all what your imagination can dream of...

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

Cringely's predictions

"Cringely's Predictions
Robert Cringely reviews his 2006 predictions and offers the following for 2007:



1) Apple releases iTV, a bunch of flat-panel MacTV's that contain Mac Minis, etc. This is broken record and exactly what I predicted last year, but I still mean it.

4) No one DRM technology emerges as the winner and the RIAA begins to back off as it loses a few legal cases. Still, no Internet-only song wins a Grammy or is even recognized as existing.

10) The year the net crashed (in the USA). Video overwhelms the net and we all learn that the broadband ISPs have been selling us something they can't really deliver."

It could also be:

1) Apple releases iTV and people buy it, not because they like it, but because it is a "Must have".

4) Who wants DRM? Anyway, whatever you invent, the next minute you break it.

10) The year they realized that for a new application that needs high bandwidth you can find a newer application that runs without consuming too much bandwidth.
That is what progress is made of.
Create the need and you'll find the solution.

IP,IP,IP,IP un mondo su IP

La TV via Internet presenta due problemi.

1)Banda disponibile.
Per ora funziona in reti a fibra ottica dove il consumo di banda non e' un grosso problema.
Per esempio in Torino Fastweb puo' trasmettere trasmissioni televisive ai suoi utenti perche' questi nell'ambito della rete di fibra ottica possono disporre di un certo quantitativo di banda.
2) Copyright.
Ovviamente Fastweb quando trasmette una partita o un film (o un film on demand) DEVE pagare i copyright.

Vediamo bene i limiti della banda nella trasmissione P2P.
La velocita' di download dipende dalla nostra banda disponibile e da quella di colui da cui scarichiamo.
Infatti ci si mette in coda e SI ASPETTA.
Perche' non si puo' dare a piu' di una persona per volta.
Questo si chiama Unicast.(uno download, l'altro upload)
La normale televisione o quella via satellite hanno la possibilita' di MULTICAST.
Trasmettono cioe' il film o la partita una volta sola per milioni di telespettatori.
Se la banda necessaria e' 4 Megabit, si consumano 4 Megabit per uno o per un milione...

Per ora il Multicast su Internet e' impossibile.
Lo sara' in un futuro molto prossimo.
La tecnologia gia' ci consente di comprimere (con l'H264) da 4 Megabit a 256 Kilobit con una qualita' molto buona.
Inoltre sara' possibile con un Set Top Box ricevere Internet e guardare sullo schermo televisivo.

Molto presto broadcasters come Berlusconi si troveranno di fronte milioni di broadcasters...

Perche' la Pubblicita' lentamente, ma in maniera cospicua, migrera' dalle normali vie di broadcast a Internet, in maniera proporzionale all'aumento del numero degli internet spettatori...

Ma il tutto a mio avviso ha un effetto di portata molto piu' vasta di quello che a prima vista appare.
Non ci si limitera' ad un semplice cambio di mezzi di trasmissione che renderanno la TV piu' globale (gia' il Satellite ci permette una visione piu' ampia, se pur con i limiti del footprint satellitare).
In Italia sara' possibile vedere le stesse trasmissioni che vedranno ad esempio i neo zelandesi...

Quindi anche i contenuti cambieranno.
Con la diminuzione dei costi di produzione e trasmissione aumentera' il numero dei produttori, aumentera' enormemente l'offerta di contenuto.
Diminuira' quindi anche il potere dei dinosauri della trasmission e della produzione.
Ci si avviera' verso la VERA FINE DEI MONOPOLI...

Book your place in Paradise

Hurry up, because this IS the right moment.
Prices are terribly alluring and the landscape simply fascinating.
Turkey embraces two continents, one arm reaching out to Asia the other to Europe. In the city of Istambul's heart, the Bosphorus strait, run the waters of the Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn.
It was the former capital of three successive empires- Roman Byzantine and Ottoman-today.
Now a days it honors and preserves the legacy of its past while looking forward to its modern future.
Turkey is a land of stunning beauty offering visitors a combination of sun, sea, mountains, and lakes in the most tranquil and idyllic settings.
From April to October, most places in Turkey have an warm Mediterranean climate perfect for relaxing on sandy beaches or enjoying the peace and solitude of the variety of mountains and lakes.
Buying a Turkish property now is the best investment, because besides promising you a wonderful place where to spend you holydays (or your life if you can)it is going to be a good business would you decide to sell it in a few years.
Few regions in Europe can offer all together, a nice weather, history, a beautiful landscape.
Your Portal for finding Property for sale in Turkey is Turkish Venture
It offers the finest selection of properties for sale in Turkey with free advice from experienced property consultants.
Their website is updated daily, to bring the latest offers available in the Turkish property market, with attractive payment plans from UK and Turkish developers.

This is a sponsored post, please read disclosure policy.

The soul has no secret that a good photograph cannot reveal

A photo can be a potent wizard that transports us across thousand of miles and all the years we have lived.
Time is two modes. The one is an effortless perception native to us as water to the mackerel.
The other is a memory, of that day, nearer than that because more important, of that event mirroring this, or those three set apart, exceptional and out of the straight line altogether.
And a good photograph can be all this together.
As a good painting, it doesn't reflect the model or the landscape, but the soul of the one who takes it.

This is what the Photograph of the Year contest is all about.
By joining their free community in their forum you will have access to post topics, communicate privately with other members, vote on contests like the Photograph of the Month and Contest Corner Challenges, upload your own photos and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free.
Besides on their website you can find Articles, Tutorials, Product reviews .
You can visit the corner Blog and find great tips and meeting the previous winners.
You can visit the galleries and see beautiful pictures.
In the directory you can find a huge number of professional photographers and links to their web pages.
Suggestions for the best equipment, software, supplies, Web services.
You have just to add a little bit of imagination, you do not need a glamorous landscape or an attractive model. You need to actually "feel" what you see and transferring it into an image.
That is all what a work of art is.
Nothing and everything.