Debutant Basil - a successful troubleshooter for Sri Lanka

Colombo, 30 October, (Asiantribune.com): Last week, Basil Rajapaksa MP was in New Delhi and he successfully managed to difuse the simmering tensions and concerns of the Indian Government by presenting the Sri Lanka’s case convincingly to the Indian authorities. Even Pranab Mukerjee, India’s External Affairs Minister openly expressed satisfaction on his recent talks with Sri Lankan special envoy Basil Rajapaksa. A pat by Mukerjee A pat by Mukerjee

As a special envoy of Sri Lanka’s President, Basil Rajapakse turned out to be a very successful troubleshooter in his debut in the fathomless international political arena.

By handling issues diplomatically, he was able to reduce the tension in the wake of the politically motivated protests that were taking place in Tamil Nadu led by the Chief Minister and Dravida Munnettra Kazhagam (DMK) party chief M. Karunanidhi in moves to pressurize the Indian Government to distance itself from support to Sri Lanka in the country’s fight against the LTTE.

Subsequent to the successful negotiation Pranab Mukerjee publicly announced India’s resolve to crush terrorism and also of further strengthening relations between Sri Lanka and India on the key issue of the ongoing military operations to defeat terrorism. Mukherjee also ruled out any direct role of India in Sri Lanka.

Talks with Basil Rajapakse helped Mukherjee even to obtain an assurance from the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi that he "would not precipitate" a crisis in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government over the Sri Lankan ethnic Tamils issue.

Asian Tribune contacted Basil Rajapakse MP after his return from New Delhi, and he said that he welcomes the humanitarian assistance and concerns of the people and the leaders of Tamil Nadu.

Given below excerpts of the interview Asian Tribune had with Basil Rajapakse MP:

Asian Tribune: We learn from news report that Tamil Nadu government is collecting money for the purpose of humanitarian aids to the Sri Lankan Tamils who have been trapped in the war zone in Vanni. Last Tuesday, M. Karunanidhi, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister has donated from his personal money of Indian Rupees 10 lakhs.

Following the chief minister, the state ministers and others also contributed and they have collected more than 16 lakhs of Indian Rupees in a day alone. They want to buy medicine and food items to send to Sri Lanka.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : We welcome this humanitarian move of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister. At the moment, some other countries like Japan, USA through various organizations have given assistance for this purpose. But India has always helped Sri Lanka. Even during the time of tsunami India gave us lot of assistance. This is a very important move by the Indian government and they have also helped Sri Lanka whenever the country was affected by natural calamities.

Sri Lanka President has said that the purchasing power of the people in these uncleared areas living under the Tigers’ control is weak and they are compelled to depend on handouts. Therefore, he has decided to issue free ration. Issuing food and essential commodities is a huge burden on the government. But on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, we continue to issue free ration because those living in those uncleared areas are Sri Lankans and we consider it as our responsibility to help our own kith and kin.

But when I met India’s external affairs minister Mr.Pranab Mukherjee and the Indian officials on last 26 October in New Delhi, I brought this matter to their notice. Then they came forward to help those internally displaced people under the LTTE control area by providing food and medicine. We welcome this move by India.

Asian Tribune: Do you welcome this gesture of the Tamil Nadu Government to provide assistance to the people in the North of Sri Lanka?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : Yes, yes, I think they are showing genuine interest in the people of the North who are being held as human shield by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. We are indeed thankful to the Chief Minister and the people of Tamil Nadu for their good gesture and for coming forward to help the people and alleviate the human miseries caused by war waged by LTTE leader Prabakaran against his own Tamil people and the elected government of Sri Lanka.

Asian Tribune It seems that they are only helping the people trapped in the LTTE controlled area and not Prabhakaran and his carders.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : Yes, they wanted to support the people of the North. You know the amount of hardship they have undergone under the control of the LTTE for more than 20 long torturous years.

Asian Tribune: We learnt that India wanted to provide medicine to the people in the North?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : Yes. Sri Lanka government is providing the required medical facilities to the people in the uncleared areas. We have in place doctors, medicine and hospitals in these areas.

Even day before yesterday there was an urgent need for some medicines and we immediately responded. We were told that there was a shortage of snake bite medicine and immediately dispatched anti-venom related medicine. There was also a shortage of anti-malaria medicines and the government dispatched it immediately to Vanni.

You know, Sri Lanka is one of the few countries in the world that provide free medicine and healthcare to its people. We are spending a huge sum of money on healthcare and medicine, which other countries don’t do it.

Still there are special needs; time to time and we are taking immediate action to dispatch them to the uncleared areas under the LTTE control on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Asian Tribune: Is India sending any doctors to give health care to the people in Vanni?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : I don’t think that is required. We have enough doctors in Sri Lanka to take care of the health services.

Asian Tribune: Was this issue discussed with the Indian authorities when you were there?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : No.

Asian Tribune: Is there any agenda for India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee to visit Sri Lanka?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : No, I am not sure. It was not discussed when I met him.

Asian Tribune: There were some news items to that effect.

Basil Rajapakse: Yes, yes, There was an idea to that effect, but it was not discussed when I was in New Delhi.

Asian Tribune: Were you able to meet India’s Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : No. My Agenda was to meet the external affairs minister, the external affairs ministry secretary, the defense secretary and the National Security Advisor.

Asian Tribune: We received a report stating that Indian government has exerted pressure to prevent Sri Lanka’s defense secretary from visiting Pakistan on a schedule visit. Is this true?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : I did not know that. This is the first time I am hearing.

Asian Tribune: We also published an article in which it says that Gotabaya Rajapaksee was to visit Pakistan, but at the last minute, India pressured to cancel the visit to Pakistan.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : No, as far as I know, there was no compulsion forthcoming from India to cancel any trip. But I don’t know whether he was planning to go to Pakistan on some government business.

Asian Tribune: According to our news report, he was planning to go to Pakistan on an official visit and the dates were also fixed. But suddenly the trip was cancelled due to India’s intervention that is what the news reports revealed.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : I don’t know, I did not hear anything to this effect. But I wish to point out that we have a very favorable and cordial relationship with India, but may be, time to time there are some hiccups which could be resolved mutually.

It must be very clearly told that from the time President Rajapakshee took up the administration of the country, he has strengthened the ties with Indian government as well as with the people of India. He visited for the first time to India on the invitation of the Indian leaders, just after a fortnight of assuming Sri Lanka’s presidency - met Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, Congress leader Madam Sonia Gandhi and high government officials as well. Both governments mutually understand each other’s problems and concerns.

Asian Tribune :There was a report to say that the external affairs minister has insisted on the full implementation of the 13th amendment to the Sri Lanka constitution and urged for more devolutions.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : Yes, in the joint statement released on 26 October, when I was in New Delhi, you may notice that subjects discussed were listed under four categories :

1. Both parties agreed: Both sides agreed that terrorism should be countered with resolve.

2. It says that both parties discussed - Both sides discussed the need to move towards a peacefully negotiated political settlement in the island including in the North.

3. Matters that mentioned as comimg from Indian side: India conveyed its concern at the humanitarian situation in the northern part of Sri Lanka, especially of the civilians and internally displaced persons caught in the hostilities and emphasized the need for unhindered essential relief supplies.

4. Where Sri Lankan side said: Mr. Rajapaksa briefed the Indian authorities of the efforts by the Sri Lanka Government to afford relief and ensure the welfare of the civilian population in the North. He assured that the safety and wellbeing of the Tamil community in Sri Lanka is being taken care of.

Asian Tribune:What about Katchativu, the joint statement says that there are some sensitive areas?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : Sensitive areas means those areas that are ear-marked for Military purpose and further more it refers about fishermen. “As part of these practical arrangements on fisheries, it was agreed that Indian fishermen will not venture into areas designated and identified by the Government of Sri Lanka as sensitive areas along the Sri Lankan coastline and their intimation to the Government of India.”

Fishermen issue of humanitarian livelihood matters for both parties were discussed and about Indian fishermen crossing the International Maritime Boundary and coming to our side … sometimes…

Asian Tribune: Not sometimes, everyday for poaching?

Basil Rajapakse M.P : Our fishermen also go to their side.

Asian Tribune: They don’t go. Government of Sri Lanka doesn’t allow them to fish in the Mannar sea.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : They are going. Even when I was in New Delhi they caught some people.

Asian Tribune: Yes, 13 fishermen. That was a very strange coincidence.

Basil Rajapakse M.P : No, we still have about 102 Sri Lankan fisherman in India's custody. We are now negotiating about their release.

Sri Lanka President knows about the fishermen very well, because he was a minister of fisheries for some time. He told us that fishermen never care about the borders. They don’t care about the sea they travel whether it belongs to India or Sri Lanka. They simply go after the fish. Both parties agreed that this is a humanitarian issue and we have to tackle this issue accordingly.

The negotiations resulted in an agreement acceptable to both parties on the contentious issue of Indian fisherman found in Sri Lankan waters, which was also an issue raised by the DMK-led protesters, and which was also mentioned in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s recent statement on his concerns between Sri Lanka and India.

- Asian Tribune -

Read More

Microsoft launches Windows Azure - PDC 2008: Windows Azure live blog

10:12 a.m. PDT: Microsoft didn't go into too many details on how it will charge for Azure, saying it will be free during the preview period. Final pricing, "will be competitive with the marketplace" Ozzie said. Keynote ending now.

9:55 a.m. PDT: Microsoft's Dave Thompson is now talking about how Microsoft itself will offer business software that runs over the Internet. Microsoft currently offers its CRM and Exchange software as a hosted option, but that's just the beginning, Thompson said. Over time, "all our enterprise software will be delivered as an online service as an option," Thompson said.

But Thompson stressed that most companies will want a mix of software that runs both on-premise and in outside data centers. The key is to be able to offer both options with no difference to the end user, something that Microsoft has been betting on.

9:45 a.m. PDT: Muglia is demoing how a company will be able to monitor their Azure services using an add-on to Microsoft's System Center management tool, code-named "Atlanta."

9:43 a.m. PDT: Check out the Azure Web site. Press release is also live here.

9:35 a.m. PDT: Muglia talks about SQL Services--a version of Microsoft's SQL Server database that runs on top of Azure. (Microsoft talked about this at its spring Mix conference, referring to it then as SQL Server Data Services)

9:30 a.m. PDT: Now Server and Tools senior VP Bob Muglia is talking about how Azure applies to businesses. He's highlighting how the core requirements of businesses don't change just because applications are moving from a company's own data center into Microsoft's centers. Businesses still need things like interoperability, security, compliance and management, Muglia said.

9:20 a.m. PDT: A third-party developer is talking about one of the first Azure services, something called BlueHoo that uses Bluetooth to create a sort of social network of people that are in close physical proximity.

Each person is represented by a cute little bug called a "hoo" that represents a person with an active Bluetooth connection. Until they are signed up for the service, their "hoo" is gray. Once they sign up, they can enter profile information and make their character come to life.

At that point your hoo turns pink or blue, depending on your gender," BlueHoo's creator Jonathan Greensted said. (Too bad there's not a purple option).

9:15 a.m. PDT: Don't think I've forgotten about you, dear readers. It's just that the talk has turned rather geeky, with a demo of how to build a cloud application.

9:05 a.m. PDT: Now Amitabh Srivastava is talking more about the technical details of Azure.

Each processor in Microsoft's data center is running its own hypervisor, he said. At the heart of Windows Azure is a "fabric controller" which manages an Azure service throughout its life cycle.

"We have built a platform to allow you to build your killer apps," he said.

8:57 a.m. PDT: Ozzie said that Azure won't run on a company's own servers. "Rather it's a service running on a vast number of machines housed in Microsoft's own data centers."

Azure is being released now as a technology preview with a subset of what Microsoft eventually hopes it to be.

Ozzie promises that developing for Windows Azure will build on what developers know, but he also talks about a new storage model as well as a system designed for "scale out" rather than "scale up"

"There are ways that Windows Azure needs to be different," Ozzie said.

8:54 a.m. PDT: Ozzie announces "Windows Azure"--what had been called Windows Cloud.

"Windows Azure is a new Windows offering at the Web tier of computing... what you might think of as Windows in the cloud."

8:45 a.m. PDT: Companies have been doing this, building robust Web sites and trying to build all this capacity with their existing IT infrastructure.

"Doing this is extremely tough," Ozzie said.

While internal needs are roughly constant, Web demand fluctuates considerably, meaning companies need to build to peak demand, resulting in excess capacity. The need for redundancy means companies have to build not just one massive data center, but multiple ones.

8:40 a.m. PDT: Ozzie promises that between now and tomorrow, developers will hear the whole strategy from software to services--and developers will get their hands on all the new stuff as well.

Ozzie's shifting to the strategy, noting that how today most of a company's computing resources are devoted toward building things used by a company's own employees. That's shifting to where businesses are expected to have equally rich tools for customers and partners.

He dubbed this the "externalization of IT."

8:37 a.m. PDT: Ray Ozzie takes the stage, thanks the crowd, and tells them how good it is to finally be able to talk "end to end" about what the company has been working on the last couple of years.

"It's a transformation of our software and a transformation of our strategy," Ozzie said.

8:30 a.m. PDT: Keynote just getting ready to start.

Read More

List of open source software packages

This is a list of open-source software packages: computer software licensed under an open-source license. Software that fits the Free software definition may be more appropriately called free software; the GNU project in particular objects to their works being referred to as open source. For more information about the philosophical background for open source software, see free software movement and Open Source Initiative. However, nearly all software meeting the Open Source Definition also meets The Free Software Definition and vice versa. Software that meets either is listed here.

Read More

Microsoft's Biggest Hacker in China After Massive Anti-Piracy Crackdown

Microsoft' rolling out of the Windows Genuine Advantage tool across China has affected thousands of Chinese Windows users and has led one Chinese lawyer to say that Microsoft was China's biggest hacker.

Dong Zhengwei, a lawyer based in Beijing, wrote to the Ministry of Public security lambasting Microsoft fo illegally intruding people's computer and "sabotaging their private systems". Ironically and as judiciously pointed out by Stuart King of Computerweekly, China's own anti piracy laws allow companies to "adopt protection functions such as encryption software communication protocols, software installation licenses, software registration certificates and digital watermarkings".

The tool causes Windows to change the background to a black screen every hour and display constant warning messages like "Activate Windows Now" and is seen as Microsoft as an effective means to curb rampant piracy in Asia and more particularly in China which has a 82 percent piracy rate according to the Business Software Alliance annual global software piracy study.

Chinese users have reacted angrily with an anonymous blogger saying that "it is illegal to install any program on a PC without the permit of the owner" (although he fails to point out that WGA is opt-in) and there are already dozens of ways of over-riding WGA available online.

The high price of Windows applications has also been underlined as one reason why piracy rates are so high. But then, while neither Linux nor Openoffice have been hitherto as successful as Windows and Office.

Although not the highest percentage worldwide, Piracy in China still amounted to USD 6.66 bn in 2007, the largest amount by far and accounted for roughly one sixth of the world's global piracy losses.

There are more than 200 million computer users in China with most of them use Windows as operating system on top of which millions use Microsoft Office as their main business application suite.

Copyright violations and Piracy in China are not something new. 99 percent of music downloads in the country are illegal and it is not difficult to find pirated movie DVDs and software compilation CDs for less than £1.

Microsoft's decision to launch WGA and OGA (Office Genuine Advantage) in China is part of the Global Anti-Piracy Day which takes places today across 49 countries.

Read More

HOT Car Show Girls

Read More

Symbian Targets Open Source Developers With Free Development Tool

Nokia is taking a gamble by making the Symbian platform, a USD 410 million acquisition, open source, in a bid to build enough momentum to fend off rivals like Apple and Google.

Having decided to setup a not-for-profit Symbian foundation, The Finnish phone manufacturer will make the operating system royalty-free from the first half of 2009 and already 52 companies have signed in including the likes of Samsung, Motorola, Sony Ericsson and LG, all of which are Nokia's competitor in the handset market.

Although Symbian still holds the upper hand in the booming Smartphone segment with a 57 percent marketshare, compared to RIM's 17.4 percent and Windows Mobile 12 percent. But Apple's iPhone and Google's Android platform threaten to eat into Symbian's share, which has already fallen a whopping 9 percent over a year as the pie is increasing in size but Nokia's sales stall.

But Nokia sees further than smartphones with Symbian. It is also eyeing the equally phenomenal market of embedded or embarked operating systems which would include anything from fridges to cameras, satnav and MP3 players.

Other companies which made open source jump include AOL with Mozilla, and ultimately Firefox and Sun Microsystems which open sourced Staroffice to create Open Office, both of which are now open source giants.

With more device manufacturers onboard, Nokia hopes that it will cut the time to market of new products. However, it will remain interesting to see whether Nokia's own immediate competitors will choose Symbian or Google's Android which doesn't have any presence in the mobile phone market.

Nearly 20 million Symbian-based mobile phones were sold in Q2 2008 which brought the overall total of units shipped to more than 223 million by June this year.

Read More

Blackberry To Launch Two New Application Marketplaces

RIM will launch its App store in March 2009 in a bid to close the gap between itself, Apple and Google, both of whom have already released their online application marketplaces.

RIM's BlackBerry Application Storefront and Application Center will hopefully accelerate the democratisation of what is arguably the most popular business smartphone platform on the market.

Blackberry Developers will be able to keep 80p out of every Pound of revenue brought in, better (but not by much) than Apple's current 70:30 scenario and they would be able to use Paypal, the electronic payment outfit owned by Ebay.

Application developers have been invited to submit their applications and content to start populating the storefront as from December 2008.

RIM president and co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis said that: “The introduction of more consumer-friendly features in BlackBerry smartphones has clearly helped generate a groundswell of interest with new developers that has already resulted in the introduction of thousands of consumer and lifestyle oriented applications for BlackBerry smartphones.

“The new BlackBerry application storefront and BlackBerry application centers will further support the growing BlackBerry ecosystem and help bridge consumers with developers and carriers as more and more innovative and interesting applications arrive.”

Networks will be able to select which application downloads they do not want through the Blackberry Application center - although this could be a tricky one if they want to exterminate any competition in the egg. Skype, Any tethering application or Last.fm for example.

Interestingly, organisations that have deployed BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Professional Software will retain control of what applications can be downloaded to BlackBerry smartphones within their corporate deployments, which will certainly improve security and ease the sysadmins' tasks.

There's no Kill switch apparently, although one can expect RIM to unveil it at a later stage.

Read More

Best Online Real Time Torrent Search Engine

but I know that they all seem to have a similar layout. No eye candy, no Ajax, just simple searches and results. That’s fine with me but it feels like they are all missing some technology trends that emerged recently with Ajax for instance. Youtorrent is a torrent search engine that tries to be what Youtube is for videos and Youporn is for sex videos - the key player of the torrent search engines.

It searches in 12 torrent trackers and websites to find the best - and most - matches possible. It has a simple interface with no distractions, the search result pages are Ajax based which means you witness a nice effect when the search results pour in. The result pages use a clean interface as well displaying information like file name, size, seeders and peers plus the name and a link to the website that it found the torrent on.

A click on the link loads this website and you can download it from their interface. I was not able to spot advertisement yet on the Youtorrent website but it is only a few days old. Could be that they add advertisement later on but at the moment it is clean and fast as it can get.

Read More

Mugshot: Red Hat's open source social networking site

Social networking isn't exactly a sector I'd have expected Linux developer Red Hat to jump into (insert joke about geeks socializing here), but that's what they've done with Mugshot. Mugshot's stated purpose is "to create a live social experience around entertainment," and perhaps what's most notable about Mugshot is that it's open source, i.e. if you want you can download the source code to the Mugshot server and set up your own social networking site, and you can contribute code to the project as well. That's something you'll probably never see News Corp., Six Apart, or even AOL allow. Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow praises a demo of Mugshot he saw at the Red Hat Summit this week, saying, "it was pretty hot; they nicked the best stuff out of all the social networking sites and put them together in an open codebase."

Read More

Keyboard shortcut guide - bookmark worthy

Since your computer is your newest appendage, it makes sense to learn all those keyboard shortcuts so you can save time, and also avoid repetitive stress syndrome (think carpel tunnel) which could really lead to down time from your favorite computer activities.

Shortcutguide.com is a nice all-in-one list of keyboard shortcuts for most popular applications such as Google (mail, docs, spreadsheets, video, maps, reader) , Firefox 2, Windows XP, Linux 9, Yahoo Mail, Opera 9, and Adobe Reader 7. Although some Apple apps are listed such as iDVD, iMovie HD 6, iTunes 7, and i photo 06, shortcuts for Mac OS X are not listed nor are they for Windows Vista.

Still, this is a nice all-in-one resource to help you navigate different applications without using your mouse. And you gotta love the nice keyboard interface that lets you hover over keys to see different shortcuts in the feature pane. Of course, in this instance you have to use your mouse, but it's all in the name of a future reward, so to speak.

Tell us your favorite keyboard shortcut guides you've found on the web, and we'll compile them into a new big grandaddy list.

Read More

The Battle Progress (Updated on 18th October)

Sri Lankan armed forces police, police Special Task Force (STF) and Civil Defenc Force (CDF) are engaged in counter terrorist operations against the world's most barbaric terrorist organization named Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) or commonly known as Tamil Tigers. Since 1983, the terrorist campaign unleashed against Sri Lankan citizens has cost almost 70,000 lives. The mission of the Sri Lankan security forces is to free the Island nation from clutches of terrorism and to make it a country where all Sri Lankans can live in peace and harmony. During last 3 decades LTTE has shown its incapacity to engage in any meaningful dialogue more than once by resorting to violence during several ceasefires had in the past.

Current counter terror operations commenced in July 2006 as an active defence against continued attacks at civilians by LTTE. This was when the ceasefire agreement singed in 2002 was still in force. The government launched limited military operations to liberate Mavil Aru sluice gates as the terrorists had closed down the gates denying water for 30,000 civilians in the Eastern Province. As LTTE resumed hostilities even after the Mavil Aru operations, the government continued its counter terror move and liberated the whole Eastern Province by February 2007. As LTTE did not show any intention to renounce terrorism, the government abrogated the 2002 ceasefires in January 2008, and now is in the process of liberating the Northern Province from terror clutches.

Read More

LTTE attack merchant ships carrying essential supplies to civilians; Navy captures suicide boat - Jaffna

LTTE terrorists have carried out a suicide attack targeting Merchant Ship Ruhuna and Nimalawa, in the north sea of Sri Lanka at 5.10, this morning (Oct 22), defence sources said. The attack is viewed as another cowardly attempt by the terrorists to deny essential suppliers to the civilians living in war affected areas, the sources added.

Meanwhile, Navy spokesperson, Commander DKP Dassanayke told defence.lk that 3 LTTE suicide vessels have come for the attack. Navy sailors providing security onboard the targeted vessels have engaged machine gun fire at the approaching suicide boats effectively, and destroyed two of them before ramming on the ships, he said. However, he added that one of the suicide boat have exploded in close proximity to Merchant Ship Nimalawa causing a considerable damage to the ship's hull .

He further said that the third suicide craft has been captured by navy boats. The LTTE suicide cadre who was operating the boat believed to be killed in the Navy retaliation, he added.

More information will follow...

Read More

Fedora 9 beta Linux distro released

Fedora 9 beta is available for download today, with a final release scheduled for April 29. The latest version of the free (as in beer) cousin of Red Hat Linux comes with a number of major updates, including support for the latest versions of the KDE and GNOME desktop environments. Here are a few highlights:

* Uses the 2.6.25-rc5 Linux kernel
* GNOME 2.22 with world time clock, improved file system performance, and security improvements
* KDE 4.0.2 with a completely redesigned desktop manager look and feel, and integrated desktop search
* Firefox 3 Beta as the default web browser
* Support for resizing ext2, ext3, and NTFS partitions during installation

One of the more noticeable improvements will be the fact that Fedora includes a new free Flash plugin for Firefox out of the box, so you'll be able to watch YouTube within seconds of booting up your system....

Read More

Web 3.0 - Semantic Web

This twine is about the emerging Semantic Web -- and Web 3.0, the next-evolution of the Web.

Read More

Keep Up with What You are Into..........

Twine is a smarter way to keep track of your interests. Use it to collect and share bookmarks, notes, videos and other content. Twine organizes your content, learns as you use it and recommends new things to check out. You can use Twine alone and with groups of people who share your interests.

Read More

OpenOffice.org 3.0 coming Monday, download it today!

The developers behind open source office suite OpenOffice.org plan to officially push the next major release on Monday. But if you just can't wait to get your hands on the first stable, post-beta, post-release candidate copy of OpenOffice.org 3.0 you can download it today.

That's because the OpenOffice.org team has already sent out the files to a long list of mirror sites. Just pick one in your region, navigate to the folder marked "stable and grab the appropriate files for your operating system from the "3.0.0" folder.

Read More

Googleholic

Welcome to Googleholic, your often weekly fix of everything Google!

In this edition:

* iGoogle gets canvas views
* Google Webmaster Tools adds tons of new features
* Presidential debate search findings
* How often do you use Google?
* Android Madness at Download Squad

iGoogle gets canvas views

iGoogle, Google's personalized portal, just got a little bit nicer. Now, select gadgets feature canvas views, meaning you can view contents full screen at a click of the button. The iGoogle gadgets are really nice, what with the ability to add in various news sites, your feed reader, Sudoku or crossword puzzles in one centralized space. The problem has always been, that the more gadgets you add, the more cluttered and hard to manage the whole iGoogle page becomes, kind of defeating the purpose. Now, you can just click on a button (please add a keyboard shortcut) to view an expanded version of a gadget.

A full list of expandable iGoogle gadgets is available here

[via Official Google Blog]

Google Webmaster Tools adds tons of new features

Lots and lots of cool stuff has been added to Google Webmaster Tools and the Google Webmaster Tool GData API over the last few weeks that really make things easier for new and experienced webmasters alike. One of the BEST new additions is the addition of crawl error sources. In the past, Google would let you know that a certain page had an error, but not what links were reporting those problems That made tracking down the source of those problems a pain. Now you can just click on the "linked from" column to see what addresses are trying to access incorrect or out-dated information.

Likewise, the updated Webmaster Tools API control crawl rate and preferred domain, all within the API. Cool stuff!

[via [Official Google Webmaster Central Blog(http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com)]]

Presidential debate searching

Google posted its search data from the third US presidential debate. Unsurprisingly, Roe v. Wade was the most popular search query. "Joe the plumber" was a popular reference too, both in the debate in in Google's search results.

[via Official Google Blog]

How often do you use Google?

One of the more interesting features of Google Web History is that it keeps track of how often you search Google (the results of those searches can also be archived, but that is opt-in). Over at Google Operating System, they have data going back to December 2005. The number of searches? 38,866. Wow. I put my Search History thing on "pause" a couple of years ago, so my data is unavailable. I'm OK with that, as I'm sure the result would confirm I spend far too much time online.

[via Google Operating System]

Android Madness at Download Squad

Next week, the very first mobile phone using Android, Google's new mobile platform. At Download Squad, we're really excited about the potential Android brings to the mobile computing space. I also write for TUAW and just seeing the effect the iPhone has had on the Mac community, I'm really excited to see how Android is received by the broader tech-heads.

In that vein, we'll be doing lots of Android coverage in the next few weeks. Grant Robertson and I will be getting our hands on a T-Mobile G1 on Wednesday and posting our impressions of the OS, must-have programs, tips and tricks, you name it. For developers, I'm also working on a SDK shoot-out between the iPhone, Android and the latest BlackBerry SDK -- sorting out what each platform has to offer to developers or would-be developers

So stay tuned to Download Squad and our Android feed!

Read More

“Professional football against Hunger” solidarity campaign

For the first time, European Professional Football Leagues will be together fully involved in the fight against hunger and poverty. This will happen at an official launching ceremony during a global press conference to take place on 15 October 2008 at 15:00 hrs at FAO Headquarters in Rome.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Association of the European Football Leagues (EPFL) have engaged in a Cooperation Agreement signed on 14 April 2008 in Lisbon to join forces, using their respective comparative advantages and the power of football, to boost the fight against hunger, especially at a crucial time when world food security is facing new challenges such as soaring food prices, climate change and bioenergy.

Through a joint letter FAO and EPFL have invited European Ministers for Sports, Presidents of the European Professional Football Leagues, Presidents of UEFA and FIFA, Presidents of the Regional Confederations of Football, FAO Goodwill Ambassadors Roberto Baggio, Italian football star, and Raúl Gonzalez, Captain of Real de Madrid, as well as the Permanent Representatives of FAO Member countries to FAO in Rome and the international press and media to attend the ceremony.

Important decisions will be announced during the event to showcase the commitment of the 28 European Professional Football Leagues representing more than 960 professional football clubs to the global fight against hunger.

Read More

World Food Day, 16 October 2008

World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy

World Food Day provides an occasion to once again highlight the plight of 923 million undernourished people in the world. Most of them live in rural areas where their main source of income is the agricultural sector. Global warming and the biofuel boom are now threatening to push the number of hungry even higher in the decades to come.

Read More

Sri Lanka - The Leopard's Island.

The Sri Lanka leopard (Panthera pardus kotiya), colloquially known as Kotiya, is a subspecies of leopard native to Sri Lanka. However, "kotiyā" is now the colloquial Sinhala name for the tiger and "diviyā" is used for the leopard. See below for more information.

A recent study has shown that Yala National Park has one of the highest recorded densities of leopards in the world, although this animal is still considered to be endangered. The Wilpattu National Park in Sri Lanka is also known as a good place to watch leopards. Leopards tend to be more readily observed in parts of Sri Lanka than in other countries where they share their habitat with more dominant competitors, such as lions or hyaenas.

Read More

How To Use FTP Without Installing FTP Client Software

AnyClient is a free platform independent file transfer application that supports all major file transfer protocols including FTP/S, SFTP and WebDAV/S. AnyClient is available both as a web based service requiring no software installation, and as a downloadable application that you can install locally.

To launch AnyClient application as a service, click on the Applet tab. To connect to a site, click the Connect button to display the Site Manager dialog and create a new site profile or connect to an existing site profile. Alternatively, you can download the AnyClient installer click on the Download tab above. To connect to a site, click the Connect button to display the Site Manager dialog and create a new site profile or connect to an existing site profile.

Read More

VMWare Update: Two Rough Quarters

VMWare, is best known as a market leader in virtualization software, a type of software that simulates hardware for the purpose of separating a computer’s operating system from its hardware. For the consumer this allows one computer to run multiple operating systems, like Apple computers running Windows. For enterprise users, virtualization lets them run multiple virtual servers off of one physical server. However the software maker cannot seem to catch a break.

Research by IDC, and first reported by ComputerWorld, shows that VMWare’s market share of the enterprise X86 virtualization market fell from a reported 51% during 2007 to 44% during the third quarter of 2008. At the same time Microsoft’sHyper-V virtualization product has already had a material impact on Microsoft’s market share, even though the product was only released three months ago, as Microsoft’s market share jumped to 23% during the third quarter, up from 18% in the first quarter of 2008.

VMWare has not only lost a significant amount of market share in dramatic fashion, but also has lost a significant quantity of senior talent and share holder value. According to Reuters and the New York Times, since September 1st, VMWare has lost Richard Sarwal, their Executive Vice President for Research and Development, Mendel Rosenblum, a Co-Founder and their Chief Scientist, and Paul Chan, their VP for Product Development. As of the market’s close on Friday VMWare was trading at $20.69 per share, less than a sixth of its 52-Week high of $125.25 per share, and having lost more than 75% of its share price year to date. This comes after a tumultuous summer which saw VMWare’s founding CEO, Diane Greene, forced out by the board of its parent company, EMC, resulting in VMWare shares losing 25% of their value in one day.

Read More

How to prevent the Windows Messenger from running with Windows

The windows messenger will not appears in the "Add/Remove programs" menu, it's hidden. To unhide the windows messenger please do the next steps:

1. Open the file C:\WINDOWS\INF\SYSOC.INF in the any text editor, such as Notepad.

2. Find the line: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,hide,7

3. Delete hide,, result should be: msmsgs=msgrocm.dll,OcEntry,msmsgs.inf,7

4. Save this file ( with the same name ).
Now you can uninstall Windows messenger from an Add/Remove programs.


If you have difficulties with this advanced operations, just download this file uninstall-windows-messenger.cmd and double click on it to execute. The windows messenger will be removed.

To install the Windows messenger again, you should download it from an Microsoft website and install it.

Read More

Complete Wireless Design (McGraw-Hill, 2008, English)

ON THE CD-ROM

*PUFF RF/Microwave circuit simulation software
*Sonnet Lite electromagnetic simulation software
*National's PLL Design Program
*Agilent's AppCad circuit design program

Design an entire radio system from the ground up instead of relying on a simple plug-in selection of circuits to be modified. Avoid an arduous trek through theory and mathematical derivations. Cotter Sayre’s Complete Wireless Design is the handbook that fits your needs. It covers wireless hardware design more thoroughly than any other—and does it without burying you in math.

THE BEST SOURCE FOR WIRELESS DESIGN
*Design cutting-edge filters, amplifiers, RF switches, oscillators, and more
*Simplify calculations for impedance matching, analysis of wireless links, and completing a frequency plan
*Follow real-world examples of designing with RFIC’s and MMIC’s
*Master full circuit and electromagnetic software simulations
*Limit math to simple algebra
*Get it the first time with Cotter Sayre’s copyrighted clarity

THE BEST WRITER IN WIRELESS
This right-on-the-money new guide from a bestselling wireless author gives you all the skills needed to design today’s wireless systems and circuits. If you want to climb the learning curve with grace, and start designing what you need immediately, this reasonably priced resource is your best choice. It’s certain to be the most-used reference in your wireless arsenal

STEP-SAVING DESIGN
Modulation Oscillators
Amplifiers
Frequency Synthesizers
Filters
Mixers
Support Circuits
Communications Systems
Troubleshooting Using PUFF RF

About the Author

Cotter W. Sayre is a senior RF hardware engineer retired from 3COM Corporation's Advanced Development Group.

Read More

Hacking iPod and iTunes (ExtremeTech)

Does your iPod go wherever you do? This book will take the two of you on your most exciting adventure–deep into iPod’s awesome potential. You already know it’s a musical prodigy, but wait 'til you teach your iPod to take notes, give you the weather and stock quotes, keep your calendar, play games with you, double as a remote control, light up the night, and read you your e-mail–out loud. Think that’s great? Take a look at Part 2!Kick back and HackA few of the 100-plus hacks, tweaks, and mods you’ll find inside

1. Scrub your songs
2. Install and run Linux
3. Tweak Gracenote CDDB
4. Hack iPod’s database
5. Discover Visualizer’s secrets
6. Create iPod adventure games
7. Clean up your tracks
8. Play music over Wi-Fi
9. Find free legal tunes
10. Listen to audio books
11. Create gapless CDs
12. Make iTunes an alarm clock

About the Author

Scott Knaster is a legendary Mac hacker with a number of books to his credit, including Macintosh Programming Secrets, which has achieved cult status among Mac programmers. He is the coauthor of Mac Toys, also published by Wiley, and the proud owner of several hacked iPods and every issue of Mad magazine.

Read More

Software Process Quality : Management and Control

Software presents both an opportunity and a threat. Software runs our lives. The list of applications in which software is a critical component is endless: elevators, airlines, telecommunications, medical devices, education, and countless others. Data from the Software Engineering Institute indicates that approximately 60% of software development organizations that have had formal assessments designed to determine how their software is developed are at the lowest level of capability. These assessments are based on the Capability Maturity Model—a framework for achieving process improvement. This lowest level is characterized as ad hoc and chaotic, having virtually nothing in the way of organized project management or software engineering practices. Over 600 organizations worldwide have gone through such assessments. These are organizations that have either embarked on improvement efforts of their software development process or made a commitment to do so. If we add in all the organizations that have not had assessments performed, or have no plans to implement process improvement, we estimate that the number of organizations at the lowest level is probably well in excess of 80%.

Read More

C Traps and Pitfalls (Addison Wesley, 1989, English)

C Traps and Pitfalls teaches how the peculiarities of the C language make it easy for the intended behavior of a program and the actual behavior of a program to differ. The book's experienced author, Koenig, follows up with examples and helpful advice on many of these "pitfalls." Each chapter includes exercises for contemplation with accompanying discussions at the end of the book.

Tools that are comfortable after experience are often more difficult to learn at first than those that feel right immediately. Student pilots start out overcontrolling, turning first flights into roller-coaster rides, until they learn how light a touch flying really requires. Training wheels on a bicycle make it easier for a novice to ride, but get in the way after that.

So it is also with programming languages. Every programming language has aspects that are most likely to cause trouble for people not yet thoroughly familiar with them. These aspects vary from one language to another, but are surprisingly constant from one programmer to another. Thus the idea of collecting them.

My first effort to collect such problems was in 1977, when I gave a talk called PL/I Traps and Pitfalls at the SHARE (IBM mainframe users' group) meeting in Washington, DC. That was shortly after I moved from Columbia University, where people used PL/I heavily, to AT&T Bell Laboratories, where people use C heavily. The decade that followed gave me ample experience in how C programmers (including me) can get themselves into trouble if they're not certain of what they're doing.

I started collecting C problems in 1985 and published the collection as an internal paper at the end of that year. The response astonished me: more than 2,000 people requested copies of the paper from the Bell Labs library. That convinced me to expand the paper into this book.

What This Book Is

C Traps And Pitfalls aims to encourage defensive programming by showing how other people, even experienced professionals, have gotten themselves into trouble. These mistakes are generally easy to avoid once seen and understood, so the emphasis is on specific examples rather than generalities.

This book belongs on your shelf if you are using C at all seriously, even if you are an expert: many of the professional C programmers who saw early drafts said things like "that bug bit me just last week!" If you are teaching a course that uses C, it belongs at the top of your supplementary reading list. What This Book Is Not

This book is not a criticism of C. Programmers can get themselves into trouble in any language. I have tried here to distill a decade of C experience into a compact form in the hope that you, the reader, will be able to avoid some of the stupid mistakes I've made and seen others make.

This book is not a cookbook. Errors cannot be avoided by recipe. If they could, we could eliminate automobile accidents by plastering the countryside with "Drive Carefully" signs! People learn most effectively through experience--their own or someone else's. Merely understanding how a particular kind of mistake is possible is a big step on the way to avoiding it in the future.

This book is not intended to teach you how to program in C (see Kernighan and Ritchie: The C Programming Language, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall 1988), nor is it a reference manual (see Harbison and Steele: C: A Reference Manual, Second Edition, Prentice-Hall, 1987). It does not mention algorithms or data structures (see Van Wyk: Data Structures And C Programs, Addison-Wesley 1988), and only briefly discusses portability (see Horton: How To Write Portable Programs In C., Prentice-Hall 1989) and operating system interfaces (see Kernighan and Pike: The Unix Programming Environment, Prentice-Hall 1984). The problems mentioned are real, although often shortened (for a collection of composed C problems see Feuer: The C Puzzle Book, Prentice-Hall 1982). It is neither a dictionary nor an encyclopedia; I have kept it short to encourage you to read it all. Your Name in Lights

I'm sure I've missed some pitfalls. If you find one I've missed, please contact me via Addison-Wesley. I may well include your discovery, with an acknowledgement, in a future edition. A Word about ANSI C

As I write this, the ANSI C standard is not yet final. It is technically incorrect to refer to "ANSI C" until the ANSI committee finishes its work. In practice, though, the ANSI standard is far enough along that nothing I say about ANSI C is likely to change. C compilers are already available that implement many of the significant improvements contemplated by the ANSI committee.

Don't worry if your C implementation does not support the ANSI function syntax mentioned here: it is easy enough to understand the parts of the examples where it matters, and you can fall into the traps described there regardless of what version of C you use. Acknowledgements

A collection like this could not possibly have been made in isolation. People who have pointed out particular pitfalls include Steve Bellovin, Mark Brader, Luca Cardelli, Larry Cipriani, Guy Harris and Steve Johnson, Phil Karn, Dave Kristol, George W. Leach, Doug McIlroy, Barbara Moo, Rob Pike, Jim Reeds, Dennis Ritchie, Janet Sirkis, Richard Stevens, Bjarne Stroustrup, Ephraim Vishnaic, and one contributor who wishes to remain anonymous. For brevity, I've mentioned only the first person to report any particular problem to me. Of course, I doubt any of the people I've mentioned actually invented the programming errors they pointed out to me, and if they did I doubt they'd admit it! I know I've made many of them myself too, some several times.

Useful editorial suggestions came from Steve Bellovin, Jim Coplien, Marc Donner, Jon Forrest, Brian Kernighan, Doug McIlroy, Barbara Moo, Rob Murray, Bob Richton, Dennis Ritchie, Jonathan Shapiro, and several anonymous reviewers. Lee McMahon and Ed Sitar pointed out what would otherwise have ben embarrassing typographical errors in early drafts of the manuscript. Dave Prosser clarified many fine points of ANSI C for me. Brian Kernighan supplied invaluable typesetting tools and assistance.

It has been a delight to work with the people at Addison-Wesley, including Jim DeWolf, Mary Dyer, Lorraine Ferrier, Katherine Harutunian, Marshall Henrichs, Debbie Lafferty, Keith Wollman, and Helen Wythe. I'm sure they've gained from the aid of others whom I haven't met.

I am particularly grateful to the enlightened managers at AT&T Bell Laboratories who made it possible for me to write this book at all, including Steve Chappell, Bob Factor, Wayne Hunt, Rob Murray, Will Smith, Dan Stanzione, and Eric Sumner.

The title of this book was suggested by Robert Sheckley's science-fiction anthology The People Trap and Other Pitfalls, Snares, Devices and Delusions (as well as Two Sniggles and a Contrivance), published by Dell Books in 1968. 0201179288P04062001

About the Author

Andrew Koenig is a member of the Large-Scale Programming Research Department at AT&T's Shannon Laboratory, and the Project Editor of the C++ standards committee. A programmer for more than 30 years, 15 of them in C++, he has published more than 150 articles about C++, and speaks on the topic worldwide.

Read More

Munchee "withdraws Lemon Puff"

Ceylon Biscuits Ltd (CBL) has agreed to withdraw Munchee Lemon Puff biscuits from the Sri Lankan market.
Director General of Health Services Dr.Ajith Mendis, told Sandesaya that CBL officials agreed to withdraw Lamon Puff Munchee biscuits following a meeting with health authorities on Wednesday .
Dr.Mendis said that Health Ministry had enquired about the authenticity of the findings from the Swiss Health Authorities which said that traces of the chemical melamine were found in Lemon Puff Munchee biscuits imported from Sri Lanka.
Lab tests
In addition, he said that specimens of the milk powder have been sent to Singapore and three other laboratories for a chemical analysis.
Once the confirmation is received from the Swiss Health Authorities, the Ministry would immediately order the withdrawal of Lemon Puff Munchee Biscuits from the market.
Swiss authorities have ordered the withdrawal of biscuits from Thailand and Sri Lanka tainted with the toxic chemical, melamine from shops on Monday.
Jude Rubera - General Manager Export of the CBL said that they are not withdrawing Munchee Lemon Puff from the European Market at present.
"Once the test reports are available, we will publish them", he told BBC Sandeshaya.
Dr. Mendis said that CBL has claimed that they had imported the milk powder from Australia and that the Ministry is now in the process of verifying their documents with Australian authorities.
Court ruling
Meanwhile, courts in Colombo warning the Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) said on Wednesday that it should not put people's lives at risk.
The Colombo Additional Magistrate Majula Thilakarathna made this observation when the CAA informed courts that it did not object to the relaxation of the ban on Edna chocolates.
Edna Chocolate (Ceylon) Ltd. requested permission to produce chocolates using milk powder imported from Australia.
Colombo Additional Magistrate Manjula Thilakarathna on Monday issued a ban on production and sale of all the products of Edna Chocolate (Ceylon) Ltd.
The order was issued after considering a petition by the CAA suspecting the company of using milk tainted with the toxic chemical Melamine.
As well as making about 50,000 babies ill, the tainted milk products have also been blamed for the deaths of four babies in China.
Melamine is used in making plastics and is high in nitrogen, which makes products appear to have a higher protein count.

Read More

Google update stomps Chrome browser bugs

Google released a developer-oriented update to its Chrome Web browser on Wednesday that fixes some crashes and video playback issues.

Chrome is still in beta testing, and for those who have an even higher tolerance for rough-around-the-edges software, Google also offers developer versions. Chrome 0.3.154.3 is the latter; see our earlier post on how to subscribe to the Chrome Dev channel.

"Release 154.0 (the most recent publicly released Chrome developer build) had a few browser crashes, including a crash on startup on tablet PCs running Windows Vista. We fixed the new crashes, and 154.3 should be much more stable," Mark Larson, Google Chrome program manager, said in a mailing list posting Wednesday evening.

The browser wars are back in force, albeit in a more standards-compliant and collegial way, and a major thrust of the resurgent competition is higher performance for faster, more sophisticated Web applications. The first beta version of Firefox 3.1, released Tuesday, brings significant improvements to JavaScript, the programming language that underlies many such applications. Microsoft is on the verge of releasing Internet Explorer 8 (though it still hasn't convinced innumerable people to upgrade even to the current version 7), and the Webkit project that forms the foundation of Apple's Safari browser is being fitted with a new JavaScript engine called Squirrelfish Extreme.

Other fixes addressed problems with plug-ins such as a bug that could hang video playback after a second or a plug-in priority issue that cause the browser to become unresponsive. Chrome can use the Mozilla Firefox versions of plug-ins such as Adobe Systems' Flash.

In the security department, Chrome requires more manual intervention before users can save executable files with .exe, .bat, and .dll extensions.

Chrome is open-source software, and Google credited two outside programmers for their contributions.

Read More

Manage your home network better with Network Magic 5.0

Cisco announced on Thursday Network Magic 5.0, a suite of network management software. This is is the first product released by Cisco since its acquisition of Pure Networks earlier this year.

The suite provides an array of tools for users to visualize, manage and get a variety of network tasks done. These tasks include: connecting and sharing computers' content or printer, controlling how computers on the network access the Internet, repairing connection and performance problems, optimizing performance and reliability and so on.

I tried the software briefly and really liked the Network Map function where all devices that connect to your network are revealed, regardless if they are printers, computers, handheld or any other types of network devices. The software even show a message each time a new device connects to your network. Other information such as the detailed status, network advisory etc. can also come in handy.

One thing to keep i mind though, the software installs a few items that run by themselves in the background each time you start the computer, including Pure Network Platform and the Network Magic front end software. These can potentially slow down your computer.

Network Magic comes in two commercial versions. The Network Magic Essentials ($29.99) is built for users who only require the basic functionality of the software, such as connecting two or three PCs to a share a network connection, files or a printer. Network Magic Pro ( $49.99) provides a broader set of capabilities for managing and securing the network. The Pro version supports a Mac Add-On client ($25) that allows for getting a Mac managed the way a PC would be via the network.

Read More

eBay issues gloomy forecast as tech stocks tank again

Online auction giant eBay lowered its fourth-quarter revenue expectations and reported third-quarter numbers that met analyst forecasts.

Company executives said Wednesday that it expected fourth-quarter profit to come in between 25 cents to 27 cents per share, compared with the 39 cents it reported during the same period in 2007.

For the third quarter, eBay's earnings came in at the low end of Wall Street expectations with revenues of $2.12 billion, up $228 million from the third quarter of 2007. Net profit was $492 million, or 38 cents per share. Analysts predicted that eBay's earnings for the quarter would be between $2.1 billion and $2.15 billion.

The company's shares fell 13.6 percent, or $2.41, to close trading Wednesday at $15.33. In after hours, shares of eBay were trading at 14.22, down $1.11 or 7 percent. The markets, however, suffered another bloodbath and eBay was in no way the only tech stock that was punished. The CNET Tech Index closed down 7.9 percent at 1,131.56.

The Nasdaq fell 247.45 points or 6.8 percent. Shares of Apple dropped more than 5 percent to close at $97.95, and eBay rival Amazon finished the day at $48.72, down 12 percent. Microsoft shares fell nearly 6 percent to $22.66.

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay warned last week that the ailing economy was hampering efforts to spur growth in auctions. The company also told investors that it was planning a 10 percent staff reduction.

Read More

Google to buy GeoEye satellite imagery

Google has signed a deal under which GeoEye will supply the search giant with imagery from a satellite due to launch in coming days, the companies said.

Under the deal, Google is the exclusive online mapping site that may use the imagery, said Mark Brender, vice president of corporate communications and marketing. Google uses satellite imagery in its Google Maps and Google Earth product.

And as a little icing on the cake, Google's logo is on the side of the rocket set to launch the 4,300-pound satellite in six days from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

GeoEye-1 will orbit 423 miles above Earth, but it will be able to gather imagery with details the size of 41 centimeters, Brender said. Google, though, is permitted to use data only with a resolution of 50cm because of the terms of GeoEye's license with the U.S. government.

Each day, the satellite will be able to gather a high-resolution "pan-sharpened" format surface area equal to that of about New Mexico, the company said.

"The GeoEye-1 satellite has the highest ground resolution color imagery available in the commercial marketplace and will produce high-quality imagery with a very accurate geolocation," said Google spokeswoman Kate Hurowitz, adding that most commercial satellite imagery has a resolution of 60cm. "It is our goal to display high-resolution imagery for as much of the world as possible, and GeoEye-1 will help further that goal."

ITT built the imaging subsystem, and General Dynamics built the overall satellite, Brender said. GeoEye also contracted with ITT for the imaging in the GeoEye-2 satellite, due to launch in 2011 or 2012, Brender said. According to ITT, that satellite will have a resolution of 25cm, or about 9.75 inches.

Google's current imagery in Google Earth spans a range of resolution, the coarsest being 15 square meters per pixel, which is only good enough to see larger geographic features.

Read More

Windows Mobile Running On iPhone is a Sonic Emotion hoax

A young Norwegian developer named Erik Kristiansen has apparently come up with a way of dual booting Windows Mobile OS on the iPhone in what seems to be the hack of the year; Apple being notoriously protective of its popular mobile platform.

But there are (obvious) signs that this is nothing more than an elaborate viral hoax. The site where the video is hosted, myphone2008.com, is supposedly the showcase for an exciting iPhone apps and gadgets event. The problem is that there are no reports online about an event that took place form the 26th to the 28th of September.

Surely if it was as popular as it reckons, it would have been picked up earlier by techcrunch, mashable and other blogs/news outlets out there and to make things worse, the domain name has been registered on the 14th of August 2008 and has no further information as to who is organising the event.

And the other highlights of the events include a real time food analyser using the iPhone as well as using the iPhone as a metal detector made by "Serling Technologies", a company that doesn't exist.

Need further proof? The screen presses are not accurate and Windows Mobile does not technically support the iPhone resolution.

Anyway, what nails the hoax is the fact that the guys behind the whole hoax left their signature in the contact page as well as the name of their client, Sonic Emotion.

Well done Fadeout GmBH, at least you had the world talking about your hoax. Still, that would be a great idea to have Bootcamp Mobile.

Read More

Plunge in RIM's shares could attract takeover bid

TORONTO (Reuters) - The recent plunge in the market value of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion could leave the company vulnerable to a takeover from a well-capitalized buyer such as Microsoft Corp.

RIM's shares, which were worth more than $148 on the Nasdaq market just four months ago, now are trading around the $60 mark amid the U.S. financial crisis and margin pressures the company is experiencing because of expenses related to launching new smartphones.

Microsoft, meanwhile, is striving to remain competitive against Internet mammoth Google Inc, which has made recent forays into mobile phone technology, and against Apple Inc, the maker of the popular iPhone.

"RIM is a massive strategic fit" for Microsoft, said Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek. "I'm fairly certain they have a standing offer to buy them at $50 (a share)."

In that scenario, RIM would have to continue declining to at least $40, thus allowing an offer of $50 to stand as a premium bid.

At current levels of $60 a share, RIM has a market value of about $34 billion. An offer of $50 a share would value the company at just over $28 billion.

Microsoft had no comment.

A HIGH-PROFILE MARRIAGE

Rumors of Microsoft's interest in Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM have swirled in the past, but no deal has ever materialized. A marriage of the two companies would bring together two of the best-known high-tech names in the world and give Microsoft a formidable wireless-handset presence through access to RIM's roughly 20 million BlackBerry subscribers.

Microsoft has the balance-sheet strength to do such a deal, with $23.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments as of June 30. That, combined with an equity component, would mean it could avoid the debt markets in financing an offer.

"If you did a stock and cash deal, you wouldn't need to tap the credit markets," said Mark McQueen, chief executive of Wellington Financial LP in Toronto.

If an offer with a significant premium materialized, some investors could find it hard to resist, he said, even though RIM stock is currently trading at depressed levels.

"The people I've talked to who deal with institutional investors every day say they would look at this as a gift," McQueen said. "In this particular climate, you have to part with your loved ones sometimes."

COULD CO-CEOS OPPOSE A DEAL?

It's possible that Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, the co-CEOs of RIM, could try to resist a takeover, preferring instead to stand as an independent company.

"Jim and Mike are a serious part of the show," said Duncan Stewart, president of Duncan Stewart Asset Management. "It would be tough to do a hostile deal on RIM."

The two men have steered the company from its infancy through its growth stages and into its emergence as one of the best known smartphone manufacturers in the world.

Still, McQueen said, if Microsoft offered the two CEOs several billion dollars for their stake and then asked them to stay on to help continue growing the company's business, "that might be a compelling proposition compared to taking up golf and retiring."

Read More

General Motors and Chrysler have held merger talks, reports say

General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC have held preliminary talks about a merger or an acquisition of Chrysler by GM, according to published reports Saturday.

The Wall Street Journal, citing people it described as familiar with the discussions, said Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity firm that owns 80.1 per cent of Chrysler and 51 per cent of GMAC Financial Services, proposed trading Chrysler's automotive operations to GM.

The Journal said Cerberus would receive GM's remaining 49 per cent stake in GMAC.

The New York Times, also citing people familiar with the talks, said the automakers were discussing a merger. The Times did not mention GMAC, a traditional auto lender hit hard by the housing market downturn.

The talks have stalled because of the recent turmoil in the financial markets, according to the Journal. Its sources said negotiations could resume if markets stabilize because both GM and Cerberus want to quickly divest the assets under discussion.

The negotiations between 100-year-old GM and 83-year-old Chrysler began more than a month ago, according to the Times. Its sources said the chances of a merger were "50-50" as of Friday and likely would take weeks to complete.

Both newspapers posted their stories on their websites late Friday.

"Without referencing this specific rumor, as we've often said, GM officials routinely discuss issues of mutual interest with other automakers," GM spokesman Tony Cervone said.

"The company is looking at a number of potential global partnerships as it explores growth opportunities around the world," Chrysler spokeswoman Lori McTavish said.

"Beyond those partnerships already announced however, Chrysler has not formed any new agreements and has no further announcements to make at this time."

Read More

Event ID: 9409 occurs every time that the Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks service (MSExchangeMTA) starts in Exchange Server 2003

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

SYMPTOMS
On a computer that is running Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, the following event is logged in the Application log every time that the Microsoft Exchange MTA Stacks service (MSExchangeMTA) starts:

Event source: MSExchangeMTA
Event category: Field Engineering
Event ID: 9409
Date: date
Time: time
Type: Information
User: N/A
Computer: ComputerName
Description: The Microsoft MTA registry parameter Max RPC Alloc Size is missing. The default value will be used. (BASE MAIN BASE 1) (14)
This event is logged even if you do not enable extended diagnostics logging in Exchange Server 2003.

CAUSE
This issue occurs because of enhanced code security that is included in Exchange Server 2003. Exchange Server 2003 includes enhanced code security to help prevent unauthorized clients from sending packets that could cause the server to allocate large blocks of memory.

Note The event ID 9409 message is an information message. This event does not indicate a problem with Exchange Server 2003.

WORKAROUND
Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

To stop this event from being logged, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeMTA\Parameters
3. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.
4. Type Max RPC Alloc Size to name the new DWORD value, and then press ENTER.
5. Right-click Max RPC Alloc Size, and then click Modify.
6. Click Decimal, and then type the number of megabytes that you want to allow for the maximum RPC allocation in the Value data box.

The default value for this registry entry is 100 MB. This value corresponds to the following equation:
104857600/1024/1024 = 100 MB
For example, to set this value to 101 MB, type 105906176 (hexadecimal value 0x6500000). This value corresponds to the following equation:
101 * 1024 * 1024 =105906176
7. Click OK.
8. Exit Registry Editor.


This is fortunately worked for me.

Read More

MOTO Q 9h

Motorola introduces its newest QWERTY, the MOTO Q 9h running Windows Mobile 6 Standard. This sleek and robust device is packed with power, functionality and offers a cool design that satisfies the appetite of gadget lovers, business professionals and even fashion conscious consumers. The MOTO Q 9h is more than just a device — it’s a statement of power and personality. Its precise and compelling form factor highlights the devices’ visual appeal and feel. Within its lean form lies High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology for lightening fast speed and immediate downloading capabilities. The MOTO Q 9h offers a host of features such as access to corporate and personal.¹ Personal and Corporate Microsoft Exchange instant messaging are also viewable from the home screen.¹ With advanced imaging, music functionality, integrated stereo Bluetooth® wireless technology² and ample memory, the MOTO Q 9h is a mobile revolution at your fingertips!

Summary of key features:
• Simple, elegant and stylish, the ultra-slim MOTO Q 9h, at only 11.8 millimeters thick packs in a host of advanced features
• QWERTY keyboard and large, crisp display
• Quad-Band (GPRS/EDGE) functionality
• Video capture and playback at 30fps
• HSDPA technology for fast data transfers, streaming media and web browsing¹
• Connectivity: EMU, USB 2.0 full speed transfers and data access
• Integrated Class 2 Bluetooth wireless technology (A2DP, AVRCP - stereo) for hands-free connectivity with compatible Bluetooth enabled stereo devices²
• Messaging via MMS, SMS, Instant Messaging and Windows Pocket Outlook
• Supports a variety of audio formats including AMR NB, AMR WB, MWA, MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WAV, MIDI
• Video formats supported includeH.263, MPEG4, WMV, H.264 decode
• Up to 2 GB of optional removable storage space with a microSD memory slot
• Integrated 2.0 megapixel camera with digital zoom and LED photo indicator light
• Special productivity features: Opera browser, Attachment Viewer or Editor, Voice Recognition, File Manager, Voice Notes, VPN capability and Anti-Virus protection

The Motorola MOTO Q 9h is expected to be available in Q2 of 2007. For more information on pricing and product availability in your region, please check with your local Motorola representative.

Certain mobile phone features are dependent on the capabilities and settings of your service provider’s network. Additionally, certain features may not be activated by your service provider, and/or their network settings may limit the feature’s functionality. Always contact your service provider about feature availability and functionality. All features, functionality and other product specifications are based upon the latest available information and are believed to be accurate; however such product specifications are subject to change without notice or obligation.

Read More

India's 3G Unlikely to Happen Soon

While the world awaits the much-anticipated global launch of Apple's 3G-enabled iPhone on Jul. 11--and at a later launch date in some Asian markets--the news brings little meaning for the tech-savvy in India, which has yet to roll out 3G networks.

There have been inordinate delays in the launch of 3G services in India. Last year, the country's telecom and defense ministries reached an informal agreement under which the latter was to vacate about 25 MHz of 3G spectrum to meet the immediate requirements of telecom operators.

However, the spectrum issue "is far from resolved", Manesh Patel, partner, telecom advisory services at Ernst & Young India, told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.

Minister of State for Defense M. M. Pallam Raju said at a news conference, held recently in Delhi, that the National Security Advisor (NSA) is currently examining all recommendations jointly made by the defense, communication and information technology ministries before releasing the radio frequencies, to ensure national security is not compromised.

Patel said: "It's a highly politicized issue. Even after the spectrum is vacated, there are various other issues pertaining to the formatting and execution of auctions that need to be looked into."

He noted that the deployment of 3G services could still be a year or two away. "Elections are due in 2009, and 3G may not be a priority for the policymakers," Patel said.

Research house Gartner, however, is more optimistic and expects the commercial launch of 3G services in India within the next six to nine months.

"The draft guidelines have been framed and we expect the rollout of 3G in the first quarter of 2009," Madhusudan Gupta, Gartner's Asia-Pacific senior research analyst, told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.
Delay harmful for India

According to Patel, the repercussions of a delay in 3G services "can be huge".

"Companies that are waiting to be allotted 3G spectrum may delay investments in the 2G platform, even as more subscribers join the industry," he said.

At present, India has over 270 million mobile users and is adding over 8 million mobile users every month.

Other repercussions could emanate from the "pricing of the spectrum", Patel added.

The Indian government has proposed to issue fresh licenses to successful bidders in the auction for 3G spectrum. This move could pave the way for foreign and new players, besides existing 2G service providers such as Bharti, Vodafone and Idea, to participate in the bidding process. Over 340 aspirants, including AT&T, DLF and Deutsche Telecom-Moser Baer, that failed to get new telecom licenses in the previous round, may be able to resubmit bids for to launch 3G services.

"The Indian telecom market is the world's fastest growing market and players may bid very high for spectrum," Patel said. This may, in turn, push up the price of the spectrum, leading to a situation similar to what European markets experienced in 2001.

3G auctions in Europe helped fetch huge windfall taxes for the German and British governments but led to a telecom crash in these countries, thereby delaying the launch of 3G. Telecom operators in the region incurred huge debts and the industry took three years to recover.

Patel said: "It's a tricky situation. But we must learn our lessons from Europe."

Gartner's Gupta believes the launch of 3G services can solve two critical issues for mobile operators: falling average revenues per user (ARPUs), and low customer loyalty.

The local telecom industry is competitive with 14 players and offers call rates that are the lowest in the world--at around 1.5 US cents a minute. As a result, industry players have had to cope with falling ARPUs.

"The rollout of 3G situation can result in a win-win situation for both the subscribers as well as the operators," Gupta said.

India is driven by prepaid connections, which account for nearly 90 percent of the overall market. "As a result, the voluntary churn rate in India is quite high--at around 25 percent," Gupta explained, noting that this is where 3G and value added services (VAS) could play a role.

Gartner estimates VAS revenues will increase to US$5.5 billion by 2012, from US$1.5 billion in 2007. While the VAS industry will evolve with or without 3G, Gupta said revenue growth from this segment will gather momentum with the launch of 3G. "These services can also be leveraged to improve customer loyalty," he added.

However, Patel noted that mobile penetration in urban areas is already high and the next 100 million new subscribers will be low-ARPU customers.

"Their ability to pay more for VAS is extremely limited," he explained, noting instead that telecom operators "will be looking at the first 20 million mobile phone subscribers for additional revenues from 3G."

When mobile telephony was launched in India a decade ago, some subscribers were paying bills of nearly US$500 each month. Due to the drop in tariffs, their bills are now US$50 to US$75 a month.

Patel said: "Telecom operators are targeting these subscribers for their 3G services. They have the capacity to pay more."

Read More