graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista.

It is trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

IrfanView is trying to create new and/or interesting features in its own way, unlike some other graphic viewers, whose whole "creativity" is based on feature cloning, stealing of ideas and whole dialogs from ACDSee and/or IrfanView! (for example: XnView has been stealing/cloning features and whole dialogs from IrfanView, for 8+ years).

IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support.
One of the first graphic viewers WORLDWIDE with Multipage TIF support.
The first graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple ICO support.


Some IrfanView features:
Many supported file formats.
Multi language support
Thumbnail/preview option
Paint option - to draw lines, circles, arrows, straighten image etc.
Toolbar skins option
Slideshow (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD)
Show EXIF/IPTC/Comment text in Slideshow/Fullscreen etc.
Support for Adobe Photoshop Filters
Fast directory view (moving through directory)
Batch conversion (with image processing)
Multipage TIF editing
File search
Email option
Multimedia player
Print option
Support for embedded color profiles in JPG/TIF
Change color depth
Scan (batch scan) support
Cut/crop
IPTC editing
Effects (Sharpen, Blur, Adobe 8BF, Filter Factory, Filters Unlimited, etc.)
Capturing
Extract icons from EXE/DLL/ICLs
Lossless JPG rotation
Unicode support
Many hotkeys
Many command line options
Many PlugIns
Only one EXE-File, no DLLs, no Shareware messages like "I Agree" or "Evaluation expired"
No registry changes without user action/permission!
and much much more

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Wish you a Happy New Year !!!!!

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A Benchmark Strategy to Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

In the frenzy to attain or maintain the highest ranking, it's easy to get caught up in keyword bidding wars. Don't give in to this temptation. There's a better way and it begins with finding a breakeven cost-per-click benchmark.

Cost-per-click the sensible way

Let's say that you sell golf clubs online. A set of golf clubs retails for $500. Your cost to manufacture or purchase the clubs is $300 per set. If you reserve an additional $100 per set for other operating expenses, you are left with $100 per unit to spend on marketing efforts such as cost-per-click campaigns.

Now assume that of every 100 visitors to your website, one visitor buys a set of clubs (a 1% visitor-to-customer conversion rate). You have $100 to spend to attract those 100 visitors, which translates into a $1 break-even per-click benchmark. If you exceed $1 per click, you will lose money. If you pay less than $1 per click, you will make money.

It's essential to understand this benchmark when buying cost-per-click advertising. When you know the conversion rates for each of your keywords, you'll be able to bid the appropriate amount - more for the keywords with higher conversion rates, and less for the keywords with lower conversion rates.

Now, let's look at this in action. The Google Analytics Revenue per Click (RPC) metric can give you insight into how much you should spend per click on a given keyword or cost-per-click campaign. You should not assume that Revenue per Click by itself provides the correct number for your business. Revenue per Click assumes that you can spend 100% of your revenue on cost-per-click advertising. Since you will want to factor in your production and business operating costs, you should consider what percentage of your revenue you can actually spend on cost-per-click advertising, and adjust your bid accordingly.

For example, let's say that you have an RPC of $11.66 per click for "beginner golf tips". If you can spend 10% of your retail price on cost-per-click advertising, your actual bid should be 10% of $11.66 or $1.16 per click. Spending more than $1.16 per click for this keyword would cause you to lose money. Spending less than $1.16 per click for this keyword would result in profit.

I don't understand how my competitors can afford to outbid me

Maybe they can't afford it - and haven't yet discovered that they can't afford it. They may simply be caught up in the bidding war machinery. But, it's also possible that lower operating costs or higher profit margins allow them to spend a larger chunk on cost-per-click. Or, they may be getting higher conversion rates for certain keywords than you do. Study their search ad copy and research their website - you might pick up some tips on improving the conversion side of the equation on your site.

In the meantime, know that you are bidding the amount that fits your business requirements and your conversion rate.

But I don't sell online

Even if you don't sell online, you may be able to attach some monetary value to each of your website goals. Consider how much each lead you gain from your website is worth and use that to determine how much you should be spending for cost-per-click.

If you are a B-to-B site, you may convert your leads into sales offline. If you know that your sales staff closes 5% of your website leads for an average transaction profit of $1,000, you can calculate your break-even benchmark as follows:

Break-even benchmark = website conversion rate x 5% x $1,000

For a keyword that yields a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2%, and assuming that you can allocate $1,000 per transaction for cost-per-click, your break-even benchmark will be:

2% x 5% x 1,000 = $1 per click

Managing, not just measuring

Getting the most out of cost-per-click means that you must continually monitor your results with Google Analytics so that you don't over-bid. Think of web analytics as an online marketing management tool - experimenting, testing, and always improving your cost-per-click strategy to maximize your website ROI.

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Google Analytics Interface Tutorial

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SEO Tips - improve Google ranking of your website

Search Engine Optimization activities can be divided into two sets of ongoing processes: on-site optimization (ways of building and improving your website) and off-site optimization (outside factors, such as links from other websites). These techniques may be further divided into “good” SEO, that is accepted by the search engines, also known as “White Hat SEO Practices”, and the bad, techniques, such as spam, link farming, etc., that can get your website penalized or even banned from search engines like Google or Yahoo.

Here are some of my tips for working your site’s SEO:

On-Site Optimization


Choosing the right domain name
One of the first choices that you have to make when starting your website is the choice of your domain name. This is important because Google and other search engines look at your domain name when determining the relevancy of the search engine results page (SERP). It is therefore beneficial to have the keywords that you are targeting present in your domain name.

Title
Title of your web page (specified with the use of the title tag) should be descriptive and relevant to the content of your website. It is beneficial to include some of the targeted keywords and/or keyphrases in the title of your site. Also, be sure to have unique titles for every each one of your sub-pages, as it is more descriptive and increases the amount of keywords that you can use.

Keyword density
When writing content for your website, try to include all your keywords within the body of your pages. That way, when a search engine bot (crawler) indexes your website, it sees the keyphrases included in your copy, and thus can determine the relevancy of your website for a given search querry.

Header tags
Divide the content of your site into certain parts and begin each with a relevant (keyword-rich) description bound by the header tags (h1, h2, h3, etc.).

Links
Make sure that your site does not have any broken links, for it is frowned upon by the search engines. The anchor text (name that your link is displayed as) should be relevant, and keyword rich. If certain keywords are more important to you, you may increased their value in the eyes of search engines by using one of the bold and strong tags or putting them as a header.

File names
Make sure that the file names of your web pages contain the targeted keywords. For example instead of calling your gallery page gallery.html, call it fast-cars-photogallery.html (for a gallery of sports cars). Remember not to go overboard with sticking too many keywords into one file name, because it may appear too spamy to search engines.

Image alternative text.
Remember to include the alternative text for all your images . Alt text is important for a variety of reasons: it helps visually disabled people to read your website, helps when somebody is using text only web browser, it is standards compliant, and of course it is yet another place to put some more keywords.

Meta Data: description, keywords
In your html code, be sure to put adequate, not too long, not too short description of your website and the list of your keywords.

Url rewriting
Remember that you can manipulate your urls and make them more search engine friendly with such tools as .htaccess on an Apache server or the IIS on a Microsoft platform.

W3C compliant syntax
Make sure that the html you are coding is compliant with the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium. You can check your site at validator.w3.org. Some people believe that having valid html helps with your SERP, some think otherwise. In my opinion it is a good prudent and proactive step to take; it won’t hurt, but it may help. I myself, try to always use valid strict xhtml (specified in the doctype statement in the top part of your code).



Off-Site Optimization


Link building - you can submit your link for free to many websites such as:
Yahoo & Google Locals
At these sites you can submit your business listing, and not only get a valuable link from an important, high PR site, but also increase your brand awareness and potentially land some business deals.

Directories (DMOZ, Yahoo Directories (paid listing), etc.)
There is an abundance of online directories floating on the internet. Some of them are free such as DMOZ (very hard to get listed, but extremely beneficial to your SEO and eMarketing efforts), some offer paid inclusion (Yahoo directories, I think annual fee of $290), and some offer you a listing in exchange for a link back to their site. Be careful with linking to those directories because some might be treated as link-farms and will get you penalized by the search engines. If linking to a directory, find out if it is a legitimate website first. Also, try linking only to those sites that are related to yours in some way.

Video sharing (Youtube.com, Google Videos, etc.)
If you have some skills at shooting interesting videos or making video tutorials (such as a SEO tutorial or a witty Photoshop technique tutorial) you can post them on a variety of video-sharing networks, and put a link to your website in the description of your input.

Social Networking (MySpace.com, Facebook.com, etc.)
Social networking sites are a great way to show of your business along with your website to the world. A profile on MySpace or Facebook can gain you new clients, help to stay in touch with existing ones, develop business relations with other companies, and be a source of links and traffic to your website.

Blogs (blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.)
Blogs, similarly to social networking sites, are a good way of sharing information about your business/website with the world. By writing relevant content, you can gain links and exposure

Message boards, forums
Digg.com
Wikipedia.org
Google Pages
Link Exchange
Email Marketing/Newsletter
A company online newsletter can keep your visitors updated and in touch with your website. Marketing emails can also attract possible clients for your business. If you decide to engage in an email marketing campaign, keep one thing in mind: “Don’t SPAM!”

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How to Become an SEO Specialist?

STEP 1: Learn the Basics of SEO

This step should be relatively easy. There are many sources out there that will explain what exactly SEO is and what activities are involved. If you prefer books, you can look up some kind of SEO book, like “SEO 101″ or some such, but as I said, all this information is available online. Feel free to read up about the subject on my blog, the SEO and Web Design Guide. To learn the search engine optimization essentials, make sure to read on my article entitled: “Improve Google rankings of your website.”

STEP2: Start a SEO Website

Whether to a prospective client or an employer, you will have to prove that you have some knowledge and experience in the field and what better way to do that if not starting an SEO themed website? Don’t create the website ad hoc - go through the actual Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) of the website. Start with the planning phase and have the whole concept ready before you start the design and coding parts. I’m a firm believer that to work in internet marketing you should manage at least one website from grounds up - from design and content writing to SEO and PPC.

STEP3: Get Ranked

Use your newly acquired knowledge to optimize your website - remember to write lots of quality content and get some good inbound links - submit a press release or two. Do your keyword research and decide what phrases to target. Don’t shoot for the stars right at first, pick something that you can achieve relatively quickly just to show some results for your efforts. Target your geographical area. Good keyword examples would be “New York SEO Service”, “Detroit SEO Consultant” or “Florida SEO Freelancer” for instance - Chicago SEO in my case. Rankings for such phrases might not necessarily bring you a ton of traffic but it’s a start and you will have some proof of your SEO skills.

STEP4: Build Your Portfolio

To close a deal with any serious client, you’ll need some references - a nice portfolio might come in handy here. Go for some smaller, less demanding clients for start - the bigger fish will come when you make a mark for yourself. You can help your friends and family with their websites, pro bono or for a small fee - the choice is yours. You can also simply design some websites for yourself and get them ranked (if they start getting some nice traffic, you can always sell them or load them up with AdSense), just to have that portfolio ready.

STEP5: Get Some Leads

By now you should have enough skill and credentials to go out there and get some new clients. Your website can be a valuable source of leads, if you don’t get enough traffic yet, then a Pay-Per-Click network, such as Google AdWords or Yahoo! Marketing Solutions, might be a good source of conversions. PPC campaigns might turn costly, but if you can afford it, then you could kill two birds with one stone. On one hand you’ll be getting clicks from potential customers and on the other you will gain valuable experience and insight into PPC management - a services that you can offer your future clients. Other ways of getting leads include the word of mouth (do as much networking as possible, invest in business cards and be extra nice to your friends and family!), freelance websites (client sends a Request for Proposal and freelancers submit their bids), email blasts (try not to cross the thin line on the border of spam), and cold calls, among others. If you decide on cold calling people, you’ll have to steel your nerves. Many people don’t appreciate being solicited and may have a few unkind words for you or will simply hang up on you, so don’t get discouraged! A good tip for cold calls: look for people that do PPC (sponsored results on the right hand side of search engine result page), if they already spend money for every click then you know that those clicks are important to them and you are about to offer them FREE clicks!

STEP6: Land Those Deals!

When trying to close the deal, make sure the client knows the full benefit package that he’s getting - this will help double time if the client is already doing PPC - they understand the worth of traffic and you’re about to considerably cut their costs. Another important thing is being honest. Don’t try hiding every thing. If the client asks what have you done or what your plans are, be open about it. You can safely disclose your strategy to the client - they’ll defer to your expertise and experience. If you are overly close-mouthed, your client may accuse you of lack of communication or simply lack of service (if you can’t tell them what you’re doing then you probably aren’t doing anything). Besides, the client spends his hard earned money with you, so he or she is entitled to be informed.

STEP7: Do Your Work!

Did you get that deal? Nice, now lets go to work. You should know what to do by now but lets go through it again - do your research (Word Tracker or Google AdWords keyword tool are great resources). Make sure you cover all the basics of on-page optimization: titles, meta tags, headers, bold text and inter-linking will give you basis for your further work. Write some good, keyword rich text but avoid keyword stuffing! Start your link building campaign - submit the site to DMOZ and other directories, start local listings and do a fair amount of link begging (hey, lets be honest…). When the website gets re-crawled - review and reinforce. Remember: content is the king, links are when the king goes to war!

STEP8: Follow-up With Your Client

Make sure that you periodically follow up with your clients. A quick email or a simple call once in a while can do wonders in terms of customer satisfaction. If you’re calling to let them know about some good ranking that you just achieved for them, have them open up Google and type in their keywords and tell you what they see - you may be pleasantly surprised at their reaction! You can always reinforce your emails with an attachment - a nice report from Google Analytics with increased traffic has a way of keeping a client happy.

STEP9: Up-sale

Even the most satisfied clients have room for improvement. A redesign of their website might increase the conversion rate, optimizing their AdWords account may lower their cost per click (CPC), a nice press release may drive significant, and I mean SIGNIFICANT, increase in traffic for a period of time. If you’ve proven yourself to the client and gave him or her a good bang for their buck, they will be willing to listen to you. If you make your case and show them how the additional services that you provide will make them more money, they will go for it. Make them money and they will be more than happy to pay your fees - sky’s the limit!

STEP10: Get Referrals and Update Portfolio

Make sure that you have nice recommendations from your very satisfied client - stick them on your website, update a portfolio and shamelessly take advantage of it when closing a new deal. It is always worth the time and effort to write a nice case study after a successful campaign and upload it to your website - several nice ones and your conversion rate will soar!

STEP11: At this point you should be able to tell which is more feasible for yourself - staying a freelancer (freedom, sweet freedom) or joining an agency (benefits+paid vacation time+sales team handy). By now you should have enough evidence to support your resume to get an agency job without much problem, so the choice is yours!

STEP12: Go back to the first step and go over the cycle again - this time try just a little bit harder. Don’t ever assume you know everything, because there is always room for improvement. There are new techniques and new ways of accomplishing your goals. Look at this as a process of ongoing improvement, we live and learn.

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Free Clipboard Manager for keeping the clipboard history

The contents of the standard Windows clipboard constantly change as you use it to copy and paste various information. But your data isn't stored for a long time - when you turn off the computer or just copy some other text, the data is lost.


In most cases, that isn't a problem, but have you ever needed the text you copied 30 minutes or an hour ago? Maybe your computer is hanging and the program hasn't saved the data, or maybe you copied some interesting information from a web page, but got distracted and forgot to paste it where you wanted? Or you may simply want to recall what you were doing at the computer a month or a year ago. There are many cases in which you might want to review your clipboard content.

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ClipX

ClipX is a tiny clipboard history manager. It is sweet, it is free, use it.

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Universal Extractor

Universal Extractor is a program do to exactly what it says: extract files from any type of archive, whether it's a simple zip file, an installation program, or even a Windows Installer (.msi) package. This is still a work in progress, but so far it's proven quite useful and I feel others can also benefit from it.

I should stress that Universal Extractor is not intended to be a general purpose archiving software. It will never replace WinRAR, 7-Zip, etc. What it will do is allow you to extract files from virtually any type of archive, regardless of source, compression method, etc.

The original motivation behind this project was that I wanted an easy, convenient way to extract files from installation packages, such as Inno Setup or Windows Installer packages, without pulling up a command line every time. In the process I got a little carried away and ended up throwing in support for every kind of archive format I possibly could find.

Supported Formats

Archive Type Common File Extension(s)
7-zip archive .7z, .exe
ACE archive .ace
ARC archive .arc
ARJ archive .arj, .exe
ASpack compressed file .exe
BIN/CUE CD-ROM image .bin, .cue
bzip2 archive .bz2, .tbz2, .tar.bz2
CPIO compressed file .cpio
Debian package .deb
DiscJuggler CD-ROM image .cdi
Encoded files .b64, .uu, .uue, .xx, .xxe, .yenc, .ntx
Gentee package .exe
gzip archive .gz, .tgz, .tar.gz
IMG floppy disk image .img
Inno Setup package .exe
Installer VISE package .exe
InstallShield Cabinet archive .cab, .1, .lib
InstallShield package .exe
ISO 9660 CD-ROM image .iso
KGB archive .kgb, kge, .exe
LZH compressed file .lzh, .lha
LZMA compressed file .lzma
LZO compressed file .lzo
LZW compressed file .Z, .tz, .tar.Z
LZX compressed file .lzx
MHTML file .mht
Microsoft Cabinet archive .cab, .exe, .imf
Microsoft Compiled Help file .chm
Microsoft compressed file .??_
Microsoft LIT e-book .lit

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CD/DVD Drive Letter Missing from My Computer

Here are the steps to fix the CD or DVD drive not appearing in My Computer:
1. Go to run (or hit Win+R), type Regedit and click OK.
2. Expand My Computer in Registry Editor, and then expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
2. Expand SYSTEM, and then expand CurrentControlSet.
3. Expand Control, and then expand Class.
4. Under Class, click {4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}.
5. In the details pane of Registry Editor, on the right side, delete UpperFilters and also LowerFilters.

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PayPal XSS Vulnerability Undermines EV SSL Security

A security researcher in Finland has discovered a cross-site scripting vulnerability on paypal.com that would allow hackers to carry out highly plausible attacks, adding their own content to the site and stealing credentials from users.

The vulnerability is made worse by the fact that the affected page uses an Extended Validation SSL certificate, which causes the browser's address bar to turn green, assuring visitors that the site – and its content – belongs to PayPal. Two years ago, a similar vulnerability was discovered on a different page of the PayPal site, which also used an SSL certificate

Harry Sintonen discovered the vulnerability and announced it to other web application security specialists in an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel today. Sintonen told Netcraft that the issue was critical, adding that, "you could easily steal credentials," and, "PayPal says you can trust the URL if it begins with https://www.paypal.com," which is not true in this case.

While SSL certificates do indeed provide a higher level of assurance when it comes to site ownership, they cannot guarantee that a site is free from other security problems – including cross-site scripting. There are concerns that hackers may exploit misunderstandings in the significance of the green address bar for their own benefit, piggybacking off the trust that is instilled by EV certificates. Users need to be aware that a green address bar does not guarantee the origin of a page's contents if there is a cross-site scripting vulnerability on that page.

The vulnerability comes to light only a month after PayPal published a practical approach to managing phishing on their blog, which extols the use of Extended Validation certificates in preventing phishing. The document describes browsers that do not support EV certificates as "unsafe" and announces the company's plans to block customers from accessing their website from the most unsafe browsers.

PayPal was one of the first companies to adopt EV certificates and the company says it has seen noticeably lower abandonment rates on signup flows for Internet Explorer 7 users versus other browsers. According to the document, PayPal believe this correlates closely to user interface changes triggered by their use of EV certificates.

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FREE PDF Printer

The Bullzip PDF Printer works as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write PDF documents from virtually any Microsoft Windows application.

This program is FREEWARE with limitations, which means that it is FREE for personal and commercial use up to 10 users.

Features

Print to PDF from almost any Windows program.
Runs on Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/XP x64/2003/2003 x64/Vista/Vista x64/2008.
Supports 64-bit operating systems.
Direct output to the same file each time or prompt for destination.
Control if the printer should ask if you want to see the resulting PDF document.
Control output and prompts programmatically.
Setup can run unattended.
Graphical user interface.
Password protect PDF documents.
128/40 bit encryption.
Quality settings (screen, printer, ebook, prepress).
Set document properties.
Watermark text, size, rotation, and transparency.
Superimpose/background documents.
Appending/prepending documents.
User interface control.
Command line interface to all settings.
COM/ActiveX interface for programmatic control.
Support for Citrix MetaFrame
Support for Windows Terminal Server
Multiple output types supported: BMP, JPEG, PCX, PDF, PNG, and TIFF.

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Bank Sale -

Sri Lanka's Ceylinco group will exit Seylan Bank, a licensed commercial bank, as part of a strategy to raise funds and repay depositors in a troubled group company, chairman Lalith Kotelawala said in a public statement.

Golden Key Credit Card Company failed to repay customers who had placed funds in the firm as a deposit for a credit card. Kotelawala who met customers on Tuesday promised to repay them.

"I have therefore now taken a decision to divest the investment in my beloved bank, Seylan Bank, which I founded 20 years ago and honour the debts of Golden Key Card holders," Kotelawala said in a public statement placed in newspapers.

"I will be taking necessary steps to obtain permission from the relevant regulatory authorities in this regard."

Kotelawala said Seylan is the third largest private sector bank in the island. The bank has over 100 branches.

LBO learns that discussions are underway to find a local or foreign bank to take-over Seylan.

Seylan Bank closed down 75 cents at 15.75 Friday, but analysts say a controlling stake would be worth much more.

Commercial banking licenses are also no longer issued and the minimum capital requirement for a bank is around two billion rupees.

"I have always believed in doing the right thing in life, however painful it may be," Kotelawala said.

Seylan is Sri Lanka's fifth-largest licensed commercial bank, accounting for 5.7 percent of banking system assets at the end of the financial year 2007, according to a Fitch Ratings report.

The Ceylinco group holds 23 percent of its voting equity while several employee share ownership trusts collectively hold another 27 percent of Seylan's voting equity.

Seylan Bank has 43,560,000 Voting Ordinary Shares in issue which valued at the current price of 15.75 rupees a share would be worth 686 million rupees.

Seylan Bank had total deposits of 119 billion rupees and total assets of 166 billion rupees as at September 30, 2008 while total performing loans and advances were at 93.7 billion rupees, according to a stock exchange filing.

In July Fitch Fitch Ratings downgraded Seylan Bank's national long term credit rating by one notch to 'BBB+' which is still in the investment grade category.

The rating agency said at the time that the downgrade reflected the increased challenges faced by the bank in absorbing credit losses in a weakened economy with a relatively low capital cushion and profitability, and challenges in raising fresh equity capital.

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Key Problem - Sri Lanka Ceylinco chief says Golden Key mismanaged, boss resigned

Golden Key Credit Card Company is being rehabilitated after it was mismanaged and its chief executive has resigned, Sri Lanka's Ceylinco group chief Lalith Kotelawala, said in a newspaper advertisement.
Kotelawala said Khavan M Perera, chief executive director of Gold Key Credit Card Company Ltd has "admitted mismanagement and voluntarily handed over his passport."

He had also resigned from the directorates of Seylan Bank and The Finance Company, which are listed companies.

The Ceylinco group has a long history in financial services, and is involved in banking, finance services, property development and a numerous other activities.

"During the last three days, group chairpersons and I realized that The Golden Key Credit Card Company has been involved in a major Credit Card scam," he said.

"The employees of The Golden Key Credit Card Company are only now revealing to us Mr S Khavan M Perera's involvement."

Kotelawala said he will inform the public of the progress of a "rehabilitation plan" for Golden Key and "payment and protection" of customers.

Golden Key customers say they have been experiencing delays in getting cash out of the firm in recent days.

In a separate advertisement Golden Key customers have been summoned for a meeting at Colombo's BMICH hall at 2.00 pm on Tuesday.

For customers outside Colombo the meeting is on the next day.

Financial analysts say it is important to isolate the liquidity problem within the company.

In the past, when interest rates were high, and the property sector took a downturn firms outside the prime commercial bank sector were the hardest hit.

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Golden Key Fraud in Sri Lanka

In the wake of the latest developments regarding the Golden Key Credit Card Company Ltd, the Founder Chairman of Ceylinco Consolidated, Dr. Lalith Kotelawala assured its customers payments and protection for its card holders.

The Chairman stated that on Friday 19th that he sought the advice of legal counsel and consulted the authorities including the CID because the Chief Executive Director of the Golden Key Credit Card Co. Ltd, S. Khavan M. Perera, admitted to mismanagement of the company and voluntarily handed over his passport. Mr. Khavan Perera also tendered his resignation from his directorates of Seylan Bank PLC and The Finance Co. PLC.

Furthermore, Dr. Lalith Kotelawala issued a public statement that during the last few days, he realised that the Golden Key has been involved in a major credit card fraud and that the employees of Golden Key are now beginning to reveal certain facts regarding the involvement of Mr. Khavan Perera.

In a press statement, Dr. Kotelawala stated that he has experienced only two such incidents in the past at very senior levels in the Ceylinco Group of Companies. We survived and both companies are now strong and healthy, one of them even winning a Presidential Export Award this year. Many customers tell me that they placed money in the Ceylinco Group of Companies because of the trust and confidence they have in me, he added.

Former (as of 19th December) Chief Executive Director/ Deputy Chairman, S. Khavan. M. Perera was functioning as the Deputy Chairman/ Chief Executive of 35 subsidiaries and was on the board of directors of approximately 20 other subsidiaries of Ceylinco Consolidated (Pvt) Ltd.

The Financial Times has been informed that Golden Key Credit Card Co. Ltd. was involved in accepting public deposits offering higher interest rates ranging from 24% to 28.5% per annum without being a Licensed Financial Institution approved by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

This was confirmed by a senior official of the Central Bank who also said that the bank is closely monitoring current developments.

One such depositor who wanted to remain anonymous stated that he realised certain interest payments by cheques were bouncing from the beginning of December 2008 and company officials convinced them that the payments will be settled by January 15th 2009. Further he stressed that from the second week of December 2008, Golden Key Credit Co. Ltd. had changed the conditions for the deposit withdrawals stating that the customer was to inform 45 days in advance in order to withdraw his money, whereas initially it was just 7 days notice. Another depositor (of over Rs.10 million) also claimed that he found out the resignation of Mr. Khavan Perera had taken place as a consequence of an internal audit conducted under the guidance of the Ceylinco Group Chairman, Dr. Lalith Kotelawala after finding out that depositors of Golden Key were withdrawing money on a large scale.

Last Thursday (Dec. 18th) when the Financial Times contacted Mr. Khavan Perera regarding the issue, he stated that Though there have been lots of rumours that the company is having financial difficulties, there is no such major financial issue. However after it was publicly announced on Monday Dec. 22nd that Mr.Perera admitted to mismanagement on Friday (19th), neither he nor the Finance Director of Golden Key Credit Co. Ltd. were available for comment.

The Financial Times has been informed that currently, control of the Golden Key Credit Co. Ltd. and its subsidiaries, (including Golden Key ENT Hospital (Pvt) Ltd.) have been handed over to the Board of Directors of Ceylinco Insurance PLC. However Chief Executive Director of Ceylinco Life, R. Renganathan said that he is not in a position to comment whilst Chief Executive Director of Ceylinco Insurance PLC Ajith Gunawardena stated on Thursday that he is not aware of such a change since he was out of country.

In a separate advertisement Golden Key customers have been summoned for a meeting at Colombo`s BMICH at 2pm on Tuesday the 23rd December.

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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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How to add a disclaimer to outgoing SMTP messages in Visual Basic script

Create the event sink
To create an event sink, paste the following code in a new file and save it as EventSinkScript.vbs.
Register the event sink
To register your event sink, use the Smtpreg.vbs file, which is installed with the Exchange SDK. From a command prompt, browse to the ...\Exchange SDK\SDK\Support\CDO\Scripts folder and type the following (make sure that the path to EventSinkScript.vbs is correct):
cscript smtpreg.vbs /add 1 onarrival SMTPScriptingHost CDO.SS_SMTPOnArrivalSink "mail from=*@your-domain-here.com"
cscript smtpreg.vbs /setprop 1 onarrival SMTPScriptingHost Sink ScriptName "C:\EventSinkScript.vbs"
If the command succeeds, you receive a success message generated by the script.

To unregister this event, type the following:
cscript smtpreg.vbs /remove 1 OnArrival SMTPScriptingHost
For more information on registering events with Smtpreg.vbs, see the "Managing Event Bindings" topic on the following MSDN Web site:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms526620(EXCHG.10).aspx For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
324021 How to create a "catchall" mailbox sink for Exchange Server

Test the event sink
To test your sink, send an e-mail message to an SMTP recipient who is external to your organization. The recipient should receive a modified message with the disclaimer added to the end of the message.

Note If you use a MAPI client such as Microsoft Outlook to send the e-mail and if the Exchange mailbox resides on the same server as the event sink binding, the recipient may not receive the modified message. This is because messages that are submitted by using MAPI are not in SMTP format when the e-mail triggers the SMTP transport event. Therefore, changes that are made by the event's code are not persisted.


This is working for me....

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Remotely Recover Deleted Files on Network Computers for Free

Earlier this year I’ve shared with you 10 free data recovery software that you can use to recover accidentally deleted files from your computer. All of 10 free data recovery software can only recover data on local computer. Today I discovered a very cool network data recovery software called Smart Data Recovery Enterprise where you can remotely scan, search and recover deleted files on a remote computer.
Network data recovery is handy when it comes to big offices, large corporations or even at home networks. The demand is there, causing outrageous prices for remote data recovery solutions. Don’t be fooled by the word “enterprise” in the software title where it usually means expensive shareware. Surprisingly this tool is absolutely free and there are no terms saying that this can only be used at home!

Smart Data Recovery Enterprise offers system administrators a free and reliable way to secure corporate networks against data loss that occurs when the users accidentally delete files. The remote recovery allows network administrators to locate and recover deleted files remotely over the network without leaving your chair.
.............

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TeamViewer

TeamViewer offers a clean and simple to use interface.
When connecting, you decide if you want to remote control your partner, show your own desktop to a partner or if you only want to transfer files without sharing your desktop - all versions of TeamViewer include all modes!

All versions of TeamViewer include full file transfer with file and folder copy. For maximum speed all data is automatically compressed before transmission.

All versions of TeamViewer include full file transfer with file and folder copy. For maximum speed all data is automatically compressed before transmission.

TeamViewer offers a lot of options to customize the software exactly how you want to have it.
You can decide if you prefer speed or quality of the display, you can customize the invitation mail that can be sent to your partners etc.

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TomTom Releases Free Online Router Planner

In an attempt to take on Google Maps, TomTom, the Sat-nav device maker, has announced to launch a free online route planner that has been released into closed beta.

The web-based route planner will facilitate travellers pre-plan their trips in an effective way, with huge amount of handy information, like real-time traffic updates, and details on speed measurements to reckon exact travel and arrival times.

The device will utilise live traffic information, including HD traffic from TomTom, which derives required information from devices employed on the road, thereby help users in pre-planning their trips in a better way.

In addition, the planner is also equipped to plot the necessary information about distinct routes depending on the precise time and day of trip, on the basis of average road speed information gathered by TomTom.

Initially, the service will be available to selected beta users only, but it will gradually be introduced worldwide, depending on its performance and feedback from the users.

With its in-built MapShare technology, the maps in the application will be updated every day, which will help users pointing out respective changes in their devices.

Quoting the credibility of the device, TomTom’s CEO, Harold Goddijn said, “Users who do not have a navigation device can now also benefit from our high-quality routing before starting their journey, giving them a chance to plan their day more efficiently than ever before”.

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FREE Norton Internet Security 2009 Subscription Valid for More Than 1 Year (460 Days)

Yesterday I’ve shared with you all a trick on how to get free 1 year subscription for Norton Antivirus 2009 so you don’t need to resort to other illegal methods such as cracks or trial reset tool which could possibly make NIS 2009 unstable. The difference between Norton Antivirus 2009 and Norton Internet Security 2009 is the internet security is a complete security application for your computer which includes two-way firewall for intrusion prevention, parental controls and confidential information blocking, antispam, identify protection and much more. In short, the features are equivalence to Kaspersky Internet Security 2009.
free Norton Internet Security 2009
So if Norton Internet Security 2009 is your preferred security application to help you keep your computer away from viruses and hackers, here is a trick on how to obtain a free Norton Internet Security 2009 subscription that is valid for more than a year or 460 days to be precise. Just for your information, normally Norton Internet Security 2009 one year protection for 1 PC cost $49.99.

If you’ve missed yesterday’s article, the concept on how to get a total of 460 days subscription for Norton Internet Security 2009 is the same. I found a total of 4 NIS 2009 OEM installers (3 x 90 days + 1 x 30 days) and another 3 from a nice guy named teels from Korea which would give you a total of 460 days NIS 2009 subscription. You’ll need to install the first OEM NIS 2009 installer, use it until it nearly expires, then install the second OEM installer. Continue doing that until you reach the last one. Hopefully by then I’ll have other better way which could give extend your subscription period. If you’re unable to uninstall Norton Internet Security 2009, you can use this removal tool by Norton to manually uninstall it. It is important not to let any of the OEM expire because I got reports that once an OEM subscription expires, installing the second one won’t give you an extra 90 days subscription.



I noticed that the 90 days OEM installer will automatically reset when you install another 90 days OEM installer. However I noticed that the 30 days OEM installer by Dell will not reset. So if your plan is to switch between two 90 days OEM installer, you could be using it for a very long time until Norton decides to do something about it.

Symantec claims that Norton Internet Security is a “PROVEN” fastest security suite available which I believe it is true. The scanning engine is so light that sometimes you won’t even feel that you have a full security suite installed and running on your computer. It is important that you run Norton LiveUpdate immediately after installation so that you’ll have the latest virus signature and also latest engine. Norton Internet Security 2009 also has a very smart memory management which is able to automatically reduce its memory usage from 30MB+ to 7MB+. I ran a full scan and Norton Internet Security 2009 took 1120 seconds to scan 75029 items which is slower than Norton Antivirus. Also, NIS by default automatically deletes any found threats including cracks and keygenerators but it can be restored from the Quarantine area.

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10 mistakes new Linux administrators make

For many, migrating to Linux is a rite of passage that equates to a thing of joy. For others, it’s a nightmare waiting to happen. It’s wonderful when it’s the former; it’s a real show stopper when it’s the latter. But that nightmare doesn’t have to happen, especially when you know, first hand, the most common mistakes new Linux administrators make. This article will help you avoid those mistakes by laying out the most typical Linux missteps.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Installing applications from various types

This might not seem like such a bad idea at first. You are running Ubuntu so you know the package management system uses .deb packages. But there are a number of applications that you find only in source form. No big deal right? They install, they work. Why shouldn’t you? Simple, your package management system can’t keep track of what you have installed if it’s installed from source. So what happens when package A (that you installed from source) depends upon package B (that was installed from a .deb binary) and package B is upgraded from the update manager? Package A might still work or it might not. But if both package A and B are installed from .debs, the chances of them both working are far higher. Also, updating packages is much easier when all packages are from the same binary type.

#2: Neglecting updates

Okay, this one doesn’t point out Linux as much as it does poor administration skills. But many admins get Linux up and running and think they have to do nothing more. It’s solid, it’s secure, it works. Well, new updates can patch new exploits. Keeping up with your updates can make the difference between a compromised system and a secure one. And just because you can rest on the security of Linux doesn’t mean you should. For security, for new features, for stability — the same reasons we have all grown accustomed to updating with Windows — you should always keep up with your Linux updates.

#3: Poor root password choice

Okay, repeat after me: “The root password is the key to the kingdom.” So why would you make the key to the kingdom simple to crack? Sure, make your standard user password something you can easily remember and/or type. But that root password — you know, the one that’s protecting your enterprise database server — give that a much higher difficulty level. Make that password one you might have to store, encrypted, on a USB key, requiring you to slide that USB key into the machine, mount it, decrypt the password, and use it.

#4: Avoiding the command line

No one wants to have to memorize a bunch of commands. And for the most part, the GUI takes care of a vast majority of them. But there are times when the command line is easier, faster, more secure, and more reliable. Avoiding the command line should be considered a cardinal sin of Linux administration. You should at least have a solid understanding of how the command line works and a small arsenal of commands you can use without having to RTFM. With a small selection of command-line tools on top of the GUI tools, you should be ready for just about anything.

#5: Not keeping a working kernel installed

Let’s face it, you don’t need 12 kernels installed on one machine. But you do need to update your kernel, and the update process doesn’t delete previous kernels. What do you do? You keep at least the most recently working kernel at all times. Let’s say you have 2.6.22 as your current working kernel and 2.6.20 as your backup. If you update to 2.6.26 and all is working well, you can remove 2.6.20. If you use an rpm-based system, you can use this method to remove the old kernels: rpm -qa | grep -i kernel followed by rpm-e kernel-{VERSION}.

#6: Not backing up critical configuration files

How many times have you upgraded X11 only to find the new version fubar’d your xorg.conf file to the point where you can no longer use X? It used to happen to me a lot when I was new to Linux. But now, anytime X is going to be updated I always back up /etc/X11/xorg.conf in case the upgrade goes bad. Sure, an X update tries to back up xorg.conf, but it does so within the /etc/X11 directory. And even though this often works seamlessly, you are better off keeping that backup under your own control. I always back up xorg.conf to the /root directory so I know only the root user can even access it. Better safe than sorry. This applies to other critical backups, such as Samba, Apache, and MySQL, too.

#7: Booting a server to X

When a machine is a dedicated server, you might want to have X installed so some administration tasks are easier. But this doesn’t mean you should have that server boot to X. This will waste precious memory and CPU cycles. Instead, stop the boot process at runlevel 3 so you are left at the command line. Not only will this leave all of your resources to the servers, it will also keep prying eyes out of your machine (unless they know the command line and passwords to log in). To log into X, you will simply have to log in and run the command startx to bring up your desktop.

#8: Not understanding permissions

Permissions can make your life really easy, but if done poorly, can make life really easy for hackers. The simplest way to handle permissions is using the rwx method. Here’s what they mean: r=read, w=write, x=execute. Say you want a user to be able to read a file but not write to a file. To do this, you would issue chmod u+r,u-wx filename. What often happens is that a new user sees an error saying they do not have permission to use a file, so they hit the file with something akin to chmod 777 filename to avoid the problem. But this can actually cause more problems because it gives the file executable privileges. Remember this: 777 gives a file rwx permissions to all users (root, group, and other), 666 gives the file rw privileges to all users, 555 gives the file rx permissions to all users, 444 gives r privileges to all users, 333 gives wx privileges to all users, 222 gives w privileges to all users, 111 gives x privileges to all users, and 000 gives no privileges to all users.

#9: Logging in as root user

I can’t stress this enough. Do NOT log in as root. If you need root privileges to execute or configure an application, su to root in a standard user account. Why is logging in as root bad? Well, when you log on as a standard user, all running X applications still have access only to the system limited to that user. If you log in as root, X has all root permissions. This can cause two problems: 1) if you make a big mistake via a GUI, that mistake can be catastrophic to the system and 2) with X running as root that makes your system more vulnerable.

#10: Ignoring log files

There is a reason /var/log exists. It is a single location for all log files. This makes it simple to remember where you first need to look when there is a problem. Possible security issue? Check /var/log/secure. One of the very first places I look is /var/log/messages. This log file is the common log file where all generic errors and such are logged to. In this file you will get messages about networking, media changes, etc. When administering a machine you can always use a third-party application such as logwatch that can create various reports for you based on your /var/log files.

Sidestep the problems

These 10 mistakes are pretty common among new Linux administrators. Avoiding the pitfalls will take you through the Linux migration rite of passage faster, and you will come out on the other side a much better administrator.

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With news of Linux kernel 2.6 being ported to the Apple iPhone platform doing rounds, analysts are already predicting the possibility of Google’s Andr

With news of Linux kernel 2.6 being ported to the Apple iPhone platform doing rounds, analysts are already predicting the possibility of Google’s Android being run on the iPhone.

Though most people were quite satisfied by the Apple iPhone, some were disappointed by the restrictions Apple had placed on developing applications for the platform and to them the news of Linux now running on iPhone comes as a pleasant surprise.

Currently the Linux operating system in controlled via an USB keyboard that is linked to the iPhone multipurpose port and this was made possible by essentially reverse engineering the hardware drivers.

Though the current implementation of Linux on iPhone is just a beginning with lot of work still to be done it, it has none the less thrown open the possibility of the Android being transferred on to the iPhone platform.

This may heat up the competition in the smartphone market as it will allow Google to take the fight right into Apple’s own territory.

What’s more interesting is that Google may not even need to make an effort as any independent developer may quite on his own, transfer the open source Android code base to the iPhone platform.

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Nokia Stops Selling Mobile Phones In Japan

World’s largest mobile phone maker Nokia has announced on Thursday that it would be quitting from Japanese markets after struggling to obtain any significant market share in the country.

However, the Finnish mobile phone giant asserted that it would continue selling its Vertu luxury phones in Japan, and its research and development programs along with sourcing operations would also continue in Japan.

Reasoning the company’s exit from Japanese markets, Nokia’s exec VP, Timo Ihamuotila said in a statement, “In the current global economic climate, we have concluded that the continuation of our investment in Japan-specific product variants is no longer sustainable”.

Despite enjoying the largest market share globally, which currently sits around 40 percent the company has struggled considerably to achieve the expected growth in Japanese markets, with dismal 0.3 percent market share, and hence decided to finally pull out from it.

In addition, both LG and Samsung have also faced difficulty in striking proper growth in Japanese markets, which is currently under the influence of sophisticated domestic phones.

The under-performance of some of the globally renowned players in mobile phone segment, like Nokia and Samsung, in Japan is largely attributed to a number of local companies manufacturing handsets with a bunch of advanced features including, electronic payment functions and TV broadcasting.

Foreign companies account for only 5 percent of the total share in mobile phone market in Japanese markets, the research firm IDC Japan claimed.

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How to Promote Your Blog – The Definitive Guide to Promoting Your Blog Online

Many of our clients ask us this question time and time again. “How do I promote my blog?” We are glad that they ask because we have a blog of our own and we have become very successful at driving huge loads of traffic to it.

If you always wanted to know how to promote your blog, this article is exactly what you are looking for.

Write quality content
It might sound obvious to most of us that your blog’s content has to be excellent. In many cases, however, bloggers write mediocre posts and spend most of their time trying to drive traffic to their blogs. Granted, they get a fair amount of visits, but those people will never come back. Converting one-time visitors into subscribers is by far the most important thing you need to do to keep a steady flow of traffic visiting your blog.

There is another excellent reason to write quality articles. The better your content is the more people will link to your blog. And as we all know, quality incoming links are the key to high search engine rankings.

Let your readers subscribe
There are two major ways people can subscribe to your blog: email and RSS. Give them both options. RSS is a great technology but a huge percentage of your readers are not very familiar with it.

Submit your feeds
Every time you write a new post, submit its RSS/Atom feed to the major feed directories: FeedAge, FeedRaider, FeedAgg, FeedFury, GoldenFeed, and BlogDigger. Also submit your blog’s main RSS if you haven’t done so yet.

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Be A Good Manager By Letting People Learn And GrowThe Road To Becoming A Manager Many managers start out in a technical position, especially in engin

The Road To Becoming A Manager

Many managers start out in a technical position, especially in engineering fields. In the beginning, he starts out with no knowledge of what to do and depends on other people for advice, help, and motivation. Then, as he gathers experience, he begins to carry his share of the load. He manages his own stuff, so that a supervisor doesn’t need to constantly look over his shoulder. Eventually, whether from other people leaving, or his own experience expanding, he knows more than the average person around. Other people now come to him for advice and direction. Naturally, he gains some leadership status as others value his opinions highly. At this point, he may become promoted to the position of a manager, where he starts managing other people.

Being A Manager And Being Managed

While this seems like a natural progression, there is a huge jump in the skills required between a technical lead and a manager overseeing the project. I know this because I am currently in both positions. I work as software engineer at BEA Systems, in charge of my own code base. Having to deal with a supervisor and manager every day, I know how it feels to work under someone. I also feel extremely privileged to have the opportunity to observe how a manager deals with problems effectively without demoralizing the group or hurting people’s feelings. On the other hand, in my spare time, I have a few investments in relatively large forums. In a sense, this is managing a community of people, having to coordinate promotions, fix problems with the website, expand the content, etc. In this role, I am the manager, and need to motivate people to contribute towards the site, especially since they have no monetary incentive.

The Skills Of A Manager

Unfortunately, the most important skill of a manager is vastly different from that of a technical lead. The technical lead’s primary responsibility is to act as a source of information for other people in the organization. He knows tons of stuff, so other people come to him if they have any questions about “what to do now” or “how to do it”. He also helps by giving input into the overall plan (from a technical perspective) or may even be responsible for the direction that the company takes. However, he does not have to worry about the most important skill that a manager needs: the ability to motivate people. Without this skill, all his other skills are completely useless. I think an old saying applies very well here: “A plan is useless if there is no one to follow it”.

Transitioning Into A Manager

One of the greatest mistakes in transitioning from a technical person to a manager is the failure to develop this very important skill. I have personally experienced the effects of a lack of motivation from both perspectives. At work, I had a manager who was the most competent person I have ever seen in terms of technical ability. However, working under him, I was always made to feel inadequate. Whenever I didn’t know something, my opinions were generally not as good as his and hence not listened to. I always felt rushed, and felt uncertain whether to ask for clarifications on things I wasn’t clear about. All the time, I felt like I needed to have an answer right away, and wasn’t able to think at my own pace.

Similarly, when we bought a forum as documented in Seven Mistakes In One Day, I made similar mistakes by telling the current members that we bought the forum as an investment and to make money from it. That statement, combined with other factors, de-motivated a great deal of the people on the board and caused about 25% of them to leave and start a competing forum.

The Effects Of A Lack Of Motivation

As a result of feeling not as adequate as my supervisor, my natural instinct was to “check with him” before I do things. If I have problems, I would ask him for solutions on what to do. I would be afraid of making a mistake because that would make me seem incompetent in front of my peers. All of these factors add up to an employee who, instead of being more independent with his work, becomes more and more dependent on the supervisor.

When employees don’t feel free to make mistakes, they can no longer effectively express their opinions. We can see from My Partner’s Not Doing Enough Work that these ideas expressed by employees, even if wrong most of the time, can result in dramatic increases in productivity for the company. By making employees afraid, their creativity and growth is stifled. Not allowing them to make their own mistakes will make them more and more reliant on the existing resources, further taxing them.

For example, let’s say because I feel inadequate, I am extremely afraid of being fired. Now, say some problem comes up, which may be kind of important. Had I been feeling confident of my abilities, I would have gone right ahead and tried to fix it myself. Then, if my supervisor finds that there are a few minor mistakes, I’ll just make a few tweaks and everyone is happy. We would have a good product, I would have learned from my mistakes, and my supervisor wouldn’t have had to spend much time on it. However, afraid of being fired and being wrong, I may instead directly go ask my supervisor for a solution. Not only does this take up more of his time, I wouldn’t have learned anything! Next time this problem comes up, I’ll have to ask him again.

How To Be A Good Manager

First, realize that nobody has to be there working for the manager. Sure, maybe they may stay because they urgently need money in the short term, but they are able to leave relatively quickly, taking along all the experience and training that will take years to replace! They can go elsewhere where they can get paid and enjoy the work / have fun. Therefore, a manager’s first job is to make the employee as comfortable as possible. Find out what motivates them, what they’re excited about, and what they’d like to accomplish at work.

Then, use this knowledge to motivate them as much as possible! Schedule events that allow the team to bond. For example, the current manager of the group at BEA Systems bought us a Wii. Normally, I wouldn’t stay late on Friday afternoons. However, given the opportunity to kick my coworkers’ butts, I sometimes don’t even go home on Friday nights. Stuff like this helps tremendously with instilling feelings of being on a team, making people unafraid to voice their opinions.

When it comes to work though, a manager should make his expectations clear. For example, if he expects someone to finish some portion of the project, he should assign it and then leave the person alone to work on it. That means even if that person doesn’t do it as well as the manager! That’s probably the biggest caveat from going from a technical lead to a manager. Being the best technical person on the team, it is easy to want to constantly fix every detail because everyone isn’t working up to the manager’s standards. However, this constant fixing not only increases the insecurity in the workforce (since it shows a lack of trust in people’s skills to produce a good product), it also does not allow the person to learn the reasoning behind this mistake and grow as a person.

People will be making mistakes. As a good manager, we should let them, even though it is at our expense. That is the only way they’ll grow in the long run and gain the necessary skills and motivation to work effectively within the company. After all, haven’t we all made mistakes and learned from them to get where we are?

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HIV facts and stats

The number of people living with HIV is continuing to rise in every part of the world - including in the UK. There are now 33 million people living with HIV worldwide and 80,000 people living with HIV in the UK.

HIV is a virus that attacks the body's immune system - the body's defence against diseases. The latest research suggests that between 70 and 90 per cent of people may experience symptoms of infection a few days after having been infected. Three symptoms occurring together: fever, rash and a severe sore throat should always be considered a potential indicator of HIV infection. These symptoms usually disappear within two or three weeks. Other people may not have symptoms to start with. In all cases, without effective treatment the immune system will eventually become very weak and no longer be able to fight off illnesses.

Are HIV and AIDS the same?
No. When someone is described as living with HIV, they have the HIV virus in their body. A person is considered to have developed AIDS when the immune system is so weak it can no longer fight off a range of diseases with which it would normally cope.

I don't know anyone with HIV... do I?
There are approximately 80,000 people living with HIV in the UK and about a third of these don't know that they are infected. The epidemic is still growing in the UK with around 7,000 new diagnoses every year. Even if someone you know is living with HIV, they may not feel able to tell you.

Is there a cure for HIV?
No, but treatment can keep the virus under control and the immune system healthy. People on HIV treatment can live a healthy, active life, although they may experience side effects from the treatment. If HIV is diagnosed late, treatment may be less effective in preventing AIDS.

What's it like living with HIV?
If people with HIV are diagnosed early and respond to treatment they can be healthy, work and have relationships like anyone else and have a long life expectancy.

Coming to terms with an HIV diagnosis and getting used to treatment can be very difficult however, and people living with HIV will often need support from healthcare providers, friends and family, employers and support organisations.

Why do people find it hard to tell others they are HIV positive?
People living with HIV may find it hard to tell others about their condition as they worry that people will reject them, or they will experience prejudice from friends, family and colleagues. People living with HIV can also experience discrimination in their workplace, in healthcare settings (e.g., GPs and dentists), from members of their local community and through the media.

HIV prejudice is often the result of ignorance about how HIV is passed on and unfounded fear of becoming infected. Encouraging those around us to talk about HIV and find out the facts can help overcome this.

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How to Disable the Hidden Administrative Shares (c$,d$…) in Vista/XP/2003/2000

For Workstations (Vista/XP/2000)

Click Start—>Run type regedit click ok

For vista users Enter your UAC credentials to continue.

Open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch.

Open the SYSTEM branch.

Open the CurrentControlSet branch.

Open the Services branch.

Open the LanmanServer branch.

Select the Parameters branch.

Select Edit, New, DWORD (32-bit) Value. Vista adds a new value to the Parameters key (If you have the key just check for correct value).

Type AutoShareWks and press Enter. (You can leave this setting with its default value of 0.)

Restart Windows to put the new setting into effect.

Solution 2

In Windows 2000 and Windows XP, you disable the shares via

Start —>Settings —>Control Panel
Systems Tools panel
Shared Folders
Double-click the Shared Folders branch to expand it
Click Shares
In the Shared Folder column, right-click the share you want to disable
Click Stop sharing
Cick OK.

For Servers (2003/2000)

Click Start—>Run type regedit click ok

Open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE branch.

Open the SYSTEM branch.

Open the CurrentControlSet branch.

Open the Services branch.

Open the LanmanServer branch.

Select the Parameters branch.

Select Edit, New, DWORD (32-bit) Value. Vista adds a new value to the Parameters key (If you have the key just check for correct value).

Type AutoShareServer and press Enter. (You can leave this setting with its default value of 0.)

Restart Windows to put the new setting into effect.

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8 Work At Home Time Management Strategies

Do you ever feel like you are running in circles, never really getting anything accomplished, and feeling stressed out? As part of Inspiration Bit’s group writing project on time management, here are my top time management strategies as a work at home Mom with three kids.

1. Sunday Night Strategy Session

Sometime each Sunday afternoon/evening I take about 30 minutes to check in with my MomAgenda and get my week in order. I put all the kids appointments/sports practices in on the calendar. Next I add in my appointments, conference calls and exercise. From there I take a few minutes to plan our dinner menu for the week based on what we have going on each evening. With those two big areas of my life organized, I can face the rest of the week with a lot less stress.

2. Get Up Before Anyone Else

Each morning I start my day about 45 minutes before the rest of the family. It allows me to get my thoughts together over a good cup of coffee and I start my day off prepared rather than crazy.

3. Daily Goals List

Split a piece of paper into two columns - label one side work and one side personal. On the work side I list out the highest paying, most urgent client tasks first followed by other tasks by priority. About half of my work is for clients and half is for blogging, I also keep a running list of blog topic ideas for each of my sites in a notebook. On the personal side of the paper I list phone calls I need to make, chores I need to get done, and any errands that have to be run. IMPORTANT - I always have more on my list than I could ever get done, but that’s okay. It helps me stay on top of things that way.

4. Block Your Time

Once I know what needs to be done, I usually block out time and estimate blocks of time per task. This allows me to have a realistic idea as to what I can get done in the day and to make sure I am maximizing my earnings for the day. Since I know that I work best in the morning, I schedule my highest priority and highest dollar tasks for the first 2-3 hours of my day. I save a lot of my blog reading, commenting, web maintenance tasks for later in the day when my mind needs a break, the kids are around, and my day becomes fragmented.

5. Use A Timer

This kind of goes with #4 and blocking your time. Start your task and set the timer for your allotted time. You will be less distracted and the timer will let you know when it is time for a break. If it is a longer task, break it up into smaller time chunks. Reward yourself with a quick walk, a snack break, a phone call break or something once your timer goes off.

6. Create Work Hours

This is REALLY important if you work from home! Establish hours that work for you, your clients, and your family and stick with them. They don’t have to be the same everyday, but set them. If you have set your work hours for today to be from 9-12, then you don’t do housework during that time. Avoid the temptation to watch Oprah during this time - unless you schedule it into your day. (Of course, there is nothing wrong with running the dishwasher or dryer while you work - that is the ultimate benefit of working from home)

7. Outsource Where Possible

Make a list of the 10 biggest time wasters or energy drainers in your day and find a way to eliminate them! This topic could actually be a post of its own - and maybe it will be soon.

Create a carpool with a friend so that you aren’t doing all of the running back and forth with the kids to sports practices. Hire a cleaning service. Barter for administrative help. And the list goes on. With a little creativity, you can save yourself A LOT of time and stress.

8. Group Errands for Efficiency

Rather than popping out for this today and that tomorrow, schedule your errands for maximum efficiency. One way to do it is to tack on an errand to another scheduled event - like stopping in for groceries after soccer practice because they are in the same end of town. Another way to do it is to schedule one morning or afternoon a week just for errands and some time away.

There is no doubt that there will be some unexpected daily drama and the occasional day where you just can’t be bothered, but put these strategies into action and I guarantee your day will run smoother!

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With Vista SP2, Microsoft is back on track

From the other side of the world comes a report that Windows Vista Service Pack 2 will be released to manufacturing in April 2009, roughly a year after SP1. The Malaysian website TechARP has a pretty good track record with this sort of prediction, and my sources tell me that schedule sounds about right.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S.A., some people are inferring more Vista doom and gloom from this schedule. My buddy Dwight Silverman at the Houston Chronicle says “SP2 is being rushed out the door” to keep up Vista’s momentum. Eweek’s Channel Insider calls SP2 a “last-ditch attempt to drum up sales for [the] beleaguered [Vista] operating system.” The Register says “Microsoft seems to be in a hurry with this release.”

They all need to dust off their Windows history books to see that the reality is exactly the opposite. If Vista SP2 does make its official appearance in April, it will mark a return to normal development and release cycles for Microsoft, which lost its way badly with Windows XP.

I’ve got the proof, in easy-to-read chart format. Here’s a timeline of every Windows service pack Microsoft has delivered since the release of Windows NT 4.0 in July 1996. Each color-coded bar represents the number of days between each service pack and its predecessor (RTM, in the case of SP1 releases). See any patterns?

As measured by service pack releases, the XP era was a distinct anomaly for Microsoft. Over the past 12 years, Microsoft has delivered 14 Windows service packs. The gap between SP1 and SP2 was a record 697 days, nearly two full years. But that pales in comparison to the gap between SP2 and SP3, which was nearly four years. If we throw out SP3 and also disregard NT4 SP2, which appeared a mere 59 days after its predecessor, we discover that the average gap between service-pack releases is around 300 days, or just under a year apart. If Vista SP2 arrives in mid-April 2009, it will be 355 days since its predecessor, or very close to the historical averages.

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