notasteArticle

IFRA on its merger with WAN: 'By combining forces we will be even better'

2010-06-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

IFRA, the worldwide news research and services organisation, has officially confirmed its merger with the World Association of Newspapers, Journalism.co.uk learned today. The news follows last week's revelation by WAN president Gavin O'Reilly in an interview with Huffington Post that his Paris-based association had approved a merger with Germany-based IFRA, the other main world news publishing organisation.

An executive at IFRA told Journalism.co.uk: "This is a great opportunity for WAN and IFRA and for the industry. These two great organisations already have been offering excellent services to the industry. By combining forces it will be even better,
I believe."

The new site for the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers can be viewed here: http://www.wan-ifra.org/. In January, it was announced that the economic crisis had forced the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and the World Editors Forum (WEF) to postpone their annual conference to late November 2009.

Update: WAN has issued a release confirming that a 'single and worldwide' News Publishing Organisation has been formed, effective from July 1 with current WAN president, Gavin O'Reilly, as its president for 2010.

Horst Pirker, President of IFRA and CEO of Styria Medien AG in Austria, has been named first vice president, and will become president in 2011. A CEO is to be appointed shortly. "The combined new organisation will represent more than 18,000 publications, 15,000 online sites and over 3000 companies in more than 120 countries," it was announced. The new organisation will continue to be based in the two current headquarters in Paris,
France, and Darmstadt, Germany.

WAN-IFRA is dedicated "to be the indispensable partner of newspapers and the entire news publishing industry worldwide, particularly our members, in the defense and promotion of press freedom, quality journalism and editorial integrity, and the development of prosperous businesses and technology."

"Both IFRA and WAN are strong organisations providing key services to our industry," said Gavin O'Reilly, who is also Group CEO of Dublin-based Independent News and Media.

"We believe that combining their strengths will allow us to be even more resourceful and effective in responding to the growing needs of our members and industry partners in the fast-moving and evolving media matrix. This is a necessary merger which, indeed, has been on the cards for some time."

"Like the whole news publishing industry, WAN and IFRA are currently facing serious challenges. I think we need to concentrate our resources to support our members in the best possible way," Horst Pirker said. Before the new CEO is appointed the current CEOs of WAN and IFRA, Timothy Balding and Reiner Mittelbach, will 'jointly manage' the new association, it was further stated.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/2/articles/534909.php

Twitter as a public service

2010-04-14T17:46:00.000-07:00

What a great initiative announced yesterday by the city of San Francisco - enable citizens to use Twitter as one of the means through which they can use the city's 311 online information and services network.

[…] you will be establishing a two-way communication channel which can be used to send direct (private) messages to SF311. Customer Service Representatives are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year to assist you. View "Sample Tweets" of our most requested services to help ensure you provide the information needed to service your request. 311 can help with:

Street Cleaning

Graffiti Removal

Pothole and Sidewalk Defects

Abandoned Vehicles

City Garbage Can Maintenance

Department Information (office hours, location, phone numbers)

… and much more!

Have a question or concern? Check out the FAQ before continuing.

This seems to be a well thought out idea judging by the breadth and depth of information the Mayor's office has published about Twitter and 311, eg, the FAQ. If you're inclined to use Twitter as a preferred means of connecting with people and services, this will appeal to you.

If not, well, it's simple - don't use it: instead, make use of the others ways of connecting to 311.

Public services are embracing informal and social means of communication like Twitter as a way to provide citizens with more means of making use of (self) services and easy on-demand access to information.

For instance, my local council in the UK, Wokingham Borough, is also on Twitter.

If you take a look at both Twitter accounts, the contrast in styles between San Francisco and Wokingham is noticeable. And SF311 looks to be run by a number of different people (the different initials after tweets suggest that).

Still, Wokingham Borough also offers a range of useful information via its Twitter account.

We will use Twitter as an additional way of keeping our residents and visitors informed on the latest news and events. It will also feature information on any emergency situation - for example extreme weather like flooding or snow, and any impact this may have, like school closures, road closures or the closure of the Loddon Bridge Park and Ride.

Not much in the way of two-way engagement but useful nevertheless.

One day, every public service will include a social medium like Twitter as a routine channel of communication, there for the use by citizens or not, as they see fit.

Still, Wokingham Borough also offers a range of useful information via its Twitter account.

We will use Twitter as an additional way of keeping our residents and visitors informed on the latest news and events. It will also feature information on any emergency situation - for example extreme weather like flooding or snow, and any impact this may have, like school closures, road closures or the closure of the Loddon Bridge Park and Ride.

Not much in the way of two-way engagement but useful nevertheless.

One day, every public service will include a social medium like Twitter as a routine channel of communication, there for the use by citizens or not, as they see fit.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Nevillehobsoncom/~3/L8IvPibxXBs/

Most Twitter users stuck for something to say

2010-03-31T17:38:00.000-07:00

If you feel Twitter gets far more attention than its impact really merits, then a new study showing it's really just filled with a tiny group of blow-hards will be welcome ammunition.

The Harvard Business School study of 300,000 randomly chosen Twitter users found that 10 per cent of users generate 90 per cent of the content on the microblogging site.

Lifetime tweets

Moreover, over half of the site's users struggle to muster a single post in more than two months of membership. Even then, the median number of posts per user is just one over the entire span of their membership.

Lead researcher Mikolaj Jan Piskorski cautioned against placing too much faith in the site. "If you're trying to get what a representative cross-section of the public is thinking, you're probably better off staying away from Twitter," he told Reuters.

Millions saying nothing?

With news like that, it's a wonder what the seven million or so monthly visitors to the Twitter website find to talk about.

http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/669/f/9809/s/48bc5d8/l/0L0Stechradar0N0Cnews0Cinternet0Cweb0Cmost0Etwitter0Eusers0Estuck0Efor0Esomething0Eto0Esay0E60A61380Dsrc0Frss0Gattr0Fall/story01.htm

Twitter's Glass Ceilings and Its 90/10 Problem

2010-02-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

New Twitter stats from the Harvard Business School reveal interesting demographics surrounding the popular social chat network. Unlike other social networks, it's very male-centric and it's more like Wikipedia than Facebook. Let's dive into the data.

Men are more likely to follow men and have reciprocal relationships. Women are also more likely to follow men, despite women making up the majority of Twitter users at 55%.
Men also have 15% more followers than women.

It's the exact opposite on other social networking sites. Generally, both men and women are more likely to follow content produced by women.

But it's the top Twitterers who really tempt the Fail Whale. 90% of Tweets are written by 10% of the most prolific Twitterers. About half of Twitter users are tweeting just once every 74 days.

In most social networks, 10% of the top content producers account for 30% of all content produced.

Twitter is more like Wikipedia, whose top 15% contributors produce 90% of the content. The study's authors, Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski, suggest that Twitter is a one-to-many conversation tool like Wikipedia rather than it is a peer-to-peer social network

http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/k7h5phPWh3I/090602-113226

Why Twitter's Implicated in a Rape

2010-01-20T16:54:00.000-08:00

Police say MC Hammer's cousin sexually assaulted a woman in a San Francisco-area hotel. Twitter will be in the lead of every story about this, and not just because that's where the accuser and accused met.

Just like Facebook and Craigslist before it, Twitter is now an easy way to sell otherwise horrible crime stories to readers with a zeitgeisty twist.

Of course, none of these networking sites are inherently evil, but as they grow they encompass a wider array of human behavior, including, eventually, the worst forms. It's arguably newsworthy when the sites' users cross various depraved landmarks. A social network's criminal record grows less sensational as it becomes more common, reflecting the population at large.

The Twitter/rape story is extra newsworthy due to the connection to a famous rapper, and the fact that the accused is also a regular on MC Hammer's reality show, Hammertime, where he's known as "Lyin' Marv." Lyin' Marv is 100% culpable here, if he indeed found guilty in the attack. That said, it's worth noting that the dumb move in this situation wasn't so much using Twitter as it was scheduling a rendezvous, in a hotel, with a guy you met on the internet, with "lying" right in his name

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/valleywag/full/~3/kRwoUDTRDto/why-twitters-implicated-in-a-rape

Guarding America's Border: Understaffed Patrol Must Balance Safety, Free Trade

2010-01-02T16:41:00.000-08:00

The 4,121-mile-long U.S.-Canadian border has only recently been getting the kinds of border security it needs to monitor the yearly crossings of some 80 million people, according to this report, the first of a three-part series.

Among the improvements: The Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System, which uses gamma rays to inspect the contents of trucks and other vehicles; radiation detectors to scan vehicles in an effort to detect weapons of mass destruction; "smart camera" video-surveillance systems; and, the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, which now involves more than 4,000 businesses and requires them to provide information regarding their trucks, drivers, cargos, suppliers and routes.

Although there are no hard numbers for how many illegal immigrants enter the United States from Canada, since 1993, about 28 per day are apprehended. They come from some 60 countries, including China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, South Korea, Yemen and Mexico.

According to this article, international terrorists, including al Qaeda members, have "sleeper cells" throughout Canada. Ahmed Ressam, the Algerian convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport in 2000, entered the United States from Canada, where he lived for years posing as a refugee

A Review of Thinkvisibility

2010-01-01T17:15:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I was lucky enough to attend ThinkVisibility, a conference in Leeds (UK) where I was speaking on reputation management.
It was a one day conference which billed itself as:

"...A one-day mini conference with a focus on the areas of web development and marketing which are usually left behind in the creation process:
SEO, PPC, Monetisation, Blogging, Accessibility and Usability."

There's another conference in September and tickets were only £30 this time around, which was a right bargain - just take a look at the speaker list! I highly recommend that anyone interested in blogging and/or SEO attend the conference, especially for that kind of price (even though I imagine it might go up for the next one!). Here's a summary of the sessions I attended:

Tim Nash - Let's Make a Search Engine

The first presentation of the morning started with Tim bringing out a white lab coat and 4 buckets of red liquid. Dominic, who organised the conference, could be seen having a heart attack at the back of the room as we all wondered what the buckets of liquid were for and whether the conference venue would be usable afterwards.

Tim's talk focused on how search engines work and how they came into existence. The buckets were used to explain pagerank and how linking between websites affects this. It was an enjoyable presentation, but I'm not sure how many people who hadn't previously understood pagerank came out doing so! Still, Tim's an entertaining speaker and had some good audience participation, which was encouraging for that early in the morning.

After talking about search engines, Tim moved on to talk about the future of search which, although interesting enough, didn't, in my opinion, cover anything particularly groundbreaking. In a nutshell, his opinion is that the future is social, either through searchwiki, Twitter or something similar.

At the end of his presentation he told people to google 'that bloke in a white coat', which was a schoolboy error with Dave Naylor in the room. Dave promptly put up a blog post which ranked for the term within minutes. Those pesky SEOs!

Chris Garrett - Blogging Visibility

Next up was Chris Garrett with a talk on how to get more visibility for your blog. He covered 25 tips ranging from commenting on other blogs (basic) to setting up podcasts (more advanced). Overall the talk was nicely done but perhaps not enough time was spent on some of the more advanced techniques; I knew almost all of what he recommended. That said, you can never hear the basics too often and it was a comprehensive list.

The most interesting concept that Chris introduced was partnering with other bloggers on projects. By combining interests and efforts you can reach a wider audience than you could otherwise. He gave the interesting example of playing good cop, bad cop with a fellow blogger, where he was the calming influence to the other blogger's controversy. He came out very well out of that one, apparently!

Chris was a good speaker and slipped in a few entertaining phrases which I enjoyed. The only criticism I have is that he recommended text link ads as a means to gain exposure to your blog, which I don't think many SEOs would recommend. In fact, I'm not sure many SEOs would recommend using a broker to buy links these days.

Update: Chris has gotten in touch to say he doesn't endorse buying links; see comment thread below

Al Carlton - Affiliate Talk

Al, who later nipped to the pub between sessions, is a very entertaining character and gave a great presentation on affiliate marketing. His slides didn't come out well for some reason, which meant we were staring at a white slide with "Optimise" written at the top. To his credit, Al managed to pull it off and shared some great tips, such as:

When running affiliate programs, simply ask your contact for higher commissions. Just asking can get you a long way, especially when you're driving a good amount of traffic.
If you're running adsense on your blog, pay attention to which advertisers are appearing (and are relevant), visit their website and see if they have an affiliate program. If they do, sign up and replace the adsense block with the same ads, only using affiliate links rather than adsense. You'll get much higher returns doing this than you will through adsense (not to mention better control over formatting, etc).
If you're running a site with multiple forms of revenue generation, make sure you funnel the most clicks through the highest revenue generating links. For example, on his blog coolest gadgets, not every post has an affiliate link on it so he has adsense and banner advertising, etc. When he makes a post with an affiliate link in it, he'll often hide the other ads and sometimes even the navigation to ensure that as many people use the affiliate links as possible.

There was also an enlightening Q&A section with some interesting questions asked about tracking, Facebook ads and other things. I found the talk very useful, but then again, I'm a bit of an affiliate n00b!

Peter Cooper - Mystery Talk

Unfortunately, I missed the beginning of this talk so I don't know if it had a better title than 'mystery talk', but I suspect that it should have been called something like 'Passion!' because that's what the talk was all about - how to find and utilise passion for personal branding and business.

Peter is a great speaker and made the brave move of not having slides, which he managed to pull off well. He talked about some of the people he really admires in business online and how they made it, in particular paying attention to the mantra "pay attention to what people do, not what people say." Sound advice!

Two of the people he held up as shining examples of how to turn passion into business and still enjoy it were Gary Vaynerchuk, a wine podcasting guy, and Balsamiq a website mock-up tool.

Peter's talk was exciting and interesting and his enthusiasm certainly rubbed off on the audience! While I admired the lack of slides, I would've liked to have been able to get a better idea of some of the sites and concepts he was talking about.

Dave Naylor - SEO

Always the entertaining speaker, Dave gave a short and sweet presentation on the basics of SEO, nailing home the point that SEO isn't cheap, won't guarantee rankings and won't work in 4 weeks. Dave also talked about how content is king and how he's seen examples of sites ranking well for competitive queries on the strength of quality content ALONE without any links to speak of to back up the rankings. A fascinating topic. Dave also mentioned that once the search engines start using upstream/downstream traffic to websites to affect rankings then our jobs (as SEOs) will have to change dramatically.

Once Dave had covered this he went off the record and talked about all manners of interesting and fascinating subjects, which were worth the conference fee alone. In particular, he spent some time talking about 'silver bullet' sites which, when you buy a link from them, result in the auto-ban of the site being linked to. This blew my mind, though I can almost understand why it happens. The only example he showed (which I unfortunately can't reveal) was very expensive to buy links from but it is a very interesting area. However, I'm not sure the audience was quite SEO-savvy enough to appreciate that this isn't something your average site needs to worry about. Later in the day I was sitting next to Amy, who works for Suma (a UK health foods brand who only recently launched an online e-commerce platform), and she was getting worried that her (genuine, organic) links from really strong sites like the Fairtrade site might get her banned. I put her mind at rest and told her that those links were great and would do her no harm, but I wonder how many other people were scared by the talk.

I learned a lot from Dave and certainly have a few things (black and white hat) to go away and think about.

Me!

Then there was my talk on reputation management. I might have accidentally said that the most effective way to control the SERPs for your name is to change it by marrying a Thai bride on the internet for £50. I would like to reiterate that this is NOT the service we provide to our clients.... :-) Still, people seemed to enjoy the talk - thanks for all the tweets about it.

Update: You can read all my slides over on the Distilled site: Reputation Management presentation slides.

Patrick Altoft - SEO

I spoke to Patrick before he was due to speak and he said he was nervous because he hadn't really spoken at conferences before. This surprised me because he really knows his stuff and is actually a very competent speaker. Hopefully he'll get invited to more speaking gigs soon!

Patrick's talk focused on white-hat link building and the 3 different kinds of links you can build:

TrustRank building links such as links from the BBC or the Guardian
PageRank building links such as sitewide links from good sites in your niche
Keyword focused links such as from article sites and directories where you can control the exact anchor text of the link.

Patrick explained the points clearly and gave good examples of how you can go about getting all 3 kinds of links. He also made the very important point that when you link build, all you need to do is follow this two-step process:

Identify what type of links the site needs
Go and get them

He said that 99%of people don't do step 1, which I think is probably true, though a large number of people don't do step 2, either!! (Just do it, people!)

Finishing with a section on QDF (query deserves freshness), Patrick mentioned how breaking stories first can give you a massive advantage ranking for breaking queries even if you don't have the PageRank to justify out-ranking bigger sites talking about the same thing.

Kieron Donoghue - How to Make a Living from Affiliate Marketing

Another affiliate talk from Kieron, which, although similar to Al's from earlier in the day, managed to cover very different subjects; the talks actually complemented each other very well. Kieron talked about making affiliate sites FAT, not THIN, and gave some real world examples of how he's made money off some surprising thing in the past (and how you could go about copying him). I can't share details about much of that, but it was great of Kieron to show real numbers in some of his slides so you could get a better feel of what he was talking about.

One of the most interesting points Kieron made was never to take content down. He's found old posts suddenly start ranking again and bring in a lot of money, which is a good point, especially when you're looking at search terms with seasonal search volume (such as "[brand name] sale").

Kieron also emphasised the first-mover advantage (which Patrick also talked about), saying how you can use that to your advantage in affiliate marketing too.

Summary

Overall, it was a really fun day with lots of quality talks, so thanks again to Dominic for organising the conference and inviting me to speak. Much appreciated!

In the spirit of constructive feedback, here are a few things I think could be improved for next time:

Better schedule information - there were no printouts of the schedule, which confused quite a few people, and I found myself not quite sure what time talks started or who was speaking in which room at several points during the day.
More detailed information on the talks - there were two affiliate talks and two SEO talks during the day, which actually worked fine as there was no overlap, but I think it would have been better to offer a unique angle for each talk so that people could decide which ones they wanted to go to more easily.
Presentations available online - this was a feature of SMX I really liked where after the conference you got a login to a section of the site where you can download any presentations from the day. This is a great feature, as it means you don't need to stress about taking notes and it allows you to take a look at the sessions you missed.

Bravo though, I'm looking forward to the next one already. I urge anyone involved in SEO in the UK to go along!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Y5KaPNvDr30/a-review-of-thinkvisibility

Rethinking Twitter In Realtime

2009-12-28T17:41:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that Twitter is hardly the only real time micro-blogging format out there, it is clearly becoming the most popular. With the exception of Facebook status functionality, no one else appears to be able to touch Twitter on overall usage.

And with that level of user-ship, Twitter is said to become a usable tool for real time search queries. I respond by saying that it has a long ways to go. Yet that said, it does present some interesting possibilities for the near future.

Twitter, as it stands now, is a great means of sharing and communicating. But I still think it is going to take some better results than we are seeing currently before I find myself doing regular search queries with it. Just call me an old school kind of guy.

http://feed.lockergnome.com/~r/nexus/web/~3/XKhVHHdnzqw/

I don’t care about UX

2009-12-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

When I wrote about designing for the street I tossed out this glib remark:

The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces was filled with lessons that can be applied to web design (or as it is more fashionably known now, UX design).

Or, as Mark put it:

Since when did good web design suddenly get called 'UX'? Everywhere I look now, good UI design is called 'UX', good type = 'UX', Colour? UX.

My point in equating UX design with plain ol' fashioned web design is similar to what Jeff was getting at when he wrote I don't care about accessibility five years ago. It was a controversial thing to say but he explained it eloquently:

When you design for the Web - that is, when you design exclusively and specifically for this medium - when you do that natively, so many of the things we consider problems just start to fall away. … Because when Web design is practiced as a craft, and not a consolation, accessibility comes for free.

And that's the way I feel about what is often labelled as UX design. If someone claims to be a web designer but isn't considering the user experience, they are deluding themselves. UX, like accessibility, should be a given, not a differentiating factor. And that's why I don't care about UX.

In-Soon is Pretty

2009-12-05T17:14:00.000-08:00

Love doesn't judge. Some say that we live in the era of narcissism, because people have their say in everything these days thanks to the widespread use of the Internet and communication as well as political and social freedom. There are always people on the street using their mobile phones and talking busily to someone. Blogs and personal Web sites have also been developing rapidly.

Everybody is the main character nowadays. But despite the abundance of communication, people these days are more lonesome than ever because everybody is talking only about themselves -- about their wounds being larger than the wounds of others and about their needs being more urgent than other people's needs. Everybody claims that they are the best and the most lonely. But nobody listens to them. In the end, we all think that we are treated unfairly. The greater access we have to communication the more lonesome we feel. That is the downside of the era of narcissism in the 21st century.

Can you throw a stone at her?

There is a woman who was abandoned by her mother as soon as she was born and was raised by her impoverished grandmother. She also served a sentence for accidentally killing someone while in high school. She has the worst credentials to live in this merciless world, and people easily stigmatize her as a "sinner." But who doesn't have sins? And what credentials can be better than hers from the standpoint of people who have money and power? What does a "sin" mean to humans? Who will dare to throw stones at her?

Debugging is Risky

2009-12-01T15:50:00.000-08:00

Years ago, Peter worked as a highlyly paid IT consultant. You know those guys who come into the office in Italian suits and take over the large conference room as their "office" for six weeks? Well, Peter was one of those guys. But unlike the stereotype, he actually earned his hourly rate while applying his expert experience to several projects. He also had the luxury of working with some very highly skilled (and also highly paid) professional colleagues.

However, times started to get tough and Peter was having a harder and harder time finding a position as a consultant. Soon, he had to face facts - he'd have to explore other employment options, including getting a job as... a regular developer.

Paradigm Shift

It's not so much that Peter disliked the prospect of working as a salaried employee, but his choice to become a consultant stemmed from experiencing years of corporate-type WTFs.

For several years now, he had become used to working on small teams of "Elite Strike Force Systems Analysts" that were designed to be lean and mean, and get the job done at all costs under tight deadlines. His was a world where the PHBs dare not tread, nor were they welcomed. However, despite having to repress previous memories, Peter remained confident that he could find his niche.

But alas, his first day at his new regular job brought back to mind his painful past. His cubicle was amidst a sea of eighty or so identical units, all with one or more developers huddled around a PC doing what appeared to be the same kind of development. When Peter would ask fellow workers what they were working on, all but one replied "Oh, I'm finishing up my web report for the new customer web portal," and each web report they were responsible for seemed to be almost the same as the last one. For example, there was the Major Customers by Geographic Location report and then the Geographic Locations of Major Customers report. As for the guy that wasn't working on reports, he was the roving security guard.

What was the group of eighty developers working on that couldn't be done in a team of twenty? he thought, but reminded himself that he was still a newbie and couldn't be expected to understand the subtle, yet deadly differences between to similarly named reports.

Logging Involves Trees, Right?

Being that Peter was working at a bank - namely a Swiss bank - security was tight. Peter was not allowed to do anything on his workstation except use MS Office, work with Visual Studio, and send/receive email. For security purposes, IIS was not installed, meaning that code had to be compiled and tested on another server.Oh well, Peter thought, it's just 'their way' of doing things. No big deal, I'll play along.

His first assignment was easy: develop the Key Customers by Geographic Locations report. After a couple hours of writing some code, he spent another hour compiling and deploying his changes to the dev server so that he could run the report. Drat, he said to himself, the grouping control isn't returning the correct selection.. He loaded up his remote debugger and ran into another roadblock: his account didn't have remote debugging privileges. Figuring that some network admin had forgotten to give him the right privileges, Peter asked a coworker for help.

"Remote debugging?" his coworker said quizzically, "what's that? Like putting Response-dot-Write statements in and stuff?"

Peter explained that, by remote debugging, he actually meant hooking up a debugger to the dev server and remotely debugging the code.

"Oh yah," he responded, "no, we don't do anything like that here."

Perplexed, Peter asked how exactly they manage to test and debug their code.

"Uhhh," his coworker said in a condescending tone, "we look at it!"

There must be some misunderstanding, Peter thought to himself, Sooner or later this situation will sort itself out! In the mean time, he added in a handful of Trace statements to help "remote debug" his code.

Debug F.U.D.

After a few flustering days of trace-style debugging, Peter approached his manager about the issue. "Obviously," his boss responded, "debugging is switched off for security reasons. We're a bank, after all, and the last thing we'd want is a malicious user being able to compromise the bank's security!"

Peter agreed that security was important, but pleaded that there was little risk in allowing debugging on the dev server by developers. And besides, writing trace statement after trace statement was tedious.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Peter's manager said while waving his arms, "you're using TRACE statements!? Oh no no, we don't allow any debugging code or trace statements. We're a bank, after all, and the last thing we'd want is an end user gleaming sensitive system information from a debug message!"

Peter admitted that yes, he had added a few trace statements. This only led into a half-hour tirade about how "maverick" developers like him were "the kind of problem people" who invited hackers in. After giving his security spiel, he concluded that he was glad that they had the chance to speak and requested that Peter rollback any changes that included the Trace statements. Because you never know, the auditors could drop in anytime for one of their random inspections.

Not much longer after the incident with his manager, Peter decided that his time working as a cog in a great corporate wheel wasn't for him, especially when being "coached" by an IT manager who for not following the company's best practices. As he packed his belongings, Peter felt a small twinge of guilt that his report task would be left incomplete, but the feeling passed as he realized that there were eighty other guys and gals in the room who "just knew" how the system worked and would be more than capable of implementing his report.

http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Debugging-is-Risky.aspx

People of West Bank

2009-11-30T16:24:00.000-08:00

The West Bank is inhabited mainly by Palestinian Arabs, who numbered approximately 1,443,790 in 1994. Most Palestinians are Sunni Muslims (see Sunni Islam). Christian Arabs, who comprise less than 10 percent of the Palestinian population and belong chiefly to the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, are concentrated in towns around Jerusalem. Arabic is the dominant language of Palestinians, and English and Hebrew are also frequently spoken and understood. Approximately 10 percent of West Bank Palestinians are housed in a number of crowded refugee camps administered by the United Nations (UN).

Since Israeli occupation of the West Bank began in 1967, Palestinians have lived in uneasy coexistence with a growing number of Israeli settlers. Israelis in the West Bank practice Judaism, and speak Hebrew as a primary language. The Israeli settler population has grown from about 190,000 in 2000 to about 250,000 in 2005, although some estimates put the settler population as high as 450,000. There are 122 official Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

http://tastemenow.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/people-of-west-bank/

Is Twitter Almost Done?

2009-11-28T17:29:00.000-08:00

It doesn't seem like it's been that long since I started using twitter.com. In fact, it really hasn't been that long. But there is a whole lot of talk about the effect of a couple of big stories that have revolved around the web service. Most notably, the smackdown that Ashton Kutcher gave CNN and the recent joining of the queen of daytime talk, Oprah.

The biggest bit of talk is whether those two stories mean that twitter has officially gone mainstream or not. On top of that, if it has gone mainstream, will that be the beginning of its demise as the geek core that made it famous begin an exodus? As to the mainstream question, I think it has, or nearly has gone mainstream. Will that mean the end of it? Not likely.

People said the same thing when Facebook opened up their doors to people without .edu email addresses. The rabble was let in, they said. The younger users will flock away to competitors like myspace. In fact, Facebook has grown exponentially since then.

Twitter will also grow exponentially. Or should anyways. It has to try and keep up with the growth. Something that twitter hasn't been doing so well with in recent months. The fail whale has become a rather regular occurance. Further, geeks aren't going to exodus from twitter. There will always be a bigger, fancier, better service to come along. Some will bleed off the edge to those services, but a majority of the people who use twitter now, realize it's usefullness and will continue to use it.

Feel free to explore those other services, you wouldn't want to wait a few years to join the next twitter like I did.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Thatedeguy/~3/mvrd0KYapbo/is-twitter-almost-done

Twestival: A Case Study in Using Twitter for Fundraising and Community Organizing

2009-11-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

What could you do with $2? What about $250,000?

On February 12, Twitterers in 202 cities around the world asked exactly that of charity: water, raising more than a quarter million dollars online in just a few short weeks. The event, Twestival, wasn't the first to use Twitter for fundraising -- but it was the first to do so at such a large, networked and volunteer-driven scale.

The success of Twestival has a lot of non-profits and organizers thinking carefully about the opportunities -- and challenges -- of using Twitter.

Join us this Thursday, June 4th at the PdF Network, where Twestival's founder and event organizer Amanda Rose will clue us into how she did it and what other organizers can learn from her experience.

To join the call (and get the opportunity to pose your questions directly to Amanda), you'll need to join the PdF Network.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techpres/~3/f1qlCJQc0wk/8192

Science Confirms: Twitter Dominated by Self-Obsessed Dudes

2009-11-26T17:32:00.000-08:00

Harvard has looked at the data and two studies have reached an unavoidable conclusion: Self-absorbed loudmouth guys have overrun Twitter like no other place on the internet. You probably figured. But now there are numbers.

Harvard Business Review has found, "The top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production." And a separate study shows that Twitter's about the only social network where men are more likely to be "followed" by both other men and by women. That's in contrast to other social networks, where "most of the activity is focused around women."

Even Wikipedia, notorious for being run by a tiny, self-obsessed cabal, is not so bad: There, 90 percent of the content comes from the most active 15 percent of users.

Such asymmetry, of course, is baked right into Twitter's architecture. The microblogging service grew quickly because it allows one-way "follows." On Facebook, in contrast, accounts can only be linked with the permission of both parties.

If it's any consolation, relentless self-promotion is a necessary but not sufficient condition of popularity on Twitter. Have a look at Twitter's most prolific authors - have you heard of a single one? But good luck becoming one of the most influential tweeters if you don't constantly churn out copy.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/valleywag/full/~3/rxZ3Dmc73o4/science-confirms-twitter-dominated-by-self+obsessed-dudes

Digital Web Recent

2009-11-24T15:50:00.000-08:00

It's the end of the year; a time for nostalgia and looking back on the past year. Nick Finck, Digital Web Magazine's founder and publisher, recalls where we've been, what we've achieved, and discusses the potential for dramatic change in where we are going as a publication. This is your chance to influence the future structure and focus of Digital Web.

Is The Web Really Helping Us Find New Music?

With exactly one month to go until Christmas, Digital Web Magazine is changing pace for our last article of 2008. Tempers have flared in recent weeks over our coverage of idiosyncratic CSS techniques, so we thought we'd look at something completely different-finding new music online.

For many developers, their passion for great music runs nearly as high as their passion for semantic code; Chris Wright takes a look at how the current crop of online music tools might be failing us. This article also marks something of an experiment for Digital Web: opinion-driven editorial content, rather than our normal expert advice-led columns. Let us know what you think of our first, an editorial on the value of editorial…

RESTful CSS

With every web developer or agency worth their salt releasing a web application these days, it was inevitable that attention would eventually turn to how best to manage CSS within a modern MVC framework. Steve Heffernan pairs stylesheets with REST principles to present a new approach to CSS architecture.

Are Accessibility Statements Useful?

Leona Tomlinson is back for a second article, detailing where accessibility statements fit into Web sites today.

Review: Website Optimization

Is your website firing on all cylinders? We take a look at a book that has a little something for everyone, from marketers to developers, to help you polish your pages. Andrew Stevens returns to Digital Web to review Website Optimization.

Extract: Know Your Site

In this extract from his forthcoming book, the Website Owner's Manual, Paul Boag takes a look at some of the simple things you can do to gain a fuller understanding of how your website is performing, both for your users and in a broader sense.

Interview: Aarron Walter

This week, Digital Web's own Nick Finck sat down with the Web Standards Project's Aarron Walter, to talk education, findability, and the path to lasting happiness.

Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong

Digital Web running a provocative article on CSS techniques? Shurely shome mishtake! In this extract from the forthcoming Sitepoint book of the same name, Rachel Andrew explains how you can use tables for layout in modern web design with a clean conscience.

head Conference Q&A with Aral Balkan

Aral Balkan talks to Digital Web about the conference: an experiment in online communities. Bringing a collection of varied and insightful speakers from around the globe to thousands of attendees without even stepping outside.

Concept Design Tools

Does your creative process start with the same sketch of a web page every time? Or even the same Photoshop template? You could be missing out on the most innovative solutions by not putting enough thought into the concept, says Victor Lombardi. Here he outlines three methods for pulling apart a brief to tackle the underlying concept design.

See how people sort your direct mail

2009-11-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

I've pointed out previously that while you might spend days, even weeks, crafting a direct mail message, recipients will spend just seconds deciding whether it's worth their attention.

Here's a video from Pitney Bowes illustrating this simple idea. Let me first say that I disagree with the comment that a plain envelope is "boring." The fact is, a plain envelope, especially one that looks personal, is a great way to get people to actually open the envelope and look at what's inside.

Most of the other comments are worthy of consideration. For example, you have to get the recipient name and address right. Nothing will kill a mailer faster than addressing it to the wrong person. You must clean your list before you mail. And please remember to make sure you're sending just one mailer to a home address unless you intend otherwise. I've been seeing a lot of waste recently with the same mailing arriving for various spellings of my name and my wife's name.

Don't take the list for granted just because you're a copywriter or designer. It's true this isn't your direct responsibility. But like it or not, employers and clients will judge you (at least in part) based on the performance of a mailing.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DirectCreativeBlog/~3/KAgP8OEASBc/sort-mail

Caesar Forces in Gaul

2009-11-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

Only a small part of the summer was left, and in these regions, as all Gaul has a northerly aspect, the winters are early; but for all this, Caesar was intent upon starting for Britain. He understood that in almost all the Gallic campaigns succors had been furnished for our enemy from that quarter; and he supposed that, if the season left no time for actual campaigning, it would still be of great advantage to him merely to have entered the island, observed the character of the natives, and obtained some knowledge of the localities, the harbors, and the landing-places

Caesar himself with all his forces started for the territory of the Morini, from which was the shortest passage across to Britain. He commanded the general concentration here of ships from the neighboring districts and of the fleet which he had built in the previous summer for the Venetian campaign. Meanwhile his purpose had become known and had been reported through traders to the Britons, and deputies came to him from several states in the island with promises to give hostages and to accept the empire of Rome. He heard them, and made them a generous promise, encouraging them to keep their word; then he sent them back home, and along with them he sent Commius, whom he himself, after subduing the Atrebates, had made king over them.

Giffen goods

2009-11-02T23:43:00.000-08:00

In 2002 Robert Jensen and Nolan Miller claimed they had found real examples of it in China. Quinine water is an example of it for rodents, according to a 1991 paper. It was first mentioned in Alfred Marshall's 1895 text Principle of Economics. This theory can be applied to partly explain why a labor supply curve is backward bending and, conversely, why the demand curve can be positive. Analysis of them assumes that only the consumer's income or the relative price level changes. This theory on the nature of certain products was developed in the Irish Potato Famine. FTP identify this type of product that makes the poor buy more of it as its price increases. Answer: Giffen goods

Google Local - Out of Date, Riddled with Spam But Absolutely Worth It

2009-11-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

Hello hello, today I'm going to talk a little about Google Local. The things I'm talking about aren't necessarily new or ground-breaking, but I think it's important to expose them to the Moz readership as Local isn't something that's talked about all that often on here and there are quite a few intricacies which you should be aware of when dealing with local optimisation, particularly for clients who have many locations and who rely on using a bulk upload to Google Local.

Before I go any further, there's some really, really smart people who talk about Google Local optimisation and I've been chatting with them recently - I strongly recommend that you check out the further reading at the bottom of this post as they go into a lot more detail about a lot of this stuff than I do (and they probably know more about it than I do too!).

Why Do You Care About Google Local?

There are two reasons to care about Google Local. The first is unbranded traffic. The second is branded traffic.

1) Unbranded Traffic

Over the past 6 months or so Google has become incredibly aggressive with displaying local results in the main listings. These almost always come in the form of a 10-result one-box (kind of like a 10-box, I suppose). It used to be the case that you had to refine your query with a location before you saw any Google Local results, such as Hotels in Leeds

Notice how this 10-box is the very first result that users see - even appearing 3rd or 4th in the 10-box can generate more clicks than a #1 ranking in the organic results just below. That's pretty staggering. That means that for these super competitive travel queries, if you want traffic you need to be optimising for the 10-box before you think about optimising for the regular organic listings.

But wait, trouble is on the horizon because Google is becoming even more aggressive with its 10-boxing and it's starting to display 10-boxes on regular search results without a geographical modifier if Google knows where you're searching from. Take, for example, a search for 'IT support' which generates the following result for me:

Notice that handy 10-box slipping into the results without me specifying my geographical location? Scary, huh. So in short, generic competitive queries are generating 10-boxes. If you want to grab that head traffic then you'd best go about some Google Local optimisation pretty quick.

2) Branded Traffic

Ok sure, generic queries are generating 10-boxes so that gives me some potential to aim for, but surely my navigational branded search queries are safe, right? Right?! Unfortunately not; take a look at this search for "napoleons casino leeds" (one of my old poker haunts), which generates a local listing above the regular organic result:

Well that's ok, right? Surely that local result is controlled by me? You would think so, wouldn't you, but actually in many cases that's not true. Keep reading below for examples of when this goes wrong.

So that covers WHY you should care about Google Local - now let's cover some of the issues.

Issues with Google Local

Here are a few of the common issues I have come across dealing with Google Local

Spam, and Lots of It

I recently did an analysis of the top 10 hotel searches in the US as determined by the Google Search Suggest (I know, pretty unscientific but I wanted a random snap shot). I then analysed the 10 results in the 10-box for each search result - a total of 100 local results - and found that 15 of them were spammed.

Spam in the main index:

Take a look at this 10-box from 'hotels in boston'. Can anyone spot the odd one out?

Yeah, of course the last one, which is a locksmith rather than a hotel. Easy. The real question is, how many of you spotted the other odd one out? Look at D carefully - you see that the listing appears correctly - it's for the Club Quarters Hotel, which is indeed located in Boston, but the URL actually sends you to www.elephantcastle.com (which, incidentally, is a chain of bars which has a location in Boston; it's not the website for the tube station in London).

The reason for this occurrence is that the Elephant & Castle bar and the Club Quarters Hotel have the same address - and Google is trying to merge the listings and doing a pretty poor job of it.

Spam in the details of the Google Local Index:

Take a look at result C - you see that the hotel listing appears correct but the URL is www.cheap-hotels.usa.net. This certainly isn't a case of merging listings since the www.cheap-hotels-usa.net URL isn't a genuine site. So why does this spam happen? Well, it gets even worse - click through to the details (by clicking on the reviews link) and you see this:

It's a pretty strange listing - not only is the official website not listed, neither is the cheap-hotels-usa site. Instead, it's now linking to a spam blog on blogspot. Why is this? Well, the reason is that there's an edit button on the listing. And that leads to a free text edit of the Google Local information, including the URL. I'm really not sure why Google allows this free edit - in the past they've come out and said that the majority of edits are genuine and that may be true for niche small stores, but for the main competitive terms it's just overrun with spam. There's a few weeks delay on the data that gets edited here feeding back into the main Google Local index which gets displayed in the 10-box, which is why the cheap-hotels-usa URL is still being used in the 10-box.

Here's the shocking part - if you own a hotel chain and submit a bulk upload to Google Local, this bulk upload isn't trusted enough to prevent this free text edit function being displayed for your hotel.

Language

So Google Local, which you'd think would be designed to handle local queries, actually sucks really badly at local language searches. The problem is that, as far as I can see, there's only one Google Local index worldwide compared to all the local indexes you get for google.co.uk, google.fr, google.com, etc. This manifests itself in a few ways, but the most important one is this - only one language version of a page can be listed in Google Local. So if I search for "madrid hotel" in google.co.uk

You see that I get a combination of .com (English) and .es (Spanish) results. This is handled reasonably well because there's a leaning towards .es sites in google.es. Cool! But the problem comes when you have two versions of the same content in different languages; whether it's on a subdomain, subfolder or local TLD, it doesn't matter to Google Local -- you can only have one listing for one location. So the Hotel Regente in the above example (which has multiple languages on the site) can only ever rank with the Spanish homepage, even for searches in the UK, in English. That sucks, right? I really wish there was a way to fix this - Google is really good at detecting this in the regular SERPs, so it'd be great to roll that language/geotargeting detection into the Google Local indexes as well.

Verification

This is the third issue and it relates to the above issues. If you have a large number of geographical locations (physical stores or hotels, for example), then registering them individually can be a real pain. Imagine having to coordinate hundreds of different local verifications all with consistent data and accurate information. But you don't need to do that, right? Surely you can just submit a bulk upload? Well you CAN, but as shown above a bulk upload just isn't that trusted by Google, so the only option is to verify them individually which is nigh on impossible if you have many, many locations.

Advice

So what's the point of this post? Well, it's two-fold. Firstly, it's to highlight some of the issues Google Local is facing at the moment so that you can understand better how to optimise your site (or your client's sites). Secondly, it's to offer a few tips which you can start mulling over and hopefully put into practice:

1) Don't rely on a bulk upload unless you have to

Given the ability of webmasters to edit local listings and given the relatively untrusted nature of the bulk upload, I urge you to try and register individually the locations/properties you want in Google Local.

2) Only create one listing for each individual location

Even if you have multiple language pages or multiple properties at the same location, ensure that only one of them is registered with Google Local. At the moment they're not good at handling businesses with the same address.

3) Think about using KML Geositemaps if you have many locations

If it's unfeasible to register all of your properties individually (or even while you're putting that process in place), consider using a Geositemap since this should be more trusted than the bulk upload, as it relies on the same sitemap file verification process which is intrinsically more trusted than the upload process since it's tied to your domain.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/mtdHca-XyW8/google-local-out-of-date-riddled-with-spam-but-absolutely-worth-it

Aryans Linguistic comparisons

2009-11-02T09:31:00.000-08:00

Linguistic comparisons also show that the territory of Europe was situated near an ocean or large body of water. Scandinavians, Germans, Celts, and Romans have preserved a common name for the ocean-the Old Norse mar, the Old High German mari the Latin mare. The names of certain sea-animals are also common to various Aryan languages. The Swedish hummer (lobster) corresponds to the Greek Kauf , and the Swedish (seal) to the Greek.

In the country of Europe there were domestic animals- cows, sheep, and goats. The horse was also known, hut it is uncertain whether it was used for riding or driving, or simply valued on account of its flesh and milk. On the other hand, the ass was not known, its domain being particularly the plains of Central Asia. The bear, wolf, otter, and beaver certainly belonged to the fauna of Aryan Europe. The European Aryans must have cultivated at least one, perhaps two kinds of grain; also flax, the name of which is preserved in the Greek ? ÃƒÂ? ? ? (linen), the Latin linum, and in other languages.

The Aryans knew the art of brewing mead from honey. That they also the art of drinking it even to may be taken for granted. This drink was dear to the hearts of the ancient Aryans, and its name has been faithfully preserved both by the tribes that settled near the Ganges, and by those who emigrated to Great Britain. The Brahmin by the Ganges still knows this beverage as madhu, the Welchman has known it as meda, the Lithuanian as mnedus; and when the Greek Aryans came to Southern Europe and became acquainted with wine, they gave it the name of mead

A Typical Twitter User

2009-10-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

often need to remind myself that the way I use Twitter is probably not typical when considering the population as a whole. Like many of you, I am online most of the time: sitting at my computer or checking in with my iPhone when I'm away from the laptop. Since I'm always connected and usually working in some form or another, I read tweets frequently and post many times per day.

According to some new Twitter research published on the Harvard Business Blog, my usage is unusual:

A typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days.

At the same time there is a small contingent of users who are very active. Specifically, the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. On a typical online social network, the top 10% of users account for 30% of all production.

To put Twitter in perspective, consider an unlikely analogue - Wikipedia. There, the top 15% of the most prolific editors account for 90% of Wikipedia's edits. In other words, the pattern of contributions on Twitter is more concentrated among the few top users than is the case on Wikipedia, even though Wikipedia is clearly not a communications tool. This implies that Twitter resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.

I suspect than many of us fit into that top 10 percent of users who contribute the majority of the content, but I'm a bit concerned about the conclusion that Twitter might be more of a one-to-many publishing platform rather than a community of peers interacting with each other. I'm not sure that the data shown in the blog post leads to that conclusion. I do worry about all of the brands jumping on Twitter to broadcast their marketing messages and tell people about their products and services without really engaging in the conversation. However, there are also many people and companies who engage effectively in the conversation by becoming a part of the community. @replies and retweets are part of the community-focused culture of sharing content that is also a part of Twitter.

As a freelance consultant, clients often ask me about using Twitter, and it can be difficult to get them to understand the conversational nature of Twitter to shift them from thinking of Twitter as a broadcast medium to Twitter as a community of people holding conversations. It's also important to remember that most people are not likely to be using Twitter as obsessively as I do, which makes techniques for mining and monitoring Twitter even more important for the average Twitter user.

(As an aside, the Harvard Business blog post also contains some interesting observations about gender and Twitter usage that are outside of the scope of this post, but are definitely worth a read.)

What are your thoughts about Twitter as a conversation vs. a way to broadcast content?

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Webworkerdaily/~3/WIG8PdGfaE8/

US Government Launches Data.gov

2009-10-24T16:23:00.000-07:00

The much-anticipated US government catalog of government agency web sites who offer structured data, Data.gov, has gone live. It's a first cut at what should grow into a very useful index of a vast array of government data that's available online. Here's how they describe their site and their mission:

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. Although the initial launch of Data.gov provides a limited portion of the rich variety of Federal datasets presently available, we invite you to actively participate in shaping the future of Data.gov by suggesting additional datasets and site enhancements to provide seamless access and use of your Federal data. Visit today with us, but come back often. With your help, Data.gov will continue to grow and change in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

The current Data.gov catalog includes 47 data sets that can be accessed in XML, Text/CSV, KML/KMZ, Feeds, XLS, or ESRI Shapefile formats. See the FAQ for additional information.

Data.gov was released to the public as part of the Obama administration's Transparency and Open Government Initiative. Although the preliminary release offers a limited subset of the government's data, it's a good first step and certainly an improvement over any earlier government-initiated efforts (or lack thereof) to make federal data accessible and downloadable.

Data.gov's catalog is divided into two sections: a "raw" data catalog and "tools". Here's their description and a screenshot:

A) "Raw" Data Catalog: Data.gov features a catalog with instant view/download of platform-independent, machine readable datasets in a variety of formats
B) Tool Catalog: Data.gov features a tool catalog to provide the public with simple, application-driven access to Federal data with hyperlinks. This catalog features widgets and data-mining and extraction tools, applications, and other services.

As identified in the Data Policy page, the site is expected to evolve based on stakeholder participation:

In support of the Transparency and Open Government Initiative, recommendations from individuals, groups and organizations regarding the presentation of data, data types, and metadata will contribute to the evolution of Data.gov.

Time will tell how much input from third parties will shape Data.gov, but it's nice to see that it has been included as an initial consideration. Perhaps community involvement and ground-up efforts such as crowd-sourcing will play a role in shaping this new resource.

We're excited to see how Data.gov will evolve and curious to see how developers and the public utilize the data.

On a related note, the Sunlight Foundation has teamed up with Google, O'Reilly Media, and TechWeb on a new contest for this summer. The Apps for America 2 contest offers a variety of prizes for developers using Data.gov in applications and mashups.

For more, our Government API Dashboard has an index government APIs and related resources.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ProgrammableWeb/~3/vsLYQUvp4r8/

Him Mark Lai Collection

2009-10-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

He often presented papers and delivered speeches. He was invited to make the keynote address at the 1987 Honolulu Conference commemorating the bicentennial of the arrival of Chinese in Hawaii. In 1992 he became a member of the planning committee of "Luodi Shenggen: The Legal, Political, and Economic Status of Chinese in Diaspora," a conference held in San Francisco. Lai's wide range of professional activities are evident in the collection by the large number of materials relating to organizations, exhibitions, conferences and requests for consultation.

In 1971, Lai was also involved as a coordinator of "Hon Sing: Chinese Community Hour," a weekly, hour-long Cantonese language radio program. The program ran for thirteen years and featured news, commentaries, community announcements, and Chinese music. Schedules, correspondence with listeners and newsclippings relating to the radio program are contained in the collection. In addition, filmmakers and television producers have approached Lai for his advice. Among the films were Gum Saan Haak: A History of the Chinese in America (KRON-TV, 1971-1974); Children's Television Project (The Association of Chinese Teachers and Chinese for Affirmative Action, Loni Ding, project director, 1977-1978); The Chinatown Files (Amy Chen, producer, 1988-2001); San Francisco Chinatown (KQED-TV, Felicia Lowe, producer, 1995); and Living Widows and Paper Sons (Multimedia Education Project, Jennie Lew, producer, 1994-2000). Lai's impressive knowledge has been tapped for a variety of other projects, including manuscript reviews and editorial consultations.

Why do European Studies?

2009-10-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

The European Studies program enables students with an interest in European society, politics, history and culture in the early modern and modern periods to pursue a program of study at Senior level across a wide range of subject areas. Students are able to specialise in streams which include Renaissance and Early Modern Europe, Modern and Contemporary Europe, or to choose from a broad range of units of study dealing with European society, politics, culture and history combining different streams. The European Studies Centre offers the possibility of majoring in European subjects. Choose from units of study in: Art History and Theory, Philosophy, History, English, Economic History, Government and International Relations, French Studies, German Studies, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Modern Greek, Semitic Studies, Spanish, and Yiddish. The entry requirement for European Studies is 48 Junior credit points.

Students majoring in European Studies (a minimum of 32 credit points at Senior Level) enrol in at least one compulsory core unit of study in European Studies, worth 8 credit points. In 2004, two core units of study will be offered: in semester 1, HSTY 2059 Nationalism, and in semester 2, HSTY 2005 East and West in Contemporary Europe. Remaining units of study will be chosen from a designated list offered in the area of European Studies by participating departments. Students will also complete EITHER 12 credit points of a European language other than English at Junior Advanced level OR 28 credit points of a European language other than English at Beginners, Introductory and Senior Intermediate level. European languages that can be studied at The University of Sydney are: French, German, Hebrew, Irish, Italian, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Latin, Welsh, Yiddish, Spanish and Russian.

Credit points that specifically involve the learning of a language are excluded from the number of credit points, which make up the minimum for a major (32 credit points) in European Studies. Students must complete units of study across at least two language/country areas over the period of their major. They should seek advice from the Director regarding the combination. Although there are no Junior European Studies units of study, students intending to major in European Studies are advised to include 12 Junior credit points of European History and 12 Junior credit points of a European language in their program.

European Studies students intending to take units of study offered by the Department of Philosophy are strongly advised to have completed at least Junior 6 credit points of Philosophy before enrolling in any Senior philosophy units of study. Honours (EUST 4014) in European Studies can be taken as part of a Combined Honours degree. Prerequisite: Credit average in 32 Senior credit points of European Studies units; plus either 12 advanced-level credit points or 28 introductory/intermediate level credit points of a non-English European Language. Prerequisites and requirements can only be waived by the Faculty on the recommendation of the Director.

How is the young people ?

2009-10-23T12:46:00.000-07:00

Will be different country by country, area by area.
Important to continue involving and encouraging new generations. They are the future. A lovely community for them to join.
I'd like to know what other people do.
Musicians is one dimension. Curriculum is another. Where does it fall in the schools? Marketing of bluegrass is a third dimension.
Young bands in CZ.
Use MySpace and YouTube and Facebook, where young people get their information.
"Young people" includes 20s and 30s. The diverse radio world is gone. Younger demography has never been exposed. Discovery
is easier on YouTube. Huge # of live performances.
Marketing campaign should include attracting to jams, including in schools, drawing to shows (family friendly) encourage families to
play music together.
Don't develop a plan specifically for young. Capture all ages and social groups in our mark

The Migration Century

2009-10-19T02:07:00.000-07:00

The remaining part of Oromia came under Abyssinian colonial subjugation through similar barbaric acts of pillaging and butchery. Millions of Oromos were killed, brutally mutilated or sold as slaves during the wars of conquest. Oromo land was apportioned among royal family, the church and the military personnel and the Oromos were forced to serve them as serfs on their own land. At the height of Haileselassie regime, the royal family and the nobility owned over 50% of Oromo land and 33% belonged to the Ethiopian Orthodox church.
.
After the 1960s, Finfinne went through changes of migration that brought about the population explosion from 40,000 in 1900, to over 3 million at the end of the century. Today Finfinne (Addis Ababa) is a headquarters of many international organizations like African Unity (AU) and ECA; and different agencies like UNDP, UNICEF, UNHCR, FAO, ILF, ICO and ITU . It also hosts some 70 embassies and consular representatives. It is the main administrative, industrial and trade centre , In addition, the city is the centre of the nation's service and finance sectors..

Authentic Scholarship or Bigotry?

2009-10-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Prof. Courtright's use of psychoanalytic theory is a veneer to his bigotry. The issue highlighted by the protesting concerned citizens in the U.S., who are knowledgeable of Hindu culture, is not an attack on Prof. Courtright's freedom of speech or academic freedom. The Hindu scholars are not oblivious to the lofty democratic principles. The crucial issue is Prof. Courtright's scholarly responsibility to the arcane fields of Hindu Philosophy and Mythology, as well as the appropriate use of Applied Psychoanalysis.

The limitations of his knowledge of both of these subjects makes his book on "Ganesa" comparable to the pseudoscientific arguments, used in the disciplines of Humanities, to justify racism and eugenics in the 1960's. Such fallacious "logic" was designed to gain academic respectability. Such ploy or subterfuge is likely to mislead and misinform other honest but gullible academicians in the U.S. Prof. Courtright has distracted them into believing that his work published under the banner of Emory has authentic scholastic merit.

He would view any attack on his blatant "cross-cultural vandalism" as an encroachment on his academic freedom. Such defense and other arguments used by Prof. Courtright are nothing but smoke and mirrors. His counteraccusations against his critics further demean and discredit the Hindu scholars who have taken a serious exception to the contents of his book. His scholastic sounding exterior is a cover up for the deliberate and malicious maligning of a respectable culture.

The defensive response of Prof. Courtright is a gross misuse of the concept of academic freedom. It is clearly a form of "anal sadistic" attack on another respectable society under the disguise of authentic scholarship. In short, Prof. Courtright has ulterior motives in attempting to publish his book from New Delhi, India. The considered action of the Parliament of India taken against his book and the recall of his book by its Indian publisher must not be viewed as a disregard of the democratic principle of freedom of expression. Simply speaking, the liberty to act cannot be translated as a freedom to urinate on the pole on which a national flag is hoisted. These views are respectfully submitted for consideration by the Emory University authorities that may have been unwittingly but sincerely defending Prof. Courtright, previously losing sight of the above-mentioned implications.

A Historical Look at Search Functionality on Twitter and a Bonus: What’s Next

2009-10-09T17:43:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of weeks the chatter about search functionality with regards to Twitter has come up again so I thought it might make sense to take a look back at how search has evolved with this exploding worldwide platform.

The Early Days

While most of Twitter's users today weren't around in the early days, many of you were. These were the days of the whale of fail, the rat in your pc and the general fun. Back then, there was no search function. If you wanted to know what your friend had for lunch or if your friend's cat made a #2 on your friend's carpet, you had to go to the account for your friend or his/her cat and just page back and forth. It was a tough time.

Summize

Then, like cream cheese on a fresh bagel, here comes NY-based Summize. Now we are talking! (well searching). Summize allowed us to search in near real-time for our friend's messages. Want to know if that really was an earthquake? Pop "earthquake" into Summize. It was a real pleasure. Soon after the search engine was acquired by Twitter and renamed to Twitter Search and it still lives today. Twit messages are ranked by last posted in the results and there is no weighting to the results. The search functionality is also available within the Twitter site itself on the right side of a profile page.

Authority Search

Late last year during the "made up fights" between several valley bloggers and entrepreneurs, a discussion arose about creating an awesome Twitter search engine that would rank search results based on who has more followers. This was awesome…users who have lots of followers would appear higher in search. Bloody brilliant concept! Surely there would be no way to game the system to get more followers, right? Well, six months later and the rank by followers chatter has died out.

Note: somewhere in here Twitter introduced the Default List - this is the list that pumps certain celebs, FOT, fluffers, people who deliver cupcakes to twitter hq, etc.

Retweet Search

I thought I was excited to learn that they are remaking The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. But now I know what real excitement is when I saw the launch of Topsy. Topsy is the engine that has got Twitter Default User Mike Arrington really excited. Here's how Topsy works…rather than displaying results by authority or post date/time, Topsy ranks the results by how many times a link or query has been retweeted. If you need a moment, take one please, I know I did. So now let's get serious for a moment. It's interesting that in Mike's gushingly positive post about Topsy, he failed to mention that those on the Default List will have an overwhelmingly higher chance of getting better rankings than us mere-non-cupcake-mortals.

Louis Gray did a Columbo-style investigation and found that, indeed, the default list members do control many of the Topsy topics. Louis looks at search queries including the iPhone, Tesla Motors and more. Duncan Riley took a look at Topsy from the "short url" standpoint.

Could a retweet search engine work? Perhaps but certainly not the way Twitter is setup today.

What's Next?

Robert Scoble and others have said that Friendfeed does a better job at searching Twitter. Will Friendfeed become the search of choice for Twitter users? Maybe…if Friendfeed can win over the mainstream crowd.

Will Google begin to index twit messages? My magic 8 ball says "all signs point to yes". Google wants to get some of the "realtime" loving that's going around now and once they can index Twitter messages in some fashion, users will have even more reason to remain on Google. Google has already added a time panel on search results pages. Although I am not even sure that realtime matters for Google. I could see the search engine starting with just relevancy first - I do hope they separate Twitter or any of the other services from traditional online content.

My only hope is that all of the search engines will allow me to filter "-user: -cat -dog -sheep".

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Centernetworks-/~3/e-oq23BsOhY/twitter-search-review

Twitter Tools 1.6b2

2009-10-08T17:24:00.000-07:00

After a couple of bug reports about scheduled posts still not working, we were able to identify and fix a nasty little bug that was causing the "notify Twitter about this post or not" setting to get stomped on a bit.

We've fixed this, along with the "exclude replies" issues from the weekend, and things are looking pretty good in our initial testing. We'd love to have some further testing help from you before 1.6 goes final.

The download and more information are available on my WordPress Plugins page.

If you have any trouble with this, please open a thread in the WP Support Forums and e-mail me a link to the thread.

http://alexking.org/blog/2009/02/16/twitter-tools-16b2

Pandemic monitoring

2009-10-07T07:08:00.000-07:00

Objective: This component aims to gather information regularly to monitor the course of the pandemic at global level and answer critical questions such as is the pandemic increasing or decreasing; are new countries or regions affected; is the pandemic over; is a new wave beginning.
Preparedness: Monitoring the course of the pandemic will use existing indicators that are, or soon will be, routinely reported for seasonal influenza. The type of data available for monitoring influenza currently varies widely from country to country. As more countries institute routine respiratory disease surveillance monitoring data will become more complete and standardized, and thus more useful.
Benefits: Regular reporting from countries will make monitoring of the pandemic at global level possible. It will also provide reliable information on the evolution of the crisis. At national level these data will be important to track the spread of the virus, monitor its rise and fall, and watch for changes. Although not described in this document monitoring could be done at sub-national level using the same indicators.

Dijon Music Conservatories

2009-10-06T06:53:00.000-07:00

Forty volunteer students participated in this experiment: 19 students of an introductory course at the University of Burgundy who had never received formal musical training or learned a musical instrument (referred to below as nonmusicians); 21 students from the Music Conservatories of Dijon and Grenoble, France, who had received formal musical training, learned a musical instrument for 10 years on average, and were qualified as candidates for the final diploma of the Conservatory (referred to below as musicians). All of the participants received course credit or were paid $7. None had participated in Experiment 1. Material and apparatus. Material and apparatus were as described in Experiment 1, except for the tempo of the chord sequences. The tempo varied from moderately fast (300 ms per chord) to fast (150 ms per chord) to extremely fast (75 ms per chord). The duration of the last chord-target or foil-was set at 2,000 ms. The interchord interval was set at 0. The chord sequences were transposed in the 12 major keys, with eight chord sequences per major key.

Procedure and design. The procedure was as described in Experiment 1. Crossing the manipulations of the harmonic function of the target (tonic vs. subdominant), the occurrence of the subdominant (no target in context vs. subdominant in context), and the tempo of the prime (300, 150, and 75 ms per chord) resulted in 12 experimental conditions. Each participant heard 96 sequences (48 presented with a target, 48 with a foil) separated in three blocks as a function of the tempo of the prime. Half of the participants started with the extremely fast tempo, followed by the fast tempo, and then by the moderately fast tempo blocks. This presentation order was reversed for the other half of the participants. Before each block, participants were informed that the chord sequences would be played either more rapidly or more slowly. The musical expertise (musicians vs. nonmusicians) defined the between-subjects variable. The harmonic function of the target chord (tonic vs. subdominant) and the occurrence of the subdominant in the chord sequence defined the within-subject variables. None of these variables were blocked.

Papua Separatist Rebels

2009-10-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

The Indonesian military claimed Wednesday to have killed two separatist rebels in the country's easternmost province of Papua. One soldier sustained a gunshot wound during a two-hour shootout with the rebels Tuesday morning in Papua's remote village of Mulia in Puncak Jaya district, Indonesia's official Antara news agency reported. Papua's military chief Maj. Gen. Rizal Nurdin said the armed clash broke out after members of the separatist Free Papua Movement, or OPM, intercepted a group of five government soldiers. He said the soldiers had been deployed to the area after local residents reported to security authorities that a group of rebels were camping in a nearby forest.

The OPM, a small group of separatist rebels, has been fighting a sporadic rebellion in Papua, formerly Irian Jaya, since the early 1960s. International human rights groups have recently expressed concern over an anti-insurgency operation in Papua launched by the Indonesian military, saying it has undermined peace and stability in the province. Papua, a predominantly Melanesian province, is a former Dutch colony that became an Indonesian province in 1964.

The Ashes Australia Cricket

2009-10-05T06:12:00.000-07:00

Cricket Australia and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have announced the schedule for the 2010-11 Ashes series to be held in Australia. England, who had won the Ashes this season in the five-match series held in England, will be looking forward to retaining their trophy, and will begin their campaign on November 25 next year in Brisbane. The second Test will be played in Adelaide from December 3 to December7, the third at Perth from December 16 to December 20, while Melbourne's traditional Boxing Day fixture from December 26 to December 30 and Sydney's New Year Test from January 3 to January 7 will complete the schedule.

Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland said that both the Boards were awaiting another thrilling series between two of cricket's biggest rivals. Australian cricket fans always love an Ashes series and demand for tickets is going to be strong, so it is important to put the dates in diaries now," Fox Sports quoted Sutherland, as saying. "We also expect to have a lot of UK fans here again. I know we have only just finished an Ashes series in England, but I also know that the Aussie players - and Australian cricket in general are already thinking about the Ashes series Down Under," he added.

ECB Chief Executive David Collier said that following the Ashes series, England fans will be eager to support their team. "It promises to be a great contest and I am sure many thousands of England cricket fans will be eager to purchase tickets when they go on sale and get behind the team in Australia," Collier said. The schedule for the one-day series will be released at a later date

Fourth Generation Web Site Design

2009-10-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

Fourth generation designed sites have been referred to as being the multi-media rich site, with all the bells and whistles. But really fourth generation sites are only an extension of 3rd generation with some unique web-driven selling proposition which can only be delivered on the web. For example, remote access to education over the web, with all the course notes, tutorials and exams, etc, or perhaps just overnight ordering of products and services 24 hours a day. There will come a time when 3rd gen sites will be accepted as the norm, regardless of the site's purpose. For the designer, will the client instantly recognise the web sites's purpose at just a glance, has the site been specifically designed for education, commerce, information, government, or just for entertainment?. The end purpose must be built into the site design if it is to meet the client's requirements

The Midnight Flower Thieves

2009-10-04T06:48:00.000-07:00

I think my mama and papa did the best they could to keep us warm and clean and never hungry. We had birthday and graduation parties and things like that, but there was another hunger that had to be fed. There was a hunger I didn't even have a name for. Was this when I began writing? In 1966 we moved into a house, a real one, our first real home. This meant we didn't have to change schools and be the new kids on the block every couple of years. We could make friends and not be afraid we'd have to say goodbye to them and start all over. My brothers and the flock of boys they brought home would become important characters eventually for my stories-Louie and his cousins, Meme Ortiz and his dog with two names, one in English and one in Spanish.

My mother flourished in her own home. She took books out of the library and taught herself to garden-to grow flowers so envied we had to put a lock on the gate to keep out the midnight flower thieves. My mother has never quit gardening. I've moved since Europe to the strange and wonderful country of Texas, land of polaroid-blue skies and big bugs. I met a mayor with my last name. I met famous Chicana and Chicano artists and writers and políticos. Texas is another chapter in my life. It brought with it the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, a six-month residency on a 265-acre ranch. But most important, Texas brought Mexico back to me.

In the days when I would sit at my favorite people-watching spot, the snakey Woolworth's counter across the street from the Alamo (the Woolworth's which has since been torn down to make way for progress), I couldn't think of anything else I'd rather be than a writer. I've traveled and lectured from Cape Cod to San Francisco, to Spain, Yugoslavia, Greece, Mexico, France, Italy, and now today to Texas. Along the way there has been straw for the taking. With a little imagination, it can be spun into gold.

Another Global Problems

2009-10-04T06:32:00.000-07:00

Commercial sexual abuse has been identified as a significant global problem and comes in various guises: trafficking in children, child sex tourism, distribution of child pornography, sexual abuse rings, the exploitative use of a child in prostitution or unlawful sexual practices. Sexual exploitation implies sexual abuse and sexual abuse is also a form of exploitation. Some commentators prefer to use the concept of commercial sexual abuse to categorise prostitution, pornography and trafficking. However, this concept has been criticised for implying a commercial element that is not always present.

As is the case with child sexual abuse, the organisers of sexual exploitation - the pimps and the traffickers - are quite often people known to the child. "Customers", by contrast, are often strangers and, in the case of child pornography, multiple strangers that the child never meets. Sometimes the sexual exploitation of children is purely a transaction between the exploiter and the customer or receiver. At other times the disadvantaged child may exchange sex for a place to sleep for the night or for a meal.

The United Nations on Child Soldier

2009-10-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

The United Nations estimate that over 100 million children have hazardous and harmful jobs, such as working in mines, with chemical products or as soldiers. In addition many children are exploited by being forced to work in the commercial sex industry. All harmful situations obviously have serious negative impacts on children's health and development, but sexual abuse and exploitation are characterised by an extra dimension of social stigma and shame connected to the abuse. The existence of sexual abuse is denied or at least minimised in most societies, resulting in the rejection of the needs of the child. Thus, as a rule, preventive and protecting measures are insufficient.

Millions of children in the world are sexually abused in their families, in their communities, at the workplace and in the streets. Children are abused in many ways. They are raped, used in prostitution and trafficked for sexual exploitation in brothels and in other destructive places. They are forced to participate in pornographic productions, where images of their bodies are spread on the Internet and used in magazines. The fashion and advertising industry, moreover, increasingly exploit the image of the playful child in sexy clothes to sell their products. Even if this latter form of portrayal is legal, it reflects a sexualisation of childhood and can be seen as part of a general tendency to exploit children commercially. Notwithstanding the existence of appropriate international human and children's rights standards and national laws, the great majority of the world's children are vulnerable.

Campus Network Services

2009-10-04T06:22:00.000-07:00

One of the potential use cases for "federated identity" is so familiar that it may have escaped notice. Many of our campuses go to considerable effort over and over to enable access to their campus network service by visitors from other institutions. It would seem obvious, for example, that a group of faculty from various campuses meeting on one campus should be able to gain "guest privileges" by asserting their identity as faculty at a peer institution. However, there are some interesting technical problems to overcome to enable Shibboleth to support this case. This paper suggests an approach to solving this problem.

The fundamental technical problem arises because the visitor from another federation domain can not authenticate to their "origin" domain without using the network, but to use the network they first need to authenticate to their origin domain. If they are allowed to use the network without constraint for, say, two minutes in order to authenticate this would give "bad guys" a significant window in which to do mischief. Therefore, how can a federated identity approach to this problem be accomplished?

the external reviewers

2009-10-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

A team of external reviewers organized by the Foundation shall have initial responsibility for considering requests for grant funding. Reviewers' recommendations will be presented to the Program/Grants Committee in regular session for consideration of the merits of the proposed activities versus the funds available. The Program/Grants Committee will provide its recommendations to the HCF Board of Directors, which makes final decisions to approve or decline requests for grant funding. The Committee may also recommend further negotiation, modification or technical assistance in lieu of grant funding.

Collaboration and the leveraging of funds are important to the Foundation, and preference will be given to applicants that leverage resources from other sources. The Foundation will consider requests for 50 - 75% of the cost of the proposed project or activity. It is recommended that matching funds use a balanced approach of cash and in-kind resources. The Health Care Foundation will not fund more than 50% of an organization's operating budget. [Note - this includes the sum of all current grants HCF has with the organization.]

Surrogate Data Methods

2009-10-04T06:08:00.000-07:00

Another major problem, which is particular to rainfall time series, is that it contains a large number of a single value, zero. This leads to an underestimation of the Correlation Dimension (Bellie 2000). The method of Surrogate Data is mainly utilised to complement the first two methods as it justifies the presence of nonlinearity. Moreover, it is not hampered by the fact that the rainfall time series contains a large proportion of zeros, since as explained earlier a solution is found to resolve that problem.

The procedures used in this study are not unique. There are many ways of identifying chaotic systems. However, the Correlation Dimension method remains the most commonly used. This is despite the fact that it is not without its problems, the main one being that it often indicates the presence of low dimensional chaotic behaviour when it is not there (Casdagli 1991). For this reason, Sivakumar's decision to use two more methods, Nonlinear Prediction and Surrogate Data, as complements lends strength to his argument, that the rainfall time series of Singapore is indeed a nonlinear system and very possibly a low dimensional chaotic system.

The Highland Rape And Abuse Line Representative

2009-10-02T03:05:00.001-07:00

Sarah had been in contact prior to the meeting to ask that an amendment be made to the description of her interests. She was content that these were now more accurately reflected. Sheena is to be the Highland Rape and Abuse Line representative. Chris noted that INCAS was not mentioned as a contact group in the list of organisations at the end of the Strategy. Jeannie agreed to rectify this. Maggie Mellon suggested that the word survivor be used as opposed to user.

It was noted that the CSA debate brought about by Marilyn Livingstone's motion had taken place on 22 September and had been successful in congratulating the Scottish Executive on progress and in highlighting the Strategy. Although the number of MSPs who had been able to attend was lower than had been hoped for Anne made clear that it was what had been said that mattered. She welcomed Mr Macdonald's words in that they demonstrated the Executive's understanding of, and commitment to, survivors' issues. Sarah said she was delighted that there is now a national strategy.

The Theory of Recovered Memory

2009-10-02T02:57:00.001-07:00

Criticism regarding the recovery of supposedly repressed sexual abuse experiences was bound .to emerge from within the child sexual abuse research field itself. A good example is Robbins's (1995) article, ''Wading Through the Muddy Waters of Recovered Memory," in which she analyzes the theory of recovered memory in the sexual abuse area and attempts to establish a set of guidelines for professionals concerning how to interpret these statements and what limits to place on them. After exposing the fundamental elements of this therapeutic and social movement, Robbins refers to an illustrative example of said phenomenon: Benatar's work entitled "Running Away from Sexual Abuse: Denial Revisited," [E21] in which the latter author apparently criticizes the skepticism on the part of many people as well as the media regarding the validity of the recovery theories, the techniques employed by its defenders, and the rising industry of incest survivors.

Robbins concludes that Benatar is nothing more than a reflection of the association that has been established, on the part of the feminist and recovered memory movements, between two phenomena which, in reality, are completely different: recovered memory theory and the problem of sexual abuse. Denying the empirical basis of the former implied rejecting the veracity of the latter. To defenders of recovery theory, every memory of abuse -- because it was weak and foggy, as the latter would be -- was the reflection of a sexual abuse event that actually took place, which is just utter nonsense.

Young American Soldier

2009-10-02T02:26:00.001-07:00

As a battle hardened team of war correspondents you have been commissioned by National Geographic Magazine to create a photo essay that tracks the journey of a young American soldier during the Vietnam War. As a correspondent you pride yourself on your ability to creatively combine images, sounds and words into compelling stories about the changes that such an experience can bring about in a person.

Choose one of the following main characters from the novel Fallen Angels, to study: Richie Perry, Lobel, Johnson, Peewee, Lt. Carroll or Brewster. As you read the novel, record details about the character, including important things that they say or do. Be sure to note observations that your character makes about others in the novel as well as observations that other's make about them. Pay particular attention to your character's response during key events in the novel and what changes he may be going through.

Clinical Pathology of Childhood Abuse

2009-10-02T02:21:00.003-07:00

This must lead us to realize, he suggests, that we should "adopt postures which, rather than provoking a great social obsession with the issue, instead stimulate calmer and more realistic interventions. ... Intervention should be done in such a way that social alarm is not provoked, an alarm for which society may well be primed given the enormous importance imputed to abuse, as well as other false beliefs which we have already commented on." (López, 1994 p. 120)

This less dramatic view of abuse contrasts with many of the messages which this very same author has conveyed to the media and in materials disseminated. For example, in a piece of material developed by educators and used for abuse prevention (López & del Campo, 1997), the authors present none of the finer points mentioned above, and convey a quite negative message regarding the effects of abuse. And so they assert that between 60% and 80% are affected in the short-term in some way, and that between "17% and 40% suffer clear clinical pathologies;" as for long-term effects, they include the usual list of the harmful consequences of abuse, ranging from depression and attempts at suicide in adulthood to feelings of stigmatization, isolation, or low self-esteem, and on to sexual and relationship problems, re-victimization, delinquency, drug addiction, mistrust, academic failure, or prostitution.

According to López and del Campo, "The long-term effects are more difficult to study due to the confounding effects of a whole series of other factors. We make use, despite this difficulty, of sufficient works as to be able to establish certain enough relationships between [118] sexual abuse in childhood and particular subsequent problems."

Professional Chruch Personnel

2009-10-02T02:21:00.001-07:00

After considering a number of alternatives, the Working Group has decided that the major components of the scheme will most effectively be put in place by each diocesan synod passing legislation which, as far as possible, is uniform, and that dioceses be discouraged from amending that legislation other than in accordance with an agreed national scheme. This will require cooperation and goodwill. It may require altering existing schemes which may appear adequate. What is important is that this Church presents a unified and workable approach to a problem that does not know diocesan boundaries.

It is recognised that not all dioceses have the financial resources or access to the required professional personnel to set up the scheme proposed. In the Working Group's view, every diocese must have a Professional Standards Committee and a Director of Professional Standards who report to the Bishop and Diocesan Council of that diocese alone. It must also have a Professional Standards Board which makes recommendations to the Church authorities in that diocese alone. But there is no reason why these bodies and offices should not be shared, either by one diocese adopting as its own the relevant bodies of another diocese, or by coming to some appropriate arrangement with another diocese whereby it may participate in the appointment of those persons or bodies, with some agreed cost sharing arrangement.

In some cases it may be able to be organised on existing provincial lines. In other cases, that may be inappropriate, although doctrinal differences between dioceses should be irrelevant in determining appropriate groupings for this purpose. What will dictate the groupings is how the diocesan needs for participation in the scheme can best be served. It is not possible for this Working Group to determine what might be the best combination of dioceses in a particular case or how those arrangements should be worked out. Geography will play a part, but developments in technology have been able to ease the tyranny of distance. What must happen is that those dioceses lacking the resources to create their own structures must begin immediate discussions with those dioceses with whom they might be able satisfactorily to share resources. This will need active facilitation by the Metropolitans and the General Secretary.

Aceh Self-determination

2009-10-02T02:14:00.001-07:00

The laws allot the regions 15 per cent of net public income from their oil, 30 per cent from natural gas and 80 per cent from forestry, mining and fishing. These funds, and the powers delegated by the centre, are divided between the provinces and their constituent districts and municipalities in such a way as to stop the provinces becoming too powerful.

With hindsight, it can be said that the Habibie government missed a valuable opportunity to resolve the conflict. It failed to deliver on its promises and the level of military violence against civilians increased during its tenure, including some of the worst recent massacres by Indonesian soldiers in Aceh. GAM re-emerged during this period and spread outwards from the northeastern coastal areas into the west, the south and the mountainous centre of the province. By offering a referendum on independence to the people of East Timor, Habibie inadvertently encouraged Acehnese civil activists to widen their demands from justice to self-determination for Aceh.

Cyberporn Political Debate

2009-10-02T02:10:00.001-07:00

How the Carnegie Mellon report will affect the delicate political balance on the cyberporn debate is anybody's guess. Conservatives thumbing through it for rhetorical ammunition will find plenty. Appendix B lists the most frequently downloaded files from a popular adult BBS, providing both the download count and the two-line descriptions posted by the board's operator. Suffice it to say that they all end in exclamation points, many include such phrases as "nailed to a table!" and none can be printed in Time.

How accurately these images reflect America's sexual interests, however, is a matter of some dispute. University of Chicago sociologist Edward Laumann, whose 1994 Sex in America survey painted a far more humdrum picture of America's sex life, says the Carnegie Mellon study may have captured what he calls the "gaper phenomenon." "There is a curiosity for things that are extraordinary and way out," he says. "It's like driving by a horrible accident. No one wants to be in it, but we all slow down to watch."

Opinion: The Bing test: one week without using Google

2009-10-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

We've spent the working week using Bing as our main search engine. Will we stay with it? Probably not. Were we impressed? Overall, yes.

Bing is the best search Microsoft has yet produced, but it lacks a layer of ingenuity that we now take for granted when we search with Google.

Put a UK postcode into Google and it knows I want a map. Put it into Bing and more often than not, you end up with a list of search results. This isn't helpful and is the same when looking for added value Google items such as converting distances or time across different zones.

Google may have been criticised for its desire to provide this information rather than channel the traffic elsewhere, but the fact is we're now used to this level of functionality. And so we expect it from Bing.

Bing does deliver weather fantastically well, so it's a shame that Microsoft hasn't extended this to other common tasks, too.

Where Bing wins

Mind you, Bing does have some other great features. The Related Searches bar is surprisingly useful to refine your search, while the video search feature (with integrated playback) is really rather good.

We also shouldn't be too harsh on Bing - it is, after all, just days on from launch whereas Google has spent years perfecting its search. That Bing is in beta does not excuse, however - everything seems to be in beta these days.

Another Bing problem is when it comes to very specific searching. Microsoft's engine is fine when performing a basic search, such as 'Telegraph Wine Club,' but is not yet at Google levels of indexing when trying to find a specific article in a massive site such as telegraph.co.uk. No doubt this will improve, but it's patchy at present.

Likewise, searching for news articles via the News section is terrible. There seems to be no relevancy to the search, so all you end up with is a whole load of articles mentioning your keywords. And you can't reorder or sort them, you can only search again.

Back to Google?

Were we ever tempted to go back to Google? Well, yes. But that was because we've come to rely on more from Google than just the search engine.

There was a time when Google's disparate sites weren't easy to jump between, but that's no longer the case. And so despite disabling the Google Toolbar for the week, we were still using Google Calendar and Gmail.

Google's strength is that it now has a complete ecosystem of online products and search is intrinsic within that.

Microsoft must be hoping for the same with Bing and Windows Live.

Adobe Illustrator And Adobe Photoshop

2009-10-01T04:07:00.001-07:00

Professional Web page designers often work with other people that specialize in computer graphic design to add images and artwork to their web pages. Graphic designers use specialized software programs like Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Illustrator to create the images that are put into web pages. They also use such devices as digital cameras and scanners to import images to a computer. As an amateur web page designer, you can use the World Wide Web to find many images that are free and legal to use. To do this you can go to special websites that are called "shareware" and "freeware" sites. Later in this module when you design your own web site, you'll be provided with some web site addresses that you may use to locate images.

Many additional features are available with Microsoft FrontPage. You can add background colors and patterns to create a more colorful web site through the Format menu option. You can also add background patterns that either you create or find on the Internet. Pages can also be set up using frames so that certain portions of your web page design appear on each and every page you create. If you would like additional help learning any of these features, you may borrow a FrontPage book from Mr. Williams. After you have completed this tutorial, you are to show your work to Mr. Williams. Your grade will be based on your ability to meet the criteria set forth in the tutorial directions.

Female Spiritist Trial On Colonial Magistrates

2009-10-01T03:34:00.001-07:00

The trials of Hutchinson and Hibbens-and analogous ordeals to which colonial magistrates subjected other female spiritist and malcon¬tents-lay bare the extent to which gender shaped access to important freedoms, particularly when women threatened to destabilize the "Yoke¬fellowship" that governed Puritan fam¬ilies. A reputation for self-sovereignty clearly diminished a woman's liberty prospects. The die was cast when Hutchinson rose to defend herself as God's instrument, immune to the slings and arrows of mere men.

Hibbens similarly tossed freedom to the wind when she refused to let mag¬istrates control her body, mind, and tongue. Submissiveness guaranteed nothing, but unruly or aggressive women triggered fears of the Anti-Christ. Puritan divine William Perkins suggested that, in certain cases, and never in cases of witchcraft, women's "weakness" might "lessen both the crime and the punishment"; unruliness or aggression ensured the opposite re¬sult. Mercy Brown of Wallingford Massachusetts, escaped the gallows in 1691 after killing her son; however, judges delayed passing sentence be¬cause she was "distracted," and finally jailed her. By contrast, Dorothy Talbye of Salem (hanged for child murder) re¬sisted authority, refused to confess un¬til threatened with torture, sat when ordered to stand, and rejected a face¬cloth at the gallows. Defiance in¬creased the odds of unmitigated punishment, and often lent credence to suspicions of witchcraft

Freudian psychoanalysis Form

2009-10-01T03:32:00.001-07:00

López talks about the first references to the problem coming in the form of Freudian psychoanalysis or Kinsey's research, later entering a second phase of recognition and cataloguing where researchers devote themselves to the study of its potential effects through an analysis of concrete cases, but without utilizing large samples. In a third phase it would be a question of descriptive studies, which would have been carried out from the' 70s to the mid'80s, where it was a question of evaluating the frequency and types of abuse as well as its short and long-term effects; always with a solid statistical basis using large samples and making global comparisons between them.

The last phase, which he calls the "construction of explanatory models," which was first developed at the end of the 1980s, would have, according to López, had as its objective the development of theoretical models that would be as much about accounting for the effects of the abuse as its causes.

Sarah Palin's Campaign Debut Electrifies the GOP, Galvanizes The Twitterati

2009-09-30T17:19:00.000-07:00

Sarah "Barracuda" Palin, a tough political charmer with a smile: "We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco," she said Wednesday night during her acceptance speech for the position of vice presidential candidate at the 2008 Republican National Convention.
Photo: Tom LeGro

"Palin ROCKED!"

That succinct, two-word assessment that appeared on the micro-blogging service Twitter Wednesday night just about summarized many conservatives' relieved reactions after an inauspicious week for Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

That tweet came from "jonahandjude." It was just one of thousands of reactions coursing through the online service from both the left and the right as they shared their first impressions of Alaska's controversial 44-year-old governor.

Palin accepted the Republican party's formal nomination at its national convention at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn. Wednesday night. It was a highly-anticipated appearance, built up after days of chatter about her relatively thin political resume, and about her teen daughter's out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

Even members of Palin's own party were trashing John McCain's choice of a running mate just hours before Palin's speech: Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan and Republican strategist Mike Murphy were accidentally recorded on MSNBC Wednesday calling McCain's choice "cynical," and "political bullshit." The gaffe immediately made its way onto YouTube.

But Palin's surprisingly -- and supremely -- confident and stellar political performance Wednesday night showed a woman who wasn't rattled. Instead she shot back.

"But here's a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I'm not going to Washington to seek their good opinion - I'm going to Washington to serve the people of this country," she said to thunderous applause.

Online, the speech overwhelmed the chatter about that embarrassing moment for the two Beltway pundits. Palin's charisma, and her ability to connect with her audience while at the same time blowing sharp, poisonous rhetorical darts at her opponents, was the talk of the evening.

"Tonight, Alaska governor Sarah Palin addresssed the Republican National Convention and knocked a home run," wrote Doug Wead, a presidential historian and former White house special adviser to the senior George Bush on his blog. "It wasn't just her speech, which was good and had memorable lines (but was also, no doubt, written by talented McCain staffers,) it was her grit, her spirit, and her gutsy delivery after a week of outrageous attacks on her daughter. This is a woman who has the stuff to be president."

"Love the way Palin took the kid gloves off and took it to (Barack) Obama," tweeted "jvreagan." "Looking toward the next two months."

Others noted that Palin's tone and wit match those of another famous, controversial and down-to-earth woman known for her sarcastic and stinging wit.

"Is it just me or does Sarah Palin sound like Roseanne Barr?" asked frankus on Twitter.

Palin attacked Obama for his experience as a community organizer in Chicago during her acceptance speech. She boasted that instead, she'd been mayor. She also belittled the stage-set-up for Obama acceptance speech at Invesco Field in Denver last week. The stage had been set up with white columns.

It was Palin's sense of timing, and her dead-pan delivery that made the comments shocking as much as they were powerful in undermining the grandeur and sense of history of that moment.

"But when the cloud of rhetoric has passed ... when the roar of the crowd fades away ... when the stadium lights go out, and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot - what exactly is our opponent's plan?" she asked. "The answer is to make government bigger ... take more of your money ... give you more orders from Washington ... and to reduce the strength of America in a dangerous world. America needs more energy ... our opponent is against producing it."

(That's not accurate -- Obama has said that he opposes drilling off the coast of the United States for oil, but more recently said that he would consider limited off-shore drilling. He also supports the expansion of many other forms of domestic energy production, the details of which are available here.)

Palin didn't bowl everyone over on Twitter.

"Palin's speech sounded like it was written by a high school student," complained jrhowa, one of a number of similar posts.

Other Democrats online pointed out that Palin's speech was full of mis-characterizations.

"Palin just completely lied about Obama's legislative record. And attacked the columns that nobody in their right mind gave a shit about," fumed Jesse Taylor at the lefty blog Pandagon.

And Democratic online activist Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake summarized Palin's performance this way:

"But she did more than just show up -- she gave a remarkably nasty speech that didn't come off that way. She managed to re-ignite the culture wars and rally the faithful in a way that McCain could never do on his own, but she was no ugly, vicious (Rep.) Marcia Blackburn, (R-Tenn.)

She has a perky authenticity. One commenter described her as "Judy Tenuda meets Fargo." She stuck the knife in without alienating the independents with overt "mean."

Blogger and online media baron Josh Marshall, founder of TPM Media, had this piece of instant analysis on the partisan tone of Palin's speech:

But take this as a sign that the McCain campaign has abandoned an effort to compete for swing voters and go back to the base energizing strategy that worked for President Bush in 2004. The numbers make that look like a tough proposition. But I think a few months from now, everyone will agree this was a mistake.

Meanwhile, two prominent inside-the-Beltway conservative bloggers admitted they were impressed -- more so than if McCain had chosen a more traditional candidate.

"She far exceeded my expectations," said Mike Turk, a technology consultant in Falls Church, Va. and former eCampaign director for the Bush-Cheney online team in 2004 (and also for Dan Quayle when he ran for vice president.) Turk has been unenthusiastic about this year's slate of Republican presidential candidates after his candidate former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson dropped out of the race.

"In the week since she's been announced, there's been a constant barrage of attacks on her, and just brutal attacks," he said in an interview. "Her daughter basically got a drive-by colonoscopy by the media, and despite all of that, to come out with the composure she showed just truly demonstrates that she's got it together."

And Rob Bluey, a blogger and the 29-year-old director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, said that she has a better chance of inspiring the all-so-important young online demographic than McCain's other potential choices, such as Mitt Romney or Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

He says that there's a "genuine excitement" over Palin amongst young conservatives that he's seen on listservs and on Twitter.

For example, he saw someone on Twitter compare her to Ronald Reagan.

"She's the Ronald Reagan of our generation -- she just has that natural ability to speak in a way that people can relate to," he said.

For amusing one-liners, news, and water-cooler chatter about Palin from the Twitterati, please keep checking in on our "McCain VP Watch" Twitter widget on our blog to the right. I've also embedded the widget in this post if you're reading this in a news feed.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wired27b/~3/383019413/sarah-palins-ca.html

The Learning Institution

2009-09-28T02:12:00.001-07:00

The learning process is assisted by an institution or an organization, with a programme manager appointed from that institution/organization to help organize the classes. Tutors and managers receive a monthly financial incentive. The financial resources of the programmes may come from the state income and expenditure budget, the provincial income and expenditure budget, grants or loans from abroad, or community self financing.

The learning activity is held three times a week depending on the consensus made by the learners, tutors, manager, and organizer. The learners are assisted by their tutors in the learning process, but they should also study by themselves or in small groups outside the class. The learning content is decided by learners in cooperation with the tutors, except for the core curriculum of basic education, which should follow the formal curriculum.

National Children's Advocacy Center

2009-09-28T01:51:00.001-07:00

Mostly, Vaughn passed the hours chain-smoking and playing videogames on the couch, which Rebecca christened "Adam's command center." Kenny Tincknell, a drill instructor in the Army, dropped in every couple of weeks to give him a Marine-style buzz cut in the kitchen - a familiar ritual that reassured him that the rhythms of ordinary life were going on outside the confines of his smoky apartment. Tincknell's wife, Susan, once considered applying to become a cop, and Vaughn had coached her on radio calls and taken her on ride-alongs. After the officers returned from Ground Zero, the Tincknells' son carried the newspaper article around in his pocket for three months.

"I know Adam," Susan told me. "I've seen him in his most unguarded moments, in the best and worst of times. Adam and Rebecca are two of the only people I would trust around my kids."

Vaughn hired two local attorneys, Steve Aldridge and Andy Segal. Like Geoff Binney, Aldridge grew up in law enforcement. His first memories are of riding in a patrol car with his father, the town sheriff. Burly, loquacious, and fiercely practical, Aldridge has worked both sides of the courtroom. He was the chief prosecutor for sex crimes in Madison County for seven years. He also served as the head of the investigations team for the National Children's Advocacy Center in Huntsville, which has been instrumental in restructuring the investigative process in sex crime cases worldwide to minimize the trauma for young victims.

Ladia Galaska Road Project

2009-09-28T01:46:00.001-07:00

He was in Aceh as part of a government team assigned to review sections of the environmentally damaging Ladia Galaska road project (see box 1). The fact that Bestari was on state business and that the team's composition and mission had been approved by the security minister and the military authorities in Aceh did not protect him. Bestari's arrest prompted an international campaign protesting against his treatment and calling for a fair trial.

Bestari's detention is believed to be connected to his campaign against deforestation in Aceh and the Ladia Galaska road project. The final defence statement by Bestari's legal team describes how he was originally a sports teacher who became a coach at district and provincial levels and accompanied teams to national events. He also helped set up a cultural group, Rimueng Lam Keulut, which promoted traditional ritual arts. When serious flooding affected Kluet district, PT Medan Remaja Timber, a logging concessionaire, was believed to have been directly responsible for a school being washed away. Bestari Raden and his colleagues in Rimueng Lam Keulut lobbied local and national level authorities to have the company's permit withdrawn. Lack of progress in negotiations led the community to take matters into their own hands and burn down a building at the company's base camp. The forestry minister withdrew the company's logging permit in 1999.

The political system of Soeharto’s New Order

2009-09-28T01:36:00.001-07:00

At the same time, the Soeharto regime fostered a new class of Acehnese administrators with a stake in Indonesian rule. Often the children of the ulama, they were educated in state universities and rose through the civil service and military, in some cases reaching high rank. Though strongly aware of their distinctive Acehnese identity, these people were nonetheless able to thrive within the centralised bureaucracy and political system of Soeharto's New Order. Members of this group now form an influential constituency in favour of broad autonomy for Aceh within Indonesia, as opposed to independence, though they share the general discontent in the province at its treatment by Jakarta.

The fall of President Soeharto in May 1998 created an opportunity to break with the repressive policy adopted a decade earlier. The government of President B.J. Habibie scaled back the activities of the security forces in Aceh, known as the DOM, in August 19988. Habibie visited Aceh in March 1999 and made a number of pledges to its people. These promises included legal action against human rights abusers, scholarships for children orphaned during the conflict and measures to boost the economy, such as the repair of a defunct railway to neighbouring North Sumatra and the reopening of the port of Sabang, closed a decade before.

What It Will Take To Terror-Proof Border?

2009-09-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

By Kris Axtman and Peter Grier, The Christian Science Monitor, Dateline Houston, December 10, 2004

This front page report discusses the just-passed intelligence bill, which calls for an additional 2,000 Border Patrol agents and 800 immigration and customs agents every year for the next five years.

The bill also calls for tests of advanced sensors, videos and unmanned aircraft surveillance along the U.S.-Canada border and mandates closer surveillance of the U.S.-Mexico border with unmanned aerial vehicles. It strengthens visa application requirements, and requires states to use a common electronic format for the strip that stores data on driver's licenses.

According to this article, 1.2 million illegal immigrants were caught attempting to cross U.S. borders in 2003 -- an estimated 33 percent of total crossings.

Spam scam copywriting secrets

2009-09-25T16:23:00.000-07:00

I get them. You get them. We all get them. E-mail scam spam. And you probably just delete them like most people do.

But did you ever take a few minutes to read these messages and consider why some of them work?

There are some key copywriting lessons to be learned here. Let's look at one short scam spam e-mail I received a few months after tax season a couple years back (I collect these things).

Subject Line: IRS Notification - Tax refund (Internal Revenue Service)

Message:

After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of $249.30.

Please submit the tax refund request and allow us 3-6 days in order to process it.

A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline.

To access the form for your tax refund, please click here

Note: For security reasons, we will record your ip-address, the date and time. Deliberate wrong inputs are criminally pursued and indicated.

Regards,
Internal Revenue Service

Copyright 2007, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved.

First, the subject line gets your attention. It says it's from the IRS, which is a government department everyone is familiar with. There are no wild claims, just the suggestion that you may have a tax refund, something everyone wants.

When you open the e-mail, you see a small IRS logo at the top of the message. It looks real, and it is. See for yourself. This adds a touch of credibility.

Then the copy begins without a salutation or any wordy introduction. It simply states a few "facts" bluntly, which create an official tone. It also uses official-sounding words and phrases, such as "calculations," "fiscal activity," and "eligible."

The "offer" is specific and believable: $249.30.

Then comes the call to action: "submit the tax refund request." It's simple and direct.

Next comes this: "A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline." This suggests a deadline to encourage a prompt response.

Finally, there's another call to action and, since this is an e-mail, a direct link to the "form" you are supposed to fill out.

Obviously it's a scam. The IRS doesn't communicate by e-mail. They don't calculate your "fiscal activity." And you don't interact with the IRS about your tax return with online forms.

That said, the copy works:

It includes an attention-grabbing subject line (or headline).
The message is from a familiar organization.
It makes a promise about something you want.
It uses a logo that adds credibility.
It gets to the point quickly.
It creates an appropriate tone and includes well-chosen words.
The offer is specific.
The call to action is simple and direct.
It suggests a deadline.
It provides an easy means of response.

That's a pretty good copywriting formula.

E-mail scams work in part because some people are gullible and because the messages are sent to so many people odds are there will be enough response to justify the effort.

But they also work because the low lifes who blast them out test lots of messages and see what works and what doesn't. So the next time you get an e-mail spam scam, read it before you hit the delete button. It's amazing what you might learn.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DirectCreativeBlog/~3/WL3m3SlhLx0/spam-copywriting-secrets

Mutual Contradiction on Military Crackdowns

2009-09-25T04:48:00.001-07:00

There has been constant wrestling in Jakarta since late 1999 between politicians who favour a negotiated solution in Aceh, including the president, and military leaders who want to use force. Both approaches have been pursued simultaneously and in mutual contradiction, with negotiations in Aceh and overseas taking place against a backdrop of intermittent military crackdowns. The government's current policy is a six-point plan, outlined in March 2001, which attempts to reconcile these two conflicting approaches. The point that has attracted the most attention is a military operation against GAM. The other points include the passing of the autonomy law, the revitalisation of Aceh's local government, economy and society, the reassertion of the rule of law and an information campaign to explain the strategy to the Acehnese.

This policy is reflected in Presidential Instruction No 4 of 2001 on "Comprehensive steps in the context of resolving the Aceh problem". This instruction, generally referred to in Indonesia by the abbreviation Inpres, was issued to ministers, security chiefs and senior Acehnese civil servants and reported by the press on 11 April 2001. The Inpres defines the problem as "the dissatisfaction of the people and the existence of an armed separatist movement". It does not specify how the six points are to be implemented, nor is it clear how the various government agencies will work together.

Terrorists to the East, Terrorists to the West

2009-09-24T16:12:00.000-07:00

Where do you all fit in the Big East-West Picture?

I read the following in the Denver Post today: DMV flawed, ex-clerk alleges Accused worker: Fraud rampant: 'A woman accused of illegally selling Colorado driver's licenses'' I immediately wrote and asked the two reporters, Michael Riley (mriley@denverpost.com ) and Alicia Caldwell (acaldwell@denverpost.com ):

Do the porous borders concern you all? Yet?' The Denver post is inherently pro-illegal orientated, so I hope I receive a reply.

Now I will ask the rest of you, do the porous borders concern you? Yet?

We are quite aware they are of little concern to our president. He seems to operate under the kind-hearted and false belief that we can secure all identities and therefore secure America simply by legalizing all illegal aliens who are breaking the laws of America right now. Why would al- Qaida cells reveal their true identities to us? Why would we believe they would? Why would our president think any of us would accept this? Why isn't he worried about us? Concerned for the innocent families living in the United States? He should be.

I worry, with reason. Do you worry, even without a reason? Here are some reasons for you to begin worrying. All articles linked below are from this past spring to date. I have more, many many more, articles and data archived. Including the employees working at both Denver International Airport and the Air Force Academy, spring of 2003, who were issued security passes. One was a pilot. All were identified illegal aliens using stolen or fake documents. Most fled following the busts and prior to the scheduled immigration hearings. They are somewhere in the United States of America, just not using security badges and flying planes in Colorado. At least I don't think they are. Here in Colorado that is.

Please read on. Education is the key to success. And conversely as Ye Olde Editor (Ken Anderson) said today, 'It's awfully hard to breathe when your head is stuck in the sand'

And then ask yourself, where are you? Educated and ready to speak up? Or suffocating under ignorance?

http://magic-city-news.com/article_2944.shtml

Bing Is A Bad Baby For Ballmer?

2009-09-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

Based on the article I am reading here, it sounds almost as if some people consider the upcoming Bing search to be quixotic to some extent. And this conclusion has been reached even before anyone has bothered to try it at all!

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a Linux guy and not a MS fan in the least. This said, I think Google is getting fat, dumb and lazy with search. Despite some weak, minimal changes being made once every half a decade, nothing is really changing all that much. So this means that Bing's human element, has a shot and undoing years of failed efforts in Microsoft search.

At the end of the day, there is one critical twist to the above linked article. Rumor has it that the previously linked article was penned by someone who is working for Yahoo. So to say that the piece has a twinge of bias to it, would then be an understatement

http://feed.lockergnome.com/~r/nexus/web/~3/UvG5YBRdBeI/

Microsoft's adCenter Team Answers Your ProBING Questions

2009-09-24T15:50:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest ponderings regarding the rebranding of Live Search to Bing has been: "How will this affect adCenter?" The adCenter team finally took to its blog to address this timely question.

And the answer is.....drum roll please....It will not change adCenter at all. The number of ads shown will remain the same. The mainline ad rules remain the same. Ad position will not change (at least not just because of a rebrand - your bidding is what affects your ad position). There will not be any new ad units.

The algorithm changes, but even that's not a change because they're constantly changing the algorithm. Still with me?

What could change is an increase in traffic. With all the buzz surrounding Bing and Microsoft's $80-100 million ad campaign for the new search engine, your ads might get some action.

Let us know if you're seeing any traction on your adCenter ads. Share what you can in the comments.

http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~3/eYwETDV0cJ8/090603-155754

Antinomianism and The Radical Theologian

2009-09-23T18:28:00.001-07:00

The facts in the two cases differ. The charismatic teacher and spiritist Anne Hutchinson had been admitted in 1635 to the Reverend John Wilson's First Church of Boston, over the objections of several ministers who suspected her of Antinomianism-a belief in the primacy of divine revelation and related skepticism about the authority of clergy and Biblical law. With the encouragement of Governor Harry Vane, the radical theologian John Cotton (her spiritual mentor), and the Reverend John Wheelwright (her intemperate and impolitic brother-in-law), Hutchinson began to hold women's meetings at home. Such meetings were common enough among English gentlewomen, and (contrary to myth) did not involve promiscuous mingling of the sexes; instead-and more damagingly-Hutchinson summarized and explicated Biblical texts and criticized sermons, notably Wilson's, encouraging women to subject ministers, husbands, and other lawgivers to criticism.

The heyday of Hutchinson's meetings coincided with a colony-wide revival and expansion of church rolls. When spiritual malaise replaced euphoria in 1636, Cotton (2) began castigating other ministers for their abandonment, solely to attract new members, of the "covenant of grace" in favor of a "covenant of works." Hutchinson, who agreed with Cotton and had Vane's ear, emerged as the mainspring of a faction pitted against Wilson's ministry and the political ambitions of John Winthrop. Hutchinson and her followers began walking out of church during sermons; throughout the colony, women rose in mid-service to heckle pastors or to dispute theological points.

Hasan di Tiro and His GAM Leadership in Sweden

2009-09-23T18:25:00.001-07:00

The first secessionist uprising against Indonesian rule began in 1976, under the leadership of Hasan di Tiro, who founded the Aceh Liberation Movement (GAM). The movement had little military strength and was quickly contained by the Indonesian security forces. Hasan di Tiro fled to Sweden where he lives in exile, now ageing but still regarded by GAM members as Aceh's head of state (wali negara).

The uprising erupted again in 1989, aided by the return to Aceh of a group of guerrillas, reportedly more than 250 strong, who had been trained in Libya. The rebellion was most intense in the regions along Aceh's northeastern coast, which are home to the major industries of the province and half its population, and led to a guerrilla war which has continued intermittently to this day. Jakarta responded with persistent military repression. The brutality of Indonesian soldiers and policemen, manifested in murder, rape, torture, robbery and other abuses, created a deep resentment and distrust of the government which continues to fuel demands for independence, particularly in the northeastern areas.

The Moment of The Sexual Act

2009-09-23T18:21:00.001-07:00

As the decision in People v. Duryea put it, in reasoning approved by the Court of Appeals in People v. Van Alstyne, "In the case of a promise conditional upon immediate intercourse, the condition is performed at the moment of the sexual act, and the promise to marry becomes absolute at once. Seduction in such a case is clearly accomplished under a promise to marry."

Stereotypes about the sexual licentiousness of black women would almost certainly have contributed to this decision, but it is consistent with the decisions prosecutors and courts made in cases in my sample that involved white women. It is also consistent with the appellate court decisions described by Estrich, who noted that the influential Model Penal Code also "automatically downgrades the severity of the offense Seduction. When DADA Donohue asked Martha Olatka, "Why did you go out with this man when every time you went out with him you struggled in your cousin's hallway?" she answered, "Well, he always came to me." "Why didn't you tell your cousin you didn't want to go out with him?" Donohue followed up. The only answer Martha could give was to reiterate, "Well, he came all the time I was there."

Women Hormones

2009-09-20T19:05:00.001-07:00

Fluctuating hormones also can affect how women perceive attractiveness during different times of the menstrual cycle. Jones, et al. (2004) studied the effect of the menstrual cycle on attraction to healthy faces. In this study, healthy faces were a reflection of a healthy immune system. Attraction to healthy faces was much stronger during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle (less then 14 days until the start of the period) then any other time during a woman's cycle.

Penton-Voak et al. (1999) speculated that women might be more sexually selective during this time of the cycle because it is the best time to acquire desirable genes for future children. Indeed, the menstrual cycle also affects commitment to relationships such that relationship commitment and happiness for women was highest during high estrogen times such as the luteal phase (Jones, et al., 2005).

Who will triumph in the battle between Google and Facebook?

2009-09-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Since Facebook was launched in 2004, and driven by the fact that it has continued to grow ever since, there has been a lot of rivalry between them and the other dominant sites on the Internet, most of all Google.

Since the launch, there has been a lot of speculation and coverage about a possible take over by Google, but it seems that Facebook were not interested and just used Google's high bids for a part of the company, to help increase the bids from the other candidates.

In the end, Facebook sold a 1.6% share in the company to Microsoft, to Google's horror, for a staggering $240 million, meaning that the entire company is alleged to be worth a massive $15 billion.

Before Facebook was introduced, the Internet was a very anonymous service, where people could effectively hide their identities and their personal details and users seemed to like this and did not want to share their personal information over the web.

However, since Facebook was introduced this has all changed, as people using the social networking platform are behaving very differently, now using real names and email addresses, connecting with real friends and sharing real thoughts, ideas and news.

Due to the nature of Google, it remains an anonymous place, meaning that Google cannot access personal details about it's users unless they are signed in and can only use information such as search history and browsing habits to find out information about them.

At present the Facebook-Google battle seems to be stronger than ever. In the past the Internet has been dominated by Google's arduous and accomplished algorithm, but the CEO of Facebook wants to change this and introduce the concept of a "social graph" and make the web a more sociable and personal platform.

Due to it's recent behaviour it would seem that Google do feel threatened by this new technology, which seems ridiculous as Google are a highly profitable organisation and Facebook are yet to make a dollar in actual profit.

At present, Google is an extremely successful business with Adwords generating around 90% of it's net revenue, which was $15.8 billion last year, but they are aiming for bigger and better profits. It would appear that Google had intended to reach these new heights with the help of Facebook, but now looks like they will be competing for the top spot.

Due to the nature of Facebook it's data remains hidden from the Google spiders, meaning that it is not only holding back information and damaging Google in that way, but it is also competing directly with the search engine giant, as it is now actively promoting Microsoft's new search platform Bing, which is currently doing well in the search traffic battle against Google.

There are also plans in the pipeline for Facebook to create it's own search app to allow members to search for particular topics and see what other members have to say on the subject.

Google and Facebook are also completing for advertisers to use their platforms and they both have their advantages from an advertisers point of view. For example Google Adwords is a great way to show ads to people that are actively searching for a product / service, but Facebook allows advertisers to show an advert to a targeted demographic and create demand.

Due to the levels of personal information Facebook has about it's users it has the ability to only show the ad to the people that it is targeted at and hopefully create a need for the product and create brand awareness with the target audience. Whereas Google does not have this level of information about their users and can only show the ads to the people that are actively searching for that product / service.

However Facebook are yet to get the personal ad balance right, between "targeted and useful" and "creepy and stalkerish", as the product 'Beacon' proved, and this is something they are going to have to get right in order to use the vast amounts of information they have, to monetise the company.

In December of last year Google showed that the battle is definitely on and that they are not going down without a fight, as they launched their feature 'Friend Connect' on the same day that Facebook launched their product 'Connect'.

Also in March it was reported that both companies were bidding for the increasingly popular micro-blogging service, Twitter. Twitter is now actually growing at a faster rate than Facebook and would give Google that all important personal data that Facebook has.

Both companies have both shown evidence of trying to become more like Twitter in order to compete with it and each other, such as the new 'What's on your mind?' app found on Facebook, which is very similar to Twitter's 'What are you doing?' concept.

Similarly Google recently launched it's feature called 'Wave', a web app that encourages Facebook and Twitter like sharing. Also in April Google announced the concept of it's 'detailed profiles', in an attempt to encourage users to submit the personal information that Twitter and Facebook have in abundance.

Previously, Google has assured users that it would not use their personal information to target ads and insisted that they would only use search history. However in March, it introduced the concept of behavioural targeting, which tracked users browsing behaviour to deliver more customised ads. This is a subject that needs to be handled with care, after the outrage Facebook users expressed after they introduced their 'Beacon' feature.

Google knows more than most about the huge challenge that Facebook faces: turning their enormous user database into a profitable business. Google itself invested 5 years and $900 million into trying to monetize MySpace. This is a failure that taught them that hard about the difficulties in monetising social media. We'll have to wait and see if Facebook can pull it off and beat Google in the advertising race.

http://www.browsermedia.co.uk/2009/06/25/who-will-triumph-in-the-battle-between-google-and-facebook/

Microsoft Debuts New Bing TV Ads; Begins Multi-Channel Promotion

2009-09-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

Last night, those of you ~~tolerating~~ watching 'So You Think You Can Dance' were shown the very first broadcast of the new Microsoft television advertising campaign promoting Bing. If you missed it, Bing has a YouTube channel (yes, I know! a YouTube channel! from Microsoft!). Here's one of the new ads:

If you can't watch video right now, the ad depicts a couple discussing future vacation plans. When the wife inquires if her husband found tickets to Hawaii, he starts compulsively spouting off random results he received when searching online. The results aren't helpful at all to their vacation plans. The ad calls this "Search Overload Syndrome" and says that Bing is the cure.

Enid Burns over at ClickZ has all the major details on the new ad campaign. The television campaign surrounding "Search Overload Syndrome" will switch to a more reality-based concept in about two weeks. Bing will begin in-show promotions soon including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Radio advertising will also be a part of the traditional advertising mix.

The television campaign will be complemented with an online ad campaign. Display ads will run on sites like the New York Times and Huffington Post. Meanwhile, Efficient Frontier is managing the search campaign. Yes, you will see ads for Bing on Google. (Try searching "cheap flights" on Google and you should see a Bing search ad.)

Bing is also going after social media. They have their own Bing Community as well as a presence on Facebook.

All of this is part of the estimated $80-100 million ad spend Microsoft is expected to make promoting Bing. That's quite an investment and we'll be awaiting the comScore and Nielsen data over the coming months to see if it's making an impact.

Have you seen any of the new ads for Bing? What do you think of them? Leave a comment and let us know.

Facebook Used to Nail Bail Violator in DUI Case

2009-09-09T17:13:00.000-07:00

20-year-old Erika Scoliere of Campton Hills, Illinois has been awaiting trial for reckless homicide and aggravated DUI since she was allegedly involved in a July 2007 crash that killed a motorcyclist. Now, thanks to being reckless on Facebook (and, some would argue, continued poor offline judgment), the rest of her time spent awaiting trial is about to get a whole lot more restrictive.

As a condition of her bail following the 2007 incident, Scoliere was ordered by a judge not to consume alcohol or be around people consuming alcohol - meaning no parties or visits to the bar (readers will notice that Scoliere isn't of legal drinking age in the United States, so none of that should have been very difficult). But Scoliere found herself back in court this week after police found recent photos of her on Facebook drinking with college buddies in Ohio, where she goes to school.

"It appears the defendant is having a grand old time drinking tequila," said Judge Thomas Mueller, during a hearing on Wednesday, reports the Chicago Tribune , before ordering Scoliere to wear an ankle monitoring device that can detect alcohol via perspiration and alert authorities if she violates bail again. She will have to pay the county $15 per day to wear the ankle bracelet.

While it is hard to feel bad for Scoliere since her actions allegedly led to the death of an innocent motorist, the case also highlights a lesson that more people are starting to learn: you have to be careful what you share on social networks. We've heard plenty of reports before that Facebook can get you dumped, get you fired, and even get you evicted.

But Facebook and other social networks are also being used by law enforcement to track down and keep tabs on criminals and alleged law breakers. This isn't the first time, and it certainly won't be the last. On one level, law enforcement peeping in on our social network profiles does have a certain "Big Brother" feel to it, but on another, when the result is potentially curbing drunk driving fatalities, it is hard to argue against. And of course, anything you make public on the Internet is fair game for anyone to look at, and that's something people have to be aware of.

Bing Goes Live.com - Is it More Than Just Hot Air?

2009-09-08T15:59:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's new search engine Bing unexpectedly went live tonight, including a re-direct from http://www.live.com - previously Microsoft's 'personalized start page' destination. So search has usurped a Netvibes-like start page as Microsoft's default homepage for its web services.

In last week's launch announcement, Bing was being bandied about as Microsoft's latest attempt to steal market share away from Google. In particular, according to Microsoft, Bing will focus on four verticals: making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition, and finding a local business. We took the new search engine for a test run tonight.

A note about the branding. Microsoft isn't known for its clever (or even coherent) branding, but we truly wonder about the decision to place images of hot air balloons on the bing.com homepage. What is that trying to tell us - that Bing is powered by hot air?

In any case, a search for our current topic de jour, "web 3.0", brought up fairly similar results for Google and Bing. Although, frankly, we found that Google's Universal Search, which mixes different types of results together in one page (such as video in the example below), gave us a better search experience here. In Bing, you have to click 'Videos' to get multimedia about Web 3.0.

Bing - "web 3.0"
Google - "web 3.0"

How about testing one of the four areas in which Bing is supposed to be focusing? Let's pick 'searching for a health condition'. My favorite search is for "diabetes type 1", so I keyed that into both search engines:

Bing - "diabetes type 1"
Google - "diabetes type 1"

The main difference between the two search engines is that Bing offers more options on the left, including special sections for symptons, medication, children, etc. It also offers 'related searches', which is typically helpful with health-related searches.

As usual, Google offers a straight list of results, but again with Universal Search (in this case news and video results inline with normal webpage results). With Google you can get more options, but you have to click "Show Options..." - and we're not sure how many users will do this. To be honest, I haven't once clicked it in my daily Google searches since it went live a couple of weeks ago.

So, Microsoft's Bing does hold promise in this type of search. Maybe it's not all hot air after all...

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/te-NepEWwqk/bing_goes_live.php

What Microsoft Told Advertisers About Bing

2009-09-06T15:59:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Microsoft sent an email to advertisers on their adCenter product. The email, copied below, explains what Bing is and how advertisers can benefit from using Bing. They call it a "search experience" and there's no mention of the term "decision engine". From what I can tell, the advertising options are the same as any other search engine - text ads above and to the side of search results.

Here's the email: So what does Bing do? Plain and simple, it provides consumers with easy access to relevant information. With new features and more organized results, consumers can spend less time searching and more time finding what's most relevant to them-like travel, health, cars, and shopping.

What can that mean to you as an advertiser? Quality leads - Bing helps provide the relevant search results and ads your consumers are interested in. This means you can engage with consumers when they're ready to research, influence or make a purchase decision.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Centernetworks-/~3/3NUHI0xsWws/microsoft-adcenter-bing

The Progressive-era Child Welfare Movement

2009-09-04T06:53:00.002-07:00

For pregnant women whose situation might have led them to pursue a forced marriage notwithstanding their new concern with love, an alternative emerged, in the form of criminal paternity proceedings. In New York, Poor Law officials had handled bastardy cases and prosecuted men only when children were in danger of becoming public charges.

But in 1925, in response to campaigns by the Progressive-era child welfare movement, the New York Legislature created criminal paternity proceedings that could be initiated by a woman or her family.120 Very few men contested paternity proceedings in New York City in this period, and the Probation Department and the city's welfare agencies worked to ensure that men made their child support payments. Even when New York City's working-class women became pregnant outside marriage, then, they had less cause to charge a man with seduction than had women in earlier generations.

Broadband Satellite-Blitz

2009-09-04T06:53:00.001-07:00

Blitz is service broadband via internet VSAT IP Ku-Band satellite that provide with AGC'S technology (Automatic Gain Control) to interlace signal force consistency while weather deteriorates. Internet service / VPN Broadband Indosatnet Blitz can be enjoyed with speed until 512 Kbps. VSAT-IP Ku-Band service become one of alternative network to access broadband internet and multimedia through satellite to IM2'S customer at remote region or rural that can't be reached by existing's network radio and also fiber optic. My VSAT IP Band is a solution for a fast internet access, cheap, and unsimmetrical character with economical bandwidth.

Proprietary top of this product is connection that do not circumscribed up to 24 hours non stop, high speed internet access until 512 Kbps, and not only it its connection can reach small cities, it even goes to region that haven't had telecom infrastructure. Its cost also demulcent relative rank than builds terrestrial's network alternative, besides process installation is accounted quick since gets directly be utilized.

Configuration system:

User configuration:

IDU: iDirect Satellite Router 3000 series
ODU: BUC 2 Watts, LNB, Antenna 1.2m, Tx's cable 50m, Rx's cable 50m
Computer not more than 4 units

System configuration:

Bandwidth Downstream Up to 512 Kbps
Bandwidth Upstream Up to 128 Kbps
Maximum PC per terminal 4 units
To service VPN utilizes Hub Network 1 (Chassis 1), to service Internet utilizes Hub Network 2 (Chassis 2)

To service My Broadband VSAT IP Ku-Band customer will get one IP Public, including Port IP INP, IIX and Local Link. Pre Condition To arrange this Satellite Dish's Installation are:

Location has no balk towards Palapa C2's satellite (113o BT)
Plain surface (0o) and solid / hard
Grounding for peripheral
Hall coolant (AC) for indoor's peripheral
UPS (Uninterruptible Power System)

Grandmother’s Life Experiences

2009-09-04T06:53:00.000-07:00

Another common example is students' essays on a person who influenced their lives. Frequently, we read essays about applicants' grandparents, for example. Many essays simply focus on the attributes that a grandmother has that make her special to the applicant. They may focus on the challenges that a grandmother has overcome or the successes she has enjoyed. They leave the reader knowing that the student loves his grandmother, but not knowing anything more about the student. The better essay, however, might also focus on the way the writer has attempted to emulate these admired qualities. The student might choose to share how learning of his grandmother's life experiences has helped him better understand the world. This allows us to learn more about the student and what makes the student special.

As you can see, in both of these examples, the first essay simply tells us of an experience, but the second essay shows us more about the individual. We walk away from it knowing a bit more about the qualities the applicant possesses and how he or she might fit into our campus community. We hope that you will not view the college essay as a roadblock between you and your college choice, but as a unique opportunity to be in the driver's seat in the college process. Let your qualities, characteristics, and personality shine through. Best wishes as you begin your journey.

The New York Probation and Protective Association

2009-09-04T06:52:00.000-07:00

Martha Olatka's experience offers a salutary warning against carrying too far the argument that women gained something from the seduction law. On the first occasion on which she charged Polokoff with seduction, Martha's efforts won her only another unfulfilled promise that he would marry her. In the month after Martha charged Polokoff with seduction for a second time, the detective assigned to the case repeatedly failed to keep appointments with her, leading her to complain to the New York Probation and Protective Association that "nothing had been done for her." That frustration was a portent of what was to come.

Although Polokoff was indicted by a grand jury on January 20, 1916, the day after he was finally arraigned and released on bail, a worker from the Probation and Protective Association who inquired at the Court of General Sessions in March 1916 was told that the case was still pending. The worker got the same answer on return visits to the court in September, in October, in January 1917, and in April 1917. After that final visit, a DADA did contact the association requesting information about the case. But in May 1917, the superintendent of the Probation and Protective Association was writing to the DADA on Martha's behalf to ask to have the prosecution continued, explaining that Martha had refused to answer his questions at their last meeting because "having been [to the DA's Office] so many times, and [having] been asked the same questions over and over, she felt discouraged."

Vaughn's Bond Pending Trial

2009-09-04T06:45:00.000-07:00

On April 2, Moore called and told Vaughn that he needed to come down to the station. "Am I being fired or arrested?" he asked. Moore told him he'd rather talk about it in person. When he arrived, Straub and two other agents were standing in Moore's office. They led Vaughn out through the station in handcuffs. At the FBI headquarters in Huntsville, he was Mirandized, fingerprinted, and locked in shackles and a waist chain. Then he was brought before a judge, who released him on $5,000 bond pending trial. Rebecca and a friend were waiting for him in the hall, and there was a crowd of TV cameras outside. Minutes after the Vaughns got home, officers from the parole board went through their apartment, ordering them to get rid of all their computer equipment, including Rebecca's, as a condition of Vaughn's release on bond. She carried their hardware out to a dumpster.

Italians American Born Ethnic Groups

2009-09-04T06:36:00.000-07:00

In 1901, for example, after the one-third of defendants in sexual violence cases who were American born, the next largest groups were Italians, who constituted nearly one in every five defendants, Russians, and Germans (N=69). Twenty-three defendants were American- born; thirteen were born in Italy, nine in Russia, and eight in Germany. The remainder included several Englishmen, a West Indian, a Canadian, a Norwegian, a Frenchman, and an Austrian.

That conclusion must be couched somewhat generally because the legal records do not allow a fine-grained analysis of different groups. The forms used by the DA's office recorded only birthplace, providing evidence of ethnicity only when most working-class New Yorkers were first generation immigrants, in the years before 1930. An individual's name obviously provides some guide to his or her ethnicity, but names are not sufficiently reliable evidence to support a close analysis of differences between ethnic groups. Moreover, there was no section on the forms that required clerks to record any information about an individual's race.

As a result, African Americans can only be identified when their racial identity is mentioned in a file, or when a clerk or prosecutor added a scrawled note. Only the Probation Department files consistently provided information on race, but records for the period before the 1920s have not survived, and records for only some of the small group of men who were convicted are extant. More significant, however, is the fact that only in regard to a narrow range of issues do the details of the cases themselves offer any evidence of differences within the working class.

A Federal Judge Decision On Porn

2009-09-04T06:31:00.000-07:00

A federal judge on Monday issued a preliminary injunction to block a new law that supporters said would shield children from pornography on the World Wide Web, but that opponents said would chill free speech online. In his decision, Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. Of United States District Court in Philadelphia wrote that many of those who had brought suit to stop the law, the Child Online Protection Act, had said their fears of prosecution under the new law would result in self-censorship, and that he had concluded "such fears are reasonable given the breadth of the statute."

"Such a chilling effect," he continued, "could result in the censoring of constitutionally protected speech, which constitutes an irreparable harm to the plaintiffs." Reed cited the court's "personal regret" that his decision would "will delay once again the careful protection of our children." But, he added, "perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if the First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection."

Internet Dedicated Emerald services

2009-09-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

IM2 gives business solution with Internet Dedicated Emerald services. This service is attributed for corporate customer that need internet access 24 hours with features as Routing Protocol Static Default Route (non BGP) follow to IM2, international internet access that suits customer subscription bandwidth, and domestic peering IIX's internet access with sharing bandwidth condition 1 Gbps. For customer Internet Dedicated Emerald service, this following table is 16 IP Public defaults that can be maximized appropriate to customer subscription bandwidth

Bandwith Public IP Address
Default Maximum
64 Kbps 16 16
128 Kbps 16 16
256 Kbps 16 32
512 Kbps 16 64
1024 Kbps 16 64
2048 Kbps 16 128

Other additional features are, customer will get 15 email addresses, with each Mailbox's capacity as big as 100 Mbyte. And SLA maximal product that variably to every area

Area (SLA) 0 (Jabodetabek, Surabaya, Batam, Bali, Bandung, Semarang (Yogyakarta, Solo) less than 99,2%
Area (SLA) 1 (Java, Areas open-air Sumatra) less than 98,5%
Area (SLA) 2 (Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua) less than 96,5%

The Benefit

This service has Access to go to International and go to domestic peering IIX with condition of sharing bandwidth 1 Gbps.
Domestic peering IIX access will automatically reduce International access.
Routing Protocol Static default route (non BGP) follow to IM2
1 Subnet to 16 Public IP Address with effective host 13 Public IP Address
15 email addresses, with each Mailbox's capacity as big as 100 Mbyte.

Microprocessing in Information Society

2009-09-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

Nineteenth century American essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes once said: "The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." The market today is becoming ever more complex, extending beyond simple telecommunications to embrace the newly discovered world of cyberspace.

In The Sovereign Individual (Macmillan Press, 1997), James Davidson and William Rees-Mogg argue that microprocessing will subvert and destroy the nation state, creating a new form of social organization the information society. This will liberate individuals, making them free to invent their own work and realize its full benefits. The greatest source of wealth will be ideas rather than physical capital. But not all the effects of this brave, new world are so positive. Less savory reaches of the information universe can be explored on the 10,000 sites on the World Wide Web devoted to pornography, from those offering pictures of topless centerfold models to ones which charge £1 a minute to view men and women performing sexual acts.

Frigid or Whore (on Scandinavia Women Prespective)

2009-09-04T06:02:00.000-07:00

Even in Scandinavia, young women report experiencing gender inequality, confining gender categories, and oppressive "kjønnsforventninger" (gender expectations), despite having achieved a considerable level of gender equality (Roggen & Tornes 2006, 1 18, see also Skugge, Olsson & Zilg 1999, Solheim & Vaagland 1999, Goth, MacLean, Petersen & Schelin 2000). The 'whore' or 'slut' label remains a threat to overtly sexual young women. At the same time, " å bli stemplet som frigid, det er nesten verre enn å bli kalt hore" (to be labeled frigid is almost worse than being called a whore), as Heidi Sind ing Larsen writes (in Roggen & Tornes (Eds) 2006, 101).

What examples are there of corporate blogs that have been successful?

2009-09-04T05:59:00.000-07:00

Microsoft, GM, T-Mobile, Emerson, IBM, Pfizer, Boeing, Google, Sun...and that's off the top of my head. Wells Fargo just started a corporate blog. They're talking about San Francisco Earthquake. What does that have to do with banking, home loans, and insurance? Nothing, and everything. The blog is a public service that puts the Wells Fargo name in front of people who are curious about history (and happen to represent a great demographic to sell to). At the same time, Wells Fargo gets to talk about insurance risks without talking directly about themselves. That is a great blog.

The other companies on these lists use blogs to become thought leaders, improve Public Relations, discuss employment strategies, create communities of interest, and get focus group feedback on new products. The real question is what happens when smaller companies are successful in using blogs to communicate a message. A small company with an active blog and high traffic can compete with multi-million dollar budgets of larger companies. Those are the blogs that should be studied for successful strategies.

Anal Sex

2009-09-04T05:50:00.000-07:00

This also applies to the physical stimulation she gives you. Especially when giving a blowjob, many girls need instruction on how to provide continuous physical stimulation. Refer to the chapter on training her to give Oral Sex for instructions on exactly how to do this. You also want to supply her with a continuous flow of psychological stimulation.

Although sometimes external distractions can't be avoided, try to minimize them. Steadily escalate the dominance and emotion as you escalate physically, and maintain variety and immersion at all times. Don't lag too long on any one part of sex - be it foreplay, or even sex itself.

Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for Oral Sex, foreplay and sex itself to last too long. During foreplay, you definitely want to do enough to her turned on and immersed in the sexual experience. But, if you endlessly dwell on foreplay, you are going to frustrate her. Similarly, it's possible to last too long having sex. If you've been fucking her for over forty-five minutes and she's already sore, you don't want to drag the sex out longer. You want to end the sex while it's good, not while she's getting annoying friction burns.

Thug’s taunts from prison.. on Facebook

2009-09-03T17:17:00.000-07:00

A VIOLENT thug has been bragging about life in jail on FACEBOOK. Kane Barratt, 20, updated his profile on the site to pose in his cell and boast about working out. He talked of a "hit list" and was pictured giving a two-fingered salute while serving five years for a string of robberies. One of his victims, dad-of-two Paul
Dillon, was shocked last night that his attacker could access the internet from prison.

It is understood Barratt, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, accessed the site with a mobile smuggled into Lancaster jail. Paul, 55, who had a knife held to his throat in the attack, said: "I'm surprised, appalled and very disappointed. I just could not believe it." Paul, an electrical engineer from Gatley, Cheshire, added: "I don't think prison is tough enough and I don't think the authorities have been vigilant.

"He was putting up messages like, 'The establishment have locked me up but my soul is still free'." Barratt was part of a gang which raided homes to snatch car keys to high value vehicles. Paul, wife Pauline and children Samantha, 22, and David, 20, were confronted by Barratt and his gang wearing masks and carrying machetes and knives. He had to have counselling after the ordeal. The Prison Service did not comment.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2501271/Thug-brags-about-being-in-jail-on-Facebook.html

Who’s Twittering You?

2009-09-01T17:22:00.000-07:00

On my feed this morning, up popped a post that caught my attention, How to setup a Twitter listening post. Once I clicked through to the post, though, I was disappointed because there was actually no details on setting up an actual listener. Instead, I was simply met with a post on how to setup a Twitter account.

Setting up a Twitter account doesn't provide you any insight into what folks are actually saying about you, your brand, products or company. It only provides a means for folks to communicate with you through this unique medium.

How to Set Up Micro-Blog Listeners

To actually set up a 'listener', you can simply go to Google and search for the term you're looking for (this twitter example shows a search for "microsoft ad" to twitter):

site:twitter.com "microsoft ad"

For Friendfeed: site:friendfeed.com "microsoft ad"

If you'd like to take a step further and actually react to folks communicating about you, your product, or your brand, set up a Google Alert to email you as it happens. As a marketing or reputation manager, I might even set up a text alert with Google Alerts and I would respond directly to the tweet.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DouglasKarr/~3/ieY3fA-MbxQ/

Bing To Get Hammered Over Live Thumbnails?

2009-09-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

Since Bing's first preview going live, it seems that pretty early on there has been concern overhow the revamped search engine is handling fair use with regard to the content being spidered.

First of all, fair use does not mean that you can take any copyrighted content and do as you wish with it. As established fairly early on with search engines, it is accepted that one can use thumbnails is fine. However with Microsoft using extensively long video previews of what some are stating as paid adult content, there is apparently concern that the adult industry might come after Microsoft over this.

After exploring the issue with some creative commons video, mainstream stuff, I discoved that you can actually click through on the video to a larger version, totally devoid of ads from the original website. This is going create massive legal headaches for Microsoft I suspect.

http://feed.lockergnome.com/~r/nexus/web/~3/oGrYUl8ijPw/

GAM amongs Indonesia Presidents

2009-09-01T00:29:00.000-07:00

It took about 25 years before the first step to end the conflict was taken. Under President Wahid the signing of the "Joint Understanding on a Humanitarian Pause for Aceh" took place in 2000. This was not a peace agreement, and the main purpose was to facilitate humanitarian assistance to the population. However, the violence did not decrease after the signing, and the deal failed and ended early 2001.

The next President Megawati initiated new rounds of talk with the GAM leadership in Sweden, and an agreement was signed in December 2002. The new agreement "Cessation of Hostilities Agreement" or COHA was not a peace agreement either, but it resulted in less violence in the period it lasted. Both European and Asian nations were involved in monitoring the agreement, but again the process failed and the agreement was terminated in May 2003.

How to Make Bing Your Default Search Engine

2009-08-31T15:59:00.000-07:00

Now that Microsoft's new search engine Bing has gone live an unexpected two days early, many of us are rushing out to test it for the very first time. Although Microsoft employees had access to Bing internally back when it was code-named "Kumo," today is the first day that the world actually gets their hands on the new service.

When testing a search engine, a lot of people try to think up queries to run in order to see how good the search results are. But in reality, the best way to really put a search engine through its paces is to switch your default search provider in your browser...well, at least temporarily! That way, you can test the new engine in real world scenarios without having to remind yourself to head over to a new URL.

In this article, we'll show you how to make that switch in a handful of the top browsers. If you use a smaller, alternate browser, feel free to share how to switch its default engine in the comments.

Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer 8, there aren't any complicated steps to follow to make the switch to a new search engine. Thanks to the browser's support of add-ons, you can just head over to the IE Add-ons Gallery and grab the new Bing add-on.

To install it, simply click the "Add to Internet Explorer" button. On the pop-up that appears, check the box that reads "Make this my default search provider" and click "Add." That's it!

If you accidentally added Bing without making it the default, you can click the drop-down arrow in IE's search box and click "Manage search providers." Find Bing in the list, right-click on it, and choose "Set as Default."

Mozilla Firefox

Like IE8, Mozilla Firefox also offers a Bing add-on which adds both search and suggestions to Firefox's search box. To install this add-on, head over to the Firefox Add-ons Gallery and click the "Add to Firefox" button on this page. On the pop-up box that appears, check the box "Start using it right away" before clicking "Add" in order to set Bing as the default.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a bit more tricky. Because this new web browser doesn't (yet) support extensions, you have to add new search engines manually using a specific URL.

To get started, right-click on the search bar and choose "Edit Search Engines." (Alternately, you can click the Wrench icon, then "Options," then the "Manage" button on the "Basics" tab next to "Default Search.")

In the Search Engines window where all of Chrome's available engines are listed, click the "Add" button. Another window appears where you'll be asked to fill in Name, Keyword, and URL. Use the following info to fill out this form:

Name: Bing

Keyword: bing

URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=%s

Click "OK" then click the "Make Default" button before closing the window.

Safari

Apple's Safari browser on the Mac OS is tied to Google, so changing search providers needs to be done by way of a plugin (unless you're handy with the vi editor). One of the easiest ways to change your search engines in Safari is by using the Glims plugin. This software adds a number of features to Safari, including tabs, thumbnails, full screen, suggestions, and more.

Once installed, open the Safari Preferences and under the Glims tab, click on "Search Engines." Then, click the "Add" button to add a new search engine.

In the pop-up box provided, you'll need to fill in the following info:

Name: Bing

Type: Search Engine

URL: http://www.bing.com/search?q=#query#

Click "Set" when you're done and close the window. Finally, select "Bing" in the browser window search box in order to make it your default engine.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/yspmcrfdVKA/how_to_make_bing_your_default_search_engine.php

Are You an Online Sex Guru ?

2009-08-31T05:57:00.000-07:00

I don't care. Despite all his knowledge, his girlfriend is frustrated with him. She wants a man to fuck her, not a scientist performing gynecology experiments on her. He doesn't understand that complex physical technique really doesn't make you any better in bed. It sounds impressive on an internet forum, but in real life it's ineffective.

Ultimately, the problem of the bedroom technician is that he thinks too much and tries to "figure out" sex. Instead of doing this, he should use basic physical technique and concentrate his efforts on providing extraordinary psychological stimulation

Amid Bing Hype, Blekko Wants To Be Left Alone

2009-08-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

Blekko, a stealth search startup headed by Rich Skrenta, is doing its best Greta Garbo impersonation while getting this sort of "glowing non-coverage" over at Techcrunch.

Like them, I respect the reclusive starlet (sorry, startup's) interest in privacy while they develop the product and the strategy.

In the next couple of weeks I will finally have the time to demo both Bing and Blekko.

But perhaps I can "leak" a couple of ideas I've gleaned from the past year or so of sporadic conversations with Rich.

You don't need the blogosphere to tell you, they're pretty serious about this one, and their idea of A-Level Talent doesn't just mean product managers with search engine names attached to their resumes, or business development folks with same. Along with those, they seem particularly focused on attracting high end engineering talent. You'd have guessed that anyway if you looked at the investors who have seeded the company, such as Marc Andreessen (to say nothing of Skrenta himself).

Although Screenwork reports they're "happy with the name Blekko," if you were a stealth startup, wouldn't you say that? They'll probably change it.

While not speaking directly to Blekko's own functionality, I've found Skrenta's (perhaps offhand) criticisms of search engine innovation in the past couple of years to be very telling. Skrenta told me last summer that users don't really want all these stage-managed "blended" results nearly as much as the major search engines let on. He's also been quoted as saying that PageRank wrecked the web, and implying that Google is out of answers when they begin threatening people with penalties and begging them to use web conventions in the "right way," instead of fixing their algorithms. Let's explore a bit more where these thoughts lead us... Bing may be a quintessential example, but Ask, Cuill, and the major search engines themselves (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft) have all been engaged in an overwrought effort to display search engine results in panes; variegated search results that purportedly guess at 'intent' (sometimes they do a great job); and other bells and whistles that speak to a broadening of the terms of what constitutes 'search' to convince us that search engines need to be good at finding, classifying, ranking, and displaying all 'objects', not just pages of information. "Ten Blue Links" has rapidly become code for "obsolete search engine design". "A page with panes and pics" is code for what "users really want today". Supposedly. Unfortunately, this leaves a gaping hole in what search engines used to do, or try to do: to be really good at providing relevant results for specialized queries, and getting the rank-order right. The fact that you get a bunch of panes and distractions instead of a really relevant list of links to serious content may be seen as some kind of evidence that search engines have given up on their core mission, and are engaged in a massive attempt to change the subject, whether consciously or not. And this kind of overwrought "integrative thinking" has apparently begun to pervade these companies' thought processes on other products. In terms of workflow and productivity, users shouldn't be satisfied with steady efforts to improve upon GMail functionality, integrated calendars, and IM integration (plus a to-do list that is a bland and clunky offering at best)? Instead of perfecting the core functionality, let's change the subject, and invent a new tool that assumes people want to share data and shift modes of communication willy-nilly. Google Sea of Distractions, as it were.

In that spirit, then, will Blekko turn out to be one part Kicking it Old School (no pretty panes, but going back to the fundamentals of serious searches for the right information, and rank-ordering serious results well, in a way that does a better job of keeping spam out without over-rewarding a handful of brands?), and one part Kicking it Up a Notch (soft-innovating in the information retrieval field, and leaving the portal guys to pretty up the planet with panes and pics)? Let's hope so. That would be one of the most noteworthy entry into the "serious consumer" web search space in the past five years. It might even turn out to be the type of search engine a librarian could love again. I'm looking forward to a deep dive... and launch later this year. As the other analysts have implied, maybe this won't be for everyone. What great product is? But the appeal also has to be wide enough to matter, and I hope that's true, too.

Jan Pronk Blog

2009-08-27T08:50:00.000-07:00

Pronk's blog drew interest not only among journalists and those concerned about the crisis in Darfur, but from those in the halls of power as well. The United Nations and Secretary-General Annan had been concerned about Pronk's outspokenness. Commenting on the nature of the blog, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the secretary-general, said: "Those views are expressed by Pronk, are his personal views…. There have been a number of discussions with Mr. Pronk regarding his blog and the expectation of all staff members to exercise proper judgment in what they write in their blogs" (quoted in Hoge, 2006, n.p.).

The crisis over Pronk's blog came to a head in October 2006. Pronk reported on two battles in which the Sudanese army had not fared well. On his blog, he commented on casualties that were heavy, soldiers that refused to fight, and generals that had been replaced. He went on to report information on the movement of troops, material, and equipment, and an attempt by the army to mobilize Arab militias to make up for the loss of troop strength.

At that point, the army and the ruling Sudanese government had reached their limit with Pronk. The government in Khartoum moved to expel Pronk over what they perceived to be his over-the-top behavior. Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadiq cited as justifications for Pronk's expulsion "the latest statements issued by Mr Pronk on his website regarding severe criticism of the Sudanese Armed Forces and the fact that he said the government of Sudan is not implementing the Darfur peace agreement" (quoted in Steele, 2006, n.p.).

Pronk was asked by Annan to return to New York for "consultations," and he apparently will not be returning to the region. But he's promise will always write about politic using his computer. After all he is a veteran political blogger who his honest view really love around the world.

Keyword Arab Dan Search Engine

2009-08-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sy baru menyadari keywrd baru yg sy menangkan tanpa sengaja. Keyword tsb adalah arab. Ternyata berkat posting 10 Pepatah Arab keturunan dan Teori Penerjemahan, blog sy mendapat secuil limpahan traffik yg berhubungan dgn bahasa arab. Hmm sebuah situasi yg ngak disangka sangka. Kalau dipikir pikir apa hubungan arab dgn web design. Hmm rasanya tidak ada sama sekali. Namun begitulah SEO, seperti mencerminkan betapa rumitnya hubungan antara gambar dgn cara berpikir kira (yg tercermin dlm bahasa manusia).

Seo memang agak membingungkan. Mungkin hanya begini yg bisa kita harapkan dari sebua robot google. Bagaimana pun googlebot cuma sekumpulan algoritma otomatis. Dia tida punya otak yg bisa menjelaskan kalau arab dan web design (yg merupakan niche utama) itu tidak memiliki relevansi apapun. Namun beginilah dalaman duna internet bekerja, tidak dibangun berdasar logika melainkan sekumpulan jejak penjelajahan spider dan bot otomatis search engine.

http://tastemeblog.blog.com/2009/07/17/keyword-arab-dan-search-engine/

Google Maps Mulai menarik

2009-08-24T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sy pernah kontemplasi mengenai Orbit Satelit Bandung. Heheeh bukan kontemplasi super hebat sih cuma mengenai tulisan seputar google maps dan silicon valley. Iya, sy rasa membuat peta digital itu sebuah teknologi menarik. Terbayang kalau kita bisa memetakan posisi setiap objek. Dengan begitu, kita bisa memanfaatkannya demi mendapatkan kualitas hidup yg lebih baik. Terbayangkan simbosis teknologi dan keseharian kita, maka secara sederhana kita akan mendapatkan solusi terbaik.

Posting lain seputar masalah ini bisa juga didapatkan dari Masalah Satelit yg Belum Terjawab Google Maps. Masalah yg dibahas adalah seputar usia foto satelit yg dipakai google maps ternyata sama dengan yg dipakai pada google earth. Bukankah hal ini luar biasa heheh bila enggak, maka tak ada yg bisa dikatakan selain maafkan kami. Ternyata info kami tidak dianggap menarik padahal menurut kami cukup menarik. Sesuai pada artikel detail peta google ini dinyatakan bisa memastikan seberapa besar sebaiknya kita mengandalkan peta google dalam bisnis dan fungsi fungsi lainnya.

hehehe sementar posting blog satelit berisi memoar lain. hehehe soal pengalaman sy melihat peta sumatera menggunakan layanan ini. Pengalaman barusan ditulis pada Ngobrol Google Maps. Pada posting ini dinyatakan kalau kualitas peta bisa berbeda berdasar negara dan peta negara kita ternyata tidak termasuk yg dikhususkan google hehehe tak perlu kaget sih tapi bete juga mengetahui kenyataan ini. Blog Penggemar google ini jadi agak berduka mengetahui kebijaksanaan google ini.

http://tastemeblog.blog.com/2009/07/17/pergeseran-posisi-google-maps-dan-google-analytic/

Microsoft Bing Overtakes Yahoo! Search

2009-08-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

Statcounter says recently launched Microsoft's Bing overtook Yahoo! Search as the number two search engine in the United States and worldwide on Thursday (4th June)!

StatCounter Global Stats is a free online service which tracks market share of search engines, browsers and operating systems. A StatCounter press release confirms the the event

StatCounter's analysis for Thursday finds that in the US Bing leapfrogged Yahoo to take second place on 16.28%. Yahoo! has 10.22%. Google still commands the US search engine market with 71.47%. StatCounter data globally finds that Bing at 5.62% has taken a narrow lead over Yahoo! (5.13%). Google worldwide retains 87.62% of the market.

Here are the June 4 Global Stats and US Stats. The netizens have given a huge positive response to Microsoft's new browser Bing, and it is to be seen if the euphoria will sustain.

BLOGGING – HOW TO GET MASSIVE TRAFFIC AND MAKE MONEY WITH BLOGS

2009-08-23T21:11:00.000-07:00

The course is intended for individuals, bloggers, webmasters, internet marketers and online business owners who want to learn how to get massive traffic to their websites with blogs. The main objective is to allow the participants to harness the power of the blogging to create successful online businesses and make money online via blogging.

Website owners, bloggers, webmasters, online business owners, internet marketers or individuals who want to drive massive traffic to their websites with blogs and also to make money online via blogging.

Content

Understand the basics and principles of blogging
Identify and develop niche market for blog
Conduct proper keyword research and anlaysis to ensure blog profitability
Understand strategies to maximize online income
Generate great content and power copywriting
Leverage on the power of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology
Refine blog concept and finalizing blog domain name
Determine blog structure and layout for optimal results • Learn the basics of HTML and how to edit blog source code
Create professionally looking blog at blazing speed
Model successful blogs and case studies
Optimize blog for the search engines
Learn and use the various blogging platforms - Blogger and WordPress
Build highly targeted traffic to the blog and understand blog management
Monitor and track traffic to measure blog performance
Understand linking and online partnership strategies
Familiarize with important blogging resources and tools
Learn and integrate monetization elements for blogs
Exploit and use the insider techniques used by SEO and Internet Marketing professionals to increase hits and website ranking using blogs
Understand proven methods to generate residual income on the Internet with blogs

Web Crawl yg sedikit ngaco

2009-08-23T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sy tidak menyangka kalau ada yg mencari friendster pendeta pada posting blog sy. Hmm hal ini menarik karena tidak sy pikirkan sebelumnya kalau hal tsb bisa terjadi. Jelas inti pembicaraan sy seputar pengalaman punya friendster. Namun apa yg tampil kemudian pada google itu menarik juga. Hal ini membuktikan kalau google web crawl memang buta sebelam matanya. Dia tidak tau kalau tema posting saat menulis blog bukanlah itu.

web crawl itu memang menarik. Baik kelebihan maupun kelemahan fundamental dari spider seach engine. Mereka cenderung bekerja seperti kuli, berkeliaran di cyberspace, dan mengambil informasi dari sana dan sini. lalu dengan tergesa menentukan tentang apakah sebuah blog itu. Jelas sekali lagi posting itu bukan seputar pendeta yg mana sangat katolik. Tapi analogi yg sy pakai memang menyerempet dan menggunakan kata tsb. Jadi agak wajar juga yah :D

http://tastemeblog.blog.com/2009/07/29/web-crawl-yg-sedikit-ngaco/

Bing TV advert arrives from Microsoft

2009-08-23T15:39:00.000-07:00

Microsoft has unveiled its television advert for Bing, suggesting that its new search engine means that search overload is 'officially over'.

Bing in Microsoft's latest attempt to start grabbing some search audience back from Google - by far the most dominant search engine in the US and the UK.

With Steve Ballmer telling the All Things Digital Conference that the marketing budget for Bing even made him gulp, the campaign is likely to be long and ubiquitous, although Microsoft in Britain will only start pushing the product when it comes out of beta in this country.

Time to Bing and decide

The opening TV spot shows some of the favourite internet memes - suggesting that "we don't need queries and keywords if they bring back questions and confusion."

"Staring today we need the right information to make the right decisions," continues the advert.

"Decisions that help us feel right decisions that help us get to the right place at the right time."

"Ladies and Gentlemen," the ad concludes, "it's time to 'bing' and decide."

http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/669/f/9809/s/47d073c/l/0L0Stechradar0N0Cnews0Cinternet0Cbing0Etv0Eadvert0Earrives0Efrom0Emicrosoft0E60A530A10Dsrc0Frss0Gattr0Fall/story01.htm

2 sensasi Webmaster Semata

2009-08-22T16:05:00.000-07:00

Sy tertarik dgn google earth terbaru. Layanan ini semakin lama semakin bagus saja. Kemarin sy mencoba sedikit untuk melihat bola dunia. huhuhu rasanya seperti memakai feedburner pertama kali dan tidak menyangka kalau teknologi feed itu memiliki spesifikasi tertentu. Keduanya bisa menjadi mainan yg bagus karena teknologi pendukung mereka memberi banyak ruang ekplorasi. Mainan ini sama sama termasuk keluarga google.

Memang sudah jarang sekali penemuan baru di luar angkasa yg menjadi berita sensational. Begitu juga usaha google membeli feedburner. Walaupun meanrik dan sensational bagi kami para webmaster, tapi hanya sedikit yg memahami potensi besar ini. Pembelian feedburner menyebabkan ruang bisnis adsense semakin luas. kode iklan ini semakin lama semakin banyak tampil dan menghasilkan uang bagi perusahaan induk. Selain itu, bagi kami webmaster, feed muncul dan menjadikan kesempatan promosi blog kita semakin besar.

http://tastemeblog.blog.com/2009/07/28/2-sensasi-webmaster-semata/

Artikel Resesi Ekonomi Amerika

2009-08-21T16:05:00.000-07:00

apakah yg sedang terjadi kok tiba tiba bisnis jadi seret. Oh tenyata sedang resesi ekonomi dunia . Hmm sejujurnya situasi ini amat riskan dimana banyak orang kehilangan pekerjaan dan berbagai lini perusahaan bangkrut. Hmm padahal penyebab masalah ini saja belum begitu jelas. Konon disebabkan bangkrutnya perusahaan besar amerika. Tapi sy rasa ada hal lain selain itu. Sy selalu membayangkan kapitalisme itu sistem ekonomi amerika yg tidak gampang goyah. Tampaknya anggapan yg saya miliki itu salah besar.

Sy sudah banyak membaca artikel dan saran seputar cara menghadapi situasi ini. Sejujurnya apa yg sy baca tidak mencerminkan kepercayaan diri. Para penulisnya cuma menulis skema penyelamatan diri yg serba darurat. Ali alih mempraktekkan apa yg mereka sarankan, sy lebih tertarik melihat bagaimana kelangsungan pekerjaan sy sebagai web designer. Hmm memang pekerjaan dari luar negeri itu mulai seret. Namun sy harap tidak benar benar tertutup :D

http://tastemeblog.blog.com/2009/07/29/artikel-resesi-ekonomi-amerika/