Saturday, May 31, 2008

Top 6 Do's and Don'ts for healthy eyes

Do's:-
1. Try to make milk,fruits/fruit juices,fresh green vegetables,honey,lemon,etc. as a part of daily diet.

2. Perform exercises like swimming/jogging/yoga etc. regularly to improve circulation and bring freshly oxygenated blood to the eyes.

3. Palm your eyes with both hands gently without applying pressure regularly at intervals while performing strenuous work.

4. Face the sun with closed for 5-10 minutes in the morning and evening to give a mild sun treatment to the eyes.

5. Wash your eyes with plain cool water in the morning and evening.

6. While reading,watching TV and computer screen take intervals and watch outside the window or at long distance to relieve strain.


Don'ts:-
1. Do not watch TV for more than 45 minutes continuously and at a distance less than 10 feet.

2. Do not write/read and watch TV/Computer at same time.

3. Do not consume high calorie food.

4. Do not indulge in excessive smoking,etc as it impairs vision.

5. Do not consume large amounts of cofee,tea,fried foods,spicy foods,etc.

6. Do not perform work like reading,sewing,using computers without proper intervals.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Bayern Munich Football club scores in cricket crazy India

Bayern Munich, the reigning German soccer champion and four-time European Cup winner, faced more than an Indian club when it played in Kolkata today. It was trying to overcome a cricket culture and England's Premier League.

Bayern won the game 3-0 with Jan Schlaudraff scoring twice and Zé Roberto grabbing the other. A defensive blunder allowed Schlaudraff to score the opener after 18 minutes, before Zé Roberto curled in a free kick on 37 minutes after Mohun keeper Sangram Mukherjee had handled outside the area.
Bayern’s third goal arrived six minutes into the second half when Jan Schlaudraff fired home from close range following good work from Christian Lell.

Bayern, which beat Mohun Bagan 3-0 in front of 120,000 fans, is seeking to convert consumers in India -- the world's second most-populous nation with 1.1 billion people -- to soccer from cricket and overcome a bias to English teams among those who already follow the sport.

Indians have traditionally favored cricket, the game brought there by the British when it was the colonial power. Broadcast rights to a new six-week cricket tournament, featuring some of the world's top players and promoted by Bollywood movie stars, were sold to India's Sony Television Network and the Singapore-based World Sports Group for $1 billion, according to the Australian newspaper.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

David Beckham's 70 yard goal against Kansas

Mallya's Force India to ask for Raikkonen's ban after Sutil incident


Force India's Adrian Sutil and the team's chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne were summoned to the Monaco Grand Prix stewards after the German lost a potential fourth place following an accident with Kimi Raikkonen.

After an inspired performance the Force India driver was set for an improbable fourth-place finish when he was hit from behind by an out-of-control Kimi Raikkonen with just 10 minutes remaining.

Sutil was on course to finish a career-best fourth when, shortly after the second re-start of the race following the deployment of the Safety Car, he was hit from behind by Raikkonen as the Finn lost control exiting the tunnel. As luck - well, bad luck - would have it, the Ferrari driver was able to continue, but the damage to the Force India was terminal. Sutil, close to tears, was beyond consolation.

The latter was fending off the Ferrari at the restart when disaster struck as the pair exited the tunnel and braked for the chicane.

Raikkonen lost control of his F2008, crashing heavily into the back of Sutil, resulting in both drivers heading to the pits for repairs.

But, while Raikkonen was able to head back out with a new nosecone, Sutil's car.

"The frustration is that if that had been a Force India driver hitting a world champion we would expect to get a one or two race ban, but when it is the other way around it is disappointing that the stewards... well you know I hope they look at it and act accordingly," said Gascoyne.

Rejoice!!! Oil price not to rise in India

With defeat in Karnataka state election and several state election and the General election coming up in one year, Congress led UPA Government will be in no mood to increase oil prices, lest they hurt their vote banks. Crude has been trading at all time high in the world market but the government has been hesitant to increase the oil prices. This has caused all oil companies to bleed to bankruptcy. Oil companies have been trading at three month low in the BSE.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Man Made Giant: Burj Dubai



Burj Dubai (Arabic: برج دبي‎ "Dubai Tower") is a skyscraper under construction in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and is the tallest man-made structure on Earth. Construction began on September 21, 2004, and it is expected to be completed and ready for occupation in September 2009.
The building is part of the 2 km² (0.8 sq mi) development called 'Downtown Dubai' and is located at the "First Interchange" (aka "Defence Roundabout") along Sheikh Zayed Road at Doha Street. The tower's architect is Adrian Smith[4] who worked with Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) until 2006. SOM is the architecture and engineering firm in charge of the project. The primary builder is Samsung Engineering & Construction, along with Besix and Arabtec. Turner Construction Company was chosen as the construction manager.
The total budget for the Burj Dubai project is about US$ 4.1 billion and for the entire new 'Downtown Dubai', US$ 20 billion. Mohamed Ali Alabbar, the CEO of Emaar Properties, speaking at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat 8th World Congress, said that the price of office space at Burj Dubai had reached $4,000 per sq ft and that the Armani Residences, also in Burj Dubai, were selling for $3,500 per sq ft.

Friday, May 23, 2008

How C Ronaldo and others can win treble this year

A nervy two week countdown starts on Saturday as the 16 Euro 2008 finalists put the finishing touches to their squads ahead of the opening game between co-hosts Switzerland and the Czech Republic in Basel.

The June 7-29 European footballing extravaganza offers Manchester United quintet Patrice Evra, Edwin van der Sar, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nani and Mikael Silvestre a shot at a unique Premier League-Champions League and Euro treble.

While for beaten Champions League finalist Chelsea's Claude Makelele, Ricardo Carvalho, Michael Ballack, Florent Malouda, Nicolas Anelka and Petr Cech the tournament represents a chance of wiping away the tears of that drama-laden penalty shoot-out defeat.

France manager Raymond Domenech will be relieved to hear that full-back Evra resisted the temptation to join the rest of his celebrating United colleagues in painting Moscow's Red Square even redder after Wednesday night's heroics.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Yangtze turtles dillema

For the endangered Yangtze turtle, it's all down to sex between a centenarian male and an octogenarian female. If they breed, a species will be saved.

Conservationists are desperately hoping they will. For, there are just four Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles left - making it the world's most critically endangered marine animal.

A still reproductive, more than 80-year-old, female, living in China's Changsha Zoo, has been flown to the only known male in China, aged over 100 years and living more than 900 km away at the Suzhou Zoo.

Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) provided funding for the project, as well as animal reproduction and technical expertise, while the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) provided veterinary and logistical support along with wildlife partners in China.

On May 5, turtle biologists, veterinarians and zoo staff convened at Changsha Zoo to collect and transport the female to Suzhou Zoo where she joined her new mate to potentially save their entire species.

The move was coordinated to coincide with the female's reproductive cycle.

“This is a story of hope for a species truly on the brink,” said Colin Poole, WCS director. “Now that the turtles are together, we are optimistic that they will successfully breed.”

“I hate to call this a desperation move, but it really was. With only one female known worldwide, and given that we have lost three captive specimens over the past two years, what choice did we have?”

Monday, May 19, 2008

Get paid to blog without getting Google slap

Finally SocialSpark from IZEA is live. Many of you might be using Payperpost to earn money to write about companies and/or their products in your blog. Socialspark, too, will help you earn more but there are lot of advantages of using SocialSpark over payperpost.

The most important is the no follow rule. ie.all links should have no follow attribute . This will help you against search engine penalties.

And when I had signed up with SocialSpark, it actually did help to drive some traffic into my blog through the community within. Yes, you can actually build your own community of friends in SocialSpark!

I have submitted my blog for verification. Though there has really been a lot of opportunities so far in SocialSpark on a very regular basis, I do hope that more and more advertisers would gradually be roped in to advertise in SocialSpark when I am accepted.

The other important code of ethics is the in post disclosure as IZEA believes that if you are being paid to write then you must tell that to your readers otherwise there will be conflict of interest.

It is cent per cent transparent as every participant in SocialSpark is made viewable to the public. The public can also see which bloggers are working with which advertisers on which opportunities. This is designed to keep the community honest and open about the transactions that occur.

You can give real opinions about the products. As long as you meet advertiser's requirement, SocialSpark itself has no restrictions on how you express your genuine thoughts on an advertiser's product or service.

Pls make me your friend. My socialspark profile.

This post has been sponsored by Payperpost.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Before the showdown at Moscow - Man U fires

From manchester:
Striker Wayne Rooney has urged Cristiano Ronaldo to stay and continue their prolific partnership at Manchester United.

Premier League player of the year Ronaldo has again been linked with a move to long-term suitors Real Madrid after telling Spanish television this week that he might consider his future at United.

Rooney wants the 23-year-old Portugal winger to remain with the Premier League champions. The two players have scored 59 goals between them this season.

Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic has turned up the heat ahead of the Champions League final by accusing Chelsea's Didier Drogba of play-acting.

And while Vidic expressed his respect for Drogba's abilities, the centre-back warned that Wednesday's referee will need to pay close attention to his antics.

Manchester United star Wayne Rooney has also taken a swipe at Chelsea striker Didier Drogba's temperament ahead of the Champions League final

It was unusually candid comment from the softly spoken Rooney as he broke off from preparations for his first European final. He'll have to hope the dig doesn't backfire in Moscow on Wednesday.

Drogba reacted angrily when accused of being a continual diver by Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez before the semifinal match with Chelsea.

Drogba scored the winning goal in last season's FA Cup final against Man United, and Rooney is afraid Chelsea might be hard to break down if it scores early.

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Create Desktop Wallpapers from Google Maps Satellite Images

Visit this blog to know how.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

68 % women and men prefer MALE bosses

Nearly 68 percent women and men prefer male bosses in the emerging corporate culture as 'men are faster in taking decisions, quicker in disposing off their assigned work and at the same time passionate in awarding their subordinates with functional autonomy to completely let them enjoy their work.'

Men and women differ in their preferences for a boss, but those who prefer male bosses are found in both genders. In fact women are more likely to state their preference of boss's gender and men are most likely to say that they don' care about boss's gender.

Adults between 25 and 34 don't care much about their boss. Above 35 they prefer males.

Women also prefer male co-workers as they are more comfortable with them.

Monday, May 12, 2008

How does Google auction ads

There are several steps in the process.

1) Each advertiser enters a list of keywords, ads, and bids.

2) When a user enters a query, Google compiles a list of all the ads whose keywords match that query.

3) The list of ads is then ordered based on the bids and the Ad Quality Scores, which measure the relevance of the ad to the user.

4) The highest ranked ad is displayed in the most prominent position, the second highest ranked ad gets the second most prominent position, and so on.

5) If the user clicks on an ad, the advertiser is charged a price that depends on the bid and Quality Score of the advertiser below it. The price charged is the minimum necessary to retain the advertiser's position in the list.

A simple example is when all ads have the same Quality Score. In this case, the ads will be ranked by bids and the price an advertiser pays per click will just be the bid of advertiser below it in the ranking. Hence the amount that advertisers pay is no more than what they bid and typically less.

In the general case, where ad qualities differ, the price an advertiser pays for a click will depend on its Quality Score relative to the quality of the ad below it in the auction. Roughly speaking, an ad that has twice the quality of another ad will tend to get about twice as many clicks, and will only have to pay half as much per click as the competing ad.

From the Google's official blog.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

Man Utd are the champions and Ronaldo's $160 million deal



Manchester united outplayed Wigan through Ronaldo and Giggs goal. Chelsea could only manage a draw. But now perez hilton reports that Real Madrid is offering him $160 million deal.

The oldest international sporting rivalry-USA vs Canada

It is one of cricket's curiosities that the oldest international rivalry is not, as many assume, England against Australia. That started in 1877, some 33 years after a side representing USA met a team from Canada at Bloomingdale Park in Manhattan. It is believed that it is the world's oldest international sporting rivalry, pre-dating the Americas Cup by seven years.

There are some who dispute the validity of the claim that the game was an international. It was advertised locally as a meeting between USA and Canada even though the players were, in the main, drawn from two clubs. While the first contemporary reference to the sides being from USA and Canada did not come until 1853, it is generally acknowledged to have been an international.

The encounter could actually have happened four years earlier. The St George's Club received an invitation from a Mr Phillpotts to travel to play a game against Toronto at a ground on the shores of Lake Ontario. A squad of 18 New Yorkers made a gruelling journey only to find on arrival on August 28 that the bemused Toronto club knew nothing about the proposal. St George's had been the victim of a hoax. Nevertheless, Toronto raised a side to play for a stake of $250 a side, and in front of a decent crowd, St George's won by ten wickets.

The relationship had been established and four years later a genuine invitation was sent to Toronto, who accepted. The stake had been upped to $1000 and the venue was to be the grounds of the St George's Club (around East 31 Street and First Avenue, at the time a rural setting) with two days - September 24 and 25 - put aside for the game.

The trip south for the Canadians was exhausting. They travelled by boat up the St Lawrence and across Lake Ontario before boarding a train on the burgeoning rail network on the American side. The trains had no buffet cars and so food had to be snatched at the irregular stops.

A large crowd, around 5000, was present on the first day and, as was customary, betting was to the fore. It is estimated that as much as $100,000 was bet on the match, close to $2 million in modern money. The game was scheduled to start at 10am but the teams were in no hurry and it eventually got underway at 11.40am.

Canada batted and were bowled out midway through the afternoon for 82. Given the state of pitches at the time, it was a respectable score, although contemporary accounts refer to the poor fielding of the USA. David Winckworth joint top-scored with 12, while Yorkshire-born Sam Wright and Harry Groom shared the wickets between them.

Winckworth is an interesting character and he can claim to be the first dual international. He appeared for Canada in the first three games against USA (there were two in 1845) and then, on moving to Detroit, he turned out for USA in 1846.

It is estimated that as much as $100,000 was bet on the match, close to $2 million in modern money

After an hour's break for a late lunch, USA batted, and although their innings extended into a second day, they conceded a first-innings lead of 18. What should have been the second day was in fact washed out and it was agreed that the match would resume on September 26. When Canada batted again Winckworth, who had taken four wickets with some quick bowling, again top-scored with 14 as Canada made 63.

USA were set a target of 82, although they had an immediate problem in that their No. 3, George Wheatcroft, had not turned up. James Turner and John Syme gave them a good start, but from 25 for 0 they lost six wickets for 11 runs once George Sharpe came on. The tail wagged slightly but USA only managed 58, losing by 23 runs. Earlier in the year Turner had scored 120 in a club match, believed to be the first three-figure score on US soil.

Some 20 minutes after the last wicket fell, Wheatcroft arrived. A heated but brief argument ensued as USA tried to insist he was entitled to bat, but the Canadians were having none of it.

In 1845 the sides met again home and away - Canada winning by 61 runs in Montreal at the end of July and by two wickets in New York a month later - and then in Harlem, New York in August 1846. USA finally broke their duck at the fourth time of asking, but in highly controversial circumstances and the fixture was suspended for seven years.

"Cricket was by far the biggest sport [in the USA] in this period," Tim Lockley, an expert in American history at Warwick University, told the Guardian in 1999. "Then the civil war started in 1861, just when it was reaching its peak of popularity. The sport became a victim of that war."

The USA-Canada contest continued intermittently. They last met in 2004 in the ICC Intercontinental Cup in Florida, the only occasion that the two have faced off in a first-class match.

source

TEAMS

UNITED STATES:
1 J Turner
2 R Ticknor
3 G Wheatcroft
4 S Wright
5 J Ticknor
6 RN Tilson
7 J Syme
8 S Dudson
9 H Groom
10 W Wild
11 R Bage

CANADA:
1 D Winckworth
2 JC Wilson
3 CJ Birch
4 GA Barber
5 G Sharpe
6 GA Phillpotts
7 JB Robinson
8 HJ Maddock
9 Freeling
10 F French
11 W Thompson

Saturday, May 10, 2008

Singapore batsman hits Twenty20 double hundred

A batsman in Singapore has scored what is believed to be the first Twenty20 double hundred, bludgeoning a remarkable 219 from 56 balls in a club match.

Sagar Kulkarni, 28, hit 18 sixes and 23 fours in his in Marina Club's 368 for 3. His partner for much of his innings was Mulewa Dharmichand, who made 89 off 44 deliveries.

Read more

Man United: Ferguson wants Owen for next season


Manchester United have made an informal approach to Michael Owen’s agent regarding a possible summer move to Old Trafford, according to the News of the World.

Sir Alex Ferguson has wasted no time as he tries to strengthen his forward line for the upcoming season and the possibility of a cut-price US$14 million deal for the England hitman would make a good investment and allow the Scotsman more funds to bid for his other transfer targets.

"We will buy," said the Scot. "Along with Carlos Tevez and Wayne Rooney, we may need experience in one forward position, somebody to take over from Ryan Giggs eventually."

Owen’s move to United is seen as a straight replacement for the often crocked French striker, Louis Saha, but the United coaching staff are said to have fears that not only will Owen replace Saha’s bench role but also take over his place on the Old Trafford treatment table.

Ferguson has countered these worries by coming up with an incentive-based contract which will see Owen being paid by the amount of games he plays and also number of goals scored.
If the deal does go through, Newcastle and Liverpool fans will be an angry bunch as Tyneside has only just begun seeing the full potential of a fully fit Owen while the Liverpool fans will be angered by the fact that their former prodigy has chosen to join one of their biggest rivals in the English game.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Google to show ads in image-search and Youtube

Bloomberg reports Google is seeking new sources of revenue as growth slows for the four-line text ads that generate almost all of its sales. The Mountain View, California-based company's revenue grew 56 percent last year to $16.6 billion, down from 73 percent growth in 2006.

"We haven't found a proper way to monetize image search to date,'' said Mayer, who oversees search products. ``You may see us roll out an ads-image search in the future, but when we do you'll know that's because we found a way that ultimately enhances user happiness with the product.''

Google calculated in 2006 that it was giving up as much as $200 million a year by not including text advertisements with its image search results, and that figure has probably increased since, Mayer said. Trials showed that text ads drove people away from conducting image searches, and Google dropped that idea.

Display ads may work better with image searches because they seem more natural to people looking for pictures, Mayer said. While the company has done mock-ups of how it might present the ads, it hasn't tested them on users, she said.

CNET reports YouTube users soon will see some new advertisements around their online videos.

Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said the company is working on new ads for the video site in a meeting here with reporters before Google's shareholder meeting, but he was cagey with details.

"We have new ad products that are not pre-roll and post-roll," he said, referring to ads that show up before and after videos. "We have new approaches. Think of them as ads that are in the context of YouTube. They use the page around YouTube in interesting ways."

The new ads will launch "over the next few months," Schmidt added.

Schmidt has made no secret of his desire to make more money from YouTube, the dominant video site on the Internet; Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. In an interview last week with CNBC, he said about YouTube, "We're working but have not yet in my view gotten a breakthrough around monetization...We're working on that. That's our highest priority this year."

Google is banking on the $3.1 billion acquisition DoubleClick. As they are not market leaders in Display advertising even doubleclick would like such reach among millions of users. This move will help youtube, image search and Doubleclick turn gold mine for g

Google to provide internet protection to your employees

Protecting employees from Internet threats is tough enough when they're at work, much less when they're on the road. Off-network users are particularly vulnerable to web threats because they must remember to connect via VPN for protection when they're away from the office.

Today we're making Internet security easier for people, wherever they may be working. Google Web Security for Enterprise, powered by Postini, provides real-time malware protection and URL filtering with policy enforcement and reporting. An additional feature extends the same protections to users working remotely on laptops in hotels, cafes, and even guest networks without requiring any action on their part.

Read more

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Ashop- award winning shopping cart software

Do you have products to sell online to the world market. In order that you get good sales you must have a good shopping cart. Ashop commerce is a provider of online store software. It has easy to use web based administration ecommerce software. Using this online store software you can make your shopping cart as good as any top website. It is quite affordable. So, it does not matter whether you are selling products worth ten dollar or thousand dollar,it won't burn hole in your pocket.

This shopping cart software is easy to use that you don't need to be an expert to use it. Ashop Commerce provide secure shopping cart software integrated with all major banks, gateways and third party processors including PayPal and is secure. They give give you the best possible platform and advice to help your online store reach the top of the search engines results.This is important as you will get most of the customers coming to your website through these search results. All shopping carts are hosted on their ultra fast web servers. 24x7 monitoring, multiple nightly backups and a guaranteed 99.8% uptime.

And they are giving 10 days free trial

India tests missile with China in mind

India has test-fired its longest-range nuclear-capable ballistic missile, Agni-III, officials said.
The surface-to-surface missile was test-fired off the coast of Orissa state in eastern India.
With a range of more than 3,000km (1,865 miles), the missile could hit targets as far off as Beijing and Shanghai, analysts say.

ndia's current arsenal of missiles is largely intended for confronting archrival Pakistan. The Agni III, in contrast, is India's longest-range missile, designed to reach 1,900 miles _ putting China's major cities well into range, as well as targets deep in the Middle East.

The missile is one of a series developed as part of India's deterrence strategy against neighbouring China and Pakistan which also have nuclear weapons, analysts say.
India has shorter-range missiles that analysts say were developed to target long-time rival Pakistan with which it has fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.
The two neighbours who launched a slow-moving peace process in 2004 aimed at resolving outstanding disputes including over disputed Kashmir often stage tit-for-tat missile tests.
But the development of the Agni III is aimed at displaying that India's deterrent reach can stretch far beyond Pakistan, analysts say.
In the last few years, however, tensions between India and China, which fought a brief border war in 1962, have eased and there is now direct trade through the Himalayas.
The Agni-III is the country's first solid fuel missile that is compact enough for easy mobility.
India's indigenously developed missile arsenal also includes the short-range Prithvi ballistic missile and the medium-range Akash.

IPL cricketers set to earn more next year

If you thought that the IPl cricketers were earning more then you are in for a shocker. After the success of the first edition IPL commitee is set to remove the $5 million cap on the spending of the team on the players next year.

"If we hadn't done that, I can tell you that our players would already be the highest-paid across any sport in the world," IPL chairman and commissioner Lalit Modi was quoted as saying in 'The Daily Telegraph' .

"It will happen - if not today, then tomorrow. Because once the franchises have established themselves, it will be a free-for-all," he added.

The report stated some leading Australian cricketers like Matthew Hayden and Brett Lee can expect a several-fold hike in their pays when they go back to play the next season after their short stints this time.

Indian ODI skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, who fetched the maximum bidding price of Rs 6 crore this season, reportedly told a senior Australian player last week that extraordinary contracts of up to $14-15 million were likely to be introduced by the next season.

Hayden confirmed that players were up for a financial windfall when the next season of the IPL gets underway.

"From what I have heard, some of the stuff (payments) this year could be just the tip of the iceberg," Hayden said.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Youtube India is now live

Youtube now offers India specific site. Here is the excerpts from official India Youtube blog

We're very happy to be able to bring you a localised version of YouTube for India, its diaspora and and really anyone who is passionate about India. This site contains all the videos found on YouTube's global site, www.youtube.com, except we've applied an "Indian lens" to the content, meaning that the video charts you see reflect what Indians are watching now, the featured videos are programmed to cater to an Indian audience, and we've signed up dozens of local partners who are proud to distribute their content through YouTube.

Moreover, an Indian version of YouTube allows you to connect with local users like never before –- take a look at the videos being featured on our home page right now and you'll see everything from a non-resident Indian (NRI) family trying to tell folks back home how much they missed their hot cup of morning tea to the merry whistlers from Bangalore to traffic mayhem in Hyderabad.

Like what you see or think you can do better? Comment, share, favourite and upload away...YouTube is a truly democratic platform that can be used by anyone. So get typing or pick up that video camera: tell us what our strengths are, draw our attention to any weaknesses, and give us an idea of how we can improve your YouTube experience.


Monday, May 5, 2008

Where are the consumer rights in IPL ?


I went for the two IPL matches which was played in the newly built D Y Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. The stadium is superb. Unlike Wankhede stadium of Mumbai which has benches, this stadium has bucket seats with seat nos. So, no problem regarding where to sit as we get our nos. on the ticket we purchase. The stadium has no pillars, hence, we can have full view of the stadium and field of play without any obstruction. The good things end here.

Feeling thirsty or hungry? Then you are going to be looted. You are not allowed to bring water from outside but then if you want to buy from the stalls Aquafina mineral water which costs Rs. 12 is being sold for Rs. 40. You might have noticed ads on TV, newspaper and radio exhorting you to complain if any shopkeeper asks you to pay a couple of Rupees extra for cooling any drinks. But here in such a big event things are being sold at sky-high price. Not just water. Soft drinks worth 40 being sold for 100. Food items worth 10-40 being sold for 40-100.

No wonder it is said that watching any live event in India is a painful experience. I understand Mukesh Ambani has purchased the most expensive IPl team and he is building a two billion dollar worth home but that doesn't mean he should extort money from loyal cricket fans.

Google is moving to Unicode 5.1

Google has just begun supporting Unicode 5.1, less than one month after it was released. It's now available in search, so people speaking languages such as Malayalam can now search for words containing the new characters in Unicode 5.1.

Web pages can use a variety of different character encodings, like ASCII, Latin-1, or Windows 1252, or Unicode. Most encodings can only represent a few languages, but Unicode will handle anything from Chinese to French to Arabic. We have long used Unicode as the internal format for all the text we search: any other encoding is first converted to Unicode for processing. So we regularly update to each new version of Unicode (and relevant related standards like CLDR and BCP 47) to make sure we are current. Thus Unicode plays a key role in google's mission.

Just last December there was an interesting milestone on the web. For the first time, we found that Unicode was the most frequent encoding found on web pages, overtaking both ASCII and Western European encodings—and by coincidence, within 10 days of one another. What's more impressive than simply overtaking them is the speed with which this happened; take a look at the blue line in this graph.


You can see a long-term decline in pages encoded in ASCII (unaccented letters A through Z). More recently, there's been a significant drop in the use of encodings covering only Western European letters (ASCII and a few accented letters like Ä, Ç, and Ø). We're seeing similar declines in other language-specific encodings. Unicode, on the other hand, is showing a sharp increase in usage.

This is based on our indexing of web pages, and thus may vary somewhat from what other search engines find. However, the trends are pretty clear, and the continued rise in use of Unicode makes it even easier to do the processing for the many languages that we cover.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Yahoo faces difficult monday

Techcrunch reports that Yahoo is frantically trying to negotiate a deal with Google to outsource search advertising and get it announced before the markets open tomorrow. Yahoo has lost the lions share of negotiating leverage. That means a lower revenue share, a shorter term deal, etc.

Yahoo to announce their delayed annual shareholder meeting early this week, and actually hold it as early as late June. When it’s announced, shareholders have ten days to propose an alternate slate of board members. Microsoft says they are sitting on the sidelines, but a group of angry stockholders may now emboldened enough to make their own effort to change company management.

To say that shareholders are angry is an understatement. They made it clear to anyone who’d talk to them that they would be more than happy with Microsoft’s $33/share final offer. Legg Mason, Capital Research, T. Rowe Price and others all reportedly strongly wanted the Microsoft deal to happen.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Beckham scores twice as Galaxy draws Real Salt Lake

David Beckham proved his value Saturday night, and it wasn't just the record-setting crowd he brought in at Rice-Eccles Stadium.
With his team on the ropes early in the half, Beckham scored twice to take advantage of a couple of key defensive lapses as the Los Angeles Galaxy rallied to salvage a 2-2 tie with Real Salt Lake.

"It was a good game in the end," Beckham said. "I think that we started off terrible the first 20 minutes. We didn't get close enough to them as a team. We looked scared of them. And then a couple of tackles started going in, and we livened up. We got ourselves back into the game."

Real Salt Lake's Fabian Espindola and Kenny Deuchar scored just 11 minutes apart to stake the home team to an early lead.

more

Microsoft's Steven Ballmer's letter to Yahoo's Jerry Yang on abandoning of the deal

Yahoo's trick of outsourcing ads placement to Google seems to have paid off.

Below is the text of the letter from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Yahoo! CEO Jerry Yang.

May 3, 2008


Mr. Jerry Yang
CEO and Chief Yahoo
Yahoo! Inc.
701 First Avenue
Sunnyvale, CA 94089


Dear Jerry:

After over three months, we have reached the conclusion of the process regarding a possible combination of Microsoft and Yahoo!.

I first want to convey my personal thanks to you, your management team, and Yahoo!’s Board of Directors for your consideration of our proposal. I appreciate the time and attention all of you have given to this matter, and I especially appreciate the time that you have invested personally. I feel that our discussions this week have been particularly useful, providing me for the first time with real clarity on what is and is not possible.

I am disappointed that Yahoo! has not moved towards accepting our offer. I first called you with our offer on January 31 because I believed that a combination of our two companies would have created real value for our respective shareholders and would have provided consumers, publishers, and advertisers with greater innovation and choice in the marketplace. Our decision to offer a 62 percent premium at that time reflected the strength of these convictions.

In our conversations this week, we conveyed our willingness to raise our offer to $33.00 per share, reflecting again our belief in this collective opportunity. This increase would have added approximately another $5 billion of value to your shareholders, compared to the current value of our initial offer. It also would have reflected a premium of over 70 percent compared to the price at which your stock closed on January 31. Yet it has proven insufficient, as your final position insisted on Microsoft paying yet another $5 billion or more, or at least another $4 per share above our $33.00 offer.

Also, after giving this week’s conversations further thought, it is clear to me that it is not sensible for Microsoft to take our offer directly to your shareholders. This approach would necessarily involve a protracted proxy contest and eventually an exchange offer. Our discussions with you have led us to conclude that, in the interim, you would take steps that would make Yahoo! undesirable as an acquisition for Microsoft.

We regard with particular concern your apparent planning to respond to a “hostile” bid by pursuing a new arrangement that would involve or lead to the outsourcing to Google of key paid Internet search terms offered by Yahoo! today. In our view, such an arrangement with the dominant search provider would make an acquisition of Yahoo! undesirable to us for a number of reasons:

· First, it would fundamentally undermine Yahoo!’s own strategy and long-term viability by encouraging advertisers to use Google as opposed to your Panama paid search system. This would also fragment your search advertising and display advertising strategies and the ecosystem surrounding them. This would undermine the reliance on your display advertising business to fuel future growth.

· Given this, it would impair Yahoo’s ability to retain the talented engineers working on advertising systems that are important to our interest in a combination of our companies.

· In addition, it would raise a host of regulatory and legal problems that no acquirer, including Microsoft, would want to inherit. Among other things, this would consolidate market share with the already-dominant paid search provider in a manner that would reduce competition and choice in the marketplace.

· This would also effectively enable Google to set the prices for key search terms on both their and your search platforms and, in the process, raise prices charged to advertisers on Yahoo. In addition to whatever resulting legal problems, this seems unwise from a business perspective unless in fact one simply wishes to use this as a vehicle to exit the paid search business in favor of Google.

· It could foreclose any chance of a combination with any other search provider that is not already relying on Google’s search services.

Accordingly, your apparent plan to pursue such an arrangement in the event of a proxy contest or exchange offer leads me to the firm decision not to pursue such a path. Instead, I hereby formally withdraw Microsoft’s proposal to acquire Yahoo!.

We will move forward and will continue to innovate and grow our business at Microsoft with the talented team we have in place and potentially through strategic transactions with other business partners.

I still believe even today that our offer remains the only alternative put forward that provides your stockholders full and fair value for their shares. By failing to reach an agreement with us, you and your stockholders have left significant value on the table.

But clearly a deal is not to be.

Thank you again for the time we have spent together discussing this.

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Steven A. Ballmer


Steven A. Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer
Microsoft Corporation

Here is the threatening letter Microsoft had send to Yahoo few weeks back regarding hostile takeover.

Indian middle class causes food price rise : Bush

US President George Bush has joined his top diplomat in suggesting that the growing prosperity of India's large middle class is contributing to rising food prices around the world.

"...the more prosperous the world is, the more opportunity there is," he said commenting on the economy during a visit Friday to World Wide Technology, Inc. in Maryland Heights, Missouri. "It also, however, increases demand."

"So, for example, just as an interesting thought for you, there are 350 million people in India who are classified as middle class. That's bigger than America. Their middle class is larger than our entire population.

"And when you start getting wealth, you start demanding better nutrition and better food. And so demand is high, and that causes the price to go up," said Bush joining his top diplomat Condoleezza Rice in suggesting India's role in the world food crisis.

I read an interesting post regarding this at bloggernews

What should the Indian middle class do? Should he give up the prosperity and return back to the fold of backward nations? Or should he look for statistics to find out how much food the prospering Indian Middle class gulp down in the form of Pepsis, Coca Colas Mac Donalds.

These Indians drink, on average, nine servings of Coke products per year. Has George Bush forgotten that few years back there was an agitation in India in which it was alleged that the 68 Cola plants in India has caused a water shortage in many parts of India? In Varanasi, alone, Coke draws an estimated 158,503 gallons a day. In fact the Colas have a market of 300 millions of middle class Indian, incidentally equivalent to US population

And what about the expenditure of these middle class Indians who help US economy by buying Levis ,Reebock ,Adidas to name a few.

Indians have right to grow their food and give preference to their own country men instead of selling to countries busy in selling nuclear arsenals ,oil and other things.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Inside The World's First Billion-Dollar Home

The 27-storey skyscraper being built in Mumbai by Mukesh Ambani, the richest person in India, could be the world's largest and costliest home with a price- tag nearing two billion dollar, according to Forbes magazine.

"When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing a four-year process, it will be 550 feet high with 4,00,000 square feet of interior space," Forbes said in a report on its website.

Earlier in March, Mukesh Ambani was ranked as the fifth richest person in the world with a net worth of 43 billion dollars by the Forbes magazine in its annual list of world's wealthiest billionaires.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the 70 million dollar triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air,

The report further noted that the cost for the Ambani residence, called Antilla whose shape is based on Vaastu, would be more than a hotel or high-rise of similar size because of its custom measurements and fittings.

While a hotel or condominium has a common layout, replicated on every floor, and uses the same materials throughout the building, the Ambanis' home has no two alike in either plans or materials used, it said.

At the request of Nita Ambani, say the designers, if a metal, wood or crystal is part of the ninth-floor design, it shouldn't be used on the eleventh floor, for example. The idea is to blend styles and architectural elements so spaces give the feel of consistency, but without repetition.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Why you will miss The King of fruits-mango this year


Thanks due to non-seasonal rains in February in mango producing regions, all of them have been decayed. There should be no rain during harvesting period otherwise there will be bacterial decay. But it happened and now most of the mangoes are not fit for consumption. The king of mangoes- Alphonso is being sold at very high rate. All the good one are being exported to western countries. I hope by next year they control this global warming and we can relish the God's fruits in this sweltering heat of May.

A new york times link to the topic of mangoes.

Yahoo set to show Google ads on search results

Yahoo Inc. could announce an agreement to carry search advertisements from Google Inc. within a week, as it braces for Microsoft Corp. to go hostile or abandon its unsolicited acquisition offer for Yahoo, say people familiar with the matter.

Yahoo was waiting for Microsoft to announce its approach this week, after the two sides failed to reach a negotiated deal amid a divide on price. But Yahoo has also been pursuing a broad agreement to carry search ads from Google, which it views as a way to boost its cash flow and bolster its claim to shareholders that it is still capable of being alone