IT Workers Weigh In on Health Habits

Feeling a little, shall we say, sluggish lately? You might be among the vast ranks of IT workers who have put on some extra heft while sitting at their desks.

A study by CareerBuilder.com found that half of U.S. IT workers have gained weight at their current jobs.

The study, which polled nearly 7,700 participants from Feb. 11 through March 13, found that 34 percent of IT workers report they have gained more than 10 pounds in their current positions. Even more alarming, 17 percent say they have put on more than 20 pounds!

Who knew managed services could be hazardous to your health? While the study doesn't specify anything about workers monitoring customer systems remotely, come on, you've got to admit that keeping an eye on a customer's systems from miles away by staring at computer screens surely produces far less sweat than even the minimal amount of walking to and from the truck a technician drives to a customer site for troubleshooting.

But let's not get crazy. The channel shouldn't turn its back on managed services just because that back is getting a few inches wider.

Perhaps a little more exercise during the day will do the trick, or taking better stock of what you eat. That is, if the extra weight bothers you. Hey, some people might enjoy the extra girth - who knows?More>>

iMac turns 10

It was ten years ago today that Steve Jobs mounted the Flint Center auditorium near Apple's campus and revealed the product that would save Apple, and become the best selling computer of all time: the iMac. It is hard to believe that this cute little guy is ten years old, but it is true.

The original iMac came stocked with a 233MHz G3, 32MB of SDRAM (though you could bump it up to a whopping 128MB), a 4 gig harddrive, 2 USB ports, a CD-ROM drive (not a CD burner, Apple was late to that party), and an IrDA port. These specs might not make your heart skip a beat nowadays, but the iMac is the product that started Apple's amazing turn around. It was the first mainstream computer to break with the past and offer only USB ports, no legacy connectors here. And it is worth noting that the iMac can also be attributed as the killer of the floppy disk.

I recall the howls from the tech community about the iMac's lack of a floppy drive. 'People love their floppies!' 'This is nothing more than an expensive toy!' All charges leveled against the iMac, but the decision actually helped create a market for USB accessories as most people bought their iMac and a USB floppy drive (I know I did. I used that floppy drive twice: once to make sure it worked, and another time to copy a file).More>>

How to make work Firefox 2.0 Add-Ons Work With Firefox 3.0

If you're like me, you've been playing around with the beta releases of Firefox 3.0. The new version of the open source browser is better-looking, uses less memory, and feels snappier all around. There's just one problem: Every time they release a new beta version, some of your extensions and add-ons are bound to stop working. With the release of Firefox 3.0rc1, almost none of them work.

Fortunately, there is a solution that will "fix" all of your extensions at once. But I caution you, it's not for the weak-hearted. The fix doesn't take longer than a few seconds, but when it comes to troubleshooting your browser afterward, you'll be on your own.

I can't repeat this enough. DO NOT TRY THIS unless you are comfortable editing the advanced preferences of your browser. And don't do anything until you've read through this entire post. Don't say I didn't warn you.

In my experience, extensions that worked with Firefox 3.0b5 will generally be stable with 3.0rc1. It is possible, however, that some of them will cause the new version of the browser to crash. It might even crash on startup -- which means, obviously, that you won't easily be able to undo the fix I'm about to describe.

The key to the fix is to prevent Firefox from checking its version number before it tries to load extensions. To do this, you will need to set a new preference value. Point your browser at the URL "about:config", then right-click on the preferences list to bring up the contextual menu. You should see an option that says "New." Select that, and choose "Boolean." When it asks you for the preference name, type "extensions.checkCompatibility" (without the quotes). You have to enter the name exactly. For the value, choose "false."

Now restart Firefox. When the browser comes back up, it should give you a warning that version checking is disabled. You can double-check under "Tools:Add-Ons" to make sure everything is activated once again.

If the worst case happens and the browser won't start after you add the new preference, you'll need to remove it by hand. Locate the file "prefs.js" within your Firefox profile directory and edit it with any text file editor to delete the line with the preference you just created. (If you're not comfortable doing that, then as I've said, this fix is probably not for you.)

Also, you'll want to remember to delete the preference once the final version of Firefox 3.0 is released, or else you'll never be certain that your installation is stable.

Apple cleaning up in $1,000-plus retail market

Apple's doing well in the high-rent district of the computer industry, according to NPD.

On Friday eWeek published some data confirmed by NPD that reveals Apple now owns 66 percent of the U.S. retail market for personal computers that cost more than $1,000. Its percentage of the U.S. retail market in general is 14 percent, according to NPD.

Apple only sells one Mac below $1,000--the Mac mini--so it's not all that surprising that it would do well in that category, given the momentum behind Mac sales over the past year. By contrast, the single largest category of notebooks available at Best Buy--when sorted by price--falls between $700 and $899. And two-thirds of the desktops on the site are priced below $1,000.

These numbers don't include an awful lot of sales--such as corporate PCs that account for about half the market, and online-heavy sellers such as Dell--but tend to illustrate trends in the U.S. PC market over time. Apple only had about 18 percent of the same category in January 2006, according to Fortune. That was the same month Apple introduced its first Intel-based Mac.

This is a profitable category, however, that all PC companies covet. Those PC companies may be reaching corporate customers at those price points, but Apple is dominating the consumer half of the high end.

Wipro becomes First SAP® Partner to Launch Innovative Solutions Lab

Wipro Technologies, the global IT services business of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) today announced an agreement with SAP AG, through which it established a closer collaboration and an increased focus on customer adoption of SAP® solutions. Under this agreement, Wipro has invested in a state-of-the-art Solutions Lab, through which it is building “Industry Networks” to help companies leverage industry best practices and templates on SAP’s business process platform.

The Solutions Lab will help customers evaluate SAP solutions, build proof of concepts, and leverage adoption infrastructure to “test drive” solutions before making their buying decisions. Members of this lab will work closely with members of the SAP Co-Innovation Lab and other SAP collaborative communities such as the Industry Value Network program.

“Wipro has traditionally taken a lead in embracing enterprise SOA and creating composites on SAP’s platform to deliver value to customers,” said Manfred Heil, senior vice president, Global Ecosystem and Partner Group, SAP AG. “In particular, the use of collaborative Web 2.0 technologies will help to accelerate the accessibility and adoption of SAP’s business process platform.”

Leveraging Wipro’s thought leadership around SAP solutions and its investment in the Solutions Lab, Wipro has extended the accessibility, collaboration and adoption through use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis and virtual worlds like Second Life.

Speaking on the occasion, Sangita Singh, senior vice president, Wipro Technologies said, “Wipro sees its investment in the Solutions Lab and efforts in building Industry Networks as an extension towards applied innovation. We are sure that such collaboration with SAP will go a long way in helping our customers derive maximum potential from their current and planned IT investments.”

The latest on ‘Dasavatharam’

Film buffs may not know how many of the 10 avatars in ‘Dasavatharam’ actor Kamal Haasan is done with, but titbits about the film have been doing the rounds among his fans’ circle.

An official press release issued by the crew recently said two songs remained to be shot and that the audio launch would be held this month. The songs will be shot in Chennai at sets art director Thotta Tharani has been constructing at a cost of Rs. 3 crore. Himesh Reshammiya has scored the music for the film.

Kamal Hassan is said to have given 10 different variations to his voice while dubbing for the characters he plays and heroine actor Asin has also dubbed for her role for the first time. The film, earlier perceived as a possible comedy, is said to have become a completely performance-oriented script. With veteran actor Nagesh, who has performed with Kamal in many of his comedies, including ‘Avvai Shanmugi’ and ‘Panchathantiram’, playing a role in the film, the audience may be surprised by an interesting comedy track.

Actors Napolean, Mallika Sherawat, Jayapradha and Rekha, and directors P. Vasu and Ramesh Khanna are among the other actors.

Kamal Hassan has paid attention to the action sequences that have been choreographed by U.S.-based Joop Katana and Andy Dixon, apart from Kanal Kannan and others. The crew began shooting the film in Chennai, and then went to Malaysia, United States and came back to Pichavaram. Eager fans are said to have spotted the crew at different parts of the city, including the Chintadripet MRTS railway station and Nehru Indoor Stadium.

With all this buzz on the one side, what does Kamal have to say? “The fact that the Chief Minister enjoyed the pictures with enthusiasm and pinched my cheek with affection is equivalent to celebrating the success of ‘Dasavatharam’ with a huge function,” he has said in the press release.

Dasavatharam - Costliest Movie ever made in India

Kamal Haasan starrer “Dasavatharam” has overshot its Rs.1.3 billion budget and becomes the costliest Indian film to be ever made, said sources. “Friday’s much hyped trip of Jackie Chan to Chennai on a chartered flight had cost Rs.100 million to the producer and has added to the total cost that has now gone beyond Rs.1.4 billion, said sources close to producer “Oscar” Ravichandran.

The producer, however, is not said to be complaining.

“Since top stars from Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini and Mallika Sherawat were present, the worldwide publicity generated has contributed more to the movie’s Hindi release than what we actually ended up spending,” the source added.

Unfortunately, there was chaos at the film’s audio launch function last week in Chennai. Dozens of people, including journalists, were injured when police cane-charged frenzied crowds at the star-studded event.

“Any news is good news. Despite spending all this money, there were no pictures of our shy producer Ravichandran. And there is no mention of his apologising to anyone anywhere,” said a publicist associated with the film, referring to the mismanagement of the audio release function.

Google Health Launches

After a year and a half since the first announcement, the much-anticipated Google Health has been released at Google Factory Tour of Search. "Patients need to be able to better coordinate and manage their own health information. We believe that patients should control and own their own health information, and should be able to do so easily," said Adam Bosworth in November 2006.
More>>

Google Started Blurring Street View Faces

Google updated the panorama photo imagery of Manhattan as part of Google Maps, and for this update also blurred the faces of persons shown in the pictures. Google at their maps-related blog writes, “This effort has been a year in the making – working at Street View-scale is a tough challenge that required us to advance state-of-the-art automatic face detection, and we continue working hard to improve it as we roll it out for our existing and future imagery.” (Google already uses face recognition technology in Google images, by the way – just tick “faces” in the advanced options.) More>>

Edit Google Spreadsheet With Everyone

Ionut Alex. Chitu reports you can now edit a spreadsheet with anyone who knows the URL, as an option, and not just people with a Google account which you invite. To set this up, start at Google Docs and click New Spreadsheet. Prepare your data and hit the Share tab; now configure the “Anyone can [edit] this without logging in” box, and share the URL Google provides you with. Ionut says, “your spreadsheet becomes a wiki.” More>>

Will Gmail Get Themes?

A source is telling me that Gmail will get themes – custom layouts to personalize Google’s web mail client. According to the source, the launch of this may happen within the next months. There will be 12 themes to pick from, according to this information, like a black-and-green “terminal” view, as well as a flowery view.

Already, using third-party tools like Greasemonkey or custom user stylesheets, you are able to add skins to Gmail... but officially, you can only toggle Gmail views like mobile, classic HTML, or normal.More>>

The future of the Firefox address bar

I had an interesting discussion today about Firefox with Mozilla's Mike Schroepfer and Mike Beltzner. One of the things we drilled into a bit was the address bar in Firefox 3 (download). It's being called the "awesome bar" at Mozilla, and while it will end up with an official name eventually (the "smart location bar"), what it does for users can fairly be described as awesome. And as it's probably the most important touchpoint in the browser, it's worth exploring not just what it means for users but for Mozilla as well.

The Firefox 3 address bar helps users auto-complete the URLs they type in, but it's smarter than it appears at first. The choices that pop to the top of the list as you type are not based just on best text match, but on your previous behavior. Sites you visit frequently pop up higher on the list. Bookmarked sites also get special treatment. And since Firefox now has a new high-performance database to record your behavior, it can track what you do over a long period of time; it doesn't have to flush your history every week or so to keep the performance up. More>>

Economic Slowdown in the US to Accelerate Offshoring of IT Services

In a recently published report, Gartner said that the current U.S. economic slowdown will lead buyers of IT services to consider increasing the percentage of their labour in offshore, lower-cost locations. India will remain the dominant location for IT offshore services for North American and European buyers as a result of its scale, quality of resources and strong presence of local and traditional service providers.

With concerns that the US economic slowdown could extend to other geographies, organizations are refocusing on IT cost reduction and taking steps to accelerate the use of offshore labour. Buyers of IT services will shift from cost containment goals to a greater focus on cost reduction and productivity increases in their sourcing decisions. This will lead to a steady increase in the adoption and expansion of offshore services - primarily from India, but increasingly from other countries as well.

“Factors that will give India the edge over other offshore locations are scale and quality of labour. North American and European buyers of IT services have been the force behind a growing offshore services market and India is central to almost any discussion of offshore services delivery for these buyers”, said T J Singh, research director, Gartner. “Whether it is the indigenous India-centric service providers that have a wide-reaching impact on the IT services sector, or a vast and growing IT labour pool being trained to support a global client base, India will continue to be the most-sophisticated country option to source offshore IT services in the near term.”More>>

Gartner Says Worldwide IT Services Revenue Grew 11 Percent in 2007

Worldwide IT services revenue totaled $748 billion in 2007, a 10.5 percent increase from 2006 revenue of $677 billion, according to Gartner, Inc.

“This strong growth, combined with strong first quarter results for market leaders, runs counter to the gloomy and widespread economic concerns arising in the United States,” said Kathryn Hale, research vice president for Gartner’s worldwide IT services group. “Many providers are successfully selling buyer value propositions that external spending on IT services and solutions can help customers save money and be more productive, even in a profoundly uncertain economic climate.”

Across all IT services, IBM continued to be the worldwide market leader (see Table 1), with 7.2 percent of the market. IBM and Accenture delivered strong growth rates, 12.2 percent and 19.7 percent, respectively, and were the only companies in the top six that experienced revenue growth rates above the overall market average.More>>

There's no stopping Kamal!

Kamal Haasan has indeed come a long way.

The actor who made his acting debut when he was just six years old has acted in over two hundred Indian films in various languages including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada and even a silent film.

Kamal's first film was the 1960 film Kalathur Kannamma, which was directed by Bhim Singh. He played Gemini Ganesan and Savithri's son who later grows up in an orphanage. The role fetched him a National award for best child actor, the first of his four national awards.

Now, 48 years and innumerable awards later, the talented actor is taking on ten roles in his Tamil film Dasavatharam, which incidently was written by him and directed by K S Ravikumar.

In the picture: Kamal in a still from Dasavatharam and an inset of him from Kalathur Kannamma.

Jackie Chan releases Dasavatharam audio

Jackie Chan, the Superstar of Hollywood, became the real hero at the Dasavatharam audio launch held at Nehru Indoor Stadium in Chennai. Right from his entry into the dais along with superb looked Mallika Sherawat, the super actor became the center of attraction in the event. Chief Minister M Karunanidhi launched the audio of Dasavatharam along with Jackie, V Shridhar, elder brother of producer Ravichandran and Kamal Hassan the hero of the film.

Oscar Ravichandran's decision to invite the Hollywood action hero Jackie Chan as the Chief Guest served the purpose meaningfully. He made the entire function enjoyable like his fabulous films. The audience loved his simplicity, innocence, smile, meaningful speech and mannerisms.More>>

Dasavatharam on May 23?

'Oscar' Ravichandran is hopeful of releasing his magnum opus Dasavatharam on May 23 worldwide, if the last of the work of "30 seconds of Tsunami effect" is complete.

Trailer of the film has been dispatched to all the theatres where the film has been booked for release. In case the work is delayed, the film will be postponed to June 6.

Said an excited Oscar Ravichandran to sify.com:"It is a mega budget Rs 60 crore film and took time to complete. The special effects and graphics are mind-blowing on par with Hollywood films. Please note this is not film that can be wrapped up in 50 days with two songs shot in Pollachi and then trying to keep to a deadline. The kind of grandeur and richness that you see in Dasavatharam is going to be talked about in the coming days."

Ravichandran says he is going to market the film himself throughout Tamilnadu. He has booked nearly 400 screens in the state, where he is upgrading the sound and picture quality at his expense.

The idea is to give the viewer “the feel and touch of Dasavatharam, and make it an enjoyable outing for the entire family”.

Managed Hosting

Without doubt Managed Hosting is not a novel idea, but it is a growing development among large corporations. A rising amount of these organizations are evolving from their traditional web hosting to managed hosting. The reasons are because these organizations are aware of the advantages that managed hosting can provide. Some of the benefits are:

- Multiple and simultaneously computers updates and upgrades
- Up-time permanently
- Speed server and processing time increasing
- Security increasing
- User browsing control
- Time and money savings

These Managed services can significantly improve the operational effectiveness and security of a large corporation’s website.
Corporations that use managed hosting do not share their digital space with users outside of its network, because a dedicated server is used in its own data centre. It ensures that only trusted users have access to their network reducing the activity risk that can harm the online business success.

The benefits of Managed hosting for large companies can be massive. Most significantly, it ensures that the site should never experience any down time because of the uniqueness of the server. My final recommendation is if you have a managed hosting service you should make sure to check if it they are PCI compliant or not.

HP taking aim on IBM with risky $13.2B acquisition of EDS

Riding a hot streak that has doubled its stock price in the past three years, Hewlett-Packard Co. is rolling the dice on a $13.2 billion acquisition of technology services provider Electronic Data Systems Corp.

The all-cash deal announced Tuesday represents HP's biggest gamble under the leadership of Mark Hurd, who was hired as chief executive in March 2005 to turn around the Palo Alto-based maker of personal computers and printers.

As Hurd relentlessly cut costs while demanding better execution from the company's remaining workers, HP recovered from a nagging financial hangover that was exacerbated by the biggest acquisition in its 69-year history — the $19 billion purchase of Compaq Computer Corp., completed in 2002 over strident shareholder objections.

Now HP will try to show it learned from its mistakes by making the second largest deal in its history pay off faster.

Investors already are worried that HP is taking an unnecessary risk on EDS, whose disappointing profit margins had caused its stock to drop by about 30 percent over the past year. HP shares sagged $2.56, or 5.5 percent, to finish Tuesday at $44.27.More>>

Apple and Eve

In Pixar Films' upcoming animation epic, "Wall-E," the title character is a cute but clunky robot whose centuries of solitude on an abandoned Earth is broken by the arrival of a svelte, futuristic robot named Eve - who is so white, gleaming, and well, pod-like, that she looks like she was born in Apple's design room. It turns out that she was - sort of: Eve marks the first design collaboration within Steve Jobs' culture-shaping Apple-Pixar-Disney axis. (Jobs sold Pixar to Disney and is Disney's largest shareholder as well as the CEO of Apple.)

"I wanted Eve to be high-end technology - no expense spared - and I wanted it to be seamless and for the technology to be sort of hidden and subcutaneous," Andrew Stanton, Wall-E's director, told Fortune. "The more I started describing it, the more I realized I was pretty much describing the Apple playbook for design." It is, of course, not the first time a product has inspired a film character - think of the murderous HAL 9000 robot in "2001: A Space Odyssey," based loosely on big IBM mainframes of the day.

But it may be the first time a character was based on a true corporate sibling. A call from Stanton to Jobs in 2005 resulted in Johnny Ive, Apple's behind-the-scenes design guru, driving across the San Francisco Bay to Pixar's converted warehouse headquarters to spend a day consulting on the Eve prototype. Stanton said that it was a "lovefest" with Ive, but that the notoriously tight-lipped design wizard offered few specific modifications. "Apple is so proprietary and so secretive that he couldn't even really allude to where the future of technology was going," says Stanton. "The most he could do is nod his head to the things we said we wanted to do." (Through a spokesman, Ive declined to comment.)

Among her other attributes, Eve has expressive blue eyes that look inspired by an old Lite Brite game, a head and arms that seem unattached to her body, hovering and flying abilities and an onboard weapons defense system. Asked whether the robot is meant to be a preview of Apple's product line circa 2,700 - when the film is set - Stanton says: "I kind of leave it to interpretation." Still, don't be surprised to see Eve bots working the counters this summer at an Apple Store near you.

Adobe Finally Takes On Apple, Google In Mobile

Today Adobe announced a new hugely important strategic initiative regarding the Flash Player called the Open Screen Project. The upshot: It's finally ready to start competing with Google and Apple for mobile platform developers.

There are three keys to the announcement. First Adobe (ADBE) is removing all licensing restrictions and fees for the Flash Player and the SWF file format that the player runs. OEMs will now be able to embed Flash at no additional cost and with no restrictions.

Second, the next version of the Flash Player and the AIR runtime will have two separate parts. The layer that is platform specific will be separate from the layer that is the real brains of the Flash system. This means that it will be easy to embed the Flash player any new non-PC device offering. All you will have to do is port the platform specific layer to your device. And Adobe will be providing a reference implementation so that you can see exactly how to do it, presumably just making minor changes related to the specifics of your platform.

And finally, the next version of the Flash Player will be the same across all devices. This means that you will be able to use Flex, Flexbuilder, and Thermo to build applications that run on mobile and embedded devices. This will *radically* simplify the process of making applications that run on mobile devices. It really is, essentially *the* next generation mobile operating system.

It's not an OS in the traditional sense. That will continue to be some form of Unix, or more generally,Linux. But the Flash platform will become the premier application development target for devices.

This is a direct shot across the bow of both Apple (AAPL) with the iPhone and Google (GOOG) with Android. Adobe has far more 3rd-party developers than Apple does with Mac OS/iPhone or Google does with Android, and if they can make it totally seamless to develop for desktop or mobile, it will radically change the dynamics of the business. Presumably Adobe will be able to port this next version of Flash to the iPhone as well, though the politics of that will be interesting given Steve Jobs' antipathy for Flash.

From a business perspective, Adobe seems to have everyone onboard that matters including Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Qualcomm, Samsung, Intel, and lots of others. Now that Flash is free and presumably easy to embed, it instantly becomes the mobile and embedded software platform to beat.

Google Confirms Plans To Put Display Ads On Google.com

The most pressing question for Google (GOOG) shareholders is what product will drive the company's next growth boom as the search product cycle ends. Most likely candidate? Not sexy mobile or video. Just boring old display ads.

Google has been serving display ads on other sites for years, and the DoubleClick acquisition will accelerate that effort. Third-party display ads will only make a small contribution to the bottom line, however (10-20 cents on the dollar). So the key question here has been whether Google would deign to put display ads on its own sites.

We've argued that a full load of display ads on Google.com could add $3-$4 billion in annual revenue. Many SAI readers considered this estimate too optimistic, and it might be, at least over the next couple of years. But $1-$2 billion seems easily achievable.

Most importantly, Google itself is now talking explicitly about display ads on Google.com. It will start small--placing display ads on, for example, image search results. But we imagine that display ads will gradually spread throughout Google.com over the next few years.More>>

Google Search To Surpass Size of Microsoft Windows in 2009

Why is Microsoft (MSFT) so concerned about Google? (GOOG) Lots of reasons, one of which is this: By this time next year, Google's search business will be larger and more profitable than the most profitable and legendary monopoly in history--Microsoft Windows. (Just Google's search business--that doesn't even include AdSense).

Before we go to the numbers, a few important observations.

• Both products are natural monopolies. Google's share of the search market should continue to approach Microsoft's share of the operating system market (90%+)
• Both products are wildly, fantastically profitable. Microsoft's Windows business has operating margins of 75%-plus. So does Google's search business (once you factor out the billions Google is spending on products that produce zero revenue).
• Google natural monopoly is growing a lot faster than Microsoft's. Google's search business should be bigger than Microsoft's Windows business by early next year (at the latest). Google is also growing faster than Microsoft's two monopolies combined--Windows and Office. Google has yet to develop a second huge, fantastically profitable monopoly--the Office equivalent--but AdSense is getting there.More>>

Google founders have grown up

It's official: the guys who founded Google are grown up.

That was the pronouncement on Thursday from Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who was hired in 2001 to provide mature, traditional business savvy to the Internet search company founded by whiz kids Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

"The boys have grown up," Schmidt told a news conference ahead of the wildly successful company's annual meeting.

Now billionaires, the two who formed the company, which has the motto "Don't Be Evil," were seen as "brilliant young founders," Schmidt said.

"They now function in the company as the senior executives with the kind of skills and experience --"

"-- We wish he had five years ago," Page said, finishing Schmidt's thought.

Page, 35, and Brin, who was born in the Soviet Union 34 years ago, made history in their 20s when they set up the Google search engine.More>>

Samsung beats Motorola as India’s No. 3 mobile brand

The January-March 2008 quarter has seen a change in the pecking order of the Indian mobile phone market. While Nokia is still enjoying leadership position by a huge margin followed by Sony Ericsson, there has been a change in the position for the third slot. Korean vendor Samsung has replaced Motorola to emerge as the third largest player in the Indian market.

Latest ORG data reveal that Samsung is the only prominent player to have increased its market share in the Indian market in the January-March period. It has gained market share from 5.7% in January to 7% in March. In the same period, Motorola India lost market share from 6.7% to 5.9%, but Sony Ericsson remained at the same level of 8.1%.

Even Finnish handset biggie Nokia lost market share in India from 72.3% to 69.5% between January and March. Nokia India managing director (mobile phones) D Shivakumar refused to comment on the issue. “As a policy, we do not comment on market share.” When contacted, Samsung Telecommunications India country head Sunil Dutt said: “In January-March, we registered a good growth in our mobile phone business based on our channel expansion programme, new product launches like the Guru 100, SGH-G800, Samsung i450 to name a few, as well as our brand activity involving Aamir Khan.” Samsung plans to double its Indian market share by end-2008 from the present level. More>>

Info Edge to launch education portal 'Shiksha'

Info Edge (India), provider of online recruitment, matrimonial and real estate classifieds and related services, plans to launch a portal exclusively focussed on education, a top company official said here.

"We are all set to launch an education portal, Shiksha, in the next two-three weeks," Info Edge (India)'s Chief Operations Officer (COO) and Director Hitesh Oberoi told PTI.

The company plans to invest USD 5-10 million in the project over a period of three years, Oberoi said.

Info Edge already has portals like naukri.com, jeevansathi.com and 99acres.com.

Shiksha would offer information about educational institutes in the country as well as overseas, he added.

"The portal will have the entire gamut of information on education, ranging from the name of a college, the courses offered, course content to the fee structure."

Oberoi said instead of targeting the entire education market which is very huge, it would focus on advertisement which is a great source of revenue.

"Education market is very huge and so we are not targeting the entire education market. Our focus will be on advertisements as it is the biggest revenue-generator for any application. For print especially, it is the number one revenue-generator," he said.

Google offers to imbue all websites with social networking

Google has set out to enable all websites, free of charge, to be imbued with common social networking features as the Internet evolves toward becoming a giant community along the lines of MySpace or Facebook.

Google Friend Connect was previewed at a Campfire One gathering of third-party software developers at the company's "Googleplex" campus in Mountain View, California.

The unveiling of the plan comes just days after top social networking websites MySpace and Facebook broke down walls of their online communities to let members share profile information at other websites.

"Social is going mainstream," Google director of engineering David Glazer said during a conference call with reporters.

"What used to be hard and proprietary is becoming easy and open. It's the evolution of social networking."

Glazer described the MySpace and Facebook announcements as "big steps forward in giving users control over their data" and said Friend Connect is intended to further advance the movement.

"We see the web moving toward an end state where people can use any application on any website with any of their friends," Glazer said.

"Social activity on the web has been bottled up in a handful of sites. As things mature on the web they become more open and more interoperable."

Friend Connect lets website owner's add social-networking features such as registration, member galleries, message boards, and fun or useful third-party applications called "widgets" by simply adding snippets of free computer code. More>>

Tatas may export Nano to promising markets, including US

After making a wave worldwide with unveiling of the cheapest car from India, Tata Motors on Tuesday said it will consider exporting the Rs 1-lakh car to many promising markets, including the US.

"There is nothing that we can not export Nano to any country. Tata Motors also has plans for exports. But the Tata Nano will be initially marketed in India," Tata Motors spokesperson told reporters.

The announcement comes close on the heels of the US publication Conde Nast Portfolio's report that 'Nano' would not be sold in the US.

"The model (Nano) won't be sold in the US but has the potential to radically alter the market for manufacturers here. Tata-inspired followers are already revving up their engines," Conde Nast Portfolio reported while naming Ratan Tata as one of the 73 biggest brains around the world. More>>

JPMorgan Chase CEO: Recession is just beginning

JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s chief executive said Monday that while the crisis in the credit markets appears to be three-quarters over, he believes a U.S. recession is just beginning.

"Even if the capital markets crisis resolves, it does not mean that this country will not go into a bad recession," said CEO James Dimon, whose bank saw its first-quarter profit fall by half due to the recent collapse of the U.S. mortgage market. "The recession just started."

"We don't know if it's going to be mild or severe," he continued, speaking at a conference in New York hosted by Swiss bank UBS AG. "We're thinking there's a third of a chance that it's going to be pretty bad ... closer to the 1982 recession than the very mild recessions we had in 2001 and 1990."

Also incomplete is JPMorgan's acquisition of Bear Stearns Cos., the toppling investment bank that JPMorgan offered to buy in March.More>>

HP wants to buy EDS for about $12 billion

In a move aimed at reshaping the $750 billion global tech-services industry, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) on May 12 revealed that it is attempting to buy Electronic Data Systems (EDS). If the deal is consummated, EDS, the No. 2 player in tech services, and HP, No. 5, will be combined to create a $40 billion-a-year powerhouse that's more capable of challenging market-leading IBM (IBM).

Pulling off such a combination won't be easy, though. This would be HP's largest acquisition since it bought Compaq in 2002 for $18 billion—a deal that caused HP serious indigestion and led to the fall of the deal's architect, former HP Chief Executive Carly Fiorina. EDS has more than 135,000 employees and has struggled in recent years to compete with industry leaders IBM and Accenture (ACN) and a handful of Indian challengers. "It's a big fish to swallow, but [HP CEO] Mark Hurd is a very good manager, very good at execution, so it makes sense," says Rebecca Segal, an analyst at market researcher IDC. More Details>>

Study Says H-1Bs Aren't the Best or Brightest

One of the main arguments touted by groups interested in seeing an increase in the cap on H-1B temporary worker visas is that those who wish to work here on these visas are some of the world's best recruits, and their addition to the work force would foster U.S. innovation and global competitiveness.

Opponents to the program argue that H-1B visas do none of the above, but are instead used by large, greedy tech companies to undercut the wages of U.S. workers, effectively pushing them out of jobs. Opponents cite fines levied against system abusers as evidence. More>>

Google to strengthen relationship with Yahoo!

Google has said it will strengthen its relationship with Yahoo!, fuelling recent speculation the two companies will develop an on-going ad-share deal.

The two internet giants recently underwent a two-week trial that saw Google ads served on Yahoo.com.

Ahead of a shareholders meeting, Google co-founder Sergey Brin confirmed the success of the trial and that two companies were looking at other possibilities.

"We have been talking to Yahoo! and we're very excited to be working with them," said Brin. "We share a lot of values with them."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said any deal with Yahoo! would have to comply with anti-trust laws.

"If there were a deal, we would anticipate structuring the deal to address the antitrust concerns that have been widely discussed," said Schmidt.

Brin also rubbished speculation that the two-week trial was responsible for the collapse of Microsoft's proposed takeover of Yahoo!.

"We really believe in companies having choices about their destinies," said Brin. "It's not about scuttling (the deal). They were under a hostile attack and we wanted to make sure they had as many options as possible."

Google's first chef to open restaurant in Palo Alto

When he started as the chef for a fledgling Mountain View company called Google, Charlie Ayers cooked for 40 people out of a tiny kitchen.

By the time he left six years later in 2005, Ayers supervised seven cafes serving 5,000 employees daily, plus guests. Inside his kitchens, cooks rocked out to the Grateful Dead and Phish, blasted out on a Bose sound system.

"We cranked the hell out of that thing," Ayers said on Friday, back at Google to talk about his recently released cookbook, "Food 2.0: Secrets from the Chef Who Fed Google."

These days the San Carlos resident still draws quick parallels between music and his cuisine.

"I consider the way I cook like a culinary jam session," said Ayers, who describes his style as focused on fresh and local ingredients, prepared by healthy methods.

Non-Googlers will soon get the chance to taste his food when Ayers opens the Calafia Cafe and Market a Go Go in Palo Alto's Town and Country Village. Though slated to open this spring, the prepared-foods shop and adjoining cafe with a technology spin will now likely open in November, Ayers said.

He chose to start his own restaurant in Palo Alto because more than a few locals have tasted his cuisine.

"This is where my fan base is," he said. More>>

Google-Yahoo! collects some strange enemies

A weird assortment of lobby groups has come out against Google and Yahoo! working together.

Although there is no formal deal in place, lobbyists including the Black Leadership Forum (which represents 35 black activist organisations), the League of Rural Voters and the Corn Growers Association have written to the Justice Department. They warn that any tie-up between the two companies would create an effective monopoly on internet searching.

The 16 groups wrote to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Barnett, warning that such mega-mergers usually work to the detriment of consumers and minority groups. It was Barnett who warned that European antitrust action against Microsoft might chill innovation and discourage competition.

The Black Leadership Forum is funded by corporate donations but does not take money from Microsoft. However, the LA Times noted, the PR company which was pitching the letter does also work for Microsoft.

The Justice Department is believed to be taking an interest in Yahoo!'s trial of using Google's ad technology. Any permanent deal would need to pass the scrutiny of US regulators.

BMW M1 Concept

BMW M1 Concept shows BMW can reinterpret its classics BMW M1 sports car
in a modern and daring way. Sharing the essential core of the original BMW M1’s
design, yet thoroughly up-to-date, the new concept arrives just a month past its
predecessor’s 30th birthday. Showing BMW’s increasing distance from the Chris
Bangle flame-surfacing design language of the late 1990s and early 2000s, the
BMW M1 is a smooth, flowing, yet angular wedge with a low brow, high haunches,
futuristic wheels and tires, advanced brakes, and the signature kidney grille. Details should accompany the official debut tomorrow at the Concorsa d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, The original BMW M1 was powered by a 277hp 3.5L straight-six, the 160mph. BMW M1 accelerated to 62mph in
just 5.6 seconds. A collaboration between BMW Motorsport and Lamborghini and
designed by Giugiaro Italdesign, only 456 examples of the car were made.

Movie downloading on PSP

Movie buffs have a reason to smile after all they are getting PSP movies downloads and that too absolutely free. It might sound funny to you but of course it’s true. You just have to search the right place to get a proper movie download for your PSP.

Internet is providing with numerous downloading services. While choosing the best downloading services for your PSP make sure you have fulfilled the basic requirements like large database, speedier and fast downloading and are sure about the quality that you want to get or are getting. Most of the movies downloading sites are allowing PSP cinema movie downloads of DVD quality movies.
Most of us are fed up of the movie stores from where we have to buy the movies. You might be looking for better options like I did. There are several internet sites that only require membership fees and provide these downloading services for free. With these I am able to download unlimited movies everyday. So my collection is growing rapidly.
These services do charge you for the membership fee and would restrict downloading like 2 download a day. Even with 2 downloads you can save a lot of money as the membership fee is not high.
Watching movies on PSP is a great and new experience so get the best for your PSP. Do not worry about the type of services these would provide because most of these sites come with day long or some with 24 hour service backup. To give you a clearer picture of this read this “I downloaded a movie from these sites, but didn’t know how to load it to on my PSP. I quickly contacted tech support of the website late that night, and the next morning had a reply. They allowed me to download a free software that enabled me to load the movie on my PSP. That was it”.
Trust them and see you will get the best value for you money. Go ahead enjoy.

Names Encyclopedia

Namespedia is Encyclopedia for names. This site is used for finding the name meanings for different names and words. This look like a wikipedia for names. This site is visited from very different people, from all over the world, different cultures, different education and computer usage levels. So, here all different types of words and names meanings and names origins can be easily found. visit this site here>>

Mobile Phone Accessories: Increasing the Functionality of Cell phones

In the past few years mobile phones have increasingly been taking over from land lines, which has led mobile phone manufacturers to work extra hard to compete with one another to be the mobile phone of choice. As the world gets more and more busy, streamlining seems to be the key requirement of most people. And what could be more streamlined than one phone and one number, rather than two? Well, how about one phone which functions as a camera or a music player as well?

When the multi-functioning iPhone was launched it upped the ante considerably and more and more mobile phone users now expect multi-functionality from their mobile phone that goes way beyond the now commonplace camera phone. One simple way to increase the multi-functionality of your mobile phone, without investing in an iPhone, is with mobile phone accessories .

However, there are at least as many accessories as there are mobile phones. For example:

1. Cases and skins to protect the phone from scratches and bumps and to personalize the phone
2. Games
3. Antenna boosters, to enhance signal reception
4. Ringtones
5. Radiation shields
6. Bluetooth accessories, which enable the user to make and receive calls via a cordless device in the ear
7. Data cables, which enable the transference of data between mobile phone and computer
8. Battery chargers, hands-free kits and batteries
9. Speaker phone kits
10. Travel chargers, which allow calls even if the cell battery needs to be charged.

Obviously, which of these you choose depends, as always, on your individual needs and requirements, as well as compatibility with your particular mobile phone. Generally, the more advanced the phone the more accessories and features it can support.

And don’t think that mobile phone accessories are the poor relation to phones that already come with all the features; the beauty of increasing the multi-functionality of your mobile phone with mobile phone accessories is that if one feature stops working you can replace just that feature without having to replace the entire phone.

Microsoft Withdraws Its Bid for Yahoo

Microsoft said Saturday that it was abandoning its blockbuster bid to acquire Yahoo after it raised its offer by $5 billion but Yahoo rejected it as still too low.
The about-face followed a meeting in Seattle on Saturday morning between Microsoft’s chief executive, Steven A. Ballmer, and Yahoo’s chief and co-founder, Jerry Yang, according to a person familiar with the talks.

At the meeting, which also included Yahoo’s other founder, David Filo, and a Microsoft president who oversees its online unit, Kevin Johnson, Mr. Ballmer increased Microsoft’s offer to $33 a share, or a total of $47.5 billion, from $29.40 a share. Mr. Yang told Mr. Ballmer that Yahoo would not accept an offer below $37 a share, this person said. More Details>>

The Silicon Valley triangle: Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft

It's Friday night and still no word from the Microsoft or Yahoo bunkers. The headlines for today tell the story (see Techmeme).

The Wall Street Journal, which appears to be a conduit for the negotiations, has a story, "Microsoft, Yahoo Talks Intensify In Push to Reach a Friendly Deal," and another one, "Yahoo-Google Pact May Be Close." It doesn't seem that a Yahoo-Google mating on advertising would lead to a friendly Microsoft-Yahoo discussion this weekend. It's an interesting game of chicken, with many issues, such as regulatory approval, up in the air for any permutation of a deal with the triangle.

It's clear that Yahoo and Google are trying to check Microsoft by hooking up, but it would only be strategic for Yahoo if Microsoft ends up paying a higher price, meaning it has to motivate Steve Ballmer into coming up with more cash. More Details>>

Funny Commercials

Commercials can have just anything. It can be a serious commercial or a health related commercial or even one that would convey some productive message. Not many people know but a funny commercial too can be a great stress buster. A commercial is nothing but a joke, which is pasteurized including some product. Each and every product has its advertisement, which is being shown in the television.
When we see a program on some stuff, it is irritating when they take break to show few commercials. But we should understand one thing that these are the funny TV ad commercials, which are being shown, are with productive message or entertain us and sometimes they behave like a break for your mind to relax. Nowadays, many people just switch their television on just to see these very funny commercials, which indeed are too funny to resist watching. If a commercial has no fun then it’s not really worth watching or even calling funny.

Each and every product’s company that makes an advertisement never forgets to include any humor stuff in their advertisement. We have all kinds of commercials but basically we want to see funny commercials. Why? Well, who doesn’t want to laugh in this busy routine today? Whenever we feel like seeing any one of these commercials, we need to switch on television or open any website that is full of funny ones like www.youtube.com. But then that’s too boring and tiresome sometimes when you need to find your favorite one. So guys why don’t you find some websites which offer you to download free funny commercials, absolutely free. And here we come to the scene! Funny Commercials>>

Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox lose market share

Apple Inc.'s ploy to gain browser market share by pushing Safari to users with an update tool normally used for security fixes failed to boost its overall share, a Web metrics company said yesterday.

Instead, Safari's share fell last month to 5.5%, down from March's 5.8%, while Microsoft's Internet Explorer increased its dominance by growing to 76% from March's 74.8%. It was the first time Internet Explorer (IE) gained share since October 2007.

In late March, Apple started using its Windows software update tool -- previously used only to provide patches for iTunes and QuickTime -- to offer Safari 3.1 to users who did not have the browser already installed. More Details>>

Wipro makes more leadership changes

India's third-largest software company, Wipro, has initiated a second round of major business and executive changes within a few weeks.

A fortnight ago, the company announced the appointment of Suresh Vaswani and Girish Paranjpe as joint chief executive officers of Wipro Technologies, the company's global IT arm.

The move was said to have triggered discontent in some quarters of its senior management cadre, something the company has denied.

In the changes announced today, Wipro BPO head, T K Kurien (who reportedly wanted to quit) has been given charge of a new initiative, the scope and functions of which will be outlined later. According to sources, Kurien will report to Paranjpe for IT business, and for other initiatives he will report directly to Chairman Azim Premji.

Ashutosh Vaidya, who headed the computing business as vice-president of Wipro Infotech, will head Wipro BPO. He will work along with Kurien for a couple of months to ensure a smooth transition of responsibility. Vaidya will report to Vaswani and Paranjpe (secondary reporting).

Anand Sankaran will lead Wipro Infotech and reported Vaswani.

Following the resignation of P R Chandrasekar as president of the company's operations for Americas and Europe, Manoj Punja takes charge and will primarily report to Vaswani with secondary reporting to Girish Paranjpe.

Punja was previously vice-president of a vertical in Wipro Technologies that focuses on technology, media, transportation services, which has now been done away with.

Ayan Mukherjee and Hiroshi Aley will continue as heads of Europe, Japan and China geographies respectively.

The company has also reclassified some existing business units as strategic business units (SBUs).

They include the Manufacturing and Healthcare SBU to be headed by N S Bala, who was earlier senior VP in the Manufacturing Solutions Group.

The company plans to create a new SBU in Communications, Media and Technology, which will be headed by Sudip Nandy, who till now lead the Telecom and Product Engineering solutions business unit. Nandy will also report to Paranjpe.

Other SBUs planned are for Energy and Utilities and Financial Solutions which will also have separate business heads. A new strategic business unit for Retail, Transportation and Services has also been created as a part of the restructuring.

Product Engineering Services, which has also been reclassified as a service line, will be headed by V R Venkatesh, senior VP, Embedded Systems.

Ubuntu 8.04 Is Ready to Take On Windows

Canonical has marshaled the best of what the open-source world has to offer in Ubuntu 8.04, a Linux-based operating system that's capable of mounting a serious challenge to Microsoft Windows on mainstream desktops and notebooks.
During my tests of Ubuntu 8.04, both in its final form and in a series of test releases that led up to the official launch April 24, I've been impressed enough with the distribution to award it the eWEEK Labs Analyst's Choice designation.

As with any would-be Windows rival, Ubuntu 8.04 faces an uphill battle for hardware and software certifications, although the move by Dell in 2007 to begin preloading Ubuntu on some of its notebook and desktop PCs points to progress on the hardware front.

As for software, the continued improvement of open-source alternative applications such as the OpenOffice.org productivity suite, Firefox Web browser and Evolution groupware client go a long way toward providing users with the tools they require to get their work done from a Linux-based desktop. More Details>>

Infosys may be forced to change name in France

Indian IT giant Infosys may have to change its name in France, as a court there has found its use of this name infringing the trademark as well as business and corporate identities of another firm 'Infosys France'.

While noting that it may be forced to operate under some other trade name in France, Nasdaq-listed Infosys Technologies said in a regulatory filing here that it has sought a stay on the court ruling and is planning to appeal against it.

The Bangalore-headquartered company, which is present across a host of countries, said a civil court in Bobigny, France, ruled on April 15, that its use of the name "Infosys" constituted infringement of the trademark, corporate name and trade name "Infosys France" in that country.

The ruling added that the Indian IT major could not use the same name in France as a trademark, corporate name, trade name and domain name "with immediate effect."

According to Infosys Technologies' regulatory filing, it has two sales and marketing offices in France.

"Infosys France" is a technology and consulting firm- based in France and is part of an integrated management consulting services provider "Groupe Infodis."

"Although we have appealed against the ruling and have sought a stay on the decision of the civil court, failure to obtain a stay..., or an adverse final ruling, may force us to operate under a different trade name and could adversely affect our operations in France," Indian firm said.

Infosys added that the ruling in France, or a similar ruling in any jurisdiction where it operates, "could disrupt our ongoing business, distract our management and employees, and affect our future business."

Website Templates

Tired of seeing the same website templates online? There is a website which provides well designed pre-made templates for the websites. This website provides different types of templates called flash templates, html templates, and website templates.

Website Templates

Website templates can actually be modified to look completely different from the original using only its foundation. You have the ability to import your own graphics and sounds. If you are code savvy, you can modify that as well. You don't like the placement of the buttons or panels? Import your own layout whether it be Photoshop or within Flash. So what can't be changed? Everything can be changed, that's the beauty of open-source files we provide. We do NOT charge extra for the source, it comes included with the purchase.

HTML Templates

These HTML templates come pre-coded. All hyperlinks are ready to to linked to another document, and images are already prepared so you can replace them easily within your website. The Members Login and Subscribe sections have also been coded already, all you need to do is change the variables such as password, and subscribe email to your own. The hard part was already done for you, just add in your own text and images.

Get the templates you want.

Microsoft directors meet to sweeten Yahoo bid

Microsoft Corp's directors are meeting to consider raising the software maker's $41.9 billion (euro27 billion) bid for Yahoo Inc instead of pursuing a threatened hostile takeover attempt, according to a published report.

A decision could emerge after the meeting, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft also is weighing withdrawing its bid a move likely to cause a precipitous drop in Yahoo's stock, which has been bolstered by the 3-month-old takeover bid.

If Yahoo's stock deteriorated during the next few months, Microsoft could return with another bid that would be more difficult to turn down.

Investors have been eagerly awaiting word of Microsoft's next move since Yahoo let pass an April 26 deadline for accepting the offer More Details>>

Funny videos, pictures and jokes

Funny quotes quotes are a common phenomenon online. But some of them are “dirty” quotes that children should not be exposed to. Finally, there is a website that caters to your getting funny quotes on a daily basis. These funny quotes are guaranteed to be “clean” and can be read by everyone in any age bracket. Turtlesays.com is a website that has eight updated You Tube videos, funny quotes and pictures. All these are made available on a daily basis. The website is open to all age groups, therefore there is no fear of “dirty” content on it. You can also view YouTube videos, funny pictures and jokes on the website.

Credit card rate hike from Halifax

The Halifax has recently contacted customers to inform them that their credit card interest rate is being hiked up, and in some cases credit card customers of the bank have seen huge rises in their interest rate. Many could end up paying around 5% more in interest on their credit cards, and this is despite the two recent base rate cuts applied by the Bank of England. The Halifax is one of a number of 0% credit card providers that seems to be passing on the cost of the credit crunch to customers through increased fees and rates.

Recently Egg caused outrage by withdrawing the credit card facilities of 161,000 customers, stating that the customers were a bad credit risk. However, it was revealed that many had never missed a repayment and had good credit, fuelling speculation that Egg had in fact withdrawn the facilities of those with good credit because they did not make enough profit from them. The higher borrowing costs for banks resulting from the global credit crunch also seem to have been passed on to the customer through raised fees and charges.

However, customers are being urged to contact the Halifax if they have been a customer with the bank for a fair amount of time, have not missed repayments on their credit card, and have a good credit history, as in some cases the bank may be able to reverse the interest rate hike and revert the card back to its original rate. One customer explained that the bank raised his card rate from 10.9% to 15.9% for no apparent reason, and having been with the Halifax for eight years and never missing a payment on his card he contacted the bank. After the phone call the Halifax agreed to drop his interest rate back down to 10.9%.

Bet with Bet365

Bet365 is the division devoted to betting online and telephone bet365 Group Limited, one of the leading companies in the UK in the field of betting and online gaming. Our company is in possession of a valid license for the year in the United Kingdom since 1974 and has over 600 employees


It operates a call center and an Internet service (based in Stoke-on-Trent) active 24 hours on 24, 7 days on 7 and for which they make use more than 500,000 customers in 120 different countries. The website is available in ten different languages, with a customer service tailor made for each language


In addition to our sportsbook for sports betting, bet365 offers the opportunity to play with our platforms for high-quality casino and poker. And to make everything even easier, with the universal account you can use all our products with the same username, password and method of payment. Bet365 same like BWIN Bookmaker is one of the top bookmaker companies on the betting market.

Looking for free images?

I have lost count of the number of sites that promise free graphics and then find that they don't exist when you visit the site. Many of these sites either link to other sites who promise free graphics or there are so many restrictions on the use of their images that it isn't worth bothering.

Well now there is a free site that really has free images and that is www.freegraphicscentre.com The graphics on this site are available for immediate download, there is no need to subscribe, there is no need to link back (although I do anyway with some of the pictures I use) and the terms of use are very simple. You can do whatever you want with the images except give away or resell them on sites similar to theirs

The site has thousands of free images which include photographs, backgrounds, logos, textures and much much more.

Give them a try I know that you won't be disappointed!

Hibernate Vs EJB 3.0

The J2EE field is agog with excitement about a very popular open-source technology , Hibernate , being elevated to the status of JCP standard. Feedback from J2EE programmers in industry says that knowledge of Hibernate is mandatory for all J2EE aspirants. In this short tutorial , the author attempts to trace the reasons for this new trend & to alert us , to the imminent and dramatic changes in the J2EE landscape. read full article

AJAX - Conversation with an Ajaxian [ Sample Chapter ]

Ajax is a relatively new approach to Web development. Since it is neither a new tool nor a different technology, and neither a new language it requires a different style for you to master it, or to be an Ajaxian. A conversational style has been used to help you understand the nuances of Ajax. read full article

What is OpenLaszlo?

Ajax is a relatively new approach to Web development. Since it is neither a new tool nor a different technology, and neither a new language it requires a different style for you to master it, or to be an Ajaxian. A conversational style has been used to help you understand the nuances of Ajax. read full article

Templates in Groovy

In this article, we will expose the various APIs for processing Templates in Groovy. A template can be thought of some static content along with some well-defined place-holders. These templates can be re-used any number of times by simply copying it and substituting the place-holders with some appropriate values. The first section of the article concentrates on the various types of Template Engines available in Groovy. And the later section of the article guides you in using the Template API. This is not an introductory article about Groovy, so novice readers can read the introductory article Introductory Article on Groovy before continuing with this article. read full article

Closures in Groovy

In this article, let us look into one of the important features supported in Groovy, the Closures. Groovy is an object-oriented scripting language in which the syntax resembles Java. Not all languages support the concept of Closures directly, although they may provide indirect support, that too with so many limitations and restrictions. This article will make you familiar with the concepts of Closures and will provide considerable amount of code snippets to make the understanding clearer. This article assumes that the reader is having sufficient knowledge in Groovy Programming and first-time readers may look into the Introductory Article on Groovy before proceeding with this article. Read Full Article

Microsoft Gives Yahoo Deadline on Offer

Microsoft set the clock ticking for Yahoo to accept its $41 billion buyout offer in a letter to the Internet pioneer's board Saturday, warning that if a deal wasn't reached by April 26 the software maker would launch a hostile takeover at a less attractive price.

"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo board," wrote Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

"If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal," he wrote.

A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment Saturday.

In the letter, Ballmer said Yahoo's search share and page views, two measures of the strength of the Web portal company's business, appear to have fallen since the offer was made at the end of January. At the time, Microsoft's cash-and-stock offer was valued at $44.6 billion, or 62 percent above Yahoo's market value. Judging by Friday's closing share prices, the deal is now worth just under $41 billion.

Yahoo's board formally rejected Microsoft Corp.'s bid in February, saying it undervalues the company.

Since then, the Silicon Valley company has explored alliances with Google Inc., News Corp.'s MySpace.com and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, but no alternative to Microsoft's offer has surfaced. More Details>>