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Ubuntu version coming in portable devices

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:27:26 PDT

A version of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system coming later this year for the mobile Internet appliances and mini-notebooks.

Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, said Monday that it plans to show the new version, called Ubuntu Netbook Remix, at the Computex trade show in Taiwan this week.

Smaller devices based on Intel processor, the Atom is all the rage with PC makers last. Manufacturers such as Acer and other planning devices.

The release of Ubuntu, expected later this year, based on the model of Ubuntu Desktop Edition and rewritten for the Atom-based mobile devices, Canonical said.

The company said it cooperates with the "series" of the original equipment, but did not identify those companies.

The announcement of Ubuntu was expected. Canonical Mark Shuttleworth CEO said Netbook Remix in an interview with the Guardian newspaper last month.

Huhhhhh...

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Mon, 26 May 2008 03:18:40 PDT

Now i'm so bored to maintenance this blog. my expect, this blog can got a high traffic everyday, but till now huhhhhh..... there is no one,Please everyone who come to this blog can help me.Plissssssssssssss......

Goldman adds Apple to America conviction buy list

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Fri, 23 May 2008 09:17:42 PDT

Goldman Sachs added the Apple Inc (AAPL.O) to its Americas conviction buy list, saying shares will likely benefit from the launch of its third generation iPhone next month, and from the sharply higher projections of iPhone sales for the second half of years.

Analyst David Bailey also raised his target on the stock to $ 220 to $ 185, and said Apple would be able to increase its available iPhone subscriber base by more than 80 percent this year because of aggressive expansion in international markets.

"We continue to expect Apple to turn its 10 million unit target for calendar year 2008 driven by a wider global distribution and availability of third-party applications, which should keep Apple well ahead of competitors," Bailey wrote in a note dated May 22.

Apple has signed agreements to bring the iPhone to Singapore, India, Australia and the Philippines this year. Earlier this month, an Apple spokeswoman said the iPhone would make its debut in these countries "later this year," but declined to comment on plans to bring the iPhone to Japan and China.

Bailey, who rates the stock "buy", "expects iPhone unit shipments to increase to 11 million in 2008 from 3.7 million in 2007.

"We also expect Apple to continue to run the Mac unit growth 3 times the PC market in years," he added.

On Friday, theflyonthewall.com reported that Merrill Lynch raised its price target on Apple shares to $ 215 to $ 186, and maintained its "buy" rating. Reuters could not immediately confirm the report.

Apple shares rose nearly 3 percent to $ 181.68 in trading before the bell Friday. The stock has risen 42 percent in the past three months as investors regain confidence that Apple can sustain growth even in a weakened economy.

Microsoft confirms Windows comply with the broadcast flag

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:18:25 PDT

Microsoft acknowledged that Windows Media centres to prevent users to record television programs at the request of a broadcaster.

Technologies included in Microsoft Windows-based rules formulated by the (Federal Communications Commission), "a spokesperson from Microsoft wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "Under these regulations, Windows Media Center fully supports the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed."

The software was undertaken in response to questions about why some users of Windows Vista Media Center were prevented from registering NBC Universal television, America and medium Gladiator on Monday evening.

The "rules", in which the spokesperson is apparently a reference shall be those proposed by the FCC, which would require software and hardware to honour "broadcast flags". The flags are code that broadcasters can insert into the data stream television programs generally require that restrictions on the recording shows. What she does not say is that the "rules" are not rules at all.

Courts have struck the FCC's proposal of 2005, saying that the regulator did not have the power to say how electronics makers to interpret the signals they receive. Since then, Microsoft and other manufacturers have chosen the option of whether to honor the flags.

News that the world's largest software maker has voluntarily agreed to help broadcasters control the recording of their performances is bound to outrage fans digital video because it represents the greatest threat to the practice known as the name of time passing since the FCC attempted to demand respect for the flag.

"Microsoft has made the requirements of broadcasters over what consumers want," said Danny O'Brien, a staff member at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an advocacy group for Internet users that is to seek to block Monday. "They have imposed restrictions far beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who is listening to Microsoft and how it affects their equipment. At present, the only way to know what customers Microsoft has decided to technology when they bought all of a sudden no longer works. Microsoft needs to come and say to its own customers regard it has made. "

The question of whether NBC Universal has issued an American flag for Gladiator has not yet been answered. NBC Universal said last week that he needed time to study the issue. Spokesman Microsoft does not provide all the information that NBC Universal activated a flag. The software has, however, informs us that accidents occur.

"In some cases, the content May falsely be reported in the dissemination, May that affect the consumer TV experience," spokesman for Microsoft wrote. "The success of the whole chain of distribution is dependent on all parties concerned in maintaining the necessary checks and quality control so that the code is properly applied so as to avoid any unexpected result."

Senators OK 1 billion U.S. dollars to fight child porn online

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Sat, 17 May 2008 01:26:11 PDT

A committee of the U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill that would encourage federal, state and local police to use and create software designed to nab exchangers child pornography on peer-to - peer file sharing networks.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted to send a modified version of the fight against child exploitation law, sponsored primarily by Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), in the list of politicians for a vote.

In total, the bill allocated more than $ 1 billion over the next eight years for a wide range of efforts to fight against Internet crimes against children. It calls for hiring 250 new federal agents to the FBI, Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Postal Service dedicated to child exploitation cases, for the reinforcement of personnel, equipment and educational programmes aimed at countering against cybercrime against children and for the creation of new forensic laboratories if the Attorney General believes it is necessary to cope with a "delay" the exploitation of children online.

"We must give law enforcement funds and tools necessary to pull the plug on Internet predators," Biden said in a statement.

An amendment adopted Thursday also adds new sections to the original bill that would rewrite child pornography existing laws. A section is to clarify that live webcam broadcasts of child abuse are illegal, that the authors of the bill argue is an "open question". Another amendment is aimed at closing another perceived loophole, digital prohibiting the modification of an innocent image of a child so that the explicit sexual activity is rather represented.

It is difficult to determine if changes are needed. The Department of Justice in the past, for example, has netted guilty pleas in cases of live webcam recordings involving minors engaged in sexual acts.

The passage of the bill follows a hearing last month during which Biden and other senators have suggested that considerable promise in software designed to detect sources of pornography involving children - especially a tool called "Operation Fairplay. The so-called" global infrastructure "was developed two years ago by Special Agent Flint waters in the Wyoming Attorney General's Office, where the system is still housed, and is currently used by the exploitation of children online investigators at the national level.

The bill approved Thursday allocates $ 2 million for the Attorney General to rely on this software by creating a "national Internet crimes against children Data System, which would make information on pending cases - including the high priority - accessible to investigators and nationally coordinate the development of new software tools designed to detect suspected child predators in real time.

Through the system Fairplay, investigators connect to the peer-to-peer file sharing networks like any other person and search for files containing certain keywords that are likely to report child pornography is involved. Then they download files - often videos, sometimes as long as 20 to 30 minutes, with names like "kiddy illegal.mpg minors" and much more obscene - their own machines. Fairplay The software allows the investigator to obtain the IP address of the sender of the file and, in some instances, to display its geographical location in map form.

Once armed with an IP address and the date and time of downloading, investigators can subpoena the Internet service provider for more information such as name and address of the subscriber who was assigned to this time. It is unclear whether wiretaps are also conducted to follow during the exchange of files.

Through this process, investigators have identified more than 600000 computers allegedly trafficking in child pornography and traced the USA. But Biden and others have expressed their dismay that they are equipped with only the necessary resources to investigate about 2 per cent of these potential cases.

Microsoft to appeal EC's $1.39 billion fine

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Sun, 11 May 2008 04:56:21 PDT

Microsoft announced Friday it's appealing the $1.39 billion fine the European Commission imposed for failure to comply with its historic 2004 antitrust order against the Redmond giant.

Microsoft filed an application with the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg, seeking to annul the Commission's decision from late February, in which it imposed a fine of 899 million Euros, or $1.39 billion, against Microsoft.

"We are filing this appeal in a constructive effort to seek clarity from the court. We will not be saying anything further," Microsoft said in a statement.

When the Commission imposed the fine, it was specifically designed to address sanctions over the pricing structure Microsoft had set for licensing of its interoperability protocols and patents.

The pricing issue was the last of three parts of the Commission's March 2004 order, which called for the software giant to provide accurate and complete interoperability information to rivals. The purpose was to allow rivals' software to work with the Windows operating system and to provide that license information under "reasonable and nondiscriminatory" terms."

Two years ago, the Commission hit Microsoft with a fine of 280.5 million euros, or $434 million, for failing to comply with the other two parts of its sanctions related to providing complete and accurate interoperability protocol information to rivals. Microsoft initially appealed that 2006 fine, but withdrew it last fall.

Microsoft sought to overturn the Commission's March 2004 order, but last fall the Court of First Instance upheld the Commission's order, which found the software giant had abused its market dominance in the operating system market.

The European Commission said it remains steadfast in its decision to issue its historic fine against the software giant.

"The Commission is confident that the decision to impose the fine is legally sound," said Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European Commission.

The fine levied in February marked the largest penalty the Commission had ever imposed on a single company. To date, the Commission has imposed roughly $2.6 billion in its long-running antitrust dispute with Microsoft.

That figure also includes the original fine of 497 million euros, or $769 million, that the Commission imposed in 2004, when it first issued its order against the software giant.

Gates: Microsoft shifts focus after Yahoo deal collapses

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Fri, 09 May 2008 02:55:23 PDT

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. will focus on growing its own advertising and Internet search business after it withdrew its takeover offer for Yahoo Inc., Chairman Bill Gates said Friday.

Microsoft has not presented an alternative strategy to compete with its dominant rival in the Internet business, Google Inc., since withdrawing a $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo Inc. last weekend.

Analysts have been left wondering how the world's largest software maker will get a larger piece of that multibillion dollar market without a major tie-up.

"We have always felt we could do very well on our own and now that's the path we are focused on," Gates said in an interview with The Associated Press in Jakarta on Friday.

"The standard strategy for us is to just hire great engineers and surprise people at how well we can compete, even with a company that's got a strong lead," he said.

Gates says Microsoft remained open to making acquisitions, but declined to comment on possible candidates, such as networking sites like Facebook in which Microsoft already holds a 1.6 percent stake.

"You never know if there's going to be a deal that makes sense," he said.

Microsoft has developed its own search-ad platform and bought aQuantive, an Internet advertising company, for $6 billion, but its U.S. online operations are losing money.

It has captured just 10 percent of U.S. Internet searches, compared to Google's 58 percent and Yahoo's 22 percent.

Gates also said that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated $3 million for emergency relief efforts in Myanmar and will provide software to help reunite family members separated in the cyclone.

The funds were transferred to the aid agencies Mercy Corps, World Vision and Care "so they can go in there and help as quickly as possible," he said.

Gates was in Indonesia to meet with government leaders, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, at a conference on development called The Government Leaders Forum.

May's Coolest Gadgets

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Wed, 07 May 2008 04:03:55 PDT

If the new products we've seen in the last few weeks are anything to go by, we're in for a great year gadget-wise.

In the portable world we've got the first Centrino Atom-based computer and a smartphone from Sharp that will go on sale in Japan. Sanyo's new model of its waterproof Xacti digital still camera has even clearer video and includes the ability to follow your friends' faces underwater! A lot more bulky but equally exciting is NEC's Lui PC. It combines a PC and digital video recorder and makes the entire system accessible over a home network or Internet so you can log into the base PC and access recorded programs or the PC desktop.

And from the research and development labs comes an interesting chip from Seiko Epson that enables e-paper to enter a whole new world: the chip can support a touchscreen, and means that it's now possible to make e-paper than can be written on-- digitally, of course. And finally, just as Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV blew people away with its thinness, the company has done it again with a pair of prototype OLED display panels that are just a few tenths of a millimeter thick. They could mean ever thinner TVs in the future-- definitely something worth staying tuned for.

NEC Lui PC and home media server

NEC has launched a new PC and home media server called "Lui." The Lui can tune into digital high-definition TV broadcasts, and stream both live and recorded programs to compatible TVs and computers. It also allows remote Windows desktop access from portable devices. It's akin to a digital video recorder and PC packed together into a single, large case and is intended to sit in the living room next to a television as a central server for multimedia content. The top-end model has a Blu-ray Disc drive and 1T byte of hard-disk storage for video built alongside a fully-fledged computer running Windows Vista Premium and based on a 2GHz Core2Duo processor and with its own 320G-byte hard disk drive. For this NEC is asking users to pay ¥379,800 (US$3,753). The two thin clients dedicated to accessing the Lui are also available. One model looks like a small laptop PC and has a 10.6-inch screen while a second looks more like an Ultra Mobile PC and comes with a 4.1-inch screen. The former will go on sale for ¥89,880 and the latter for ¥49,980. Their use is dependant on a network connection and link back to the home Lui server. NEC has no plans to sell the Lui PC overseas.

Sanyo waterproof Xacti camera

Sanyo has improved its waterproof Xacti digital still and movie camera. The DMX-CA8 has an 8-megapixel image sensor and the top still image mode outputs a 4,000 pixel by 3,000 pixel resolution image (an effective 12-megapixel image created using pixel interpolation). On the video side the frame rate has been increased to 60 frames per second, so you get smoother video during normal speed or slow motion. The face detection has also been tweaked and can keep track of up to four people while attempting to keep them in focus. The function also works underwater and can track people wearing all but the largest snorkeling or diving masks, said Sanyo. The camera is waterproof at a depth of around 1.5 meters, which means it should work well for snorkeling but not for scuba diving. The DMX-CA8 will go on sale in Japan in mid-May for about ¥50,000 (US$490). It will arrive in other markets around the world later, although precise dates haven't been fixed.

Samsung and LG stylish cell phones

Samsung and LG have both launched their latest high-design cell phones: the Samsung's Soul and LG Secret. The Samsung phone is a slider-type handset that has an eye-catching touch panel under the display. The panel displays navigation icons that change according to the current application being run on the handset. For example, in camera mode, icons such as zoom and brightness appear, while music player functions appear in music mode. LG's Secret uses the same form factor as its Chocolate and Viewty phones-- a keypad slides out from beneath a touchscreen-- and its case is made from carbon fiber. Both support 7.2M bps HSDPA downloading. The Soul is already on sale in Europe for 400 euros (US$635) and the Secret will be out soon.

Willcom/Sharp D4 Centrino Atom PC

Japanese mobile carrier Willcom was first to announce a portable computer based on Intel's Centrino Atom chip. The D4 is being manufactured by Sharp and will be available in June for ¥39,800 (US$395) with a two-year service plan costing ¥2,100 per month, taking the total cost to ¥90,200. The plan includes unlimited data. Willcom will not sell the D4 without the network service. It has a 5-inch widescreen display, 40G-byte hard disk, a slide-out 64-key keyboard and a monitor that tilts up slightly, making it easier to read when typing on a flat surface. It's perhaps a little bulky for making and receiving many calls so Willcom will also offer a smaller Bluetooth phone handset as an option. It will be targeted at business users and students, although Willcom also hopes it will appeal to more general consumers.

Sony prototype razor-thin OLED panels

If you thought Sony's 3-millimeter thick XEL-1 OLED (organic light emitting diode) TV was cool then you haven't seen anything yet! The XEL-1 contained a 1.4-mm thick panel, but now Sony has managed to slim that down to just 0.3mm. It's also managed to make a 3.5-inch prototype screen that's just 0.2mm thick. Both screens started out as a normal OLED screen but Sony ground down the glass substrate on which it was made to reduce the thickness. The razor-thin displays are perhaps some of the most impressive yet shown thanks in equal parts to their thinness and the bright, rich image possible with an OLED screen. The panels aren't Sony's first thin OLED screens. Last year it developed a prototype OLED built onto a plastic substrate, which has the benefit of allowing the screen to be flexible. The latest screens are brittle because they are glass-based. There was no word on when or if the thin OLED screens on show might be commercially available.

LG thin Scarlet TVs

LG Electronics is the latest TV maker to join the thin-TV market with the launch of its Scarlet TV set. The TV is LG's thinnest flat-panel TV yet at just 45 millimeters thick, which isn't thin enough to beat Sharp's X-series LCD TVs that recently went on sale in Japan. The Sharp TVs are 34 millimeters at their thinnest point, and swell slightly to 38 millimeters at the thickest point. The Scarlet sets will be sold in the U.S. under the LG60 brand name and in Europe under the LG6000 name. A 47-inch model in the range is already on sale in the U.K. and boasts a full high-definition (1,920 pixel by 1,080 pixel) screen and 100Hz fast scanning to provide a smoother image when showing fast motion. Other sets will go on sale soon in markets around the world.

E-paper chip allows annotations

A new electronic paper display could allow users to annotate pages in electronic books, make amendments to documents and erase parts of the page with as much ease as using a real pen and paper. The screen combines a conventional electronic paper display with a touch panel and a newly developed control chip. The chip, from Seiko Epson, can control a screen with up to four times the resolution of current "writable" e-paper devices such as iRex Technologies' iLiad and also refreshes the display faster, eliminating the slight lag between movement of the stylus and its effect on the screen. The new chip shortens the update time so the screen can be refreshed 50 times per second. That means lines appear on the screen as they are drawn by the user and interpreted by the touch-panel interface. The chip supports a screen of up to 2,048 pixels by 1,536 pixels and will be available commercially from August.

Fujitsu wooden laptop

Could this be the environmentally friendly laptop of the future? Fujitsu has designed a laptop PC with a case manufactured from wood rather than the more traditional plastic or metal. The laptop, which is only a prototype, uses cedar wood for the case and also makes use of bio-plastics for parts. Bio-plastics are plastics produced from renewable sources such as vegetable oil rather than petroleum used in traditional plastics. The laptop PC carries the names of Fujitsu and Monacca, a Japanese design team that specializes in wooden products. The wood PC is only a concept and Fujitsu has no plans to put it on sale.

Nokia to offer "a lot" of new phones in the U.S

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:59:16 PDT

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) is going to introduce many new phone models through U.S. carriers in coming months to grab a bigger share of the lucrative cell phone market, the Finnish phone maker said on Monday.

Nokia sells 40 percent of all phones sold globally, but in the United States its share has been staggering around 10 percent as the Finnish firm has dropped own production of phones using CDMA technology, popular in the U.S.

Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat quoted Nokia chief designer as saying design cooperation with U.S. operators will bear fruit soon.

"In the next few months (U.S.) operators will carry a lot of new products from us," Alastair Curtis told the paper.

A Nokia spokesman said the company would introduce a number of new models in the United States this year -- including CDMA phones, models tailored for the U.S. carriers and phones sold globally.

Inside the World's First Billion-Dollar Home

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:48:11 PDT

hurup awal While visiting New York in 2005, Nita Ambani was in the spa at the Mandarin Oriental New York, overlooking Central Park. The contemporary Asian interiors struck her just so, and prompted her to inquire about the designer.

Nita Ambani was no ordinary tourist. She is married to Mukesh Ambani, head of Mumbai-based petrochemical giant Reliance Industries, and the fifth richest man in the world. (Lakshmi Mittal, ranked fourth, is an Indian citizen, but a resident of the U.K.)

Forbes estimated Ambani's net worth at $43 billion in March. Reliance Industries was founded by Mukesh's father, Dhirubhai Ambani, in 1966, and is India's most valuable firm by market capitalization. The couple, who have three children, currently live in a 22-story Mumbai tower that the family has spent years remodeling to meet its needs.

Like many families with the means to do so, the Ambanis wanted to build a custom home. They consulted with architecture firms Perkins + Will and Hirsch Bedner Associates, the designers behind the Mandarin Oriental, based in Dallas and Los Angeles, respectively. Plans were then drawn up for what will be the world's largest and most expensive home: a 27-story skyscraper in downtown Mumbai with a cost nearing $2 billion. The architects and designers are creating as they go, altering floor plans, design elements and concepts as the building is constructed.

The only remotely comparable high-rise property currently on the market is the $70 million triplex penthouse at the Pierre Hotel in New York, designed to resemble a French chateau, and climbing 525 feet in the air. When the Ambani residence is finished in January, completing a four-year process, it will be 550 feet high with 400,000 square feet of interior space.

The home will cost more than a hotel or high-rise of similar size because of its custom measurements and fittings: A hotel or condominium has a common layout, replicated on every floor, and uses the same materials throughout the building (such as door handles, floors, lamps and window treatments).

The Ambani home, called Antilla, differs in that no two floors are alike in either plans or materials used. 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.

Antilla's shape is based on Vaastu, an Indian tradition much like Feng Shui that is said to move energy beneficially through the building by strategically placing materials, rooms and objects.

Pricey Pad

Atop six stories of parking lots, Antilla's living quarters begin at a lobby with nine elevators, as well as several storage rooms and lounges. Down dual stairways with silver-covered railings is a large ballroom with 80% of its ceiling covered in crystal chandeliers. It features a retractable showcase for pieces of art, a mount of LCD monitors and embedded speakers, as well as stages for entertainment. The hall opens to an indoor/outdoor bar, green rooms, powder rooms and allows access to a nearby "entourage room" for security guards and assistants to relax.

Ambani plans to occasionally use the residence for corporate entertainment, and the family wants the look and feel of the home's interior to be distinctly Indian; 85% of the materials and labor will come from outside the U.S., most of it from India.

Where possible, the designers say, whether it's for the silver railings, crystal chandeliers, woven area rugs or steel support beams, the Ambanis are using Indian companies, contractors, craftsmen and materials firms. Elements of Indian culture juxtapose newer designs. For example, the sinks in a lounge extending off the entertainment level, which features a movie theater and wine room, are shaped like ginkgo leaves (native to India) with the stem extending to the faucet to guide the water into the basin.

On the health level, local plants decorate the outdoor patio near the swimming pool and yoga studio. The floor also features an ice room where residents and guests can escape the Mumbai heat to a small, cooled chamber dusted by man-made snow flurries.

For more temperate days, the family will enjoy a four-story open garden. In profile, the rebar-enforced beams form a "W" shape that supports the upper two-thirds of the building while creating an open-air atrium of gardens, flowers and lawns. Gardens, whether hanging hydroponic plants, or fixed trees, are a critical part of the building's exterior adornment but also serve a purpose: The plants act as an energy-saving device by absorbing sunlight, thus deflecting it from the living spaces and making it easier to keep the interior cool in summer and warm in winter. An internal core space on the garden level contains entertaining rooms and balconies that clear the tree line and offer views of downtown Mumbai.

The top floors of entertaining space, where Ambani plans to host business guests (or just relax) offer panoramic views of the Arabian Sea.

Microsoft ups Yahoo offer above $31 per share

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Sat, 03 May 2008 22:48:36 PDT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. finally dangled a higher takeover bid in front of Yahoo Inc. Friday, hoping to reach a friendly deal after weeks of saber rattling.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software maker upped its offer beyond the original value of $44.6 billion, or $31 per share, according to a person familiar with the matter. The specifics of the new offer weren't known by this person, who didn't want to be identified because the negotiations are still confidential.

The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, reported Microsoft boosted the offer by "by several dollars" per share, lending weight to the assertion by many market analysts that Microsoft can afford to pay up to $35 a share.

Representatives from Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment on the negotiations. The talks were expected to continue into the weekend.

In an intriguing twist, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and Yahoo President Susan Decker were both expected to be in Omaha, Neb. this weekend to attend Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s annual meeting. Both Gates and Decker are on the board of the company led by famed investor Warren Buffett.

The prospect of a sweetened offer lifted Yahoo shares 80 cents in extended trading after surging $1.86, or nearly 7 percent, to finish the regular session at $28.67.

Sunnyvale-based Yahoo began pressing for a higher offer shortly after Microsoft made its unsolicited bid in February. That offer, which was made half in cash and half in stock, is currently valued at $42.3 billion, or $29.40 per share, reflecting the decline in Microsoft shares since it began its pursuit of the Internet pioneer.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer had held firm, insisting the original offer was fair in light of Yahoo's eroding profits during the past two years. He threatened an attempt to oust Yahoo's board if the 10 directors, including Chief Executive Jerry Yang, didn't accept the offer by April 26.

Now that Yahoo has forced the issue by letting the deadline pass, Ballmer appears ready to put more money on the table.

Microsoft's board reportedly met earlier this week to consider raising the bid as high as $33 per share, or about $47.5 billion.

Several of Yahoo's shareholders are reportedly holding out for at least $35 per share, a price that would value the deal at about $50 billion.

Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo for about $40 per share during confidential discussions held in early 2007, but Yahoo's struggles since then make it unlikely the revised bid will be that high.

In a comments to Microsoft employees Thursday, Ballmer said he has a price in mind but didn't reveal it.

"I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth to me, exactly," Ballmer told the employees, according to a transcript filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "I won't go a dime above, and I will go to what I think it's worth if that gets the deal done."

Most analysts have predicted all along that Microsoft eventually would buy Yahoo for $32 to $35 per share, so the news of Friday's negotiations wasn't a major surprise.

"It's all going according to script," said Ken Marlin, a New York investment banker specializing in technology deals.

The outcome of the weekend talks will likely ripple across the Internet.

If Microsoft and Yahoo shake hands on a deal, it will mark a significant step toward uniting two high-tech powerhouses whose online services are used by more than 500 million people worldwide. An amicable transaction also would make it easier to meld the two companies' disparate technologies and cultures.

Should the two sides remain at loggerheads, Microsoft could still try to force a sale by trying to replace Yahoo's board with 10 directors more inclined to approve a deal.

But that risky maneuver, known as a proxy contest, would likely entail several months of mudslinging with no guarantee of success.

Even if Microsoft were to prevail in a hostile takeover, it could wind up with buyer's remorse because the hard feelings provoked by the battle would drive off many of the Yahoo employees needed to make the deal pay off, said Arthur Dudley, a New York lawyer specializing in mergers and acquisitions.

"The trick for Microsoft is to figure out where the tipping point is," Dudley said. "They probably don't want to do a hostile takeover and just wind up with some more computer software and a bunch of empty desks."

Ballmer also has said Microsoft might simply withdraw its offer and walk away from Yahoo. Most analysts doubt Microsoft will give up the chase because Yahoo's still-prized Internet franchise would give the software maker its best chance to chip away at Google Inc.'s dominance of the booming Internet search and advertising market.

Google's specter may have prodded Microsoft's higher bid. Yahoo is reportedly nearing a long-term deal that would allow Google to sell ads on its Web site. Although the alliance might be blocked by antitrust obstacles, Microsoft likely wouldn't want to risk the chance of Google gaining access to Yahoo's vast audience.

Yahoo executives think the company is well positioned to bounce back from its recent malaise, but Dudley doubts the company's board will resist Microsoft if its new offer is sweet enough.

"Yahoo's board won't have a lot of choice if the price is right," Dudley said. "Now, everyone is just scratching their heads trying to figure out what the number is."

OLPC Names New President, COO

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Sat, 03 May 2008 08:33:12 PDT

The One Laptop Per Child Project appointed a new president and chief operating officer on Friday to run daily operations at the nonprofit effort, sending a signal that it could be recovering from the loss of top personnel over the past few months.

Charles Kane will move from the part-time role as chief financial officer to oversee the organization's operational matters and distribution of the XO laptop on a day-to-day basis. Kane will provide OLPC the leadership needed to deliver on its commitments to partners and governments, said Nicholas Negroponte in a statement.

Negroponte will "focus on fund-raising and promoting the project to governments worldwide," OLPC said.

The new appointment could curb damage caused by the loss of important personnel over the past few months. In January, OLPC lost Chief Technology Officer Mary Lou Jepsen, who started an organization to commercialize parts of OLPC's technology, including the screen and battery. In February, Director of Security Architecture Ivan Krstić resigned to protest the organization's restructuring and "radical" change in goals.

Last month, Walter Bender, the president of software and content, quit to promote the use of open-source software in the face of OLPC's goal to load Windows XP on the laptop. Bender was said to be running the day-to-day operations of OLPC while Negroponte focused on fundraising and promotion of the project.

OLPC recently restructured into four departments-- development, technology, deployment and learning-- and the organization is now focusing on making the XO laptop more appealing to customers.

The organization is in negotiations with Microsoft to load Windows on dual-boot versions of the XO laptop, which is being marketed as a learning tool for children in developing countries. In an open letter, Negroponte criticized the development of Sugar, XO's user interface, and asked developers to stop bickering, unite and jointly develop a Windows user interface to make XO laptops more appealing to customers.

The letter drew anger from open-source developers writing applications for the Linux-based laptop, who called Negroponte's vision "vague" and "demoralizing" for the future of Sugar.

Negroponte needs to clarify his vision to deliver a more sophisticated product, Krstićwrote in an April blog entry.

If Sugar is a problem, Negroponte has no one but himself to blame, Krstić said. "Nicholas' recent claim of Sugar growing amorphously because it 'didn't have a software architect who did it in a crisp way' is similarly muddy: convincing him of the need for an architect is a battle Walter and I fought for months without success," Krstić wrote.

Negroponte offered Krstić the spot of chief software architect, which was rescinded several weeks later "for reasons he refused to explain to anyone," Krstić wrote.

CinemaNow To Offer Movie Orders Via Cell Phone

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:33:20 PDT

NEW YORK - Privately held digital entertainment provider CinemaNow said Tuesday that U.S. consumers would be able to use their cell phones to view movie trailers and order full-length movies to watch on their home television or computer through its mobile Web site.

The service, offered on Web-capable phones at http://mobile.cinemanow.com, would let U.S. consumers immediately buy or rent a movie when they hear about a new offering while they are out with friends.

"It definitely makes discovery a little more social when you can talk about the movie and do the purchase while you're there," said David Cook, CinemaNow's chief operating officer.

The service automatically downloads movies to a Web-connected consumer electronics device such as a home computer. Having a movie ready to watch by the time a user gets home could also help save time as full movies can take an hour or more to download over the Internet.

CinemaNow, which already competes with services such as Apple's iTunes in Web video rentals, charges about $14.99 for online movie purchases and about $1.99 for rentals.

The technology for the new CinemaNow service is from uVuMobile Inc, which specializes in mobile video.

U.S. service providers are looking to generate an increasing amount of revenue from data services such as video streaming since as many as 150 phone models being sold in the U.S. today can already support streaming video, according to Cook.

He said the company planned to approach U.S. wireless service providers after Tuesday's launch of the site with a view to forging agreements to put the service onto the carriers' main menu of data offerings.

Cook said the service could be followed with video downloads directly to mobile phones as early as 2009.

"I think it's something you'd see next year," he said. (Reporting by Sinead Carew, editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Copyright 2008 Reuters. Click for Restrictions

As per UBM LLC's agreement with Reuters, this story will be removed from this site after 30 days.

Unlimited int’l calls now $10 a month

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:02:23 PDT

That’s for unlimited calling to 34 countries—pretty nice, although you’ll be mostly restricted to calling landlines. Meanwhile, the price for the North America-only calling plan has crept up a bit.
According to Reuters (via Yahoo! News), the $10-a-month international calling plan lets you make calls to landlines in countries such as Australia, China, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. (Click here for the complete list.)

For most countries, you’ll have to make calls to landlines, although you’ll be able to call cell phones in Canada, China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

Meanwhile, there’s also a new $6/month plan that lets you call landlines in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey, while calls to landlines elsewhere in Mexico go for two cents a minute (or 20 cents/minute to cell phone numbers).

Finally, there’s a new $3/month unlimited calling plan for U.S. and Canadian landlines and cell phones—not bad, but at about $36 a year, it’s a bit pricier than the previous $30/month North America unlimited calling plan.

Of course, Skype-to-Skype calls are still free as can be.

So, I’m curious—how many Skype users out there have paid subscriptions for landline/cell phone calling? And who’s tempted by the new $10/month international calling plan?

Google drops Adsense referral scheme

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:09:17 PDT

Google has ditched its Adsense referral scheme outside the Americas and Japan in a move that has not gone down well with some of its publishing partners.

The programme, which rewards sites that introduce new users to Adsense, will be “retired” in the last week of January, according to a post on the service’s blog.

So what does this tell us...?

Well, it suggests that Adsense is nearing market saturation, at least among publishers that are large enough to generate fees for sites that refer them. Smaller publishers, the veritable Long Tail, might not be worth the referral fees Google has been paying out.

The Google announcement offers little in the way of explanation, except to say the scheme had “not performed as well” as Google had hoped. It also doesn't include regional referral data in its financial results.

Google said users would still be able to earn cash by encouraging sign-ups to other Adsense-related products.

Nevertheless, there seem to be some unhappy publishers out there, judging by responses to the news on the Adsense blog and other news sites.

All that aside, we still can't believe that Yahoo hasn't launched its Publisher Network here in the UK, more than two years after rolling it out in the US. Adsense generates vast revenues for Google, and publishers would love more competition in this area, but the folks at Yahoo don't seem to recognise a no-brainer when they see one.

How to increase your search engine rankings

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:23:34 PDT

Here are the steps to increase your search engine rankings:

1. Check your listings

If you are going to see an increase in traffic to your web site, you need to be listed in the top 20-30 sites. If you are not listed in them, you should at least submit your site to the major search engines. If you are already in the top 10, then keep monitoring your site's search engine rankings to maintain your search engine position. If you are not in the top 30 position, continue with the next step.

2. Select the right keywords and phrases

Go to Word Tracker or the overture suggestion tool to find the most popular words and phrases that suit the theme of your web site.

Weave these words and phrases into your meta tags (title, description and keyword tags), web copy (particularly the first 200 words of your web page) and links (i.e. if your site is called camping.com and you have a page for camping tools, name the link www.camping.com/campingtools.htm, instead of www.camping.com/generic.htm).

Optimize each web page with different keywords. Visitors can then enter your site from different pages, depending on what keyword they entered in the search engines.

3. Exchange reciprocal links

Search for other sites that compliment your own site and ask for a reciprocal link back to your site. Ideally the site should have the same keyword phrases as yours and already have a high search engine ranking. These are quality links.

Having many sites linked to yours, will increase the popularity of your site in the search engines, resulting in a higher ranking.

If you are very busy or want to build a useful link directory, you can use reciprocal link exchange management script which can generate search engine friendly webpages.

4. Write articles

Choose your best keywords and weave them into the theme of your articles. Include a link to your web site in the resource box at the end of your articles. Submit your articles to ezine publishers and article announcement lists. This gives your article the potential to be read by thousands of ezine subscribers. Your article will become linked to many web sites, resulting in higher rankings.

5. Participate in forums

Find a forum that is related to the theme of your web site. People visit these forums to look for content that answers their questions. Once you have provided helpful information, you can leave a link to your site in your signature file. If this is a highly trafficked forum, leaving your link there, will increase your site's popularity.

In addition, a link in those forums can increase your website visitors.

6. Monitor your search engine rankings

The best way to check how your site is doing in the search engines is to check your web site statistics. A high quality web hosting service will show you which pages receive the most traffic (hits and visits) and where it is coming from (which search engines).

Software like WebPosition Gold 3 allows you to check search engine rankings and offer advice to improve search engine placements. Why not download a free trial copy?

7. Exercise patience Search engines

Typically search engines take one day to three months to spider your web site, so your changes will not be seen immediately. Think of the steps outlined above, as a long-term marketing strategy for your web site.

Tip Generating a massive amount of traffic to your web site, doesn't guarantee sales. Here is a short list of factors that will also help convert your visitors into sales:

Professional site design Well-written web copy
Fast loading times
Simple navigation
No broken links
Optimizing for different screen resolutions
Optimizing for the main browsers

As you can see, improving search engine rankings that result in sales means the continuous monitoring and refinement of your web site. Since 85% of your sites traffic (this is very targeted traffic) comes from the search engines, it is well worth the investment.

Google Adsense Program

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:21:15 PDT

Google Adsense Program
Affordable Web Hosting Click Here

Google Adsense is an alternative to affiliate programs for webmasters to make money online. This article tells you more about Google Adsense and how to use Google Adsense to make money.

Affiliate programs were once a great source of online revenue, a savvy webmaster with an eye for marketing could easily parley a site into a money making machine with a little luck and effort.

However, the evolution and growth of the Internet has hampered the growth of fortune making affiliate programs.

Constant search engine algorithm changes, along with the search engine's clear distaste for sites participating in affiliate programs; have made it a little more difficult to earn a healthy affiliate revenue.

An influx in the use of software programs that terminate cookie tracking and privacy programs that prevent webmasters from tracking referrers, have also hindered the affiliate sales channel. While it is still possible to make money through affiliate marketing, other alternatives ought to be considered.

A Healthy Alternative or Supplement Google's Adsense program allows approved websites to dynamically serve Google's pay-per-click Adword results.

This has become a popular alternative and an effective revenue sharing program for webmasters. Google's spider parses the adserving website and serves ads that relate to the website's content. While the Google's Adsense program still has some issues, they are making efforts to improve it.

The website maintenance related to Adsense is very easy and requires very little effort. Webmasters need only to insert javascript into the webpage or website template. The javascript calls the ad from Google and will ensure that ads are served each time a visitor goes to the webpage.

If the visitor clicks one of the Adsense ads served to the website, the website owner is credited for the referral. The implementation, while simple, has its drawbacks. Google dictates the format of the ads. Webmasters can select from a handful of preformatted text boxes that lack creativity.

A recent improvement allows webmasters to modify the ad boxes to resemble the website's color scheme. Still, a far cry from some of the creative ads webmasters are accustom to.

The example below reflects how the color scheme can be modified to match the look of the website, but the ads physically don't fit well into the overall website design. sample modified to match sites color scheme: http://www.hospital-software.com (scroll to the bottom)

Google determines the content of the ads that are shown/ Sometimes the ads are poorly targeted, and of no interest to the website visitors. sample of poorly targeted ads: http://www.real-estate-supply.com

Adwords can be a great addition to a website, and when well matched to the content the revenue stream from Google is consistent and effortless. sample of effective Adsense program: http://www.police-supplies.com (scroll to the bottom) http://www.small-business-software.net (scroll to the bottom)

Not that the Google Adsense program is not without its problems.as the reporting provided by Google is lacking. Google has not implemented any way to track multiple sites that serve ads (changed recently); they simply show the number of ads served, the percentage of clicks received, and the revenue earned each day.

Google does not disclose the amount of the revenue they share, what percentage of the revenue they earn and what someone can expect to receive for each click.

Webmasters with multiple sites will have difficulty determining which websites are producing the money in the Adsense program.

With affiliate programs many webmasters implement a new browser launch with each click off the site, Adsense removes the visitor from the website and there is not currently an option to launch the visitor into another browser. Early on Google implemented a filtering system that allowed webmasters to prevent a specific domain's ads from being served on the website.

Ad blocking meant that webmasters could prevent their competitors ads from being dynamically served on their website. Overall, adwords are great supplements to websites where affiliate programs are either not performing or when affiliate programs don't exist that target the sites content.

Give it a Try Implementing and maintaing Google Adsense program on a content site requires very little effort and can often bring a steady stream of additional revenue for webmasters.

Consider supplementing content and see what happens.

Tips Internet marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:18:09 PDT

10 Important Internet Marketing Tips

Chinese SEO

This article states 10 important internet marketing tips and reminds you what should be done when you promote websites. Remember to read this internet marketing checklist:

Each of the following Ten Marketing Tips is based on a highly effective - but often overlooked marketing tactic. How many are you using? How many have you overlooked?

Tip 1: Insulate yourself against the impact of change by increasing the number of products and services you offer ...and by using a variety of different marketing methods. Only a small portion of your total business will be affected if the sales of one product declines or the response to one marketing method drops.

Tip 2: Customers are prospects too. Stay in contact with them. Find or develop other products or services you can offer them. It's easier tomake a sale to a previous customer than to someone who never bought from you.

Tip 3: Avoid making any claim that sounds exaggerated ...even if it is true. A bold claim creates doubt in your prospect's mind and jeopardizes the sale. Reduce any bold claims to a more believable level.

Tip 4: Express numerical claims as odd numbers with fractions or decimals. For example, "Our clients save 17.7 percent" sounds more believable than "Our clients save 20 percent" ...even if 20 percent is the accurate number.

Tip 5: To create an absolutely irresistible offer, combine a special discount price and a set of valuable bonuses in the same offer.

Tip 6: Develop a series of 4 or 5 different special offers. Use them one at a time with an expiration deadline. When one offer expires, replace it with the next offer and a new deadline. Continuously recycle through the same series of offers. This enables you to keep using special offers to generate sales without taking time to develop new ones.

Tip 7: If you're attracting many prospects who really don't have (or can't get) the money to buy your product or service ...you need to change your market. Target a market where prospects have an intense desire for the benefits produced by your product or service - AND the money to buy it.

Tip 8: Set yourself apart from competitors by offering an exclusive benefit your competitors cannot copy ...or one they're not willing to copy. One business owner I know includes his personal phone number on every order. His competitors don't - and they are not likely to start making themselves that accessible to customers.

Tip 9: Advertising copy produces the biggest response when each reader can believe the message was written specifically for him or her. As you write any sales message, visualize you're writing to one person instead of to a large group of people. This will help you write in a less formal and more personal style.

Tip 10: Most sales are not made on the first contact. Develop a method to capture and save the names and contact information of prospects who don't buy from you. Follow up periodically. A little gentle coaching will eventually convert many of them into buyers.

Each of these 10 marketing tips implements a simple but highly effective marketing tactic. Take action now to apply those you overlooked. You'll be surprised by how much business it produces for you.

Google pay per action ads beta

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:44:45 PDT

Google Pay-Per-Action Ads Beta
By: John Brock

Well it’s finally here; pay-per-action hits the Google platform and Google is moving in on affiliate territory looking to take the affiliate industry for all its worth. Great for advertisers, sucks for publishers. Harsh but true.

As an advertiser I love pay-per-action; especially when what I really want is for the searcher to take a specific action like signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information or buying something. Very nice; I pay only when the searcher gives me what I want.

As a publisher, I hate it. It is much more difficult to get a searcher to take a specific action (free willed one that is), than it is to get the user to click on an ad. As a publisher of pay-per-action ads, more often than not I am sending the searcher to the advertiser’s destination page for free regardless of how well suited my site and page is to the product. I am giving them eyeballs for nothing. Not good. So my advice to AdSense publishers is to avoid pay-per-action ads if you can. Until you have a complete understanding of the CPA world, it will eat you alive. If you do try them make absolutely sure that a conversion rate less than 1%, yes that’s right you heard me I said 1%, will still make you a profit according to the advertisers commission schedule or you will be loosing money.

Google needs to really make sure that they appropriately match up the right advertiser with the right publisher or all hell will break loose. The advertiser will loose money. The publisher will loose money and Google will loose money. Advertisers will feel duped, publishers will feel betrayed and searchers will not have a clue.

Improve Ur Adsense

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:22:04 PDT

If webmasters want to monetize their websites, the great way to do it is through Adsense. There are lots of webmasters struggling hard to earn some good money a day through their sites. But then some of the “geniuses” of them are enjoying hundreds of dollars a day from Adsense ads on their websites. What makes these webmasters different from the other kind is that they are different and they think out of the box.

The ones who have been there and done it have quite some useful tips to help those who would want to venture into this field. Some of these tips have boosted quite a lot of earnings in the past and is continuously doing so.

Here are some 5 proven ways on how best to improve your Adsense earnings.

1. Concentrating on one format of Adsense ad. The one format that worked well for the majority is the Large Rectangle (336X280). This same format have the tendency to result in higher CTR, or the click-through rates. Why choose this format out of the many you can use? Basically because the ads will look like normal web links, and people, being used to clicking on them, click these types of links. They may or may not know they are clicking on your Adsense but as long as there are clicks, then it will all be for your advantage.

2. Create a custom palette for your ads. Choose a color that will go well with the background of your site. If your site has a white background, try to use white as the color of your ad border and background. The idea to patterning the colors is to make the Adsense look like it is part of the web pages. Again, This will result to more clicks from people visiting your site.

3. Remove the Adsense from the bottom pages of your site and put them at the top. Do not try to hide your Adsense. Put them in the place where people can see them quickly. You will be amazed how the difference between Adsense locations can make when you see your earnings.

4. Maintain links to relevant websites. If you think some sites are better off than the others, put your ads there and try to maintaining and managing them. If there is already lots of Adsense put into that certain site, put yours on top of all of them. That way visitor will see your ads first upon browsing into that site.

5. Try to automate the insertion of your Adsense code into the webpages using SSI (or server side included). Ask your web administrator if your server supports SSI or not. How do you do it? Just save your Adsense code in a text file, save it as “adsense text”, and upload it to the root directory of the web server. Then using SSI, call the code on other pages. This tip is a time saver especially for those who are using automatic page generators to generate pages on their website.

These are some of the tips that have worked well for some who want to generate hundreds and even thousands on their websites. It is important to know though that ads are displayed because it fits the interest of the people viewing them. So focusing on a specific topic should be your primary purpose because the displays will be especially targeted on a topic that persons will be viewing already.

Note also that there are many other Adsense sharing the same topic as you. It is best to think of making a good ad that will be somewhat different and unique than the ones already done. Every clickthrough that visitors make is a point for you so make every click count by making your Adsense something that people will definitely click on.

Tips given by those who have boosted their earnings are just guidelines they want to share with others. If they have somehow worked wonders to some, maybe it can work wonders for you too. Try them out into your ads and see the result it will bring.

If others have done it, there is nothing wrong trying it out for yourself.

Forex Money Management

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 16:22:55 PDT

Forex Money Management

by Boris Schlossberg

Put two rookie traders in front of the screen, provide them with your best high-probability set-up, and for good measure, have each one take the opposite side of the trade. More than likely, both will wind up losing money. However, if you take two pros and have them trade in the opposite direction of each other, quite frequently both traders will wind up making money - despite the seeming contradiction of the premise. What's the difference? What is the most important factor separating the seasoned traders from the amateurs? The answer is money management.
Like dieting and working out, money management is something that most traders pay lip service to, but few practice in real life. The reason is simple: just like eating healthy and staying fit, money management can seem like a burdensome, unpleasant activity. It forces traders to constantly monitor their positions and to take necessary losses, and few people like to do that. However, as Figure 1 proves, loss-taking is crucial to long-term trading success.

Amount of Equity Lost Amount of Return Necessary to Restore to Original Equity Value
25% 33%
50% 100%
75% 400%
90% 1000%

Figure 1 - This table shows just how difficult it is to recover from a debilitating loss.

Note that a trader would have to earn 100% on his or her capital - a feat accomplished by less than 1% of traders worldwide - just to break even on an account with a 50% loss. At 75% drawdown, the trader must quadruple his or her account just to bring it back to its original equity - truly a Herculean task!
The Big One

Although most traders are familiar with the figures above, they are inevitably ignored. Trading books are littered with stories of traders losing one, two, even five years' worth of profits in a single trade gone terribly wrong. Typically, the runaway loss is a result of sloppy money management, with no hard stops and lots of average downs into the longs and average ups into the shorts. Above all, the runaway loss is due simply to a loss of discipline.

Most traders begin their trading career, whether consciously or subconsciously, visualizing "The Big One" - the one trade that will make them millions and allow them to retire young and live carefree for the rest of their lives. In FX, this fantasy is further reinforced by the folklore of the markets. Who can forget the time that George Soros "broke the Bank of England" by shorting the pound and walked away with a cool $1-billion profit in a single day? But the cold hard truth for most retail traders is that, instead of experiencing the "Big Win", most traders fall victim to just one "Big Loss" that can knock them out of the game forever.
Learning Tough Lessons

Traders can avoid this fate by controlling their risks through stop losses. In Jack Schwager's famous book "Market Wizards" (1989), day trader and trend follower Larry Hite offers this practical advice: "Never risk more than 1% of total equity on any trade. By only risking 1%, I am indifferent to any individual trade." This is a very good approach. A trader can be wrong 20 times in a row and still have 80% of his or her equity left.

The reality is that very few traders have the discipline to practice this method consistently. Not unlike a child who learns not to touch a hot stove only after being burned once or twice, most traders can only absorb the lessons of risk discipline through the harsh experience of monetary loss. This is the most important reason why traders should use only their speculative capital when first entering the forex market. When novices ask how much money they should begin trading with, one seasoned trader says: "Choose a number that will not materially impact your life if you were to lose it completely. Now subdivide that number by five because your first few attempts at trading will most likely end up in blow out." This too is very sage advice, and it is well worth following for anyone considering trading FX.
Money Management Styles

Generally speaking, there are two ways to practice successful money management. A trader can take many frequent small stops and try to harvest profits from the few large winning trades, or a trader can choose to go for many small squirrel-like gains and take infrequent but large stops in the hope the many small profits will outweigh the few large losses. The first method generates many minor instances of psychological pain, but it produces a few major moments of ecstasy. On the other hand, the second strategy offers many minor instances of joy, but at the expense of experiencing a few very nasty psychological hits. With this wide-stop approach, it is not unusual to lose a week or even a month's worth of profits in one or two trades. (For further reading, see Introduction To Types Of Trading: Swing Trades.)

To a large extent, the method you choose depends on your personality; it is part of the process of discovery for each trader. One of the great benefits of the FX market is that it can accommodate both styles equally, without any additional cost to the retail trader. Since FX is a spread-based market, the cost of each transaction is the same, regardless of the size of any given trader's position.

For example, in EUR/USD, most traders would encounter a 3 pip spread equal to the cost of 3/100th of 1% of the underlying position. This cost will be uniform, in percentage terms, whether the trader wants to deal in 100-unit lots or one million-unit lots of the currency. For example, if the trader wanted to use 10,000-unit lots, the spread would amount to $3, but for the same trade using only 100-unit lots, the spread would be a mere $0.03. Contrast that with the stock market where, for example, a commission on 100 shares or 1,000 shares of a $20 stock may be fixed at $40, making the effective cost of transaction 2% in the case of 100 shares, but only 0.2% in the case of 1,000 shares. This type of variability makes it very hard for smaller traders in the equity market to scale into positions, as commissions heavily skew costs against them. However, FX traders have the benefit of uniform pricing and can practice any style of money management they choose without concern about variable transaction costs.
Four Types of Stops

Once you are ready to trade with a serious approach to money management and the proper amount of capital is allocated to your account, there are four types of stops you may consider.
1. Equity Stop
This is the simplest of all stops. The trader risks only a predetermined amount of his or her account on a single trade. A common metric is to risk 2% of the account on any given trade. On a hypothetical $10,000 trading account, a trader could risk $200, or about 200 points, on one mini lot (10,000 units) of EUR/USD, or only 20 points on a standard 100,000-unit lot. Aggressive traders may consider using 5% equity stops, but note that this amount is generally considered to be the upper limit of prudent money management because 10 consecutive wrong trades would draw down the account by 50%.

One strong criticism of the equity stop is that it places an arbitrary exit point on a trader's position. The trade is liquidated not as a result of a logical response to the price action of the marketplace, but rather to satisfy the trader's internal risk controls.
2. Chart Stop
Technical analysis can generate thousands of possible stops, driven by the price action of the charts or by various technical indicator signals. Technically oriented traders like to combine these exit points with standard equity stop rules to formulate charts stops. A classic example of a chart stop is the swing high/low point. In Figure 2 a trader with our hypothetical $10,000 account using the chart stop could sell one mini lot risking 150 points, or about 1.5% of the account.

Figure 2
3. Volatility Stop
A more sophisticated version of the chart stop uses volatility instead of price action to set risk parameters. The idea is that in a high volatility environment, when prices traverse wide ranges, the trader needs to adapt to the present conditions and allow the position more room for risk to avoid being stopped out by intra-market noise. The opposite holds true for a low volatility environment, in which risk parameters would need to be compressed.

One easy way to measure volatility is through the use of Bollinger bands, which employ standard deviation to measure variance in price. Figures 3 and 4 show a high volatility and a low volatility stop with Bollinger bands. In Figure 3 the volatility stop also allows the trader to use a scale-in approach to achieve a better "blended" price and a faster breakeven point. Note that the total risk exposure of the position should not exceed 2% of the account; therefore, it is critical that the trader use smaller lots to properly size his or her cumulative risk in the trade.

Figure 3

Figure 4
4. Margin Stop
This is perhaps the most unorthodox of all money management strategies, but it can be an effective method in FX, if used judiciously. Unlike exchange-based markets, FX markets operate 24 hours a day. Therefore, FX dealers can liquidate their customer positions almost as soon as they trigger a margin call. For this reason, FX customers are rarely in danger of generating a negative balance in their account, since computers automatically close out all positions.

This money management strategy requires the trader to subdivide his or her capital into 10 equal parts. In our original $10,000 example, the trader would open the account with an FX dealer but only wire $1,000 instead of $10,000, leaving the other $9,000 in his or her bank account. Most FX dealers offer 100:1 leverage, so a $1,000 deposit would allow the trader to control one standard 100,000-unit lot. However, even a 1 point move against the trader would trigger a margin call (since $1,000 is the minimum that the dealer requires). So, depending on the trader's risk tolerance, he or she may choose to trade a 50,000-unit lot position, which allows him or her room for almost 100 points (on a 50,000 lot the dealer requires $500 margin, so $1,000 – 100-point loss* 50,000 lot = $500). Regardless of how much leverage the trader assumed, this controlled parsing of his or her speculative capital would prevent the trader from blowing up his or her account in just one trade and would allow him or her to take many swings at a potentially profitable set-up without the worry or care of setting manual stops. For those traders who like to practice the "have a bunch, bet a bunch" style, this approach may be quite interesting.
Conclusion

As you can see, money management in FX is as flexible and as varied as the market itself. The only universal rule is that all traders in this market must practice some form of it in order to succeed.

By Boris Schlossberg, Senior Currency Strategist, FXCM

Reprinted with permission of Investopedia

Boris Schlossberg is the Senior Currency Strategist at Forex Capital Markets in New York, one of the largest retail forex market makers in the world. He is a frequent commentator for Bloomberg, Reuters, CNBC and Dow Jones CBS Marketwatch. His book "Technical Analysis of the Currency Market", published by John Wiley and Sons, is available on Amazon, where he also hosts a blog on all things trading.

Related Links

Online Money Management Calculator
Free Position Size Calculator

Essential Elements of a Successful Trader

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 10:33:17 PDT

Essential Elements of a Successful Trader

by Jimmy Young
EURUSDTrader

Courage Under Stressful Conditions When the Outcome is Uncertain

All the foreign exchange trading knowledge in the world is not going to help, unless you have the nerve to buy and sell currencies and put your money at risk. As with the lottery “You gotta be in it to win it”. Trust me when I say that the simple task of hitting the buy or sell key is extremely difficult to do when your own real money is put at risk.

You will feel anxiety, even fear. Here lies the moment of truth. Do you have the courage to be afraid and act anyway? When a fireman runs into a burning building I assume he is afraid but he does it anyway and achieves the desired result. Unless you can overcome or accept your fear and do it anyway, you will not be a successful trader.
However, once you learn to control your fear, it gets easier and easier and in time there is no fear. The opposite reaction can become an issue – you’re overconfident and not focused enough on the risk you're taking.

Both the inability to initiate a trade, or close a losing trade can create serious psychological issues for a trader going forward. By calling attention to these potential stumbling blocks beforehand, you can properly prepare prior to your first real trade and develop good trading habits from day one.

Start by analyzing yourself. Are you the type of person that can control their emotions and flawlessly execute trades, oftentimes under extremely stressful conditions? Are you the type of person who’s overconfident and prone to take more risk than they should? Before your first real trade you need to look inside yourself and get the answers. We can correct any deficiencies before they result in paralysis (not pulling the trigger) or a huge loss (overconfidence). A huge loss can prematurely end your trading career, or prolong your success until you can raise additional capital.

The difficulty doesn’t end with “pulling the trigger”. In fact what comes next is equally or perhaps more difficult. Once you are in the trade the next hurdle is staying in the trade. When trading foreign exchange you exit the trade as soon as possible after entry when it is not working. Most people who have been successful in non-trading ventures find this concept difficult to implement.

For example, real estate tycoons make their fortune riding out the bad times and selling during the boom periods. The problem with trying to adapt a 'hold on until it comes back' strategy in foreign exchange is that most of the time the currencies are in long-term persistent, directional trends and your equity will be wiped out before the currency comes back.

The other side of the coin is staying in a trade that is working. The most common pitfall is closing out a winning position without a valid reason. Once again, fear is the culprit. Your subconscious demons will be scaring you non-stop with questions like “what if news comes out and you wind up with a loss”. The reality is if news comes out in a currency that is going up, the news has a higher probability of being positive than negative (more on why that is so in a later article).

So your fear is just a baseless annoyance. Don’t try and fight the fear. Accept it. Have a laugh about it and then move on to the task at hand, which is determining an exit strategy based on actual price movement. As Garth says in Waynesworld “Live in the now man”. Worrying about what could be is irrational. Studying your chart and determining an objective exit point is reality based and rational.

Another common pitfall is closing a winning position because you are bored with it; its not moving. In Football, after a star running back breaks free for a 50-yard gain, he comes out of the game temporarily for a breather. When he reenters the game he is a serious threat to gain more yards – this is indisputable. So when your position takes a breather after a winning move, the next likely event is further gains – so why close it?

If you can be courageous under fire and strategically patient, foreign exchange trading may be for you. If you’re a natural gunslinger and reckless you will need to tone your act down a notch or two and we can help you make the necessary adjustments. If putting your money at risk makes you a nervous wreck its because you lack the knowledge base to be confident in your decision making.

Patience to Gain Knowledge through Study and Focus

Many new traders believe all you need to profitably trade foreign currencies are charts, technical indicators and a small bankroll. Most of them blow up (lose all their money) within a few weeks or months; some are initially successful and it takes as long as a year before they blow up. A tiny minority with good money management skills, patience, and a market niche go on to be successful traders. Armed with charts, technical indicators, and a small bankroll, the chance of succeeding is probably 500 to 1.

To increase your chances of success to near certainty requires knowledge; acquiring knowledge takes hard work, study, dedication and focus. Compile your knowledge base without taking any shortcuts, thereby assuring a solid foundation to build upon.

Jimmy Young

To SEO or To PPC?

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:26:19 PDT

To SEO or To PPC?

The online community is definitely a large market place that you cannot ignore, especially if you have an internet business. There are thousands if not millions of consumers that you can tap in the internet.

At the same time, the internet also poses a quite different challenge. The easy access that internet provides also gives you as much competition as you can imagine. It is too crowded and congested.

Having a website is not enough to make your business running and able to compete. You must take other alternatives to give way for the online community to access your website at any rate or chance possible.

You have to expose your website. Make it known. It has to be visible. It has to be frequently targeted by consumers and surfers.

Invest in marketing your internet site. There are basically two options available to you, the SEO and PPC. These two are probably the most desirable alternatives you can get for your internet business as strategy for search engine marketing.

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Some researches indicate that 60% - 70% of internet surfers and users actually resort to using the Google search engine to find and locate web sites and pages, for any topic they desire. SEO is the process taken to make sure that the internet uses will find your website when ranked among the top results of a search. This way you can make sure that you will be visible and can clearly stand out from the rest.

To get a search engine optimization, you will have to build on your own internet site frequently hit internet links to web site pages. The process will involve IBLN or Independent Back-Linking Network, wherein hundreds or even thousands of pages will be utilized to promote a particular website of a client.

In SEO, there is no need for you to pay for the clicks although it will require you to spend time doing research to get a favorable combination of ads and target audience. The SEO process is a long term one. It requires months, 6 months at the least, before the proper outcome is fully achieved, but once the goal is accomplished, you will definitely get a steady source of profit.
2. PPC

PPC means Pay Per Click. It gives way advertising on a search engine. These are sponsored listings that you see whenever you make a search. There will be a charge whenever a visitor or web surfer clicks on any of your ads. There will first be a bidding process. The highest bidder for the price per click will definitely get the chance to be first listed in the search engine.

With this kind of advertising, you can still basically control your campaign as you get to create your own ad. You will also manage the target audience and still stay within the bounds of your budget. Most of the providers of PPC advertising will allow you to specify the target market, either by topic, industry or geographical location. You can also very well check if your ad gets to be shown at all and if it is competitive with the rest.

There are some guaranteed benefits when you get to maximize the PPC strategy.

? PPC lets you advertise to the whole of the online community. It is also relatively easy to set up.

? At first glance, PPC advertising may seem very expensive. Could it possibly happen that someone out there will go on clicking on your ad? This will definitely give you a large bill without the expected profit on your part. If this provides a lot of worries, be rest assured that there is a protection for you. Networks are able to recognize fraudulent clicks.

? You can also set a budget for a certain period. The moment your budget has been used up by the target number of clicks, your ads will no longer be displayed until the next period you want it again displayed.

? You will also be able to adjust well to changes in market demands and trends.

In deciding which of the two strategies will work right for you, think of your goals and of your resources. They definitely offer benefits and advantages that will work for your good. The better way to approach this two is to evaluate according to your short term and long term plans. Take the PPC course for your short term goals and choose SEO if you have long term ones.

There world is out there for you now. Just make sure you do what will work best for your entrepreneurial endeavors and visions. The secret to success lies in your hands. Just study your options well and you’ll get exactly what you want.

PPC search engine advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:25:30 PDT

Affordable PPC search engine advertising

PPC search engine advertising is by far the most affordable form of advertising available. PPC search engine advertising is a flourishing business that by 2008 is expected to reach $ 8 billion. PPC search engine advertising is about producing leads. Creating leads will help potential buyers find the specific website that will provide them with the product or service they need.

However, PPC search engine advertising does not end there. It is important to understand that although PPC search engine advertising generates leads, it is also important for users to find relevant information at the website they are directed to. Information is a valuable asset in PPC search engine advertising that is often left unchecked by many websites. Keep in mind that users are more likely to purchase products or services from a company that provided them with the necessary information they needed in the first place.

Qualified traffic with PPC search engine advertising
One of the benefits of PPC search engine advertising is that it provides qualified traffic to a specific website. Users that click on a PPC ad are those in search of a particular product or service. This helps eliminate unnecessary clicks from non-prospective buyers that only produce expenditures not profits. PPC search engine advertising is also the fastest way to get a reasonable return on investment.

A bidding process is used to establish the price of a specific keyword. In general, the budget for PPC search engine advertising may be a $100 to $100,000 depending on the number of keywords used. These prices can skyrocket in just minutes as more and more sites bid for the same keyword thus causing the prices to jack up.

PPC ads are placed alongside search engine results to which they are relevant. The highest bids for a specific keyword or phrase gets top billing on the search engine results page. Getting top placement provides greater odds for a PPC ad to get clicked by a qualified searcher.

Elements of PPC search engine advertising

PPC search engine advertising involves three basic elements; constant monitoring, response analysis and refinement as the essential factors involved in PPC search engine advertising. Proper management of PPC search engine advertising can result in big profits for a website.

PPC search engine advertising makes it possible for sites to monitor the productivity of each PPC ad they place. This gives a site the opportunity to turn off any PPC ad that is not performing at its best. PPC search engine advertising provides the most economical way for a site to advertise on the World Wide Web.

The cost entailed in PPC search engine advertising is dictated by the clicks made on a particular PPC ad. The number of clicks made on a PPC ad is subtracted from the initial amount paid by the business to a search engine company. To minimize cost and maximize return on investment, a business will have to regularly monitor its PPC search engine advertising campaign.

How to use PPC search engine advertising

Many businesses are unable to get the most out of their PPC search engine advertising campaign. PPC search engine advertising involves a lot more than just bidding on the highest keywords. Information is a main concern of many online users.

Providing online users with relevant information they need will help bring about a more long-term relationship with an online user that will more likely result in a sale.
Information provided to online users may be in the form of a newsletter or e-zine that online users would likely sign up for. Sign-ups may be enough to cover the expenses of a PPC search engine advertising campaign.

Sign-ups also help generate leads for websites as they build opt in list from qualified online searchers who clicked their PPC ad. Getting personal information from qualified online searchers can be done in a variety of ways such as offering freebies for surveys or signing up for newsletters.

PPC search engine advertising is a continuous process that requires hands on supervision and a thorough understanding of PPC search engines. Businesses may opt to hire the services of a professional or do PPC search engine advertising with in-house experts. Whatever course of action is selected, a business is sure to get a huge return on investment with PPC search engine advertising.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR BUSINESS "CLICK"

noreply@blogger.com (Interizzti) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 02:24:59 PDT

PPC ADVERTISING: HOW TO MAKE YOUR BUSINESS "CLICK"

PPC stands for Pay Per Click - a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser's web page.
In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it "keyword auctioning"). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

· Pay per placement
· Pay per performance
· Pay per ranking
· Pay per position
· Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the 'landing pages' for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business 'online'. Some of them are listed below:

· Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go 'online' within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

· Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into 'qualified' people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a 'lead' (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

· Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or "organic" search engines.

· Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

· Discount offers
· Testimonials
· Celebrity/famous endorsers
· Money-back guarantees
· Free trials or sample offers
· Freebies
· Reverse psychology
· Major benefits ("Lose weight")
· Direct instructions ("Click here")

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.