world of technocrazy

Tesla Unveils Cybercab: The Future of Autonomous Transportation

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 23:44:00 -0700

Tesla has once again pushed the boundaries of innovation with the unveiling of its latest autonomous vehicle, the Cybercab. This sleek, two-seater robotaxi was revealed at the highly anticipated “We, Robot” event, showcasing Tesla’s vision for the future of transportation.

A New Era of Autonomous Travel

The Cybercab is designed to revolutionize urban mobility. With no steering wheel or pedals, it relies entirely on Tesla’s advanced Full Self-Driving (FSD) technology. This vehicle is not just a concept; it’s a tangible step towards a future where autonomous vehicles dominate the roads.

Key Features

Inductive Charging: The Cybercab features wireless charging, eliminating the need for plug-in chargers and allowing the vehicle to charge itself autonomously.
Cost Efficiency: Elon Musk announced that the operating cost of the Cybercab would be around $0.20 per mile, making it an affordable option for mass transit 2.
Safety and Convenience: With AI and vision-based technology, the Cybercab aims to be ten times safer than traditional vehicles 3.

Market Impact

Priced at under $30,000, the Cybercab is set to make autonomous transportation accessible to a broader audience. Tesla plans to start production by 2026, with the goal of having these robotaxis on the road by 2027 1.

Conclusion

Tesla’s Cybercab represents a significant leap forward in the realm of autonomous vehicles. As the company continues to innovate, the future of transportation looks increasingly autonomous, efficient, and exciting.

Would you like more details on any specific aspect of the Cybercab?

Download BBM for Android and iPhone App

noreply@blogger.com (donya kewarasan) — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 11:10:00 -0700

We all know about BBM, Blackberry Messenger, this application is for chat and connecting with friends on Blackberry Smartphone. Now, the BBM, Blackberry Messenger reach you not on a Blackberry device only but user who have iPhone or Android device can use this application.

In this month, October 2013, Blackberry Messenger come to iPhone and Android. You can download BBM for iPhone and BBM for Android via AppStore or Google Play.

If you will learn about this BBM for Android and/or BBM for iPhone, check the BBM official website at BBM.com. Download BBM for Android and BBM for iPhone from here.

Deteksi dini Bakat Anak di Miniworkshop Jogloabang

noreply@blogger.com (donya kewarasan) — Tue, 8 Oct 2013 13:31:00 -0700

Deteksi dini untuk mengetahui bakat anak, terkuak sudah. Gara-gara mengikuti mini workshop perkembangan bakat si kecil di Jogloabang yang ternyata menarik sekali. Bahkan dokter anak ibu Dwi Murti Nuryanti yang menambahi dengan bagaimana memberikan nutrisi yang cukup dan murah untuk anak. Sangat cocok dengan penghasilan keluarga kami yang pas-pasan dan sama sekali tidak bisa dikatakan mewah.

Psikolog Intan Kusuma Wardhani memberikan trik-trik tentang bagaimana mendeteksi bahwa anak kita berbakat dengan memberikan deteksi dini pada bakat si kecil seperti mengenali bahwa anak dapat dengan mudah menangkap informasi yang disajikan tanpa usaha keras dibandingkan anak lain, anak memiliki ingatan yang baik, anak memiliki pengamatan yang tajam dan anak mampu berkonsentrasi dan senang mempelajarinya.

Tidak hanya itu bahwa anak juga harus di pancing dan didorong dalam hal kecerdasan spiritual. Mendorong kecerdasan spiritual untuk anak menurut mbak Intan adalah dengan melibatkan anak dalam kegiatan ritual keagamaan, menceritakan tentang kisah keagamaan dan spiritual, memahami ciptaan Tuhan, mengajari berbuat baik pada sesama
serta mengajari menjaga ciptaan Tuhan. Nilai-nilai dan pemahaman yang kita anggap biasa ini ternyata memiliki efek yang sangat positif bagi perkembangan spiritual anak kita.

Materi-materi di miniworkshop pengembangan anak di Jogloabang ini lumayan berat. Psikolog memberikan penjelasan tentang berbagai jenis kecerdasan. Informasi ini jelas sangat baru bagi saya, bahwa kecerdasan ada berbagai macam, diantaranya yang saya ingat adalah tentang kecerdasan verbal-linguistik, kecerdasan interpersonal, kecerdasan intrapersonal, kecerdasan gerak tubuh, kecerdasan Musikal, kecerdasan Visual-spasial, kecerdasan Logika-Matematika, kecerdasan Naturalis dan kecerdasan Spiritual. Banyaknya jenis kecerdasan-kecerdasan ini bisa saja ada pada anak kita. Sebagai orang tua tentunya kita harus memahami berbagai jenis kecerdasan tersebut agar tidak putus asa dan dapat mensikapi tentang apa yang dominan pada anak kita.

Ternyata workshop ini bekerjasama dengan Bebelac, sebuah produk susu formula yang memiliki kegiatan juga untuk mencari anak berbakat. Rangkaian workshop ini adalah bagi ibu-ibu muda yang ingin mengetahui tentang bakat anak dan pengumpulan video anak berbakat untuk BebeStar 2013. Tentunya setelah mengetahu berbagai jenis kecerdasan dan bakat anak, sebaiknya berbagai bakat anak ini juga difasilitasi dalam kompetisi pemilihan anak berbakat BebeStar 2013 dan yang akan datang. Bukan hanya tentang menari, menyanyi atau memainkan alat musik. Namun bagaimana anak bisa menghargai hasil ciptaan tuhan seperti ketika melihat rumput atau bagaimana anak sikap anak terhadap binatang. Tapi itu sulit juga menilainya ya...

Deteksi dini Bakat Anak di Miniworkshop Jogloabang

Ramai sekali peserta workshop di pendopo Jogloabang, kalau diitung-itung bisa lebih dari 150 orang belum dihitung jumlah anak-anak yang ikut karena memang diadakan pas jam bubaran sekolah anak. Intinya menyenangkan sekali deh dapat ilmu baru dari miniworkshop yang tidak mini ini di Jogloabang. Cheers...

The Anatomy of the Boss From Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:00:00 -0700

The Anatomy of the Boss From Hell

Most people think that the psychopaths in our world are behind bars and locked up with the key thrown away. What people don't realize is that many times, these psychos are the ones that sign our paychecks. You know, the BOSSES FROM HELL. So the editors of Become Career decided to raise a little awareness;) Enjoy the infographic!

Signs of a Bad Boss

Yelling
Fuzzy expectations
Unreliability
Unwilling to make decisions
Unreasonable demands
Indirectness
Ruling by fear
Defensive
Drama
Fear of conflict
Uncomfortable workplace

(Source)

Things Bad Bosses Say

"I want it done and I want it done yesterday."
"I work all the time, so should you."
"We need to hire a superstar."
"I can't let you take that promotion because you're too valuable."
"So you're one of those people."
"So... You're going to be a slacker now, eh?"

How Bad are they?

35% (5,847) - Boss provides little direction
24% (3,998) - Boss micro-manages and nit-picks your work
17% (2,958) - Boss belittles and puts down staff
10% (1,789) - Boss offers little or no recognition for success and hard work
8% (1,472) - Boss is indecisive and seemingly changes direction at whim
86% felt that too often, bad boss behaviours fly under the radar until it's too late.
People with psychopathic tendencies are four times more likely to be found in senior management.

(Source 1, Source 2)

The Personal Toll of a Bad Boss

Employees' who have a boss that is incompetent, inconsiderate, secretive and uncommunicative, are 60% more likely to suffer a heart attack or other life-threatening cardiac condition.
Employees who worked with "good" leaders were 40% less likely to suffer heart problems.
A bad boss can make you dislike 80% of your week.
Stress and tension caused by an abusive boss affects the marital relationship and subsequently, the employee's entire family.

(Source)

How to spot a bad boss in an interview

Pronoun usage - If the boss uses "you" to convey negative info or uses "I" to describe companies success.
Concern with your hobbies - may be digging to see how committed you can be to the job because they are not legally allowed to ask certain questions.
They are distracted - checking emails, looking at their phone or showing up late, don't think they will be there for you in the work place.
They can't give you a straigt answer - pause or avoid when discussing why the previous employee left.
They've got a record - Ask them about their past jobs and how they got to where they are. How long he/she have been at the company.

(Source)

Worst Bosses of 2011

1. Jon Peters

Movie producer

Los Angeles, CA

2. Rev. Jesse Jackson

Rainbow PUSH Coalition

Chicago, IL

3. Ted Abrams

Tucson City Court

Tucson, AZ

4. Dr. Barry Lefkovitch

Arroyo Oaks Medical Group

Thousand Oaks, CA

5. John Burgess

International Profit Associates

Buffalo Grove, IL

6. Jay Severin

WTKK-FM

Boston, MA

7. James Schwartz

El Camino College

Torrance, CA

8. John Bibler

Frenchtown Fire District

Frenchtown, MT

9. Ken Seaton

Family Inns

Pigeon Forge, TN

10. Richard Moore

Aaron's Inc

Fairview Heights, IL

(Source)

From: Become Career

State of Alibaba

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 17:35:00 -0700

Here’s Dan Loeb’s Letter to Investors About the Value of Yahoo’s Alibaba Stake:

Here's Dan Loeb's Letter to Investors About the Value of Yahoo's Alibaba Stake -by @karaswisher bit.ly/wyOLvJ
— All Things D (@allthingsd) Maret 13, 2012

Long Equity: Yahoo! — The Case for Alibaba

As investors are aware, we established a sizeable position in Yahoo following a difficult operational and strategic stretch during the waning days of CEO Carol Bartz’s tenure that culminated in a significant sell-off in the shares in August. Initially, we were attracted to the company simply by its significant discount to intrinsic value. In September, we announced publicly that we had accumulated 5.2% of the shares of the company and laid out our case for why valuation was depressed. While the travails of “core Yahoo” grab all the headlines, core Yahoo forms only a modest portion of the Company’s actual value (a mere $2.00 per share, trading at ~14.49 as of 03/12/12). The after-tax value of Yahoo’s Asian assets — Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan — currently constitutes $11 per share of its value (73%), with an additional $2 per share of net cash.

Central to our investment thesis is the hidden jewel in the Asian asset portfolio, and indeed in Yahoo itself: Yahoo’s 40% stake in Alibaba Group, the dominant e-commerce platform in China. According to iResearch, Alibaba currently has 49% of the B2B e-commerce market (four times greater than its nearest competitor), 90% of the C2C e-commerce market (analogous to Ebay), and 53% of the B2C e-commerce market (analogous to Amazon) in 2011. It has complemented these core commerce positions with the leading online payment platform, Alipay, with 49% market share, and also holds the #2 share of the Chinese online ad market (17%, behind Baidu at 28%). Particularly exciting is Alibaba’s share of China’s rapidly growing B2C market represented by Taobao Mall, or Tmall (recently renamed Tian Mao).

According to iResearch, China had 187 million online shoppers in 2011, compared to 170 million in the U.S. As Boston Consulting Group noted in its November 2011 report, “The World’s Next E-Commerce Superpower,” e-commerce transaction value in China is likely to overtake the U.S. by 2015, helped by conditions that mirror the U.S. and in some ways favor e-commerce in China. A combination of broad product assortments and lower prices mirror the U.S., while e-commerce in China benefits from the fixed price certainty missing in China’s traditional retail culture (where haggling is common), from relatively lower shipping costs than in the U.S., and from the limited geographic reach of brick-and-mortar chains.

The Boston Consulting Group report highlights “The Taobao Phenomenon” and notes more products were purchased on Taobao in 2010 than at China’s top-five brick and mortar retailers combined.
The scale and velocity of China’s e-commerce opportunity, when combined with Alibaba’s dominant position, make for a very compelling story. As it moves toward an IPO, Alibaba should quickly take its place amongst China’s online leaders — Tencent ($47 billion market cap), and Baidu ($48 billion market cap). A November 2011 report on Softbank by UBS’s Makio Inui, the product of extensive research into Alibaba Group and a detailed valuation, placed a $63 billion value on Alibaba Group, which would imply just over $13 per Yahoo share after tax. It appears that while 2012 will be the year of Facebook, 2013 could very well be the year of Alibaba as it moves toward a listing.

At the reported $35 billion valuation ascribed to the October 2011 purchase of employee shares by Silver Lake, Temasek and Yunfeng (an affiliate of CEO Jack Ma), Yahoo’s stake was worth ~$7.60 per share after tax. That implies Yahoo’s stake has grown at a compounded rate of 55% per annum since its investment in October 2005, and it is significant that the majority of Yahoo’s value is now driven by its Alibaba stake.

Clearly, as evidenced above, we see tremendous upside in just the Alibaba piece of the Yahoo puzzle.
While the media has covered the drama surrounding the negotiations with Mr. Ma in some detail, Wall Street has continued to neglect the underlying Alibaba valuation story and the press makes too little of it. Certainly there is some compelling reason why Mr. Ma is so interested in repurchasing Yahoo’s stake! We share his excitement and enthusiasm for the Alibaba opportunity, and we respect and appreciate the dominant and dynamic franchise he has built amongst the world’s largest base of Internet users.

Over the last six months we have witnessed the Board of Directors’ “strategic review” that has to date resulted in the hiring of a new CEO, Scott Thompson, the resignation of Jerry Yang, and the pending exit of Board Chairman Roy Bostock and three other Directors. In mid-February we announced that we intend to run our own slate of Directors for the Yahoo board during this proxy season. We stated our intention to nominate well-known leaders in the media space Jeff Zucker and Michael Wolf, restructuring guru Harry Wilson, and Dan himself to the Board. We are glad Yahoo has played a critical role in Alibaba’s early development and hope new leadership at Yahoo can chart a new course for the company’s relationship with Mr. Ma and Alibaba.

Yahoo sues Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 14:21:00 -0700

Yahoo sues Facebook

Yahoo:

“Yahoo! has invested substantial resources in research and development through the years, which has resulted in numerous patented inventions of technology that other companies have licensed. These technologies are the foundation of our business that engages over 700 million monthly unique visitors and represent the spirit of innovation upon which Yahoo! is built. Unfortunately, the matter with Facebook remains unresolved and we are compelled to seek redress in federal court. We are confident that we will prevail.”

Facebook:

“We’re disappointed that Yahoo, a longtime business partner of Facebook and a company that has substantially benefited from its association with Facebook, has decided to resort to litigation. Once again, we learned of Yahoo’s decision simultaneously with the media. We will defend ourselves vigorously against these puzzling actions.”

More reading : Yahoo Sues Facebook for Patent Infringement, Which Social Network Calls “Puzzling” (Including Filing)

Rihanna's Sexy new Video

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 06:01:00 -0700

Rihanna's Sexy new Video

Watch Rihanna beautysexy new video with Armani Jeans. Great picture on bedrooms, lingerie, bra and jeans of Armani on sexy Rihanna's Body... nice shots

Darth Vader on a unicycle playing the Imperial March on a bagpipe [Video]

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 03:36:00 -0700

Quiz Sci-Fi Film

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:23:00 -0700

Quiz Sci-Fi Film Alphabet

If you enjoyed testing your knowledge of films throughout the decades with Stephen Wildish’s previous work, have a go at his latest alphabet covering the sci-fi genre.
Full story at Stephen Wildish via Laughing Squid.

Know your movies via All Top

Gangster Jakarta : John Kei

noreply@blogger.com (Melek Yuk) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 13:43:00 -0700

Gangster Jakarta : John Kei

LOGO?S hands gripped the handle of the machete protruding out of his stomach. His right thumb was hanging off by a sliver of skin, while blood poured from the five stab wounds to his head. ?I crawled upstairs to get away,? recalled Logo Vallenberg, 38, from Timor, one of the partisans in a bloody fight between two gangs near Bumi Serpong Damai in Banten, last April. ?My guys gathered on the third floor,? he said.

That morning, Logo and eight of his men had been guarding the offices of the Bosar Jaya Cooperative at BSD City, Banten. They were hired by the cooperative?s owner, Burhanuddin Harahap, who, on the death of his father Baharudin Harahap, controlled dozens of cooperatives, some of them in Bandung, Semarang, Parung, Ciputat and Pamulang.

Baharudin, who died in 2008, left a huge estate, including eight legally incorporated cooperatives with branches in a number of cities. The East Jakarta Religious Court had confirmed Baharudin?s wife and four children as his heirs. However, an interfamilial conflict subsequently broke out when Masthahari, Baharudin?s younger brother, arrived on the scene to demand a share.

Masthahari needed muscle, so he turned to Umar Kei, 33, a youth from Kei, Maluku. In response, Burhanuddin sought protection from Alfredo Monteiro and Logo Vallenberg, both members of the Timor gang. These two gangs, Maluku vs. Timor, faced off that morning in BSD City.

The attack came shortly after dawn. Five men entered the offices of the Bosar Jaya Cooperative. ?We?re from the Mekar Jaya Cooperative, and we?re here to take over these offices,? announced Jamal, one of Umar?s lieutenants. Not long afterwards, Umar Kei himself appeared and brusquely told Logo and his men to leave. When they refused, Umar assembled his six carloads of cohorts?all armed with machetes and samurai swords?and ordered them to launch an all-out attack.

The assailants aimed at Logo, badly wounding him with their machetes and swords. ?My men weren?t even armed,? Logo said. The brawl did not last long as security officers from the shopping complex where the brawl took place quickly showed up. Logo found out recently that Umar had been working under the banner of the Red-and-White Warriors Legal Aid Institute. ?But during the attack, they claimed they were acting for the Mekar Jaya savings-and-loans cooperative.

Umar told Tempo he only wanted an amicable settlement from the outset. He said that he had politely asked Logo and his men to vacate the building since the family dispute was currently being handled by the courts. But after he refused, violence was inevitable. Prior to meeting Logo, Umar said he had already secured the withdrawal of Mobile Brigade officers, and members of the Banten gang, the Betawi Brotherhood Forum, and the Ongen Sangaji gang, all of whom had been hired by Burhanudin Harahap. ?They backed down after they saw us,? he said.

So, a family inheritance dispute led to blood being spilled on the streets in broad daylight.

***
BOTH Umar Kei and Alfredo Logo?s gangs provide ?security? services. Such ?security? services are also provided by other gangs, such as the Kembang Latar under Bahyudin, Petir under Alo Maumere, the Betawi Brotherhood Forum under Lutfi Hakim, the Banten Community Advancement Association under Dudung Sugriwa and the long-established Pancasila Youth.

The business consists of various ?sub-sectors,? such as debt collection, guarding disputed plots of land, vehicle parking, and providing security for nightlife venues and office complexes in the city. The latter business, office protection, is controlled by the 50-year-old Abraham Lunggana, a.k.a. Lulung. Having set up his company, PT Putraja Perkasa at the start of 2000, he quickly got involved in the parking and security businesses. According to Abraham, Putraja, which owns subsidiary company PT Sacom, employs some 4,000 people. ?We were even bigger before,? he said.

Lulung?s men control security in Blok F of the Tanah Abang Market and Central Jakarta, having rested it from Muhammad Yusuf Muhi, a.k.a. Bang Ucu Kambing, 62. Ucu had taken control of the Blok from East Timor?s Rosario Marshal, a.k.a. Hercules. Lulung?s operations also include the parking in a number of offices and other locations, including Fatmawati Hospital in South Jakarta.

The fierce competition between the gangs frequently leads to bloodshed. At the end of September, two gangs faced off in front of the South Jakarta District Court on Jalan Ampera. They were there to attend a court hearing on a bloody conflict in April between members of the Kei gang and security guards at Blowfish Kitchen and Bar Menara Mulia Building.

According to 42-year-old Agrafinus Rumatora, a member of the Kei gang, the Blowfish security officers were being held by the Flores Ende gang leader, Thalib Makarim. The Blowfish mayhem left two people dead: Kei gang members Yoppie Ingrat Tubun and M. Soleh dead. The South Jakarta District Court heard the charges against the alleged murderers of Yoppie and Soleh on the day of the Ampera riot, which in turn left three more youths dead, all from the Kei gang, and dozens of others badly injured. A bus driver for one of the gangs was also killed.

Gang leader John Kei?s right-hand man Daud Kei, 38, the ?deputy chairman? of the Kei Youth Force (AMKei), said that the dispute between the two gangs was serious. ?This isn?t between Kei and Flores, but between Maluku and Flores-Ende. Don?t report it the wrong way,? he said.

After the chaos on Ampera, Alfredo Monteiro and Logo were hauled in by the Police for questioning. Alfredo said that the police suspected he and Logo were working for Thalib Makarim. While admitting that he had once been Thalib?s man, Logo insisted that ?it was only for two months.? The Police subsequently arrested six suspects, all of them from the Flores Ende gang. ?How is it possible that not one member of the Kei gang was arrested?? asked an incredulous Zakaria ?Soap? Kleden, 66, a highly respected figure in ethnic circles.

***
KEEPING control of the ?muscle? business in the nation?s capital is never easy. During the 1990s, Jakarta was the fief of Hercules, who as a youth from Timor had been recruited into the Army Special Forces (Kopassus) when former Portuguese Timor was taken over by Indonesia. Injured in a helicopter accident, Hercules was taken to Jakarta by Gatot Purwanto, a Kopassus colonel who had been dishonorably discharged from the military due to his involvement in the Santa Cruz massacre.

Hercules found Jakarta very much to his liking and quickly gained control of the underworld in the lucrative Tanah Abang market area. Wherever he went, violence was never far away. But being a gangland overlord is an ephemeral thing, and Hercules was unable to hold on to the biggest market in Southeast Asia after his gang was roundly defeated by the Betawi gang under Bang Ucu Kambing, now 64.

While Hercules may now be impotent, his name is still legendary. A police officer said that every time a new National Police Chief is appointed, Hercules was always declared as the No. 1 target.

While Hercules was at the height of his power, Yorris Raweyai, a young man from Papua, was taking control of the debt-collection business through the Pancasila Youth, an organization the majority of whose members came from military families: Yorris, who became the leader of Pancasila Youth in 2000, also had a hankering for politics, and is now a Golkar Party member of the House of Representatives.

The Pancasila Youth also offered property-protection, debt-collection and security services, and receives orders from official companies related to the Pancasila Youth group. ?So, what are they supposed to do? They don?t have degrees,? Yorris said, referring to the organization?s members. On his label as a gangster, Yorris commented lightly: ?That?s something that needs correcting.?

A member of the same generation, Lulung, a former Tanah Abang strong man, is now a United Development Party (PPP) member of the Jakarta Legislative Assembly. Having started out collecting used cardboard boxes, he eventually became a ?security? provider in Tanah Abang.

To ensure he stayed at the top of his game, Lulung decided to go legitimate by setting up the P Putraja Perkasa company, which was followed by PT Tujuh Fajar Gemilang and PT Satu Komando Nusantara. These companies focus on Lulung?s ?core competencies?: protection, parking and debt collection. ?We get all our orders by bidding on official tenders,? he insisted.

In 1996, when Hercules found himself against Bang Ucu, Lulung decided to ?collaborate? with the Timor gang. Ending up on the losing side, he became public enemy No. 1 in the eyes of his Betawi brothers. However, Bang Ucu came to his rescue, and as a result Lulung now pays a regular ?tribute? to Ucu.

Legendary figure Zakaria ?Soap? Kleden came to Jakarta from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) in 1961. Zaka, as he is better known, says he was the first Jakarta ?gangster? to come from NTT. ?The big outfits then were the Berland, Santana and Legos gangs,? he told Tempo.

Zaka?s modus Vivendi was no less bloody than those of his counterparts. He readily acknowledged that he often mutilated his victims. He claimed to have shot and killed a number of people. ?I was defending my dignity,? he said. He claimed he had never been convicted of a criminal offense. ?They used to arrest me all the time, but they never managed to pin anything on me,? said Zaka, who enjoys widespread respect in gangster circles, particularly among those from NTT. Three years ago, Zaka established a new security business, PT Sagas Putra Bangsa.

Zaka often dropped names of other gang leaders, such as Chris Berland, Ongky Pieter and Patrick Mustamu from Ambon, Matt Sanger from Manado, Jonni Sembiring from Sumatra, Pak Ukar and Rozali from Banten and Effendi Talo from Makassar. ?There was good communication between them so that blood was rarely spilled,? he recalled.

At the start of this decade, up-and-coming gangster Basri Sangaji appeared set for the big time. However, he died during a gang attack at the Hotel Kebayoran Inn, South Jakarta. His ?business? was taken over by his relatives, Ongen and Jamal. Ongen has since moved into politics, and is now chairman of the Hanura Party?s Jakarta Executive Board. ?My goal is to be elected chairman of the central board,? he told Tempo.

At the start of the 1980s, ethnic-based gangs also started to set up their own mass organizations. The trend started with the Prems, an abbreviation for Preman Sadar (Aware ), led by Edo Mempor. Of course, the principal focus continued to be on debt collection, parking and land disputes. ?But this marked the start of the move into mass organizations,? explained a former soldier who is now a gang member.

These gang-based organizations continue to exist and include the Kei Youth Force, Kembang Latar, Petir, the Betawi Brotherhood Forum, the Betawi Communications Forum (Forkabi), the Banten Community Advancement Association, and the Kei Youth Force.

***
AFTER the clash on Ampera, the name Thalib Makarim surfaced to the top. His rivals say he is in charge of security at a number of popular Jakarta nightclubs, including Blowfish, DragonFly, X2 and Vertigo. Thalib is actually a lawyer who represented the Zaskia Adya Mecca and Tasya Nur Medina sisters, who were kidnapped by Novan Andre Paul Neloe. He was also a member of Tomy Winata?s legal team when Tomy sued Tempo in 2005.

Thalib is officially recorded as an employee of the Victor B. Laiskodat & Associates law firm in Melawai, South Jakarta. However, when Tempo visited the firm?s office, he no longer worked there. ?He?s been gone for five years,? said Mie Gebu, an employee of the firm. A number of people who promised to put Tempo in touch with the elusive Thalib also failed to establish contact. In addition, Thalib has failed to answer a Police summons in connection with his suspected involvement in the Ampera clash.

A Tempo source in underworld circles said that Thalib had replaced Basri Sangaji, and now controlled elite nightspots in South Jakarta. ?This includes Blok M-Melawai,? the source said.

Meanwhile, John Kei?s gang, according to Agrafinus, one of his lieutenants, focuses on debt-collection and legal services, while shunning nightspot security, parking and land disputes. ?Those issues are beneath us,? he said. For the same reason, Daud Kei denied that the Blowfish and Ampera incidents were the result of business rivalry. ?The Maluku men don?t get involved in nightclub security,? he insisted.

However, according to one influential gang member, such bitter clashes normally occur when one gang is trying to move in on another?s territory. He said that big money was to be made from nightlife. ?Think about it. From tissues, snacks and drinks right up to drugs,? he said.

Unlike John Kei, Umar Kei is actively involved in the land-dispute business, which also provides a ready source of income for the Banten Community Advancement Association and the Betawi Brotherhood Forum. Meanwhile, on-street parking is controlled by local Betawi and Banten mass organizations, such as the case of Haji Lulung.

Of all businesses operated by Jakarta?s ethnic-based gangs, the Tempo source said that the most lucrative was the land-dispute business. ?The money you get will keep you going for a year,? he said, referring to the cut that goes to the gangs. In second place is nightclub security, which the source said was enough ?to keep you going for a month.? Meanwhile, he compared the money made from the parking business as ?enough to keep you going for a day.?

Given the big money at stake, not surprisingly the world of Jakarta gangs is characterized by bitter rivalry, violence and blood.

Jakarta?s gangs through the years

September 29, 2010
Bloody clash erupts between Maluku (Kei) and Flores (Thalib Makarim) gangs on Jalan Ampera as the South Jakarta District Court hears charges on the Blowfish incident. Two Maluku gang members were killed?Frederik Philo Let Let, 29, and Agustinus Tomas, 49, as well as a Kopaja bus driver, Syaifudin, 48.

July 31, 2010
Clash between Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) and Pancasila Youth, Betawi Communications Forum (Forkabi) and the Poor People?s Development Communications Forum (Kembang Latar) in Rempoa, Ciputat.

May 30, 2010
Clash between Forkabi and Madurese in Duri Kosambi, Cengkereng. Forkabi leader Cipondoh Endid Mawardi was stabbed to death.

April 12, 2010
Bosar Jaya Cooperative security chief Logo Vallenberg badly injured in a clash with Umar Kei?s gang. The clash was the result of a family inheritance dispute.

April 4, 2010
Brawl at Blowfish Club, Wisma Mulia, Jakarta, leaves M. Sholeh and Yoppie Ingrat Tubun, both members of the Kei gang, dead.

December 14, 2009
Former PT Maritim Timur Jaya employee Susandi, a.k.a. Aan, is beaten and kicked on the head and chest by Victor Laiskodat, head of the Artha Graha Group.

August 11, 2008
Jhon Kei, an Ambonese youth, is arrested by antiterrorist police from the Maluku Detachment 88 unit in Ohoijang, Tual. He was strongly believed to have been involved in torturing two Tual residents, Charles Refra and Remi Refra, both of whom had fingers severed.

June 1, 2008
Attack by the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) on the National Alliance for Freedom of Religion and Faith. National Police charged five FPI members as suspects in the beating of alliance members.

April 27, 2006
Hundreds of FBR members surround the home of entertainer Inul Daratista demanding that she apologize for her involvement in a demonstration at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout against the anti-pornography bill, which has since been passed into law.

February 3, 2006
Enraged by the publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, FPI members run amok in front of the Danish Embassy in Menara Rajawali.

December 19, 2005
Hercules and 17 of his men attack the offices of Indopos, West Jakarta, following its publication of an article titled ?Reform of a Tanah Abang Thug, Hercules Goes Straight.? For his efforts, Hercules was sentenced to 2 months in jail.

June 18, 2005
The Maluku gang goes on a rampage and trashes the sales office of the Taman Permata Buana housing development in West Jakarata. They admitted they work for Aminah binti Ilyas, who was in dispute with the developer over the ownership of the land.

June 8, 2005
A fight erupts between members of the Basri Sangadji and Jhon Kei gangs during a court hearing and turns into an aggravated assault at the Stadium Discoth?que in West Jakarta. Jhon Kei?s brother, Walterus Refra Kei, a.k.a. Semmy Kei, is murdered in the West Jakarta District Court?s parking lot in retaliation for the murder of Basri Sangaji and the bashing at Stadium Discotheque.

May 29, 2005
The Banten Swordsmen?s Association clashes with Forkabri. Jahuri, 44, a resident of Cilampang, is killed during the mayhem. His body was later found at the Buana Permata housing development?s multi-purpose building. The disturbances were triggered by a land dispute.

March 1, 2005
Hundreds of men armed with swords, spears, machetes and sickles face off in front of the South Jakarta District Court on Jalan Ampera, South Jakarta, during a hearing on the murder of Basri Sangaji.

February 10, 2005
Clash between Jakarta Public Order officers and members of the Hercules gang who were guarding a plot of vacant land at Blok 10-I, Kaveling 5-7 on Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta. Hercules?s younger brother, Albert Nego Kaseh, a.k.a. John Albert, was shot dead by Chrisman Siregar, the chief of the Jakarta Public Order Agency?s operations unit.

October 12, 2004
Basri Sangaji is brutally murdered in room 301 of the Hotel Kebayoran Inn, South Jakarta, during an attack by assailants from Jhon Kei?s gang.

March 2, 2004
A Clash between members of the Basri Sangaji and Jhon Kei gangs at Stadium Discotheque in Taman Sari, West Jakarta. Basri men were providing security at Stadium when they were attacked by dozens of Kei men. Two security guards from the Basri gang were killed.

May 7, 2003
Chaos erupts between members of the Hercules and Basri Sangaji gangs in Kemang, South Jakarta. Samsi Tuasah died as a result of gunshot wounds to the leg and chest.

March 8, 2003
David A. Miauw and his cohorts, all working for Tomy Winata, attacked the Tempo/i> offices and assaulted three Tempo journalists. Tomy was angered by an article titled ?Is Tomy in Tenabang?, which appeared in the Monday, March 3 edition of the magazine. Charges were brought against the assailants.

March 28, 2002
Seven FBR members assault members of the Urban Poor Consortium, led by Wardah Hafidz, at the National Human Rights Commission offices in Menteng, Jakarta.

December 15, 1998 and January 15, 1999
Clashes between Ambonese Muslims and Christians are sparked by the Ketapang incident. The disturbances in Jakarta are believed to have been linked to gangland activities.

November 22-23, 1998
Clashes between Ambonese Muslims and Christians erupt in Ketapang, Central Jakarta. The ostensible cause of the incident was the killing of four young Muslims during the Semanggi disturbances in the run-up to a Special Session of the People?s Consultative Assembly (MPR).

May 29, 1997
Dedy Hamdun, a Muslim gang member from Ambon, is kidnapped and believed to be dead. His body has never been found. The husband of entertainer Eva Arnaz, Dedy worked in ?land acquisition? for a real-estate business owned by Ibnu Hartomo, a brother-in-law of former President Suharto. Prior to his disappearance, Dedy was actively involved in the United Development Party (PPP).

1996
War erupts between the Betawi gang and the Timor gang led by Hercules. The Timorese are unceremoniously evicted from Tanah Abang.

Street Warriors

July 29, 2001
FBR is set up by the late KH Fadloli el-Muhir. It quickly gained an estimated membership of some 400,000.

April 18, 2001
Forkabri is formally established at Kramat Sentiong, Central Jakarta.

October 19, 2000
The Red-and-White Warriors is formed by the late Eddy Hartawan. The group provided security for Manohara Odelia Pinot.

May 2000
The Kei Youth Force is established by the Kei family under the leadership of Jhon Refra, or Jhon Kei. The organization was set up in the wake of the disturbances in Tual, Maluku, in March 1999. The group now claims to have 12,000 followers.

August 17, 1998
FPI is formally established by Muhammad Rizieq bin Husein Syihab on Jalan Petamburan III No. 83, Central Jakarta. The establishment of the group was actively backed by a number of military and police generals, including a former Jakarta Metropolitan Police commander, Commissioner General Nugroho Jayusman.

1998
Betawi residents of Tanah Abang set up the Tanah Abang Community association and elect Tanah Abang community leader, Muhammad Yusuf Muhi, a.k.a. Bang Ucu Kambing, as leader, a position he still holds today.

New Order Period
A large number of ?youth organizations? spring up, such as Pancasila Youth, Panca Marga Youth, the Children of Retired Servicemen?s Communications Forum, the Human Development Forum, and, more recently, Kembang Latar. A number of gangs emerged, such as Siliwangi, Berland, Santana and Legos, which controlled nightspots, land and parking security services in South Jakarta.

Petrus
Petrus is the Indonesian acronym for ?mysterious killings,? a secret operation involving the assassination of gang members. An investigation by the Commission for Missing Persons & Victims of Violence found that the operation claimed 532 lives in 1983 and about 181 people throughout 1984 and 1985.

Tempo No. 13/XI/24-30 November 2010
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 21 December 2010 06:12 )

Sumber: Asia News : The Gangs Of Jakarta

Download Android x86 4.0

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 13:37:00 -0800

Download Android x86 4.0

Android-x86 4.0 has been tested / it should work on AMD Brazos (MSI 110W), Asus EeePC or some Asus laptops/tablets and Tegav2 / Viewpad 10. These are the officially supported devices, but Android-x86 should work on others too. An old list of supported devices / hardware can be found HERE.
Download Android-x86 4.0 RC1 Live CD ISO.

To use it, write the ISO on an USB stick using Unetbootin, Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) or using the command line (example: "dd if=android-x86-4.0-RC1-eeepc.iso of=/dev/sdX", where "sdaX" is your USB drive). For more info, see the Android-x86 installation page.

Via Android

Sell Windows 7 Professional 32 bit OEM Asia Pacific

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 21:56:00 -0700

Overview : Windows 7 Professional, fewer walls stand between you and your success. You can run many Windows XP productivity programs in Windows XP Mode and recover data easily with automatic backups to your home or business network. You can also connect to company networks effortlessly and more securely with Domain Join. With all the exciting entertainment features of Windows Home Premium, it’s a great choice for home and for business.

Detail Specifications

Features

Simplify your PC with new navigation features like Aero Shake, Jump Lists, and Snap.
Customize Windows to look and feel the way you like by changing themes and taskbar programs.
Easy to network (with or without a server).
Back up your complete system over a network.
Designed to make your PC sleep and resume quicker.
Takes full advantage of 64-bit PC hardware and memory.
Windows XP Mode gives you the business flexibility you need
Watch, pause, rewind, and record TV with Windows Media Center.
Watch your favorite DVD movies.
Includes integrated video and Dolby audio codecs.

License Type OEM System Builders, Media Type DVD, Compatibility PC Windows,
Pricing Scheme OEM, Min. License Quantity 1 user(s), Product type Standard, Min. Processor Speed 1 GHz or faster 32-bit (x86), Min. Harddisk Space 1 GB RAM (32-bit) Min. Memory Size, 16 GB available hard disk space, Min. Graphic Size DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Price Rp. 1.300.000, (please comment below)

Quantum Leaps

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:39:00 -0700

Quantum Leaps - 100 Scientist Who Changed the World, a book by Jon Balchin. Published on 2004. It captured 100 brillian man and woman thinking. Changes they have been made for this world. So interesting and give a lot of understanding to look about this world, environment, our mind and body. This is a motivational and emotional books from west perspective about what they do and what they have been destroy our entire earth, environment or lives.

This optimism books just give information not an issue about what happen now. Impacts of 100 scientist that just think locally but by other power it be use for anything. Nobody knows, or nobody care about this perspective. Actually maybe the Indian people in America has many issues to solve many problem and disseases, eventualy right now maybe a whole new world with influenced with pestiside and antibiotics, the new ideas of healthy life is going back to normal natural life.

Actually the changes of this world is by war and technology. How about Linux, how about computers, how about energy, how about nuclear, how about Google. This are more than quantum leaps indeed. More about Galileo and Galilei, traditional science not in West just more think, they are more clever than Galileo. Actually this happen but not in hegemony of western science.

not about us

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:01:00 -0700

A little piece of something
Falling gently down down down
No one understands you like I do

I'd rather be beside you
Everything we know so well
Tell me what you feel now
Show me what you think of it

It's not about us anymore
It's all about the reasons
That we think we're fighting for
It's not about hate
It's not about pain we always feel
I know we have our problems
But we're not the only ones
It's not about you it's not about me
It's not about anger
It's more about the loneliness we feel

How can I begin to
Ask for some forgiveness
For all that we have taken
There's nothing left now

Just a little piece of something
Falling gently down down down
No one understands you no no
Like I do
There's nothing left now

It's not about us anymore
It's all about the reasons
That we think we're fighting for
It's not about hate
It's not about pain we always feel
I know we have our problems
But we're not the only ones
It's not about you it's not about me
It's not about anger
It's more about the loneliness we feel

It's not about us
It's not about hate
It's more about the loneliness we feel, can you feel it
It's not about anger
It's not about wanting
I know we have our problems
But we're not the only ones, we're not the only ones
It's not about you, it's not about me...

Bekasi Bersih Partisipasi Blogger

White Phosphorus Bomb

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:43:00 -0800

White phosphorus (WP) is a flare- and smoke-producing incendiary device or smoke-screening agent that is made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus. White phosphorus bombs and shells are incendiary weapons, but can also be used as offensive anti-personnel flame compounds capable of causing serious burns or death. The agent is used in bombs, artillery, and mortars, short-range missiles which burst into burning flakes of phosphorus upon impact. White phosphorus is commonly referred to in military jargon as "WP". The slang term "Willy(ie) Pete" or "Willy(ie) Peter", dating from World War I and common at least through the Vietnam War, is still occasionally heard.

White phosphorus weapons are controversial today because of their potential use against civilians. While the Chemical Weapons Convention does not designate WP as a chemical weapon, various groups consider it to be one. In recent years, the United States, Israel, and Russia have used white phosphorus in combat.

The U.S. use of white phosphorus in Iraq in the Iraq War has resulted in considerable controversy. Initial field reports referred to white phosphorus use against insurgents,but its use was officially denied until November 2005,[4] when the Department of Defense admitted to the use of white phosphorus while stating that its use for producing obscuring smoke is legal and does not violate the CWC. A DoD spokesman has also admitted that WP "was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants", though not against civilians.

Israel used White Phosphorus against HAMAS targets in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. This violated no international laws or conventions.

White Phosphorus (WP), known as Willy Pete, is used for signaling, screening, and incendiary purposes. White Phosphorus can be used to destroy the enemy's equipment or to limit his vision. It is used against vehicles, petroleum, oils and lubricants (POL) and ammunition storage areas, and enemy observers. WP can be used as an aid in target location and navigation. It is usually dispersed by explosive munitions. It can be fired with fuze time to obtain an airburst. White phosphorus was used most often during World War II in military formulations for smoke screens, marker shells, incendiaries, hand grenades, smoke markers, colored flares, and tracer bullets.

The Battle of Fallujah was conducted from 8 to 20 November 2004 with the last fire mission on 17 November. The battle was fought by an Army, Marine and Iraqi force of about 15,000 under the I Marine Expeditionary Force (IMEF). US forces found WP to be useful in the Battle of Fallujah. "WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired “shake and bake” missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out. ... We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal missions."

White phosphorus is not banned by any treaty to which the United States is a signatory. Smokes and obscurants comprise a category of materials that are not used militarily as direct chemical agents. The United States retains its ability to employ incendiaries to hold high-priority military targets at risk in a manner consistent with the principle of proportionality that governs the use of all weapons under existing law. The use of white phosphorus or fuel air explosives are not prohibited or restricted by Protocol II of the Certain Conventional Weapons Convention (CCWC), the Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be Deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects.

White Phosphorus (WP) - Incendiary

WP is a colorless to yellow translucent wax-like substance with a pungent, garlic-like smell. The form used by the military is highly energetic (active) and ignites once it is exposed to oxygen. White phosphorus is a pyrophoric material, that is, it is spontaneously flammable).

When exposed to air, it spontaneously ignites and is oxidized rapidly to phosphorus pentoxide. Such heat is produced by this reaction that the element bursts into a yellow flame and produces a dense white smoke. Phosphorus also becomes luminous in the dark, and this property is conveyed to "tracer bullets." This chemical reaction continues until either all the material is consumed or the element is deprived of oxygen. Up to 15 percent of the WP remains within the charred wedge and can reignite if the felt is crushed and the unburned WP is exposed to the atmosphere.

White phosphorus results in painful chemical burn injuries. The resultant burn typically appears as a necrotic area with a yellowish color and characteristic garliclike odor. White phosphorus is highly lipid soluble and as such, is believed to have rapid dermal penetration once particles are embedded under the skin. Because of its enhanced lipid solubility, many have believed that these injuries result in delayed wound healing. This has not been well studied; therefore, all that can be stated is that white phosphorus burns represent a small subsegment of chemical burns, all of which typically result in delayed wound healing.

Incandescent particles of WP may produce extensive burns. Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful; a firm eschar is produced and is surrounded by vesiculation. The burns usually are multiple, deep, and variable in size. The solid in the eye produces severe injury. The particles continue to burn unless deprived of atmospheric oxygen. Contact with these particles can cause local burns. These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears. If service members are hit by pieces of white phosphorus, it could burn right down to the bone. Burns usually are limited to areas of exposed skin (upper extremities, face). Burns frequently are second and third degree because of the rapid ignition and highly lipophilic properties of white phosphorus.

If burning particles of WP strike and stick to the clothing, take off the contaminated clothing quickly before the WP burns through to the skin. Remove quickly all clothing affected by phosphorus to prevent phosphorus burning through to skin. If this is impossible, plunge skin or clothing affected by phosphorus in cold water or moisten strongly to extinguish or prevent fire. Then immediately remove affected clothing and rinse affected skin areas with cold sodium bicarbonate solution or with cold water. Moisten skin and remove visible phosphorus (preferably under water) with squared object (knife-back etc.) or tweezers. Do not touch phosphorus with fingers! Throw removed phosphorus or clothing affected by phosphorus into water or allow to bum in suitable location. Cover phosphorus burns with moist dressing and keep moist to prevent renewed inflammation. It is neccessary to dress white phosphorus-injured patients with saline-soaked dressings to prevent reignition of the phosphorus by contact with the air.

Some nations recommend washing the skin with a 0.5-2.0% copper sulphate solution or a copper sulphate impregnated pad. Wounds may be rinsed with a 0.1%-0.2% copper sulphate solution, if available. Dark coloured deposits may be removed with forceps. Prevent prolonged contact of any copper sulphate preparations with the tissues by prompt, copious flushing with water or saline, as there is a definite danger of copper poisoning. It may be necessary to repeat the first aid measures to completely remove all phosphorus.

White Phosphorus (WP) - Smoke

White Phosphorus (WP) creates a smoke screen as it burns. Phosphorus smokes are generated by a variety of munitions. Some of these munitions such as the M825 (155-mm round) may, on explosion, distribute particles of incompletely oxidized white phosphorus.

Smokes obscure vision and are used to hide troops, equipment, and areas from detection. Smoke screens are essential for movement in city fighting. In the December 1994 battle for Grozny in Chechnya, every fourth or fifth Russian artillery or mortar round fired was a smoke or white phosphorus round.

White Phosphorus and Red Phosphorus burn to produce a hygroscopic smoke containing phosphoric acids. Red phosphorus (RP) is not nearly as reactive as white phosphorus. It reacts slowly with atmospheric moisture and the smoke does not produce thermal injury, hence the smoke is less toxic. The extinction for these smokes is primarily due to scattering in the visible and absorption in the infrared (IR). These smokes are composed of spherical liquid particles that grow with relative humidity to an equilibrium size by absorbing ambient moisture that depends on the ambient relative humidity. The mass extinction varies significantly with relative humidity.

The White Phosphorus flame produces a hot, dense white smoke composed of particles of phosphorus pentoxide, which are converted by moist air into phosphoric acid. This acid, depending on concentration and duration of exposure, may produce a variety of topically irritative injuries.

Most smokes are not hazardous in concentrations which are useful for obscuring purposes. However, any smoke can be hazardous to health if the concentration is sufficient or if the exposure is long enough. Medical personnel should be prepared to treat potential reactions to military smokes once such smokes have been introduced to the battlefield. Exposure to heavy smoke concentrations for extended periods (particularly if near the source of emission) may cause illness or even death.

Casualties from WP smoke have not occurred in combat operations. At room temperature, white phosphorus is somewhat volatile and may produce a toxic inhalational injury. In moist air, the phosphorus pentoxide produces phosphoric acid. This acid, depending on concentration and duration of exposure, may produce a variety of topically irritative injuries. Irritation of the eyes and irritation of the mucous membranes are the most commonly seen injuries. These complaints remit spontaneously with the soldier's removal from the exposure site. With intense exposures, a very explosive cough may occur, which renders gas mask adjustment difficult. There are no reported deaths resulting from exposure to phosphorus smokes. Generally, treatment of WP smoke irritation is unnecessary. Spontaneous recovery is rapid.

White phosphorus fume can cause severe eye irritation with blepharospasm, photophobia, and lacrimation. Irritation of the eyes and irritation of the mucous membranes are the most commonly seen injuries. These complaints remit spontaneously with the soldier's removal from the exposure site. The WP smoke irritates the eyes and nose in moderate concentrations. With intense exposures, a very explosive cough may occur, which renders gas mask adjustment difficult. There are no reported deaths resulting from exposure to phosphorus smokes.

White Phosphorus - Non-Military Applications

The amazing thing is that White Phosphorus is used in almost every product imaginable – from soft drinks to toothpaste. White phosphorus is used by industry to produce phosphoric acid and other chemicals for use in fertilizers, food additives, and cleaning compounds. Small amounts of white phosphorus were used in the past in pesticides and fireworks.

In recent years, concentrated phosphoric acids, which may contain as much as 70% to 75% P2O5 content, have become of great importance to agriculture and farm production. World-wide demand for fertilizers has caused record phosphate production. Phosphates are used in the production of special glasses, such as those used for sodium lamps.

Bone-ash, calcium phosphate, is used to create fine chinaware and to produce mono-calcium phosphate, used in baking powder. Phosphorus is also important in the production of steels, phosphor bronze, and many other products. Trisodium phosphate is important as a cleaning agent, as a water softener, and for preventing boiler scale and corrosion of pipes and boiler tubes.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and numerous state/local law enforcement authorities throughout the United States, have noted an alarming trend involving illicit methamphetamine production. Methamphetamine (AKA speed, crank or meth) is a major drug problem in the United States. All businesses engaged in the sale of red phosphorus, white phosphorus and hypophosphorous acid products should be aware of the use of these products by clandestine methamphetamine laboratory operators.

White Phosphorus - Background

Phosphorus is an element, the name derived from the Greek "phosphoros" or light bearing, the ancient name for the planet Venus when appearing before sunrise. Brand discovered phosphorus in 1669 by preparing it from urine. Phosphorus exists in four or more allotropic forms: white (or yellow), red, and black (or violet). Ordinary phosphorus is a waxy white solid; when pure it is colorless and transparent. White phosphorus has two modifications: alpha and beta with a transition temperature at -3.8oC. It is insoluble in water, but soluble in carbon disulfide.

Never found free in nature, Phosphorus is widely distributed in combination with minerals. Phosphate rock, which contains the mineral apatite, an impure tri-calcium phosphate, is an important source of the element. Large deposits are found in Russia, in Morocco, and in Florida, Tennessee, Utah, Idaho, and elsewhere.

White phosphorus may be made by several methods. By one process, tri-calcium phosphate, the essential ingredient of phosphate rock, is heated in the presence of carbon and silica in an electric furnace or fuelfired furnace. Elementary phosphorus is liberated as vapor and may be collected under phosphoric acid, an important compound in making super-phosphate fertilizers.

White Phosphorus (WP) - Other Health Effects

Systemic toxicity may occur if therapy is not administered. Therapy consists of topical use of a bicarbonate solution to neutralize phosphoric acids and mechanical removal and debridement of particles. A Wood’s lamp in a darkened room may help to identify remaining luminescent particles. The early signs of systemic intoxication by phosphorus are abdominal pain, jaundice, and a garlic odor of the breath; prolonged intake may cause anemia, as well as cachexia and necrosis of bone, involving typically the maxilla and mandible (phossy jaw). Prolonged absorption of phosphorus causes necrosis of bones. It is a hepatotoxin.

The presenting complaints of overexposed workers may be toothache and excessive salivation. There may be a dull red appearance of the oral mucosa. One or more teeth may loosen, with subsequent pain and swelling of the jaw; healing may be delayed following dental procedures such as extractions; with necrosis of bone, a sequestrum may develop with sinus tract formation. In a series of 10 cases, the shortest period of exposure to phosphorus fume (concentrations not measured) that led to bone necrosis was 10 months (two cases), and the longest period of exposure was 18 years.

Signs and symptoms include irritation of the eyes and the respiratory tract; abdominal pain, nausea, and jaundice; anemia, cachexia, pain, and loosening of teeth, excessive salivation, and pain and swelling of the jaw; skin and eye burns. Phossy jaw must be differentiated from other forms of osteomyelitis. With phossy jaw, a sequestrum forms in the bone and is released from weeks to months later; the sequestra are light in weight, yellow to brown, osteoporotic, and decalcified, whereas sequestra from acute staphylococcal osteomyelitis are sharp, white spicules of bone, dense and well calcified. In acute staphylococcal osteomyelitis, the radiographic picture changes rapidly and closely follows the clinical course, but with phossy jaw the diagnosis sometimes is clinically obvious before radiological changes are discernible. It is good dental practice to take routine X-ray films of jaws, but experience indicates that necrosis can occur in the absence of any pathology that is visible on the roentgenogram.

(http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/wp.htm)

Israel main battle tank, Merkava

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 11:28:00 -0800

The Merkava is the main battle tank of the Israel Defense Forces. Since the early 1980s, four main versions have been deployed. The "Merkava" name was derived from the IDF's development program name

This platform is optimized for crew survival and rapid battle damage repair. With the use of spaced-armor techniques and quick-replacement modular designs, the design team was able to incorporate a derivative of rolled homogeneous armor (RHA) and Chobham armour. Additionally, the space between the inner and outer hulls is filled with diesel fuel — an economical storage method and effective means of defeating HEAT rounds

Following the model of contemporary self-propelled howitzers, the turret assembly is located nearer the rear than in most main battle tanks. This gives the crew additional protection against a frontal attack by putting the engine between them and the front of the tank. This arrangement also creates an otherwise unused space in the rear of the tank that allows increased storage capacity, as well as a rear entrance to the main crew cabinet allowing easy access even under enemy fire. This allows the tank to be used as a platform for medical disembarkation, a forward command and control station, and an armoured personnel carrier. The rear entrance's clamshell-style doors provide overhead protection when off- and on-loading cargo and personnel.

It was reportedly decided shortly before the beginning of the 2006 Lebanon War that the Merkava line would be discontinued within 4 years.[2] However, on 7 November 2006, Haaretz reported that an Israeli General Staff assessment had ruled of the Merkava Mark IV that "if properly deployed, the tank can provide its crew with better protection than in the past," and deferred the decision on discontinuing the line

All photos: serkoff.narod.ru

Barack Obama the President

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 16:01:00 -0800

Barack Obama Background
Hometown: Honolulu, Hawaii
Age: 47
Religion: United Church of Christ
Education: Harvard Law School, J.D., 1991, Columbia University, B.A., 1983
Candidate Website : www.barackobama.com
Candidacy Status: Formally declared candidacy Feb. 10, 2007, Elected president Nov. 4, 2008.
Political Experience: U.S. Senator from Illinois, 2005-present
Illinois State Senator, 1997-2004
Professional Experience: Lecturer, University of Chicago Law School, 1993-2004, Attorney, Miner Barnhill & Galland, 1993-2004
Family Information: Spouse: Michelle Obama, Children: Malia Ann Obama, Sasha Obama

Time Says:

"It is not clear that the economy's bottomed out," he begins, understatedly. (The morning newspaper trumpets the worst unemployment spike in more than 30 years.) "And so even if we take a whole host of the right steps in terms of the economy, two years from now it may not have fully recovered." That worries him. Also Afghanistan: "We're going to have to make a series of not just military but also diplomatic moves that fully enlist Pakistan as an ally in that region, that lessen tensions between India and Pakistan, and then get everybody focused on rooting out militancy in a terrain, a territory, that is very tough — and in an enormous country that is one of the poorest and least developed in the world. So that, I think, is going to be a very tough situation.

"And then the third thing that keeps me up at night is the issue of nuclear proliferation," Obama continues, sailing on through the horribles. "And then the final thing, just to round out my Happy List, is climate change. All the indicators are that this is happening faster than even the most pessimistic scientists were anticipating a couple of years ago."

Score that as follows: one imploding economy, one deteriorating war in an impossible region and two versions of Armageddon — the bang of loose nukes and the whimper of environmental collapse. That's just for starters; we'll hear the unabridged version shortly.

Economists.com says:

What chance success?

Mr Bush (see article) had a simplistic tendency to see the world through ideological and partisan spectacles. He hung on to bad advisers for longer than he should have; he divided the world too often into good and evil; and he plotted to establish a Republican hegemony although he had sold himself to the electorate as bipartisan. In economic matters, he was too prone to sacrifice the long-term good for short-term gain. He seemed curiously incurious about vital details, such as the conduct of the war in Iraq.

Mr Obama seems to be different. By offering the most prized cabinet job to his rival, Hillary Clinton, and by keeping on Robert Gates, the defence secretary, who has done a good job, Mr Obama has shown a determination not to surround himself with cronies. He has put together a team which has impressed almost everyone with its calibre and its centrism. He has been tough already, dispatching blunderers and being prepared to admit to mistakes. He has repeatedly warned Americans that he will have to do unpleasant things.

The next four, or eight, years may be a disappointment, a triumphant renewal or something in between. Mr Obama is inexperienced, and right now the world looks especially forbidding. But he is a respectful and thoughtful man, and that is a good start.

Pravda says:

The importance of improving U.S./Russia relations cannot be understated. Most commentators agree that Russia and the U.S. have vested interests in avoiding further antagonism. For this reason, the U.S. has maintained dialogue with Russia open even in moments of great crisis. For instance, during the Georgian aggression, top U.S. brass met with Russian generals to discuss security and related issues. Even in an election cycle which saw the Georgian war politicized, and under an administration which had little to lose by further alienating Russia, pragmatism trumped politics.

The new US administration should realize that Russia needs no more than to be treated as an equal in the global economy. In the past, America has had vibrant diplomatic relations with Russia--from the 1930s with American Ambassador Joseph Davies, to the height of the Cold War, and throughout the transition period. High-level talks are old hat for the U.S. and Russia; they also carry none of the political baggage Obama faced when discussing diplomatic talks with adversaries such as Iran without preconditions on the campaign trail.

Guardian says:

I had assumed that Krispy Kreme's plan to give a free doughnut to anyone visiting its US stores on inauguration day was just another of the countless commercial efforts to jump on the Obama bandwagon for financial gain. As the company explains: "[We are] honouring American's sense of pride and freedom of choice on Inauguration Day, by offering a free doughnut of choice to every customer on this historic day." (Brits can get a free coffee -- not a free doughnut -- by going into one of Krispy Kreme's UK locations and saying 'Yes we can', and thereby looking like a bit of a fool. The offer ends tomorrow.) But apparently it's much more sinister than that, according to an important and thoroughly persuasive press release from the American Life League, which campaigns against abortion, and also doughnuts:

Celebrating his inauguration with 'Freedom of Choice' doughnuts - only two days before the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to decriminalize abortion - is not only extremely tacky, it's disrespectful and insensitive and makes a mockery of a national tragedy.

The press release is headlined "Krispy Kreme Celebrates Obama With Pro-Abortion Doughnuts", and the logic would seem to be that any reference to the word "choice" is automatically a reference to the issue of reproductive rights. However, there is a hole at the centre of this logic. [Miami New Times, via Wonkette]

Bloomberg Says:

For Barack Obama, the question is how long his honeymoon will endure and how much of his ambitious agenda he can achieve before it ends, perhaps -- if history is a guide -- as a result of his own actions.

“New presidents abort their own honeymoons,” said political analyst Charlie Cook. “There’s a residual goodwill that comes into office with them, and it stays with them until they end it by making mistakes.”

Presidential honeymoons provide Americans a first in-depth look at their newly elected leader while granting him a chance to set a tone and style that is likely to carry long-term consequences for the country and his presidency.

“First impressions tend to be lasting ones,” said Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, a research organization in Washington. “Mistakes made early can certainly weaken a president -- not necessarily destroy his presidency but slow him down.”

i am says:

Welcome Barack Obama, Never Give up...

cluster and nuclear bomb

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 11:53:00 -0800

Cluster munitions or cluster bombs are air-dropped or ground-launched munitions that eject smaller submunitions: a cluster of bomblets. The most common types are intended to kill enemy personnel and destroy vehicles. Submunition based weapons designed to destroy runways, electric power transmission lines, deliver chemical or biological weapons, or to scatter land mines have also been produced. Some submunition based weapons can disperse non-munition payloads, such as leaflets.

Because cluster bombs release many small bomblets over a wide area, unexploded bomblets can kill or maim civilians long after a conflict has ended. Unexploded submunitions are very costly to locate and remove.

Cluster bombs are prohibited under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which was adopted in Dublin in May 2008 and signed by 94 nations on 3-4 December 2008 in Oslo. The general rules of international humanitarian law aimed at protecting civilians also apply to cluster bombs as they do to all weapons. (from:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bomb)

Nuclear Bomb

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter; a modern thermonuclear weapon weighing little more than a thousand kilograms can produce an explosion comparable to the detonation of more than a billion kilograms of conventional high explosive.^[1] Even small nuclear devices can devastate a city. Nuclear weapons are considered weapons of mass destruction, and their use and control has been a major aspect of international policy since their debut.

In the history of warfare only two nuclear weapons have been detonated offensively, both near the end of World War II. The first was detonated on the morning of 6 August 1945, when the United States dropped a uranium gun-type device code-named "Little Boy" on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The second was detonated three days later when the United States dropped a plutonium implosion-type device code-named "Fat Man" on the city of Nagasaki, Japan. These bombings resulted in the immediate deaths of around 120,000 people (mostly civilians) from injuries sustained from the explosion and acute radiation sickness, and even more deaths from long-term effects of (ionizing) radiation. The use of these weapons was and remains controversial. (See Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for a full discussion.)

Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstration purposes. The only countries known to have detonated nuclear weapons – and that acknowledge possessing such weapons – are (chronologically) the United States, the Soviet Union (succeeded as a nuclear power by Russia), the United Kingdom, France, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is also widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, though it does not acknowledge having them. For more information on these states' nuclear programs, as well as other states that formerly possessed nuclear weapons or are suspected of seeking nuclear weapons, see List of states with nuclear weapons.

There are two basic types of nuclear weapon. The first type produces its explosive energy through nuclear fission reactions alone. Such fission weapons also commonly referred to as atomic bombs or atom bombs (abbreviated as A-bombs), though their energy comes specifically from the nucleus of the atom.

In fission weapons, a mass of fissile material (enriched uranium or plutonium) is assembled into a supercritical mass—the amount of material needed to start an exponentially growing nuclear chain reaction—either by shooting one piece of sub-critical material into another (the "gun" method), or by compressing a sub-critical sphere of material using chemical explosives to many times its original density (the "implosion" method). The latter approach is considered more sophisticated than the former, and only the latter approach can be used if plutonium is the fissile material.

A major challenge in all nuclear weapon designs is to ensure that a significant fraction of the fuel is consumed before the weapon destroys itself. The amount of energy released by fission bombs can range between the equivalent of less than a ton of TNT upwards to around 500,000 tons (500 kilotons) of TNT.^[2]

The second basic type of nuclear weapon produces a large amount of its energy through nuclear fusion reactions. Such fusion weapons are generally referred to as thermonuclear weapons or more colloquially as hydrogen bombs (abbreviated as H-bombs), as they rely on fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium). However, all such weapons derive a significant portion – and sometimes a majority – of their energy from fission (including fission induced by neutrons from fusion reactions). Unlike fission weapons, there are no inherent limits on the energy released by thermonuclear weapons. Only six countries—United States, Russia, United Kingdom, People's Republic of China, France and India—have conducted thermonuclear weapon tests. (Whether India has detonated a "true," multi-staged thermonuclear weapon is controversial.)^[3]

The basics of the Teller–Ulam design for a hydrogen bomb: a fission bomb uses radiation to compress and heat a separate section of fusion fuel.

Thermonuclear bombs work by using the energy of a fission bomb in order to compress and heat fusion fuel. In the Teller-Ulam design, which accounts for all multi-megaton yield hydrogen bombs, this is accomplished by placing a fission bomb and fusion fuel (tritium, deuterium, or lithium deuteride) in proximity within a special, radiation-reflecting container. When the fission bomb is detonated, gamma and X-rays emitted first compress the fusion fuel, then heat it to thermonuclear temperatures. The ensuing fusion reaction creates enormous numbers of high-speed neutrons, which then can induce fission in materials which normally are not prone to it, such as depleted uranium. Each of these components is known as a "stage," with the fission bomb as the "primary" and the fusion capsule as the "secondary." In large hydrogen bombs, about half of the yield, and much of the resulting nuclear fallout, comes from the final fissioning of depleted uranium.^[2] By chaining together numerous stages with increasing amounts of fusion fuel, thermonuclear weapons can be made to an almost arbitrary yield; the largest ever detonated (the Tsar Bomba of the USSR) released an energy equivalent to over 50 million tons (50 megatons) of TNT. Most thermonuclear weapons are considerably smaller than this, due for instance to practical constraints in fitting them into the space and weight requirements of missile warheads.^[4]

There are other types of nuclear weapons as well. For example, a boosted fission weapon is a fission bomb which increases its explosive yield through a small amount of fusion reactions, but it is not a fusion bomb. In the boosted bomb, the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions serve primarily to increase the efficiency of the fission bomb. Some weapons are designed for special purposes; a neutron bomb is a thermonuclear weapon that yields a relatively small explosion but a relatively large amount of neutron radiation; such a device could theoretically be used to cause massive casualties while leaving infrastructure mostly intact and creating a minimal amount of fallout. The detonation of a nuclear weapon is accompanied by a blast of neutron radiation. Surrounding a nuclear weapon with suitable materials (such as cobalt or gold) creates a weapon known as a salted bomb. This device can produce exceptionally large quantities of radioactive contamination. Most variety in nuclear weapon design is in different yields of nuclear weapons for different types of purposes, and in manipulating design elements to attempt to make weapons extremely small.^[2]

^{(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon)}

Meebo, now support FB and Myspace

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 12:28:00 -0800

Meebo, a web based chat now launching an project named "Community IM" for instan messaging and social network such as MyYearbook and Flixster.

Meebo now will be strongs with support to big instan messaging service such as Yahoo Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk and now will support Facebook Instant Messenger and MySpace Instan Messenger. Meebo announced :

"Today's announcement reflects Meebo's long-time goal of offering open access to all IM and social-networking users, as well as providing them with the best IM experience possible," co-founder and CEO Seth Sternberg said in a release. "People have friends across a variety of different social networks, and Meebo is a place where they can come for real-time social interactions with these friends, at any time."

Meebo also can running at Pidgin, with Pidgin Facebook Chat Plugin created by Eion Robb and finishing by Casey Ho, which described by mark on MySpaceIM, Facebook Chat, and Meebo! at Meebo Blog (http://blog.meebo.com/)

You can download Pidgin Facebook Chat plugin, an great free software for messaging at http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-facebookchat/ and Pidgin Software at here , which great support to:

AIM
Bonjour
Gadu-Gadu
Google Talk
Groupwise
ICQ
IRC
MSN
MySpaceIM
QQ
SILC
SIMPLE
Sametime
XMPP
Yahoo!
Zephyr

Seeing Mumbai Attack From Russia

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 14:01:00 -0800

Another vission and news published about mumbai attack, and great plan of America, you can see it from Pravda.ru. So different and if this an serious plan i think India and Pakistan should know before they get hot and expensive war. See below from Pravda.ru.

Proxy war between India and Pakistan will benefit 'divide and conquer' agenda of the USA and Israel

The USA has been the chief supporter of Pakistan for the past several decades. During the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, the USA funneled vast amounts of war materiel to Afghanistan through Pakistan, and much of that war material was diverted, with US permission, to Pakistani Terrorism against India. The USA actually created Al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden worked as a CIA asset in Afghanistan and also in Kosovo.

During the past several decades the US government and the CIA have not only turned a blind eye to the Pakistani government's support of Terrorist training and Terrorist attacks against India, but the ongoing financial, training, and logistical support which the USA has provided for Pakistan shows that the USA has been a willing co-conspirator with the Pakistani government's efforts to attack and destabilize India.

Saddam Hussein was hired at the age of nineteen to work as an assassin for the CIA, and after Saddam's bungled assassination attempt against the Iraqi President, Saddam retreated to Cairo, where he was a frequent visitor to the US Embassy, and Saddam remained on the CIA payroll. During the Iran/Iraq War, in which more than a million people died, the USA openly supported Iraq and secretly supported Iran with arms sales as part of the CIA's illegal Iran/Contra operation. 'Divide and Conquer' is the game that the USA played during the Iran/Iraq War, and today the USA continues to play 'Divide and Conquer' with Iraq and Iran.

Now, after supporting Pakistan for decades, during which time the USA not only ignored, but also aided and abetted the Pakistani State Terrorism against India, the USA is making a public show of turning against Pakistan. The USA's recent saber rattling against Pakistan is not a result of the US government suddenly becoming 'wise to' or 'fed up with' Pakistani Terrorism. It is part of the USA's long range program of 'Divide and Conquer' against Pakistan and India. The USA and Israel intend to encourage or provoke India into a 'proxy war' against Pakistan.

Both Pakistan and India will suffer greatly from the coming 'proxy war' now being promoted by the USA and Israel, but no matter how much Pakistan and India suffer, the real winners of an all-out Indo- Pakistani War will be the USA and Israel, because the USA and Israel will profit from selling arms, materiel, and logistical support to both sides in the conflict, and the devastation of both Pakistan and India will benefit the geopolitical goals of the USA and Israel.

A likely victory by India over Pakistan in the coming 'proxy war' that is being encouraged and provoked by the USA and Israel will benefit the USA and Israel, because it will strengthen the economic and political bonds between India, the USA, and Israel. India will become a greater market for US and Israeli products, and India will become a more committed partner in the USA and Israel's geopolitical activities and goals.

The global police state which the US, the UK, and Israel want to create and rule as the 'world's policemen' is already taking hold in India, as the USA and Israel incite hostilities between Pakistan and India. The USA makes a public show of encouraging diplomacy between Pakistan and India, but behind the scenes the actions of the USA and Israel are manipulative and unscrupulous. Indian cooperation with the USA and Israel will inevitably lead to India becoming a puppet of the USA and Israel, and a willing participant on the USA and Israel's global police state agenda.

by Gregory F. Fegel

10 Money Moves to Make Before Year's End

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 13:30:00 -0800

10 Money Moves to Make Before Year's End - 10 Financial Moves to Make Now - see TIME here
You can have any finacial and money move to save your company, taxes, portofolio and bankcruptcy, before 31 December 2008. For clear moves you can see TIME here.

Or you can read from reuters
That role of the benchmark of benchmarks, which greases the wheels of finance making it more “efficient” but more prone to spectacular error, is now under attack from a number of directions.

In retrospect, it seems clear that artificially low interest rates, due in large part to Treasury purchases by China seeking to keep its own currency and exports competitive, helped to turbo charge risk taking during the boom.

Living in a world of “low” interest rates and eternal moderation, investors didn’t realise how much risk they were taking on when they sought extra return above government debt, and after a while the money was so good they didn’t really care. In combination with credit ratings, another failed benchmark, that helped to fuel the boom.

Now we are living with the bust and coming to realize just how useful and dangerous benchmarks are.
“Nowadays it would be too much to ask for benchmarks. We all have to make our decisions on the basis of our own perceptions of the situation,” said Stephen Lewis, economist at Monument Securities in London.

Well and good, but as you can see the result of us all making our own decisions based on our own very limited data about how much risk there is in the world or in a given investment is abject terror and an inability to act: much less risk taking.

Best Free Software

noreply@blogger.com (donya kewarasan) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 16:07:00 -0800

PCMag as a leading PC magazine, has a lot of and up to date review for software and hardware, satisfied more newly curiosity about new hardware and software. Have latest information about new software update and more. At the end of this 2008 year PCMag give information about the best free software this year, please use the free software if you can't buy bundled of expensive software. Below the 157 list of free and good software, that had no license, expiration, problem nor fees, and no kidding -Says PC Mag, thanks for the information and list -

Adobe Reader
www.adobe.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux | Mobile This simplest of Adobe's PDF programs lets you do just about anything PDF-related (besides create new ones), including online collaboration. It includes a host of features to aid users with disabilities.

AIM
www.aim.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux | Web One of the most widely used pieces of free software ever, AOL Instant Messenger offers a ton of capabilities.
Read our full review of AIM 6.5.

Audacity
audacity.sourceforge.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux Whether you're recording or editing, Audacity is all about audio in practically any format.

Firefox
www.mozilla.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux This PC Mag Editors' Choice Web browser has been on top of the heap since version 1.5 came out in late 2005. Read our full review of Firefox 2.0.

GIMP
www.gimp.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux The GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) does most of what Photoshop does; the Gimpshop project (plasticbugs.com) even makes it look like Photoshop. Read our full review of The GIMP 2.0.

iTunes
www.apple.com/itunes
Windows | MacOSWhen you're attached to the top media player in the land (iPod), success is a given. iTunes continues to build sales and refine its organization of songs, video, games, podcasts, and more. Read our full review of Apple iTunes 7.6.

OpenOffice.org
www.openoffice.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux You can spend a lot for Microsoft Office or nothing for this suite with full-function word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentations, even an equations editor. Read our full review of OpenOffice.org 2.3.

Skype
www.skype.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux You'll pay to call regular phones, but if you sign up all your friends, Skype provides easy (and even international) calls and video-conferencing for nothing. Read our full review of Skype 3.0.

Thunderbird
www.mozilla.com/thunderbird
Windows | MacOS | Linux Mozilla's no-cost e-mail alternative is extensible, fast, and easy to master. And a wealth of free add-ons means there's not much this program won't do, from calendars to encryption. Read our full review of Thunderbird 2.

Ubuntu
www.ubuntu.com
Linux This Linux-based OS comes with many of these Hall of Fame products (Firefox, OpenOffice.org) preinstalled.

WinAmp
www.winamp.com
Windows After a decade of playing music, the "skinnable" WinAmp has several versions, including one with full CD ripping and burning.

ajaxWindows
www.ajaxwindows.com
Web A virtual operating system (aka Web OS), it uses Asynchronous Java-Script and XML (AJAX) programming to mimic the look and feel of a Windows desktop in Firefox or IE. It stores files (using Gmail) and runs its own applications, plus Web apps like Meebo and Google Maps. If you can launch a Web browser, you can get work done through ajaxWindows.

eyeOS
eyeos.info
WebThis Web OS has ultra-simplified applications, including an RSS reader, satellite maps, a word processor, even a browser—yes, for browsing the Web while on the Web.

Freespire 2.0
www.freespire.org
Linux This community-driven OS is based on Linspire (formerly Lindows)—a Linux distro that looks like Windows, with an emphasis on compatibility with other platforms.

Glide
www.glidedigital.com
Web | Flash Sleek style sets this Web OS apart, as does the ability (using a separate utility) to sync files, bookmarks, and e-mail from your real OS. Read our full review of Glide Effortless.

gOS
www.thinkgos.com
Linux Ubuntu-based and powered by Google's apps (just don't call it Google OS), gOS comes with the $200 PCs from Wal-Mart, but you can download it for any PC.

avast! 4 Home Edition
www.avast.com
Windows Spiffy-looking avast! notifies you by e-mail or IM if it catches a virus. You can't schedule scans, but its recovery database can help if a virus damages your files.
Read our full review of avast! 4 Home Edition.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
free.grisoft.com
WindowsIts control center is awkward, but AVG scans files on demand, upon access, on a schedule, and in e-mail. Its rescue disks will help you recover from disaster.
Read our full review of AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition.

Avira AntiVir Personal Edition Classic
www.free-av.com
WindowsAntiVir scans files on demand, upon access, and on a schedule; it doesn't scan e-mail attachments until they're saved, but it does go to work on rootkits. It's especially good at coexisting with other security software. Like most good AV software, it has the Virus Bulletin's VB100% award and certification for virus detection from ICSA Labs.
Read our full review of Avira AntiVir Premium Security Suite.

HijackThis
www.trendsecure.com
Windows Run HijackThis, save a log, and then post the log on sites that support the program. You'll quickly get personalized expert help to remove any malware.

NanoScan
www.nanoscan.com
Windows | WebIn less than a minute, NanoScan can analyze all processes running on your computer and identify viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, or other malicious programs.

ThreatFire AntiVirus
www.threatfire.com
WindowsThreatFire detects the bad guys by their behavior, not by outdated virus signatures. It's surprisingly accurate and a good companion to standard antivirus apps.
Read our full review of ThreatFire 3.

Trend Micro HouseCall
housecall.trendmicro.com
Windows Use the venerable HouseCall online scanner to get a second opinion, or use the app for cleanup when malware prevents installation of a local antivirus utility.

Comodo Firewall Pro
www.personalfirewall.comodo.com
Windows This protective dragon for XP and Vista keeps hackers out of your system, controls which programs can access the Net (its whitelist of about one million means you get fewer pop-ups), and blocks tricky "leak test" techniques. It's both tough and good-looking.
Read our full review of Comodo Firewall Pro.

ShieldsUP!
www.grc.com
Windows | WebBe sure your fire-walls are keeping your always-on Internet connection hidden from attackers. Shields-UP! provides a quick confirmation.
Read our full review of ShieldsUP!.

SmoothWall Express
www.smoothwall.org
LinuxGot a spare PC running a Pentium 200 MHz or higher with 128MB of RAM? Turn it into a dedicated network firewall with this open-source download.

ZoneAlarm Free
www.zonealarm.com
Windows The free edition remains a useful protector against hack attacks and against programs that abuse your Internet connection.

EULAlyzer
www.javacoolsoftware.com
Windows Wonder what you're agreeing to when you click "I Accept"? Don't worry; just drag EULAlyzer's target icon onto the EULA for a quick report on any troublesome language.
Read our full review of EULAlyzer Personal 1.1.

Hotspot Shield
www.anchorfree.com
WindowsCreate an instant virtual private network (VPN) tunnel between your laptop and the router at any Wi-Fi hot spot to protect your data from snoops on the public airwaves, even if you're using extra encryption. If you're on a network that limits the use of certain apps (such as Skype), the VPN could give you unfettered access. It even works with your wired connection for an extra layer of security.

Kruptos 2
www.kruptos2.co.uk
Windows Kruptos makes a file accessible only to someone who knows the password; it includes a file shredder.

PC Flank
www.pcflank.com
Windows | WebWhile ShieldsUP! tests your firewall's ability to stealth all ports, PC Flank performs surgical strikes that emulate specific malware attacks to verify that your firewall blocks them.

SendShield
www.sendshield.com
Windows This Outlook add-on strips out extra info and tracked changes in Word documents attached to messages.

mint
www.mint.com
Web Mint isn't like Quicken, where you enter in all your transactions. Instead, it syncs with your bank and credit card accounts online, checks your spending habits, and tells you how to improve to save money. If you're not paying attention to your spending, it'll send you regular alerts to inform you where your money has gone (nice for making sure you haven't been ripped off).

GnuCash
www.gnucash.org
LinuxLinux users can track their bank accounts, stocks, and expenses in this financial program using a double-entry accounting method.

AbiWord
www.abiword.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Volunteers keep this open-source word processor alive. It closely mimics the look and feel of Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier.
Read the full review of AbiWord 2.0.

Gliffy
www.gliffy.com
Web | Flash An online-only diagramming tool with more options than you can flowchart. The free version is limited to five diagrams.

Google Docs
docs.google.com
Web | Mobile Google's slickly designed office suite offers online shared word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations-and best of all, finally a solid alternative in the office-suite space to the totally dominating Microsoft. Upload or e-mail your current documents for storage and editing.
Read the full review of Google Docs.

IBM Lotus Symphony
symphony.lotus.com
Web | Mobile A much prettier version of OpenOffice.org, Symphony is prepped for presentations, spreadsheets, and word processing in a single window (but lacks OO's drawing and database modules).
Read the full review of IBM Lotus Symphony Beta.

KompoZer
www.kompozer.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux A full WYSIWYG Web-page authoring tool akin to Dreamweaver, KompoZer integrates an FTP site manager for file uploads.

NeoOffice
www.neooffice.com
MacOSThis version of OpenOffice.org has the same great tools and price (free), but with an interface designed specifically for the Mac OS.

Notepad++
notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
Windows Notepad++ handles text--especially source code-in ways the basic Windows Notepad could only dream of, with embellishments like tabs and color coding.
Read the full review of Notepad++.

Scribus
www.scribus.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux This open-source page layout tool has features comparable to big names like PAgemaker, plus support for PDFs and scalable vector graphics (SVG).

Windows Live Mail
get.live.com
WindowsLive Mail not only reads your Hotmail, but also can check POP, IMAP, or HTTP mail accounts. It works as an RSS feed reader and a newsreader.

Zoho
www.zoho.com
Web | MobileZoho features every tool you could want-word processing, spreadsheet, presentations, database, even a wiki-and several you never knew you needed. Some are also available off-line.
Read the full review of Zoho.

Plaxo
www.plaxo.com
Web Perhaps the ultimate online address book, Plaxo is enhanced with the superpowers of a social network and plug-ins for many Web-based services like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and LiveJournal for sharing across the Internet.

Backpack
www.backpackit.com
WebBackpack is more than a to-do list site. Your five easy-to-update pages send reminders via e-mail or SMS and include a whiteboard for online collaboration.
Read the full review of Backpack.

EssentialPIM Free
www.essentialpim.com
WindowsImagine taking the e-mail out of Microsoft Outlook to get a killer personal information manager (PIM). That's what EssentialPIM is all about.

Google Calendar
calendar.google.com
Web | MobileFeaturing seamless integration with other Google products, sharing capabilities, and SMS reminders, this Web app does for calendars what Google did for search.
Read the full review of Google Calendar.

Lightning
www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning
Windows | MacOS | LinuxTo be more like Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird needs a calendar. Lightning provides that, plus a to-do list. It can even sync with Google Calendar.

Power Calculator
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx Windows This XP-only PowerToy replaces the lame Windows calculator with a mathematical powerhouse.

Remember The Milk
www.rememberthemilk.com
Web | MobileNever forget another grocery item, or anything else, using this extensible online task manager. It'll send reminders via e-mail, SMS, and IM.

Sunbird
www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird
Windows | MacOS | LinuxSunbird is Mozilla's standalone calendar for tracking events and upcoming tasks. It's a sister to Lightning, which adds the same functions to Thunderbird.

30 Boxes
www.30boxes.com
WebOne of the best-looking online calendars, 30 Boxes features easy-to-grasp pop-ups for adding events and viewing schedule details.

Yahoo! Calendar
calendar.yahoo.com
WebTrack your schedule and share it with friends, then sync your calendar with Outlook or your phone. It's a great place to back up a handheld.

Allway Sync
www.allwaysync.com
Windows Sync files between your PC and an external drive, filtering by folder, file name, or file type. The program displays warnings about questionable files before syncing.

DriveImage XML
www.runtime.org
Windows Make an image of your entire hard drive for backup and restore purposes.

FolderShare
www.foldershare.com
Windows | MacOSInstall the utility on multiple computers, create an online account where you identify each computer, and pick folders to synchronize. Up-to-date data becomes available on all those PCs whenever you make a change in a folder, with sync taking place in the background so you're never disturbed, just happy to find your files wherever you work.
Read the full review of FolderShare.

MozyHome Free
www.mozy.com
Windows | MacOS MozyHome provides automatic online backup for up to 2GB of your data.

PassPack
www.passpack.com
Web Pack away all your passwords in this secure online vault; it even logs you in to Web sites.

SyncToy v2.0
www.microsoft.com/downloads
Windows Make sure folders across your networked computers contain the same files, even on drives that change location and name.

WinClone
www.twocanoes.com
MacOS Bootcamp users: Now you can clone (back up) your Windows XP/Vista partition for reinstall on a new Mac.

Launchy
www.launchy.net
Windows Launchy launches (duh) applications, files, folders, or searches via a command-line-esque interface.

ObjectDock
www.stardock.com
Windows Organize your application shortcuts in a toolbar that mimics the look and feel of the Macintosh dock, complete with icon animations. It will even mimic Windows Taskbar buttons. Add in extras (docklets) like real-time clock and weather forecasts, even a fully functional Windows Start button and Recycle Bin, to get everything you need.

QuickSilver
www.blacktree.com
MacOS This open-source launcher takes plug-ins that allow it to do almost anything you want in the MacOS.

Absolute Uninstaller
www.glarysoft.com
Windows Replace the Add/Remove Programs control panel in XP to get batch uninstalls and clear out leftovers that Windows frequently misses when uninstalling.

CCleaner
www.ccleaner.com
Windows The extra C is for crap, and that's what CCleaner gets rid of: all the detritus left behind in the course of using Windows.

CoolMon
www.coolmon.org
WindowsCoolMon displays all of your system's vital statistics, including use of your CPU, RAM, and hard drives, internal PC temperature, and more.

Defraggler
www.defraggler.com
Windows Defragment your entire hard drive-or just one heavily fragmented file at a time.

DriverView
www.nirsoft.net
Windows DriverView lists every single device driver running on your system, with extra info on each.

Eraser
www.heidi.ie/eraser
WindowsShredders are popular in the office, so why not have the digital equivalent? Eraser adds a right-click menu that will do away with a file or folder forever.

FileZilla
www.filezilla-project.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Download this FTP client for accessing multiple sites or to use as an FTP server. In both cases, FileZilla has convenient drag-and-drop support.

Glary Utilities
www.glaryutilities.com
Windows Glary offers a ton of utilities for cleaning, optimizing, and securing Windows in one package.

Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc
WindowsInstall anything-DOS, OS/2, or any earlier version of Windows-as a virtual machine. It'll run in a separate window on your Vista or XP desktop.
Read the full review of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007.

SandBoxie
www.sandboxie.com
Web Place a layer of "transient storage"-a sandbox-between your applications and your hard disk to stay safe.

SecureZIP
www.securezip.com
Windows Compress and decompress files on the fly, even in e-mail through Outlook integration, and encrypt archives as desired.

Task Killer
www.rsdsoft.com
Windows Stop any Windows process dead; this is handy for clearing frozen applications.

TinkerTool
www.bresink.com
MacOS Get access to additional preference settings in Mac OS X to turn on hidden features.

Uniblue ProcessScanner
www.processlibrary.com
Windows | Web You can do the Ctrl-Alt-Delete salute in Windows to see what's bogging down your PC, but can you understand the results? ProcessScanner, coupled with the online Process Library, provides extra information on each process (like whether it autostarts or not, and who makes the software in question), and even lists the security risk to your system for running it.

BitLet.org
www.bitlet.org
Web Who needs a BitTorrent client? Just find the torrent metafile link on a tracker site, plug it in at BitLet.org, and let it retrieve the file as if you were downloading it from a regular Web site.

Universal Extractor
www.legroom.net
Windows See what's inside any archive file—ZIP, RAR, even EXE.

uTorrent
www.utorrent.com
Windows The tiniest BitTorrent client around (only 214K) comes with all the torrent download features you crave.

Battery Status
users.rcn.com/tmtalpey/BattStat
Windows This app runs in the system tray and takes advantage of smart battery support in XP/Vista to provide loads of info on laptop-power usage.

Google Desktop
desktop.google.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Let Google index and search your hard drive contents. The sidebar adds graphical widgets to your desktop.

miniMIZE
aquaria.za.net
Windows miniMIZE puts thumbnails of your minimized applications on the desktop for easier access.

Quero Toolbar 4
www.quero.at
Windows Replace the Internet Explorer address bar to integrate ad blocking and make IE7 look more like IE6.

Vista Drive Icon
drvicon.sourceforge.net
Windows Add one of Vista's best features to XP: smart drive icons showing the current capacity of each hard drive.

XYplorer
www.xyplorer.com
Windows Multiple tabs and improved search enhance and replace the boring old Windows Explorer.

Yahoo! Widgets
widgets.yahoo.com
Windows | MacOS Fill your desktop with tiny interfaces for everything from stock picks to RSS feeds to weather forecasts (using Doppler radar!) to Wi-Fi sensors to remote desktops to countdown clocks-to name a few. Pick from over 4,300; some are more useful than others, but almost all are interesting to look at.

Foxit Reader
www.foxitsoftware.com
Windows Perhaps the fastest PDF reader around, Foxit includes a free annotation tool. Add-ons enable support for new file formats and UI languages.

Samuraj Data
view.samurajdata.se
Web You can display PDF files in your Web browser when no other reader is available.

ScanR.com
scanr.com
Web | Mobile Instantly perform optical character recognition (OCR) on pictures by e-mailing them from your phone to ScanR.com.

YouConvertIt.com
youconvertit.com
WebThis site turns just about any file into a different kind of file, even online videos from YouTube. It also converts units of energy, force, length, and more.

ZamZar
www.zamzar.com
WebFile conversion is no longer a complete nightmare. Just go to ZamZar, upload a file, choose from a long list of extensions (including image, doc, music, video, and compression types), and enter your e-mail address. When it's done, ZamZar will send you the converted file.

LogMeIn Hamachi
secure.logmein.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Instantly create a free, peer-to-peer VPN connection between your computer and other people's. Download the software, create a network with a unique name, give it to friends you want to join, and start sharing files with them—even your iTunes folder.

NetStumbler
www.netstumbler.com
Windows Use it to detect any Wi-Fi network in your vicinity and see if it's open for use, or just use it to troubleshoot your own.

PrinterAnywhere
www.printeranywhere.com
Windows Share your printer with others over the Web; in turn, send jobs to other shared printers, no matter their location.

Blogger
www.blogger.com
Web | Mobile Blogger was one of the first blog-publishing tools. Years after Google bought it, it remains one of the best, especially for newbies. Create a brain-dead simple weblog and let Blogger host it (with a blogspot.com name) using the slew of provided templates, or use it to publish a blog on your own domain.

w.bloggar
www.wbloggar.com
Windows This post and template editor can handle multiple blogs, across multiple blogging systems.

Windows Live Writer
get.live.com
WindowsLive Writer is not a word processor, but a universal, WYSIWYG blog-posting tool more powerful than most blog services' own tools.

WordPress
www.wordpress.com
WebIt lacks the simplicity of Blogger or Vox, but the commercial offshoot of WordPress.org offers some of the best tools of any hosted blogging service.

Bloglines
www.bloglines.com
Web | Mobile Keeping track of your daily Web news reading can be a nightmare. This Ask.com-owned news aggregator is one of the cleanest and most straightforward methods for keeping your RSS feeds under control, and the new beta version features a great new interface that steals some of the best features of Google Reader.

Google Reader
reader.google.com
Web | Mobile Google Reader is arguably the best RSS/newsfeed reader on the Internet. Read feeds while off-line or on your mobile phone.

Netvibes
www.netvibes.com
Web This is a handsome combination of online RSS reader and podcast aggregator, with some widget apps thrown in.

Meebo.com
www.meebo.com
Web This polished Web app aggregates your AOL, Gmail, ICQ, Jabber, Windows, and Yahoo! buddy lists into a single, Web-based instant-messaging and chat-room experience. Meebo is building in extras, such as games you can play with IM buddies, as well as video and audio chat you'd find with your regular IM client software.

Pidgin
www.pidgin.im
Windows | Linux Open source tackles instant messaging in this client, which supports more IM networks than you've ever heard of.

Trillian
www.ceruleanstudios.com
WindowsAccess all your IM accounts (AIM, ICQ, Windows Messenger, Yahoo!, and more) from a single interface that also logs all your conversations, if you desire.

GizmoProject
www.gizmoproject.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Gizmo competes with Skype to offer free, peer-to-peer, over-the-Internet phone and video calls, but uses open standards.

Gmail
www.gmail.com
Web | Mobile What to do with nearly limitless e-mail storage space—that's the enviable quandary of Gmail users, who can store up to 5.5GB worth of e-mail and chats. And the amount is constantly growing. Other perks include advanced search options, real-time updates, and "conversations," in which e-mail chains are stored in one continuous thread for easy perusal.

Mail Redirect
addons.mozilla.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux This add-on for Thunderbird lets you bounce a message to the proper recipient without revealing that you got the message first.

ooVoo
www.oovoo.com
Windows | MacOSooVoo video chat is more P2P than Skype (no supernodes!), with a better picture. It supports up to six co-videoconferencers, file transfers, and group text chat.

SightSpeed
www.sightspeed.com
Windows | MacOSSightSpeed has better video quality than ooVoo, but in a less attractive interface. More than two video chatters will cost you, as will file transfer and group chat.

Juice
http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux Aggregate all your favorite podcasts in one place for easy listening.

Levelator
www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator
Windows | MacOS | Linux Levelator adjusts the levels of your audio files to give the perfect balance.

Reaper
www.cockos.com/reaper
Windows | MacOS The name is short for Rapid Environment for Audio Production, Engineering, and Recording. That pretty much says it all.

Wavosaur
www.wavosaur.com
Web A low-price and low-profile audio editor, Wavosaur doesn't even need installation. Just click the executable to start processing and recording sounds. It lacks some of the features of full programs like Audacity, but for quick-and-dirty MP3 editing it can't be beat.

Cinelerra
www.osalt.com/cinelerra
Linux This is professional video-editing software for the Linux crowd.

Eyespot.com
www.eyespot.com
Web Upload your clips, mix via drag-and-drop, and share your finished videos in one spot.

HandBrake
handbrake.m0k.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Convert your DVDs to MPEG-4 video (or just the audio) for backup purposes.

Jing
www.jingproject.com
Windows | MacOSx Jing shares what's showing on your monitor with others online, or records it for future viewing.

Jumpcut.com
www.jumpcut.com
Web This online app provides Flash-powered video editing.

Miro
www.getmiro.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Miro combines BitTorrent downloads with video playback to become the next best thing to your DVR.

MythTV
www.mythtv.org
Linux Use your Linux box as a homespun digital video recorder (DVR).

Songbird
www.songbirdnest.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux The open-source answer to iTunes (from the makers of WinAmp) plays your music and videos.

TVersity
www.tversity.com
Windows Turn your computer into a server to stream video and audio to just about any device on your network.

Ustream.tv
www.ustream.tv
Web Our reviews call this the absolute easiest way to broadcast live video from your webcam across the Internet.

Videora Converter
www.videora.com
Windows Convert nearly any video you can find online (or on DVD) for use on any video-capable iPod or iPhone.

VLC media player
www.videolan.org
Windows | MacOS | Linux Forget Windows Media Player. VideoLAN's open-source VLC can replace it, and nearly every other player, too. VLC supports almost every audio format and video codec imaginable and doubles as a server for streaming your music and video to other PCs. Change its skin to make it look like the player you want—even WMP.

YouTube Uploader
www.youtube.com/multifile_installer
Windows | MacOS If you've got a lot of YouTube videos ready to go online, upload them to the site all at once with the Uploader.

IrfanView
www.irfanview.com
Windows IrfanView previews images (or even audio and video) and then converts or optimizes them without opening a separate editor.

Paint.NET
www.getpaint.net
Windows This program is probably the closest thing to Photoshop you can get free, courtesy of a student project.

Picasa
www.picasa.com
Windows | Linux Google's photo manager makes it easy to get pictures off a digital camera, organize them, and even edit and share them.

Picnik
www.picnik.com
Web | Flash Instantly edit pictures in this Web site. Upload images from your computer, Flickr, Picasa, or elsewhere.

pikifx.com
pikifx.com
Web Another online pic editor, pikifx.com emphasizes special effects such as added text and borders.

rsizr.com
rsizr.com
Web | Flash With one of the best Web interfaces yet—all in Flash—rsizr.com incorporates smart resizing to avoid distortion.

Splashup
www.splashup.com
Web | Flash Another beauty with a Flash interface, Splashup sets itself apart with multi-image editing and a full-screen mode.

Windows Live Photo Gallery
get.live.com/photogallery
Windows Windows Live Photo Gallery gives Picasa (above) a run for its money, with many of the same photo-enhancing and sharing features—red-eye reduction, exposure adjustment, cropping, color, sharpen, and auto-adjust. What's more, Microsoft serves up histogram adjustment, panorama creation, and photo-CD burning.

Flock
www.flock.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Another browser based on Mozilla, Flock emphasizes interaction with social networks and services. It also accepts many add-ons from the Firefox browser.

Maxthon
www.maxthon.com
Windows Replace IE or Firefox (but still use their rendering engines) with this highly customizable, multilanguage, tabbed beauty.

Opera
www.opera.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux | MobilePossibly the nimblest and most usable of all the browsers available, Opera did tabs first and still does them best. Added usability features like Speed Dial and Tab Preview keep popping up in new versions.

Prism
labs.mozilla.com
Windows | MacOS | LinuxPrism is a site-specific browser, meaning you simply load a Web app (Gmail, for instance) and let it run like any other application on the desktop.

DownThemAll
www.downthemall.net
Windows | MacOS | Linux You don't have to download one item at a time from a Web page anymore. DownThemAll manages batch downloads, splitting files into pieces so they arrive faster.

Foxmarks 2.0
www.foxmarks.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Foxmarks can synchronize your Firefox bookmarks across multiple PCs, even multiple operating systems.

Googlepedia
code.google.com/p/googlepedia
Windows | MacOS | Linux In Firefox, Googlepedia loads the most relevant Wikipedia entry it finds alongside your Google search results.

Google Toolbar
toolbar.google.com
Windows | MacOS | LinuxThe toolbar brings Google's search and other functionality directly to IE or Firefox. It offers extras like auto fill, spell-checking, and one-click RSS feed subscriptions.

Greasemonkey
www.greasespot.net
Windows | MacOS | LinuxAdd this extension to Firefox and then extend it again with thousands of scripts that change the appearance and functions of almost any Web site.

IE7Pro
www.ie7pro.com
WindowsAdds a load of extras to IE7, including control over tabs, spell-checking, ad blocking—even Greasemonkey-esque scripts (see above).

IE Tab
ietab.mozdev.org
WindowsDo you prefer Firefox but still need to look at some sites in IE? IE Tab will load a site in a Firefox tab using the IE rendering engine.

ScribeFire
www.scribefire.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux This Firefox add-on sets up an interface for instant blogging on just about any blog system.

Tab Mix Plus
addons.mozilla.org
Windows | MacOS | LinuxTake total control of how tabs work in Firefox. Adjust how they look, revive those you closed by accident, send tabs to new browser windows-essentially any tab action you can imagine.

Zotero
www.zotero.com
Windows | MacOS | Linux Zotero makes it easy to keep track of all your research on the Web, including how to cite it in future reports.

Eyezmaze.com's Grow
www.eyezmaze.com
Web | Flash It's not a single game but a series that involves choosing "growing" items that are added to an online environment.

Geni.com
www.geni.com
Web | Flash Share your genealogy with everyone in the family. They can contribute more individual profiles until your family tree is complete.

Google Earth
earth.google.com
Windows | MacOS | LinuxFly over familiar terrain or foreign lands with Google Earth, a searchable database of satellite images and geographical data—even images of the heavens. You can go a step further with all sorts of downloadable, gee-whiz applications from scientists, media outlets, and other third-party developers to trick out your Earth-moving experience.

Google Maps
maps.google.com
Web | MobileThis interactive mapping tool goes beyond driving directions. View destinations in Street View, Satellite, or Terrain modes; check traffic updates; or look up info on nearby businesses.

Kongregate
www.kongregate.com
Web | Mobile Only 2,598 free games (as of this writing) to keep you busy online? Bring 'em on.

Second Life
www.secondlife.com
Windows | MacOS This 3D virtual world has hundreds of thousands of denizens. Access is free, but you'll pay a bit if you want to get some real estate, or even fancy clothes for your avatar.

The Best Free Software

Free (Okay, Cheap) Hardware

Manufacturers of even the most basic devices generally don't give anything away. And you're not likely to find breakneck performance at bargain prices. But it is possible to get fully computerized without spending a fortune. Read on to find the best tech bargains around the Internet.

DESKTOP
EverexTC2502 gPC
$199 street
www.everex.com
Green or Google, it doesn't matter what the "g" stands for. Just know that this is the lowest-cost desktop on the market today. Available at Wal-Mart.
Read the full review of the EverexTC2502 gPC.

MONITOR
Sceptre DCL20A 20" Widescreen LCD
$159.99
www.tigerdirect.com
TigerDirect offers the occasional bargain display, such as this 20-inch screen with $50 instant rebate.

LAPTOP
ASUS color Eee PC 2G Surf
$299 direct
asus.com
This tiny Linux notebook has just a smudge of a screen (7 inches), but you won't find a better combination of price and functionality.

PRINTER
Lexmark Z1300
$29.99 direct
www.lexmark.com
Since it includes an ink cartridge worth $18.99, the actual price of this compact color ink jet printer is arguably around $6. Out of ink? Buy a new printer.
Read the full review of the Lexmark Z1300.

CAMERA
JAZZ JDC5 QVGA 3-IN-1 Digital Camera
$10 street
audio-discounters.com
Small enough to hang on a keychain, this tiny shooter uses a single AAA battery to capture images measuring 352 by 288 pixels.

MEDIA PLAYER
Coby MP-C833 128MB MP3 Player
$10 street
www.cobyusa.com
It plays MP3s and WMA files and has all the music control buttons you'll need, plus it doubles as a USB thumb key for file storage.

MOBILE PHONE
Motorola C139 from Tracfone
$14.99 direct
www.tracfone.com
It may lack the sex appeal of an iPhone, but the C139 makes calls. They'll cost you 10 cents per minute, prepaid.
Read the full review of the Motorola C139.

SCANNER
Canon CanoScan LiDE 25
$49.99 direct
www.usa.canon.com
This no-frills, three-button flatbed scans pictures at 1,200 pixels per inch over a slow but workable USB 1.1 connection.
Read the full review of the Canon CanoScan LiDE 25.

Source:

The Best Free Software

by Eric Griffith and PC Magazine Staff

All of links and review are trademark of PCMag

Where is Russia's great car?

noreply@blogger.com (suryaden) — Sun, 7 Dec 2008 01:27:00 -0800

By Kirill Bessonov on mnweekly.ru

If you ask a Westerner his opinion about Russian cars you will most likely hear the following joke: Lada engineers suggested a new anti-theft device for their products - an enlarged logo plate. And these jokes usually date back to the Soviet era.

Paradoxically, Russia has a proven track record of high-tech achievements in various other spheres. Russia's space program is out of this world (NASA has just extended the contract with Roskosmos to deliver crews and cargo to the ISS with Russian spacecraft); Russian weapons - from rifles to combat jets to submarines - are very popular on the international market, where Russia trails only the US in total volume of exports. This begs the question as to why a developed, high-tech nation cannot provide its citizens with decent cars - and then export them abroad.

The Moscow News asked the press service of the Russia's biggest carmaker, OAO AvtoVAZ, for their comments.

When asked why Russian cars are not popular with Western buyers, AvtoVAZ said this was not a correct assumption. They do not supply many cars to the West because domestic sales are viewed as the priority.

"The market demand patterns are different. And we soberly tend to work, where we can meet the demand," the press service wrote in a letter.

AvtoVAZ also said that the West still regarded Russian cars as descendants of the outdated 1970's Italian-designed Fiat 124. For a long time this was true, so today, as with any commercial product, AvtoVAZ-made cars need to regain western consumer confidence and effectively appeal to western standards.

AvtoVAZ staff were defensive about questions on the quality and reliability of Russian cars - a big concern for foreign buyers. The company's press service pointed out that their brand was not the only one criticized for lack of quality, and that much of this criticism was a legacy of Soviet times.

"Much of today's impression of Russian-made cars is based on a long tradition of Zhighuli cars being the only option available. AvtoVAZ-made cars have traditionally been a ‘people's car' in Russia. And they are still perceived this way. Most Russian motorists had at least one Russian-made car in their lives on the road" the statement to The Moscow News reads. "So, these cars, like an old spouse, are both hated and cherished by the Russians," the press service wrote.

A question about how Russia could match the quality of their Japanese competitors also produced a nimble swerve from the press office. AvtoVAZ said that their latest models, Lada Kalina and Lada Priora, were a "real giant step forward for Russian car making industry" and that production quality is due to step up another gear in the near future.

"Russia now has both the ability and the technology needed to produce a high-quality car. With many leading world carmakers localizing production here, bringing the best technologies, innovations, best practice etc. to this country, Russia will soon have enough suppliers' facilities and an experienced workforce to produce a high-quality model of its own. "

Not surprisingly, the car makers were optimistic that they were on the fast track to success, but an independent car industry expert, who asked to remain anonymous, was concerned that car production was stuck in a traffic jam. He suggested that the quality of Russian cars was indeed low and blamed the legacy of the Soviet Union for that, saying that all industry giants were built in Soviet times and had inherited the attitudes of that era.

"The emphasis was on the defense industry; consumer goods received almost no funding in the planned economy and could not develop. This is not only a problem for car makers. Russia is not famous for other products, for example, its television sets."

At the same time, our source revealed a little known, but real fact - Russia was among the few pioneers of the revolutionary rotor engine, similar to those found in the Mazda RX8 sports car. These tough engines were installed in Ladas that were used by police and special services. But in the 1990s, the plant started to make the product available for mass consumption as well. Sadly, their flaws became obvious - the gas-guzzling engine, while superb in performance, was expensive to run and required a costly overhaul after less then 50,000 kilometers. As it turned out, few mechanics could perform the repairs. All these factors led to the closure of the project - the first really great Russian car turned out to be too much of a problem for the average motorist.

However, for anybody who wants a decent Russian car should consider the sports version of the new Lada Kalina, our source said. Lada has its own factory teams competing in almost all branches of motor sports - from autocross to ice races. As required by the rules of sports, to qualify a car for automobile races the factory must produce at least 2,500 models.

Russia's latest entrant in this field is the Lada Kalina Sport, which has a 1.6 liter 16-valve engine, disc breaks, altered suspension and sports seats, as well as an aerodynamic body kit.

The Lada Kalina Sport is not officially exported, but real fans can try their luck and buy it in Russia - prices are around 300,000 rubles or about $11,000.

By Kirill Bessonov

from: http://mnweekly.ru/national/20081205/55359969.html

HIV & AIDS

noreply@blogger.com (donya kewarasan) — Wed, 3 Dec 2008 10:10:00 -0800

Press Release: WAD 2008: Are we honest about HIV & AIDS?
Asian People's Alliance for Combating HIV & AIDS (APACHA)
01/12/2008
************

Are We Honest About HIV & AIDS?

[All of] Asia is facing an unprecedented challenge of HIV&AIDS, with possibly huge economic and social consequences. Despite series of claims and commitments of the governments, donors and civil society in seriously pursuing the epidemic, large numbers of people continue to face a crisis of existence.

The debilitating human rights condition, increasing democratic deficit, unabated conflicts and increasing religious fundamentalism in most of the countries of Asia, pose great challenges to address the causes and consequences of HIV&AIDS. To add, increasing inequalities, mass exodus and exacerbating violence, particularly against women make the issue of HIV&AIDS more complex.

Families, particularly poor families, with HIV cases have started to face serious and multiple crises. They have not been able to meet treatment costs and are compelled to sell their land and properties hence trapped into the vicious circle of poverty and illness. Children are compelled to Drop-out [of] schools. Stigma and discrimination on the other hand is challenging people's right to lead a dignified life. Women and children are [among] the hardest hit.

Weak Public Health Care systems in the region do not have capacity to bear the burden of the disease. Governments are still reluctant to allocate sufficient budgets in this sector. Most of the ongoing programs are donor funded which constraint the liberty of national institutions as well as [putting] them under the fear [of] psychosis. In the mean time, most of the ongoing programs in the region are not sustainable.

Governance is another serious area which needs immediate attention. Money is not reaching the communities and this raises BIG and ethical questions- Are there quality funding mechanisms? Are there effective monitoring and evaluation systems? Are there enough and transparent governance mechanisms at global to local levels?

It is true that global economy and globalization strategies, structures and processes have directly and indirectly affected the governance structures both at the global and the national levels. Moreover, they operate through the networks of power which are created to sustain the interests of the ruling class élites consequently people at the bottom of society have been systematically marginalized, excluded and treated badly.

In the specific context to Asia, the Asian civil society has a long history of struggles for rights, justice and democracy. There are also powerful political and social movements and campaigns going on in the region. However, political interests being the driving force, issues which do not carry considerable political weight fail to arouse much interest to Asian civil society and the politics. Issues that fester marginal population having little political significance barely receive their attention. Both the civil society and the ongoing social movements in the region are still reluctant to talk about HIV&AIDS. Time has come for Asia to see democracy from the perspectives of the margin.

In June 2001, 189 Heads of State and government representatives signed the United Nations Declaration of Commitment on HIV& AIDS. They promised to fight stigma and discrimination, promote prevention, mobilize resources, advocate universal access to treatment and promote accountability. At a time of economic crisis, this should not be an excuse to reverse their promises.

Asian People's Alliance for Combating HIV & AIDS (APACHA) calls upon all the key stakeholders of [the] HIV response to carefully monitor the implications of current global economic crisis and the worsened food sovereignty crisis. The global HIV leadership must carefully monitor the situation and efforts should be taken to protect the poorest among the population, [a] group who are vulnerable to HIV infection and made vulnerable by HIV & AIDS. We call upon The Governments to "Keep the Promise!" Financial crisis should not be an excuse to turn away from the promises they have made. At a time when the global HIV&AIDS programs are witnessing potential funding gap we call upon the donors and the governments to fulfill their commitments.

Similarly we call governments to immediately introduce humanitarian relief programs for PLHA in poor families in Asia. We call for just and democratic governance in all HIV&AIDS related interventions from global to local levels.

Time has come for the leaders and citizens of Asia and the world to honestly link what they preach with what they do. APACHA calls for a wider collaboration of the governments, donors, UN agencies, civil societies, social and political movement groups to come together and take immediate action to respect human dignity and save millions of lives on face of HIV&AIDS.

Besides series of commitments- the question remains- Are WE Honest about It?

----------
Sent by: APACHA International Secretariat
Email: secretariat.asia@apachanet.org

---------
Stay Connected - Speak your world!

A posting from SEA-AIDS (sea-aids@eforums.healthdev.org)

SEA-AIDS is a regional eForum focused on AIDS, and other health and development issues in Asia and the Pacific.

SEA-AIDS is coordinated by the Health & Development Networks eForums Team (HDN, www.hdnet.org) with the support of Irish Aid (www.irishaid.gov.ie).

The views expressed in this forum do not necessarily reflect those of HDN or Irish Aid.

Reproduction welcomed provided HDN is informed of usage and source is cited as follows: SEA-AIDS eForum 2008: sea-aids@eforums.healthdev.org

Su-34 Fighter-bomber: Russia's New Rearmament Program

noreply@blogger.com (donya kewarasan) — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 11:28:00 -0800

MOSCOW - Russia's rearmament program, approved in 2006 for a period until 2015, provides for supplying modern weapons to its armed forces. One of them is the Su-34 Fullback fighter-bomber, which will replace the Su-24 Fencers.

The process has begun, but some say the replacement is taking too long.

The new fighter-bomber is said to be very good. An improvement on the Su-27 Flanker, it has cutting-edge equipment, including a modern crew and equipment protection system. The Su-34 is effective against personnel and military hardware on the battlefield and also against targets behind enemy lines. It can also be used for surveillance missions and against naval targets

The Su-34 will replace the Su-24M aircraft (about 400 planes), the Su-24MR surveillance aircraft (over 100 planes), and the MiG-25RB aircraft (about 70). Russia will have to produce between 550 and 600 Su-34s to replace these obsolete aircraft within 10-15 years.

However, the Defense Ministry plans to buy only about 58 such planes by 2015, and a total of 300 by 2022.

Many experts say that if the Su-24 and MiG-25RB aircraft are scrapped by 2020, Russia will be left without fighter-bombers and surveillance aircraft. Others argue that this number will be enough for the Air Force's new concept.

The concept is focused not so much on the combat characteristics of the Su-34, as on its long range, the ability to refuel in the air (including by other Su-34 aircraft with additional fuel tanks under their wings), and its comfortable cabin allowing the crew to make long-distance flights without becoming overtired.

Units armed with such aircraft can be used in the so-called pendulum operations, when an Air Force unit bombs a terrorist base in Central Asia today, delivers a strike at a missile base in Europe the next day, and three days later flies to the Indian Ocean to support a combined group of the Northern, Pacific and Black Sea fleets, with flights from a base in Russia.

The Su-34 aircraft has long-range precision weapons, can fly hugging the earth, and has a high level of protection, which should cut losses during lightning operations, while the use of a relatively small number of such aircraft allows training crews to perfection.

This is not a new concept. Elite units of top-class aircraft manned by superbly trained crews formed the core of the German air force during World War II, and Japan's Imperial Navy had a similar concept.

However, such elite units can be quickly weeded out by swarms of ordinary aircraft in a global war of attrition, such as World War II. From this viewpoint, Russia's new concept looks vulnerable, but then this country has the nuclear triad for a global war.

In a war of attrition, it will not matter how many such smart aircraft Russia will have - 200, 600 or 1,500. What will really matter is the yield of a nuclear bomb they will be able to drop on the enemy.

But in the event of a small war involving one or two adversaries, or a chain of local conflicts, the existence of such high-speed, highly protected and well-armed aircraft can be the decisive factor. Even 58 Su-34 fighter-bombers, used at the right time in the right place, would be a powerful force. A group of 200-300 such aircraft, divided into several units for use in key areas of the battlefield, will be able to fulfill the most complicated tasks.

Apart from the Su-34, the Russian Air Force will also receive other new planes, whose technical characteristics will maintain the force's combat potential at the requisite level. New units, set up for the fulfillment of specific tasks, will consist of fighters, bombers, early warning and command planes, flying tankers, and unmanned aerial vehicles.

These will be highly mobile units, which means that its aircraft can be quickly dispatched to the area in question. In fact, Russia's new concept is not unlike the United States' Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF), a flexible and powerful instrument of air warfare capable of quickly delivering strikes in any part of the world.

As for surveillance aircraft, industrialized countries intend to replace them with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The world is changing, and the new world will wage new kind of wars.

By Ilya Kramnik, RIA Novosti

from http://www.mnweekly.ru/world/20080424/55325432.html