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Steve Jobs 1955-2011

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 13:15:00 +0000

Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

Posted: 05 Oct 2011 07:26 PM PDT

Written by wired
Steven Paul Jobs, co-founder, chairman and former chief executive of Apple Inc., passed away Wednesday.
A visionary inventor and entrepreneur, it would be impossible to overstate Steve Jobs’ impact on technology and how we use it. Apple’s mercurial, mysterious leader did more than reshape his entire industry: he completely changed how we interact with technology. He made gadgets easy to use, gorgeous to behold and essential to own. He made things we absolutely wanted, long before we even knew we wanted them. Jobs’ utter dedication to how people think, touch, feel and interact with machines dictated even the smallest detail of the computers Apple built and the software it wrote.
Jobs was born in San Francisco on Feb. 24, 1955, and adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs of Mountain View, California. He was a techie from a young age, often sitting in on lectures at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto while attending Homestead High School in Cupertino. He eventually landed a summer job there, working alongside Steve Wozniak.
Jobs enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Ore. in 1972, but dropped out after six months – he later said he “didn’t see the value in it.” He eventually returned home to California. He got a job at Atari, renewed his friendship with Wozniak and started hanging out with the Homebrew Computer Club. After trekking to India in 1974 — a trip he, like so many others, made to find enlightenment – Jobs returned home and looked up Woz.
The two of them launched Apple in 1976. Their first project, the Apple I, wasn’t much to look at — just an assembled circuit board. Anyone who bought it had to add the case and keyboard. But it was enough for Jobs to convince Mike Markkula, a semi-retired Intel engineer and product marketing manager, that personal computing was the future. Markkula invested $250,000 in the fledgling enterprise.
The Apple I begat the Apple II in 1977. It was the first successful mass-market computer, and easy to use, too. That would become a hallmark of Apple under Jobs.
The Apple II had a huge impact on the tech business, but cheaper alternatives, like the Commodore 64 and the VIC-20, quickly eroded Apple’s market share. IBM’s open PC platform eventually won out over Apple’s closed approach, and the die was cast. The PC dominated the market.
Still, Apple was by any measure a success. By the time Jobs was 25 in 1980, he was worth more than $100 million. Not that it mattered to him.
“It wasn’t that important because I never did it for the money,” he once said.
Apple once again shook up the industry with the Macintosh, announced in 1984 with a now-iconic Super Bowl ad challenging IBM. The Mac was a revolutionary step forward for personal computing — the first mass market computer to use a mouse-driven, user-friendly graphical interface. It was influenced by – critics would argue lifted from — technology Jobs saw a few years earlier at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. It irreversibly changed how we interact with computers.
But then Jobs fell from grace. One year after the Mac’s introduction, Jobs was fired in a power struggle with CEO John Sculley. Jobs was devastated. He felt he’d let those who came before him – pioneers like David Packard and Bob Noyce – down, and he wanted to apologize.
“It was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the Valley,” he admitted in a 2005 speech.
But Jobs realized he loved what he did, and wanted to keep doing it. So he founded NeXT, a computer company, and a computer animation outfit that he renamed Pixar. As for Apple, it faltered in his absence. The company’s stock plummeted 68 percent, pushing Apple to the brink of bankruptcy.
But in 1996, Apple purchased NeXT and Jobs returned to the company he founded. It wasn’t long before he was once again back at the helm, and Apple’s ascent began.
One of Jobs’ first moves was to make peace with arch-rival Microsoft. That led to a $150 million investment from Microsoft, breathing new life into the moribund Apple. Jobs was once again firmly in control, and this time he would make sure he didn’t lose it.
He ran Apple with a firm hand, enforcing a policy of secrecy, while instilling an unrivaled dedication to design and an unwavering commitment to quality. These things mattered so deeply to Jobs that he became a micromanager, one said to have put as much thought into the boxes holding Apple’s products as the products themselves.
Apple’s incredible string of hits started with the iMac and continued with iTunes and the iPod in 2001, the iPhone in 2007 and 2010’s iPad. There were some misses along the way – Mobile Me and Apple TV – but Jobs, working with lieutenants like Tim Cook, made Apple one of the biggest companies in the world.
Jobs had always been the public face of Apple, but he began retreating from the spotlight in 2004 when doctors diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer. It was a rare form of the disease, one that could be treated, and Jobs survived. His health, though, continued to deteriorate. His liver failed in 2009, and Jobs took a six-month medical leave. He returned, but was rarely seen. He announced he was resigning as CEO in August, and Tim Cook replaced him as the head the company.
At a 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, Jobs shared the philosophy that drove him.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life,” Jobs said. “Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:01:00 +0000

The following is a Speech by Bryan Dyson that has an analogy to life.

Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them – work, family, health, friends and spirit and you’re keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls – family, health, friends and spirit – are made of glass. If you drop one of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked, damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same.
You must understand that and strive for balance in your life.

How?

Don’t undermine your worth by comparing yourself with others. It is because we are different that each of us is special.

Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Only you know what is best for you.

Don’t take for granted the things closest to your heart. Cling to them as they would your life, for without them, life is meaningless.

Don’t let your life slip through your fingers by living in the past or for the future. By living your life one day at a time you live ALL the days of your life.

Don’t give up when you still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Don’t be afraid to admit that you are less than perfect. It is this fragile thread that binds us to each together.

Don’t be afraid to encounter risks. It is by taking chances that we learn how to be brave.

Don’t shut love out of your life by saying it’s impossible to find time. The quickest way to receive love is to give; the fastest way to lose love is to hold it too tightly; and the best way to keep love is to give it wings.

Don’t run through life so fast that you forget not only where you’ve been, but also where you are going.

Don’t forget, a person’s greatest emotional need is to feel appreciated.

Don’t be afraid to learn. Knowledge is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.

Don’t use time or words carelessly. Neither can be retrieved.

Life is not a race, but a journey to be savored each step of the way.

Source: SiliconIndia.com - originally authored by "Soumya Mondal"

New CBSE Grading System

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:00:00 +0000

With the academic year 2009-10, CBSE moves to the next level of education!/span>
Class IX & X students will now be evaluated on a 9-point Grading System that is based on Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE).
The academic year gets divided into 2 terms, each having two types of assessment:
Formative = Evaluation of class work, homework, assignment and project work
Summative = Term End Exams

April - September	October - March
Two Formative Assessments each of 10% weightage = 20%	Two Formative Assessments each of 10% weightage = 20%
Term End Exam / Summative = 20%	Term End Exam / Summative = 40%
Total = 100%

9-Point Grading System

Grade	Marks Range
A1	91-100
A2	81-90
B1	71-80
B2	61-70
C1	51-60
C2	41-50
D	33-40
E1	21-32
E2	00-20

Roadmap

Class X (2009-10)	Board Exams happen, however, instead of marks - Grades are given
Class IX (2009-10)	CCE gets operational from October 2009
Class X (2010-11)	CCE gets implemented & Board Exams become optional
Grading system is based on yearlong performance.

Forget Android, Symbian or iPhone OS. Now run XP on your phone!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:23:00 +0000

Suprised?
While developers are going ga-ga over building newer and efficient operating systems for the mobile clan, ITG, a Chinese technology company has managed to build an actual mobile phone which runs a full featured Windows XP! Now that looks funny! No, its for real!

Now, there seems to be some upside-down matters. The biggies like Google, Apple and Symbian foundation are trying real hard to improve the software to co-operate with mobile technology just to function as if it were a desktop.
But ITG, on the other hand is going ground-up and building ground-breaking hardware to let desktop OS to be run on the regular mobile handsets.
The newbie set to rock is dubbed the xpPhone. No prizes for guessing why! The xpPhone features a large 4.8" touch-screen with a resolution of 800x480 and has a full QWERTY keyboard. With a dizzying array of features, such as dual SSD and standard HDD, VGA output at full HD resolutions (1920x1080), USB port for connecting peripherals, 3G connectivity, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, camera, and more!
Other things on the phone are its optimization for being, well, a mobile device. The phone can be configured to wake from stand-by to receive a call. There's even an option that can let you restore the factory system image or the one created by he user at every restart so that your system remains good always.
On the software side, there's no point in telling you the features, as there's nothing that'll keep you limited if its running a whole desktop OS such as XP.

But the only thing to worry about is the overall weight of the device getting around to 400gm! Consider that in your pocket. You may need a "phone-proof" pocket!

Click Here for a larger image - http://i34.tinypic.com/m91yxl.jpg

Here are some of the specifications of the device:

CPU: AMD Super Mobile CPU
Memory:512M/1G
SSD: 8G/16G/32G/64G
HDD:30G/60G/80G/120G
LCD: 4.8' TFT Touch-screen LCD 800*480
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP
Network:
- GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA (HSDPA/HSUPA)
- CDMA/CDMA2000 1X/CDMA1X EVDO,TD-SCDMA,TD-HSDPA
Wireless:WiFi 802.11b/g,WiMax(optional),Buletooth,Stand-alone GPS
Camera Specifications:CMOS, 300k/1.3 Million
Ports:1 x earphone jack,1 x microphone jack,Docking Connector (include VGA output signal ),1 x USB 2.0, SIM Slot
Power Management:
- Battery: Removable Lithium-ion
- Talk time: about 5 hours,Stand by time: about 5 days
- Real life: about 7 hours(Standard), about 12 hours(Large)
- Talk time,Standby time,Operation time may vary depending different usage.
Weight: 400g (include battery)

Visit the manufacturers website for more details.

Source: ThinkDigit.com -http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-and-PDAs/Move-over-Android-Symbian-iPhone-OS-we_3447.html

Obituary to "Common Sense"

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 11:27:00 +0000

An Obituary printed in the London Times - Interesting and sadly rather true.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, *Common Sense*, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

*Common Sense *lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from
school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. *Common Sense *lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. *Common Sense *lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. *Common Sense *took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

*Common Sense *finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. *Common Sense *was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his
wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;
I Know My Rights
I Want It Now
Someone Else Is To Blame
I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.
**********************************************************

Via agrasen.blogspot.com - "Facts of Life" - Original Post

Google Docs now to be in Google Search Results!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:05:00 +0000

Yes, thats for real. Now Docs and Spreadsheets from Google Docs that are publicly published will now be crawlable by the search engine. For this, the document should be published publicly and be a part of a public webpage that is already indexed by the webpage.
Here's Marie from Google who on Thursday wrote in a blog post that "in about two weeks, we will be launching a change for published docs. The change will allow published docs that are linked to from a public Web site to be crawled and indexed, which means they can appear in search results you see on Google.com and other search engines...This is a very exciting change as your published docs linked to from public websites will reach a much wider audience of people."

She added that the crawling for search results "only applies to docs which you explicitly publish using the 'Publish as Web page' or 'Publish/embed' option, and which are linked to from a publicly crawled Web page" (documents for which users choose only to "allow anyone with the link to view" will not get crawled. Also, the users can choose to un-publish the documents that they don't wish to be indexed.

Some users of the search giant's suite of online productivity applications expressed concerns about the plan, suggesting better labeling of potentially crawlable documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. For example, how would you know definitively if a publicly crawled Web page has linked to your published document? Is the only way to ensure that your published document does not ultimately show up in search results to actually unpublish it

As noted by The Register, "Google Apps master view does not tell you which docs are publicly published and which aren't." While it may well be obvious to most users how publicly available their Google documents are--and many of those published documents may well be intended to be as publicly available as possible--this seems to be another area where Google needs to find the right balance between transparency and data accessibility.

Respond in the comments about what you think about this move from Google.

Source: CNET News - "Webware"

So, What's new about Facebook Lite?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:39:00 +0000

Facebook Lite is here. So what's good about it? Simple. The Slimmer the better.
The new "Lite" Facebook is available for users of US and India.
Try it out for yourself here - http://lite.facebook.com
Facebook Lite at a glance is really clutter-free version of the Facebook "Classic". Newbies and those who find the original Facebook to be just a bit too noisy, will feel at ease with this newer look. It also pushes the old-school Facebook apps off a cliff, which is just as well for the newest Facebook-connected services.

Some visual changes include the deletion of the left navigation panel alongwith the removal of the bottom taskbar. The overall look and feel is quite soothing and uncluttered. The input box is removed with buttons like Write, Post Photos and Post Videos and these pop down only when needed.
Birthdays and Friend Requests are shown right on top followed by the normal news feed.

Here is a view of the two pages of the same account:
(Credit: Screenshot by Rafe Needleman/CNET)
Facebook Lite Version

Facebook Classic

Other small hard-to-identify tweaks include that the "Friends" tab is missing in the navigation bar. That is replaced by a small Events link.

All pages are cleaner, faster and easier to read, thanks to the Facebook team.
Part of the game is the HTML optimization Facebook's been working at. Advertisements are low on FB Lite but you never know once this thing begins rocking!

Better still, its fast, its efficient, what else do we need?
Something else...reply in comments.

Google just got bigger! Its a bigger search this time.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:02:00 +0000

Google's just got bigger!
Not that it wasn't a giant after all, but Google has recently increased the size of its search box that the company says "will make it easier for people to use".
Google's vice president for search products and user experience, Marissa Mayer, said this teenie-weenie change to the Google hompage symbolizes Google's "Focus on Search". She says that these tiny adjustments to the search box's height and width would make it "even easier and more fun to use."
Google said in an e-mail message that the new search box is "roughly double the size of the (original) search box." The company also made its search buttons "more similar" for those viewing Google "on different operating systems and browsers." Even with a larger search box, the company's search still only allows for up to 2,048 characters in a single query.

Here's a side-by-side view of the two looks of Google: [Click on image to view larger]

Gmail Fails, Google Apologises

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 05:19:00 +0000

Reference: Techdare.com

Google's Electronic Mail service GMail recently crashed on Wednesday, the 2nd of September for an astonishing 100 minutes! The outage nearly killed the Tweety Twitter again!
But isn't just Google a vast spread network of its never-out-of-run servers. As everyone kept wondering whatever happened with Google and GMail, the service kept responding to the Sign-In requests with the erroneous (but quite friendly!) message:

[Credit: GearDiary.com]

Of course, why do we have to worry????

Better still, 'twas good seeing Google publicly apologizing for the unhappy incident.
Looks like they've got everything tangled, and this one was big!!! Real big!
Google engineering VP Ben Treynor explains on the Gmail Blog:

Here’s what happened: This morning (Pacific Time) we took a small fraction of Gmail’s servers offline to perform routine upgrades. This isn’t in itself a problem — we do this all the time, and Gmail’s web interface runs in many locations and just sends traffic to other locations when one is offline.

However, as we now know, we had slightly underestimated the load which some recent changes (ironically, some designed to improve service availability) placed on the request routers — servers which direct web queries to the appropriate Gmail server for response. At about 12:30 pm Pacific a few of the request routers became overloaded and in effect told the rest of the system “stop sending us traffic, we’re too slow!”. This transferred the load onto the remaining request routers, causing a few more of them to also become overloaded, and within minutes nearly all of the request routers were overloaded. As a result, people couldn’t access Gmail via the web interface because their requests couldn’t be routed to a Gmail server. IMAP/POP access and mail processing continued to work normally because these requests don’t use the same routers.The Gmail engineering team was alerted to the failures within seconds (we take monitoring very seriously). After establishing that the core problem was insufficient available capacity, the team brought a LOT of additional request routers online (flexible capacity is one of the advantages of Google’s architecture), distributed the traffic across the request routers, and the Gmail web interface came back online.

That was a big Oops! Better still, GMail is online again.

Gmail, which recently passed AOL to become the third largest Web mail service in the U.S., is obviously having some growing pains. A few hours of downtime is not the end of the world, although it might seem like it at the time. It just better not make this a new habit.

Let's hope Google sticks to its commitment

Apple rolls out Snow Leopard; Win 7 still waiting!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 08:22:00 +0000

Reference: CNET News

Seems Apple is in real hurry!

While Microsoft has released plans for its Windows 7 this week, Apple has rolled out its Mac OS X Snow Leopard, a little earlier than expected.

According to CNET, the new OS doesn't sport many new features, rather Apple is deep into refining the exisiting code of the Operating System. Apple reports to have worked on 90 percent of the Mac OS X code for the Snow Leopord release. It does have a good box cover too! [image:Left (Credit:Apple)]

Here's the CNET Teams review for the Snow Leaopard. The team gave it a review of Excellent in its Test:

"Interface enhancements like Expose in the Dock and better file and folde viewing in Stacks make finding apps and files much easier. A completely overhauled QuickTime X now sports a cleaner interface and recording tools. The much-anticipated Exchange support across Mail, the Address Book, and iCal is huge for thise who take their Macs to work.

CNET Reviews Team however notes that Snow Leopard will work only in Intel-powered Macs; PowerPC users are out of Luck!

Experts note that Snow Leopard could have more features on the Security side, which the OS is said to be lacking. About the Popular belief that people have more Mac, that it is much safer than the Windows counterpart, experts deny. The Mac is merely safer as malware writers do not prefer to target the Apple Platform than the Windows one, according to Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, co-authors of The Mac Hacker's Handbook, which came out this spring.

"Apple hasn't implemented all the security features that Vista has," Miller said. "They made some improvements in Leopard, but they are still behind."

Better gear up!

Salman Khan cancels US trip after SRK episode

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 11:09:00 +0000

Source: Rediff Movies

Learning lessons from Shah Rukh Khan [ Images ] episode, Bollywood star Salman Khan [ Images ] has cancelled his upcoming trip to New York to promote his latest movie Wanted, besides participating in the auction of his personal paintings to raise funds for his charity.

Organisers and promoters associated with the event cited Shah Rukh Khan's episode at Newark Airport early this month, where he was questioned by immigration officials and taken for a second screening, as a major reason for Salman to cancel his New York trip scheduled in early September.

The event was scheduled for September 3 in New York. The promoters were also in talks with local organisers in cities like Chicago, Houston and Dallas for his other events.

"However, after the Shah Rukh Khan event, Salman informed us that he would not like to take the risk of coming to the US at this point," an informed source involved with the planning and organising the September 3 event told PTI.

It is understood that Salman's decision was also propelled by what his aid alleged "the hard time" being given by the US Consulate in Mumbai [ Images ] in approving the visa of his close associates, including one of his family members, whom Salman wanted to bring along with on this promotional trip.

Managerial Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Managerial Decision Making

A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused. Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train is coming, and you are just beside the track interchange. You can make the train change its course to the disused track and save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather let the train go its way?

Let's take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make................

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess. Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally. But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he had to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was. This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday. In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority are, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority are.. The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track was sidelined. And in the case he was sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The great critic Leo Velski Julian who told the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that track was still in use, and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens. If the train was diverted, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track! Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to the track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake! And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

"Remember that what's right isn't always popular... and what's popular isn't always right."

Describe yourself in 50 words or ????

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:37:00 +0000

I got it Here

Satellites Unlock Secret to Northern India's Vanishing Water

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:17:00 +0000

Source: NASA News Service

Satellites Unlock Secret to Northern India's Vanishing Water

WASHINGTON -- Using NASA satellite data, scientists have found that groundwater levels in northern India have been declining by as much as one foot per year over the past decade. Researchers concluded the loss is almost entirely due to human activity.

More than 26 cubic miles of groundwater disappeared from aquifers in areas of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and the nation's capitol territory of Delhi, between 2002 and 2008. This is enough water to fill Lake Mead, the largest manmade reservoir in the United States, three times.

A team of hydrologists led by Matt Rodell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., found that northern India's underground water supply is being pumped and consumed by human activities, such as irrigating cropland, and is draining aquifers faster than natural processes can replenish them. The results of this research were published today in Nature.

The finding is based on data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), a pair of satellites that sense changes in Earth's gravity field and associated mass distribution, including water masses stored above or below Earth's surface. As the twin satellites orbit 300 miles above Earth's surface, their positions change relative to each other in response to variations in the pull of gravity.

Changes in underground water masses affect gravity enough to provide a signal that can be measured by the GRACE spacecraft. After accounting for other mass variations, such changes in gravity are translated into an equivalent change in water.

"Using GRACE satellite observations, we can observe and monitor water storage changes in critical areas of the world, from one month to the next, without leaving our desks," said study co-author Isabella Velicogna of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and the University of California, Irvine.

Groundwater comes from the natural percolation of precipitation and other surface waters down through Earth’s soil and rock, accumulating in cavities and layers of porous rock, gravel, sand or clay. Groundwater levels respond slowly to changes in weather and can take months or years to replenish once pumped for irrigation or other uses.

Data provided by India's Ministry of Water Resources to the NASA-funded researchers suggested groundwater use across India was exceeding natural replenishment, but the regional rate of depletion was unknown. Rodell and colleagues analyzed six years of monthly GRACE data for northern India to produce a time series of water storage changes beneath the land surface.

"We don't know the absolute volume of water in the northern Indian aquifers, but GRACE provides strong evidence that current rates of water extraction are not sustainable," said Rodell. "The region has become dependent on irrigation to maximize agricultural productivity. If measures are not taken to ensure sustainable groundwater usage, the consequences for the 114 million residents of the region may include a collapse of agricultural output and severe shortages of potable water."

Researchers examined data and models of soil moisture, lake and reservoir storage, vegetation and glaciers in the nearby Himalayas in order to confirm that the apparent groundwater trend was real. The loss is particularly alarming because it occurred when there were no unusual trends in rainfall. In fact, rainfall was slightly above normal for the period. The only influence they couldn't rule out was human.

"For the first time, we can observe water use on land with no additional ground-based data collection," said co-author James Famiglietti of the University of California, Irvine. "This is critical because in many developing countries, where hydrological data are both sparse and hard to access, space-based methods provide perhaps the only opportunity to assess changes in fresh water availability across large regions."

GRACE is a partnership between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, DLR. The University of Texas Center for Space Research in Austin has overall GRACE mission responsibility. GRACE was launched in 2002.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/india_water.html

For more information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov

Are you in the 7%

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:47:00 +0000

This is something we should all read at least once a week.

Written By Regina Brett, 90 years old, of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio.

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I've ever written. My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn't fair, but it's still good. 2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It's more healing than crying alone.

8. It's OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first pay check.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

12. It's OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn't be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn't kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It's never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don't take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don't save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn't do.

35. Don't audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative -- dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else's, we'd grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn't tied with a bow, but it's still a gift."

Its estimated 93% won't forward this. If you are one of the 7% who will, forward this with the title '7%'. I'm in the 7%. Remember that I will always share my spoon with you!

SAVE AND SHARE THIS TEXT ON NET

Why your boss shouldn't be on Facebook?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 06:46:00 +0000

Why your boss shouldn't be on Facebook!

I got it HERE

Twitter Tweety Killed, Facebook ripped and the Social Network Drowned

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:15:00 +0000

The two biggies of the Social Network seemed to cripple as both Twitter and Facebook faced outage of services which ultimately came up to be a DDoS attack from an unidentified source. The attack was carried out at some 10 AM Eastern Time. This attack also followed on other sites such as LiveJournal and recently Youtube is reported to have the same slowdown. Although Youtube has not stated any of its service down.

As on Twitter Status Blog, Twitter reported the problem while tweeters waited long to their favorite social network. The outage has been reported to be the longest stretching whole 2 hours which in Online terms is quite a long time!

The blogosphere and other social networks were filled with disappointed Tweeters reaching out for alternatives and with cries for the outage of the service.

Twitter then reported to be "defending against a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack" that was causing the outage.

After it was over with Twitter came a news about Facebook facing the same problem. Worldwide Facebook returned Network errors with its service increasing the disappointment in people. After all we love to be socially connected of which facebook is an indispensable part.

After the Attack was succesfully defended, Facebook Officials stated the same outage to be a DDoS of which the source is still to be tracked.

But what caused this chaos in the Social Network world? Some blogs have reported the source of attack to be related to the Georgia Russia Crisis and that the attack was organized to silence one man reported to be "cyxymu" as on Twitter.

In an interview, Facebook's chief security officer Max Kelly told CNET.com, “It was a simultaneous attack across a number of properties targeting him to keep his voice from being heard. We’re actively investigating the source of the attacks and we hope to be able to find out the individuals involved in the back end and to take action against them if we can.”

Google is quoted as saying, “We are aware that a handful of non-Google sites were impacted by a DOS attack this morning, and are in contact with some affected companies to help investigate this attack. Google systems prevented substantive impact to our services.”

The claims back up earlier reports in the New York Times that Thursday’s attack was sparked by the conflict between Russia and Georgia. The aim was to take down Cyxymu’s accounts, particularly the LiveJournal blog where he posted about the crisis. While Google’s sites held up to the barrage, Twitter and LiveJournal proved less robust.

While DDoS attacks are notoriously hard to defend against, it’s clear that Twitter was far less equipped to cope with such an attack: no doubt they’ll be taking a closer look at how such issues could be handled in the future.

Another blog post also reported a leading security expert as stating that this attack was not a normal DDoS that we usually see with a botnet and malware and trojan infected computers supporting the attack. Rather this was an organized attack.
he security expert spoke with The New York Times and gave his assessment of the situation:

Bill Woodcock, a research director of the Packet Clearing House, a nonprofit technical organization that tracks Internet traffic, said Thursday’s attack was an extension of the conflict between Russia and Georgia. It was not clear who initiated the attack, he said, but likely “one side put up propaganda, the other side figured this out and is attacking them.”

Instead of using a botnet, or a network of thousands of malware-infected personal computers to flood a site with traffic, Mr. Woodcock said this particular attack consisted of a wave of spam e-mail messages, which began infiltrating Twitter and other sites at 10:25 a.m. Eastern time. “It’s a vast increase in traffic that creates the denial-of-service,” he said.

YouTube and LiveJournal were also affected, Mr. Woodcock said, although “Twitter was definitely hit the hardest.” YouTube said it had not noticed any problems with its service.

Reference from: Mashable

Whatever happened to the Social World has been a sort of security lessons to this network and if the attack was related to cyber warfare, then we could be seeing a lot more of this. Still, it’s tough to understand how these social media sites would be of any strategic value to either Russia or Georgia. Today’s events are certainly getting even more complicated, though.

August : The Month of the Meteors

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:55:00 +0000

Source: NASA News Service

Yes, it is true. According to NASA, August is the month of Meteors. This August is the Perseid Meteor Shower.

We'll get to see some Perseids all month long -- before and after midnight -- but the real fireworks will be going on the 12th of August, 2009 between (yawn!) 2 and 4 am (California) and 9-11 AM (GMT) while Indian people might be disappointed with the time for India corresponding to this will be 2:30-4:30 PM. Still, people can try to see it after dark on the 11th or 12th of August

Metoer showers are best seen in the hours after midnight. That's when Earth is facing the d direction in which the dust particles are colliding with our atmosphere.

As a bonus, two more planets will show up, one Venus as the brighter one and the other Mars as the red little faint one. NASA also says that even Neptune might be visible if you have a telescope.

If you've ever wondered about this cosmic firework, what makes up these beauties? Well, according to Jane Houston Jones of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, Meteor showers are just the debris of a passing comet or sometimes the debris from a fragmented asteroid.

When a comet nears the sun, its icy surface heats up. This causes clouds of gas, dirt and dust to be releases, forming a tail of debris that can stretch for millions of miles.

As Earth passes near the dusty tail, some of the dust particles hit our atmosphere. They burn up and create the celestial firworks we see.

NASA monitors these meteor showers to safeguard any launching or orbiting spacecraft.

The best part is You don't need any telescopes or binoculars to view these showers. Infact, these are better seen with naked eyes!

So, go out on your roofs and you won't be disapponted for stayin' up so late!

[Pic] Rollout of STS-128 "Discovery" By NASA amid Lightning

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 06:36:00 +0000

Rollout of space shuttle Discovery was slow-going due to the onset of lightning in the area of Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

First motion of the shuttle out of the Vehicle Assembly Building was at 2:07 a.m. Aug. 4. Discovery's 13-day flight will deliver a new crew member and 33,000 pounds of equipment to the International Space Station. The equipment includes science and storage racks, a freezer to store research samples, a new sleeping compartment and the COLBERT treadmill. Launch of Discovery on its STS-128 mission is targeted for late August.

Image Credit: Photo Courtesy of Justin Dernier

Windows 7 Release Date cancelled? No way!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:04:00 +0000

Reference : Blogs.ComputerWorld.com

Recent news showed up how Microsoft was shirked by a critical bug in Windows 7 regarding the chkdsk utility related to the chkdsk /r command.

The blogosphere was recently blabbering over the cancellation of the Windows 7 release date. The good news is : It ain't cancelled!

The bug reportedly overflowed the memory on execution in the Step 4 o its operation following a BSOD.
The bug was labeled as critical and a "show stopper" by the blogosphere as Microsoft has released the RTM code of Windows 7 to various OEM's and that it had to fix the problem as soon as possible.
But recent news has it that Microsoft has responded with "bug in Windows 7 capable of delaying the planned roll-out, which starts Thursday. The company has blamed a chip-set controller issue rather than a critical bug in the Windows 7 chkdsk /r tool."

Microsoft appeared to take particular issue, however, with descriptions of a "critical bug" and "showstopper" in Windows 7. ... "While we appreciate the drama of 'critical bug' and then the pickup of 'showstopper' that I’ve seen, we might take a step back and realize that this might not have that defcon level".

While the blog world has soon recognized that this may not be still a "show stopper" and that Microsoft might be able to prepare and send patch for the bug until the time that users might get a hand on the Windows 7.

Some forums have even reported that the bug news was a fake and that enthusiastic beta developers when tried to duplicate the problem by chkdsk /r tool, the problem didn't even show up!
So, that is really interesting when somebody shouts, "Hey, you've got a bug here. That's a serious problem coz you're ruined now!!!". Just when you know its fake.

In his blog, Richi Jennings reports all such instances in a timelined-story for you to read. Enjoy!

What MS and Yahoo get out of the deal; And what advertisers and you could possibly get

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 08:31:00 +0000

Source: CNET News

Its time that everybody's been thinking why Microsoft and Yahoo have come up together with the deal between the two companies getting merged. Some have come up with the view that its an attempt to thwart off Google from its pre-dominant position in search market with MS doing the trick with its Bing Search Engine that was very well received from the consumer according to a report.

Here's an insight into what piece of pie does everyone get out of this delicacy:
Yahoo:
Yahoo is paying a 12 percent share for the outsourced search engine Bing from Microsoft, as MS pays Yahoo 88 per cent of the search revenue generated to it. Yahoo gets a guaranteed stream of search revenue for the next 18 months.
Plus, it gets to sell all the ads that are displayed on both Yahoo and Microsoft sites.
The new Yahoo CEO Tim Morse says that the company estimated that it will save $200 million in capital expenditures and see and overall benefit of $500 million in operating income.

What Yahoo gets low on the deal is the right to choose its destiny. The Search market of Yahoo is now in the hands of MS.

Microsoft:
The part of the good news for Microsoft is the ability to have a far more search market than it would have dreamt of acquiring. MS has almost tripled its search market with the merger. What's more is that all the Yahoo's tried-and-tested search tech and semantics is now available to MS.
And what's rumored is that MS would have to pay "boatloads of money" to get all this what it has got just in a merger rather than an acquisition of the Search Giant.
The part that's prickling is the relationship of MS from its advertisers that are now the "property" of Yahoo.

Google:
But what does Google get out of this? Does it get anything? Yes, Time. This deal as is said will take months, (if not years!) to complete and would be quite a deal to break.
Google Representatives likely called up their major clients to inform them of the uncertainty of this integration process and that they might be better of with a more stable operation.

Just what bitter truth for Google is that it cannot have the old British "Divide-and-Rule" strategy. Google was better off letting Yahoo and MS play like small kids trying to beat the "Daddy" of Search and compete between themselves as well. Now what happens? The two have a far more chance of making serious competition against Google when they're together as one. [The power of Unity!]
Google has more to live up to now!!!

Advertisers:
Advertisers now get a credible second option for their ad-spending as against the only other giant, Google, just about assuming that ad-spending ever becomes trendy again amidst the economic backdrop. They're also in store for a renewed pitch on the benefits of Internet display advertising, which probably still doesn't resonate on Madison Avenue but may one day start to make sense for the Internet advertiser.

But still, the relationships between advertisers and the two companies will grow more complicated as those used to working with certain representatives transfer their business to new faces. These may be resolved, but still are annoying.

Consumers:
For now, the only thing that consumers would get out of this is,

Yahoo Search Results:
Blah Blah Blah Blah
http://Blah Blah.co,m
"Powered by Bing"

What consumers lose out of this is the decrease in the available choices to them. This is not usually seen as good, but time will tell what's better.

Better still, Microsoft's got more market now so much so that it can force Google into playing defense while Yahoo gets to focus on more of its business.

Until then, its just not obvious!

Microsoft, Yahoo join forces to challenge Google

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 12:39:00 +0000

Source: SiliconIndia News

Tech giants Microsoft and Yahoo reached a long-awaited partnership on Wednesday in a bid to challenge Google, which holds a 65 percent market share in online search. The two companies have plenty of challenges now, but the ground rules have been set: Yahoo's job is to be an online hub, and Microsoft's job is to out-Google Google

Under the 10-year deal, Microsoft would provide Yahoo with the Search Engine Technology with its Bing Search while Yahoo would handle the Advertising part from its huge traffic.

In exchange, Microsoft will pay its partner Yahoo with 88% of the search revenues generated on yahoo sites.

According to Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer, the deal will allow Microsoft to "create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company".

A Yahoo-Microsoft partnership would mean about 28 percent of Internet searches would be performed on their combined platform, according to figures from ratings firm ComScore.

That would still be less than half of the about 65 percent market share of Google Inc., which has long dominated the search space.

Last year, Microsoft attempted to buy Yahoo for more than $45 billion, an unsolicited bid Yahoo rejected, but the Redmond, Washington-based software giant has long had Yahoo's search business at the top of its wish list, and the two had reportedly been in discussions for months.

Yahoo estimated the deal would add $500 million to its annual operating profit, as well as saving it around $275 million in expenses related to developing and maintaining its own search technology.

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Activation code for Windows 7 cracked!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:58:00 +0000

Source: SiliconIndia News

Some Chinese hackers have been rumored to have cracked tehe activation code for Windows 7. Microsoft sees the news as a security risk after the recent release of the final code for Windows 7 to manufacturers.

CNET News has reported that he Windows Genuine Advantage has been compromised by teh hackers for the Wuindows 7 Ultimate release.
This would simply mean that any user can fully activate and run the new OS without connecting to the Activation Server of Windows and doesn't need to activate the Windows product.
It is known that the hackers must have used the leaked ISO file to get hold of the activation certificate that Microsoft digitally signed for the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) version of Windows 7.
An OEM activation key will unlock multiple copies and it is rumored that this particular key will work in machines from Dell, HP and Lenovo.

To this, Microsoft has responded, "We are aware of reports of activation exploits that attempt to circumvent activation and validation in Windows 7, and we can assure customers that Microsoft is committed to protecting them from counterfeit and pirated software." It also advises customers not to download Windows 7 from unauthorized sources.

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Fake Antiviruses growing: Reports

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:32:00 +0000

Source: CNET News

A report released on Wednesday from PandaLabs suggested that malware posing as antivirus software are spreading fast infecting millions of computers each month.

PandaLabs found 1,000 samples of fake antivirus software in the first quarter of 2008. In a year, that number had grown to 111,000. And in the second quarter of 2009, it reached 374,000, Luis Corrons, technical director of PandaLabs said in a recent interview.

PandaLabs found that 3 percent to 5 percent of all the people who scanned their PCs with Panda antivirus software were infected. Using that and worldwide computer stats from Forrester, PandaLabs estimates there could be as many as 35 million computers infected per month with rogue antivirus programs.

About 3 percent of the people who see the fake warnings fall for it, forking over $50 for an annual license or $80 for a lifetime license, according to Corrons.

Last September, a hacker was able to infiltrate rogue antivirus maker Baka Software and discovered that in one period an affiliate made more than $80,000 in about a week, said Sean-Paul Correll, a PandaLabs threat researcher.

The malware generally reports fake infections and gets people to pay for software they do not need. Or worse, it may download viruses, Trojans and worms which may cause further damage.

Reports also state that such malware-creators can get as many as $10, 0000 a day from these fake softwares.

The most important thing for the consumer to understand is that no legitimate antivirus vendor will start a scan automatically on their computer without their consent.

After all the hoopla about the Conficker threat, researchers seemed almost relieved that it turned out to distribute fake antivirus software instead of something much worse.

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Firefox 4.0 to look like Chrome!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:15:00 +0000

Source : CNet News - Webware

A recent design idea from Mozilla had eliminated the browser's title bar for the more nearer firefox 3.7 mockup. This was replaced by two drop down menu buttons on the right of the new browser...the same that Google Chrome has natively since its debut.

This Firefox 4.0 mockup shows a very Chrome-like interface.

(Credit: Mozilla)

Secondly, the new Firefox 4.0 includes the "Tabs-on-top concept" where all the tabs for a certain page reside where the Title Bar must've been.
Mozilla says the advantages to this is that it saves vertical space and removes visual complexity.
On the other side, it is new and a bit different and might confuse people who look for the usual File and Edit Menus. Also, the users see a part of the original title of a page at any point of usage.

For Firefox, putting tabs on top meshes conceptually with Electrolysis, aka Content Processes, an under-the-covers change that will make each tab a separate computing process. That carries potential performance, stability, and security advantages, but requires more memory.

The Firefox 4.0 mockups also show a combination button to the right of the address bar that changes behavior depending on what the browser is up to. The button can be used to start loading a page whose address has been typed, to stop loading if it's in the process of doing so, and to reload it if it's finished loading.

An example of Chrome's latest interface.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

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