Saturday, March 7, 2009

Hidden Nature pg1

Thunder flashed through the trees. Karen could hear cries of fear, but she couldn't...she could never make out the faces in her dreams....
Lightning snapped in half a tree in the distance and she sat up straight in her bed, soaked in sweaty fear...."What happened that night? Why can't I remember?" she rubbed her bloodshot eyes, distraught that she had not been able to sleep for the last seven months. She glanced at the clock, a blurry glare in her tear stained eyes. A loud knock sounded at the door. Startled, she hesitated before throwing back the covers and walking towards the door on wobbly legs. She looked into the peephole and saw a distorted figure of a man standing in the hallway. "Ralph." Even in the moonlight she could see that Ralph Cooke's dark black hair was disheveled and gleamed in the moonlight. His hazel eyes had a look of deep worry.
If only I knew where I came from, she thought. Was she married? Was she in love? If so, she was in a lot of trouble. She was beginning to fall for that overprotective cop who always seemed to come when she needed him most.
"Karen!! Open up!" His deep, throaty voice yelled impatiently, frantically through her door. She always had the feeling that he somehow felt responsible for her. Like it was somehow his fault that she was left for dead in the icy cold waters of the ocean.
"I'm about to come in!"
She opened the door just before he began to ram the door.
"Karen!" He looked around the room, walking past her to make sure no one was there.
Thunder flashed and light flooded into the room, making Karen look even more terrified than she looked when he first saw her.
"Are you alright?" It seemed that those were always the words he used whenever he saw her.
Ralph thought back to the night he’d first met Karen. It was a cold December night on the coast of Maine. As he drove alongside the rocky coast his eyes met the steep cliff, reminding him yet again of his late fiancé Anna’s death. Goosebumps rose on his arms as he remembered how cold and lifeless Anna’s body was when he found her body.
The radio had interrupted his thoughts. A call came in that a woman had been found just barely alive at the bottom of a rocky cliff and she was beginning to respond to police questions.
"Anna??!! No, I saw her body myself. I identified her body." He shook his head in disbelief, wondering if he’d heard right.
'I must be drinking too much coffee,' he thought as he answered a response into the radio. The voice confirmed what he heard and he sped out toward a stretch of beach not far from the site where his Anna was found.
They had to take a boat to reach the small stretch of beach at the bottom of the cliff. Large boulders lay on one side of the beach. On one of the rocks sat a ghostly looking woman, shivering in a white nightgown.
A white nightgown, he thought. Nausea swept over him as the memories of that horrible night flashed before him. Anna was seen walking outside in the freezing rain in a white satin nightgown.
Get yourself together, Ralph. You can do this.
Fighting for composure, he’d walked in the direction of the lady.
His breath unexpectedly caught in his throat. Even though her skin was almost blue from exposure, she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever laid eyes on. He felt guilty for thinking like that when his wife had been dead for only a year...but he was a man after all. A man who spent entirely too much of his time chasing after bad guys and coming home to an empty bed every night.
When he got to the edge of the water she was sitting there staring at angry waters as blue as her eyes.
"Ma'am, are you alright?" Scared sky blue eyes stared at him in confusion.
"I don't know. I don't remember my name." She winced and he saw that she had a large bruise on the side of her head.
His partner Tom walked up and said, "Jane Doe must've washed up here. She's in pretty bad shape. She has serious bruises and lacerations. We're waiting for the ambulance to carry her to the hospital. I think she has some broken bones. It seems that someone tried to murder her. She's quite lucky."
Ever since then he'd watched over her. Even named her Karen and got her an apartment across from his. He’d felt that somehow his wife's death had some connection with Karen's mysterious circumstances and wanted to keep her close by. As time went on, his interest in her went far beyond concern and police protection. He was beginning to have strong feelings for her. But how could he develop feelings for a woman with no history? Was she married, did she have children? No one knew. It was as if she never existed.
Now, eight months later, there were no leads in the case. He was just starting to think that she would never remember anything when she started having dreams a few weeks ago.
As he stood in the doorway, he couldn't help thinking about how sexy she looked with her long dark red hair hanging damp and rumpled against her shoulders, and her black silk pajamas plastered to her shapely body. He fought against the urge to kiss her and settled for touching her shoulders to steady her instead.
"I'm alright, Ralph. I had one of those dreams again."
As he gently pulled her into his arms, she closed her eyes and sighed.

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Hidden Nature pg2

I usually dream about you, Ralph.
She blushed at the thought. Trying not to be so attracted to the man was utterly impossible. Especially since she'd spied him by the lake this summer sitting by the bank without a shirt on. She didn't remember if she'd ever been with a man, but right then and there she knew that she'd never been quite so attracted to anyone before. But it was more than good looks. He had this mysterious, and strangely familiar and quiet way about him that drew her to his side whenever she could think of a good excuse for coming over. Tonight was unexpected. Her dreams were so vivid, yet so vague that she felt tortured all week long. She wished she could stay with him instead of sleeping by herself at night, afraid to fall asleep.
"No, you're not alright, you're barely standing. Come, sit down." He wrapped a muscular arm around her waist, practically carrying her to a nearby chair. She leaned against his strength, relishing in the warmth radiating from his body. She shivered, but not from fear. Whenever he was close to her, or so much as touched her, she nearly fell apart. She wondered if there was someone else that her heart belonged to that made her feel like melting whenever he touched her. A faint feeling of remembrance passed for an instant. She couldn't quite grasp it. Someone who reminded her of Ralph for some reason…
He let her go, reluctantly. She felt so good in his arms. He wanted to stay the night. To hold her all night until she felt safe again. But the cop in him wouldn’t let him cross the line. He reminded himself that he was there to protect her, not to pounce on her and began questioning her about the dream.
"Could you make out any of the faces this time."
"No, but this time I could see that I was tied up in some kinda barn. Or, maybe it was a ship's cabin. Now that I think about it, I do remember feeling a little sea sick."
She paused as she thought about the details of her dream.
"One of the voices seem to be familiar, like I knew them. I get the feeling that the person that I knew was trying to kill me. Why would anyone want to hurt me, Ralph?"
"I don't know, Karen. I can only give you my word that I'm doing everything in my power to help you. I won’t stop until I find the bastard that did this to you."
He sat down beside her and took her hand. Caramel eyes gazed into hers with such intensity that she had to look away.
How does he do that?, thought Karen. Just one look, and I lose all composure.
"Thank you, so much. I appreciate that very much. You know, you're all I have right now. For some reason, my subconscious has blocked out all memory of my previous life. It's so hard to trust someone when you feel so vulnerable, but from the beginning I knew I could trust you. Thank you for being there."
His voice changed to a low husky tone that sounded like he was struggling to speak.
"I promise I'll be there this time. I promise."
Karen turned to give him an inquiring look, but he'd already stood and started walking to the door.
Wait., she wanted to say. Stay with me tonight. I don't care about my past; I just want to be with you. But she held her mouth open as if to speak, then looked the other way, admonishing herself for her cowardice.
"If you need me, you know where to find me." he said behind his shoulders. He had to get out of there. Angry tears threatened to cloud his eyes. He wanted so much to be in the arms of a woman again; Karen, in particular. But he wouldn't allow himself such comfort. All he could think of was how he'd failed Anna when she’d needed him. How he’d worked so hard, he didn't come home from work the night before his wedding until a call came in on the radio that she'd been found dead at the bottom of the cliff two miles away from their house. Guilt raked his soul every night for the woman he’d loved and lost.

His keys jangled in his hands as he fumbled with his keys, trying to open his door. As he stepped inside his apartment he noticed for the first time how empty it all looked. Even his bedroom, he thought as he stood by his bed staring at his fiance’s picture, seemed unlived in. Like one of those rooms in a furniture store. In truth, it was. Since the death of his fiancé, Ralph had worked overtime to keep his mind off of her suicide. He’d tried, unsuccessfully because something just didn't sit right with his fiance’s alleged suicide.
They were to be married the very next day, and Anna seemed very happy. Why would she kill herself? Everything wasn't perfect between them, but she wasn't suicidal. He just knew it. Besides, why would she walk outside in the freezing rain in one of her flimspy nighties to kill herself?

No, he didn't deserve Anna, and he doesn't deserve anyone else either, he thought as his body lay down for yet another sleepless night.

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Flash MP3 Player Builder 3.1.23 Publisher's description

Flash MP3 Player Builder is an easy and fast way to batch convert MP3 and WAV to small Flash SWF without losing quality, generate Flash MP3 Player for your website and blog (MySpace, Google Blog, MSN Blog and all other popular blogs) with ease.

With a step by step user friendly wizard style interface, the software can batch convert MP3 and WAV files to Adobe Flash SWF files. By re-encoding audio data, you can convert a large size MP3 or WAV file to a small SWF file without losing quality. You can also customize style and color of the Flash Music player, output HTML souce code to quickly include Flash MP3 Player to your webpage.

Requirements: Windows 98/Me/NT4/2000/XP/2003/Vista

Download Flash MP3 Player Builder 3.1.23 (1.51 MB)

Buy Flash MP3 Player Builder's full version ($39.95)

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Flash Player Pro 3.9 Publisher's description

Flash Player Pro is a handy flash tool kit designed as Adobe flash player and manager. It has several powerful flash tools: download flash movies, preview and browse flash movie, capture flash image and set it as wallpaper, create flash screensaver with ease, make conversion between SWF and EXE flash movies etc. All of these features will help you enhance and extend the using possibility of existing flash files. And with friendly user interface, Flash Player Pro offers you a fantastic animated flash world!
With Flash Player Pro you can:
Browse Macromedia flash movies with built-in viewer.
View or play flash movies with built-in player.
View or play movies in full screen model.
Make flash screensaver with a few mouse-click.
Make flash screensaver installer and distribute it with ease.
Capture flash movie image and save it.
Capture flash movie image and set wallpaper.
Build your own favorite folder, and browse flash movies in it.
make conversion between SWF and EXE flash movies.
Copy or move flash movies to another folder.
Rename flash movies.
........

Requirements: Windows 98, SE, ME, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista

What's new in this version: Support Windows Vista

Download Flash Player Pro 3.9 (3.28 MB)

Buy Flash Player Pro's full version ($29.95)

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Flash MP3 Player 1.0 Publisher's description

Free flash-based web application for playing music on web pages. The best way to share music online. The main features: easy installation (no programming skills required), forms playlist automatically (scans specified folder for mp3-files and uses ID3v1/ID3v2 tags for naming), saves playing position (when user moves from page to page, refreshes or reopens the page), fully customizable design, and of course, it's free... ;)

Requirements: Web Server, PHP

What's new in this version: none

Download Flash MP3 Player 1.0 (1.50 MB)

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Adobe Flash Player (IE & AOL) 9.0.28.0 Final Publisher's description

Macromedia Flash Player lets you view the best animation and entertainment on the Web. It displays Web application front-ends, high-impact Web site user interfaces, interactive online advertising, and short-form to long-form animation. Since it is free of the design restrictions of more traditional Web display options, you can use it to clearly and exactly express your brand and company identity.

Requirements: IE or AOL

Download Adobe Flash Player (IE & AOL) 9.0.28.0 Final (1.00 MB)

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WinRAR 3.80

Download Now (1.18MB)

Publisher's description of WinRAR

WinRAR is a 32-bit Windows version of RAR Archiver, an archiver and archive manager. RAR files can usually compress content by 8 percent to 15 percent more than ZIP files can. WinRAR's main features include strong general and multimedia compression, the ability to process non-RAR archive formats, ZIP compression and decompression, support for long filenames, programmable self-extracting archives (SFX), repair of damaged archives, authenticity verification, embedded file comments, and encryption. Unicode is supported in archive filenames, allowing non-English filenames to be handled painlessly. You can manipulate the parameters of many archives at once and view a volume sequence as a single archive. WinRAR can convert other archive formats to RAR and search for specified text and files in archives.

Version 3.80 adds decompression support for AES-encrypted ZIP files, improved display information, more context-menu options, and a more secure method of deleting temporary files.


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Browser CRM 5.000.02 Publisher's description

Browser CRM is web based customer management & integrated email. Flexible and powerful CRM - Customer Relationship Management - and Collaboration tools, running in any web browser. Browser CRM is a commercial CRM application, backed by a company with 3 years experience in the sector and with significant expertise in web-enabling small businesses, including migrating from desktop products such as ACT, Goldmine and Maximiser. Why does your small business need Browser CRM? 1. you can have a single, comprehensive CRM and Collaboration application accessible from anywhere. 2. you can centralize your customer information from multiple applications and individual computers. 3. you can build a complete, real-time customer history. 4. your people can always access live business data and up-to-date documents from any web browser. 5. you can install the download on your own server or ISP, or use Browser CRM Hosted in our data center.

Requirements: PHP & MySQL

Download Browser CRM 5.000.02 (2.39 MB)

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TheWorld Browser 2.4.0.5 Publisher's description

TheWorld Browser is compatible with Internet Explorer and it can run in most Miscrosoft Windows OSs.
TheWorld Browser has a new, powerful multi-threaded window frame, which can avoid web page being out of response. TheWorld Browser is optimized to avoid any case of out of response.
In any test case, if a web page's browser window is out of response, the other windows will not be infected. With experience of TheWorld Browser serious, all code rewritten, all module rebuild, the new frame can take more effective experience.

Download TheWorld Browser 2.4.0.5 (0.58 MB)

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Max Dice Lite 2.0 2.0 Publisher's description

Max Dice Lite 2.0 is an advanced dice rolling utility for games, RPG's and random number generations. Advanced and based on the Java platform, make games, RPG's and other random number generations easy! Max Dice Lite 2.0 is easily one of the best dice rollers available on the internet. With the option to purchase the full version for next to nothing, check out Max Dice Lite 2.0 today!
Download Max Dice Lite 2.0 2.0 (444.00 KB)

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Ten Thousand Dice 2.40 Publisher's description

Ten Thousand Dice - A Game of Temptation and Chance for up to 6 human or computer players. The game is played with six dice, and is a race to score at least 10,000 points.
You can play with any combination of human or computer players, and with the registered version, remote network players. To win you will need equal parts strategy, luck, and guts, but any way you play you are sure to have fun and post a few stats to the -Awards- board.
Each player in turn rolls the dice in an attempt to score points. If successful, he or she has the option of re-rolling the non scoring dice to try to gain additional points or to -Stay- and put the points scored thus far in the bank. If, during any roll of the dice, the player scores no points he or she -Busts- and forfeits all points earned on previous rolls and not put in the bank.
The game continues until one of the players stays with 10,000 points or more in the bank. Once this happens every other player is given one final turn to try to bank more points than any previous player. The game ends when the last player has had his or her chance to beat the first person to score 10,000 or more. The winner is the player with the most points in the bank at the end.
Requirements:
Microsoft Windows 9x or Windows NT 4.0 (or later)
What's new in this version:
New Version Release - Network Multiplayer

Download Ten Thousand Dice 2.40 (1.09 MB)

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Online Game Dice 1.05 Publisher's description

Online Game Dice is a free program that allows you to add random dynamic, stylish dice to your web page. You choose how many dice and what size you want them to be. The dice display as a single download-optimized image that is perfect for online game web sites.
The instructions to install Online Game Dice are easy:
1. Download and unzip the Online Game Dice folder
2. Copy the folder to your web site directory using your preferred method (FTP, for example).
3. Edit the three variables in the config.php files with your favorite editor (Notepad, for instance).
4. Include the file dice-include.php using a PHP include wherever you want to show the dice.
5. Make sure to save the web page file with a .php extension so that the include works properly.

The Online Game Dice program requires PHP 4.2 or higher.
Viola! You have just added the game dice to your web site. You can decide how many dice to show, and what size the dice should be.
The Online Game Dice are free to use on as many web sites as you want. We just ask that you follow the rules of the license and not distribute, for free or otherwise, this Program or any derivatives of the Program. Also, for the free version, you must include the link to www.Online-Game-Rules.com. If you need to remove the link, please contact us for further information about the paid version of Online Game Dice.

Requirements: PHP 4.2

Download Online Game Dice 1.05 (106.69 KB)

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Pool Game Online v2.63 Publisher's description

Pool Game Online features full 3-D environment and perfect online game play. It supports 3-Ball,8-Ball,9-Ball,15-Ball, Straight, Rotation, BlackJack and Bonus games. The balls roll just like real ones, and you can position your cue shot to hit at various places on the cue ball for different spins. The impressive internet lobby allows you to play & chat online with other players, watch pool matches and earn 'pool coins' by which you can order virtual goods or real games! We have 4 Elite Tournaments per day, monthly Pool Skill Tournament and Online Pool League, bonuses are delivered every day. The amply events should keep all pool sharks busy!

Download Pool Game Online v2.63 (1.85 MB)

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AV VoizGame 6.0.32 Publisher's description

AV VoizeGame is an innovative voice chat tool that changes your real voice to disguise your real identity and play [delete- in] different characters in Online Role Playing Games. You can freely use the fabulous library of nickvoices including 5 for male input voices (Pleasant Girl, Prudent Girl, Balanced Girl, Dear Granny and School Mistress) and 5 for female input voices (Boy, Child, Young Man, Amorous Man and Cool Man), to be completely anonymous in any game chat rooms. In addition, you are able to change Pitch and Timbre to create unlimited changed voices and then save as your own nickvoices for later use. The quality of the changed voices is the remarkable strength of AV VoizGame and makes this voice changer software outstanding in the market. With the Equalizer and Advanced Tune, this software produces natural, lively and authentic voices in real time to serve any of your purposes. Now, you can play many different characters in Online Games, from a brave hero to a cunning sorcerer or a pretty princess without [delete-the trouble of] being recognized by game chat pals. This game chat weapon is compatible with most chat applications such as Ventrilo, Teamspeak, Roger Wilco, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, AOL Instant Messenger, Skype, etc. and famous online games from World of Warcraft, MU to Counter Strike and EVE. Another great feature of AV VoizGame is that it takes astonishingly little disk space, so users no longer have to worry about crashing or running other programs at the same time. Furthermore, online players will appreciate the user-friendly style and features of AV VoizGame. Choose AV VoizGame - become the hero in your online community with a voice to match, or create your own RPG voice to stand out in any online game chatroom - the possibilities are endless.

Requirements: 1GHz compatible processor, 250MB Ram, Full Duplex Sound Card, speakers

Download AV VoizGame 6.0.32 (12.60 MB)

Buy AV VoizGame's full version ($29.95)

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Push Your Online Game to the Next Step with AV VoizGame

(April 19, 2007)- Audio4fun Game Center- “AV VoizGame is voted as one of the best high-tech weapons for online gamers to promote their games”, reported from a research in Audio4fun online game forums.
With smaller file size compared with almost other voice changer software, VoizGame is really a best voice application for online game players to play during their virtual battles. Skillfully applying this voice changing software, gamers can perform their characters lively and enjoyably.
This innovative product allows gamers to change their original voice into many different voices with 2 simple methods. One is that they can adjust 2 fundamental voice settings of Pitch and Timbre to create various voice outputs. The other way is that they can choose among the available nickvoices library to match with their various games’ characters. The software is well compatible with most of the chat applications such as Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype, Google Talk, AOL Instant Messenger, Ventrilo, Teamspeak, Roger Wilco, etc and Online Role Playing Games: MU, Counter Strike, World of Warcraft and many more. Thus, gamers don’t have to worry about their voice performance during various games played.
AV VoizGame helps online combatants push up their online battles to the next steps due to the high quality voice conversations. Through those voice chat, gamers can make a connections with their community members to evolve and integrate their various skills to win the games. Now online game is not only as simple as an entertainment but also a place where players can practice their coordinating, organizing, and teamwork skills.
An entirely new build of AV Voizgame is under the final finishing steps in the Lab that will be released very soon. The current owners of this software will be able to have free upgrade to this new build. Some new features of the soon-to-be-released new build of Voizgame are Player, New Nickvoice Package and Hot-key setting.
Purchase VoizGame now to push your games to the next steps and get chance to free upgrade to its coming new build.
About Avnex Ltd.:
Throughout many years of development, Audio4fun has been promoting audio and video software technologies and specializing in three core areas: Audio and Video Morphing Algorithms, Audio and Video Stream Interception, Audio and Video Real Time Effecting and Webcam Morpher. The wide range of products of Audio4Fun is detailed on http://www.audio4fun.com

Contact:
Website: http://www.audio4fun.com
Email: media@audio4fun.com (attention to Jenny Le)

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Counter-Strike 1.6 Publisher's description

Steam Client including Counter Strike 1.6
Steam is Valve's new way of getting games into your hands ASAP. Games like Half-Life, Counter-Strike, and Counter-Strike Condition Zero are all being made available through Steam.
Steam games are automatically kept up-to-date with the latest content and revisions. Steam also includes an instant-message client which even works while you're in-game.
At its core, Steam is a distributed file system and shared set of technology components that can be implemented into any software application. Steam is a broadband platform for the deliver and management of digital content, currently features a variety of Valve games including Counter-Strike 1.6, which introduces the new riot shield, the official CS bot and more.
Features:
- Play the latest Valve games (like Counter-Strike 1.6 )
- Get automatic updates (no more patching!)
- Chat with friends, even while you play
- Find the best servers & find your friends' games
- Receive Steam-Only special offers
Download Counter-Strike 1.6 (379.42 MB)

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Tạo chữ chạy marquee trên PowerPoint


Có bạn đặt câu hỏi trên HelloICT yêu cầu
thủ thuật tạo chữ chạy trên PowerPoint (2003 và 2007). BiBo search thử trên Internet thì thấy có bài hướng dẫn làm thủ thuật này. Mình xin được hướng dẫn lại các bạn.
Chữ chạy marquee là dòng chữ chạy sang trái hoặc sang phải và liên tục. Chữ cũng có thể chạy từ phải sang trái, dừng và chạy từ trái sang phải. Hiệu ứng này có thể tìm thấy ở các trang web tin tức, dùng để highlight các tin nổi bật. Nếu trong powerpoint, theo kinh nghiệm của mình thì hiệu ứng này không giúp ích nhiều cho người thuyết trình. Đôi khi lại làm người đọc mất tập trung vào hiệu ứng lạ mắt mà bỏ sót những điểm nhấn chính của bài thuyết trình. Mình xin được hướng dẫn thực hiện như một bài viết tham khảo.
Nguyên tắc của thủ thuật này dựa vào những yếu tố sau:

1. Để chữ chạy từ trái sang phải hay từ phải sang trái, chúng ta dùng hiệu ứng Crawl out.

2. Để chữ tự động chạy, ta cấu hình cho hiệu ứng Start with previous hoặc Start after previous

3. Để chữ tự động chạy liên tục ta cấu hình Timing cho hiệu ứng là Until end of slide.

Để biết hướng dẫn chi tiết, mời các bạn xem Video:

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Làm sao để thêm chữ ký vào Gmail và Yahoo!Mail?

Trong mail Outlook bạn có thể tạo chữ kỹ cho mỗi email gởi đi. Điều này giúp người nhận mail biết rõ thông tin về bạn và dễ dàng liên hệ với bạn khi cần. Tuy nhiên, nếu bạn thường sử dụng Gmail hơn để liên lạc, bạn không thể tạo chữ ký cho emailGmail chưa có chức năng cho phép tạo chữ ký. Vậy làm cách nào để có thể tạo chữ ký trong Gmail?
Bằng cách tạo chữ ký email tại trang LinkedIn, mỗi khi gởi mail trong

Gmail bạn có thể chèn chữ ký này vào trong email chỉ với động tác kéo thả.
Để tạo chữ ký bạn vào đây.
Nếu chưa có tài khoản bạn phải đăng ký cho mình một tài khoản miễn phí.
Sau khi đăng ký xong, bạn vào lại đường link phía trên để vào lại trang tạo chữ ký cho Email.
Image

Tại đây bạn điền các thông tin muốn xuất hiện trong chữ ký.Click vào dòng “View gallery” để chọn mẫu Layout cho chữ ký.Sau khi tạo chữ ký xong bạn quét chọn phần nội dung chữ ký vừa tạo rồi kéo thả hoặc copy & paste chữ ký vào cuối phần nội dung email trong
Gmail. Khi đó chữ ký này sẽ được dán vào vị trí nội dung bạn muốn.

Image

Quét chọn nội dung chữ ký
Image

Kéo thả hoặc copy paste chữ ký vào phần nội dung email.
Để lấy đoạn mã HTLM của chữ ký chèn vào các hộp mail có hỗ trợ HTML
hoặc website bạn click vào dòng “Click here for instructions…” trong
phần “Save your email signature:” của trang tạo chữ ký.

Để đưa chữ ký vào Yahoo!Mail bạn làm như sau:

1. Đăng nhập vào Yahoo!mail
2. Click “Mail Options
3. Trong Mail Options click “Signature” bên dưới phần Personalization
4. Kế dòng chữ “Editor”, click “Color and Graphics
5. Chọn “Add signature to all outgoing messages” và bên dưới chọn dòng “View HTML Source
6. Copy đoạn code HTML của chữ ký vừa tạo
7. Paste đoạn mã đó vào cửa sổ
8. Click Save.

Chúc bạn thành công!

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Mở file Word 2007, Powerpoint 2007, Excel 2007 khi không có cài Office 2007

Nếu định dạng các tập tin văn bản của bộ Office 2003 là .doc cho Word, .xls cho Excel và .ppt cho Powerpoint thì trong bộ Office mới, các nhà phát triển đã chọn một định dạng mới khác với định dạng truyền thống. Định dạng mới này được đặt tên lại là: .docx cho Word, .xlsx cho Excel, .pptx cho PowerPoint. Do đó nếu bạn nhận được một tập tin Word từ đối tác mà có phần mở rộng là .docx thì bạn sẽ phải dùng Word 2007 để xem chứ không thể dùng Word 2003 xem được.

Trong trường hợp, máy tính của bạn không có cài bộ Office 2007 mà bạn lại muốn mở các tập tin của Office 2007, bạn có thể tạm thời dùng Gmail để đọc nội dung bên trong.

Cách làm rất đơn giản! Bạn chỉ cần soạn một email mới, đính kèm tập tin cần xem vào email và gửi cho chính mình.
Sau khi nhận được email, bạn mở mail và nhấp vào dòng View as HTML nằm bên cạnh tên tập tin đính kèm, dưới thư để xem nội dung bên trong của tập tin mà không cần bất cứ phần mềm nào!

Mở Powerpoint 2007 trong Gmail Mở Excel 2007 trong Gmail

Chúc thành công!

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GMail cải tiến chức năng Upload tập tin


Sáng nay mình phát hiện Gmail có thể khi đứa bạn có hỏi về hiện tượng hộp thư GMail không thể upload file đính kèm được. Khi kiểm tra, mình thấy Gmail đã cải tiến chức năng upload tập tin lên hộp thư. Người sử dụng có thể chọn nhiều tập tin để upload cùng lúc. Có thanh trạng thái khi upload. Nhận xét về tính năng mới này, mình thấy tốc độ upload cải thiện rất đáng kể. Tuy nhiên, chức năng này vẫn chưa k hoạt động tốt. Mình đã gặp lỗi Gmail upload không hoàn tập tin đính kèm cho dù đó là các tập tin Word, Excel.

Nếu bạn gặp gặp lỗi với chức upload mới của GMail, bạn có thể quay trở lại phiên bản cũ bằng cách nhập vào dòng Older Version ở góc trên bên phải màn hình.

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'My Heart and My Values Didn't Change'

On a cold, gray morning a week before Election Day, President Bush briefly emerged from the White House for an unannounced visit to the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Southeast Washington.

Outside the RNC building, Bush continued to face record-low approval ratings and a presidential campaign focused on his failings. But inside an overflowing conference room, he was greeted with roaring applause as he urged his fellow Republicans to keep pushing for the finish line.

"His general message was to thank the staff for everything we've been doing and encourage us to keep working hard all the way through Election Day," said one person who attended the closed event. "It was upbeat and very exciting."

Even for a declared optimist, Bush has appeared remarkably sanguine in this season of discontent. The economy is melting down, his own party has shunned him, and Tuesday's election is shaping up as a searing rebuke to his eight years in office.

Yet according to allies inside and outside the White House, Bush's mood remains buoyant and his attention is focused on the global financial collapse. In private meetings with business leaders, Bush has made a point of saying that he is happy the crisis happened on his watch so the next president and a new economic team do not have to grapple with it.

"His high energy level and spirit sets the tone for the rest of us," said Kevin Sullivan, Bush's communications director. "There's been no time to worry about any of this other stuff. . . . He believes the American people expect us to finish strong and to leave things in the best possible position for his successor."

Others inside and outside the administration, however, say the upbeat talk masks disappointment and frustration among many White House staffers, who believe Bush's reputation has been unfairly maligned for a series of calamities -- from the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to the financial crisis -- that were beyond his control and that he handled well. GOPJohn McCain's escalating attacks on Bush's tenure have added to the irritation, these people said. nominee

"Everybody kind of wanted to spend the last 100-plus days doing some legacy things, and the financial crisis has thrown a wrench into that," said one prominent Republican who regularly talks with senior White House officials.

"You have a combination of no legacy stuff, a horrible economic mess and the likelihood that Obama is going to win," this person added. "There is a real sadness there."

None of this would matter, of course, if not for Bush's deep and abiding unpopularity. Bush has not commanded approval from a majority of the nation since early 2005, making him arguably the most disliked president since polling on the question began in the 1930s. A Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll last week put Bush's approval rating at 24 percent and found that McCain had made little headway in separating himself from Bush or his policies.

It's not for lack of trying. For the first time in recent memory, a sitting president has effectively sat out the presidential race, avoiding public appearances on behalf of McCain and other Republicans and raising far less money than usual in private fundraisers. Bush voted for McCain by absentee ballot rather than voting in person in Texas, as he has for the past three elections, and officials say he plans to spend election night at the White House rather than at a rally or other campaign-related event.

Bush held his last closed GOP fundraiser of the season nearly two weeks ago and cleared his schedule of public events from Friday through Election Day. Vice President Cheney, by contrast, held a rally for McCain in Wyoming yesterday -- an event to which the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama was quick to call attention.

"This is unprecedented for a president to be this invisible during a campaign," said Charlie Cook, editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report. "This is what happens when you have a 25 percent approval rating."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Friday that plenty of Republicans wanted Bush to host fundraisers, but the president decided to focus on the economic crisis in recent weeks. Because of ongoing news events, Fratto added, "he's had to be a lot more visible than we would have liked during the most intense period of the campaign."

Aides say privately that Bush long ago made peace with his low approval ratings, which have persisted despite significant improvements in Iraq, the original source of his polling woes. Some current and former aides argue that Bush's unpopularity has made it easier for him to push ahead with difficult decisions, such as a series of dramatic interventions into the financial markets that have angered conservatives over the past two months.

"You're more liberated to act when you've internalized those low approval ratings," said Pete Wehner, a former top Bush adviser. "This is a White House and a president that are in some ways galvanized by a crisis."

Ari Fleischer, one of Bush's former press secretaries, said that although Bush is "not prone to talk about legacy," he and his closest advisers are confident that history "will remember him well."

"Would he like to be more popular?" Fleischer added. "Of course he would. Of course it bugs him. But it doesn't guide him or drive him."

There is little outward sign of irritation from Bush, who has maintained a sense of good cheer in many of his less-formal public appearances this year. During a celebration honoring Theodore Roosevelt's 150th birthday last week, Bush joked: "People ask me, 'Do you ever see any of the ghosts of your predecessors here in the White House?' I said, 'No, I quit drinking.' "

That enduring, frat-boy enthusiasm is exactly the sort of thing that riles his detractors, but supporters say Bush's optimism has been central to his political survival. "When you're inside, and the president is so optimistic, you're not paying as much attention to the noise outside," said Candida "Candi" Wolff, a former White House legislative affairs director. "It keeps everybody focused."

Bush's public schedule over the past few months has included a parade of farewell meetings with friendly foreign leaders, from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Bush has also let down his guard on a few occasions, showing traces of the kind of nostalgia he normally eschews.

In early October, for example, Bush made a side trip to one of his boyhood homes in Midland, Tex., which has been turned into a presidential historic site. Standing in front of the modest rambler that housed two future presidents, Bush recalled a farewell rally that he attended in Midland on his way to Washington in 2001.

"I said, 'You know, I'm not going to change as a person because of politics or Washington' -- that's what I said when I left," Bush said. "I think they appreciate that. I want them to know that, you know, even though I had to deal with a lot of tough issues, that I'm still the same person that they knew before and that, you know, I'm wiser, more experienced, but my heart and my values didn't change."

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The final word on the death of newspapers?

Some sort of secret signal went out, and everyone and their neighbor has posted a “death of newspapers” story since the beginning of the year, myself included. Polymeme, which is increasingly my go-to, first thing in the morning read, has listed at least a dozen stories this month, and their “media” tag includes roughly 50% crisis stories.

Rather than offering a taxonomy of depressing media stories, I’d prefer to point to the best of the bunch, a piece in the New Republic by Professor Paul Starr. Starr won the Pulitzer for his brilliant “The Creation of the Media“, which tracks the emergence of newspapers, telegraphs and radio in the US, England and Europe, and he’s got a historical perspective on media issues that many of the other authors opining - myself included - lack.

Starr offers the argument that the newspaper as the authoritative source for the media we need to participate in a democratic society may have had their moment in history. Starr sees papers as critical market intermediaries, matching buyers and sellers in specific localities. That market logic led them beyond just covering news to cover softer topics like arts and sports, hoping to broaden their audience, and led directly to a shift away from partisan journalism and towards standards of journalistic objectivity. (If you’re going to function as an effective market-maker, it’s no good to alienate half the population that doesn’t share your political views.)

While newspapers held this intermediary position - and especially when they were monopolies - they could hardly avoid making money. (Had Starr attempted to analyze the finances of my local newspaper, as I did some weeks back, he would have been unsurprised that the paper charged steep, monopoly rents to local advertisers, and probably would be unsurprised that the paper - independent of the corporate apparatus that supports it - is profitable.) But the Internet is the great disintermediator, and eventually it will no longer be possible to cross-subsidize public interest journalism with classified ads and four-color grocery store fliers.

Starr’s worry, like mine, is on the future of “difficult journalism” - deep investigative work focused on state capitals, on city finances and on international coverage. His worry - as politicians and businesspeople understand that the press is no longer watching, it becomes more tempting to bend the rules. Hence, his subtitle: “Hello to a New Era of Corruption”.

I’m particularly gratified to see Starr focus on something I’ve been thinking of as “the problem of choice”, noting that we read news differently online and offline. Starr believes that we’re losing something when we stop reading offline and primarily read online - we are less likely to have the same knowledge as our neighbors and more likely to become ideologically polarized:

Online, by contrast, [news consumers] do not necessarily see what would be front-page news in their city, and so they are likely to become less informed about news and politics as the reading of newspapers drops. On the other hand, just as more partisan viewers have more to watch on cable than on network television, so partisans have more to read and to discuss online than in the typical local newspaper. As a result, to the extent that the Internet replaces newspapers as a source of news, it may add to the tendencies that Prior has identified–greater disparities in knowledge between news dropouts and news junkies, as well as greater ideological polarization in both the news-attentive public and the news media.

Ultimately, Starr declares news to be a “public good”, both in the sense that it’s a neccesity for a participatory society and in the sense that it is a non-rivalrous good (if you read a news story, you don’t prevent me from reading it as well.) He notes that public goods are notoriously hard to produce, and that the temptation is to ask governments to do it for us. The downside, obviously, is that this makes it very difficult to cover a government critically. Starr sides with those who see non-profit models for journalism, but not without a great deal of caution and concern. Mostly, his prediction is that the newspaper as we know it - the main arbiter of what is and isn’t news in a particular location at a particular time - is gone and no one is sure what’s going to replace it.

Not happy news, by any means, but better argued and structured that any of the other essays on the topic I’ve read.


While there’s no shortage of folks drafting eulogies for the newspaper, no one has told the geeks who work inside newspapers. I doubt that the NYTimes techies were reacting to my rant about the architecture of serendipity, and the ways in which the paper frontpage forces serendipity, they’ve rolled out a very clever article skimmer. It doesn’t provide quite as much “bait” to hook you on a story as front-page blurbs do, but vastly more than the online edition does. And it’s got all sorts of clever keyboard commands that make browsing easier.

It’s possible that the NYTimes geeks may not be the folks who figure out how to unlock the potential of that remarkable newsgathering organization. The Times has released a collection of developer APIs, allowing access to very useful widgets, like the Times People pages. The examples offered of what one can do with these tools are pretty weak at present, but I know that I’ve printed out the API documentation and am sleeping with it under my pillow in the hopes of coming up with an innovative new ap.

It’s not just US newspapers that are innovating. My friend Mohamed Nanabhay of Al Jazeera talks to the Journalism.co.uk blog about technical innovation at the Qatar news company. Al Jazeera is sharing video content with the Independent newspaper in the UK, releasing lots of material under Creative Commons and partnering with Ushahidi to visualize violence during the recent Gaza conflict. Most folks in the US, I find, misunderstand Al Jazeera so badly that they won’t look to the company for journalistic innovation, which is a shame, as Mohamed and his team are one of the groups that understands that media companies need to break disciplinary boundaries and find new ways to deliver news around the world.

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Join the herd!

The Open Net Initiative, a project of the Berkman Center (my employer), Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Cambridge, has emerged as the gold standard for reporting on internet censorship around the world. With the cooperation of hundreds of researchers, ONI runs tests in dozens of countries and produces reports, usually one a year, that detail what sites are inaccessible in a particular country, and how they are blocked.

There’s one major problem with this approach - speed. When a website gets blocked in a particular country, that site’s administrator wants confirmation that her site is being blocked so she can lobby the government, or help her readers find other ways to read the site.

The folks at the Herdict project, a new effort being launched at the Berkman Center today, are interested in a different way of documenting web filtering and censorship. They’re asking users around the world to use the Herdict site or toolbar to report when they’re having trouble reaching a site. Herdict will coordinate reports and attempt to determine whether a site is being blocked by a government, an ISP or whether there’s a technical failure that’s preventing people from accessing a site.

The Herdict team offers a charming web video that explains how the tool works. I may be mistaken, but the voice of Shep the Sheep sounds suspiciously like that of Professor Jonathan Zittrain, the principal investigator behind the Herdict project.

I love the Herdict concept, though I’ve never warmed to the name, a pormanteau of “herd” and “verdict”. James Fallows offers two reasons to resist the name: “First, no one really likes to be thought of as part of a “herd.” A crowd, maybe (as in “crowdsourcing.”) Even a throng or a mob. But a herd? Second, the logo for the site includes pictures of sheep but none of cows. Cows make a herd; a group of sheep is a flock.”

He’s right, but don’t let the name keep you from joining the herd. Er, flock. It’s a cool idea, and for it to work, Herdict needs participants from around the world. Hope you’ll consider joining in.


While we’re on the subject of internet censorship, let me point you to the new manual published by the Sesawe project on circumventing internet censorship. The manual builds on existing content (including some things I’ve written) and adds original content to provide an overview of tools that can be used to evade internet censorship. It’s available under open licenses, can be downloaded and printed as a PDF, and should be a worthy companion to anyone trying to understand the world of proxies, TOR, Psiphon and other circumvention tools. Please check it out.

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Rest in Peace, Rocky Mountain News

I’m reading stories about the closing of the Rocky Mountain News in Denver with a great deal of sadness. I wasn’t a reader of the newspaper, and I have no personal connection to Colorado, but I had the chance to meet John Temple, the paper’s long-time editor and publisher, a few weeks ago at a talk I gave at the University of Denver.

I was moved that Temple took time to attend an event celebrating free speech while his paper was going through a period of such uncertainty, and grateful that he took the time to engage my talk in a column in his paper. That column, titled “Time to play offense, not defense” gave me the sense that the Rocky Mountain News went down fighting, with Temple looking towards future scenarios for newspapers up to the moment the newspaper closed its doors.

Denver has been a two newspaper town for many years - the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News have engaged in a rivalry for over a hundred years. In one of his last columns, Temple explains that this rivalry kept circulation high, but subscription revenue low, and artificially depressed advertising rates. Since 2000, the papers have combined their operations - though not their newsrooms - under a joint operating agreement. With the JOA in place, the papers tried to raise rates, with some success, but Temple argues that advertising rates are still far below what they are in similarly sized markets.

The Rocky Mountain News isn’t the only newspaper facing closure. The Washington Post, writing about the shuttering of the Rocky notes, “Hearst threatened this week to close the San Francisco Chronicle unless major budget cuts are imposed or a buyer is found, and is also prepared to close the Seattle Post-Intelligencer if it cannot be sold. The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News filed for bankruptcy protection this week, joining Chicago’s Tribune Co. and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in Chapter 11 status.”

None of these papers are likely to find buyers - there are too many newspapers on the market, and too much uncertainty about business models to support newspapers. Papers in large markets, like Denver, that don’t have a national profile (like the New York Times or the Washington Post) seem to have the most trouble surviving - they’ve got high newsroom costs, and people are hard at work creating alternative advertising outlets to serve the large markets. In comparison, smaller newspapers may have an easier time - they’re more likely to have a defensible local monopoly for community advertising, and they’ve got lower newsroom and production costs.

There’s a sad irony for me in writing about the Rocky Mountain News’s demise. I wrote, a few weeks back, about the economics of my local newspaper, the Berkshire Eagle. The piece sparked a great deal of conversation, both locally and around the web, and I’ve gotten feedback that’s helped me understand the economics of my local paper better. I believe that my local paper is probably profitable, due to very high ad rates which may make sense because the paper has an effective local monopoly. The profitability of the paper helps it sustain other papers in its chain, MediaNews group. The central property of MediaNews Group is the Denver Post, which will be taking over the Rocky Mountain News’s subscribers. So perhaps the Rocky’s demise will help shore up the finances of the parent company of my local paper - maybe they’ll finally buy new computers for my friends who produce the Eagle on ten-year old Macs.

Or maybe what happened to the Rocky is simply a herald for the fans of other storied newspapers around the world. It’s not hard to imagine that a rough economy, a transitioning advertising market and the analog to digital shift will leave other newspapers forced to quickly find a white knight or to shut their doors.

Reading Temple’s columns the past few days, I was pleased to see that he found some consolation in the fact that the Rocky got to report on its own demise, that they were given “the chance to play the music at your own funeral”.


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Bluehost censors Zimbabwean bloggers

There’s a lot of ways to silence dissident voices online. My colleagues involved with the Open Net Initiative have done pioneering work documenting the ways that governments restrict their citizens’ ability to access certain online content. But while the government of Ethiopia can block access to blogs that criticize Meles Zenawi within the country, they have a much harder time preventing people around the world from reading a blog hosted in the US that’s critical of the Ethiopian government.

In recent years, governments and other actors have started focusing on silencing speech at its source - the server that hosts the speech. Troubled by documents hosted by Wikileaks, Bank Julius Baer & Co., a Swiss and Cayman Islands private bank obtained a court order forcing Wikileaks’s domain name registrar to redirect traffic to the site to an empty page; after a court hearing, the US federal judge withdrew the court order and allowed the site to reopen.

Not all attacks use the US legal system. Irrawaddy, a website run by Burmese exiles to report on news inside and outside Burma, has suffered widespread distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks over the past several months. These attacks make the site inaccessible and have the added effect of upsetting Irrawaddy’s hosting provider, who hosts the site on a server and subnet used by other clients, all of whom are affected by the attack. The nature of DDOS attacks is such that it’s very difficult to determine where they originate - it’s unclear whether independent pro-Burmese citizens are trying to attack Irrawaddy or whether someone supported by the Burmese junta is using DDOS to attack a vocal and visible critic.

Of course, you don’t have to block access to a web host - you can just convince the web host to pull the plug on a site. That appears to be what’s happened to my friends with Kubatana, a leading Zimbabwean NGO. Kubatana supports and trains NGOs in Zimbabwe, hosting websites for prominent activist organizations like Women of Zimbabwe Arise. For the past two years, Kubatana has hosted a joint blog for a wide range of Zimbabwean citizens, some who wrote anonymously, and others who wrote under their names - it’s been one of the key sources of information and perspective for people around the world who follow Zimbabwe, and a critical outlet for Zimbabweans who have few other ways to communicate.

Earlier this week, Kubatana’s blog site, as well as a couple of sites hosted on behalf of activist organizations, went dark. Visitors to the blog received a message that the webhost, Bluehost, had disabled the account. When the folks who run Kubatana asked why their account had been suspended, they were informed that an “internal review” revealed that Kubatana was a Zimbabwean organization, and Bluehost’s regulations prohibit them from doing business with ten countries that are subject to US government trade sanctions. (More in a moment about why sanctions on Zimbabwe’s rulers don’t mean sanctions on all Zimbabweans.)

I find it very hard to believe that Bluehost spontaneously decided to review Kubatana’s account - I suspect that someone frustrated by content on Kubatanablogs contacted BlueHost, leading to an account review where Bluehost decided to terminate hosting based on their reading of a trade sanctions provision.

This isn’t a new tactic - when I helped run Tripod.com, we routinely fielded cease and desist letters from companies that didn’t like webpages criticizing their services - they’d claim their trademark was being abused on the page in question and demand its removal. Their hope was that the hosting provider wouldn’t bother to look closely at the situation and would simply give up their customers rather than face involvement in a legal action. We got very good at standing up to these bullshit letters and offering advice to our customers on how to fight the complaints - these days, we’d likely just send them to the Citizen Media Law Project at Harvard. But not every hosting provider is willing to go through the basic effort of protecting their customer’s speech rights - if it looks like it’s going to take more than a few minutes of time to resolve a situation, it may be worth losing the customer rather than analyzing the complaint.

Yes, there are US sanctions on Zimbabwe. Three executive orders - 13288, 13391 and 13469 - outline those sanctions, which are administered by the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. These orders aren’t easy reading, but they specify a group of people targeted by these sanctions:

Any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, after consultation with the Secretary of State:
(i) to be a senior official of the Government of Zimbabwe;
(ii) to be owned or controlled by, directly or indirectly, the Government of Zimbabwe or an official or officials of the Government of Zimbabwe;
(iii) to have engaged in actions or policies to undermine Zimbabwe’s democratic processes or institutions;
(iv) to be responsible for, or to have participated in, human rights abuses related to political repression in Zimbabwe;
(v) to be engaged in, or to have engaged in, activities facilitating public corruption by senior officials of the Government of Zimbabwe;
(vi) to be a spouse or dependent child of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to Executive Order 13288, Executive Order 13391, or this order;
(vii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, the Government of Zimbabwe…

Because it’s hard to know who’s “materially assisted” the government of Zimbabwe, the Treasury provides a handy list of “Specially Designated Nationals”, who US individuals and organizations are prohibited to do business with. It’s a long list, but that’s what the “Find” command is for… and you won’t find Kubatana, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, or the principals behind the projects on the list. (And rightly so - they’re fighting the regime that the US is sanctioning.)

My friends at Kubatana explained this to Bluehost. They sent them the relevant documents and asked them to check the SDN list. Bluehost insisted that they couldn’t do business with the residents of ten sanctioned nations, including Zimbabwe. Kubatana got the US embassy in Zimbabwe to write to Bluehost, explaining the situation. Blue host insisted they couldn’t make any exceptions.

Now, during a week that’s featured the emergence of a power-sharing government and the arrest of a prominent MDC activist, Kubatana finds itself silenced and on the sidelines when their voice is most important. I’m helping Kubatana find a new blog host, one that actually bothers to understand trade sanctions and sees a value in protecting free speech - I recommended Rimu Hosting, a New Zealand-based company that hosts this blog and all Global Voices sites.

If you maintain a sensitive blog or website, a site likely to anger a corporation or a government, do not assume that your hosting provider will help you defend your rights. Some hosting providers take this very seriously and will work with you to ensure you have an opportunity to respond to legal threats or complaints. Others will conclude that working with you is too much trouble and cut you loose.

I don’t think that Bluehost is somehow opposed to civil society in Zimbabwe. I think they’re lazy, and decided that actually responding to Kubatana’s explanations wasn’t worth their time. I think they failed to escalate the situation beyond an “abuse” person who was working from a script which offered no flexibility. And I think they concluded - perhaps correctly - that denying Zimbabwean activists a platform for speech wouldn’t adversely affect their business. I hope they read this post, I hope they’re ashamed of how they acted, and I hope they apologize to my friends.

If you run a site like Kubatana, look for a hosting provider that understands your business and has your back. There are lists out there of “free speech” webhosts - I don’t know how valuable they are, and the one linked above makes the same “sanctioned nation = banned nation” error that Bluehost made. Instead, I’d suggest you look for a hosting company run by human beings, not by notebooks filled with rules and procedures. (Barry Schwartz would suggest that you’re looking for a company run by practical wisdom, not by rules.)

This likely means working with a small company, where you’ve got a personal relationship with managers, and where you can explain the threats and problems associated with your site. Rimu knows that Global Voices is going to get blocked in some countries, and these blocks might affect other customers. They know we face DDOS attacks. In other words, they know we’re a pain in the ass to host. But they’re willing to take on the work because they believe in what we’re doing and in protecting our right to do so.

Does your hosting provider have your back? Rimu does. Bluehost doesn’t. Let’s hope that people who are brave enough to speak against repressive governments can find webhosting companies brave enough to let them do so.


Update - Kubatana’s blog site is back up, just not on Bluehost. Bev Clark tells us that Bluehost’s CEO has complained to her that Kubatana supporters are “spamming” him and Bluehost’s abuse department with comments about their decision. I attempted to post to CEO Matt Heaton’s blog, asking him to address the situation - the comment never made it out of moderation. Guess Bluehost really doesn’t want to talk about this issue.

Update 2, February 22, 2009 - Bev Clark from Kubatana heard from Bluehost offering to reinstate her account. Bluehost received an email and phonecall from the US Treasury Department confirming that they were not, in fact, on the list of persons Bluehost could not do business with. Bev and Kubatana have chosen not to go back to Bluehost, though Women of Zimbabwe Arise are remaining Bluehost customers.

While I’m glad that Bluehost finally saw the light, I will not recommend them to individuals looking for human rights hosting - the assumption that Kubatana was in the wrong, the unwillingness to listen to their explanation and the hostility of CEO Matt Heaton to customer complaints leads me to conclude that I wouldn’t recommend their services.

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Space Party!!

This weekend sees the celebration of Cosmonautics Day in Russia and the 8th Annual ‘Yuri’s Night’, which celebrates the anniversary of both the first time a human was launched into space (cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961) and the first Space Shuttle Launch (in 1981). ‘Yuri’s Night’ aims to raise global public interest in space exploration and inspire a new generation of space explorers all over the world. Space travel and exploration has come a long way in the past 47 years and here are some records to show this:

Longest solo spaceflight
The longest duration spaceflight with a single person on board was the flight of Vostok 5, piloted by Soviet cosmonaut Valery Bykovsky. It was launched on 14 June 1963 and landed on 19 June 1963 with a total mission elapsed time of 4 days 23 hr 7 min.

Longest mission by a space suit
On 3 February 2006 Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev and U.S. astronaut Bill McArthur jettisoned an old Russian Orlan M spacesuit from the International Space Station. Equipped with a transmitter, 'SuitSat-1' broadcasted nearly 3,500 radio messages and data on the temperature inside the suit which were picked up by amateur radio operators on Earth. The last transmission from SuitSat-1 was received on 18 February 2006, shortly before its onboard battery became depleted.

Most spacewalks by one person
The greatest number of spacewalks is ten, totalling 31h 37m by Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Serebrov (b. 15 Feb 1944) during Soyuz TM-8 (launched 5 Sept 1989 - the five spacewalks took place in Jan/Feb 1990) and Soyuz TM-17 (launched 1 July 1993 - the five spacewalks took place in Sept/Oct 1993).

Most time spent in space
The most time spent in space by an individual is 803 days 9 hours and 39 minutes, by Sergei Krikalev (Russia). He was selected as a cosmonaut in 1985 and has since completed six spaceflights. His most recent flight, as commander of the International Space Station, began on 14 April 2005 and ended on 10 October 2005.

Earliest commercial filmed in space
An advertising campaign for Tnuva Milk, showing cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev drinking milk aboard the Russian Mir space station, was broadcast on 22 August 1997.

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May Day Madness!

1st May is a special date in calendar around the globe - known mainly as a worker’s day to celebrate the achievements of the labour movement. As a day of celebration, however, there are many reasons to celebrate all over the world - from Love Day in the Czech Republic to Beltane for Celtic people and Maharashtra Day in India. It is also the celebration day for 9 Christian saints! To honour this extraordinary date, here are some of our favourite records achieved on May Day.

First solo expedition to the North Pole
Naomi Uemura (1941 - 84), the Japanese explorer and mountaineer, became the first person to reach the North Pole in a solo trek across the Arctic sea-ice at 4:45 a.m. GMT on 1 May 1978. He had travelled 725 km (450 miles), setting out on 7 March from Cape Edward, Ellesmere Island in northern Canada.

Heaviest vehicle pulled by hair
The heaviest vehicle to have been pulled by the hair alone over a distance of 30 m (98 ft) is a double-decker bus weighing 7,874 kg (17,359 lb), by Letchemanah Ramasamy (Malaysia) at Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground, Leicestershire, UK, on 1 May 1999.

Largest cheerleading cheer
A total of 904 cheerleaders performed a cheer in full uniform with pom pom and baton in Voves, France, on 1 May 2007.

Largest collection of teddy bears
The largest collection of teddy bears belongs to Jackie Miley of Hill City, South Dakota, USA, with 5,029 different teddy bears, as of 1 May 2007, which she has been collecting since 2002.

Largest parade of Volkswagen (VW) cars / Longest single-model vehicle parade
A total of 2,728 VW Beetles took part in a parade organised by the Volkswagen Aficionado Club of Brazil on a race track near Sao Paulo, Brazil, on 1 May 1995.

Longest frame in a snooker World Championship match
The longest frame recorded in a snooker World Championship match is 74 minutes in the final match between Peter Ebdon (UK) and Graham Dott (UK) at the Crucible in Sheffield, UK on 1 May 2006.

Longest sari / saree
The record for the longest saree offered to Goddess Padmavathi measured 642.3 m (2,106 ft 10 in) and was achieved by His Holiness Sri Sri Sri Vasanth Gurudev Shakthipeetadhipath, founder of Sri Parshva Padmavathi Seva Trust in Chennai, India on 1 May 2007.

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The Giant Sleep Over

The Giant Sleepover

Saturday 14th of June - The 2008 edition of The Giant Sleep Over was a huge success all across the UK. With over 45,000 registered children, it seems the record will be smashed. We are in the process of verifying the record and the results will be announced shortly, but meanwhile here are some fun facts that happened over the sleep over.

1st Laindon Girls’ Brigade played loads of party games using some of the gifts in their Treasure Chest as prizes. The girl who won the Horrid Henry Joke Book was reading it until after 1.30am under her sleeping bag with a torch (trying not to giggle too loudly)!

1st Stevenson Boys’ Brigade had their special sleepover at Loch Lomond Aquarium – where they had a whale of a time! They slept over in the glass viewing tunnel with sea life swimming over them all night. They thought it was absolutely fantastic and the boys raised an amazing £808 for Save the Children which is FANTASTIC! They can’t wait to do it all again next year!

2nd Erith (Nathoo) Cubs were the group sleeping over at Save the Children HQ in London. They were very loud and full of energy – as you found out for your self.

1st Stanwell Scout Group in Middlesex also wanted to register a dog and three ghosts (or was that goats?!)Lyndhurst Junior School in Hampshire stayed at the top of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth – what a view to wake up to.The biggest single group was Essex Cub Scouts who had over 1,400 sleeping over at Gilwell Park in Essex. They had a visit from The FA’s skills team who organised fun coaching sessions on football skills for many of the children.Bampton Scouts in Devon also took part in a 10k race – bet they slept well!

1st South East Essex Girls' Brigade in Essex were the 1st Group to confirm their numbers on the night.West Lancashire Cub Scouts in Lancashire had a visit from the ECB’s mobile ‘Cricket Factory’ – which was brilliant and everyone loved it!

1st Colyton Scout Troop in Devon did a sponsored hike for Save the Children.St Swithun's Church Youth Group in Bedfordshire and 1st Hungerford Scouts both slept over canal boats!

2nd Hutton Boys' Brigade in Essex had their sleepover in a disused nuclear bunker

81st Fife (1st Broomhall) Sea Scouts in Scotland had their sleepover in Stirling’s Old Jail!

Weald Community Primary School in Kent raised £1,200 for Save the Children

19 June 2008

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World's Oldest Woman, Maria de Jesus, dies in Portugal

World's Oldest Woman, Maria de Jesus, dies in Portugal

London (2 January, 2009)

Guinness World Records received the sad news today that the world’s oldest woman, Maria de Jesus (b. 10 September 1893), has passed away in her native Portugal at the age of 115.Maria was crowned the world’s Oldest Living Woman by Guinness World Records on 28th December upon the death of Edna Parker (USA, 20 April 1893 - 26 November 2008).114-year old Gertrude Baines of Los Angeles, California (b. 6 April, 1894) is likely to become Maria’s successor to the title. However, an official announcement will not be made until Guinness World Records has completed its investigation of the category.

02 January 2009

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The Topic: Industrial Revolution

The Topic:
Industrial Revolution

Looking for online biographies of important people of the Industrial Revolution? Check out our companion page: Biographies of the Industrial Revolution to find lots of more resources.
Easier - An industrial revolution occurs when people move from living and working on farms to working in factories and living in cities. This occurred in North American in the late 1800s and early 1900s. This movement had both positive and negative effects on people. More, better, and inexpensive goods, transportation, and communication were possible. On the other hand, industry also brought pollution, child labor issues, and crowded cities.
Harder - In the histories of nations, innovations in technology have sometimes occurred at such a rapid pace that the era became known as an industrial revolution. The first Industrial Revolution occurred in Great Britain between 1750 and 1830. Developments there moved the country from a largely rural population that made its livelihood almost entirely from agriculture to a town-centered society that was increasingly engaged in factory manufacture. Later in the 19th century, similar revolutionary transformations occurred in other European nations and the United States. The main effects were not felt in countries like Russia and Japan until the 20th century. In other countries these transformational developments are only now occurring or still lie in the future.
Age of Industry by N. B. Mautz, University of Evansville
http://history.evansville.net/industry.html
This comprehensive website links to online resources for the Industrial Revolution.
Another Comprehensive Resource:
2) Industrial Revolution from the Internet Modern History Sourcebook
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook14.html#The Industrial Revolution
Inventors of the Industrial Revolution
http://www.teachersfirst.com/lessons/inventor/ind-rev-open.htm
Click on the 'Next' button, to lead yourself through an online presentation that summarizes the technological developments of the Industrial Revolution.
Related Websites:
2) Industrial Revolution (1700 - Present) http://www.neo-tech.com/businessmen/part6.html
3) Steam Engine from Encarta Encyclopedia
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761554687
4) Two Countries That Invented The Industrial Revolution by C. Anderson
http://www.darex.com/indurevo.htm
Rise of Industrial America (1876-1900) from the Library of Congress
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/riseind/riseof.html
In the decades following the Civil War, the United States emerged as an industrial giant.
Not-To-Be-Missed Sections:
2) City Life in the Late 19th Century
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/riseind/city/city.html
3) Rural Life in the Late 19th Century
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/riseind/rural/rural.html
4) Work in the Late 19th Century
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpedu/features/timeline/riseind/work/work.html
Industrial Revolution: A Trip To The Past
http://members.aol.com/mhirotsu/kevin/trip2.html
This site describes some of the advances in machinery, art, medicine, transportation, and industry that occurred during this time.
Related Websites:
2) Fred Didnah's Industrial Age at BBC Education
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/dibnah/dibnah99/
3) Industrial Revolution by G. Rempel
http://mars.acnet.wnec.edu/~grempel/courses/wc2/lectures/industrialrev.html
4) Industrial Revolution (Grades 6-9) by C. Karns
http://web.wt.net/~mccubbin/indrev/index.html
5) Industrial Revolution by A. Millard http://ragz-international.com/industrial_revolution.htm
6) Industrial Revolution (Online slide show) by X. Chen http://members.tripod.com/xu_chen/indusrevolt/
7) Industrial Revolution: Its affects and Consequences
http://www.msu.edu/user/brownlow/indrev.htm

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