Clipmarks | hotdoge3's clips

The Best Free Service you've never Used

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:32:27 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3

The Best Free Service You've Never Used

Besides, if you're going to embrace an online office suite, you'll go with a major brand – like Google Apps, right?

• Better online collaboration -- Zoho, like Google Apps and many other alternatives, give you a Microsoft Word-like application that lets you grant permissions for others to work on the document, too. However, Zoho also gives you a Wiki tool, which is like document collaboration on steroids. Like the Wikipedia, you're given rich tools for multiple authorship and editorship of any document, with full formatting.

• Better PDF Creation -- Most of the major Zoho applications, including Zoho Writer, save in PDF format. So if you don't have a PDF creator installed on your PC, you can just import your document into Zoho, then export it into PDF.

Special Report on P2P

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:24:20 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: one man's fair might be another man's 'foul'.

Clip Source: www.internetnews.com

Special Report on Copyright and P2P
Backed up by partial victory in a Supreme Court ruling, the content industry battles on with P2P networks, which are pushing back with new technology that cloaks their activity.

Clip Source: www.internetnews.com

The problem is, one man's "fair" might be another man's "foul."

Copyright holders are faced with negotiating the realities of digital content. They find themselves having to live with a looser interpretation of how their content is used, or "sampled" even, especially in the face of a shifting public perception about what is OK to use fairly and what should be paid for, or licensed, in the intellectual property realm.

But, as Google spokesperson Ricardo Reyes noted, the DMCA is the "millennium," not "decade," copyright act. Having said that, YouTube abides by the DMCA by honoring any request to remove content, he added.

But, he said, Google cannot police the content before it's posted. "The user-generated [material] is still the most popular."

Firefox 3 is Ready

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:12:14 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: It's Good

Clip Source: www.internetnews.com

Mozilla Says Firefox 3 Ready For Prime Time

A new version of Mozilla's popular Firefox Web browser is ready for download with improved security and memory use as the tiny company takes a stab at Microsoft Corp's dominant Internet Explorer.

The program's creators told Reuters on Thursday that the privately-held company's trial version of Firefox 3 browser is ready for the masses to use after months of development.

"In many ways it (Firefox 3) is much more stable than anything else out there," Mozilla Corp Vice President of Engineering Mike Schroepfer said in an interview.

Additions boost security and allow users to run Web sites when they are not connected to the Internet. Mozilla also says Firefox 3 uses less computer memory than Firefox 2.

But they said that as they concluded their fourth round of tweaking their software, they determined it was ready for prime time.

Vista sp1 update or not

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 02:04:14 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3

Clip Source: www.internetnews.com

Some consumers are having a hard time getting Windows Vista Service Pack 1 to install correctly.

"When I go to windows update on my laptop to download SP1 it doesn't find the update," groused one user on Microsoft's TechNet forum for Vista SP1.

Besides audio boards from SigmaTel, Realtek, Conexant and Creative Labs, a few other devices with unsupported device drivers are also affected, including two fingerprint scanners, a pair of graphics displays, a smart card controller, and a wireless card.

"I have just spent one to two hours figuring out that I have one of the problem [SigmaTel] drivers hence why windows update isn't offering me SP1. Neither is it offering me an updated new driver. In my book that is not a good customer experience and a bit of a waste of my time," complained one user, commenting on the Vista Team Blog.

Aussie locusts hit New Zealand

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:41:40 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: fly 1200 miles or 3000 km's

Clip Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Aussie locusts hit NZ for summer

Plagues of locusts have crossed the Tasman to make the most of New Zealand's hottest summer for a decade.

Swarms of crickets, an insect "associated with drought", had hit the Hauraki Plains and there had been larger numbers of locusts in the northern regions, many of which may have come from Australia.

"It's the remains of the swarms that get over here, but the weather conditions are right to bring them over," Maddison said.

Grass grub beetles, whose growth is encouraged by hot temperatures, had been causing problems in the Bay of Plenty.

There have been strange goings-on at sea, too.

Fisherman and tackle salesman Scott Malcon, of Auckland's Fish City, said mahi mahi, typically a tropical water fish, had been caught off Auckland.

Other species, including the skipjack tuna and blue marlin were more plentiful than usual, and Malcon said there had been a highly rare spotting of a tropical sailfish near Great Barrier Island.

Prison 17th time in 20 years

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:30:31 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: nz Prison is so nice

Clip Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Man sent to prison for 17th time in 20 years

In Wellington District Court Bain Stafford, 37, was sentenced to eight months in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting a female.

"You punched her heavily in the eye, so hard it knocked her out. She was held in hospital overnight for observation. I've seen the pictures of the bruise."

It was the third time he had been convicted of assaulting his current partner and he had been to prison, including a stint of five years, for assaulting his former partner, Miss Patterson said.

"Violence is all this offender knows and the same can be said of the victim."

She said the pair were planning to get married and wanted to live together.

Judge Bruce Davidson said there was "abundant evidence" that the victim was at risk being with Stafford.

Stafford's criminal history spans the last 20 years and includes convictions for arson, robbery, aggravated assault and wounding with intent, Mr Davidson said.

Sentence reduction not justified for porn offender

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:24:17 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: worst porn offender

Clip Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Sentence reduction 'not justified' for porn offender

He was charged after his house was raided and thousands of photographs and movies were found on his computer. As he awaited bail on similar offences last year he continued to offend and in court today he was sentenced on two series of offences.

However, the court also heard the charges for which he was sentenced today were the third and fourth series of similar charges.

He was sentenced in 2003 to two years of supervision, 350 hours of community work and fined. In 2005 he was jailed for a year.

She said after nearly 3000 photographs of child abuse and more than 50 videos were found when Laing was offending on bail waiting to be sentenced on previous offences, he had no choice but to plead guilty.

The court heard today Laing was one of the worst child porn offenders because of his "recidivist and brazen" nature.

Some of the pictures showed children only a few weeks old being raped and it indicated significant depravity.

Tibet & Taiwan is next

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:10:36 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

US Says World Watching China

Speaking before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, he urged China to address Tibetans' "long-standing grievances" and hold direct talks with the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

Christensen, however, said the U.S. has seen no evidence that the Dalai Lama planned the violence in Tibet. He noted that the Nobel Peace laureate was calling for peace and restraint.

China's tight control over information and a ban on trips by foreign reporters have restricted independent reporting from the region.

Christensen called China's military buildup across from Taiwan a force for instability and urged Beijing to reach out to Taiwan's elected leaders.

China claims the democratic, self-governing island as its own and has threatened to attack should Taiwan formalize its de-facto independence.

undermine the Olympic Games ?

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 22:01:14 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: Lhasa street cleaners wearing Olympics vests ?

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

China: Dalai Lama Wants to Sour Olympics

"By staging that incident, they want to undermine the Beijing Olympic Games, and they also try to serve their hidden agenda by inciting such incidents," said Wen.

He said Lhasa was returning to normal and "will be reopened to the rest of the world," but did not specify when.

Xinhua quoted a government official as saying the people who gave themselves up had been "directly involved in the beating, smashing, looting and arson last Friday."

"Some have turned in the money they looted," Baema Chilain, vice chairman of the regional government, was quoted as saying.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Many local officials have been told not to talk to the media. Information has come out through foreigners leaving Lhasa, Tibet activist groups and by calling people in Lhasa.

John Kenwood, a 19-year-old Canadian tourist who left Lhasa on Tuesday, said he saw street cleaners wearing orange vests emblazoned with the Beijing Olympics symbol.

China Tightens Grip in Tibetan Areas

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:52:26 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

China Tightens Grip in Tibetan Areas

"To be going into a country that has massive rioting and death going on, that's definitely something to be paying attention to and be concerned," she said.

Meanwhile, tourists who were evacuated to Nepal gave fresh accounts Wednesday of the chaos during Friday's protests.

Mark Robert Ward, an Australian who lives in India, recounted watching ethnic Tibetans stone Chinese merchants and hearing heavy weapons fire.

"We ventured down through the smoke and fire and rubble. We came across the military arresting four Tibetan women. We were screamed at and hid behind a burning vehicle. Then they started shooting in our direction with live ammunition. We ran for our lives up," he said by telephone.

Ward said he saw at least one dead person being carried by Tibetans, describing a man in his 20s who had been shot at least three times.

Chinese gov Urged to Re-think Tibet

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:43:34 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: 30 Chinese intellectuals ?? ? ??

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Chinese Government Urged to Re-think Actions Against Tibet

BEIJING, March 22 -- A group of 30 Chinese intellectuals appealed to the Chinese government on Saturday to admit that its policy of crushing dissent in Tibet and blaming the ensuing violence on the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was failing.

Dissident author Wang Lixiong is the first name on the petition. He and his wife, Tibetan poet and essayist Tsering Woeser, have been under house arrest in Beijing since the protests began, Wang told Radio Free Asia on Saturday.

The Chinese government-controlled media, after an initial silence on the protests, has published extensive coverage focusing on a March 14 riot in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet region.

It also urges the government to open a new dialogue with the Dalai Lama or otherwise reveal the evidence it has to back up charges that the violence was a plot by him to split Tibet from China.

Tibetans Expect Little Help From World

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:33:20 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: No one going to send in a peacekeeping force $$

Clip Source: ap.google.com

Tibetans Expect Little Help From World

"Specific things are very difficult. No one is going to send in a peacekeeping force," said Taklha.

The Tibetans have, however, won the moral support of many nations.

But it is difficult for most countries to do more than call on China to show restraint, finding themselves walking a tightrope between their sympathy for the Tibetans and their very real economic and strategic needs to maintain good relations with Beijing.

China this week expressed "grave concern" over a planned meeting between British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Dalai Lama.

"We want justice from the U.N., it is the only place where we can go to seek justice for the people killed in Tibet," said Zamba Tshering, 26, a Tibetan exile protesting outside U.N. offices in Katmandu, Nepal.

"The U.N. has so many procedures, so sometimes genuine issues don't come up," said Sonam Dagpo, a senior official in the exile's Department of Information and International Relations.

Does GM food have benefits?

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:56:27 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3

Clip Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Does GM food have benefits? Photo /Reters

The editorial says "future generations will think us crazy, or criminal, not to embrace [GM technology]" and argues that concerns over "Frankenstein foods" have grown into a fear among the public of "developments it doesn't understand".

Clare Oxborrow, a food campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: "It's quite astonishing that Country Life has fallen for the GM industry's PR machine. The idea that drought and salt-resistant crops could be just round the corner is pie-in-the-sky speculation. GM companies have been claiming these sorts of fix-all solutions for the past 10 years but they've never got any closer to achieving any of their promises."

dumping high-energy drinks

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:49:42 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: People get hyped up

Clip Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

Concerns force dumping of high-energy liquor drinks

Foster's Group and Lion Nathan today said they would voluntarily cease manufacturing alcoholic drinks with energy additives such as caffeine and taurine.

Foster's Australia, Asia & Pacific managing director Jamie Odell said the real issue was not bad products, but poor drinking behaviour.

"People just get hyped up and that's not helpful in terms of managing the late-night environment."

"The influence of caffeine of course is to stimulate people and some of them had quite large amounts of caffeine in them, so you wound up with people who were not only intoxicated, but also hyperstimulated, as it were," he said.

"That in itself leads to all sorts of problems."

"Those drinks were high-tech marketing to encourage younger people to drink, and we know what happens to their brain when they drink those sorts of quantities that they do."

Water water everywhere

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:38:31 GMT

clipped by: hotdoge3
clipper's remarks: This is the same water in which they freely defecate, the same water in which they wash and the same shrinking body of water upon which they depend for livelihood. The population pressure which he has helped to create - with 11 family members - is making the pollution problem worse and helping to drive down the fish stocks on which they all rely.

Clip Source: www.nzherald.co.nz

A floating village on Sonle Tap Lake in Cambodia. Photo / Jim Eagles

Today is World Water Day, a UN-backed initiative which aims to highlight this. But sometimes the impact of such campaigns can be diluted through their over-use of meaningless jargon.

The truth on the ground, or rather on the water, is that in Cambodia n one of the poorest countries in the world - its population of 14 million cannot get access to the basics: latrines, clean water for drinking and washing. If this continues, its high mortality rates, which mean some 83 children out of 1,000 perish before they are five, are destined to persist.

Such a bleak situation may surprise the tourists who pay a handful of dollars to take a tour around the floating villages. The 800-odd households, which accommodate some 6,000 people, can look bewitching to a newcomer.