All about regulars

Everything you always wanted to know about Google...

- 1 hours and 38 minutes ago

…But were afraid to ask. This is the title of this very interesting 34-slide presentation on Google prepared by FaberNovel, a french consulting firm. It is hard to realize the real nature of this just 10 years old giant given the number of services it has continuously released, updated (and sometimes shut down) or acquired.

This presentation gives a great overview of the company’s overall strategy and the reasons it has become what it is today.

It addresses some key questions about the company’s future, presented in the slide above: how Google won’t be affected by the crisis (not so sure about that if you consider their own stock), its relation with Microsoft and its advantages on Facebook, its footprint in the infrastructure and mobile world…

All about Google View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: google seo)

There is an interesting slide about how Google buys traffic through key partnership deals with software or hardware companies (slide 14) Many tend to think Google has free traffic or zero marketing costs which is a wrong assumption since it affects directly its P&L

For regular readers, most of this information will not be a surprise. But it is well organized and structured and gives some good prospective. I just wished the presentation was focusing a little more on the Giant’s weaknesses. A TechCrunch France reader funnily commented that, only the absence of electricty could stop them. What we do know on the web is that giants do not stay strong forever. The question is when will the wind change direction for Google?

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

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infrastructures,seo,facebook,mobile gadgets,giants

The Truth about Hypocrisy

Update Engine R3.5 - Framework for developers to keep their products up-to-date. (Free)

tv tuner for powerbook g4

Supertalent Godfather USB Flash Drive

Ubergizmo

- 6 hours and 12 minutes ago

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Supertalent Godfather USB Flash Drive" alt="Supertalent Godfather USB Flash Drive" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/supertalent-godfather.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pSupertalent will be updating its line of Godfather USB flash drives sometime next year to accompany the two current models - a mini Pico version and a rubber-clad variant. Both models are currently available in 1GB to 8GB capacities, although they will cost more than the vanilla production. Since flash prices are extremely uncertain, chances are by the time they're released next year, whatever quotes you get today won't be applicable, but do add a slight premium over regular USB flash drives in that range then. Only meant for hardcore fans of The Godfather, but otherwise most people would give this a pass including us./p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/supertalent_godfather_usb_flash_drive.html"Supertalent Godfather USB Flash Drive/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081202171548" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081202171548?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081202171548" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081202171548amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fsupertalent_godfather_usb_flash_drive.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/l9GnPcpIZfQ2DuliLoNcPF7ywOQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/l9GnPcpIZfQ2DuliLoNcPF7ywOQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=2YH5k2Fy"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=JDRj0qds"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=JDRj0qds" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=3nhWU6B6"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=gY9jKdXh"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=gY9jKdXh" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=2iL06P0j"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=2iL06P0j" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/rjw80lrpk0g" height="1" width="1"/

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NFL: six players suspended for drug violations

Ed Pilkington: Once the proud home of America's mighty car industry, Detroit now faces meltdown

Guardian Unlimited

- 7 hours and 21 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43031?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+The+road+to+ruinch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=Automotive+industry+%28Business%29%2CGeneral+Motors%2CFord%2CBusiness%2CUS+economy+%28Business%29%2CUS+news%2CWorld+newsc5=Motoring%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CUS+Economyc6=Ed+Pilkingtonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127737c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=Automotive+industryc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FAutomotive+industry" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Ford plant in Highland Park, a city within the city of Detroit, is a monument to the American automobile. It opened in 1910, and three years later pioneered the world's first car assembly line. In 1925, it spewed out 9,000 Model Ts in a single day. The revolution that turned America into a car-owning democracy had arrived. Today, there is ample evidence of that revolution. The factory looks over a six-lane highway that is heavy with traffic from dawn to dusk. Next door is a drive-thru McDonald's, where customers come to order Big Macs before rolling 50 metres to a drive-thru chemists to pick up indigestion tablets./ppThe story of the plant is told in one of those green-and-gold heritage plaques erected by the main entrance. It says: "Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th-century living." Pattern of abundance: the phrase reads like a sick joke, for the Ford factory it describes is a shell of what it once was. Its red brick and granite walls still stand proud, framed by decorative mosaics. But the windows are broken or boarded up, its ceilings have gaping holes, the floor is covered in broken lumps of fallen plaster. On the roof, the flagpole that for years flew the Stars and Stripes is rusty and bare./ppOther companies, other countries, might have turned Henry Ford's factory of dreams into a museum rather than let it decay into the pitiful wreck that it is today. But Ford, and its fellows in the Big Three - General Motors (GM) and Chrysler - have enough to do staying alive without worrying about preserving the past. GM, the giant of the three, has lost $73bn in the past three years; it is haemorrhaging $2bn a month. At that rate it will run out of cash by the middle of next year and collapse by that year's end, potentially bringing millions of workers down with it. Which is why the CEOs of the three giants took their begging bowls to Washington earlier this month, pleading for a "bridging loan" of $25bn./ppThey didn't get a warm reception. They were ridiculed by senators for having flown in three separate corporate jets, an act that must rank among the most impressive PR disasters of the decade. But what the senators and the largely hostile media coverage missed was that the miserable condition of the Detroit car industry is not merely a comment on the failed leadership of its corporate executives, though it is that. It is also a matter of personal survival for millions of Americans who depend, directly or indirectly, on the revolution Henry Ford began 100 years ago./ppNowhere is this more visible than in Detroit, the crucible of the Big Three. Half of GM's 100,000 workers live in the city, and they in turn support a spider's web of relatives, spin-off industries and services. Detroit is really nothing but a company town. Hamtramckis a city within the city that borders one of GM's main factories. When GM enjoyed good times, Hamtramck boomed. Now GM is in the doldrums, Hamtramck is too. We walk along a stretch of shops along one of its main streets. First in line is Anna's Beauty Salon: it's closed, but the sign on the door suggests Anna is managing to stay open four days a week. Next, Popular Fashion and Variety Store: shut down. Billiards and Burger Hall: abandoned. Antiques store, an oil painting portraying an autumn landscape still in its window: deserted. Law offices: vacant. Funeral home: open. Even in a recession, one aspect of life must go on - the ending of it./ppOn the other side of the road is the Family Donut shop, a local institution run by a Polish family for the past 28 years. It has a picture of Princess Diana on the wall, a gift from one of the regular clients, and another of the Three Stooges. The owner, Vojno, is unloading a bundle of cardboard boxes used to pack the donuts. A few years ago he would order up to 30 bundles a month; now it's 10. On Polish festive days, there would be a line of customers out the door and round the corner, and the stools at the counter would be loaded. Today, the line is more of a dribble and the counter is largely empty. Unless GM recovers, and money starts flowing again, he will have to close in a few months. "It's not just me. Everybody around here is going to shut down," he says. What will he do if he does have to close? "I'll stay home and sleep. I'm hungry for sleep," he says./ppOne of the few clients, dressed in a bomber jacket with Detroit written across the back, shouts over at him. "You only work one job, so why do you need to sleep?"/pp"Shut up, Eddie," Vojno replies./pp"I work three jobs to make my money," Eddie Fabiszak says, prompting the only other customer in the bakery to say, under his breath: "Lucky man."/ppThe other customer is Melis Lejlic, 27, a naturalised American originally from Bosnia. His father and mother, two uncles and a cousin all work in the car business. All now fear redundancy. Lejlic works in construction, but that is no better. Car workers are no longer spending on home improvements, so demand for his work has fallen by half. Of 10 builders he knows, seven are unemployed. "Everybody in a small town like this is looking to the car industry, and there's no hope there," he says. "Drive around, you'll see. Detroit is worse right now than Baghdad."/ppThe comparison sounds far-fetched, but in the streets around the GM plant you can see what he means. Several houses have no glazing in their rickety wooden walls. Front lawns have turned into littered pasture. Walls are lined with barbed wire. A mural of a Stars and Stripes has been graffitied. And though it is nothing like Baghdad, there is clearly a market in lawlessness. A poster advertising the services of a lawyer says: "Aggressive criminal defence. Drugs CCW [carrying a concealed weapon] Theft Murder All felonies misdemeanours." That is how Henry Ford's dream looks in November 2008./ppGM's headquarters in downtown Detroit dominate the city's skyline. The seven cylindrical glass towers of the Renaissance Centre were built in 1977 as a statement of the company's untouchable status as the then unquestioned king of the auto world. Inside the main tower, there is an exhibition of some of GM's most memorable models, dating back to the 1950s. It is almost shocking to see how beautiful and exhilarating those cars were. There is a 1953 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster, built largely by hand, its white, sensuous curves set off by red leather seats. Then there's a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air in black, the quintessential car of the American dream, big enough to carry a family to its suburban home but sufficiently powerful and sleek to avoid any sense of frumpiness. Pride of place goes to a 1959 Cadillac series 62 convertible, which is an outrageously attractive work of art. This was the baby of Harley Earl, GM's legendary designer. Inspired by the tail of a second world war fighter plane, he placed fins on the back of the car, with rear brake lights the shape of rockets and exhausts mimicking those of a jet. The 59 Cadillac summed up an entire generation - young, dangerous, fast, unstoppable./ppPeter DeLorenzo spent 22 years working in the car business as an advertising and marketing consultant and now runs an influential website called Autoextremist. He explains that when the explosion of creativity burst out in the 50s, Detroit had just emerged from the crucial role it had played as the manufacturing backbone of the war effort, churning out tanks and missiles at extraordinary rate, and confidence was riding high. "Coming out of the second world war, the automobile was the symbol of American might. GM was the symbol of American might, and most Americans were proud that GM was a successful corporation that turned out magnificent cars people wanted."/ppThe design-led strategy not only generated exquisite cars, it worked handsomely for GM. In 1955, four out of every five cars around the world were US-produced and half of those came from GM. The Big Three monopolised around 95% of the domestic market, and between them they transformed the US. They provided the stimulus for the biggest construction project in world history - the laying of the US interstate highways - and gave birth to the suburbs and to urban sprawl. Think Los Angeles. Think Phoenix rising out of the desert of Arizona./ppHow you get from the invincibility of those days to the verge of bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for the whole of America as its dominance wanes in an increasingly globalised economy. DeLorenzo, who has written a book called The United States of Toyota, dates the start of the rot to 1979 - just after GM had moved into its monolithic new headquarters in the Renaissance Centre. By then Japanese car companies were already snapping at the heels of the Big Three, but Detroit ignored the threat, steeped in complacency that the good times would last for ever. Leadership within the business also crucially changed hands, from the designers to what DeLorenzo calls the "bean counters". /ppBy the 1990s, the Big Three's reputation for innovation and beauty had withered, replaced by a reputation for faulty products. "People started to associate Detroit with cars coming off the assembly line and their doors falling off," says Micheline Maynard, a New York Times business reporter and author of The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip. She recounts how in 2002 GM's vice-chairman, Bob Lutz, declared that their vehicles were every bit as reliable as Honda's and Toyota's; that same afternoon GM recalled 1.5m minivans./ppFrom the sleek elegance of the 1959 Cadillac to the lumpen brutality of the Hummer: what was in the mind of the GM executive who conceived putting a machine modelled on armoured vehicles on to the civilian streets of US cities, at barely 13 miles per gallon? But then Lutz has argued that that hybrids like the Toyota Prius "make no economic sense" and once called global warming "a total crock of shit"./ppThe other key element in the demise of Detroit concerns the staple of the American auto industry - the car worker. Ron Nidiffer is drinking beer in the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck, temporarily off work as the GM plant has suspended production for want of sales. He has worked in car factories for 36 years, 10 of them on the assembly line. He is one of a dying breed of car workers who had their pay and conditions set back in the heyday. His union, the United Auto Workers, negotiated a series of deals in the 1970s and 80s that have become the albatross around the industry's neck. He makes $29 an hour - substantially more than American workers in Japanese plants that have been transplanted to the non-unionised south, from Alabama to Texas. /ppBut the trouble really starts when you include the so-called "legacy costs", the generous terms agreed for pensions and health care that allowed workers to retire as young as 48. GM now carries about 470,000 retirees and spouses on benefits - more than four times its productive workforce - adding a total of about $2,000 for every car it makes, a terrible burden in the face of fierce foreign competition./ppThe symbol of excess that the UAW's critics like to point to is the "jobs banks", by which workers are paid 95% of their salaries for doing nothing. The scheme was introduced as a way of ensuring minimum employment levels, but billowed uncontrollably until it included about 40,000 workers. Nidiffer concedes that looking back, the jobs bank was indefensible. "Yes, it was a bad idea. And I understand why some people are jealous of what we've had. We had good conditions, even to excess."/ppBut what annoys him is the assumption that the largesse and complacency that epitomised the attitude of both unions and management is still prevalent today. The job banks have been whittled down to 3,500 workers, and wages have been cut in half for all new employees. He is one of the last at the GM plant in Hamtramck to enjoy the old $29 an hour rate, the others having taken redundancy. A deal has also been struck to lift the burden of legacy costs from GM's shoulders by transferring health insurance into an independent fund administered by the union. After all that, to hear Congress turn away the plea for $25bn from the Big Three CEOs makes Nidiffer see red. "I'm extremely mad. We've made all these concessions, taken the hit, and yet we're still accused of being lazy and greedy."/ppIt has not made him any happier that while Congress rebuffed Detroit, it has bailed out the banks with apparent alacrity, including Citibank which was last week handed the exact amount requested by the Big Three. "We're looking for a pittance compared with what they've given the banks," Nidiffer says. His anger is echoed in the front-page headline in the Detroit Free Press: "$85 billion for AIG. $700 billion for financial firms. $25 billion for Citigroup. Why is the bar so high for $25 billion to Detroit?"/ppNidiffer's frustration is heightened by his belief that if Detroit can see it through another 18 months it will have turned the corner. His GM plant is poised to produce the Volt, a new plug-in electric hybrid that will run for 40 miles on one full battery before a tiny petrol motor recharges it. The cutting-edge model, which goes into production in 2010, has been spearheaded by Bob Lutz, the global warming sceptic - a sign of how dramatically the outlook has changed at GM./ppBut none of the new ideas being scrambled out by the Big Three will matter if they fail to make it to 2010. Will the Volt go down in history as a great idea that GM carried with it to its grave? "There used to be a saying, so goes GM, so goes the country," Nidiffer says. "That was in happy days. But the same is true now. If GM goes under, the ripple effect will be felt throughout America."/ppA car worker desperate to hold on to his job would say that, wouldn't he? But economists agree. Susan Helper, a professor at Case Western university, says if GM went into bankruptcy next year, it could set in train a knock-on effect that would hit not just the 240,000 employees of the Big Three, but also 730,000 suppliers and about 1 million people working in dealerships across the country. Harder to quantify, but potentially even more devastating, would be the loss of social capital - the knowledge that is imbedded in a generation. "The idea that you can just liquidate Detroit and start again is crazy. Knowledge is not held by any one person, but comes from how people in a company interact."/ppCrunch time is coming. The tragedy of the American car is approaching its climax. You can feel it, palpably, on the lot of Galeana's Dodge dealership, a short drive away from Nidiffer's watering hole. Balloons in red, white and blue festoon the long line of cars, but who are they fooling? A more accurate reflection of the mood are the signs propped up under a succession of bonnets that spell the word S-A-L-E. Inside, a query about how things are going is met with the reply: "Look at the board." The board in question has just one car handwritten on it - the extent of today's business. Two years ago, the daily average was 15 cars./ppChrysler, which owns the Dodge brand, used to offer huge discounts on the price of the cars disguised as leasing agreements. But in July it announced it was suspending all leasing, and business went through the floor. The Big Three can no longer afford to lower their prices, so instead the cars sit on the lot, looking cheerful beneath the balloons. There is one small cause for hope for Galeana's dealers. A local Chrysler plant has just announced 5,000 job losses, and each worker made redundant will be given a voucher to buy a new Dodge car. It's come to this: the only chink of light for the dealers are the redundancy packages of the workers who make the cars they sell./ppThis week, the CEOs of the Big Three have one last shot at saving Detroit. They are travelling back to Washington to plead their case again. And this time, they won't be going by private jet - Ford's Alan Mulally will drive a Ford hybrid, and GM chief executive Rick Wagoner and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli will fly on commercial planes. Tomorrow and on Friday, they will present Congress committees with a new business plan that is expected to include a cap on top bosses' pay, concessions from the UAW and the death of the most loss-making brands. Less certain is the outcome. Will they get their $25bn and, if they do, will it be anywhere like enough? Or will this once great institution, this embodiment of American might and ingenuity - and with it the livelihood of millions - go the way of Henry Ford's factory of dreams./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/automotive"Automotive industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/generalmotors"General Motors/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ford"Ford/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomy"US economy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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dawn,tanks,missiles,sevens,angers

Architect slams 'dismal' UK design

Guardian Unlimited

- 7 hours and 21 minutes ago

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/60279?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+Architect+slams+%27dismal%27+UK+designch=Art+and+designc3=The+Guardianc4=Architecture%2CArt+and+design%2CCulture+section%2CUK+news%2CCommunities+%28Society%29%2CSocietyc5=Society+Weekly%2CArt%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CCommunities+Society%2CArchitecturec6=Robert+Boothc7=2008_12_03c8=1127808c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Architecturec13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FArchitecture" width="1" height="1" //divpOne of Prince Charles's allies in his battle against modern architecture has attacked the "disappointing to dismal" design of British postwar towns./ppSparking anger among architects, Andres Duany flew in from America and yesterday unveiled a 64-point litany of mistakes made by British architects and planners over the last 50 years. /ppHe accused architects of being "infantile" in pursuing ego-driven visions and said they were "heedless of technical and social dysfunction and widespread lack of popularity" caused by their designs./ppDuany is one of the original designers of Poundbury, the prince's new town in Dorset, and said the leading lights of modernist architecture including Richard Rogers, Frank Gehry, Zaha Hadid and Peter Eisenman were "increasingly irrelevant"./ppHe called on architects and planners to step aside and allow a new generation of amateurs to lead development in the 21st century. /ppThe broadside was met by a vociferous response from leading modern architects who have become used to regular disputes with the prince and his allies. Sunand Prasad, president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, said Duany was "living in another world"./ppHe conceded that architects' craft skills and traditional knowledge had been swept aside too easily between the 1950s and 1970s, but said architects were now building the "highest performance" buildings ever./ppDuany's outburst, will reignite a battle between architects who believe in modernism and his own "church" of new urbanism, which argues that towns should be built to strict codes, often based on traditional design./ppDuany used new urbanism to design Seaside, the Florida community which provided the backdrop to the film The Truman Show, and Charles has embraced the principles of new urbanism on projects to design new settlements from Newquay, Cornwall to Llandarcy, near Neath. /ppHis intervention was timed to coincide with the unveiling of a masterplan for Hertfordshire, his most ambitious UK scheme yet. In it he advocates a new town and a series of garden villages built on open land in which residents would be obliged to grow fruit and vegetables for market./pp"It is inexplicable why architects and planners continue to pursue radical innovation as if it were 1945 every morning," he said./pp"Only architecture, confusing itself with fashion as a platform for cultural expression, continues to be avant garde, heedless of its cost overruns, social and technical dysfunction and widespread lack of popularity."/ppHe cited "gratuitous shapes" in buildings such as winged roofs which quickly go out of fashion, "amazingly rude" colours on shop signs which "are just a vulgar way to attract attention" and civic buildings that "look common" when they should be grand./ppOut-of-town retail parks, excessive road signage and "placeless architecture that could be anywhere in the world" were also criticised. Duany advocates a return to "matter of fact architecture" as exemplified by the traditional English village. /ppPrasad said it was "obviously untrue" that the majority of architects want to express themselves regardless of context. "It is not so much the innovation and the ego that is causing the problem," he said. /pp"It is the commercial pressure to build large on sites which can't take it; it is the haphazard development of towns and the widespread confusion over our democratic planning process."/ppPrasad said many of Duany's complaints seemed to stem from the decision to build a car-based society, and the way highways engineers took control of urban design./pp"It was wrong to aim for a society dominated by cars," he said. /pp"But most architects and planners have moved on, so he is really railing against a problem that doesn't exist anymore."/ph2What not to do/h2p· Avoid fashionable architecture - buildings that are obsessively of our time will be out of date too soon/pp· Civic buildings should be grand and private buildings should recede into the background/pp· Avoid overly transparent facades - mess inside a building looks like an unkempt yard/pp· Avoid many buildings by one designer - diversity is the hallmark of a great place/pp· Avoid meandering streets - excessive curves confuse and aggravate/pp· Avoid gated-off estates - they undermine social interaction/pp· Avoid businesses in the suburbs - every job means one less person to enliven a town centre/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture"Architecture/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/communities"Communities/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ebN1kc003nMCZPSXanM9fynNtzw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/ebN1kc003nMCZPSXanM9fynNtzw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

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rogers,allies,angers,backdrop,performances

Jono Bacon: jb@home Rockstars

Speed Racer

Andrew Bird Changes LP Release Date, Adds Bonus Disc

Pitchfork: Today

- 11 hours and 13 minutes ago

pa href="http://www.andrewbird.net/"strongAndrew Bird/strong/a will unleash the a href="/article/news/146198-andrew-bird-to-unleash-noble-beast-on-new-album"strongemNoble Beast/em/strong/a earlier than expected. Bird has moved the North American release date of his new album from January 27 to January 20 via a href="http://www.fatpossum.com/"strongFat Possum/strong/a. a href="http://www.bellaunion.com/"strongBella Union/strong/a/a href="http://cooperativemusic.com/"strongCooperative/strong/a will release the album in Europe on February 2.br /br /The first pressings of emNoble Beast/em will include a bonus disc of new instrumental pieces titled emUseless Creatures/em. Wilco's Glenn Kotche and bassist Todd Sickafoose pitch in on the instrumentals. This two-disc set will also feature different artwork by Diana Sudyka, more photos, a poster, and an illustrated lyric book. Bird missed the boat by not calling this package emNoble Beast: Early Bird Edition/em.br /br /The standard edition will also be available on double vinyl, complete with a poster, gatefold packaging, and a download card./p pThe cover of the regular edition of the album can be found below.br /br /Bird's a href="/article/news/147590-andrew-bird-announces-winter-tour"strongwinter tour/strong/a begins in late January./p pimg src="/sites/default/files/x-news-andrewbirdnoblebeastcover.jpg" border="0" //ppa href="http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/node/147852" target="_blank"read more/a/p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Il7t8vdV006Zknx8WYtKgar2x04/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/Il7t8vdV006Zknx8WYtKgar2x04/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/pitchfork/today/~4/MANu34j1scI" height="1" width="1"/

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O2 Universal Mobile Phone Charger

Songbird 1.0 Release Official, Fixes Bugs, Plays iTunes Purchases [Featured Download]

Lifehacker

- 13 hours and 28 minutes ago

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/songbird-bowie.png" width="800" height="516" style="display:block;float:none;" /Windows/Mac/Linux: The long-awaited cross-platform media player Songbird officially reaches its 1.0 release today. The open-source applicationmdash;built on the same platform as Firefoxmdash;promises to bring exciting new innovations to a software jukebox market that has become arguably quite stale. Like Firefox, Songbird is extensible, meaning that users can customize the look, feel, and features of Songbird to their heart's content. We took you on a a href="http://lifehacker.com/5078386/first-look-at-songbird-10-aka-itunes-killer-aka-sloppy-mess"screenshot tour of Songbird/a last month, and from a feature standpoint, not much has changed. From a functionality standpoint, Songbird has gotten much, emmuch/em better./p pThe first release candidate had a lot to be excited about, but unfortunately it was a href="http://lifehacker.com/5078386/first-look-at-songbird-10-aka-itunes-killer-aka-sloppy-mess"rife with errors in my tests/a. The official 1.0 release fixes most if not all of the bugs I came across in my initial review, which is very promising. The footprint is still a little unwieldy, weighing in at just over 100MB of RAM on the Windows PC I tested it on./p pThe default installation also suggests installing a new add-on (new in the sense that it wasn't suggested in the release candidate I tested) called QuickTime Playback that supports playing back music you've purchased from the iTunes Music Storemdash;a killer feature that, in conjunction with the iPod sync add-on, would allow even the hardcore iTunes user to switch./p pIf you want a closer look at what you can do with Songbird and what sets it apart from your stock media player, check out a href="http://lifehacker.com/5078386/first-look-at-songbird-10-aka-itunes-killer-aka-sloppy-mess"our previous screenshot tour/a and a href="http://getsongbird.com/customize/"Songbird's demo screencasts/a. Whether you're a regular Songbird user or you're trying it out for the first time today, share your Songbird experience in the comments./p div class="related"a href="http://songbirdnest.com/"Songbird/a/div br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=402eff3bed834e951991e84bdb00b97fp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=402eff3bed834e951991e84bdb00b97fp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=402eff3bed834e951991e84bdb00b97f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=kTnjbBmt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=WKrRfWKR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=lupGPSd1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=lupGPSd1" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/lifehacker/full?a=wzFGkcSA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=wzFGkcSA" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/Mosm8HqQgsU" height="1" width="1"/

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open sources,initials,cache,music,purchases

Songbird 1.0 Release Official, Fixes Bugs, Plays iTunes Purchases [Featured Download]

Lifehacker

- 13 hours and 28 minutes ago

pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/lifehacker/2008/12/songbird-bowie.png" width="800" height="516" style="display:block;float:none;" /Windows/Mac/Linux: The long-awaited cross-platform media player Songbird officially reaches its 1.0 release today. The open-source applicationmdash;built on the same platform as Firefoxmdash;promises to bring exciting new innovations to a software jukebox market that has become arguably quite stale. Like Firefox, Songbird is extensible, meaning that users can customize the look, feel, and features of Songbird to their heart's content. We took you on a a href="http://lifehacker.com/5078386/first-look-at-songbird-10-aka-itunes-killer-aka-sloppy-mess"screenshot tour of Songbird/a last month, and from a feature standpoint, not much has changed. From a functionality standpoint, Songbird has gotten much, emmuch/em better./p pThe first release candidate had a lot to be excited about, but unfortunately it was a href="http://lifehacker.com/5078386/first-look-at-songbird-10-aka-itunes-killer-aka-sloppy-mess"rife with errors in my tests/a. The official 1.0 release fixes most if not all of the bugs I came across in my initial review, which is very promising. The footprint is still a little unwieldy, weighing in at just over 100MB of RAM on the Windows PC I tested it on./p pThe default installation also suggests installing a new add-on (new in the sense that it wasn't suggested in the release candidate I tested) called QuickTime Playback that supports playing back music you've purchased from the iTunes Music Storemdash;a killer feature that, in conjunction with the iPod sync add-on, would allow even the hardcore iTunes user to switch./p pIf you want a closer look at what you can do with Songbird and what sets it apart from your stock media player, check out a href="http://lifehacker.com/5078386/first-look-at-songbird-10-aka-itunes-killer-aka-sloppy-mess"our previous screenshot tour/a and a href="http://getsongbird.com/customize/"Songbird's demo screencasts/a. Whether you're a regular Songbird user or you're trying it out for the first time today, share your Songbird experience in the comments./p div class="related"a href="http://songbirdnest.com/"Songbird/a/div br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=402eff3bed834e951991e84bdb00b97fp=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=402eff3bed834e951991e84bdb00b97fp=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=402eff3bed834e951991e84bdb00b97f" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=kTnjbBmt"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=WKrRfWKR"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=lupGPSd1"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=lupGPSd1" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.gawker.com:80/~f/lifehacker/full?a=wzFGkcSA"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/lifehacker/full?i=wzFGkcSA" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/Mosm8HqQgsU" height="1" width="1"/

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Resume help

ClockWatch Pro v4.2.0.0-NoPE

Releaselog | RLSLOG.net » Applications

- 14 hours and 1 minutes ago

This article has been published at RLSLOG.net - visit our site for full content.

While EVERYBODY is waiting for GTA IV to arrive, I’ll inform you about a new app released by NOPE. It adds a lot of new features to your (windows)clock. With this app you will be able to say: I saw GTA IV come at THIS hour;) .Enjoy

Due to deficiencies in the original PC design, clocks in computers are notoriously inaccurate. They can drift from several seconds to several minutes each day, which can be anything from a minor annoyance to a major issue.

ClockWatch keeps time in your computer accurate by regularly comparing your system clock to the atomic clock at NIST, accessible over the Internet, which keeps your computer’s clock within +/- 1 second of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

Features

ClockWatch offers you a variety of options for updating your computer’s clock and managing the information, ranging from a simple, hands-off approach to a closely-managed process. ClockWatch will:

* Make your computer clock a precision time keeperâ€”synchronizes your clock with the U.S. cesium atomic clock, the world’s most accurate clock
* Keep time accurate automaticallyâ€”just set it once and ClockWatch does the rest
* Ensure that your system clock doesn’t drift over time, and provide a graphic display of your clock’s performance
* Provide options to set your clock manually or automatically
* Synchronize your clock using the Internet or direct modem dial-up
* Run as a regular Windows application, from a system tray, from a command line, or as a Windows service
* Give you access to online documentation and free customer support from Beagle Software

Release: ClockWatch.Pro.v4.2.0.0-NoPE
Size: 4.47MB
Links: Homepage, NFO
Download: Direct, NTi

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Resident Evil 5 Gets Limited Edition Versions

Ubergizmo

- 14 hours and 26 minutes ago

div style="FLOAT: right"img title="Resident Evil 5 Gets Limited Edition Versions" alt="Resident Evil 5 Gets Limited Edition Versions" hspace="5" src="http://www.ubergizmo.com/photos/2008/12/resident-evil-5-ltd.jpg" vspace="5" border="0" //div pCapcom has introduced a new wedge between PS3 and Xbox 360 camps by announcing different Limited Edition versions of its 2009 surefire hit, Resident Evil 5, for both consoles. Both Limited Edition versions will come in an extra large box (compared to the regular version, of course), where inside gamers will find a 2GB USB flash drive that is specially designed after a game item, a 32-page color art book and a waist pouch in the form of yet another in-game item. The Xbox 360 ldquo;Deluxe Editionrdquo; will boast a metal case and soundtrack CD, while PS3 owners can benefit from a making-of extra on the game disc itself. According to Capcom, this is no amateurish outing as it has been produced with ldquo;Hollywoodrdquo; expertise, rendering the disc the ldquo;worldrsquo;s first PS3 game software/Blu-ray video hybridrdquo;. Which Limited Edition would you rather root for, and will it influence your console purchase if you haven't yet done so already?/p pPermalink: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/12/resident_evil_5_gets_limited_edition_versions.html"Resident Evil 5 Gets Limited Edition Versions/a from Ubergizmo (a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com"US/a, a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/fr"FR/a) | a href="http://www.uberbargain.com/"Good deals/a | Hot: a href="http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/11/blackberry_storm_review.html"Storm Review/a/p pmap name="google_ad_map_081202090220" area shape="rect" href="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/imgclick/081202090220?pos=0" coords="1,2,367,28"/ area shape="rect" href="http://services.google.com/feedback/abg" coords="384,10,453,23"//map img usemap="#google_ad_map_081202090220" border="0" src="http://imageads.googleadservices.com/pagead/ads?format=468x30_aff_imgamp;client=ca-pub-7335032025195922amp;channel=9684588219amp;output=pngamp;cuid=081202090220amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ubergizmo.com%2F15%2Farchives%2F2008%2F12%2Fresident_evil_5_gets_limited_edition_versions.html"//p pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/D2mjYdTWelXbhmG0DxZL-Rj1-xQ/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~a/D2mjYdTWelXbhmG0DxZL-Rj1-xQ/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=GxrY50A9"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=41" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=LFie4O9g"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=LFie4O9g" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=5RWVHavU"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?d=52" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=49dxXKix"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=49dxXKix" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?a=6ajBBkjD"img src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/ubergizmo?i=6ajBBkjD" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ubergizmo/~4/xWAmVbo5z80" height="1" width="1"/