Business, financial, personal finance news

My personal blog

Microsoft Developers: Take Our Code Quality Test

Microsoft .NET developers certainly have a plethora of tools from which to choose, and if you use Visual Studio, using these automated tools that safeguard your code's quality can be as easy as selecting a menu option. For example, Compuware's DevPartner Studio can be accessed directly from within Microsoft Visual Studio to give you an early view of a multitude of performance issues you may not even know to look for.



Chile: Google Earth moves a village to Argentina

Chile asks Google to fix mapping error that puts Villa O'Higgins on Argentina's side of the border.


Sun Adopts OpenID, supports URL-based digital identity

Sun has announced that it is adopting OpenID, which provides user-centric, decentralized, URL-based digital identity. Sun is inviting participation from partners interested in combining and converging OpenID with technologies like SAML and Liberty Alliance's Identity Web Services Framework.


Letter from our President!

In the first eight years of Enquiro's existence, we've learned a tremendous amount about organizational culture and relationships with our clients. We've been fortunate to assemble a tremendous group of people and we?re constantly looking for ways to ensure that we provide more value to our customers. As anyone can attest to, the road to becoming ... (Read on Source)


Blockbuster picks Blu-ray for movie rentals

Blog: Blockbuster Inc. announced on Monday that it would rent only Blu-ray discs and not HD DVDs, in its 1,700 company-owned stores.


Russian antivirus market grows by half

... set, which could allow anyone to make recursive queries and/or query the cache contents. Debian Security Advisory 1341-1 - Amit Klein discovered that the BIND name server generates predictable ...


Spy row 'damaging 'everybody': Briatore

Renault boss Flavio Briatore is planning to attend the Court of Appeal hearing into the McLaren/Ferrari ?spy? war in the hope it will be ?a final step?.


BUYINS.NET: (ARCC) SqueezeTrigger Price is $17.316. There is $…

... office buildings. The Company offers high-speed Internet access, enhanced conference calling services, Web hosting, Web design, managed network security, remote access and professional information technology services. The Company's LightSpeed Office ...


The Hitchhiker's Guide to Light Pollution

Reflecting on how little today's urban dwellers see the night sky calls to mind the inhabitants of Douglas Adams' planet Krikkit in The Hitchhiker's Guide series. They couldn't see the stars and were so shocked when they learned about other planets they promptly declared war on the universe.


Song of the Day

Having a tough Tuesday going back to your regular life after a long weekend? I dare you to listen to "I got your money" by Ol' Dirty Bastard and still be in a bad mood. I'd tell you all my... (Read on Source)


Is God Like an Imaginary Number?

Is God Like an Imaginary Number? As a companion piece to yesterday's post have a look at this essay in the religious periodical First Things , written by Amanda Shaw. The purpose is to draw a parallel between imaginary numbers and belief in God. You see, for centuries mathematicians scoffed at the idea of imaginary numbers, but a few brave folks were able to look beyond the ... (Read on Source)


Scheduling Order Issued In Louisiana PPA Case

BATON ROUGE, La. - A federal judge on April 20 issued a discovery scheduling order in a recently remanded PPA case, establishing a deadline for all briefing on expert testimony and dispositive motions by Jan. 18, 2008 (Mildred Mitchell v. Bayer Corp., No. 07-CV-212, M.D. La.). Full story on lexis.com


Justice Thomas' Book Calls Anita Hill Mediocre Employee Used in Plan to Destroy Him

Breaking his 16-year public silence on his bitter confirmation hearings, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas says Anita Hill was a mediocre employee who was used by political opponents to make claims she had been sexually harassed. Thomas writes about Hill, his former employee in two government agencies, and the allegations that nearly derailed his nomination to the high court in 1991 in his autobiography, "My Grandfather's Son," which goes on sale today.


U.S. stocks to tread water next week with jobs on tap

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Stocks will take their cues from economic data next week, with the September jobs report on Friday expected to provide clues on whether the Federal Reserve can step in with more rate cuts to boost the slumping U.S. economy.


The Wiki Approach to Salary Data: Are You Making Enough?

Question: What do Wikipedia, the YouTube/Democratic candidates debate, and PayScale have in common? Answer: They are examples of average people taking over things that once only the experts controlled. With Wikipedia, it's information; with the YouTube debate, it's politics; and with PayScale, it's money.


Screenshots and Capture Software

Capturing images on your screen is pretty simple, right? But what if you want to do more with them. Then you want to snag a copy of SnagIt. How did you ever get along without screen capture software? This one even integrates with AOL instant messenger and potentially your blog, too! Start your next screen capture the right way - manage it with TechSmith's SnagIt. For Mac OS X, there's Skitch for still shots, and iShowU for videocasting.


Ars Technica now part of Wired

Publisher Conde Nast who owns Wired Magazine just bought Ars Technica. Arstechnica will become part of Wired Digital. TechCrunch's sources say Conde Nast paid $25 million for the 1998 founded technology news site. ...


Environmental Factors Linked To Sex Ratio Of Plants Discovered

Environmental factors can transform the ratio of females to males in plant populations according to new research. The authors suggest that when females capture large amounts of pollen, female-determining pollen tubes out-compete male-determining pollen tubes to fertilize the single ovule in each flower.


Tourism Authority of Thailand targets Affluent Chinese Visitors

Tourism Authority of Thailand targets Affluent Chinese Visitors.


Embedding Python In Apache2 With mod_python (Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora/CentOS, Mandriva)

... Embedding Python In Apache2 With mod_python (Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora/CentOS, Mandriva) Posted by Philipp on: 2008-07-22 15:25:08 Howtoforge posted a guide about ...


M's say they'll miss veteran reliever Arthur Rhodes - Seattle Times


Sportsnet.ca

M's say they'll miss veteran reliever Arthur Rhodes
Seattle Times - 6 hours ago
The Seattle Mariners will miss the professionalism and veteran leadership of left-handed reliever Arthur Rhodes, who was traded Thursday to the Florida Marlins.
Mariners, Marlins swap pitchers TheNewsTribune.com
Arthur Rhodes joins the Marlins Fish Stripes
SBR Forum - MLB.com - KEPR 19 - ESPN
all 311 news articles


Video: Nice movie career you?ve got there, wingnut; it?d be a shame if something happened to it

Video: Nice movie career you?ve got there, wingnut; it?d be a shame if something happened to it Incorrect. (Read on Source)


I'm Proud of My 'Kids'

I'm Proud of My 'Kids' I have a nice little cadre of students these days. They are young, bright, enthusiastic and at times a little anxious and intimidated. They are a wonderful group, and it's my job to figure out the best way to teach them what they need to know. They have a lot to learn and a limited amount of time to learn it in. Information is being thrown at ... (Read on Source)


Earth's Air Divided by Chemical Equator

LiveScience.com - Scientists have found a temporary "chemical equator" that separates the heavily polluted air of the Northern Hemisphere from the cleaner air of the Southern Hemisphere over the Western Pacific - only it isn't where they expected to find it. (Read on Source)


Pininfarina designs an electric car

Pininfarina designs an electric car Pininfarina showed off the B0 in its booth at the Paris Motor Show. (Credit: CBS Interactive) If you want to build a new car, even a small, economical car, get Pininfarina to design it. That lesson is made clear with the launch of the B0 at the 2008 Paris Motor ... (Read on Source)


How Business Gets Done: Cash Flow Problems 20 Years Later

A customer called today and informed us that he would not be able to pay their invoice for another two weeks due to cash flow problems. This particular customer has been in business for over 20 years. I never cease to be amazed by this. When the entrepreneur envisions his or her new business 20 years later, he or she sees a very successful and thriving company. All too often, this vision is not realized and it is due to poor managment. First of all, let me say that "lack of adequate cash" is never the problem - it is a symptom of the problem. The problem is occuring further up the line. What I recommend to my clients is three things: (1). Err on the side of conservative when ordering inventory. There will be times when you may miss sales because you do not have enough of a particular item, however, having too much inventory on hand when the economy dips can result in insolvency for your company. (2). Start a corporate savings account. Set up automatic withdrawal with your bank whereby they withdraw a small amount of cash each month from your business checking account and put it in an interest-bearing account. (3). If your company is a corporation, leave a little more cash in it every year than you take out. You will be surprised how quickly this strategy will add to your company's net worth. I have used this strategy for years with my company and we now have a very strong cash position. With this cash, we were able to make another $8,000.00 in profit last year by taking prompt-pay discounts offered by our suppliers. A common mistake that companies make is that they do not plan for cash. They plan for expansion and growth in terms of another branch or additional personnel, however, no concrete plans are ever made to establish a secure liquid position.

John Bradford Love is the award winning author of "How Business Gets Done: Creating Wealth with Your Own Company."


Federal Circuit Reins in Business Method Patents

Freedom to Tinker: "The decision is surprising because the Federal Circuit has until recently been strongly in favor of expanding patent rights."


Spotless Mind? Unwanted Memories Might Be Erasable Without Harming Other Brain Functions

A molecule known to preserve memories -- PKMzeta -- specifically stores complex, high-quality memories that provide detailed information about an animal's location, fears and actions, but does not control the ability to process or express this information. This finding suggests that PKMzeta erasure that is designed to target specific debilitating memories could be effective against the offending memory while sparing the computational function of brain.


On Twitter, Followers Aren’t Really Friends

This past weekend, we had yet another tempest in a teapot here in the blogosphere, this time over what, exactly, determines the authority of a tweet on Twitter. Some argued that the number of followers is the best yardstick with which to measure how important a tweet was, while others argued that it is who you follow that’s more valuable. (Read on Source)