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Search giant Google has released an application development tool to its advertising partners in an effort to help them better monitor online-ad performance. Google released a free test version of an API, or application program interface, to advertisers late Thursday, as it continues to expand efforts to help partners tap into its successful AdWords business. The goal is to make it easier for companies buying ads on its site to track and predict placement trends for all its so-called "sponsored links." Google has drawn praise and bolstered its revenue via the AdWords program, through which advertisers bid to purchase the rights to certain words or phrases that generate ads for their companies when they are entered in Google's search engine. The search giant called the API beta program an "open invitation to developers to explore new concepts and then write great software" to manage their AdWords campaigns. Google said the API will allow advertisers to more closely tailor ad content to reflect specific needs. The API, for example, will let advertisers create customized reporting tools that offer more detail on how successful their ads have been. In a note to its advertising customers, members of Google's software engineering team said they are only too happy to encourage the company's partners to drive further innovation of AdWords. "Despite all the development we've done for our AdWords program, much more remains to be built," product manager Josh McFarland and software engineer Nelson Minar said in the statement. "An API enables the creation of all sorts of unanticipated ideas. In our experience, it's better to wear 'not invented here' as a badge of honor than as a chip on your shoulder." The Google team said the AdWords API should also give third-party advertising companies the ability to build more complex interfaces into the software used to control their client's sponsored links.

America Online will stop providing its members with access to Usenet newsgroups, effective in February. The groups were one of the earliest forms of user discussion on the Internet but largely have been replaced by blogs and instant messaging, AOL says. In February, America Online will discontinue providing member access to Usenet newsgroups, one of the earliest forums on the Internet. AOL Latest News about AOL Time Warner subscribers who access the forums by using the keyword "newsgroups" are greeted with a message informing them that the service will be "discontinued in early 2005." Members are advised to visit Google Groups if they wish to continue accessing Usenet. "We've just been finding over the years that more members are turning to other forums, like message boards and blogs," AOL spokesperson Jay Esmele told NewsFactor. "The number of AOL members actually using the Usenet groups is very minimal, and it's decreasing," she added. End of an Era So far, there has been no outcry from any members, Esmele said, and very few complaints are expected. Although blogs Latest News about Blogs and instant messaging Latest News about instant messaging largely have supplanted early forum arenas like the IRC and Usenet, some opinion columns have posited that AOL's newsgroup shutdown marks a milestone in Internet history, because it highlights how new communication forms are sweeping away the old, text-based Usenet style. AOL first provided access to the groups 11 years ago. Although they were popular with AOL members for years, Esmele noted that recent usage has shrunk to fewer than 1,000 members per month. New Focus The discontinuation of Usenet will allow AOL to put greater focus on other community features, Esmele said. In particular, the company plans to increase visibility of its blog creation tool, also called "online journals." Currently, there are over half a million online journals at AOL. The company also will put greater emphasis on chat rooms and message boards. There are over 10,000 message boards at AOL now, and the company is working to develop more features and additional boards. Not the End Although AOL members will have to go elsewhere for Usenet access, the discontinuation is not expected to be the end of Usenet. Thousands of Usenet groups exist, covering a range of topics from TV shows to politics to bizarre diatribes about hating cartoonish dinosaur Barney. "It was one of the first ways to communicate and connect online," said Esmele. "I don't expect that it will completely die out as long as it has dedicated fans."

On January 27 at the Florida Education Technology Conference, Microsoft Corp. announced Microsoft Class Server 4.0, the newest release of the company's premier learning management platform for grades K--12. By helping teachers create, deliver and grade standards-aligned assessments and lessons over the Web, Class Server allows K--12 school districts and their teachers to easily track, analyze and improve student achievement against local curriculum standards in accordance with requirements of the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. Expanding on the success of previous versions, Class Server 4.0 now enables schools and their IT administrators to work with education solution providers to programmatically create, grade and distribute learning resources with exceptional flexibility. Teachers and students no longer have to access data and assignments by opening multiple applications; they can access all their learning tools through a single sign-on Learning Gateway portal solution, a technology framework that delivers information from multiple systems through the same user interface. Offering students and teachers access to applications via the Internet, Class Server 4.0 includes 12 Web Parts that allow information to be shared with existing applications through SharePoint 2.0 in a Learning Gateway solution. Schools can easily manage, purchase or create standards-aligned content; teachers can manage standards-aligned assignments and share their promising-practice resources with peers in other schools; and students can complete lessons and assignments using a Web browser and a password. To ensure ease of use for information technology (IT) administrators, Class Server 4.0 supports the Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and Information Management System (IMS) standards, and provides powerful tools on Microsoft .NET technologies to enable easy integration with existing data and systems. HP Services worked with Tracy Unified School District (USD) in California to install Class Server 4.0 and integrate it with Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 on HP ProLiant servers. "HP's expertise and innovation in education are helping school districts like Tracy USD optimize IT resources and processes in order to improve student achievement, provide additional tools to teachers and better manage standards-aligned content," said Cathy Martin, director of Education, HP Government, Health and Education, Americas. Class Server users, in more than 64 countries, vary in size from large districts to small independent schools. Version 4.0 increases Class Server's already strong customizability and appeal and is delivered in a customized Learning Gateway solution by a host of industry partners including HP, EDmin.com, Chancery Software Ltd., SchoolNet Inc., Sagestone Consulting Inc., Broad Education, Scantron Corp and TetraData Corp. Microsoft Class Server is now available. Educators can visit Microsoft’s Web site for more information about product benefits, solution providers, NCLB funding for Class Server solutions, content offerings, online demonstrations and professional development resources; they also can register for a free evaluation copy.

Search engine Google launched a video search facility this week that enables users to find online footage of recent TV shows. Google Video is running as a beta, or trial, version and trawls through a selection of shows that Google began indexing in December 2004. Current sources include broadcasters Fox News, the NBA, PBS and C-SPAN. Users search by keyword and the engine returns up to five video stills and relevant text sections in a preview page. "What Google did for the web, Google Video aims to do for television," said Google co-founder Larry Page. "Users can search the content of TV programs for anything, see relevant thumbnails, and discover where and when to watch matching television programmes."

lmao goo what kinda fights that mud wrestling hahahaha

New Zealand's Ministry of Consumer Affairs has issued a warning about what it calls the latest Nigerian letter scam - an email offering millions of dollars linked to the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, it was reported. The email claims to be from his widow Suha Arafat in which she asks for assistance with transferring $US20 million from a "secret account". The ministry's general manager Liz MacPherson told Wellington's Dominion Post the media had speculated recently whether Arafat had left a hidden fortune and scam emailers were quick to capitalise on such high-profile international events. "It illustrates how topical Nigerian letter scam operators can be," she said. The email scams are known worldwide as Nigerian letters because of the huge number sent which claim to have offer recipients the prospect of millions of dollars from various accounts held in the African country. MacPherson said consumers should not respond to the email, even in jest, because doing so indicates the operators have found a genuine email address and will guarantee the letters keep coming. She said anyone indicating interest would be asked to pay a "processing fee" of tens of thousands of dollars or euros before "funds can be lodged in your bank account". She added: "That's the last you'll see of your money or the promised share of millions of dollars. The best advice I can give is ignore any scam letter or email you get."

A worm that takes advantage of administrators' poor password choices has started spreading among database systems. The malicious program, known as the "MySQL bot" or by the name of its executable code, SpoolCLL, infects computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system and open-source database known as MySQL, the Internet Storm Center said in an advisory published Thursday. Early indications suggest that more than 8,000 computers may be infected so far, said the group, which monitors network threats. The worm gets initial access to a database machine by guessing the password of the system administrator, using common passwords. It then uses a flaw in MySQL to run another type of program, known as bot software, which then takes full control of the system.

Have you ever bid in on eBay auction item and thought you were going to win, only to see it go at the very last second for a bid just slightly higher than yours? Congratulations, you've been sniped. Luckily, you can fight back by getting your own sniping tool, courtesy of the open source community, which provides JBidwatcher, one of the best ones gunning. Most eBay bidders make use of eBay's proxy bidding feature that allows the bidder to set the maximum price they are willing to pay. With the proxy system eBay automatically bids on the bidder's behalf so that the high bidder position is maintained until another bidder exceeds the bidder's specified top price. Sniping means putting in a topping bid as close to the end of the auction as possible, so that no other bidder can come in and beat you. You can do it manually, but its unlikely you'll be as accurate as an automated program like JBidwatcher. JBidwatcher is a Java-based tool that does more than just place your bid in the final moments of an auction. JBidwatcher also provides auction tracking and other bidding tools, for greater control that what is available with eBay alone. The program is licensed under the Lesser GPL (LGPL), and as such is freely available. All you need to have is a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and the available binary (in .jar format), which will run on either Linux or Windows. Of course you need to have an eBay account in good standing as well. Configuration I tested JBidwatcher version 0.9.5, which was released in October. Configuring JBidwatcher is simple. The average user can do it via the program's Configuration Manager window. If you're really picky about your settings and want to change something that the GUI Config Manager doesn't specify (like display options), the documentation lists configuration file options (in two config files, JBidWatch.cfg and display.cfg). In the GUI the General tab specifies overall spending limits (just in case you don't have enough self-control) as well as logging and click action preferences. The eBay tab is where you enter your eBay user and password and can optionally synchronize your listing to your My eBay listings. The Sniping tab is where you set the timing for your snipe in seconds; the default is 30 seconds, and I ran it successfully on a cable modem connection at 5 seconds without any problem. Configuration Click to enlarge Features JBidwatcher "watches" eBay and tracks the auctions you specify. If you check off the Synchronize with My eBay option in JBidwatcher, it will track everything you're already watching and bidding on. You can add new auctions to track easily though the JBidwatcher GUI as well. Though it may sound simplistic, I found the auction timer to be a valuable tool. JBidwatcher synchs up with eBay official time and provides a countdown timer with the amount of time left in an auction. With the normal eBay interface, time remaining is indicated, but there isn't a live countdown timer. When you get down to the final minute of an auction, a live countdown is a nice feature to have. Sometimes it can be tough to find what you're looking for on eBay. It may be a really esoteric item or a just a rare item. JBidwatcher helps out with a powerful search feature that can be scheduled to run at regular intervals. The search data ends up back in the Current tab of the JBidwatcher interface so you can bid on it directly from the same screen where the results appear. The only drawback with the search feature is that it's not nearly as powerful as the search feature in eBay itself, in that it doesn't allow you specify categories or sellers as search criteria. Sniping Bidding and tracking auctions is all fine and nice, but I first sought out this application for its sniping features. With JBidwatcher, basic sniping is a simple point-and-click affair; all you have to do is set your top bid amount (as noted earlier, the timing of the snipe is set in the Configuration Manager) and click OK. JBidwatcher also includes a powerful sniping feature called multisniping. Have you ever placed multiple bids on similar (or identical) items in the hope that you'd win just one? Ever been really (un)lucky and won more than one? That's the problem that multisniping solves. Essentially what this fabulous feature does is set a conditional snipe on a group of items such that if you win one of them the rest of the snipes in the group are canceled. You can't do that with regular eBay proxy bidding, now can you? (Well, I suppose you could retract or cancel your bids, but that negatively impacts your member profile, and you don't want that to happen.) Sniping Click to enlarge In contrast to the regular eBay proxy bidding process, where you can just bid your max amount, log off, and then come back in a few days to see if you've won, JBidwatcher needs to be running to be effective. Using JBidwatcher doesn't mean you'll magically win every auction you snipe. With your last-minute bid it's important to bid your actual maximum amount. If another user (who may or may not be sniping) has a higher bid via proxy you'll still lose even with the sniper. I've found JBidwatcher to be an indispensable tool for tracking and winning eBay auctions. Its time counter provides a better display of auctions in live time than the default eBay interface. The sniping and multisniping features have dramatically improved my buying success rate. With JBidwatcher and the last-minute thrill of sniping, my eBay auction experience is a whole lot more involved and fun. Sniping is neither encouraged nor banned by eBay. Considering how many auctions I lost over the holiday season, I'd say it's quite rampant. The regular eBay interface continues to improve, but until it offers sniping and multisniping features, I think I'll be doing all my bidding with JBidwatcher.

If you're an inveterate reader of blogs, then you're probably ready for the latest phenomenon roiling the Internet: social networking software (SNS). SNS enables the development of so-called "Friend of a Friend" networks (FOAF, for short) such as Ryze.com, Linkedin.com, and AlwaysOn.com that have come to the fore the past couple of years. MySpace.com, designed for the high school and college-age crowd, also has grown rapidly. These online personal or business networking sites are exploding in use, often adding tens of thousands of new users every month. Like the enormously popular dating site Friendster.com, all these sites are based on the "six degrees of separation" principle. That's the notion that any two random people on the planet are connected by an average of six acquaintances -- a claim that has been around for some time and supported most recently by a 2003 study reported in the journal Science. Click Here Wikipedia, the free, collaboratively-edited Web encyclopedia (itself a type of social network application), describes social networking as the process of connecting individuals via friends, relatives, and acquaintances, allowing a person to build a "personal network." These networks can then branch out and allow friends to connect with people inside their accepted social circle. How these "accepted" social circles are defined seems to be developing as a key differentiator for a lot of FOAF networks, as multimedia pioneer and Macromedia co-founder Marc Canter recently opined. "Though explicit social networking could be considered the hot new trend in software today, it is a solution without a context. Only by placing digital identity, social networking, and Web services into a particular context -- can their full potential be exploited." Broadband Mechanics, Canter's latest company (which he founded in 1999), is currently working on a new generation of SNS tools for on-line communities called Digital Lifestyle Aggregators (DLAs) that will assist end users in keeping track of their personal and/or families' digital music, photo, video, and file collections -- as well as providing them with home publishing capabilities to create, store, and distribute their own content. "What's been missing from social networking up until now are the activities and transactions that should follow once people have found each other," Canter said, explaining that many of the SNS sites like Friendster, etc. seem to be focused on building the biggest network rather than encouraging richer communication between participants. "[it's not surprising you see] the drop-off of interest in these boring SNS sites -- after you've connected up with all these people, there's often nothing to do. Instead of having one SNS with 1 million people, I'd rather see 1 million social networks with 10 people in them," Canter said. Implicit versus explicit Canter distinguishes explicit social networks in which participants actively invite new members and consciously build their network (a la Tribe, Friendster, and Linkedin) from either implicit SNS sites like Craigslist, a community-driven classifieds system, or SNS sites that derive metadata from email use and other activities of people to build maps of social networks (such as Spoke and Plaxo). An example of an explicit network is Broadband Mechanics' client AlwaysOn, which is a social network targeted at technology industry insiders. AlwaysOn users are identified by an online profile, which they write and control, and many post photos of themselves. Craigslist users, on the other hand, are anonymous unless they choose otherwise. Privacy a hot-button issue The concept of trusted user identity is a hot button issue for a lot of people building social networking applications. Canter favors a commercial approach similar to that of Sxip Networks Sxip (pronounced "skip") is a personal identity service, like Microsoft Passport, that allows users to authenticate with an identity provider (a Homesite) and then release identity information to other Websites (Membersites) in a network of trust similar to the Liberty Alliance federation scheme. A typical Sxip scenario involves a Homesite performing a Domain Name Service (DNS) lookup to check the URL for the Membersite's logo to confirm that the Membersite is in fact a registered Sxip Membersite. Sxip's commercial efforts are intended to dovetail with the efforts of the Friend of a Friend (FOAF) project that is working to create a standard for machine-readable FOAF profiles. Similar to a vCard (electronic business card), a FOAF profile is a way to describe yourself -- your name, email address, and the people you're friends with -- using XML and RDF. Standardized machine-readable FOAF profiles will allow software to process these descriptions, perhaps as part of an automated search engine, to discover information about you and the communities of which you're a member. Although based on open-source code, Sxip is owned and run by a small Vancouver, Canada startup, Sxip Networks. Privacy activist Dave Del Torto, for one, doesn't share Canter's faith in the benign effect of the marketplace when it comes to defining a circle of trust for SNS applications. "The idea that privacy issues always seem to get in the way of necessary early profits is sadly consistent with the 'we'll strap some secure-looking stuff on once some companies have made their money' kind of attitude that's gotten the net/Web into the current predicament," says Del Torto. "Nearly every serious security scientist I've ever spoken to concurs that international standards need to be strengthened; this is not 'idealism,' it's being practical," adds Del Torto, founder and executive director of the CryptoRights Foundation, a non-governmental organization which, among other things, promotes the use of cryptography by human rights workers in third-world countries. Likewise, Drummond Reed, CTO of Seattle-based Cordance Corp. and a trustee of the Identity Commons group, clarifies, "There can't be a social Web without ensuring that every user can effectively control the dissemination and use of their personal data. The social networking sites all agree to that -- they take great pains to let every user control their links. Now what we need is an open protocol for doing this everywhere, just like IP and the Web," Reed said. Both Del Torto and Reed favor an approach to trust federation for social networking sites that adds a new layer of universal private addressing to the existing IP numbering and DNS naming layers used on the Internet today. Canter's response is that the XRI/XDI efforts are overkill. "For now, Sxip will suffice. But given the paranoid maniacs running around (promoting XRI/XDI,) it may be necessary to defuse their complaints by doing an Open PeoplesDNS later," he said. Del Torto, in turn, responds that Canter's proposed "Open" PeoplesDNS is a "bogus idea, since anyone who wants to right now can set up their own DNS server and jump right in." He reiterates: "[it's important to realize that] FOAF 'files' are people; some aspects of a person are public and some are private, and that person needs to be able to choose which, when, how, with whom and why. 'Password protection' does not privacy or security make. Attribute encryption with a technology like i-names is practically mandatory in order to have something remain a useful privacy foundation as we move the entire net forward into the future." In reply to Canter's accusation that the XRI/XDI proponents are "paranoid maniacs," Del Torto retorts: "Well, he's got his head firmly rooted in the sand, bless his colorful little tail feathers. Open research into these privacy mechanisms is absolutely essential, and anytime a corporation tries to 'sell' you your own privacy, you should run, not walk, away from them like the snake oil salesmen, snake oil apologists, or ostriches they really are." To join, or not to join As the heated exchange between Canter and Del Torto illustrates, privacy is one of the most contentious issues for people building SNS applications. Whether privacy is defined by traditional DNS style lookups using standardized FOAF profiles or by adding a new identifier layer to the current Internet infrastructure of IP addresses and DNS names, there does seems to be agreement on the need for some sort of decentralized security application that does not have to rely upon hierarchical and bureaucratic relationships between any of the SNS parties. With SNS applications just now gaining wide acceptance, it seems obvious that a clear respect for users' privacy is pivotal for all those people wanting to join on-line groups or use SNS tools, services and applications. Of course, it also seems obvious that there will be continue to be a few of us, like the late Groucho Marx, who are reluctant to join any club willing to have us as members.

On the heels of Firefox's lead engineer Ben Goodger moving to Google, a second Firefox developer has announced he's been hired by the search giant. Mozilla developer Darin Fisher, who ran the cookies and permissions part of the non-profit's browser development efforts, and was also in charge of the portable run-time work, wrote in his blog this week that he's gone to Google. "I have joined Google as well," Fisher wrote. "Like Ben, I will still be very much involved with the Mozilla project and community." Goodger also contended that he will continue working on Mozilla and Firefox projects. Google has refused to confirm or categorically deny that it's working on a browser of its own, or what these new developers will be up to. Speculation, meanwhile, is that the San Francisco, Calif.-based search firm, which has created add-on toolbars for Internet Explorer and has close ties with rival Firefox, is actively working on a Google-branded browser. The announcement of a second Firefox programmer on Google's payroll led Gary Price, a search analyst with SearchEngineWatch.com to write, "If it wasn't there already, Google browser has now been kicked into overdrive."

Three new Web service standards released by the World Wide Web Consortium offer ways to efficiently package and transmit binary data, and will improve interoperability between application vendors, the W3C says. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has released three new Web services standards designed to improve the handling of binary data in various software formats and improve interoperability among applications vendors. The standards are XML-binary Optimized Packaging (XOP), SOAP Message Transmission Optimization Mechanism (MTOM) and Resource Representation SOAP Header Block (RRSHB) — all of which offer ways to efficiently package and transmit binary data included or referenced in a SOAP 1.2 message. Easier Handling of Files The proposals address a critical technical and performance issue for Web services associated with XML, according to Yves Lafon, a member of the consortium's XML Protocol Working Group. "Because XML is a text format, encoding binary data -- such as a picture -- in that format increases the file size of a file by 30 percent," he told NewsFactor. "That takes a lot of bandwidth and significantly slows down applications." XOP provides a standard method for applications to include binary data, as is, along with an XML document in a package, Lafon explained. As a result, applications need less space to store the data and less bandwidth to transmit it. A D V E R T I S E M E N T MTOM uses the features provided by XOP to address SOAP messages with a transmission component that optimizes the transmission and/or the format used for transfer. "Together they provide a way to reduce the size of a SOAP message that contains binary content," Lafon said. Vendors Offer Support The RRSHB gives SOAP message recipients the option either of using the original file or using a cached copy that accompanies the actual SOAP message. The proposals have been embraced by such vendors as MicrosoftRelevant Products/Services from Microsoft, IBM Latest News about IBM and BEA Latest News about BEA Systems, all of which are pushing Web services as a way for businesses to sharing data among applications. Potential uses range from sharing architectural blueprints among multiple parties, to transmitting a photo from a digital camera to aprinter Latest News about Printers. "Enabling a more efficient way [to] serialize and transmit a SOAP message -- and by sending all the data needed to process the message, even when the data would not be readily available (RRSHB) --Web Services Latest News about Web Services have just become faster and more usable," Lafon, said. Yankee Group analyst Dana Gardner told NewsFactor that communications standards are vital to broader acceptance of Web services. "The new standards are designed to close the gap between commercial products and Web services standards for interoperability," he said.

i got like 13 GB of music but only listen to about 200 songs mainly my 512MB holds about 120-200 songs depending on size.

my 512MB one does me fine ... dont need nothing special but i have software for win 98 if i had it.... and it has basic USB 1.1 which isnt awsome but does the job

Microsoft Watch posted an editorial how Microsoft is deciding to phase-out flavours of Windows in time. For a representative timeline, examine this story: Here are some of the products for which support D-days are fast approaching: Windows ME: As of December 31, Microsoft will terminate mainstream support for Windows Millennium Edition (Windows ME). Extended support for ME ends one year later, on December 31, 2004. Windows 98 and Windows 98 Second Edition: Extended support ends for both of these products on January 16, 2004. Microsoft acknowledged earlier this month that it also is removing Windows 98 from all of its sales channels as of December 23, citing the terms from its legal settlement with Sun Microsystems over Java as the impetus. Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server and Option Pack: As with Windows 98, Microsoft is removing these two versions of NT 4.0 from all of its sales channels, as of December 23, citing the Sun Java lawsuit as the cause. Microsoft says it will release updated versions of NT 4.0 Workstation, Server and Enterprise Server, sans the Java Virtual Machine, so as to avoid phasing these products out early. IE 6 for XP: Mainstream support for Internet Explorer 6 on Windows XP Home and XP Professional already ended on December 31, 2001. But the extended support for these two products will terminate around mid-2004, simultaneous with the commercial availability of Windows XP SP2. Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server and Windows 2000 Client Access Licenses (CALs): While mainstream support doesn't end for these products until March 31, 2005, Microsoft is beginning to phase them out of the sales channels starting at the end of the first calendar quarter of 2004. Retail and volume-licensing availability of these products ends on March 31, 2004. OEMs are required to stop selling these products, as well as Windows 2000 Datacenter, on November 1, 2004.

When he reads the glowing stories detailing the wonders of the fledgling Firefox web browser, Jon von Tetzchner can't help but wonder why his own baby is so often ignored. Von Tetzchner is the CEO of Opera Software, maker of the Opera web browser. In the sort of grand comedic tragedy that echoes its name, Opera went from spending almost a decade as Internet Explorer's understudy to getting an occasional polite mention in the cavalcade of media attention currently being directed at the new superstar -- Mozilla's Firefox browser. But the show ain't over till the fat lady sings. And Opera intends to put on a grand performance this year with a fresh version of its browser, new offices in North America and Asia, an expanded public relations campaign and an increasing emphasis on becoming the browser of choice for entertainment and mobile devices. "Obviously we would have liked it if Opera got more media attention. At the same time, we believe it is good news that there is more interest in browsers," said von Tetzchner. "We now need to work hard to make the most of this opportunity. We believe we have a product that can handle comparison very well." Ironically, many of the features that are now favorites among Firefox users first appeared in Opera, such as Multiple Document Interface, known as tabbed browsing in Firefox, and Mouse Gestures, which allow users to control the browser by moving their mouse instead of clicking on icons. Opera can also match Firefox's boast of enhanced security -- that is, better security than what IE supplies. "IE was designed to be integrated into the operating system and with other applications as much as possible. From a programmer's point of view this can be considered positive, but that also applies to programmers who are making viruses," said von Tetzchner. "From a security perspective it is better to have less integration between the browser and the OS and other apps. At Opera, we have made a lot of decisions where security has been put higher than convenience. Sometimes it even hurts our users a little because sites that use code that could be used to do damage won't display in Opera. But we have to put security first." The newest version of Opera -- its name is still a secret -- is slated to be released in February. Among the new features is the Trash Can, an oddly named but useful addition that acts as a sort of extended bookmark for stored history. The Trash Can also allows users to save a series of pages as a "session" and then reload that session later. Voice Interaction, Opera's splashiest new feature, allows users to control the program by talking to their computers. Websites, e-mail and documents can also be read aloud by the browser. "Voice Interaction is a progressive part of our vision that web browsing will soon move more into mobile phones and other small devices and browsing will need to be a hands-free experience," said Michelle Valdivia, Opera marketing communications manager. "This is very early, premature technology, but Opera wants to get ahead, get it out there and into practice to be future-ready." A new Start bar contains icons for Top 10 favorite links, Home and Bookmarks. And Opera's new Fit-to-Window function adapts web pages to fit to the width of your screen or browser window, eliminating the need to scroll horizontally -- a great feature for small- and medium-sized screens on mobile phones or other devices. Fit-to-Window also works nicely if you want to tile pages next to each other on your screen or adapt website content to fit a specific paper width when printing. "There is a lot of innovation in the new version and a lot of improvements under the hood," said von Tetzchner. "We know that we need to be better than the competition to attract users. Since 1995, the competition has been free and supported by major corporations with big budgets. This applies to Netscape, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. We are the only vendor that has had to really focus on making a better product to survive." Opera includes e-mail and newsreader clients and comes in two versions: free, with an ad banner in the top right of the browser window, or ad-free for $39. Registered users also get direct tech support. Von Tetzchner said he doesn't believe the ads in the free version have kept users from adopting Opera. He thinks the problem is that many users simply don't know there is a free version of Opera. The Opera team members hope the new release, which can be previewed now in beta form, will finally bring Opera the attention they believe the application deserves. They aren't dissuaded by the statistics from tracking firms WebSideStory and OneStat.com that show most users who have opted to replace IE seem to be turning to Firefox, noting that the number of Opera users has doubled over the past year. WebSideStory and OneStat both put Opera's global usage share at a little over 1 percent. But von Tetzchner sees good times ahead. Opera Software, which is based in Oslo, Norway, is opening offices in the United States, Japan and China in 2005. The engineering department now has more than 130 people and is growing, von Tetzchner said. And Opera's management team has its sights firmly fixed on becoming the most popular portable browser on mobile gadgets and in pervasive computing and home entertainment devices. "With its European base and its planned new offices in Asia, Opera is in a great position to take the lead on mobile devices. Mobile infrastructure and interest is well-developed in those areas," said Manhattan-based marketing consultant Barry Shapiro. "Whether Opera will take a significant part of the desktop market is doubtful but debatable. Who'd have thought Firefox would be taking market share away from Microsoft a year ago? That said, I don't see Opera replacing Internet Explorer on the corporate desktop, and I'm not sure it can beat the geek cachet of open-source Firefox. Mobile and media devices may well be Opera's swan song." But the company isn't giving up on the desktop. "At times things have been tough, given the market conditions, but we have stuck to our task," said von Tetzchner. "We believe it is best that there is choice and we aim to deliver the best browser. That's been our goal from day one."

Ten people were killed and about 200 injured on Wednesday when two Los Angeles commuter trains collided after one of them hit a vehicle left on the tracks by a man contemplating suicide, authorities said. Police and city officials said the 26-year-old man, whom they described as "deranged," watched the two trains smash into each other at high speed after leaving his Jeep Cherokee on the tracks. The man was found wandering the scene after the accident, muttering: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Police said the man, who was not injured, was in custody and would be charged with murder. About 40 of those hurt in the crash were critically injured. The incident occurred just after 6am local time. Metrolink, the Southern California commuter rail service that operates the train tracks, said it was the worst accident in its 13-year history. "For me, this is the worst train accident I have ever seen," Los Angeles Fire Department Capt. Rex Vilaubi said. Officials said the man had slashed his wrists and stabbed himself in the chest before driving onto the tracks away from the regular crossing point. "He took his vehicle and apparently maneuvered it into an area on the tracks (and) got the vehicle stuck on the tracks. He was intent at the time on taking his own life but changed his mind prior to the train striking his vehicle," Glendale Police Chief Randy Adams told a news conference. "He exited the vehicle and stood by as the southbound train struck his vehicle, causing the train to derail and strike the northbound train." The commuter trains also struck a parked freight train, causing a brief fire. The collision took place in an industrial area near Glendale, north of the Los Angeles downtown area. 'Outrage' "It's an outrage that people coming to work on a very safe train system would have to face an outrage like this," said Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca. "When some individual parks his vehicle on the train track knowing full well that a train is coming, this is cause for serious, serious alarm." he said. Emergency teams were searching the debris five hours after the crash, checking for more possible victims. The impact sent passengers flying through the train and landing on top of one another. Firefighters, who arrived first on the scene, found injured passengers walking around dazed, some of them pushing others in shopping carts taken from a nearby shopping center. "It's like we went from 55 to 60 (mph) (90-100 kph) to zero in two seconds flat," one injured man told reporters. Carol Smith, 50, was on her way downtown to work and had just put down her newspaper. "And all of a sudden, the train pulls the brakes and jerks and the lights went out," Smith said. She was able to walk off unscathed, although she saw a number of severe injuries. "I walked by a lot of people who were lying on the tracks and couldn't move," Smith said. The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team to investigate Wednesday's crash. In June 2003, runaway freight cars sped out of control toward Los Angeles for 48 km before derailing and burying four houses under tons of wood. A five-car commuter train slammed into a flatbed truck and derailed in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank in January 2003, killing the truck driver and injuring more than 30 others. In April 2002, a Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight train slammed into a Metrolink train outside Los Angeles in Placentia, killing two people and injuring 162.

An estimated 11,300 laptop computers, 31,400 handheld computers and 200,000 mobile telephones were left in taxis around the world during the last six months, a survey found. Taxi drivers in nine cities also said they had found a range of other items left by passengers, including a harp, 37 milk bottles, dentures and artificial limbs. One driver said he even found a baby in his taxi. The survey of some 1,000 taxi drivers said that passengers had lost three times more handheld computers in the second half of 2004 than in 2001, when the research by security software company Pointsec was first carried out. Most of the items were returned to their owners, cab drivers said. Four out of five mobile phones and 19 out of every 20 computers found their way back, they said. Londoners appear more careless than others with their laptops, while Danes are most likely to forget their mobile phones, the survey found. In Chicago in the United States, passengers often left behind handheld computers on the back seat. The survey's findings were extrapolated to reflect the total number of taxis in each city. One customer, who later turned out to be the girlfriend of actor Hugh Grant, left her iPod music player, mobile phone and purse. When the lady taxi driver was asked to deliver the items to Grant, she received an autograph as a thank-you.

Don't say we didn't warn you: At some point in the next decade, there will be a "devastating attack" on the internet or power grid. That scenario was deemed most plausible by 1,300 technology experts and scholars in a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Other predictions that drew the most agreement: * We'll be watched more closely by government and businesses through computing devices embedded in clothes, appliances, cars and phones. * Most students will spend part of their day in "virtual classes," grouped online with others who share their abilities and interests. * And the boundaries between work and leisure will be blurred - in other words, expect to hear from your boss anytime, anywhere. Although the internet was technically born in 1969 as a plaything of computer scientists, it only became accessible to the mainstream a decade ago. Since then, it has insinuated itself in our daily lives. The handwritten letter has become quaint, millions of young music lovers have grown accustomed to free music (even if it's illegal), and more than a few marriages have been forged from dates hatched online. So what's coming in the next 10 years? Pew, along with Elon University in North Carolina, sought the opinions of people - both in the United States and abroad - who know the internet intimately or think about it a lot. About half of them were internet pioneers, having been online before 1993. One-third were from academia, another third were from tech companies or consulting firms and the rest worked for non-profit organisations, publications or the government. Of the experts surveyed by Pew in the northern autumn, 66% agreed that the internet or power grid would be successfully attacked. Only 18% disagreed or challenged the prediction. Former CIA Director Robert Gates, speaking at a terrorism conference recently, said cyberterrorism could be the most potent weapon of mass destruction and could cripple the US economy. "When a teenage hacker in the Philippines can wreak $US10 billion in damage to the US economy by implanting a virus, imagine what a sophisticated, well-funded effort to attack the computer base of our economy could accomplish," he said. The survey let people define what would constitute a "devastating" attack - would it mean millions of people having to forgo email, instant messaging and web surfing for a few hours, or would it mean human casualties? "If we include economic devastation, it's inevitable that we'll see a number of companies and industries upended," wrote Alexandra Samuel, a writer and consultant and author of a dissertation at Harvard University about politically motivated hacking. "If we mean devastating in the sense of directly causing loss of life or injury, it's much harder to predict." Intensified surveillance by government or business, and more arrests as a result, was foreseen by 59% of the experts. Some said they would welcome that development; others seemed to dread it. "There will be greater surveillance, probably; greater arrests, maybe. But this is a chilling prospect overall," wrote Scott Marcus, the senior adviser for internet technology at the Federal Communications Commission. Although many people have been predicting that the internet would transform schools, it has yet to become much more than a research tool. Nevertheless, 57% agreed that most students by 2014 will receive some of their knowledge through videoconferencing or online chats typed out on a keyboard - otherwise known as distance learning. The notion that the internet will alter family life through home schooling and telecommuting drew agreement from 56% of the experts. Harry Jenkins, a professor of literature and comparative media studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, wrote that people are already sensing the changes. "For the most part," he wrote, "they are very nervous about a world where it is impossible to escape the office and where they face growing competition for their children's attention." Elon University has also invited the general public, however inexpert they may be about the internet, to share their predictions about the internet and its impact on society. Allen Apgar, the information technology manager for Clifton (New Jersey) Savings Bank, foresees a day when access to any computer will be controlled by biometrics - the particular physical traits of the user. "So theoretically, you can be at the local grocery store and use a computer to access your home machine," he wrote. Aaron Ratzan, a 23-year-old from East Brunswick, New Jersey, who was using the internet in the late 1980s, thinks wireless connections will be pervasive, not just limited to "hot spots." But he also posted a darker, retrograde vision, which he said was only "half a joke": "Somewhere, something will malfunction - it will cause a massive electromagnetic burst that will shut down people's communications devices and electronic equipment. It will reset worldwide communication back to where it was in the early 1800s," he added.

Apple's iPod and iPod Mini digital music players make playing your favorite tunes on the go more intuitive than perhaps any other player on the market. Perhaps that's why Apple says it sold 4.5 million of them during the holidays. But connecting the iPod to your computer to transfer tunes and manage your music library isn't always simple - especially if your computer runs Windows. Older versions of Windows are incompatible with the iPod, and there are some peculiar default settings that could wipe out your music collection. Luckily, there are solutions for every problem, and we have four to share. 1. Use a recent version of Windows. ITunes, Apple's free software that transfers music to the iPod from your computer, only works with Windows XP and 2000. But Windows 98SE and ME owners can use their iPod through third-party software. XPlay (www.mediafour.com; $30) and Anapod Explorer (www.redchairsoftware.com; $25) are two programs that transfer music files to iPods - and they'll do it using the 98SE and ME version of Windows. XPlay requires a FireWire port, which is often missing on Windows computers. So you'll have to buy and install one. FireWire cards start at $20. Anapod Explorer can transfer music to your iPod using either a USB or FireWire port. If your Windows system is older than 98SE, your out of luck. 2. Build a music library. Your songs and albums must be copied - or ripped - to your computer before you can transfer them to an iPod. You can add music in three formats: MP3, AAC (Apple's preferred format) and WAV. Unless you are using Windows 98SE or ME, forget third-party software and stick with iTunes to convert your music files to the proper format. When importing music, iTunes lets you change the format and amount of compression it uses. To do this within iTunes, click Edit, Preferences and select the Importing tab. To get music from a CD onto your hard drive, insert the CD into your computer. ITunes will look up the CD title and song information from an online database and display it. Remove the check next to any song you don't want and click the Import button. If online information is not available, enter the information manually. Click the track. Then select File, Get Info and click on the Info tab. Enter the title, artist and other information. Clear the boxes for tracks you do not want. You also can buy music through the iTunes Music Store. Click on Music Store under Source. Singles cost 99 cents. Often, you can save a few bucks by buying an entire album. The iTunes Music Store, like the iTunes jukebox, requires Windows XP and 2000. 3. Organize your tunes. Depending on the size of your iPod's hard drive and the amount of compression, you could end up with thousands of songs. To help you find your favorite tunes quickly, create playlists in iTunes. Use them to organize songs by theme, genre or any other category. To create a playlist, select File, New Playlist. Type a name for the playlist under Source. Click Library to view your song files. Drag any song onto the playlist. Select multiple songs by holding the Control or Shift key while clicking. 4. Transfer tunes to your iPod. With iTunes open, connect your iPod to your computer. ITunes automatically will transfer songs and playlists to your iPod. But be careful. Anything on the iPod that's not in iTunes, too, will be erased. To avoid this, set iTunes to only transfer certain songs. Or, you can manually drag and drop music files onto your iPod. To change the settings, open iTunes and select Edit, Preferences. Click the iPod tab. Click the Music tab and make sure "Automatically update all songs and playlists" is selected. Then click the Advanced tab and select the "Only update checked songs" checkbox. To manually transfer songs, choose Edit, Preferences and click the iPod tab. Click the Music tab and select "Manually manage songs and playlists." Then drag songs from your library or playlist to iPod in the Source list.

The rain is turning to snow on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in a parking lot here surely would prefer to be inside. But the weather couldn't matter less to the robotic sharpshooter they are here to watch as it splashes through puddles, the barrel of its machine gun pointing the way. The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April. Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat. It's easy to humanize the SWORDS as it moves out of an office building and into the cold with nary a shiver. Military officials like to compare the roughly three-foot-high robots favorably to human soldiers: They don't need to be trained, fed or clothed. They can be boxed up and warehoused between wars. They never complain. And there are no letters to write home if they meet their demise in battle. But officials are quick to point out that these are not the autonomous killer robots of science fiction. A SWORDS robot shoots only when its human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot's cameras. "The only difference is that his weapon is not at his shoulder, it's up to half a mile a way," said Bob Quinn, general manager of Talon robots for Foster-Miller Inc., the Waltham, Mass., company that makes the SWORDS. Quinn said it was a "bootstrap development process" to convert a Talon robot, which has been in military service since 2000, from its main mission — defusing roadside bombs in Iraq — into the gun-slinging SWORDS. It was a joint development process between the Army and Foster-Miller, a robotics firm bought in November by QinetiQ Group PLC. Army officials and employees of the robotics firm heard from soldiers "who said 'My brothers are being killed out here. We love the EOD (explosive ordnance disposal), but let's put some weapons on it,'" said Quinn. Working with soldiers and engineers at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, it took just six months and only about $2 million in development money to outfit a Talon with weapons, according to Quinn and Anthony Sebasto, a technology manager at Picatinny. The Talon had already proven itself to be pretty rugged. One was blown off the roof of a Humvee and into a nearby river by a roadside bomb in Iraq. Soldiers simply opened its shrapnel-pocked control unit and drove the robot out of the river, according to Quinn. The $200,000, armed version will carry standard-issue Squad Automatic Weapons. All its optics equipment — the four cameras, night vision and zoom lenses — were already in the Army's inventory. "It's important to stress that not everything has to be super high tech," said Sebasto. "You can integrate existing componentry and create a revolutionary capability." The SWORDS' developers say its tracks, like those on a tank, can overcome rock piles and barbed wire, though it needs a ride to travel faster than 4 mph. Running on lithium ion batteries, it can operate for 1 to 4 hours at a time, depending on the mission. Operators work the robot using a 30-pound control unit which has two joysticks, a handful of buttons and a video screen. Quinn says that may eventually be replaced by a "Gameboy" type of controller hooked up to virtual reality goggles. The Army has been testing it over the past year at Picatinny and the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland to ensure it won't malfunction and can stand up to radio jammers and other countermeasures. Its developers say the SWORDS not only allows its operators to fire at enemies without exposing themselves to return fire, but also can make them more accurate. A typical soldier who could hit a target the size of a basketball from 300 meters away could hit a target the size of a nickel with the SWORDS, according Quinn. The better accuracy stems largely from the fact that its gun is mounted on a stable platform and fired electronically, rather than by a soldier's hands, according to Staff Sgt. Santiago Tordillosi of the EOD Technology Directorate at Picatinny. Gone are such issues as trigger recoil, anticipation problems, and pausing the breathing cycle while aiming a weapon. "It eliminates the majority of shooting errors you would have," said Tordillosi.

+t is only ops to set topic.

thnx man

nah nah ... like when ur script scans nicks and it halts if something is in teh nick how do u make it so when it scans and finds a person on +q owner mode it halts.

the command like if (Admin isin == $nick) {halt} or something like that how would it be possible to replace Admin to a owner on +q mode ???

lmao