Most of you guys might remember my old website and my frequent attempts to get cheap and reliable web hosting. It was sure difficult as there was no one on one comparison possible. This makes me wish that Web Hosting Rating[WHR] had been launched much earlier. WHR as the name implies is a site that offers reviews, ratings and comparisons of web hosting providers. At a sneak peek of the site engine shown to me, I saw columns like the web hosting provider, features, unique selling point and review of the hosting provider.

You can even narrow down the prospective lists by selecting platforms like windows or linux web hosting. That's not all folks, they even have an article repository where they have informative articles on every web hosting related topics I can think of. Boy, I wish I can access to this kind of a resource earlier. Anyway, if you are looking for a comparison of web hosting providers or just want to clear up some hosting related doubts, Web Hosting Rating is the way to go.

Houston has been hit with a computer bug like no other: a swarm of ants that are eating through electronics. The “Crazy Raspberry Ants” are believed to have arrived in Texas aboard a cargo ship, and are causing widespread mayhem.

For some unknown reason they are attracted to electrical equipment, which is causing problems for residents in the Deep South. The ants have destroyed PCs in homes and offices, ruined pumps at a sewage treatment plant and even taken a fancy to homeowners’ gas meters, according to reports from the Associated Press. “If you open a computer, you would find a cluster of ants on the motherboard and all over,” said Tom Raspberry, the owner of Budget Pest Control and the man the ants have been named after.

“You’d get 3,000 or 4,000 ants inside and they create arcs. They’ll wipe out any computer,” he told Computerworld. The Johnson Space Center has reportedly called in pest control experts to make sure the little critters don’t start chomping their way through NASA’s computer systems. Although, according to Raspberry, he’s already seen colonies on the NASA site.

So what should worried PC owners be looking for? “They’re itty-bitty things about the size of fleas, and they’re just running everywhere,” Patsy Morphew of Pearland, told AP. “There’s just thousands and thousands of them. If you’ve seen a car racing, that’s how they are. They’re going fast, fast, fast. They’re crazy.”

When we advertise our product or a service, we need to keep in mind the demographics. Demographics simply put, are the data that represent the target audience. The list broker help you customize a demographic list for your product which makes it's reach wider. They combine lists from various sources and choose the one that suits your product the most.

The 40-year-old builder said the vehicle was going to be scrapped anyway, but he wanted to make a point. A spokesman for NCP Services said half of the car was parked on the road and should therefore have been taxed. Mr Taylor bought the Fiesta for his stepson with the intention of restoring it, but it was beyond economical repair. “I told [my stepson] not to bother, so we parked it up, we were going to get rid of it. I came home from work the other day and it’d been clamped,” he said.

Mr Taylor said he made several efforts to explain that the car had a SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) certificate verifying it had not been driven on the road and that it had been parked on his drive. “We tried to talk to [NCP]. I said, ‘you’re not taking it’. I got my cutter and cut it in half,” he said. “[I’m] happy I got one over on them. They’re jobsworths, for the sake of an inch and a half on the path.” James Pritchard, communications manager for NCP Services, said clamping staff had photographs to prove that half the car was on the public pavement.

“We were astonished at the reaction this gentleman had to the fact we put a clamp on his car. “It was a remarkable incident which highlighted some of the problems my colleagues face while they’re doing what is a very important job in ensuring that motorists tax their vehicle,” he said.

“And in cutting his car in two, he managed to put both himself at risk and also a number of bystanders - along with ourselves, the police had to be called and the fire brigade, as he set fire to the car while cutting it in two. “Fortunately, the only damage was done to his car and as far as our people are concerned we stand by what they did.”

I asked my mom to get me a new cell phone as my old Nokia 6600 wasn't keeping good health of late. So looking around for a nice phone, I spotted the Nokia 5610 and 5310 Express Music twins. They were catchy with their trademark black and red designs and were pretty new. My only gripe was that they had a S40 OS. This meant that I would have to sacrifice my love for the S60 OS and multi-tasking.

I looked at the Nokia 5700 Express Music but didn't like it's 2MP camera which lacked saturation in the shots it took. This drew my closer to the Nokia 5610 Express Music. It has a 3.2 MP cam with Auto Focus, a glorious 2.2” QVGA screen[240x320] at 16 Million Colors which made for an amazingly vibrant display. It has 3G capabilities with a secondary VGA camera on the front[only for video calling].

The jog-slide[yeah I made that up] on the front of the phone enabled me to switch between the music/video player, FM and active standby screens at a flick of my thumb. Did I mention that the phone supports FM with RDS??

After 3 months of owning it, I cant help but notice the phenomenal build quality. But a side panel did come on and had to be replaced under warranty. I know that ya guys must be thinking: “Hey Sriram, how come you just said that it has an amazing build quality, and then said that the panel came off?”. By the build quality I mean that the phone's feel is itself pretty sturdy. No squeaks or noises from the slide or the back panel[speaking of the back panel, the panel is so thin that I thought that I would break it for when I opened it for the first time.].

Some of the negatives for this phone would be the absence of a S60 based OS[it would make the phone slow though], the front[secondary] camera cannot take pictures or record videos and that support for 4GB SDHC micro SD card could be properly documented[There are reports of some 4GB SDHC micro-SD Kingston and Transcend cards failing to work with this phone]. So Nokia dev team, if you read this[finding this article via Google], please do really “correct” these cons as you have a wonderful wonderful product here.

I can keep singing paeans about my new phone but I have a couple of other topics to touch on. The first is TrekBuddy which is an offline Java based software for use on an Mobile Phone, with or without a GPS[Internal or Bluetooth] and the best feature is that it supports offline maps. Whoohoo!! So I installed the software on my phone and extracted the maps of Chennai from Google Maps with the TrekBuddy GUI Atlas Creator and loaded them onto my smart card. And lo behold, I could see the map of Chennai in varying levels of zoom. The map was so detailed that I could see the tiny street that I live in!! The TrekBuddy supports logging as well[Smart GPX and NMEA]!!

This didn't even remotely quench my thirst so I saved up and bought a $60 i.Trek M7 Bluetooth GPS Device. It is amazing and is soothes my DGPS starved soul with some WAAS, EGNOS, MSAS and RTCM enabled right out of the box. I have to commend Semsons here. They did an amazing job of efficiently and quickly processing and shipping my order.

When I paired the GPS with my cell and started it within TrekBuddy, it was recognized right away. In under a minute, my position was recognized and my position, speed, altitude and acceleration was displayed. The i.Trek is a MTK chipset based unit with the 51 channel firmware upgrade. I found in practice that the cold start and reacquisition times were about 1 min and 5sec on average respectively. Better than a SIRF III set huh??

Anywaz, I couldn't wait to get a test spin, so I switch on the GPS and TrekBuddy and started logging the data. I drove my sister to the school, came home and uploaded the log[NMEA] on to GPS Visualizer's site and I saw my tracks, speed, acceleration at different points.

Click here and here for the GPS tracks.

The GPS was under the seat all the time and it still had a constant 8-11 satellites fix.

I must thank at this outset- Kruch for developing this amazing piece of freeware software[TrekBuddy] without which this wouldn't be possible. Cheers mate!! BTW this must be my biggest post. Yay me!!

I love thrillers with a substantial Horror Movie element to it. So when I heard that Xavier Gens' movie Frontier(s)' release was around the corner, I decided to have a look at the trailer. Remember, I am talking a about a movie that was rejected by the “8 Films to die for” Horror Fest, for being too brutal and violent.

The story begins is set circa 2002 during the riots that plagued the Paris' suburbs. The story is about a group of friends who pull off a bold heist and flee to the countryside.

They take refuge at a seemingly peaceful inn. We later discover that the inn is owned by a family of cannibalistic Neo-Nazis. The rest of the movie covers the gang's fate as they stumble upon the family and try escape them.

Frontier(s) is filled with so much hardcore blood and gore which makes the “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Saw” series look like Mel Brooks' movies. It was until recently unrated and has been given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. It's being released in the theaters by May 9^th and the DVD release is scheduled to be by May 13^th. I cant barely wait to see the movie!!

I love apple pie. The tasty crumbly crust beautifully complementing the moist and smooth apple filling. I simply love the crust. Here's my recipe for the All American Apple Pie. We've heard of it, we've seen it, tasted it and here it is:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (9 inch) deep dish pie crust
• 5 cups apples - peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 6 tablespoons butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C.) Arrange apple slices in unbaked pie shell. Mix 1/2 cup sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over apples.
2. Mix 1/3 cup sugar with flour; cut in butter until crumbly. Spoon mixture over apples.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until apples are soft and top is lightly browned.

All of us love custom number plates on our cars. It tells everyone who what we are. Northumbria Numbers is a site that helps you choose private number plates for your vehicle. It has a customizable search service to look for plates with preferred numbers and letters. So just visit Northumbria Numbers if you need to buy or sell custom number plates.

According to a cached version of the Google Code page, CoreAVC-for-Linux provides patches to open-source media player software such as MPlayer or MythTV that enable them to use the CoreAVC software on Linux. In other words, it’s for programs that connect to the CoreAVC software but doesn’t actually include CoreAVC itself. It’s not yet clear who filed the DMCA complaint.

The DMCA’s Safe Harbor provision protects a Web site from liability for users’ actions as long as the site’s operator–in this case Google–fulfills requirements such as removing infringing material once notified by rights holders. CoreCodec appears to be a company that’s got some involvement with the opens-source programming philosophy. According to the CoreCodec Web site, “Our philosophy is to (use) open source when appropriate, and when we do choose to close source a product, we strive to open as much of it as possible for third-party access.”

The other day, when I was re-reading Freakonomics's Updated edition, I came across this page where it said that insurance rates came down in the 90s when web started gaining a major foothold. This was when plenty of sites started comparing the insurance rates and thus invariably caused fierce completion among the insurance companies.

Similarly, the rates for personal loans are bound to reduce because of sites like Choice Personal Loans. Choice Personal Loans is a site that reviews and deals with the myriad of rates for good and bad credit loans and guide you in getting a cheap loan.

People with bad credit rating have typically a low chance of getting their loan approved. But Choice Personal Loans will not only review the requests for free, but also will guide them to get bad credit loans.

The site also helps you secure loans for students, people with prior bankruptcies, entrepreneurs, weddings and automobiles. They have some requirements like employment, of legal age, references, checking account and no current bankruptcy.

Their site has an FAQ which covers almost any question that might pop into your head when applying for a loan. Their information section contains information on general loans, types of loans they offer, about credit reports, debts, financing businesses, bankruptcy, rebuilding credit and so on. This site will not only solve your loan problems, but will also solve most of your niggling doubts on the loans.

They will even give you a custom package with flexibility on choosing a plan that suits you the most.

They have a simple three step procedure for securing a loan.

• Complete an online application highlighting your requirements.

• Talk to their financial consultants and tailor fit a loan package which is suited for you.

• Get the loan!!

It's that simple. So just logon to Choice Personal Loans and apply for one now.

In recent days, Mr. Ballmer has been trying to win the support of Yahoo shareholders by floating the possibility of raising Microsoft’s offer to as much as $33 a share, according to people briefed on the discussions. But some Yahoo shareholders, as well as its management and board, are holding out for more, these people said. “I know exactly what I think Yahoo is worth to me,” Mr. Ballmer told employees. “I won’t go a dime above, and I will go to what I think it’s worth if that gets the deal done.”

Mr. Ballmer is under pressure to decide quickly, in part because a deadline he imposed on Yahoo to reach a negotiated deal passed five days ago. Mr. Ballmer had threatened to start a proxy fight to oust Yahoo’s directors if the deadline was not met.

Managing an IT service can be a tedious and hectic job. It requires constant attention, often wasting precious manpower in the company. Business Process Outsourcing is a new technique that enables you to roll out a new IT based service without needing to bother yourself with the maintenance and other bolts and nuts. iCorps is such a New York IT Outsourcing venture that offers valuable product delivery and support services for the client.

ICorps'[http://www.icorps.com] clients are usually , but not restricted to, IT companies of small sizes from 10-500 employees.

Icorps' clients not only depend on the for critical operations like support, but also for routine maintenance. Their clients include companies like American Program Bureau, Corcoran Jennison, Delphi Constructions, etc.

The company focuses on services like Network Integration, Business Application Development, Web based solutions and Support based services. It also has programs like Managed Security, iCorps Managed Care, Advanced Monitoring, System Administration & Support and Website Maintenance, ready for deployment. These pre built packages will same time for your company, as there is no need for extensive development of new ones.

They are certified by Microsoft which offers them an unique insight when deploying Microsoft based products and services. They also partner with major companies like Apple, BlackBerry, HP, Cisco, IBM, Symantec, etc. that helps them achieve unparalleled excellence in their services.

* Fast access to your mobile content via Homebase start page

* Best support for modern web standards (Javascript and AJAX).

* Social Bookmarking

* Tab browsing

* RSS Support

* Proven security (TLS, SSL3)

* International support

* Cross platform capability

* Widget and Extension support

If you are looking for the finest police gear like body armor,shirts,BDU Pants, flashlights, foot wear and holsters, LA Police Gear is the place to go. They have an astounding range of items and at very cheap prices. They also offer plenty of free gifts with certain products. So checkout LA Police Gear for some quality goods.

Network Access Protection compatibility. Announced years ago, this feature allows Windows XP machines to interact with the NAP feature in Windows Server 2008. This functionality is built into the RTM version of Windows Vista as well.

Product Key-less install option. As with Windows Vista, new XP with SP3 installs can proceed without entering a product key during Setup.

Kernel Mode Cryptographics Module. A new kernel module that "encapsulates several different cryptographic algorithms," according to Microsoft.

"Black hole" router detection algorithm. XP gains the ability to ignore network routers that incorrectly drop certain kinds of network packets. This, too, is a feature of Windows Vista.

I've always wanted to keep in touch with my readers, be it through comments or email or phone. Keeping in contact with your readers must be the next best rule bloggers must follow after posting regularly. Readers are one valuable source to a blog not only because of the obvious content value, but also because their comments will help the blogger refine his or her writing style.

Zookoda is an amazing web based application which helps you to communicate with your reader base. It helps you send some really professional looking newsletters about you and your blog. RSS is really useful, but people check their mail more frequently than RSS readers.

Zookoda has some amazing features like mailing a summary of your blog posts with a customizable frequency, custom design and real time monitoring. They have a double confirm facility, a black list function and a new reorder function that allows you to reorder your posts.

You can create your own newsletter design in a jiffy. Just add your RSS/Atom feed URL, add, remove and move design elements and you're done. Real Time tracking allows you to see the performance of your newsletters. It lets you see the number of people you have sent it to, the clicks and the conversions[so to say].

They have an amazing ticket based support system[IZEA] which helps you speak to the customer care, and through which you can tell them the bugs you face or some features you'd like to request.

So you get a email based newsletter system with advanced features and excellent support for free. What more do you want?

• 1.5 Liter bottle[ A Coke or Pepsi 1.5 Liter bottle will do]
  
• large chunk of ginger (you need 1½ to 2 tablespoons of grated ginger)
• 1 lemon
• 1 cup of sugar
• ¼ teaspoon of dried yeast[Get it at a supermarket or at a bakers]
  

• Using a plastic funnel, pour the sugar into the bottle. (if you don’t have a funnel fashion one out of paper like me)
• Add the dried yeast to the bottle.
• Now, grate the ginger until you have between 1½ and 2 tablespoon’s worth. I used 2 tablespoons because I really like ginger, but feel free to vary this according to your tastes. Also, you may wish to cut the skin off before grating.
• Extract the juice from one lemon.
• Mix the grated ginger and lemon juice together in a cup
• Next you need to add the ginger/lemon mixture to the bottle.
• Now, you need to add the water to the bottle. Fill it up until it is about ¾ full, then put the cap on and shake the bottle until all the sugar is dissolved.
• You then need to top the bottle up until there is approximately a one inch gap at the top. This gap is to prevent an explosion once the yeast gets to work.
• Put the cap on the bottle as tightly as you can, then place the bottle somewhere warm. It’ll need to leave it for 24-48hours to let the yeast go to work. Once the bottle is very hard, and can’t be squeezed, the ginger beer is done. It took 24 hours for my batch to be ready.
• Place the bottle in the fridge overnight. This halts the yeast and stops the bottle exploding. You really don’t want to leave that bottle in a warm place for any longer than 48 hours.
• Once the ginger beer is chilled, pour it into a glass and enjoy. I sieve mine when pouring so I don’t have any lumps of ginger in the drink.

You know that the Google Slap that occurred a few months back for blogs who were commercializing their content[A nice synonym for bloggers, who sell their souls to advertisers]?? So Google said that as long you provide proper disclosure and use no-follows, you will not be punished. So Social Spark is a site that uses this to the maximum effect.

SocialSpark is now open to every one. Just sign up, wait for the alpha key and register your blog. You can take up offers when your blog is approved. There are three main types of offers: Review, Sponsorship and Spark. Review is your standard review with disclosure and no follows. When you take up a sponsorship, you get paid for the number of days the sponsorship is shown on the blog. Spark is a review of the blog that you get a review back after you review it. Kinda like mutual back scratching between bloggers.

I recommend social spark not only as they're good for the bloggers, but also as they have the blogger's actual opinions and also give you a good search engine footprint without being punished.

If you are looking for a way to monetize your blog without false reviews and being punished by Google, Social Spark is the way to go.

The FBI director and a Republican congressman sketched out a far-reaching plan this week for warrantless surveillance of the Internet.

During a House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing, the FBI's Robert Mueller and Rep. Darrell Issa of California talked about what amounts to a two-step approach. Step 1 involves asking Internet service providers to open their networks to the FBI voluntarily; step 2 would be a federal law forcing companies to do just that.

Both have their problems, legal and practical, but let's look at step 1 first. Issa suggested that Internet providers could get "consent from every single person who signed up to operate under their auspices" for federal police to monitor network traffic for attempts to steal personal information and national secrets. Mueller said "legislation has to be developed" for "some omnibus search capability, utilizing filters that would identify the illegal activity as it comes through and give us the ability to pre-empt" it.

These are remarkable statements. The clearest reading of them points to deep packet inspection of network traffic--akin to the measures Comcast took against BitTorrent and to what Phorm in the United Kingdom has done, in terms of advertising--plus additional processing to detect and thwart any "illegal activity." (See the complete transcript here.)

"That's very troubling," said Greg Nojeim, director of the project on freedom, security, and technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "It could be an effort to achieve, through unknowing consent, permission to monitor communications in a way that would otherwise be prohibited by law."

Unfortunately, neither Issa nor Mueller recognized that such a plan is probably illegal. California law, for instance, says anyone who "intentionally and without the consent of all parties to a confidential communication" conducts electronic surveillance shall be imprisoned for one year. (I say "probably illegal" because their exchange didn't offer much in the way of details.)

"I think there's a substantial problem with what Mueller's proposing," said Al Gidari, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm who represents telecommunications providers. "He forgets the states have the power to pass more restrictive rules, and 12 of them have. He also forgets that we live in a global world, and the rest of the world doesn't quite see eye to eye on this issue. That consent would be of dubious validity in Europe, for instance, where many of our customers reside."

For its part, the FBI isn't talking. After we made repeated attempts to get the bureau to explain what Mueller was talking about, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson responded by saying, "At this point, I'm going to let the director's comments, in the context of the exchange with Rep. Issa, speak for themselves."

If you collect coins and are worried about the provenance, Monaco Rare Coin is the company for you. It deals with antique coins like Morgan Silver dollars, Gold pieces, Liberty Gold pieces and so on. It is owned by the Monex Group of companies with is one of the leading companies that deal with precious metals. The site has very useful sections like Insider's top picks, Today's Rare Coin prices and so on.

They have a gallery of gold coins, where you can look at different rare and antique pieces and read about their history and physical descriptions. The company also provides assistance in buying or selling coins. Their representatives are experienced members of organizations like the Professional Numismatic Guild, Professional Coin Grading Service, etc.