benjamin

Email Archiving & Compliance Vendor Smarsh Introduces Upgrades to Integrated Email Encryption Solution

henryburt1981 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:53:15 +0000

Email Archiving & Compliance Vendor Smarsh Introduces Upgrades to Integrated Email Encryption Solution

Thu Aug 20, 8:08 AM

PORTLAND, Ore.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Smarsh®, the managed service leader in secure, innovative and reliable email archiving and compliance solutions, today introduced version 2.0 of smarshEncrypt, its hosted secure messaging platform. The latest upgrades to the email encryption system enable users to not only deliver messages and files securely, but also to communicate back-and-forth confidentially within smarshEncrypt’s secure cloud.

Using Smarsh’s proprietary data-leak prevention engine, smarshDLP, administrators can establish corporate usage policies and automatically enforce the encrypted transmission of email and files that meet specified criteria. For example, email to specific recipients, or messages featuring specific content in the body or in attachments, can trigger delivery via smarshEncrypt. Encrypted delivery can also be initiated manually by the sender.

From there, message recipients are notified of the secure transmission and follow simple instructions to access the smarshEncrypt secure cloud. In seconds, the sender and recipient(s) can confidentially and securely read and reply to messages sent via the platform. Intellectual property, sensitive client financial information or private health information, for instance, can be transmitted back-and-forth in accordance with emerging state and federal data protection and data breach mandates and regulations.

According to Osterman Research, secure/encrypted email will be a top-five priority for organizational I.T. spending through late 2010¹. Its recent white paper “The Critical Need for Encrypted Email and File Transfer Solutions” contends that encrypted email and file transfer solutions are becoming a business and legal necessity due to the high volume of sensitive content stored within and delivered via email. With increasing governance and regulatory obligations – including state laws in Massachusetts and Nevada, the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act (and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Regulation S-P) and The Federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) – the punitive consequences associated with failure to protect sensitive data outweigh the cost of deploying encryption capabilities.

All aspects of an organization’s smarshEncrypt experience – including notifications – can be customized, strengthening branding efforts and building trust with a demonstrated commitment to client data security.

Deployed via the “SaaS” (software-as-a-service) model, the smarshEncrypt platform lightens the burden on email servers, as both secure messages and attached files reside in the smarshEncrypt secure cloud (rather than on the sender’s or recipient’s email server). Clients can use smarshEncrypt as a dedicated, secure file transfer system and eliminate the impact of file-size limits within their email systems. Email-related storage and costs are reduced, as is impact on network bandwidth.

The smarshEncrypt service is designed to integrate seamlessly with Smarsh’s hosted email archiving and compliance solutions. Within Smarsh's archiving infrastructure, the entire life cycle of an email can be tracked, starting with the original “pre-encrypted” message and including the comprehensive audit trail attached to each message.

The Web-based Smarsh Management Console serves as the consolidated administration destination for multiple functions. There is no need to log into separate applications to access encryption controls, another to view “quarantined” pre-review messages and then another for the email supervision system.

No hardware, software or plug-ins are needed to access the Web-based system, and there are no certificate or key exchanges necessary to access secure messages. The smarshEncrypt platform works with any email client, email system (including CRMs) or operating system, and service is compatible with all mobile messaging devices, including the BlackBerry and the iPhone.

“The development goals we set forth for smarshEncrypt were simple: leverage our years as a managed service leader in email compliance to give clients peace of mind with their email encryption efforts, and to create a solution that is easy to use and easy to administrate,” said Smarsh CEO Steve Marsh. “At the same time, email usage in the workplace has proliferated over time, the regulatory and legal environments have evolved and a whole set of subsequent risk and corporate knowledge management obligations have emerged.

“We recognized that organizations are approaching these emerging challenges with different solutions that often complicate or impede each other,” added Marsh. “With the Smarsh suite of integrated archiving and compliance solutions, we offer businesses an uncomplicated, efficient and reliable means to seamlessly support several mission-critical priorities – email archiving, classification, supervision, data-leak prevention and encryption – with a common set of tools.”

¹ Osterman Research. “The Critical Need for Encrypted Email and File Transfer Solutions.” July 2009.

About Smarsh (www.smarsh.com)

Smarsh® is the managed service leader in secure, innovative and reliable email-archiving solutions for message compliance and records retention, proactive litigation readiness and mail server data management. Smarsh solutions for data-leak prevention and secure messaging help users meet email and file transfer encryption obligations, mitigate risk associated with outbound email, and facilitate email supervision.

The SaaS (software as a service) delivery model enables clients to eliminate IT infrastructure costs and minimize operating burden, while benefiting from Smarsh’s expertise and experience in hosting large volumes of mission-critical client data. Customizable solutions fit the needs, budgets and technological infrastructure of any organization – big or small – and are matched with unrivaled customer support and service.

Founded in 2001, Smarsh’s growth has been recognized at both the local and national level. In 2008 and 2009, the company was named to the “Inc. 500,” Inc. magazine’s annual analysis of the fastest-growing companies in the United States. The Portland Business Journal recently ranked Smarsh No. 1 in its 2009 growth rankings for the state of Oregon.

Smarsh Inc.
Ken Anderson, 503-946-6044
kanderson@smarsh.com

The Royal Scam

henryburt1981 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:25:13 +0000

How the rich won in the Argentina collapse, and parallels to the current situation in the United States – “The Royal Scam”

Posted 10/14/2009 2:17 PM EDT on courier-journal.com

“The Royal Scam” by Anonymous Correspondent

August 3, 2009

Are we at the end? These massive insolvable problems: where can they lead? The inattentive political class, too selfish to care. The corrupt and venal insiders, what can they do?

What can they do? Here’s an idea, presented in the book And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina (2006) and independently researched and presented by Eric Janzen in a review of his now-10-year-old “Ka-Poom” theory entitled Does USA 2009 = Argentina 2001? Part I: Falling economy reaches terminal velocity .

Here’s Argentina’s CPI in 2001:

Here’s the chart, and this deflation head-fake has happened elsewhere, such as Weimar. See how Mish is right and there is REAL Deflation here? He’s not kidding. CPI is minus 1% to 3%, while Case-Shiller CPI is minus 6%:

Nevertheless, 3 months after Deflation begins in Argentina, Inflation rises to 120%. The Peso is devalued 73%

The bond market collapses:

And a few months later, Argentina defaults on sovereign debt, for a multi-billion dollar loss to foreign creditors. A mere two years later, the country is without debt, working hard, and booming.

Hmm…

Work with me here. Suppose, just suppose, that mathematically, the US Fiat system has a very certain, very predictable end date, easily seen even by such non-monetary critics such as Martenson’s “Crash Course”.

(Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIwyMif5EOg&feature=related )

This certain end date is roughly when the parabolic curve goes vertical as mapped using the average interest rate of all national transactions—6% perhaps. And suppose, just suppose, that being no dummy and working with money as your sole object, clawing your way to the top of the Billionaire’s club, you could see this coming. In fact, everyone can—all your peers who clawed through the same training, saw through the same veil, and are now in positions of unimaginable influence, having friends who are Presidents, Diplomats, nation-shaking Hedge Funds, and IMF/BIS bankers. And they all looked at each other and said: “This is bad, dahlink” and: “It’s mathematically certain, mate,” then everyone together: “So what do we do?”

Well, no one knows what to do. Nothing like this has never been tried before. The financial world has never had ALL baseless currencies before, and never has a country as large as the US been brought down except during a war that exhausted all nations together. The risks are too high just to guess what will happen if we pull lever X instead of lever Y when the end comes. So you pick a country a lot like America. Productive, hardworking, modern, agricultural, having a corrupt, spendthrift political class and an uninvolved, unassuming, spendthrift-but-hardworking middle class—a country the most like America. And you run a little experiment.

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What happens to a country when it does exactly what we’re about to do? You influence leaders here, fund populist movements there, then get your friends to invest in this nation, knowing all along what’s going to happen, and knowing that—because we know, we’re making it happen—no one important will lose their money playing along. A nation like, oh, Argentina.

You push foreign investment through banking and diplomatic channels from the top, while as in “Economic Hit Man” no one below the 1^st level need know, and you over-invest in the country, buying the leaders and giving them every assurance that things are fine, they’re not too far along, the world believes in them, and the IMF is right there to catch them.

Until one day, you don’t. Once they’ve gone too far to pull back, you spread some rumors, cause a run on some investments, then have your banking friends step back a bit. Then a bit more. Then at the 11^th hour, despite daily promises all along the way, the IMF also leaves them in the lurch, cutting off their last foreign credit. What do they do? What do the people do? What does it take to keep them under control in this transition? Where are the pressures? Do they give in to interminable debt slavery to the IMF, or do they default on foreign investors? And what happens when they do? Does the world punish them or two years later is it like nothing happened?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, with another placid, productive, agricultural, English-speaking country with a strong middle class and rule of law, also most like America, you try the other direction: unlimited inflation. In Zimbabwe, three eggs cost 100 billion dollars…back in 2008, before things got really bad.

What happens there? Which way was better, for power, influence, and control in world affairs? Which way do the important people remain in power with less bother?

Just a thought, mind you. I’m sure no one would actually do such a thing.

Here’s what happened in Argentina: the political leaders are dysfunctional and infighting, paying out to their home provinces, uncaring of the enormous debt and with no reason to care so long as foreign money could be borrowed. Meanwhile the economy began to rest more and more on bubbles and speculation funded by this foreign borrowing. When the balloon went up, the insiders saw which way it was headed and got their money offshore, something like Cheney and Halliburton did the other year. Then as things devolved, ever-increasing capital controls were put in place, just like now with the US investigating “off-shore havens” and profits one might have made overseas using the premise of money laundering to chain the firedoors shut one by one.

Finally, they enforced the official “corrilito”, and soon after had an extended Bank Holiday for the 5 months it took to devalue the Peso by 73%–far faster than anyone not forewarned could adjust and react. Once every exit was chained tight, they firebombed the casino, trapping everyone inside. Even if you had thousands in stocks, bonds, and savings accounts, with the market frozen and the monthly bank withdrawal limit set at $300/mo, the little people could not pay rent or even eat, becoming “Cartoneros” garbage-picking architects and engineers, wandering the streets with their children at midnight as the nation devolved into a chaos that did not topple the ruling class.

Once all the assets in the country had been discounted a minimum of 73%, the insiders then repatriated their money and bought their neighbor’s fortunes for pennies on the dollar, finding cheap, hungry, competitive labor, ready to compete with even 3^rd world wages. The prudent, hard-working, and savers (the wrong people) were wiped out, and the money was transferred to the speculators and insiders (the right people). Massive capital like land and factories can not be expatriated, but are always worth their USE value and did not fall as much, or even rose afterwards as with falling debt ratios and low wages these working assets became competitive again. It’s not so much a “collapse” as a redistribution, from the middle class and the working to the capital class and the connected. …And the genius is, they could blame it all on foreigners, “incompetent” leaders, and careless, debt-happy citizens themselves.

Now I’m no genius here, but couldn’t the United States do the very same thing?

What you need to do is–and bear with me here–send your best Wall St. salesmen and diplomats to China and sell them a bill of goods about how they can “modernize” with our help. The Cold War is over. Capitalism reins. You know us Wall St. types! It’s all about the dollar! Have the radio scream the President sold out and sign them up to the WTO as you suck Asia into massive overcapacity and a deep, unbreakable reliance on the US and G-8 as customers while paving over the national independence of their life-giving water and farmland. Then, once they’ve tasted freedom and affluence, once they’re unable to support themselves independently, you pull the plug not on them but YOURSELF. Implode your own middle class as above. Kill the bond markets, cause a run on your own currency, and default on the debts you owe them. Hey, it’s the only thing you could do, right? Americans are just stupid, right? Wall Street is just greedy. It’s all an accident, an act of God really. No one’s to blame. It’s classic Judo.

In a single stroke you:

a) lose the burden of external debt

b) by devaluation lose your internal debt

c) make the nation competitive as a manufacturing power.

d) scare the people back into compliance, even exultation with their low wages.

e) with the renewal of manufacturing, re-cast the power that your military rests on

f) during a time of Peak Oil, radically reduce unnecessary consumption while insuring strategic (military) supply.

g) by doing that, suck in the oil powers of Russia, Iran, and Venezuela enough to knock them off-base, first with high prices, then low prices.

h) club China into submission to the G-8 money powers again

and best of all:

i) enrich insiders beyond their wildest dreams, insuring their dominance for a generation to come.

All the right people win, all the wrong people lose.

Seeing the monetary parabola looming dead ahead after the near-miss of the Tech collapse, what do you need to insure this happens on a very tight schedule?

First, knowing this will happen, you suck in your own people by demanding—straight from the top—that bankers loosen lending standards so low even the dumbest financier couldn’t believe it was prudent, then refuse to prosecute even the most blatant corruptions by mortgage originators, fraudulent borrowers, and other “outsiders”. Suspecting this will all blow up, pay yourself today in bonuses instead of later in investments.

Then, knowing you’ll never repay, you jack up national spending beyond anything anybody’s ever seen and go do what you want all over the world, in any country you want, with impunity.

Then you have a scare that gives you cover to set up conduits that insure all the right people have lifeboats, even if it costs $23-30 Trillion, and even if the Hoi Polloi scream bloody murder. It’ll all be over soon anyway.

It was only a 3% GDP deficit that sank Argentina:

But the US$ is not the Peso. You need to make sure it goes down on demand. You aim straight for $2+ Trillion yearly deficits for 70 years and threaten more if necessary.

Hey, is this enough to insure a collapse, even of the world’s reserve currency?

Is this enough to force China to cut us off and play the role of the bad guy we have planned for them? Funny how convenient that is, no? When every economist is screaming, “Mr. President, don’t do this, why are you doing this?” Why indeed.

Hit health care as a way to make the people dependent on the government–innate independence is America’s resistance to the plan—and a way of tracking and controlling them. Computerized medical records were the first thing they brought up, the highest priority, and have been attempted regularly over the years. (1993, 2004, 2009…)

Use the 5 owners of nearly all media to keep up the drumbeat of the “other”: left, right, black, white, famous, religious, atheist, straight, gay, immigrant, commie, Muslim–whatever the people will buy–to insure confusion and infighting when the time comes.

And here we are. Eye of the storm, explosives primed, waiting to pull the detonator.

Any reason the US could not do this, and that everything these incredibly smart, ruthless, immeasurably connected people have been doing is actually not stupid but smart? And what if they believe what they’re doing is all for the good of the country and are willing to take any measure, any action no matter how awful or unprincipled, because it will put America back on top again? And if they get richer than Croseus in the process, well, who’s fault is it anyway? It’s hard work after all.

Like I said, just a thought.

The real magic of a good Con is not to get the money. It’s to do it in such a way that the Mark thinks he knows what happened, thinks he saw the Con you’re pulling, when in fact, the real Con is somewhere else. There’s a saying: “Before the scam, you have the dream and they have the money; while afterwards, you have the money and they have the dream.” If you want to know the real Con, when it’s all over, find out who walked away with the money. Before then, you won’t know.

These Billionaires are the smartest, most unprincipled, double-thinking gamesmen in the world, playing the biggest, most dangerous games in the world, on a field where whole nations are at stake. They didn’t get to where they are by being stupid, taking chances, and making mistakes. You can be sure they’re not making them now. They have immense control in media, finance, military, government, business, and while every plan has risk and it might still get away from them, it sure won’t be for lack of trying. And that goes for the gamesters in China and every other country worldwide who are try every day to do the exact same thing to back to them. It’s the big boy’s game, and when the elephants fight, the grass gets trampled.

So when you’re reading the news about how randomly careless and stupid everybody was, just remember the Argentine plan: all the right people win, all the wrong people lose, and the good people never knew what hit them. The Royal Scam.

For those of us who live in areas where housing has been overpriced for years, it sounded almost like a miracle to hear that the housing boom is crashing around us and maybe, just maybe, the average Joe could finally afford either his first home or an upgrade.

Even in areas that have never historically been considered overpriced , the collapse of the housing market was looked on as a boon to the local economy simply because there was an assumption that with housing prices at a record low, more people would be able to take advantage of the newly reconfigured market.

In a normal economy this would be true. However, along with the housing collapse came the uncontrollable collapse of the credit market. Because the two were so intertwined and interdependent upon one another, as one fell, the other tumbled precipitously as well.

Sure, there are many fairly priced houses in virtually every city and town in the U.S. And they've been on the market for months and months. Why? Because the banks make it difficult for most people to borrow money to buy them!

Even though the latest stimulus package provides billions of dollars to banks and other financial institutions, which was meant to be lent to consumers – it's not happening. Bank after bank, mortgage company after mortgage, are turning away families that up till mid 2008 were superb credit risks.

Now, qualified individuals who even get to have a personal conversation with a lending officer after submitting what amounts to hours and hours of filling out paperwork, are told they will be hit with points upon points – as if they were being punished.

It doesn't seem to matter that the mortgage rates are the lowest in our history, and it doesn't matter that the banks have the money to lend. They are so gun shy now that they'd rather horde the money and not take the risk of lending.

For anyone who thinks they will just walk into their current bank and refinance, think again! Banks no longer care about present customers. Want to refinance somewhere else? That's fine. They'd rather lose the business than increase their risk. Forget the fact that they already gave you a previous mortgage that you're paying on time. They don't trust you. They don't trust anyone.

So what happens to all these fabulously priced homes on the market that virtually no one can buy? They go into foreclosure. The bank gets them back and auctions them off for amounts close to the asking price. The logic here? There isn't any.

If you are a home owner trying to sell, you are undoubtedly experiencing the same problem. Perhaps you've had offers, and then were surprised to see they fell through at the last minute because either the buyers couldn't secure the financing they need, or the bank started adding on points and penalties at the last minute.

Banks are now looking at more than your credit history. Your FICO score needs to be 720 or more to get the lowest possible APR. Anything under that will be penalized with additional points at closing. (A point being 1% of the loan. If you are looking to borrow $200,000, each point is $2,000. In other words, you will need to pay an additional $2,000 at closing because of your credit score. This concept is not new, however, the cut off point is. Last year banks usually used a FICO of 650 and under before adding points.)

Most surprisingly, banks don't seem terribly impressed with savings accounts, investment portfolios, or any type of liquid asset. They want to see income. Lots of income. Steady income. Verifiable income. Making $20,000 a year and having a trust fund won't do it.

For those of you who found your dream home about 18 months ago, refused to pay the asking price, and decided to “wait it out”, probably aren't any better off. Why? Let's say 18 months ago you were looking at a $400,000 home and had $5,000 to put down at 6.5% APR. Now the same house is on the market for $200,000. Wow! So you head to the bank only to find out you now need to put down at least 20% or a whopping $40,000! If you can't afford the down payment, it doesn't matter that the mortgage payments would be half of what they would have been last year.

No matter what, this housing crash hasn't helped many, and won't, until the entire lending industry is willing once again to take risks.

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The Windows 7 launch: The cultural event of the entire afternoon

henryburt1981 — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:12:12 +0000

The Windows 7 launch: The cultural event of the entire afternoon

By Carmi Levy | Published October 19, 2009, 5:17 PM

Have you reserved your copy of Windows 7 yet? Did you book off work? Get a babysitter for the kids? Stock up on Red Bull and Doritos?…No? If you're one of the dozens who pine for midnight door-crasher sales at the electronics big box store and Rolling Stones-themed launch events, you may want to make alternate plans.

For anyone who doesn't live in a cave in Afghanistan (and even for a few folks who do), this week could be the most exciting one in an age as Microsoft launches its newest — and possibly company-saving — operating system, Windows 7, on Thursday. But 14 years after it redefined the rock-star launch party with Windows 95, and nearly four years after having invested a half-billion dollars selling us Vista, this time around, Microsoft is taking a lower-key approach.

The company isn't saying how much it plans to invest in marketing its new OS, but the message around the October 22 launch event itself suggests the days of Jay Leno hawking the OS to the tune of “Start Me Up” are firmly history. This Thursday, expect Steve Ballmer to deliver an uncharacteristically subdued message at the launch event — no tossed chairs or spontaneous onstage cheers. The good times, for Microsoft and for us, ended a while ago.

As much as we all pine for the days when a new operating system from Microsoft was a cultural event, the new reality is that hardly anything changes when a new OS is released. Given the back seat that operating systems in general now take with respect to other, sexier elements of the technology that increasingly defines our work and home lives, Win7 could be an absolute yawn.

When Apple's Mac OS X Snow Leopard replaced Leopard earlier this year, the underpinnings of the Mac universe remained largely as they had existed before. Likewise, don't expect Windows 7 to rewrite the history books. Your PC works just fine today, and it'll work just as fine on the 22nd and beyond, no matter what OS you run. Whatever comes next from any given vendor will forevermore be merely an evolutionary increment just beyond currently available offerings.

There's a reason an Apple iPhone-themed event often jumps into mainstream media, while an updated Mac OS stays firmly on the tech pages. Mobility is as sexy today as the desktop OS was 15 years ago, and each new release is, for now anyway, a quantum bump over the suddenly dowdy stuff we're carrying around in our pockets. But even this won't last forever: Hang around long enough and something will come along eventually to relegate mobile hardware and operating systems to a similar place. It's how tech works, and just as individual products have a limited shelf life, so, too, do entire categories.

Ah, what memories…

Too good for their own good

In so many ways, Microsoft and its mainstream consumer and enterprise OS competitors have done too good a job creating the ultimate in commoditized software. The modern OS is so ruthlessly capable of everything we demand of it, that choosing between them is largely a matter of personal taste. While the flame wars between Mac and Windows fans will continue until long after computers have morphed into tiny networked processors that are implanted into our heads at birth, it's a safe bet that you can get pretty much anything done on one that you can get done on the other.

Not every technological road is as drivable, of course. While some users may find certain functions easier on a given platform, the bad old days of locking yourself out of entire classes of software and functionality because you chose one OS over the other are pretty much over. We will, of course, save discussions on gaming for Macs for another day. Whatever apps you run, no matter what OS you choose, the borders that used to define your playground have long since been torn down. OS choice no longer defines how free you are to move data and workflow between machines or networks.

Where we're all headed: Up

Indeed, moving data around is an increasingly quaint notion thanks to the rise of the cloud. While Microsoft's recent unfortunate Sidekick data lost-and-found incident (whether or not you take Microsoft's word for it that the incident took place “below” the cloud somewhere) may have cast some well-deserved shadows on the cloud movement, the trend is unavoidable. You can resist entrusting your data to a Web-based service until you're blue in the face, but it's hard to ignore reality, and as Microsoft shifts its attention to its online offerings — Azure's coming next month — because, frankly, it has to, the locally-focused OS will gradually fade from its longstanding frontline role.

It's a bit of a tough pill to swallow, especially for those of us who remember the Windows 95 launch. It was as close to mainstream mania as Microsoft will ever get, and it marked the desktop operating system's coming out party after over a decade of living on mostly beige boxes in mostly corporate environments. As much as earlier versions of Windows had driven consumer adoption of PCs, it was Windows 95 that punched the OS into the average consumer's mind and convinced us all that PCs didn't just get work done. Windows 95 also made PCs fun, not to mention attainable and usable for the legions of folks who never got DOS and were still struggling to understand GUIs on the decidedly lame GUI of Windows 3.1.

As impressive a product as Windows 7 seems to be, it doesn't move the bar over Vista and XP as much as Windows 95 did over 3.1 and even DOS. Even if it did, we'd all be fogging the windows at the Verizon store, begging for some in-hand time with a new Droid-powered device. Which explains why I've already booked my time off from work, called the babysitter and stocked the fridge and pantry with enough munchies to feed an entire block party. We're still celebrating the introduction of new technology, except it no longer sits exclusively on a desk.

http://www.betanews.com/article/The-Windows-7-launch-The-cultural-event-of-the-entire-afternoon/1255987048

There are many people who hear about the 64 bit advantages that they could get by using Windows 64 bit Vista, Windows 64 bit XP or Windows 7 64 bit, but they often run into a problem that doesn't allow them to benefit from the 64 bit advantages. The problem is not getting the 64 bit operating system itself. The real problem is getting 64 bit software. You know many people don't want to pay extra for 64 bit software, so they try to search for 64 bit freeware.

There are many places to find some 64 bit freeware, but you should try to use 64 bit software that you have on your computer already if you want to test out the 64 bit advantages. If you have a 64 bit operating system installed then you should have a number of 64 bit programs already installed on your PC. You should have a 64 bit version of Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, and various other system programs such as the calculator. You should test out the Windows Media Player 64 bit edition and the Internet Explorer 64 bit edition because you should also have the 32 bit versions of those programs. This is because Flash and Java are not fully compatible with the 64 bit versions of these programs. That means you will have to access the Windows Media Player 64 bit edition and the Internet Explorer 64 bit edition different.

To access the 64 bit version of Windows Media Player you will have to go to Program Files folder and click on the Windows Media Player folder. You have to make sure that you are not clicking on the Program Files folder that has an X86 by it because that will take you to the 32 bit version of Windows Media Player. In the Windows Media Player folder, you will have to click on the file name “wmplayer” or “wmplayer.exe”. This will allow you to use the Windows Media Player 64 bit edition. The operating system will not allow you to set the 64 bit version as the default media player, so you should send a shortcut to the desktop if you plan on using the Windows Media Player 64 bit edition regularly.

To get to the Internet Explorer 64 edition you would follow the same steps avoiding the X86 in the program files. You will see the Internet Explorer folder, and in that folder you will be able to click on the icon labeled “iexplore” or “iexplore.exe.” This will allow you to test out the Internet Explorer 64 bit edition.

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The $25 Million Demo. Yext Scores A Big Round From IVP After TechCrunch50 Debut.

henryburt1981 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 04:24:53 +0000

By Daniel Saltman

The $25 Million Demo. Yext Scores A Big Round From IVP After TechCrunch50 Debut.

by Erick Schonfeld on October 1, 2009

Howard Lerman can be a little intense. After the CEO of Yext finished his demo at this year’s Techcrunch50 (embedded below) he left one judge “speechless,” and during rehearsals Michael took him aside and asked him, “Are you on drugs?” He wasn’t. Lerman just has the heightened dopamine levels of an entrepreneur. And he hadn’t slept for 45 days because he was pushing his New York City startup to relaunch on an entirely new technology platform for TechCrunch50

Over the past three years, Lerman and his co-founders (who all went to the same high school together in Virginia), have built a local advertising business under everyone’s nose that is on track to generate $20 million in revenues this year.Yext is going after the huge, entrenched Yellow Pages business with online ads for local businesses that result in phone calls instead of clicks.

At TechCrunch50, which was the company’s public debut, Yext relaunched with a whole new product, going from plain vanilla pay-per-call ads to pay-per-action ads where the action is a relevant call that actually drives new business. Each ad has a unique trackable number that goes through Yext’s system, where it is recorded, transcribed, and analyzed. Yext customers get their own inbox for calls which is like a Google Voice for businesses. There is a transcript for each call, the phone number of the person who called, and a full audio file that can be played back. When a business signs up, Yext places ads for them across the Web in local directories such as Yellowpages.com, SuperPages.com, Local.com, 1-800-Free-411, 4Info, Topix, RepairPal, and more. It turns those ads into phone calls.

Yext uses speech-to-text recognition licensed from IBM and fine-tuned with its own algorithms for each business category it targets. Co-founder Brent Metz used to be an engineer in IBM’s speech science labs, and his name appears on many IBM patents. Only when certain key words related to the actual services offered by the business are mentioned in a call (”spinal decompression,” “oil change,” “install countertops”) does Yext charge for it. Wrong numbers, marketing calls, or calls from beyond a pre-determined geographic area are put in a junk folder and Yext doesn’t charge for those.

This means Yext needs to be really good at both driving relevant calls to local businesses and identifying them. “You’ve got to be transparent,” says Lerman. “We take all the risk, then we pull our pants down and show them what they get.” Lerman is so confident of his technology that at TechCrunch50, he switched all 20,000 local businesses already using Yext over to the pay-per-action system. It is a big, gutsy bet.

The minute he stepped off the stage, Lerman was inundated with emails and business cards from seemingly every venture capitalist and M&A officer in the room. He tried to ignore them and soak in the rest of the conference, but some of them were from people any startup CEO would be foolish to ignore. He took a few meetings with the most serious VCs, and ended up closing a $25 million B round, led by Institutional Venture Partners (which is also an investor in Twitter). The money just hit Yext’s bank account a few hours ago. “Anyone who doesn’t launch at TechCrunch50 is crazy,” says Lerman.

IVP partner Dennis Phelps will be joining Yext’s board. Sutter Hill Ventures, which had put in $3.5 million in an A round in June, 2008, also participated in this latest funding.

Yext is currently only in 12 local categories, including auto repair, chiropractors, gyms, vets, and yoga. There are 2,300 Yellow Pages categories. Lerman is going to take the $25 million and aggressively expand into those categories, hiring sales people to go after each one. He already has 75 employees.

Lerman is also extremely excited about getting Yext numbers into mobile apps. He thinks he can build an AdSense for mobile phones. “What do you think is the perfect action for mobile?”he asks. “It is a phone call, not a click.” App developers who sign up here can freely import Yext numbers into their apps by business type and category. So a travel app could bring up nearby auto garages or window repair shops for stranded travelers and get a cut of any call revenue they generate. Lerman has a lot of ideas like that.

Here is the demo from TC50 that got him $25 million:

Photo credit: TechCrunch/Chanaye Thomas.

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What if Bankers try to making students dumb & in lots of debt??

henryburt1981 — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:22:39 +0000

Just about everyone who leaves college with or without a degree will have some sort of debt accumulation from tuition and housing costs. Unfortunately, those who are not able to make the student loan payments due to living expenses and other costs will face student loan default. What is student loan default? Student loan default is when an individual misses consecutive monthly student loan payments on money that was borrowed for college related expenses such as housing, tuition, and text books. A student loan default can have a serious negative impact on a person's life and future. Here is an explanation of what can happen by not making student loan payments that result in student loan default.

A student loan default can make finding an apartment very difficult. The Internet has made it very easy for landlords to pull an individual's credit report by costing a small fee. The small fee is usually paid by the individual who is seeking an apartment in the form of an application fee; thus, it is not costing the landlord anything. Landlords use a credit report as a helpful indicator whether the prospective tenant will be an on time paying tenant. A student loan default on a credit report indicates to the landlord that the individual is not a reliable person who pays regularly. Thus, the landlord is more inclined to accept another prospective tenant who has a better credit report than someone who has a student loan default listed.

A person's credit card(s) limit(s) will begin to decrease from a student loan default being listed on a credit report. The student loan default that is listed on a credit report will be monitored by credit card companies. The credit card companies will then see the individual as a risk and set in motion the lowering of borrowing privileges. The student loan default listed on a credit report will also make it almost impossible for someone who wants to finance a car or home. If the individual is lucky enough to get a loan for a car or home then he or she will more than likely have an extremely high interest rate.

When an individual has made no effort to resolve the student loan default and make any student loan payments on the amount that is owed is when a loan company will begin to take legal action. This type of debt is usually not allowed to be discharged in a bankruptcy court; therefore, it is a guarantee that it will eventually be paid back whether the person will be able to afford the student loan payments or not. Wage garnishment and the seizing of income tax refund checks are usually the outcome of a student loan default. A wage garnishment is a judicial order that directs an employer to take out a certain percentage of the employee's paycheck. The percentage is then forwarded to the loan company to pay towards the outstanding debt from the student loan default.

full story | Naples Loan | Normal Loans

Surfing The Mets – NY Daily News

Adam Rubin has been the Daily News' Mets beat writer since 2003. He is a Long Island native and author of “Pedro, Carlos and Omar: The Story of as.

News : NDS

p>The Government has joined forces with the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) to offer up to 10000 graduates a boost to their future employability, through internships in smal.

Conservative author slams Fox News 'cheerleading' tea parties …

O'Reilly responded by equating pervasive Fox News bias with newspapers' editorial pages, usually a properly labeled, set-aside portion of the paper devoted exclusively to opinion. “What's the difference?” he demanded of his guest. …

Banks want to keep students stupid and in debt. A lesson in economics.

Image by Dan Zen via Flickr

The first lesson we learned from the current economic collapse is:

The market does not solve everything. Despite what the neo-cons like Ronald Reagan and George Dubbya told us, turning all state responsibility over to the market means that the entire country is motivated by profit and therefore operates under a value system of greed. This market-first government has not benefited most of us. In fact, it’s only really benefited the super rich, like Reagan and Dubbya.

The second lesson is that a government unduly influenced by the market, by corporations’ and banks’ lobbying and political contributions, will not be able to fulfill its responsibility as regulator of the market.

A case in point: student loans.

The banking industry is lobbying Congress (and to a lesser extent, the American public) to convince us that the current system of student loans is working just fine. Last Thursday, the House passed a bill that would stop giving money to the banks so they can no longer extract wealth from students. The House bill would give money directly to the students.

The banks are trying to convince us that this will be “bad for students” and “end competition” and “cost the US taxpayers more money.” The banks are, of course, lying through their teeth, but again, their motive is profit, not truth.

Brainstorm – Increasingly Desperate Arguments Against Student Loan Reform – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The truth about student loans is that they became, under the incredibly pro-market policies of Ronald Reagan, a way to extract profit from students. At this point, the average graduating college student is about $24,000 in debt in commercial loans to banks as well as another couple of thousand dollars in credit card debt. That’s because the government student loan subsidies started going to commercial banks (rather than being distributed through Pell grants and other state-run programs) so banks could make a profit off of students and their families.

Some will say: yes, but that college student will earn on average a million dollars more in her lifetime than someone who doesn’t have a degree and therefore it’s “worth it.” But that is, of course, a misrepresentation of what “average” means. Most college grads will not earn huge sums. Some (and probably mostly those who did not take out loans in the first place) will earn spectacular sums. Furthermore, a larger percentage of students who take on loans will drop out and never finish college. Makes sense- you take on loans because you’re poor, you also take on a job or two, have trouble finding a place to live near campus, commute long distances, etc. and not surprisingly, you drop out.

Then there’s the other lie about averages: rich students don’t go into debt for college so the $24,000 is often misleading. Many students are more than $100,000 in debt before they even get their college degree. If they even get their college degree. For some research I was doing on an unrelated topic, I interviewed college students and recent college grads at a state university. Many of them had more than $60,000 in student loan debt. When I asked them about taking on such huge debt loads, they said “I was born in debt. I’ll die in debt. What difference does it make how much debt.” Okay, they weren’t econ or accounting majors, but really? Is that the lesson we’ve taught the next generation?

And imagine starting your life out with this sort of debt burden. According to Jose Garcia of the Demos Organization,

According to the Survey of Consumer Finance, the average debt for families 35 years old and younger in 1989 was $50,000. By 2007, the average debt carried by the same age group doubled to an astounding $100,000.

The recession has certainly not helped. Recent data from the U.S. Education Department shows that the 2008-9 academic year saw a 25 percent increase in the total of student-loan disbursements to $75.1 billion, making it the largest increase in recent memory.

And what if you never even finished that degree or the degree is more or less worthless because it’s from a school with no prestige? So then you get some job that does not pay a livable wage and without health insurance so you can take on even more debt through credit cards. Or when a medical issue comes up your “friends” at the bank will now give you a medical credit loan. And then when you die, heavily in debt, your family can take out a funeral loan. That way the banks can continue to extract wealth from poor Americans though out their lives and afterlives.

Brilliant, for the banks. No wonder they want to keep Americans stupid and in debt. That way the banks keep themselves profitable and in power.

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SEGA (and PS2 games) on the PS3!

henryburt1981 — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:55:54 +0000

SEGA Dreamcast and playstation 2 games on the playstation3?

I gotta admit this is way paste due and by NO means should people be jumping up and down with joy. Gamers should however be asking what took so long for this to happen or better still whats taking so long considering it still hasn't happen yet.

Sony just tried to milk their customers for everything they're worth at every turn and it's really not helping their marketshare. People are really starting to jump ship for the xbox.

Anyway, let's hope this actually happens…

—————————————————

Dreamcast (and PS2 games) on the PS3?

by Scott Stein

Could your PS3 also be your Dreamcast?

A whopper of a leak shot across the Internet Tuesday, reporting of a Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) meeting that discussed the possibilities of rereleasing classic Sega games as compilation Blu-ray Discs and downloads of PS2 games on the PS3. While we discussed this trend–and even suggested a few great franchises to pursue–when the God of War Collection was announced, an even more surprising and exciting bomb was dropped in these purported meeting minutes:

Dreamcast on the PS3.

Top 10 Dreamcast games we'd love to see on the PlayStation Network–photos

From the wording of supposedly leaked August 6 SCEA meeting notes found on several forums including NeoGAF, it sounds like both PS2 and Dreamcast games will soon be available over PSN, much like PS1 games are already. That is big news. With PS2, PS1, and Dreamcast titles under their belts, it could be argued that the PS3 would have a Virtual Console that, while not as retro as Nintendo's, would be nearly unbeatable in offering the best of the late '90s and early '00s. After all, back then, the Dreamcast and PS2 were the biggest, bitterest rivals in town. It hasn't been confirmed that these notes are real, but they certainly seem too detailed and logical to not be.

The cynics might roll their eyes. Hardware backwards-compatibility was killed off on the PS3, and it seems like reselling these titles on the PSN could smack of double-dipping. Offering cheaper (and possibly even HD-upscaled) versions of last-gen classics would be a welcome idea, except for those who have been patiently holding onto their dusty discs of yesteryear.At this point we should probably all just give up and go to old games and play flash based junk.

Still, our hearts are racing. We just got through teary reminiscences on the Dreamcast's 10th anniversary, and now it seems like we might have a DC revolution on our hands sooner rather than later. Jet Grind Radio? Crazy Taxi? And dare we say it–Seaman? For our complete wish list on the Dreamcast games we'd like to see make it over to downloadable format, check out the gallery.

Of course, DC games could also be on their way to the 360, for all we know (and some, like Ikaruga, already are). But Sony's already on a roll with its cheaper, slimmer PS3. Would PS2 and DC games on the PS3 help turn Sony back into a superpower?

[blogsearch('xbox','google', '3', 'n') ]

[blogsearch('ps3','google', '3', 'n') ]

salon

It is Now Confirmed: There's There is water on the Moon.

henryburt1981 — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:16:53 +0000

It's Official: Water Found on the Moon
By Andrea Thompson
Senior Writer
posted: 23 September 2009
06:17 pm ET

This is super awesome and an exciting story that was released yesterday. Turns out there is liquid water on the surface of the moon. First NASA saw h2o on Mars next humans have seen it on the surface of the moon. This is really awesome exciting news!!

This story was updated at 10:49 p.m. EDT.

Since man first touched the moon and brought pieces of it back to Earth, scientists have thought that the lunar surface was bone dry. But new observations from three different spacecraft have put this notion to rest with what has been called “unambiguous evidence” of water across the surface of the moon.

The new findings, detailed in the Sept. 25 issue of the journal Science, come in the wake of further evidence of lunar polar water ice by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and just weeks before the planned lunar impact of NASA's LCROSS satellite, which will hit one of the permanently shadowed craters at the moon's south pole in hope of churning up evidence of water ice deposits in the debris field.

The moon remains drier than any desert on Earth, but the water is said to exist on the moon in very small quantities. One ton of the top layer of the lunar surface would hold about 32 ounces of water, researchers said.

“If the water molecules are as mobile as we think they are — even a fraction of them — they provide a mechanism for getting water to those permanently shadowed craters,” said planetary geologist Carle Pieters of Brown University in Rhode Island, who led one of the three studies in Science on the lunar find, in a statement. “This opens a whole new avenue [of lunar research], but we have to understand the physics of it to utilize it.”

Finding water on the moon would be a boon to possible future lunar bases, acting as a potential source of drinking water and fuel.

Apollo turns up dry

When Apollo astronauts returned from the moon 40 years ago, they brought back several samples of lunar rocks.

The moon rocks were analyzed for signs of water bound to minerals present in the rocks; while trace amounts of water were detected, these were assumed to be contamination from Earth, because the containers the rocks came back in had leaked.

“The isotopes of oxygen that exist on the moon are the same as those that exist on Earth, so it was difficult if not impossible to tell the difference between water from the moon and water from Earth,” said Larry Taylor of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, who is a member of one of the NASA-built instrument teams for India's Chandrayaan-1 satellite and has studied the moon since the Apollo missions.

While scientists continued to suspect that water ice deposits could be found in the coldest spots of south pole craters that never saw sunlight, the consensus became that the rest of the moon was bone dry.

But new observations of the lunar surface made with Chandrayaan-1, NASA's Cassini spacecraft, and NASA's Deep Impact probe, are calling that consensus into question, with multiple detections of the spectral signal of either water or the hydroxyl group (an oxygen and hydrogen chemically bonded).

Three spacecraft

Chandrayaan-1, India's first-ever moon probe, was aimed at mapping the lunar surface and determining its mineral composition (the orbiter's mission ended 14 months prematurely in August after an abrupt malfunction). While the probe was still active, its NASA-built Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) detected wavelengths of light reflected off the surface that indicated the chemical bond between hydrogen and oxygen — the telltale sign of either water or hydroxyl.

Because M3 can only penetrate the top few millimeters of lunar regolith, the newly observed water seems to be at or near the lunar surface. M3's observations also showed that the water signal got stronger toward the polar regions. Pieters is the lead investigator for the M3 instrument on Chandrayaan-1.

Cassini, which passed by the moon in 1999 on its way to Saturn, provides confirmation of this signal with its own slightly stronger detection of the water/hydroxyl signal. The water would have to be absorbed or trapped in the glass and minerals at the lunar surface, wrote Roger Clark of the U.S. Geological Survey in the study detailing Cassini's findings.

The Cassini data shows a global distribution of the water signal, though it also appears stronger near the poles (and low in the lunar maria).

Finally, the Deep Impact spacecraft, as part of its extended EPOXI mission and at the request of the M3 team, made infrared detections of water and hydroxyl as part of a calibration exercise during several close approaches of the Earth-Moon system en route to its planned flyby of comet 103P/Hartley 2 in November 2010.

Deep Impact detected the signal at all latitudes above 10 degrees N, though once again, the poles showed the strongest signals. With its multiple passes, Deep Impact was able to observe the same regions at different times of the lunar day. At noon, when the sun's rays were strongest, the water feature was lowest, while in the morning, the feature was stronger.

“The Deep Impact observations of the Moon not only unequivocally confirm the presence of on the lunar surface, but also reveal that the entire lunar surface is hydrated during at least some portion of the lunar day,” the authors wrote in their study.

The findings of all three spacecraft “provide unambiguous evidence for the presence of hydroxyl or water,” said Paul Lucey of the University of Hawaii in an opinion essay accompanying the three studies. Lucey was not involved in any of the missions.

The new data “prompt a critical reexamination of the notion that the moon is dry. It is not,” Lucey wrote.

Where the water comes from

Combined, the findings show that not only is the moon hydrated, the process that makes it so is a dynamic one that is driven by the daily changes in solar radiation hitting any given spot on the surface.

The sun might also have something to do with how the water got there.

There are potentially two types of water on the moon: that brought from outside sources, such as water-bearing comets striking the surface, or that that originates on the moon.

This second, endogenic, source is thought to possibly come from the interaction of the solar wind with moon rocks and soils.

The rocks and regolith that make up the lunar surface are about 45 percent oxygen (combined with other elements as mostly silicate minerals). The solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles emitted by the sun — are mostly protons, or positively charged hydrogen atoms.

If the charged hydrogens, which are traveling at one-third the speed of light, hit the lunar surface with enough force, they break apart oxygen bonds in soil materials, Taylor, the M3 team member suspects. Where free oxygen and hydrogen exist, there is a high chance that trace amounts of water will form.

The various study researchers also suggest that the daily dehydration and rehydration of the trace water across the surface could lead to the migration of hydroxyl and hydrogen towards the poles where it can accumulate in the cold traps of the permanently shadowed regions.

With NASA's recent public admission of 'kinda' losing the original moon landing tapes by possibly taping over them, the Moon Landing Hoax theory has resurfaced, yet again. This, just in time for the 40 year anniversary of Neil Armstrong's “Giant Leap for mankind.” I'd like to quote my favorite conspiracy theorist who likes to say,
” You fake just one moon landing and 40 years later technology comes and bites you in the arse.” True, Hollywood's greatest special effects in 1969 are laughed ( or horrify ) the teenagers of today. So was the moon landing faked? Skeptics have asked some very thought provoking questions, and experts have provided incredibly educated answers. Here, the some of the most common 8 arguments used by conspiracy theorists, followed by the rebuttal by experts.

Argument 1: The American Flag is Flapping in the video, as though there is a breeze blowing through the airless, low gravity surface of the moon.

Expert Rebuttal: According to NASA, and agreeable upon inspection, the U.S Flag obviously has the placements of rods within it. While the presence of the rods are most obvious on the top of the flag, there are places where one can possibly spot other less obvious areas where rods may be present. To place rods into the Flag would have been an intelligent measure to ensure that a 'good' picture of the Flag could be taken, considering the moon's atmosphere. According to NASA, in the course of the Apollo 11 mission, the astronauts also accidentally bent several of the horizontal rods that held the rods in place, thus creating the appearance of a 'rippling' Flag.

Notable mention comes from Space Flight Historian Roger Lanius of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. According to Lanius “the video you see where the flag's moving is because the astronaut just placed it there, and the inertia from when they let go kept it moving.”

Argument 2: In one of the most Famous photos of the 1969 moon Landing video,
both Neil Armstrong and the Eagle lunar lander are reflected in Buzz Aldrin's
visor, prompting the argument that the landing was faked because while only two astronauts flew the mission,
both are visible in the picture. The question is, who took the picture?

Expert Rebuttal: The cameras used to capture the images of the Apollo 11 missions were mounted
to the astronauts' chests according to astronomer Phil Plait, author of the award-winning blog Bad Astronomy
and president of the James Randi Educational Foundation. This would make sense, seeing as how many of us manage to
drop/lose/damage our cameras without the handicap of the atmosphere of the moon.

In the picture that made this claim famous, Plait further noted that “you can see arms are sort
of at his chest. That's where the camera is. He wasn't holding it up to his visor.”

Argument 3: If the Astronauts were in space, walking around on the moon, taking pictures, then where are all the stars? The astronauts didn't even make mention of stars during the 15 minute footage. With front row seats to the spectacular sights of space, wouldn't they have even mentioned stars, let alone take pictures of them?

Expert Rebuttal: Phil Plait takes on this argument citing that the surface of the moon reflects sunlight. ( Authors note: We simple folk know this because that is the only reason we can actually see the moon at night )
According to Plait, the glare caused by the reflection of the sunlight would have made the stars difficult to see.
The astronauts also would have photographed their lunar experience using fast exposure camera settings,
which would have additionally limited incoming background light.

Plait adds “They were taking pictures at 1/150th or 1/250th of a second…In that amount of time,
stars just don't show up.”

Argument 4: One of the most convincing arguments in public opinion. The lunar lander, the Eagle
is photographed undisturbed on the surface on the moon. The picture was reportedly taken only a
few hours after the 1969 moon landing. Questions arise because the module is shown sitting on a relatively flat surfaceof what looks to be undisturbed lunar soil. So where is the crater? Shouldn't the lander's descent have been accompanied by a large dust cloud strong enough to have caused some kind of indentation in the surface?

Expert Rebuttal: This strong rebuttal comes from the Smithsonian Institution's space curator Roger Launius.
Lanius, who is also a former NASA chief historian has this to say. “The lander's engines were throttles just before landing and it did not hover long enough to form a crater or kick as much dust.” Lanius adds
“Science fiction movies depict this big jet of fire coming out as land,
but that's not how they did it on the moon…That's not the way they would do it now or anytime in the future.”

Argument 5: A mission picture shows astronaut Buzz Aldrin standing on the foot pad of the Eagle's ladder.
His knees are bent which would suggest he is about to jump to the next rung. Conspiracy theorists point out that
Aldrin is seen in the Lander's shadow, yet he remains clearly visible. In addition to many strange looking shadow
pictures, some shadows don't seem to be parallel to each other. In addition, some objects which should be 'shadowed'
appear well lit, prompting the suggestion that the light was coming from multiple light sources, such as studio lights.

Expert Rebuttal: Space Curator Roger Lanius tackles this theory. The fact of the matter, according to Lanius
is that there were, in fact multiple light sources.”You've got the sun, the Earth's reflected light, light reflecting
off the lunar module, the spacesuits, and also the lunar surface.”

Lanius adds that ” It's also important to note that the lunar surface is not flat…If an object is in a dip,
you're going to get a different shadow compared to an object next to it that is on a level surface.”

Argument 6: The telling Boot. This theory surrounds an image of Buzz Aldrin's boot as he lifts his foot to record an image for studying the moon's soil properties. Pictures from the Apollo mission show several well defined boot prints made on the lunar surface. Too defined, according to some sceptics who state the astronauts' boot prints are a bit too well defined and clear. They were imprinted in a bone dry world, for a print to be as well formed as those photographed on the Apollo mission, the imprinted material could have only been wet sand or something similar.

Expert Rebuttal: Bad Astronomy's Plait dismissed this claim as “nonsense” Moon dust, or regolith,
is “like a finely ground powder. When you look at it under a microscope, it almost looks like volcanic ash.
So when you step on it, it can compress very easily into the shape of a boot.”
Taking the airless vacuum on the moon into consideration, Plait concludes that these imprints could remain pristine for a long time.

Argument 7: Not a very strong argument, but an argument none the less.
When Armstrong and Aldrin departed from their July 1969 mission, they left behind part of the Eagle,
the U.S. flag, and along with a few instruments and several mementos. Among them a seismometer
that is depicted in of the Mission photos as Aldrin adjusts the piece of equipment.
Skeptics argue that with today's technology and that of telescopes such as the Hubble Space Telescope
capable of peering into vastly distant parts of the universe, scientists should definitely be able to see the
these still on the moon, yet no sightings have yet been made, or at least reported – not even by NASA.

Expert Rebuttal: According to Plait, there is no existing telescope on Earth or in space or that matter that
is capable that kind of resolving power. “You can calculate this,” Plait said.
“Even with the biggest telescope on Earth, the smallest thing you can see on the surface of moon is something
bigger than a house.”

Argument 8: In an image of Buzz Aldrin setting up a foil sheet for collecting solar pictures near the eagles,
strange patterns of light appear in the upper left part of the photo. According to Conspiracy theorists, this is strong evidence of a 'studio' hoax as those unexplained reflections
come from studio lights on a production set.

Expert Rebuttal: According to NASA representatives along with Plait it's highly unlikely NASA would make such an obvious blunder if they had spent millions of dollars to fake the moon landing.

“Okay, let's take a step back,” Plait says “NASA's going to release a picture showing studio lights?
Hello! The odd lights in the picture are simply lens flares.” Plait adds “There's a big fat
pentagonal one right in the middle that is from the aperture of the camera itself.”

Compelling arguments and compelling evidence. So was the moon landing really faked? Will Hollywood's 'scrubbed up' landing tape provide more answers or more questions. In all it's discoveries and advancements, Science is still a baby in this universe of ours. Let us not forget that at one point, the mightiest brains of the planet believed the world was 'flat', and also 1/3 of it's actual size.

So more than likely, the answer to the authenticity of the moon landings can be answered by one element: Time.

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Naples FL. Construction Reaches a Low Point

henryburt1981 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:35:33 +0000

Just when you think the home building market and construction connected industry is going to come back, another poor report from some government agency is released and sends you back into panic mode. The more you see the worse it seems to get. The solution is to maybe quit reading cause you already know it is going to be crap news so why even bother.

Even though Naples Flis a very affluant area it still isn't able to get away from the grasp of the bad economy. Home builders all over Naples are hurting just as bad as home owners.

August 17th, 2009

by justintyme and real estate

Do you need more living space but don’t want to move house to get it? Do you want the kind of house you can’t find on the open market? Do you want to modernize of remodel?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then you need to talk to D. Caamano Construction, the first choice for Naples, Florida construction projects large or small. From a complete new build, to a quick nip/tuck we can help you achieve your ideal.

The D. Caamano Construction promise of uncompromising quality permeates everything we do. We offer complete peace of mind as we take care of you and your property during our time with you.

A new addition to your home requires a lot of work, and a lot of planning. Aspects of construction like electrics and plumbing are best left to experts. We have the necessary tradesmen on staff who will work with us to make sure your project is completed without any problem. We can take care of the administration, plans or permits necessary for any kind of project. In fact, we pretty much take care of everything for you.

There are plenty to consider when planning a major renovation or construction job. Budget is the main one, but there are also environmental, space and design elements to attend to. Environmental aspects are things like trees, ground works, safe disposal of waste materials and a safe working environment. Space is a more practical issue and pertain to the space to achieve what you want. That could be ground space, clearance between buildings, overlook or storage. Design is more about the aesthetics, about how it’s all going to look as well as how it all fits together. Design is the most complicated of the elements because we have to match what you want, with what you can afford, and what will work. This can be a long and troublesome process!

Employing a construction company like D. Caamano Construction ensures you get the best advice and the best result possible.

D. Caamano Construction has been in business eight years. We have worked hard to achieve a reputation for quality work and workmanship. All of our tradesmen are fully qualified and experienced and have been chosen for the consistent standard of work they produce. They are also fully vetted and randomly tested for alcohol and drugs. These tests are carried out for your peace of mind, as each of our men are conscientious enough to not want anything to interfere with their work.

Having lots of strange men in your home might be a little concerning for some. You don’t have to worry with us, we all know that our site is your home and act accordingly. We keep the disruption and mess to a minimum, our vehicles out of your way and work as efficiently and as quietly as possible.

Whatever kind of work you are planning for your home, consult the experts. Consult D. Caamano Construction. Call us for a free, no obligation quote today!

Naples Florida Construction

39% Now Blame Bad Economy on Obama’s Policies

henryburt1981 — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:46:14 +0000

39% Now Blame Bad Economy on Obama’s Policies

Posted 6/23/2009 4:14 PM CDT on brownsvilleherald.com

While most U.S. voters still blame the Bush Administration for the nation’s economic problems, a growing number are inclined to blame President Barack Obama.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of voters now say the country’s economic problems are caused more by the policies Obama has put in place. That’s a 12-point jump from a month ago.

Fifty-four percent (54%) still say the country’s economic woes are due to the recession Obama inherited from President Bush. That figure is down eight points from 62% from early June.

By a two-to-one margin, voters also have more confidence in themselves than in the president when it comes to the economy. This marks a significant shift from just after Obama took office.

Sixty percent (60%) of voters now trust their own economic judgment more than the president’s. In early February, 49% had more trust in themselves while 39% trusted the president more.

Now only 30% trust Obama more when it comes to the economic issues facing the nation.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter.

Younger voters are more likely than their elders to blame the current economic situation on the recession that began under Bush. The majority of middle income voters place more of the blame on Obama’s policies.

Eighty-two percent (82%) of Democrats see the economic problems as ones largely inherited from the previous administration, while 61% of GOP voters point the finger at the actions of the new president. Unaffiliated voters are almost evenly divided on the question.

Men are more likely than women to trust themselves rather than the president when it comes to the economy. Middle-income voters have more confidence in themselves than those who earn more and less.

The partisan split is predictable. Republicans trust themselves more than Obama by a whopping 75% to 19% margin. The findings for voters not affiliated with either major party are virtually identical. But Democrats are much more closely divided, with nearly half trusting the president more.

Obama’s ratings slipped to new lows at the end of last week in the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll, but he continues to be more popular than many of his policies.

Despite strong public opposition, the president has pushed hard for bailouts for General Motors and Chrysler, both now in structured bankruptcies aimed at keeping them in business. The government has taken substantial ownership stakes in both companies in exchange for federal bailout money, but 80% of U.S. voters want the government to sell its stake in GM and Chrysler as soon as possible.

Even as Obama announced earlier this month his intention to speed up the pace of stimulus spending, the plurality of Americans (45%) said the rest of the new government spending authorized in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan should be canceled.

In fact, most voters (53%) continue to believe increases in government spending hurt the economy. Fifty-one percent (51%) favor an across-the-board tax cut for all Americans to stimulate the U.S. economy.

While the president last week was aggressively campaigning for the creation of a government-run health insurance company to compete with private insurers, Americans are evenly divided now over whether that’s a good idea.

Americans are similarly divided on the urgency of moving ahead with health care reform right now given the state of the economy.

California, Nevada Reach Record Unemployment Levels

henryburt1981 — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 06:36:34 +0000

California, Nevada Reach Record Unemployment Levels (Update2)

By Timothy R. Homan

Sept. 18 (Bloomberg) — Unemployment rose in 27 U.S. states in August, with California and Nevada reaching record levels of joblessness.

Rhode Island rounded out the list of states with the highest level of unemployment since data began in 1976, the Labor Department reported today in Washington. California’s unemployment rate reached 12.2 percent and Nevada’s climbed to 13.2 percent.

The job market is showing signs of stabilizing as reports indicate economic growth is resuming this quarter. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News this month said the unemployment rate nationally will reach 10 percent this year, a reminder that consumers are unlikely to lead the recovery.

“There’s still a fair amount of weakness in some of the larger states,” said Steven Cochrane, director of regional economics at Moody’s Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania. “State finances are probably going to be among the last of all the various components of the broad economy to turn around.”

The number of states with at least 10 percent unemployment fell to 14 from 15 as Indiana’s rate dropped below that threshold. The jobless rate nationally reached a 26-year high of 9.7 percent in August, the Labor Department reported earlier this month.

10 Percent

Unemployment in the District of Columbia also exceeded 10 percent, for a fourth consecutive month, rising to 11.1 percent from 10.6 percent.

“I’m caught up in the horrible transition phase between entry-level and mid-level professional,” said Jason Chang, 31, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, a suburb of Washington.

Chang said he has been looking for government-related or nonprofit jobs since January after spending the last two years doing short-term contract work. The number of job interviews started picking up in late July, he said.

Michigan, the heart of the U.S. auto industry, continued to surpass all states, with an unemployment rate of 15.2 percent in August, up from 15 percent. Nevada was second.

Nonetheless, some of the auto workers laid off in the past year are starting to return to work. General Motors Co. last month called back 1,350 union workers, its biggest one-time increase in jobs since 2006, as it boosted second-half production, in part because of the government’s auto-rebate program known as “cash for clunkers.”

New York City

New York City’s seasonably adjusted unemployment rate jumped to 10.3 percent in August, the highest since May 1993, the state’s Labor Department reported yesterday. The rate was 9.5 percent in July and 5.9 percent in August 2008.

The state’s jobless level increased to 9 percent, the highest since April 1983, from 8.6 percent in July, according to a release from the department.

New Jersey’s rate increased to 9.7 percent, the highest level since 1977, from 9.3 percent, the U.S. Labor Department report showed. Joblessness in Connecticut climbed to 8.1 percent from 7.8 percent.

Payrolls fell last month in 42 states and the District of Columbia, today’s report showed. Texas showed the biggest drop with a 62,200 decrease. Michigan followed with a 42,900 drop and Georgia with a 35,000 decrease.

Over the last year, only the District of Columbia and North Dakota showed gains in employment. Payrolls in Michigan fell 7.9 percent since August 2008, the biggest percentage drop of any state.

Payrolls in the world’s largest economy fell by 216,000 last month, the smallest decline in a year and less than economists projected, the Labor Department reported previously.

The U.S. economy has lost 6.9 million jobs since the recession started in December 2007, the most of any downturn since the Great Depression.

To contact the reporter on this story: Timothy R. Homan in Washington at thoman1@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 18, 2009 11:21 EDT

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