Digital Knowledge 101 ( DigiKnow?! )

Complete History of the Black Nazarene

2012-01-09T18:48:00.000-08:00

The Black Nazarene, known to devotees in Spanish as Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno (abbreviated as NPJN, Filipino: Mahal na Itim na Nazareno, English: Our Father Jesus Nazarene) is a life-sized, dark-coloured, wooden sculpture of Jesus Christ carrying the cross, believed to be miraculous by many Filipino Catholics. Originally fair or light-complexioned, it turned dark after it was exposed to fire on its arrival from Mexico. The image is currently in the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Manila, Philippines, where it is venerated with the weekly Friday Novena Masses and several annual processions. The most famous of these is on January 9, celebrating its transfer (Traslación) and enshrinement in the Basilica, and is attended by several million devotees.

History

The statue's original carver is an anonymous Mexican carpenter, and the image arrived in the Islands via galleon from Acapulco, Mexico. Folk tradition attributes the colour of the Black Nazarene to a fire on the ship carrying it, charring the image from its original fair tone into its present dark complexion.

There were actually two identical images of Black Nazarene brought to Manila. The first and more famous one was kept at the old church of San Nicolas de Tolentino in Bagumbayan and later transferred to Intramuros when the old edifice was demolished. This Black Nazarene was part of the celebrated Palm Sunday procession in intramuros, and was destroyed in the bombing during the Battle of Manila in February 1945.

The other statue was given by the Recollect Priests to the Quiapo church, and it has been often mistaken for the image lost during the war.

To protect the centuries-old image from the wear and stress during processions, the priests of the Quiapo Basilica commissioned a replica. The head and hands of the original are now placed on the copy of the body while the old torso holds the new head and hands. Both images are used for processions, alternating every other year save for the 400th anniversary in 2007, when the original was used as a whole.

Devotion

Procession of the Black Nazarene at Plaza Miranda during the 2010 feast.

The religious veneration of the Black Nazarene is rooted among Filipinos for the Passion of Jesus Christ. Many devotees of the Black Nazarene identify their poverty and daily struggles to the wounds and tribulations experienced by Jesus, as represented by the image. Although the patron saint of the basilica itself is Saint John the Baptist, the Black Nazarene ranks first in popularity due to its mass appeal.

Commonly known as its original Spanish title Nuestro Padre Jesús Nazareno, the statue has merited the canonical sanction of Pope Pius VII who gave his Apostolic Blessing in the 19th century thereby granting plenary indulgence to those who piously pray before the statue.

Another Papal sanction came from Pope Innocent X, who approved the Confraternity of the Most Holy Jesus Nazarene (Cofradia de Nuestro Santo Jesus Nazareno) which traditionally only accepted male members.

Devotees also pay homage to the Black Nazarene by clapping their hands in praise at the end of Mass offered at the shrine.

Novena

Every Friday of the year is dedicated to the Black Nazarene, with the novena being held not only in the basilica but in other churches nationwide. This has led to the colloquial expression "Quiapo Day" for Fridays, especially when referring to the traffic jams that occur around the area due to the influx of devotees attending Masses that start in the early morning and end in the late hours of the night.

Processions

Two major and two minor processions are held annually to honour the Black Nazarene, namely one on the feast day itself and another on Good Friday. The procession during the January 9 feast commemorates the Traslación, the transfer of the image to its present shrine in Quiapo.

The Black Nazarene is carried into the streets for procession in a shoulder-bourne carriage known to devotees as the andas. The estimated number of devotees wear the colour maroon, associated with the image, and go barefoot in imitation of Jesus on his way to Mount Calvary. Traditionally, only men are permitted to hold the ropes pulling the image's carriage, but in recent years female devotees have also participated in the procession. These rope pullers are traditionally called namámasán. People who have touched the Black Nazarene are reported to have been cured of their diseases, and Catholics come from all over Manila to touch the image in the hopes of a miracle. Towels or handkerchiefs are hurled to the marshals and escorts guarding the Black Nazarene with requests to wipe these on the statue in hopes of the miraculous powers attributed to it "rubbing off" on the cloth articles.

The procession held on the feast day is notorious for the annual casualties that result from the jostling and congestion of the crowds engaged in pulling the carriage. The injuries and even deaths of devotees are brought upon by one or a combination of heat, fatigue, or being trampled upon by other devotees.

The image is also brought out on two other occasions, namely New Year's Day and Good Friday, the latter being markedly more sombre and silent in contrast to the loud celebration found during the 9 January procession.

Hymn

Below are the lyrics of the National Hymn composed by Lucio San Pedro, which is used by the Quiapo church as the main hymn to the Black Nazarene.

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, (Our Father Jesus Nazarene,)

Sinasamba Ka namin (We worship Thee)

Pinipintuho Ka namin (We admire Thee)

Aral Mo ang aming buhay (For Thy teachings are our life)

at Kaligtasan. (and Salvation.)

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno (Our Father Jesus Nazarene,)

Iligtas Mo kami sa Kasalanan (Deliver us from Sin)

Ang Krus Mong Kinamatayan ay (For the Cross Thou died on is)

Sagisag ng aming Kaligtasan. (The Emblem of our Salvation)

Chorus:

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, (Our Father Jesus Nazarene,)

Dinarangal Ka namin! (We honour Thee!)

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, (Our Father Jesus Nazarene,)

Nilul'walhati Ka namin! (We glorify Thee!)

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, (Our Father Jesus Nazarene,)

Dinarangal Ka namin! (We honour Thee!)

Nuestro Padre Jesus Nazareno, (Our Father Jesus Nazarene,)

Nilul'walhati Ka namin! (We glorify Thee!)

Feast

Each year, the procession of the Black Nazarene makes its way along the streets of the Quiapo district, with attendees reaching up to 6 to 8 million. In recent years, the processional route was altered due to a rise in vehicular and stampede accidents, and to afford other neighborhoods a chance to participate in the festivities. Classes are also suspended in all levels.

As is custom, the statue of the Nazarene leaves the Quiapo church (publicly or secretly the night before) and returns to the church on the same day. Many participants either follow the route, or simply wait inside the church to greet the statue. The task of pulling the ropes of the andas is traditionally exclusive to male devotees and is now participated also by female devotees too, while all devotees present wear the image's colour of maroon. Noli de Castro, a renowned television journalist and former Vice-President, is known to be a life-long devotee of the image, and is always seen among the throng of men pulling the andas.

Source: Wikipedia

Upcoming Movies This 2012

2012-01-01T21:29:00.000-08:00

January

    Jan 4
     Loosies

    Jan 6

The Devil Inside

Beneath the Darkness

Roadie

Jan 13

Contraband

The Divide

Beauty and the Beast 3D

Joyful Noise

Jan 20

Underworld: Awakening

Haywire

Red Tails

Coriolanus

16-Love

Jan 27

One for the Money

Declaration of War

Man on a Ledge

The Grey Lombardi

February

Feb TBA

Michael

Touchback

Feb 3

Chronicle

The Woman in Black

The Innkeepers

Big Miracle

Feb 10

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island

Safe House

The Vow

Perfect Sense

Feb 17

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

This Means War

The Secret World of Arrietty

The Lady

Feb 24

Act of Valor

Lookout

Wanderlust

Good Deeds

Gone

March

Mar TBA

Playback

Mar 2

Project X Dr. Seuss'

The Lorax Jeff, Who Lives at Home

Being Flynn

Mar 9

John Carter

Raven

Think Like a Man

Silent House

The Bully Project

Playing the Field

Footnote Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Mar 16

21 Jump Street

Mirror Mirror

Seeking Justice

Casa de Mi Padre

Detachment

Butter

Mar 23

The Hunger Games

A Thousand Words

Mar 30

Wrath of the Titans

The Deep Blue Sea

The Pirates! Band of Misfits

Goon

Snowtown

April

Apr TBA

Dorothy of Oz

Intruders

Intent

Apr 4

Iron Sky

Apr 6

American Reunion

Damsels in Distress

The Cold Light of Day

Apr 13

The Three Stooges

The Cabin in the Woods

Bullet to the Head

Untitled Farrelly/Wessler Comedy

Apr 20

Scary Movie 5

House at the End of the Street

High School

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

The Lucky One

Escape From M.S. One

The Wettest County in the World

Chimpanzee

Darling Companion

Apr 27

The Five-Year Engagement

Safe

May

May 4

The Avengers

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

May 11

Dark Shadows

The Dictator

What to Expect When You're Expecting

May 18

Battleship

May 25

Men in Black III

Moonrise Kingdom

June

June 1

Snow White and the Huntsman

Rock of Ages

June 8

Prometheus

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted

June 15

Jack the Giant Killer

I Hate You, Dad

The Woman in the Fifth

June 22

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

Brave

June 29

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

    Magic Mike

July

    July 3
    The Amazing Spider-Man

    July 13
    Ice Age: Continental Drift
    Ted

    July 20
    The Dark Knight Rises

    July 27
    Step Up 4
    The Marriage Counselor
    Neighborhood Watch

August

    Aug 3
    The Bourne Legacy
   Total Recall

    Aug 10
    Dog Fight
   Warm Bodies
   Sparkle

    Aug 15
    The Odd Life of Timothy Green

    Aug 17
    The Expendables 2
   Paranorman

    Aug 24
    Sinister
   The Apparition
   Premium Rush

    Aug 31
    7500
   The Possession

September

    Sep 14
    Resident Evil: Retribution
    Argo

    Sep 21
    Dredd
    Hotel Transylvania

    Sep 28
    Savages
    Looper

October

    Oct TBA
    Paranormal Activity 4
    Cloud Atlas
    Atlas Shrugged Part II

    Oct 5
    Taken 2
    The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D
    Frankenweenie

    Oct 12
    Here Comes the Boom
    Fun Size
    Parker

    Oct 19
    Twylight Zones
    The Gangster Squad
    The Big Wedding

    Oct 26
    Halloween 3D
    Of Men & Mavericks

November

    Nov TBA
    Three Mississippi

    Nov 2
    Red Dawn
    My Mother's Curse
    Wreck-It Ralph

    Nov 9
    Skyfall
    Ouija

    Nov 16
    The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part II

    Nov 19
    The Silver Linings Playbook

    Nov 21
    Rise of the Guardians
    47 Ronin
    Gravity
    Parental Guidance

December

    Dec TBA
    Lincoln

    Dec 7
    Les Miserables

    Dec 12
    World War Z

    Dec 14
    The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

    Dec 19
    Kill Bin Laden

    Dec 21
    Life of Pi
    Hunter Killer
    This Is Forty

    Dec 25
    The Great Gatsby
    Django Unchained

===========
For more info visit movieinsider.com

Know your ghouls, from aswang to diwata

2011-10-30T18:59:00.000-07:00

It's trick-or-treat season again, and the stores are filled with black and orange, pumpkins, witches, vampires and other horrors. But we don't have to look far for spooky inspiration this Halloween. Here are ten Pinoy creatures you ought to know:

1. Aswang

A pretty generic monster, the term can be used to refer to vampires, shape-shifters, and witches. Specific types include the tik-tik (the sound of wings flapping - treacherously faint when near and loud when far) and wak-wak (winged creature that snatches humans, mangling its prey with its talons).

Looks: By day, aswangs supposedly look like normal people. But at night, they can take the form of animals.

Awesomeness level: A really long tongue (the better to suck out livers and body fluids) and really sharp claws or talons (to leave their victims in pieces).

Angst: Always gets blamed for maternal or child deaths

Favorite food: Body fluids of sick people, the dead, and unborn fetuses

Fight it with: Garlic, stingray's tails, silver swords, salt, ginger, and coins

Bonus real-life lesson: Kids are often told to stay indoors, or the aswang might eat them. Instead, be careful, because "normal" people can do monstrous things.

2. Manananggal

Literally a man-eater, the manananggal also falls under the aswang category.

Looks: It is most known for being able to cut its own body in half. The lower torso is left on the ground while the upper torso flies at night with huge bat-like wings.

Awesomeness level: It can be on the ground and in the sky at the same time - while killing you!

Angst: Life is so short.

Favorite food: Hearts of fetuses, blood of sleeping victims.

How to fight it: Salt or garlic on top of the lower torso will destroy it, and left without its other half, the manananggal will die at daybreak.

2.1 Wak-wak

*Not as scary as the manananggal, the wak-wak also fly at night, but they can't halve themselves. Instead, they make up for not being able to split in two with their long, sharp nails that Wolverine would like, plus bat-like wings.

3. Batibat

Found in Ilocano folklore, this female night demon is more commonly known as Bangungot - which is blamed for deaths occurring during sleep.

Looks: Not great. A Batibat is old and fat, and lives in trees.

Habitat: Trees (before they're cut down).

Awesomeness level: Not too high. It can't be too difficult to kill a sleeping person.

Angst: If the tree is cut, the Batibat lives in a post made out of her tree. And when the displaced Batibat finds a sleeping person nearby, it sits on the victim's chest, suffocating him.

Favorite food: Undetermined, but probably large amounts of anything. Otherwise, how do Batibats get so huge? But what the Batibat eats is the least of your concerns. What you want to do is wake up so you don't suffocate.

How to fight it: Bite your thumb or wiggle your toes -- anything to wake up from the nightmare!

Bonus real-life lesson: Don't cut down trees!

4. Kapre

Like the Batibat, the Kapre is a relatively gentle giant who lives in trees and smokes a big tobacco pipe.

Looks: Think Yosi Kadiri, but dark-skinned, with eyes that glow eerily.

Habitat: Big trees

Favorite food: None. The cigar never burns out.

Angst: Not much. Kapres are believed to trick travelers, getting them lost and confusing them by making them go in circles. On the other hand, they are also believed to possess a small stone, which entitles the bearer to a wish.

How to to fight it: Stay away from smoke.

Bonus real-life lesson: Use a map, and bring a friend with a good sense of direction. And seriously, smoking is not good.

5. Minokawa

According to a Bagobo tale, the minokawa bird is as large as an island, with eyes like mirrors and feathers sharp as swords.

Looks: Fiercely beautiful.

Awesomeness level: Very high. It's like a dragon, but more fearsome.

Habitat: In the tale retold by Rene Villanueva, the minokawa lives in outer space.

Angst: Dominating the universe. The minokawa has a spectacular appetite - it devours the sun and the moon, and tries to swallow the earth as well.

Favorite food: Celestial bodies. And your planet.

How to fight it: Make lots of noise. According to the story, the Bagobos made such a racket that the minokawa opened his mouth, allowing the moon to escape.

Bonus real-life lesson: It's a much more poetic take on how a solar or lunar eclipse works.

6. Sigbin

The sigbin is one creepy bloodsucker. Like most spooks, it comes out at night and can go invisible. As if that isn't spooky enough, it sucks its victim's blood from their shadows.

Looks: Like a goat, except instead of horns it has large ears and a long tail. Oh, and it stinks.

Awesomeness level: On top of its scary looks, sigbin are said to walk backward with its head between its hind legs.

Habitat: Lurks where people are, but if caught, the sigbin is believed to bring good luck to its owners.

Preferences: Children. More specifically, their hearts, which the sigbin likes to turn into amulets.

How to fight it: Catch it and keep it in a jar.

Bonus real-life lesson: The concept of sigbin may have come from animals that resemble the kangaroo, or the Tasmanian devil. Beware of wild animals.

7. Tikbalang

Intelligent creatures who confuse humans for fun. Like the Sphinx, they are believed to trick people they meet with riddles to let them pass.

Looks: Long-limbed half-man, half-horse

Awesomeness level: Pretty high. You wouldn't stand a chance against a creature both strong and smart.

Habitat: Swamps, forests, mountains

Angst: Blamed when travelers lose their way.

How to fight it: Wear your shirt inside out

Bonus real-life lesson: Bring a map!

8. Tiyanak

Proof that not all babies are cute.

Looks: Deceiving. The tiyanak appears to be a normal baby, and usually lures people with its cries.

Awesomeness level: More awkward than awesome. Imagine: Oh look a poor cuddly wuddly widdle... Noooooooooooo!

Angst: Believed to be unbaptized babies who are transformed into evil spirits that return to eat human beings.

Habitat: The tiyanak is believed to come from Limbo, but when they return to the earth they supposedly live in forests.

How to fight it: Turn your clothes inside out.

Bonus real-life lesson: Don't judge a book by its cover, looks can be deceiving, and other cliches.

9. Nuno sa Punso

An angry dwarf who likes to live under the ground.

Habitat: As the name suggests, commonly found in anthills and termite mounds, but can also live under rocks, trees, and even your backyard.

Awesomeness level: Not bad. For creatures you can't even see, they sure get a lot of respect.

Angst: When you live underground, getting your house kicked is inevitable. But this doesn't make it okay. The nuno sa punso is believed to harm anyone who destroys his home. Is blamed for swollen feet and genitals.

How to fight it: It is believed that if you respectfully ask permission before passing by, saying Tabi tabi po, the nuno will oblige. If it is too late, the nuno is believed to be appeased by food or material offerings.

Bonus real-life lesson: Watch your step.

10. Diwata

Spirits that guard nature

Looks: Enchantingly beautiful

Angst: They don't like it when humans don't take care of the planet. Can't blame them, either.

Awesomeness level: Pretty high. Now that going green is all the rage, they fit right in.

Habitat: Mountains, forests, water - they're everywhere. Mountains in particular are believed to be guarded by diwatas, perhaps the most famous being Laguna's Maria Makiling.

Bonus real-life lesson: Take care of the environment. Like they say, we've only got one planet.

- YA, GMA News

CARMELA G. LAPEÑA, GMA News

10/28/2011 | 03:33 PM

Steve Jobs, Apple founder, dies

2011-10-20T04:38:00.000-07:00

Steve Jobs, the visionary in the black turtleneck who co-founded Apple in a Silicon Valley garage, built it into the world's leading tech company and led a mobile-computing revolution with wildly popular devices such as the iPhone, died Wednesday. He was 56.

The hard-driving executive pioneered the concept of the personal computer and of navigating them by clicking onscreen images with a mouse. In more recent years, he introduced the iPod portable music player, the iPhone and the iPad tablet -- all of which changed how we consume content in the digital age.

Fortune: Ten ways Steve Jobs changed the world

His friends and Apple fans on Wednesday night mourned the passing of a tech titan.

"Steve's brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives," Apple said in a statement. "The world is immeasurably better because of Steve."

See reactions from Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and many others

More than one pundit, praising Jobs' ability to transform entire industries with his inventions, called him a modern-day Leonardo Da Vinci.

"Steve Jobs is one of the great innovators in the history of modern capitalism," New York Times columnist Joe Nocera said in August. "His intuition has been phenomenal over the years."

Jobs' death, while dreaded by Apple's legions of fans, was not unexpected. He had battled cancer for years, took a medical leave from Apple in January and stepped down as chief executive in August because he could "no longer meet (his) duties and expectations."

Born February 24, 1955, and then adopted, Jobs grew up in Cupertino, California -- which would become home to Apple's headquarters -- and showed an early interest in electronics. As a teenager, he phoned William Hewlett, president of Hewlett-Packard, to request parts for a school project. He got them, along with an offer of a summer job at HP.

Jobs dropped out of Oregon's Reed College after one semester, although he returned to audit a class in calligraphy, which he says influenced Apple's graceful, minimalist aesthetic. He quit one of his first jobs, designing video games for Atari, to backpack across India and take psychedelic drugs. Those experiences, Jobs said later, shaped his creative vision.

Raunchy Duke Nukem gets the ESRB treatment

2011-04-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Duke Nukem has been flagged as "Mature" by the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) with an official description that reads more like a glowing endorsement than a warning label.

Why, you ask?

Well, first off, the ESRB says the game features some good ol' blood and gore, intense violence, mature humor, nudity and strong language.

And if that's not enough to get you going, there is also "strong" sexual content, along with a liberal use of both drugs and alcohol.

For example:

"Players use pistols, rail guns, shotguns, explosives, and Duke's bare hands to attack and kill the alien enemies. The majority of gameplay involves destroying these enemies in frenetic gun and laser battles in order to move on to the next section.   

"Aliens are often decapitated or dismembered when hit, sending large splashes of blood across the ground, surrounding walls, and players' screen. Some sequences depict more 'over-the-top' instances of violence: aliens getting stabbed in the head or impaled; a human soldier bursting into bloody gibs after being tossed through propeller blades."

But wait, there's more.   I mean, didn't you know that in one sequence, players have the ability to shoot human characters that are trapped in pod-like alien webbing, resulting in bodies exploding into pieces upon impact?

OK, well, enough violence for now. Let's talk about the "strong" sexual content.

Apparently, Duke enters a strip-club level, views several topless dancers and receive lap dances. A couple of missions within this level require players to recover sex toys and pictures of topless women.

And then?

"A few sequences strongly imply sexual acts: two women appear to perform fellatio on the central character (e.g., raising their heads from his lap)—though there is no actual depiction of the sex act; Duke moans and leans up against the wall of a bathroom stall (furnished with a hole) - it is implied that a sex act (not depicted) occurs.  "The game also contains several sexual references and innuendo in the dialogue (e.g., 'I have hungry-you have big egg ro' for me, Duke,' 'If you supply the dancing, I'll supply the pole,' and 'I'll need something naughty to play with.')."

But what would a Duke Nukem game be without the terrible puns? Luckily, the badass Duke doesn't disappoint in that department either.

No, because his comments range from jokes about colon cleansing to several one-liners about sex and female body parts.  

"Bathroom humor includes the ability to urinate in toilets or urinals and/or pick up feces from toilets and throw it against walls... Players can use both steroid pills and beer as power-ups; when beer is consumed, the screen temporarily blurs."

Seriously, is this an endorsement for the Duke or what?!?!?

Source: TG Daily

Nano technology could cool the heat from server farms

2010-09-10T21:18:00.000-07:00

(CNN) -- The internet may soon be a greener place thanks to new research that looks set to slash the carbon footprint of our surfing by introducing nanotechnology to computer servers.

Computer servers are often housed in giant warehouses, known as "server farms" and generate huge amounts of heat, which in turn requires huge amounts of power to fuel cooling systems.

Researchers from Sweden's Institute of Technology have discovered that adding some nanoparticles to water can improve its ability to conduct heat by around 60 percent. This nanofluid could then be used in cooling computer servers and reduce the total amount of energy needed to keep temperatures down.

"We have had some really significant successes," Mamoun Muhammed, Sweden's Institute of Technology, told CNN.

So far those nanoparticles showing most potential are oxides of metals like zinc and copper, but carbon nanotubes are also being tested.

"What we are using are nanofluids, which are fluids engineered to contain nanoparticles dispersed in such a way that the liquid's capability to move heat is much enhanced compared to normal cooling fluids," said Muhammed.

"For example, if you are using water to cool electronic equipment [such as at large server farms] and you add these nanoparticles, and create a nanofluid, it improves the water's capability to conduct heat by 30 to 40 percent."

It's almost impossible say exactly how much energy is used by information technology due to the system's complexity. But according to research by IT firm Gartner, datacenters account for 23 per cent of global ICT-related carbon emissions -- that's around 0.5 per cent of the world's total carbon emissions; equivalent to aviation and growing far faster.

As well as saving carbon emissions, the technology could help companies improve their business, according to Muhammed.

"Companies will be saving the cost of cooling; secondly, their electronics will function better at lower temperatures, and thirdly, it is greener technology, we are using less energy," said Muhammed.

"The key is this: when you are using the nanofluid you have to specially design the heat exchange.

"Much of the work so far on nanofluids has been done using conventional heat exchanges, and they were getting typically 10 to 15 percent savings. But we can get consistently 30 to 40 percent savings by using a specially designed heat exchange."

These kinds of savings could have a huge effect when scaled up.

Google alone is thought to have at least a million servers, and even medium size businesses frequently have racks of boxes covered in flickering lights to maintain and store their data.

"If you look at Google's datacenters, you will have one block of servers, and then two blocks of equipment to deal with the heat generated by those servers," says Muhammed.

"I think within 3 to 7 years we could expect to see a breakthrough and a mainstream application of this nanofluid technology.

"The problem is finding just what is the ideal concentration of which particle.

"But when this technology reaches a level when it is ready for the market it will provide real savings for business at very little extra cost up front."

But efficiency on its own isn't the only weapon being deployed -- natural cooling is another perhaps obvious, but hitherto overlooked, angle.

As such, Iceland is marketing itself as the ideal location for the world's datacenters: it has plenty of space, a climate that is certainly colder than most of the world and best of all, an abundance of "carbon neutral" geothermal power.

"The carbon savings would be enormous," Jeff Monroe, head of Verne Global -- a data center company working in Iceland, told reporters late last year.

"For example, if a large internet media company operating thousands and thousands of servers relocated its servers to Iceland, that company would save greater than half a million metric tons of carbon annually."

But beyond moving to the frozen north -- or waiting for smart new technology to roll out -- there are still actions both consumers and businesses can take to cut their power use.

"[We] focus on improving the efficiency of the devices that power the internet -- like computers, servers, storage devices, and networking equipment -- to support the increasing number of internet connections and anywhere/anytime services," Lorie Wigle, president of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative board told CNN.

"A commercial entity can save around $50 or more per unit in annual in energy costs by engaging power management. Multiply this by your number of units and the savings really add up.

"At the consumer level, many individuals have multiple PCs at home that could mean $100-150 in annual energy savings. Now imagine there were a greater consciousness across the population -- not just individuals, but neighborhoods, cities, states, etc. It's compelling."

Facebook Bug Could Give Spammers Names, Photos

2010-08-11T20:43:00.000-07:00

Robert McMillan Robert Mcmillan – Wed Aug 11, 7:30 pm ET

Facebook is scrambling to fix a bug in its website that could be misused by spammers to harvest user names and photographs.

It turns out that if someone enters the e-mail address of a Facebook user along with the wrong password, Facebook returns a special "Please re-enter your password" page, which includes the Facebook photo and full name of the person associated with the address.

The feature helps people understand if they've mistyped their e-mail address at login, but it could be misused by spammers to get information on Facebook's 500 million users.

spammer with an e-mail list could write a script that enters the e-mail addresses into Facebook and then logs the real names. This could help make a phishing attack more realistic, said Atul Agarwal, the researcher who posted a note about the issue (along with a sample script that could harvest names) to the Full Disclosure mailing list on Tuesday.

Someone could also use the feature to generate random e-mail addresses and check to see if they really worked, Agarwal said.

The login page shows images of people, even when they've properly set their privacy settings to keep this information private, said Agarwal. "Harvesting this data is very easy," he said.

Facebook blamed the issue on a recently introduced bug.

"We have technical systems in place to prevent people's names and photos from showing to unrelated users upon login, but a recently introduced bug temporarily prevented these from working as intended," a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail message. "We are already working on a fix and expect to remedy the situation shortly."

Scraping Facebook for this type of information is prohibited, she added.

Scammers have taken a special interest in Facebook over the past few years, and criminals such as the people who wrote the Koobface worm may well take an interest in the bug, said Roger Thompson, chief research officer with antivirus vendor AVG.

"I would expect that the Koobface gang will be racing to try to take advantage of this before Facebook patches it," he said via instant message. "It'll be interesting to see who wins."

Robert McMillan covers computer security and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Robert on Twitter at @bobmcmillan. Robert's e-mail address is robert_mcmillan@idg.com

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2010-06-20T01:08:00.000-07:00

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10 things to know about iPhone 4

2010-06-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

10 things to know about iPhone 4

By John D. Sutter, CNN

June 8, 2010 -- Updated 0302 GMT (1102 HKT)

Video calling, iMovie stars of iPhone 4

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

iPhone 4 has sharper screen, adds a gyroscope
Camera is improved; also has camera for video conferencing
Screen size stays the same; phone still requires contract with AT&T

San Francisco, California (CNN) -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs says the iPhone 4, which debuted on Monday, is the "biggest leap forward" the iPhone has made since it was introduced in 2007.

The newly announced phone has "one of the most beautiful designs you've ever seen," Jobs said at a tech conference in San Francisco. "This is without a doubt the most precise thing and one of the most beautiful things we've ever made."

But besides being "beautiful," what actually makes this iPhone different? After attending the unveiling and talking with analysts and bloggers, here's our quick list of 10 things you should know about the iPhone 4, which goes on sale June 24, and costs between $199 and $299. Let us know if you have more questions and feel free to leave thoughts of your own in the comments section at the bottom of this story.

Sharper screen

In his Monday keynote address at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, Jobs sounded more excited about the iPhone 4's new screen than anything else.

Video: New video chat feature on iPhone 4

Video: iPhone gets face-lift

With 326 pixels per inch -- four times that of previous Apple phones -- Jobs says the iPhone 4's "retina display" screen is years ahead of anything else on the market.

"Text looks like you've seen it in a fine printed book -- unlike you've ever seen on an electronic display before," he said. "Once you've used a retina display you can't go back."

Gyroscope

"These phones are getting more and more intelligent about the world around them," Jobs said. That's true of the iPhone 4, which has five sensors, including a gyroscope.

What does that mean for users? Probably cooler games and apps. The iPhone 4's internal gyroscope can sense motion on six axes. On Monday, Jobs showed a demo where he pivoted in a circle, and the stack of blocks in an app spun with him. The phone is basically more aware of where it is in the world, in relation to gravity, than it was before. It's hard to say exactly what app developers will do with this, but likely something.

Thickness

The iPhone 4 will be the thinnest smartphone on the market, Jobs says. At 9.3 millimeters (0.37 inches) thick, it is 24 percent thinner than the previous iPhone model, the 3GS, he said.

"I don't think there's another consumer product like this," he said. "When you hold it in your hand it's unbelievable." The iPhone 4's screen remains the same size as before, 3.5 inches when measured diagonally. That makes it smaller than some Android phones, which are its main competitors. But that may not be a good thing. As people watch more video on their phones, they're demanding larger screens, some analysts say.

Camera flash

In what's largely seen as a catch-up move, Apple added an LED flash to the iPhone 4's camera, which lets mobile photographers shoot photos and video more easily at night.

Better camera

The quality of the iPhone 4's camera is improved over previous models. The iPhone 4 shoots photos with 5 megapixels of resolution, compared to 3 megapixels before. That's still not the best on the market. The HTC Droid Incredible has an 8-megapixel camera, for example. The Nexus One, another competitor, has a 5-megapixel camera, too.

The iPhone 4 also shoots HD video, and a video-editing app called iMovie, which Apple will sell, allows people to shoot, edit and share videos with the phone.

Video conferencing

In addition to the back-of-the-phone camera improvements, Apple also added a second camera to the iPhone 4, which faces its user. This can be used for video conferencing, which Apple and Jobs expect to be an emerging trend in mobile phone use. For more on this, see our story on mobile video conferencing.

Multitasking

The iPhone's operating system, which Apple calls iOS 4, got an upgrade along with the iPhone 4's hardware. Among the most-awaited changes is multitasking, which means that the phone can run multiple applications at once. Want to listen to internet radio and check e-mail at the same time? Starting on June 21, you can with the iPhone.

Several other smartphones have featured multitasking for some time. So Apple is not blazing new territory here. Jobs says the company waited to add the feature until it could do so without sucking down too much of the phone's battery life.

Stainless steel antennae

The iPhone 4 is flat on the front and back, and a band of stainless steel goes around the edge as a trim. This isn't just a design feature, Jobs said. It's actually the antennae.

"It's never been done before and it's really cool engineering," Jobs said.

Guts

The iPhone 4 has a new processor -- the A4 -- which Apple says makes the phone faster than competitors and faster than the processor in the iPhone 3GS. Apple debuted the A4 processor as part of the iPad slate computer in January.

But the iPhone 4's capacity to store books, videos and music disappointed some. The high-end model stores 32 gigabytes of data, which isn't any more than the iPhone 3GS.

Wireless carrier

The iPhone 4 is only available with a contract from the wireless carrier AT&T. That's bad news for some people. Bloggers have been begging Apple to open the iPhone to multiple carriers -- and specifically to Verizon -- for some time. Some iPhone users, particularly those in bigger cities like New York and San Francisco, have complained that AT&T drops their calls and doesn't handle data requests quickly enough.

Good-Bye to Privacy?

2010-05-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

Tom Spring Tom Spring – Sun May 23, 11:03 pm ET

New Yorker Barry Hoggard draws a line in the sand when it comes to online privacy. In May he said farewell to 1251 Facebook friends by deleting his account of four years to protest what he calls the social network's eroding privacy policies.

"I'm sick of keeping track of my Facebook privacy settings and what boxes I have to check to protect myself," says Hoggard, a computer programmer. "I don't have a lot of illusions about online privacy, but Facebook has gone too far," he says of Facebook's recent privacy policy changes.

From Facebook to advertisers who may be putting your online identity up for sale to the highest bidder, and to strangers who could track you across town, new ways of using technology and the Internet are making privacy issues a flash point for controversy.

"Privacy today isn't what it was a year ago," says Jeffrey Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a nonprofit group that promotes online privacy and free speech. "It wasn't long ago we were worried about advertisers planting cookies on our PC," he says. With today's trends, keeping a handle on your privacy is going to become even harder a year from now, he adds.

What follows are several emerging privacy threats.

Social Networks

Do social networks herald the end of privacy? Lots of former Facebook users who recently ditched their accounts in protest think so. With 450 million users, many say, Facebook is a bellwether for other social networks on user privacy.

Swapping small talk and vacation photos made Facebook addictive for users. But over the years, they've watched as their private info became shared with a growing sphere of strangers--advertisers. And in May, Facebook made changes to its privacy policy that exposed more personal data to a wider range of marketers.

change involved the Instant Personalization pilot program, which let selected Facebook partner Websites access your data and tailor content to your tastes. With Instant Personalization activated, your Facebook information can be accessed the moment you arrive on partner sites including Microsoft's Docs.com, Pandora, and Yelp. When the program launched in April, Facebook automatically activated it for all users. However, a privacy uproar forced the company to revise its policy. Instant Personalization is now optional for users.

Facebook has suffered privacy backlashes before. In 2007 it introduced Beacon, an ad system that tracked certain actions of Facebook users on 44 partner sites so as to report those actions back to users' Facebook friends network. But many users revolted, citing privacy concerns. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly apologized and made Beacon an optional feature.

"Facebook is literally turning down the Facebook privacy settings for its users," says Electronic Privacy Information Center director Marc Rotenberg. In early May, EPIC and 14 other consumer groups filed a complaint against Facebook with the Federal Trade Commission. The complaint accuses the site of following unfair and deceptive business practices, in part, for disclosing previously private details to the public.

Google Buzz (the search giant's social network) has also endured privacy issues. Buzz exposed a list of users' most frequently accessed e-mail contacts when it launched earlier this year.

Social networks have forced users to rethink what privacy is in a world where public sharing of private lives has become commonplace, observes Jeremy Mishkin, an attorney specializing in privacy law. "The real issue is how best to assure individuals they have control of their own information," Mishkin says.

Facebook declined interviews, but issued a statement: "It's important that Facebook and other sites provide [users] with clear control over what information they want to share, when they want to share it, and with whom. We're listening to feedback and evaluating the best way to respond to concerns."

Note: We have tips to help you negotiate the maze of Facebook's privacy settings.

Data Harvesting

Creating a digital profile on you gets a lot easier if you are on Facebook or Google Buzz and hanging a shingle on LinkedIn. That marketers use your interest in, say, Volkswagen cars to target-market you a new Jetta may be no surprise. But will your Facebook status ever be used by a credit agency, health care provider, or future employer to determine if you are a good bet?

Firms such as California-based Rapleaf say they are working with financial institutions to run their databases of e-mail addresses to assemble customer profiles based on information shared on social networks. Rapleaf's vice president of business development, Joel Jewitt, says it collaborates with company marketing departments, not credit-approval departments, to better target financial services to banking customers.

Rapleaf is merely one of many firms--ranging from Acxiom to Unbound Technology--that tap into social networks to marry your profiles, tweets, and LinkedIn information with your e-mail address. If a company wants to know more about you, it can just hire one of these outfits.

The firms bristle at the notion that your credit card interest rates could be jacked up based on a tweet that you just got laid off. But privacy experts say that this may be a reality in coming years (see related story: "Can Your Online Life Ruin Your Credit?").

To privacy activists, online advertisers have always been too smart for their own good. Now two emerging trends in advertising have privacy groups once more complaining that Madison Avenue has gone too far.

BlueKai, DataLogic, and Nielson are working with online advertisers to help them reach Internet users with ads based on their offline behaviors and demographic attributes. Advertisers are careful to note that only nonpersonally identifiable information is used and that people are never identified by name, but rather as demographic subgroups. Want to show a banner ad to, say, a conservative Caucasian mom with three kids, age 34, with a household income of $120,000, who works out four times a week at the gym? No problem.

Connections between the offline and online worlds are often made via an e-mail address kept on record by a company that you do business with. That e-mail address could create a link to a composite profile made up of your online activities from sites such as social networks. By cross-referencing that e-mail address, advertisers can show you banner ads tailored to your spending habits and to your political views expressed on Twitter.

Real-Time Shark Bait

The second trend is a real-time ad-bidding technology that lets advertisers, such as Google and Yahoo, track users online and deliver customized third-party ads--all in the blink of an eye.

Here is how it works. As you go from site to site, advertisers can bid in real time to show you an ad tied to your online activity. For example, if you are shopping for a Nikon digital SLR camera, you may see an ad for a competing Canon DSLR model on the next site you visit. If you buy that Canon, advertisers can then bid--in a fraction of second--for the right to show you, on the next site you jump to, ads for lenses for that camera.

Advertisers can track you from site to site only if the same advertising company delivers ads to those sites. For instance, Google-owned DoubleClick delivers ads to thousands of the Web's top destinations. Its real-time ad-bidding program is called DoubleClick Ad Exchange.

Privacy Double Whammy

The rise of those two online marketing trends that create cunningly effective advertising campaigns--tailored in just a fraction of a second to a Web surfer's household income, interests, and online activity--may not be a real surprise. But privacy activists say that they go too far and that advertisers are unfairly tracking people and profiting from their data.

"Consumers will be most shocked to learn that companies are instantaneously combining the details of their online lives with information from previously unconnected offline databases without their knowledge, let alone consent," says Ed Mierzwinski of the Public Interest Research Group, a government watchdog organization.

The Center for Digital Democracy's Jeffrey Chester says that this type of advertising fosters predatory ads. Examples could be dubious health cures or high-interest loans for HDTVs.

The CDD, PIRG, and the World Privacy Forum have asked the Federal Trade Commission to look into ad networks such as Google's and Yahoo's. The groups seek more transparency from advertisers and a way for consumers to opt out of this type of profiling.

Advertisers have been sensitive to privacy concerns, according to the Ponemon Institute, a privacy research group. Ponemon says such concerns have prompted online advertisers to use behavioral ads 75 percent less than they would otherwise.

Transparency is key for advertisers, says Scott Meyer, chief executive of Better Advertising. He says the industry has stepped up efforts to ward off government regulation by developing self-regulatory programs. One is the use of transparency icons: Click on such an icon in an ad, and it tells you that the targeted ad is using demographics and behavioral data.

Better Advertising offers a browser plug-in called Ghostery that can alert you to hidden trackers and block scripts from tracking you. Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer support the add-on; but, except in Chrome, the blocking functions don't work.

Mobile Stalking

Without a handle on your GPS-equipped smartphone or geolocation services, you may have only yourself to blame for "friending" Big Brother. Here's why.

Mobile social networks Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt are designed to make it easy for your friends to track your whereabouts as you go to restaurants, bars, and shopping malls. A bevy of iPhone and Android mobile apps make use of location information. Facebook says it will introduce features later this summer that will make location sharing as easy as updating your status.

These services have privacy advocates urging consumers to be careful as to how much they reveal about themselves. In February, privacy groups spoke at congressional hearings on consumer privacy and have been urging lawmakers to limit how much advertisers can track users of these services. Privacy guidelines for location-based services and advertising are outdated and obsolete, they say.

Peer Privacy Pressure

Reward-based geolocation services such as Foursquare, which doles out coupons and "points" for members who broadcast their location, spur these concerns.

"You need to consider whether there is anything that your location might indicate about you that you don't want to be public," says Peter Eckersley, senior staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation civil liberties group. For example, he says, "are you going to church? To a political meeting? To a nightclub? To the beach on a Tuesday? Are there people who might hold those things against you?"

Mobile Ad Targeting

Still other experts worry about advertisers eager to break into a nascent direct-to-mobile marketing industry. Mobile social network Loopt says it is developing an ad service that can target offers to repeat customers of a specific store just as they walk in. The company says that advertisers want to reach people as they are making a buying decision.

Apps that run on smartphones and location-aware gadgets, such as the iPad, also concern privacy activists. "With the help of GPS technology, every advertiser is going know where you are [and] what you're doing on your phone," says the CDD's Chester. Mobile apps--even e-readers--will know how close you are to a mall, a restaurant, or your doctor's office, for instance.

Can We Stop Looking Over Our Shoulders?

What is the future of privacy? Will we all just throw up our hands and agree with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who famously stated in 2009 that "the age of privacy is over"? Better Advertising's Meyer believes that the creepy "someone is watching me" feeling will dissipate as technology allows you greater control over your privacy, and as transparency increases.

Maybe then we can all stop looking over our shoulders.

PCWorld contributor Ian Paul helped with this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100524/tc_pcworld/goodbyetoprivacy

‘My son didn't commit suicide’ – Toni Rose Gayda

2010-03-26T21:17:00.000-07:00

‘My son didn't commit suicide’ – Toni Rose Gayda
03/20/2010 | 06:17 PM

Pinabulaanan ng television host na si Toni Rose Gayda nitong Sabado ang mga espekulasyon na nagpakamatay ang kanyang 25 anyos na anak na si James Lim.

Nahulog si James mula sa ika-apat na palapag ng kanilang condominium sa Wack-Wack Road, Mandaluyong City madaling-araw nitong Biyernes.

“Ba’t ka naman pipili ng 4th floor kung alam mong mababalian ka lang (ng buto) ‘di ba? Siyempre kung ano, umakyat siya ng roof top, eh may roof top naman kami kung talagang balak n’ya ganun," pahayag ni Toni Rose sa panayam ng QTV 11.

Ayon kay Toni Rose, posibleng nawalan ng balanse ang kanyang anak nang manigarilyo sa maliit na balkunahe sa kuwarto nito. Pinagbawalan daw ng host/actress ang anak na manigarilyo sa kuwarto nito.

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“Siguro tinamad bumaba o tinamad lumabas, binuksan n’ya yung window n’ya kasi may balcony na maliit, siguro dun tumayo," kuwento ni Toni Rose.

Nakausap pa raw niya ang anak nang isugod sa ospital. Idinaing daw ng anak ang sakit na nararamdaman nito sanhi ng pagkakahulog.

Hindi na umano kinaya ng katawan ni James ang internal bleeding sanhi ng aksidente. Nadurog din daw ang atay nito matapos maipit sa nabaling tadyang.

Inamin ni Toni Rose na may pagsisisi siyang nararamdaman dahil sa ginawang pagbabawal sa anak na manigarilyo sa kuwarto.

Sa kabila ng kalungkutan, sinabi ng actress at host na pilit niyang pinapagaang ang kanyang kalooban dahil batid niyang malapit umano ang kanyang anak sa Diyos.

“I look at it this way, alam ko yung relasyon niya sa Diyos. Alam ko he's a very prayerful boy. Masakit, sobrang sakit, pero may peace ako. Alam ko nandun na siya sa Panginoon," ayon kay Toni Rose.

Nakalagak ang mga abo ni James sa Santuario de San Jose sa Greenhills, San Juan City.

Dumating na doon ang ilang malalapit na kaibigan ni Toni Rose kabilang ang mga katrabaho niya sa Eat Bulaga. - FRJ, GMANews.TV

Son of Cesar Montano found dead in QC home

2010-03-26T21:12:00.000-07:00

Son of Cesar Montano found dead in QC home
03/26/2010 | 07:47 AM

The 23-year-old son of actor-politician Cesar Montano was found dead in his house in Quezon City early Friday, in what police said was an apparent suicide.

Quezon City police deputy for operations Senior Superintendent Audie Arroyo said Christian Angelo Montano died from a gunshot wound in the head.

"Meron po, confirmed. Tinawagan ng Station 6, meron talaga na-receive na report. Anak ito ni Cesar Montano, Christian Angelo, 23 years old (Yes, it's confirmed, based on a report from our police station 6. The victim is the son of Cesar Montano, Christian Angelo, 23 years old)," Arroyo said in an interview on dwIZ radio.

The elder Montano is running for governor of Bohol province under the Liberal Party in the May 10 elections. He lost in the 2007 senatorial polls.

Citing initial reports, Arroyo said they received a call from Montano's household at 5:49 a.m.

Minutes later, a police team reached the house and found the victim with a gunshot wound to the head.

Minutes later, a police team reached the house and found the victim with a gunshot wound to the head.

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"Nakita nila may tama sa ulo ang bata (The team saw the victim with a gunshot wound to the head)," Arroyo said.

"Ang security guard, sabi may nagpatiwakal (The security guard at the house said someone committed suicide)," he added.

A separate report by dzBB radio's Manny Vargas said the younger Montano was declared dead on arrival at the General Malvar Hospital in Quezon City.

Dr. Ed Antonio of the hospital's emergency room said the victim sustained a gunshot wound in the right temple, and an exit wound at the back of the head.

Cesar's statement

Reacting to the incident, Cesar issued the following official statement:

"TO OUR DEAR FRIENDS FROM THE MEDIA:

"I received the shocking news of my son, Christian Angelo's death very early this morning while I was in Bohol. I, along with my wife Sunshine and daughter Angela, immediately flew back to Manila first thing today to be with my son.

"No words can describe the grief that my family and I are experiencing with this devastating news. He was so young, a cheerful, thoughtful and loving son who has a generous heart and spirit.

"I was just with him yesterday before leaving for Bohol. Little did I know that it would be the last time I was to see him alive.

"Dr. Tony Leachon, a good friend and neighbor, pronounced Angelo dead on arrival at the Malvar General Hospital in Quezon City early this morning. Initial police investigation showed that Angelo died from a single gunshot wound in the head. We are still trying to piece together some facts pertaining to his death.

"While I am still reeling from this tragic incident, my family and I would like to appeal to everyone to respect the privacy of my grieving family at this time.

"Thank you very much for your understanding. May God's strength be with all of us." — LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV

The Facebook games that millions love (and hate)

2010-03-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

By Doug Gross, CNN

February 23, 2010 10:07 a.m. EST

(CNN) -- Early each morning, millions of farmers around the world rise to toil in their fields. By night, gangs of mobsters scheme and legions of poker players shuffle up and deal.

Sure, none of it's real. But the overwhelming popularity of so-called social gaming -- simple games that let people play with their friends on networking sites such as Facebook -- is changing the face of video games, experts say.

And as the maker of popular titles like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, San Francisco, California-based Zynga has ridden the games' skyrocketing popularity to the top of that emerging market.

For Zynga founder Mark Pincus, the formula for gaming success on Facebook, MySpace and other sites was as simple as it might seem counterintuitive: create simple games that people like but can easily set aside.

"We built the games so they could be played in a tab on your browser while you're on a conference call," said Pincus, a veteran Web entrepreneur who created Zynga in 2007.

Of course, they've been helped by the massive growth of Facebook, where the games are so popular they've spawned "fan" pages devoted to complaining about having to watch friends play them.

Facebook, with its 400 million users, is where the vast majority of people play FarmVille and Mafia Wars along with other Zynga titles like FishVille, Vampires, Café World, YoVille and Zynga Poker.

In all, more than 65 million people play Zynga games every day, according to media tracking company Developer Analytics.

More than 75 million people a month play FarmVille, Zynga's most popular title.

Zynga's top title, FarmVille, is played by an estimated 75 million people each month -- roughly equal to the number who have played the classic arcade and desktop game Tetris during its entire existence.

The massive growth was satisfying but not altogether surprising to Pincus, whose previous startups had included Freeloader, a Web-based information-gathering service; tech-support company SupportSoft; and Tribe.net, an early social networking site from 2003.

He said that starting the game company, which he named after his late English bulldog, was an effort to fill what he considered a surprising void in most people's daily Internet use.

"I thought in 2007 that something had gone oddly wrong with the whole Internet experience," Pincus said. "I would have thought games would have been one of the top two or three experiences people had on the Internet."

What Pincus got right, according to gaming expert Scott Steinberg, was a sort of return to the "golden era" of games like Pac-man and Super Mario Bros.

"Video games actually appealed to a huge cross-section. They appealed to everybody," said Steinberg, publisher of DigitalTrends.com. "What happened is, as we went through the mid-'80s to the mid-2000s, you started to see gaming become more incestuous in terms of 18- to 34-year-old males making games for people just like them."

Zynga games like Café World draw much higher rates of female players than most video games.

By contrast, three of Zynga's top five games -- FarmVille, Café World and FishVille -- have mostly female players, with many players outside the traditional 18- to 34-year-old range.

Those games all operate on the same basic premise. Starting with a simple farm, fish tank or restaurant, the player works to make it bigger and fancier, sharing items with friends and helping each other along the way.

Some of Zynga's early titles simply mirrored existing board and card games. It was Mafia Wars -- in which players team up to whack other gangs -- that first exhibited what would become the hallmarks of social gaming: simple, single-player action that's enhanced by teamwork.

With FarmVille, that formula would become complete.

Players plant virtual crops that can be harvested hours, or days, later. Along the way, they invite online friends to become their neighbors and help each other by sending gifts or helping with the farming. There's no way to "win," but players take satisfaction in building big, fancy farms that they can showcase to their friends.

"A farm is something that is internationally understood and known. It's cross-cultural, cross-gender, cross-age," Pincus said. "A great social game should be like a great cocktail party. If you want it to appeal to absolutely everyone you invite, it has to be broad in its content so that everyone gets it."

Not that Zynga's success has come without criticism.

Mafia Wars is popular but prompted claims that it was a knock-off.

With hundreds of smaller companies vying for a piece of the social gaming market, some rivals have accused Zynga of using its hefty venture capital to crowd out less-financed competitors.

Many of its most popular games, including FarmVille, are similar to pre-existing games from smaller companies, a fact Pincus dismisses by noting that video games have always fallen into genres with similar titles from competing companies.

Psycho Monkey LLC, the makers of Mob Wars, filed a lawsuit claiming that Mafia Wars ripped them off. Zynga settled that case in August, said a spokeswoman for the company.

Zynga also was hit with complaints and lawsuits over its original business model, which let players earn in-game rewards for things like signing up for a credit card or video-rental membership.

Critics said some of the offers amounted to scams, leading players to download unwanted software or unwittingly sign up for memberships that appeared stealthily on their phone bills.

Pincus has acknowledged not being vigilant enough with the automated ads that appeared on Zynga games during the company's early days.

More than 13 million people play FishVille every week, according to Zynga.

"We were playing whack-a-mole," Pincus said. "Every time we found one of these or got a complaint, we would take them down. Eventually ... we realized we had to take a much more aggressive stance than a normal Web site."

In November, Zynga removed all "lead-generating" ads, relying for revenue instead on the roughly 1 to 3 percent of the player base that pays for in-game items, such as a barn in FarmVille. It has since been putting the advertisements back in, with a new system that lets it more closely monitor what kind of ads show up, Pincus said.

"We'll see where this goes for the entire industry," Pincus said. "It was really important to us to maintain a trusted position with our users. We wanted to do the right thing, and I think we did."

Pincus offers a ray of hope for another vocal group of critics: the social-media users who say they're tired of seeing all of their friends' updates about Zynga and other social games.

On Facebook, a group called "I dont care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia!!!" had more than 5.2 million members recently.

"Please. No more of this stuff," wrote one member. "I've had all I can take. About to hang up FACEBOOK. Just want a nice cozy place to talk with my friends!"

Zynga Poker was one of the company's first social games and remains among the most popular.

Pincus said he hopes that messages from games can eventually be targeted to a more select audience.

"We have to evolve," Pincus said "I think it's heading to a place that's more narrow-casting. I think you'll get to a place where Facebook will be better about showing feeds to people who have a registered interest in them."

For example, he said, there might eventually be a way to send game notifications only to people who play social games themselves.

"It's not just games. It's going to be true for music, for pictures, for status updates," Pincus said. "I think, over time, these networks are going to start to shape more to ... your [registered interests]."

Meanwhile, Zynga will be among the developers continuing to change how people look at video gaming. It's a change that Steinberg, the gaming guru, says will be for the better.

While heavyweights like Electronic Arts and the popular Civilization series are making inroads into social gaming, Steinberg said, the genre is also opening up opportunities for smaller developers.

"We're seeing, in many ways, a second renaissance for games," Steinberg said.

"There's been an epiphany among the developer community saying, 'Look at these millions of users that we've forgotten to speak to for years.' This can only be a good thing for the gaming industry in the end."

Authorities bust 3 in infection of 13M computers

2010-03-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

By JORDAN ROBERTSON, AP Technology Writer Jordan Robertson, Ap Technology Writer – Tue Mar 2, 2:26 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Authorities have smashed one of the world's biggest networks of virus-infected computers, a data vacuum that stole credit cards and online banking credentials from as many as 12.7 million poisoned PCs.

The "botnet" of infected computers included PCs inside more than half of the Fortune 1,000 companies and more than 40 major banks, according to investigators.

Spanish investigators, working with private computer-security firms, have arrested the three alleged ringleaders of the so-called Mariposa botnet, which appeared in December 2008 and grew into one of the biggest weapons of cybercrime. More arrests are expected soon in other countries.

Spanish authorities have planned a news conference for Wednesday in Madrid.

The arrests are significant because the masterminds behind the biggest botnets aren't often taken down. And the story of investigators' hunt for them offers a rare glimpse at the tactics used to trace the origin of computer crimes.

Also, the suspects go against the stereotype of genius programmers often associated with cyber crime. The suspects weren't brilliant hackers but had underworld contacts who helped them build and operate the botnet, Cesar Lorenza, a captain with Spain's Guardia Civil, which is investigating the case, told The Associated Press.

Investigators were examining bank records and seized computers to determine how much money the criminals made.

"They're not like these people from the Russian mafia or Eastern European mafia who like to have sports cars and good watches and good suits — the most frightening thing is they are normal people who are earning a lot of money with cybercrime," Lorenza said.

The three suspects were described as Spanish citizens with no criminal records. They weren't named and their mug shots weren't released, which Lorenza said is standard in Spain to protect the privacy of defendants. They face up to six years in prison if convicted of hacking charges.

Authorities identified them by their Internet handles and their ages: "netkairo," 31; "jonyloleante," 30; and "ostiator," 25.

Botnets are networks of infected PCs that have been hijacked from their owners, often without their knowledge, and put into the control of criminals. Linked together, the machines supply an enormous amount of computing power to spammers, identity thieves, and Internet attackers.

The Mariposa botnet, which has been dismantled, was easily one of the world's biggest. It spread to more than 190 countries, according to researchers. It also appears to be far more sophisticated than the botnet that was used to hack into Google Inc. and other companies in the attack that led Google to threaten to pull out of China.

The researchers that helped take down Mariposa first started looking at it in the spring of 2009.

Chris Davis, CEO of Ottawa-based Defence Intelligence, said he noticed the infections when they appeared on networks of some of his firm's clients, including pharmaceutical companies and banks.

It wasn't until several months later that he realized the infections were part of something much bigger.

After seeing that some of the servers used to control computers in the botnet were located in Spain, Davis and researchers from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center joined with software firm Panda Security, which is headquartered in Bilbao, Spain.

The investigators caught a few lucky breaks. For one, the suspects used Internet services that wound up cooperating with investigators. That isn't always the case.

Critically, one suspect also made direct connections from his own computer to try and reclaim control of his botnet after authorities took it down around Christmas. Investigators were able to identify him based on that traffic. They were able to back up their claims with records from domains he registered where he would eventually host malicious content.

It turned out that the botnet runners had infected computers by instant-messaging malicious links to contacts on infected computers. They also got viruses onto removable thumb drives and through peer-to-peer networks. The program used to create the botnet was known as Mariposa, from the Spanish word for "butterfly."

"I don't think there's anything about this guy that makes him smarter than any of the other botnet guys, but the (Mariposa) software, it's very professional, it's very effective," said Pedro Bustamante, senior research adviser with Panda Security. "It came alive and started spreading and it got bigger than him."

While arrests of people accused of running smaller botnets are fairly common, the biggest botnet leaders are rarely nabbed. That's partly because it's easy for criminals to hide their identities by disguising the source of their Internet traffic. Often, every computing resource they use is stolen.

For instance, there have been no busts yet in the spread of the Conficker worm, which infected 3 million to 12 million PCs running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system and caused widespread fear that it could be used as a kind of Internet super weapon. The Conficker botnet is still active, but is closely watched by security researchers. The infected computers have so far been used to make money in ordinary ways, pumping out spam and spreading fake antivirus software.

Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis

2010-03-02T17:48:00.000-08:00

Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis

(CNN) -- The massive earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted Earth's axis and created shorter days, scientists at NASA say.

The change is negligible, but permanent: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

A large quake shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet.

When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates. And the rotation rate determines the length of a day.

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation," Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said while explaining the phenomenon in 2005.

Video: Science of earthquakes & time

Video: Bill Nye on Earthquake data

Video: Infrastructure spares Chile

Video: Videos show moment of quake

Video: Looting reported after quake

Video: Stories of survival in Chile

Scientists use the analogy of a skater. When he pulls in his arms, he spins faster.

That's because pulling in his arms changes the distribution of the skater's mass and therefore the speed of his rotation.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, used a computer model to determine how the magnitude 8.8 quake that struck Chile on February 27 may have affected Earth.

See scenes of devastation from the quake

He determined that the quake should have moved Earth's figure axis about 3 inches (8 centimeters). The figure axis is one around which Earth's mass is balanced. That shift in axis is what may have shortened days.

Such changes aren't unheard of.

The magnitude 9.1 earthquake in 2004 that generated a killer tsunami in the Indian Ocean shortened the length of days by 6.8 microseconds.

On the other hand, the length of a day also can increase. For example, if the Three Gorges reservoir in China were filled, it would hold 10 trillion gallons (40 cubic kilometers) of water. The shift of mass would lengthen days by 0.06 microsecond, scientists said.

Source: CNN

Magnitude-8.8 Chile quake triggers RP tsunami alert 1

2010-02-27T16:14:00.000-08:00

Magnitude-8.8 Chile quake triggers RP tsunami alert 1

MARK D. MERUEÑAS, GMANews.TV

(Update 3 - Feb. 28 5:10 a.m.) State seismologists on early Sunday morning retained the Tsunami Alert Level 1 that was raised in the Philippines on Saturday afternoon after a powerful 8.8-magnitude earthquake hit south-central Chile on the other side of the Pacific Ocean at 3:34 a.m. Saturday (2:34 p.m. Saturday in Manila).

Reports said that the Philippine Embassy officials and staff in the capital city of Santiago were all safe, while no news has been received as yet about the rest of the small Filipino community in the South American country.

Meanwhile, various local governments and the Philippine Red Cross continued to monitor the country's eastern seaboard that spans the Pacific coastal towns of 19 provinces.

In various radio and television interviews throughout Saturday night, Renato Solidum, director of the Philippine Institute for Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs), said that the Chile earthquake generated tsunami waves that are currently crossing the Pacific and, if these pack enough power, may be expected to hit Philippine coastlines sometime between 1:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. on Sunday.

An image generated by the US' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center shows the projected tsunami travel times following a 8.8-magnitude earthquake that rocked Chile early February 27, 2010. A massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck south-central Chile early on Saturday, triggering a tsunami and rattling buildings in the capital Santiago. via Yahoo! News

The powerful quake rocked south-central Chile, killing at least 147 people based on initial reports and also setting off a tsunami as high as 1.29 meters off the Pacific Ocean, according to Chilean officials.

Solidum said they are closely monitoring the situation on this side of the Pacific rim to determine if the tsunami triggered off Chile would reach Philippine shores.

"Binabantayan namin kung aabot ito sa ating bansa... Bilang pag-iingat, nagpalabas ang Phivolcs-DOST ng Tsunami Alert Level 1 (We are monitoring if the tsunami will reach the Philippines. But as a precautionary measure, we are raising a Tsunami Alert Level 1)," said Solidum.

He said the Phivolcs was prompted to raise the alert at about 3:10 p.m. Saturday based on a lesson learned from a more powerful 9.5-magnitude earthquake in May 1960 that also hit Chile. (See Wikipedia article on the 1960 Valdivia earthquake)

The resulting tsunami made it to the Philippine coastlines more than 24 hours after the earthquake struck the South American nation, Solidum said over radio dzBB.

Accounts by villagers in Samar and Surigao provinces—the areas in the country most affected by that tsunami—claimed that the huge wall of water reached as high as six meters, he added.

View Chile Earthquake in a larger map

The Phivolcs official, however, clarified that a Tsunami Alert Level 1 does not yet mean people living near the country's Pacific coastlines are advised to evacuate to higher ground.

"Ibig sabihin lang nito, kailangan lang maghintay kung may bagong information... kailangan tayong mag-ingat doon (We just have to wait for further information)," he said.

Solidum stressed that evacuations are only necessary once a Tsunami Alert Level 3 has been raised. He advised people, especially those living in the eastern part of the Philippines, to be on the alert for any further announcements from Phivolcs.

In its latest advisory, Phivolcs identified 19 areas along the east coast of the Philippines as areas of concern:

Batanes Group of Islands

Cagayan

Ilocos Norte

Isabela

Quezon

Aurora

Camarines Norte

Camarines Sur

Albay

Catanduanes

Sorsogon

Northern Samar

Eastern Samar

Leyte

Southern Leyte

Surigao del Norte

Surigao del Sur

Davao Oriental

Davao del Sur

"While no evacuation order is in effect, communities along these coasts are advised to prepare for possible evacuation," Phivolcs said.

The earthquake in Chile happened at 3:34 a.m. local time (2:34 p.m. Saturday in Manila) and lasted for a minute and a half. Power and communication lines remained down in Chile's capital of Santiago, The Associated Press reported.

RP Embassy staff are safe

Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson Ed Malaya said the six fatalities initially reported did not include a Filipino, according to a separate radio dzMM report.

In another texted message from Malaya on Saturday evening, he assured the public that the DFA was able to communicate with Minister Narciso Castaneda of the Philippine Embassy in Chile, who in turn reported that Ambassador Puyat Reyes and the rest of the embassy staff members are safe.

Castañeda's report said that Ambassador Reyes' residence in the capital city of Santiago sustained some damage, but otherwise no one was hurt among his household. He added that electricity is down in his district.

Malaya said that as per DFA records, there are 89 Filipinos residing or working in Chile. A check with the POEA website showed that there were 158 Filipinos working in Chile as of December 2008.

Free Webcam Chat at Ustream( Live stream video courtesy of TV Chile)

GenSan and Japan quakes

Two separate earthquakes, both with relatively strong magnitudes, preceded the quake in Chile.

A magnitude-5.3 earthquake hit Mindanao at 12:18 a.m. of Saturday, with the epicenter first traced 76 km southeast of General Santos City. It was felt at Intensity IV in General Santos City, with no reported damage and aftershocks, Phivolcs said in an advisory.

Four hours after the southern Philippine quake, another one with a 6.9 magnitude rocked Japan's southern coast at about 5:31 a.m. local time (4:31 a.m. in Manila).

Apart from damaged water pipes in some areas in Okinawa, there were no reports of major structural damage or casualties, according to The Associated Press.

Phivolcs initially issued a Tsunami Alert Level at 4:46 a.m. but lifted it shortly after.

"When no observations are still reported for the next two hours, local authorities and the public can assume this minor threat has passed," Phivolcs said in its advisory earlier in the day.—With Nikka Corsino/JV/TJD, GMANews.TV

History of Mardi Gras

2010-02-16T16:26:00.000-08:00

Also known as "fat Tuesday," this pre-Lenten festival is celebrated in Roman Catholic countries and communities. In a strict sense, Mardi Gras, or Shrove Tuesday, is celebrated by the French as the last of the three days of Shrovetide and is a time of preparation immediately before Ash Wednesday and the start of the fast of Lent. Mardi Gras is thus the last opportunity for merrymaking and indulgence in food and drink. In practice, the festival is generally celebrated for one full week before Lent. Mardi Gras is marked by spectacular parades featuring floats, pageants, elaborate costumes, masked balls, and people dancing in the streets.

Mardi Gras originated as one of the series of carnival days held in all Roman Catholic countries between Twelfth Night, or Epiphany, and Ash Wednesday; these carnivals had their origin in pre-Christian spring fertility rites. The most famous modern Mardi Gras festivities are those held in New Orleans, La.; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Nice, France; and Cologne, Germany.

The first American Mardi Gras was celebrated near modern-day New Orleans on March 3, 1699. It wasn't until the mid-1800s did official parade organizations start to form with the Mystick Krewe of Comus in 1856 and the Krewe of Rex in 1872. The tradition is still carried on in New Orleans with many other krewes represented on floats in a myriad of parades. The official colors of Mardi Gras are purple, green and gold (representing justice, faith and power).

Mardi Gras celebrations can start as early as January 6, on the feast of Epiphany. The festivities end at midnight on Tuesday--the day before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Mardi Gras day falls on any Tuesday between February 3 and March 9. Like Ash Wednesday, the date Mardi Gras falls on depends on the date of Easter--always occurring 46 days before Easter.

Future Mardi Gras Dates:

February 20, 2007
February 5, 2008
February 24, 2009
February 16, 2010
March 8, 2011
February 21, 2012
February 12, 2013
March 4, 2014
February 17, 2015
February 9, 2016
February 28, 2017
February 13, 2018
March 5, 2019
February 25, 2020
February 16, 2021

An article from Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2005 World Almanac Education Group. A WRC Media Company. All rights reserved. Except as otherwise permitted by written agreement, uses of the work inconsistent with U.S. and applicable foreign copyright and related laws are prohibited.

God knows best

2010-02-12T19:39:00.000-08:00

GOD KNOWS BEST

Lord, I asked for health to do great things

You gave me infirmity, to do better things

I asked for riches to make me happy

You gave me poverty to make me wise

I asked for power and the praise of men

You gave me weakness

To sense my need of You

I asked for all things that I might enjoy life

You gave me life that I might enjoy all things

I got nothing I asked for

Everything I hope for

Inspite of myself my prayers were answered

I am among all men most richly blest

Yes, God You always know what's best

Amen

(Bible Inspiration: 1 john 5:14)

We have this confidence in God: that he hears us

Whenever we ask for anything according to his will

- Ricusa

SKoreans named world texting champ

2010-02-02T20:35:00.000-08:00

crowned fastest texters in the world

NEW YORK — Two South Korean teenagers have been crowned fastest texters in the world.

The team of 17-year-old Bae Yeong Ho and 18-year-old Ha Mok Min went thumb-to-thumb against competitors from a dozen countries to win the title in a competition Thursday in New York City.

The LG Mobile World Cup challenged nimble-fingered youths on both speed and accuracy. The winning team took home a $100,000 prize.

Second place and $20,000 went to the US contestants — 16-year-old Kate Moore of Des Moines, Iowa, who is the 2009 US National Texting Champion, and 14-year-old Morgan Dynda of Pooler, Georgia, the 2009 runner-up. An Argentinian team came in third and the Brazilians took fourth.

With many languages at play, English was the texting language of the US competitors and those from Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Other nations represented were Indonesia, Portugal, Russia, Mexico and Spain. Interpreters were hired for non-texting communication.

"My thumbs are up for the challenge," Moore announced hours before the afternoon start time.

But inside Manhattan's Gotham Hall, with the pressure on to text for about two intense minutes at a stretch, she and Dynda fell behind the Koreans by 20 seconds after a good hour of competition dubbed "Race of Death."

"New York sure is an active, lively city!" said Bae, the Korean national champion for 2008 and 2009, basking with his teammate in a crush of admirers.

He has a beautiful bass voice and is saving his $50,000 share of the prize to study to become an opera singer. And Ha said she's saving for studies to become an engineer.

The drill of the third annual Mobile World Cup was simple: Copying words and phrases in one's native language off a monitor correctly, with no typos or abbreviations, and as fast as possible with the required capitalization and punctuation. Some words were intentionally misspelled to test alertness.

Privately, Moore averages 12,000 texts per month, entering up to 3.5 characters per second.

The event is sponsored by LG Electronics Inc.'s mobile-phone division, a company based in Seoul, South Korea, that supplies its latest handsets for the contest. Each participant was mailed an LG enV phone several weeks ago, to get accustomed to the keyboard.

It's texters' preferred model, said Moore, noting that the device opens up to a full keyboard larger than most.

She said that although she's almost always "carrying on a conversation with someone, texting, "the habit doesn't detract from face-to-face social life. "I can talk and text at the same time, without looking at the phone."

The 26 finalists who made it to the World Cup were chosen from more than 200,000 wannabes in a global text-off that began in May. Before they even got to New York, female texters had the advantage — hands down, Moore said.

"Girls are faster 'cause their hands are smaller," she said, adding, "I have perfect hands for texting — thin, long fingers. And fast, of course." - AP

Want privacy on Facebook? Here is how to get some

2009-12-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

Want privacy on Facebook? Here is how to get some

NEW YORK – Over the past week, Facebook has been nudging its users — first gently, then firmly — to review and update their privacy settings.

You may have procrastinated by hitting "skip for now," but Facebook eventually took away that button and forced you to update your settings before continuing to use the site.

After finally accepting Facebook's recommendations or tweaking the privacy settings yourself, though, you might have made more information about you public than what you had intended.

At the same time, Facebook has given users many granular controls over their privacy, more than what's available on other major social networks.

So if you want to stay out of people's view, but still want to be on Facebook, here are some things to look out for as you take another look at your settings.

1. Some of your information is viewable by everyone.

Everyone can see your name, your profile photo and the names of work and school networks you're part of. Ditto for pages you are a fan of. If you are worried about a potential employer finding out about a quirky fetish or unorthodox political leaning, avoid becoming a Facebook fan of such groups. You can't tell Facebook you don't want those publicly listed. Your gender and current city are also available, if you choose to specify them. You can uncheck "Show my sex in my profile" when you edit your profile if you don't want it listed, and you can leave "Current City" blank.

2. Your list of friends may also be public.

Facebook also considers your friends list publicly available information. Privacy advocates worry that much can be gleaned from a person's list of friends — even sexual orientation, according to one MIT study. But there is a way to hide the list. Go to your profile page and click on the little blue pencil icon on the top right of your box of friends. Uncheck "Show Friend List to everyone." Either way, those you are already friends with can always see your full list.

3. You can hide yourself from Web searches.

There is a section for "Search" under Facebook's privacy settings page, which is accessible from the top right corner of the Web site under "Settings." If you click the "Allow" box next to "Public Search Results," the information that Facebook deems publicly available (such as photo, fan pages and list of friends), along with anything else you have made available to everyone, will show up when someone looks up your name on a search engine such as Google. The stuff you've limited access to in your profile will not show up.

This is useful if you want people you've lost touch with, or potential work contacts, to be able to find your Facebook page. If you'd rather not be found, uncheck this box.

A second setting, controlling searches within Facebook, lets you refine who can find you once that person has logged on. Limit searches to friends only if you think you have all the friends you need and don't want anyone to find you when they type in your name to Facebook.

4. Beware of third-party applications.

Quizzes and games are fun, but each time you take one, you first authorize it to access your profile information, even if you have made that available only to your friends. You're also letting the app access some information on your friends.

Under "Application Settings," Facebook lists all the apps you have opened your profile up to. If you no longer want to authorize access to "Which Golden Girl Are You?" you can always remove it by clicking on the "X" next to its name. Apps you use regularly, such as Facebook for Android if you update your status from your mobile phone, should stay.

Next, by clicking on "Applications and Websites" on the privacy settings page, you can edit whether your friends can share your birthday, photos and other specific information. Remember that applications can access your "publicly available information" no matter what.

The security firm Sophos recommends users set their privacy settings for two of Facebook's own popular applications, notes and photos, to friends only.

5. Go over your list of friends.

The average Facebook user has 130 friends. But many people interact with a much smaller group when commenting on status updates, photos and links. So it doesn't hurt to occasionally review your list of your friends to get an idea of just who can view your status posts, vacation photos and funny links you've shared over the years. Don't feel obligated to add anyone as a friend, even if that person adds you first. For professional acquaintance you don't want to snub, send them to a LinkedIn profile you can set up. Some workplaces and schools have rules about Facebook interactions between bosses and employees or students and teachers.

6. Create custom friends groups.

If you have friended a lot of people, sort them. Think of the groups you interact with in real life — co-workers, college buddies, girlfriends, grandma and grandpa — and organize your Facebook friends in these groups, too. Go to "All Friends" under the "Friends" button up top, click on "Create New List" and fire away. Then decide what aspects of your profile, and which status posts and photos, these people will have access to. Or, simply create a "limited" list for acquaintances or distant relatives and limit their access.

7. Customize your status posts.

Type "I'm hungry" into your status update box. Click on the little lock icon. You'll see a range of privacy controls pop up, letting you either allow or limit access to the post. If you want, you can even hide it from everyone by clicking "Only Me" under the custom settings. Click on "Save Setting." Repeat with each post, or create a default setting for most updates and increase or decrease privacy as you see fit.

8. Let your friends know you have boundaries — in person.

Many of us have woken up on a Sunday morning to find that an overzealous friend has posted dozens of photos from that wild party we barely remembered — the good, the bad and the hideous. Chances are, they didn't do this to embarrass you, though if they did you have bigger problems. Rather, they probably don't know that you don't want these photos posted. Sure, tweak your photo privacy settings on Facebook. But if someone starts snapping pictures of you at a party, ask them to check with you before posting it anywhere.

9. Never assume complete privacy.

Even for the most tech-savvy person, unflattering photos, incriminating text messages or angry status posts about work have a way of worming their way out in the open. Just saying.

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay, Ap Technology Writer – Thu Dec 17, 3:54 pm ET

Easy Method Cures Hemorrhoids

2009-11-23T00:58:00.000-08:00

Are you sick of the itching, burning, pain, swelling, or bleeding down there? Aren't you frustrated because it's completely embarrassing to ask for advice on this potentially crippling condition? I sure was - suffering silently.

Are you sick of constricting your diet or work - hoping for relief? Plus, all of the other "management" burdens of this on your everyday life?

Are you tired of all the creams, pills, suppositories, and ointments that NEVER fix the true root issue? Then, don't spend another penny on those expensive options until you've read everything I'm about to reveal.....

Hemorrhoids, also known as "piles", are basically inflamed tissue or blood vessels at the lower rectum. It's something that millions suffer silently from in varying degrees.

If you have any of the symptoms mentioned, it's extremely likely to be hemorrhoids. It's important that you read this entire article carefully at any suspect ....

eMedicine, the clinical knowledge base say that it can "plague all age groups".

The world-renowned Harvard University Medical International Journal does cite "lack of fiber" as one culprit. I agree, but I believe there's more to the story.

Trust me, I know what you're going through... I've experimented with so many ways to cure my own chronic, intolerable hemorrhoid condition a few years ago. Ever since then, I've helped dozens of people get rid of this seemingly permanent problem for good naturally.

Now, I want to present to you this "H Miracle" package which is comprised of the following:

The secret Chinese "Fargei" remedy that they don't want you to learn ... even Chinese herbalists don't always know this.

The exact 4-element diet that I used to get rid of huge-sized piles in a matter of 4 days.

The RAW TRUTH on why most creams and suppositories simply don't work for a lot of people ....

5 secret root extracts (when combined) will soothe inflammation and improve venous flow by 300%. Lasting results fast!

How to shrink your hemorrhoids even if they are over the size of a golf-ball literally. Even 3rd or 4th degrees can be gone fast.

My time-tested 60 second exercise to forever end constipation. Never be bothered with it again.

The one "aroma" ingredient that makes the difference between a average digestive feeling and a great one.

My "Nature Stool" method that will ensure you never cause unnecessary pressure down there.

5 fruits and vegetables that will ensure you NEVER have a hemorrhoid ever again. Eat these just once a week if you'd like.

Reverse the debilitation effects of stress that may be aggravating your hemorrhoids at this very moment.

How to stop the bleeding and NEVER have to strain when using the restroom.... the true solution to the root of the problem.

Why 99% of the ointments hustled out there will NEVER work..... you will be shocked at this.

My secret method to using water that will cure it for you. NEVER SEEN BEFORE.

Why stopping sugar or sweet intake is FAR from the real solution.....

Why you still can have hemorrhoids even if you're never constipated, sedentary, or for any usual reasons ... and how to reverse any type of hemorrhoids in record time.

End the "ripping and tearing" feeling forever and NEVER have a flare-up again.

Unravel 3 reasons why even rubber band ligation ("rubber banding") really doesn't work best in my opinion.

Eliminate any possibility of leakage.... no details needed. My grandfather had this and he stopped it in 2 days.

Doing certain exercises or sports can hurt the hemorrhoid? Yes sometimes, so be careful.....

The 9 sure-fire ways to ensure an "invincible" digestive state against these problems. Just my personal theory but see it!

Get it Here

Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto

2009-11-14T17:36:00.000-08:00

FIGHT CARD:
Welterweight
Manny Pacquiao (48W 3L 2D 37KOs) vs. Miguel Angel Cotto (34W 1L 0D 27KOs)

Light Middleweight
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr (40W 0L 0D 30KOs) vs. Troy Rowland (25W 2L 0D 7KOS)

WBA World Light Middleweight Title
Daniel Santos (32W 3L 1D 23KOs) vs. Yuri Foreman (27W 0L 0D 8KOs)

Welterweight
Alfonso Gomez (19W 4L 2D 9KOs) vs. Jesus Soto Karass (23W 3L 3D 16KOS)

Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto Weigh-in

PACQUIAO VS COTTO 24/7 Episode 1

PACQUIAO VS COTTO 24/7 Episode 2

PACQUIAO VS COTTO 24/7 Episode 3

Mafia Wars - These Secrets Must be Revealed

2009-11-10T06:35:00.000-08:00

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This PDF guide details the most hard-core, most sneaky and yet simple strategies for Mafia Wars on any platform, whether it's Facebook, Myspace, iPhone, Yahoo, or Tagged.

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Make Money From Home Today

2009-11-07T04:43:00.000-08:00

Dear Friend,

Let me share a personal story with you. Back in the late 90s, I held an excellent position at a large IT company with a nice monthly salary. Somehow, the company ran into financial problems and was forced to lay off over 50% of its staff. Unfortunately for me, I was included. So there I was stranded, alone, unemployed, with all the bills to pay and a family to support. Where I lived, such jobs weren't easy to come by.

So I decided to do a little research. I spent many sleepless nights on the web just searching for something to do, anything that could help support me and my family. I just wanted a way to make money, and not lose it, as I soon found to be the case with numerous internet scams.

Just like you, I often stumbled upon all types of web sites offering me some money matrix scheme, promising me all the money in the world. Yeah, right! From stuffing envelopes, Multi Level Marketing, High Yield Investment Programs, to selling all types of useless products. You name it, I’ve been there, done that. Finally, I came across something that worked...

How Does It Work?

This is like a freelance opportunity. You can submit the ads on your own schedule, day or night, and you do as many as you want with absolutely no restrictions. There will always be work for you to do no matter where you live.

This is a successful money-making system with unlimited potential. I'll show you all the steps to the exact system I use to make money by posting ads for companies online. It runs virtually on autopilot. Once your ads are submitted, they'll be making money for you over and over and over.

In other words, you don't have to be sitting in front of your computer all day just to earn your money. You can go play golf with your friends, or go to the shopping mall with your family. Like I said, it’s totally up to you. That's the beauty of this system.

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On new cell phones, QWERTY eases out 1-2-3

2009-04-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Write

LAS VEGAS -
Goodbye, numeric cell phone keypads. You're going the way of the rotary dial. Touch screens and QWERTY keyboards will take over from here, thank you.

At North America's largest cell phone trade show, running this week in Las Vegas, there were few new phones for the U.S. market that had a numerical keypad instead of an alphabetic keyboard. Touch screens also were out in force.

These changes are a recognition of the popularity of text messaging and wireless Internet use. Industry organization CTIA Wireless, which hosts the show, said U.S. subscribers sent 1 trillion text messages last year, three times the 2007 volume. Meanwhile, the same people used 2.2 trillion minutes of voice calls, an increase of less than 5 percent.

This shift in how people use their mobile devices has overturned cell phone design. According to NPD Group, 31 percent of phones sold in U.S. stores in the fourth quarter of 2008 had full-alphabet keyboards, up from 5 percent two years earlier.

AT&T Inc., the second-largest wireless carrier after Verizon Wireless, introduced six phones this week, all of which had either a touch screen, a typewriter-style keyboard, or both. At the booth of Samsung Electronics Co., the largest seller of phones in the U.S., there were no new keypad phones.

Motorola Inc., the largest domestic maker of phones, was showing off one low-end handset with a keypad. It went on sale through AT&T two weeks ago. But Motorola's big news was a model called the Evoke, which has a touch screen. It's designed for the U.S. market, though it doesn't have a carrier distribution agreement yet.

LG Electronics Inc. displayed a new handset, the GD900, that seemed to both emphasize a numeric keypad and make it vanish. A pad slides out from the GD900's body, but it's made of transparent plastic, so you can see right through it. You don't need to use keypad at all, since the screen is touch-sensitive. Other new LG phones were also dominated by touch screens.
Even at the low end of the market, keyboards for text messaging are becoming common and affordable. AT&T expects to sell two of the keyboard-equipped phones it introduced, the Samsung Magnet and LG Neon, for about $20 to $30.

Old-fashioned numeric keypads still will have a prominent place — but largely overseas. In a twist of market dynamics, the demand for QWERTY phones is mainly a North American phenomenon, said Ross Rubin, an analyst at NPD.

Although touch screens are gaining in popularity all over the world, people in other countries got into text messaging much earlier and "became acclimated to texting with a keypad," Rubin said. Meanwhile, the U.S. market has been influenced by high-end smart phones like the Treo and the BlackBerry that pioneered small versions of typewriter-style keyboards.

As a result, numeric keypads were still dominant at the CTIA booth of Nokia Corp., the world's largest maker of cell phones, which has a relatively minor presence in the U.S. The same was the case at the booth of Japanese-Swedish manufacturer Sony Ericsson.

Other notable wireless devices at the show (prices are with two-year contracts):
• The Samsung Impression is the first phone on the U.S. market with a screen that uses organic light-emitting diodes rather than liquid crystals. Since OLEDs emit their own light, rather than filtering a fluorescent backlight like LCDs, they can save on battery life and provide better image quality. The Impression has a 3.2-inch touch screen capable of showing very saturated colors and dark blacks, and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. AT&T will sell the phone for $200 starting Tuesday. OLEDs have shown up before in camera displays, and Sony sells a small, expensive OLED TV.

• AT&T will sell the Nokia E71x, which is billed as the thinnest smart phone in the country, less than half an inch thick. The layout is similar to that of a BlackBerry or BlackJack, and includes a keyboard. Nokia has had a hard time penetrating the U.S. smart phone market, and previous, similar Nokia models sold by AT&T haven't made much of dent on the dominant market share of Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry. Despite being so thin, the E71x has a 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus. The phone will cost $100. AT&T has no firm launch date.

• Sprint Nextel Corp. trotted out the Samsung Instinct s30, a follow-up to the first Instinct, which it introduced last year as a touch-screen competitor to the iPhone. The s30 has a thinner, more rounded body and includes a more fully featured Web browser. The s30 will be available April 19 for $130.

• Samsung is making a Web tablet for Clearwire Corp.'s wireless broadband network, which uses a technology known as WiMax. There are laptops and modems for the network, which is live in Portland, Ore., and Baltimore, but there hasn't been a standalone portable device for Clearwire since Nokia discontinued its WiMax tablet in January. Samsung's Mondi will go on sale in the next three months. No price was announced. It doesn't work as a phone, but it could run teleconferencing applications like Skype. The underlying software is Windows Mobile. Naturally, the Mondi has a keyboard and a touch screen, with a 4.3-inch diagonal.

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HBO working on movie about Clinton, Blair

2009-03-25T08:54:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK – Dennis Quaid is lined up to play former President Clinton with Julianne Moore as Hillary Clinton for a movie, "The Special Relationship," that HBO is working on.

The special relationship is between Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Michael Sheen is set to play Blair. It would be the third movie for which Sheen has portrayed the British politician, along with "The Queen" and "The Deal." Sheen was also in "Frost/Nixon," written by Peter Morgan. Morgan will also write "The Special Relationship."

Spokeswoman Tobe Becker says HBO hasn't fully given the green light to the film, but is also working out a co-production deal with the BBC. - AP

Source: Gma News

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Wall Street gives up some ground after huge gains

2009-03-24T21:24:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK – A stock drop is never reassuring — except when it could have been worse.

The Dow Jones industrial average shed 115 points, or 1.5 percent Tuesday. But it also held on to 382 of the 498 points it racked up a day earlier.

Anyone with a 401(k) would have liked to see the rally continue. Market analysts said, though, that a pullback was expected given the massive gains Wall Street logged the day before when the government released plans to remove bad loans from banks' books.

"We'll take that trading pattern any time," said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co. He said he came into work anticipating the Dow to drop as much as 2 percent Tuesday after the index jumped 6.8 percent Monday — its biggest gain since late October.

The Dow was up more than 1,200 points after hitting nearly 12-year lows on March 9, and there was little in a way of positive economic or corporate data Tuesday to lift stocks further.

If Wall Street gets more good news, stocks could resume their rise. But if it doesn't, the rest of Monday's rally, and then some, could be wiped out. Investors have been cautious, recalling the 20 percent rise between late November and January that fizzled, with stocks then tumbling to new lows on fears about the economy and banking system.

Later this week, some big economic reports are scheduled to come out: durable goods for February, a revised fourth-quarter gross domestic product number, and personal income and spending for February. And next month, first-quarter earnings reports start pouring in.

Thomas J. Lee, a stock market analyst at JPMorgan, said the market's ability to hang on to most of its rally was encouraging. But, he added, "This has definitely been a show-me market."

The Dow fell 115.89, or 1.5 percent, to 7,659.97. The index fell in early trading, rose briefly in afternoon trading, and then turned lower again.

Broader stock indicators also tumbled. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 16.57, or 2 percent, to 806.35, and the Nasdaq fell 39.25, or 2.5 percent, to 1,516.52.

Before the market's retrenchment Tuesday, stocks had spiked about 20 percent over the course of 10 days on actions out of Washington and nascent signs of economic renewal.

Recent reports on retail sales, housing starts and inflation have all topped traders' bleak expectations. Last week, the Fed said it would buy long-term government debt to help drive down interest rates for home loans and credit cards. And the government sparked new hopes for further improvement Monday after it detailed plans for a mix of taxpayer and private money to help banks get rid of up to $1 trillion in bad loans from their books.

Investors again looked to Washington for direction on Tuesday, but got few additional details.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner made a rare joint appearance at a congressional hearing to testify over bonuses at American International Group Inc. Geithner called on Congress to provide him with greater power to safely dismantle big financial companies like AIG that pose risks to the economy.

The bulk of Tuesday's market retreat was in financial stocks — the companies that have been rising the most recently.

Citigroup Inc. fell 3.5 percent Tuesday; Bank of America Corp. fell 7.2 percent; JPMorgan Chase & Co. fell 8.6 percent; and American Express Co. fell 3.8 percent. These four Dow components had surged on Monday.

The problems in the overall economy are bad for banks: The unemployment rate sits at 8.1 percent, the highest level since the punishing recession of the early 1980s. And housing prices continue to fall, putting more homeowners at risk of owing more on their homes than they are worth. Rising numbers of people out of work or behind on mortgages could further imperil bank assets.

It also won't be easy to wean the economy from a diet of excessive debt. Some businesses and consumers are struggling to pay down what they owe. They're cutting spending, which is hurting other parts of the economy.

Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York, said many traders are pleased by the government's plan to help banks but said that signs of an improving economy will be needed for the market to hold its gains. He said nagging worries about big problems like unemployment could shake investors.

"We are treating this cautiously as we recognize that there are still some storm clouds on the horizon," Orlando said.

The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 16.94, or 3.9 percent, to 416.78.

About two stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidatedvolume came to 6.65 billion shares, down from Monday's nearly 7.5 billion.

Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 2.71 percent from 2.68 percent late Monday.

The dollar was mostly higher against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.

Oil gained 18 cents to settle at $53.98 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Britain's FTSE 100 fell 1 percent, Germany's DAX index rose 0.3 percent, and France's CAC-40 rose 0.2 percent. Japan's Nikkei stock average rose 3.3 percent. - AP

Source: Gma News

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Arroyo awards Medal of Merit to late Francis M

2009-03-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

AIE BALAGTAS SEE, GMANews.TV

Pormal nang iginawad ni Pangulong Gloria Macapagal Arroyo ang posthumous award kay Francis Magalona para sa pagtataguyod nito ng nasyonalismo sa pamamagitan ng kanyang mga awitin.

Ang Presidential Medal of Merit ay tinanggap ng biyuda ni Francis na si Pia Arroyo-Magalona kasama ng kanilang walong anak nitong Miyerkules sa Reception Hall ng Malakanyang.

"We're very proud, my family is very proud of the honor given to my husband. It is just that he receives this because he's really a great patriot of the Philippines," ani Pia.

Dumalo rin sa ceremonya ang Eat Bulaga! family ni Francis na sina Joey de Leon, Vic Sotto, at Tito Sotto. Matagal-tagal ding naging host ng Eat Bulaga! si Francis.

Bago iginawad ang parangal, nagkaroon muna ng isang maikling tribute para kay Francis.

Pumanaw si Francis noong March 6 dahil sa sakit na leukemia sa edad na 44. Siya ay inihatid sa huling hantungan nitong March 11 sa Loyola Heights Memorial Park, Marikina city ilang oras matapos siyang i-cremate.

Ilan sa mga makabayang awitin ni Francis ay "Mga Kababayan", "Ito ang Gusto Ko", and "Man from Manila". Pati ang kanyang clothing line na "Three Stars and a Sun" ay hango sa disenyo ng pambansang watawat. - GMANews.TV

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What You Need to Do For a Faster Free Background Check

2009-03-10T20:02:00.000-07:00

For ordinary individuals, performing a free background check can be an advantage but it is not a normal thing to do. For businesses and law enforcers, background checks are one of the common practices but they don't usually rely on free background check methods. Free background check investigations are performed today by most ordinary individuals because of the growing rates of crimes anywhere. In order to protect themselves from certain criminals that might be lurking around, they need to know each person that they deal with, especially those who are trying to be close to them and to their family members.

A new nanny can be a threat to the household especially with the kids. There has been some news when certain nannies are kidnappers, violent child abusers, sex offenders, or rapists. Without proper screening and knowing the person, the safety and life of the person that he or she is going to have contact with will be in jeopardy. You might now detect in the interview whether a certain nanny is trustworthy or honest but you can definitely know if a certain person had some bad reputations through past records by conducting a free background check.

A free background check is performed by gathering information, especially the criminal details of a person in the reliable places. Public documents are usually the primary sources of information where you can find valuable and useful details about the person. These are recorded with the supervision of government authorities and kept in the custody of certain government officers that makes these public documents reliable.

You can conduct free background check investigations by gathering these useful public documents from government offices where a certain kind of public document was kept. For example, if you need a person's criminal records and the crime was committed in a certain county or the person may have lived for a long time in that county, then most probably the criminal records are acquirable in the government office in that particular county. You just have to follow the flow of requesting the public documents that you need. Usually, you need to fill out a request form where you have to enter the details of the person who owns the records you are requesting including your name and other details. Then you have wait in line together with other people requesting until your papers are finally approved. Once approved, you have to wait for another several days for the records to be finally available for pick up.

For faster performance of free background check, use the Internet.

Article Source: Free Background Check

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Francis Magalona Died from acute myeloid leukemia

2009-03-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

Magalona, 43, was diagnosed on August 8, 2008, with acute myeloid leukemia at the Medical City Hospital, Mandaluyong. "I don’t want a media circus," he said, appealing to the media and to the public. "I want privacy with my family. What I’d rather talk about is how we can solicit blood donations to replace the supply that I have consumed in the hospital."

After his first treatment and discharge, he made his return on Eat Bulaga together with Ely Buendia, who was also recently discharged. Not wanting to let the disease get the better of him, he remained active, chronicling his battle with the disease on his blogs and continuing to pursue his creative efforts in spite of his illness. His daughter Maxene noted that "he always did what he wanted to do. He never let anyone or anything stop him from doing what he loves to do. He still went to the camera club, he still took pictures, everytime he was discharged from the hospital, he records songs with Ely Buendia. He taught us that life is short but it can be well lived. Don’t waste your time in the world."

His wife Pia later described her husband's battle with the disease, saying “Francis was a very passionate person. When he was angry, he was very expressive. He would get angry with his cancer. That was his way of coping with it. But he didn’t give up. I remembered that he told me, "I’m going down fighting."”

On March 6, 2009, at 12:20 pm, Magalona succumbed to multiple organ failure after having been rushed to the hospital and intubated the night before. He had undergone several chemotherapy sessions since he was diagnosed the previous year, and had been expected to undergo a bone marrow transplant.

The announcement was first made on the television variety show Eat Bulaga!, which he had co-hosted. News of his death sparked a surge of web traffic to several Philippine news sites, causing a momentary slowdown in the operation of those sites. Guests at his wake included former president Corazon Aquino, along with other politicians and artists who paid tribute to Magalona's contriubtion to Filipino music, and to the national pride - the dominant advocacy theme in FrancisM's music. Numerous television programs, ranging from noontime variety shows to primetime newscasts and late night news documentaries paid tribute to Magalona.

Magalona had been slated to appear as a special surprise guest at the Eraserheads' "the Final Set" reunion concert on March 7, 2009. Since he died the day before, the band instead dedicated the concert as tribute to Magalona. Buendia rapped the 22-bar portion in Superproxy which FrancisM had written, and the penultimate song of their last ever Eraserheads performance was the reprise of Kaleidoscope World.

His remains lie in state at the Funeraria Paz in Araneta Avenue, Quezon City. On March 7 his remains will be brought to Christ The King Memorial Chapel in Greenmeadows, Quezon City, where the fans can pay respects for the last time. Magalona's remains will be cremated on March 11, Wednesday, at 9 a.m. at the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City.

Source: Francis Magalona
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Tnomeralc Web Design Toys

2009-03-07T07:56:00.000-08:00

E-Commerce has been broad in the internet nowadays. The Tnomeralc Web Design Toys is an e-commerce website design that has its own unique characteristic that escort the visitors to a trouble free in purchasing. As a web designer it is needed to think of an assortment of online selling principle in designing website for e-commerce.

An e-commerce website design is unusual for other websites and maybe some of us are asking why. Well to make an e-commerce website it should be eye-catching, the colors should have a good combination, choose the color that fits the content of an e-commerce website.

It is helpful for the customers to shop in an e-commerce website. E-commerce has an easy way of transaction in buying in selling of goods. Many were already using e-commerce rather than going to the malls. We know that in the malls we experience a lot of cases in shopping, in the market we spend more time to look for the thing that we need. We do also wait or fall in line to pay for our goods and getting tired of shopping.

In an easy way, renting space in the market is more difficult than putting the products in the web. However, it is much difficult to sell the product in the web. These difficulties will be big challenge for the e-commerce web designer. The designers will use techniques to attract online shoppers.

In an e-commerce web design it is concerning on the layout. Accessing in a web page is one of the important aspects in user’s eyes. Mostly the research shows that it is attractive and give more attention for the user is in the middle left side are and the next is at center page.

It is important to understand the principles of web design for selling online. It is also important to consult an experience web designer and if possible someone that has well experience e-commerce website.

The tnomeralc web design toys are empowering e-commerce and web design Claremont Design + LA Toy Store.

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Happy Holidays - The Grickle Channel

2009-03-05T08:06:00.000-08:00

Space Wolf

2009-03-05T07:51:00.001-08:00

Adopting A Child

2009-02-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

Child are blessing of couples from God. They are the one that makes a family complete. They are the source of every parent’s joy. Can you imagine a couple without a child of their own? Maybe it is hard for them because of the feeling of incomplete. Today there are parents who opted their child to be adopted by those couple who are willing to have child of their own maybe because parents cannot give all the needs of the child that is why they let other couple to adopt their own child. Or there are institutions that administer the adoption process of a child. Adoption is a long process it usually takes one year to finish the whole process. In adopting the institution see to it that the adopting parents are ready to take care of the child. Couples usually undergo series of interviews and seminars because adopting a child would mean a big responsibility for them. And as the custody of the child is given to them, they will be monitored by the social welfare personnel. This is because they want to be sure that the child is being provided with the care and love that the child need.

Digital Knowledge - When Cats Attack

2009-01-18T20:18:00.000-08:00

Digital Knowledge - Online Dating Mistakes That You Have To Avoid

2008-12-17T17:31:00.001-08:00

Many women nowadays are into online dating and some of them are frustrated with the results. One thing that you must consider in finding your mate in an online dating site is not to assume that everything will have an instant result. When you finally have a date, do not assume that, that person is the right one for you. The only way if he likes you is if he follows up on a date or calls.

Do not go out with people you do not like, this will only make you frustrated. In online dating sites, you have the chance to screen your potential date so you are not obliged to date all the men that sent you emails, screen them so you do not have to go with someone you do not like. Do not expect that you will have an instant hit with the men although you are a good catch. Men also choose the woman they like to date so be patient and screen men that are also interested in you.

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Talk With A Lawyer Before Declaring Bankruptcy

2008-12-09T17:01:00.000-08:00

While it isn’t a happy decision to fill up a bankruptcy record, it is sometimes necessary and unavoidable so you could avoid more expenses in the future. If your business isn’t earning much anymore and you still have a lot of legal responsibilities to pay, then declaring bankruptcy may well save you from all of those hassles.

However, you do not have to rush when it comes to making decisions concerning these things. For example, it is very important for you to consult with a lawyer first before going directly to the government offices in your area. If you will talk with a bankruptcy lawyer, you will be able to determine whether or not it is really a wise move for you to fill up a bankruptcy record now or not. In some instances, situations are not really as bad as we think it is and a lawyer can really be helpful in helping you think things over.

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Young actor Marky Cielo, 20, is dead

2008-12-07T08:28:00.000-08:00

MANILA, Philippines - The Philippine Entertainment Portal on Sunday reported that it received a confirmed report that young actor Marky Cielo died at dawn Sunday. He was 20 years old.

GMA 7 issued the following statement past 4 p.m. Sunday on the death of Cielo.

"Bandang alas 10 kaninang umaga sa Antipolo Doctors Hospital ay idineklarang dead on arrival ang young actor at Starstruck Nationwide Invasion Sole Survivor na si Marky Cielo.

"Ayon sa paunang salaysay ng kanyang ina na si Mildred Cielo, natagpuan niyang nakahandusay ang kanyang anak sa kanilang tahanan sa Antipolo, Rizal, at agad niya itong isinugod sa ospital. Sa ngayon ay hinintay pa nila ang resulta ng imbestigasyon sa sanhi ng pagpanaw ni Marky Cielo bago magbigay ng opisyal na pahayag ang kanyang pamilya.

Tubong Mountain Province at may lahing Igorot si Marky Cielo, at itinanghal na Sole Survivor sa Season 3 ng Starstruck. Hinangaan siya sa kanyang husay sa kanyang pag-arte at pagsayaw.

Huli siyang napanood sa Startok, SOP, at La Lola. Siya rin ang tumatayong Youth Spokesperson ng Department of Health.

Si Marky Cielo ay 20 years old. Bukod sa mga panalangin, humihiling ang pamilya Cielo ng privacy sa matinding dagok na to sa kanilang buhay."

Marky was a product of GMA-7's StarStruck Batch 3, where he won as the "Ultimate Sole Survivor." He was the first Igorot from Baguio City to join the popular reality-based artista search. Among his batchmates were Iwa Moto, Jackie Rice, and Gian Carlo.

After winning in StarStruck, he appeared in several GMA-7 shows which included Encantadia, Fantastikids, Bakekang, Asian Treasures, Boys Next Door, Kaputol ng Isang Awit, and Codename: Asero. But he was best known as Zaido Green in Zaido: Pulis Pangkalawakan.

He was also a mainstay of the musical-variety show SOP and in the primetime series La Lola.

Marky, who is also known for his dancing prowess, grew up in Butuan City but his family moved to the north.

His remains now lies at St. Peter's Chapel in Quezon City. - GMANews.TV and Philippine Entertatinment Portal

Importance Public Records Search

2008-12-04T00:15:00.000-08:00

It has been a practiced of almost everybody to do public records search, why? It is because public records has been a good source of vital records pertinent to someone’s identity, personal information like property or any other records related to a particular person. It is also a tool that can be use if someone wishes to reconnect with their loved ones with whom they have lost contact.

Public record is also a good source if you want to check someone’s criminal record. You will be able to find out if someone has been involved in serious crimes or if the person is a sex offender. Public record can be easily search online by name and or the address of the person if you have the information.

Public records are being documented. These are very important for any future needs. Just like any other documents it is kept for future reference. Some examples of public records are birth records, educational records, marriage or divorce records, criminal records, court records, police records and some other personal record a person can have.

If someone needs to retrieve any of these records they can easily request it to the designated office of each state. There can be public records that can be obtained in the county office, police station, municipal hall or any court houses. School and church may also keep public records.

As mentioned earlier, a public record is a source of information that can be used in identifying the real identity of a person. It is just so important to check the real identity of a particular person thru public record search. In this way you will be able to discover things that can help you in decision making. You will be able to know if a person is trustworthy or not with the public records he or she may have.

It is thru public record search that you can identify or understand a person whole well being. He or she may have a good or bad public record and so in the end you can use this to know if you can trust him or not. Public records are also being search for safety purposes. It is a tool that you can use to know if a person is free from any criminal history. It is just safe that you know if you are to avoid the person because of his past cases and convictions because you can be another victim of his crimes.

Josephine Swann is an Article Writer of Public Records Company she specializes in writing different Public records Articles, Background Check Articles, Criminal Records and Sex Offenders. Her Articles are educational, offering Information about a certain Person, Business employee, Human Resources, Digital Knowledge and more. For more information on Public Records try visiting http://www.publicrecords.com

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2008-11-18T19:38:00.000-08:00

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100 Do Follow Blogs (PR3 and Above) - Checked and Verified!

2008-11-18T19:21:00.000-08:00

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2008-11-18T19:12:00.000-08:00

Optimize your site (SEO).
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Use smart public relations (PR).
Use E-mail marketing.
Use off-line marketing.
Run regular promotions.
Forum Campaign
Ask for reviews.
Quality Content
Join your local business organizations.
and Blogging.

By Tikli of Devhunters

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2008-11-11T21:31:00.000-08:00

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Axe Commercial - You never know

2008-10-23T01:56:00.000-07:00

Why Sex Before Marraige-great commercial

2008-10-23T01:49:00.001-07:00

McDonalds Funny Ads

2008-10-23T01:31:00.000-07:00

Kiss of Death

2008-10-23T00:57:00.000-07:00

OOPPPSSS To Early

2008-10-21T19:39:00.001-07:00

Wait 'til you get home

2008-10-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

Answer Me This...

2008-10-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.

If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?

If olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?

So what's the speed of dark?

Why don't they just make mouse-flavored cat food?

If you're sending someone some Styrofoam, what do you pack it in?

Why do they sterilize needles for lethal injections?

When a man talks dirty to a woman, its sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it's $3.95 per minute.

If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?

Isn't Disney World a people trap operated by a mouse?

Since light travels faster than sound, isn't that why some people appear bright until you hear them speak?

How come abbreviated is such a long word?

If it's zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

Why do you press harder on a remote-control when you know the battery is dead?

Why are they called buildings, when they're already finished? Shouldn't they be called builts?

Why do banks charge you a "non-sufficient funds fee" on money they already know you don't have?

If the universe is everything, and scientists say that the universe is expanding, what is it expanding into?

If you got into a taxi and the driver started driving backward, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?

What would a chair look like if your knees bent the otherway?

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to see it, do the other trees make fun of it?

When two airplanes almost collide why do they call it a near miss? It sounds like a near hit to me!!

Why are there 5 syllables in the word "monosyllabic"?

Why do they call it the Department of Interior when they are in charge of everything outdoors?

Why do scientists call it research when looking for something new?

If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?

When I erase a word with a pencil, where does it go?

Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Tell him a bench has wet paint and he has to touch it.

How come Superman could stop bullets with his chest, but always ducked when someone threw a gun at him?

If "con" is the opposite of "pro," then what is the opposite of progress?

Why is it lemon juice contains mostly artificial ingredients, but dishwashing liquid contains real lemons?

Why do we wash bath towels? Aren't we clean when we use them?

Why do we put suits in a garment bag and put garments in a suitcase?

Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the bottle?

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?

Do married people live longer than single people, or does it just SEEM longer?

Source: http://worldlyideas.blogspot.com/2008/10/answer-me-this.html

Can you hit the Dot?

2008-10-03T20:42:00.001-07:00

Hit the Dot
Hit the dot! Can you hit the fast moving dot?

www.winterrowd.com

Doreymon - Ang Mahiwagang Itim na...

2008-09-25T03:10:00.000-07:00

WARNING!!! Barubal na pananalita. Hindi para sa nakababata

Street Fighter Alpha Movie Ryu, Ken, Akuma

2008-09-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

Ryu has a brother? The young Shun, who has just come to Japan to meet Ryu, claims to be his long lost brother. Shun displays potential for the martial arts when he enters a Tournament. But shortly after displaying the same "Dark Hadou" energy that has been building in Ryu, Shun is kidnapped by the evil criminal empire, Shadowlaw. Ryu must now take the ultimate journey to not only find Shun but to find himself.

Calasiao Fire - Monday Morning 9/15/08

2008-09-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

Municipal building of Calasiao, Pangasinan, Phils.(under fire)

Here's a Youtube Video of the actual Fire

here's another video of Calasiao town hall after fire

Dad, how was I born?

2008-09-11T21:20:00.000-07:00

Junior asks his dad, "Daddy, how was I born?"

His dad sighs and replies, "Ah, my son, I guess one day you would have to find out anyway! Well, you see, your Mum and I first got together in a chat room on MSN. Then I set up a date via e-mail with your mom and we met at a cyber-cafe.

We snuck into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall, but it was too late to hit the delete button.

Six weeks later your mom sent me an instant message saying that her operating system was showing signs of unauthorized program activity from a self extracting file which had implanted itself in her BIOS.

Then nine months later a little Pop-Up appeared and said:

"You've Got Male!"

Source: http://www.bloggingtips.com/forums/showthread.php?t=111

Indonesia lifts tsunami alert after powerful quake

2008-09-10T18:35:00.000-07:00

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia's geological agency has lifted a tsunami alert issued after a powerful earthquake rattled the country's northeast.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Thursday's quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.6 and struck 55 miles beneath the Molucca Sea.

Indonesia's seismological agency put the magnitude at 7.6.
A tsunami alert issued immediately after the 7 a.m. temblor was lifted because the feared wave never came.

The mayor of Manado, a city on Sulawesi island close to the epicenter, said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage from the quake.

Source : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080911/ap_on_re_as/indonesia_earthquake

6.5 quake shakes sea floor near Vanuatu

2008-09-08T00:19:00.000-07:00

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A magnitude 6.5 earthquake has rocked the sea floor off the coast of the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu, but there are no immediate reports of injury or damage.

The quake about 2 p.m. local Vanuatu time (0300 GMT) Monday, was 53 miles (85 kilometers) below the earth's crust, according to the US Geological Survey's Web site.

The tremblor, 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Vanuatu's capital, Port Vila, did not trigger a tsunami alert from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

The Vanuatu island chain sits along the so-called Ring of Fire, a fault line through the Pacific that triggers earthquakes and volcano eruptions stretching from Chile in South America through Alaska and down through Japan past Vanuatu to Tonga. - AP

Source: http://www.gmanews.tv/story/118859/65-quake-shakes-sea-floor-near-Vanuatu

The Three Essentials of Search Engine Optimization SEO

2008-09-03T22:19:00.000-07:00

The Three Essentials of Search Engine Optimization SEO
There are of course many factors that go into your online success; everything from lead generation to having the proper advertising system in place. However there is one element which you will find indispensable to your online success and that is web site search engine optimization commonly referred to as SEO.

SEO refers to the process of constructing your website in such a way that it is looked at favorably by search engines like MSN, The Google and Yahoo. This in turn leads to higher rankings, more internet traffic and free advertising for your website. What makes seo optimization so important is the fact that over 80% of your site traffic will arrive via the search engines. For this reason alone, having a good web site seo strategy in place is essential.

There are a variety of factors you need to consider when putting together your strategy but these three standout in particular:

1. Keyword Prominence

Where do your keyword search terms show up first? Usually the closer your keywords appear to the top of the page, the more prominence search engines give them. This is because they crawl the html code of your site before the content. Putting keyword search terms into places such as your title can give you a distinct advantage over other webmasters who only use keywords in their content. The trick is not to overdo it by stuffing too many keywords (or worst keyword search terms that have no relation to your web content) into the head tags of your html code.

2. Inbound Link

Back in the day, it was vital to get reciprocal links to your website. Search engines placed a lot of importance on who you were linking to and vice versa. Not anymore. Instead of link exchange, search engines are placing more value on inbound links commonly referred to as backlinks. In essence, search engines view this as a kind of referral system. One site is recommending another without having to reciprocate.

To make backlinks really work, you must get them from sites which already rank well in the search engines. All of this does not mean reciprocal links are of no value. A quality link exchange is still looked upon favorably by the search engines and you should definitely use this technique for your website. But concentrate on getting those inbound links first and foremost.

3. Web Site Content

While search engines do value your keyword prominence and amount of backlinks to your site it still comes down to what's on your webpage. The internet is at the dawning of a video revolution but that only means more information will be required. Content is king and will be for a long time.

Write as many unique and quality articles as possible and place them on your website. If you want to, you can outsource this process or just visit the article directories and find content related to your niche and use it on your website. Be sure to read the term and conditions in regards to using other people's articles. Grow your web content slowly, so it looks more natural to the search engines. Update the information frequently.

The importance of web site search engine optimization cannot be overstated. A site that is ranked favorably can bring in tons of free internet traffic. Evaluate your keyword prominence; focus on getting good inbound links while concentrating on providing useful web site content and the search engines will start bringing more and more internet traffic to your website.

Article Source: http://www.talkingcity.com/showthread.php?t=9296

How to Help a Ghost

2008-08-30T00:50:00.000-07:00

Are you tormented by a restless spirit? Would you like to help them move on? Then this article will help you and help the ghost.

Steps

1. The first step is to find out who this ghost is. Have you actually seen the ghost? If you have,determine the gender, age etc. Try to find out as much as possible, especially the history of people linked to wherever the ghost is haunting. If you haven't seen the ghost use the next steps to help you.

2. So now you want to find out what the ghost is doing stuck in the mortal world.
First off ask yourself what you have seen/witness the ghost doing. Does the ghost pace a hallway continuously? Knock down a certain object? If so try to find out the history of this place/object. It will be very helpful and give you a good idea of how it is linked to the ghost.

3. You know who the ghost is and what they are doing on earth. Now it's time to find out when you will be able to contact them. Most ghosts follow a pattern. If you observe places where your ghost has been seen it will be easy to establish their routine.

4. You probably know where the ghost will be when you contact them. Just to let them know you could leave them a note, but the best idea would be to give them something that was close to them in life.

5. Now you get to actually contact the ghost. Bring along a friend just to be safe. You may not even see the ghost. When you know they are present start by telling them why you are there and what you are doing.

6. Stress that you are there to help them. Now you can ask them why they are still on earth, why they don't want to leave, or why they cannot leave. This step may have to be repeated to get answers.

7. Now you need to find out how you can help. Most ghosts have an unfinished task that needs to be completed. You, as a human of flesh and blood, can be a key element to helping them complete this task. If you succeed the ghost will be able to move on. This can be immansly
satisfying for you and the ghost. Good luck!

TIPS : You are doing something that requires lots of research, patience, and perseverance. This is sometimes a lengthy and slow process, but it pays off. It may be a good idea to seek professional help.

Warning: Respect the ghost at all times. Never insult a ghost.

Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Help-a-Ghost

What's the main reason for motorbike accidents in jamaika

2008-08-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

What's the main reason for motorbike accidents in jamaika

Cruel Battle. Unexpected Result by Adulu

2008-08-24T00:53:00.000-07:00

Who Knows what happen right?

"
"

Funny and Curious Pictures by Adulu

2008-08-24T00:31:00.000-07:00

Source : http://www.adulu.com/showthread.php?t=1192

Lucia Reveals the third Secret

2008-08-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

Third Secret of Fatima Revealed

Independently of any Creed and Religion, is better to be prepared and be in good terms with GOD, though we never know when we will be leaving these world.

The Church has given permission to reveal to the people the last part of the message.
The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three children of Fatima, Portugal in 1917.

This is a proven fact; one of these children is still alive ( but living eternal with our God Almighty) her name is Lucia, she is Cloistered nun and lives before in a monastery in Portugal.
Lucia disclosed the message first time to Pope Pius XII whom after reading it he sealed it and stored away without making it public.

Later Pope John XXIII read it and in the same manner as his predecessor, he kept it out of the public eye because he knew that once revealed; it will bring desperation and panic to human kind.

Now the time has come, and permission has been granted from Pope John Paul II to reveal it to the children of God, in order not to create panic but to make people aware of this important message so everybody can be prepared.

“The Virgin told Lucia: “Go my child and tell the world what will come to pass during the 1950’s - 2000’s”…

“Men are not practicing the Commandments that our Father has given us. Evil is governing the world and is harvesting hate and resentment all over”…

“Men will fabricate mortal weapons that will destroy the world in minutes”
“Half of the human race will be destroyed, the war will begin against the Rome, and there will be conflicts amongst religious orders”

“God will allow all natural phenomenons like smoke, hail, cold, water, fire, floods, earthquakes, winds and inclement weather to slowly batter the planet”

“These things will come to pass before the year 2010…”

“Those who won’t believe, this is the time your Beloved Mother told you..”

“Those lacking charity towards others and those who do not love thy neighbors like my Beloved son has loved you, all, can not survive”.

“They will wish to have died, millions are unimaginable, they will come and there is no doubt”…
“Our Lord God will punish severely those who do not believe in Him, those who despise Him and those who did not have time for Him”.

Father Agustin, who lives in Fatima, said that Pope Paul VI gave him permission to visit Sister Lucia who is a Cloistered nun ( she does not leave the monastery nor is allowed to receive any visitor)

Father Agustin said that she received him greatly overwhelmed and told him..
“Father, Our Lady is very sad because nobody is interested in Her prophecy of 1917, though the righteous are walking trough a narrow path,

.. the evil ones are walking through an ample road that is leading them straight to their destruction, believe me father, the punishment will come very soon”.

“Many souls will be lost; many nations will disappear from the earth. But, in the middle of all these, if men reflect, pray and practice good deeds,

.. the world can be saved. One of all these, if men persist with it’s evil, the world will be lost forever”…

The time has come for all to pass of the message or our Blessed Lady to their families, friends and to the entire world.

Start Praying, to make penitence and sacrifices. We are at the last minute of the last day and Catastrophes are near.

Due to this, many that were far from the church will return to the open arms of the Church of Jesus Christ.

The joining of the churches will result in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church; England, Russia, China, Jews, Muslims and Protestants.

All will return believing and worshiping God our Creator, in His Beloved Son and in our Blessed Mother Virgin Mary.

WHAT AWAITS US??

Everywhere there will be “Peace Talks” but punishment will come…

A VERY IMPORTANT POSITION WILL BE ASSASSINATED AND THIS WILL PROVOKE WAR.

A POWERFUL ARMY WILL DOMINATE ALL THROUGH EUROPE AND THE NUCLEAR WAR WILL COMMENCE.

These war will destroy everything, darkness will fall over us for 72 hours ( 3 days ) and the one third of humanity that survives these obscurity and sacrifice will commence to live a New Era, they will be good people.

In a very cold nigh, 10 minutes before midnight, a Great Quake will shake the earth for 8 hours.
This will be the third sign and that God is who governs the earth.

The righteous and those who propagate the faith and the message of the Lady of Fatima is one…

“SHOULD NOT FEAR, DO NOT BE AFRAID”.

WHAT TO DO???

Bow your heads, kneel down and ask God for forgiveness.

Because, only what is good and is not under the power of evil will survive the catastrophe.
In order for you to prepare and remain alive, I will give you the following signs; ANGUISH
AND IN A SHORT PERIOD THE EARTHQUAKE WILL COMMENCE.. THE EARTH WILL SHAKE..

The shake will be so violent that will move the earth 23 degrees and i will return to its normal position, Then, Total and absolute darkness will cover the entire planet.

All evil spirits will be mingling around and sacred alter with a crucifix in order to communicate with God and implore for His infinite mercy.

All will be dark; IN THE SKY A GREAT MYSTIC CROSS will appear to remind us the price that His Beloved Son had to pay for our redemption In the house, the only thing that can give light will be the HOLY CANDLES. Once lit, nothing will put them off until the three days of darkness are over.

Also, you should have HOLY WATER that should be sprinkled abundantly on windows and doors. The Lord will protect the property of the chosen ones.

Kneel down before the powerful cross of my Beloved Son, pray the Rosary and after each Hail Mary you must pray the Following;

“oh God forgive us our sins, preserve us from the fire of hell, take all souls to heaven, especially those who are in more needs of thy Mercy. Blessed Virgin Mary protect us, we love you, save us and save the world”.

Pray 5 Creeds and the Rosary which is the secret to my Immaculate heart
All those who believe in my words go and take the message to everyone.

DO NOT FEAR.
FEAR NOTHING
DURING THE LORD’s
GREAT DAY.

Talk to all the souls now that there is time, those who keep quiet will be responsible for all those souls who will perish in ignorance.

All those who pray humbly the rosary will have the protection of heaven and those who are bound to die, I will help them die in peace and they will be holy when they enter the other world.
I wish all my children to attend Mass every First Friday Saturday of each month, to confess and receive Holy Communion and in doing so,

Save the world from its TOTAL DESTRUCTION

When the earth shakes no more, those who still not believe in our Lord will perish in a horrible way.

The wind will bring gas and it will disperse it everywhere, then the sun will rise, maybe you will survive this catastrophe.

Do not forget that God’s punishment is Holy and ONCE IT HAS STARTED, YOU SHOULD NOT LOOK OUTSIDE UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE, GOD DOES NOT WANT ANY OF HIS CHILDREN TO SEE WHEN HE PUNISHES THE SINNERS..

All this encompasses with the writings of the Holy Scriptures.

READ ON:
*The New Testament:
Lucas 21 -5:21, 12:19, 20:20, 29:33
Letters of Saint Paul
3-8-14 Isaiah 40, 1:5:9

You must understand that God Allows all this to happen. The People and Bishops are now awaiting another message that speaks about repentance and prayer.

Remember that GOD’s WORDS are not a threat, but Good News…

Please Reproduce these pages and send them to all you know so we all can have the opportunity to repent and be saved.

We do now know if those receiving this message believe or not in GOD, but think that if you are receiving this message is for a Reason!!!

Maybe the Creator is giving us the chances to be saved, no matter what religion or creed.

If you don’n believe in this message at least send it to others, it costs you nothing.

To all those receiving it, they can have the opportunity to judge for themselves.

Remember: we can avoid a great deal

Digital Knowledge 101 ( DigiKnow?! )

Complete History of the Black Nazarene

History

Devotion

Procession of the Black Nazarene at Plaza Miranda during the 2010 feast.

Novena

Processions

Hymn

Feast

Upcoming Movies This 2012

Know your ghouls, from aswang to diwata

Steve Jobs, Apple founder, dies

Raunchy Duke Nukem gets the ESRB treatment

Nano technology could cool the heat from server farms

Facebook Bug Could Give Spammers Names, Photos

Wanna see her pussy?

10 things to know about iPhone 4

10 things to know about iPhone 4

Good-Bye to Privacy?

‘My son didn't commit suicide’ – Toni Rose Gayda

Son of Cesar Montano found dead in QC home

The Facebook games that millions love (and hate)

Authorities bust 3 in infection of 13M computers

Chile quake may have tipped Earth's axis

Magnitude-8.8 Chile quake triggers RP tsunami alert 1

Magnitude-8.8 Chile quake triggers RP tsunami alert 1

History of Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras History

God knows best

SKoreans named world texting champ

Want privacy on Facebook? Here is how to get some

Easy Method Cures Hemorrhoids

Manny Pacquiao vs Miguel Cotto

Mafia Wars - These Secrets Must be Revealed

Make Money From Home Today

On new cell phones, QWERTY eases out 1-2-3

HBO working on movie about Clinton, Blair

Wall Street gives up some ground after huge gains

Arroyo awards Medal of Merit to late Francis M

What You Need to Do For a Faster Free Background Check

Francis Magalona Died from acute myeloid leukemia

Tnomeralc Web Design Toys

Happy Holidays - The Grickle Channel

Space Wolf

Adopting A Child

Digital Knowledge - When Cats Attack

Digital Knowledge - Online Dating Mistakes That You Have To Avoid

Talk With A Lawyer Before Declaring Bankruptcy

Young actor Marky Cielo, 20, is dead

Importance Public Records Search

Cheap Affordable Link Building Service

100 Do Follow Blogs (PR3 and Above) - Checked and Verified!

Tips on getting more traffic?

$2 or $10 hosting for a year - Limited Offer

Axe Commercial - You never know

Why Sex Before Marraige-great commercial

McDonalds Funny Ads

Kiss of Death

OOPPPSSS To Early

Wait 'til you get home

Answer Me This...

Can you hit the Dot?

Doreymon - Ang Mahiwagang Itim na...

Street Fighter Alpha Movie Ryu, Ken, Akuma

Calasiao Fire - Monday Morning 9/15/08

Dad, how was I born?

Indonesia lifts tsunami alert after powerful quake

6.5 quake shakes sea floor near Vanuatu

The Three Essentials of Search Engine Optimization SEO

How to Help a Ghost

What's the main reason for motorbike accidents in jamaika

Cruel Battle. Unexpected Result by Adulu

Funny and Curious Pictures by Adulu

Lucia Reveals the third Secret