Everything on marketing online of the beginning one to expert
Everything what you this looking on marketing online find in the seo specialist, has a variety of tips of professionals in the branch who are ready for le to decide all its you doubt.
Any that it is its problem they has the solution and offers a series of recurços for whom they are in the beginning and a variety of tips for most advanced in the seo expert subject therefore cannot lose more time to enter today exactly in this so promising market.
I that already I am advanced in the branch look I assist it of the seo company to learn many new tips so that I can each ves more quanhar much more with marketing online, and you its financial success for manhâ does not leave today va exactly there.
tags: seo specialist,seo expert,seo company
Any that it is its problem they has the solution and offers a series of recurços for whom they are in the beginning and a variety of tips for most advanced in the seo expert subject therefore cannot lose more time to enter today exactly in this so promising market.
I that already I am advanced in the branch look I assist it of the seo company to learn many new tips so that I can each ves more quanhar much more with marketing online, and you its financial success for manhâ does not leave today va exactly there.
tags: seo specialist,seo expert,seo company
The strongest supports for TV
The search of a support of high quality to place its new television dekomount is the certain place, there it will find diverse types of supports depending on the size of its television and the wall where you it will go it to place.
It has support for diverse types and models of plasma TV, tvs of lcd and computers depending on its model we will have the support that better it will be in the wall without no risk to fall or to ruin its device.
For at the same time the more strong people who look an elegant support that aguente any type of weight Projector Bracket Mounts is the place certain for its not despense search to have best in suporter pra TV.
I myself already I have reserved a well strong one to place my plasma TV that I bought to attend the digital TV, does not wait more to have its also it goes today exactly in TV Wall Bracket and buys its.
tags: dekomount,plasma TV,tvs of lcd,computers,Projector Bracket Mounts,TV Wall Bracket
It has support for diverse types and models of plasma TV, tvs of lcd and computers depending on its model we will have the support that better it will be in the wall without no risk to fall or to ruin its device.
For at the same time the more strong people who look an elegant support that aguente any type of weight Projector Bracket Mounts is the place certain for its not despense search to have best in suporter pra TV.
I myself already I have reserved a well strong one to place my plasma TV that I bought to attend the digital TV, does not wait more to have its also it goes today exactly in TV Wall Bracket and buys its.
tags: dekomount,plasma TV,tvs of lcd,computers,Projector Bracket Mounts,TV Wall Bracket
total verification of I propagate
If serto lives running behind a system eficas of verification of veiculos kwik-fitinsurance is the place can verify everything, until any infraction committed with ownership of propagates it not needing to wait for answers that delay a time infinity to leave.
You it will go to find the certain quota for its property or for its I propagate key cover always has the option that more le agrees so that has always left satisfied, of the services that le had been given.
Until if you are the search of an excellent insurance for its animal of esteem you could be calm mpois you go to find diverse options pets each one better that to other to leave safe its animal that you in such a way love it.
Then now only it needs to relax and to leave Car Insurance to more decide its main problems of security, and alive what you in such a way like.
tags: kwik-fitinsurance,key cover,pets,Car Insurance
You it will go to find the certain quota for its property or for its I propagate key cover always has the option that more le agrees so that has always left satisfied, of the services that le had been given.
Until if you are the search of an excellent insurance for its animal of esteem you could be calm mpois you go to find diverse options pets each one better that to other to leave safe its animal that you in such a way love it.
Then now only it needs to relax and to leave Car Insurance to more decide its main problems of security, and alive what you in such a way like.
tags: kwik-fitinsurance,key cover,pets,Car Insurance
Always the best options in fine metals for its house
I always look the best one will be my house in the ware part and metals will be the bathroom, thinking about this eats me the head Taps4Less meet there of everything so that its to prettier bathroom and kitchen ploughs each time.
there anger finds only what it exists of prettier in metals Minimalist-Taps possesss the taps sofsticadas of the market everything to leave its home with a touch much more requintado of that already is.
The values of the prices of Kitchen-Taps are very accessible, therefore it is the best place so that you it can adquirir what it has of and better more modern in the hidraulíco market of nowadays.
then it does not leave to have in its house what it possesss of better in the metal market for bathroom and cooks always has what has of more modern and sofsticado of the market in its home Taps is the solution.
tags: Taps4Less,Minimalist-Taps,Kitchen-Taps,Taps
there anger finds only what it exists of prettier in metals Minimalist-Taps possesss the taps sofsticadas of the market everything to leave its home with a touch much more requintado of that already is.
The values of the prices of Kitchen-Taps are very accessible, therefore it is the best place so that you it can adquirir what it has of and better more modern in the hidraulíco market of nowadays.
then it does not leave to have in its house what it possesss of better in the metal market for bathroom and cooks always has what has of more modern and sofsticado of the market in its home Taps is the solution.
tags: Taps4Less,Minimalist-Taps,Kitchen-Taps,Taps
Conklin-Fangman Car Dealership Ad
Closer Than You Think Here’s the deal…I know that when you’re looking for a Missouri car dealer that you want to find the very best quality new and used vehicles.
Well here’s the catch…Conklin Fangman, the Kansas City, Missouri used cars experts, has the best selection of all the new and used cars that you’ve been looking for in one great location.
Why not check them out today and save yourself time searching other places that won’t have the car that you want anyways. Trust me…you’ll be glad you saved yourself the time.
tag : Missouri car dealer,Kansas City, Missouri used cars,Missouri used cars
Well here’s the catch…Conklin Fangman, the Kansas City, Missouri used cars experts, has the best selection of all the new and used cars that you’ve been looking for in one great location.
Why not check them out today and save yourself time searching other places that won’t have the car that you want anyways. Trust me…you’ll be glad you saved yourself the time.
tag : Missouri car dealer,Kansas City, Missouri used cars,Missouri used cars
Telecommunications Ad
I know that now, more than ever, finding quality network hardware can be pricey and difficult at best.
Thankfully, First Point has a great selection of the best Tellabs Telecom parts,used MetaSwitch telecommunication equipment and ADC telecommunication equipment available.
Whether you're looking to start upgrade your telecommunications equipment or you're starting from scratch, First Point is the best way to get started without going bankrupt.
Check them out today and you'll see why I can't stop recommending them to everybody I meet in the telecom field.
tags : Telecommunications Equipment,Telecom Cables,Telecom Reseller,Telecom Repair,Telecommunications Cables
Thankfully, First Point has a great selection of the best Tellabs Telecom parts,used MetaSwitch telecommunication equipment and ADC telecommunication equipment available.
Whether you're looking to start upgrade your telecommunications equipment or you're starting from scratch, First Point is the best way to get started without going bankrupt.
Check them out today and you'll see why I can't stop recommending them to everybody I meet in the telecom field.
tags : Telecommunications Equipment,Telecom Cables,Telecom Reseller,Telecom Repair,Telecommunications Cables
Software Outsourcing Ad
Many analysts point to China as the next vigorous offshore outsourcing market and with good reason.
China represents a strong outsourcing environment and continues to prove itself as a smart choice for your next software outsourcing project. China outsourcing provides a large talent pool, an English proficient population and great project management skills.
Hundsun is the leading software company in Zhejiang province, China, and one of the Top 10 software companies in China, utilizing their own offshore development centers.
tag : china outsourcing,software outsourcing china,software outsourcing,china software development cost
China represents a strong outsourcing environment and continues to prove itself as a smart choice for your next software outsourcing project. China outsourcing provides a large talent pool, an English proficient population and great project management skills.
Hundsun is the leading software company in Zhejiang province, China, and one of the Top 10 software companies in China, utilizing their own offshore development centers.
tag : china outsourcing,software outsourcing china,software outsourcing,china software development cost
The best InterNet of high speed
You do not need more to look for best the serving Broadband with high speed cheap broadband for a cost that is almost of favour, you do not wait more to usufruct of the best system of InterNet of the current market.
The system seems simple more goes le to bring a great performance in performance of conecção, for that you up can usufruct do maximum to 8Mb download speed broadband supplier that high is a speed and leave its friends dying of envy.
This is a new system more already with very sanctions in the world-wide market sejá plus one to be able to use it of this excellent system therefore it does not leave to visit BT Total Broadband and it uses to advantage what the InterNet of high speed has le to offer of better.
tags: cheap broadband,BT Total Broadband,broadband supplier
The system seems simple more goes le to bring a great performance in performance of conecção, for that you up can usufruct do maximum to 8Mb download speed broadband supplier that high is a speed and leave its friends dying of envy.
This is a new system more already with very sanctions in the world-wide market sejá plus one to be able to use it of this excellent system therefore it does not leave to visit BT Total Broadband and it uses to advantage what the InterNet of high speed has le to offer of better.
tags: cheap broadband,BT Total Broadband,broadband supplier
Best and the faster InterNet of the world
Thinking about high técnologia of InterNet in them wireless comes the head BT Total Broadband and for very low value it found, it is much technology you to be able to enjoy best of and the faster InterNet of the world.
If you search to expand its businesses in the field of the InterNet that every day crece more the BT Total Broadband has everything what you are looking for with one total security that you deserve.
If you already this thought about having the best InterNet without wi-fi wire of the world is its chance, it does not wait more and it acquires what of better in InterNet for the world.
tags: BT Total Broadband,wi-fi
If you search to expand its businesses in the field of the InterNet that every day crece more the BT Total Broadband has everything what you are looking for with one total security that you deserve.
If you already this thought about having the best InterNet without wi-fi wire of the world is its chance, it does not wait more and it acquires what of better in InterNet for the world.
tags: BT Total Broadband,wi-fi
The agency certain to find workers qualified
If stays the search of hand of qualified workmanship in the Edinburgh, UK, Scotland, Glasgow has the certain person for this job, proficiencies highly trained for the most diverse ' reads of work so that you it can be satisfied with its employee.
Either will be provisory work or one will be permanent job you go you enlist the certain person will be this function, without leaving you desire will be none to another agency of conscription Recruitment Services in Edinburgh you have everything that you goes you need you guarantee that its businesses have excellent profits.
Then va in recruitment, temporary, permanent, vacancies etc. does not wait more and contracts the best professional to place its company in the top of the best companies of the world.
tags: Edinburgh, UK, Scotland, Glasgow,Recruitment Services in Edinburgh,recruitment, temporary, permanent, vacancies etc.
Either will be provisory work or one will be permanent job you go you enlist the certain person will be this function, without leaving you desire will be none to another agency of conscription Recruitment Services in Edinburgh you have everything that you goes you need you guarantee that its businesses have excellent profits.
Then va in recruitment, temporary, permanent, vacancies etc. does not wait more and contracts the best professional to place its company in the top of the best companies of the world.
tags: Edinburgh, UK, Scotland, Glasgow,Recruitment Services in Edinburgh,recruitment, temporary, permanent, vacancies etc.
The form fastest to reconstruct its I credit
If you need one you credit and you are passing much difficulty for conseguiz it badcreditoffers you are the certain place.
There you anger to find to diversar forms to have its set free credit of fast form e, does not lose this chance of being able to usufruct of a good credit.
Then it does not need more to pass for ackward situations va in bad credit loans and retakes its life to the normal one.
tags: badcreditoffers,bad credit loans
There you anger to find to diversar forms to have its set free credit of fast form e, does not lose this chance of being able to usufruct of a good credit.
Then it does not need more to pass for ackward situations va in bad credit loans and retakes its life to the normal one.
tags: badcreditoffers,bad credit loans
The solution pra pains of the nervous system
The definitive cure for occured pains for the nervous system is next rezilientback is the definitive solution, developed and tested for one of the best laboratories of the world sufficiently it is evoluido and it promises one high recovery in patients in I serve as apprentice advanced.
Science each ves advances more in remedies to cure doênças of the nerves therefore with our day day always finishes having incomodações and problems that nor always finish being decided with calm and tranquillity ai we go behind a remedy that in brings them alliviates.
Therefore rezilientback goes to be the solution for all the problems of the nerves that a great part of the world-wide population bothers.
tags: rezilientback
Science each ves advances more in remedies to cure doênças of the nerves therefore with our day day always finishes having incomodações and problems that nor always finish being decided with calm and tranquillity ai we go behind a remedy that in brings them alliviates.
Therefore rezilientback goes to be the solution for all the problems of the nerves that a great part of the world-wide population bothers.
tags: rezilientback
What it exists of improves in software for car
If stays the search of the best technology in software for its Shopping cart software car has the solution, la you go to find what exite of better in tecnologiate tip to become its much more functional car and I practise.
does not need more to be looking for high technology shopping cart le offers what it is best in the world-wide technology in veiculos, does not leave to always have more easiness and comfort in its car.
It always has an excellent newness in that it has of better for the world of the cars so that you always it can best have in technology ecommerce software that more are commercialized in the world-wide market, and that they always offer to a very superior performance the competition.
Then best software for its I propagate you finds always a quality there excellent so that she can usufruct of that its automobile exists of mark potential pro.
tags: Shopping cart software,shopping cart,ecommerce software
does not need more to be looking for high technology shopping cart le offers what it is best in the world-wide technology in veiculos, does not leave to always have more easiness and comfort in its car.
It always has an excellent newness in that it has of better for the world of the cars so that you always it can best have in technology ecommerce software that more are commercialized in the world-wide market, and that they always offer to a very superior performance the competition.
Then best software for its I propagate you finds always a quality there excellent so that she can usufruct of that its automobile exists of mark potential pro.
tags: Shopping cart software,shopping cart,ecommerce software
Best softwares for automobiles of the market
If stays the search of a good program for automation of Shopping cart software Shopping automobiles cart software is the solution of its search, counting with that it has of better in technology of the highest quality, development of systems for each ves to become more practises the life of who directed.
Thinking always about the one that has better of in automotiva technology shopping cart it always offers best software very alem of its competition providing much more tranquillity and security who needs to direct.
tags: Shopping cart software,shopping cart,ecommerce software
Thinking always about the one that has better of in automotiva technology shopping cart it always offers best software very alem of its competition providing much more tranquillity and security who needs to direct.
tags: Shopping cart software,shopping cart,ecommerce software
Now you go to earn in the lottery
If you he is betting a born one of lottery and it never obtained to earn, needs to know the solution for its problems E-lottery you has much more possibility of if consecrating plus a winner.
It total possesss an original game elottery news , that goes to provide much more diversion to you and with more advantages, exceeding all mathematical proagnosticos 702% greater that in a normal lottery britânicaum and 3,600% of if gaining millions of euros, and does not have restriction any person of any place of the world can participate.
I myself I always participate of this lottery lottery syndicate, therefore I have certesa of one day I will be plus one two many millionaire of the world.
tags: E-lottery,elottery news,lottery syndicate
It total possesss an original game elottery news , that goes to provide much more diversion to you and with more advantages, exceeding all mathematical proagnosticos 702% greater that in a normal lottery britânicaum and 3,600% of if gaining millions of euros, and does not have restriction any person of any place of the world can participate.
I myself I always participate of this lottery lottery syndicate, therefore I have certesa of one day I will be plus one two many millionaire of the world.
tags: E-lottery,elottery news,lottery syndicate
The best place to find the gift certain
If you search the place certain to find the best gift to give of gift the people most special of its saw visionbedding has of everything how much it is present you to be able to please well that le is so special.
It does not leave to pass unfurnished a so special moment I will choose what of the best one presentear the person who le provided as much joy in its life, and that it is always its side.
I taste always of presentear who I love and Personalized Baby Girl Gifts has been the place certain for me to find the gift so special.
tags: visionbedding ,gift,Personalized Baby Girl Gifts
It does not leave to pass unfurnished a so special moment I will choose what of the best one presentear the person who le provided as much joy in its life, and that it is always its side.
I taste always of presentear who I love and Personalized Baby Girl Gifts has been the place certain for me to find the gift so special.
tags: visionbedding ,gift,Personalized Baby Girl Gifts
The best advice for the loving problems
Bettercaring is the place that you go to find the answers for the loving problems, all in passes them for these types of problems and there you go to find the solution for these problems.
All or any type of problem with relation to its love you finds the reply there, is not far of who you loves due to agreement, care information goes le to show to the reply for all its doubts.
If care home does not worry more about the loving problems has all the answers for its endless questions, does not lose plus that so special person for you nor magoe who you loves with words.
tags: bettercaring,care information ,care home
All or any type of problem with relation to its love you finds the reply there, is not far of who you loves due to agreement, care information goes le to show to the reply for all its doubts.
If care home does not worry more about the loving problems has all the answers for its endless questions, does not lose plus that so special person for you nor magoe who you loves with words.
tags: bettercaring,care information ,care home
The best place to meet best softwares
If stays the search of best softwares ashop is the certain place, goes to be able to find what if it has of better the level of software of last generation for all the areas of the market depending on its necessity will be able to choose what le to provide performance better.
Ashop world-wide is known as one of best in the software branch being always the awardee in diverse sectors of the world-wide market then can be alliviated that you go to be in excellent hands to acquire what exists of better in tip technology.
I always gave to priority for the high technology in my company therefore use softwares of therefore I only know there that I am acquiring what he exists of better in technology in the market currently, then does not leave its competitors to exceed its negocios acquires what he exists of better.
tags: ashop ,shopping cart overview,shopping cart
Ashop world-wide is known as one of best in the software branch being always the awardee in diverse sectors of the world-wide market then can be alliviated that you go to be in excellent hands to acquire what exists of better in tip technology.
I always gave to priority for the high technology in my company therefore use softwares of therefore I only know there that I am acquiring what he exists of better in technology in the market currently, then does not leave its competitors to exceed its negocios acquires what he exists of better.
tags: ashop ,shopping cart overview,shopping cart
The vacuum cleaners most powerful of the world
If you are tired of these weak vacuum cleaners that do not suck nothing and alone its problems make you to lose its Dyson time are the solution for all, you possess the vacuum cleaners most efficient of the market.
These vacuum cleaners are exported to all the regions of the world, had its boundary line quality and efficiency is the preferred ones for companies of limpesa and to be used for domestic use.
I myself I ordered to come one for my house to help my wife in the limpesa, why always I gave priority for eficiêntes products and that they facilitate the work for my wife for it if to dedicate more time for me and pra my family.
Then not desperdi its time, also buys one of the best vacuum cleaners and stronger of the world and makes an investment to facilitate its limpesa.
tags: cylinder ,handhelds,Dyson parts
These vacuum cleaners are exported to all the regions of the world, had its boundary line quality and efficiency is the preferred ones for companies of limpesa and to be used for domestic use.
I myself I ordered to come one for my house to help my wife in the limpesa, why always I gave priority for eficiêntes products and that they facilitate the work for my wife for it if to dedicate more time for me and pra my family.
Then not desperdi its time, also buys one of the best vacuum cleaners and stronger of the world and makes an investment to facilitate its limpesa.
tags: cylinder ,handhelds,Dyson parts
The certain place of who plays to poker
For you as I whom a game of poker adores topusaonlinecasinos it is the solution therefore shows the best sites of poker of the InterNet.
It finds a series of directed sites to provide what you exist better of in the best casinos of the InterNet to have many hours of relaxation and pleasure.
I myself I adore a good departure of poker, then if you plus one it is vitiated to poker topusaonlinecasinos is certain visit and good game.
tags: top online poker room,sportsbook,poker-room,sitemap
It finds a series of directed sites to provide what you exist better of in the best casinos of the InterNet to have many hours of relaxation and pleasure.
I myself I adore a good departure of poker, then if you plus one it is vitiated to poker topusaonlinecasinos is certain visit and good game.
tags: top online poker room,sportsbook,poker-room,sitemap
The certain loan in the hour of bigger squeeze
There if its problem will be CashAdvance1500.com loan is the solution, you goes to find diverse types of chances of excellent loans.
Without much bureaucracy it has its value requested in the hour, without having that to be if worrying about some difficulties to obtain its loan.
I myself very already fis loans in the CashAdvance1500.com therefore always I am wanting to expand my businesses not to be exceeded by the competition.
tags: CashAdvance1500.com,Getting Approved for Your Payday Loan ,How It Works ,payday loan
Without much bureaucracy it has its value requested in the hour, without having that to be if worrying about some difficulties to obtain its loan.
I myself very already fis loans in the CashAdvance1500.com therefore always I am wanting to expand my businesses not to be exceeded by the competition.
tags: CashAdvance1500.com,Getting Approved for Your Payday Loan ,How It Works ,payday loan
Its paradise of casino
If you he is as I one vitiated in casino pro360.com is the solution of its problems, I I adore a good game and there it is certain ticket every day.
It goes to be able to participate of a list of the best casinos that has for the InterNet and being plus a winner.
It does not lose more time and it goes la right now I wait who to you knows we do not dispute a emotive one twirled.
You it will have many chances of if to consecrate a winner in poker in pro360.com, together with some winners the ones that always play la therefore they find the best tables with much competition and adrenalin in this emotive competition.
Then it is not of it are of this goes in the certain place of poker, and we can nosa face who knows in a emotive super departure during the matches, is not of it are of this.
tags: online poker,video poker,roulette,poker
It goes to be able to participate of a list of the best casinos that has for the InterNet and being plus a winner.
It does not lose more time and it goes la right now I wait who to you knows we do not dispute a emotive one twirled.
You it will have many chances of if to consecrate a winner in poker in pro360.com, together with some winners the ones that always play la therefore they find the best tables with much competition and adrenalin in this emotive competition.
Then it is not of it are of this goes in the certain place of poker, and we can nosa face who knows in a emotive super departure during the matches, is not of it are of this.
tags: online poker,video poker,roulette,poker
Best shop of electronic of the net
Everything what you search in electronic you find there in savebuckets has everything, excellent offers.
You go to find of everything and with prices that are very cheap in its budget therefore savebuckets is the place certain pra to look electronic savebuckets.
I myself always I make electronic purchases la for me and my friends.
tags: mp3players ,home,faq,laptop
You go to find of everything and with prices that are very cheap in its budget therefore savebuckets is the place certain pra to look electronic savebuckets.
I myself always I make electronic purchases la for me and my friends.
tags: mp3players ,home,faq,laptop
The sophisticated jewels more of the world
Jamesallen is the place for you that it looks a fine jewel for occasions special or if you is one loving of walks using what of finer in jewel.
I gave for my wife already two wonderful rings of therefore I make question of sample for all there the high society my purchasing power and the flaring woman who I am married.
It also makes you the same it goes in the Jamesallen and it buys what of the best one a jewel for its wife, son, loving mother or.
Tags:engagement rings,diamonds,wedding rings
I gave for my wife already two wonderful rings of therefore I make question of sample for all there the high society my purchasing power and the flaring woman who I am married.
It also makes you the same it goes in the Jamesallen and it buys what of the best one a jewel for its wife, son, loving mother or.
Tags:engagement rings,diamonds,wedding rings
Smorty the best system for bloggers
Smorty is a system that grants money webmasters so that they create posts on diverse subjects.
Each post varies of in agreement value what it was stipulated by its advertiser, and after post to be accepted, created and submitted it passes for an evaluation to know if it is in accordance with the order if it will be to webmaster will receive the value from offers.
To participate of this system it is very easy it is enough to register in cadastre themselves in get paid for blogging and to wait to be approved and will see some offers for you already to initiate to postar, ai is alone to wait that the offers are approved, ai in a well short time you already receives the value.
You it will only be able to initiate other after offers to have completed offers previous and to have submitted, you if one of the offers of the advertisers finds exempts to choose enters any.
tags: contact ,profile,affiliates
Each post varies of in agreement value what it was stipulated by its advertiser, and after post to be accepted, created and submitted it passes for an evaluation to know if it is in accordance with the order if it will be to webmaster will receive the value from offers.
To participate of this system it is very easy it is enough to register in cadastre themselves in get paid for blogging and to wait to be approved and will see some offers for you already to initiate to postar, ai is alone to wait that the offers are approved, ai in a well short time you already receives the value.
You it will only be able to initiate other after offers to have completed offers previous and to have submitted, you if one of the offers of the advertisers finds exempts to choose enters any.
tags: contact ,profile,affiliates
High technology respecting the environment
Thinking about high technology and respect to the environment where we live I knew edsgrp the best company in the technological branch and that it invests heavy in the preservation of the nature.
It counts on system of finishes generation for software development and the hardware without harming our world where we live therefore edsgrp is one of the most cited technological companies of the world.
I myself when necessary of a system I always look edsgrp, therefore I am worried very about the world where alive, it also makes you its part.
Sponsored Post
edsgrp
tags: services compliance,services,webinars
It counts on system of finishes generation for software development and the hardware without harming our world where we live therefore edsgrp is one of the most cited technological companies of the world.
I myself when necessary of a system I always look edsgrp, therefore I am worried very about the world where alive, it also makes you its part.
Sponsored Post
edsgrp
tags: services compliance,services,webinars
All the beauty of the stainless steel
Thinking about Utilitarian for its day in stainless steel
thestainlesssteelstore it is the certain place, la you goes to find of everything in steel.
It possesss diverse models for all the types of more demanding people,
thestainlesssteelstore possesss relax, billboard, work, cousin etc everything that it needs to complete
the requinte of its home or office.
I buy I vary parts of la and I adored, therefore I adore steel stainless and has one more glamour being of thestainlesssteelstore , then the o does not lose more time to have you well luxury its side.
Sponsored Post
thestainlesssteelstore
tags: steel,Relax,Primo
thestainlesssteelstore it is the certain place, la you goes to find of everything in steel.
It possesss diverse models for all the types of more demanding people,
thestainlesssteelstore possesss relax, billboard, work, cousin etc everything that it needs to complete
the requinte of its home or office.
I buy I vary parts of la and I adored, therefore I adore steel stainless and has one more glamour being of thestainlesssteelstore , then the o does not lose more time to have you well luxury its side.
Sponsored Post
thestainlesssteelstore
tags: steel,Relax,Primo
Superiorrugs the place of best carpets of the world
Stays looking for classics carpets of high quality and with a special requinte superiorrugs is the certain place la you goes to find everything how much it is type of carpet for all the people most demanding of the world, it has carpets contemporaries,traditional with very cheap prices.
They are carpets of diverse sizes depending on the taste of the customer has carpets of 4x6, 6x9 and 9x11 as the special one that you it wants to fill, if its taste is of an expensive carpet more is with little money to spend has excellent offers in accordance with its budget so that you have always left satisfied and congtente with its new carpet.
Carpets of all the types of material, nylon: that he is much more easy of being kept clean and always leaves it new and its shining and always alive colors, wools: for those people who do not excuse luxurious carpets, Olefin: it resists the spots and to the consuming of it always cleans-sas them if keeping in good condition, polyester: much macies and comfort, acrylic: seemed with the wool more with a cost much more cheap then you find of everything how much it is type.
The carpets come of the most diverse parts of the world, the Europe, Americas, old Asia of Africa so that you it can enjoy of all the world-wide culture in the requinte of its house, for cheap super prices to have a little of the culture and to enjoy of the comfort of its carpet, I myself adore to lie down themselves in the room in my carpet to attend a good film or a departure of soccer in the TV, have well great in the room ai I catch lie down and use to advantage all the moments, then if estáis looking for for carpets of quality, modern, traditional or classics with a very cheap price superiorrugs is the certain place for its search.
Tags:area rugs ,rugs ,cheap rugs ,cheap area rugs ,discount area rugs
They are carpets of diverse sizes depending on the taste of the customer has carpets of 4x6, 6x9 and 9x11 as the special one that you it wants to fill, if its taste is of an expensive carpet more is with little money to spend has excellent offers in accordance with its budget so that you have always left satisfied and congtente with its new carpet.
Carpets of all the types of material, nylon: that he is much more easy of being kept clean and always leaves it new and its shining and always alive colors, wools: for those people who do not excuse luxurious carpets, Olefin: it resists the spots and to the consuming of it always cleans-sas them if keeping in good condition, polyester: much macies and comfort, acrylic: seemed with the wool more with a cost much more cheap then you find of everything how much it is type.
The carpets come of the most diverse parts of the world, the Europe, Americas, old Asia of Africa so that you it can enjoy of all the world-wide culture in the requinte of its house, for cheap super prices to have a little of the culture and to enjoy of the comfort of its carpet, I myself adore to lie down themselves in the room in my carpet to attend a good film or a departure of soccer in the TV, have well great in the room ai I catch lie down and use to advantage all the moments, then if estáis looking for for carpets of quality, modern, traditional or classics with a very cheap price superiorrugs is the certain place for its search.
Tags:area rugs ,rugs ,cheap rugs ,cheap area rugs ,discount area rugs
Bloggerwave: the best friend to your blog
Searching the InterNet the search of new features I came across myself with bloggerwave , a company would be European who paid the blogueiros for dispatch by post certain subjects in its blogs.
Then if you have good blog quoted well and with a good visitation she does not lose time and if she registers in cadastre in this system that one of best of the InterNet bloggerwave
Tags:bloggerwave ,Make Money
Then if you have good blog quoted well and with a good visitation she does not lose time and if she registers in cadastre in this system that one of best of the InterNet bloggerwave
Tags:bloggerwave ,Make Money
Bloggerwave: the best friend to your blog
Searching the InterNet the search of new features I came across myself with bloggerwave, a company would be European who paid the blogueiros for dispatch by post certain subjects in its blogs.
Se você tem um blog bem cotado e bem divulgado não fique de fora desta va
http://www.bloggerwave.com
Se você tem um blog bem cotado e bem divulgado não fique de fora desta va
http://www.bloggerwave.com
Bloggerwave: the best friend to your blog
Vasculhando a internet a procura de novidades me deparei com o bloggerwave , uma empresa seria europeia que paga os blogueiros para postarem certos assuntos em seus blogs.
Investment Firm Names Gore as a Partner
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 12 — Deepening his ties to Silicon Valley, former Vice President Al Gore said on Monday that he had become a partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
The alliance provides Mr. Gore an additional pulpit for his advocacy of environmental causes, but also gives the Nobel laureate an opportunity to nurture green businesses.
Venture capitalists said the move could help companies financed by Kleiner establish ties with big business and government, and obtain subsidies that encourage broader use of new technologies.
Mr. Gore’s part-time duties will entail investigating the growth potential of start-up companies focused on the alternative energy sector, and then weighing in on whether Kleiner Perkins should finance those companies.
Mr. Gore said he would donate his salary from the venture to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit policy foundation.
Venture capitalist partners also typically earn a management fee of 2 percent of the amount of money they invest, but the potential for huge returns comes from the 20 percent they take of the profit when the start-ups they have supported go public or are acquired.
Kleiner Perkins declined to say whether Mr. Gore would receive a management fee or participate in profit sharing, noting that matters of compensation are private.“I will pull my share of the load at Kleiner Perkins,” Mr. Gore said in an interview. “I will be involved in a lot of activities.”
Mr. Gore is no stranger to Silicon Valley. He sits on the board of Apple, and has an advisory role with Google. He is co-founder and chairman of Current TV, a television network based in San Francisco that broadcasts viewer-created content.
The Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2000, Mr. Gore keeps an apartment in San Francisco and spends five to six days a month in the area; a portion of that time will now be spent at Kleiner Perkins, which is based in Menlo Park, Mr. Gore said.
John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who is a strong advocate for the development of alternative energy technologies, said Mr. Gore would help the firm, one of Silicon Valley’s largest, attract innovative start-ups — an advantage in the firm’s competition with other venture capitalists.
Silicon Valley’s venture firms have focused increasingly on financing alternative energy start-ups, so-called clean-tech companies.
The early investors are banking heavily — risking billions of dollars — on the proposition that solar power, various forms of ethanol, and other innovations will benefit as oil prices rise and federal and state government increase incentives for use of alternatives to oil.
Thus far, though, few of the alternative energy start-ups have rendered big payoffs for investors. The investments are relatively recent, and venture capitalists say it takes time for start-ups to grow to where their services are ready for the mass market.
But the other more fundamental challenge is that oil and gas provide most of the world’s fuel, and displacing them in a cost-effective way presents an enormous challenge.
Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and author of the blog Infectious Greed, said that Mr. Gore’s new role could benefit start-up companies by providing guidance through the political process.
For instance, Mr. Kedrosky said, Mr. Gore would now have a financial incentive to push for subsidies, like the tax incentives or rebates that have buoyed the solar industry, or to provide start-ups with important connections in government and big business.
“Anyone who thinks this is happening because Al has fantastic clean-tech entrepreneurial chops is fooling themselves,” Mr. Kedrosky said. Alternative energy “is a policy issue, a political issue, and that requires connections to get things done.”
Mr. Gore “is a political rainmaker,” Mr. Kedrosky said. The association between Kleiner and Mr. Gore “just means that clean tech is an inherently political exercise.”
It is not unusual for politicians and other celebrities to join venture firms, or other investment companies, at least in some capacity. Former President Bill Clinton was an adviser to the financier Ronald W. Burkle, and Bono, the singer from U2, has an affiliation with Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley investment firm.
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell serves as a strategic limited partner for Kleiner Perkins, a considerably less intimate role than that Mr. Gore takes as a partner. Former President George H. W. Bush has had a relationship with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.
As part of the affiliation announced on Monday, Kleiner Perkins said it would collaborate with Generation Investment Management to find and finance clean-tech start-ups globally. Generation, which is based in Britain and was co-founded by Mr. Gore, focuses on investing in larger operations and later-stage companies focused on clean tech.
Mr. Gore has said he did not expect to be a candidate for the presidency in 2008, and he reiterated that position in an interview Monday.
“I don’t expect to be a candidate again,” he said.
Tags:energy ,Names ,Investment ,political
The alliance provides Mr. Gore an additional pulpit for his advocacy of environmental causes, but also gives the Nobel laureate an opportunity to nurture green businesses.
Venture capitalists said the move could help companies financed by Kleiner establish ties with big business and government, and obtain subsidies that encourage broader use of new technologies.
Mr. Gore’s part-time duties will entail investigating the growth potential of start-up companies focused on the alternative energy sector, and then weighing in on whether Kleiner Perkins should finance those companies.
Mr. Gore said he would donate his salary from the venture to the Alliance for Climate Protection, a nonprofit policy foundation.
Venture capitalist partners also typically earn a management fee of 2 percent of the amount of money they invest, but the potential for huge returns comes from the 20 percent they take of the profit when the start-ups they have supported go public or are acquired.
Kleiner Perkins declined to say whether Mr. Gore would receive a management fee or participate in profit sharing, noting that matters of compensation are private.“I will pull my share of the load at Kleiner Perkins,” Mr. Gore said in an interview. “I will be involved in a lot of activities.”
Mr. Gore is no stranger to Silicon Valley. He sits on the board of Apple, and has an advisory role with Google. He is co-founder and chairman of Current TV, a television network based in San Francisco that broadcasts viewer-created content.
The Democratic Party presidential nominee in 2000, Mr. Gore keeps an apartment in San Francisco and spends five to six days a month in the area; a portion of that time will now be spent at Kleiner Perkins, which is based in Menlo Park, Mr. Gore said.
John Doerr, a partner at Kleiner Perkins who is a strong advocate for the development of alternative energy technologies, said Mr. Gore would help the firm, one of Silicon Valley’s largest, attract innovative start-ups — an advantage in the firm’s competition with other venture capitalists.
Silicon Valley’s venture firms have focused increasingly on financing alternative energy start-ups, so-called clean-tech companies.
The early investors are banking heavily — risking billions of dollars — on the proposition that solar power, various forms of ethanol, and other innovations will benefit as oil prices rise and federal and state government increase incentives for use of alternatives to oil.
Thus far, though, few of the alternative energy start-ups have rendered big payoffs for investors. The investments are relatively recent, and venture capitalists say it takes time for start-ups to grow to where their services are ready for the mass market.
But the other more fundamental challenge is that oil and gas provide most of the world’s fuel, and displacing them in a cost-effective way presents an enormous challenge.
Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and author of the blog Infectious Greed, said that Mr. Gore’s new role could benefit start-up companies by providing guidance through the political process.
For instance, Mr. Kedrosky said, Mr. Gore would now have a financial incentive to push for subsidies, like the tax incentives or rebates that have buoyed the solar industry, or to provide start-ups with important connections in government and big business.
“Anyone who thinks this is happening because Al has fantastic clean-tech entrepreneurial chops is fooling themselves,” Mr. Kedrosky said. Alternative energy “is a policy issue, a political issue, and that requires connections to get things done.”
Mr. Gore “is a political rainmaker,” Mr. Kedrosky said. The association between Kleiner and Mr. Gore “just means that clean tech is an inherently political exercise.”
It is not unusual for politicians and other celebrities to join venture firms, or other investment companies, at least in some capacity. Former President Bill Clinton was an adviser to the financier Ronald W. Burkle, and Bono, the singer from U2, has an affiliation with Elevation Partners, a Silicon Valley investment firm.
Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell serves as a strategic limited partner for Kleiner Perkins, a considerably less intimate role than that Mr. Gore takes as a partner. Former President George H. W. Bush has had a relationship with the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm.
As part of the affiliation announced on Monday, Kleiner Perkins said it would collaborate with Generation Investment Management to find and finance clean-tech start-ups globally. Generation, which is based in Britain and was co-founded by Mr. Gore, focuses on investing in larger operations and later-stage companies focused on clean tech.
Mr. Gore has said he did not expect to be a candidate for the presidency in 2008, and he reiterated that position in an interview Monday.
“I don’t expect to be a candidate again,” he said.
Tags:energy ,Names ,Investment ,political
Hackers Infect Alicia Keys’s MySpace Page
The MySpace page of singer Alicia Keys has become the latest vehicle for malware on the Web.
Researchers at the Atlanta, GA-based Exploit Prevention Labs have discovered multiple hacked MySpace pages, including the personal page of the R&B artist. Also hacked were pages for Greements of Fortune, a French funk band, and Dykeenies, a rock band from Glasgow.
When visitors click almost anywhere on these infected site, they are directed to co8vd.cn/s, which appears to be a Chinese malware site. The visitors then see a box on their screen telling them they need to install a special codec to view the video – a legitimate possibility on any site rich in media. But if the visitor clicks ‘yes’, the site installs software that appears to be a rootkit and DNS changer. This would allow the hackers to take over what you see on your browser and what you download onto your computer.
“They are going to catch a lot of people with this one,” said Roger Thompson, chief technology officer of Exploit Prevent Labs. “This is a a very rich media page, as are most MySpace pages. There is every expectation you are going to see a video… It’s not at all unreasonable to think you might have to install something.”
Click here for Mr. Thompson’s video demonstration of the attack.
Mr. Thompson said MySpace is suffering from the major drawback to any practical, open platform for the masses. “Security and functionality exist in an inverse relationship,” he said. “The more functional you make anything, the less secure it tends to become.”
There is no explanation yet for how hackers injected their code into these MySpace pages. A MySpace spokeswoman said she would look into the matter.
UPDATE: MySpace believes members whose pages were infected with malware opened phishing emails and inadvertently installed the attack on their pages. In a statemennt, the company says: “Individuals who try to phish our members are violating the law and are not welcome on MySpace. We have blocked and removed the source of this phishing attempt and restored the profile.”
Tags:Hackers,MySpace ,Infect ,Alicia ,computer
Researchers at the Atlanta, GA-based Exploit Prevention Labs have discovered multiple hacked MySpace pages, including the personal page of the R&B artist. Also hacked were pages for Greements of Fortune, a French funk band, and Dykeenies, a rock band from Glasgow.
When visitors click almost anywhere on these infected site, they are directed to co8vd.cn/s, which appears to be a Chinese malware site. The visitors then see a box on their screen telling them they need to install a special codec to view the video – a legitimate possibility on any site rich in media. But if the visitor clicks ‘yes’, the site installs software that appears to be a rootkit and DNS changer. This would allow the hackers to take over what you see on your browser and what you download onto your computer.
“They are going to catch a lot of people with this one,” said Roger Thompson, chief technology officer of Exploit Prevent Labs. “This is a a very rich media page, as are most MySpace pages. There is every expectation you are going to see a video… It’s not at all unreasonable to think you might have to install something.”
Click here for Mr. Thompson’s video demonstration of the attack.
Mr. Thompson said MySpace is suffering from the major drawback to any practical, open platform for the masses. “Security and functionality exist in an inverse relationship,” he said. “The more functional you make anything, the less secure it tends to become.”
There is no explanation yet for how hackers injected their code into these MySpace pages. A MySpace spokeswoman said she would look into the matter.
UPDATE: MySpace believes members whose pages were infected with malware opened phishing emails and inadvertently installed the attack on their pages. In a statemennt, the company says: “Individuals who try to phish our members are violating the law and are not welcome on MySpace. We have blocked and removed the source of this phishing attempt and restored the profile.”
Tags:Hackers,MySpace ,Infect ,Alicia ,computer
Cheaperthanhotels the luxury maximum
If it is looking to hotel five stars in London, Manchester or Birmingham with all the comfort and quality. Cheaperthanhotels is the reply for its search all the best hotels you to consult which le pleases but.
A complete search for the best stays in these 3 cities and that it can use to advantage everything of its trips then it consults the Cheaperthanhotels, I myself all year I consult when it left vacation with my family I adore London I am not one year without visiting.
Then ai is my special tip for its trip does not lose time visits the Cheaperthanhotels and is programmed already so that it can use to advantage its trip to the maximum.
Sponsored Post
Cheaperthanhotels
Tags:Hotels in London,Hotels in Manchester ,Hotels in Birmingham
A complete search for the best stays in these 3 cities and that it can use to advantage everything of its trips then it consults the Cheaperthanhotels, I myself all year I consult when it left vacation with my family I adore London I am not one year without visiting.
Then ai is my special tip for its trip does not lose time visits the Cheaperthanhotels and is programmed already so that it can use to advantage its trip to the maximum.
Sponsored Post
Cheaperthanhotels
Tags:Hotels in London,Hotels in Manchester ,Hotels in Birmingham
Ultimate PC Reset Button
Are you tired of those tiny reset buttons on your PC? If the answer is “Yes!“, then we have a solution for you! In association with Maddy McBlast, our mad scientist, we give you…the ultimate reset button for your PC!
First of all, some introduction is necessary. In the time before Windows, all computers had a normal-sized reset button because, back then, computers required frequent resetting. And it was normal and nothing happened and it all worked well. You could even reset them with the famous “Ctrl+Alt+Del” key combo. Then came the Windows…and the rest is history. Excellent as Windows are (you do sense the irony in this, don’t you?), it is not a good practice to manually reset your computer “due to possible data loss“. I think that mainly because of that, you now get reset buttons sized as the ones on the PocketPC, that you have to push with a toothpick to activate. Both phoenixx and I used up all our toothpicks and realized that it was time for drastic measures! It looks like the more you spend on a computer case, the smaller the reset button is. See here:
The first reset button actually requires a toothpick, while the second one is nicely blended with the case so that you miss it with greater probability. Fortunately, Maddy McBlast has provided a solution for us:
Yes, it looks like a giant mushroom, but it’s not. We already tried eating it, so we know. It’s a button that is used in industry for stopping various machines and most important thing about it is that it can be activated in any direction. All you have to do is to hit it with something (like, a fist). Here’s another photo of it:
Connection is simple, and only two wires are necessary. Simply replace the original reset button on the case. We used three wires just because we could! No, seriously, the third wire is for future improvements (maybe for a LED?):
Looking at the pictures so far, you could have thought that we are just messing with you and that this button is even smaller than those pesky little reset buttons. So, just for you, we took a photo just for you…just for you…and you. What was I talking about? Oh yes, we took a photo just for you to see how it compares against other things:
So there you have it. No more will you need a toothpick or a pencil to reset your PC. No more will you be forced to use the Task Manager or the Start button to reset your PC. And you know what? Windows will even work better knowing that you have a huge reset button and that you could end their miserable virtual life in a second!
Tags:Reset ,Ultimate ,Button,Windows,virtual
First of all, some introduction is necessary. In the time before Windows, all computers had a normal-sized reset button because, back then, computers required frequent resetting. And it was normal and nothing happened and it all worked well. You could even reset them with the famous “Ctrl+Alt+Del” key combo. Then came the Windows…and the rest is history. Excellent as Windows are (you do sense the irony in this, don’t you?), it is not a good practice to manually reset your computer “due to possible data loss“. I think that mainly because of that, you now get reset buttons sized as the ones on the PocketPC, that you have to push with a toothpick to activate. Both phoenixx and I used up all our toothpicks and realized that it was time for drastic measures! It looks like the more you spend on a computer case, the smaller the reset button is. See here:
The first reset button actually requires a toothpick, while the second one is nicely blended with the case so that you miss it with greater probability. Fortunately, Maddy McBlast has provided a solution for us:
Yes, it looks like a giant mushroom, but it’s not. We already tried eating it, so we know. It’s a button that is used in industry for stopping various machines and most important thing about it is that it can be activated in any direction. All you have to do is to hit it with something (like, a fist). Here’s another photo of it:
Connection is simple, and only two wires are necessary. Simply replace the original reset button on the case. We used three wires just because we could! No, seriously, the third wire is for future improvements (maybe for a LED?):
Looking at the pictures so far, you could have thought that we are just messing with you and that this button is even smaller than those pesky little reset buttons. So, just for you, we took a photo just for you…just for you…and you. What was I talking about? Oh yes, we took a photo just for you to see how it compares against other things:
So there you have it. No more will you need a toothpick or a pencil to reset your PC. No more will you be forced to use the Task Manager or the Start button to reset your PC. And you know what? Windows will even work better knowing that you have a huge reset button and that you could end their miserable virtual life in a second!
Tags:Reset ,Ultimate ,Button,Windows,virtual
An Online-Gaming Pioneer Is Back, and This Time He’s Banking on Sci-Fi
AUSTIN, Tex. — At the age of 46, Richard Garriott is an old man by video game standards. In fact, when it comes to games on personal computers, he could be fairly described as the old man.
Mr. Garriott has been one of the world’s most famous game designers longer than almost anyone else. Starting in 1980 with Akalabeth and Ultima I, his early work defined home computer games as thoroughly as Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong defined the arcade experience.
The original Ultima series provided players with an expansive swords-and-sorcery fantasy world presided over by the majestic Lord British, a nickname for Mr. Garriott himself. But as with most early games, only one person could play at a time.
So in the mid-1990s Mr. Garriott had an idea that seemed ludicrous to most people in the game business: What if he could build a game world that thousands of people could inhabit at once, using their computers and a newly popular contraption known as a modem? The result in 1997 was Ultima Online, the first true “massively multiplayer” game and the progenitor of what is now the multibillion-dollar online game industry.
But Mr. Garriott has produced no hits since. The final title in the Ultima series, Ultima IX, produced in an atmosphere of corporate chaos in 1999 as Mr. Garriott severed ties with the giant publisher Electronic Arts, was an unqualified debacle of incoherent design and game-crashing bugs.
So while he remains a famous figure, an entire mini-generation of players has come along over the last decade who have never seen a new game by Mr. Garriott.
Now they can. After six years and at least $20 million in development, Lord British plans to introduce a new game on Friday bearing a title that may be as apt for its creator as it is for its players: Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa.
Tabula Rasa is a massively multiplayer online game, or M.M.O., like Ultima Online, EverQuest or World of Warcraft. But in making Tabula Rasa the first major science-fiction online game in years, Mr. Garriott has traded in spells for shotguns. While many online games feature complicated controls that may require 30 seconds or more to defeat a single foe, Tabula Rasa is based on hectic combat against legions of slavering aliens.
“I’ve been doing medieval fantasy for 25 years in a row, and it was just time to do something new,” Mr. Garriott, in his customary uniform of denim shirt, jeans, white tube socks and sneakers, said here at the offices of NCsoft, the South Korean company publishing the game. “The first element we wanted to focus on was fast-paced tactical combat. No. 2 was creating a dynamic battlefield where the player feels there is action going on around them all the time. And third was creating a story line that includes ethical parables and problems.”
Mr. Garriott said Tabula Rasa’s emphasis on quick action and tactical awareness — using cover and maneuvering around enemies — was a more realistic and immersive style than what he sees as most games’ emphasis on simply piling on the most powerful weapons and armor. In that sense he sees himself as putting the role back into role-playing games. And he is not above taking shots at the competition.
“As many kudos as I would like to give World of Warcraft, it’s basically a remake of EverQuest, just incredibly polished and refined,” he said. “There are harbingers of failure in that model. Everyone in these games is obsessed with the concept of how much damage-per-second they are inflicting and maximizing their D.P.S. When you do that, you are no longer playing a role; you are playing an inventory-management game.”
He added, “With Tabula Rasa we wanted the player to spend as much time as possible actually looking at the environment and what they’re shooting at.”
But for all the emphasis on beautiful laser beams and big explosions, Mr. Garriott has also tried to infuse the game with some emotional and ethical depth.
In fairly typical science-fiction fashion, Tabula Rasa’s story line revolves around the conflict between humanity and an alien race called the Bane. But there are twists.
“In most games you are simply the great hero and you save the day by defeating the great evil,” he said. “But in the real world many people can agree on a goal but disagree wildly about how to achieve it. In some areas we present the player with dilemmas akin to the global war on terror: How far are you prepared to go to do what you think is right? To defeat the Bane, are you prepared to poison a river that your peaceful allies depend on? Or to destroy large swaths of your allies’ forest home? Are your allies expendable in the sense that you’re fighting over there, so you don’t have to fight over here?”
It remains to be seen whether such elements will be embraced by or lost upon the gamers who have taken over the hobby since Lord British sold his first game in a Ziploc bag 27 years ago.
Tags:game ,Sci-Fi,player,British ,fiction
Mr. Garriott has been one of the world’s most famous game designers longer than almost anyone else. Starting in 1980 with Akalabeth and Ultima I, his early work defined home computer games as thoroughly as Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Donkey Kong defined the arcade experience.
The original Ultima series provided players with an expansive swords-and-sorcery fantasy world presided over by the majestic Lord British, a nickname for Mr. Garriott himself. But as with most early games, only one person could play at a time.
So in the mid-1990s Mr. Garriott had an idea that seemed ludicrous to most people in the game business: What if he could build a game world that thousands of people could inhabit at once, using their computers and a newly popular contraption known as a modem? The result in 1997 was Ultima Online, the first true “massively multiplayer” game and the progenitor of what is now the multibillion-dollar online game industry.
But Mr. Garriott has produced no hits since. The final title in the Ultima series, Ultima IX, produced in an atmosphere of corporate chaos in 1999 as Mr. Garriott severed ties with the giant publisher Electronic Arts, was an unqualified debacle of incoherent design and game-crashing bugs.
So while he remains a famous figure, an entire mini-generation of players has come along over the last decade who have never seen a new game by Mr. Garriott.
Now they can. After six years and at least $20 million in development, Lord British plans to introduce a new game on Friday bearing a title that may be as apt for its creator as it is for its players: Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa.
Tabula Rasa is a massively multiplayer online game, or M.M.O., like Ultima Online, EverQuest or World of Warcraft. But in making Tabula Rasa the first major science-fiction online game in years, Mr. Garriott has traded in spells for shotguns. While many online games feature complicated controls that may require 30 seconds or more to defeat a single foe, Tabula Rasa is based on hectic combat against legions of slavering aliens.
“I’ve been doing medieval fantasy for 25 years in a row, and it was just time to do something new,” Mr. Garriott, in his customary uniform of denim shirt, jeans, white tube socks and sneakers, said here at the offices of NCsoft, the South Korean company publishing the game. “The first element we wanted to focus on was fast-paced tactical combat. No. 2 was creating a dynamic battlefield where the player feels there is action going on around them all the time. And third was creating a story line that includes ethical parables and problems.”
Mr. Garriott said Tabula Rasa’s emphasis on quick action and tactical awareness — using cover and maneuvering around enemies — was a more realistic and immersive style than what he sees as most games’ emphasis on simply piling on the most powerful weapons and armor. In that sense he sees himself as putting the role back into role-playing games. And he is not above taking shots at the competition.
“As many kudos as I would like to give World of Warcraft, it’s basically a remake of EverQuest, just incredibly polished and refined,” he said. “There are harbingers of failure in that model. Everyone in these games is obsessed with the concept of how much damage-per-second they are inflicting and maximizing their D.P.S. When you do that, you are no longer playing a role; you are playing an inventory-management game.”
He added, “With Tabula Rasa we wanted the player to spend as much time as possible actually looking at the environment and what they’re shooting at.”
But for all the emphasis on beautiful laser beams and big explosions, Mr. Garriott has also tried to infuse the game with some emotional and ethical depth.
In fairly typical science-fiction fashion, Tabula Rasa’s story line revolves around the conflict between humanity and an alien race called the Bane. But there are twists.
“In most games you are simply the great hero and you save the day by defeating the great evil,” he said. “But in the real world many people can agree on a goal but disagree wildly about how to achieve it. In some areas we present the player with dilemmas akin to the global war on terror: How far are you prepared to go to do what you think is right? To defeat the Bane, are you prepared to poison a river that your peaceful allies depend on? Or to destroy large swaths of your allies’ forest home? Are your allies expendable in the sense that you’re fighting over there, so you don’t have to fight over here?”
It remains to be seen whether such elements will be embraced by or lost upon the gamers who have taken over the hobby since Lord British sold his first game in a Ziploc bag 27 years ago.
Tags:game ,Sci-Fi,player,British ,fiction
Privacy Lost: These Phones Can Find You
Two new questions arise, courtesy of the latest advancement in cellphone technology: Do you want your friends, family, or colleagues to know where you are at any given time? And do you want to know where they are?
Obvious benefits come to mind. Parents can take advantage of the Global Positioning System chips embedded in many cellphones to track the whereabouts of their phone-toting children.
And for teenagers and 20-somethings, who are fond of sharing their comings and goings on the Internet, youth-oriented services like Loopt and Buddy Beacon are a natural next step.
Sam Altman, the 22-year-old co-founder of Loopt, said he came up with the idea in early 2005 when he walked out of a lecture hall at Stanford.
“Two hundred students all pulled out their cellphones, called someone and said, ‘Where are you?’ ” he said. “People want to connect.”
But such services point to a new truth of modern life: If G.P.S. made it harder to get lost, new cellphone services are now making it harder to hide.
“There are massive changes going on in society, particularly among young people who feel comfortable sharing information in a digital society,” said Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco.
“We seem to be getting into a period where people are closely watching each other,” he said. “There are privacy risks we haven’t begun to grapple with.”
But the practical applications outweigh the worries for some converts.
Kyna Fong, a 24-year-old Stanford graduate student, uses Loopt, offered by Sprint Nextel. For $2.99 a month, she can see the location of friends who also have the service, represented by dots on a map on her phone, with labels identifying their names. They can also see where she is.
One night last summer she noticed on Loopt that friends she was meeting for dinner were 40 miles away, and would be late. Instead of waiting, Ms. Fong arranged her schedule to arrive when they did. “People don’t have to ask ‘Where are you?’” she said.
Ms. Fong can control whom she shares the service with, and if at any point she wants privacy, Ms. Fong can block access. Some people are not invited to join — like her mother.
“I don’t know if I’d want my mom knowing where I was all the time,” she said.
Some situations are not so clear-cut. What if a spouse wants some time alone and turns off the service? Why on earth, their better half may ask, are they doing that?
What if a boss asks an employee to use the service?
So far, the market for social-mapping is nascent — users number in the hundreds of thousands, industry experts estimate.
But almost 55 percent of all mobile phones sold today in the United States have the technology that makes such friend-and- family-tracking services possible, according to Current Analysis, which follows trends in technology.
So far, it is most popular, industry executives say, among the college set.
But others have found different uses. Mr. Altman said one customer bought it to keep track of a parent with Alzheimer’s. Helio, a mobile phone service provider that offers Buddy Beacon, said some small-business owners use it to track employees.
Consumers can turn off their service, making them invisible to people in their social-mapping network. Still, the G.P.S. service embedded in the phone means that your whereabouts are not a complete mystery.
“There is a Big Brother component,” said Charles S. Golvin, a wireless analyst at Forrester Research. “The thinking goes that if my friends can find me, the telephone company knows my location all the time, too.”
Phone companies say they are aware of the potential problems such services could cause.
If a friend-finding service is viewed as too intrusive, said Mark Collins, vice president for consumer data at AT&T’s wireless unit, “that is a negative for us.” Loopt and similar services say they do not keep electronic records of people’s whereabouts.
Mr. Altman of Loopt said that to protect better against unwelcome prying by, say, a former friend, Loopt users are sent text messages at random times, asking if they recognize a certain friend. If not, that person’s viewing ability is disabled.
Clay Harris, a 25-year-old freelance marketing executive in Memphis, says he uses Helio’s Buddy Beacon mostly to keep in touch with his friend Gregory Lotz. One night when Mr. Lotz was returning from a trip, Mr. Harris was happy to see his friend show up unannounced at a bar where he and some other friends had gathered.
“He had tried to reach me, but I didn’t hear my phone ring,” Mr. Harris said. “He just showed up and I thought, ‘Wow, this is great.’”
He would never think to block Mr. Lotz. But he would think twice before inviting a girlfriend into his social-mapping network. “Most definitely a girl would ask and wonder why I was blocking her,” he said.
Tags:Phones ,times,service,cellphone ,technology
Obvious benefits come to mind. Parents can take advantage of the Global Positioning System chips embedded in many cellphones to track the whereabouts of their phone-toting children.
And for teenagers and 20-somethings, who are fond of sharing their comings and goings on the Internet, youth-oriented services like Loopt and Buddy Beacon are a natural next step.
Sam Altman, the 22-year-old co-founder of Loopt, said he came up with the idea in early 2005 when he walked out of a lecture hall at Stanford.
“Two hundred students all pulled out their cellphones, called someone and said, ‘Where are you?’ ” he said. “People want to connect.”
But such services point to a new truth of modern life: If G.P.S. made it harder to get lost, new cellphone services are now making it harder to hide.
“There are massive changes going on in society, particularly among young people who feel comfortable sharing information in a digital society,” said Kevin Bankston, a staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco.
“We seem to be getting into a period where people are closely watching each other,” he said. “There are privacy risks we haven’t begun to grapple with.”
But the practical applications outweigh the worries for some converts.
Kyna Fong, a 24-year-old Stanford graduate student, uses Loopt, offered by Sprint Nextel. For $2.99 a month, she can see the location of friends who also have the service, represented by dots on a map on her phone, with labels identifying their names. They can also see where she is.
One night last summer she noticed on Loopt that friends she was meeting for dinner were 40 miles away, and would be late. Instead of waiting, Ms. Fong arranged her schedule to arrive when they did. “People don’t have to ask ‘Where are you?’” she said.
Ms. Fong can control whom she shares the service with, and if at any point she wants privacy, Ms. Fong can block access. Some people are not invited to join — like her mother.
“I don’t know if I’d want my mom knowing where I was all the time,” she said.
Some situations are not so clear-cut. What if a spouse wants some time alone and turns off the service? Why on earth, their better half may ask, are they doing that?
What if a boss asks an employee to use the service?
So far, the market for social-mapping is nascent — users number in the hundreds of thousands, industry experts estimate.
But almost 55 percent of all mobile phones sold today in the United States have the technology that makes such friend-and- family-tracking services possible, according to Current Analysis, which follows trends in technology.
So far, it is most popular, industry executives say, among the college set.
But others have found different uses. Mr. Altman said one customer bought it to keep track of a parent with Alzheimer’s. Helio, a mobile phone service provider that offers Buddy Beacon, said some small-business owners use it to track employees.
Consumers can turn off their service, making them invisible to people in their social-mapping network. Still, the G.P.S. service embedded in the phone means that your whereabouts are not a complete mystery.
“There is a Big Brother component,” said Charles S. Golvin, a wireless analyst at Forrester Research. “The thinking goes that if my friends can find me, the telephone company knows my location all the time, too.”
Phone companies say they are aware of the potential problems such services could cause.
If a friend-finding service is viewed as too intrusive, said Mark Collins, vice president for consumer data at AT&T’s wireless unit, “that is a negative for us.” Loopt and similar services say they do not keep electronic records of people’s whereabouts.
Mr. Altman of Loopt said that to protect better against unwelcome prying by, say, a former friend, Loopt users are sent text messages at random times, asking if they recognize a certain friend. If not, that person’s viewing ability is disabled.
Clay Harris, a 25-year-old freelance marketing executive in Memphis, says he uses Helio’s Buddy Beacon mostly to keep in touch with his friend Gregory Lotz. One night when Mr. Lotz was returning from a trip, Mr. Harris was happy to see his friend show up unannounced at a bar where he and some other friends had gathered.
“He had tried to reach me, but I didn’t hear my phone ring,” Mr. Harris said. “He just showed up and I thought, ‘Wow, this is great.’”
He would never think to block Mr. Lotz. But he would think twice before inviting a girlfriend into his social-mapping network. “Most definitely a girl would ask and wonder why I was blocking her,” he said.
Tags:Phones ,times,service,cellphone ,technology
Bomb Attack Kills Scores in Pakistan as Bhutto Returns
KARACHI, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 19 — Two bombs exploded Thursday just seconds apart and feet from a truck carrying the returning opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, narrowly missing her but killing scores of people and bloodying her triumphal homecoming after eight years in exile.
According to reports on local news stations late Friday morning, 134 people had been killed and about 400 wounded.
Ms. Bhutto, who had spent eight hours on the open roof of the truck waving to supporters, had climbed inside the armored vehicle 10 minutes before the blasts occurred just before midnight, said Rehman Malik, her security adviser and close associate.
She was immediately taken to Bilawal House, her home in Karachi. The parade through the city had been scheduled to end several miles away at the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
Ms. Bhutto’s arrival at 2 p.m. had drawn huge crowds, perhaps 200,000 or more, who danced on top of buses and surged forward as she inched her way for hours through her home city.
The strong outpouring provided an emotional homecoming for Ms. Bhutto and political vindication of sorts for a woman twice turned out of office as prime minister, after being accused of corruption and mismanagement.
It also demonstrated that she remained a potent political force in Pakistan, even after her long absence, and marked what supporters and opponents alike agreed was a new political chapter for the nation.
The violence that quickly followed showed it to be a treacherous one as well.
The explosions, caught on camera, gave off brilliant white flashes and set two cars ablaze. Survivors stumbled over bodies and debris in a haze of smoke. It was not immediately clear if the explosions were caused by suicide bombers, and there were no claims of responsibility.
“I can only say that I saw heaps of bodies lying over there,” said her adviser, Mr. Malik. He was standing at the front of the truck and was knocked down by the force of the blast, he said. His hair was burned.
“The damage could have been much worse had we not taken our own security arrangements,” he added.
The government had promised before Ms. Bhutto’s arrival to provide security. It had also asked her to delay returning. But Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party had fielded 2,000 of its own workers to form rings around their returning leader, guarding her with their numbers and preventing any vehicles or people from approaching.
Before the explosions sundered the celebration, thousands of supporters and workers from her party had lined Ms. Bhutto’s route, waving banners and surging forward for a glimpse of the opposition leader. Many danced in the road.
Ms. Bhutto waved as music pumped out from loudspeakers. The crowd was overwhelmingly working class. Many young men said they were unemployed, but had traveled hundreds of miles, paying their own way, and camping out overnight on the road to the airport to await her arrival.
In the crowd, Raja Munir Ahmed, 42, a real estate agent, said he had come from Mirpur in the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir. “It was a journey of 1,500 kilometers, and all along we saw buses and cars carrying Peoples Party flags,” he said. “People want change. People want to get rid of inflation and unemployment.”
Then he shouted, “Long live Bhutto!” and disappeared into the crowd.
Such supporters were among the majority of those killed and wounded. But about 20 were also police and law enforcement officials, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said. Eight police vans were flanking the truck at the time and the explosions occurred on the left and right sides of the road, he said.
He denied that it was a security lapse, saying that the crowds and length of the route made it difficult to ensure security.
Earlier, Ms. Bhutto was clearly emotional as she took her first steps on Pakistani soil, having lived the last eight years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai. She left Pakistan to escape corruption charges she contends were politically motivated.
She climbed down a metal staircase to reach the tarmac, and paused on the bottom step and prayed as friends held a Koran aloft. As an aide embraced her, Ms. Bhutto wiped tears from her eyes.
“The most important step — to be back on Pakistani soil,” she said, as cameramen swarmed around her.
On the plane from Dubai, supporters broke into repeated cheers and chanting of “Prime Minister Benazir,” standing in the aisles and delaying the flight for nearly an hour. Ms. Bhutto walked through the cabin to greet supporters and the news media.
“Very excited, very happy, very proud, a tremendous sense of responsibility as there are so many people at the airport,” she said when asked how she felt.
In words that later seemed prescient, she spoke strongly about terrorism and the need to save Pakistan from extremism. “The time has come for democracy,” she said. “If we want to save Pakistan, we have to have democracy.”
She has been outspoken against militants and Al Qaeda and repeated the same comments as she flew in. “The terrorists are trying to take over my country and we have to stop them,” she said.
Ms. Bhutto had made clear repeatedly that she was returning to Pakistan to lead her party in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January. If she can win a change in the law, she will run for prime minister for a third time, something now legally barred.
“The people are telling me the bread-and-butter issues are the most important,” she said. “They are saying that poverty has increased, the gulf between the rich and poor has increased. They say that people want change. They want a government that listens to them, will respect them, and will address the people’s issues.”
Senior members of the party traveling with Ms. Bhutto said the turnout made it clear the people wanted change after eight years of military rule.
“It is unprecedented,” said Aftar Rana, a senior party member from Punjab Province, looking down at the crowd. “I think we will sweep the elections. People have come from everywhere.”
The opposition leader’s return was made possible after months of back-channel negotiations with Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, over a way for the two leaders to share power as Pakistan makes a transition from a military government.
Ms. Bhutto’s party did not join other opposition parties this month in boycotting presidential elections by the national and provincial assemblies. The move allowed General Musharraf to successfully engineer his re-election, though he still faces legal challenges in the Supreme Court over his eligibility.
For his part, General Musharraf issued an amnesty for Ms. Bhutto and others accused of corruption in recent years, and he agreed to resign his post as chief of the army staff and serve his next term as a civilian.
But the bombing upon Ms. Bhutto’s arrival made it clear that, deal or no deal, the country’s politics remained exceedingly tense, and dangerous. The explosions now seem certain to add fresh venom to relations between the Pakistan Peoples Party and the government.
General Musharraf, according to a statement released by state media, condemned the attack “in the strongest possible words,” calling it “a conspiracy against democracy."
The Bush administration, which has backed General Musharraf, noted his condemnation of the attack, as the State Department issued a statement saying, “Those responsible seek only to foster fear and limit freedom.”
Nonetheless, Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who did not make the return to Pakistan with his wife, immediately pointed a finger at the government and said the Pakistan Peoples Party would have to rethink its understanding with the government.
He said the government felt threatened by the power of Ms. Bhutto and suggested that the intelligence agencies were behind the blasts.
“I blame the government,” he said in an interview with Geo, an independent television news channel, from his home in Dubai. “The intelligence agencies are spreading terrorism,” he said. “Those who are sitting in the government feel threatened by us.”
Ms. Bhutto earlier said in the interview atop the truck that she was concerned about her security and that she had told General Musharraf that she suspected people in his administration and the security forces of supporting the militants and terrorism.
“This is not the same Pakistan it was in 1996 when my government was overthrown,” she said. “The militants have risen in power. But I know who these people are, I know the forces behind them, and I have written to General Musharraf about this. And I’ve told him there are certain people I suspect in the administration and security.
“Unless there is some thought given to that, this is what emboldens the militants,” she said. “They’ve got some covert support from sympathizers within the system.”
Tags:security,militants,Pakistan,Bomb Attack ,General
According to reports on local news stations late Friday morning, 134 people had been killed and about 400 wounded.
Ms. Bhutto, who had spent eight hours on the open roof of the truck waving to supporters, had climbed inside the armored vehicle 10 minutes before the blasts occurred just before midnight, said Rehman Malik, her security adviser and close associate.
She was immediately taken to Bilawal House, her home in Karachi. The parade through the city had been scheduled to end several miles away at the tomb of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.
Ms. Bhutto’s arrival at 2 p.m. had drawn huge crowds, perhaps 200,000 or more, who danced on top of buses and surged forward as she inched her way for hours through her home city.
The strong outpouring provided an emotional homecoming for Ms. Bhutto and political vindication of sorts for a woman twice turned out of office as prime minister, after being accused of corruption and mismanagement.
It also demonstrated that she remained a potent political force in Pakistan, even after her long absence, and marked what supporters and opponents alike agreed was a new political chapter for the nation.
The violence that quickly followed showed it to be a treacherous one as well.
The explosions, caught on camera, gave off brilliant white flashes and set two cars ablaze. Survivors stumbled over bodies and debris in a haze of smoke. It was not immediately clear if the explosions were caused by suicide bombers, and there were no claims of responsibility.
“I can only say that I saw heaps of bodies lying over there,” said her adviser, Mr. Malik. He was standing at the front of the truck and was knocked down by the force of the blast, he said. His hair was burned.
“The damage could have been much worse had we not taken our own security arrangements,” he added.
The government had promised before Ms. Bhutto’s arrival to provide security. It had also asked her to delay returning. But Ms. Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party had fielded 2,000 of its own workers to form rings around their returning leader, guarding her with their numbers and preventing any vehicles or people from approaching.
Before the explosions sundered the celebration, thousands of supporters and workers from her party had lined Ms. Bhutto’s route, waving banners and surging forward for a glimpse of the opposition leader. Many danced in the road.
Ms. Bhutto waved as music pumped out from loudspeakers. The crowd was overwhelmingly working class. Many young men said they were unemployed, but had traveled hundreds of miles, paying their own way, and camping out overnight on the road to the airport to await her arrival.
In the crowd, Raja Munir Ahmed, 42, a real estate agent, said he had come from Mirpur in the Pakistani-administered part of Kashmir. “It was a journey of 1,500 kilometers, and all along we saw buses and cars carrying Peoples Party flags,” he said. “People want change. People want to get rid of inflation and unemployment.”
Then he shouted, “Long live Bhutto!” and disappeared into the crowd.
Such supporters were among the majority of those killed and wounded. But about 20 were also police and law enforcement officials, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said. Eight police vans were flanking the truck at the time and the explosions occurred on the left and right sides of the road, he said.
He denied that it was a security lapse, saying that the crowds and length of the route made it difficult to ensure security.
Earlier, Ms. Bhutto was clearly emotional as she took her first steps on Pakistani soil, having lived the last eight years in self-imposed exile in London and Dubai. She left Pakistan to escape corruption charges she contends were politically motivated.
She climbed down a metal staircase to reach the tarmac, and paused on the bottom step and prayed as friends held a Koran aloft. As an aide embraced her, Ms. Bhutto wiped tears from her eyes.
“The most important step — to be back on Pakistani soil,” she said, as cameramen swarmed around her.
On the plane from Dubai, supporters broke into repeated cheers and chanting of “Prime Minister Benazir,” standing in the aisles and delaying the flight for nearly an hour. Ms. Bhutto walked through the cabin to greet supporters and the news media.
“Very excited, very happy, very proud, a tremendous sense of responsibility as there are so many people at the airport,” she said when asked how she felt.
In words that later seemed prescient, she spoke strongly about terrorism and the need to save Pakistan from extremism. “The time has come for democracy,” she said. “If we want to save Pakistan, we have to have democracy.”
She has been outspoken against militants and Al Qaeda and repeated the same comments as she flew in. “The terrorists are trying to take over my country and we have to stop them,” she said.
Ms. Bhutto had made clear repeatedly that she was returning to Pakistan to lead her party in the parliamentary elections scheduled for January. If she can win a change in the law, she will run for prime minister for a third time, something now legally barred.
“The people are telling me the bread-and-butter issues are the most important,” she said. “They are saying that poverty has increased, the gulf between the rich and poor has increased. They say that people want change. They want a government that listens to them, will respect them, and will address the people’s issues.”
Senior members of the party traveling with Ms. Bhutto said the turnout made it clear the people wanted change after eight years of military rule.
“It is unprecedented,” said Aftar Rana, a senior party member from Punjab Province, looking down at the crowd. “I think we will sweep the elections. People have come from everywhere.”
The opposition leader’s return was made possible after months of back-channel negotiations with Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, over a way for the two leaders to share power as Pakistan makes a transition from a military government.
Ms. Bhutto’s party did not join other opposition parties this month in boycotting presidential elections by the national and provincial assemblies. The move allowed General Musharraf to successfully engineer his re-election, though he still faces legal challenges in the Supreme Court over his eligibility.
For his part, General Musharraf issued an amnesty for Ms. Bhutto and others accused of corruption in recent years, and he agreed to resign his post as chief of the army staff and serve his next term as a civilian.
But the bombing upon Ms. Bhutto’s arrival made it clear that, deal or no deal, the country’s politics remained exceedingly tense, and dangerous. The explosions now seem certain to add fresh venom to relations between the Pakistan Peoples Party and the government.
General Musharraf, according to a statement released by state media, condemned the attack “in the strongest possible words,” calling it “a conspiracy against democracy."
The Bush administration, which has backed General Musharraf, noted his condemnation of the attack, as the State Department issued a statement saying, “Those responsible seek only to foster fear and limit freedom.”
Nonetheless, Ms. Bhutto’s husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who did not make the return to Pakistan with his wife, immediately pointed a finger at the government and said the Pakistan Peoples Party would have to rethink its understanding with the government.
He said the government felt threatened by the power of Ms. Bhutto and suggested that the intelligence agencies were behind the blasts.
“I blame the government,” he said in an interview with Geo, an independent television news channel, from his home in Dubai. “The intelligence agencies are spreading terrorism,” he said. “Those who are sitting in the government feel threatened by us.”
Ms. Bhutto earlier said in the interview atop the truck that she was concerned about her security and that she had told General Musharraf that she suspected people in his administration and the security forces of supporting the militants and terrorism.
“This is not the same Pakistan it was in 1996 when my government was overthrown,” she said. “The militants have risen in power. But I know who these people are, I know the forces behind them, and I have written to General Musharraf about this. And I’ve told him there are certain people I suspect in the administration and security.
“Unless there is some thought given to that, this is what emboldens the militants,” she said. “They’ve got some covert support from sympathizers within the system.”
Tags:security,militants,Pakistan,Bomb Attack ,General
A Laptop That Lets Students Take Notes Two Ways
Parents and students seeking a back-to-school computer may want to consider a tablet PC. These convertible devices, which allow switching from keyboard to pen input, are ideal for note-taking.
The Lifebook T2010 is Fujitsu’s latest entry among tablet PCs. As a laptop, it has all the standard features: a 12.1-inch display, 1 to 4 gigabytes of memory, a hard drive of up to 160 gigabytes, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.
On the tablet PC side, the T2010 comes with the Vista version of Microsoft’s tablet PC operating system, which was developed for handwriting recognition and also some voice recognition. Both systems become more accurate the more you use them.
The machine comes with the note-taking program OneNote, but can handle the full version of Microsoft Office.
The T2010, which starts at about $1,600 and is available at fujitsu.com and most major retailers, weighs less than four pounds.
To keep the weight down, there is no built-in CD/DVD drive, though a docking station, which adds the drive and several other ports, can be attached, adding a pound.
Tags:Students,CD/DVD,Intel,Laptop,Core 2 Duo
The Lifebook T2010 is Fujitsu’s latest entry among tablet PCs. As a laptop, it has all the standard features: a 12.1-inch display, 1 to 4 gigabytes of memory, a hard drive of up to 160 gigabytes, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity.
On the tablet PC side, the T2010 comes with the Vista version of Microsoft’s tablet PC operating system, which was developed for handwriting recognition and also some voice recognition. Both systems become more accurate the more you use them.
The machine comes with the note-taking program OneNote, but can handle the full version of Microsoft Office.
The T2010, which starts at about $1,600 and is available at fujitsu.com and most major retailers, weighs less than four pounds.
To keep the weight down, there is no built-in CD/DVD drive, though a docking station, which adds the drive and several other ports, can be attached, adding a pound.
Tags:Students,CD/DVD,Intel,Laptop,Core 2 Duo
Silicon Valley Start-Ups Awash in Dollars, Again
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16 — Silicon Valley’s math is getting fuzzy again.
Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.
Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.
Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.
More broadly, Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.
The surge in the perceived value of some start-ups has even surprised some entrepreneurs who are benefiting from it.
A year ago, Yahoo invested in Right Media, a New York-based company developing an online advertising network. Yahoo’s investment valued the firm at $200 million. Six months later, when Yahoo acquired Right Media outright, the purchase price had swelled to $850 million.
What changed? According to Right Media’s chief technology officer, Brian O’Kelley, very little, except that Yahoo’s rivals, Microsoft and Google, were writing billion-dollar checks to buy online advertising networks, and Yahoo thought it needed to pay any price to keep up.
“I have to say I giggled,” Mr. O’Kelley, 30, said of the deal that earned him millions. He has since left Right Media and is starting another company. “There is no way we quadrupled the value of the company in six months.”
The trend is described as a return to madness (by skeptics) or as a rational approach to unlimited opportunities presented by the Internet (by true believers). Greed, fear and a desperate rush to pick the next big winner are all adding fuel to the fire that is Silicon Valley’s resurgence.
“There’s definitely a lot of betting going on, and it’s not rational,” said Tim O’Reilly, a technology conference promoter and book publisher.
Mr. O’Reilly is credited with coining the phrase “Web 2.0,” which refers to a new generation of Web sites that encourage users to contribute material. His Web 2.0 conference, which begins Wednesday in San Francisco, has become a nexus for the optimism around the latest set of society-changing online tools. But that has not stopped Mr. O’Reilly from worrying that the industry is minting too many copycat companies, half-baked business plans and overpriced buyouts.
When the bubble inevitably pops, he said, “there are going to be a lot of people out of work again.”
Putting a value on start-ups has always been a mix of science and speculation. But as in the first dot-com boom and the recent surge in housing, seasoned financial professionals are seeming to indulge in some strange instinct to turn away from the science and lean instead on the speculation.
This time around, people indulging in that optimistic thinking are not mom-and-pop investors or day traders but venture capitalists whose coffers are overflowing with money from university endowments and hedge funds. Many of those financial professionals say that this time, everything is different.
More than 1.3 billion people around the world use the Internet, many with speedy broadband connections and a willingness to immerse themselves in digital culture. The flood of advertising dollars to the Web has become an indomitable trend and a proven way for these start-ups to make money, while the revenue models of the dot-coms of yesteryear were often little more than sleight of hand.
“The environmental factors are much different than they were eight years ago,” said Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital and an early backer of YouTube. “The cost of doing business has declined dramatically, and traditional media companies have also woken up to the opportunities of the Web.
“That does open up the aperture for a different outcome this time,” he said.
Some trace the start of the new bubble to eBay’s $3.1 billion acquisition of the Internet telephone start-up Skype in 2005. EBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, reportedly outbid Google for the company. This month, eBay conceded it had grossly overpaid for Skype by about $1.43 billion, and announced that Niklas Zennstrom, a Skype co-founder, had left the company.
Google’s acquisition of YouTube last year for $1.65 billion, under similarly competitive bidding, might have accelerated the transition to loftier values. Google executives and many analysts argued that YouTube was well worth the price tag if it became the next entertainment juggernaut.
It still might. More than 205 million people visit YouTube each month, according to the research firm comScore. Still, Citigroup estimated that YouTube would bring in $135 million in revenue next year. At that rate, YouTube would have to grow considerably to account for just 5 percent of Google’s annual revenue of nearly $12 billion.
“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said.
The Skype and YouTube windfalls helped to give the newest batch of Internet entrepreneurs dreams of improbable wealth. They also brought back practices that had seemingly been discredited during the first boom. For example, in the first dot-com gold rush, Internet companies did not have to make money to acquire serious investments dollars. Now that once again is true.
Twitter, a company in San Francisco that lets users alert friends to what they are doing at any given moment over their mobile phones, recently raised an undisclosed amount of financing. Its co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, says that the company was not currently focused on making money and that no one in the company was even working on how to do so.
“At the moment, we’re focused on growing our network and our user experience,” he said. “When you have a lot of traffic, there’s always a clear business model.”
That is not necessarily illogical in the current climate. A European competitor, Jaiku, which is similarly devoid of a mature business model, was acquired last week by Google for an undisclosed sum. With the competitive logic that prevails at the major Internet companies, the deal might have further raised Twitter’s appeal to Google’s rivals.
The high value placed on many start-ups and minimal requirements for financial performance are raising expectations of other entrepreneurs. Sharon Wienbar, managing director of Scale Ventures Partners, an investment firm, cited the $100 million valuation that investors gave to the Internet genealogy site Geni.com, founded last year in Los Angeles by a veteran of PayPal.
“Now every entrepreneur thinks he should get that,” Ms. Wienbar said. “I have a feeling a lot of entrepreneurs are secretly meeting for beers on the Peninsula, saying, ‘Hey, look what I got.’”
Mr. O’Kelley, formerly of Right Media, said other entrepreneurs had begun to think that the financing game is best played by avoiding actual revenues — since that only limits the imagination of investors. “It’s a screwed-up incentive structure, just like you had in the first bubble,” he said.
Another company benefiting from the exuberance is Ning, which allows users to create their own MySpace-style ad-supported social networks. It was recently valued by investors at more than $200 million, mainly because its main backer and founder, Marc Andreessen, has a successful history with the Internet hits Netscape and Opsware.
Mr. Andreessen argues on his blog that there is no bubble and that the high prices represent a rational desire to stake a claim in the potentially huge markets of the future. But he acknowledges that a seemingly inexhaustible flood of capital into Silicon Valley is helping to power the boom. Venture capitalists are flush with cash from institutional investors, eager for Internet-style returns on their money.
“The upward valuations pressure is the result of decisions being made by people wearing suits in cities like New York and Boston who would never ever meet with start-ups,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview. “If that ever goes away, it will have consequences. But it doesn’t look like they will change their minds.”
Tags:Silicon Valley,Internet,Netscape,capitalists,PayPal
Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.
Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.
Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.
More broadly, Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.
The surge in the perceived value of some start-ups has even surprised some entrepreneurs who are benefiting from it.
A year ago, Yahoo invested in Right Media, a New York-based company developing an online advertising network. Yahoo’s investment valued the firm at $200 million. Six months later, when Yahoo acquired Right Media outright, the purchase price had swelled to $850 million.
What changed? According to Right Media’s chief technology officer, Brian O’Kelley, very little, except that Yahoo’s rivals, Microsoft and Google, were writing billion-dollar checks to buy online advertising networks, and Yahoo thought it needed to pay any price to keep up.
“I have to say I giggled,” Mr. O’Kelley, 30, said of the deal that earned him millions. He has since left Right Media and is starting another company. “There is no way we quadrupled the value of the company in six months.”
The trend is described as a return to madness (by skeptics) or as a rational approach to unlimited opportunities presented by the Internet (by true believers). Greed, fear and a desperate rush to pick the next big winner are all adding fuel to the fire that is Silicon Valley’s resurgence.
“There’s definitely a lot of betting going on, and it’s not rational,” said Tim O’Reilly, a technology conference promoter and book publisher.
Mr. O’Reilly is credited with coining the phrase “Web 2.0,” which refers to a new generation of Web sites that encourage users to contribute material. His Web 2.0 conference, which begins Wednesday in San Francisco, has become a nexus for the optimism around the latest set of society-changing online tools. But that has not stopped Mr. O’Reilly from worrying that the industry is minting too many copycat companies, half-baked business plans and overpriced buyouts.
When the bubble inevitably pops, he said, “there are going to be a lot of people out of work again.”
Putting a value on start-ups has always been a mix of science and speculation. But as in the first dot-com boom and the recent surge in housing, seasoned financial professionals are seeming to indulge in some strange instinct to turn away from the science and lean instead on the speculation.
This time around, people indulging in that optimistic thinking are not mom-and-pop investors or day traders but venture capitalists whose coffers are overflowing with money from university endowments and hedge funds. Many of those financial professionals say that this time, everything is different.
More than 1.3 billion people around the world use the Internet, many with speedy broadband connections and a willingness to immerse themselves in digital culture. The flood of advertising dollars to the Web has become an indomitable trend and a proven way for these start-ups to make money, while the revenue models of the dot-coms of yesteryear were often little more than sleight of hand.
“The environmental factors are much different than they were eight years ago,” said Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital and an early backer of YouTube. “The cost of doing business has declined dramatically, and traditional media companies have also woken up to the opportunities of the Web.
“That does open up the aperture for a different outcome this time,” he said.
Some trace the start of the new bubble to eBay’s $3.1 billion acquisition of the Internet telephone start-up Skype in 2005. EBay’s chief executive, Meg Whitman, reportedly outbid Google for the company. This month, eBay conceded it had grossly overpaid for Skype by about $1.43 billion, and announced that Niklas Zennstrom, a Skype co-founder, had left the company.
Google’s acquisition of YouTube last year for $1.65 billion, under similarly competitive bidding, might have accelerated the transition to loftier values. Google executives and many analysts argued that YouTube was well worth the price tag if it became the next entertainment juggernaut.
It still might. More than 205 million people visit YouTube each month, according to the research firm comScore. Still, Citigroup estimated that YouTube would bring in $135 million in revenue next year. At that rate, YouTube would have to grow considerably to account for just 5 percent of Google’s annual revenue of nearly $12 billion.
“We are almost going back to year 2000 types of errors,” said Aaron Kessler, an Internet analyst at Piper Jaffray. Internet companies “are buying users instead of revenue and profitability,” he said.
The Skype and YouTube windfalls helped to give the newest batch of Internet entrepreneurs dreams of improbable wealth. They also brought back practices that had seemingly been discredited during the first boom. For example, in the first dot-com gold rush, Internet companies did not have to make money to acquire serious investments dollars. Now that once again is true.
Twitter, a company in San Francisco that lets users alert friends to what they are doing at any given moment over their mobile phones, recently raised an undisclosed amount of financing. Its co-founder and creative director, Biz Stone, says that the company was not currently focused on making money and that no one in the company was even working on how to do so.
“At the moment, we’re focused on growing our network and our user experience,” he said. “When you have a lot of traffic, there’s always a clear business model.”
That is not necessarily illogical in the current climate. A European competitor, Jaiku, which is similarly devoid of a mature business model, was acquired last week by Google for an undisclosed sum. With the competitive logic that prevails at the major Internet companies, the deal might have further raised Twitter’s appeal to Google’s rivals.
The high value placed on many start-ups and minimal requirements for financial performance are raising expectations of other entrepreneurs. Sharon Wienbar, managing director of Scale Ventures Partners, an investment firm, cited the $100 million valuation that investors gave to the Internet genealogy site Geni.com, founded last year in Los Angeles by a veteran of PayPal.
“Now every entrepreneur thinks he should get that,” Ms. Wienbar said. “I have a feeling a lot of entrepreneurs are secretly meeting for beers on the Peninsula, saying, ‘Hey, look what I got.’”
Mr. O’Kelley, formerly of Right Media, said other entrepreneurs had begun to think that the financing game is best played by avoiding actual revenues — since that only limits the imagination of investors. “It’s a screwed-up incentive structure, just like you had in the first bubble,” he said.
Another company benefiting from the exuberance is Ning, which allows users to create their own MySpace-style ad-supported social networks. It was recently valued by investors at more than $200 million, mainly because its main backer and founder, Marc Andreessen, has a successful history with the Internet hits Netscape and Opsware.
Mr. Andreessen argues on his blog that there is no bubble and that the high prices represent a rational desire to stake a claim in the potentially huge markets of the future. But he acknowledges that a seemingly inexhaustible flood of capital into Silicon Valley is helping to power the boom. Venture capitalists are flush with cash from institutional investors, eager for Internet-style returns on their money.
“The upward valuations pressure is the result of decisions being made by people wearing suits in cities like New York and Boston who would never ever meet with start-ups,” Mr. Andreessen said in an interview. “If that ever goes away, it will have consequences. But it doesn’t look like they will change their minds.”
Tags:Silicon Valley,Internet,Netscape,capitalists,PayPal
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73 and Loaded With Friends on Facebook
WHEN Amy Waldman first signed on to Facebook last year and started to send joking messages about good grammar back and forth with a new 18-year-old friend, Ms. Waldman’s 19-year-old daughter, Talia, upbraided her for not revealing that she was actually in her 40s.
“You have to tell her you’re old,” she explained, “because on Facebook, that’s creepy.”
Ms. Waldman created a Facebook group to commemorate the incident: “over 40 is ‘facebook creepy.’”
It’s no secret that Facebook, which started as a networking playground for college kids, is graying, and that the percentage of active members who are over 25 years old and out of school has risen to some 40 percent of the overall population of about 45 million.
The influx raises questions. Will the loss of the campus sensibility and the youthful gestalt dilute the Facebook experience? And will the newcomers use the site — and change it? Or is it just another example of the fact that Americans age, but never seem to mature?
Joe Uppal, a University of Michigan undergraduate studying anthropology and philosophy, said the age wave “does kind of undermine the ties between Facebook and the college community.
“If everyone and anyone is able to go on Facebook, then belonging to it no longer indicates a college-student identity,” he added.
Similar sentiments have been heard whenever Facebook has expanded, said Matt Cohler, the company’s vice president for strategy and business operations. When the fledgling company first expanded beyond its roots at Harvard to include Yale, he said, “The people at Harvard complained about it and said, ‘Hey, this used to be just for us!’” The fretting subsides each time, he said, “as soon as they go back to using the program and realize this hasn’t done anything to deteriorate their experience.”
FOR the most part, in fact, the entry of millions of people with, you know, jobs and stuff, has been greeted with an epic “whatever,” said Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor in New York University’s interactive telecommunications program. “The average Facebook user isn’t going to care that people utterly unlike them are doing things they utterly don’t care about on some other corner of the site,” he said.
Facebook can avoid its “there goes the neighborhood moment,” he said, as long as it allows people to stay in their silos and gives them control over who can peek at their profiles. “As long as the individual users still feel their culture is preserved in their corner of Facebook, the growth won’t bother them.”
But the grown-ups are everywhere.
Take a look, for example, at Carl Kasell’s page. Mr. Kasell, the 73-year-old announcer on the NPR news program “Morning Edition,” sends up his own stodgy image on the weekly news quiz show “Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me!” and he now has 1,602 “friends.” Under personal information, Mr. Kasell gives his favorite quote as: “For NPR News, I’m Carl Kasell.”
Don’t worry, though, if you, gentle reader, don’t have a Facebook page of your own yet; Mr. Kasell isn’t that much hipper than you. He does not actually maintain the page himself. He reads the messages and comes up with responses, and Melody Joy Kramer, the 23-year-old associate producer for the show, enters them onto the page, in a cross-generational partnership.
Ms. Waldman — she of the creepy 40s — finds herself using Facebook in many of the ways that younger people do, except for the sexual cruising: she keeps up with old friends, makes new ones and uses the network to, well, network.
For instance, it turned out that Ms. Waldman’s age, 48, was just fine with the young woman, Lisa Szczepanski, with whom she traded grammar jokes. Ms. Szczepanski lives in Queens and Ms. Waldman lives in Milwaukee, but they have become as close as electrons allow. Ms. Waldman calls Ms. Szczepanski “My Facebook kid,” and got a Mother’s Day card from her last spring. (“Even my own kids don’t do that!” she joked.)
Ms. Waldman also used Facebook in her volunteer work. She leads 12-week family education programs through the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and last spring, she needed a speaker for one of the classes. She posted a request on a Facebook page about mental health, asking for “someone with a mental illness who has experienced breakdown and recovery to talk about their experience with the class.”
She soon heard from Megan Banner, a 20-year-old who had suffered a bout of mental illness in her high school years, recovered and now attends college in Milwaukee. Ms. Banner said she had been thinking about getting involved with advocacy for mental illness issues when she saw Ms. Waldman’s note, and “It was as if it was meant to be.”
They chatted over Facebook and met at a local Starbucks. Ms. Banner spoke to the class and, in a message via Facebook, recalled, “I had the crowd crying.” She said she believed that she “gave some people the hope to continue.”
Since then, Ms. Banner has engaged in more advocacy and speaking about mental health. The evening with Ms. Waldman’s class, she said, “just changed my whole life.”
Young and old will inevitably use the technology of Facebook differently, said Nicole Ellison, an assistant professor in the telecommunications, information studies and media department at Michigan State University.
Students define themselves through membership in many social networks in the real and virtual worlds, including classroom, dorms, extracurricular activities and hobbies. “There are fewer of those for adults,” Ms. Ellison said, who “will not be as interested in sharing their love of R.E.M.”
To some extent, a generation gap is already apparent in the Facebook population, said Mr. Shirky, of N.Y.U. Younger people will use it more naturally and differently than older folks, who for the most part will see a Facebook page as something like the dreaded Christmas letter, with its prosaic updates on one’s life events, and less the sense of “living your social life online, hammer and tongs,” the way younger people tend to.
That is only natural, he said, because “People our age are going to find uses for the tool that have to do with the maintenance of life already in process, rather than making one up out of whole cloth” — in part, he added, because “our social lives are more boring.” And that, he said, is only logical: “We’ve made the mistakes we’re going to make, God willing, and we’ve settled down.”
Some longtime observers of technology also wonder if Facebook will hold the interest of adults. Paul Saffo, a technology consultant who teaches at Stanford, said that Facebook’s rapidly multiplying programs and widgets might compromise the simple, clean design that made the site popular in the first place — which could be especially irritating to adults. “We want fewer steps, not more,” he said.
Worse, he said, is that social software means “we all get to be in fourth grade again,” renegotiating the rules of engagement with others. Do you respond to every friend request? Is it rude to cut someone away as part of a friend-list pruning? Once again, he said, “You have to worry about bruised feelings.”
Each new technology for communication, from the telephone to e-mail to Facebook “poking,” goes through a similar cycle, he said. “First we invent the technologies, then we figure out the social norms that tame the technology and allow it to occupy a nondistracting part of our life.” In other words, for Facebook to truly succeed, he said, it will have to recede.
Tags:Facebook,technologies,communication,playground ,telephone
Enjoying Life Outside the Bubble
THE last time I talked to Kevin Landis was over lunch at Le Bernardin, the haute French restaurant in Manhattan, back in the fall of 2000. At the time, the air hadn’t yet gone out of the Internet bubble, and as manager of the tech-focused Firsthand family of mutual funds, Mr. Landis was feeling pretty good about the fact that assets under management had gone from $2 billion to more than $6 billion in a matter of months. In fact, he was more than a little cocky. (So was I — reporters don’t eat at Le Bernardin anymore, at least if their publisher is paying.)
So with the 16 percent rise in the Nasdaq this year, not to mention the meteoric rise of stocks like Google, which recently passed $600 a share for the first time, Mr. Landis is again feeling good. His flagship Technology Value fund is up 27 percent this year and has had an average annual return of 26 percent over the last five years. But he’s no longer so cocky — that got knocked out of Mr. Landis the hard way, when Firsthand suffered huge losses as the bubble finally burst early in the decade.
“You don’t want to ask for those numbers,” he jokes. “It’s still painful and it always will be, and not because my mom’s in the fund. It goes on your permanent record, like in school.” In 2001, the Technology Value fund dropped 44 percent, and then plunged 56 percent in 2002. Firsthand’s total assets under management, now about $750 million, are still a small fraction of what they were in 2000.
With the fund’s record of being up, down and up again, it seemed like a good time to ask Mr. Landis if tech investors are enjoying Web 2.0 or Bubble 2.0, as many commentators put it.
He says that while individual names like Research in Motion and Apple have begun to get pricey, the broader tech sector “has got plenty of room to keep running.” And unlike 2000, when the likes of Dr.Koop.com and Webvan went through the roof, no longer can just about any dot-com stock win investor enthusiasm. As for Google, he says “it’s pricey, but not hugely so.” Google is “a one-trick pony,” he says, referring to the fact that most of its revenue is from search-related advertising. “But it’s a hell of a pony.”
More established tech names like Intel and Cisco — both of which still trade well below their bubble-era peaks but are up more than 20 percent this year — have become mature, almost old-fashioned blue chips, with steady, if not exceptional returns, he says.
That other tech giant, Microsoft, has a cloudier future, he predicts. It’s flat for the year, and Mr. Landis says “they’re going to have a hard time generating much more growth.”
“Microsoft conquered the desktop and then the server room,” he adds, “but what the heck else is out there for them?”
Back in the fall of 2000, Mr. Landis was excited about the tax-cut plans of George W. Bush, then running for president, and less than enthralled by Al Gore. Today, though, he says he has a new appreciation for Mr. Gore, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize, and his green agenda, at least when it comes to alternative-energy companies that might gain from development of solar power.
One favorite is SunPower, which makes solar panels that are much more energy-efficient than their predecessors. SunPower’s shares have doubled this year, but Mr. Landis’s preferred way of playing it is by holding Cypress Semiconductor, which owns 53 percent of SunPower but trades at a more reasonable price-to-earnings multiple.
Another pick on this theme is Applied Materials, a semiconductor play. “These new solar panels are an offshoot of semiconductors,” he says.
OF course, this sector has enjoyed a spectacular run already, with First Solar now at $136, up from $30 at the beginning of the year. But Mr. Landis is hopeful. “Alternative energy isn’t where the Internet was in 1999,” he assures me, with a touch of the exuberance that made him a regular on CNBC years ago. “It’s where the Internet was in 1980.” Old ways die hard, I guess, and in Silicon Valley, where Mr. Landis grew up, the next big thing is always just around the corner.
Tags:restaurant,corner,hopeful,Solar,CNBC
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