Poleaxed streaker hit with $1500 fine
News.com.au - A STREAKER poleaxed by Australian batsman Andrew Symonds could “perhaps charge admission” if he wanted to see how popular he was, a magistrate said this day. Magistrate John Costello fined 26-year-old underground miner Robert Murray David Ogilvie $1500

China experiments with free admission to public museums
Xinhua News Bureau - BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) — Chinese culture authorities have vowed to open up 500 public museums and memorial halls free to visitors this year in its drive to give tax payers better access to high culture, but museums now face a tide of culture

How do I access RSS FEED?
Greater Kashmir - RSS/News Aggregators (also called Readers) will download and display RSS feeds for you. A number of free and commercial News Aggregators are available for download. Many aggregators are separate, “stand-alone” programs; other services will let you

Massive loss turns into large win for mum
This is North East - These sites - commonly called ’social bookmark’ or ’social news’ sites - have large communities of web users who share and rate interesting, useful and fun things on the web.

China to solicit public opinions on health care reform
Xinhua News Bureau - BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) - China has drawn up a preliminary plan on the health care reform which will soon be publicized to solicit thoughts from the general public, Premier Wen Jiabao stated here on Wednesday. The reform aims to maintain the “public

‘Police raid homes of death-wish pair’
News.com.au - POLICE have raided the homes of two terminally ill people who announced on television they planned to end their lives, states euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke. Dr Nitschke stated Australian Federal Police (AFP) today seized the lethal drug Nembutal

Memphis cops: No leads in slayings of 6
Grand Forks Herald - Joe Scott pleads to the public at a news conference in Memphis, Tenn. on Tuesday, Mar. 4, 2008 for information on the murders of four adults and two children at a home in Memphis, Tenn.

Martin LeFevre: Bleeding From Flag Pins
Scoop - to Europe, where previously cynical reporters tell that ‘every bar in Slovenia is abuzz with Obamamania.’ It spreads across the Mediterranean to Africa, where Kenyans who can barely afford a radio ask New York Times columnists the latest news

Cyclist sought over hit-run incident
News.com.au - A HIT-RUN cyclist who left a 62-year-old pedestrian in intensive care after crashing into him in the CBD has reignited calls for tougher penalties for rogue riders. Thornbury man Don McFadyen suffered multiple fractures, including a dislocated hip

Tokyo shares end morning slightly lower on US economic worries
Forbes - The content on this site, including news, quotes, data and other information, is provided by AFX News and its third party content providers for your personal information only, and neither AFX News nor its third party content providers shall be liable

McCain Makes It Official With Wins in Four States
KEYE Austin - WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican front-runner John McCain has won in Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island, securing his party’s nomination for president, CNN.com reports. Democrat Barack Obama scored an simple win in Vermont, the first of four states

Favre retirement saddens Packers fans
Boston Globe - Green Bay Packers’ Brett Favre is shown at the FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Year news conference in Phoenix, in this Jan. 30, 2008 file photo.

Playford to replace Huxley in Brumbies
The Australian - PETER Playford will replace Julian Huxley in the Brumbies’ starting XV after the Wallabies utility back was diagnosed with a brain tumour on Monday. Playford is the only change to the run-on team that belted Queensland last Saturday and will start on

Top Movie News
Fox Birmingham - Times sure have changed in the 19 years since Harrison Ford last donned the signature fedora of thrill-seeking archaeologist Indiana Jones. ‘Semi-Pro’ Scores $15M, Tops Box Office Will Ferrell’s basketball comedy “Semi-Pro” dribbled to the top of

Petrol stations ‘profiteering’
News.com.au - SOME petrol stations are profiteering by withholding their premium fuel for sale on “cheap Tuesdays”, the NSW Government says. NSW Fair Trading Minister Linda Burney made the accusation today after finding premium petrol was unavailable at more than

Short sex is the ideal, say experts
News.com.au - Survey finds the ideal sex lasts between 7 and 13 mins Even intercourse lasting 3 to 7 mins ‘adequate’ Aussie men want it to last ‘considerably longer’ THE ideal sex should last between seven and 13 minutes, and even three-minute sex is “adequate”, a

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Filed under: Web services, Social Software

Sporting Connections is a social network site for athletes, teams, and sporting-event coordinators that is designed to connect people based on sport interest. Teams can connect their team members via a team page and message board. Individuals can find teams to join or find other individuals to form a team.

The “Events” search function lets users search for events by sport, location, and date. Sporting Connections supports photo galleries, but does not currently support video.

The site lets users search for (and contact) other users making it easy to find, for example, a tennis partner. Sporting Connections is free to use when you register for an account.

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Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Netvibes Ginger is now open to the general public. Netvibes Ginger takes the personalized home page in a new, and more social, direction. Most of the new features in Ginger are designed to create a more social experience within your Netvibes home page: the ability to invite friends, a Netvibes Wall comments feature (similar to the commenting section on MySpace), the ability to share widgets with your friends, and much more.

Any registered Netvibes user will be prompted to upgrade to the release when you visit your main Netvibes home page (with the option to decline the upgrade, though we’re not sure why such intrepid Download Squad readers as yourselves wouldn’t want the latest and greatest).

If you don’t have a Netvibes account, you can sign up and make the move into Ginger. Netvibes Ginger also includes basic performance improvements and some bug fixes.

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Filed under: Productivity, Web services, Microsoft, Social Software, Beta

Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta, previously available to a select few, is now open for public consumption.

One word comes to mind when looking at Microsoft’s answer to Google Docs and the other up-and-coming on the internet office suites (hint: it’s not the word that Microsoft continues to splay across their advertisements).

Lame.

To spare Microsoft more misery, we’ve come up with a “what might have happened” story that’ll hopefully allow us to superior understand why their new on the web workspace is so underwhelming.

Continue reading Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta now available

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Filed under: Internet, News, Social Software, web 2.0

We’ve noted the widening gulf between Obama and Hillary’s online campaign strategies, but according to one marketing executive, the Obama campaign is waging a digital strategy while the Hillary campaign is more along the lines of analog technology.

While both campaigns hope to eat each other’s lunch through typical traditional media purchases, Obama harnesses the full abilities of the internet to his advantage, according to Rishad Tobaccowala, chief innovation officer of the media buying division of Publicis, the French advertising giant. For example, the Obama campaign uses email to keep supporters informed up to the minute on matters ranging from “Watch the debate now,” to fundraising challenges synchronized to Hillary’s own fundraising efforts.

While Hillary’s strategy is nearly entirely reliant on traditional media, the Obama campaign pulls in from the blogosphere and co-ops content that is not just campaign generated, effecting a more credible grassroots movement where people have a voice from the bottom up. One example is the Black Eyed Peas music video which garners over a million views a day and is featured on the Obama website, although not created by the campaign.

It seems Obama is more in tune with the idea that in today’s digital world, the buyer is in control and he deftly adapts his message to this reality. His campaign uses the words “you and me” which are inclusive. Hillary’s campaign is more in line with the seller is in control. Her language is “I and me”, which in this new era of the wisdom of crowds isn’t resonating as well.

“Experience from day one” versus “We are the change we seek.” What do you think? Which one talks to today’s digital reality?

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Filed under: The Blackstone Group, KKR, Raising money, Texas Pacific Group, Apollo Management, Bain Capital, Private equity industry

With the severe credit crunch, the private equity world has come to a screeching halt. Sure, there’s some dealmaking - but nothing like it was just a year ago.

So, what are the private equity folks doing? Well, they are raising billions of dollars. This is according to a piece in the FT.com (subscription required).

Even though, the typical investors in private equity funds, such as pension funds, are actually losing their appetites. There are concerns about lower returns as well as larger concentrations of portfolio risk. Just look at the current write-downs at KKR.

Yet, the top-tier private equity firms are still having tiny trouble raising money. TPG plans to snag $15 billion and Apollo should also get the same amount. And, as for Bain and Blackstone (NYSE: BX), it looks like they’ll get $20 billion apiece.

OK, so where is the massive money coming from? Yep, it’s the sovereign wealth funds. With bulging coffers - especially from oil - the money needs to go somewhere. And, with lower valuations and distressed companies, it could be spot-on timing for those with a long-term perspective.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar On the internet Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates DealProfiles.com.

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software

Twhirl 0.7.1 was released this week and the desktop Twitter client has some major new features. First, the new version runs on Adobe AIR 1.0, so you don’t need to have the old beta version of AIR installed to run it. But we’re much more excited about the other new features including the ability to cross-post to Pownce and Jaiku.

If you provide your Pownce and Jaiku login information in the settings tab, any time you send a message to Twitter, the message will automatically go to your other micro-blogging services as well. You won’t see replies from your Pownce or Jaiku contacts in Twhirl, but as far as baby steps go, this one’s a doozy.

Twhirl 0.7.1 also includes additional color schemes, the capability to choose your URL shortening service (either Snurl or is.gd) and the ability to mark messages as read.

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Links Finance Corp signs liquidity facility to stabilise senior … - CNNMoney.com

Links Finance Corp signs liquidity facility to stabilise senior … CNNMoney.com Share This Share This No Comments »

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