Forex futures hits Indian bourses

Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), a unit of Financial Technologies, has received an in-principle approval to offer currency futures trading by a newly set up unit

MCX has received an approval for its unit, MCX Stock Exchange Ltd, which had applied for currency derivatives and it will start offering membership from Tuesday.The National Stock Exchange (NSE) will introduce trading in rupee futures from Friday after the central bank set market guidelines and said bourses recognised by SEBI could seek the regulator's approval to offer exchange-traded currency futures.

MCX is governed by the Forward Market Commission (FMC) and it had to set up a separate unit, which will be regulated by SEBI, to offer currency futures trading. The Bombay Stock Exchange is waiting for the final go-ahead to start currency futures trading after it got an in-principal approval earlier this month.

The National Multi-Commodity Exchange of India, the country's third-largest commodity exchange, also plans to launch currency derivatives. MCX is the biggest among 22 Indian commodity bourses in terms of turnover, with a 75 percent share.

It was valued at $1.1 billion last year when Citigroup and Merrill Lynch each bought 5 percent stakes in bourse promoted by Financial Technologies. In February NYSE Euronest, the parent of New York Stock Exchange, agreed to buy 5 percent stake in MCX.

Online Forex Trading Rules

There are 10 major reasons why the currency market is a great place to trade:

1. You can trade to any style - strategies can be built on five-minute charts, hourly charts ,daily charts or even weekly charts.
2. There is a massive amount of information - charts, real-time news, top level research - all available for free.
3. All key information is public and disseminated instantly.
4. You can collect interest on trades on a daily or even hourly basis.
5. Lot sizes can be customized, meaning that you can trade with as little as $500 dollars at nearly the same execution costs as accounts that trade $500 million.
6. Customizable leverage allows you to be as conservative or as aggressive as you like (cash on cash or 100:1 margin).
7. No commission means that every win or loss is cleanly accounted for in the P&L.
8. You can trade 24 hours a day with ample liquidity ($20 million up)
9. There is no discrimination between going short or long (no uptick rule).
10. You can't lose more capital than you put in (automatic margin call)

The 10 Rules
1. Never Let a Winner Turn Into a Loser
2. Logic Wins, Impulse Kills
3. Never Risk More Than 2% per Trade
4. Trigger Fundamentally, Enter and Exit Technically
5. Always Pair Strong With Weak
6. Being Right but Being Early Simply Means That You Are Wrong
7. Know the Difference Between Scaling In and Adding to a Loser
8. What is Mathematically Optimal Is Psychologically Impossible
9. Risk Can Be Predetermined, but Reward Is Unpredictable
10. No Excuses, Ever

Trading is an art rather than a science. Therefore, no rule in trading is ever absolute (except the one about always using stops!) Nevertheless, these 10 rules work well across a variety of market environments, and will help to keep you grounded - and out of harm's way.

Online Trading : Trip to Trader Town

The act of placing buy/sell orders for financial securities and/or currencies with the use of a brokerage's internet-based proprietary trading platforms. The use of online trading increased dramatically in the mid- to late-'90s with the introduction of affordable high-speed computers and internet connections.

Stocks, bonds, options, futures and currencies can all be traded online.

Investopedia Says:
The use of online trades has increased the number of discount brokerages because internet trading allows many brokers to further cut costs and part of the savings can be past on to customers in the form of lower commissions.

Another benefit of online trading is the improvement in the speed of which transactions can be executed and settled, because there is no need for paper-based documents to be copied, filed and entered into an electronic format.
While it might seem like high-tech fun to the casual observer, trading is a lonely ordeal. Not only does the professional trader need to have extreme discipline, experience, and an attitude that doesn't dwell on the money but sees trading as a game; he or she must also spend at least six hours a day in isolation with only the sound of whirring computers punctuated by the occasional audible signal. However, thanks to the development of the online trader's chatroom, trading in seclusion may no longer be a necessary ingredient for success. Here we look at how the trader's online chatroom not only connects traders but also can help their efficiency and profitability.


Technological Companion

Hotcomm technology allows those who are sitting at computer screens and hooked up to a broadband connection to communicate with other traders and share ideas, indicators, strategies, and observations on an ongoing basis. They can even alert fellow traders of trade signals that have fired.

Participants can also share their favorite charts as well as data and research gleaned from their favorite sources. Conversations between those in the virtual room can be typed or spoken over a microphone. It allows all to pool their senses and resources so that, in effect, the combined effort of many becomes greater than the sum of the parts. It is the ideal tool for training and ongoing education.

The brainchild of 1st Works Corporation, a Boston company formed in 2000, HotComm is a real-time multimedia desktop platform for secure communication and content delivery among groups of users. Other services include interactive messaging, voice-over Internet protocol (VOIP), full motion video and content delivery, group navigation, shared applications, and remote control on demand.

Trading in Numbers
Trading rooms are virtual online meeting places that allow both presenters and guests from around the world to interface online and exchange ideas and information. As of September 2004, HotComm programs were in use by over 6,000 customers in more than 60 countries accessing a total of more than 100 rooms every day. Some of the larger rooms hold as many as 700 users daily, according to Director Kevin Driscoll of 1st Works Corp.

Driscoll, having been with Hotcomm since its inception, says that while the Hotcomm application is not limited to traders, it was specifically designed with the needs of the trader in mind.

"Initially we did not really have a target market, but traders adopted us since the application was able to achieve all or at least most of the functions that they required. Their input has helped shape the products that we offer today. Our applications have since evolved into a series of programs with functionality that also appeal to a wide variety of corporations and distance learning institutions, the latter as exemplified by The Technical University of Denmark."

Connecting with Experts
Woodie's CCI Club, the most popular Hotcomm trader chatroom, is a great example of what the power of the Internet and technology has done for the business of trading. Founded by Ken Wood, or "Woodie" to those who regularly populate his trade room, the chatroom is occupied 24 hours a day by traders from around the world trading every market from the Hang Seng Exchange in Hong Kong to the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).

Figure 1 – HotComm chatroom window of Woodies CCI Club. There were 629 traders in the room when the author checked in. Chart provided by Hotcomm.com

Even if the markets they trade are vastly different, all who occupy the CCI Club share a common trait: they all use Donald Lambert's Commodity Channel Index with a twist. The twist consists of a unique way of reading the CCI that Wood has developed. Using terms like "ghosts," "shamus," "zero line rejects," and "trendline breaks," traders enter and exit trades seemingly like magic--at least to those not familiar with Wood's techniques. The rate at which his room has grown is clear proof of this technique's success.

Figure 2 – Woodie's CCI indicator on a three-minute chart of the S&P 500 emini (ES). Chart provided by Tradestation.com

A trader and regular CCI Club attendee uses Woodie's CCI signals to trade a variety of commodities, taking CCI signals using one contract. According to Wood, the account accumulated $100,000 in profits 17 weeks after initiation. It was set up to show what was possible using the CCI as an indicator to trade commodities.

By giving daily online commentary and regular free online seminars, some of which have been sponsored by the Chicago Board of Trade, Ken Wood is a model pioneer of the possibilities of chatrooms, helping thousands of other traders learn to survive this uncompromising business. (All he asks in return is that those who learn something support his favorite charity, the Make-A-Wish Foundation.)

Another long-time and very successful example of how chatrooms provide an educational resource to traders is Nexgen Software Systems (of which this author has been a regular attendee). In a series of Hotcomm chatrooms, owners John and Melinda Novak have helped educate 50 to 80 traders per day on the benefits of using automated Fibonacci levels and other indicators. (For more on the Novak's Fibonacci-based trading techniques, please see "High-Tech Fibonacci" and "Trading Fib Confluence – As Easy as ABC.")

Figure 3 – Our three-minute S&P 500 emini chart using Nexgen confluence zones (red and blue horizontal lines) and ABC indicator. Lower window is a MACD indicator modified by Nexgen. Chart provided by Tradestation.com Indicators by Nexgen Software Systems.

Novak is the regular moderator and educator handling questions about everything from software to the intricacies of interpreting various Fibonacci or ABC signals. The Nexgen rooms have demonstrated that traders using the online chatroom can find not only others wishing to learn, but also experienced traders who have insight into particular techniques and who enjoy having a number of eyes and ears on the market. They also help provide valuable views into where prices may be headed.

Traders Reaching Out
When a greater number of traders and investors join the markets, volatility increases across all equity and commodity classes. Where there is increased volatility, there is increased risk but also greater opportunity for profit. In an environment of ever-increasing competition and complexity, it becomes crucial that traders have the tools necessary to not only survive, but thrive in the trading game. One brain and a pair of eyes and ears are fine, but there is little doubt that there is strength in numbers. This extends from the initial learning phase right through to the expert professional level.

Chatrooms allow users to learn from experts located anywhere in the world, without leaving the comfort and convenience of their own trading rooms. These virtual meeting rooms also allow professionals in all aspects of the trading game to share ideas, charts, research, and market reconnaissance in the blink of an eye.

This new way of trading can help increase efficiency and profitability, and if you are not a committed hermit, you'll find it's a whole lot more fun to boot!

U.S. faces threat from cyber attacks

Don't duck yet, but experts are predicting the next large-scale military or terrorist attack on the United States may be a cyber attack. Experts say last week's attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia was preceded by an Internet assault that overwhelmed the Georgian government. And these security experts say a cyber attack could be just as devastating to the U.S. economy and infrastructure as a deadly bomb.

"Nobody's come up with a way to prevent this from happening, even here in the U.S.," said Tom Burling, acting chief executive of Tulip Systems, an Atlanta web-hosting firm that volunteered its Internet servers to protect the nation of Georgia's websites from malicious traffic.

"The U.S. is probably more Internet-dependent than any place in the world," Burling continued. "So to that extent, we're more vulnerable than any place in the world to this kind of attack. So much of what we're doing [in the United States] is out there on the Internet, and all of that can be taken down at once."

Check out more on this at cnn.com

Apple's iPhone in the enterprise

It certainly came as a bit of a surprise when Apple announced that it had licensed Activesync from Microsoft and was bringing full Exchange Server support to the iPhone. After all, Apple had marketed the device almost exclusively to consumers since its release and had ignored repeated requests from users for corporate email support. So why now? And does the iPhone really stand a chance against entrenched enterprise players like Microsoft, RIM and Palm?

Whether or not [the iPhone] will be picked up as a strong enterprise class device remains to be seen. Whether it will become a force in enterprise messaging like Windows Mobile also remains to be seen. Windows Mobile still has the fullest implementation of Activesnyc on the market but that isn’t going to keep us from licensing that technology to other device manufacturers. I think that this really says a lot about Microsoft’s commitment to standards. We obviously feel that Windows Mobile is a premium enterprise experience but if people want to experience Exchange on another device then we want to give them that choice. When you’re a company as big as Microsoft, you’re invariably going to have people who are your partner in some areas and a competitor in others. I think that’s a healthy environment—that’s just good capitalism.

One of the things that’s very important about Activesync, from an admin perspective, is the ability for the admin to make the final decision. We’ve built in controls for admins in Microsoft Exchange 2007 SP1 to give people really granular control—admins can make the choice for which devices they’re going to allow and what policies they want to be respected. An IT department can decide that if a device doesn’t support certain policies, it won’t be allowed to sync. On the software side, we make sure that admins have full control of their network and what devices attach to it.

Outsourcing on the rise

A new study by the Hackett Group projects that companies will increase their use of offshore resources by 50 percent in the next three years while cutting costs by up to half through the use of cheaper overseas labor. "We were surprised with the speed and increase of companies moving forward with this," said Michel Janssen, chief research officer at Hackett.

Technology Partners International, another consultant, predicted that 2008 could be a record year for offshoring contracts. It said contracts awarded in the first six months were worth more than at any time in the last three-and-a-half years, and the volume is projected to grow by 10 percent to $87.4 billion.

Gartner, a technology research firm, said India remains the top offshore location, but China, Russia and Brazil are gaining ground. Gartner predicted that offshore spending by American firms will grow by 40 percent in 2008 and that European firms will increase spending by 60 percent.

Credit crunch to lead to more outsourcing

We've been talking for years about how more financial services firms are outsourcing more knowledge-oriented work abroad. Junior level research and analysis started getting offshored a few years ago. The New York Times notes that the trickle has now become a flood. Top outsourcing firms in India are seeing a healthy bump in business, apparently. The paper notes Morgan Stanley has about 500 people in India doing research and statistical analysis. About 100 of GSachs' 3,000 employees in Bangalore work on research. JPMorgan has 200 analysts in Mumbai working for its investment banking operations. Another 125 analysts in Mumbai support the bank's global research division. Citigroup has no fewer than 22,000 employees in India, a few hundred of which work on research. So what does this mean for kids aspiring to junior level analysis jobs? By one estimate, 40 percent of research-related jobs on Wall Street will be sent abroad

Can Web 2.0 transform relationships with business clients?

I think it's fair to say that most banks have invested more in the "online experience" of their retail customer sites than in their wholesale customer sites. But that could change as more corporate users demand more web functionality, especially when it comes to cash management and basic transactions. Celent took a look at Web 2.0 and bank sites, and found few really compelling applications. But Celent is convinced that over the next three years, we'll see a dramatic shift. What will likely kick start the process is a better interface; that is, a souped-up dashboard. This will have to be functionality rich, Web 2.0-driven and intuitive, making clear all services available. Wells Fargo was singled out for its effort. What strikes me most is the incredible opportunity here. Bottom line: Banks face some tough build or buy decisions. Plenty of vendors are out there, but few have captivated the market. My advice would be to remain modular if you can. You don't want to have to start completely over if you miss on the first swing.

iPhone to make Wall Street inroads?

Can the iPhone supplant the Blackberry as the info-drug of choice on Wall Street? Knocking off the Crackberry seemed impossible not too long ago, but Apple has upgraded the enterprise capabilities of the new iPhone 3G, and we are already seeing some more interesting applications emerge. Wall Street & Technology reports Lab49 has developed a real-time portfolio management tool, offering analytics and monitoring. It does not, as of now, offer any actual trading functionality. Hedge fund managers may like what they see and decide they've just got to have it. If demand swells we'll see even more robust apps emerge. Hedge funds will likely determine the adoption rate--and the "cool" factor. Third-party development will determine the race on Wall Street.

Apple iPhone leaves users wanting more

From the moment Apple announced its iPhone at Macworld 2007, the tech world hasn't stopped asking questions. Because Apple has kept many iPhone details under wraps until very recently, we've been forced to speculate. Until now. Is the iPhone pretty? Absolutely. Is it easy to use? Certainly. Does it live up to the stratospheric hype? Not so much.

Don't get us wrong, the iPhone is a lovely device with a sleek interface, top-notch music and video features, and innovative design touches. The touch screen is easier to use than we expected, and the multimedia performs well. But a host of missing features, a dependency on a sluggish EDGE network, and variable call quality -- it is a phone after all -- left us wanting more.

For those reasons, the iPhone is noteworthy not for what it does, but how it does it. If you want an iPhone badly, you probably already have one. But because you'll have to sign an iPhone-specific two-year contract with AT&T to get an iPhone and shell out $499 (4GB) or $599 (8GB), we suggest you wait until the phone comes down in price and the network improves. Hopefully, both will happen soon.

On with the review: the iPhone boasts a brilliant display, trim profile, and clean lines (no external antenna of course), and its lack of buttons puts it in a design class that even the LG Prada and the HTC Touch can't match. You'll win envious looks on the street toting the iPhone, and we're sure that would be true even if the phone hadn't received as much media attention as it has.

Researchers develop next-generation antivirus system

Antivirus software on your personal computer could become a thing of the past thanks to a new "cloud computing" approach to malicious software detection developed at the University of Michigan.

Cloud computing refers to applications and services provided seamlessly on the Internet.

Traditional antivirus software is installed on millions of individual computers around the world but according to researchers, antivirus software from popular vendors is increasingly ineffective. The researchers observed malware—malicious software—detection rates as low as 35 percent against the most recent threats and an average window of vulnerability exceeding 48 days. That means new threats went undetected for an average of seven weeks. The computer scientists also found severe vulnerabilities in the antivirus engines themselves.

To develop this novel approach, the researchers evaluated 12 traditional antivirus software programs against 7,220 malware samples, including viruses, collected over a year. The vendors tested were: Avast, AVG, BitDefender, ClamAV, CWSandbox, F-Prot, F-Secure, Kaspersky, McAfee, Norman Sandbox, Symantec and Trend Micro.

Traditional antivirus software that resides on a personal computer checks documents and programs as they are accessed. Because of performance constraints and program incompatibilities, only one antivirus detector is typically used at a time.

CloudAV, however, can support a large number of malicious software detectors that act in parallel to analyze a single incoming file. Each detector operates in its own virtual machine, so the technical incompatibilities and security issues are resolved

The researchers' new approach, called CloudAV, moves antivirus functionality into the "network cloud" and off personal computers. CloudAV analyzes suspicious files using multiple antivirus and behavioral detection programs simultaneously.

How Can Antivirus Software Keep My Data Safe?

It’s getting harder everyday to protect your data from the dangers posed by computer viruses. These malicious programs have evolved into multiple forms that can be contracted through a variety of avenues, including opening email attachments, opening spam or by visiting corrupt websites.

Fortunately, just as viruses have grown in strength and complexity over the years, so also have the tools used to combat them. With the latest generation of antivirus software, you can give your computer a level of protection never before possible.

Today’s best antivirus software come with multiple virus scans, allowing you to schedule scans in advance, giving you access to a variety of location-specific scans and even real-time scanning, which scan your computer every few minutes for viruses—stopping them before they can do damage.

Since new viruses are being created everyday, the most effective antivirus programs offers convenient virus updates. Most antivirus software offers automatic updates, which regularly and automatically check back with the manufacturer for information on new viruses, providing you the highest level of protection at all times.

What to Look for in Anti-Virus Software

Top anti-virus software should be easy enough for a computer novice to both use and install. The software should effectively seek out and identify virus threats, as well as clean or isolate infected files. There should be understandable reporting available for each scan and plenty of help support available, so you can be well informed of the software’s activities and capabilities.

• Ease of Use –Exceptional anti-virus software is simple to use, regardless of a person’s computer experience or knowledge of viruses.
• Effective at Identifying Viruses and Worms – The best anti-virus products identify infected files quickly through real-time scanning, searching for viruses in a multitude of sources, including email, instant message applications, web browsing and so on.
• Effective at Cleaning or Isolating Infected Files –Truly capable anti-virus software thoroughly cleans, deletes or quarantines infected files—keeping them from spreading throughout the hard drive or network.
• Activity Reporting – Anti-virus programs should give immediate notification of viruses found by real-time scanners and should provide an easy-to-read report of scan results, including what it found and what it did with infected files.
• Feature Set – A well-rounded feature set allows anti-virus software to provide absolute protection. The best programs are those that offer a wide variety of tools, from basic real-time scanning to more advanced; when it comes to virus protection, the more options the better.
• Ease of Installation and Setup – Anti-virus programs should be a breeze to install, making it easy to go from installation to initial scan in just a couple clicks of the mouse.
• Help Documentation – High-end anti-virus software comes with plenty of help, including support via email, online chat or over the telephone. There should also be online resources, such as knowledge bases and FAQs available for quick and convenient help.

No matter how serious a computer virus is or how quickly it's passed around, with today’s anti-virus software, you’ll always have a cure.

PROGRAMMING FOR KIDS

Boku is a video game which is basically aimed at creating the computer programmers of tomorrow.

Visual cue card for instructing the robot

Principal programme manager Matt MacLaurin, a father of a three and three-quarter year-old daughter, designed Boku "as a tool so that kids can make their own games".

"Its secretly a tool to teach kids what programming is like without getting too bogged down in the detail," he said.

The technology lets users guide or program the behaviour of a virtual robot through the use of visual cue cards in the game to perform simple tasks like eating an apple or following another character.

Mr MacLaurin says Boku's marriage of creativity and education is a clever way to hook children into this world.

He noted that girls took just two hours to become completely conversant with Boku while he fudged on how long the boys took.

Mr MacLaurin says Boku, aimed at nine to 11 year olds, will be on sale from the beginning of next year for the X-Box.

BOTNET DETECTION

Botnets are computers that have been taken over by someone else and are beyond the user's control. They are often used to send spam and steal passwords, credit card numbers and personal information. Such attacks are regarded as a billion-dollar shadow industry.

Yinglian Xie and Fang Yu decided to do some research into the field after noticing that Microsoft's Hotmail facility was a popular target of large scale botnet attacks.

View of dynamic IP addresses throughout the world

The team developed a series of techniques for automatically detecting computer servers, or dynamic IP addresses, that send spam by focusing on addresses which change frequently.

Ms Xie says "A normal mail server will want not only to send e-mails but also to receive them so they want a relatively stable IP address. They normally won't use a highly dynamic IP address."

She says: "96% of mail servers on dynamic IP addresses actually send nothing but spam, this knowledge was not much exposed before."

They both hope that eventually their research will be incorporated into Microsoft's Hotmail e-mail service.

LASERTOUCH

The virtual world and the real world mesh with LaserTouch, billed as an inexpensive multi-touch sensing platform.

It's the brainchild of computer vision specialist Andy Wilson, who says "the magic is the software" and that he invented it "for fun".

"I am not making any heavy statements about this," he said.

Surface computers will be pervasive

He doesn't need to. Chairman Bill Gates did that at a recent CEO summit in Redmond with a giant touch wall powered by Mr Wilson's software.

Mr Gates said he wanted to turn nearly everything we touch into a computer and that surface computers "will be absolutely pervasive. In the individual's office, home, the living room."

Mr Wilson's laser touch unit uses a series of lasers, an overhead camera and a 2600 pixel-wide display surface. The mouse is consigned to the dustbin as LaserTouch relies on people using their hands to interact with the computer.

E-SCIENCE IN THE CLOUD

Microsoft's E-Science group works with scientists as a kind of middle-man to "develop tools to help them do their science better and enable progress to happen quicker".

Three projects were on display. One covering water quality, another concerning the Russian River in California and the third on collecting carbon data.

In the carbon project known as Fluxdata, a group of 400 scientists from across the world are looking at how vegetation is being affected by carbon emissions.

In the past they might well have worked in isolation and only exchanged information via email assuming they would know who else was conducting complementary research.

Yogesh Simmhan says: "Now what Microsoft does is take the 400 different sites where the data is being gathered and pull that data into the cloud, the back end."

He added: "The information becomes much more powerful when these scientists from around the world can actually correlate data and not just look at their own work. Proof that it's no longer possible to do science without doing computing."

TABLET PC

The mouse is history. Long live the pen, as far as InkSeine is concerned.

This is an interface for tablet computers and works as a digital notebook that users can write on using an electronic pen.

Raman Sarin says "We've thrown away a lot of the standard windows controls and developed controls that work better with a pen."

The mouse is dead, long live the electronic pen

Instead of scroll bars you make a circular motion to scroll. Instead of drop down bars, which Mr Sarin says he hates, there is a radial or marking menu you access by circling your pen.

When it comes to using the search application, Mr Sarin says the pen makes it easier than using the mouse to drag any image, email or web page into your notes.

He says over 6,000 people have already downloaded Inkseine and that he is overwhelmed by the positive feedback because it is at odds with the "Microsoft bashing" he normally gets.

OTHER RESEARCH

Other projects on display during the road show included PINQ the company's Privacy Integrated Queries, aimed at enabling queries on data while protecting certain information, such as a person's health history.

DryadLINQ is concerned with making it easier to do large-scale data parallel computing.

Images from the virtual WorldWide Telescope

Also highlighted, and reported on by the BBC in past stories, was the WorldWide Telescope, combining imagery from space-based telescopes with internet data.

Bilingual Built-ins that Break Language Barriers features applications to get rid of barriers to worldwide communication. This online service is at the incubation stage and can be seen at Translator.live.com

The Berkeley Emulation Engine, or BEE3, is aimed at researching advances in computer architecture.

Automatic Mutual Exclusion was devised to assist programmers programming for multiple CPUs, or central processing units.

The Keyboard Generation and Query Classification research focuses on developing technology to show keywords to advertisers.

Microsoft working on Windows replacement

Microsoft has kicked off a research project to create software that will take over when it retires Windows.

Indisputably the dominant computing platform of choice, the Windows Operating System looks set to remain that way for many more years to come. Microsoft is certainly not content to take things sitting down though. Already, its own research lab is cooking up a new operating system that is nothing less than a radical departure from the current paradigm. Called Midori, it does away with dependencies tying Windows to a single PC, with a design that centers on the Internet. Many believe that the idea behind Midori is to create a lightweight operating system that can easily be mated to serve as a portable host for compartmentalized applications.

Although Midori has been heard about before now, more details have now been published by Software Development Times after viewing internal Microsoft documents describing the technology.

Midori is believed to be under development because Windows is unlikely to be able to cope with the pace of change in future technology and the way people use it. Midori is widely seen as an ambitious attempt by Microsoft to catch up on the work on virtualisation being undertaken in the wider computer industry.

Innovation is vital to the future survival of Microsoft !

Revelries pushed America to recession. Is there anything in stored for future gen?

It has increasingly started to become clear that America is slipping into recession. With the sub prime crisis hitting one of the largest investment bank Bear Stern causing it to file bankruptcy followed by IndyMac Bancorp Inc, Fannei Mae and Fredie Mac..or in short FULL MAAZA , it seemed clear that there was more to follow them. Inspite of this mortage gaints FMs not backed by goverment, they are implicitly assumed by everyone to enjoy government support and this has cause they to behave reckless playing with the hard earned money of Americans. Just after few months, investment bank dealing with this rather complicated products formed out of mortgages given to sub prime customer, started revealing this losses which they could have carried on as MTM (mark to market).

But what is surprising in this predecided mortgage games is how the FED has tacked. It started offering huge stimulus,just an exaggeration infact the crisis is so huge that not even US reserves could compensate it completely, to gain the faith of investors and the innocent tax payer in the economy. During the past quarter-century, the world's most powerful economy has suffered only two official downturns, in 1990-91 and 2001. Both were short and shallow. In 2001 consumer spending barely skipped a beat; a decade earlier it fell, but only briefly. Buoyed up by rising asset prices and financial innovations that allowed ever more people to tap ever more debt, the collective American wallet has not snapped shut in almost two decades. The proportion of debt far exceeded the income, causing the numbers in the debt to income ratio look other way round.

This recession we are now entering is a result of bad attitudes and behavior. It seemed like just about everybody became entitled to everything.Nuts gobbled up resources like there was no tomorrow. Americans brought big cars and big houses that they did not need and ,if needed, debt surpassed their income . This was all due to lax banking policies and unrestrained green paper. Attitudes that came mainly from the right wing, however the left has more than its share of the blame stated I want it, give it to me now and to you know where if anybody gets in my way. Also, they stated that I do not have to pay for it, let others pay for my Hummers and SUV’s. The money they borrowed from this came from overseas and future generation of Americans will be poorer while trying to pay off his/her unpaid for luxury. The current account deficit will never be paid off . Taxes will be high, and the era of tax cuts will be long distant memory.

This when compared to China is completely contradictory. Chinese govement is acting smart. They believe in conversing resources in which ever form it is. America is inefficient and Americans grossly inefficient and that is why today jobs are being outsourced Offshore. American Companies were so stupid when they first launched their Products in India(They used per capita American Consumption Patterns to base their future Market Potential in India). FYI..India's per capita income is just $500 as compared to $40000 of America. America's use of energy and food- it is grossly inefficient and a colossal global waste.Majority of the Americans are grossly over weight and it brings along health problems. America is on a negative feeding cycle based on one bad inefficient practise leading to another.

Wanna make googol out of Adsense

Google Adsense is a great PPC or Pay Per Click Program that any web publisher can use to earn huge money from their website. There is minimal investment to start earning.AdSense Ad Design is one of the key factor in the performance of AdSense ads.Similarly, changing the positioning and numbers of ads would show significant changes in AdSense earnings at different times.

AdSense give quite a bit of control over how text ads can display on your site. You can change the color of a number of elements in ad units by changing the ‘color palettes’ that you choose.

As you can see above in the ‘default’ color palette there is the option to change the color of ad borders, the title, background, text and URL. There are rumors floating around at the moment that we might have more control over the font of ads too in the future

Unfortunately there’s not a single color palette that works best on every blog. As with everything - testing different color schemes is the only way to work out what works best for you.

Contrasting AdSense Ads

When I first started experimenting with AdSense I tried do everything possible to make the ads be seen. The theory is that if people see the ads they’ll be more likely to click them.

The result was some of the most horrendous color combinations that you’ll ever see put together in an AdSense unit.

I’m not sure why anyone would select this kind of combination but it was commonplace a few years ago. I saw a number of publishers back in that day saying that a Red/Yellow combination worked best.
The Pros of this design where that they were eye catching - the Cons were that they didn’t do a lot for creating a great first impression of your site and instead may cause headache after seeing such "Click me" kind of ads,

So Which AdSense Ad Design is Best?

The choice of which AdSense ad design to choose for your blog is a decision that you need to weigh up on a number of fronts including:

* Performance - test different designs to see which converts best in terms of click through rate
* Aesthetics - each of us have a different preference on what does and doesn’t look good and on how willing we are to allow ads that ’stick out’ a little.
* Other Competing Design Elements - if your blog’s design is ‘busy’ and has a lot of competing points of visual interest for readers you might need to increase the ‘loudness’ of the ads in order to compete.

When it comes down to purely financial considerations - the fact is that sometimes blending works best and on other occasions it can be better to go with a more contrasting approach.


In short...

Here are few adsense tricks that can help you increase you income without much investment.

Adsense Trick -1 : Check you Keyword density
Check the keyword density of your page, this will help you forecasting of ads that will be displaying on your pages. You can also adjust you pages to target particular type of ads.

Adsense Trick -2 : Update you page to target towards some ads
You can also update you page content to target some keywords.

Adsense Trick -3 : Build theme based content for better result
Make the pages of the related topic, you can use the keyword suggestion tools to achieve this.

Adsense Trick -4 : Increase you web site page count
You should write one or more pages per day to increase number of pages on you website. When you create more quality content you will start getting more visits to you web site and your income will keep on increasing.

Adsense Trick -5 : Use the best adsense ads format on your web site
Research on the ads format and then display the best ads on your pages.

Adsense Trick -6 : Use the right color combination for your ads
Use the ads color matching with your page theme.