Author: Serkadis

If you think cardboard’s just something the breakfast cereal comes in then you don’t know enough about cardboard. There are loads of interesting things to be done with cardboard and here are some of the best of them.

Cardboard Furniture

Wood has always been a good material for making furniture and cardboard is 95% wood. Or wood is 95% cardboard. Whatever, wood and cardboard are definitely related. There are plenty of ways of making cheap and environmental furniture from the brown stuff. Plus it’s creative and fun. There are quite a few websites to help you build chairs and tables. And some where you can buy it.

Cardboard Guitar Plectrums

The biggest problem with little things is they often get lost. That’s why so many mice end up in houses. If you play the guitar then you’re probably always complaining about missing picks and plectrums. Well now I have made your life better. Because cardboard plectrums are the new rock and roll. Simply trace the outline of an old plastic plectrum onto z piece of cardboard. Cut out. Cover with tape for added stiffness and play. You need to make sure the tape is applied smoothly and there are no rough edges before you start strumming. And you can experiment with thickness should you need a really stiff pick. But all in all this is one cheap and easy way to make music.

The Cardboard Laptop Bag

I’m aware that most people like their technology to look stylish. It’s one of the important things about technology. But if you’re not so worried about appearance then why not get yourself a cardboard laptop boxbag. You will need a strong cardboard box twice the size of your laptop (a box similar to those which contain reams of paper is good). Simply flatten the cardboard box and fold and glue together with flaps so that your laptop fits inside. Then make another outer box for this inner box. Hey presto. If it falls apart don’t come running to me.

A Cardboard Doll’s House

This may not be the most incredible way of using cardboard but if you’re a six year old girl then the chances are you’ll be pretty happy. Turn a cardboard box on its side, cut out cardboard tables and chairs, glue wallpaper, paint a roof. There are plenty of websites to help you build the very best home a dolly could hope to have.

Make A Cardboard Oven

If your child prefers cooking to dolls then why not make them their very own oven. Get a big cardboard box and cut a square out of the side of it. Remember to leave one side of the square uncut so the ‘oven door’ can open and shut. Add layers of cardboard inside for oven shelves and hobs, knobs and dials to the top. Then colour and get ready for dinner. All served on cardboard plates.

A Cardboard Coffin

As humans we spend our lives in boxes. Moments after we’re born we are put in a box, then we travel in a box to another box which we live in. We go to school, university and work in a box. And eventually we leave the world in a box. And if you’re ecologically minded then you might like to say goodbye in a cardboard box. Much like a pair of shoes.

Cardboard coffins come in different shapes and different colours and due to a multi-layering construction technique are very strong. They can even be made to look like wood.

The Cardboard Space Rocket and Airplane

One of the best things about being a kid is that you can turn any old box into a space rocket just by using your imagination. You can of course go one step further though and make a real space rocket and airplane out of cardboard. You may need some help to do it well. You can find inspiration here. Or just give it a go yourself.

The Cardboard Car

Alternatively for more adult tastes and bank balances, there’s the Aston Martin James Bond cardboard copy. A mere $30,000!

Build a Cardboard Bridge

You’re probably right to think of a bridge as one of the worst things you could make out of cardboard, the other being a boat, but it has been done. Architect Shigeru Ban designed one to cross the Gardon river in the south of France. It took over 280 cardboard tubes plus recycled paper, plastic and wooden boxes filled with sand to build but the bridge was able to support 20 people at a time. Thankfully the bridge was only ever intended to be temporary.

Build A Cardboard House

Yes. A house. Out of cardboard. It’s the future. According to Australian firm Col James of Stutchbury and Pape. They designed the house using recycled materials most of which is cardboard. The house is extremely sturdy, easy to assemble and comes with a waterproof roof. It was voted as one of the six houses of the future in 2004 which means pretty soon we should be seeing them popping up all over Australia.

The Cardboard Boat

So, you didn’t think it was possible. And depending on how far you want to sail it isn’t. But a cardboard boat will keep you dry on a short crossing. You’ll need some serious cardboard. And a lot of tape. But there’s plenty of help available online. Just don’t wear your best shoes when you give your new boat its first berth.

The Cardboard Crib

Environmentalists start young these days which is why Mothercare has been selling the Eco Crib, a perfect little cardboard cradle. It’s made with strong cardboard panels which travel flat packed and easily slot together for assembly. It comes in cool colours and has a curved bottom for easy rocking. You could of course have a go at making one yourself. But please be careful of the baby!

The web is build around advertising but, as a medium, it’s still relatively new and rapidly evolving at the same time. This creates a need and an opportunity to come up with new models and ad technologies which are better suited for the environment besides the established search and contextual ads, either in text or display form. One startup that aims to create a new niche is Pixazza, which can turn any blog photo into a product ad of sorts. The company, backed by Google’s venture capital fund, is now opening up its services and expanding its offerings by giving websites the possibility to set up a customized storefront for products featured on the site.

With Pixazza, any website or blog can insert ads with the photos they normally serve on their sites. Pixazza uses an army of people to tag the photos depending on the products featured in them and then serves links to shopping sites where readers can purchase the same or similar products. The idea is simple enough and could actually prove useful for the readers as long as it doesn’t get in the way of enjoying the actual content.

The technology has been tested on several celebrity gossip sites, but now the company is expanding its offering, making it available to any publisher. Pixazza is also launching the new Shopdot program which allows sites not only to s… (read more)

Commercial real estate is one trend that isn’t getting ‘less bad’. It’s just getting worse.

According to a recent August commercial real estate white paper, First American Corelogic shows how distressed commercial properties, excluding Boston, in May were 580% higher (6.8 times) the amount distressed in January 2006. Despite the carnage, it sounds like a great opportunity for the private equity players. Surely there must be some good deals amongst the distressed commercial real estate wreckage.

Check out the full document below.

CRE Newsletter August 2009

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If there was any doubt that social gaming has hit the big time, it was dispelled recently when gaming giant EA acquired Playfish, one of the top players in the market, for $400 million, taking some people by surprise. It may turn out to have been a bargain for EA as the biggest name in social gaming, Zynga, is getting valuation estimations at the $1 billion mark and may be headed for an IPO next year, though the company dismisses any talks about going public for the foreseeable future.

The sum had previously surfaced with talks of a possible acquisition from EA. The gaming company eventually decided to go with the cheaper version buying Playfish for about three to four times its yearly revenue. Now Bloomberg cites several analysts who believe that the social gaming company may well be worth $1 billion and may hit that mark if it aims for an IPO mid-2010. This would make it the third-biggest video gaming company in the US, not bad for a company founded just a couple of years ago.

Zynga is the biggest social games publisher by a fair margin and has just announced reaching $100 million unique monthly users. It also gets about $200 million monthly active users across all the social networks it operates. That’s a massive number considering that the largest social network in the world, Facebook, is at about 325 million… (read more)

Google hasn’t been making too much inroad into display advertising, certainly not to the extent of its success with search ads. But it’s not giving up any time soon and, if it can’t deliver on its own, it could always buy a company that can. And this is exactly what it did with the acquisition of Teracent, a display advertising startup which creates automated, customized ads in real time.

“We think that this technology has great potential to improve display advertising on the web. That’s why we’re pleased to announce today that we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Teracent. The transaction, which is subject to various closing conditions, is expected to close this quarter,” Neal Mohan, vice president, Product Management, and Joerg Heilig, engineering director, wrote.

Google hasn’t disclosed any financial details, but it’s likely a small acquisition, nothing like the recent $750-million AdMob deal. Teracent has raised only $5.8 million from investors so far and it already had a growing business. Interestingly, Yahoo was one of its big-name clients and is using Teracent technology to offer its Mobile SmartAds. Google hasn’t said anything about this, but it’s likely that the partnership will be ending soon enough.

“Teracent’s technology can pick and choose … (read more)

IMAX theaters have become an increasingly important part of the movie business’s continuing success over the past few years, as theaters have realized that (1) you can’t “pirate” the IMAX experience and (2) people are often willing to pay more for it. But, it appears that at least one theater began to wonder why it had to pay IMAX so much for such an offering, and decided to set out on its own to build a competitor. The only problem is that this theater, Cinemark, has been a customer of IMAX, so now IMAX is suing Cinemark for trade secret violations and breach of contract (sent in by Eric Goldman).

The details of the case certainly look like a business deal gone bad, and also involve Cinemark preemptively going to Texas (of course) to file a patent action against IMAX, asking the court to make clear that it does not infringe on IMAX’s patents. There may very well be breach of contract issues involved here, so IMAX may have a decent case on that front. But what’s more interesting is the question of whether or not there are trade secret violations here. We don’t talk about trade secret protections as much around here, because they really don’t come up that often. But IMAX is claiming that it shared proprietary trade secret info with Cinemark as part of their relationship, and that info was used by Cinemark to build its competing service.

Perhaps much more interesting, however, is the fact that, at least according to the IMAX lawsuit, the Cinemark XD quality has been reviewed poorly compared to IMAX (I looked around and actually found the reviews to be mixed, with many saying that the two are comparable in terms of experience). Cinemark is a much bigger company than IMAX, and had direct access to all of their technology — and, even so, at least some are saying that the end result doesn’t measure up. I’m reminded again of how silly it is to claim that big companies can always “steal” good ideas from smaller ones. It’s simply not that easy. Beyond just the basic quality issues, IMAX really has built up a great brand name, and many people do think specifically about going to see “IMAX films.” Cinemark can chip into that, but it’s going to take a lot of marketing effort. And, really, what’s wrong with a bit of competition? IMAX has had the market to itself for years, and some competition between two different methods of “immersive” movie-going experiences seems like it should only create a better situation for consumers.

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Google Chrome extensions are here for everyone. Well, almost, for everyone who’s a developer. The extensions gallery which we’ve been getting hints of for more than a week now is finally open for business, but for the moment, only to allow developers to upload their extensions. The gallery went live just as Google updated the dev channel to Chrome 4.0.249.11, a small update which fixes a couple of things.

“During the last few months, our team has been working hard to support extensions in Google Chrome’s beta channel. Today, we are getting one step closer to this goal; developers can now upload their extensions to Google Chrome’s extension gallery. We are making the upload flow available early to make sure that developers have the time to publish their extensions ahead of our full launch,” Lei Zheng, a software engineer at Google, wrote.

This is one of the last steps before launching extension support in the beta version and launching the dedicated gallery. But Google can’t launch an empty gallery, so it’s giving developers a chance to upload their creations. For the most part, it should be a seamless process, at the very least developers have to submit the code and an icon, but they also have the option to include some text, screenshots of the extension in action, and even a YouTub… (read more)

Beijing’s excellent Caijing magazine has suffered crippling blows to its staff, after seeing the departure of its top writers.

Yet the remaining editorial team, apparently now just 20 people compared to 200 not too long before, isn’t giving up. Their latest issue makes it clear that they’ll fight to keep Caijing alive:

Caijing, via China Realtime Report: Overnight, an editorial team that took 12 years to put together up and left. It was this team that achieved a leading position in the industry, and turned Caijing magazine into a top brand. Ms. Hu Shuli, the representative figure of this team, also won applause from both our readers and public, thanks to her sharp personality and her commitment to ideals. I deeply regret the separation from a partner of so many years.

the last two weeks I have spent a lot of time pondering this – why is it that this magazine, that holds such a special place in China, has to fact such a severe challenge? I’m still not sure whether I have found the answer yet. But one thing I understand very clearly is that the responsibility that I bear and the responsibility borne by the SEEC [Stock Exchange Executive Council], the owner of the magazine, is not is not alleviated by one bit, instead, it is heavier than before.

…

In my heart, Caijing doesn’t only belong to its founders and managers. Neither does it belong only to you — our most respected readers. Caijing also belongs to the social justice and conscience that you represent, and Caijing belongs to a more reformed and more open China.

Time will only tell if Caijing can live up to it’s past reputation, and even perhaps exceed it. Deep down, what made the magazine great was the freshness of its critical commentary regarding sensitive Chinese issues. Such critical analysis doesn’t take 200 people, nor does it take 20. It just takes one willing writer. If Caijing can realize this, and continue with it’s tradition, then their smaller numbers won’t matter. Just crank out a few quality pieces per month and we bet readers will stay loyal.

Check out Caijing here.

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• China Begs Banks To Cut Back On Lending
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   Have you encountered any syncing problems on your PS3’s after installing the latest firmware update 3.10? If yes, don’t worry, you’re not…

Looks like the courts got one right concerning a trademark claim involving famed movie dog Rin Tin Tin. It seems that some movie makers wanted to make a movie about Rin Tin Tin, which seemed reasonable enough. However, Rin Tin Tin Inc., a company that continues to breed “Rin Tin Tin dogs” for movies objected to the use of the name, saying that since they held the trademark on Rin Tin Tin, the movie was infringing. Thankfully, the judge disagreed, noting that the movie is about Rin Tin Tin, and thus was descriptive and a perfectly reasonable use of the name.

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Bill Gross’s Pimco Total Return Fund is now the most heavily invested in U.S. government-related debt that it’s been since 2004.

63% of the mammoth fund’s $192.6 billion in assets are now parked in debt backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer.

It’s a clear sign that Mr. Gross doesn’t see interest rates or inflation rising any time soon. It also shows that he isn’t worried about foreigners ditching U.S. bonds due to American budget concerns either. (Since such an event would trigger rising interest rates, hurting government bond prices)

Unfortunately his benign inflation and interest rate outlook also means that he doesn’t see the U.S. economy accelerating beyond the modest rebound it has staged already. Note he’s also cut his mortgage exposure to the lowest level since 2004 as well.

Bloomberg: “With unemployment in the double digits and likely to stay close to that for the next six months despite job creation ahead, the Fed has no where to go, [ie., Can’t raise interest rates]” Gross, co-founder and co- chief investment officer of Pimco, said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Nov. 19 from Newport Beach, California.

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The greater Boston area, no stranger to the Web CMS world (with companies like Percussion, PaperThin, Telerik US, and Refresh Software already based in the area), is about to add yet another content management mainstay to its denizens: Switzerland-based Day Software has announced it will move its US Headquarters to Boston (from Newport Beach, CA) on December 1.

Kevin Cochrane, Day’s chief marketing officer, explained the move by saying: “It’s just inefficient for us to be anywhere other than Boston," adding that “the majority of the partners we need to work with today in the Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 universe are in the Boston area…”

Day’s relocation of its US headquarters to an area known for high technology probably makes good business sense, but Boston is also a hotbed of tech startups, IPOs, and merger-and-acquisition activity (or was, before the economic downturn). One wonders if Day might also be relocating to Boston to have easier access to capital markets and/or potential suitors.

Certainly, many of Day’s activities over the past two years are consistent with those of a company primping itself in anticipation of sale — including installation of new leadership. The company got a new CEO, Erik Hansen (formerly with Interwoven), in May 2008. Later that year, Kevin Cochrane (another Interwoven alumnus) joined Day as its CMO. In August 2009, Day got a new Chairman of the Board when Barry Bycoff was elected to replace Michael Moppert.

In tandem with the personnel alignments, the company showed a convincing return to profitability in the first half of 2009 (following the release of Day Communiqué 5.1, and a sudden surge of  "sloshover" business from the disruptions caused by the Interwoven and Vignette buyouts).

Late in 2008, Day sold off its UK agency services subsidiary, MarketingNet, to advertising company WAA. Exactly the sort of thing that could be seen as a "trimming down" effort to clean up the balance sheet in anticipation of making the company suitor-ready.

Interestingly, before joining Interwoven, CEO Erik Hansen had been VP of Sales in EMEA for Netegrity, Inc. (the enterprise security software company which was acquired by Computer Associates in 2004). Netegrity, in turn, was founded by Day Chairman Barry Bycoff — who lives in Boston.

With the current economic down-cycle approaching (some would say it has actually passed) its nadir, there is bound to be a vigorous M&A market when investment capital finds its way back into the tech market. Companies positioned to catch the first wave of this capital may find themselves in an enviable position if too much capital chases too few opportunities. That may be exactly what Bycoff & Co. have in mind.

Who knows? 2010 may be an even sunnier year for Day than 2009 was — if that’s possible.

Despite some sweet talk from Hollywood about how important ACTA and its secret negotiations are to America (and, once again, no, the secrecy is not at all “normal,” as some industry lawyers would have you believe), it looks like some Senators are finally beginning to question how ACTA is being handled. Senators Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown have sent a letter to US Trade Rep Ron Kirk asking for ACTA documents to be made public. The letter points out that “the public has a right to monitor and express informed views on proposals of such magnitude” especially considering that “there are concerns about the impact of ACTA on the privacy and civil rights of individuals, on the supply of products under the first sale doctrine, on the markets for legitimate generic medicines, and on consumers and innovation in general.” The letter also takes on the bogus claims of state secrets in protecting ACTA documents:

We are surprised and unpersuaded by assertions that disclosures of basic information about the negotiation would present a risk to the national security of the United States, particularly as regards documents that are shared with all countries in the negotiations, and with dozens of representatives of large corporations. We are concerned that the secrecy of such information reflects a desire to avoid potential criticism of substantive provisions in ACTA by the public, the group who will be most affected by the agreement. Such secrecy has already undermined public confidence in the ACTA process…. We firmly believe that the public has a right to know the contents of the proposals being considered under ACTA, just as they have the right to read the text of bills pending before Congress.”

Unfortunately, these are just two Senators. Supporters of ACTA likely have many more who will blindly fight to keep ACTA secret and get it approved with little or no substantive input from those it will impact most.

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If you see the title above will be remembered by the term Hacker, Cracker or even Carder. Many movies, novels or articles in magazines / newspapers that they will be reviewing it, actually who are they? Why now we need to concern about their eye out? Bbrp coincidence last week I was asked to fill out a seminar you know about Hacking & Networking on Linux in Jogja Expo Center.
The word itself is often caused hacking means different, although the original is an activity to find out the weaknesses of a system and even how to improve the ability of a good system software or hardware. So take a particular skill, such as good programming skills or understanding of electronic hardware ttg great. Whereas in the film and the novel is described only as an activity to be breaking into a system to take an advantage. Perhaps the most appropriate description for the hacking is in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, where Trinity is using a tool nmap (Network Mapper). In addition, many movies are just playing with the animation for describing hackers. Too many do-just use another tool for artificial people through a system, without great effort, we often categorize them as just œScript Kiddiesâ â € €?? or children who play with a script someone else. Actually, to be a good hacker, many hrs do business better understand TCP / IP, learn programming etc..

So why now we need to protect information systems in your company / organization we? Used at the time of the information system is still Closed Network and technology used its proprietary (pd specific certain companies), security threats are not so worry. Once we use the standard protocol TCP / IP (yg notebene elderly and simple), a network connected to the Internet, that’s when our system becomes an easy target for mischievous orang2 out there. But such conditions it requires, for example banks hrs open Internet Banking services, hotels or travel agents to provide Online Reservation, a company must provide an e-commerce site for customer convenience, etc..

For that, I could not help the company must prepare a Security System (Security System) which according to the needs. One example is the firewall, such as self-employed security guard. Every guest went into an office, the guard will ask for the purpose, ask ID Card, then they will be recording our presence. The firewall will check every incoming access and compare with the policy, whether access is allowed or not. But it was not enough, then in the company must have installed CCTV Camera for supervising the activities inside. So although guests are allowed in, not necessarily that he did not do aneh2, for example, plant the bomb inside, steal something for take out, etc.. Usually Firewal addition, we will install IDS (Intrusion Detection System) which will oversee the data traffic, if any anomalies / peculiarities the IDS will alert could even get close the firewall for access connections at tsb.

Also, still needed more Authentication system ensures access to-be who, whatever may be inside, and recording their activity. For securing the line in order not bugged, required encryption technologies (encryption) so that the data are not easily read by anyone. And also required a centralized system for supervising / configure all security systems, such as space-equipped security guard monitors and Button2 lot for various activities.

Even more important is to teach to every user on the system for our company always careful when accessing a service exit. Type of attack-called Social Engineering Attack is an attack that utilizes user weaknesses. For example an email with the sender address for all users [email protected] request for to reply with include username and password, the reason will be upgraded to the new system. Or email asking us click to a website for downloading the latest antivirus demo, pdhl it is a virus or worm.

So in securing a system, many things must be considered reply. Not just buying software or security devices and then just installed. Wow, so busy is also yes if a connected system exit. Hence there is a mantra in the world that the Security â € œThe most secure system is unconnected Systema €?? Â € |. or even if ya want to secure all follow his motto of Andrew S. Intel’s Grove is the founder of â € œOnly The Paranoid Surviveâ €??, Although it is actually more to the business strategy. Udahan dulu deh, meet again in another story.

source : dagdigdug.com

http://www.google.com/ig/adde?moduleurl=http://feeds.feedburner.com/time/topstories&source=imag&val=3

Last week, we noted that an attempt to let hackers crack e-voting machines in Brazil failed, but Slashdot points out that someone did use some Van Eck phreaking to figure out who people voted for. While that’s not quite the same as hacking the results of an election, it could lead to questions about privacy and how anonymous voting really is. Of course, to some extent, this has always been a risk with e-voting systems, but it hasn’t received that much attention.

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Gearbox Software’s upcoming downloadable content for Borderlands is said to add around six more hours of new gameplay. Titled “The Zombie Island of Dr…

A funny thing happened on the way to a new New Deal. A year ago, the only thing we had to fear was fear itself; today, the reigning doctrine in Washington appears to be “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”

What happened? To be sure, “centrists” in the Senate have hobbled efforts to rescue the economy. But the evidence suggests that in addition to facing political opposition, President Obama and his inner circle have been intimidated by scare stories from Wall Street.

Keep reading at NYT >

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• Niall Ferguson: Roubini Is Okay, But He’s Not As Good As Me