Author: Serkadis

Converting PDF to plain text is nothing out of the ordinary. You just select the paragraph, right-click it, choose “copy” function and then paste everything in the clipboard in a Notepad document. It is just a matter of copy-paste basic in all operating systems.

The only problem is the formatting of the text, which is no longer preserved, and the aligning of the paragraphs can also be an issue. Fortunately, the amount of utilities on the market ready to assist you in this endeavor is huge. The downside is that they do not come free.

Wondershare PDF Converter comes for the huge sum of $49.95 and the evaluation version restricts your conversion to only the first three pages of the document. It can transform the PDF file to Microsoft Word format, Microsoft PowerPoint, HTM or plain text with no hesitation at all.

$49.95 sure is a lot, for any sort of user, considering there are online services that do this for free. However, the developer released the software with a promotion that halves the price. So you’ll be able to get it 50% off, for $24.95, a more decent figure.

The interface is as simple as can be, featuring nothing else but the conversion formats supported by the application. One thing you have to keep in mind, though: you can’t convert to Word format if the application is not prese… (read more)

Yamaha launched its so-called Tenori-on, an electronic musical instrument with a built-in sound module, in 2007 for a recommended retail price of $1,200. The device, which consists of a touch screen and lets you play music by running your fingers over a 256 LED grid, is being sold world-wide, but the price is obviously a problem for many potential customers. It took a while, but today Yamaha in Tokyo announced the Tenori-on Orange [JP], which will cost less than $780 (at least in Japan).

I am not sure if the new model will attract masses of people, with Yamaha saying they had to remove the magnesium casing of the original and use ordinary plastic instead to push down the price of the instrument. Another minus: You can’t use the Tenori-On with batteries anymore so there needs to be a power source anywhere you use it.

The LEDs are orange now (instead of white), but Yamaha says both versions are absolutely identical as far as making music on them is concerned. Both the new and the old Tenori-On can be networked, too.

The Tenori-On Orange will go on sale in Japan on December 1. Yamaha has yet to say anything about their international sales plans.

Today’s headlines center on the House health overhaul expected Saturday vote — what some are calling a potentially ‘historic moment’ for Democrats.

Could Delays Jeopardize Health Overhaul?
Kaiser Health News staff writers Mary Agnes Carey and Eric Pianin report on how Congressional Democrats’ slipping timeline could impact health reform. “Passing a health care overhaul bill might be one of the hardest things Congress has ever attempted. But waiting until next year might jeopardize a top priority for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress” (11/5).

House Dems In Final Push On Health Care
The House is steaming toward a historic vote on President Barack Obama’s remake of the U.S. health care system, with Democratic leaders increasingly confident and the powerful seniors’ lobby AARP about to get on board (The Associated Press).

House Expected To Vote On Health Bill Saturday
House leaders put in motion the machinery to hold a rare Saturday vote on the most far-reaching expansion of the health-care system in more than 40 years (The Washington Post).

House Democrats Push For Saturday Health Vote
House Democratic leaders are pushing for a Saturday vote on their sweeping health-care bill, but they are struggling to win over shaky rank-and-file members who could hold up its passage (The Wall Street Journal).

Dems Want To Seize Historic Moment
Health care is big for House Democrats: big like Social Security in the ’30s and civil rights in the ’60s, big like the war stories retold now in party caucuses as lawmakers grapple with the floor vote that is just days away (Politico).

Public’s View Of Health Care Overhaul Has Familiar Ring
Americans’ opinion of the health care proposals now before Congress is eerily similar to public sentiment about the Clinton health reform initiatives in 1994, according to an analysis published online yesterday in The New England Journal of Medicine – and that may not bode well for Democrats (The Boston Globe).

Dems Tackle Hot-Button Issues Before Saturday Healthcare Vote
The House is headed toward a rare Saturday evening vote as Democratic leaders scramble to placate party factions threatening to defeat the healthcare bill over hot button issues such as spending, immigration and abortion (The Hill).

Haggling Over Abortion Deal In Health Bill
House Democratic leaders struggled Wednesday to strike a deal that would restrict the use of federal money to pay for abortions under sweeping health care legislation headed for debate on the House floor this week (The New York Times).

This Weekend’s Vote Poses A Defining Moment For Blue Dogs
Blue Dog Democrats face a dilemma this weekend: Should they oppose legislation they believe is flawed, or move the bill out of the House in the hopes of it changing in conference? (The Hill).

Democrats’ Plan To Help ‘Uninsurables’ Questioned
You’re afraid your cancer is back, and a health insurance company just turned you down. Under the health care bills in Congress, you could apply for coverage through a new high-risk pool that President Barack Obama promises would immediately start serving patients with pre-existing medical problems. Wait a second. Read the fine print. You may have to be uninsured for six months to qualify (The Associated Press).

Surgeons Oppose Senate Healthcare Bill
The American College of Surgeons and 19 other groups representing surgeons delivered a letter Wednesday stating their opposition to the Senate’s healthcare reform legislation (The Hill).

The Work-Up: To Their Own Devices
When makers of heart defibrillators wanted Medicare to vastly expand the types of patients eligible to receive the devices, which can cost upward of $25,000, agency officials were skeptical. It was not clear how many of those patients would actually need a defibrillator, a device that can deliver a life-saving shock to restore a faltering heart to normal rhythm (The New York Times).

How To Size Up College Health Coverage
As more parents lose their jobs—and their insurance—in the recession, more college students are having to scramble for health care (The Wall Street Journal).

Budget Analysts Say GOP Bill Would Do Little To Expand Health Insurance Coverage
The long-awaited Republican entry in the health care debate received its assessment late Wednesday from congressional budget analysts, who concluded that the proposal would barely dent the ranks of the uninsured (The Washington Post).

House Republicans Offer Alternative Healthcare Proposal
After months of criticizing Democratic healthcare proposals from the sidelines, House Republicans this week stepped up efforts to promote their own plan and challenge critics’ efforts to portray the GOP as the “party of no.” Unlike the Democrats’ strategy of trying to provide near-universal coverage and force other major changes to the insurance system, the Republican approach is an incremental one that would do far less to reduce the ranks of the uninsured. It would instead give priority to controlling healthcare costs (Los Angeles Times).

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Spectrum Equity Investors-backed website Ancestry.com Inc (ACOM.O) priced its initial public offering of 7.4 million shares at $13.50 per share on Wednesday, within the expected range.

Ancestry.com, which operates a website that allows people to trace their family roots by scouring online records, will begin trading on Nasdaq under the symbol “ACOM” ACOM.N on Thursday.

The Provo, Utah-based company had expected to sell 7.4 million shares in its IPO for between $12.50 and $14.50 each, in a $100 million offering.

Ancestry.com, which said it had 1 million subscribers as of September, was founded in 1983 and is majority owned by private equity firm Spectrum Equity Investors, whose stake in the company will fall to 54.8 percent after the IPO from 67 percent. Spectrum bought Ancestry.com for $354.8 million in December 2007.

The existing shareholders are selling about 45 percent of the shares in the IPO, with the rest coming from the company.

Ancestry.com expects net proceeds of $48.4 million from the IPO, and will use the money in part to repay $12.1 million it owes CIT Lending Services Corp, a unit of CIT Group Inc, (CITGQ.PK) and use the rest for working capital.

Ancestry.com’s registered users have built 12 million family trees containing 1.25 billion profiles, according to the filing.

Its revenue in the first nine months of 2009 was $164.8 million, largely from subscriptions, up 13.5 percent from the year earlier period. Over the same period, its profit rose 250 percent to $12.2 million. In 2008, each subscriber generated about $16.09 in revenues per month.

The IPO will be lead managed by Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N). Underwriters will have the option to buy another 1.1 million shares. (Editing by Carol Bishopric)

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FRANKFURT (Reuters) – VEM, the owner of German generic drugmaker Ratiopharm, said it was satisfied with the first-round offers received for the forced sale of the unit, indicating that bidding could turn competitive.

A spokesman for the Merckle family investment vehicle VEM said on Thursday it was positively surprised by the number of bids, which were not binding, and that it was “very satisfied” with the level of the offers.

Both drug makers and financial investors filed offers before the deadline for indicative bids on Wednesday, he added.

Encouraged by the interest from suitors, the sale of Ratiopharm as a whole remained a priority, he said.

VEM owner Ludwig Merckle, who is selling Ratiopharm as part of concessions made by his late father to creditor banks, is hoping for proceeds of up to 3.5 billion euros ($5.16 billion), one source close to the deal has said, but generic-industry insiders have dismissed that figure as far out of reach.

Two sources close to the proceedings told Reuters on Thursday that several bids exceeded 2 billion euros, while some were markedly above that figure. [ID:nWEA9067]

Ratiopharm declined to give the value of the bids.

A source with direct knowledge of the generics industry told Reuters last month that a promising approach would be to split off Ratiopharm’s more profitable Canadian business, accounting for 12 percent of 2008 group sales, and sell it separately. (Reporting by Ludwig Burger, Philipp Halstrick and Frank Siebelt, editing by Will Waterman) ($1=.6782 Euro)

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BONN (Reuters) – German commercial broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG (PSMG_p.DE) remained vague on targets for the full year after it reported a third-quarter core profit that missed expectations.

ProSieben said on Thursday it saw increasing signs of economic stabilisation but would stay conservative in its planning because the market environment remained difficult.

Chief Executive Thomas Ebeling said last week he was seeing a recovery in the German TV advertising market in the fourth quarter but that it was uncertain how the German ad market would develop in 2010.

A range from a 5 percent decline to 2 percent growth was possible, he had said.

ProSieben, hit hard like rivals by a steep decline in advertising revenues, aims to compensate with costs cuts of 200 million euros ($294.9 million) this year.

It said operating costs dropped 9.6 percent to 469.2 million euros in the third quarter and 11.4 percent in the first nine months excluding the sale of its Scandinavian pay-TV operation CMore.

Core profit in the third quarter fell 24.1 percent to 62.4 million euros on a sales decline of 7.9 percent to 559.4 million euros due mainly to the sale of CMore.

Analysts polled by Reuters had on average expected a fall in core profit of 15.1 percent to 79 million euros on revenues of 565 million euros.

ProSieben, which is majority owned by KKR and Permira, has said one of its key priorities was cutting net debt, which stood at 3.53 billion euros at the end of September.

That was a decline of 7.4 percent compared with a year earlier but a rise of 3.1 percent compared with the previous quarter due to lower free cash flow.

Munich-based ProSieben bought SBS Broadcasting in 2007 for 3.3 billion euros to create a stronger rival to Bertelsmann owned RTL Group, which reports earnings on Nov 10. (Reporting by Nicola Leske, Editing by Michael Shields)

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish biotechnology group Biovitrum (BVT.ST) said on Thursday it had signed a deal to buy drug firm Swedish Orphan, jointly owned by holding company Investor AB (INVEb.ST) and private equity firm Priveq. Biovitrum said in a statement it had agreed to pay an upfront consideration of 3.5 billion Swedish crowns ($493.2 million) on a cash and debt-free basis.

“The two companies fit like a hand in a glove,” it said. “In one giant leap we form a company with a leading position within rare diseases and a solid platform for future growth and profitability.”

Investor AB and private equity firm Priveq each own 42 percent of Swedish Orphan, which made an operating profit of 201 million crowns in the year to April, and sales of 694 million.

Biovitrum said it would finance the acquisition through a rights issue, an issue in kind as well as bank financing.

Proforma revenues of the combined group were seen at 2 billion crowns this year with an operating margin (EBITDA) of 15 percent, it added.

“The combination will allow the new group to realise annual operating cost synergies and cost avoidance in excess of 100 million crowns with full effect from 2011,” it said. ($1=7.097 Swedish crowns) (Editing by Greg Mahlich)

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NEW YORK, Nov 5 (Reuters) – Leveraged buyouts struck by Cerberus Capital and Apollo Management performing worse than deals by other private equity firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a report by Moody’s said on Thursday.

Moreover, mega-deals have fared badly on average, said the report, which studied 186 deals structured during the 2004-7 bubble period.

Moody’s picked deals on the basis that they were investments made by the largest private equity firms; had a rating by Moody’s during the period January 2008 to October 2009, and were financed or structured in the 2004-7 time frame.

The findings showed that 65 percent of Apollo’s deals surveyed and 67 percent of Cerberus’ were classed as either in default or distress.

Moody’s includes debt-for-debt and debt-for equity swaps as a default, as well as the repurchase of a significant portion of the company’s debt through open-market repurchases. It notes in the report that not all investors would consider all of those categories as a default.

Just 15 percent of KKR’s deals surveyed were classed as defaulted or distressed. Others with lower default and distress rates — all in the 20 percent-30 percent range — are Madison Dearborn, Blackstone (BX.N) and JPMorgan’s (JPM.N) private equity unit, the report said.

Private equity firm Welsh Carson had zero defaults on its deals, the report said, although 31 percent were distressed.

“It is crucial to remember that private equity firms are not all alike, and that their philosophies differ to some extent,” Moody’s Senior Vice President John Rogers wrote in the report. “Some are more mindful of the potential impact that distressed debt holders could have on future financings, while others focus primarily on equity returns.”

The report does not look into returns on individual deals or funds, and it is quite possible for private equity firms to make money on individual deals even if they are distressed.

SIZE MATTERS

The bigger deals struck during the boom period have fared badly, the report says, such as Cerberus’ Chrysler Automotive, which went into bankruptcy and later re-emerged.

The top 10 private equity-sponsored LBOs by transaction value performed much worse than other private equity deals or similarly rated companies, Moody’s concluded.

Among some of Apollo’s deals — Linens ‘n Things filed for bankruptcy protection as sales slumped, Harrah’s has struggled with its debt load and Realogy has had to deal with the gloomy real estate market.

But the report did conclude that when two or more of the largest firms collaborate on a deal — a so-called “club deal” — the deals tend to have a lower default rate.

Private equity firms that bought companies with high levels of debt during the boom years are also facing the problem of refinancing that debt in the coming years.

“Current market conditions, while greatly improved over the past six months, could not support the magnitude of debt that must be refinanced over the next five years,” Rogers wrote.

Without a substantial improvement in the high-yield markets, he writes, many companies could have trouble refinancing their debt. Those that do may be forced to pay significantly higher interest rates, “which may compromise their financial viability,” he wrote.

By Megan Davies
(Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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When California-based architect and woodworker Franz Goebel was commissioned by a client to design a cat tree that worked well with modern furniture, he obviously had some inspiration. That inspiration came from his own four Bengals. Goebel’s new ZcaT modern cat tree is the result and it’s a perfect fit for the Moderncat aesthetic. This sturdy structure is handmade from hardwood with a durable non-toxic finish. It includes two patches of artificial grass and a replaceable corrugated cardboard scratch-and-climb panel.

ZcaT is available in White Oak for $439 or American Walnut for $494. I can’t wait to see what else they have in the works!

One of my roles working for DFID is to explore ways in which the UK and China can work together to promote development in Africa. We discuss these issues in big international meetings. We have started to do this in African capitals. We have even started some China-UK-Africa projects on rural roads in DRC, UN police peacekeeping, and some academic exchanges.

One of the really interesting things about this work is talking to Africans about what they want from China. And in Beijing, there are many more Africans to have this conversation with, than there have been in the past.

African delegation in China

A few weeks ago we hosted three leading agriculture experts from Africa and visited some of the agricultural areas around Beijing. They and I were seriously impressed. One remarked to me that “China’s own and very recent experience of poverty reduction is a powerful magnate to African leaders, researchers and policy makers – we are all keen to learn from China”. I was impressed, because I worked on a farm before going to university and I know any sort of mechanisation is better than picking potatoes by hand!

One of the things that shocks many, as they walk around Beijing, visit industrial zones, take in modern agriculture facilities and speed along China’s impressive roads and railways is to learn that China was once much poorer than their own countries.

In the 1970s the average person in China was much poorer than their equivalent in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, and in Sudan. That of course is no longer the case. And it is because these changes are recent, because many of the senior Chinese people they meet grew up at a time when China was poor, that there is a connection between Africans and Chinese which creates a powerful bond of understanding. There is urgency for action, a desire to do practical things.

The Chinese can almost always see beyond the poverty they see in Africa and are hugely positive about opportunities. And that is something that brings real energy to the growing relationship. It also works the other way around. There are increasing numbers of African business people in Beijing. Whenever I bump into any I always try and have a chat with them about their experiences in China. One said to me recently “Africans love low-cost Chinese consumer goods, even if they break before Western ones, you can afford to buy another one!”

Of course much of the China-Africa relationship is about business opportunities and projects that can be funded by China. Both China and Africa are clear that investment and trade are hugely important to successful development.

So why is this of interest to the UK? Well, Africa is a major priority to the UK. China knows this. China also knows that Africa is different to China. It also knows that what has worked in China might not work across a continent with a huge variety of countries, cultures and contexts. In the last 12 months China has become much more open to talking to countries like the UK about development in Africa. This does not mean for a moment that China will become like the UK, but it means we are starting, with the full involvement of our African partners, to have a three-way discussion about development in Africa. If we can all learn from each other, I’m sure the outcomes of all of our endeavours will be better than if we were not talking.

Blog :
Blog merupakan singkatan dari “web log” adalah bentuk aplikasi web yang menyerupai tulisan-tulisan (yang dimuat sebagai posting) pada sebuah halaman web umum. Tulisan-tulisan ini seringkali dimuat dalam urutan terbalik (postingan terbaru dahulu baru diikuti postingan yang lebih lama), meskipun tidak selamanya demikian. Situs web seperti ini biasanya dapat diakses oleh semua pengguan internet sesuai denagn topic dan tujuan dari si pengguna blog tersebut.
Contoh : Blogger.com, WordPress.com, dll.

Social Network :
Social Networking merupakan sebuah bentuk layanan internet yang ditujukan sebagai komunitas online bagi orang yang memiliki kesamaan aktivitas, ketertarikan pada bidang tertentu, atau kesamaan latar balakang tertentu. Social networking lazim disebut sebagai jaringan pertemanan.
Layanan social network biasanya berbasis web, dilengkapi dengan beragam fitur bagi penggunanya agar dapat saling berkomunikasi dan berinteraksi. Contoh : Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Magnolia, Friendster. Dll.

Portal :
Website tipe Portal adalah sebuah website yang memberikan bermacam macam informasi dalam satu domain. Informasi yang diberikan ini bisa spesifik seputar satu topik saja, misalnya portal games, portal berita, ataupun yang bersifat general. Umumnya sebagian besar informasi yang diberikan oleh Portal ini bersifat searah, dari webmaster kepada user, walaupun pada perkembangannya banyak yang mulai menyajikan user generated contents. Pendapatan utama website tipe Portal adalah dari Iklan. Contoh website portal yang kita kenal diantaranya adalah, Yahoo.com, KapanLagi.com, Plasa.com, EraMuslim.com, Detik.com dan masih banyak lainnya.

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Just in September this year, Toshiba proudly announced a 1.8-inch HDD with 160GB capacity, which was pretty impressive already (their new SSDs aren’t too shabby either). But today, not even two months later, Toshiba unveiled another 1.8-inch HDD with 320GB capacity [press release in English].

The MK3233GSG features a 3Gbps SATA interface and 16MB buffer memory, produces just 19dB of seek noise and spins at 5,400 rpm. Needless to say it’s the only 1.8-inch HDD with 320GB capacity out there.

Toshiba says mass production will start in December this year. In the past few months, the company has announced one high-capacity HDD after the other.

Stephanie Migot writes in to let us know how UK law firm Wragge & Co has decided to set up a special “cyber tracing” team, whose job it will be to scour the internet for anyone making negative anonymous comments about any of their clients and then take action. Of course, the law firm says it’s really looking for people leaking confidential information (such as disgruntled employees), but, as you probably know, defamation laws in the UK are significantly more draconian than those elsewhere. Thus, the line is a lot more blurry, and will almost certainly lead to these sorts of activities targeting mere criticism and complaints, rather than true defamation. The unfortunate end result is a series of chilling effects on any concept of free speech.

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Enterpreneurship
According to a French economist, Richard Cantillon entrepreneur is the “agent who buys means of production at certain prices in order to combine them” (agents who buy the production equipment at a certain price in order to combine them). entrepreneur comes from French meaning entreprendre take steps to enter a particular activity or an enterprise; or welcome the challenge. In the original sense of the word entrepreneur in the can three important things, namely creativity, innovation, opportunity creation, and calculated risk-taking. Three main elements of this is that there is at all any entrepreneur.

In a time not too long, another French economist, Jean Baptista Say Cantillon add definition to the concept of the entrepreneur as a leader. I declare that the entrepreneur is someone who brings people together to build a productive organs. If translated into Indonesian known as entrepreneurs or self-employed. Based on its etymological art, is entrepreneurial notion of courage, virtue, or fortitude in trying to rely on their own strength.
The meaning of ‘force alone’ is not a business activity carried out alone, but rather refers to the mental attitude that does not depend on others. In solving the problems faced, he relied more on their own strength rather than ask for help from others. Thus, the notion of ‘using their own power’ can be worn on their own business or work as an employee.

Technopreneurship
is a process in the formation of new businesses that see technology as a base, with the hope that the creation of strategies and innovations that can be put right later on technology as a factor for national economic development.
Technoprenerurship concepts as disclosed above basically integrate the technology with entrepreneurial skills (Enterpreneurship skills). In this Technopreneurship base concept entrepreneurship development starts from the invention and innovation in technology.

Cyberpreneurship
is a business activity and increased business using computer technology, especially the Internet, in this business and business promoted using known electronic brochures with the homepage on the Internet. Sales of products and services also use electronic mail on the Internet.

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