Car insurance

When choosing your car insurance, bear in mind that there are a number of providers out there. Sometimes it can seem that you are just looking at a sea of information and it is impossible to work out how to get the best deal. But following just a few of the following car insurance tips will enable you to get the most out of the experience, and, hopefully, walk away with a car insurance policy that you can call a bargain.

First of all, get a smaller car.

This will pay off in the long run, and not just in the cost of premiums. You will find that fuel costs less, and the overall running cost of the car will be reduced. Then the premiums will be lower. Your insurer will take into account the size of your car’s engine when insuring you. It is definitely worth considering as an option when you are thinking of ways to reduce the cost of premiums.

Make sure that you can report to your insurer when they are asking the initial questions that you keep it in a secure area. An off the road garage is ideal; this can often help keep your premiums low. If you can’t say that you are using your own garage, and if there is an opportunity to rent or use someone else’s garage, then do this. It can often have an impact on the overall cost of your policy.

Be a careful driver. This may seem a like a completely obvious piece of advice, but when you are driving around on the road in a safe manner, insurance companies will ensure that your premiums are lower. Speeding fines and points on the driving licence will attract higher premiums from an insurer as you will be deemed more likely to make a claim on your insurance.

If you are learning to drive consider taking the Pass Plus Test. For this little extra financial outlay at the start of your driving career, you can sometimes see a discount on your premiums. Insurers can sometimes offer a discount if you have passed your Pass Plus test.

When completing your insurance application, make sure that all of your questions on the policy documentation are answered accurately. Whatever you do don’t guess your annual mileage, for example. Insurers need to know how many miles you drive in a year so that they can offer an accurate premium.

Lastly, volunteer some of the excess. If you can do this, you will see a subsequent drop in the cost of premiums as you are taking on some of the risk from the insurer.

Whether it is third party (which covers only the person or car you cause damage to), third party fire and theft (which covers the other driver and the two eventualities), or fully comprehensive cover, use these car insurance tips, and make sure that you think about how you can present the best case to the insurer. It will pay off in the long run.

Symbian s60 will be scrapped soon!

The Symbian Foundation Blog, in a latest blog post has announced the release of the first PDK (Product Development Kit) for the upcoming Symbian ^2 platform.

Directed at developers, the PDK packs in several tools for them to bring out the first Symbian ^2 based device in the market. The kit includes a full version of the Symbian S60 OS, NTT DoCoMo's MOAP and Ericsson's UIQ.

In another news, the same blog post also talks about the S60 brand being dissolved. That's Correct. S60 as we used to know has ceased to exist. The S60 website too has been disbanded recently and all the content from there has been moved here. Symbian ^2 will be a major OS release since it's development begins and will be available for "consumption" by late 2009 or early 2010. The blog post also says about a six monthly cycle that will ensure a new version of the software every six months.

All about earning money online

People are usually almost interested in making more money. And people with computers are no different. Actually I think people with computers are even more open to new ideas and most of them would like to learn how to make money working online. The challenge usually is knowing where or how to get started.

Unfortunately many people have the idea of ?I cannot make money online? and ?Making money online is just a scam?. And they are right. If you think you cannot make it ? you won?t! The first step to success is believing in your self and that you can achieve whatever you set your mind to! Those who try to make money online anticipate earning ?big? money quickly only to experience little to no earned income. They feel like they are a failure, or even blame it on the business, and in frustration they quit. After being in the biz for a while I?ve seen it over and over again. People with no money to invest seek online programs in order to make quick bucks and when not making money after two weeks they quit. Losers!

Quitters never win ? and winners never quit! You simply have to work something long enough to see results and stop jumping from bandwagon to bandwagon. The grass is not greener on the other side?

I don?t say this to be harsh or to make you feel bad if you have quit a program or two. I have quit many programs my self but that was because the companies actually were ?bad apples? and actually were scams, or I didn?t have the money to proceed. Fair enough. Just don?t expect to make millions overnight online, if you haven?t got any money to invest. Online business is just like the real world ? it takes money to make money. Sure the internet opens up a lot of new ways to make money for free but then you also rely on free marketing, which is absolutely a great way to get traffic and sales, but it usually takes a lot longer time to make money using free advertising contra paid advertising.

Now, if you maintain the burning desire to make money working online, you will need to keep your focus. And if you keep focus you will see better results!

A good starting point could be to find a mentor! Having someone to help you on the right path and keeping you focused can really help you succeed. Try to find someone you know has achieved the results you would like to have for yourself, or better. You need to know the truth about anyone who has claimed, or is claiming, to be making money working online. Anyone can be anything online so don?t fall for ?smoke & mirror? type results that gives you high expectations of outlandish return in short time as very few achieve such results, and if they do it is due to hard work. If it sounds too good to be true it probably is.

What are facts and what is fiction?

I have read countless great e-books and manuals on ?how to? make it online. But how can I tell what is real or not? When researching stuff online, it is never good to know what is right and what is simply pure fiction.

A tip is if you find yourself reading the same type of information from various different authors, your chances of actually reading something that is factual is much better than if this is just one persons? opinion. That?s unless this guy is a genius who have come up with something no other have ever though of. Slim chance! The key is how to pick the best ones and learn from these without spending a tons of cash on other peoples products before seeing a return on your investment. There is just so much info out there and so many ?gurus? that you need to find one or a few, and follow the guidelines of these folks.

It can also be a good way to not only read but also view information as well. It can often be a lot easier to learn by watching online videos of other people demonstrating and by viewing ?how to? examples. To read is one thing but watching others do something and then ?copy? what they do is a completely different thing. There are many times I have not understood how to set up a new script or setting get a new software to work, but after viewing videos on the subject it almost without exception becomes a lot clearer to me. By doing so, you could find yourself getting the same results as your teacher or mentor.

Actually, if you want to make more money working online, you should be duplicating someone else?s success steps for yourself ? and if possible improve them. Why be a copy cat? There is no reason to re-invent the wheel and there is nothing wrong with copying as long as you do not break any copyright violations or anything.

The main key to success and to make money working online is, besides keeping focus, is to do something proactive on a weekly basis. Take action today, and do action steps on a daily basis, and you will progress much faster and success will come as a result.

The more time you devote to your business the faster success will come. Try to at least set aside 10-15 hours a week. You can have great success without being stuck in front of your computer every single day.

Later, when your business is rolling you could plan to relax more or work on new projects but try to devote 10-15 hours a week for at least one full year. Learn from others mistakes and benefit from their success tips!

Nokia E75 gets an IM client aka nokia messaging

Nokia Beta Labs have just published a new version of Nokia Messaging app, which now allows desktop-like instant messaging on a Nokia smartphone along with the regular email features.

Only Nokia E75 will get the application for now but Nokia promise to add support for more devices as soon as possible.

The new Nokia Messaging promises real desktop-like chat experience allowing you to keep in touch with friends and family throughout various third-party IM networks.

Also enabled are background notifications of new incoming messages which show up whilst the app is minimized.

Since the new application has just seen daylight for the first time only Yahoo! Messenger and Ovi chat are supported, however, the supported communities list should continue growing.

An interesting fact is that Nokia will probably go as far as charging for the app the owners of certain S60 devices.

Nokia E75 owners however get a lifetime subscription to the Nokia Messaging service and all E75 owners can download it right away.

Omnia HD update to fix AMR audio recording in HD videos

The Samsung Italy Facebook profile shared some interesting info to its subscribed readers. The Samsung Omnia HD is about to get not one, but two important updates over the next two weeks. The first one, expected this week, will improve the over-all performance of the Symbian based smartphone.

The second Omnia HD update, which should become available for download next week, will solve an issue that has disgruntled quite a few users in our comments section. Yes, it's the poor audio quality recording during video capturing. Many users find the AMR codec used for encoding auido in the Omnia HD videos quite poor.

The upcoming update will allow Samsung i8910 Omnia HD to record 720p videos with AAC audio which is quite better and used by many camera phones.

Equity Markets!

This is something that has fascinated me since childhood. No surprises since it seemed to be the easiest way to make money. But why should u invest in Equity markets where the risks are so high and we have seen investors losing the money?

One rational could be the fact that the inflation is hovering under the 5% mark. Fixed Deposit rates are at an all time low. So FD returns do not cover for the rise in inflation. Last year BSE Sensex gained 83% Can any of the banks beat that?

So with sensex poised to touch the 6000 mark again. Was just wondering what the ppl out here were thinking. What is the prognosis for the future? What are the instruments that ppl follow to track stock markets?

Read an article on how Infosys has created share holder wealth for the investing public
Imagine a retail investor putting in money in the Infy IPO in 1993 at Rs 95 a share getting 100 shares allotted. If he had gone on vanvas and returned back only yesterday these number of shares wld have appreciated to 6400 shares.

9500 Rs -> 3.5 Crores in 11 years!!!

Some of the learnings that i have experienced was
1. Dont look out for penny stocks. Those stocks that are trading at prices less than 10 Rs. You have this big dream that they would go to 100 in a month or so. There is good reason why the stock is trading at sub 10 Rs. Avoid it.
2. Do lots of study before entering the market. But its better if you can say to urself. "Get an online demat account. Here is 5000 Rs. Let me put it into the market. Iam ready for this entire capital getting wiped out. Iam here to learn."
3. Stay invested with blue chips. Infosys, Wipro, SBI, TataMotors, TISCO, Reliance, ONGC to name a few. I know these stocks cost a lot infact out of the reach of retail investors. But see it this way. If the market is gonna pick up which companies are gonna do well. The market leaders ofcourse.
4. IPOs are a very good for beginners cause there is not much downside. In the recent past some of the stars have been: Divi's Labs, Maruti, Biocon, PTC. Well allotment is a matter of luck. So put ur best foot forward.

Apple purchases more Imagination

Making news in the financial world today is the story of a small UK based chip designer who is being regarded by technology giants Intel and Apple as an integral investment. Imagination Technologies is based on Hertfordshire and is currently worth £240 million. They are a semi-conductor designing group which engineers chips that are found in portable devices such as laptops and smartphones. Last week, Intel purchased £20 million worth of shares ($25 million USD), increasing its stake to slightly less than 14%, and more recently increased that stake to slightly over 16%. Today, Apple announced that it is raising its stake in the company to 9.5% by purchasing 2.20 million new shares.

HTC Hero joins the Android bandwagon with a custom UI

The new HTC Hero runs on the familiar Qualcomm's MSM7200A chipset, with a 528MHz CPU, 288MB of RAM and 512 MB of ROM. Just like the HTC Magic and the HTC Dream, the Hero sports a 3.2" TFT LCD touchscreen display of HVGA resolution (320 x 480 pixels).

The final attention-grabbing features of the HTC Hero are a 3.5mm standard audio jack, a microSD card slot and a built-in accelerometer.
HTC Sense

HTC Hero pioneers the new custom UI that HTC have prepared for the Android OS. HTC Sense is based on three basic principles dubbed as Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected. Here are the three principles as HTC explain them.

Make It Mine
Make It Mine, is about feeling your HTC phone was created for and by you. To do this, HTC encourages you to dictate and organize how you want to access the people and content in your life in a way that fits best for you. For some, this means adding glance view widgets that push content like twitter feeds, weather and other content to the surface while others may want quick access to business-focused information like email, calendar and world-times. HTC is also introducing a new profile feature called Scenes that enables you to create different customized content profiles around specific functions or times in your life.

Stay Close
Today, staying in touch with the people in your life means managing a variety of communication channels and applications ranging from phone calls, emails, texts, photos, status updates and more. HTC Sense takes a different approach by integrating these communication channels and applications into one single view enabling you to stay closer to your important people. With HTC Sense, friends Facebook status updates and photos along with their Flickr photos are included along side their text messages, emails and call history in a single view.

Discover the Unexpected
Many of the most memorable moments in your life are experienced, not explained. HTC Sense is focused on providing a variety of these simple yet innovative experiences on your HTC phone that will sometimes bring you moments of joy and delight. It can be something as basic as turning the phone over to silence a ring or as simple as improving the smart dialler for making calls quicker. HTC Sense also includes perspectives, a new way for viewing your content such as email, photos, Twitter, music and more in different ways.

iPhone 3G gets unlocked under 3.0 OS

The iPhone Dev Team has finally released the utility needed to unlock the iPhone 3G under iPhone OS 3.0, which will allow current users in illegitimate carriers to upgrade to the latest version of the iPhone OS, which brings about over 100 new features.

The new ultrasn0w utility is available for download through Cydia and Icy software repositories, which are both installed during the process of jailbreaking. To jailbreak your iPhone 3G running 3.0 OS you need either the Pwnage tool (Mac OS only) or the redsn0w utility, which was already released by the iPhone Dev Team 3 days ago.

Major Breakthrough for AIDS Cure

In a major breakthrough for AIDS cure, Canadian scientists have finally found where the HIV virus hides in the human body to become impervious to medical treatment.

This breakthrough could pave the way for a total cure of the deadly disease, claim the scientists who carried out the study with researchers from the US.

The current anti-viral treatment for HIV patients can only subdue, not eliminate, the virus as it hides somewhere to lie low and then attack the system again.

Till now, scientists conjectured that the AIDS virus might be hiding in the kidneys or the brain. But now the Canadian researchers claim that they have discovered the safe havens where the virus hides in the human body.

Led by Professor Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, researchers said they have found that the virus hides in "long-lived" memory cells in the human body.

These memory cells, which have a long life just like the stem cells, lie sleepy in the body most of the time until they encounter a new virus or disease-causing agents.

Like stem cells, these memory cells are also capable of replicating themselves. So when the AIDS enters them or attacks them, these memory cells multiply to defend the body.

But the problem is that the once AIDS virus enters these memory cells, it also multiplies with them. Thus, during the current intense medication - which involves five to six drugs that can prolong life up to 13 years - for a patient, the AIDS virus retreats into these safe havens to stage an attack later.

The researchers said they are finding ways to destroy the virus in its safe havens in the memory cells without harming the immune system. Their research is the "first clue" to eliminating the AIDS virus, said research leader Sekaly Sunday.

There are over 33 million HIV patients worldwide, with 2.7 million more getting infected each year. The research study has been published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Bing mobile application concepts revealed

Microsoft's new Bing 'decision engine' gained a lot of attention and publicity when it was first released not long ago, but now that the excitement has died down, how will the Redmond company work to improve it and make it more accessible? Well, according to Long Zheng's I Started Something blog, they'll be bringing in mobile applications for it, and some concepts have been revealed. Microsoft has actually already set up a Bing for mobile webpage, explaining some of the features, but it's being hinted that an actual Windows Mobile based application is coming very soon.

British government spells end of 'i before e' rule

LONDON (AP) - It's a spelling mantra that generations of schoolchildren have learned - "i before e, except after c."

But new British government guidance tells teachers not to pass on the rule to students, because there are too many exceptions.

The "Support For Spelling" document, which is being sent to thousands of primary schools, says the rule "is not worth teaching" because it doesn't account for words like 'sufficient,"veil' and 'their.'
Jack Bovill of the Spelling Society, which advocates simplified spelling, said Saturday he agreed with the decision.

But supporters say the ditty has value because it is one of the few language rules that most people remember.

Microsoft Security Essentials Beta due today

Microsoft is offering it's free anti-virus product, Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) to 75,000 lucky people today. The company plans to launch the product at 10am PST and will likely extend the cap of 75,000 downloads depending on demand. MSE is Microsoft's free anti-virus and anti-spyware product that is set to replace Microsoft's paid Windows Live OneCare subscription service which is being withdrawn a week today. Earlier this month Neowin exclusively revealed MSE (codenamed Morro) and we believe that the final product will be available shortly before the Windows 7 launch in October. MSE will be distributed on Microsoft's Connect site as a beta program. For more information and please visit Microsoft's MSE site.

Iran's web snooping aided by western technologies

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that with the with the assistance of European telecommunications companies, the Iranian regime has developed a way to examine the content of individual online communications on a massive scale, using deep packet inspection, going beyond blocking access to Web sites or cutting Internet connections. Deep pack inspection allows authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes according to interviews with technology experts. "We didn't know they could do this much. Now we know they have powerful things that allow them to do very complex tracking on the network," a network engineer in Tehran told the WSJ.

Apple's obsession with secrecy

Remember that iPhone 3G ad that Apple ran when the phone was first announced? It turns out that it might not be so far from the truth after all. Apple seems to be a company that has more rumors generated than anybody else, and the hype the generate for their upcoming products is always gargantuan. The reason for this is because they do their best to keep their products secret, but just exactly how far do they go to do this? The NY Times ran an article just recently, detailing the lengths that the Cupertino firm goes to in order to keep things tight. Apple has been known to even surprise its own employees with product launches.

Latest edition of PSP

Sony's much-rumored PSP Go finally made its grand appearance over the weekend, highlighting the latest edition of Sony's Qore video series, and looking rather slick and compact with a sliding top and an obviously lighter design. The video, along with a group of product shots acquired , verifies most of the speculation tossed around in the gaming industry within the last few months. The video also confirms that Sony ultimately decided to ditch the flailing UMD format altogether in favor of electronic media distribution.

The new hardware isn't expected to replace the current PSP-3000 model, but rather share the same shelf space with its bulky cousin. The new version is not only slimmer, but supposedly weighs 43-percent lighter than the current model. The screen itself measures 3.8-inches, covering the standard PSP controls--the D-Pad, thumb stick, classic buttons--under the sliding top. The unit also features 16 GB of internal memory, and offers an additional memory card slot for storing games, music, and whatever else gamers can purchase from the PlayStation Network Store. Bluetooth support is also included with the PSP Go, however it's unknown if the console's screen provides the rumored touch technology.

According to the video, the PSP Go will hit the market this fall, however for the moment, the final price tag is unknown; expect this revelation sometime this week. As for games, Gran Turismo PSP and Jak and Daxter are in the works along with a new Metal Gear Solid title. The only drawback to this new model is that gamers who want to "upgrade" to the new model won't be able to play existing UMD disks on the new device; they will need to keep the original hardware much like DSi gamers still need a Game Boy Advance to play pre-DS games. It's probably safe to bet that all PSP games will eventually revert to a digital format to purchase and download at a later date.

Google, Facebook rush Iranian language support

Twitter has the starring role as opening up Net communications about Iran's turbulent politics, but Google and Facebook are jumping in with their its own hasty efforts.

Google is adding Farsi, or Persian, language support to its translation service, the company announced Thursday night. Google rushed out the support specifically because of events in Iran.

Google's translation service so far is optimized for translating between English and Farsi, but Google is working on expanding that to support other language combinations, Och said. A quick test for me showed it workable translating Persian to English.

The Internet lowers barriers between different cultures, countries, and languages, but censors can seriously curtail access to Internet services. Of course, there often are ways to sidestep censors for those with some technical know-how.

Google also has spotlighted citizen journalist efforts on YouTube to document the crackdown on Iranian protesters.

Google has struggled with censorship in China in particular, concluding that censorship cooperation is better than not participating in the market at all.