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Monday, November 20, 2006

Microsoft‘s subscription-based MSN Explorer Internet browser left many of its users frozen out beginning on Friday of last week. Launching the application brought the user to a window stating that the software encountered a problem and had to be closed.

The Internet Explorer browser software bundled with the Windows operating system remains operable, along with other non-MSN software. Subscribers to MSN are still able to retrieve e-mail by accessing their Hotmail account. Telephone support wait times to resolve the connectivity problem with the browser exceeded 45 minutes on Sunday evening. Beginning on Saturday, callers were prompted that wait times were “unusually long due to high call volume”.

A query to on-line chat with technical support to resolve the issue was met with, “I sincerely apologize for the length of time that it took you to get to us. We have been swamped with sessions and I am just glad that you finally got me to help you out.”

The silent and automatic upgrade to the 9.5 version of MSN Explorer, from verson 9.0, is experiencing difficulties on some machines. Users can log on to support using their account at membercenter.msn.com, click the Support button on the left column of the page, and then select under Subscribed Services / Sign In the link “MSN Internet Access”. On-line chat, e-mail, and phone support is available there. Hint: on-line chat is probably the fastest support option.

The existing MSN Explorer software will need to be removed, some Windows registry folders may need to be removed, and the software completely re-downloaded and re-installed.

Dial-up accounts can expect the download to be 93 minutes, for broadband, 9 minutes.

A compilation of brief news reports for Saturday, June 23, 2007.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Belinda Stronach, Canadian MP for Newmarket-Aurora crossed the floor from the Conservatives to join the Liberals just days before a scheduled confidence vote in the Liberal government. She was immediately rewarded by being appointed to the cabinet as Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development and Minister responsible for Democratic Renewal.

“I’ve been uncomfortable for some time with the direction the Conservative party was taking,” Stronach said. “I regret to say that I do not believe the party leader is truly sensitive to the needs of each part of the country and just how big and complex Canada really is.”

She disagreed with the party on its stance on the federal budget, same-sex marriage, and Conservative leadership’s alliance with the separatist Bloc Québécois to bring down the government.

Two days after Stronach switched parties, the ruling Liberals won a crucial vote for their budget by a single vote. If Stronach had not joined the Liberals and voted for the budget, the government would have fallen, forcing a new federal election.

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

London is to host the 2012 Olympic Games.

The announcement was made today by International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge following four rounds of voting, penultimately shortlisting London and Paris. 116 members of the IOC in Singapore voted throughout the rounds from a pool of cities comprising of Paris, Madrid, London, New York, and Moscow.

The final tally was 54 votes for London, and 50 for Paris. The voting came after all five cities made their final presentations to the assembled members.

The news was met with screams of joy from the 15,000 people who had gathered in Trafalgar Square in London, while jeers and boos rang out across Paris, as rain began to fall in the French capital.

Former Olympic runner Sebastian Coe, who led the British bid, told BBC Radio Five Live afterwards: “I’m in a state of shock. The whole team has made a fantastic effort. This shows that the United Kingdom is a special place for sport, passionate about sport.”

This is the first time the Games will be staged in London since 1948, while this marks the third failure by Paris to host the Olympics. London has hosted the Games twice before, making it the first city ever to host them three times.

The official announcement was given by the IOC at 12:46 BST today, after much speculation. The 2012 London Olympics are widely anticipated to bring about a revival of both sporting culture in England, and the much maligned Docklands area of London, where most main sporting venues will be constructed.

Present, physically or by video link, were several dignitaries of the participating countries, including the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac, Queen Sofía of Spain, and Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov.

Tony Blair is quoted to have said via a recorded video message “Our vision is to see millions of young people participate in sport and improve their lives. London has the power to make this happen.”

Also present with the British campaign team were world famous soccer player David Beckham, athletes Denise Lewis and Sir Steven Redgrave, and Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, who brought with her a message from Queen Elizabeth II:

“I’ve been impressed by the way everyone has united behind London’s bid. As a country we share a passion for sport.”

French President Jacques Chriac was also present, along with actress Catherine Deneuve and singer Johnny Hallyday, both French.

“The heart of Paris and the heart of France are beating in unison in the hope of becoming Olympic host in 2012…you can put your trust and faith in France, you can trust the French, you can trust us,” he said.

America’s assembly consisted of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton and bid leader Dan Doctoroff, focusing on New York’s multicultural make up and readiness. Mr. Bloomberg chose to remind the Committee of New York’s recovery after the September 11 attacks.

“In our city’s darkest hour, we asked ourselves, can we recover? …New Yorkers stood up then and said, ‘Yes, we can recover, we will rebuild and we must continue to welcome everyone.’ That spirit will be given to your Games.”

U.S. President George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton spoke in a recorded video message.

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered his case in a live video clip, urging the Committee to take advantage of a “unique and truly historic opportunity”, and to select Moscow for the games in 2012.

“Moscow is a meeting place of cultures. Moscow is perfectly suited to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” he said.

Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero from Spain and Queen Sofía argued in favour of Madrid.

“The whole Spanish royal family is convinced that Madrid fully meets the conditions to offer to the world the best Olympic Games,” said Queen Sofía.

Questions from the IOC regarding threats from the Basque extremist group ETA drew the following response:

“Absolute security is assured…It’s our main priority. Those who have tried to attack our candidacy will see that this is something that is doomed to disappear in Madrid and all of Spain.”

Monday, January 16, 2006

The Free Software Foundation released the first draft for the next version of the GNU General Public License at the International Public Conference for GPLv3 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, today. The revisions mark the first changes to the GPL since the second version was released in 1991.

According to Richard M. Stallman, the president of the Free Software Foundation, the most significant change to the license are changes to allow GPLv3 to be compatible with other popular free software licenses, notably the Apache Software License 2.0 and the Eclipse license. A second significant change, according to Stallman, is the addition of a clause prohibiting the use of GPL software for Digital rights management (DRM), “something for which there can never be toleration.”

As of noon EST today, the license is available in draft form on the Free Software Foundation’s website. The conference about the license, which continues now and into Tuesday, is being held in Building 10, Room 250, on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Approximately 200 people attended the morning session of the conference, during which Eben Moglen gave what he called a “quick” 90 minute overview of the license changes.

While Moglen’s presentation covered a great deal of legal detail, it was not without levity. When the cell phone of Dave Turner, an FSF staff member sitting in the front row, rang during Moglen’s speech, Stallman broke in, requesting of the audience, “If you have brought in a portable tracking and surveillance device, you should turn it off,” before making other remarks about the police.

The crowd at the conference included a large number of free software celebrities, including Bruce Perens, Andrew Tridgell, and Chris diBona. According to Wikinews reporter Brandon Stafford, it seemed that IBM and Sun were the corporations with the most employees present. Representing the companies were Bob Sutor, Craig Cook, and Mark Brown from IBM and Simon Phipps and Doug Johnson from Sun. Also in attendance were representatives from Intel, Redhat, MySQL AB, Hitachi, and Qualcomm, among others.

Friday, June 9, 2006

Someone said to be an informant within Abu Musab al-Zarqawi‘s trusted circle told Coalition forces the insurgent leader was going to have a meeting, it has emerged. This information appears to have led US F-16Cs to a safehouse in the Iraqi town of Hibhid, where the Jordanian and five others, including a child, were killed on Wednesday.

“We had absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Zarqawi was in the house. There was 100 percent confirmation,” Caldwell said.

The informer is said to want the insurgency to pursue a strategy within the Iraqi political process, which in the informer’s view was in contrast to tactics executed by al-Zarqawi’s leadership that involved ethnic killings.

It was one of the last in a long line of breadcrumbs leading the hunt for the Iraqi government’s most-wanted murderer to the doorstep of an attractive isolated house in Hibhid.

In a late-April video al-Zarqawi had been shown spraying bullets from a machine gun with a horizon in the background. This is said to have revealed the general location of al-Zarqawi, found near Diyala province, in the north east of Iraq. The ethnically mixed region had seen an upsurge in violence and over days preceding the airstrike.

Murders had included a number of decapitated heads left in fruitboxes. Al-Zarqawi had been known for kidnapping and video beheadings of westerners in Iraq.

Another al-Zarwaqi insider also had given vital clues to the investigators before the final tip-off. A former customs clearance officer in Rutba identified as Ziad Khalaf al-Karbuli had named Sheikh Abu Abdul-Rahman as al-Zarqawi’s spiritual advisor and gave-up contact details.

Ziad Khalaf al-Karbuli had appeared on Jordanian television, May 23, to confess his links to al-Zarqawi, and to his murder of a Jordanian driver and his kidnap of two Moroccan embassy employees in 2005. The vital clue about Abu Abdul-Rahman was not broadcast.

With details from the al-Karbuli interrogation the gunsights got closer to al-Zarqawi. “Through painstaking intelligence effort, they were able to start tracking him, monitoring his movements and establishing when he was doing his link-ups with Zarqawi, ” Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said of the investigators.

The US search for the Sheikh included the use of remote controlled aircraft, it was revealed.

However; it is said neither the al-Karbuli information nor the al-Zarqawi betrayer lead the Americans to press the fire button on al-Zarwaqi’s two-story home. Al-Zarqawi was hard to catch because he reportedly eschewed trackable cell-phones in favour of high-tech Thuraya-made satellite phones to communicate.

The death certificate was signed by the secret informant who said both Sheikh Abu Abdul-Rahman and al-Zarqawi would be in Hibhid, Wednesday night.

For the elusive insurgent who had previously escaped attempts to bomb him, the execution came after comparison of this source’s information with tracks of the location of satellite phone users.

The location found was beside a property with a courtyard surrounded by fields away from other buildings. It appears then the US command made the decision to strike at an address in the small town, near Baqubah.

US special forces were on the scene to photograph the dead al-Zarqawi at 6:17 p.m., two minutes after two 500lb bombs were dropped. Al-Zarqawi was said to be alive and being given medical assistance when he died of wounds sustained in the bombing.

The announcement of the killing was made Thursday by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said to viewers of Iraqi television the $25 million bounty for information leading to the death or capture of al-Zarqawi would be “honored.”

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

A new law which seeks to utilise reusable energy and minimise cost impact on consumers is under development in Japan. The new law, which would be effective from July 1 next year, would seek to reduce Japan’s dependency on nuclear power.

The new legislation would urge power utilities to cut costs by purchasing renewable energy from outside companies and private businesses. Japan’s decision has been referred to as opening the door on renewable energy, which currently only contributes to six percent of Japan’s energy sources.

Politicians have amended the bill, allowing the revised bill to pass through parliament later this month. Prime Minister Naoto Kan who is pushing for the bill to be passed in return for his resignation, has stated that the ‘feed-in-tariff on renewable energy will be set at a fixed price so that utilities are limited to purchasing electricity from renewable power generators. Kan hopes that this will encourage more business and private corporate partners to enter into the renewable energy market.

“As a medium-term revolutionary energy and environmental strategy, we have decided to start a thorough review of nuclear power policy and draw a roadmap for a reduction of the dependence on nuclear power” Mr Kan said.

Large companies are concerned about the new legislation as it will continue to affect profit margins which are low due to power shortages and high priced exports. The bill was changed to reduce the surcharge for large power companies after complaints from the Japanese steel industry. If the scheme is launched then consumers will face an increase on electricity bills as utilities can pass their costs onto end-users. Despite the governments promise to cap the surcharge for the next ten years, there is no reference to it in the revised bill.

Lawmakers hope that by adding a provision requiring utilities to streamline their operations, the impact on consumers will be minimized.

A third party group will be set up within the under the Agency for National Resources and Energy to ensure that the setting of fixed prices are fair and just.