Windows 8 Expected in 2011/12.

- Windwos 8 is the next generation Operating system by Microsoft to give the PC users ultimate computer experience.

- Although Windows 7 isn’t released until 22nd October 2009, attention is already turning to it’s replacement Windows 8 which will is expected in 2011/12.

- Microsoft has changed its approach to naming operating systems (e.g XP, Vista) and is using an internal numbering system and the next Windows operating system, Windows 7, is the 7th release. Hence the replacement for Windows 7 is expected to be called Windows 8.

- Windows 8 Professional Edition RC1_xbuild7.0.1128 has not yet been made; But Windows 8 provides lots of new features along with a newly designed interface. It looks very similar to Windows Vista and Windows 7(Great combination) but there are many GUI changes like redesigned taskbar, Explorer, new boot screen and login screen, etc.

Rasheed on Bad Boys of Comedy ( R.I.P. Rasheed Thurmond)

The A7A Meter

Like any metric system it is a method of measurement an amount of units.

But the A7A Meter is not to measure a physical existence of something, yet it is to measure the significance of a character.

As everything new to us, it will need examples, here are a few:

Ex.1; You were late for a meeting with a friend that was previously agreed between the both of you in a specific place and time, and you were just simply late, once your friend sees you he will then have the right to tell you A7A.

Ex.2; You promised to get something for a friend, and just simply forgot, once your friend asks you, and hears that you forgot it he will then have the right to tell you A7A.


Ex.3; Somebody asks you a very dumb request, that he is just trying to lay-it-off his back, A7A

Ex.4; Somebody is being too clumsy, A7A

Ex.5; Somebody is asking you a very personal question, without having the right to do so, A7A

And So On....

The beauty of it that it doesn't have any limitations, but yet responsibility; cause when somebody does something that deserves the A7A then he doesn't have the right to reply to it.

It doesn't have to be said by the way, many people may find it very offensive to say it or hear it, but we are all smart enough to see it in each others' eyes.


Bottom Line:

The more you hear it then the more your character needs more effort from you to enhance it, and the more you use it, then you are more positively engaging with the environment around you to help make it more efficient.


A7A for a better world

Gold: The Cure For Cancer?

Scientists at UC Santa Cruz have apparently discovered a way to kill cancerous tumors with minute quantities of gold. The process involves tiny gold "nano-spheres" that are coated with antibodies that allow them to seek and detect cancer cells. Once the cells are detected, the nano-particles are then superheated with a laser, essentially baking the tumor to death without destroying the surrounding tissue.

Though the therapy has worked on mice, the process by which the antibodies detect cancerous cells still requires some work. Still, in an age where we seemingly learn of a new cause for cancer every day, it is refreshing to hear of progress being made toward a cure.

Earth Hour 2009 – What Will You Be Doing?

The Official Site:
http://www.earthhour.org

The Supporters:
http://www.earthhour.org

Facebook Group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2235111402



At 8:30pm on Saturday 28 March, people from all corners of the world will turn off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour - and cast their vote for action on climate change. Anybody can participate and join together with millions of people across the globe celebrating Earth Hour.

Earth Hour is about taking simple steps everyday that collectively reduce carbon emissions – from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.

Here are 10 different ways to spend Earth Hour and reduce your carbon footprint:

1. Attend a local Earth Hour event or organise your own by throwing an Earth Hour street party with your neighbours
2. Gather family & friends for a night picnic in your local park and look at the stars
3. Enjoy a family dinner by candlelight
4. Organise a treasure hunt in the dark
5. Take the dog for a night walk
6. Have a candle-lit bath
7. Sit in the dark and share stories
8. Organise a family night playing board games
9. Share a romantic night in with your loved one
10. Upload your ‘on the night’ photos and videos to flickr and YouTube respectively, and then add them to the Earth Hour flickr group and the global YouTube Group.

Earth Hour Executive Director, Andy Ridley, is encouraging people to participate in whatever way they choose and to think beyond the hour.

“There are no hard and fast rules surrounding participation in Earth Hour. We only ask that you flick that switch and have fun doing whatever you choose to do during that time.

Make Earth Hour work for you. Families with young children should feel free to turn their lights off earlier than 8:30pm and for those having too much fun in the dark during the hour, don’t feel you have to limit yourself to one hour and switch back on at 9:30pm.”

To find out more about Earth Hour, visit the official website www.earthhour.org, sign up and join millions of people in more than 1,400 cities and towns in 80 countries throughout the world by turning off your lights for one hour at 8:30pm on Saturday 28 March.

Rollo Armstrong And The Beginning of Faithless

It started in 1995, led by Rollo Armstrong, Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz. They formed the band known as Faithless.

The first guitarist of Faithless was Dave Randall but he left Faithless to start his own solo project. “Slovo,” his first album, was released in late summer 2001. Nemo plays guitar now on the new album, “Outrospective,” and can be seen on stage. Jamie Catto, who also started at the beginning with Faithless, did vocals on “Reverence” and “Sunday 8pm.” He also wrote some tracks. He also left Faithless to do his own thing and is now touring across the world with the band 1 Giant Leap.

“Outrospective” was conceived after a lengthy break away from Faithless’ relentless touring schedule, a factor which contributed to the melancholy mood and lyrics on “Sunday 8pm.” Faithless had, after all, spent four years out of five touring since the release of their revelatory debut “Reverence” (released in 1997), as they literally took their music anyplace that showed an interest. This meant that the band found themselves in such unlikely situations as playing shows in the Arctic Circle, on golden sands in Puerto Rico and under armed guard in Turkey.

Having been largely ignored by the mainstream in the UK, they returned from their travels as veterans of the worldwide live scene, something that few bands in their domain could lay claim to. Their epic house singles such as Insomnia and Salva Mea had an unmistakable impact and influence on the sound of contemporary dance music. Often imitated, never bettered, as they say. The album’s eclectic scope (house, blues, soul, rap and folk) stood out in a time of no-risk policies.

Maxi Jazz had spent years prior to joining Faithless rapping far and wide, DJing on pirate radio in London and running his own record label. His faith (he is a Nicheren Shashu Buddhist) informs his extraordinarily powerful lyrics (“a true millennium man” — The London Times) and he is the charismatic frontman of the band’s live act. Sister Bliss, a classically trained pianist and successful house music producer in her own right, is without doubt the world’s number one female DJ. It is Bliss who has the pleasure of road-testing Faithless’ new tunes off acetate, often fresh from the mixing desk.

Rollo’s sister Dido has performed lead vocals on tracks on all three Faithless albums (including One Step Too Far on the current album) and her debut album “No Angel” (co-produced Rollo) has since topped the UK and US charts. Talent runs in the family. Rollo, who once admitted that he “can’t play an instrument, can’t dance in time, and can’t remember any melodies,” doesn’t play live with Faithless — it would be “pointless,” he reckons, as he “couldn’t play anything onstage anyway.” Sister Bliss alleges that their studio relationship is “telepathic, symbiotic.” “He gets on with the broad strokes, textures and colors — that’s how he hears music, he’s got that synesthesia (a phenomenon where sounds blend into colors), and he says ‘Make it really sad, like a rainy day, I want to hear thunder’ — and I get on with all the anal fiddly bits.”

Sister Bliss and Maxi Jazz are now the public face of the band. Both fiercely intelligent, Maxi Jazz’s Buddhist worldview complements Bliss’s challenging opinions and encyclopedic house music knowledge. 1998’s “Sunday 8pm” repeated the success of “Reverence,” spawning three more hit singles (including the ecstatic, evangelic God Is A DJ), was an enormous critical success and in 1999 received nominations at The Brits, the MTV Europe Awards and was one of the 12 Mercury Prize nominations. To this date it has sold in excess of 1.2 million copies worldwide. Add to that the 1.5 million that “Reverence” sold and four million singles and you have one of Europe’s biggest dance artists.

There was more touring including a stint co-headlining across South Africa with The Prodigy, and the headline slot of the Muzik Awards tour. They are widely regarded as one of the finest live acts of our generation. Maxi says, “When I’m on stage I see couples who are at least 65. I see disco kids who scream whenever I move. I see people in their 30s who listen intently, squeezing their eyes shut and pumping their fists whenever they hear lyrics they like. There’s no such thing as a typical Faithless fan and I love that.” Bliss continues: “When people come to our gigs, we want them to be lifted. Changed. Empowered. Moved off the ground.”

Despite claims that they wouldn’t follow the panoramic heartbreak of “Sunday 8pm” with more of the same, after early listenings to certain tracks off “Outrospective” it becomes clear that, sometimes, stadium melancholy is what they do best — the sweeping melodrama of One Step Too Far (vocals by Dido) the hazy lament of Crazy English Summer which features vocals by Faithless debutante Zoe Johnston, and Maxi’s rainy Autumn rap on Not Enuff Love.

This time, however, the flipside to these swoonsome atmospheres takes the form of the rampant positivity of the Philly Soul of Muhammad Ali, Maxi Jazz’s devotional to the great boxer, and the dedication of love of the delirious single We Come 1 (“I’m the left eye, you’re the right, would it not be madness to fight?”). “Outrospective” starts with a fanfare that signifies a deep-seated confidence and ends with the gigantic soul house of Liontamer; in between it maps uncharted territory for the band, as well as redefining familiar Faithless templates. It thunders, basically.

Sister Bliss: As one of the founding members of Faithless, Sister Bliss (a.k.a. Ayalah Bentovim) became one of Britain’s most popular figures in the electronica scene. What many might not realize is her incredible history as a musician and DJ before that point. She started learning the piano at the age of five, eventually moving on to violin, saxophone, and the bass.

After touring behind the first album “Reverence,” Sister Bliss released the popular Sister Sister single and began work on her first solo album. Faithless also recorded again, releasing the “Back to Mine” mix at the start of 2001 and the original album “Outrospective” in the summer.

Her latest mix album, “Night Moves,” was out on digital and CD last July 2008. It’s really worth getting a copy of it.

FAC {Featured Artists Coalition}

http://www.myspace.com/featuredartistscoalition

Performers such as Franz Ferdinand, Robbie Williams and Coldplay have joined the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), a lobbying group proposing that artists keep the rights to the music they create, have a greater say in how their songs are sold and take a larger chunk of the earnings.

At the moment artists' recording rights are largely owned by the music labels. But a new lobbying group, the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), which has 700 members, proposes that artists should own these rights and lease them back to the music labels or other business partners.

Members including Annie Lennox, Franz Ferdinand, Klaxons, Kaiser Chiefs and Jools Holland plan to hold attend an inaugural meeting this month. They will lobby the government to collect and distribute revenues for artists.

The meeting comes as the big music labels, suffering from falling CD sales and increasing numbers of illegal music downloads, hope to persuade artists to let them exploit lucrative revenue streams such as sponsorship and live appearances.

But artists say they are being shortchanged by the record labels who are making money from deals with mobile phone companies like Nokia.

Brian Message, co-manager of Radiohead, Faithless and pop act Kate Nash, said management and artists now work together to build a fan base without the backing of a traditional record label.

The Radiohead campaign for "In Rainbows," beginning with the pay-what-you-want business model for the album release, was about "artist empowerment" following the band's departure from EMI, he said.

The business model has also been transformed for new artists. "It has been a quite dramatic period of change," he said. "Our business models have migrated from easy 20 per cent commissions and having to put up no investment, to having to put up quite a lot of investment. It definitely makes the pips squeak a little bit in terms of taking that risk," he told an audience at Midem, an annual music industry conference last month.

On the FAC Myspace site, the group say: "The digital revolution is a fantastic opportunity for music. It has changed everything, liberating the relationship between artists and fans. As this revolution gathers pace, we, Featured Artists, must seize the initiative and put ourselves at the heart of our industry.

"Run by featured artists, for featured artists, the Featured Artists Coalition is leading a rights revolution.

"The FAC will campaign for effective laws and regulations, transparent and equitable business practices and ensure artists' interests are asserted and safeguarded.

"The FAC will not merely promote our rights, but will collect and distribute revenue that many of these rights generate.

"By strengthening featured artists' rights, asserting our interests and fighting for what's fair, the future can be ours."

Ed O'Brien, Radiohead's guitarist and FAC board member, said: "The music companies had us by the short and curlies. This isn't about revenge but now we have to take responsibility for ourselves.

"There are new digital rights and revenue streams which have to be carved up and we have to get together and do it ourselves. Nobody is going to do it for us."