There was an unpleasant message for investors about the impact of higher oil prices and inflation generally from two major industrial companies on Friday.

Building materials group, Boral, warned it had been hit by unexpected increases in energy and transportation costs (a big variable for the company, especially in its cement and ready mixed and housing related businesses), while oil refiner and marketer, Caltex revealed that the golden days of riding the oil price surge were over with a fall expected in earnings this year.

Caltex Australia says it expects first half net profit to fall by up to 40% (on its own accounting method) due to flat petrol sales, lower margins and plant shutdowns.

But its “marketing business” did well, with stronger sales of diesel and jet fuel offsetting flat sales of petrol.

It says net profit in the first six months of calendar 2008 is forecast at between $175 million to $195 million, on a replacement cost of sales operating profit (RCOP) basis, down from $294 million in the first half of 2007. That’s Caltex’s own way of looking at the impact of rising prices on its business.

But on an historical basis (the one it pays tax on and all other companies use) the fall is much less severe, down from $368 million to a range of $300 to $330 million: that’s a fall of around 8% to 19%, which is nowhere as dramatic.

“Earnings benefited from a strong performance by the Caltex Marketing business,” Caltex said in its statement.

“Total Marketing transport fuels sales volume (petrol, diesel, jet fuel) is expected to be 7.1 billion litres for the first six months of this year compared with 6.7 billion litres in the first six months of 2007.

“This increase was underpinned by the continued strong growth in diesel sales, which in the first five months of 2008 were 13.8% higher than the same period last year, and well ahead of industry growth. Caltex’s petrol sales have been flat overall but premium petrol sales grew by more than 5%.”

“On an historical cost profit basis (including inventory gains), Caltex expects an after tax profit in the range of $300 – $330 million for the first half of 2008 compared with $368 million for the first half of 2007.

“The current half year forecast includes estimated product and crude oil inventory gains of approximately $130 million compared with inventory gains of $113 million after tax for the first half of 2007.

“Caltex advises that small changes in key externalities such as the A$/US$ exchange rate, refiner margins and crude oil prices during the balance of the first half of 2008 can have material impacts on both the RCOP and historic cost results for the half year.”

Caltex said its “refiner margin in the first five months of this year averaged US$11.36 a barrel, compared with US$11.40 a barrel in the comparable period last year. Strong diesel and jet margins offset weaker margins for petrol. The stronger A$ in 2008 translated to a Caltex Refiner Margin of 7.70 cents per litre versus 8.94 cents per litre in 2007.

“As previously advised, refining profitability has been affected by unplanned maintenance which decreased first half earnings before interest and tax by $70 – 85 million. There was also increased planned maintenance in the first half of 2008 compared with the first half of 2007.

“The production of high value transport fuels is expected to be around 4.8 billion litres in the first six months of 2008 (first half 2007: 5.4 billion litres). The outlook for full year production is approximately 10.4 – 10.6 billion litres compared with 10.9 billion litres for 2007.

“Caltex has focused on good operating expense control and inventory management to offset the higher working capital cost of crude oil and petroleum product inventories. Net debt at 30 June 2008 is expected to be within the range $575 – $600 million (31 December 2007: $582 million). Caltex remains committed to a conservative balance sheet and will continue its focus on good cash management.”

The upshot of this is: sales of petrol (ordinary unleaded) are flat while sales of diesel and premium unleaded have risen (diesel because the number of diesel-powered vehicles on the road is rising rapidly) and unleaded premium because some drivers think they can get more kilometres and energy from the ‘higher quality’ petrol than ordinary unleaded.

For Caltex though it's a sign that market prices for crude are rising faster than it can recover them through higher retail prices (which are a PR nightmare). In the US refiners are finding the same thing with the major refiner, Tesoro, seeing its share price fall as margins come under pressure. Its shares fell nearly 5% on Friday on broker estimates of lower margins and earnings.

Caltex shares finished at $12.50, down 19c after hitting a low of $11.61

But Boral’s warning, contained in a presentation by management in Brisbane, contains the bigger worry for many businesses and investors.

Boral is the country’s biggest building materials group and saw its share price down after the warning.

Boral shares ended down 8c at $5.72 after being as low as $5.55, the lowest in more than four months.

The company also revealed a series of price rises in its cement and ready-mix concrete to try and recovery the higher costs.

Chief Executive Officer Rod Pearse said in the presentation in Brisbane that: “Cost escalation is running ahead of general cost increases and prices need to increase to maintain margins.

“Energy costs are moving at unprecedented levels. In December 2007 diesel was trading at around US$100/barrel. In recent weeks it has been at highs of around US$170/barrel.

“In Boral, we use some 160 million litres of diesel a year and in concrete around 9 litres for every delivered cubic metre. Cleary we have had significant and largely unanticipated cost increases over the last six months.

“General inflation for those of us exposed to the resource sector is also impacting.

“In recent weeks, through our Sunstate Cement JV business we have announced $10/tonne price increases in Qld effective 1 September 2008 and BCSC has announced $15/tonne increases in NSW & Victoria.

“We have also announced national price increases from August in concrete and quarry products with concrete prices increasing $12.50/m3 nationally and quarry prices up $3/tonne in Qld.

“These price increases are necessary to recover the significant input cost increases (and to ensure that margins represent an adequate return for increased capital costs).”

These are the sort of comments and price rises that will have the Reserve Bank reaching for the interest lever if they are shown to be spreading throughout the wider economy.

Boral, which generates about one-fifth of its sales in the US, said last month net income will be lower than previously forecast as a slowdown in the housing market there continues to deepen.

In May Boral warned that earnings would be down this year and in the second half because of the wet weather in eastern Australia in the March quarter (which spilled over into April in Sydney) and the impact of the terrible US housing slump

Commenting on Boral's outlook, Mr Pearse said, "The IBES range of current analyst forecasts is $234 million to $256 million with an average of $249 million. We currently expect Boral's PAT for FY2008 to be around the bottom end of analyst forecasts."

There’s now a hint that the rapid rise in transportation costs might put further pressure on that forecast. If Boral is feeling the pinch from the oil price surge, how then are the likes of Toll and Asicano going?

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The key decision this week will be by the European Central Bank Thursday night our time, and the key announcement will be the Garnaut Climate Change Review to be released on Friday in Canberra.

While our Reserve Bank won’t change rates at its board meeting tomorrow, the ECB has already signalled vigorously that rates will rise 0.25% at this week’s meeting, which will add to the woes of financial markets, the US dollar, and the US economy and hit sentiment generally.

It will come the same day as June employment and unemployment figures are released in the US, a day ahead of schedule because of the July 4 Independence Day long weekend in the US.

Euozone inflation for June will be published tonight and could very well show an acceleration to 3.8%-4.2% on an annual basis, according to some forecasts.

That will add to the pressure on the ECB to lift rates, despite figures out last week suggesting the eurozone economy and especially the strong German economy turned down last month and in early June. Last Friday saw early German and Spanish inflation figures suggesting a surge with price pressures to the highest level in 15 and 11 years respectively.

But a key European sentiment index showed a surprise fall to go with the surprise contraction in the eurozone services sector early in the week. Some European analysts say there is now a strong possibility economic growth in the eurozone has now slowed to around 0.3% annual, lower than the sluggish US economy (which grew 1% in the March quarter) and about level with the slumping British economy, where growth has halved to 0.3% according to the latest figures.

But there was also more bad news on inflation in the US: not oil bounding up to $US142.99 a barrel in New York on Friday, but a doubling in the monthly rise to 0.4% of the US Federal Reserve’s favourite inflation measure, the so-called PCE index (Personal Consumption Expenditure deflator). That was boosted by big rises in energy and food costs and was the highest growth since last November.

Rising food and energy prices are considered to be volatile and not long lasting: the growth in price inflation in both areas has been going on now for the best part of a year, so there is a growing danger that these increases are being converted to endemic price pressures in the wider economy.

Thursday’s jobs figures will be influential: the tax rebate boosted personal consumption in May by 0.8%, which is what it is supposed to do and should have some impact on job loses. But polls by Reuters and Bloomberg estimate 60,000 jobs were lost last month, with the unemployment rate dipping to 5.4% from the 5.5% level which surprised the market last month.

Besides the jobs figures, Thursday’s data releases include the important Institute for Supply Management’s June reading on the huge US services sector: tomorrow night sees the ISM survey of manufacturing and June car sales, which are expected to show another fall, especially for fuel guzzlers like Sports Utility Vehicles.

May’s sharp plunge in sales forced Ford and General Motors to slash production of these models and pick up trucks and move to boost output of more fuel-efficient vehicles. US car buyers continued to ignore the bigger models in June and sales overall could be down another 10%-15% for some types.

Even the mighty Toyota of Japan is cutting production of its bigger truck models. Petrol at or over $US4 a gallon has wrought dramatic change in buying and driving habits in the US in the last six weeks.

Two Fed members are also to make public appearances over the week and will attract attention because of the fragility of markets and the confusion about the Fed’s policy objectives after the meeting last week.

In Japan the Tankan business survey is likely to show a further slowing in business conditions.

Besides the Reserve Bank meeting here, we will also see the release of the TD Securities inflation gauge and data for new home sales, private sector credit, retail sales, building approvals and the trade balance for May are all due for release.

The trade figures will be interesting because with the new high iron ore, coking coal and thermal coal prices, it’s likely that the monthly trade deficit will be eliminated.

We will also get the private credit figures from the Reserve Bank today for May and the June Commodity price Index tomorrow.

The important local figures though will be the retail trade and building approval numbers for May. Both are expected to continue to show the impact of the Reserve Bank’s anti-inflation campaign.

But the most important local report of any kind for some time is due for release on Friday when Professor Ross Garnaut releases the draft of his Climate Change Review.

Emissions trading, carbon tax and many other issues will be explained and move to centre stage in economic policy debates from now on.

MONDAY:

End of 2008 financial year; RBA releases Financial Aggregates for May; TD Securities/Melbourne Institute Inflation gauge for June; Housing Industry Association’s new home sales figures for May.

TUESDAY:

Start of 2009 financial year; RBA board meets with statement at 2.30 pm on the decision; RBA releases June Commodity Price Index; Australian Industry Group/PricewaterhouseCoopers Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index for June.

WEDNESDAY:

Skilled vacancy figures from the Federal Government for June; ABS releases retail trade and building approvals figures for May.

THURSDAY:

ABS figures on international trade for May.

FRIDAY:

The Climate Change Review draft report from Professor Ross Garnaut will be released in Canberra.

We regret that Asxnewbie was off line for a while. But it is all your fault!
Actually Asxnewbie has become so popular that we outgrew our bandwidth a lot quicker than we planned.So to counter that we have doubled our quota and we promise to keep a closer eye on it so it does not happen again.

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This article was contributed by " Druss " a new contributor from"Topstocks

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Now to this informative article:-

Why is everyone so intent on claiming CFD’s are evil and should not be used by the novice.

As a novice myself, having met the top 3 quotes by ingot. I can see how dangerous using Leverage is to your profitability.

Using Leverage is dangerous in any form if not used properly. I have to agree 100%

Trading Shares FPO is dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. Anyone who even attempts to do so without studying how shares move in price is bound to head down the wrong path.

The beauty of CFD’s is the cost to get in and out of them is a lot less. Especially if you have a broker who charges 0% brokerage on CFD’s held overnight. Which do exist.

When selling a short position you receive interest payments at the current daily rate. When opening a long position you pay the daily rate of interest. Small charges.

As we all know setting an exit strategy is the most important aspect in Trading. This holds true no matter what form of investment you make. FPO or some form of Derivative.

When trading CFD’s it is important to manage your risk.

You could quite easily set a rule. Do not open a position if your total Postion Sizes exceed your Total current Trading Float.

The beauty of using CFD’s is that when your stop loss moves you into a profit position, you have more money available to open a new position. Where if you were using a FPO, all your capital would be tied up in the market. Preventing you from opening a new position until you sell your current Profitable FPO.

Simple example:

$20000 starting float. Risk per Trade 2% of Float.

Buy Stock A at $36.00. 5% Margin Requirement. Stop Loss at $34.00. Buy 200 Shares. Position size is $7,200 Capital Tied up is $360 at %5 margin.

Buy Stock B at $12.00. 10% Margin Requirement. Stop Loss at $10.50. Buy 267 Shares. Position size is $3,204 Capital Tied up is $320 at 10% margin.

Buy Stock C at $50.00. 5% Margin Requirement. Stop Loss at $46.00. Buy 100 Shares. Position size is $5,000 Capital Tied up is $250.00 at 5% margin.

Buy Stock D at $25.00. 5% Margin Requirement. Stop Loss at $23.00. Buy 200 Shares. Position size is $5,000 Capital Tied up is %250 at 5% margin.

This gives total Capital Tied up as $1180.
Total Position size is $20404. $404 more than Starting Float. Quite acceptable in my opinion.

If all shares hit their stop losses you lose 4x$400=$1600. Risk per Trade is 2% or Capital. Not a pretty picture.

If trading using FPO and all shares hit stop losses you lose $1600 plus brokerage in and out.

Unless you include the cost of brokerage into your Risk per Trade then the number of shares you buy would be less. Thereby ensuring if all Stop Losses are hit you lose $1600.

Depending on what Exit Strategy you use, if you use a trailing Stop Strategy, once the trailing stops move into a position where you will exit in a profit, then this can be your trigger to open another position.

For example:

If Stock A has a trailing Stop that is always $2 below current Market Price. If Stock A price reaches $38.00 then you are currently in a no loss position or break even. Because if the stock drops by $2.00 then you sell and break even or small loss after daily interest taken into account. Sell at $36.00 your entry price.

Once a position reaches a profitable price using your Trailing Stops then openning a new position allows potential for greater profits because you are using leverage to open more positions, but reducing risk because Stock A is currently above Profitable Stop Loss.

Obviously you are exposing yourself to greater risk because you now have a greater position size than your current Float. However this is the beauty of using a Leveraged Product if used properly.

Gapping can hurt you if Stocks gap past your Stop Loss Price. This is an important thing to remember. The more Positions you have the more you are putting yourself at the risk of experiencing Gapping or worse Slippage.

This is the downside of CFD’s and leveraging yourself above your current Total Float size. <===== Very Important.

Hope I haven’t made a mistake in my calculations, hope this helps you understand CFD’s a bit better and how to use them whilst managing risk.

Cheers

Two bits of information best sum up the stockmarket disaster that was 2007-08 and give a clue as to what lies ahead.

Specifically there’s been a sharp downturn in the number of new floats on the ASX in the six months to June, and the total value of Australia’s superannuation assets is now below the value they were a year ago at June 30, 2007.

In fact both reflect what’s happening in the stockmarket, and what investors think will happen in the wider economy as the year goes on: the battle between inflation and growth will be the big story. Controlling inflation will be the aim of the authorities at the expense of growth, earnings and returns.

So far we’ve seen the damage done from the correction in asset values, now comes the damage to earnings from slowing sales and rapidly rising costs. It’s going to be the big message of the next 12 months.

Already the damage to super fund assets could be of the order of $100 billion or more by the end of this month and that doesn’t include the billions of losses from the collapse of several hedge funds, the losses by market traders and the losses incurred by forced margin calls or sales or the losses incurred by the various companies.

Another indifferent year of market performance will mean more pain for super funds and their investors.

Allco for example will be writing down the value of its intangible assets by around $1.3 billion, write-downs and provisions in the listed trust sector is running at around $2 billion with big losses expected from Mirvac, Valad, APN/UK, Babcock and Brown’s investment satellites, some of Macquarie’s, Transurban and others. Centro’s losses are likely to be of the order of $1.5 billion or more.

These losses have fed through into the asset values of super funds large and small, DIY and corporate, and they will feed through again in the new financial year as the accounting and restructuring accelerates.

When Australian mainstream banks like the NAB, CBA, ANZ and Westpac can trade with a dividend yield of 6% to more than 7% (and over 9% on a fully imputed dividend basis), the market slump has left investor confidence in tatters.

It has only been two solid days of rises Wednesday and yesterday that saw the likes of the CBA and NAB enjoy share prices rise large enough to drop the dividend yield under 7%. The ANZ is still over 7%. Shares will fall sharply today after Wall Street’s 3% slump overnight.

On a full grossed up basis the banks are all on a dividend yield which is more than what they are currently offering for some term deposits which is around 7.5% to 8%.

The plunge in the value of the banks (by more than 30% in most cases, and more) is why the market is off by around 16% from last June; but as the banks really fell from January onwards, it’s why the market is down more than 20% from its peak in November.

That does mask the big correction last August-September when the credit crunch broke, to around 5,790 points, before it drove more than 1,000 points higher to peak in November, powered by the BHP Billiton move on Rio Tinto.

But as the crunch returned in force from late that month, our market tumbled lower through December as Centro led the growing group of higher leveraged companies to be exposed by the full impact of the crisis.

The All Ords hit a low below 5,200 in March as Bear Stearns was saved in the US by the Fed, then followed American markets higher, to peak just above 6,000 in mid May when soaring oil and food prices finally caught the attention of central banks, mainstream commentators and investors, and the current sell off started.

Despite some recent weakness, resources remain the mainstay of the market: if they had been weak as well, we would now be in a fully fledged bear market.

You can argue that the market is ‘only’ down 13% to 14% from a year ago because of the BHP takeover for Rio, the big coking and thermal coal price settlements and above all the huge rise in iron ore prices and the growth of the sector, led by the likes of Fortescue Metals.

This resources boom (with an oil and energy overlay) will help the market through the first half of 2008-09 but from January next year, it will start to get stale as the non-iron ore and coal miners report average to disappointing results.

But by that time industrial shares might be looking to recover and the banks may be stronger, having shaken off the bad debt worries when they report their full year figures in October and November.

But there is a lot of ground to make up. Superannuation returns for the year to June will be bad: the worst for 25 years according to some commentators, with negative returns commonplace and positive returns very rare.

The extent of the damage can be seen from figures released yesterday by the industry regulator, The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

Its Quarterly Superannuation Performance publication for the March quarter of 2008 shows total superannuation assets over the 12 months to 31 March 2008 rose by $37.4 billion (3.5% to a total of $1.10 trillion, despite a fall of $74.9 billion (6.4%) during the March quarter. That is, the gains in the June quarter last year, into the September three months were still enough to offset the losses in the December and March quarters.

APRA said the March 30 asset figure was lower than the $1.14 trillion figure at the end of June 2007. That figure was up a huge $225.4 billion in 2006-07. The financial year now coming to a close will be a very different story.

APRA said that over the March quarter, industry funds’ assets fell by 4.8% ($9.9 billion) to $197.5 billion; public sector funds' assets fell by 6.2% ($11.3 billion) to $170.2 billion, retail funds’ assets fell by 7.9% ($29.5 billion) to $343.8 billion and corporate funds' assets fell by 8.8% ($6.2 billion) to $64.0 billion.

“The combined return on assets was -7.7% for the March 2008 quarter. The return for industry and public sector funds was -6.6%, corporate funds -7.6% and retail funds -8.8%”.

Contributions from individuals and employers was $18 billion to funds with at least $50 million (this excludes DIY super schemes).

That gives us a hint of the losses to be reported by super finds for the June 30 year from next month onwards.

With that background, it’s probably no wonder that the number and value of new company floats on the ASX tanked in the six months to June.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers survey shows that only 21 initial public offerings (IPOs), raising $334 million, will be completed by next Monday, June 30.

By way of comparison, 33 IPOs which raised $4.5 billion were achieved in the corresponding period of 2007.

The survey excludes resources, compliance and backdoor listings.

Greg Keys, PwC’s corporate finance partner, said in a commentary that the failure of financial institutions to properly price risk 12 months ago was still working its way through local markets.

He said the number and value of IPOs for all of 2008 will be down on the 91 floats completed last year.

“A notably weak pipeline of floats is apparent heading into the second half of 2008,” he said.

“At this stage, there is only one non-resource company with a defined listing date in July, seeking to raise $3.5 million; although there is a further three floats with listing dates yet to be advised.”

The PwC analysis shows the fall in float activity, both in the number of IPOs and total funds raised, is mainly due to the lack of large cap issues so far this year.

The $500 million fertiliser float from Perth, Burrup Holdings, was postponed twice in the June half of this year. The first was in February in the market turmoil around the likes of Allco, Centro, MFS etc and the second time was earlier this month in the wake of the WA gas supply crisis.

The survey said investor preference has shifted to more stable higher yielding asset classes, such as fixed interest securities and cash.

And this in turn has cut demand for IPOs and seen many companies delay or cancel plans to list until more favourable market conditions and investor appetite returns.

Larger capital raisings have been more difficult to place with investors since the credit crunch hit and debt and leverage became dirty words. The prices investors want to pay are quite often not attractive to vendor shareholders, many of whom are private equity players.

The top five floats in the first six months of this year have raised only $251 million, in contrast with the $3.7 billion raised for the equivalent period in 2007.

The survey pointed out that once floated, investors maintained their disdain for the new companies, with only five, or a quarter, of the 21 first-half floats trading at a premium to their issue prices. The rest were trading at discounts to the issue price.

The survey suggested that a growth area in the next year would be in the renewable energy sector as Australian implements a carbon trading system.

Green technology (as opposed to silicon-based technologies) is rapidly emerging as the growth area in new ventures in the US, especially in and around Silicon Valley and other American technology hubs.

This Information is provided to you by the Australasian Investment Review (AIR).
Subscriptions are free at www.aireview.com.au

AIR reports about financial markets and investment products in the widest sense possible. The AIR website and all its contents is prepared for general information only, and as such, the specific needs, investment objectives or financial situation of any particular user have not been taken into consideration. Individuals should therefore talk with their financial planner or advisor before making any investment decision.

What do you do for an encore once you've built the largest contextual advertising network on the Web? Apparently in Google's case, use it to air cartoons. According to The New York Times, the Google Content Network will soon launch, debuting with short webisodes of a show called "Cavalcade" developed by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane.

The shows will be distributed via the thousands of web sites that run Google AdSense code, featuring pre-roll advertising and a few other formats so the publisher still earns revenue. Here's the really interesting part though: the web sites where Cavalcade will be shown are being selected by Google's existing contextual algorithms. That means that Google will be able to display the show only to those likely to be interested – in Cavalcade's case "typically young men" according to the Times.

The potential for this type of system is pretty massive because everyone wins. Publishers serve something way more interesting than a typical banner or text ad, advertisers get to reach their target audience with video, and Google gets more data based on how the shows perform on different web sites. Also, video ads traditionally have much higher CPMs than text or display ads, meaning it's potentially a lot more money that can be pumped through the AdSense ecosystem if the format proves successful.

As for Cavalcade, the show will have 50 different two-minute episodes. Presumably, short enough so people will watch the whole thing, but long enough to squeeze in a few ads. It will certainly be an interesting experiment to watch.

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The volume of sites and services on the Web doing their thing on the Q&A circuit is quite extensive. There is Yahoo Answers of course. Yedda is another. TickerHound is one which is geared exclusively to financial queries. LinkedIn Answers is a quality forum, too. (Let’s not forget Shouldi, either.) But say you want to simplify the whole question-answer process. You've got a quick question, whose subject is perhaps best described as miscellaneous. And you ideally want answers delivered quick.

Enter, Defuddle. A site started by Oliver Bolton and Edward Dowling of Sydney and Melbourne, Australia, it has been around for a few months now, and it's already showing to be a real treat to use - and aesthetically pleasing to boot.

Defuddle works completely intuitively. After you've registered an account, you have several options on tap. You can offer your wisdom to those in need. You can post your own questions for consideration by the crowd. You can browse the growing archive of data nuggets. Or you can refer to your account for your activity history at the "your stuff" section.

If you're starting out, your account's largely barren. So maybe you're curious about something to do with business, fashion, science, sport, travel, or topics to fit any of 8 other listed categories. Click 'ask something,' and you're given a window in which to write anything question that can be delivered in 200 characters or less. In addition to a chosen category, tags can be administered to your post-in-progress as well.

Next, you're given the option to allow others free reign for answers they provide, or your can specify set options to be chosen by readers. To bring popular opinion to your comparison, for example. Then you're allowed to specify a time by which you wish to receive an answer. 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, or 24 hours, or as much as 7 days. You decide.

New users will find there's nothing at all complex to Defuddle. It's meant to be easy, and relatively quick to satisfy. As the site copy explains, it is "a place to ask questions and make up your mind." It's very linear both function and presentation. And that, I think, is what really makes it an enjoyable service to use.

The puppet will live, but the dream will die. So says Loren Feldman of 1938 Media and the technorati favorite, ShelIsrael.com, a domain now purported to be in transfer to the man who inspired the spoof.

If Feldman's blog post yesterday, written to the effect of an angered end to the real Shel Israel's clash with the puppet master, is to be taken at face value, the message is quite clear: "It's over."

I'm of two minds about this. For one, the journey was quite a laugh, at least for the first several clips. Feldman's portrayal, whether accurate at points or unusual at others, was a hoot for some time. But it seemed to have lost its zing along the way. It was no longer fresh. It grew a little tired. Perhaps an ongoing joke dealt at the expense of an individual whose outrage at the effort was very noticeable can only be pushed so far before the viewership starts to show disinterest and begins to fall off and move to something new.

The plush toy won't be given up, however. As Feldman tells it, "The puppet will live on forever…I just like the little bastard, he makes me and a lot of people smile."

---
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Start pages come in all shapes and sizes. There is the very simple and straightforward Google.com that many Web users maintain. Others prefer the more general-purpose Yahoo.com domain. Some segments, though, enjoy customizable, widgeted palettes like Netvibes, PageFlakes, iGoogle. That last pick was especially popular with the Mashable crowd, in fact, winning top honors at the inaugural Open Web Awards, held in January.

Alas, another party enters the fold. MySurfPad is its name, and while it is not the most visually appealing item to come about as of late, it is useful. If the color wheel suits, and you're a fan of tabbed categorization, this one might make you stick.

By default, MySurfPad presents you with a variety of components, including a calendar, Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and Wikipedia search options, a mixed news feed, Weather Channel widget, notepad and calculator. Plus Google Maps and a simple app for bookmarks to finish the front page. Across the top of this set of devices are seven tabs, each with their own purpose. The 'News' option displays - you guessed it - lots of news headlines. 'Email+' runs the gamut of email, instant messaging, as well as MySpace and Facebook connections.

'Tools' will likely go into relative disuse, because, well, how often do you require a currency converter, a stop watch, or a global time tracker? Or for that matter a widget-bound spell checker? Also, the 'Music/TV' section is a bit lacking in real utility as well. The same goes for the 'Fun' tab, in my view. The last option, 'Travel,' might be worth a look, if only for its flight tracker apps.

The site could use some extra refinement, for sure. Attention to detail is requirement in this business, with browser real estate being a precious commodity. MySurfPad's competition vastly exceeds it on that count. Still, according to Waleed B, the site's self-described "chief surf officer," the strength of MySurfPad is its out-of-box variety. Users can edit their own SurfPad, too, so if you don't like the standard setup, you can always pick and choose to suit your preferences. There are north of 200 widgets listed in the site's ranks.

Conventional wisdom says politics is ugly, politics is blood sport. And conventional wisdom is spot on. But the field of play is no longer reserved only for the Washington Beltway. Nor is it the sole domain of London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow or Beijing. Now the YouTube set have ample ammunition as well. Just how much they have in store is key to determining whether we've reached a tipping point in favor of the populist power bequeathed by Google, et al. I'll posit that we have. The table has most definitely turned.

Not entirely, mind you. The lobbyist class is in no way a vanishing breed. They're still very much ingrained in legislative organization and debate. And political power unchecked will inevitably corrupt. So on the whole, if any "change" is to occur, it will likely move at snail's pace. But we are in a very interesting position here today. We now see Google, and other technology companies of similar making, holding substantial weight when it comes to influencing the campaign season. And it is the portfolio billions of dollars large that is the most outstanding indication of Google's heft. That, for all intents and purposes, makes Google - in particular its increasingly powerful video service - a platform virtually unchallengeable by government and those associated with government.

Published today in The New York Times is a piece by Jim Rutenberg, in which he describes independent video producers as having effectively supplanted some advocacy groups, many known by the now infamous "527" moniker, to take the reigns as the drafters and manipulators of deeply impactful messages tossed about the campaign trail in the US, and beyond.

Indeed, the negative connotation of the term "manipulators" (which, just to note is my own, not Rutenberg's) is important to highlight here, because, as with the Web's truth seekers, evasions from fact and the viral promotion of fictions also employ YouTube to great effect. YouTube brings the good with the bad, as it were.

But the mere establishment of YouTube (and its competitors) as a channel by which civilians can learn for themselves very quickly and easily the ways of political practice and discover up close the two-sided monster electioneering has become, surely indicates a shifting of the tide. The ingenious craftwork by professional video producers and amateurs alike has proven with ever greater punch that the virtual democratization of media access on the Web, coupled with the very active trend toward ubiquity of Web services, is now a more or less insurmountable and irreversible reality.

The movement toward the tipping point, specifically here in the U.S., began roughly around the time of the 2004 and 2006 elections. And it generally all began with scandalous captures. One recording, taken by a member of Virginia state senator Jim Webb's 2006 campaign of then incumbent George Allen denigrating loosely the man with the camera, was subsequently pushed to YouTube, where it took on a life of its own.

That is only one of the many videos to get this ball rolling, of course. And while the recipe for the creation of a viral video is not precise and is somewhat amorphous, the fact is that such clips do grow legs and do manage, with an able social networking effort, to surface and flow into the mainstream, where they now have ample opportunity to help direct popular opinion one way or another.

The reason Web video has transformed from a political nuisance to something which requires of candidates and elected officials to dust off the damage control alarm is, as I said earlier, because of the trend toward ubiquitous access of Web services. That is obvious enough. The cat is out of the bag.

But what's critical to point out here is that the non-lobbyist crowd can now compete for eyes and ears with historically vested interests involved in the political situation in and around D.C. That wasn't the case pre-2000. Or even pre-2004.

YouTube has risen to become not just a message box complementary to one-way street that is television. It has become something akin to "Fact-Check Central." Video producers may of course propagate lies and distortions on YouTube just as quickly as the so-called change agents. But one would presume the consumer crowd is not looking for misinformation - unless it is to blacklist the slander. Anyone dealing trash is labeled accordingly. This goes for elements on all sides of the division segmenting Democrats from Republicans from Independents and others.

Internet users instead seem to be latch onto things to which tags of reason and accuracy can sensibly be affixed. And preferably with as little varnish as possible. Call it a simple eagerness to know, if nothing else.

So I'm one to believe that the era of gamesmanship for gamesmanship's sake is all but finished. Yes our heavily filtered ignorance-is-bliss lifestyle as a society is little more than something left for scavengers to pick over and for historians to document and embellish. And that past had its benefits, even if it was something of a dead-end fantasy. What's more, there is a bit of a downside to this feverish drive for "gotcha"-style investigations. Mistakes are made. In spades. Reputations can be irrevocably tarnished if maligned messages manage to flourish in the cloud.

But the free-use platform of YouTube and those of similar ilk acts as an open correctant as well. YouTube has no allegiance to one vantage or another. It's a sparring ground for all sides. Most importantly, it's a sparring ground with no concern for the financial details of its users. Have a thick purse? A thin one? It's all the same. One's content is judged almost entirely by the size of one's audience. With a pool of viewers many millions strong stretched across the globe, there seems to be little room left for the old-style tactics of silence, secrecy, and deception. Which I happen to welcome wholeheartedly. How about you?

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Features, I’ve recently come to realize, can be obstacles. Problems. The more powerful an application is, the more specialized it is, and thus with increased power its intended audience shrinks, and ironically, it becomes more, not less, vulnerable to competition.

Specialization, traditionally, is a good thing. But, as Alexander Bard and Jan Söderqvist argue in their Netocracy, those who overspecialize will not do very well in the age of the Internet. Want to succeed? Be influential in as many important networks as possible, they argue.

Even in this fast moving age specialization can be ok if you’re a person, but what if you’re a service, catering to thousands or millions of people? Sure, if the conditions around you don’t change much, you can satisfy the needs of a certain group very well, but if you exist in a fluid, everchanging medium such as the Internet, where everything shrinks and expands and overlaps all the time, the power that you offer might work against you in the end.

From this notion a new paradigm has arisen. Less is more. Simplicity is power. Create a solid foundation, and let others build a thousand different houses, each catering to a different need, and you’ll never go out of fashion. Simplicity is the key that unlocks the web. Bear with me.

The Twitter Dilemma

I, as many other authors, have bashed my head against the wall thinking: how is it possible that Twitter remains popular despite their frequent technical problems and the fact that there are other similar services out there which offer more? It is an unprecedented situation: normally, a service with solid competition which has the advantage of not having technical difficulties that prevent their user base from using the service (whether or not Twitter’s competition is better with this regard is debatable, but based on current data anything seems to be more reliable than Twitter) would have been dead and buried ages ago. Twitter, however, endures. Why?

The answer is simple: Twitter belongs to a new breed of services, perhaps accidentally discovered, that win by doing less, not more. It’s a foundation upon which hundreds of new applications were built, yet, in itself, it is little more than an API for a simple one-to-many short message broadcast system. I, myself, have thrown my hands up in frustration and tried to find an alternative I can stick with - Pownce, Plurk, and countless others. Unfortunately, it seems, all these services are too good to be a viable alternative.

Unlocking The Web

How can this be? The web, most experts agree, is a platform - a platform for any service that has to do with information of any kind. Unfortunately for developers, as far as platforms go, it’s a very undefined one; there is no universal API for the Internet. Furthermore, the damn thing changes all the time. Web portals were once huge; now they seem clumsy and cluttered, because many new applications have created more elegant ways to start your online day. If you want to develop an application for the Internet, you must first find a way to channel and organize the information that’ll flow through; if you jump on the wrong train here in the very beginning, your application might be doomed.

Some smart developers have thus began to understand that it’s better to build a very simple service that caters to a very basic need, and slap an API on top, than to try and create a specific, complex service that does a lot right from the start. The first type of service, if executed well, has shown to be very resilient: once it breaks the initial attention barrier, competing against it is practically impossible.

By catering to a basic need, creating a service that satisfies it in a simple way and opening it up through an API, you’ve unlocked, or perhaps deciphered, a small part of the web as a platform. You’ve created a mini platform which everyone is going to use because it’s, simply put, good enough. As long as people have a need to send short messages to other people from wherever they are, Twitter is going to be a highly sought for commodity. Unless someone else makes it even more simple.

Less Is More

Add a couple of features to Twitter and it’s Wordpress. Why is a Wordpress minus a couple of features so popular? You have to stop thinking in the traditional way and adopt the new “less is more” philosophy to understand that.

By far the most popular application that thrives from being simpler than its competitors is Google Search. Remember the way search engines looked before Google? Yahoo, with its unbelievably crowded homepage at the time of Google’s advent was probably the worst offender, but Lycos and others were no better. Google Search was very, very good at what it did, and that’s the reason it became so popular, but even beyond the inner workings of its algorithm it was very difficult to compete with it because the site consisted of almost nothing, sans a text form, a logo and some text. How do you top that? Apparently, no one has come up with the answer to that one, yet.

Another such application is FriendFeed. Having come to the game of lifestream aggregators late, it swept everyone off their feet and competitors like Profilactic and Second Brain have received very little press ever since. This is because, again, it does very little: it takes data from your various social profiles, creates a stream out of it and lets users comment and “like” single items. In fact, it’s eerily similar to Twitter, and now - just like in Twitter’s case - applications that bring new functionality to FriendFeed, like NoiseRiver, have started to appear. Would FriendFeed have done better if they provided this exact functionality from the start? I’m betting no, and here’s why.

Distribution Vs. Complexity

Once upon a time, if you wanted to create a successful application, one of the keys to success was to offer a lot of features your competitors don’t have. Adobe’s Photoshop is one such application. If you need to edit some photos, it’s the best, period, because it has every tool you could possibly need.

But this is the disconnected world we’re talking about. On the web, things change. It’s not only important what you can do; you also want to be able to do it from wherever you want; you want to plug in into other services, you want to work together with other people. Furthermore - and this goes even more for mobile applications and services - on the Internet, complexity is looked down upon. People don’t want big applications that can do everything; they want simple, widgety applications that cater to a specific service.

Partly, this is because complexity makes web applications slow and clumsy. Partly, it is because the attention span of an average Internet user has shortened, and partly, it is because his willingness to learn the nuts and bolts of a complex application has diminished. Most importantly, it is because the Internet constantly changes and it’s really hard to build something big and complex on such shaky grounds.

Is it thus smart to create a lot of small apps, each aimed at a different niche? It’s definitely a sound approach. But I think an even better one is to find the lowest common denominator, an underlying basic need that connects all these various niches, cater to that, open it up and let mashups do the rest. This way, people can choose exactly which features they want to use, and your application becomes a fluid, modular service that can be as simple or as complex as the use wants it to be.

The Magic Formula

Determine a basic need -> Create a service that satisfies it in the simplest way possible -> Open it up.

It sounds simple, but it’s not; determining a basic human need, like the need to share photos or the need to communicate with short text messages is a hit and miss affair. A service like FriendFeed could not have existed 15 years ago; explaining it to someone 30 years ago would sound like science fiction. Yet, today, the need to aggregate all your social networking data in one place seems to be a very important need for many humans. Will it ever be a basic human need, like the need to communicate? I can see the naysayers shake their heads in disgust, but it’s hard to predict what the future will bring. Aggregation and organization of data might play a very big part in our lives really soon.

The other part of the equation is equally elusive. How much is too much? Would Twitter be as successful as it is if it had looked more like Twhirl from the very beginning? Who knows. But I believe now that in many cases it is better to reduce the number of features to a minimum, open the application up via an API, and let the community build on what you have started. This synergy will make your application far more valuable than it would be if it had all these extra features itself.

The few that manage to get this formula right will build mini platforms upon which everything else on the web will be built. By unlocking little parts of the web they will each cater to a different need, and as long as that need is shared by a large number of people, it will be impossible to compete against them. And I’m sure that’s a position everyone wants to be in.

[All images courtesy of sxc.hu]

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Today's the day. Spain v. Germany. Vienna, Austria. Are you ready? After weeks of footwork by national football teams competing in the Euro 2008 tourney, but two forces remain. They begin their battle for top honors at 2:30 EST.

If you live in the United States, you could turn your telly to ABC or ESPN's Desportes channel to watch the game happen in real time. Or you can spring for some Web video coverage. Choose the latter, and your options are several.

SAI's Michael Learmonth has a fairly solid compendium of links to services broadcasting the game over the Net, with nine URLs to try, including ESPN 360, a media hotspot for sports fans that delivers streams freely to U.S.-based viewers for a variety of national and international events.

Unfortunately, all American viewers won't benefit from ESPN's Web-based coverage, as the network only grants access to certain ISPs. (Some cable companies, as well as Verizon.) So those denied entry will have to go elsewhere.

Some of these sites may not be the most beautifully appointed sources for video. But they'll get the job done. Probably. A few might perform better than others. A number of the most promising looking venues are:

- RAI's Euro 2008 site. (Silverlight install required. And it's in Italian. Need direction on what to click? The "La Diretta" link is where you need to go.)

- Channelsurfing.net. (Works on PC and Mac.)

- MyP2P.eu. (Mac users can watch in browser with Flip4Mac video converter.)

- LiveSats.com.

There are sites like Live Footy and Veetle as well, which require Sopcast, a Windows/Mac/Linux download. Or, if you're familiar with Cyrillic, LiveTV can give you what you need.

Wagers on today's champion, anyone?

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This is a public service announcement: Twitter replies are working! The popular messaging service has brought its core “replies” feature back to life after days of downtime.

Will this be enough to resuscitate the maligned startup and keep you away from the temptations of FriendFeed? Why don’t you head over to Twitter and Tweet your opinion to @mashable …while you still can?!

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MOO.com, maker of the unique and stylish “MiniCards” that hit it big with the Flickr crowd, is going corporate: the company is set to launch standard sized Business Cards.

There’s high demand for the product, the company says; but isn’t bigger…kinda boring? I discuss with the aid of a small horse.

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NBC's online coverage of the Summer Olympic Games is expected to be immense in both the quantity of live and on-demand video. But it appears there will be exceptions made for watching August's events in Beijing through a Web browser.

As David Bauder of the AP describes it, NBC will be offering roughly 2,200+ hours of live competition online. That in addition to live blogging services, as well as 3,000 hours of replays. Quite a lot of of material, yes? Absolutely. More than you could possibly view while maintaining a semi-normal lifestyle.

There is a particularity some sport fans might should be aware of, however. NBC will not offer for computer users live video of any events also delivered live via traditional TV broadcast methods.

So, say you look upon the Olympic schedule and see that cycling or track and field events are occurring in real-time. And they get shown on NBC stations. That means you with your Web browser and requisite Microsoft Silverlight plugin will need to wait until after the statistics come in. Because NBC doesn't want to encroach on its decades-old territory, evidently.

Not to call this inconsistency substandard to NBC's televised coverage, since it's only logical to think NBCOlympics.com will provide a much broader view of competition in China later this summer. But the disallowance of continuous live coverage on the Web, regardless of what is and what is not shown on television in the US, is patently absurd.

Are NBC and its affiliates somehow convinced that a shut-off of live broadcasts over the Web will drive those viewers to turn on their televisions - if they even have them within reasonable distance - to continue consuming the network's feed? A very peculiar assessment of viewers' inclinations indeed.

Of course, viewers aren't likely show popular frustration with NBC for this, unless it is brought to very public attention in the final weeks preceding the games. The sheer volume of video offered via the Web, I suspect, will diminish the impact of any disruptions to Web feeds. Which is quite unfortunate for Olympic fans eager to consume live events by way of their computers.

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Say you've gotten into the routine of changing your Facebook status as you go about your day. It's information that you'd like to keep your friends abreast of. And perhaps they appreciate you for it, too. But manually making the switch is costing you clicks of the cursor better used for other stuff. Like chomping through your email inbox. Really, it seems like time wasted.

If that's the case, and you would simply like to automate your status updates to correspond to a schedule, a developer by the name of Ross Squires has released an application called Automatous to make your Facebook account adhere to the timeline you specify.

Automatous is in "public testing" mode, which requires that, following the application's installation, you will need to submit your email address for approval for the beta trial. My own experience is that approval takes only a short while to complete, so you'll be ready to give it a try in short time. After you've made your way through the confirmation process, scheduling a status update, is as simple as clicking the 'Add New Status' button. Options to pause and remove entries are presented as well.

That's basically the extent of the application's utility. It's entirely intuitive, and it of course recognizes current time, so if you're looking to quickly schedule a status update to activate the very moment you press 'Add', you may. Visually speaking, it as elementary as can be. Apart from it's interactive option icons and the Ads by Google bar alongside the main menu, it is completely no-nonsense.

Why does this particular application get a mention? The supply of Facebook applications released in a given week or month is pretty substantial, so the discretion given to such items is of course strict. But Automatous seems less an application, per se, and almost a natural extension of the network's own options. This is really something I can imagine seeing spring from Facebook's own in-house development team at some point in the future. There are others like Automatous that do considerably more, like Super Status and Status Shuffle. The bareboned construction of Automatous is much more subliminal in function. It more directly competes with Scheduled Status Updater, albeit with an extra touch or two of elegance.

Musicians starring in Web videos is nothing new. John Mayer's comedic attempt on Funny or Die comes immediately to mind. And as far as general Internet startups go, M.C. Hammer is only one of many players. 50 Cent, Nick Lachey, and Kylie Minogue are in the fold as well.

Perhaps the newest name to arrive on the scene, with his own video blog, is the Grammy-winning former Fugee Pras Michel. Topics to be discussed with viewers? Anything on the artist's mind. Music, movies, politics. No gossip, though. That's out. So world news with some hip-hop flavor rolled in?

For the moment Pras is merely giving an introduction to the weekly production, held under the name Platinum Brand. We'll see what comes this new effort. It almost seems normal now to have famous folk of various levels of success experiment with the cloud-based devices - some of course to better effect than others. The Will Farrell-infused Funny or Die venture being perhaps the most viral of all.

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Incremental improvement is the way by which many Internet startups operate. Updates can be week to week, month to month, quarter to quarter, or any mix of the three really. So the news this week that Zenbe, a webmail service now in public beta, which brings multiple inboxes together from many major names, including Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and AOL, has introduced several additions came as a welcome development.

When we reviewed the startup in early May, it already boasted quite an impressive array of features. It even sported Facebook news feed integration. Now it supports Google Talk and Twitter. (Other advances include the capability to pool contacts into unique networks for more convenient correspondence, as well as calendar support for 'webcal://' and 'https://' URL prefixes.)

Zenbe's inclusion this week of support for Google Talk and Twitter is definitely the biggest headline to glean from the service's development. The ability for users to now instant message one another and correspond with friends and followers through Twitter from within the Zenbe environment is a big convenience, and with no advertisements to speak of, Zenbe seems to provide one of the best webmail experiences of any data aggregator of its kind.

The cloud-based clients offered by the giant webmail services are more or less the default choices taken by users. And that won't change much, even taking Zenbe's well-rounded evolutioninto account. Habits are habits. But if anything convinces anyone to switch, it's this new extension group.

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If Rodney Dangerfield were to have left this world prior to BitTorrent's debut, I suspect it might be plausible to assume the man had been reincarnated to consist of code and a mission to peer. Or something less ridiculous sounding, maybe.

BitTorrent is hardly the technical target of governments and copyright-owning corporations and ISPs. But it has played the victim of their data filtration and server disconnection exercises again and again, and to ill effect. Just this past week a story by TorrentFreak emerged describing Malaysia's government as playing part to suspensions of BitTorrent trackers hosted within the country's jurisdiction. BitTorrent truly gets no respect. At least among authorities and big business groups.

You have of course heard these lines repeatedly. To exhaustive degree, I'm sure. Yes, these stories have surfaced far too often for most anybody's liking. Even some of those doing the shafting aren't likely to enjoy a number of their actions' aftereffects. The negatives can in some ways be even more extraordinary than the positives. (Positives being a relative term. Many creative commons proponents, for instance, consider copyright law as its written today more a hindrance for Big Media than a safety valve of sorts.)

What's particularly unappealing about the clash today between advocates of unfettered P2P access and hesitant and mistrustful parties within the anti-P2P circle, is that the technology is moving at a fairly fast-paced motion, while regulators are more or less stagnant. In some ways even counterproductive as far as network related legislation.

For one, burdensome network controls can stifle innovation, possibly delaying the arrival of the moment at which media providers and associate industries can see the financial paradigm of Web-based systems and services turn in their favor, so as to replace old, less efficient production and delivery methods. (Sustaining the infrastructure for CD and DVD releases is not in the interest of studios anywhere in the world.)

Also, having one's name placed opposite that of a popular technology, be it a portable media playing device, like the iPod, or BitTorrent, a facilitator of file transfers that helps to maintain a relatively safe dispersion of Internet traffic in an increasingly media-hungry consumer reality, doesn't gain the good graces of those consumers. It simply triggers disillusionment. Which I imagine results in greatly diminished care among consumers for the long-term heath of music and film studio executives, driving many to pursue of free digital copies with ever greater abandon.

Of course, some abuse leveled against BitTorrent isn't in the sole interest of copyright owners. The technology, after all, makes available a multitude of file types over most any open network on the Web. Some regimes have the basic intent to cease the free flow of information. And that's not necessarily a slap at BitTorrent, per se. Such censorship has more to do with authoritarian paranoia than anything else.

But the majority of practitioners of anti-torrent methods are especially mindful of damage dealt present-day copyright law, and think P2P it must be stopped, so as to give them room to contemplate how to reverse their losses without relinquishing technological control. (One of those ideas, if you recall, has been to require music distributors to offer DRM-free tracks fixed with watermarks. In fact, Apple's iTunes Store was reported to place such stamps on select tracks sold.)

So it bears repeating, even if it entails beating the dead horse deader still, that action against users of BitTorrent is not any way to make progress in the media distribution industry. Instead, employing the protocol to try to play the game better than the non-legal crowd is the way make a qualitative, and thus quantitative impact. Otherwise the market will go nowhere.

Or, to posit an even worse outcome, we might turn to a future yet more saturated with illicit activity. At which point - and this goes for musicians in particular - will have no choice but to attempt more independent promotion and compete for a mostly consumer-managed money pool. Granted, that route is currently proving lucrative for some popular artists. But speaking macro-economically, it would surely be a bumpy road to travel for all involved.

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We told you last month about the planned wrap-up of KateModern, the very successful Internet television show exclusive to the AOL-owned Bebo social network. Well, today's the day that all is put to pasture. KateModern is having its finale, and it's going out with 12 episodes in 12 hours. The countdown to the series close began earlier this morning and will stretch to 7PM EST, with hourly videos releases complemented by live chats with and among the fanbase.

The program's following has been an extensive one. Its production company, EQAL, claims for KateModern an average weekly viewership of about 1m, surpassing the popularity of virtually all other original Web-based programs, including LonelyGirl15, a show also produced by EQAL. While that number has been argued by some to be an overestimate of KateModern's sustained reach, the impact the show has had on the Web media space is certainly a lasting one.

In fact, due to its viral achievements EQAL was able to secure both a $5 million Series A funding round and CBS partnership in the space of a single month.

Today's KateModern conclusion, after its 300 episode run, is one which its producers have clearly wished to make absolute this time around. It's been said that the murder mystery has effectively run its course, and to exit on a relatively high note with respect to viewer numbers helps EQAL to see that the show maintains its status as a major hit, start to finish. Studio co-founder Miles Beckett said, "KateModern has reached a critical peak in the storyline and as we complete the cycle, the many threads and mysterious elements will come together with an amazing conclusion."

If you've kept your eyes peeled for new KateModern developments since the start of the season or even the show's debut, you've likely already been made full aware of the day's schedule. But for you casual viewers who've strayed or skipped over the episodic reel, you'll see pressing questions answered, hour by hour this morning, afternoon, and evening.

I can't say I've kept an eye on the KateModern storyline. But if its finale is anything like those provided by the arresting yet frustratingly open-ended ABC program "Lost", well, I would hope it's not, and that all pieces to the puzzle will be revealed. Share your thoughts of KateModern's last broadcasts in the comments!

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So you live in New York City, or perhaps travel Manhattan and outer boroughs frequently. And maybe you're one to buck the mass-transit trend and drive around in your own vehicle. If so, you know how precious a commodity street-side parking spaces can be. If you're in need of guidance as to rules and regulations for various points on various avenues, PrimoSpot can help.

A mash-up involving Google Maps and lots and lots of colored pins, PrimoSpot is only applicable to NYC at the moment, and even then only to Manhattan and Brooklyn. So it can only prove useful to a certain number of American drivers. But even so, it is something which can hold considerable utility for those who would like to know what they're going to find when they get there. Whatever and wherever "there" might be.

We’ve shared a number of services similar to PrimoSpot in the past, including ParkingSpots, ParkingHunter, and ParkWhiz.

Very easily operable, PrimoSpot gives the user an address bar at the top of the window. Input a desired location, and the user is returned a map of the point of reference and any streets in relative vicinity. No paid parking garages are represented. Instead, the service lists street-side spaces only, and only standard parking time information is given. As described by the service, "Alternate side of the street parking suspensions suspensions and holidays are currently not reflected in the times left on a spot." And of course, the availability of spots is not offered either. But even taking all those missing bits and pieces into account, PrimoSpot can help the average driver get a quick look at what's out there. Arriving without a grasp of neighborhood restrictions can make for a hellish search.

PrimoSpot is not new. It was first launched in June 2007. It recently had its re-launch, however, with some 13,665 spots marked, and counting. More are being added continually. And in addition to Manhattan and Brooklyn listings, the service is expected to soon bring into the fold detailed maps for Queens as well as the cities of Philadelphia and Boston. If you’re on the go and in need of assistance, a generic mobile site (http://m.primospot.com/) as well as one fitted for use with an iPhone have been launched.

This was contributed by “Ingot54″a professional trader who is also one of the main contributors to “Topstocks.”

Topstocks are still offering a "Free Pro "account for one month with no strings attached. You can get there by clicking on the link provided. 25,000 Plus members can't be wrong. So do yourself a favour and see for yourself.Now to the article:-

I am sure you are a competent trader, but the monkeys on your back are named “Impulse” and “Impatience” - both begin with “I”.

“I” is a self-centred word, so you need a shift of focus.

Try seeing your trades as belonging to someone else - you will be conscious of their value, and cautious when managing them. If you are a bad risk manager, you will be sacked, so look after your job!

One of the things worth trying is to gently (and patiently) scale-in to your positions. If the trade is good (ie if the trade works) you then add to the position, and keep doing this in increments until the end of the trend.

Trends all end, and this is where knowing support/resistance are paramount. If a trend is to stall, it will do it at either support/resistance, or at one of the Fibonacci nodes.

One of the tricks I use to keep me focused, is to overlay the 4-hr MA of support/resistance on my 1-hr chart. This is easy, and you may already know how it is done. But for the benefit of other readers, this is what I do:

Once I know the MA which represents support/resistance on the 4-hr chart, it can be placed on the 1-hr chart simply by multiplying the period by 4.

If Support is the 20-period MA on the 4-hr chart, it will be the 80-period MA on a 1-hr chart.

If the 20-period MA on the 1-hr chart is Resistance (for example) it will be the 40-period MA on the 30-min chart, and 80-period MA on the 15-min chart.

Knowing these sweet-spots is vital. You can choose to take profits at the first sign of any faltering at these levels, and just walk away and look for another set-up.

Hope that helps.

best Wishes

Ingot

Es la idea que tres ingenieros aeroespaciales europeos han presentado en el Acta Astronautica, revista de la Internacional Academy of Astronautics (IAA), y que trata de cambiar en un futuro las bases de las misiones de reparación de los satélites que orbitan alrededor de la Tierra.

El motivo principal parece ser económico. Planificar y llevar a cabo una de estas misiones conlleva importantes gastos considerados actualmente como un derroche, a parte de crear problemas de agenda para la comunidad espacial. A esto deberíamos sumar el riesgo para la tripulación asignada a la reparación del satélite, tanto en el viaje como en la propia tarea.

Para solventar dichos problemas, la solución sería enviar robots a realizar distintas órbitas alrededor de la Tierra, quedando a la espera de recibir instrucciones para reparar cualquier satélite estropeado que entrara en su zona de trabajo.

La viabilidad de esta forma de trabajo ya fue probada con éxito el verano pasado, cuando el Pentágono puso en órbita los robots Astro (encargado de la reparación) y NextSat (prototipo de satélite) para realizar una prueba real. Durante el proceso, Astro se acopló a NextSat mediante su brazo mecánico, y lo movió de distintas formas para calibrar sus sensores. Además, transfirió combustible al satélite y le cambió una batería. Todo esto, de forma satisfactoria.

Aún así, el progreso de los investigadores en este campo está siendo mucho más lento de lo esperado. El escepticismo ante el cambio está haciendo que las empresas no se percaten de que los satélites siguen siendo poco fiables, y es necesaria una alternativa a las costosas reparaciones que se realizan en la actualidad.

Más información | NewScientist (en inglés)
Más información | NASA (en inglés)
En Genciencia | Satélites