Microsoft ... U just made my day!!!

Hey folks ...
me is back after a very longgggggggggggg break!
So...Today I took my Microsoft certification and earned an MCAD (stands for Microsoft Certified Application Developer - U take... like freaking THREEEEEE tests to get this one!)...yAyyyyyyyy....This is something for me to party!


In The Path Towards Success...

Money Matters ... America's RiCheST!!!

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, left, and Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett top Forbes' list of richest Americans.






For the first time, Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans consists exclusively of people worth $1 billion or more. As a group, the people who made the rankings released Thursday are worth a record $1.25 trillion, compared to $1.13 trillion last year.

In the billionaire-athon, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson pole-vaulted to No. 3 from 15 in last year's ranking, finishing behind the mainstays at Nos. 1 and 2: Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates and Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Read the list)

Adelson is now estimated to have $20.5 billion, Buffett $46 billion and Gates $53 billion. Gates has held the No. 1 spot for the last 13 years while Buffett has been No. 2 every year since 1994 except 2000, when Larry Ellison of Oracle Corp. held that spot.

Adelson's expanding net worth is related in no small part to his decision to open a casino two years ago on the island of Macau, an emerging gambling haven off the southeastern coast of China. Profits are growing rapidly thanks to the Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s Macau casino. Adelson personally and through family trusts controls 60 percent of the company.

Forbes estimates Adelson earned about $1 million an hour over the past two years. In the second quarter alone, the Sands Macau property saw net revenue jump to $310.4 million, up from $205.1 million a year ago. To tap the demand from gamblers in Asia going forward, the Sands Corp. plans a second property on Macau and a casino in Singapore.




The two GOOGLE Inc. founders were also big earners. Sergey Brin (right) and Larry Page (left) gained about $13 million a day over the last two years, according to Forbes. That puts them in 12th and 13th place, up from a tie at 16th place last year.

Page and Brin also share the distinction of being, at 33 years old, the two youngest people on the list and two of only eight who are younger than 40.

The list was led off by technologists, such as Gates, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, Dell Inc.'s Michael Dell and Ellison, and rounded out by five members of the Walton clan who have fortunes amassed from sales by the world's largest retailer.

For a detailed list check out here...

Pope praises slain Italian nun

Pope Benedict XVI praised an Italian nun for pardoning her killers as she lay dying from an attack in Somalia that may have been linked to worldwide Muslim anger over his recent remarks about Islam and violence.


Some are asked to give the supreme testimony of blood, as it happened a few days ago to the Italian nun, Sister Leonella Sgorbati, who fell victim to violence.

This nun, who for many years served the poor and the children in Somalia, died pronouncing the word 'PARDON,"' the pope told pilgrims during his traditional Sunday noon appearance. He said "This is the most authentic Christian testimony, a peaceful sign of contradiction which shows the victory of love over hate and evil."

HATE...
Rosa Sgorbati, an Italian missionary who worked in a pediatrics hospital in Somalia under her religious name Sister Leonella, was slain in Mogadishu Sept. 17, the day that Benedict said he was deeply sorry his remarks had offended Muslims.

What he said...
"The emperor comes to speak about the issue of jihad, holy war" ...

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." ...

Face on Mars

NASA started it all back in 1976 with an image of an interesting mountain on Mars and a caption that described it as appearing to have eyes and nostrils.

The feature known as the Face, along another skull-like feature and pyramid-looking hills in the vicinity, are in an area called Cydonia in the Arabia Terra region.
It is a transition zone between the southern highlands and the northern plains, and it contains wide valleys and ancient remnant mounds, called massifs, of many shapes and sizes. The massif that became the infamous "Face" was first seen in a photo taken on July 25, 1976 by NASA's Viking 1 Orbiter.



Thirty years later, the "Face on Mars" still inspires myths and conspiracy theories.
New images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter will confirm for many that the features are natural, while no doubt offering tantalizing "clues" to others of an ancient intelligent civilization at work.

The spacecraft's High Resolution Stereo Camera provides data the researchers turn into color perspective views, which simulate the scene as though you were flying high over the region in an aircraft.

NASA scientists thought it looked like a human head, and although they knew it was just an illusion, the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory issued this caption:

"The speckled appearance of the image is due to missing data, called bit errors, caused by problems in transmission of the photographic data from Mars to Earth. Bit errors comprise part of one of the 'eyes' and 'nostrils' on the eroded rock that resembles a human face near the center of the image. Shadows in the rock formation give the illusion of a nose and mouth. Planetary geologists attribute the origin of the formation to purely natural processes."

LATEST INFORMATION

Other photographs of the Face taken more recently show that from different angles, it does not look much like a face.

ESA scientists are interested in the geology of the region. Landslides and broad debris aprons show how the heavily eroded surface has changed over time, helping them piece together the real Martian past.

The easy way to get Salmon, Fight a Kick boxing Bear lol

kick boxing bear!

Incredible Machine...

If you are interested in DESIGN view this!



If you cannot view in the player try --->
here...

Gulf oil discovery may be bigger than Alaska's Prudhoe Bay!

Geoscientists may have made the biggest oil discovery in 38 years off the coasts of Louisiana and Texas.
It could be the biggest domestic oil find in 38 years, but production is years away, and even then it won't reverse America's growing reliance on imports or have any meaningful effect at the gasoline pump.

A group led by "Chevron" has tapped a petroleum pool 270 miles south of New Orleans -- and almost 4 miles beneath the ocean floor -- in a region that could hold as much as 15 billion barrels of oil, or more than Alaska's Prudhoe Bay.

The proximity of the Gulf of Mexico to the world's largest oil-consuming nation makes the discovery extra attractive to the industry. However, analysts said the find could bring pressure on Florida and other states to relax limits they have placed on drilling in their offshore waters for environmental and tourism reasons.

Chevron estimated that the 300-square-mile region known as the lower tertiary, a rock formation that is 24 million to 65 million years old, contains between 3 billion and 15 billion barrels. The upper end of that range would be enough oil to expand the country's reserves by 50 percent. But the first drop of oil from the lower tertiary isn't expected to hit the market until at least 2010, and at best it will only slow the decline in annual U.S. production.

Challenges...
While the industry was mostly upbeat about the potential of this new discovery, it also acknowledged some challenges, including a dearth of rigs capable of drilling in such deep water and the long lead times required to drill and complete deep-water wells.

The U.S. consumes roughly 5.7 billion barrels of crude-oil in a year, while its reserves currently exceed 29 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Department. To put that into perspective, Saudi Arabia's reserves are believed to exceed 250 billion barrels.

The well was drilled in the Walker Ridge area of the Gulf, 175 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It is an area the industry has been exploring for about five years.

San Ramon, California-based Chevron said the well set a variety of records, including the deepest well successfully tested in the Gulf of Mexico. Chevron said the well was drilled more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor.

Japan's Princess Kiko has boy...YAY finallyyyyyy

Japan's Princess Kiko has given birth to a son, likely postponing a long-running debate over whether Japanese law should be changed to allow women to succeed to the throne - info from the imperial palace. (In the Pic: Princess Kiko, accompanied by husband Prince Akishino, arrives at a Tokyo hospital.
)

The boy is third in line to the throne, after Crown Prince Naruhito and Kiko's husband, Prince Akishino.

When the government previously proposed changing the law, polls showed that an estimated 70 percent of Japanese approved. Once Kiko's pregnancy was announced, however, public opinion switched, with Japanese saying it would be easier for Kiko to bear a son and resolve the succession issue for now.

Reigning empresses have been rare in Japan, usually serving as stand-ins for a few years until a suitable male could be installed. The last reigning empress was Gosakuramachi, who assumed the throne in 1763, according to AP.

Debate over the succession law was divisive and emotional. Some conservatives proposed a revival of concubines to produce imperial heirs, and others argued that allowing a woman on the throne would destroy a precious Japanese tradition.

If we destroy our planet will science find a new one?

Scientists are exploiting one of Einstein's predictions to find Earth-like planets around other stars -- planets that might even support Earth-like life. Let the evacuation plans begin!





WHAT
A way to spot Earth-size planets orbiting distant stars. Traditional techniques can't find small, rocky planets. But a new strategy called gravitational micro-lensing uses the bending of light to detect those elusive ersatz Earths. With it, astronomers have already found four new planets.

WHY
To determine whether we are alone in the universe. We're much more likely to find life on a rocky planet than on a gas giant like Jupiter -- and if the human race needs to find a new home in the future, rocky exosolar planets will probably be our destination. Also, some scientists theorize that small, solid planets outnumber gas giants (10:1 is a conservative estimate), but until now they couldn't test that hypothesis.

WHERE
All across the globe. A loose network of astronomers point their telescopes at the center of our galaxy, where they can see many stars at once. Because gravitational-microlensing events happen over the course of 10 to 40 days, research teams on different continents record data as dawn -- and the end of viable observation time -- approaches for their cohorts.

WHO
Two international teams of scientists, based in Chile and New Zealand and assisted by hundreds of volunteer astronomers, look for microlensing events across huge swaths of sky. They alert each other of probable events by Web and e-mail.

How many planets have been found?
Around 200. Most have been spotted by looking for wobbles in a star's motion that are caused by the gravitational attraction of a planet. But since this method preferentially finds huge planets that orbit close to their suns, it's turned up mostly "hot Jupiters."

Can I help in the Planet search?
ABSOLUTELY!... if you live south of 35 degrees north latitude (Memphis, Tennessee) and own a telescope with a 10-inch aperture equipped with a CCD detector. Readers interested in joining the effort should contact Andrew Gould at gould@astronomy.ohio-state.edu.

Ford names new CEO

Struggling No. 2 automaker says Bill Ford Jr. will be succeeded as CEO by Alan Mulally, from Boeing.

ALLAN MULALLY
Ford Motor Co. Tuesday surprised the auto industry by tapping senior Boeing executive Alan Mulally as its new chief executive officer, succeeding current CEO Bill Ford, who will stay on as chairman. Mulally was most recently executive vice president at Boeing.


Bill Ford, the 49-year-old great-grandson of company founder Henry Ford, was making a smart move but that more would be needed to halt the slide in market share for the nation's No. 2 automaker.


Upon taking over as CEO in 2001, Ford pledged that the company would take a leadership role in environmental issues. Under his watch, Ford introduced the hybrid Ford Escape and Mercury Mariner SUVs and announced plans to create hybrid versions of cars like the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan sedans.

BILL FORD

Meanwhile, sales of some of its most profitable vehicles, like the recently redesigned Explorer and Expedition SUVs, have fallen. Despite a redesign that improved the vehicle's ride and handling, sales of the Explorer have tumbled about 31 percent this year.

The automaker said last week that it wanted to sell its Aston Martin line - the car made famous in the James Bond movies - to free up funds to invest in its other brands amid a sharp downturn in sales.

Ford declared last month it was cutting production plans and said 10 North American plants will be shut for extended periods much of the rest of the year as it tries to cut costs and deal with slumping sales of its light trucks.

BlackBerry Pearl ... SWEET

The BlackBerry Pearl features a digital camera and a slot for a MicroSD mini-disc to store songs, photos and video games. Say what you will about the new BlackBerry Pearl, and some undoubtedly will complain of cramped keyboards and other tradeoffs. Its creator, Research In Motion Ltd., has taken a truly gutsy stab at designing a tiny mobile device that can do it all.

The Pearl, named for its glowing navigational trackball, is the first BlackBerry geared more fully toward consumers. It's the first with a digital camera and a slot for a MicroSD mini-disc to store songs, photos and video games -- the sort of recreational functions that RIM has stoically deemed nonessential or even counterproductive for the corporate user market.

RIM is launching the Pearl through T-Mobile USA. The normally $300 device will go for $200 with a two-year contract and $250 with a one-year contract.

Weighing just 3.2 ounces, the candy bar-style phone is a palm-friendly 2 inches wide, 4.2 inches tall and 0.6 inch thick. By contrast, the RAZR and its non-flip cousin, the SLVR, both weigh about 3.4 ounces and are roughly equal to the Pearl in width and thickness. And despite its smallness, the Pearl's screen measures nearly 2.2 inches diagonally, or just 0.4 inch less than on a full-sized Blackberry.

All that's missing, acknowledges RIM co-founder Mike Lazaridis, is GPS location tracking and Wi-Fi capability. But again, compromises are what it's all about in this pursuit of little gizmo nirvana. If you can't handle it, feel free to carry a laptop.

Blackberry users ... ALERT!

Microsoft designs a school system...

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has famously called high schools "obsolete" and warned about their effect on U.S. competitiveness. Now, his company has a chance to prove that it can help fix the woes of public education.

After three years of planning, the Microsoft Corp.-designed "School of the Future" opened its doors , a gleaming white modern facility looking out of place amid rows of ramshackle homes in a working-class West Philadelphia neighborhood.

The company didn't pay the $63 million cost -- that was borne by the Philadelphia School District -- but shared its personnel and management skills. About 170 teens, nearly all black and mainly low-income, were chosen by lottery to make up the freshman class. The school eventually plans to enroll up to 750 students.

Students -- who are called "learners" -- use smart cards to register attendance, open their digital lockers and track calories they consume. They carry laptops, not books, and the entire campus has wireless Internet access.

Coool isn't it?

Snooping Bosses...

Think your employer is checking your e-mail, Web searches and voice mail? You're probably right ;-)...When one of his employees phoned in sick last year, Scott McDonald, CEO of Monument Security in Sacramento, Calif., decided to investigate. He had already informed his staff of 400 security guards and patrol drivers that he was installing Xora, a software program that tracks workers' whereabouts through GPS technology on their company cell phones. A Web-based "geo-fence" around work territories would alert the boss if workers strayed or even drove too fast. It also enabled him to route workers more efficiently. So when McDonald logged on, the program told him exactly where his worker was--and it wasn't in bed with the sniffles. "How come you're eastbound on 80 heading to Reno right now if you're sick?" asked the boss. There was a long silence--the sound of a job ending--followed by, "You got me."

For every employer who lets his staff know they're on watch, there are plenty who snoop on the sly. A general manager at a computer outfit in the Northeast wondered about a worker's drop-off in productivity. Using software called SurfControl, the manager saw the man was spending an inordinate amount of time at an innocently named website. It turned out to feature hard-core porn. The worker was conducting market research for his escort service, a venture for which he soon had plenty of time after he got canned. "I don't give a rat's rear what they do at home," says the manager, who wishes to keep his and his company's name private. "But what they do at work is all my business."



Lesson To Be Learned...
Work While You Work...
Play While You Play... (My dad used to say this to me)

Europe's spacecraft hits the moon

Image provided by the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corp shows the impact of Europe's first spacecraft to the moon. Europe's first spacecraft to the moon ended its three-year mission Sunday by crashing into the lunar surface in a volcanic plain called the Lake of Excellence, to a round of applause in the mission control room in Germany.

Hitting at 2 kilometers per second(!!!) , the impact of the SMART-1 spacecraft was expected to leave a 3-meter-by-10-meter crater and send dust kilometers above the surface.

Launched into Earth's orbit by an Ariane-5 booster rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, in September 2003, SMART-1 used its ion engine to slowly raise its orbit over 14 months until the moon's gravity grabbed it.

SMART-1, a cube measuring roughly a meter on each side, took the long way to the moon -- more than 100 million kilometers instead of the direct route of 350,000 to 400,000 kilometers.

But the European Space Agency did it for a relatively cheap €110 million ($140 million).

The spacecraft has also been taking high-resolution pictures of the surface with a miniaturized camera.

PS
Talk About Smart People...

"Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin dies...

Almost the whole world might have seen this guy on "DISCOVERY"...playing around with deadly animals like crocodiles, snakes ...

Steve Irwin, 44, died on 4-sep-2006 when a deadly stingray barb pierced his chest.


Irwin's manager John Stainton said Irwin was being videotaped diving on a reef off Australia's northeast coast for a television show and the video tape shows him (Irwin) pulling a deadly stingray barb from his chest just before he died. He is survived by his American-born wife, Terri, and their two children, Bindi Sue, 8, and Robert (Bob), 3.


Man...that was a horrible death... (There is a saying..."The Good Die Young...")

End of Agassi...

Andre Agassi wasn't the only one in tears after his final U.S. Open match Sunday. His 21-year career, that included eight Grand Slam titles, ended in that match. He leaves with 60 singles titles, including a career Grand Slam, one of only five men to have won each of the sport's premier events -- something his great rival, Pete Sampras, never did, Roger Federer hasn't managed, and players such as John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors didn't accomplish, either.

Andre Agassi received a standing ovation of nearly 10 minutes after his final match.


He lost to 112th-ranked Benjamin Becker (7-5, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-5) in the third round at the U.S. Open.

Andre Agassi bid an emotional farewell to tennis fans Sunday as he lost his final match at the U.S. Open. There was barely a dry eye in the house when Agassi gave a heartfelt postmatch speech. In fact, with the last big draw in the field now gone, CBS officials were all but inconsolable.

And there was the liberating sense of excitement, of knowing he has more time to devote to his wife, Steffi Graf, and their two children; of knowing there are no more flights to catch, no more practice sessions, no more injections to dull the searing pain of an irritated sciatic nerve. That's why, for Agassi himself and the 20,000 or so fans who honored him with a raucous, four-minute standing ovation in Arthur Ashe Stadium after the match, it truly did not matter all that much what Sunday's outcome was.

What he said in the end...
"Well, I was sitting there realizing that I was saying goodbye to everybody out there, and they were saying goodbye to me. It's saying goodbye. It's a necessary evil. But we were getting through it together. That felt amazing."

"I don't take pride in my accomplishments. I take pride in the striving."
-- Andre Agassi

My comments...
Lets NOT forget this legend...

Agassi, 36, still in form!

Buoyed by a cortisone injection, along with a raucous, sellout crowd that boosted his spirits when things looked bleak, Agassi kept his final tournament going by beating eighth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-4, 6-4, 3-6, 5-7, 7-5 at the U.S. Open. Andre Agassi won a dramatic fifth set after blowing a two-break lead in the fourth set.

Andre Agassi and 23,700 or so of his closest friends went through all sorts of highs and lows, as he built a big lead then faced a sudden deficit, as he looked set to extend his career then teetered on the verge of ending it.

Through all that, through nearly four hours of thrilling tennis, Agassi -- 36 years old and burdened by a bad back -- held up better than the kid across the net.

When it was over, they shook hands at the net, then embraced. Baghdatis wished Agassi good luck. Agassi asked Baghdatis (who struggled with cramps during the last few games of the fifth set ) if he was OK. And Agassi was quick to thank the fans who sure are enjoying quite a ride right along with him at Flushing Meadows. It's a parade that will go down in annals right alongside Jimmy Connors' run to the 1991 Open semifinals at 39.


Baghdatis finished with 86 unforced errors, 39 more than Agassi, an eight-time major champion and one of only five men with a career Grand Slam. Because Agassi went only 8-7 this year before the Open, he's unseeded, which is why he had to face someone ranked as highly as Baghdatis so early.

Not only did they put on quite a show, but Agassi also provided the day's signature moment even before swatting a ball: After a morning practice session, he autographed a teen's forehead with a marker, making sure the final "i" was dotted.

How about a $10,000 tip on a $26 tab !

The regular customer eating dinner at the end of the bar always tipped well -- $15 or so on $30 tabs. The $100 tip two weeks ago was a nice surprise, but the amount he left bartender Cindy Kienow this week left her stunned. On the check, the tip read: $10,000.

The restaurant is in the final stages of verifying that the tip is a valid charge, said Rhodri McNee, vice president of operations for JS Enterprises, owner of the Hutchinson Applebee's.

Kienow said that while she always talks with the man when he comes in -- usually about current events or the weather -- she can't think of anything that would have prompted the huge tip. His tab for the night had only been $26.

"We'd just talk across the bar. He's a really nice guy. I hope he comes back in so I can tell him thank you, because the other day I was kind of dumbfounded," she said.

"I'd like to take care of my parents, since they always took care of me," she said. "But I feel like he wanted me to buy something for myself, and there's a Jeep that I've had my eye on for a while."

Guys...10,000 bucks tip... (gulp...)

Madden scores $100 million hit

Electronic Arts Inc.'s latest Madden football video game grossed more than $100 million in its first week, the biggest launch in the franchise's 17-year history and the latest sign of an improving outlook for the industry.

EA, the world's largest video game publisher, said consumers snapped up more than 2 million copies of "Madden NFL 07" in its opening week, up 12 percent from last year's game launch. The Madden game is the flagship franchise for the Redwood City-based game maker, with new versions each year ranking consistently as a best seller. To date, more than 53 million copies of the game have been sold.

Microsoft Corp. said its Halo 2 game reached $125 million in sales within the first 24 hours in 2004 -- robust interest in the Madden game is a welcome development in a year where game makers are struggling amid a video game console transition period.

Still, the success of the latest Madden game illustrates how lucrative the video game industry has become. Its opening-week gross sales rivals some of this year's biggest movie box office draws: "The Da Vinci Code" movie, for instance, drew $102 million in its first week, according to Exhibitor Relations Co. Inc.

Just crossed another hurdle...

Took the THIRD microsoft certification today...oh I passed...
I felt just great...
Looking forward for the next...
I hope I'll get done with all of these...
To The Next Step...
asap!