Allied Bakeries launches website for Burgen bread


LONDON - Allied Bakeries has launched a website for Burgen bread in a campaign to promote the brand in the UK by Hill & Knowlton.

The launch of the Burgen website is timed to coincide with the brand relaunch as well as the introduction of two new product variants, Cholessterol and Hi-Bran.

Burgen Cholessterol is a white bread made with a special soya protein called Abacor that can help to lower cholesterol to maintain a healthy heart. Burgen Hi-Bran is a brown bread rich in fibre for improved digestive health. The two brand variants join the original Burgen Soya & Linseed bread.

The website has separate sections for healthcare professionals and the media, but is primarily aimed at consumers. The content goes beyond the standard brand website, with sections providing information on related health issues, such as the menopause, cholesterol levels and the role of fibre in a healthy diet. This information is supplemented by links to other health information sites dealing with the issues explored.

The website is initially being promoted through search engine marketing, including cost per click keywords, and through links with related websites. It was designed and built by Hill & Knowlton Netcoms, the online communications arm of the WPP-owned PR giant.

Rosanna Palmer, product manager at Allied Bakeries, said: "The Burgen brand goes beyond the products themselves and the wide range of health and interactive content on the website reflects this. This is an important opportunity for us to learn more about our customers using the internet and to support the communications campaign developed with Hill & Knowlton."

Source: [ brandrepublic.com ]

Experts Warn of New Ferocious Mydoom Worm

A new, fast-spreading version of the Mydoom worm destroys files on computers worldwide as it increases attacks via e-mails, Finnish computer security experts warned Thursday.

The "Mydoom.F" worm, discovered on Feb. 20, has so far infected about 5 percent of all Internet e-mail traffic, said Mikko Hypponen, director of research at a leading antivirus company F-Secure.

"It remained quiet over the weekend and then started to spread fast early this week as e-mail messaging speeded up after the normal weekend lull," Hypponen said. "It's very worrying because it destroys files and important documents, whereas the earlier Mydoom worms used computers simply as vehicles."

Two previous versions of the virus, Mydoom.A and Mydoom.B, were programmed to strike Microsoft (website - news - quote) Corp.'s Windows operating systems and to launch a worldwide attack on the Web site of SCO, one of the largest UNIX vendors in the world.

They were also set stop spreading on Feb. 12, but F-Secure continues to find them on the Internet, Hypponen said.

"They are still infecting computers because people have not updated their computer clocks," Hypponen told The Associated Press. "Many users don't pay any attention to the time on their computers, which could be set to the 1980s or 1990s."

The new version was likely not created by the makers of the previous versions of Mydoom, he said.

Mydoom.A is still the most active virus on the Internet, infecting some 7 percent of all e-mails, Hypponen said. Launched on Jan. 26, it hit more than half of all e-mails worldwide at its peak.

F-Secure, a Helsinki-based company, was one of the first to warn of the dangers of the e-mail Mydoom worm, also known as "Novarg." The company also warned of "Netsky.C" virus - otherwise known as "Moodown.C" - that was discovered on Wednesday and spreads itself in e-mails inside a zip file or as an executable attachment.

Last month, Microsoft promised US$250,000 to anyone who helps find and prosecute the creator of the fast-spreading Mydoom virus. The reward is the third announced so far under a US$5 million program Microsoft launched in November to help U.S. authorities catch authors of damaging viruses and worms aimed at consumers of the company's software.

Source: [ Wjla.com ]

Employee-Internet-Monitor.com Introduces Complete Solutions for Internet, Computer, and Network Monitoring

Now you can manage your employees better than before by keeping an eye on their each and every activity with the help of this wonderful range of surveillance products by Employee-Internet-Monitor.com. You can choose any product as per your individual needs.

EIM Inc. employee-internet-monitor.com presents a comprehensive range of internet and network spy software products for every segment of users. Our spy products are capable of delivering lots of services including recording chat conversations on messengers, recording emails, recording websites visited by the user, monitor network from a centralized location, recording emails and more. Our software range has compatibility with Windows XP, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT and Windows 2000, 03. “Monitoring or observing a PC was never cheap and easy, but we have made it easy for you at a very nominal cost” says Joe Halworth, business development executive, http://www.Employee-internet-monitor.com.

We offer three different spy software products i.e. Net Vizor, Spector Pro, and eBlaster. The functions of our products range from recording emails, recording websites visited to application logging and chat conversation logging. Easy to use graphical user interface with powerful features make our offerings just versatile. Remote deployment and stealth mode add more value to them. Here is a very brief introduction of each:

NetVizor, an award winning software, gives the power of observation and management of an entire network of PCs from a centralized location. NetVizor is the cornerstone software of EIM, and the product best suited for large employee computer networks. NetVizor features logging all keystrokes, recording websites visited, recording windows opened, applications run, screenshot capturing, remote desktop viewing, passwords entered, remote task management and viewing applications used, internet connections made, remote recent document history viewing, remote system shutdown/restart/logoff, remote system lockdown control, chat conversations recording, and even capture screenshots of the user's activities. You can try a FREE limited version of NetVizor simply by visiting the EIM web site. The download of this free trial is quick and easy. We offer unlimited FREE minor version upgrades and unlimited FREE 24/7 online tech support. In addition to this NetVizor is accompanied with extensive help documentation to simplify its usage.

Spector Pro 5.0 our internet and network spy software has four distinct recording tools including visual internet recording, actual email recording, actual chat/instant message recording and detailed keystroke recording. Spector Pro is the quickest and easiest way to monitor and record internet and PC activity. It features VCR-like snapshot recording and email recording and sophisticated keystroke logs. In addition to monitoring and recording, Spector Pro has an advanced warning system that remains alert and informs whenever anything unusual happens on the PC under consideration. It automatically emails you when a keyword specified by you is used in a website name or keystrokes. In case of network simply install Spector on the networked PCs you wish to monitor and when you wish to see the recordings launch Spector Pro from any PC and select the recording in the Spector viewer. With a blend of visual snapshot recording, email recording, keystroke recording and instant notification when content specified by you is encountered Spector Pro proves to be the best monitoring and surveillance software available in the market.

eBlaster 3.0 lets you know what your employees and family members are doing on the internet irrespective of the distance you are away. It records keystrokes types, emails, chat, instant messages and websites visited and immediately emails the recorded information to your email address. As a parent you no longer have to wait until you get home and find out what your children have been doing on the internet. You can get instant emails about what is recorded on the PC under observation.
You can even specify certain words or phrases to look for in websites visited and eBlaster alarms you instantly on email when such words are encountered.

Employee-Internet-Monitor.com Incorporated in 2001, is committed to the preservation of corporate values as it relates to internet policies.
We have presented a complete range of internet and PC activity spy software at a nominal price and great features. Now no longer you have to wait to sit on the PC and observe its histories and other areas to find out what would have happened but here is an instant option for you to utilize. Any kind of supervision is just an install away from you.

Source: [ Emediawire.com ]

Latest Virus, MyDoom, Haunts Users Across the Globe

As if Howard students do not have enough problems with the Internet, their computers are now at risk of being attacked by the latest computer virus.
The MyDoom virus is a computer worm that has been attacking computers all over the world.
The virus is passed through e-mail attachments from one computer to another. MyDoom.A, also known as Novarg or Shimgapi, emerged in late January. The virus is often sent as an e-mail error message from a "mail administrator," or other official-looking addresses that contain a file attachment. The unknowing computer user clicks to download the attachment and before he or she knows it, MyDoom has been downloaded onto their computer.
There are two different versions of the worm, MyDoom.A and MyDoom.B. The MyDoom.A worm is the most widespread while version B has been recently reported.
The worm is programmed to launch a worldwide attack on the website of SCO, one of the largest UNIX vendors in the world, and Microsoft Corporation's website. Experts report it is the biggest virus-like outbreak in months. The first case of the virus was reported in Russia.
"It's hit hundreds of thousands of users worldwide, but we aren't quite sure how many hundreds of thousands. Anyhow, it's all over the place," said Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research at F-Secure.
MyDoom.A was programmed to stop the viruses spread on February 12, but there is a new virus called DoomJuice that attacks computers infected with the worm. DoomJuice is not passed through e-mails, instead it enters through a door opened by MyDoom.A.
Investigators are still trying to capture the programmer of the MyDoom worms, but due to worldwide exposure of the virus, finding the creator will be more difficult than usual.
The SCO posted a $250,000 reward to anyone who can help lead to the discovery of the virus creator. The Microsoft Corporation matched the reward money, pushing the total reward amount to $500,000.
"My computer has been attacked before and it was only out of commission for one day, but it was the longest day of my life. It left me bored for a lot of the day," said sophomore broadcast journalism major Lindsay Walton.
With different viruses and worms spreading throughout the Internet, many students will not be able conduct research, check e-mail, or maintain contact with family and friends.
"I wouldn't know what to do if my computer had a virus, but I know people that are good with computers," said sophomore economics major Jason Dixon.
"If I had the virus, I'd probably call my father because he's an [information technology] man for his company," Walton said.
The I-Lab provides a free service for students and staff to drop off their CPU's or laptops, and computer technicians will either fix the problem or identify the solution.
Computer specialists say the best way keep your computer from being attacked by viruses is to only open e-mails from known senders and to avoid clicking unknown links.

Source: [Thehilltoponline.com]

Telegraph drive into Formula One
The Daily Telegraph is the new title sponsor of ITV's flagship Formula One programme. The broadcast and online deal, worth £4.5 million, includes sponsorship of the 18 grands prix programmes and qualifying sessions shown live on ITV1 between March and October plus the highlights package broadcast on ITV2. The deal also includes sponsorship of www.itv.com/f1, a website that attracts 82 million visitors annually, and online viewer competitions
In support of this initiative, The Daily Telegraph will launch the season next week with an information-packed F1 supplement including exclusive interviews, features and in-depth team guide. A Daily Telegraph F1 Fantasy Game will run throughout the season, which begins with the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday March 7.

The action gets under way with the new qualifying format a day earlier when drivers will battle for pole position in two one-hour sessions, just two minutes apart.

Welcoming the partnership with the only national newspaper in Britain that has a sports pull-out section every day, Brian Barwick, controller of ITV Sport, said: "We are delighted to welcome a newspaper of such significance to the F1 ITV family. Their coverage of Formula One motor racing has always been of the highest quality and we look forward to a fruitful partnership."

Mark Dixon, marketing director at Telegraph Group Limited, added: "As one of Britain's highest profile sports, Formula One is a superb fit with The Daily Telegraph - Britain's best selling quality daily and undoubtedly the leading newspaper for sport. It is also hugely popular with existing and potential readers so we are delighted to be sponsoring ITV's Formula One coverage for the 2004 season."

Source:[Telegraph.co.uk]

312, Inc. Launches Search Solution
312, Inc., a software development and Web services company, today announced the release of LeanIndex™, a platform-independent personal search engine and LeanSwap™, a free Web-based information sharing service and key component of 312's LeanOn312™ Web services solution.

LeanIndex personal search engine is simple to use and finds information fast. It runs from a profile created by the user that contains keywords to look for, Web sites to search, the time between searches and how the user wants to be alerted. LeanIndex only searches Web sites the user pre-selects and trusts to keep them up-to-date with reliable news and information. LeanIndex is platform-independent and runs on Windows®, UNIX®, Linux®, Macintosh® or any other JAVA® enabled system.

LeanIndex simplifies a user's ability to find what they need allowing them to make better-informed personal and business decisions. Three Twelve's LeanSwap service creates a new Web community for sharing LeanIndex search profiles, tips, tricks and ideas. "312 created LeanSwap so people searching the Internet can now find other people who have similar interests and exchange ideas, tips and Web information sources," said Brian Neilson, 312's co-founder and chief executive officer.

A New Era of LeSS - 'Lean Social Searching'

"LeanIndex and LeanSwap join together to introduce the concept of LeSS™ - 'Lean Social Searching™' - by establishing a process methodology for retrieving and distributing information, the foundation of knowledge management and most importantly, knowledge transfer," said Andrew Kiolbasa, 312, Inc. Chief Operating Officer and head of product development. "The value stream map has been reduced to a single Lean process. With LeanSwap, companies can establish a community for collaboration their customers and suppliers can Lean on for timely information and knowledge transfer," Kiolbasa explained.

312's LeanIndex ends the information overload and frustration of searching the Internet. "I used to surf my favorite Web sites, page-after-page, scanning the headlines looking for pertinent information, now LeanIndex does it for me and saves me a lot of time and aggravation. It also alerts me throughout the day with breaking news and information that could impact my business," said beta tester Kathy Yurks, founder and President, All Things Environmental, Inc. "With LeanSwap for sharing search profiles and ideas, LeSS is more. I'm searching more topics and getting important data in the time I used to spend just scanning. Now I'm researching not searching and that represents real value to me and my business," Yurks added.

Source: [linuxelectrons.com]

IBM plans second Blue Gene supercomputer

IBM will install a second Blue Gene/L supercomputer as part of a radio telescope project in the Netherlands, the company plans to announce Monday.

The supercomputer will be used for a new radio telescope project called Lofar, short for low frequency array, run by a Dutch organization called Astron. The system, which is expected to be complete in 2005, will run the Linux operating system, use about 12,000 processors and perform more than 30 trillion calculations per second, sources familiar with the plan said.

IBM declined to comment for this story, but the Lofar Web site said Astron signed a memorandum of understanding in November to use Blue Gene in conjunction with the telescope. The announcement said there are opportunities for cooperative research and development between IBM and Astron for the Lofar supercomputer.

Today's fastest machine, NEC's Earth Simulator, built in 2002, has a speed of 35.6 trillion calculations per second, but new competition is edging closer, as Blue Gene/L and several other systems bring new blood lines to the supercomputing gene pool.

Other new systems reshaping the list include a system at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University with 1,100 dual-processor Apple Computer machines, based on IBM's PowerPC 970 chip, and another at Los Alamos National Laboratory that uses 2,816 Opteron processors from Advanced Micro Devices.

Another new chip is coming as well: Linux Networx announced on Thursday that it sold the U.S. Army Research Laboratory a system that uses 2,132 Xeon processors--1,066 of which are for Intel's newly announced 64-bit "CT" extensions. The extensions, similar to those in AMD's Opteron, are expected to arrive by June with Intel's "Nocona" version of Xeon.

Blue Gene began as a research project to investigate the biotechnology challenge of how proteins fold into complex three-dimensional shapes. But IBM has been working to move Blue Gene closer toward a product customers will buy for tasks such as financial risk analysis or global climate modeling.

The first Blue Gene/L machine will be housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It's designed to have a top speed of 360 trillion calculations per second, or 360 teraflops.

Its processors are special variants of IBM's Power family. Each chip has two processor "cores," with one core for processing data and the other for communications, with five different networks that will shuttle data across the machine. For tasks requiring little communication, both cores can be used for calculation.

One "half rack" of Blue Gene/L, with 512 dual-core processors, ranked at No. 73 on the most recent list of the 500 fastest supercomputers.

Lofar is expected to begin in initial operations in 2006 and full operations in 2008, according to the Lofar Web site.

Its design lacks the moving parts of a conventional dish antenna radio telescope. Instead, it's planned to use an array of about 20,000 to 30,000 sensors that gather data from the entire sky. Computer control systems will process the information so that the array's attention can effectively be pointed to a specific patch of the sky.

Research subjects could include the early universe, supernovas, Jupiter, galaxy formation or a map of cosmic-ray origins.

Another way in which the system will need computing power is for conducting continuous searches of large parts of the sky for short-term events with bursts of radio frequency emissions. In addition, data will be stored in temporary buffers so that it can be examined after the fact, if other telescopes discover radio frequency bursts.

Computers are also required to compensate for distortions of radio signals caused by Earth's ionosphere. A byproduct of this correction process is a three-dimensional model of the ionosphere above the telescope.

Source: [asia.cnet.com]

World Trade Center Memorial Coordinators to Display all Submissions on Website

The record 5,201 submissions in the World Trade Center memorial contest have been placed on a Web site, created to document the unprecedented response to the design competition.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which is in charge of rebuilding at the site, unveiled the Web address, www.wtcsitememorial.org, yesterday.

"The virtual showcase exhibits all the work that went into each entry," said Anita Contini, an LMDC vice president.

Last month, a jury selected Michael Arad's Reflecting Absence as the winner of a competition. His design features two pools in the Twin Towers' footprints, wrapped by underground passageways where victims' names would be inscribed in the walls.

At the urging of groups for fallen rescue workers, who had said those victims' names should be recognized separately, Arad agreed to place service insignias next to the names of those rescue workers.

But during an LMDC meeting yesterday, board member Thomas Johnson, whose son Scott died in the Trade Center attack, said the board has called for no hierarchy in the names' arrangement.

"It's not the appropriate way to display the names," Johnson said.

Yesterday Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he backed Arad's decision, calling it "exactly the right thing to do."


SOURCE:[Miami.com]

Flash Web Design: Pros And Cons

Flash is a powerful web technology that achieves a high level of visual impact from the graphical point of view. Unfortunately, it is widely misused in web design. There are still many problems with Flash, especially related to usability and search engine behaviour; we need to thoroughly understand what those problems are before we decide to use Flash for our site.

As with any business decision, it all boils down to understanding what our target audience wants.

If you want to make a big impression from a graphical point of view, Flash is definitely a good approach. However, concrete evidence still points to the fact that most web users utilize the web to find information, and what they regard most important is:

a) quality of content

b) ease of navigation, and

c) speed.

Users also consider the web a highly interactive medium: they are unlikely to watch a computer screen for long periods of time without giving some sort of input.

Flash technology presents several problems that go against the way most people use the web. For example:


Bandwidth and Load Time Constrains: Sites designed with Flash take a long time to download and consume vast amounts of bandwidth. Not all users have a broadband connection. Flash forces users with dial-up connections to spend valuable time watching the load bar, instead of getting to the information they want, fast.


Usability Constrains: When you navigate a Flash site designed with a older version, the back button does not work: instead of taking you to the previous screen, it will get you out of the Flash site. Also, the standard colors for visited and unvisited links will not work, and users have no control over the text size they want to use.


Furthermore, many times Flash sites go against the interactive nature of the web. Since Flash technology favors a "presentation style" approach that resembles television, users are many times reduced to mere observers that get bored after a while, no matter how good the graphics look.


Search Engine Constrains: Although large search engines like Google now have some Flash indexing capabilities, these are still very limited. You will definetely have a hard time achieving high rankings with a Flash site. One option around this problem is to design a second, search-engine-friendly HTML version of your site. This, though, usually represents an unnecessary expense in both time and money, since in most cases the HTML version alone will get the job done.

Although few, there are some instances when Flash technology can actually be helpful:

a) When you need to show a presentation, for example a demo of your product.

b) To develop interactive games, like those found on sites for kids like Sesame Street, Nickelodeum, or Yahoo! Games.

c) When you want to dress up a minimalist site. In this case, a small Flash animation or banner embedded in an HTML document will not consume excessive bandwidth, will load fast, and will enhance the appearance of a bare-bones site.

Although Macromedia (the company that developed Flash) is actively working to improve Flash's usability problems (they even formed a partnership with usability guru Jakob Nielsen in 2002), issues like slow downloads and search engine un-friendliness still remain a problem. Until these issues are addressed and solved, you will be better-off by only using Flash in those rare instances when it actually enhances the value of your content.

[Source: Mario Sanchez in WebProNews.com]

About the Author:
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest (http://www.theinternetdigest.net), an online collection of web design and Internet marketing articles and resources.

Usability and Web Design

As Web design and development become wider in scope, individual topics within it become equally deeper. Usability has become its own depth area over the past few years, largely due to the influence of usability "Thought Leaders" attempting to create better interactive Web sites for site visitors.

But the usability field within Web design has a little problem: It's at odds with itself. On the one hand, you have Moses-on-the-Mountain pundits making claims that there's one good way to address usability issues; on the other hand, you have real-world conundrums born of complex sites. So, it's unclear about which is the right approach to many coming into the Web design and development industry.

The right approach, as this article will demonstrate, is finding a balance between punditry and people. Usability, which is also referred to as "user interface design" or "user experience design", has only one true goal: to help the audience quickly and effortlessly get to what they came for.

PUNDITRY VERSUS PEOPLE

The usability field within Web design was greatly influenced by Jakob Nielsen. His seminal work "Designing Web Usability" and Web site (useit.com) have provided very helpful information to those individuals looking for methods to assist them in making more useful sites.

Nielsen's work is incredibly important, and the criticisms I make of his approach in this article are not meant to dissuade you from reading his work. In fact, quite the opposite, as you'll see by the conclusion of this article. I pick him out as an example because he's done so much to influence the field—and because his work is so widely known and available.

I consider Nielsen's approach to usability to be one that uses a broad-stroke approach. I consider him a pundit: He teaches, but he does so by giving opinions in an authoritative manner.

The punditry approach to sharing information can be very helpful for those with more sophisticated critical-analysis skills, but for those without a lot of experience, it can be very dangerous. After all, you shouldn't believe everything you read, right?

The pundit will be concept-driven. He or she will teach concepts that may or may not have come from experience. Concept-driven approaches to learning have pros and cons:

Broad-stroke approaches help solve a wide range of problems but may miss the needs of many individuals within the audience.

An authoritarian voice is not necessarily an authoritative voice, meaning that learning from pundits requires the learner's ability to decipher what is opinion based on ideas, opinion based on experience, and factual data.

Pundits usually espouse a one-size-fits-all concept, such as "always underline links." Once again, this approach may solve a broad question, but doesn't go deep enough to address individual needs.

The punditry approach requires less work for the less-experienced or motivated learner who will follow the rules set out by the authority—and not necessarily question that authority).

Learning from an authoritarian rather than authoritative voice means more work and research for the highly motivated learner.

The other type of learning found within the usability arena is audience-driven. This is the "people" part of the equation, and the job of the usability specialist in this approach is to study his or her audiences very closely and understand the needs of the individuals within the audience. So there can't be a one-size-fits-all approach because the individual need may result in a custom modification.

The people approach has pros and cons, too:

Specific-stroke approach helps solve very specific problems within a site, but may miss the needs of the broader audience.

The responsibility immediately shifts to the usability specialist insofar as how he or she provides solutions to problems. The information comes from observing the audience, not from reading a book.

The audience-driven approach requires more work, more time, and more money. Although not a con by definition, work, time, and money are always at a premium for people, and this can be considered prohibitive.

As you can see by this short comparison, the two approaches offer important information and methods, but they are both problematic.

[Source: InformIT.com]