Evolution of windows.(are you remember all these...?)

1985 Windows 1.0



The First Version of Microsoft Windows, Windows 1.0, with simple applications and the concept of multitasking on PC 

1987 Windows 2.0 


The Second Version of Windows, Windows 2.0 with some fixes and the Control Panel. 

1988 Windows 2.1 


The Second Version of Windows with some additions, and some fixes, Windows 2.1, the Paint software is seen in this one! 

1990 Windows 3.0 



The Third Version of Windows, Windows 3.0, featuring the File Manager and Program Manager, replacing the old MS DOS based File and Program Managers. 

1992 Windows 3.1 



The later released upgraded version of Windows 3.0, which had support for 32-bit Disk Access, Personalization options and had the Minesweeper game for the first time. 

1995 Windows 95 


Windows 95, the changed look, the new interface and the beginning of the form of Windows which we see now. Enhanced Graphics and better Communication Programs. 

1998 Windows 98 


Windows 98, one of the most successful versions of Windows till now, this version of Windows can still be seen in some PCs even today. With Extended Softwares, better Performance, this Version was the first milestone in the path of the development of Windows. 

2000 Windows ME 



Windows ME or Windows Millennium Edition, though not a very popular version of Windows, but still it had some better tools and performance than the previous ones in some cases. 

2001 Windows XP 


Windows XP, the Daddy of all versions of Windows, the most popular version of windows even today. Windows XP is still used today because of its unmatched performance, tools and interface. This has been the best version of Windows till the arrival of Windows 7. 

2006 Windows Vista 


Windows Vista, though it didn’t go so well in the public, but still its a good version of Windows specially for the interface the Windows Aeroâ„¢ Effect, making the Window Transparency work like magic. 

2009 Windows 7 


Windows 7, the best version of Windows till date. With the new and advanced features such as the Superbar, this version of Windows created another milestone for Microsoft after Windows 98 and Windows XP. Windows 7 features an unbeatable user interface, and powerful tools that makes it the best among the rest. 

2012 Windows 8 



Windows 8, to be released in the late 2012. The interface of Windows 8 as seen at the D9 Conference. A better version of Windows as proposed by Microsoft, with the changed User Interface

The rise of economic nationalism

  

Politically sweet music but ominous for long-term global prosperity

Identifying outsourcing as the villain
President Barack Obama, in his State of the Union Address delivered last Tuesday, made a hard-hitting attack on American companies that have shipped American jobs abroad by going pell-mell for outsourcing manufacturing jobs from countries like India and China in the last two decades.

He said that six months prior to his election to office in 2008, USA had lost four million jobs; within six months of his election but before his remedial policies could take effect, another four million jobs had been lost.
During the last 22 months, his country was able to create only three million jobs, meaning that there is still a shortfall of some five million jobs if USA is to restore its position to pre 2008 level. If it is to solve its economic woes permanently, it has to find jobs for some record 13 million people who are seeking jobs as at present.
Move to reclaim USA
Surely, his house is on fire and he should be angry because he has to make a re-election bid in November this year. Both poverty and unemployment levels in USA have risen to unprecedented levels: poverty above 15% of population and unemployment above 8% of the labour force by the end of 2010 and 2011 respectively.
Despite numerous stimulus packages, the US economy has not recovered from the worst recession with which it had been hit since 2007. Globally, there is growing fear that economic power is shifting from USA to emerging countries like India and China, a serious dent in American pride.
So, his prescription announced in the State of the Union Address is to reclaim the lost American power and value. To do so, he says that he will support American companies if they bring back jobs to American soils and will give further support if they sell American products in new global markets.
In other words, he has vowed to create an economy that produces in America but sells outside. Faced with this domestic economic turmoil, this was his plea to American companies and citizens, a kind of a new Political Social Responsibility or PSR akin to the Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR designed for private companies worldwide decades earlier.
Is economic nationalism the answer?
This is in fact re-emergence of the old mercantilism under which it was advocated that a country should export but not import. In today’s terminology, it is called ‘economic nationalism’ where a country should produce and consume locally produced goods but could sell to others if it has surplus.
Obama is not alone in preaching economic nationalism. Many leaders in other parts of the world, faced by chronic economic crises, have chosen to talk about variants of economic nationalism. Leaders in Germany and Japan which have experienced surging exports but low economic growth due to the economic ailment now known as ‘Bazaar Effect’ or becoming trading nations instead of being manufacturers, are under pressure to reverse the production process that have created jobs and incomes elsewhere.
In developing countries, imports, especially food imports, are considered as creating jobs and incomes abroad and there is pressure for curbing imports and settling for an import substitution policies at home.
Sri Lanka: produce foods locally and fill the trade gap
Sri Lanka has advocated economic nationalism for a different reason.
According to official statistics, Sri Lanka does not suffer from these types of economic ailments. Unlike Barack Obama or other leaders in developed or developing countries, its leaders can take comfort in a number of achievements which they claim that the country has made in the last few years: high growth rates, low poverty and unemployment numbers, tamed inflation and fast growing exports.
Yet it has a major issue in its external sector with imports rising much faster than exports, thereby generating a record trade deficit of $ 10 billion in 2011 and pressure for its currency to depreciate against other currencies.
The authorities have attempted to keep the exchange rate stable by supplying foreign exchange from its reserves to the market, but have lost a significant portion of reserves in the process. As at end of November, 2011, its official reserves have fallen to $ 6 billion from $ 8 billion five months ago.
Since November, according to market reports, another round of reserve loss has taken place driving the country’s foreign reserves now to a critically low level. Since the situation is going to worsen in 2012 with an equally high or even a larger trade deficit, the worried Sri Lankan authorities have tried to fix the problem by taking unconventional measures sans a proper adjustment of the exchange rate.
Voicing some aspects of these measures,   Sri Lanka’s top policy maker and reputed economist, Dr. P.B. Jayasundera, Treasury Secretary and Secretary to the Ministry of Economic Development, is reported to have said in a recent media conference that Sri Lanka should step up its food production drive to  curb food imports and thereby help Sri Lanka rupee to strengthen in the foreign exchange markets, a measure that would help Sri Lanka to narrow its ballooning trade deficit (available at http://www.ft.lk/2012/01/26/govt-to-grow-out-of-import-trap/#more-68411).
Not all foods can be produced in Sri Lanka
The objective of this measure, according to the reputed economist, is to save foreign exchange which the country now spends on food imports, namely, wheat flour, milk products, fresh and dried fish and certain varieties of fruits. Since wheat cannot be grown in Sri Lanka, the strategy may be to cause a shift in the consumption pattern by weaning the wheat consumers away from wheat products and encouraging them to consume rice based products. At present, a Sri Lankan consumes on average about 110 kilograms of rice and about 38 kilograms of wheat flour based foods per annum. To cause this shift, it may also be necessary to invoke nationalist feelings among the Sri Lankans: why eat imported wheat flour when one can eat truly Sri Lanka produced rice? But it would certainly increase the demand for rice putting pressure for its price to rise in the market. Hence, to prevent its price from rising and thereby raising the cost of living of people, it is necessary to increase the production of rice while keeping the production costs unchanged.
This measure therefore involves the bringing back the old import substitution policy as a mainstream economic policy of the country and therefore can be categorised as a different form of economic nationalism. This is because it propels the wisdom that if Sri Lanka can grow foods, it should not import such foods from abroad and fatten foreign farmers. In other words, it is in the national interest of Sri Lanka to fatten the local farmers.
Some do not agree with economic nationalism
When Obama was fiercely attacking American companies for moving out and seeking low cost inputs, namely, labour, experts who were assembled at the World Economic Forum, popularly known as WEF, in Davos in Switzerland were debating how best the world could promote free trade, free enterprise and free competition.
Even the British Prime Minister David Cameron is reported to have sent a message to WEF urging European Union to think positively about the emergence of China and India as world economic powers. He has said that instead of treating as a threat, emerging nations like India can be of great help to Europe. He has advocated that Europe should go for bilateral trade agreements with countries like India and Singapore by the end of 2012.
High unemployment: the breeder of economic nationalism
When a country has high unemployment, there are always agitations by its citizens against any policy or practice that kills jobs at home but creates them in other countries and thereby raise the incomes of people in those countries. Hence, any policy announcement that aims at putting a stop to such practices is sweet music to people of any country.
Smart politicians in both developed and developing countries who understand the importance of moving with people by endorsing their popular views to win elections project themselves as pro-nationalist and anti-free trade champions. Obama or any other leader who exploits people’s sentiments in this manner cannot be faulted because their objective is to remain in power. If they lose power, then they cannot implement whatever the sound policies they think are suitable for their countries. In this sense, David Cameron is taking a huge risk by advocating for free trade agreements with economically hostile countries because those agreements are simply ‘give and take exercises’.
Apple’s alleged crime
The extent to which people in a country treat the loss of jobs in the home country as a crime and those who caused such losses as criminals was demonstrated when some Americans commented on the blogs that conveyed the demise of Steve Jobs, the hero of immense innovative spirits of Apple fame in modern era.
People outside USA hailed and appreciated the innovations which he endowed to the world. But some in USA did not see him in the same light and, while appreciating his innovations, found fault with him for shipping American jobs to China. This is in fact American way of looking at Steve Jobs’ employing some 700,000 workers and 30,000 engineers in Apple’s manufacturing units in China as reported by Walter Isaacson in recently released Jobs’ biography.
National minded Americans too prefer cheap goods
According to the biographer, Steve Jobs had justified his action when he had met Barack Obama in 2008. He is reported to have told Obama that he had to shift his production units to China because he could not recruit 30,000 engineers in USA to head those floor workers and could not hire 700,000 floor workers in USA at the salaries paid to Chinese workers.
The result was the production, for example, of the iPad designed by Apple in USA in Fox Conn Manufacturing Facility in China at a fraction of the cost at which it would have been produced back at home. So, iPad was made available at a competitive price and within one month, those nationalistic minded Americans bought two million units with no consideration whatsoever about the American jobs which Steve Jobs was alleged to have killed at home.
So, consumers were mindful of getting the best for themselves by buying iPad cheap. None of them showed signs of willingness to buy them at a higher price had it been produced by high cost fellow citizens in USA.
So, the plea of Obama when he asks American companies to produce back at home has two connotations: American companies should hire local labour at higher wages and American citizens should buy those high priced products because it leads to the re-claiming of that great nation now being lost to Indians and the Chinese. This is the political version of CSR designed for private companies: A Political Social Responsibility that promises the building up of a great nation by enforcing economic nationalism on its citizens.
Steve Jobs’ advice to Obama: produce skills locally or perish
Steve Jobs’ biographer also says that Jobs, whose ethic was to tell the truth to face however much it is unpalatable to his listener, has also warned Obama that he would be a one-term President if he does not take action to reform US education and produce the needed skills among the Americans; Jobs has even suggested that US should have a liberal migration policy and offer citizenship to those bright students from abroad, especially those from China and India, so that they could be hired by American companies.
After four years of Jobs’ suggestion, Obama has in his State of the Union Address has agreed to go only halfway this year: he has suggested giving citizenship to the children of numerous illegal immigrants because they had been born and bred in USA. But the beneficiaries under this scheme are the children of illegal immigrants from Latin America and they fall short of the category bright students from India and China whom Steve Jobs meant when he made the suggestion to Obama.
The ominous rise of economic nationalism
Economists wonder whether ‘economic nationalism’ could rescue USA. The global production integration is a process that has started and cannot be halted at this stage without grave consequences to a national economy. When mercantilism was at its height and ruining European economies, Adam Smith fought it valiantly in the late 18th century. Fortunately, Great Britain was wise enough to go along with Smithian prescription though it was not politically palatable at that time. Other European nations which did not do so had to suffer economically.
Today, there are many Adam Smiths throughout the globe advocating free trade, free competition and global integration of economies together as has been shown by the experts who had been assembled for WEF now taking place in Davos. The ground conditions in USA are not yet fertile for that country to create a massive number of manufacturing jobs there.
As MIT economist Daron Acemoglu has said in an interview with the journal The Region of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in September, 2011, American workers should train themselves to handle new jobs that are emerging in new fields like services, innovation and designing if its chronic unemployment problem is to be solved. It is retraining and skills development and not economic nationalism that would rescue the USA.  It will therefore be a well-played political game for Obama to advocate economic nationalism, but it is ominous for creating long-term economic prosperity.
The same is true for any other developing country which too plans to practice economic nationalism, whether to solve chronic balance of payments problems or not, by divorcing itself from the new global production process.
(W.A. Wijewardena can be reached at waw1949@gmail.com.)

Saudi prince (Al-Waleed bin Talal) buys world's first ' Flying Palace '

Prince Al-Waleed signs on the dotted line to purchase his A380 at the Dubai air show        Inside the world's biggest private jet with 4-poster beds, a Turkish bath... and a place to park the Rolls!     In a space normally given to 600 passengers, the owner and his guests will enjoy a five-star treatment from arrival. After driving to his plane, he will have the car parked in the onboard garage.    According to Design Q's co-founder Gary Doy, a lift drops to the tarmac, and a red carpet unfurls, with downlights to 'give the impression of turning up at the Oscars'. The belly of the A380 has been turned into a relaxation zone, including a Turkish bath lined with marble only two millimetres thick to keep the weight down.   Next door is a well-being room, with the floor and walls turning into a giant screen showing the ground below. Guests can stand on a 'magic carpet' and watch the journey, a scented breeze blowing into the room.   If work is unavoidable, the boardroom is on hand with iTouch screens and live share prices projected onto the tables. For conference calls, a business partner on the ground can be virtually projected to the table to 'join' a meeting.    The five suites which form the owner's private quarters have king-size beds, entertainment systems and a prayer room featuring computer-generated prayer mats which always face Mecca . A lift shuttles between the plane's three floors, from the private quarters upstairs, down to the concert hall, featuring a baby grand piano and seating for ten, and to the garage below.        There are around 20 'sleepers' - the equivalent of First Class seats - for extra guests. According to the designers, the style is elegant curves and swirls of Arabic writing.        AND NOW THE LATEST NEWS!    Al-Waleed Spends $176 Million to Outfit His A380 After dropping nearly $320 million on his new Airbus A380 jet, Prince Al-Waleed of Saudi Arabia is spending another $176 million on ultra-lavish modifications, including a $60 million gold leaf paintjob. An unnamed German company is customizing the interior of the plane to include: A lounge to seat a travelling entourage of 25 trusted aides; A marble-panelled dining room with seating for 14; A bar with curtains to mimic tents of the Arabian Desert; A fibre-optic mosaic that will depict a shifting desert scene; A movie theatre with plush leather seats the color of sand dunes; A series of bedrooms linked to stewardesses by intercom; A gym with Nautilus equipment and running machines; and A large silk bed designed to resemble a Bedouin tent that will be the centrepiece of the plane’s interior. Reports speak of the decor as being Lawrence of Arabia meets Star Wars. Al-Waleed's A380 will be completed in two years, and in the meantime, he will cruise in his Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet.

Snake massage.. Wonna try it...

An Israeli health and beauty spa is offering a creepy new service for its customers - Snake Massage. For just $80 you can have large slithering reptiles such as California and Florida king snakes, corn snakes and milk snakes, wriggle down your back and up your spine and across your face. If you dont freak out, it can be soothing experience, as the spa owner Ada Barak will tell you. 

 

Barak figured out several years ago that heavy king and corn snakes produce a relaxing kneading sensation. She says that once people get over any initial misgivings, they find physical contact with the snakes to be stress relieving. 

 

"Some people said that holding the snakes made them feel better, relaxed," she said "One old lady said it was soothing, like a cold compress." 

 

The size of the snakes depends on the type of massage - the larger ones are said to alleviate deeper muscle tensions and the smaller ones create a 'fluttering' effect. All are the snakes used are non-venomous.

Oh! What a relief.

Multitasking may harm the social and emotional development of tweenage girls, researchers say

Regarding media use, the researchers' guidance: All things in moderation. Credit: L.A. Cicero

(Medical Xpress) -- Too much screen time can harm girls 8 to 12, but a surprisingly straightforward alternative exists for greater social wellness.

According to Stanford researchers, teenage girls who spend endless hours watching videos and multitasking with digital devices tend to be less successful with social and emotional development.

But these unwanted effects might be warded off with something as simple as face-to-face conversations.

The researchers, headed by education professor Roy Pea and Clifford Nass, a professor of communication, surveyed 3,461 girls, ages 8 to 12, about their electronic diversions and social and emotional lives. "The results were upsetting, disturbing, scary," Nass said.

The girls, all subscribers to Discovery Girls magazine, took the survey online, detailing the time they spent watching videos (television, YouTube, movies,) listening to music, reading, doing homework, emailing, posting to Facebook or MySpace, texting, instant messaging, talking on the phone and video chatting – as well as how often they were doing two or more of those activities simultaneously.

This video is not supported by your browser at this time.

The researchers asked 3,461 girls, ages 8 to 12, about their electronic diversions and their social and emotional lives.

The girls' answers showed that multitasking and spending many hours watching videos and using online communication were statistically associated with negative experiences: feeling less social success, not feeling normal, having more friends whom parents perceive as bad influences and sleeping less.

The researchers say that while they found a correlation between some media habits and diminished social and emotional skills, a definite cause-and-effect relationship has yet to be proved.

The research was published this week in a special section of the journal Developmental Psychology.

 

.

A time for social development

The survey findings are bad news, given that the 8 to 12 age range is critical for girls' social and emotional development and because children are becoming active media consumers at an ever-younger age.

But the survey also asked the girls a different and fundamental question: How much time do you spend conversing with others?

The answers, Nass said, indicate that Mom and Dad should consider reviving the well-worn parental admonishment: "Look at me when I'm talking to you!"

Higher levels of face-to-face communication were associated with greater social success, feelings of normalcy, sleep, and fewer friends whom parents judged to be bad influences. Pea said that children learn the difficult task of interpreting emotions by watching other people's faces. It's hard work, he added and is unlikely to be done if everyone at the dinner table is peering at the screens of their smartphones.

Advice for kids

Nass has some advice: "Kids, spend time when you are with other people, looking at them, listening closely, and see if you can tell their emotions. And if you can't, that's OK,  but it means you have some learning to do.

"When we media multitask, we're not really paying attention to the people around us, and we get in the habit of not paying attention, and thus when I'm talking with you, I may be hearing the words, but I'm missing all the rich, critical, juicy stuff at the heart of emotional and social life."

Children's media choices are changing in a new context of always-on media; neither they nor their parents have ways of self-regulating the extent of their media use and multitasking, said Pea. "All things in moderation" is his guidance for both children and parents.

He said the happy-face emotional slant of most Facebook postings doesn't help, either.  As shown in other Stanford University research, seeing the ubiquitous positive postings of online friends can lead to the erroneous conclusion that "Everyone is happy except me," Nass said.

The good news

There is good news in the recent survey, however. For the negative effects of online gorging, "There seems to be a pretty powerful cure, a pretty powerful inoculant, and that is face-to-face communication," Nass said.

"Kids in the 8-to-12-year-old range who communicate face-to-face very frequently show much better social and emotional development, even if they're using a great deal of media."

The research was a follow-up to a 2009 experiment demonstrating that media multitaskers were not doing two things at once and were paying a mental price for trying. "They're suckers for irrelevancy," Nass said then. "Everything distracts them."

Provided by Stanford University

"Multitasking may harm the social and emotional development of tweenage girls, researchers say." January 27th, 2012.http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-multitasking-social-emotional-tweenage-girls.html

 

Posted by

Robert Karl Stonjek

Study Shows Females Can Delay the Aging of Sperm Cells for Decades

By Dan Nosowitz

Sperm Cells Wikimedia Commons

A new study led by Dr Klaus Reinhardt at the University of Sheffield shows that females of some species can prolong the lifespan of ordinarily short-lived sperm cells by days, months, or even decades, waiting for the optimal time to use it. The study could also have some significant implications for the general study of ageing.

Here's the deal: sperm cells are very short-lived, typically. They have a very high metabolic rate compared to other cells, but the reasons why sperm cells deteriorate so quickly are still not well-understood. It was assumed that part of the problem is that sperm cells produce a comparatively high amount of free radicals, damaging the cells.

The study used fluorescence-lifetime measurement, more often used in oncology, to examine the sperm cells held in the body of female crickets. They compared the metabolic rate and production of free radicals in the female crickets to sperm stored elsewhere. They found that the females could somehow alter both of those attributes--the metabolic rate within the females was a whopping 37 per cent lower than the other sperm.

That process allows many species of females to store sperm cells for a very long time. It's not just insects; birds, fish, and reptiles are also shown to have the same ability to delay ageing in sperm cells. The most impressive creature is an insect, though--queen ants can keep these cells alive for an insane 30 years.

Some exciting implications are coming from this research. It aligns with the theory that free radicals are a vital element in the ageing of cells, but it also explains why fertility tests on sperm are so unreliable. Without a female to slow their death rate, sperm cells could quickly perish during the test.

In the Developing World, Solar Is Cheaper than Fossil Fuels

Peak power: A solar panel installed in Mwiki, Kenya.
Eight19

ENERGY

Advances are opening solar to the 1.3 billion people who don't have access to grid electricity.

• BY KEVIN BULLIS

Audio »

The falling cost of LED lighting, batteries, and solar panels, together with innovative business plans, are allowing millions of households in Africa and elsewhere to switch from crude kerosene lamps to cleaner and safer electric lighting. For many, this offers a means to charge their mobile phones, which are becoming ubiquitous in Africa, instead of having to rent a charger.

Technology advances are opening up a huge new market for solar power: the approximately 1.3 billion people around the world who don't have access to grid electricity. Even though they are typically very poor, these people have to pay far more for lighting than people in rich countries because they use inefficient kerosene lamps. While in most parts of the world solar power typically costs far more than electricity from conventional power plants—especially when including battery costs—for some people, solar power makes economic sense because it costs half as much as lighting with kerosene.  

Hundreds of companies are swooping in to grab a piece of this market.

"This sector has exploded," says Richenda Van Leeuwen, senior director for the Energy and Climate team at the United Nations Foundation. "There's been a sea change in the last five years."

The sudden interest is fueled by the advent of relatively low-cost LEDs, she says. Not long ago, powering lightbulbs required a solar panel that could generate 20 to 30 watts, since only incandescent lightbulbs were affordable. LEDs are far more efficient. Now people can have bright lighting using a panel that only generates a couple of watts of power, Van Leeuwen says.  

But such technological improvements aren't quite enough to open up the market. High-quality LED systems, with a pair of lamps and enough battery storage for several hours of lighting, cost less than $50. The systems can pay for themselves in less than two years, but the upfront cost is still too steep for many people. 

Eight19, a company based in Cambridge, U.K., is one of several companies offering some type of payment plan to make the systems affordable. Customers pay $10 for the solar lighting system, which includes a 2.5-watt solar panel, two LED overhead lamps, and a lithium-iron phosphate battery pack. Then they pay a weekly fee for the power it generates.

Winning numbers: Customers enter a numerical code to access power for lights and a mobile phone charger.
Eight19

Each week, users buy a scratch card for about $1 from a local vendor. It gives them a number that they text to Eight19 for verification. The company sends them a verification code that they enter into a keypad on the battery pack. The code electronically unlocks the device for a week, allowing the battery to supply power to the LEDs or to a phone charger.

Several other companies, including major telecoms, are trying variants on this pay-as-you-go approach. One thing that sets Eight19 apart is that after a customer has covered the cost of the device—typically in about 18 months—he or she can trade up for a bigger one with a larger solar panel, a bigger battery, and more lights, and the capacity to power a small radio. In this way, using only the money they would have been spending on kerosene or for renting phone chargers, they can gradually get to the point where they have enough power for, say, a refrigerator, or a money-making appliance such as a sewing machine, says Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO of Eight19.

Eight19 has tested the system with several hundred customers, and it is starting a project to sell 4,000 systems in cooperation with the NGO Solar Aid, which will help with distribution.

But Eight19 is a relatively small player so far. More established companies such as D.light have sold over one million solar lighting systems. Bransfield-Garth sees a lot of room for growth. "The poorest people are paying disproportionately high prices for their needs," he says. "Solar power works well in this market."