DHA Commercial Avenue Ballot Results

Congratulations to list of successful candidates of DHA commercial Avenue

http://www.dhai.com.pk/dhacomave/index.php

Annual Kennedy Center Honors

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced the selection of the individuals who will receive the Kennedy Center Honors of 2008. Recipients to be honored at the 31st annual national celebration of the arts are: actor Morgan Freeman, singer George Jones, director, singer, actress, composer and producer Barbra Streisand, choreographer Twyla Tharp, and musicians Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey of The Who.

• Morgan Freeman
• George Jones
• Barbra Streisand
• Twyla Tharp
• Pete Townshend & Roger Daltrey

Mike Shanahan Fired

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Mike Shanahan was fired by the Denver Broncos after a 14-year tenure during which he coached the team to 138 wins and two Super Bowl titles.

The Broncos missed the National Football League playoffs for the third straight season after losing their final three games to finish 8-8. With a postseason berth on the line, Denver was routed by the San Diego Chargers 52-21 in its regular-season finale.

“A change in our football operations is in the best interests of the Denver Broncos,” owner Pat Bowlen said in a statement. “This is certainly a difficult decision, but one that I feel must be made and which will ultimately be in the best interests of all concerned.”

Shanahan, 56, had coached the Broncos since 1995, compiling a 138-86 record and winning Super Bowls with John Elway at quarterback after the 1997 and 1998 seasons. Since Elway retired 10 years ago, the franchise is just 1-4 in the postseason.

Shanahan also held the title of vice president of football operations and was in charge of the team’s personnel decisions. He’s the fourth coach to be fired since the NFL’s regular season ended two days ago. Also terminated were Eric Mangini by the New York Jets, Rod Marinelli by the Detroit Lions and Romeo Crennel by the Cleveland Browns.

Among current NFL coaches, only Jeff Fisher of the Tennessee Titans had a longer tenure with the same team than Shanahan. Fisher has been with the Titans since 1994.

Shanahan also coached the Raiders in 1988-89 and had two separate stints as an assistant with the Broncos under former coach Dan Reeves before taking over the team.

“I appreciate the 21 years that Mike Shanahan has given to the organization as an assistant and head coach, and the two Super Bowl wins in that time,” Bowlen said. “His contributions hold a special place in Broncos history.”

Official Gmail Blog: A holiday break to play with all the new stuff

Google has come up with a bundle of new applications for the new year like

Themes.
SMS Chat.
Calendar tasks.
Google Labs.

For complete detail please see the original post


Official Gmail Blog: A holiday break to play with all the new stuff

Tension between Pakistan and India to sooth a bit (Pakistan)

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has proposed India to withdraw its forces at peace positions and make forward airbases de-activate to defuse tension between the neighboring countries.

In a policy statement issued here on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said positive developments were made during last 48 hours regarding present Pak-India situation.

Foreign Minister said tension has been decreased after contacts made between director general military operations.

About Indian External Minister Pranab Mukherjee statement regarding ultimatum, Qureshi said the statement had proved that Pakistani stance was just and it was admitted that no evidences were given to Pakistan.

He thanked the Chinese government for its efforts for defusing tension between Pakistan and India.

Foreign Minister said Pakistan is ready to send a high-level delegation to India to assist in the investigations of Mumbai attacks.

One year has passed on Benazir Bhutto

The exit to the parade ground where Benazir Bhutto delivered her final speech has been transformed.

Workmen are putting the finishing touches to a small shrine marking the place where she was killed, elevating her to an almost saint-like status.

Posters plaster the walls, recordings of historic speeches boom from a speaker, hundreds of photographs are stacked on tables set up on the pavement.

Seasoned party worker Safdar Abbasi is remembering his leader's last words, in an election campaign she never finished.

Very soon the Bhutto name may start to disappear if the party fails to deliver this time Zaffar Abbas Dawn newspaper editor Obituary: Benazir Bhutto Life in pictures: Benazir Bhutto

"I think she was pretty charged that day and the speech that she gave, it was probably one of her finest speeches in recent memory," he says. "She took the crowd along."

Getty Images photographer John Moore recalls her last moments.

"I guess I was 20m [yds] ahead of the car, and I heard three shots fired," he says.

"As she moved down through the sunroof, I raised my camera. And just as I took the first photograph is when the blast occurred and there was complete chaos.

"People running, there was debris flying through the air, pieces of the vehicle, pieces of rubbish, pieces of human beings, all in the air."

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's most internationally recognised politician, shocked the country and the world, and devastated her supporters.

But what has been the political impact of her death?

Uncertain times

On one level, it has been huge: her Pakistan People's Party came first in the general election, bolstered by a sympathy vote. For the first time in more than a decade, it formed a national government.

Pakistan has issued a commemorative coin to mark the aniversary

Five months later, former military leader Pervez Musharraf was forced to resign as president. He had made a deal to share power with Benazir Bhutto. Without her, it fell apart.

"I think one person who really must have regretted deeply at a very personal and political level her passing away was Mr Musharraf, because he lost his job," says Senator Mushahid Hussain, a member of the party that supported the now retired general.

Mr Musharraf was replaced by Ms Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari. Dogged by a reputation for sleaze, Mr Zardari has rocketed to the most powerful civilian position in the country.

But one year on, his government is no more popular than Mr Musharraf's, and the problems it faces are worse: an Islamist insurgency threatening to spiral out of control, an economy in meltdown and dangerous tensions with India.

These uncertain times have compounded the sense of loss represented by Benazir Bhutto's death.

"All of us are missing her physical presence," says Safdar Abbasi.

"I think just her physical presence would have mattered a lot. And today without her, even though the PPP is in the government, there's a big vacuum that has been created, and this vacuum, I don't know what our present leadership has in mind to fill it."

'Different stature'

The present leadership is seen by many to be unable to cope with the multiple crises facing the country.

Bhutto died in a gun and bomb attack which killed some 20 other people

Would Benazir Bhutto have done better? Her track record in power was mixed at best. But she was a politician and leader of a different stature than her husband, according to Mr Hussain.

"Benazir had more experience, more knowledge of the workings of the Pakistani power structure," he says.

"Mr Zardari has been out of Pakistan, he's been out of power and he has a very poor team. It's basically his personal friends, buddies and cronies, most of whom were out of the power structure and who do not have government experience."

Zaffar Abbas, the Islamabad editor of the local Dawn newspaper, also decries government incompetence but, while acknowledging Mrs Bhutto's "capability, experience and style," he blames her "because she never encouraged people to come up and be groomed as politicians who could take the lead in running the affairs of the party.

"So what we see today is a bunch of mediocre people who are running the party."

Sorely missed

What then is the legacy that this iconic Pakistani politician leaves behind?

"I think it's the Bhutto legacy, which addresses the key problems of the people of Pakistan," says Mr Abbasi, who worked alongside her for 25 years.

"Madame Bhutto and her father [party founder Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto], their connection with the people of Pakistan was in trying to address these problems, and that has to carry through."

However, Mr Abbas believes any impact she had will be more transient.

"More than the legacy, more than the politics, more than the aims and objectives, it's the name which matters in South Asian politics," he says.

"Very soon the Bhutto name may start to disappear if the party fails to deliver this time."

For now, though, Benazir Bhutto is very much remembered in Pakistan - and sorely missed.

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Turn an email into a Google doc

More than once, I've had a conversation over email and later realized that the information contained in the messages would make a great starting point for a document. So I built an experimental feature for Gmail Labs that does just that: with one simple click, "Create a document" converts an email into a Google Docs document.

No more copying and pasting the text from your email -- just open the message you wish to convert, click the "Create a document" link on the right side of the page, and voila, you have a brand new document which you can then modify and share!



Even if you're not interested in converting any of your current messages into documents, you can easily open up a blank doc by hitting g and then w (just make sure you have keyboard shortcuts on).


To turn on this feature, go to the Gmail Labs tab under Settings, select "Enable" next to "Create a document" and hit "Save Changes" at the bottom. Though we're temporarily missing the "Send feedback" link for this feature on the Labs page (oops!), we're still anxious to hear what you think. Permalink

Official Gmail Blog: New in Labs: Turn an email into a Google doc

Google bringing people closer

Official Google Blog: @Twitter: Welcome to Google Friend Connect

Google talking of neutrality again

One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer tried to define what we at Google mean when we talk about the concept of net neutrality.

Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as edge caching. However, they shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever.

Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge caching -- temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are located close to end users -- violates the concept of network neutrality. As I said last summer, this myth -- which unfortunately underlies a confused story in Monday's Wall Street Journal -- is based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the open Internet works.

Edge caching is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content providers in order to improve the end user experience. Companies like Akamai, Limelight, and Amazon's Cloudfront provide local caching services, and broadband providers typically utilize caching as part of what are known as content distribution networks (CDNs). Google and many other Internet companies also deploy servers of their own around the world.

By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages. In addition, these solutions help broadband providers by minimizing the need to send traffic outside of their networks and reducing congestion on the Internet's backbones. In fact, caching represents one type of innovative network practice encouraged by the open Internet.

Google has offered to "colocate" caching servers within broadband providers' own facilities; this reduces the provider's bandwidth costs since the same video wouldn't have to be transmitted multiple times. We've always said that broadband providers can engage in activities like colocation and caching, so long as they do so on a non-discriminatory basis.

All of Google's colocation agreements with ISPs -- which we've done through projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache -- are non-exclusive, meaning any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other traffic. In contrast, if broadband providers were to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' connections and offer colocation or caching services in an anti-competitive fashion, that would threaten the open Internet and the innovation it enables.

Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's Journal story, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open.

P.S.: The Journal story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama's net neutrality policies as "much less specific than they were before." For what it's worth, I don't recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd given that President-elect Obama's supportive stance on network neutrality hasn't changed at all.


Official Google Blog: Net neutrality and the benefits of caching

Google started a new architecture competition

Google has started a new architecture competition using google sheckup, here is what they say

Chilly weather, hot chocolate, holiday celebrations... I'm proud to kick off our sweetest SketchUp modeling challenge ever: the first annual Google SketchUp Gingerbread House Design Competition. To make it a little easier to design the gingerbread house of your dreams, I modeled a blank house to get you started. Go ahead and download it from the 3D Warehouse, then follow the instructions in the file.



I also built a selection of decorations (candy canes, gumdrops, wafer roof tiles) that you can use to spiff up your model. Of course, you're welcome to do anything you like; it's your masterpiece. When you're finished, don't forget to label your gingerbread house with the tag "gingerbread2009" and upload it to the 3D Warehouse. The competition deadline is January 4th at midnight, Pacific Standard Time.

This undertaking is all about having fun with SketchUp, so the prizes will be glory based. (What did you expect: a gingerbread flat-screen TV?) We'll award the following prizes, and announce the winners here and on the SketchUpdate about a week after the competition closes on January 4th.

• 1st, 2nd and 3rd place – for the best overall gingerbread houses in the collection
• The 'Sprinkles' Prize – for the best additions to the base model (the crazier, the better)
• The 'Swirl' Prize – for the best use of Dynamic Components in the model
• The 'Sweet-tooth' Prize – for the most creative use of a single candy ingredient in a model

If you're looking for inspiration, take a gander at what folks did with Santa's sleigh last year. Have fun, and happy holidays.



Official Google Blog: Gingerbread architecture for all

The Terrorists turned out to be Indian Recruits, ( Attacks on Mumbai)

A Pakistani lawyer C M Farooque claimed that many people, including Ajmal Kasab, were arrested before 2006 from Kathmandu by the Indian agencies with the help of Nepalese forces, reports The News Daily.

He said Ajmal Kasab went to the Napalese capital on a business tour. His application regarding his arrest was lying pending in the Nepalese Supreme Court in which a reply was sought from Nepalese forces and Indian High Commission.

While talking to the Geo News, C M Farooque Advocate said the Nepalese forces arrested almost 200 people including Ajmal Kasab before 2006 and his application in this regard was lying pending in the Nepalese Supreme Court in which Nepalese forces and Indian High Commission were made

George Bush Get’s Shoes Thrown At Him

A surprise visit by US President George Bush to Iraq has been overshadowed by an incident in which two shoes were thrown at him during a news conference.

An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush "a dog" and threw his footwear, just missing the president.

The US president has now continued to Afghanistan to inspect troops there.

He arrived before dawn at Bagram air force base, and is due to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai.

Earlier in Baghdad, Mr Bush and Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki signed the new security agreement between their countries.

The pact calls for US troops to leave Iraq in 2011 - eight years after the 2003 invasion that has in part defined the Bush presidency.

If you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw US President George W Bush

Speaking just over five weeks before he hands over power to Barack Obama, Mr Bush also said the war in Iraq was not over and more work remained to be done.

His previously unannounced visit came a day after Defence Secretary Robert Gates told US troops the Iraq mission was in its "endgame".

Official Google Blog: Google Chrome (BETA)

Since we first released Google Chrome, the development team has been hard at work improving the stability and overall performance of the browser. In just 100 days, we have reached more than 10 million active users around the world (on all seven continents, no less) and released 14 updates to the product. We're excited to announce that with today's fifteenth release we are taking off the "beta" label!

Google Chrome is a better browser today thanks to the many users who sent their feedback and the many more who enabled automatic crash reports, helping us rapidly diagnose and fix issues. Some of the areas where we've made great progress include:

Better stability and performance of plug-ins (particularly video). Video and audio glitches were among the most common bugs fixed during the beta period. If you had problems watching videos with Google Chrome in the past, you should be pleasantly surprised with the performance now.

Even more speed. Google Chrome starts up fast, loads pages quickly, and just keeps getting faster. Since the first beta, the V8 JavaScript engine runs 1.4 times faster on the SunSpider benchmark and 1.5 times faster on the V8 benchmark — and there is more speed to come.

Official Google Blog: Google Chrome <S>(BETA)</S>

Google Calendar's Gmail and SMS Integration

Google's recently launched Calendar application was pretty impressive at launch, but seems to keep getting better every day. One of the recent additions I've taken a liking to is the SMS add feature that allows users to add new events to their calendar by texting them to GVENT from a mobile device. It uses the calendar's natural language calendaring feature to appropriately place events in the correct time slot. For example, a user could text any of the following:

lunch with bob tomorrow at 1pm
Wedding on May 19th in Stillwater at 6pm

to add events into the appropriate time slots.

The latest addition I've seen is an integration between Gmail and Google calendar that automatically detects events listed within your emails and turns them into quick adds for your Google Calendar. For example, here is a portion of a recent email I received about some Earth Day events:

The following box appeared along the right column of my Gmail window alongside the above message:

So Google was able to determine that there were events listed within the email and create "Add to Caldendar" links for each event. In this case, I clicked on the Garlic Mustard Pull event, clicked save on the Quick Add form, and immediately found the event on my Google Calendar:

It's not a perfect system yet. For example, I don't think there is a way to adjust the alarm time before individual events via SMS today. This is important since the default 10 minute warning isn't particularly useful for events more than 10 minutes away from where I may be. At launch, the calendar allowed for recurring events, but didn't have a way to delete recurring events. That bug was quickly resolved.

The integration between Gmail and Google Calendar goes both ways by pulling the Gmail address book into the Google Calendar's Guests feature. Adding or inviting guests to events is a snap since Google Calendar will autocomplete the addresses of anyone in your Gmail contacts.

Personally, I'd like to sync my Treo with Google Calendar rather than relying on SMS for all of my event reminders. For example, there may be times where I've turned my phone off, but would still want to be reminded of events I'd scheduled for myself. Creating a week long view where full days can be viewed without scrolling would be a big improvement as well. Google's created one heck of a powerful web based calendaring system already. Where do you think they'll take it next?

Listen to this article posted by Ed Kohler on April 29, 2006 11:29 PM | Permalink
More posts about Gmail , Google
Official Gmail Blog: Really new in Labs this time: SMS Text Messaging for chat

GRAMMY Museum Grand Opening

GRAMMY Museum at L.A. Live, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., Ste. 200, Los Angeles

Most museums invite you to look at art. Ours invites you to experience it. Celebrate the creativity and vitality of music at the GRAMMY Museum. With interactive exhibits that give you a behind-the-scenes look at how music is created, produced and performed, the GRAMMY Museum will educate and inspire musicians and fans alike.

World Aid's Day

The South African National Aids Council (Sanac), with representation from all sectors of government and civil society, together with Nedlac, have agreed that at 12.00 noon today, the Deputy President will ask all people in South Africa to stop and observe and act on World Aids Day.

From individuals to organisations, from government departments to schools, all people will be called on to stop what they are doing so that the country can come together to focus on how we are going to stop the HIV epidemic, stop new HIV infections and stop deaths.

World Aids Day 2008 will embody the collective commitment of our government and society to adopt a bold and brave new approach to HIV and TB.

We urge you to join us on this day. Act now. Forward this message.

Spread the word!

Under the theme of “Leadership and Unity to stop HIV, Aids and TB” the 15-minute national stoppage is an opportunity for all South Africans to think and talk about HIV and Aids.

People are encouraged to hold discussions in workplaces and schools, in homes and in the streets.

Sanac has produced a “Key Messages” document to guide these discussion (download it from the website).

World Aids Day 2008 will be unprecedented and historic in the global history of Aids and will inspire people in South Africa and across the world.

Our vision is to use this day to promote actions that will stop HIV and to start a truly national social mobilisation on HIV, Aids and TB.

National Event on World Aids Day

At midday the church bells of St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town will be rung to mark the start of a national minute of silence.

In Durban, at Sahara stadium, the Minister of Health will then address the nation, followed by the Deputy President.

They will be joined by the executive director of UNAids (Dr Peter Piot), King Goodwill Zwelithini, the Premier of KwaZulu Natal, and leaders from civil society living with HIV.

Other senior leaders – from government, civil society, business and labour – will also assemble to demonstrate unity.

These speeches will be covered live on SABC2 from 11.30am, as well as on many SABC and independent radio stations. Simultaneously around the country there will be thousands of other events.

Pledges of support:

l Current and former Archbishops of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, Njongonkulu Ndungane and Desmond Tutu have all endorsed the mobilisation. They are calling on other religious leaders to do the same.

They called on churches to integrate messages about HIV into their services yesterday and for all churches to ring their bells to start the minute’s silence today;

·l The Archbishop of Cape Town, Thabo Makgoba, will hold a special service at St Georges Cathedral in Cape Town today. HIV counsellors will be on hand to provide information and will also offer testing for HIV;

·l A specially prepared sermon will be given in all mosques, and a special message will be sent to all Muslim schools, Muslim-owned businesses, and Muslim-run e-mail lists in South Africa;

·l Former president Nelson Mandela will release a statement through his organisation 46664; www.46664.org.za will carry key messages and actions and will be a portal where organisations and individuals can find out what they and their companies/organisations can do during the 15-minute Focus on Aids;

l Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi has endorsed the campaign;

·l Judge Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, will issue a statement in support of South Africa today;

·l The UK development Minister, Ivan Lewis, visited South Africa from November 28-30 to recognise South Africa’s efforts;