These pictures were taken in 1970 when the French military tested a number of nuclear bombs on the French Polynesian islands of Mururoa and Fangataufa.

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In today’s Marketing Focus, host Albert Maruggi sits down for an interview with Bruce Volkart of Volkart May and Associates, a company that provides cutting-edge teleservices for marketers.

Bruce, a competitive runner, talks about the similarities between running and building a sales pipeline: Always have a target out in front, a goal that you’re working toward. Bruce also talks about the huge number of contacts or touches it takes to get in front of a senior-level decision maker…and how often marketers and sales professionals give up too soon.

We hope you enjoy this interview, and please be sure to fill out our survey to win an Apple iPod.

While the function of registering a Domain Name has not changed much over the last 13 years, the cost has certainly changed. Back in 1994 there were very few place to register your domain and the cost was high. I have used several Registrars over the years, including Network Solutions, NameSecure, Register.com, GoDaddy and my current favorite NameCheap.

Here is what I look for in a Domain Registrar.

• Cost - No reason to pay more than $9.95
• Interface - Should include a keyword search.
• TLD’s (extensions) - I typically stick with the 2 majors, .com and .net, but I like the option for the others.
• WhoisGuard - The ability to put WhoisGuard and hide personal information on the Whois. (currently included at NameCheap)
• Push Domain - I like the ability to Push a Domain to another user. When you sell a domain this can save a lot of time and frustration.
• Default Nameservers - Since I use a multi host system, setting the Nameservers to my server saves me a lot of time.

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Japan’s ban on dual nationality is less toothless than it used to be, as the government finds creative ways to keep people from maintaining multiple passports. Terrie Lloyd’s e-mail newsletter this week quotes an unidentified source who says:

It seems that if you are Japanese and you renew your Japanese passport at your local US consulate, when you go to pick it up you are asked to show your green card or other residency documentation which allows you to be in the US. If you cannot produce this documentation, and you wouldn’t be able to if you held a US passport, they won’t hand over your new Japanese passport. Apparently this is how they are now catching dual citizens living abroad.

To avoid this, I could renew my passport in Tokyo, but if I do, I have to show them my juminhyo. That means I have to re-establish residency and live back in Japan for a few months—which of course is difficult to do when one has a career to fulfill.

Note that this particular procedure only affects people living outside Japan. Dealing with Japanese nationals resident in Japan while retaining a foreign passport is still much trickier to visualize, although with the new fingerprinting and photographing systems, anything is possible…

By Mitch “Not Going to Make a Porta Potty Joke” Keeler

If you are looking for a lightweight program that will help you create a great looking photo gallery look no further than Porta. Porta can turn any directory filled with images into a neatly formatted photo album for the web.

This program is not only lightweight, it is also fast, simple to use and it produces pages that are simple in nature. They are not cluttered up with a lot of junk you do not want or need and look absolutely awesome in any modern web browser.

Porta Pro: Super easy to use. If you can fill in text boxes, you can create a beautiful gallery.

Porta Con: Wish it came with a way to upload the images to the server.

Download Porta! | Visit Porta’s Web Site!

The hardest thing about using Porta is browsing to the directory your images is in. That is it! The rest of the process is so easy I can not put it into words. You can also caption pictures and put in a footer message too (such as a copyright notice). Overall I have to say I am super impressed with Porta and would suggest it to anybody who needs help creating a simple gallery of images.

+ Check Out More Freeware and Open Source Applications!

© Lunarpages Web Hosting - $25 off Web Hosting! Coupon Code: blog25

“Intelligence in the Classroom: Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them” by Charles Murray in the WSJ, is a good article. The subtitle says it all. In designing a school system, we need to think about children’s potential, not just what we’d like for them to be able to learn. Wherever we set a threshold, some children aren’t going to be able to make it. (more…)

If you would like to promo our site we are willing to give away a book for your efforts.

Please email us with your link to banner placement and a book could be on its way to you.

Well I knew it would only be a matter of time before Shoemoney gave up on ShoemoneyAds. Only so much free money a man can pour out a month.

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Technorati Tags: Shoemoney, ShoemoneyAds

p2pnet news | P2P:- The Wikipedia, probably the Net’s most famous online information resource, has plans to go offline.

This comes in a CNET News follow-up to stories centering on the very public bust-up between Wikipedia founder Jimbo Wales and his erstwhile girl-friend, Rachel Marsden; and, claims by former Wikipedia employee Danny Wool that Wales had been abusing his expense account

Sue Gardner, ex-head of CBC.ca who’s now executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, “came to the defense of Wales in interviews Thursday,” says the story.

“She said that recent allegations against Wales that he misused foundation funds were started by a ‘disgruntled former employee’ who’s spread unsubstantiated rumors on his blog.

“I find it distressing,” the story has her saying.

“(Wales) has done nothing but be modest, frugal, and do what’s best for the organization.”

Then, at the end of the post, “Gardner said she is trying to expand the influence of Wikimedia and Wikipedia,” says CNET News, adding”

“One of her big goals for the foundation is to help bring Wikipedia to a much wider audience. The nonprofit wants to develop Wikipedia books, videos, and USB sticks, for people who have a computer but are without the Internet.

“We want to disseminate Wikipedia to people off the Internet,” she said.

Stay tuned.

[NOTE - p2pnet is running a special reader’s survey. It only takes 20-30 seconds —- literally —- and it’d be a huge help if you’d fill it in. Please click here. Cheers! And thanks … Jon]

Slashdot it!

Also See:
CNET News - Wikimedia executive comes to Wales defense, March 6, 2008
Rachel Marsden - Rachel Marsden sells Jimbo Wales’ dirty linen, March 3, 2008
Danny Wool - Money for nothing, chicks for free?, March 1, 2008

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Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.

This has been nicked from: p2pnet.net - not the lamescream media

WASHINGTON – Jan. 29, 2008 – Individuals and businesses are likely to see their borrowing costs drop further as the Federal Reserve weighs another interest-rate reduction to bolster a sagging economy.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are scheduled to open a two-day meeting Tuesday afternoon to plot their next move on interest rates. The closed-door gathering comes amid growing fears the country is either on the brink of a recession or has already started slipping into one given the strains from a housing market collapse, a global credit crunch and turbulence on Wall Street. The country’s last recession was in 2001.

Many economists believe the Fed will lower its key rate, now at 3.5 percent, by as much as one-half percentage point to 3 percent when policymakers wrap up their meeting Wednesday afternoon.

If that scenario plays out, commercial banks would be expected to lower their prime lending rate by a corresponding amount – from 6.5 percent to 6 percent. The prime rate applies to certain credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other loans. Should all this happen, then both the Fed’s key rate and the prime rate would be at nearly three-year lows.

In an emergency gathering convened by Bernanke last week, the Fed ordered a rare, three-quarter-point reduction to its key rate. That move came after stocks worldwide plummeted, intensifying recession fears. The Fed’s action has helped to restore some confidence among skittish investors. However, financial markets remain fragile.

“My feeling is if they don’t cut by a half point, they risk undoing the good they did last week with the three-quarter point cut,†said Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia.

On the Net: Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press, Jeannine Aversa (AP Economics Writer). All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.