sexta-feira, 8 de outubro de 2010

In Graphics: What Is a Stock?

In Graphics: What Is a Stock?: "

Successful investing can make you rich — or at the very least it is one step towards achieving your financial goals. But being a successful investor requires neither time-travel skills enabling you to purchase Google (GOOG) stock at $80 a pop, nor a crystal ball that will show you the next hot asset class. It simply requires knowledge and perseverance. To make investment choices that ultimately pay off, you need to start by knowing the fundamentals. It’s a step many investor wannabes skip, since… well, studying the basic terms and trends is not exactly entertaining. We thought one way of helping you get a jumpstart on your basic investing terminology is a series of infographics that explain, visually, basic concepts. First up: what is a stock?





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quinta-feira, 7 de outubro de 2010

The Top 20 Posts of all Time at dPS (out of 2000 in our Archives)

The Top 20 Posts of all Time at dPS (out of 2000 in our Archives): "

filename.jpgI was just looking at the post count of published posts here on dPS and realized that this post is the 2000th article that we’ve published!


It’s hard to believe that we’ve published that many tips and tutorials as it seems like just yesterday that dPS was born (although we’re over 4 years old now).


In that time we’ve had over 55 million visitors to the site and they’ve viewed well in excess of 160 million pages of content.


To celebrate the 2000th post mark I thought I’d take a stroll down memory lane and highlight the 20 most popular posts on dPS from our 2000 posts.


It’s only 1% of what we’ve done but hopefully it’ll give newer readers a bit of a peak at what’s in the archives and give our long term readers a reminder of what we’ve done.



  1. 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits – An extract from our best selling The Essential Guide to Portrait Photography

  2. Long Exposure Photography: 15 Stunning Examples- An image collection of some great long exposure shots.

  3. How to Make Digital Photos Look like Lomo Photographs – one of our first ever photoshop tutorials that still is popular today.

  4. Learning about Exposure – the Exposure Triangle – going back to basics to examine three foundational elements of exposure in photography.

  5. Wedding Photography – 21 Tips for Amateur Wedding Photographers – a collection of tips to help those of us who are asked by friends to take wedding shots.

  6. How to Make an Inexpensive Light Tent – I get thank you’s from readers most weeks about this one

  7. Popular Digital Cameras and Gear – a regularly updated list of the most popular cameras, lenses and accessories used by our readers.

  8. Rule of Thirds – an old photography rule – but a good one!

  9. How to Choose a DSLR – this one is slightly dated as it was written when DSLRs were just getting more popular but still gets a lot of people viewing it.

  10. 21 Great Reader shots and how they were Taken – I love this post as it is purely readers showing off their photography and talking us through the processes of how they were shot.

  11. How to Photograph Fireworks – always popular at 4th July and New Years Eve.

  12. 9 Tips for Getting Backgrounds Right – tips that can really lift an image

  13. How to Hold a Digital Camera – sometimes it is the most basic things that people have connected with most on dPS.

  14. How to Take a Great Group Photo – I reread this one myself recently when asked to photograph a large group.

  15. 11 Surefire Landscape Photography Tips – on an ever popular topic with our readers.

  16. 21 Settings, Techniques and Rules All New Camera Owners Should Know – if you’re ever overwhelmed by what all the dials, modes and settings on your camera mean – this could be one for you.

  17. DIY Lighting Hacks for Digital Photographers – these are fun but could also save you some serious cash.

  18. 17 Amazing Wide Angle Images – another of our most popular image collections

  19. How to Shoot Light Trails – practical tips on getting spectacular shots at night

  20. 4 Rules of Composition for Landscape Photography – simple rules that can make a big impact.


Thanks so much to all of our writing team who have contributed to these and our other 1980 tips and tutorials – and to our community of readers who have read them, left comments and shared them with friends via Twitter, Facebook, email and word of mouth.


You’ve all helped us to continue to grow and I value each one of you.


Post from: Digital Photography School




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Teh Kitteh Guide 2 Emotikons

Teh Kitteh Guide 2 Emotikons: "

funny pictures of cats with captions





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quarta-feira, 6 de outubro de 2010

Who’s Suing Whom In The Telecoms Trade?

Who’s Suing Whom In The Telecoms Trade?: "

Who's Suing Whom in the Telecom's Trade

See the image on its own


Hangbags away boys! Who’s suing whom in the telecoms trade?


Based on these diagrams from Guardian Tech and the NY Times.


I thought those charts generated more questions than they answered. So, as ever, I tried to answer the obvious questions and convey various contexts simultaneously.


I wondered, too, if I could design the connections so the lines didn’t cross. Almost managed it!


And see if there was a relationship between dropping revenues and litigiousness. What do you think? Is there?


Data: http://bit.ly/sosueme





Research & design: David McCandless Additional research: James Key

Idea: Guardian Tech, NY Times

Sources: BBC, DigitalTrends.com, Bloomberg and other news outlets

Data: In this Google Doc





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terça-feira, 5 de outubro de 2010

Make Your PC Shut Down at Night (But Only When You’re Not Using It)

Make Your PC Shut Down at Night (But Only When You’re Not Using It): "

image


If you normally like to power off your PC when you’re not using it, do you ever forget and leave it on? Here’s how to configure Windows to automatically power down at night, but only if you’re not using the PC at the time.


To accomplish this, we’ll setup a Task Scheduler job that tells the computer to shut down, and make sure to configure the rules so that it doesn’t kick in if you are up late using the PC.


Create a Task Scheduler Job to Shut Down the PC


You’ll need to open up Task Scheduler to create the new job, so open it up and click the Create Task link on the right-hand side.


image


Now you’ll want to give the task a name, and make sure to check the box for “Run with highest privileges”, since the shutdown utility requires admin access.


image


Now switch to the Triggers tab, click New, and then setup a schedule that makes sense for you, like every night at midnight.


image


Now flip over to the Actions tab, click New, and then enter shutdown into the Program box, and /S into the parameters box. If you want to force a shutdown and kill every app, you can use /S /F to force it to happen right away.


image


Next head to the Conditions tab, and make sure to check the box to only start the task if the computer is idle for more than x minutes. You can also choose to stop the task if the PC isn’t idle to help make sure it doesn’t kick in if you are on the PC.


image


Lastly, head to the Settings tab, and you can choose to restart the task every 30 minutes if the task fails—that way, if you are on the PC for a while past the normal time, the job will start up later on and shut down the PC.


image


Once you’re done, your PC will shut down automatically. Enjoy!


Want to make your PC do something other than shut down? Read our article on creating shortcuts to restart, shut down, hibernate, or sleep mode.



Got an opinion to share? Click here to join the discussion


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Similar Articles Productive Geek Tips



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Internet Explorer detém menos de 50% do mercado pela 1ª vez

Internet Explorer detém menos de 50% do mercado pela 1ª vez: "A história da internet pode não ser mais a mesma após a divulgação de um relatório da empresa de estatísticas StatCounter nesta terça-feira (5). Em marco inédito, o Internet Explorer, navegador feito pela Microsoft, registrou menos de 50% de participação no mercado mundial.
Segundo as contagens do relatório, a participação do IE caiu para 49,87% em setembro. O browser é seguido pelo Firefox, com 31,5% de participação no mercado.










Fotomontagem/Folha Online
Outros navegadores além do Explorer, como Firefox, Chrome e Safari (em sentido horário) estão disponíveis para europeus
Em sentido horário: Explorer, como Firefox, Chrome e Safari; IE perde espaço e cai para menos de 50% no mercado de browsers

Leia mais (05/10/2010 - 15h48)"

483 - The Great European Shouting Match

483 - The Great European Shouting Match: "

If Europe has one defining cultural characteristic, it is that it has none. This may sound like too neat a paradox, but it’s not that far from the truth. There is not a single state, language, religion or ethnicity that even comes close to dominating the continent as a whole - although at least one in each category at some point in history had the pretension to try (1). Europe's war-torn history demonstrates that such diversity is, well, divisive. The European Union was designed to supersede the continent's internecine past, and its continuing appeal (at least to those European countries still outside the EU) is the degree to which it has succeeded, inaugurating an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity (2).


But that does not imply that cultural diversity has been neutralised. The EU, lacking a unifying cultural paradigm similar to the US's 'melting pot', has ended up celebrating a rather bland version of multiculturalism. One example: the buildings on the euro notes are imaginary, in part to avoid fueling national chauvinisms, either of the slighted or boasting variety.


This lowest-common-denominator kind of multiculturalism might actually be the least bad solution. In the kaleidoscope of cultures that is Europe, no matter from where you look at it, you're always surrounded by 'the Other'. It takes but a few small steps thence to paranoia, xenophobia, and worse. I remember speaking to a European about the neighbouring ethnicity, literally living up the road. 'Oh yes, but they're all racists,' she said, apparently undefeated by her own logic.


Another solution to dealing with the potential divisiveness of diversity, and if done in good humour at least a lot funnier, is the great European Shouting Match. Let it all hang out! Air that mistrust! Calling each other names establishes three things:


(1) that nobody is exempt, neither from feeling superior to others nor from being looked down upon by others. At least in this, everybody is equal. In the Republic of Mockery, we are all both givers and takers.


(2) that familiarity breeds contempt. Most often, the deepest disdain is reserved for the closest neighbours, from whom distant strangers would have a hard time distinguishing us. Inversely, those distant and/or obscure members of the European family are damned with faint put-downs of the who-the-heck-are-they-variant.


(3) that the sum of these insults says equally much about the nationality doing the shouting, or at least the perception we have of them: Germans are materialistic and utilitarian, the French still dream of la gloire, the British cherish their splendid isolation, etc.


The last map in the order as they are shown here seems to have been created by in June 2009 Yanko Tsvetkov to accompany an editorial in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the others apparently are variations on that same theme by the Bulgarian-born, London-based designer of the first one. Some of these maps also recently featured in the Daily Mail, at which point they appear to have gone viral, as testified by the large number of readers sending them in (see below). Even though a grain of truth might be mixed in with some of the descriptions on the maps, this blog in no way endorses any of the sentiments they express (3).



Europe seen by the Germans





Quite insidiously, the colour toning of this map binds Germany to its linguistically related neighbours, i.e. Luxembourg, Switzerland and Austria. Since World War Two, any such hint at territorial ambitions beyond the borders of the Bundesrepublik is a definite nein-nein. The Swiss are labelled Schokolade ('chocolate'), the Austrians Schnitzelreich ('escalope empire'). Reducing other countries to their (perceived) national dish is a very ancient type of put-down (compare the age-old French moniker for the English: les rosbif). Another colour tone difference, this time in Germany itself, is between the former West and East Germanies, the former labelled Sparkasse ('savings bank'), the other called Proletariat. It reflects the fading, but still powerful division between the prosperous west and the poorer former German Democratic Republic in the east, which has been the beneficiary of billions of euros of government support after Unification in 1990.


Other examples of the culinary dismissive jibe include Belgium ('waffles'), Hungary ('goulash'), Poland ('vegetables'), Ireland ('whiskey') and Bulgaria ('schnapps'). Russia is simply seen as a gas vault, the Ukraine and Belarus as 'gas transit land'. A crude portrayal perhaps, but not far from the larger, geopolitical truth. Russia is the largest single supplier of natural gas to Europe. Former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder now sits on the board of Nord Stream, a company piping Russian gas into Europe.


Apart from eating and heating, Germans are also shown to be quite obsessed with Freizeit ('holiday' marked across Slovenia and Croatia, 'cheap hotels here' in Greece and Spain, its islands transformed in 'Balearic Germany'). Italy's label 'pizza and museums' acknowledges that country's culinary and cultural attractions. The Czech republic and Slovakia are referred to merely by the names of their capital cities (Prague and Bratislava), perhaps to reflect their popularity as a citytrip destinations.


Most of former Yugoslavia is labelled 'uncharted', while Turkey is reduced to its role as 'workforce source' (there are about 4 million Turkish Gastarbeiter and their descendants living in Germany). Of all the other labels, two stick out: 'Enigma code breakers' (UK) and 'old neighbours' (the Baltics) - two oblique references to the Second World War, the former suggesting some residual resentment, the latter a form of nostalgia. The rather neutral depicition of France as Eiffelreich ('empire of [Gustave] Eiffel, he of the Eiffel Tower) on the other hand reflects the non-animosity between France and Germany that has become the cornerstone of European good neighbourliness and integration.



Europe seen by the Italians





The Italian view of the European continent is alternately ignorant and harsh, with Eastern Europe dismissed as dominated by 'porn stars' (Hungary; no doubt a reference to La Cicciolina), 'thieves' (Romania), 'babysitters' (Bulgaria), 'women with braided hair' (Ukraine) and 'Other Slavs' (Slovakia). Other latin countries are merely seen as extensions of Italy (France is the 'Bruni Empire', Spain is full of 'Italian dialects') or of other countries (Portugal is 'Brazil'). The British Islands are reduced to popular sports ('Rugby' for Ireland and 'Wembley Stadium', the home of soccer, for the UK). Switzerland is the land of '(cuckoo) clocks', while the Germans pay for their reputation as hard workers with the put-down 'clock addicts'. Poland still is the land of Karol Woytila, the previous Pope, while Russia, again, is nothing more but a source of natural gas. Turkey is the land not of guest workers but of belly dancers.


Just like Germany, Italy itself is also split in two, also reflecting a dichotomy between a richer half (in this case the north) and a poorer half (the south, labelled 'Ethiopia' - Sicily is even called 'Somalia').



Europe seen by the Bulgarians





From a Bulgarian perspective, Russia is not the land of natural gas, but of natural alliances (i.e. 'Big Brother'). Reflecting some theories on the origin and migrations of the Bulgarian people, Ukraine is named their 'Urheimat'. The Serbs next door have earned a reputation as 'loose cannon', while Albania is (expressly?) mislabeled 'Kosovo', and Montenegro 'South Serbia'. Macedonia is called 'Greek Slavs', while the Greeks are 'dish breakers'. Germany and France are reduced to some of their best-known export products (cars and cheese), while Belgium is seen as the home of the EU, a generous provider of subsidies (hence 'God'). Poland, bizarrely, is the land of 'sexy fembots'.



Europe as seen by the French





France is portrayed as still recovering from its early 19th-century ambitions of dominating the continent. Hence the labelling of both Belgium and Switzerland as 'semi-France', Russia as 'Napoleon's dream', Austria as 'old archenemy' and Portugal als 'English allies'. Other countries are labelled to reflect possible alliances, i.e. Ireland ('catholics'), Romania and Moldova ('poor brothers' and 'poor cousins'). The faintest praise is reserved for the Germans ('best friends' - one can almost hear teeth gnash), while Algeria is still seen with nostalgia: 'France woz here'. Reflecting a political attitude not shared by some other major European powers, France sees Turkey as 'definitely not Europeans'. Hungary for once is not seen as a country of pornstars, but as 'Sarko's land', the ancestral country of France's president Nicolas Sarkozy.



Europe as seen by gays





A hilariously different perspective is offered by this map of Europe as seen by the gay community. Sweden for once isn't the land of Volvo, but of trashy dance music (does that include Abba, though?) Catholic Ireland is 'in denial', while Catholic Poland is the 'Bible Belt'. Slovakia and Hungary respectively are the source of 'military porn' and 'non-military porn' (what is it with those Hungarians? Or those Slovakians, for that matter). Not all is well in the 'Federated Holiday States of the Mediterranean', as they are adjacent to the lands of 'straight homos' (Italy), homophobic tribes (most of the Balkan) and 'sexy homophobic men' (Turkey). Even on a gay map, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland are still the countries of waffles, hash and snow, respectively.



Europe as seen by the British





The United Kingdom is famously ambiguous about its European affiliation, let alone about its membership of the European Union. Three elements combine to reinforce Britain's euroskepticism: its geography as an island nation, the legacy of its overseas Empire and its heroic role as the sole holdout against a continent dominated by the Nazis. Margaret Thatcher tried to steer the European Community in the direction of a purely economic alliance of sovereign nations, but the drive towards 'ever closer union' (as mandated by the EU's own founding texts) has proved inexorable - and very ominous, from a British perspective.


Europe is therefore not seen as a collection of states, but as an 'Evil Federated Empire of Europe', producing all kinds of goods that may or may not be good to get into the UK (statues, cake, beer and soup, but also drugs, pest, dirty porn and immigrants). The Russian exiles, outrageously wealthy even for London standards, have given Russia the reputation of 'big spenders'. Iceland, reflecting its dubious role in the recent financial meltdown, is labelled 'Las Vegas'.



Europe as seen by the Americans





This map offers an external, and even more unidimensional perspective on European diversity. Americans apparently still see Russia (and Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova) as thinly veiled communists, and the Scandinavian countries as one big 'socialist union' (it must be a relief for the Danes to be called something other than Vikings, for the Finns not to be reduced to their mobile phone industry and for the Swedes to be linked to something else than Volvo, Ikea or Abba). The Netherlands, soft on drugs, are 'Sodom', the Iberian peninsula is dominated by Brazil and Mexico, Italy is simply 'godfathers' country, France is full of 'smelly people' and the UK is affectionately called 'mummy'. Ex-Yugoslavia is 'resident evil', while Turkey is 'thanksgiving dinner'.



European stereotypes, a composite map





This map seems to be a composite of European stereotypes. Nobody is left out. The EU, in view of its massive agricultural budget, is seen as the 'Union of Subsidized Farmers', Russia is a 'Paranoid Oil Empire', Ukraine is a country of 'gas stealers' and Norway (outside of the EU because independently wealthy) is 'Selfish Fisherman Land'.



Many thanks to all those who sent in these maps: Anthony Argyriou, Kevin Axe, Michael B, Roel Damiaans, Jóhannes Birgir Jensson, Patrick Chevallier, Stefano Cirolini, David Clarke, Patrick Dea, Kathi Dubach, Vincent Frietman, William Grewe-Mullins, Lars Haefner, Lee Jones, Charlie Kaupp, Christine Lohr, Katrien Luyten de Zurrita, Jim Mannheim, Alex Meerovich, Benjamin Miller, Kasper Nijhoff, Ivan Plis, Maria Popova, The Brigand’s Republic, Fabian Schmidt, Mikael Schulman, Tom Schuring, Teddy Sherrill, Marcin Siehankiewicz, Tobi, Jon Worth.



The maps can be seen in their original context at [this page] on Mr Tsvetkov's website Alphadesigner.



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(1) Examples? Off the top of my head, and in corresponding order: the Soviet Union, French, catholicism, the so-called 'Aryan' race. These examples are of course non-limitative and debatable (esp. in the case of religion, where it could be argued that Europe was/is overwhelmingly christian, but also that the devastating wars between its sects suggest otherwise).



(2) No armed conflict has ever been fought between member states of the EU (or its predecessor, the European Economic Community). On the other hand, the organisation has proved embarrasingly powerless to stop armed conflict in its own backyard - the Yugoslav wars in the mid-1990s ended only through US-led NATO intervention.



(3) Except where they pertain to Icelanders, those credit-crunching, volcano-firing, cod-hogging, elf-worshiping, Bjork-exporting bastards.


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