Tata takes over Jaguar & Land Rover

Tata Motors Buys Land Rover, Jaguar For $2.3 Billion!!!!

"Tata Motors has finally lapped up Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co., the world’s third- largest automaker, for $2.3 billion, which is less than half what Ford paid for the two brands"

Counting losses and product development, analysts figure Ford spent more than $10 billion on the brands. Ford acquired Jaguar in 1989 for $2.5 billion and Land Rover in 2000 for $2.73 billion as part of a European-luxury strategy it began by buying Aston Martin in 1987. It sold Aston last year.

(Jaguar, which was founded in 1922 and Land Rover, founded in 1948 — the year after India gained its independence from Britain)

For the Tatas, it will be a challenge to turn around the luxury models. It has bought out two loss makiing luxury brands. Tata has obtained $3 billion for funidng the acquisition.

Tata said Ford will continue to supply engines, transmissions and other components for five to nine years. The Indian company said it expects no significant changes for Jaguar and Land Rover's 16,000 workers, and its statements said it would preserve the heritage of the brands.

"We have enormous respect for the two brands and will endeavour to preserve and build on their heritage and competitiveness, keeping their identities intact," Tata's chairman, Ratan Tata assured.

So Tata has decided to retain manufacturing of Jaguar and Land Rover in Britain, which may result in higher costs of production due to rising material prices in Western Europe.

"The biggest challenge for Tata Motors is to balance the increase in costs with tradition, quality and performance of Jaguar and Land Rover," -industry analyst.

Indian auto components makers may not gain immediate entry into the Jaguar and Land Rover plants acquired by Tata Motors, experts have said.

The sale of Jaguar and Land Rover is part of a radical reshaping of Ford, which is struggling to return to profitability in the face of crippling healthcare and pension costs and competition from foreign carmakers. Earlier this year, it sold Aston Martin and it is expected to sell Volvo, the Swedish car group.

Set Up Dynamic DNS

If you have a home broadband connection, odds are you have a dynamic IP address one that changes every so often. This is fine until you feel the need to connect to your home computer from somewhere outside your house. Without a constant, static, never-changing IP address, you don't have a reliable way to find your home computer on the internet.

Why would you want to do such a thing? There are many possibilities. Maybe you want to make a Remote Desktop connection to your grandma's computer to help her find a document she lost. Or maybe you want to stream music from your home media server to your office across town. Using Dynamic DNS, you can do anything that would normally require a static IP address without paying the extra monthly fees your broadband provider would usually charge for such a service.

Read More http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Set_Up_Dynamic_DNS

Adobe Flex

Traditional application programmers found it challenging to adapt to the animation metaphor upon which the Flash Platform was originally designed. Flex seeks to minimize this problem by providing a workflow and programming model that is familiar to these developers. MXML, an XML-based markup language, offers a way to quickly build and lay out graphic user interfaces. Interactivity is achieved through the use of ActionScript, the core language of Flash Player that is based on the ECMAScript standard.

The Flex SDK comes with a set of user interface components including buttons, list boxes, trees, data grids, several text controls, and various layout containers. Charts and graphs are available as an add-on. Other features like web services, drag and drop, modal dialogs, animation effects, application states, form validation, and other interactions round out the application framework.

In a multi-tiered model, Flex applications serve as the presentation tier. Unlike page-based HTML applications, Flex applications provide a stateful client where significant changes to the view don't require loading a new page. Similarly, Flex and Flash Player provide many useful ways to send and load data to and from server-side components without requiring the client to reload the view. Though this functionality offered advantages over HTML and JavaScript development in the past, the increased support for XMLHttpRequest in major browsers has made asynchronous data loading a common practice in HTML-based development too.

Technologies that are commonly compared to Flex include OpenLaszlo, Ajax, XUL, JavaFX and Windows Presentation Foundation technologies such as Silverlight.

http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/

Adobe Photoshop Express Now Live and Free

Adobe's Photoshop Express, its free, online version of Photoshop is live right now. Targeted at everyday consumers, it's Photoshop stripped down to a pretty slick Flash 9-powered web app we got a demo of earlier today. It's super easy to crop, adjust saturation or exposure, or perform several other simple, but solid photo tweaks, like pop color (pictured). You won't be doing any heavy lifting with it, since you can't work with layers, add text or do anything really awesome, like amazing Giz-style comic bubbles, but your mom will be able to make her pictures look better than ever.

http://www.photoshop.com/express

Beautiful bottom of sea

A380 Cockpit

Take 3D tour on Air Bus A380 cockpit in here.

http://www.gillesvidal.com/blogpano/cockpit1.htm

Sony Alpha A900

Sony's 25 Megapixel Alpha A900 full-frame DSLR camera will be soon in market.

Macintosh Software Stall

There are various softwares which are supported for Macintosh operating system. Only for Mac guys.

http://mac4share.com

Eight Lies of a Mother

This story begins when I was a child: I was born poor. Often we hadn't enough to eat. Whenever we had some food, Mother often gave me her portion of rice. While she was transferring her rice into my bowl, she would say "Eat this rice, son! I'm not hungry."
That was Mother's First Lie.

As I grew, Mother gave up her spare time to fish in a river near our house; she hoped that from the fish she caught, she could give me a little bit more nutritious food for my growth. Once she had caught just two fish, she would make fish soup. While I was eating the soup, mother would sit beside me and eat what was still left on the bone of the fish I had eaten; my heart was touched when I saw it. Once I gave the other fish to her on my chopstick but she immediately refused it and said, "Eat this fish, son! I don't really like fish."
That was Mother's Second Lie.

Then, in order to fund my education, Mother went to a Match Factory to bring home some used matchboxes which she filled with fresh matchsticks. This helped her get some money to cover our needs. One wintry night I awoke to find Mother filling the matchboxes by candlelight. So I said, "Mother, go to sleep; it's late: you can continue working tomorrow morning." Mother smiled and said "Go to sleep, son! I'm not tired."
That was Mother's Third Lie.

When I had to sit my Final Examination, Mother accompanied me. After dawn, Mother waited for me for hours in the heat of the sun. When the bell rang, I ran to meet her. Mother embraced me and poured me a glass of tea that she had prepared in a thermos. The tea was not as strong as my Mother's love, Seeing Mother covered with perspiration; I at once gave her my glass and asked her to drink too. Mother said "Drink, son! I'm not thirsty!
That was Mother's Fourth Lie.

After Father's death, Mother had to play the role of a single parent. She held on to her former job; she had to fund our needs alone. Our family's life was more complicated. We suffered from starvation. Seeing our family's condition worsening, my kind Uncle who lived near my house came to help us solve our problems big and small. Our other neighbors saw that we were poverty stricken so they often advised my mother to marry again. But Mother refused to remarry saying "I don't need love."
That was Mother's Fifth Lie.

After I had finished my studies and gotten a job, it was time for my old Mother to retire but she carried on going to the market every morning just to sell a few vegetables. I kept sending her money but she was steadfast and even sent the money back to me. She said, "I
have enough money."
That was Mother's Sixth Lie.

I continued my part-time studies for my Master's Degree. Funded by the American Corporation for which I worked, I succeeded in my studies. With a big jump in my salary, I decided to bring Mother to enjoy life in America but Mother didn't want to bother her son; she said to me "I'm not used to high living."
That was Mother's Seventh Lie.

In her dotage, Mother was attacked by cancer and had to be hospitalized. Now living far across the ocean, I went home to visit Mother who was bedridden after an operation. Mother tried to smile but I was heartbroken because she was so thin and feeble but Mother said, "Don't cry, son! I'm not in pain."
That was Mother's Eighth Lie.

Telling me this, her eighth lie, she died. Yes, mother was an angel!

M - O - T - H - E - R

"M" is for the Million things she gave me,
"O" means only that she's growing old,
"T" is for the Tears she shed to save me,
"H" is for her Heart of gold,
"E" is for her Eyes with love-light shining in them,
"R" means Right, and right she'll always be,

Put them all together, they spell "MOTHER" a word that means the world to me. For those of you who are lucky to be still blessed with your Mom's presence on Earth, this story is beautiful. For those who aren't so blessed, this is even more beautiful.

Workshop In Advanced Networking

Date : 03rd, 04th, 10th & 11th May 2008

Time : 09:00 AM - 05:30 PM

Venue : Advanced Computing Laboratory,
Department of Computer Science & Engineering,
University of Moratuwa,
Katubedda,
Moratuwa

Intended Audience
This programme is catering the needs of the candidates who have a fair knowledge on networking and want to become experts in the subject. Participants are required to have some prior experience in networking.

Course Content

• Introduction to Networking : Why do we need networking, Types of Networks (LAN, WAN, WLAN), Data transmission media, Strucutured cabling, Networking standards, Network topologies, Network devices, Introduction to TCP/IP, IP Addressing
• Setting up a LAN : Switches, Hubs, Gateways , Identifying different types of cables, Use of tools, Dial-up networking, Connecting to the Internet, Network Services: DHCP, NAT, DNS, Network Utilities: ping, tracert/traceroute, nslookup, inconfig /ifconfig, arp, netstat, tcpdump/ethereal
• Setting up a DHCP/NAT Server (Windows/Linux) WAN Technologies, Introduction to Routing, Advanced Routing : Static Routing
• Dynamic Routing - RIP/OSPF
• Networking & Security : Security policy, Best practices, Current trends, Viruses & Protection, Scanners,VPN , Windows Firewall
• VLAN : Configuring Virtual LAN
• WLAN : Configuring Wireless LAN

Course Fee

• LKR 16,500/- per participant*
• Special package for Universities - LKR 14,000/- per participant*
• 25% discount for the each 3rd participant from the same organisation (not applicable to Universities)
• All payments should be done via cheque, drawn in favour of "University of Moratuwa" or by cash.

* - Inclusive of course material, lunch & refreshments

Payment Method

• Hand Delivery (cheques or cash) : Aloka, Workshop Organizing Committee, CS&ES, c/o Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa. (All payments should be done via cheque drawn in favour of "University of Moratuwa" or by cash)
• By Registered Post (cheques only) : Advanced Networking Workshop, Workshop Organizing Committee, CS&ES, c/o Department of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Moratuwa. (All payments should be done via cheque drawn in favour of "University of Moratuwa")

We have only a limited number of spaces. Please make sure to do your reservation well in advance.

Course Registration

• Online registration : http://www.mrt.ac.lk/cses/form.html
• Phone
• +94-11-2640384 - Tharindu
• +94-11-2640387 - Aloka
• +94-71-3025759 - Indika
• +94-11-2640380 - Prasad
• Fax: +94-11-2650912 ATTN: Advanced Networking Workshop
• E-mail: cses@cse.mrt.ac.lk

Wind power

Wind power is the conversion of wind energy into useful form, such as electricity, using wind turbines. In windmills, wind energy is directly used to crush grain or to pump water.Wind power is produced in large scale wind farms connected to electrical grids, as well as in individual turbines for providing electricity to isolated locations.Wind energy is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions when it displaces fossil-fuel-derived electricity. The intermittency of wind seldom creates insurmountable problems when using wind power to supply a low proportion of total demand, but it presents extra costs when wind is to be used for a large fraction of demand.This is the best solution for developing countries such as Sri Lanka,due to floating oil price.


Inside a wind turbine