Think of it like this: the art of making it as easy as possible for your blog's visitors to do exactly what you want them to do.
That simple, super-effective tip on putting your feed icon high up in your sidebar is usability at work. So is putting social media buttons at the bottom of your posts. So is putting popular posts in your sidebar. In fact, some of the coolest, simplest things you can do to get more subscribers, links and loyal readers come from usability.
Setting aside an hour or two to re-arrange your layout with usability in mind will pay long-term dividends for your blog's growth. Here are my top 5 tips to help you get started.
#1 — Be predictable:
When we want to know what a site is about, the first thing we look for is an 'About' page.
When we want to contact the owner of a site, the first thing we look for is a 'Contact' page.
When we want to leave a comment, we usually look to the bottom of a post.
When we want to subscribe to a blog, we look for the subscribe button at the top of its sidebar.
These things are so common that they've become standards — things we expect. When we can't find the standard, we look for the next most similar thing.
By adhering to these predictable standards you're actually making it as easy as possible for your blog's visitors to do exactly what you want them to do. Sometimes being predictable is not a bad thing!
#2 — Be obvious:
Look down at your keyboard and you'll probably be able to spot at least one key that you've never noticed before, either because you have no need for it or you don't know what it does. It could be the most useful key ever, but our hesitation when confronted with the unknown has probably stopped you ever pressing it before. What if it deletes everything you just wrote?
We don't like not knowing what the result of our actions will be, and so it goes with your blog. Non-obvious links and buttons will very rarely be clicked. In my experiments with private advertising, there can be as much as an 800% difference in click-through rates between ambiguous banners and ones which make it obvious where the reader will be taken when they click on it. Scour your blog and ask this question of every element: would a new visitor know what this does, or where it leads?
#3 — Subtract the unimportant:
By hiding important elements (your most popular posts, your feed icon, your comment button) amongst a dozen other unimportant things (widgets and recent comments) you're making it harder for readers to do what is truly important to you.
#4 — Limit options:
A category list with 10 categories is a lot more usable than a list with 50 categories. Too many options creates overload which leads to deferral: a visitor will not engage with that element at all. Your list of 5 most popular posts will get clicked more than your list of 20, and so on. Simplified options make it easier for the visitor to decide where they want to place their attention. Too much choice will actually hurt your blog's usability.
#5 — Do the little things:
A usable blog, aside from the above, is also made-up of many little touches that make your visitor's browsing experience easier.
Does your header image link back to your main page?
Does your blog have an about page?
Does your blog have a contact page?
Do your headlines match with your content?
Is it clear where your links will lead?
Do you use frequent paragraphs in your posts?
Do you have comment links at the bottom of your post?
Do you use sub-headings?
Are your posts less than 2/3 screen length wide?
Are you making your best posts easily accessible?
Are your links easy to pick out?
Points to review:
Predictability is a good thing for usability.
Be creative with your posts, but obvious in your layout elements.
Subtract obstacles to your most wanted actions.
Simplify options to make your elements easier to use.
Pay attention to little touches that your visitors will find useful.
©Problogger
They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world's most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.
In fact, they say they are sometimes paid secretly by the Chinese government -- a claim the Beijing government denies.
"No Web site is one hundred percent safe. There are Web sites with high-level security, but there is always a weakness," says Xiao Chen, the leader of this group.
"Xiao Chen" is his online name. Along with his two colleagues, he does not want to reveal his true identity. The three belong to what some Western experts say is a civilian cyber militia in China, launching attacks on government and private Web sites around the world.
If there is a profile of a cyber hacker, these three are straight from central casting -- young and thin, with skin pale from spending too many long nights in front of a computer.
One hacker says he is a former computer operator in the People's Liberation Army; another is a marketing graduate; and Xiao Chen says he is a self-taught programmer.
"First, you must know about the Web site you want to attack. You must know what program it is written with," says Xiao Chen. "There is a saying, 'Know about both yourself and the enemy, and you will be invincible.'"
CNN decided to withhold the address of these hackers' Web site, but Xiao Chen says it has been operating for more than three years, with 10,000 registered users. The site offers tools, articles, news and flash tutorials about hacking.
Private computer experts in the United States from iDefense Security Intelligence, which provides cybersecurity advice to governments and Fortune 500 companies, say the group's site "appears to be an important site in the broader Chinese hacking community."
Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks of on-again, off-again e-mail exchanges. When they finally agreed, CNN was told to meet them on the island of Zhoushan, just south of Shanghai and a major port for China's navy.
The apartment has cement floors and almost no furniture. What they do have are three of the latest computers. They are cautious when it comes to naming the Web sites they have hacked.
But eventually Xiao Chen claims two of his colleagues -- not the ones with him in the room -- have hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information, although he wouldn't specify what was gleaned. CNN has no way to confirm if his claim is true.
At the Athens Olympics in 2004, steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, like millions of other Indian sports fans, was distressed: There was hardly anyone to cheer for.
Reuters reviewed some of the country's memorable Olympic moments, and its best bets for a win in the 2008 Beijing games.
Though India is a budding superpower and, after China, the most-populous nation in the world, its Olympic record is dreadful. And the government's efforts to groom future Olympians have been inadequate. In Athens, India took home just one medal, a silver for shooting -- less than the medal counts of Zimbabwe and North Korea. Archrival China won 32 golds, second only to the U.S. "That really disappointed me," Mr. Mittal says.
Now Mr. Mittal, 57 years old, who left India as a young man to amass one of the world's largest personal fortunes, is trying to do something about it. The billionaire has committed $10 million so far to the Mittal Champions Trust, a nonprofit effort to promote sporting excellence in India. The trust aims to improve India's Olympic record -- at least a bit -- by spotting a few promising athletes in this nation of 1.1 billion and introducing them to the kind of modern sports training that smaller, poorer countries mastered decades ago. At least 10 of its trained athletes will compete for India in Beijing.
One of the brightest prospects today is Mangal Singh Champia, a 24-year-old archer from the village of Ichakuti in Jharkhand, one of India's poorest states. Children in the village, which has no electricity, use bows and arrows to shoot birds; adults use them to kill wildcats, lions and boars.
Mr. Singh first picked up a bow and arrow at the age of 8 or 9, he says. For sport, his friends would take potshots at kingfishers and wild doves. He bought his first bow when he was 11 for six rupees (15 cents). "I told my father I was buying a book," he says.
He says he first heard of archery as an Olympic sport while listening to his cousin's radio during the Barcelona Summer Games in 1992. "I was thinking, this game of my village is being played abroad, I wish I was there."
Over the next few years, he began to build a reputation as an archer at local and state competitions. Hired to compete in archery contests for the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, he spent time in his early twenties there. His main income was prize money. A typical first prize was about $600. He spent days in cramped train compartments en route to tournaments. He had no fixed training program and practiced only when he felt like it, firing a hand-me-down bow at worn targets.
Tiring Circuit
As things stood, Mr. Singh probably would have continued to pound this tiring circuit and might never have had a chance to realize his Olympic dream. The Indian government's priorities have been to promote basic access to sports rather than foster a cadre of world-beating athletes. Of about 770 million people under the age of 35, only 50 million have access to any organized sport or games, according to government calculations. The country's main training body, the Sports Authority of India, trains only 13,000 or so athletes at its facilities.
Indian sport also faces all the broader problems plaguing the nation, starting with poverty and a delinquent public-educational system. Families, understandably, have been more keen on urging their children to achieve academic success than athletic glory.
Cricket Power
It's not that Indians are uninterested in athletics. Sports were encouraged under the maharajas who long ago ruled swaths of the country. India is a major power in cricket. In the first half of the 20th century, it was pre-eminent in men's field hockey, winning successive Olympic gold medals from 1928 to 1956, and then again in 1964 and 1980. But when field hockey switched to artificial surfaces from grass, many clubs couldn't afford to make the change, and the country's standing slipped. At Athens, India came in seventh in the hockey competition.
"Looking at the size of Indian democracy, I think Indian athletes need much more support," says Mr. Mittal, who plays an occasional game of badminton and likes to cycle around Hyde Park in London, where he now lives.His Indian program, founded in November 2005, aims to give its athletes everything they need to succeed. Beyond world-class coaching and facilities, athletes get emotional support, says Manisha Malhotra, the trust's administrator. It backs shooters, boxers, a swimmer, and badminton and squash players -- a total of 32 athletes so far. Scores more have applied and been rejected.
Mr. Singh joined the program in February 2006, and now lives in a training camp about a two-hour drive from the high-tech hub of Bangalore. The trust typically pays athletes around $125 to $250 a month. Mr. Singh sends much of that money home for his family and younger siblings' education. "I feel happy that I don't have to ask for money from home," says the archer.
One of the biggest challenges has been to improve Mr. Singh's discipline, says his 51-year-old coach, Sumesh Chandra Roy, a former archery coach for the Indian army. He now has Mr. Singh and the other handful of archers on a strict schedule.
They arise around 5 a.m., stretch, and then go for a long run or walk. Then comes yoga, with its concentration on breathing, meditation and chanting. After breakfast, target practice.
One day recently, a group of the Mittal archers fired six arrows a set at targets 230 feet away over the course of three minutes, then sauntered over to collect them, chatting along the way. Mr. Singh now shoots with a Win&Win bow worth about $3,500. The archers frequently replace their targets. "When the face of the board is new, we can aim better," he says.
Goddess of Food
Lunch is Indian vegetarian food -- rice, lentil and vegetable curries, yogurt and dessert -- all served up in a noisy cafeteria named for Annapoorna, the Hindu goddess of food.
After a rest, they do more target practice, followed by weight training, dinner and night practice for those who want it. They also spend time with nutritionists, sports psychologists, physiotherapists, sports-medicine doctors and fitness experts. The trust is "trying to instill a work ethic of fitness," says Ms. Malhotra, the program's administrator.
At the 15th Asian Archery Championships in China last September, Mr. Singh got the highest overall score in an early round, in one of the world's biggest archery tournaments, with competitors from across Asia.
He was beaten in a semifinal knockout, but his sharp shooting had won for India a place in the men's individual archery event in Beijing. He is not a shoo-in for that slot. The final say on who represents India rests with India's Archery Association, which will make a decision closer to the Beijing games in August. "We have said that he has to keep his stature," says Vijaykumar Malhotra, the association's president.
Mr. Singh says he is determined to reap the rewards of all this training. "I am so fired up that whatever's expected of me to win, whatever effort's expected, I will do it," he says.reuters
The Japanese population is believed to have peaked at about 127.5 million in 2005. Since then the figure has declined, with some estimates suggesting the population could shrink to 105 million by 2050. The drop is feared to have negative impacts on the nation's labor force and grave social and economic consequences. Recent reports seem to indicate that the sexual proclivities of Japanese men are contributing adversely to the situation.
More and more men, reports maintain, are turning to masturbation and sex toys rather than to their female counterparts. And further exacerbating an already declining birthrate of 1.29 children per women found in a 2004 survey by The Daily Yomiuri, is the fact that some men are increasingly turning their backs on sex.
"Sex is just way too much trouble," a 35-year-old Japanese man told Shukan Asahi this week, adding that ever since he used masturbation as a teenager, he's never desired a woman again. "As long as I have a sex toy available, I don't need women. I can't come when I have sex, and you've got to put a lot of emotion into dealing with women. Self-pleasure is a hell of a lot less demanding than trying to please somebody else."
Pornography, masturbation aids, Internet porn sites and social networks that lead to "virtual relationships", soaplands and Japan's widespread prostitution industry all allow men outlets for sexual fulfillment while not fulfilling other needs, such as procreation. The alarming trend has led medical experts in Japan to coin a new term for a condition they call "vaginal ejaculation dysfunctional disorder".
"There has been a definite increase in the number of men showing signs of vaginal ejaculation dysfunction disorder, which includes such afflictions as premature and delayed ejaculation. There are physical reasons believed to be behind this, including prejudice against women, past trauma and overuse of masturbatory aids so that a vagina is unable to provide sufficient stimulation," Dr Tsuneo Akaeda, head of the Akaeda Clinic in Tokyo's Roppongi entertainment district, told Shukan Asahi.
The world's working women are on the rise, says the International Labour Organization, but many find it hard to get jobs and endure poor conditions.
The number of employed women grew by almost 200 million over the last decade, to reach 1.2 billion in 2007. This compares with 1.8 billion men.
The female unemployment rate stood at 6.4%, against the male rate of 5.7%.
Services have overtaken agriculture as the main female employer, the report on employment trends for women found.
In 2007, 36.1% of women worked in agriculture and 46.3% in services.
"Access to labour markets and to decent employment is crucial to achieving gender equality," said Evy Messell, director of the ILO's Bureau for Gender Equality.
"Yet women have to overcome many discriminatory obstacles when seeking jobs. Societies cannot afford to ignore the potential of female labour in reducing poverty," she added.
Don't shed any tears for Bill Gates.
The Microsoft Corp. co-founder, for 13 years also known as the world's richest man, has dropped to No. 3 on Forbes' annual list of the world's wealthiest individuals, following his friend, investment mogul Warren Buffett, and Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helú.
While such a demotion might bother most corporate bigwigs, Gates has for years given the impression that his thirst for success is more about competitiveness and computer code, not a lust for the finer things in life.
Michael Cherry, who worked at Microsoft for 11 years before joining the independent analyst firm Directions on Microsoft eight years ago, said he remembers Gates being most passionate about achieving technological goals, such as getting a Microsoft-powered PC into every home.
"I think he was much more interested in the impact the technology had had than the money he had made from it," Cherry said.
Rick Sherlund, one of the earliest and longest-running Microsoft financial analysts, recalled running into Gates about 15 years ago at La Guardia airport, only to discover that both were taking the same flight — and both had middle seats in coach.
"He really enjoys being studious and that's where a lot of his focus is. It's not being pretentious and flashy. That's not Bill," said Sherlund, now managing director of Galleon Group in New York.
In 2006, Gates even told an online advertising conference at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters that he actually wished he wasn't the richest man in the world.
Megan Wallent is an executive on the go.
At Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters where male executives far outnumber their female counterparts, Megan is a standout, especially for one significant difference. Until few months ago, she was a he.
"Well, I'm me," Megan said. "And I think most people would perceive me as female these days. And that's the way I present myself to the outside world."
Watch this story tonight on "Nightline" at 11:35 ET
But Megan used to be Michael, a longtime Microsoft executive who oversaw the entire Internet Explorer division of Windows for years, a leader of hundreds and an executive who interacted frequently with Bill Gates.
She still has her original Microsoft badge picture that was taken Aug. 11, 1996, the day she joined Microsoft.
Michael led a successful career and active social life filled with travel, an intense obsession for Boston sports teams and a beautiful house and family.
He's a Guy's Guy
Tina Dunn has been Michael's administrative assistant for seven years and says Michael gave no hint of being a man conflicted about his gender or anything else for that matter.
"He's a guy's guy," Dunn said. "He's super into sports, hiking. You know, what I consider a guy's guy. He was into all of the things that guys are into."
Michael's secret had been with him and him alone for his entire life.
"[The] feeling that I had for the longest time -- since I can remember being really small -- is that something wasn't quite right," he said. "And I didn't know what it was. I didn't know what the label was. I didn't know what the outcome would be."
It would take more than three decades for those early feelings to take hold and for him to do something about it. But Michael's secret was about to change more than just his life. He had to tell his wife.
Wife: 'I Was in Tears'
After two years of marriage, wife Anh says she had no clues about her husband's struggles. The first she knew was the day day he told her.
"I was in tears," she said.
Their marriage and their baby boy's future were suddenly in doubt. At work, Dunn was among the first to find out.
"She kind of got nervous ... and she said, 'I'm transgender and these are the things that I'm going to go through,' and I was like, 'are you screwing with me?'" Dunn said.
Then came Michael's e-mail -- addressed to his entire staff. In it, the longtime executive everyone knew as a man announced he would begin "working full time as female after the first of the year."
Michael was transgender -- meaning he doesn't necessarily relate to the gender he was born with and he was about to transform.
"I had two surgeries," she said, noting that all of her surgery was from the waist up.
"One was I had breast implants and the other one was I had what's called facial feminization surgery," she said. "My jaw is different, my ears got tucked back, my hairline got changed. I don't have a brow ridge anymore, my nose got done. My lip got changed and I don't have an Adam's apple anymore."
'I Work for a Woman'
Legally he is now a she. The sex on her driver's license has been changed from M to F, as has the name on all her legal documents.
Co-workers say the remarkable transition has been utterly unremarkable to contend with.
"I work for a woman," said Erin Chapple, one of Megan's co-workers. "You know I was actually surprised at how unconfusing it's been."
Brad Anderson is now Megan's boss. Megan switched divisions at Microsoft at the same time that she switched sexes, meaning that Anderson interviewed Michael and hired Megan.
"Actually I never even thought of it," Anderson said about Megan's sexuality. "I don't. I think I'm talking to a leader who leads a significant part of my organization."
However, there are challenges. Megan's online blog includes what she calls the "crappy look counter," a collection of odd reactions she's faced. She says she's happy to answer questions from curious strangers.
"I'd much rather have somebody be curious and ask questions rather than say, 'oh, that's really weird.' So if somebody like a stranger walks up to me and asks me questions ... good for them. I'm happy, like great, like I'm happy to meet you."
Megan Not Attracted to Men
Even though Michael spent a lifetime conflicted about his gender identity, Megan says she never wavered about her sexual orientation.
"I've never been attracted to men, never even one iota. All through my transition one of the questions that Anh and I talked about was, 'boy, are you going to all of a sudden become attracted to men? Uh, is that going to be an issue?' And I said, 'no, I can't imagine that.'"
Megan is a study in contrasts. She wears women's clothes, but no dresses or makeup. She changed her appearance, but not her voice.
"I'm not confused about it at all," she said. "It's hard to explain, but I'm not confused."
But it has been confusing to Anh, the wife who found out only two years into marriage that her husband was about to become a woman.
'It Felt Like a Betrayal...'
Megan and Anh begin each day the same way -- up before dawn for a jog with their baby son.
The one day that stands out as different was Mother's Day last year, when out of the blue Michael told Anh what he was about to do. She considered leaving him.
"I considered everything," said Anh, who paused to think whether she would have married Michael knowing this was to come.
"I don't think so," she said. "I think it would have been something that would have been hard to deal with. I mean, it's hard now. But I think I'm just a different person now than I was then."
Megan and Anh have kept their marriage together, but it is still a work in progress and there are still questions.
"It felt like a betrayal," Anh said. "But it also felt more like a secret that should have come out a lot sooner, and that this big issue that he was dealing with, that in 38 years he couldn't find someone who he felt comfortable enough to open up to and share this."
"I wasn't strong enough,"Megan said. "And I hadn't come to terms with it myself."
Megan Tells Her Kids to Be 'True'
And then there are the kids -- a baby boy with Anh and two older children from Michael's first marriage. Some might believe that he is being selfish and that this selfishness is unfair to his kids.
"Honestly, the whole selfish issue is one that I've struggled with a lot," Megan said. "And how can it be selfish and how can it be selfish and appear selfish to your children, especially, to model the behavior of being true to oneself? So we always try to tell our kids, you have to be true to yourself. You have to be who you are. You have to be honest with yourself."
Megan and Anh say they haven't lost any friends and their life is remarkably normal, considering all they've been through.
"A lot of those challenges [have] actually become a lot easier than I expected," Anh said. "I think our fears were much more, we thought it was insurmountable. But it's been actually a lot easier."
They plan on staying together -- husband and wife -- if slightly different than the way they started out.
Just by looking at it, you'd never guess that Sony's new Alpha A300 digital camera represents a huge technical breakthrough. To discover what it is, you need a tour of its innards. Keep hands and feet inside the tram at all times.
On an ordinary single-lens reflex camera (those big black pro models), light enters from the lens and is split by a semi-transparent mirror. Part of the light goes to the eyepiece viewfinder, and the other part goes downward to the autofocus sensor.
When you press the shutter button, that mirror flips up out of the light's path, revealing — aha! — a small rectangular image sensor, the computer chip that records the photo.
Already, you've learned enough to answer one of the great digital camera mysteries: Why must you hold these cameras up to your eye? Why can't you frame a photo using an S.L.R.'s back-panel screen, as you can on a little pocket camera?
Actually, a few recent S.L.R. models do, in fact, have this Live View feature, but it's mostly a disaster. It works by flipping that mirror up out of the way, so that light from the lens hits the image sensor, which feeds the image to the screen. Trouble is, once the mirror goes up, no light hits the autofocus sensor, so the camera can't focus.
So here's what happens when you press the shutter button. There's a noisy clank as the mirror drops down again; the screen goes black; the camera computes focus and exposure; the mirror lifts again; the screen comes back to life; and finally — a second or so later — the shot is recorded.
In other words, Live View on existing cameras is slow, noisy and deeply confusing. All of this silliness arises because the camera's image sensor must do double duty: it's responsible for supplying the screen with a live preview and for recording the shot.
Sony's technical breakthrough on the A300, therefore, was this: "Duh! Put in another sensor!"
On this camera, turning on Live View sends light from that main mirror onto a second sensor, one that's devoted solely to feeding the preview screen. The autofocus sensor works normally as you compose a shot, since the mirror never has to flip up.
As a result, Live View is a completely different experience. The camera focuses quickly as you aim the lens, without ever blacking out the screen. When you press the shutter, the screen doesn't go on-off-on, there's no loud clacking, and there's no baffling exhibition of mirror calisthenics inside the camera.
In this regard, using the A300 can feel a lot like using a compact camera. That's precisely what Sony was hoping; it's aiming this 10-megapixel model ($763 with starter 4X zoom lens) at people who are graduating from pocket cameras to something more serious.
(For about $140 more, you can buy this camera's 14-megapixel sibling, the A350. Don't fall for it. Ten megapixels is already enough resolution for prints the size of a minivan; 14-megapixel photos just eat up your hard drive faster and slow the camera. Furthermore, if you do the math, you'll discover that a 14-megapixel photo contains only 18 percent more pixels in each dimension than a 10-megapixel shot — not 40 percent, as instinct might suggest.)
Now, serious photographers traditionally snort at the whole idea of composing shots on the screen. Only an eyepiece viewfinder shows the true scene as the camera sees it.
Social networks may be nothing new to habitués of the Internet. Several years of competition among Facebook, MySpace and Friendster have generated tens of millions of members.
But now the market is teeming with companies that want to bring the same phenomenon to the cellphone. There are so many "mobile social networking" upstarts, in fact, that when New Media Age magazine in Britain tried to identify the "ones to watch," it ended up naming 10 companies.
Some of those in the thick of battle are resigned to having a lot of company. "If there weren't competitors, there wouldn't be a market," said Dan Harple, founder and chief executive of GyPSii, a mobile social network based in Amsterdam that is a contender. "Maybe there are 30 or more now — in three years, there will be 5 that matter."
The prize, as these start-ups see it, is the 3.3 billion cellphone subscribers, a number that far surpasses the total of Internet users. The advantage over computer-based communities, they believe, is the ability to know where a cellphone is, thanks to global positioning satellites and related technologies.
The market research company Informa Telecoms said in a report last month that about 50 million people, or about 2.3 percent of all mobile users, already use the cellphone for social networking, from chat services to multimedia sharing. The company forecast that the penetration rate would mushroom to at least 12.5 percent in five years.
Most mobile social networks seek to capitalize on location information. The SpaceMe service from GyPSii, for instance, will show users where friends and other members are in real time.
A GyPSii search will show users a map of their environs dotted with photos, videos and information from other members.
Three years after Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam for making a film critical of Islam, the Netherlands is embroiled in another row over religion.
Nationalist lawmaker Geert Wilders plans to release a short film called ``Fitna'' this month, in which he links verses from the Koran to violence. Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has called for Wilders to scrap the movie after protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
The worst ethnic violence in the Netherlands since the end of World War II erupted in November 2004 after Van Gogh was shot and stabbed by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutchman of Moroccan descent. Muslim schools and mosques were torched in the days after the murder. As recently as October, racial tensions prompted youths to fight with police and set cars on fire in Amsterdam.
The film ``is very, very dangerous and can lead to war between Dutchmen and with other countries,'' said Mohammed Bichiri, 62, who moved to Amsterdam from Morocco 37 years ago. ``It's a threat to all Dutch people. That means also to us.''
The furor follows protests last month in the Gaza Strip and violence in Copenhagen after Danish newspapers printed cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.
The film may carry ``grave risks'' to citizens abroad, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said at a Feb. 29 press conference. ``It is our responsibility to point out to Mr. Wilders the possible consequences of his deeds,'' Balkenende said. ``Freedom doesn't relieve anyone of responsibility.''
`Submission'
Van Gogh released ``Submission,'' a short film he made with former parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali about the oppression of Muslim women, months before his murder. Somali-born Hirsi Ali received death threats for writing the script. In 2006, a political row over Hirsi Ali's right to Dutch citizenship brought down the government. She quit her job as a member of the Dutch parliament and then left the country.
Wilders, 44, says he doesn't want to incite violence.
Spice Girls singer Melanie Brown, popularly known as Mel B, has posed naked for charity campaigning against sex trafficking.
Contactmusic.com reports that Melanie stripped for the Helen Bamber Foundation, which seeks to fight for the rights of human trafficking survivors.
She said: "I'm curvier now that I've had kids but I like the way I look. Women's bodies are beautiful and any charity helping women is important."
Indo-Asian News Service
Actress Christina Ricci believes that the actor Viggo Mortensen should get a special Academy Award for his naked fight scene in "Eastern Promises".
Ricci was stunned with his performance in the movie and she feels Mortensen deserved a special mention even though he lost to Daniel Day-Lewis for best actor.
Contactmusic.com quoted her as saying: "This year there was a category missing, I am so glad that Daniel Day-Lewis won. I think he is amazing. But Viggo did some naked fighting. It's insane. There's blood and fighting and it goes on for five minutes. He deserves an award simply for the naked fighting."
IANS
Oscar winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman has topped a poll conducted by a magazine of the worst nude movie scenes of all time for his performance in "Before The Devil Knows You Are Dead".
Hoffman shares the top slot with his co-star in the film Marisa Tomei, thesun.co.uk reported.
"Philip's big, flabby bum is branded on my brain," said a source.
The top five are:
1. Philip Seymour Hoffman - "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead"
2. Patrick Dempsey - "Some Girls"
3. Terry Bradshaw - "Failure To Launch"
4. Donald Sutherland - "Space Cowboys"
5. Kathy Bates - "At Play In The Fields Of The Lord"
-IANS
In 1847, Alexander Graham Bell was born into a family with a passion for communication. His grandfather, also named Alexander Bell, had forged for himself a reputation as an impressive, if under employed, actor and orator. Endowed with a commanding speaking voice and considerable physical bearing, Alexander Bell sought to unleash in others the full potential of the spoken word. His attention was especially drawn to those for whom the act of speaking presented daunting challenges. His work with such individuals led him to publish writings that included, The Practical Elocutionist and Stammering and Other Impediments of Speech. By 1838, he was regularly being referred to in the London press as "the celebrated Professor of Elocution."
The elder Mr. Bell infused in his sons David and Melville a similar interest in the mechanics and methods of vocal communication. David's professional and personal pursuits led him to marriage and a career as a teacher of speech in Dublin, while Melville enthusiastically joined his father in his elocutionary endeavors.
Melville's keen interest in speech pathologies was undoubtedly sharpened when he found himself falling in love with a deaf woman he would eventually ask to be his wife. Eliza Grace Symonds, a painter of miniatures, was nearly ten years Melville's senior. Nevertheless, her sweet temper and refined intellect were more than enough to win his lifelong adoration and devotion. Despite being held captive in a world of virtual silence, Eliza Grace Bell developed into a talented pianist whose tenacity and determination to "hear" would especially entrance her second of three sons, Alexander Graham Bell.
A REAL SMART ALECK
Young Alexander Graham Bell, Aleck as he was known to his family, took to reading and writing at a precociously young age. Bell family lore told of his insistence upon mailing a letter to a family friend well before he had grasped any understanding of the alphabet. As he matured, Aleck displayed what came to be known as a Bell family trademark--an expressive, flexible, and resonant speaking voice.
It was through use of this impressive vocal instrument that Aleck forged a unique bond with his deaf mother. Unlike others, who spoke to Mrs. Bell through her ear tube, Aleck chose to communicate with her by speaking in low, sonorous tones very close to her forehead. Young Aleck surmised that his mother would be able to "hear" him through the vibrations his vocal intonations would make. This early insight would prove significant as Alexander Graham Bell went on to develop more elaborate theories regarding the characteristics of sound waves. It would also lend rationale to Bell's opinions as to how the deaf could be assimilated into a world of sound.
Edinburgh, Scotland in the mid-19th-century was brimming with scientific and technological developments. Within this inventive milieu, Alexander Graham Bell played the role of attentive observer and eager participant. One truth seemed inescapable: through technology came betterment.
At the age of 14, Bell conceived of a device designed to remove the husks from wheat by combining a nail brush and paddle into a rotary-brushing wheel. While visiting London with his father, Aleck was mesmerized by a demonstration of Sir Charles Wheatstone's "speaking machine." Upon their return to Edinburgh, Melville Bell, Sr. challenged Aleck and his older brother to come up with a model of their own.
Working out of their home, the industrious pair created an apparatus consisting of a facsimile mouth, throat, nose, maneuverable tongue, and bellow lungs. What's more, the contraption actually produced human-like sounds. Inspired by this success, Aleck went a step further and succeeded in manipulating the mouth and vocal chords of his Skye terrier so that the dog's growls were heard as words.
"A VERY VALUABLE BLUNDER"i
With each passing year, Alexander Graham Bell's intellectual horizons broadened. By the time he was 16, he was teaching music and elocution at a boy's boarding school. He and his brothers, Melville and Edward, traveled throughout Scotland impressing audiences with demonstrations of their father's Visible Speech techniques. Combining such ventures with continued study at the University of London, Alexander Graham Bell became intrigued by the writings of German physicist Hermann Von Helmholtz. Von Helmholtz had produced a thesis, On The Sensations of Tone, declaring that vowel sounds could be produced by a combination of electrical tuning forks and resonators. Bell's inability to read German did not deter him from hungrily consuming this information. It did however lead to his making what he would later describe as a "very valuable blunder."
Bell had somehow interpreted Von Helmholtz's findings as stating that vowel sounds could be transmitted over a wire. He would later say of this misunderstanding, "It gave me confidence. If I had been able to read German, I might never have begun my experiments in electricity."
THE DREAMING PLACE
In the midst of his early academic and professional success, the young Alexander Graham Bell was buffeted by a series of personal tragedies. Tuberculosis, the scourge of the late 19th century, claimed the lives of both of his brothers within the span of four months. Bell himself was battling the disease when, at age 23, he moved with his parents to Canada. Convalescing in what he called "his dreaming place"--a spacious farmhouse in Brantford, Ontario--Alexander Graham Bell was able to recover in mind and spirit, and dwell on his ever-expanding ambitions.
A TEACHER OF THE DEAF
In 1871, Bell began giving instruction in Visible Speech at the Boston School for Deaf Mutes. Attempting to teach deaf children to speak was considered revolutionary, and Bell was not without his detractors as he shunned what he felt were the exclusionary practices of signing and institutionalization. Bell's work with his deaf students in Boston would prove to be a watershed event in his life. One of his pupils, Mabel Hubbard, was the daughter of a man--Gardiner Greene Hubbard-- who would go on to play a vital role in Bell's life and work. While Mabel herself would one day become his wife. Bell felt that a course had been set and he would go on to consider himself, above all else, a teacher of the deaf. In testimony to the effectiveness of his work and generosity of his spirit, no lesser luminary than Helen Keller would dedicate her autobiography to him.
THE HARMONIC TELEGRAPH
Bell's ideas about transmitting speech electrically came into sharper focus during his days in Boston. As he read extensively on physics and devotedly attended lectures on science and technology, Bell worked to create what he called his "harmonic telegraph."
Since Samuel F.B. Morse completed his first telegraph line in 1843, telegraphy had blossomed into a full-fledged industry. This new industry meant nearly instantaneous communication between faraway points. While certainly a technological leap forward, successful telegraphy was nevertheless dependent upon hand-delivery of messages between telegraph stations and individuals. Also, only one message at a time could be transmitted.
Drawing parallels between multiple message and multiple notes in a musical chord, Bell arrived at his idea of the "harmonic telegraph." From this idea sprang the invention that made him immortal among inventors--the telephone.
A FATEFUL TWANG
The chance meeting between Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Watson at the electrical machine shop of Charles Williams was one of the most fortuitous in technological history. Recognized by his employer as being especially skilled in devising tools that improved the efficiency of various instruments, Watson was assigned to work with many nascent inventors. Alexander Graham Bell was just such an inventor. As the two collaborated on ways to refine Bell's "harmonic telegraph," Bell shared with Watson his vision of what would become the telephone. Watson was intrigued, and a partnership was forged.
June 2, 1875 was a milestone day for the team of Bell and Watson. Working in the transmitter room and trying to free a reed that had been too tightly wound to the pole of its electromagnet, Watson produced atwang . Bell, who had been working in the receiving room heard thetwang and came running. Bell surmised the complex overtones and timbre of the twang to be similar to those in the human voice. He was now convinced that his vision of sending speech over a wire was more than just a dream.
PATENT NUMBER 174,465
As Bell raced to perfect his telephone, he was also writing up specifications to be filed with the United States Patent Office in Washington. On March 7, 1876, he was issued patent number 174,465. Meanwhile, Bell had discovered that a wire vibrated by the voice while partially immersed in a conducting liquid, like mercury, could be made to vary its resistance and produce an undulating current. In other words, human speech could be transmitted over a wire.
On March 10, 1876, as he and Mr. Watson set out to test this finding, Bell knocked over what they were using as a transmitting liquid--battery acid. Reacting to the spilled acid, Mr. Bell is alleged to have shouted, "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!" Exactly what Bell shouted--or whether the spilling of acid ever occurred-- is a matter of some dispute. Its result, however, is not. Watson, working in the next room, heard Bell's voice through the wire. Watson had received the first telephone call, and quickly went to answer it.
Seizing upon the opportunity to promote his new invention, Alexander Graham Bell introduced the telephone to the world at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro exclaimed, "My God, it talks," as Bell's mellifluous voice carried Hamlet's soliloquy over the line from the main building one hundred yards away. The success of Bell's telephone was now the talk of the international scientific community.
In 1878, Rutherford B. Hayes was the first US president to have a telephone installed in the White House. And to whom did the commander-in-chief place his first call? Alexander Graham Bell, of course, who was waiting for the call some 13 miles away from the White House. The president's first words were said to have been, "Please speak more slowly."
BIG BUSINESS
In the wake of Bell's invention of the telephone came an avalanche of patent lawsuits and corporate maneuvers. Western Union Telegraph Company was the titan in the field of telegraphy and was not content to sit on the sidelines as the Bell Telephone Company captured the spotlight. Feverishly working to develop their own telephone technology, Western Union employed two prominent inventors--Thomas A. Edison and Elisha Gray. Looking to protect its patent rights, the Bell Company sued Western Union and won. In the years that followed, the Bell Company (which would eventually become AT&T) would be forced to defend its patent in over 600 legal challenges. In every case, the patent withstood attack thanks largely to Alexander Graham Bell's clear and convincing testimony.
EXPANDING INTERESTS
Bell had little interest in playing a day-to-day role in the workings of the company that bore his name. Barely in his thirties, rich and famous, Bell continued to pursue an active life of the mind. His post-telephone inventions included an electric probe used to locate bullets and other metal objects lodged in the body, and the vacuum jacket which, when placed around the chest, administered artificial respiration. Each of these inventions would later be refined and supplanted by other inventors, but Bell's contributions to the world of science and technology never abated. He was a student of nature's mysteries and became fascinated with the notion of motion--in the air and on the water. Working with partners, he experimented with manned kites and hydrofoils.
Eager to infuse a love of science and the natural world in others, Bell lent considerable financial and editorial support to both Science magazine and National Geographic. Upon Bell's death on August 2, 1922, the nation's phones stilled their ringing for a silent minute in tribute to the man whose yearning to communicate made them possible. credits PBS
The latest bane of office productivity is Scrabulous, a virtual knockoff of the Scrabble board game, with over 700,000 players a day and nearly three million registered users.
Fans of the game are obsessive. They play against friends, co-workers, family members and strangers, and many have several games going at once.
Everyone seems to love the online game — everyone, that is, except the companies that own the rights to Scrabble: Hasbro, which sells it in North America, and Mattel, which markets it everywhere else.
In January, they denounced Scrabulous as piracy and threatened legal action against its creators, two brothers in Calcutta named Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla who run a software development company. Both Hasbro and Mattel said they were hoping for a solution that would not force them to shut down the game.
Jayant Agarwalla, 21, said they did not create Scrabulous to make money, even though they now collect about $25,000 a month from online advertising. They just wanted to play Scrabble on their computers, and their favorite (unauthorized) site had started charging, he said.
"Our family has been playing the game for 50 years now," he said, and received a set when the game first came out in India. His mother encouraged him and his 26-year-old brother, Rajat, to play as a learning tool, often with a dictionary by the board.
Scrabulous, which most users play on the Facebook social-networking site, has a board that looks just like Scrabble, and the same number of letter tiles with the same point values. Players can send invitations to others on Facebook or search for strangers to play with by posting messages.
There is no time limit for moves or games. Scrabulous keeps track of player statistics, and it does not allow fake words. It cannot, however, prevent players from cheating. One method is an unaffiliated online "helper" program, which generates a list of possible words based on the letters a user has.
Two game companies, RealNetworks of Seattle and Electronic Arts of Redwood City, Calif., say they have signed deals with Hasbro to create online versions of the company's games. Both say their versions of Scrabble will be out shortly. But Scrabulous has already brought Scrabble a newfound virtual popularity that none of the game companies could have anticipated.
The threat of legal action has not gained the companies many admirers. Many Scrabulous fans, some of whom say they bought the board game for the first time after playing the online version on Facebook, call their approach heavy-handed and out of touch.
"The big thing that Hasbro is missing is that this is targeting a young audience that in general is not into board games," said Venkat Koduru, the 15-year-old founder of the Facebook group "Save Scrabulous."
Mr. Koduru had three Scrabulous games going as of Wednesday. He has gathered names of more than 1,000 people who have pledged to never buy a Scrabble board if Hasbro and Mattel shut down the online game.
Other groups devoted to saving the game have recently been created on Facebook, including "Please God, I Have So Little: Don't Take Scrabulous Too." Tens of thousands of fans have joined in, threatening to boycott Hasbro and Mattel products.
Iain Morgan, 34, a music producer in London who goes by the name Iain Easy, is playing 25 games of Scrabulous at the same time. The funny thing is, he said, he was never a fan of the original board game.
Mr. Morgan, who is the host of a Facebook group called "Help, I'm a Scrabulous Addict," attributes the game's popularity to "all these people who are bored at work in their office," and added that the game keeps him in regular contact with his mother.
The legal questions concerning Scrabulous are complicated by the interests of the companies that own the rights to Scrabble.
Harold Zeitz, senior vice president for games at RealNetworks, said Friday that he was working closely with the Agarwalla brothers to bring the official Scrabble game to Facebook users.
Hasbro, meanwhile, said in a statement that Electronic Arts was planning to release an online version of Scrabble this spring. And Mattel, which signed a deal with RealNetworks last July, says that settling with the Agarwallas would set a bad precedent.
Neither Hasbro nor Mattel would disclose the number of Scrabble board games they have sold since Scrabulous started becoming popular last year. Hasbro estimates it sells one million to two million Scrabble boards a year in North America.
To some online marketing experts, Scrabulous represents a turning point for the board game industry, which has struggled for years to recreate itself as new generations turned alternatives like the Xbox and the GameBoy.
"If you're Hasbro or Mattel, it isn't in your interest to shut this down," said Matt Mason, a consultant to the entertainment industry and author of "The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism."
The board game industry will be forced to adapt, Mr. Mason predicts, just as the music industry has adjusted to unauthorized downloads of songs. "If something's already out there and proven, the companies should go with it," he said.
For their part, Mattel and Hasbro are trying to protect their franchise as consumers turn increasingly to the Internet for entertainment. They say they consider Scrabble a crown jewel and are working on marketing campaigns for the game's 60th anniversary this year. The plans include adding anniversary labels to Scrabble packaging and introducing a folding edition of the deluxe Scrabble board.
Scrabble began as Lexico in 1931, the creation of an out-of-work architect, Alfred Mosher Butts. He determined the frequency of each letter in the game and its value by reviewing the front page of The New York Times. His patent was denied, and it was 17 years before he found a manufacturer, which renamed the game Scrabble.
It took many more years before Scrabble became popular, thanks in part to a Macy's chairman who was a fan, according to the game's official history.
The Scrabble brand in North America was passed from manufacturer to manufacturer. It landed with Hasbro in 1989. The British game maker J. W. Spear & Sons owned the rights outside North America until the company was bought by Mattel in 1994.
The board game has had a core group of close-knit, intense fans for decades. They attend tournaments, refer to amateurs as "living room players," and memorize lists of two-letter words.
Until Scrabulous landed on Facebook, no one could have mistaken the game, which had only a few thousand users, for a fast-growing phenomenon.
The Agarwallas introduced their first Scrabble knockoff Web site, bingobinge.com, in August 2005, and renamed it Scrabulous.com a year later. In May 2007, one of the site's users suggested they adapt the game as a Facebook application, and it took off.
After 25 years with the National Scrabble Association, John D. Williams Jr., the executive director, said he had seen numerous copyright infringements of Scrabble, but the Scrabulous program on Facebook was the most "widespread and intense."
Dozens of other Web sites offer unauthorized versions of Scrabble, but most force users to play in real time or require clunky downloads to play.
"People believe it to be in the public domain, like chess," Mr. Williams said. "The idea that Scrabble belongs to a corporation is something that people don't or are unwilling to accept."
The Agarwalla brothers are avid players themselves — Jayant had 14 Scrabulous games going as of Saturday, and Rajat was playing 19.
Jayant, who is responsible for the game's player interface and customer support, said, "People rarely find time to sit down anymore with their family and friends, to invite people over, to prepare the tea and biscuits."
Even though it is easy to cheat at Scrabulous, he says he thinks few players actually do. "You may be doing it for personal glory, but it really takes the fun out of the game," he said.
© The New York Times Company