Times Square for New Year's Eve 2010

Fergie is hosting in Vegas, Ryan Seacrest in Time Square and J-Lo is gong to be performing right before Time Square count down. Tune into abc.com

Picture of the Year: Obama taking oath of office - TODAY People

Barack Obama takes the oath of office at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2009, as his family looks on. Taken by photographer Chuck Kennedy with a remote-controlled camera mounted on the podium, the iconic photo was chosen as the winner of 2009: The Year in Pictures 

Create-A-Greeting-Card $10,000 Scholarship Contest* -- Deadline: Janaury 15, 2010

You are invited to enter The 3rd Annual Create-A-Greeting-Card $10,000 Scholarship Contest, plus win $1,000 for your school.

Design a greeting card and win a $10,000 scholarship plus, your entry will be made into a bona fide greeting card by the leading publisher of premium quality cards in the United States, The Gallery Collection.

Submit original photo, artwork or computer graphics for the front of a greeting card.

Contest submissions accepted from March 17, 2009 - January 15, 2010

Age eligibility: Must be 14 years or older at time of entry and be enrolled in High School, College or University

*Create-a-Greeting-Card Scholarship Contest is also known as Create-a-Holiday-Card Scholarship Contest, Create-a-Birthday-Card Scholarship Contest and Create-a-Christmas-Card Scholarship Contest. One $10,000 and one $1,000 prize will be awarded regardless of contest name entered. Any type of greeting card design is eligible regardless of which contest name it is submitted under.

Apply Now! (click link) Download Application (click link)

Looking for Job Security - Try COBOL

Learn the language and the culture and you might land a job that that lasts until retirement
A career as a Cobol programmer might not be as sexy as slinging Java code or scripting in Ruby, but if you buckle down and learn hoary old Cobol, you could land one of the safest, most secure jobs in IT.
Analyst reports indicate that Cobol salaries are on the upswing. The language is easy to learn, there's a healthy demand for the skills, and offshore Cobol programmers are in short supply -- plus, the language itself holds the promise of longevity. All that loose talk about mainframes going away has subsided, and companies committed to big iron need Cobol pros to give them love.

To learn about other skills in high-demand during tight times, read "Recession-proof IT jobs." ]
In a troubled economy, with analysts forecasting IT spending slowdowns, secure IT positions could quickly become scarcer than they are today. Seasoned Cobol programmers, in contrast, "should be in pretty good shape job-wise. If they have a position at an organization that intends to keep its legacy Cobol apps, then they are probably set for life," says industry analyst Jeff Gould, director of research at Interop Systems. "Many mainframe customers with large mission-critical Cobol apps are locked into the mainframe platform. Often there is no equivalent packaged app, and it proves to be just too expensive to port the legacy Cobol to newer platforms like Intel or AMD servers."

Why Cobol is alive and well

http://bit.ly/8No4Uh

Sixth Principle of Kwanza- Kuumba

Creativity December 30, 2009
PRINCIPLE 6. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

KUUMBA (KOO-M-BAH) CREATIVITY: To do always as much as we can in the way we can in order to leave our family and community more beautiful and beneficial than when we inherited it.The sixth principle of the Nguzo Saba relates to building and developing our creative potential. It involves both aesthetic and material creations. It is essential that creativity be encouraged in all aspects of African American culture. It is through new ideas that we achieve higher levels of living and a greater appreciation for life. Each family member should find creative things to do throughout the year that will enhance the family as a whole. On this day, poetry reading, songfests, dance exhibitions and the like, can aid in promoting the importance of Kuumba.Explanation
The Kuumba principle demands continuous improvement both at the personal and family level. This principle pushes families and communities, adults and youth, not to be satisfied with “just getting by”, with not being satisfied with being average or even above average. George Washington Carver, acclaimed scientist, teaches us all that: “No one has a right to come in to the world without leaving behind a distinct and legitimate reason for having passed though it.”

Fifth Day of Kwanzaa

Purpose/Nia

NIA (NEE-AH) PURPOSE: To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.The fifth day of Kwanzaa is a day for reviewing our purpose for living. Each family member should examine his/her ability to put his/her skill or talent to use In the service of the family and community at large. Take time to reflect on your expectations from life: discuss your desires and hopes with family and friends. On this day you should try to determine if this purpose will eventually result in positive achievements for family and community.

Airport Security Cos Rise Again As Dutch To Use Body Scanners - WSJ.com

Friday there was an attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit. A Nigerian man on the flight tried to blow up the plane an hour before landing , but he was foiled by other passengers.

Attacks in London, Madrid, Bali, Oklahoma City and other places indicate that improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are among the weapons of choice of terrorists throughout the world. Scientists and engineers have developed various technologies that have been used to counter individual IED attacks, but events in Iraq and elsewhere indicate that the effectiveness of IEDs as weapons of asymmetric warfare remains.  

The components of the man's device made it past airport security metal detectors, spurring speculation that companies that make devices that can see through clothes and hidden items could experience an increase in orders.
In the latest development, all passengers boarding flights to the U.S. from Amsterdam will be screened using full-body scanners within three weeks, the Dutch government said Wednesday. The government said 15 of the scanners will be installed to help detect explosives that can't be found by metal detectors.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, where the alleged bomber boarded, has 17 whole-body scanners produced by L-3 Communications Corp. (LLL). The machines have been used only on a voluntary, pilot basis because the European Union hasn't established rules for their use that would address privacy concerns.

Ordinary citizens, extraordinary videos

The images are grainy, often jerky and hard to follow (like most footage shot using hand-held cameras and cellphones), but the message is unmistakable: in the months since the disputed Iranian presidential election in June, the people of Iran have become fluent in the new language of citizen video reporting. What might have seemed an isolated moment immediately following the election, when we watched videos of Iranians marching, battling and even dying on the streets of Tehran, appears to have become an essential part of their struggle.

Ujamaa- Principle 4: Shared Wealth

Fourth Day of Kwanzaa- Ujamaa
UJAMAA (00-JAH-MAH) COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS: To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and profit from them together.Out of the fundamental concepts of “African Communal Living” comes the fourth principle of Kwanzaa. In a community or family, wealth and resources should be shared. On the national level, cooperative economics can help African Americans take physical control of their own destinies. On this day, ideas should be shared and discussed for cooperative economic efforts to provide for needs as related to housing, education, food, day care, health, transportation and other goods and services.Explanation
The Ujamaa principle empowers families to come together around their collective economic interest and to see their economic strength in sharing resources and cooperative investing, buying, and selling. Moreover, the moral ties necessary to achieve and practice the Ujamaa principle obligate those who live in the community to support, care for and look out for each other and to see the interest of the each person as tied to the interest of the family and community. In a word, wealth and resources should be shared

Ujima - Third day of Kwanzaa

UJIMA (00-GEE-MA) COLLECTIVE WORK AND RESPONSIBILITY: To build and maintain our community together and make our sister’s and brother’s problems our problems and solve them together.
The third principle encourages self-criticism and personal evaluation, as it relates to the common good of the family/community. Without collective work and struggle, progress is impossible. The family and the community must accept the reality that we are collectively responsible for our failures, as well as our victories and achievements. Discussions concerning each family member’s responsibility prove helpful in defining and achieving family goals.
Explanation

Trafficking and the global sex industry

Did you know that the US State Department estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States annually? These people are held in urban centers and work in homes, factories, restaurants, agriculture, and more, many of them right under our very noses.Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery

Exclusive Look

The Obama's 'Winter White House'

The Black Candle

A Kwanzaa Celebration
A Film By M.K. Asante Jr.

Principles of Kwanzaa

Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (originally Nguzu Saba—the seven principles of blackness), which Karenga said "is a communitarian African philosophy," consisting of what Karenga called "the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world." These seven principles comprise Kawaida, a Swahili term for tradition and reason. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles, as follows:

• Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
• Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves, and speak for ourselves.
• Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems, and to solve them together.
• Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
• Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
• Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
• Imani (Faith): To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Google Chromium

The Chromium projects include Chromium and Chromium OS, the open-source projects behind the Google Chrome browser and Google Chrome OS, respectively. This site houses the documentation and code related to the Chromium projects and is intended for developers interested in learning about and contributing to the open-source projects.

Chromium  Chromium is an open-source browser project that aims to build a safer, faster, and more stable way for all users to experience the web. This site contains design documents, architecture overviews, testing information, and more to help you learn to build and work with the Chromium source code.

Chromium OS Chromium OS is an open-source project that aims to provide a fast, simple, and more secure computing experience for people who spend most of their time on the web.  Learn more about the project goals, obtain the latest build, and learn how you can get involved, submit code, and file bugs.

Looking for Google Chrome? Download it here.

Want more information on the availability of devices running Google Chrome OS? Get email updates.