The AOL Email Address Debate: Stigma or Status Symbol?

Back in the day, AOL email addresses were all the rage. (They even made a movie about it!) Over the year, however, the popularity of AOL's email service--along with AOL itself--waned with the introduction of better, hipper products like Gmail, but not everybody switched. Whether out of convenience or brand loyalty, AOL email loyalists have become sort of conspicuous, and bloggers love to point out when famous people still use @aol.com email addresses to peg them as out of touch with technology. But Ben Smith at Politico has a different take on the hangers-on. "This is not, to say the least, a crowd of technophobes," says Smith. "Some, like Joe Trippi and Arianna Huffington, are seen as techno-sages. Rather, it's a generation of the political and media elite."

Related: With Bartz Out, Here Come the AOL-Yahoo Merger Rumors

Smith is not wrong. A lot of people that are considered the political and media elite have email addresses. He made a list of them in his post on "AOL email as status symbol":

POLITICS: David Axelrod, Jim Messina, John Weaver, Joe Trippi, Mandy Grunwald, Dick Morris (a recent defector to gmail), Frank Luntz, Ed Rollins, Guy Cecil, Al Franken, Aaron Schock

MEDIA: Matt Drudge, Arianna Huffington (who was holding onto an AOL account long before AOL bought her company), David Brooks, David Corn, Robert Draper, Rick Perlstein, Ann Coulter, Tina Brown, Lawrence O'Donnell

The same bloggers who like to use @aol.com email address to make fun of these political and media elite did not take kindly to Smith's remarks. "Sorry Ben, there's nothing cool about an AOL email address. And your list of people who have them doesn't scream 'hip,'" tweeted Markos Moulitsas, founder of The Daily Kos. "I already knew AOL email addresses were status symbols. I found it at AskJeeves.com," said political blogger David Waldman. "Whether they check their AOL accounts at the public library or on their purple Blackberries while flying first class, the AOL address is nothing more than a digital AARP card," wrote Adrian Chen at Gawker.

Related: Huffington Post Fires an Editor for Asking Writers to Work for Free

If AOL email addresses aren't status symbols, then what are they? Well, the personalized search site Hunch crunched some numbers based on some data they'd collected from nearly half a million email users. Here's how they described the average AOL emailer:

AOL users are most likely to be overweight women ages 35-64 who have a high school diploma and are spiritual, but not religious. They tend to be politically middle of the road, in a relationship of 10+ years, and have children. AOL users live in the suburbs and haven’t traveled outside their own country. Family is their first priority. AOL users mostly read magazines, have a desktop computer, listen to the radio, and watch TV on 1-3 DVRs in their home. At home, they lounge around in sweats. AOL users are optimistic extroverts who prefer sweet snacks and like working on a team.

In contrast, they said of Gmail users are "career-focused and plugged in--they mostly read blogs, have an iPhone and laptop, and listen to music via MP3s and computers." We'll leave the social commentary of Hunch's hunches to others.

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Google Reveals Details About Its Carbon Footprint

Google is coming clean about how green it has become. Among other things, the technology giant has revealed that, for all its services, its servers use less energy for a month, per user, than a light bulb that burns for three hours.

But, put together, the company's data centers continually use about 260 million watts, or about 25 percent of what a nuclear power plant generates.

Zero-Carbon Footprint

The company's greenness was detailed for the first time in a posting Thursday on its official Green Blog, and elsewhere. On the blog, Urs Hoelzle, senior vice president for technical infrastructure, noted that, because Google has been a carbon-neutral company since 2007 -- that is, it saves or removes the same amount of carbon emissions as it creates -- even the three hours of a light bulb per user is offset. The resulting carbon footprint of the company is zero.

Previously, Google has been general in discussing its energy use, possibly to avoid releasing competitive information. Now, in an apparent effort to show off its successful conservation and impact-less use of energy, the company is releasing some statistics.

It said its custom-built data centers used only about half the energy of most other centers. About 30 percent of its current electricity use is from renewable sources, including renewable energy already in the grid and renewable energy the company buys directly. That figure is expected to grow to over 35 percent next year.

The company's solar-generated electricity, bike-to-work programs, and other efforts remove the equivalent of about 10,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year. At the Mountain View, Calif., headquarters alone, solar panels generate about 3 million kWh of clean energy annually.

Reusing a Paper Mill

A huge part of Google's energy needs, of course, are its massive data centers. The company has said that it emphasizes four concepts to increase energy efficiency. It accurately measures power usage, keeps the centers warm to reduce cooling costs, designs each element in the data center to operate at optimal efficiency, and cools data centers without chillers.

The company's newest data center, in an old paper mill in Hamina, Finland, uses a variety of innovative techniques to reduce energy use. For instance, raw seawater from the Gulf of Finland uses an existing seawater tunnel, originally built for the paper mill. The seawater is run through heat exchangers, then sent to a "tempering building," where it mixed with more, cooler seawater. It is then returned to the Gulf at a temperature close to the natural one. No compressor-based or refrigerant-based cooling is used.

On Thursday, the company also released a study about the energy savings from using cloud-based services versus housing local servers. It cited data showing that "cloud-based services like Gmail allow organizations of all sizes to reap" advantages of increased efficiency, reduced overhead, and creating a smaller carbon footprint.

Laura DiDio, an analyst with Information Technology Intelligence Corp, said that the greening of data centers "is not a passing fad," because it can be a substantial cost-saving measure. She noted that Dell, IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and HP have also been leaders in this area.

The biggest savers, she said, are virtualization, cloud services and the rise of the remote, mobile workforce, which often mean fewer local power needs.

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Apple wins German court ruling on Samsung tablets

DUESSELDORF, Germany (Reuters) - Apple Inc scored a symbolic legal victory in efforts to keep its lead spot in the tablet computer market when a German court upheld a ban barring Samsung's local unit from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablets in Europe's biggest economy.

Samsung, which said it will appeal the decision, and Apple have been locked in a global battle over smartphone and tablet patents since April.

Samsung's Galaxy devices are seen as among the biggest challengers to Apple's mobile products, which have achieved runaway success.

Samsung said it was disappointed by the ruling and that it believed the ruling restricts design innovation and progress in the industry.

It said it would explore all legal options, including continuing to aggressively pursue Apple for what Samsung said are a violation of its wireless technology patents around the world.

Craig Cartier, analyst at consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan, said that while Friday's ruling would not greatly affect Samsung it could set a precedent for other courts and have repercussions for patent battles worldwide.

"There has been an arms race in the patent world which has led to a high valuation of patent portfolios, including Nortel's $4.5 billion patent auction," Cartier said.

"Companies may start to question if patent values are simply another bubble waiting to burst."

STILL FOR SALE

The temporary injunction upheld by the court on Friday bars Samsung Germany from selling the Galaxy 10.1 tablet in Germany.

But retailers such as consumer electronics chain Media Markt will still be able to sell the device by selling off existing stock or getting new supplies from the South Korean group's parent Samsung International.

Media Markt said it was too early to say what the verdict would mean for its business.

Patent expert Florian Mueller said in his blog www.fosspatents.com that the sales ban in Europe for Samsung Germany has no practical consequences.

The German subsidiary is also barred from selling the tablets in Europe, excluding the Netherlands where Apple requested a separate injunction.

Giving the ruling, Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann said in court in Duesseldorf that the overall impression of the tablet was too similar to the design of Apple's iPad.

"It (the tablet) is distinguished by its smooth, simple areas," Brueckner-Hofmann said.

By contrast, a Dutch court ruled last month that it found no infringement for Samsung's tablets.

Apple repeated its usual statement saying that: "This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."

In a global intellectual property battle, Apple has claimed the Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad and has sued the Korean company in the United States, Australia, Japan and Korea as well as in Europe.

Samsung, whose tablets are based on Google Inc's Android software, has counter-sued Apple.

On Thursday, Apple also filed a suit against Samsung in Japan, seeking to ban sales of some of its gadgets there.

That same day, smartphone maker HTC said that it extended its lawsuit against Apple to include more patents the Taiwanese company acquired from Google as legal battles become increasingly common in the hi-tech industry.

(Additional reporting by Harro ten Wolde; Editing by David Holmes, David Cowell and David Hulmes)

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Copyright charges for NinjaVideo operators

Four Americans and a Greek national have been indicted on conspiracy and copyright infringement charges for alleged involvement with a website, NinjaVideo, which offered illegal downloads of movies and television shows, the Justice Department said Friday.

Many of the movies offered by NinjaVideo.net, which was shut down by US law enforcement in June 2010, were still playing in theaters and others had not yet been released publicly, the department said in a statement.

The indictments were handed down on Thursday by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, the department said.

The five were charged with one count of conspiracy and five counts of copyright infringement for their involvement with NinjaVideo, it said.

According to the indictment, NinjaVideo was launched in February 2008 and allowed visitors to illegally download copyright-protected movies and TV shows in high-quality formats.

Many movies were offered for free and a greater selection was available for a donation of at least $25, the Justice Department said.

It said the operators allegedly collected more than $500,000 during the website's two-and-a-half years of operation.

The five charged were Hana Amal Beshara, 29, of New Jersey; Matthew David Howard Smith, 23, of North Carolina; Joshua David Evans, 34, of Washington state; Zoi Mertzanis, 36, of Greece; and Jeremy Lynn Andrew, 33, of Oregon.

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Keeping a Natural and Healthy Diet- Rapid Techniques | AutoRoll

Posted: September 9, 2011 at 9:20 pm | Tags: Speed Learning Techniques When we chat about dieting, the very first thing that concerns an individual is if they can keep it. Dieting takes a lot of discipline and tough work. But with these methods and tips, you'll certainly be in a position to keep your diet- and notice gigantic results.

By the end of this manuscript, you'd be able to know precisely what's required to keep a diet. And as a bonus, these strategies are all really straightforward to keep and you’ll get results A.S.A.P. Think about these tips as your speed learning techniques
for weight loss.

Condition Your Mind

The first thing you need to do is to not prep your body for the shift of your eating habits. The very first thing that you will need to do is to switch and control your mindset.

Remember that it’s not only your body which will go through the diet. Your mind is particularly critical here. You ought to have already decided, firmly at that, you need to modify your approach towards eating. You have to be 100% sure about your new diet and you are committed to changing it all of the way.

Do Your Analysis

There are numerous diets out there now. Just Google it and you will be overwhelmed with the billions of pages in the web that will tell you the easiest way to run your diet.

But recall that each and every person’s body is dissimilar. What may work for each other Jane Doe may not work for you. If you also have the time and the cash for it, the nicest thing to do is to talk to a dietician and talk about your different options.

Slow and Gradual

After you have your diet plan, the first thing you've got to do is to begin slowly and steadily! If you take in too much too fast , your body may react differently and infrequently, this can cause more harm than good.

When you are taking on a new diet, you want to recollect that your body will have to take some time to process it and accept the new changes. Just begin slowly and steadily. Sooner or later, you will be surprised to see how different your diet habits are.

Now that you understand the three things you need to bear in mind about dieting, you'll potentially be able to approach dieting in a totally new light. Again, remember that all you need to do is to have the peel attitude, conduct the right research and to begin slowly and gradually.

So the next time you suspect that dieting is hard, just follow these steps!

To discover additional information on Speed Learning Techniques go to Super Speed Learning for kids internet site to get some more in depth info.

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<b>Healthy diet</b> plays key role in weight loss

Weight loss is not just about burning the calories but also controlling the intake. But for many people, dieting means a different thing. You could see lots of people around you starving themselves in the name of crash dieting, for the sake of losing weight.

The crash diet can lead to a number of health complications such as kidney disorders, liver problems and blood thickening.

A steady weight control plan is the individual case that guarantees fast and normal weight misfortune. The weight control plan that would be overall equalized, has sufficient product of proteins, vitamins and minerals is determined to play a crucial part in weight misfortune. Staying at a distance from the heightened calorie and heightened oversized nourishment can assist in speeding up the weight misfortune technique. Consuming vegetables, leafy foods that are rich will invariably guarantee a unfaltering and normal weight misfortune.

Weight misfortune through accident eating less carbs consistently conveys some perils. It not just carries some instantaneous fitness inconveniences, but in addition ups the peril of a large number of illnesses in an extended run. Likewise the weight that lost in a unhealthy method might effortlessly be recovered without a moment's hesitation.

With a sound weight control plan, genuine action, and preferable essence style, one might effortlessly lose weight.

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UEFA Champions League media rights bargain published in Brazil

UEFA declared today the honor of certain 2012-15 UEFA Champions League unlimited-to-breeze media rights in Brazil to Globo.

As a feature of the assention, Globo will sublicense to TV Bandeirantes the Wednesday first pick exist match up until the quarter-finals. As of the quarter-finals, Globo and TV Bandeirantes will show on a live foundation the first pick of the matchweek. What's more and throughout the time of year, impressive news coverage of the rivalry can be emphasized on Globo and a highlights programme can be demonstrated each matchweek on TV Bandeirantes.

Exist matches coverage of the UEFA Champions League will additionally be good to go on the web via www.globoesporte.com and on portable.

Observing on the honor of these rights, UEFA stated:

"UEFA is charmed to keep on its partnership with Globo, who conveyed mind blowing crowd figures the past several times of year. The replenishment of this bargain will permit football fans opposite the nation to view Europe's chief club football rivalry on Brazil's strongest channel and encourage build the span of the rivalry in the territory."

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