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Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang leaves company – NEWS UPDATES – The Olympian – Olympia, Washington news, weather and sports

by on January 18, 2012

In a news release, Yahoo said Yang would resign from the board “and all other positions with the company,” in addition to leadership positions within the company’s subsidiaries in Asia.

“My time at Yahoo, from its founding to the present, has encompassed some of the most exciting and rewarding experiences of my life. however, the time has come for me to pursue other interests outside of Yahoo,” Yang said in the news release.

Yang founded Yahoo in 1995 with David Filo, and the company soon became one of the greatest success stories in the early days of the Internet. he later served as CEO from mid-2007 to early 2009, a period most notable for YahooÕs refusal of a buyout offer from Microsoft that valued Yahoo at up to $33 a share – a level it has never again approached. Yang stepped aside for Carol Bartz, who was CEO for less than three years before being forced out in September; her permanent successor, former PayPal President Scott Thompson, took the helm of the company just last week.

“Jerry leaves behind a legacy of innovation and customer focus for this iconic brand, having shaped our culture by fostering a spirit of innovation that began 17 years ago and continues to grow even stronger today,” Thompson said in the news release.Since Bartz’s dismissal, Yahoo has been investigating routes for changes in ownership. the company has reportedly received two offers for a minority ownership, including an offer from private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, Microsoft and venture-capital firm Andreessen Horowitz that covers 15 percent of Yahoo at a price as high as $3 billion. TPG Capital reportedly made the other bid for part-ownership of the company.

Yang, who owns a 3.6 percent stake in the company, has reportedly been closely involved in negotiations, so much so that a major Yahoo shareholder, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb, called for his ouster in early November and claimed Yang was working in his own interests.

“It is now clear that (Yang) is simply not aligned with shareholders,” Loeb wrote in a letter to Yahoo that said Yang was attempting to negotiate a deal that kept the company in “friendly hands.”

Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang leaves company – NEWS UPDATES – The Olympian – Olympia, Washington news, weather and sports

The Super Grand Octopus Yacht

by on December 14, 2011

Currently holding the prestigious title of being the world’s seventh largest yacht, the Octopus has been the ultimate symbol of untold luxury for a long time. the proud owner of this grand ship is none other than the co-founder of Microsoft, another world best. Measuring a massive 414 feet, this is the second super ship that is not owned by the head of a state. It was delivered to Paul Allen in 2003 and had been the world’s largest privately owned yacht for five years when the title was taken away from it by other modern ships. the exterior of the boat is designed by the world famous company Espen Oino Naval Architects, and it was Lrssen in Bremen and HDW in Kiel who are German shipbuilders, who made the exterior. the interiors have been done by the Seattle based interior designers Jonathan Quinn Barnett and Christian Grevstad. he also provided the yacht with all the required furnishings, lightings, fixtures and other accessories. It seems that all the people who are associated with the Octopus are world famous in their respective fields. Some people say that the maintenance charges that are required to keep in the boat in good working condition and pay the crew salaries, it requires about ten percent of the initial cost of the boat. By this estimate, the boat, which is priced at a whopping 200 million dollars, would require about 20 million in maintenance itself. That is more that the salary of more than forty percent Americans

The total list of the features that the ship can boast of is actually phenomenal and would require more pages than in this article. However, a brief summary of the highlights can be provided and even visualized by the reader. the ship has two helicopters. One is a small scouting helicopter while the other can be used as an additional transport vehicle. the size of this additional chopper is huge in itself. In addition to this, there is a fully functional submarine also attached to the liner which is capable of spending more than two weeks underwater with a crew of about eight people. this is together with the seven additional boats that are present to serve as life boats or other maritime activities. A unique feature that is present is the ocean crawling device which is remote controlled. along with this, there are several provisions for absolute entertainment aboard the ship such a music hall and movie theatre. there is a full time staff of almost sixty on the ship many of whom are actually Navy Seals.

It seems that Mr. Allen wanted to take with him a whole city block when we went out on vacation. Other than this, he owns two other monster ships which have a similar size, or perhaps a little less. They go by the name of Medusa and Tatoosh. However, the Octopus yacht is indeed a boat of riches, personifying total luxury and endless wealth.

Worlds Most Expensive Properties – Villa Leopolda

by on December 13, 2011

The French Riviera is one of the world’s most popular places, and home to some of the world’s most expensive properties. Villa Leopolda, the gigantic testament of love King Leopold II of Belgium built for his mistress in 1902, recently sold for a record-setting $736-million to a Russian billionaire.

Although Mikhail Prokhorov is rumored to be that Russian, he adamantly denies the purchase. Villa Leopolda is most famous, not for the King’s gift to his lover, but because of one the home’s rumored owners, Bill Gates – the Microsoft founder. It also appears in a movie, The Red Shoes – a 1948 British feature film.

Since the home was built, there have been multiple rumors about who has and who hasn’t lived there. Bill Gates is just one of the many people who have never called Villa Leopolda home, yet is one of the most commonly placed people within the estate’s walls. Regardless of who owns it, Villa Leopolda can easily be considered one of the great wonders of the world.

The front of the estate is landscaped beautifully and surrounded by a thick, well-kept tree line. The steps leading up the estate are pink and beige and are the original steps Leopold had constructed. Lily Safra, former owner and wife of the deceased Lebanese businessman Edmond Safra, kept the house in remarkable condition. The mere size of the estate is mind-boggling, with guest homes, swimming pools, and much more covering around 18 acres – most of it being the main house.

There are 19 luxurious bedrooms inside of the Villa, including huge bathrooms, antique furnishings, walk-out terraces, and fireplaces. other features inside of the home include sporting courts, a bowling alley, multiple kitchens and dining rooms, a movie theater, and other touches like rare marble and period artwork. outside of the home, the olive, cypress and lemon trees are like miniature orchards on the residence. It takes over 50 full-time gardeners to maintain the lavish look of the landscape, and most are able to stay on-grounds in living quarters.

The 80,000+ square-foot estate is easily one of the worlds most spectacular. Villa Leopolda has been featured on many television shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous and VH1′s Fabulous Life Of. It has also been featured in many magazines such as Forbes, and is constantly considered one of the foremost historical properties in all of Europe.

There is some confusion over who exactly purchased the estate. The only information Lily Safra divulged about Villa Leopolda’s sell was that it was purchased for an estimated 500-million GBP by a Russian oligarch. after Mikhail Prokhorov denied purchasing the home, rumors leaned towards Roman Abramovich, a big-spending, yacht-loving multi-billionaire. however, he has also denied rumors of the home’s purchase. The only thing that seems certain about Villa Leopolda is that it has in fact been sold for the disclosed amount. It won’t be long until the real owner is revealed, however.

Worlds Most Expensive Properties – Villa Leopolda

A Few adCenter Tricks For Halloween PPC Treats

by on September 5, 2011

As we hit the beginning of September, eager Halloween fans are already hunting for their 2011 costume. Twenty-three percent of all annual Halloween searches will happen this month. Microsoft adCenter offers tips on how to adjust your PPC strategy.

Integrating Halloween Terms

Microsoft’s Peter Haubold suggests adding key generic terms to your site’s PPC campaign, assuming you sell costumes. Those terms include “Halloween costume,” “costumes,” “Halloween costume ideas,” and “kids costumes.”

While not every idea will apply to each site, it’s also a good idea to optimize your landing pages and core content around similar terms. most notably, using a full phrase (such as “power rangers kids costumes” rather than just “power rangers”) is preferable.

Know What’s Popular

In addition to compiling a list of good keywords for this year, the Microsoft adCenter team has found the following costumes to be on the rise from early on this year:

  • Harry Potter costumes.
  • Captain America costumes.
  • “Star Wars” costumes (likely a favorite among SEOs this year).
  • Pirate costumes.
  • “Sexy” costumes.

Last year’s top costumes no longer seem to be in vogue, although it’s too early to say for certain what this year’s hottest picks will be.

Be Careful with Ad Copy

It’s important that you use the proper wording when advertising, especially when it comes to name brands. using appropriate capitalization – including use of the automatic capitalization “param2″ device in the dynamic keyword insertion tool provided by Microsoft – is helpful. for those advertising on the term “sexy,” it’s important that you get your ad copy up as soon as possible because manual approval will be necessary for your ad.

Get onto your Bids Quickly

While there’s no exact bid that’s perfect, Microsoft indicates that 75 percent of all clicks went to the top four ad spots last year. since the average CPC doubles from September to October, it’s important to make bidding changes early if you want to be ahead of the curve.

Tweak your Targeting

The key costume-buying demographic is a primarily female, age 25 to 49 group (with 70 percent of searchers falling into that age range). Targeting this group and adding local bids if you have a brick-and-mortar location are great ways to increase visibility.

For both advertisers and consumers, this is the time when gearing up for costumes is wise. for businesses, it’s a great opportunity to help stir ideas in your customers’ minds while building brand recognition and catching the early shoppers. for consumers, this is the time to get great deals and start getting excited about our annual day of ghouls and ghosts.

I know I’m pretty pumped for Halloween this year, and I’ve already bought some of my costume pieces. I’ll give you a hint who I’m going as: I’ll be wearing a bow tie. Because bow ties are cool.

Save up to 30 percent! Register now for SES Chicago 2011, the Leading Search & Social Marketing Event, taking place November 14-18. hurry, pre-agenda rate expires September 1!

A Few adCenter Tricks For Halloween PPC Treats

What’s New About Open Office 3.2?

by on August 29, 2011

Open Office, the free open source office suite, has come out with version 3.2. there are quite a few new features that can be obtained when downloading and installing this version.

The first is that there is significantly improved start up times. On older versions when opening up the office suite, it tended to lag for quite awhile before opening. After opening it during your session, the next file or document would work quickly. in versions 3.2 the entire suite will be much faster getting rid of this problem.

Another feature is additional support for proprietary formats. By default Open Office uses what are called open formats. these are ones that are supported by a variety of other open source programs as well as Google Documents or Zoho. there are still proprietary formats that others want to use like Microsoft Office documents. in this version these formats can be opened and formatted even better. for the most part standard documents and Excel files would format fine. at times there were a few errors.

Calc, the spreadsheet program, has significant improvements. there is better support for sorting cells, copy and pasting of multiple cells or rows, as well as better filtering technology. many of the bugs have been taken care making it even more competitive with Excel.

Try out the new Open Office today which is a free download. The newest version of 3.2 as well as the bleeding edge versions can be downloaded to see what the newest features might be on the next version down the line.

When stock market is down for e.g. BSE sensex, how the companies having shares are looser?

by on August 5, 2011

When stock market is down for e.g. BSE sensex, how the companies having shares are looser because the shares are with public so if shares go up it is profit of public if share goes down it is loss of public. how does it affect the company to which these shares belong to?

The stock is directly linked to the value of the company so the public is not the only ones that lose, the companies themselves lose also. If you look at a company profile you will see this, it list the value of the shares and the number of shares, it then shows the companies value. after a company becomes large enough they move to the big board,the NYSE and they start paying dividends to their shareholders instead of letting their stocks value continue to run. that is what Microsoft did for example.

When stock market is down for e.g. BSE sensex, how the companies having shares are looser?

Free AOL Mail | Aol.com Mail | Web Desire

by on January 13, 2011

AOL offers a free web based email services. With AOL mail you can send and receive emails, automatically copy your address book and emails from your old email account to your new AOL inbox. you can access your email from anywhere through web browser, your mobile device, Microsoft Outlook and AOL software.

Create your free AOL email account.

Free AOL Mail | Aol.com Mail | Web Desire

Does anybody think the new console OnLive is viable in this economic situation?

by on November 18, 2010

OnLive will be coming out this winter. this service works with Macs and Windows, as well as with an OnLive console. It’s much cheaper than even the Wii. so the question is: will people abandon the big 3 (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft) for this cheaper console? or will console sales drop overall?

How do I put borders around a specific section of my page?

by on November 5, 2010

I have microsoft word. I have two columns but I want to put borders around only the paragraph i have written (not fully around the page). how can i do that?

Watch out Craigslist, Sister Site Kijiji Is Taking Off

by on August 15, 2010

It’s not yet a Craigslist killer, but eBay’s free classifieds site Kijiji is taking off in the U.S. eBay, of course, is also an investor in Craigslist, but its 25 percent stake doesn’t give it a controlling interest and the other 75 percent is not for sale. So in March, 2005, eBay launched Kijiji as its own competing free classifieds site overseas. then last summer, it launched a U.S. version of the site.

Since then, the U.S. site alone has grown from 362,000 visitors in July, 2007 to 1.8 million in January, according to comScore. (If you count U.S. visits to Kijiji’s international sites as well, the number is 2.3 million). In comparison, Microsoft’s classified site, Windows Live Expo, attracted only 176,000 visitors in January, Yahoo Classifieds attracted 97,000, and neither Google’s classifieds site nor Google Base even registers on comScore.

Kijiji’s visitor stats are still less than 10 percent of the 26.7 million people in the U.S. who went to Craigslist in January, but comScore puts Kijiji as the sixth most visited classifieds site in the U.S. (after Craigslist, sites owned by Dominion Enterprises like Homes.com, AutoTrader, Cars.com, and Apartments.com). Kijiji is ahead of classifieds sites like Oodle (No. 9, with 1.3 million U.S. visitors in January) and Vast (No. 20, with 444,000).

eBay is obviously doing something right with Kijiji. but can it ever catch up to Craigslist?

Watch out Craigslist, Sister Site Kijiji Is Taking Off

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