Hakia is focused on bringing quality results via its semantic search technology.

Save Time and Effort: Quality results eliminate the time and effort required to assess the credibility, freshness, and relevancy of the search results.

Get Correct Information: Credibility-stamped results ensure that the information you found is the best available out there. It prevents from the consequences of using misleading or commercially-biased information.

Reach Unique Information: hakia’s semantic search can bring results to unique, personal, and complex queries that are unreachable by popularity methods due to the limitations of statistics (known as the long tail challenge).

Get Second Opinon: Even when popular results are good (say, when using Google), hakia’s results will offer a new perspective, and a valuable second opinion from credible Web pages.

A semantic search engine is the one that brings relevant results based on concept match rather than keyword match or popularity ranking.

Tata Motors announced recently that it has entered into a definitive agreement with the Ford Motor Company for the purchase of Jaguar Land Rover, comprising brands, plants and Intellectual Property Rights.
The transfer of ownership to Tata Motors is expected to close by the end of the next quarter, subject to applicable regulatory approvals.
The total amount to be paid in cash by Tata Motors for Jaguar Land Rover upon closing will be approximately US $2.3 billion. At closing, Ford will then contribute up to approximately US $600 million to the Jaguar Land Rover pension plans.

Tata Motors earlier unveiled the cheapest car in the world for $2,500, but is also India’s largest automobile company, with revenues of US$ 7.2 billion in 2006-2007.
With over 4 million Tata vehicles in India, it is the leader in commercial vehicles and the second largest in passenger vehicles.

This luxury car deal might look like a contradiction but Tata wants to establish a global brand and this deal will help them immensely. I bet on that.

Dear Reader,

By now, you’ve probably heard about the phenomenon called “The Secret”.

Using this ’secret’ you can create anything you want in your life:
more money, bigger house, more business, find your soul mate.

Anything you want!

Well, if you didn’t know, the ’secret’ behind “The Secret” is a universal principle called the Law Of Attraction (Wikipedia). You may have heard it referred to as “like attracts like”, or “karma”, or several other things, but the concept is this: what you think about the most, becomes your reality. I agree with that.

Check this out and let me know what do YOU think.

As per Wikipedia definition, Earth Hour is:

… an international event that asks households and businesses to turn off their lights and non-essential electrical appliances for one hour on the evening of 29 March at 8 pm local time until 9 pm to promote electricity conservation and thus lower carbon emissions.

Why?
Because climate change is scary as hell. Think about environmental awareness and energy efficiency.

When?
Saturday, March 29th, from 8pm to 9pm.

Just Vancouver?
Are you kidding?! People around the World will be joining together to turn out their lights for Earth Hour, taking a stand against climate change.

How?
There should be a switch somewhere in your house And yes that means also your computer, TV, radio clock, fridge.

WWF Canada one of the promoter, said:

Many iconic buildings and landmarks around the world will be turning out their lights for Earth Hour including the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco; Alcatraz Jail, San Francisco; Sydney Opera House, Sydney, Australia; Brighton Pier, UK and the Sears Tower, Chicago.

Canada has one of the highest participation rates around the globe with over 150 cities participating! Many buildings and landmarks will turn off their lights. These include the CN Tower, Niagara Falls, Toronto Eaton Centre, Fairmont Royal York Hotel, Honest Ed’s in Ontario; the Olympic Flag, City Hall Clock and all buildings in which the City of Vancouver operate; and the MacDonald Bridge, City Hall, and Parade Square in Halifax.

Happy, Earth Hour!

“Google Code University provides tutorials and sample course content so Computer Science students and educators can learn more about current computing technologies and paradigms”, says Google.

This site contains tutorials, lecture slides, and problem sets for a variety of topic areas: AJAX Programming. Distributed Systems, Web Security and Languages such C++, JAVA, Python.
Code samples, video presentations (YouTube and Google Video) and the like.
Also find tutorials about Database and MySQL and Software Configuration Management.
Good stuff.

This is my world map generated by World66 - Visited Countries Project.
What about you?

create your own visited country map

“British science fiction writer Sir Arthur C Clarke has died in his adopted home of Sri Lanka at the age of 90.” BBC News says.

His visions of space travel and computing sparked the imagination of readers and scientists alike. He served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and foresaw the concept of communication satellites.
When asked why he never patented his idea for communication satellites, he said:

“I did not get a patent because I never thought it will happen in my lifetime.”

He was the author of more than 100 fiction and non-fiction books. He collaborated on the screenplay for “2001: A Space Odyssey” with Kubrick.
He was a honorary Chairman for Arthur C.Clarke Foundation.
He was …

There are many top universities that offer free courses online, did you get it?!, FREE.

Ok, here there are:

1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

More than 1,800 free courses are offered through the school’s OpenCourseWare project. Courses are in text, audio and video formats and translated into a number of different languages. You can even sign up for monthly updates on courses and news. Great resource.

2. Open University (open.ac.uk)
http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php

Since 1969, The Open University has been a pioneer in making learning materials freely available through its successful partnership with the BBC. Many of our television and radio programmes are already supported by free internet activities and print materials. We wanted to use our knowledge of the latest technologies in education to extend our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. The vision was free online education.

3. Carnegie Mellon University (cmu.edu)
http://www.cmu.edu/oli/

You will not receive credit from Carnegie Mellon for completing the open and free course, but of course this is ok

4. Stanford (stanford.edu)
http://itunes.stanford.edu/

This is available through iTunes, and you can download courses, faculty lectures, interviews, music and sports, and of course play on your iPod, Mac or PC.
Experience a wealth of learning from Stanford.

5. University of California, Berkeley (berkeley.edu)
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/courses.php

Available also on iTunes or you may download, copy and/or transfer to a portable listening device podcasts for your personal, non-commercial use only.

6. Utah State University (usu.edu)
http://ocw.usu.edu/
Options include everything from anthropology to physics and theater arts.
Text-based courses can be downloaded as zip files or viewed directly on the site.

We believe that all humans beings are endowed with a capacity to learn, improve, and progress. Educational opportunity is the mechanism by which we fulfill that capacity. Utah State OpenCourseWare is a collection of educational material used in our formal campus courses, and seeks to provide people around the world with an opportunity to access high quality learning opportunities.

7. University of Southern Queensland (usq.edu.au)
http://ocw.usq.edu.au/
Yet another OpenCourseWare initiative.

The University of Southern Queensland’s OpenCourseWare (USQ OCW) provides access to free and open educational resources for faculty members, students, and self-learners throughout the world. USQ OCW does not grant credits or degrees, and does not provide access to faculty members.

8. University of California, Irvine (uci.edu)
http://ocw.uci.edu/

The University of California, Irvine has a long history of social engagement. As a leading public research University, an important part of its mission is to showcase and disseminate the research and scholarship of the University to the public.

That’s it for now. If you know about others great resources (I’m sure!) please let me know.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) Minister Diane Finley recently announced that, effective immediately, travelers from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and Lithuania will no longer need to obtain Temporary Resident Visas to visit Canada.
These four countries are latest European Union Member States to be granted visa-free status in Canada’s ongoing review of visa requirements for all EU countries.

Both Romanians and Bulgarians will still need a Visa to enter Canada, however, the Canadian Immigration minister declared it would collaborate with Romanian and Bulgarian authorities to eliminate their visa requirements as well.

Last year, the European Commission urged Ottawa authorities to open up the gates of their country for European citizens.

Prepare for it, because when you have bad news to deliver in a professional environment, there are ways to do it correctly, and ways to make a mess of it.

1. No matter how bad things are, everything is presented in positive terms.
To do so effectively, you must be knowledgeable of your subject and must include other facts and issues that are close to the situation. Never, never, never give bad news first!

Dear [applicant],

Thank you for your interest in [your company name].

While we were impressed with your background and experience, we have selected another candidate whose qualifications and experience more closely meet the requirements of the position.

In future, if you see a posting that interests you, we encourage you to reapply.

We appreciate your interest in [your company name] and wish you success in your future endeavors.

Human Resources

2. Good News – Bad News – Good News
Identify the good news, the bad stuff and … really think about how you can solve it. Simple, duh?! Remember nobodies wants problems … but obstacle and ways to avoid them, is ok. Present the facts and avoid excuses and finger pointing!

Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to report that our new testing procedures have improved our failure detection by 95% over the past three months. We had one catastrophic failure which, regrettably, resulted in the loss of an expensive machine, but, this was scheduled for replacement during the next fiscal year and this event allowed us to revise our failure detection and increased quality and productivity.

For fun, try this the next time you get a rejection letter from a employer:

Dear [name of the person who signed the rejection letter],

Thank you for your letter of [date]. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me [job title].

This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals. Despite [company name]’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting [applicants], I find that your rejection does not meet with my needs at this time.

Therefore, I will initiate [employment] with your firm immediately following [graduation/job change, etc. — get creative here]. I look forward to working with you.

Best of luck in rejecting future candidates.

Sincerely,
[your name]

Ok, webmasters / web developers, here’s the news:

the oldest animated character in the world is … a goat leaping to get the leaves on a tree.

Without a website support to show it, our ancient artist used a painted bowl.

But if you start spinning … here’s the output:

Pretty cool, eh? Now, you can make your day and insert this public domain animated character to your website, or even better, take some pottery class and start build on this new media.

I know summer is close and a good sand beach sounds very appealing, but can you imagine yourself, here?!

More than 100,000 people packed in on a narrow, one mile strip of sand, on Haeundae Beach, South Korea.

I can’t imagine being there

Don’t forget, tomorrow, Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 2:00:00 AM clocks are turned forward 1 hour to 3:00:00 AM local daylight time instead.

Perhaps your computer it’s already set to do this for you, you should care only about your:
watch, car, oven, coffee maker, bedroom clock, omg … so many.

I’m wandering who’s in charge with Gastown Steam Clock time adjustment ?!

Today I got my Master Certificate in Project Management from University of Victoria – my first step to PMP Certification, stay tuned for that

Offered in partnership with The Schulich Executive Education Centre, this program is available in many other cities across North America, check this website: http://www.MastersCertificateInProjectManagement.com

“The Schulich program is the only Masters Certificate in Project Management program in Canada backed by not just one but nine leading Canadian Universities”

The next Masters Certificate in Project Management program starts in Vancouver and Victoria in October 2008! Hurry up, seats are limited.

“Blogging can help you feel less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face.”

The research done by James Baker and Professor Susan Moore from Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, found after two months of regular blogging, people felt they had better social support and friendship networks than those who did not blog, so … happy blogging everyone.

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs, competing with Google, Yahoo.

The service allows you to find the most relevant results on all media including blogs, photos, videos and audio files.

Maybe it is not the most user friendly site, but is one of the biggest among social bookmarking and blog search engines.

Within 10 hours, Bill Gates got 1,200 answers to a question that he posted on professional networking site LinkedIn, with new comments coming in every minute. OMG!

Some people speculated that Gates’ very public use of LinkedIn indicates that he wants to buy the site, “since Linkedin was chosen over the Microsoft properties to ask this question”.

Read the whole ITWorld article here

I like LinkedIn and you should give it a try.

Are you looking to improve your Project Management skills? Do you need PDUs?
Then listen to the Project Management Podcast – a weekly program that delivers best practices and new developments in the field of Project Management.

The host of The Project Management Podcast is Cornelius Fichtner, PMP.

Besides great content, you can earn 15 free PDUs just by listening to this podcast.
There are 89 episodes right now and you can have them:
- automatically delivered to your MP3 player/Ipod via iTunes
- listen via your computer speakers
- delivered to you by email

Great resource, great site. Thank you Cornelius! I really enjoyed your shows.

If yes … you can’t go swimming, soak in a hot bath or even enjoy a shower.
Unbelievable ?! … Believe it!

Ashleigh Morris a teenager from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she’s lived with since she was 14.

Check this out: DailyMail article

She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria and there is no cure and no successful treatment for this.

1. Arrive on time … or a little early the first day.
Halloooo?! This is very important, don’t you think? And yes, dress accordingly.

2. Do your administrative stuff: HR, papers, insurance.
Ask about company policies or procedures. Read the employee manual, if any.
Take your badge, uniform or keys.

3. Know your colleagues.
Learn names as much as possible. Man, I am so lousy on that … take notes.
Introduce yourself and ask, “who to ask?!”

4. Get used with your work area … office, kitchen, meeting room, building.
Arrange your work space for your style.
Heeey, don’t bring your pet already. Step by step.

5. Wait for lazy IT guy to install your new computer … just joking.
No, really, listen to their instructions and advice! YOU are the new guy!
Don’t be smart ass! Sooner or later you’ll need them anyway. Believe me!

6. Talk with your Boss.
Define roles and responsibilities, ask for feedback.
Open a communication channel, get involved in any meetings you can get into.

7. Now is time for work.
Already bored?! Take it easy … is your first day, anyway
Establish goals and define your objectives. Do this jointly with your supervisor.

8. Go home!
Think about your past experience, but don’t assume that your new company works the same way as your old company. Make the effort to learn what is different or new.

Good luck!