step by step Guide to buy a Digital Camera

There are a few questions and factors to keep in mind when making the decision of which camera is best for you. I did this market-storming before I zeroed down to the camera I bought.

FOLLOW these steps strictly.
Move to next step only when you are done with the previous one:

Answer these:

1) What experience level do you have with cameras? - if you are new better go for a camera having least but best options.

2) Budget ?

3) Are you a professional photographer. If yes - you need a SLR. Else any point & shoot will do.

SLR Camera

After finalizing above look for the features that you would like to enjoy:

0) What conditions will you be largely photographing in? (indoors, outdoors, low light, bright light) - See for the ISO value of camera which should be between 16000 to 32000 for low lights photography

1) Optical zoom - 2x to 10x - (Digital Zoom usually is good) - Try to get a Automatic Zooming instead of Mechanical Zooming; provided in Flaunt-&pocket ones; if you are not a professional photographer. What type of photography will you be doing? (portraits, landscapes, macro, sports, marriages) - choose a better zoom accordingly.

2) image stabilization

3) LCD display size - 2.5 inches normally will do

4) size of camera you can bear - i.e. portability option ?

5) megapixel ? - the upper end of the range it can actually be a disadvantage to have images that are so large that they take up enormous amounts of space on memory cards and computers. One of the main questions to ask when it comes to megapixels is ‘Will you be printing shots’? If so - how large will you be going with them? If you’re only printing images at a normal size then anything over 4 or so megapixels will be fine. If you’re going to start blowing your images up you might want to pay the extra money for something at the upper end of what’s on offer today.

Some retailers will bundle such extras with cameras or will at least give a discount when buying more than one item at once - Make a list what you need:

6) Camera Case

7) Memory Cards - 2GB - more needed if more-megapixel photos you trying to store as more more-megapixel photo take more space.

8) Spare Batteries - **Battery Tips: Camera's battery will drain faster with more features you have and with more in-camera-editing-capabilities you have built in the camera. Larger LCD size drains more battery.

9) Recharger

10) Lenses (if you are getting a DSLR)

11) Filters (and other lens attachments)

12) Tripods/Monopods

13) External Flashes

14) Reflectors

15) Extra Flash / Auxiliary Lights

16) Wi-Fi support

17) Red Eye correction - automatic

18) Bluetooth support

19) in-camera-editing-capabilities

20) Do you already own any potentially compatible gear? - Talking of extra gear - one way to save yourself some cash is if you have accessories from previous digital cameras that are compatible with your new one. For example memory cards, batteries, lenses (remember that many film camera lenses are actually compatible with digital SLRs from the same manufacturers), flashes, filters etc.

Point and Shoot Camera

ADDITIONAL Tips -
Keep these in mind and move to next step then ->

**Give extra consideration to a camera with a good selection of software: Look for useful packages such as Adobe Photoshop Elements, Ulead PhotoImpact, and Corel Snapfire for editing images, as well as applications for organizing and sharing them.

**Don't base your decision on video capability: Though any still camera's ability to take moving pictures is limited, some are getting better at it. Nevertheless, if you want to shoot video, we recommend that you invest in a camcorder dedicated to the job.

**Consider investing in a memory card reader or a camera dock: A memory card reader acts like an external hard drive attached to your PC or laptop, allowing you to download pictures directly from your camera's storage media. Many newer laptops have one or more memory card slots built in, as do some inkjet printers. If you have a second memory card, you can keep shooting while the images download, rather than having to keep the camera hooked up to your PC. Alternatively, some cameras come with a dock or offer one as an option, and some of these docks offer a dedicated button for uploading all of your new photos on a memory card. A dock also charges the camera's battery.

Next step:

1) Do a little research - ask friends/relatives.

2) Don’t JUST rely upon the advice of the helpful sales person (who may or may not know anything about cameras and who may or may not have sales incentives for the camera they are recommending).

3) Read some reviews in digital camera magazines

4) Search Internet for online reviews to help you narrow down the field.

5) always check for reviews at more than 1 shop

NOW:

Once you’ve narrowed down your search to a handful of cameras head into your local digital camera shop and ask to see and play with them. There’s nothing like having the camera in your hands to work out whether it suits your needs. Here you check these trivial points with most importance:

1) How handy is the camera - Does it fits your hand properly without slipping ?

2) Responsiveness of camera - After pressing button how much time will it take to produce the image?

3) How much time do you need to wait before taking next image ?

4) How easy are the commands, menus to understand ?

5) How handy are the buttons of camera ?

Finally - After you’ve selected the right digital camera for you it’s time to find the best price:

1) start online and do some searches to find the most competitive prices on the models you are interested in.

2) With these in hand you are in a good position to be able to negotiate in person with local stores and/or with online stores.

3) Generally find that retail stores will negotiate on price and will often throw in freebies. Online stores are more difficult - most bigger ones don’t give you the ability to negotiate but smaller ones often will if you email them.

4) Don’t forget to ask for free or discounted bonuses including camera cases, memory cards, extra batteries, filters, free prints, cases etc. I even know of a couple of stores that offer camera lessons that you can ask to be included. Some stores will also consider giving you a trade in on older gear.

------------------------------ Thank You for Reading this Article :)

"Iraq War Ends" - says "New York Times" ??

New York: The U.S. Defence Department on Wednesday declared the end of the Iraq war and the immediate withdrawal of all troops, prompting an admission from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the Bush administration had known all along that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, according to the “New York Times.”

Sorry, folks, the Iraq war isn’t over (sob sob !!), at least not yet. In an elaborate hoax, pranksters distributed thousands of free copies of a spoof edition of The New York Times on Wednesday morning at busy subway stations around the city, including Grand Central Terminal, Washington and Union Squares, the 14th and 23rd Street stations along Eighth Avenue, and Pacific Street in Brooklyn, among others. The spurious 14-page papers — with a headline “IRAQ WAR ENDS” — surprised commuters, many of whom took the free copies thinking they were legitimate. The paper imagines a liberal utopia of national health care, a rebuilt economy, progressive taxation, a national oil fund to study climate change, and other goals of progressive politics. Dated July 4, 2009, and boasting the motto “All the news we hope to print” in a twist on the daily’s motto “All the news that’s fit to print,” the fake paper looks forward to the day the war ends, and envisages a chain of events that would be manna from heaven for American liberals. In one story ExxonMobil is taken into public ownership, while in another evangelicals open the doors of their mega-churches to Iraqi refugees.

The hoax was accompanied by a Web site (click here to visit the spoof site) that mimics the look of The Times’s real Web site (click here to visit the original site) . A page of the spoof site contained links to dozens of progressive organizations, which were also listed in the print edition. (A headline in the fake business section declares: “Public Relations Industry Forecasts a Series of Massive Layoffs.” Uh, sure.)

The Associated Press reported that copies of the spoof paper were also handed out in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, and that the pranksters — who included a film promoter, three unnamed Times employees and Steven Lambert, an art professor — financed the paper with small online contributions and created the paper to urge President-elect Barack Obama to keep his campaign promises. Software and Internet support were provided by the Yes Men, who were the subject of a 2004 documentary film. `Yes Men` issued a statement about the prank, stating, in part: "In an elaborate operation six months in the planning, 1.2 million papers were printed at six different presses and driven to prearranged pickup locations, where thousands of volunteers stood ready to pass them out on the street."

Original NYTimes Website

There is a history of spoofs and parodies of The Times -> Probably the best-known is one unveiled two months into the 1978 newspaper strike. A whole cast of characters took part in that parody, including the journalist Carl Bernstein, the author Christopher Cerf, the humorist Tony Hendra and the Paris Review editor George Plimpton. And for April Fool’s Day in 1999, the British business executive Richard Branson printed 100,000 copies of a parody titled “I Can’t Believe It’s Not The New York Times.” A 27-year-old Princeton alumnus named Matthew Polly, operating a “guerrilla press” known as Hard Eight Publishing, edited that 32-page spoof of the newspaper.

Spoof of NYTimes Website

Biggest Scientific experiment ever conducted on earth

Mark your calendars:
at 1:30 a.m. CDT; Wednesday, Sept. 10,
when the world's largest scientific instrument
is scheduled to begin operation.

That's when scientists will flip the switch on the world's most powerful particle accelerator in an attempt to begin answering some of the oldest scientific quandaries. Large Hadron Collider, and its purpose is simple but ambitious: to crack the code of the physical world; to figure out what the universe is made of; in other words, to get to the very bottom of things.

If the experiment is successful, the Large Hadron Collider can provide insights into fundamental questions, such as whether the universe has more than three dimensions, what it was originally made of and why most of its mass is hidden. It will uncover the most mysterious particle in Universe "The Higgs-Boson" or popularly known as "The God Particle".

James Pilcher is among six University of Chicago faculty members and more than a dozen research scientists and students, both graduate and undergraduate, who have contributed to the design and construction of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. "This year, more than 11 of us will be in residence full-time at CERN, and the rest will be in Chicago," said Pilcher, Professor in Physics.

Along with Indiana University, the University of Chicago also houses a computing center that will support LHC data analysis for various Midwestern institutions.

Pilcher

Physicists at Chicago and elsewhere built the particle detector for the ATLAS (A Toroidal LHC ApparatuS) experiment at LHC, with the search for the Higgs boson and supersymmetry in mind.

Theoretically speaking, the long-sought Higgs boson is the particle that endows all objects in the universe with mass. Evidence of supersymmetric particles, meanwhile, could provide an understanding of the dark matter, which makes up about a quarter of the mass of the universe. GENEVA has been called an Alice in Wonderland investigation into the makeup of the universe — or dangerous tampering with nature that could spell doomsday.

Whatever the case, the most powerful atom smasher ever built is set to be started up for testing Wednesday in Switzerland, an event eagerly anticipated by scientists worldwide. The multibillion-dollar Large Hadron Collider will come ever closer to re-enacting the big bang, the theory that a colossal explosion produced the universe.

The machine at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, promises scientists a closer look at the makeup of matter, filling in gaps in knowledge or possibly reshaping theories. The first beams of protons will be fired around the 17-mile tunnel to test the controlling strength of the world's largest superconducting magnets. It will still be about a month before beams traveling in opposite directions are brought together in collisions that some skeptics fear could create micro "black holes" and endanger the planet.

The project has attracted researchers of 80 nationalities, some 1,200 of them from the United States, which contributed $531 million of the project's price tag of nearly $4 billion. The CERN collider is designed to push a proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel 150 to 500 feet under the bucolic countryside on the French-Swiss border.

Once the beam is successfully fired counterclockwise, a clockwise test will follow. Then the scientists will aim the beams at each other so that protons collide, shattering into fragments and releasing energy under the gaze of detectors filling cathedral-sized caverns at points along the tunnel.

CERN dismisses the risk of micro black holes, subatomic versions of collapsed stars whose gravity is so strong they can suck in planets and other stars. But the skeptics have filed suit in U.S. District Court in Hawaii and in the European Court of Human Rights to stop the project. They unsuccessfully mounted a similar action in 1999 to block the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York state.

Meanwhile, scientists have found innovative ways to explain the concept in layman's terms. The team working on one of the four major installations in the tunnel — the ALICE, or "A Large Ion Collider Experiment" — produced a comic book featuring Carlo the physicist and a girl called Alice to explain the machine's investigation of matter a split second after the big bang.

Shown above in the picture is a view of the LHC (large hadron collider) in its tunnel at CERN (European particle physics laboratory) near Geneva, Switzerland. One huge scientific experiment being launched Wednesday is described as an Alice in Wonderland investigation into the makeup of the universe, or dangerous tampering with Nature that could spell Doomsday for the Earth.

Read this about 'Stroke' & save your life and others as well

During a party, a friend stumbled and took a little fall - she assured everyone that she was fine and just tripped over a brick because of her new shoes. (they offered to call ambulance). They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food - while she appeared a bit shaken up, Ingrid went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening. Ingrid's husband called later telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital - (at 6:00pm , Ingrid passed away.). She had suffered a stroke at the party . Had they known how to identify the signs of a stroke, perhaps Ingrid would be with us today. Some don't die. They end up in a helpless, hopeless condition instead. It only takes a minute to read this...

Remember The 1st Three Letters- S.T.R.

STROKE IDENTIFICATION:
A neurologist says that if he can get to a stroke victim within 3 hours he can totally reverse the effects of a stroke...totally. He said the trick was getting a stroke recognized, diagnosed, and then getting the patient medically cared for within 3 hours, which is tough.

RECOGNIZING A STROKE:
Remember the '3' steps, STR . Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer severe brain damage when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of a stroke. Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a stroke by asking three simple questions :

S * Ask the individual to SMILE ..
T * = TALK. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE (Coherently) (eg 'It is sunny out today').
R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS .

If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call the ambulance and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

NOTE : Another 'sign' of a stroke is
1. Ask the person to 'stick' out their tongue.
2. If the tongue is 'crooked', if it goes to one side or the other that is also an indication of a stroke.

A prominent cardiologist says if everyone who gets this e-mail sends it to 10 people; you can bet that at least one life will be saved and it could be your own..

will the World END in 2012 ??

Scientific experts from around the world are genuinely predicting that five years from now, all life on Earth could well finish. Some are saying it'll be humans that set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it'll be God himself who presses the stop button...


1. Mayan Calendar



The first mob to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things:

Building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and
Sacrificing Virgins.

Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the Earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it's likely they've got the end of the world right as well.

2. Sun Storms



Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery: our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic, and it's supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the Earth with so much radiation energy, it's been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse, and calculations suggest it'll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012

3. The Atom Smasher

Scientists in Europe have been building the world's largest particle accelerator. Basically its a 27km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the Universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it's properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They're predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.

4. The Bible says...
If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn't bad enough,religious folks are getting in on the act aswell. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between Good an Evil, has been set down for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

5. Super Volcano



Yellowstone National Park in the United States is famous for its thermal springs and Old Faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple - it's sitting on top of the world's biggest volcano, and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we're many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the Earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.

6. The Physicists

This one's case of bog-simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berekely Uni have been crunching the numbers. and they've determined that the Earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they're claiming their calculations prove, that we're all going to die, very soon - while also saying their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 percent- and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.

7. Slip-Slop-Slap-BANG!

We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that sheilds us from most of the sun's radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call north and south have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so - and right now we're about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is underway, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.

:)

Norman h Pritchard - first Indian athlete to participate and win in Olympics

Norman Gilbert Pritchard - the controversial iconic Indian figure
(also known as Norman Trevor)
(June 23, 1877 – October 31, 1929)

was an athlete from India who went on to star in Hollywood and . He was of British descent and moved to England permanently in 1905.

The controversy that runs till date is that
whether he is an Indian or an British ?? - to read on this click here plz

Pritchard was born in Calcutta to George Petersen Pritchard and Helen Maynard Pritchard.

Pritchard was the first Indian athlete to participate in the Olympic Games.

He was also the first athlete from India and first athlete representing an Asian nation to win an Olympic medal. He won two silver medals in the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, France.

He came second in the 200 meters behind John Tewksbury of the United States and second in the 200 meters hurdles behind the legendary Alvin Kraenzlein of the United States. Pritchard set a world record in the second heat of the 100 metre hurdles which was bettered by Kraenzlein in the final. He reached the final of the 110m hurdles where he placed 5th, and participated in 60m and 100m sprint where he failed to qualify for the final.

In 2005 the IAAF published the official track and field statistics for the 2004 Summer Olympics. In the historical records section Pritchard was listed as having competed for Great Britain in 1900. Research by Olympic historians has shown that Pritchard was chosen to represent Great Britain after competing in the British AAA championship in June 1900. The IOC still regard Pritchard as having competed for India and his two medals are credited to India.^[4]

Pritchard won the Bengal province 100 yards sprint title for seven consecutive years from 1894 to 1900 and set a meet record in 1898-99. He also won the 440 yards run and the 120 yards hurdles.

He studied at Saint Xaviers College, Calcutta, and is credited with the first hat-trick in an open football tournament in India, for Saint Xavier's against Sovabazar in July 1897.

He served as Secretary of the Indian Football Association from 1900 to 1902. He moved permanently to England in 1905.

He later moved to the United States where he became a silent movie actor under the screen name Norman Trevor. He acted alongside Hollywood legends like Ronald Colman in movies like Beau Geste (1926), Clara Bow's father in Dancing Mothers(1926) and Tonight at Twelve (1929). He also appeared in several Broadway shows.

He wrote a poem book - the Matrix - to read it online Click here

He died in Los Angeles of a brain malady.

Michael Phelps - Most successful Olympian

He was the bullied kid who rose from a working class background to become a sporting phenomenon - and in the 2008 Olymics Michael Phelps joined a unique band of Olympic greats.

The 23-year-old swimming sensation stormed into the record books with an 11th gold medal, his fifth at these games.

Not even faulty goggles could stop the man they call Superfish adding another gong to his incredible haul.

If computer experts could build the best swimmer on the planet, they would probably come up with Michael Phelps.

He has a 6ft 7in reach, is 6ft 5in tall and recovers from racing faster than any other man alive.

Michael said: "If you sell yourself short, you never reach your potential."

Marketing men, merchandisers and NBC TV paid £424million to Olympic organisers to ensure Michael was beamed out prime time in the United States.

The entire swim programme was duly changed so the finals were in the morning.

It is all a far cry from Michael's days as a troubled schoolboy in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was bullied over his big ears and lisp and suffered from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

His state trooper dad Fred did not speak to him for years, and his mum Debbie struggled with her son's problems, which made him hyperactive and difficult to deal with.

Teacher Debbie said: "In kindergarten I was told, 'Michael can't sit still, Michael can't be quiet, he can't focus. I said, 'maybe he's bored'.

"But they told me 'Your son will never be able to focus on anything'."

Michael was put on permanent medication because of his ADHD. But after two years he told his mum he did not want to take the drugs any more. Swimming became his refuge. The third and youngest child, Michael followed sisters Hilary and Whitney to the North Baltimore Aquatics Club. It was also an escape from his family problems.

Separated before Michael was born, the Phelps made final their split just as their son started to swim competitively at the age of seven and discover his amazing talent.

His dispute with his father created a rift which threatened to overshadow his sporting exploits. But three days after his son's high-school graduation in 2003, Fred visited the family's townhouse in Baltimore.

He was told his boy's two complimentary tickets to the world championships in Barcelona would go to his mother and Hilary. Fred walked out and missed his son's graduation party.

The pair only made up just before the Olympic Games in Athens.

But his mother has remained by his side throughout his career, and is in Beijing as the records fall - he has set new world bests in each swim.

His medals haul has beat all the greats - the nine golds won by sprinter Carl Lewis, swimmer Mark Spitz, Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina and Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi.

On this incredible form Michael remains on target to surpass Spitz's achievement of seven gold medals in one games.

He keeps up his incredible energy by consuming 12,000 calories a day - six times that of the average bloke his age.

He starts his day with three fried egg sandwiches. Two more carb-packed meals follow before he rounds the day off with pasta and a whole pizza.

Michael's quest for glory has been helped by Beijing's Water Cube, according to one of Britain's most successful swimmers Karen Pickering.

The 36-year-old also said the pool is the reason so many records are being made.

Karen added: "It's inside so swimmers don't have to deal with the wind, rain, humidity or heat. They only use 10 of the eight lanes to race, meaning waves disperse at the outsides and don't splash back on the swimmers. The pool is at deck level, so the water dissipates and doesn't bounce back.

"And it's very deep which means waves from the kicking go down a long way but don't come back up and hit swimmers."

PHELPS' GOLD TALLY SO FAR..

ATHENS 2004

14 August: 400m individual medley: Gold Medal, World Record: 4:08.26.

17 August: 200m butterfly: Gold Medal, Olympic Record: 1:54.04.

17 August: 4 x 200m freestyle relay: Gold Medal, National Record: 7:07.33.

19 August: 200m individual medley: Gold Medal, Olympic Record: 1:57.14.

20 August: 100m butterfly: Gold Medal, Olympic Record: 51.25.

21 August: 4 x 100m medley relay: Gold Medal, World Record: 3:30.68.

BEIJING 2008

August 10: 400m individual medley: Gold Medal, World Record: 4:03.84.

August 11: 4 x 100m freestyle relay: Gold Medal, World Record: 3:08.24.

August 12: 200m freestyle: Gold Medal, World Record: 1:42.96.

August 13: 200m butterfly: Gold Medal, World Record: 1:52.03.

August 13: 4 x 200m freestyle: Gold Medal, World Record: 6:58.56

MEDALS HE'S STILL AFTER..

And the three he could still collect in Beijing:

August 15: 200m individual medley. August 16: 100m butterfly.

August 17: 4 x 100m medley relay.

THE GREATS HE'S NOW BEATEN..

With his incredible tally of 11 gold medals - won in Beijing and four years ago in Athens - US swimmer Michael Phelps is now the most successful Olympian in history.

He has overtaken fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz, Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina, US sprint and long jump legend Carl Lewis and Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi.

They only got nine golds each...

How he swims like a fish...

HEIGHT

6ft 5ins

WEIGHT

13st 9lbs

HANDS

His large hands act as paddles to propel him through the water

ARMSPAN

Unlike almost all other humans, his armspan is, at 6ft 7in, two inches wider than his height

HEART

Pumps more than 30 litres of blood per minute to his major muscle groups, twice the average. Helps him to compete at his outstanding level two or three times a day

WAIST

His remarkably narrow waist increases his aero-dynamism in the water

TORSO & LEGS

He has a long torso and comparatively short but powerful legs, providing minimal resistance in the water

FEET

He has giant size 14 feet - dubbed flippers

#################################################

DIET

Phelps eats a colossal 12,000 calories a day.

His daily intake is six times that of the average man of the same age.

BREAKFAST

Three fried-egg sandwiches loaded with cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, fried onions and mayonnaise.

He follows that up with two cups of coffee, a five-egg omelette, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast topped with powdered sugar and three chocolate-chip pancakes.

LUNCH

A pound of enriched pasta and two large ham and cheese sandwiches slathered with mayo on white bread.

Plus 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

DINNER

Another pound of pasta and an entire pizza, washed down with another 1,000 calories worth of energy drinks.

His Official Site

http://www.michaelphelps.com/

From Wikipedia:

Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland) is an American swimmer. He is a 14-time Olympic gold medalist (the most by any Olympian) and he currently holds seven world records in swimming.

Phelps holds the record for the most gold medals won at a single Olympics with the eight golds he won at the 2008 Olympic Games. With this record, he surpassed Mark Spitz (pictured below), who was also a swimmer and had held the previous gold medal total with the seven that he won at the 1972 Olympic Games.


Overall, Phelps has won 16 Olympic medals: six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. In winning these medals, he has twice equaled Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin's record of eight medals (of any type) at a single Olympics; Dityatin garnered eight at the 1980 Summer Olympics, while Phelps won eight medals at both the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics. Out of his eight gold medals from Beijing, five were won in individual events, tying the record for individual gold medals at a single Games originally set by Eric Heiden in the 1980 Winter Olympics and equaled by Vitaly Scherbo at the 1992 Summer Games. Phelps ranks second in total career Olympic medals, after Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina, who won a total of 18 medals (nine gold) spanning three Olympic Games.

Phelps's international titles, along with his various world records, have resulted in him being awarded the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007 and American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007. Phelps has won a total of 48 career medals thus far: 40 gold, six silvers and two bronze. This includes all of the Championships in which he has competed: The Olympics, the World Championships, and the Pan Pacific Championships.

Personal life

Phelps was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in the Rodgers Forge neighborhood. He graduated from Towson High School in 2003. His father, Fred Phelps, worked for the Maryland State Police and his mother, Debbie Davisson Phelps, is a middle school principal. The two divorced in 1994. Michael, whose nickname is "MP", has two older sisters, Whitney and Hilary. Both of them were swimmers as well, with Whitney coming close to making the U.S. national team for the 1996 Summer Olympics before injuries derailed her career.

In his youth, Phelps was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He started swimming at age seven, partly because of the influence of his sisters and partly to provide him with an outlet for his energy. He excelled as a swimmer, and by the age of 10 held a national record for his age group. More age group records followed, and Phelps's rapid improvement culminated in his qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at the age of 15.

In November 2004, at the age of 19, Phelps was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in Salisbury, Maryland. He pleaded guilty to driving while impaired the following month and was granted probation before judgment and ordered to serve 18 months probation, fined $250, obligated to speak to high school students about drinking and driving and had to attend a Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) meeting. Questioned about the incident later that month by Matt Lauer on the Today Show, Phelps said it was an "isolated incident" and that he had "definitely let myself down and my family down...I think I let a lot of people in the country down."

Between 2004 and 2008, Phelps attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, studying sports marketing and management. In May 2008, Phelps said he intends to return to Baltimore following the 2008 Olympics, joining Bob Bowman there when he leaves the University of Michigan, saying, "I'm not going to swim for anybody else. I think we can both help the North Baltimore Aquatic Club go further. I'm definitely going to be in Baltimore next year." The club has announced that Bowman is leaving the University of Michigan to become the club's CEO. Phelps purchased a house in the Fells Point section of Baltimore, where he intends to reside after returning from the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Phelp's teammates call him "Gomer" because he reminds them of Gomer Pyle, the good-natured, naive country boy played by Jim Nabors on The Andy Griffith Show and Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C..

He has made an estimated $5 million per year in endorsements, plus a $1 million bonus from swimsuit maker Speedo for winning eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games.

Physique and lifestyle

Five physical attributes particularly suit Phelps to swimming: his long, thin torso (low drag in the water), arms which span 6 feet 7 inches (201 cm) (long, powerful, propulsive "paddles") disproportionate to his height of 6 feet 4 inches (193 cm), relatively short legs (lower drag, and perhaps the speed enhancement of a hydrofoil),[13][14] coupled to size 14 feet (providing the effect of flippers) by hypermobile ankles he can extend beyond the pointe of a ballet dancer, enabling him to whip his feet (as if they were fins, for maximum thrust through [if not over] the water).

In a front page illustrated article profiling Phelps on the eve of the 2008 Summer Olympics, The Baltimore Sun described the hometown swimmer as "a solitary man" with a "rigid focus" at the pool prior to a race, but afterwards "a man incredibly invested in the success of the people he cares about". Bowman told a Sun interviewer, "He's unbelievably kind-hearted", recounting Phelps's interaction with young children after practices.

According to an article in The Guardian, Phelps eats around 12,000 kcal each day, or about six times the intake of a normal adult male.

Throughout the 2008 Olympics, Phelps was questioned by the press if perhaps his feats were "too good to be true", a reference to unsupported rumors that Phelps may be taking performance enhancing drugs. In response, Phelps noted that he had signed up for Project Believe, a project by the United States Anti-Doping Agency in which U.S. Olympians can volunteer to be tested in excess of the World Anti-Doping Agency guidelines. During the Games, Phelps was tested nine times, and passed all of them.

Chinese Astrology - worked for me - You too check !!

Most Precise part of Chinese Astrology is the prediction by Birth Time.

The Chinese zodiac is also used to label times of day, with each sign corresponding to a "large-hour" or shichen (時辰), which is a two-hour period (24 divided by 12 animals). It is therefore important to know the exact time of birth to determine it. The secret animal is thought to be a person’s truest representation, since this animal is determined by the smallest denominator: a person’s birth hour. As this sign is based on the position of the sun in the sky and not the time of your local clock, it is important to compensate for daylight saving time. However, some online systems already compensate for daylight savings time, and astrologers may compensate your time for you oblivious to the fact that you've compensated it yourself, leading to an inaccurate reading.

The large-hour in which a person is born is their secret animal. It is a person's own true sign which their personality is based on. Note that while this chart is quite precise, the exact time at which each animal begins shifts by the day.

• 23:00 - 01:00: 子 rat
• 01:00 - 03:00: 丑 ox
• 03:00 - 05:00: 寅 tiger
• 05:00 - 07:00: 卯 rabbit
• 07:00 - 09:00: 辰 dragon
• 09:00 - 11:00: 巳 snake
• 11:00 - 13:00: 午 horse
• 13:00 - 15:00: 未 sheep
• 15:00 - 17:00: 申 monkey
• 17:00 - 19:00: 酉 rooster
• 19:00 - 21:00: 戌 dog
• 21:00 - 23:00: 亥 boar

(Problems with English Translation -Due to confusion with synonyms during translation, some of the animals depicted by the English words did not exist in ancient China. For example, 羊 can mean both goat and sheep, but goat is the species that existed in central China since the beginning of time, and goat is the species seen in illustrations, not sheep. Similarly, 豬 (pig) is sometimes translated to boar, and 牛 (water buffalo) is commonly thought to be ox, whose female counterpart is the dairy cow. )

Categorizations of the twelve signs

Power Signs

• Rat
• Ox
• Tiger
• Dragon
• Snake
• Monkey

Romance Signs

• Rabbit
• Horse
• Sheep
• Rooster
• Dog
• Pig

The Four Animal Trines

The First Trine

The first trine consists of the Rat, Dragon, and Monkey. These three signs are intense and powerful individuals, capable of great good or great evil. They make great leaders, but the three may have different approaches. Frustrated when hampered, these signs are ruled by highly potent energy and unpredictability. At their worst, Rats are ruthlessly power-hungry, vindictive, and Machiavellian, Dragons are inflexible megalomaniacs and dogmatists, and Monkeys are destructive manipulators and hedonists. They are intelligent, magnanimous, charismatic, charming, authoritative, confident, eloquent and artistic. They can also be tyrannical, bombastic, prejudiced, deceitful, imperious, ruthless, power-hungry, and megalomaniacal.

The Second Trine

The second trine consists of the Ox, Snake, and Rooster. These three soul mates conquer life through endurance, application, and slow accumulation of energy. Although each sign is fixed and rigid in opinions and views, they are genius in the art of meticulous planning. They are hardworking, discreet, modest, industrious, charitable, loyal, punctual, philosophical, patient, and good-hearted individuals with high moral standards. They can also be self-righteous, vain, critical, judgmental, myopic, narrow-minded, petty, and pessimistic.

The Third Trine

The third trine consists of the Tiger, Horse, and Dog. These three signs seek a true lover, and are like-minded in their pursuit of humanitarian causes. Each is a gifted orator and excels at verbal communication. Relationships and personal contact are of highest priority and each one seeks their intimate soul mate. Idealistic and impulsive, the Tiger, Horse and Dog follow the beat of their own drummer. Defiant against injustice, these three signs wilt without large amounts of physical affection and loyal support for causes. They are productive, enthusiastic, independent, engaging, dynamic, and honourable. They can also be rash, rebellious, quarrelsome, hot-headed, reckless, anxious, moody, disagreeable, and stubborn. Although these three signs are loyal, they can be very protective when lied to. The three signs do not enjoy being told what to do, but will listen when it is a person they love or trust whole-heartedly.

The Fourth Trine

The fourth trine consists of the Rabbit, Sheep, and Pig. The quest for these three signs is the aesthetic and beautiful in life. Their calm nature gives them great leadership abilities. They are artistic, refined, intuitive, and well-mannered. These souls love the preliminaries in love, and are fine artists in their lovemaking. The Rabbit, Sheep and Pig have been bestowed with calmer natures than the other 9 signs. These three are compassionately aware, yet detached and resigned to their condition. They seek beauty and a sensitive lover. They are caring, unique, self-sacrificing, obliging, sensible, creative, emphatic, tactful, and prudent. They can also be naive, pedantic, insecure, cunning, indecisive, and pessimistic.

Mobile users - please read this :)

Very informative mail for you, please don't forget to forward.

Would you like to know if your mobile is original or not ?????

Press the following on your mobile *#06# and the-international mobile equipment identity number appears. Then check the 7th and 8th numbers:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7 th	8 th	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
Phone serial no.	x	x	x	x	x	x	?	?	x	x	x	x	x	x	x

IF the Seventh & Eighth digits are 02 or 20 this means your cell phone was assembled in Emirates which is very Bad quality

IF the Seventh & Eighth digits are 08 or 80 this means your cell phone was manufactured in Germany which is fair quality

IF the Seventh & Eighth digits are 01 or 10 this means your cell phone was manufactured in Finland which is very Good

IF the Seventh & Eighth digits are 00 this means your cell phone was manufactured in original factory which is the best Mobile Quality

IF the Seventh & Eighth digits are 13 this means your cell phone was assembled in Azerbaijan which is very Bad quality and also dangerous for your health

THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW YOUR CELL PHONE COULD DO
There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies.
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for
survival. Check out the things that you can do with it: -
(1 )
EMERGENCY

* The Emergency Number worldwide for **Mobile** is 112 ..* If you find
yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an
emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to
establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked. **Try it out.**
(2)
Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have remote keys?
This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone:
If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call
someone at home on their cell phone from your cell phone.
Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock.
Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the trunk).
Editor's Note: *It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a cell phone!"*
(3)
Hidden Battery power
Imagine your cell battery is very low , you are expecting an important call
and you don't have a charger. Nokia instrument comes with a reserve
battery. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your cell will restart with
this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This
reserve will get charged when you charge your cell next time.
AND
(4 )
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?
To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone:
* # 0 6 #
A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. when your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless.
You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in people stealing mobile phones.

Please spread this useful information around

all the Olympic Posters of last 112 years

As the Summer Olympics draws near every aspect of popular culture tends to involve itself in it. The design world especially plays an important part in inspiring people to get excited about the games. Recently there was a book released called "A Century of Olympic Posters" (which was mentioned in Fabiano's Best of the Week #18 post back in June). I've actually never seen the book, but I found that I didn't actually need it to see all the posters. Wikipedia has them all easily accessible.

1896

1900

1904

1908

1912

1920

1924

1928

1932

1936

1948

1952

1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1992

1996

2000

2004

2008

2012