Instead, please check out http://armoks.com.

I have also started writing on Forex, finance and stock Markets.

Check out this video for your self. If the video does not get embeded you can go to this link.

This was one of the features I have been waiting for a long long time, and I was so happy they introduced it.

Here are the some of the recent features and themes that they have launched.

• Domain mapping and Email
• Theme Friday: Ocean Mist
• Stats Plugin
• Clouds and Drop Downs
• Get Random

Thank you WP.com, you guys rock !

Note: If you want to have an email ID on my domain, please leave a comment. The email will give you userid@armoks.com as email along with all the excellent features that Google mail offers…so go ahead make your requests…

The list contains CSS generators,AJAX generators, Web 2.0 icon generators and lots of other east to use stuff…A page worth bookmarking…

Click here to go to the list

World Cup action is upon us

3/13/2007 06:47:00 AM

Posted by Sadeesh Kumar Duraisamy, Software Engineer (Google)

If you’re not into cricket, read no further. But if you are, you must know that everyone has an opinion on cricket and each point of view is unique. You sometimes choose to share your views with friends and family over a ‘dinner and watching the cricket match’ get-together ritual. Your uncle often interjects with his usual support for Shane Warne‘s superb bowling, even though Shane is now retired and not playing for Australia in this year’s World Cup.

Whatever your favourite mode of cricket expression might be, the Google cricket campaign in India allows you to join in the world cup excitement in more ways than one. Howzzat?

Talk cricket on Orkut
Cricket discussions that started in the elevator can spill over to the Orkut network. Especially this season, in association with us, cricket expert and former Indian cricket captain Krish Srikkanth has created his own community on Orkut to interact with cricket lovers, debate the latest happenings and just share cricket views.

Express yourself on a blog
Write your own views about cricket on Blogger, and then publish and share them with the world online. If you would rather read about cricket than write, Krish has also created his own blog on this year’s World Cup action. Get to know him and his take on the games and his memories of his 1983 victory at close quarters. And if you’ve taken a fancy to blogging, submit your own blog this World Cup season to our cricket blogging contest for Indian audiences.

Get cricket scores & news
If work or school are getting in the way of your cricket enjoyment, keep up to date with match scores and World Cup cricket news by personalizing your Google homepage with the latest cricket gadgets. If you prefer, you can also get cricket scores, exciting images and cricket videos straight to your desktop with Google desktop cricket gadgets.

So if you’re a cricket aficionado, join the World Cup fun with Google. And if you’re not? More for the rest of us to enjoy!

Fatty acids can help children in exams and improve their behaviour in class and at home, a study suggests.

Overweight children who took fatty acid dietary supplements showed dramatic improvements in concentration, reading, memory and mental agility. The advances that their brains made in three months would normally take three years, researchers found.One teenage boy who was hooked on watching television and hated books before the experiment became an avid reader after and dismissed programmes as too boring to bother with.

Researchers said that the results, while based on a small sample, supported recent findings that fatty acids boost brain development and suggest that fast food may stunt mental growth, because processed foods do not contain these acids.

Improvement were made in every area of academic activity but the most surprising change, said researchers, was in levels of Nacetylaspartate, or NAA, a biochemical indicator of brain development.

According to brain scans carried out at St George’s Hospital, southwest London, the levels of NAA rose far more than expected in the three boys and one girl taking a supplement containing the omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

“The results were astonishing,” said Professor Basant Puri, who led the study. “In three months you might expect to see a small NAA increase. But we saw as much growth as you would normally see in three years. It was as if these were the brains of children three years older. It means you have more connections and greater density of nerve cells, in the same way that a tree grows more branches.

“For all the children there was a marked change, but in the three boys there was a massive, massive increase in NAA. I was quite startled by what I saw.”

The children taking part in the research were classified as overweight. Zach, aged 8, weighed 8st (51kg), George and Rachael, both aged 11, weighed 11st, and Gareth, who was 13, weighed 12st.

At the start of the pilot study, the children were given a supplement called VegEPA. They took two capsules a day and were encouraged to cut down on fatty snacks and fizzy drinks and be more active.

After three months the children’s reading abilities were a year ahead, their handwriting was neater and more accurate and they paid more attention in class.

“Gareth’s parents told me how he had suddenly found TV boring, as he wanted to read. Three months earlier he was saying he couldn’t understand people who loved books,” said Professor Puri, of the Division of Clinical Sciences at Imperial College, London.

“The concentration of all the children improved enormously and they seemed a lot calmer and happier. Even before I started testing them their parents were saying how much better they were.”

The children were asked to change their diet but there was no evidence that they did to any great extent and Professor Puri believes that the changes were caused by the supplement, which is derived from oily fish and evening primrose oil. It contains an essential fatty acid called EPA, but significantly, another type of fatty acid, DHA, is absent. Previous studies by Professor Puri have shown this formula can improve brain function in adults.

His study features in a Five TV documentary, Mind the Fat: Does Fast Equal Food Slow Kids?, to be broadcast on Thursday.

Professor Kishore Bhakoo, of the the Clinical Sciences Centre at Imperial, said: “The thing that amazed me was how much change in biochemistry you could see in three months . . . You’d expect some variation, but they were all going in the same direction.”

He said that the results had implications for the “junk food” debate: “Processed food doesn’t contain these substances.”

The unearthly view was snapped on February 25 by one of two satellites in the space agency’s STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) project to unravel the mysteries of the Sun.

Launched in October, the twin craft are in an orbit around the Sun that almost exactly matches our world’s path. However one satellite, STEREO-B, is trailing about 1.6 million kilometres behind the Earth, while the other, STRERO-A, is travelling ahead.

Last month, during a test of STEREO-B’s cameras, the scientists commanded the craft to image the Moon as it passed in front of the Sun.

What they saw delighted them.

“What an extraordinary view … we caught a lunar transit of the Sun,” said the NASA scientist, Dr Lika Guhathakurta.

“The images have an alien quality. It’s not just the strange colours of the Sun. Look at the size of the Moon; it’s very odd.”

By pure coincidence the relatively tiny Moon, when seen from Earth, looks exactly the same size as the much bigger and far more distant Sun.

So, during a solar eclipse our only natural satellite can block out the solar disc, bringing darkness in the middle of the day.

But STEREOB is about 1.6 million kilometres from Earth, so to it the Moon looks 4.4 times smaller than it does to us.

The Sun looks different because the spacecraft took the pictures using four different extreme ultraviolet light wavelengths.

The scientists hope to combine images from the two satellites to make stereo movies of the Sun that will help them understand massive explosions, called coronal mass ejections, that can hurl a billion tonnes of gas into space, sometimes towards our planet.

by David Bach

Of all the games the credit card companies play that end up costing you thousands of dollars (late fees, over-limit fees, transfer fees, and so on), it’s always been the interest rate game that hurt the most — until now.

There’s a new, completely legal game they’re playing, and it can literally wipe you out financially if you’re not careful.

The Universal Default Clause

If you own a credit card, you know by now that if you’re late with a payment the credit card company will charge you a late fee in addition to raising your interest rate. But did you know that they can raise your interest rate if you’ve made a late payment on any of your other cards, including those issued by other companies?

Not only that, but your interest rates can skyrocket to 30 percent or more if you make a late payment on your car loan, mortgage, or even your phone bill!

“How can that be legal?” you may ask. The answer is found in the fine print of your credit card agreement, and it’s called a universal default clause. According to the Institute of Consumer Financial Education, currently almost 40 percent of credit card issuers apply this policy to their customers.

A Late Payment ‘Trigger’

Generally, a universal default clause states that a creditor reserves the right to penalize you with an increased interest rate if you’re late — that is, in default — of a payment to any other creditor. They justify this practice because, in theory, if you pay any of your creditors late, you pose a greater credit risk and are less likely to pay your debt.

Your creditors also have the right to routinely monitor your credit file. So a creditor with a universal default clause will be watching — and waiting.

Let’s say your Visa card has a universal default clause. Any late payment — whether it’s on your utility bill, home equity loan, or Macy’s credit card — acts as a “default trigger” allowing the bank that issued the Visa card to double or even triple your interest rate overnight. Your all-important credit score will be hurt as well.

According to a study by the nonprofit advocacy and education group Consumer Action, the top three default triggers that cause your interest rates to spike are a decline in credit score, paying your mortgage late, and paying your car loan late.

Other Triggers to Worry About

Under the universal default clause, your interest rates can be increased for several other reasons, including exceeding your credit limit, bouncing a check, having too much debt, having too much credit, getting a new credit card, applying for a car loan, and applying for a mortgage loan.

How does this affect your financial future? Take a look at the numbers. Let’s say you’re an average American household, with $8,000 of credit card debt. Assuming you make no additional purchases on your card, you have a 9 percent interest rate, and you make the minimum monthly payment, it’ll take you 218 months (18 years) to pay off your debt and you’ll end up paying $3,334 in interest.

Now let’s assume that for whatever reason you were late one month with your car payment. This late payment triggers the universal default clause with your credit card issuer, and now your penalty rate gets increased to 24 percent (the average default rate in 2005). It’ll now take you 679 months (56 years) to pay off your credit card debt, and get this — you’ll pay $30,813 in interest.

Staying Ahead of the Clause

Here are six ways to protect yourself from interest rate hike triggers:

1. Stay away from credit cards with a universal default clause.

If you’re looking to open a new credit card account, be sure to choose one without a universal default clause. This means you have to truly read the fine print. If you’re confused by the fine print (as many are), call the credit card company and ask what specific circumstances will affect your interest rate.

I read recently that Capital One cards don’t have a universal default clause (although you should double-check before applying), and Citi has dropped its universal default policy as well. In addition, sites like CardWeb.com, Bankrate.com, and LowerMyBills.com let you compare credit card offers, so visit them before you apply.

2. Know your current obligations.

Check your current statements and credit card agreements to find out your current interest rates, and to identify which cards have a universal default clause that you weren’t aware of until now. Again, if you’re uncertain after reading the fine print, call your credit card company.

Consider transferring your balance from a card that has the universal default clause to one of your cards that doesn’t. But don’t rush to cancel the card altogether, because it could have a negative effect on your credit score.

3. Run your credit report.

Not only do you need to know exactly what your current interest rates are, you also need to know exactly what’s on your credit report. Visit Freecreditreport.com or myFICO to order your credit report and credit score today.

4. Pay your bills on time.

According to the American Bankers Association, late payments for most types of consumer loans were on the rise during the third quarter of 2006. If you’re having trouble with your credit card payments, at the very least strive to make your minimum payment on time.

5. Be proactive — call your lender for relief.

If you’re struggling to make monthly payments on your other bills, like utilities, car payments, or mortgage payments, call your lender to see what options they might be able to offer you. They might be able to adjust your monthly payments so that they’re more manageable.

Your goal is to protect your credit report and credit score with a consistent record of on-time payments.

6. Fight back for your money — write your local legislator.

Right now, there are amendments to the Truth in Lending Act that, if passed, would prohibit many unfair practices within the credit card industry — including the universal default clause.

As a consumer, you can take action by letting Congress know that you want laws to protect your rights. For more information on how you can be heard, visit Consumer Action’s web site.

As I write this, Congress is holding hearings to discuss the abusive and deceptive practices of the credit card industry. Read more about it here.

A Good Night’s Sleep

Obviously, what you don’t know really can hurt you. Check today and see if you have the universal default clause on your credit cards.

If you do, be careful to stay on top of your debt. Better yet, find a credit card that doesn’t have the clause — you’ll sleep better at night.