The Best of News Feeds #10

A new batch of stories hot of the press. From the best photos on sunrises and sunsets to Santa Claus, from Open Source to Wordpress, from a penis burning women to Big Brother and of course lots more. You’ll be surprised at the quality and variety of articles you will read here. Some will make you laugh whilst others will make you cry. Every single one an excellent read indeed!

Some amazing photos of sunrises and sunsets

MadDog: Solar Attack

My collection of sunrises as seen from my front yard is growing a bit too rapidly. I need to unload some of them. In another year, I’ll have enough for a nice coffee table book….

Santa Claus must be real then?

Kalena: How Google Tracked Santa in 2008

If you have a child who still believes in Santa Claus, chances are you know about the NORAD Santa Tracker. NORAD is the bi-national U.S.-Canadian military organization responsible for the aerospace and maritime defense of the United States and Canada. NORAD’s Santa Tracker began in 2004, shortly after Keyhole technology was acquired by Google and the “Keyhole Earth Viewer” was launched (a precursor to Google Earth). Back then it was called the “Keyhole Santa Radar” and only paid subscribers to Keyhole had access…

The Eye’s have it!!

TechBlissOnline: Eye protection with EyeDefender for eye problems due to computer

Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) is the result of long hours of working on a computer. Symptoms of Computer Vision Syndrome include blurred vision, eyestrain, delayed focusing, headaches, back and neck aches, dry and burning eyes, light sensitivity, distorted color vision, forehead heaviness, and sore eyes. Doesn’t these scare you? But don’t worry, as there are always remedies for most eye problems. The simplest remedy is to take short breaks from working on your PC. If you have problems in scheduling such short breaks, then here is a freeware called EyeDefender that can help you take regular breaks and relax your eyes at fixed intervals…

How could I live without the following folks?

Ajay: Weblog Tools Collection: Top 10 WordPress Plugin Developers

Top 10 WordPress Plugin Developers takes a look at the top plugin authors ranked by the number of downloads from the WordPress Plugin Repository. Also includes a few other statistics. You can check out the more exhaustive Top 1000 list. What’s your rank?…

Brings back memories from my Local Government days!

Newsforge: Municipalities open their GIS systems to citizens

Many public administrations already use open source Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to let citizens look at public geographic data trough dedicated Web sites. Others use the same software to partially open the data gathering process: they let citizens directly add geographic information to the official, high-quality GIS databases by drawing or clicking on digital maps…

Have you ever heard of Creative Commons?

The Blog Herald: 5 Lesser-Known Benefits to Creative Commons

Bloggers use, and don’t use, Creative Commons Licenses for a variety of reasons. Some feel that it is a great way to give back to the community, others use CC licensing as a form of promotion, encouraging their content to be used with attribution, and others feel that it is a way to promote copyright reform. However, Creative Commons can actually provide bloggers benefits that go well beyond the buttons and badges. In the uncertain copyright climate of the Web, having a firm lawyer-written license, regardless of what it says, can have huge benefits over the ambiguity that comes with not having one…

A must read for the naughty “stuff” folks…

Kev: Big Brother

Today I was trolling through blogs through the ‘next blog’ tab on Blogger and came across an American family who are into shooting the watsaname out of deer. At the top of their blog is a sort of counter which shows who has been looking at their blog and all the details of their ISP and indeed the computer system and browser used. Ours showed up…

It certainly has…

Hack Wordpress: Free Software Comes of Age

For years free & open-source software has gotten a bad wrap, though sometimes deservedly so. Many businesses, large and small, are hesitant to run mission critical applications based on open-source software largely out of fear of a lack of support coupled with concerns over buggy or unsecure software. So to recognize free & open-source software as being ready for prime-time we have to dispel a few misconceptions right up front…

Penis or Pussy power?

Malum: ‘Penis fire’ suspect is charged

An Australian woman has appeared in court in Adelaide charged with murdering her husband by setting fire to his penis, BBC reports. Rajini Narayan, 44, is alleged to have doused her husband, Satish, with a flammable liquid while he was sleeping. When she set him alight, Mr Narayan jumped out of bed and knocked over the substance, causing the fire to spread. Mrs Narayan told the court she had not intended to kill her husband but to punish him for his alleged infidelity…

Slowly but surely our personal freedoms are being eroded!!

IT Tok Tok: Police in the UK can now hack home PCs

According to the Australian IT News website Police in the UK have being given the green light to hack into people’s computers without a warrant. This move can only be described as a sinister extension of the surveillance state. Which I believe now the distinction between good and evil are now starting to merge. This type of hacking is known as “remote searching” and what it does is to allow British police or MI5 officers to remotely examine a hard drive secretly whether it is at someones home, in their office, in a hotel room, etc…

And where do you think PNG appeared on the scale?

Emmanuel: World’s most corrupt and least corrupt nations

Corruption watchdog Transparency International has released a list of the world’s most and least corrupt nations.The report comes ahead of a conference in Bali this week where more than 100 countries are expected to gather for a United Nations anti-corruption conference. Four countries from the region made it to the list of most corrupt countries in…