Google Hangouts Updates On iOS To Offer Free Calling & Animated GIFs

Google Hangouts Updates On iOS To Offer Free Calling & Animated GIFs

My Mother's Family History: Billion Graves - Get a Team Together and Photograp...

My Mother's Family History: Billion Graves - Get a Team Together and Photograp...: Have you ever considered getting a team of people together and taking your smart phones out and photographing an entire cemetery in one day....

Evernote Pick: Pocket

Evernote Pick: Pocket:
Today’s Evernote Pick from the Evernote Trunk is Pocket. Use Pocket to quickly save articles, videos, and web pages with your smartphone or tablet to read later. With Pocket, you can also tag, favorite, and comment on your saved content to organize it. Anything you save in Pocket can then be sent to your Evernote account, where it will be saved forever, and accessible everywhere you have Evernote installed.
Download Pocket now in the Evernote Trunk!
Have you tried Pocket? Let us know what you think in the comments, and check out these other recent Evernote Picks:

• Scalar
• PopClip

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Are you a developer interested in joining the more than 20,000 developers worldwide who are building with Evernote? Visit dev.evernote.com to get more information and get started!

Google preparing a music streaming service, Pandora and Spotify should be worried

Google preparing a music streaming service, Pandora and Spotify should be worried:

Google owns YouTube, the largest video streaming site in the world by a huge margin, and Play Music, the service that lets users download songs from a catalog of over 13 million of tracks. It makes perfect sense for the tech giant to move into the music streaming business, and, according to the Financial Times, that is precisely what Google is doing.
The move will put Google in competition with established music streaming services like Pandora and Spotify. When Apple was rumored to weigh in an entry in the sector, Pandora’s stock tanked, so I am wondering how the markets will react at the news of Google getting into streaming. Larry Page’s company has a reputation of offering free or cheap services, which would put even more pressure on a competitive and notoriously difficult industry.
As The Next Web notes, Google already announced plans to roll out paid subscriptions on YouTube. From there, the move to paid music subscriptions is logical and quite reasonable to envisage. Google certainly possesses the infrastructure required for the venture.
Also, Google’s Music Match service is similar to a streaming app, albeit without the paid subscription. With Music Match, Google scans the users’ drives for music, which it then proceeds to match with cloud-stored versions. Users of the service (limited to the US and some European countries) can then listen to up to 20,000 tracks directly from the cloud, from any Internet connected device.
My bet is Google will integrate the new streaming service into its current Google Music offering. As for when the new service is expected to launch, we have no information, but Google I/O would certainly make a great launch venue.

Report: 47 Percent of Detroit Property Owners Pay No Taxes

Report: 47 Percent of Detroit Property Owners Pay No Taxes:

Shuttered and repossessed homes line the streets of a middle class neighborhood on the East side of Detroit. (Getty Images)

An estimated 47 percent of Detroit’s property owners pay no taxes, according to recent report from The Detroit News.
“Nearly half of the owners of Detroit’s 305,000 properties failed to pay their tax bills last year, exacerbating a punishing cycle of declining revenues and diminished services for a city in a financial crisis,” the report notes, citing more than 200,000 pages of tax documents.
“Some $246.5 million in taxes and fees went uncollected, about half of which was due Detroit and the rest to other entities, including Wayne County, Detroit Public Schools and the library,” the report adds.
In fact, according to The News, delinquency in the shattered city is so bad that that 77 blocks had only one owner who paid taxes in 2012.
Yes, one person paid taxes in an area covering 77 blocks.

Detroit: UAW workers protesting against GM supplier Johnson Controls Inc. (Getty Images)

Many of the people interviewed by The News said that they don’t understand why they should pay into a system that has failed to provide them with basic public services.
“Why pay taxes?” asked Fred Phillips, who owes more than $2,600 on his home. “Why should I send them taxes when they aren’t supplying services? It is sickening. … Every time I see the tax bill come, I think about the times we called and nobody came.”
Republican Gov. Rick Snyder sent a team earlier to review the city’s finances. Shocker: The team announced this week that Detroit’s problems are too big for it to fix alone.
“Any emergency manager appointed by Gov. Rick Snyder would have to grapple with a broken property tax system. The city’s share of uncollected taxes last year was $131 million — an amount equal to 12 percent of Detroit’s general fund budget,” The News notes.
Here’s what they found after conducting a four-month analysis of the city’s tax problem:

Detroit has the highest property taxes among big cities nationwide and relies on assessments that are seriously inflated. Many houses are assessed at more than 10 times their market price, according to new research from two Michigan professors.
Detroit relies on a shrinking sliver of businesses and neighborhoods to pay the bulk of the bills. The three casinos, General Motors Corp., DTE Energy, Chrysler Group LLC and Marathon Petroleum Corp. paid 19 percent of collected property taxes. Five city neighborhoods, most of them downtown and along the river, paid 15 percent of the city’s taxes and represent only 2 percent of the city’s total parcels. In all, only 41 percent of the city’s parcels produced tax revenues last year because of delinquencies and a large number of tax-exempt land.
Detroit’s delinquencies are so pervasive that some owners have been allowed to keep their property even if they don’t pay taxes. Wayne County treasury officials are so overwhelmed by foreclosures that they ignored about 40,000 delinquent Detroit properties that should have been seized last year and said they will look the other way on about 36,000 this year.

The News quotes Lou Schimmel, Pontiac’s emergency financial manager, as saying Detroit needs to sort out its tax issues immediately.
“It’s broken,” he said. “It has to be fixed. You need the revenue.”
“It’s just plain simple. Your revenues are falling so fast you can’t afford to provide basic services,” he adds.
Final Thought: “Nearly 75 percent of voters in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, voted for Obama on Nov. 6,” FOX 2 Detroit notes.
So much for that “government bacon.”
–
Follow Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) on Twitter
Featured images Getty Images. Click here to read The News’ shocking report.


Follow Becket Adams on Twitter
Read more stories from TheBlaze

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Rush Limbaugh: ‘For the First Time in My Life I Am Ashamed of My Country’
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Fox News’ Bob Beckel Makes Shocking Comments About Rape on College Campuses
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Preview files in Google Drive

Preview files in Google Drive:

It may sound obvious, but sometimes the best way to find something is to start looking. Beginning today, Google Drive will let you quickly preview more than 30 file types and quickly flip between files until you find the one you want.

You’ll see the new preview automatically if you open a photo, video, or PDF. To see a preview of a Google document, right-click on the file name and select “preview.” Once the preview window is open, you can click on the arrows on either side to flip to other files. And right from within the preview, you can watch video files or scroll through multi-page documents.

You can select and copy text from the preview -- even for a PDF or Microsoft Word document -- or use the zoom buttons to see a file in more detail. Each file preview also gives you one-click access to share, download, print or open a file for editing.

This feature will roll out over the next few days.




Posted by: Ian Kilpatrick, Google Drive Engineer

A Day Made of Glass 2: Unpacked. The Story Behind Corning's Vision.

A-Ha - Take On Me (OFFICIAL VIDEO)

The Ed Koch I Knew — A Remembrance

Friday, 01 Feb 2013 06:53 PM

By Christopher Ruddy

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It’s a cold Friday night last December and I am at the reception desk to see former New York Mayor Ed Koch at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

“Ed Koch please,” I ask the young African-American fellow serving as the receptionist.

“You’re here to see Mayor Koch!” he says rather excitedly to me, exclaiming rather than questioning.

I am curious as to his reaction, coming from a young man no older than 25 and probably not even born before 1989, when Koch served his last year as mayor.

So, as he’s scanning the computer for Hizzoner’s room, I say, “You know of Mayor Koch.”

“No, I don’t know him. But it’s a name I have heard all my life, like he’s part of me,” he says.

I found the story amusing, so upon entering Koch’s private hospital suite, I shared the anecdote with Ed.

“Ed, most of these kids don’t know who the vice president is, but they know who you are after all these years out of office,” I said, adding as Koch was smirking, “You ARE still relevant after all these years!”

He loved it, because after he left the mayoralty he frequently said his goal in life was to “remain relevant.”

In fact, he was remaining relevant that Friday night.

Though recovering from the flu (doctors first thought it was pneumonia) with medical monitoring devices strapped to his body as he lay in bed, Koch had papers strewn across himself, and a nearby table.

He was working on his next column (his column appeared on Newsmax, among several outlets) on the Middle East and the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel.

Koch had not been pleased that Obama had reverted to form and was again taking a more hostile line on Israel.

The mayor had strongly endorsed Obama in his re-election, but said he was not surprised by Obama’s behavior either.

“I only backed him because I thought he was going to win,” Koch said to me bluntly.

Someone who didn’t know Koch may have taken him as quite cynical and opportunistic.

I didn’t. Koch was being candid and eminently practical.

Koch apparently thought that if Obama was going to beat Romney, then Obama would be president for four years.

Four years can be a long time.

So Koch figured that it would be better to at least have a foothold with the Obama White House than no foothold at all if he remained neutral or backed Romney.

Koch was quite open to endorsing Republican candidates if he liked them on national security issues, as he did with George W. Bush in 2004.

Koch had spoken favorably of Bush but had not endorsed him. Early in 2004, I met Andy Card, Bush’s chief of staff, at a dinner and told him that Koch was open to endorsing the president but had never heard from the White House. Card rectified that and Koch went on to campaign actively for Bush in Florida and Ohio.

And his endorsement carried quite a bit of weight, especially with New Yorkers, former New Yorkers and Jewish voters.

As it turned out, Bush beat John Kerry by a small margin of 118,700 votes in Ohio, and I like to think Koch played a role with Ohio’s Jewish community. With Obama, Koch didn’t want an open door at the White House for personal gain, but for the causes he cared about.

Koch had made a bet with himself that if Obama won re-election he would support Israel. It was now becoming clear to Koch he had lost the bet.

I reminded Koch of his private meeting with Obama in the fall of 2011. Soon after his powwow, Koch had shared the blow-by-blow details, which I had written about in my article, "A Tale of Two Obamas.”

Koch had clearly been charmed by Obama’s charm and frankness.

Obama, apparently knowing of Koch’s penchant for talking, began the conversation by saying, “Ed, I know you have a lot to tell me. But first, I’d like to speak for about twenty minutes. Can you let me do that without interruption and when I finish, you can speak all you want.”

As Koch related with a smile, the president was basically telling him to “shut up and listen.” Koch quite liked Obama’s blunt approach, saying it was “cute.”

During their conversation, Obama made all sorts of promises and assurances about U.S. policy toward Israel. Koch decided within days of the meeting that he would accept the president at his word.

But, without pressing, he quickly offered to me that Obama “could be lying to me.”

Koch liked Obama personally and, in his mind, Koch had nowhere else to go politically.

Shortly after the election I had written of Romney’s shortcomings and Koch wrote me a letter with a note that said: “Romney lost because voters saw the Republican Party as the party representing the interests of the very wealthy in this country. They saw the Democratic Party as defender of the middle class and the poor.”

Typical of him, Koch summed up the election in two sentences.

We’re still in the hospital room and the election is about two months into history, and Koch still has regrets.

“The Republicans should have cleaned Obama’s clock,” he laments.

But now we are talking about tax policy and Koch is telling me the only way to solve the nation’s fiscal problems is to tax the rich.

I counter that doing so could lead to actually less government revenue, not more, with a widening deficit — just as it happened in Britain.

“You’re crazy, that’s simply crazy,” he says to me, the feisty Ed Koch I knew was returning, looking for a good partner to spar with.

At this point I’m thinking to myself: Is it wise for me to argue with an 88-year-old man recuperating in the hospital?

Fortunately, the nurse came with Koch’s dinner and interrupted us.

He waved to her. “Not yet with the food, put it over there,” he said pointing to a table.

“But give me the chocolate milk right away.”

“Chocolate milk, Ed?” I said quizzically, as he took the large glass with both hands. “You drink it regularly?”

Slurping it down in gulps, he came up for air. “Yes, I do. Every single day. How do you think I made it to 88!”

The trademark Koch smile flashed across his face and we both laughed.

*********

Last night I went to sleep with the radio on. That’s how I fall asleep and stay asleep.

My doctor told me that there is nothing wrong with it — the sound apparently helps my brain waves sync to get sleep — and that I should not change the habit!

Typically, being asleep I never remember anything that was on the radio, but I do remember last night being startled and hearing a female voice: "Breaking news, former New York Mayor Ed Koch has died . . ." or words to that effect.

Apparently my “sleeping” brain was listening somehow, woke me up and then allowed me to drift back to sleep.

Waking up later that morning, I thought, was that a dream or did Ed Koch really die?

I clicked on my cell phone and Ken Chandler, my editor, had left a simple message: “AP: Ed Koch dies.”

Ken, who once edited the New York Post, knew Ed as well and we all had lunch together just months ago.

It wasn’t a dream after all. Ed had died.

But it was in a way a real dream, having been a friend of this remarkably good man and public servant.

Meeting the Mayor

I knew Ed Koch as a friend and confidante for more than two decades.

Almost every time I met him there was some anecdote to be remembered.

His detractors often criticized his outsized ego, which he had. But while others saw it as a liability, I thought it was a tremendous asset for him and a blessing for others.

Koch loved the spotlight, as long as it gave him an opportunity to do good. He was not one for grabbing the spotlight for the sake of it.

He loved telling the story that on Hillary Clinton’s election to the Senate, she walked over to him and said, “I want you to stand right behind me” on the stage.

He never would have tried to steal the stage from her, “as some other politicians would have,” Koch recalled to me, obliquely referencing New York’s senior senator.

With Koch it was more than just ego. Politicians who are only ego-driven, who love the limelight so much, are not willing to take risks that may cut them off from establishment outlets.

Not Koch, he was totally different. And that’s sort of why we first got to know each other.

It was in the early ‘90s, when I edited a tiny publication few had ever heard of and I broke several stories about a PBS documentary called “Liberators” that purported to show how two African-American combat units had liberated the concentration camps of Buchenwald and Dachau.

I had discovered that the story line had been distorted and greatly embellished. In fact, the black soldiers featured in the film had truly been heroic. But they were not liberators of those camps.

When I interviewed several of the soldiers, they told me that the film had distorted the truth and they actually had never made the claim about liberating the camps.

Koch heard about my stories and contacted me. We first spoke by phone.
He was upset by the allegations. If true, PBS was revising Holocaust history for reasons of political correctness.

He asked to meet me at his New York law office. We had a long chat.

A flurry of letters and phone calls followed, with Koch demanding that PBS explain what happened or “fess up.” Other press joined the fray and the American Jewish Committee soon criticized the documentary.

In the end, an embarrassed PBS pulled its support for the film.

I had established my credibility in Koch’s eyes, and our long friendship continued through my journalism days at the New York Post, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and later, with the founding of Newsmax in 1998.

And during my wilderness years reporting critically on the Clinton administration, Koch, a Democrat, always remained quite supportive.

Soon after I founded Newsmax, I held a kick-off party for us in New York. Koch served as our principal host.

Ed Koch’s Unlikely Best Friend

Many Americans think of Koch as a quintessential New Yorker and a proud Jewish-American.

Koch was quite proud of his Jewish faith.

He said he wanted his tombstone to read “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish,” the last words of journalist Daniel Pearl before he was beheaded by militants in Pakistan.

His Judaism animated him, but not in a narrow, isolating way.

Just as being a fervent New Yorker might have made him provincial to the city (he famously told Playboy magazine about the suburbs: “It’s sterile. It’s nothing. It’s wasting your life.), he thought well beyond Manhattan and its insular thinking.

In many ways, Koch’s political views probably had more in common with those of a blue-collar Ohio Democrat than a West Side liberal.

Why Koch was loyal to me I am not exactly sure. We liked each other.

I was a New Yorker, with my family coming to Manhattan in the 1840s. I was an Irish Catholic, my Dad had been a police officer, and I was a strong supporter of Israel.

Koch seemed to have an affinity for the Irish and got on famously with the police during his mayoralty. He also had an unflinching interest in protecting Israel, America’s longtime democratic ally in the region.

And Koch simply loved the Catholic Church.

Koch had many friends. But his best friend, as far as I could tell, was the late Cardinal John O’Connor.

O’Connor, named Archbishop of New York, received his “Red Hat” soon after Koch became mayor. The two hit it off, beginning a friendship that lasted until O’Connor’s death in 2000.

At first glance, the two came from totally different worlds.

O’Connor was from Philadelphia and spent his life in the U.S. military as a chaplain, rising to the rank of admiral, as Koch represented Manhattan in Congress and later New York as mayor.

In private, O’Connor was somewhat retiring among people, but he was also known as an outspoken traditionalist when using his St. Patrick’s pulpit to excoriate the country’s lurch leftward on social issues like abortion and gay rights. Koch was an extrovert and staunchly pro-choice and pro-gay rights.

Yet this unlikely duo remained best of pals even after Koch left Gracie Mansion.

Each year, Koch would attend Christmas Eve vigil mass and sit in the front row.

Cardinal O’Connor would comment before the mass began, “For those of you Catholics who are returning to church and have forgotten when to stand and kneel, just watch Monsignor Koch, he knows what to do.”

Everyone would roar.

I recall, shortly after Koch’s open heart surgery that kept him in the hospital for weeks, visiting him at his Greenwich Village apartment as he was convalescing.

His apartment was simple — not much furniture, books, few knick-knacks, or papers.

But what really struck me were the mementos of Cardinal O’Connor on the wall. As you entered the apartment, a large poster for a book Koch and O’Connor co-authored was framed.

Other O’Connor pictures adorned the wall.

Anytime O’Connor’s name was mentioned, Koch would light up. In conversation, I would sometimes drop his name, just to see Koch’s reaction.

Koch told me about a year ago that he wasn’t sure when he had open heart surgery if he would survive as he lay in the hospital for weeks. So he put a picture of Cardinal O’Connor on his chest and kept it there during his hospital entire stay.

Not only did he survive, Koch said, but when he left the hospital, he was completely cured of a debilitating stenosis of his spine that had made it difficult for him to walk.

He later told me that he informed Cardinal Egan, O’Connor’s successor, that he was willing to testify to a miracle for O’Connor’s proposed sainthood.

“How’m I doin?”

Today, the obituaries are being published about Edward I. Koch.

Most are focusing on what the press sees as his “one big thing” -- the one line history will remember about the person.

That one line about Koch reads like this: He became mayor when New York was on the verge of bankruptcy, took on the powerful unions and saved the city.

I have no quarrel with that line itself, but I think Koch is so much bigger than the view he was just the City’s “savior” or even the “quintessential New Yorker.”

In my mind Koch was an archetype.

He was a model of how a public servant and a good citizen can make a significant difference in the lives of others, in a real and positive way.

He was engaged totally in the things he loved. He loved New York, its people, his country, his Jewish faith, Israel.

I remember bumping into Koch’s late brother Harold sometime in 1990. He told me that he was very worried about his brother, that he might commit suicide, as his personality, after three terms as mayor, had become so identified with the Big Apple that he was simply lost, depressed, and might give up on life.

Harold wasn’t joking about this.

I told Koch the story some years later and he said “Harold was right.” Koch did have a difficult though brief time becoming a private citizen.

But Koch soon realized his identity and mission was so much larger than New York.

In many ways he became more influential after leaving the mayoralty. His political endorsements helped make Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg mayor, not to mention helping to re-elect leading New York Republicans like Gov. George Pataki and Sen. Alfonse D’Amato and Connecticut’s independent Democrat, Joe Lieberman.

Koch joked to me once that if he endorsed one more Republican, he would have to leave the Democratic Party.

But that was what the public liked, his courage to overcome party labels to bring people together and argue for causes larger than any party.

Koch urged me to do the same and reach out to former President Clinton, despite having been a longtime critic of him. During a lunch in 2007, Koch told me that in the 1990s he didn’t like the Clintons for a variety of reasons.

But after Hillary was elected senator and he got to know her, he was impressed by her dedication and work ethic. He also admired the former president for his humanitarian work after leaving the presidency.

“You can disagree but still be friends,” he said, suggesting a meeting with Bill Clinton.

I agreed with Koch that Bill Clinton had done a remarkable job in his post-presidency as a global ambassador of good will and with his work for his Clinton Foundation. And like Koch, we both thought the Clinton presidency was much better than we saw it at the time.

Soon Koch had a letter off to Bill Clinton about a meeting. Just months later, Clinton extended an invitation to myself and my business partner, Richard Scaife, to meet with him for lunch at his Harlem office.

As a result of Koch’s introduction, I have become friends with the former president and a strong supporter of his foundation.

Koch was right. We can disagree. It’s actually good to disagree. But at the end of the day, it’s also good to work for the common good.

I have no doubt Koch is in a better place for playing such a positive role in the lives of so many people.

And I am sure somewhere he’s asking, “How’m I doin?”

You’re doing just fine Mayor, but don’t stop now.


© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Obamacare: The savings never… start

Obamacare: The savings never… start:
**Written by Doug Powers


The biggest mistake the proponents of Obamacare made was to not ask the United Nations to write the legislation so the law would be more accurately titled the “UN-Affordable Care Act.”
From CNS News:

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.
Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.
The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.
The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

Can’t afford this Affordable Care™ plan and need to calculate the penalty tax “shared responsibility payment” you’ll be required to shell out under the law? Simple:

“(i) In 2016, Taxpayers H and J are married and file a joint return. H and J have three children: K, age 21, L, age 15, and M, age 10. No member of the family has minimum essential coverage for any month in 2016. H and J’s household income is $120,000. H and J’s applicable filing threshold is $24,000. The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000.
“(ii) For each month in 2016, under paragraphs (b)(2)(ii) and (b)(2)(iii) of this section, the applicable dollar amount is $2,780 (($695 x 3 adults) + (($695/2) x 2 children)). Under paragraph (b)(2)(i) of this section, the flat dollar amount is $2,085 (the lesser of $2,780 and $2,085 ($695 x 3)). Under paragraph (b)(3) of this section, the excess income amount is $2,400 (($120,000 – $24,000) x 0.025). Therefore, under paragraph (b)(1) of this section, the monthly penalty amount is $200 (the greater of $173.75 ($2,085/12) or $200 ($2,400/12)).
“(iii) The sum of the monthly penalty amounts is $2,400 ($200 x 12). The sum of the monthly national average bronze plan premiums is $20,000 ($20,000/12 x 12). Therefore, under paragraph (a) of this section, the shared responsibility payment imposed on H and J for 2016 is $2,400 (the lesser of $2,400 or $20,000).”

Got that? The above scenario ends before H and J gave up trying to calculate the tax, got drunk, picked up the phone and used a French accent to try and convince Putin to grant them citizenship.
*****

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free.”
― P.J. O’Rourke

*****
**Written by Doug Powers
Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

How to fix America in 10 easy steps

How to fix America in 10 easy steps:
There’s no doubt about it our country needs fixing.  Poll after poll confirms that we’re heading in the wrong direction.  In a country where people carry more technology in the palm of their hands than the astronauts had when they went to the moon, surely we can do better.  Here’s my prescription
1. Phase out Social Security 
Here’s how … let everyone already collecting Social Security or close to qualifying continue to receive their benefits.  But buy-out anyone under … you name an age … say 45.  In exchange for a total release from any and all future claims, give them their money back … every penny they put into Social Security plus interest.  Let’s be honest with the younger generation, it’s better for them to start saving now for their retirement and put off buying that BMW than living their golden years in a sleeping bag on a steam grate.  The fact is, Social Security is in a death spiral and it’s dragging the whole country down with it.  Let’s kill it before it kills us.
2. Pass a second national health care bill
If you didn’t like the first one, you’ll love the second one.  We need a national health care bill that actually does something to make health care more affordable while helping medical professionals succeed.  The new bill would start with tort reform.  Imagine watching TV without being bombarded by lawyers telling us to sue someone for a medical problem, whether real or perceived.  Picture doctors practicing aggressive medicine, not defensive medicine.  Let health insurance providers compete in the marketplace the way they do for homeowners or auto insurance.  Competition will bring prices down.  I’m feeling better already.
3. Go back to the gold standard 
It would solve our fiscal problems overnight.  The dollar would be strong and stable; the markets would have predictability; and the Federal Reserve would no longer be all powerful.  You can’t print Krugerrands.
4. Stop the war on carbon 
Carbon is the core of all life.  Carbon is good.  Climate change is natural.  Global warming is political.  NASA will tell you that the earth is not warming but even it was it might solve many of our problems … more fresh water; lower heating costs; more abundant crops; and fewer fools re-building homes on shorelines after every storm.  A banana tree in every front yard.
5. Let people and companies fail
It you insulate people from failure there is no incentive to succeed.  People learn from failure … it’s one of the best motivators.  Just look at how many elections Lincoln lost before he became president.
6. For every new law Congress passes, make them repeal two 
Soon only the laws we really need would be in effect.   Barry Goldwater got it right when he said:
I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom.   My aim is
not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to
cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose,
or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden.
So let’s get started because less really is more.
7. Encourage Americans to travel more 
If two-thirds of Americans have never been outside of the country perhaps that’s why so many of us think the Old Country is part of Busch Gardens.  A better understanding of the world comes from learning first hand that the British drive on the other side of the road, not the wrong side, and that in Tahiti Santa you more likely to arrive in an outrigger canoe than a sleigh.  Be the foreigner instead of just talking about them.
 8. Teach our children not to use the word “fair”  
There is no such thing as “fair.”  It’s just a concept that perpetuates misery.  Life is not “fair” and the sooner young people learn that the better their lives will be.  The truth is, being honest with them about how the world really works is the only “fair” thing to do.  Trophies only for winners, not losers.
9.  Limit presidency to single six year term
American presidents spend their first term too focused on getting re-elected.  If they succeed in getting a second term they only have two years to get anything done before they become lame ducks.  Two productive years out of eight is no way to run a nation.  A single six year term would be long enough to fulfill a mandate and deliver on an agenda.  Conversely, it’s too long for the opposition to wait them out.  Everyone wins.
10. Embrace capitalism 
It’s the only system that works.  Soviet-style Communism failed; Socialism has destroyed Europe; and the Utopia perpetuated by American Progressives is a pipe dream doomed to fail as well.  When someone takes their own money, not taxpayer money, and creates jobs we should embrace them, not demonize them.  Want a job?  Hug a Capitalist.
Tom Edmonds is a veteran Republican media consultant.  He is a past president of the American Association of Political Consultants and current Chairman of the International Association of Political Consultants.
The post How to fix America in 10 easy steps appeared first on Conservative News, Views & Books.

Rand Breaks With Ron: All Options On Table To Prevent Nuclear Iran

Rand Breaks With Ron: All Options On Table To Prevent Nuclear Iran:

"Why shouldn't Iran have Nuclear weapons?" Those were the disconcerting words from Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) during a 2011 GOP debate in Iowa as the perennial presidential candidate gave Americans reason number one to not take him seriously as a candidate for Commander in Chief.
His son, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), is probably going to run for president some day.  Some think it will be sooner rather than later.  And last week, Sen. Paul broke ranks with his father and drew a line in the sand with Iran.
On WMAL-FM with me and co-host Brian Wilson, Sen. Paul spoke strongly about the sanctions against Iran, something his father called a "precursor to war and an embarrassment to a country that pays lip service to free trade."
When I pressed Sen. Paul about the potential scenario that U.S. military intervention could be the only thing that could stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, he responded that he would take nothing off the table when it comes to preventing a nuclear Iran.

This simple position puts the libertarian senator lightyears ahead of his father as a serious candidate for the White House and republicans who aren't taking notice are foolish and short-sighted.

Exploring the Grand Canyon on Google Maps

Exploring the Grand Canyon on Google Maps: Whether you’re planning an upcoming hike, or want to learn more about the Earth’s geological history, Google Maps can help. Today, we’re releasing panoramic imagery of one of the world’s most spectacular national monuments: the Grand Canyon. These beautiful, interactive images cover more than 75 miles of trails and surrounding roads, making our map of this area even more comprehensive, accurate and easy to use than ever before.

Take a walk down the narrow trails and exposed paths of the Grand Canyon: hike down the famous Bright Angel Trail, gaze out at the mighty Colorado River, and explore scenic overlooks in full 360-degrees. You’ll be happy you’re virtually hiking once you get to the steep inclines of the South Kaibab Trail. And rather than drive a couple hours to see the nearby Meteor Crater, a click of your mouse or tap of your finger will transport you to the rim of this otherworldly site.

View Larger Map

The Colorado River, one of the many impressive scenes in the Grand Canyon

This breathtaking imagery collection was made possible with the Trekker. Our team strapped on the Android-operated 40-pound backpacks carrying the 15-lens camera system and wound along the rocky terrain on foot, enduring temperature swings and a few muscle cramps along the way. Together, more than 9,500 panoramas of this masterpiece of nature are now available on Google Maps.

View Larger Map

A breathtaking 360-degree view from the famous Bright Angel Trail

So no matter where you are, you don’t have to travel far or wait for warmer weather to explore Grand Canyon National Park. Check out some of our favorite views on our World Wonders site where you can find more information, facts and figures about the Grand Canyon, or in the updated Street View gallery, and happy (virtual) hiking!



Posted by Ryan Falor, Product Manager, Google Maps

Google Forms, Refreshed

Google Forms, Refreshed: With Google Drive, you can do more than just create, store, and share stuff. A variety of apps can help with everything from editing spreadsheets to signing documents electronically.



Forms let you easily create questionnaires and automatically collect responses in a spreadsheet. Today a new version launches, rebuilt to bring you a faster, cleaner, and more collaborative experience.




Now with collaboration 

Create a form faster than ever. Just as with Docs, Sheets and Slides, you can now collaborate with others in real-time. If you need to work with two colleagues on a survey, all three of you can work on the same form simultaneously and even have a group chat on the side, without leaving the form.

Better editing 

Even if you’re working solo, some new changes will make creating and editing forms easier. All your changes are auto-saved and you can quickly undo/redo edits. Improved copy-and-paste will let you copy a list of bullets from the web or multiple rows of text from a spreadsheet; then, when you paste into a form, each line will be appear as an individual answer. And you can use keyboard shortcuts to get things done more quickly.

Some things unchanged 

With the new Forms editor, you can continue using all the features you’re already familiar with:

• Scale: Whether you’re collecting responses from ten friends for a baby shower or ten thousand attendees at a conference, you can count on Forms to reliably collect data for any number of responses. 
• Analyzing: See the responses you’ve received right in Google Forms or collect them neatly in Google Sheets. And you can now download a .csv file for more detailed analysis and reporting. 
• Sharing: If you share a form directly in Google+, anyone in your circles can respond without leaving their stream. Or if you send a form via email, respondents can submit their answers right from Gmail.

This update to Forms will roll out over the next few days. You can create forms directly from Google Sheets or Drive, or install the Chrome Web App for easy access from your browser. Also check the Google Drive +page all week for tips and tricks.




Posted by: Nick Santos, Software Engineer

Penultimate 4: The Best Handwriting App Just Got Better…and It’s Free!

Penultimate 4: The Best Handwriting App Just Got Better…and It’s Free!:
Penultimate is Evernote’s amazing digital handwriting app for iPad. It’s one of the best-selling applications in App Store history and today we’re excited to announce that it’s getting a big update. We kept everything that millions of users love about the app, while adding powerful new Evernote features and refreshing the interface. Oh, and now it’s completely FREE!
Let’s dive into the new Penultimate 4.
Get Penultimate from the App Store »

This version requires iOS 6. iOS 5 support is coming in the next update.

The Same, But Better…and Free

Penultimate is known for its beautiful, life-like pen and paper experience, and we’ve only made it better in version 4. The ink is sharper, smoother and more natural than ever, perfect for jotting and sketching. For this update, we also refreshed the entire interface to make it cleaner and clutter-free. You’ll notice important functions are more accessible, while less-used ones are tucked away into an easy-to-find menu.
As part of this update, we also made Penultimate a FREE application. This is all part of Evernote’s vision to build long term value by bringing you great free applications.

Evernote Built-in

Evernote has been a sharing option for Penultimate for quite some time, now it’s a core part of the app, bringing with it some powerful new features.

Search

One of Evernote’s magic features is its ability to make handwriting searchable. We’ve applied this to Penultimate to help you find the notes you’re looking for. Just tap on the new magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of your screen to begin searching your notes. Search results fly in with either a yellow rectangle around the identified words or yellow highlighting in the note title.

Handwriting is processed on the Evernote servers, which means that you need to give Penultimate a few minutes to sync before you can expect results to show up. To make notes even easier to find, we also recommend that you give your notebooks useful titles, which you can do by tapping on the title on the cover of a closed notebook.

Access Your Notes Everywhere

We at Evernote are firm believers that your ideas and memories need to be with you at all times, which is why we put so much effort into building great sync into our apps. Now, Penultimate gets that same treatment.
While the iPad is great for authoring your notes, you may need to view them from another device, and now for the first time you can. Thanks to Evernote’s sync, all of your handwritten notes are instantly available on every computer and mobile device where you have Evernote installed.
You’ll see the new sync icon in the lower right corner of the Penultimate screen. It indicates whether a sync is in progress and allows you to kick off a sync.

Notes and Notebooks: In Evernote, Penultimate Notebooks are mapped to individual notes. This way, all of your ideas about a single topic are inside of a single note. It’s a good practice to create multiple notebooks for different meetings, clients, classes, etc.
Tap on the account icon in the top left corner of the screen to choose the destination notebook in your Evernote account for your Penultimate content.

Optional Sign-in

Naturally, we think Evernote will only make your Penultimate experience better, but we’re also not pressuring anyone to make that leap. If you’re an existing Penultimate user, you can keep using Penultimate as you have been. You’ll have a great new interface, without any of the synchronization and search functionality. New users will be limited to a single notebook until they sync to Evernote.

Existing Penultimate Users

We put a lot of effort into making Penultimate 4 great for existing Penultimate users, and we think you’ll really like the results. There are a few things that we want you to be aware of when you decide to make your transition.
In order to give you the advanced Evernote features, all of your notebooks, and all future ones you create, will be synchronized and backed-up to the Evernote Service. Any of your Penultimate Notebooks that are too large to sync will be kept locally on your iPad, and remain full accessible to you. If you want to bring them into Evernote, tap on the sync warning icon at the bottom right corner of the notebook cover, and the app will help you break the notebook up into smaller, sync-able pieces.

Resources

Learn more about Penultimate 4 by visting these helpful resources:

• What’s New page
• Getting Started Guide

Enjoy

We hope you like the new Penultimate. It’s everything that you’ve come to love about the app in a better-looking, more powerful package. Make sure to swipe through the intro notebook to see everything the app can do. Enjoy.
Get Penultimate from the App Store »

Workspace of the Week: A ‘make it your own’ home office

Workspace of the Week: A ‘make it your own’ home office:
This week’s Workspace of the Week is Erich’s homemade home office:

This week’s selection includes a homemade desk perfectly sized for its owners office space. When looking to save money or get exactly the piece you want, a custom desk can be a terrific solution. In addition to the custom desk, I like the cable management in the Blue Lounge CableBox below the desk along the back wall. The filing cabinet is practical, where it is used, and covered with fun stickers and magnets that might otherwise not have a place to live in the house. The plant is a nice touch and same goes for the Batman action figure, which personalize the space without adding clutter or obstructing valuable working area. I can’t tell if the framed item on the wall to the left of the desk is a chalkboard or artwork, but if it’s a chalkboard that is a good place to capture ideas, reminders, and schedules. The trash can is out of the way and not easily kicked over since it’s on the other side of the table support. Even the printer placement is in an easily reachable position should Erich need to use it. This is a great home workspace, and we thank Erich for sharing it with us.
Want to have your own workspace featured in Workspace of the Week? Submit a picture to the Unclutterer flickr pool. Check it out because we have a nice little community brewing there. Also, don’t forget that workspaces aren’t just desks. If you’re a cook, it’s a kitchen; if you’re a carpenter, it’s your workbench.
Need help getting organized? Buy the DRM-free audiobook version of Erin Rooney Doland's Unclutter Your Life in One Week today for only $8.99.

Your YouTube original videos now available in Google Takeout

Your YouTube original videos now available in Google Takeout:

Your Takeout menu is growing.  Today's entrée:  YouTube videos.


Previously, you've been able to download individual transcoded videos from your YouTube Video Manager.  But starting today, you also have a more efficient way to download your videos from YouTube. With Google Takeout, you can download all of the original videos that you have uploaded in a few simple clicks.  No transcoding or transformation -- you’ll get exactly the same videos that you first uploaded.  Your videos in.  Your videos out.

https://www.google.com/takeout/#custom:youtube

Posted by Brian Hawkins, YouTube Engineer and Data Liberator.

Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

Introducing Google Drive... yes, really: (Cross posted from the Official Google Blog)

Just like the Loch Ness Monster, you may have heard the rumors about Google Drive. It turns out, one of the two actually does exist. Today, we’re introducing Google Drive—a place where you can create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff. Whether you’re working with a friend on a joint research project, planning a wedding with your fiancé or tracking a budget with roommates, you can do it in Drive. You can upload and access all of your files, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and beyond.

With Google Drive, you can:

• Create and collaborate. Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Once you choose to share content with others, you can add and reply to comments on anything (PDF, image, video file, etc.) and receive notifications when other people comment on shared items.
• Store everything safely and access it anywhere (especially while on the go). All your stuff is just... there. You can access your stuff from anywhere—on the web, in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all of your devices. You can install Drive on your Mac or PC and can download the Drive app to your Android phone or tablet. We’re also working hard on a Drive app for your iOS devices. And regardless of platform, blind users can access Drive with a screen reader.
• Search everything. Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Drive can even recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology. Let’s say you upload a scanned image of an old newspaper clipping. You can search for a word from the text of the actual article. We also use image recognition so that if you drag and drop photos from your Grand Canyon trip into Drive, you can later search for [grand canyon] and photos of its gorges should pop up. This technology is still in its early stages, and we expect it to get better over time.

You can get started with 5GB of storage for free—that’s enough to store the high-res photos of your trip to the Mt. Everest, scanned copies of your grandparents’ love letters or a career’s worth of business proposals, and still have space for the novel you’re working on. You can choose to upgrade to 25GB for $2.49/month, 100GB for $4.99/month or even 1TB for $49.99/month. When you upgrade to a paid account, your Gmail account storage will also expand to 25GB. Drive is built to work seamlessly with your overall Google experience. You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail. Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future. This is just the beginning for Google Drive; there’s a lot more to come. Get started with Drive today at drive.google.com/start—and keep looking for Nessie... Posted by Sundar Pichai, SVP, Chrome & Apps

Know Your Gmail Stats using Gmail Meter

Know Your Gmail Stats using Gmail Meter: Posted by Saurabh Gupta, Developer Programs Engineer



One day I was looking at how many messages I have in my sent mail, and realized there are a lot of things I wanted to know about my email habits. How much of my emails do I read, and do I reply fast enough? As luck would have it, Romain Vialard, a Google Apps Script Top Contributor, developed a tool called Gmail Meter powered by Google Apps Script.



Gmail Meter is an Apps Script which runs on the first day of every month and sends you an email containing different statistics about your Inbox. In a similar way to how recently introduced Google Account Activity gives key stats about how you’ve used your Google Account, Gmail Meter gives you different types of statistics that will help you analyze your Gmail habits.

• Volume Statistics show you the number of important and starred messages, the number of people who sent you emails, and more. Volume statistics can be very useful in determining how you are using email efficiency tools like Priority Inbox.

• Daily Traffic gives you an estimate of when you receive messages and when you send them during a given month. For example, in the graph below you can see how the peaks in my “Sent” curve indicates that I write emails in spurts.

• Traffic Pattern lets you get a sense of your overall email activity over the past week.

• Email Categories tells you how you are managing your Inbox. In the pie chart below, you can see that the majority of my emails are labeled. My Inbox is tiny compared to other labels which indicates that I keep a lean and mean Inbox.

• Time Before First Response shows you how long it takes you to reply, and how long it takes others to reply to you. By looking at this chart, I can infer that I reply faster than others I communicate with.

• Word Count tells you whether you are writing long emails. The example below shows that most of my emails are shorter than 200 words.

• Thread Lengths help you understand whether you participate in long conversations resulting in long threads. Top Senders and Top Recipients help you identify who you communicate with more frequently.
  
  

How to Setup Gmail Meter

It is easy to set up Gmail Meter. First, go to Google Docs and open a Spreadsheet. Click on Tools > Script Gallery. Search for “Gmail Meter” and click Install. You will now see a new menu item called Gmail Meter on your spreadsheet. Click on Gmail Meter > Get a Report. You can then choose the type of report. Preparing a report may take some time and you will get an email once the report is ready. If you would like to know more about how this script works, be sure to check this tutorial.

Learning about my email habits has helped me become more email efficient. So, before you read that next article on "Writing Effective Emails," be sure to learn more about your own email habits using Gmail Meter.

Improved discussions, search scanned text in PDFs, and more

Improved discussions, search scanned text in PDFs, and more: Fresh on the heels of adding discussions to Google presentations and the ability to edit within the Google Docs Android app, we’ve been hard at work on a few other new features to enhance your Google Docs experience.




All your comments--in one tidy place

We just added the discussions feature to Google drawings, and today we’re making it even easier to see a log of all of the comments that have been made whether you’re using drawings, documents, or presentations. Just click on the “Comments” button in the upper right corner of the editor to see a complete history of your discussions. You can reply in line, resolve or re-open comments, link directly to a comment, or change notification settings--without ever leaving the “Comments” menu.

Better text search for PDFs and images

Last month, we launched a feature to let you search for text inside the PDFs in your documents list. Now, using the same optical character recognition technology, you can search for and copy highlighted text when you open a scanned PDF, like a fax or hotel receipt.

It’s not just stuff in your documents list: we’ve also made text in PDFs and images uploaded to Google Sites searchable.



And that’s not all...

In addition to the features that were released today, over the last few weeks we’ve also made a bunch of other changes that you may have noticed. Now you can:

• Add custom Javascript and CSS to your Google Sites


• See full names in document and presentation comments (instead of showing email addresses)


• Use keyboard shortcuts for navigating between table cells in documents


• Cancel running scripts from the Google Apps Script editor


• Add donut charts and error bars in spreadsheets

Posted by Ian Kilpatrick, Software Engineer

Read Google eBooks Offline!

Read Google eBooks Offline!: Posted by Xinxing Gu, Google Books Product Manager





We’ve all been there: the Internet is suddenly down, and you can’t keep on reading your ebook to see what the character decides to do next. Or you’re about to head to the airport and want to be able to dive into a newly-purchased ebook during a long flight.



Well, here’s some much-awaited good news! Google eBooks now supports offline reading in Google Chrome. Whether you are flying through the air, backpacking through the European countryside, or simply facing intermittent network connections, you can always read your Google eBooks in your Chrome browser or on your Chromebook.

To read your Google eBooks offline, you’ll need to install the Google Books app from our Chrome Web Store and ensure your Google eBooks are available to read offline. Please see this article in our Help Center and follow the simple step-by-step process to enable offline reading for your ebooks.



We’re excited to make it easier for readers to access their Google eBooks on the go -- whether you're online or offline!