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June 25 Motley Fool is recommending Microsoft in ‘This weeks 5 smartest stock moves’: Cooler beans for Mr. Softy Can I have a slice of crow pie? I poked fun at Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) launch of its Bing.com search engine last month. I liked what the world's largest software company did with the site, but was wondering why Microsoft goes through search platform brands like Spinal Tap goes through exploding drummers.
Well, it appears as if the fifth time is the charm. Bing is a hit. Instead of fading after the initial popularity, traffic to Bing continues to grow, according to marketing research specialist comScore. Its stateside penetration of users has gone from 13.7% to 16.7% since its launch in late May. This wouldn't be happening if the ad campaign wasn't working or if users weren't recommending Bing to their friends and families. As long as Microsoft's next step isn't to rebrand this as Bing Vista or Bing-a-Zune, the company finally has the ticket it always wanted to matter in paid search. LINK: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/06/19/this-weeks-5-smartest-stock-moves.aspx Like everyone else, I’m always on the prowl to find a cheap deal on Microsoft Points to get my fix of Xbox Live Arcade games, Xbox Live Downloadable Content, or Zune Marketplace downloadable music. The problem is… like everyone else in the world, I don’t feel like paying retail, and believe it or not, I don’t get a discount on Microsoft Points, contrary to the belief of some. The way to do this is to use eBay & Bing Cashback. Basically here’s the difference in pricing using this method of purchasing Microsoft Points: - 4000 points is $50[RETAIL/AMAZON], or $1.25/100pts.
- 4000 points is $35.88[eBAY+CASHBACK], or $.90/100pts.
This is essentially a 29% discount off retail Microsoft Points. Interested? Then follow along: - Search BING.COM for “Buy Microsoft Points” by clicking HERE.
- …or go to http://www.bing.com
- Type “Buy Microsoft Points” into the search
Click on the link that has “www.eBay.com” “Bing cashback” and “You may get x% off with PayPal if eligible.” This link should be the same as clicking HERE.
T his will take you to eBay. At the top of the screen, you should see logo & text that reads, “Microsoft cashback" “Must use Buy It Now and PayPal. See conditions” (Note: You may NOT see any useful search results yet, so don’t freak yet.) Type “Microsoft Points” in the ‘Find’ text box instead of what’s already in there. (Which is likely something like, “buy+microsoft+points”) This will display various new results. Click on the “Buy It Now only” tab. This will identify the auctions that you can use for this discount.
Amongst these auctions, there will USUALLY be someone selling for $39.99/4000 Microsoft Points. (Note: Sometimes you’re a little less lucky and you’ll find only deals for $41.99/4000 Microsoft Points which after discounting comes out to be a 22% discount, but it’s still a good deal.) Click on an auction that says “US Server” in the description and purchase it via “Buy It Now”. Be sure to use PayPal to pay for the transaction to ensure your rebate.
Buy doing this, you shouldn’t need to pay for shipping since the code will be mailed to you via email and you’ll get an 8% rebate through Bing Cashback. (The 8% rebate is paid at a later date through your Bing cashback account. Read more at http://cashback.bing.com for more information.) That’s it. You’ll get about a 21% discount with the remaining 8% in your Bing Cashback account which will land in 60 days. Did you ever wish you could copy & paste from that site that prevents you from copying & pasting content from it? Have you gotten tired of visiting certain favorite web sites and find yourself having to close all those annoying pop ups / pop unders? The answer is quite simple most of the time: Disable Active Scripting. Active Scripting is a set of commands that a web site sends to your web browser along with the text/pictures on a web page that instruct it to do certain things. Among the many things good things that Active Scripting does is enable you to see Flash & Silverlight animations, and interact with rich interfaces. Unfortunately there are some rather questionable things that Active Scripting also does like: - prevent you from copying & pasting from your own web browser.
- enable all those pop up ads that you see appearing on your screen on certain web sites to appear
INSTRUCTIONS: If you’re using Internet Explorer 7 or 8, the easiest way to disable Active Scripting for a given site is to simply list the site in Internet Explorer as a “Restricted site”. This effectively prevents the site from executing any script or plug ins. It’s rather trivial to simply ‘turn this off’ for SPECIFIC WEB SITES: - Open Internet Explorer 7/8. Look at the menu bar.
- Click TOOLS – INTERNET OPTIONS from the menus. The Internet Options window will appear.
- Click the Security Tab. You should see a set of Zone icons, including one called “Restricted Sites”.
- Click the “Restricted Sites” icon. The “Sites” button should be enabled now.
- Click the “Sites” button. The Restricted sites windows should appear.
- Type the URL of the site you wish to disable Active Scripting on in the “Add this website to the zone” text field.
- Click “Add” button. The site should be added to your Restricted Sites list.
- Click “Close” button.
- Click “OK” button.
From here on out, every time you visit that site, pop ups/ pop unders should not occur and you should now be able to copy & paste from the site you disabled Active Scripting on. One application of this, for example, is to SNOPES.COM which is famous from disabling people’s ability to copy & paste their content. This makes sense being that they’re in the business of getting clickthroughs based on their content for ad revenue. The problem is that it’s hard to quote from a source that publishes articles that span 5 pages of content but has no reference bookmarks to refer people to specific passages or paragraphs. The only way to point to specific content easily is to copy & paste it. By disabling Active Scripting on SNOPES.COM, it’s easy to copy & paste content. DRAWBACKS: The obvious problem with doing this is that there’s a lot that won’t work on the site once you’ve prevented scripting from working on it. Flash won’t work, menus may not function, drag & drop will definitely be disabled, buttons may not function, etc. so be aware that we great power comes great responsibility. This is something that you probably only want on specific select sites. June 24 Are you a consumer interested in a no-cost anti-malware/anti-virus product that provides real-time protection to address the ongoing security needs of a Windows PC? Enter “Microsoft Security Essentials”. WHAT IS MICROSOFT SECURITY ESSENTIALS? Microsoft Security Essentials is essentially our free anti-virus product for consumers based on the same #1 detection engine built into Microsoft’s Enterprise/Corporate anti-malware security & protection software, “Forefront for Clients & Servers”. Today, few do a better job of protecting desktops & servers from new virus, worm, and trojan threats than Microsoft’s Anti-Malware engine. This is why “Microsoft Forefront Security for Clients” was ranked in the top 3 anti-virus products specifically for undiscovered or ‘zero-day’ threats, recently outperforming common names such as Symantec, Computer Associates, McAfee, TrendMicro, Kaspersky, and other smaller names like AVG and Panda. HOW DO I GET IT? Microsoft Security Essentials is available to the first 75,000 visitors at http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials. It will be accessible to beta testers in English in the US and Israel as well as Brazilian Portuguese testers. Support for Simplified Chinese in China is scheduled to follow in 30 days. Microsoft Security Essentials is scheduled to release in the second half of 2010 in 19 geographies. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN FOREFRONT CLIENT SECURITY & MICROSOFT SECURITY ESSENTIALS | Feature | Forefront Client Security | Microsoft Security Essentials | | Pricing | $12.72 | Free | | Support | Email & Phone, including Premier Support | Community & email support only | | Antivirus/Antispyware | Yes | Yes | | Rootkit Protection | Yes | Yes | | Windows 7 & Windows Server 2008 R2 Support | Yes | Yes | | Group Policy Controls | Yes | No | | Centralized Management & Reporting | Yes | No | | Integrated Host Firewall Management | Yes | No | | Security State Assessments & Remediation | Yes | No | | Network Access Protection Integration | Yes | No | | External Device Control | Yes | No | | Automatic Endpoint Discovery | Yes | No | June 22 I was taking photos of our baby with a new 8GB High Capacity Secure Digital memory card in my new Casio digital camera. When I took the card out of the camera and put it into the SD card slot of my rather modern & high end HP Compaq nc8430 laptop… Nothing. I put it back into the camera and turned it on to verify that yes, the flash card worked fine. But no matter what I did, the card wouldn’t show up as a hard drive on my PC. Of course, this kinda ticked me off. This is a very modern laptop and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be recognized by the reader. The 8GB flash card read fine on both my Windows Mobile 6.1 phone and my Windows 7 Tablet PC but for some reason it didn’t work on my high end Windows Vista nc8430. Of course I immediately thought: This is either a firmware problem or a driver problem. Gotta be. So I searched for drivers and downloaded the newest ones… No joy. Getting frustrated, I started searching the business support forums for an answer, and lo and behold, I saw the conversation thread below: Q: Can anyone help I have an nc6120 notebook with a built in card reader which works fine with normal SD cards XD etc but I cannot read SDHC cards - is there a fix?? I have installed the latest driver from the hp site and this has not worked. A: This registry trick may help: - Backup your registry
- Run REGEDIT. The key you want to edit is located in:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\tifm21\Parameters Original Key Value: SDParam = 16 (Decimal) New Key Value: SDParam = 1 - Reboot for new setting to take effect.
(Read http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/bizsupport/questionanswer.do?threadId=1215750&admit=109447626+1226030638123+28353475) YES, this works. A silly registry entry makes it possible for me to get the 8GB card recognized. What I want to know from HP is, why do I need to do this to get my flash card working? The average consumer isn’t going to know how to do this, and guess who’s gonna get blamed for this not working by the typical end user? That’s right: Microsoft. Sigh. June 11 Some of you may have noticed that this site has not had many updates in the past week. This is because I will be on a temporary leave of absence clear into late next month so you probably won’t be seeing much other than updates to my Twitter. If you’re wondering why, this photo will hopefully satisfy your curiosity:  Hello Internet. June 05 The Service Level Dashboard Management Pack 2.0 for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 was delivered late last week by the Microsoft Solution Accelerators team, and is available for you to download today from the System Center Catalog.
Assisting you in tracking, managing, and reporting on your line-of-business (LOB) application service levels, the Service Level Dashboard displays a list of applications and their performance and availability against service level goals. Download the SLD 2.0 here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=1d9d709f-9628-46a8-952b-a78f5dd2bdd9 About the Service Level Dashboard Management Pack 2.0 Using the information collected by Operations Manager 2007 R2, and leveraging the service level objectives that you can set against IT services and their components, this graphical dashboard presents detailed information through Microsoft SharePoint that helps customers: - Easily keep tabs on IT service health via the IT Service status header bar, which is customizable to show the IT services you wish to monitor.
- Quickly identify components that may be falling away from their expected levels of service, helping head off problems before they occur.
- View Mean Time To Repair (MTTR), Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF), and application service level trends for each monitored component.
- Leverage the familiar interface of SharePoint (either SharePoint Services 3.0 or Office SharePoint Server 2007) to share information with target audiences – all without having to grant access to, or train users on, the Operations Manager console.
To read more about this Solution Accelerator online at TechNet click here, or read more at our Operations Manager team blog. Also watch our TechNet EDGE video blog that presents the dashboard as part of our overview on Operations Manager 2007 R2. [taken from Network World] iPhones in the enterprise leaving IT pros at wit's end iPhone Security, management concerns at top of the list LAS VEGAS--Executives smitten with iPhones are forcing enterprise IT departments to come up with ways to support the mobile devices even though big security and management questions abound… …One healthcare IT pro said supporting iPhones would be a nightmare given industry data protection regulations and the ability of end users to relatively easily "jailbreak" their iPhones. Another IT pro pointed out that supporting a bunch of native apps on iPhones would seem to run counter to other IT trends, such as the move toward desktop virtualization and centralized applications control… June 04 [taken from Buzzstudy’s research] The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is wrapping up in Los Angeles. At their respective keynotes, both Microsoft and Sony made major announcements in a similar vain. Microsoft presented their Project Natal, a camera-based device which can track full body motion without needing a controller. Shortly after, Sony demonstrated a prototype high-precision motion tracking controller for the Playstation 3. Both exciting and impressive in different ways.
We decided to see the web’s reaction to these announcements, and threw the Wii Motion Plus accessory in for comparison. MotionPlus is an add-on coming for the Nintendo Wii controllers which improves their motion tracking accuracy and capabilities. …more… Read the results at: Well, looks like the Interwebs have decided to talk about the annually asked question, “Who won the E3 Press war of 2009? Microsoft, Nintendo, or Sony?” Interesting articles about the Press Conference battles: June 03 | Microsoft has just released a great new search service called Bing™. Here’s some cool things you can try: | |
- Get hard to find information, like customer service numbers, with authoritative results. Try it.
- Save time with a 5 day weather forecast for your location. Try it.
- Find instant real time traffic for your area. Try it.
| |  - Categorized search results with the Explorer Pane and Quick Tabs help you find relevant information more quickly. Try it.
| |  - Simplify shopping online, compare and read reviews with Opinion Ranking, and save with cashback. Try it.
- Simplify airline travel and find out if now is the right time to buy your ticket. Try It.
| | Try it for a week and tell us what you think. And if your experience is good, make Bing your default search by following the instructions here. | Really interesting article: LOS ANGELES--About halfway through a closed-door demo I was in this afternoon of Microsoft's just-announced full-body motion-sensitive control system, Project Natal, another reporter told our host that he was skeptical of what he was seeing.
A minute later, after taking the virtual controls himself of the game "Burnout Paradise" and giving Natal a test, the reporter walked back over to where I was standing and when I asked him if he was still skeptical, he gave me a chastened look and said, "It's interesting." In other words, he was won over. … FULL ARTICLE: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-10255403-235.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 June 02 <taken from Reuters>
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday its new Windows 7 operating system will be generally available on October 22, well ahead of its original schedule and in time for the holiday shopping season. The new operating system, which will replace the unpopular Vista, was originally planned for roll-out at the beginning of next year, but Microsoft confirmed last month that it would hit the market in time for the year's busiest buying period. The arrival of the new system is a big event for the computing world, as more than 90 percent of the world's PC's run on Windows, and strategically important for Microsoft, which gets more than half of its profit from its operating system unit. The latest release is crucial to win back public confidence after the disappointing launch of Vista in 2007. Vista was incompatible with some low-power machines and perceived by many to be too complicated. The world's largest software company also faces new threats to its dominance in operating systems, especially in the fast-growing "netbook" market for small, portable PCs ideal for surfing the Internet and sending e-mail. Earlier on Tuesday, netbook pioneer Acer Inc said it plans to sell small PCs that run on Google Inc's new Android operating system, making it the first manufacturer to do so. Microsoft said it will send Windows 7 code to PC makers to load onto new machines -- known in the industry as "release to manufacturing" -- around the end of July. By October 22, people will be able to buy new computers with Windows 7 installed, or pick up the software off the shelf to install on their old computers. Microsoft confirmed that it will run a program whereby people who buy PCs with certain versions of Vista before October 22 can get a free upgrade to Windows 7, but it has not yet released details. Microsoft shares were up 7 cents at $21.47 on Nasdaq. (Reporting by Bill Rigby, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)  Wow. And to think I thought today was going to be “the other guys” day exclusively… June 01 Wow. The hits just keep coming… like aftershocks… from Microsoft’s E3 announcements: - Xbox Live users will be able to download full Xbox 360 games to their hard drive. Games can be purchased via credit card or Microsoft Points. Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, and Civilization Revolution announced.
- Avatar Marketplace will allow you to download new apparel/items for your avatar on the Xbox 360. There will also be purchasable apparel to make your avatar really unique.
And there will also be awardable apparel and items that you can get as a result of completing certain quests during certain Xbox 360 games. - Halo: ODST announces 4 player co-op gaming in a special mode called “Firefight”. Featuring vehicles and ability modifying skulls that one can carry, Halo: ODST will make a team-tacular good time.
- 1 vs 100 beta goes live tonight in US at 7:30PM. Yep. That’s right – the Primetime BETA finally gets released to you scurvy dogs. It’s YOU vs THE MOB. Or you get to be one of the MOB… and win real prizes like free Xbox Live Arcade games and stuff. And you get to use your Avatars as representation as you play the game. (My wife and I have been playing in the evenings… and it’s good family fun! Especially when they ask questions like, “What is the name given to the Washington DC area in the game ‘Fallout 3’?” <—Actual game question!)
- The Project Natal Sensor is far from being “just an add-on camera”. The sensor is the world’s first to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software.
Unlike 2D cameras and controllers, Project Natal tracks your FULL BODY movement in 3D while responding to commands, directions, and even differences of emotion in your voice. When Project Natal is ready, it will work with every Xbox 360 so people who have never picked up a controller can finally join the fun.
…and finally… - OMFG. It’s Halo: Reach.
For those of you who don’t know what the implication of that is, here’s 4 words:
MASTER CHIEF IS BACK!
…in the prequel that started it all. I realize that many of you haven’t read “Halo: The Fall of Reach”, but it was probably the best book about the Halo franchise I can remember. The Fall of Reach was where you first heard of Master Chief and his origins… where the Spartan program came from… why Reach, a planetary outpost, was so important… and who Captain Keyes was and what was the Pillar of Autumn doing jumping to the location of the original “Halo” from Halo: Combat Evolved.  In case you missed it, the Peter Molyneux demonstration from Lionhead Studios of a human interacting with a computer generated character using Project Natal’s technology was outstanding and defined the word ‘visionary’. But I guess, that’s why he’s Peter Molyneux. VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgRCToXfef8 Introducing “Project Natal” - a revolutionary new way to play: no controller required. See a ball? Kick it, hit it, trap it or catch it. If you know how to move your hands, shake your hips or speak you and your friends can jump into the fun -- the only experience needed is life experience. VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/xboxe3 Simply amazing. I knew some of this stuff but not nearly all of it! - Microsoft opened with having Olivia Harrison, Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney, and Ringo Starr in person on stage announcing Rock Band Beatles.
Xbox 360 Exclusive: "All You Need Is Love" on Xbox 360 Rock Band Beatles... all proceeds go to "Doctors Without Borders". - Infinity Ward came out to demo Modern Warfare 2.
Xbox 360 Exclusive: Two Modern Warfare 2 map packs to be released first on Xbox Live! - Final Fantasy XIII on Xbox 360 demo! Live and on stage demonstrating the gameplay...
Spring 2010 release for FFXIII announced on stage. - Xbox 360 Exclusive: Epic Games, creator of Unreal & Gears of War franchises, announced "Shadow Complex" their first Xbox Live Arcade game exclusively for Xbox 360... looks a lot like "Another World", one of my favorite games of old!
- Xbox 360 Exclusive: JoyRide by BigPark, leveraging Avatars. Looks like what HotWheels should have been. And it'll be FREE this winter!
- Xbox360 Exclusive: Crackdown 2! Orb-a-licious! Being handled by development group “Ruffian” instead of “Realtime Worlds” who created the first one. Game engine doesn’t appear to be Renderware in trailers.
- Xbox 360 Exclusive: AWYEAH! Valve’s Left for Dead 2! Only on Xbox 360 on Nov 17th!
- Xbox 360 Exclusive: Ubisoft’s Sam Fisher is back and he’s gone rogue! We're talkin' Dirty Harry style! "Splinter Cell: Conviction"... Xbox 360 ONLY!
- Xbox 360 Exclusive: Forza Motorsport 3 by Turn10… 60fps graphics engine! 400 cars from 50 manufacturers... more than anyone! Side and rear views... custom car painting, upload high def video, included video editor... shipping in October 2009.
- Xbox 360 Exclusive: Halo:ODST - Orbital Drop Shock Trooper... nightvision, silenced weapon, human pistol... Interesting... in memory flashbacks, you hop from your ODST, the Rookie, to other ODSTs... like a guy named Dutch who perished. Sept 22nd... New cooperative mode...
- Xbox 360 Exclusive: Previously unannounced Bungie title… HALO:REACH! Coming 2010... Special Halo:Reach Xbox Live Multiplayer BETA in each copy of Halo:ODST!!!
- Xbox 360 exclusive: Alan Wake... Spring 2010. Very immersive, beautiful, and dramatic! Kinda Silent Hill-ish.
- Xbox 360 exclusive: Last.FM partnership! This popular service selects music that you’d like based on previous choices. Instant access to all content for FREE later this year, through your home entertainment surround sound speakers!
- Xbox 360 exclusive: Netflix on-demand… improved! Add movies directly from Xbox... and immediately play without queuing!
- Xbox 360 exclusive: SKY TV (European TV for soccer, sports) live streaming video for the first time to a console. Sports and entertainment streaming live for the first time to a console!
- Xbox 360 exclusive: Xbox Live Video Marketplace… Video On-Demand (TV, Movies, etc.) – Now "Instant On" for all content... all content now 1080p video... rebranded to ZuneTV!
Xbox Live Party will allow same video to be played on you and your friends Xboxes simultaneously. - Xbox 360 exclusive... Facebook integration! Felicia Day producer, writer, star of “The Guild” is on stage announcing Facebook integration! Facebook "Friend Linker" which pairs Xbox Live Friends with your Facebook Friends... view your friends and your photos. Facebook CONNECT... post snapshots of your gameplaying directly to Facebook!
- Xbox 360 exclusive... Twitter! View followed twitterers. Update Twitter from console. Coming this fall!
- Xbox 360 exclusive... Metal Gear Solid's creator... Hideo Kojima! Announcing Metal Gear Solid Rising for Xbox 360! Featuring Raiden of the prior MGS release… not Solid Snake!
- Xbox 360 exclusive... “NATAL” - controller-free motion-oriented control movies/entertainment! All under the breakthrough NATAL sensor! Motion sensive camera... facial recognition... communicate with people face to face... voice recognition! Project NATAL will work with every existing Xbox 360 today and every Xbox in the future. Steven Spielberg onstage with Don Mattrick for Xbox 360! Talking about NATAL experience... being put into 'movies'. Precision control VERY important... natural movement and control VERY important. Facial recognition immediately recognizes and LOGS YOU IN. Avatar moves with you automatically. current menu control just with a wave of the hand.
- "Ricochet" 3D Breakout... REALLY COOL. Keeps people moving around and exercising! "doesn't have you sitting on some couch waggling a controller with some preset waggle commands" OHSNAP! Reacts in 3D! Will work with multiple people for competitive/cooperative games on a single console!
- “Milo” Peter Molyneux using NATAL SDK: Emotion detection in face and voice... interaction with computer character. Passage of picture from player to computer “Milo”
 Watch G4TV’s coverage of Microsoft’s press conference at The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)… live and commercial free… starting at 10:00AM Pacific! Our actual conference starts at 10:30AM and is scheduled to continue until 11:30AM but they’re gonna do a bunch of introductory stuff before the Microsoft’s press conference. Yes, you should DVR it. Go program it in now. And yes, you should probably clear out space on your DVR. BUT I’M WORKING! Then check out the broadcast on Justin.TV. Apparently, G4TV has partnered up with Justin.TV to broadcast the entire thing. Archives available at G4tv.com/E3. Now that’s cool. Watch live video from G4TV - LIVE at E3 2009 on Justin.tv Foxit PDF Security Suite beta program allows early evaluation and piloting by Windows Server and Sharepoint users. Now available to beta customers, Foxit PDF Security Suite delivers cost effective PDF policy protection and PDF reader extensions capabilities to any business running Microsoft Windows Server® or Sharepoint® with Active Directory® Rights Management Services (AD RMS). Enhancing the value of existing IT infrastructure investments by extending AD RMS to PDF documents is a big benefit to IT professionals. Foxit PDF Security Suite makes it easy to:
- Protect sensitive PDF documents to prevent loss of valuable company assets (Learn more)
- Manage AD RMS policy templates associated with PDF documents to insure regulatory compliance and corporate governance (Learn more)
- Reduce paper handling by adding PDF document rights to enable cost-effective digital workflows using existing PDF documents (Learn more)
Foxit PDF Security Suite provides seamless integration with Microsoft Windows Server and Sharepoint (MOSS 2007) environments. Foxit’s simple software toolkit is easily deployed across the enterprise. The Foxit PDF Secure Reader is a freely available download allowing for no hassle maintenance. And all Foxit PDF Security Suite customers receive 24/7 telephone support. Premium regional support is also available. REGISTER: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/rms/ DEMONSTRATION OF FOXIT RMS WORKFLOW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVIQbEznrk
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