he Pope has died at the age of 84, after becoming one of the longest-serving pontiffs in history.

Pope John Paul II died at 2137 local time (1937 GMT) on Saturday following a series of worsening health problems including heart failure.
Prayers are being said in St Peter's square, where many thousands of people are gathered to pay tribute.
Polish-born Karol Wojtyla became Pope in 1978, taking a conservative stand on issues like abortion and contraception.
He was the most widely travelled pontiff and visited more than 120 countries during his 26-year papacy.

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After talking to Matthias and see that Moblogs isn't as popular as I thought I decided to write a brief introduccion to anyone who wants to know more about this new possibility to show to the world a bit of yourself.

Moblog is a  'mobile blog' or 'photo journal, consists of content posted to the Internet from a mobile or portable device, such as a cellular phone or PDA.
The First Conference International Moblogging  was in Tokyo in July 2003.
There are some communities of mobloggers like Textamerica, BusyThumbs or Gobloggo, but if I were you I would join to MoblogUK, well, actually I did.
So if you have a mobile with camera and you don't know what to do with it...this is your opportunity to enjoy!

You can find more information here and here.

The mobile phone SCH-V770, fitted with a lens similar to a top-end digital still camera, will be presented at the annual CeBIT trade fair opening Thursday in Hanover, the report said.

The mobile phone measures 12.7 centimeters by 5.2 cm and is about 2.7 cm thick and weighs 180 grams. It looks like a digital camera and is fully equipped with music player capability and other multimedia functions, the report said.

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Jef Raskin, the lead designer of the first Macintosh computer and a pioneer in the development of user interfaces, died Saturday at age 61. He had been diagnosed recently with pancreatic cancer, his family says in a statement.

Raskin joined Apple Computer in 1978 as employee number 31 and headed the company's Macintosh development team from its inception until 1982. He named the project after his favorite type of apple, changing the spelling for copyright reasons.

He is credited with significantly advancing the design of user interfaces, which in the early 1980s were largely text-based and required users to memorize complex commands. Raskin convinced his peers at Apple that to reach a wider audience, the Macintosh needed an interface that was elegant and easy to use.

"Up to that time, at Apple and most other manufacturers, the concept was to provide the latest and most powerful hardware, and let the users and third-party software vendors figure out how to make it usable," he wrote later on his Web site.

Read

Nokia Lifeblog is a PC and mobile phone software combination that effortlessly keeps a multimedia diary of the items you collect with your mobile phone. Lifeblog automatically organizes your photos, videos, text messages, and multimedia messages into a clear chronology you can easily browse, search, edit, and save. Nokia Lifeblog does the work of organizing the items you create and receive, and you can also add notes throughout the day, or tag and update your favorites so they're always on your phone.
NOKIA

If you are one of the 90% Internet users who depend on Internet Explorer, then most probably you are annoyed by spyware and viruses and are considering an alternative to the IE. 19 million people have already downloaded the Firefox browser from Mozilla and are enjoying the pop-up free environment.

IE from Microsoft is losing its market share drastically. A recent survey conducted by WebSideStory Inc has shown that IE which had 90.5 per cent share in mid 2004 has now come down to around 88% share in the browser market.

IE users are switching to Firefox mainly due to security reasons as they feel that the latter is secure.


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By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. Two surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November established new contours for the blogosphere: 8 million American adults say they have created blogs; blog readership jumped 58% in 2004 and now stands at 27% of internet users; 5% of internet users say they use RSS aggregators or XML readers to get the news and other information delivered from blogs and content-rich Web sites as it is posted online; and 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. Still, 62% of internet users do not know what a blog is.

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Happy 2005!







Si quieres ayudar y aún no sabes cómo

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Edit 01/03: Now you can donate by Paypal, if you can and want of course.

 

One of the most powerful earthquakes this century hit Asia on Sunday, unleashing tsunami waves on coastal areas of Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia and Thailand, and killing an estimated 11,300 people.
The tsunami waves were triggered by an 8.9 magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, rearing up into walls of water as high as 30 feet as they hit shallow coastlines in south and south-east Asia.
"I heard an eerie sound that I have never heard before. It was a high pitched sound followed by a deafening roar," said a 55-year-old Indian fishermen who gave his name as Chellappa. "I told everyone to run for their life."
In Indonesia, raging waters dragged villagers out to sea, flung others inland and tore children from their parents' arms.
One official said more than 4,400 people had died there, while thousands more were missing. A senior army officer said corpses were still caught up in trees when rescue workers stopped for the night.
In Sri Lanka, where the death toll reached 3,500, corpses drifted in floodwaters, while thousands fled their homes and cars floated out to sea. Idyllic beaches were turned into fields of debris. Around 750,000 people were displaced.
"I think this is the worst-ever natural disaster in Sri Lanka," N.D. Hettiarachchi, director of the National Disaster Management Center, said.
In southern India, where at least 3,000 were estimated to have died, wailing relatives gathered around bodies. Beaches were littered with submerged cars and wrecked boats. Shanties on the coast were under water.
In the Thai holiday resort of Phuket, popular with tourists seeking some Christmas sunshine, beaches were devastated.
"I just couldn't believe what was happening before my eyes," Boree Carlsson said from a hotel near Phuket's Patong beach

More here

_THE TIÓ
This is a Catalan Christmas tradition, which takes place on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, when all the family reunite. The tió (the uncle), traditionally a trunk of wood, "lays" presents, as if they were eggs, under a cover.
Originally, these presents were sweets, wafer biscuits, nougat and all that was needed to celebrate Christmas. Nowadays, however, the tió is loaded with many more presents. The
tió is a custom for young children, which involves them singing one or more songs, then beating the trunk of wood, lifting the cover and collecting their presents.

_28 DECEMBER, DAY OF THE INNOCENTS
This, according to the experts, is of pagan origin; this was when the festivals started, which lasted for many days, and ended with Carnival.
"Por San Antón Carnestolendas son".
These celebrations were known as the Festival of the Crazy, much like April Fool's Day, and were celebrated in all Europe. It needs to be remembered that, in winter, the land seems to be asleep, people spend many hours in the house and they need something to entertain them, enjoy themselves, get warm, and mix with others. This could explain why this festival has these characteristics.
Today, the extravagant nature of these celebrations has been lost, and it is more for young children and the practical jokes which people play. These pranks are innocent and funny, sticking paper dolls, cut from newspapers, on people's clothes, and the newspapers also
take advantage of this day to invent news, testing their imagination.

_NEW YEAR EVE
In this magic night it is a custom to eat twelve grapes, one for each stir before midnight, tradition that is being said to bring luck for next year. Nevertheless, this custom started at the beginning of the 20th century and arises, surprisingly, by economic motives. In the New Years Eve of 1909 the harvesters were able to get rid of the excessive of the season inventing this rite. At the vigil of New Year ones also think that using underclothes of red colour will bring you good luck in love, which is possibly to experience this same night at one of the parties that are being organized in some locals in Barcelona after twelve o’clock at night. To the youngest of the house it is being explained the legend of the “Man of the noses”, a fantasy figure that has as many noses as the year has days, although only the last one remains on the day of 31st.

_CAVALCADE OF THE MAGICIAN KINGS
Although, without any doubt the children are the ones to mostly enjoy these dates, it is in the cavalcade of the East Magicians Kings where their happiness is most visible. In the centre of most of the catalan towns and cities whole families gather to receive the arrival of the decorated vehicles of the parade that brings these geniuses of the youngest. The protagonists of this festivity, the children, deliver its letters asking for the gifts that they desire to receive the following day (are accustomed to be toys) and they continue to the delegation with Chinese lanterns that illuminate the whole route. The Magician Kings, from their vehicles, launch caramels to the crowd of helping knights. The following day they open the gifts that the Kings from the East have left during the night. After the last Christmas dinner, they eat “Tortell de Reis” which has one hidden bean in it. The person who finds the bean is named “the representative of the Magicians Kings” during the festivity, which puts an end to the Christmas for another year.

 European Union leaders have negotiated a deal clearing the way for Turkey to start talks on entering the EU after securing Turkish promises to find a resolution to the issue of divided Cyprus. 
"Turkey has accepted the hand we offered them today,” said Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, whose nation holds the EU presidency. "If I think back on today and the decisions that have been taken, we have been writing history." 
Mr Blair, a staunch supporter of bringing Turkey into the European family, said the deal was "historic".
"It shows that those who believe that there is some fundamental clash of civilizations between Christians and Muslims are actually wrong, that we can work together, that we can cooperate together," he said.

Teenage rookie Rafael Nadal blunted the world's fastest serve on Friday to beat Andy Roddick and give Spain a 2-0 lead over the United States in the Davis Cup final.
The 18-year-old, playing his first year of Davis Cup, whipped a tennis crowd of 27,200 to a frenzy as he out-punched the world number two 6-7 6-2 7-6 6-2.
The burly left-hander absorbed everything a serve-volleying Roddick threw at him, pummelling returns and blasting groundstrokes all round Seville's Olympic Stadium court to clinch a fantastic victory in three hours 38 minutes.
Carlos Moya had earlier fired Spain into a 1-0 lead which means the Bryan twins Mike and Bob must now beat Nadal and Tommy Robredo on Saturday to prevent Spain winning their second Davis Cup.
Former world number one Moya bamboozled Mardy Fish 6-4 6-2 6-3 for the first point.

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GO GUYS!! =)

 Maria Isabel Bascuñana, una estudiante de Derecho de Alpicat (Lleida) de 21 años, ha sido hallada muerta dentro del maletero de su coche en el barrio leridano de La Bordeta, han informado fuentes próximas a la investigación. La joven fue estrangulada con una venda, que aún rodeaba su cuerpo.

La noticia

Esta chica iba al mismo colegio que yo, todos estamos hechos polvo...NADIE es nadie para quitar la vida de una persona. Me siento verdaderamente mal. Siempre se vive estos sucesos como algo que nunca te puede tocar, hasta que lo hace.
No hay palabras para expresar la impotencia.