World News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "HELSINKI (Reuters) - Aceh separatists have put aside demands for full independence and agreed to a third round of peace talks in Finland after Indonesia said it would consider self-rule for the province.
'During these three days not a single word did they mention about independence. So that is a good development,' Indonesian Information Minister Sofyan Djalil told Reuters.
'We proposed special autonomy, they proposed the term self-government. It's on the table, we need to discuss the concept,' he said after the talks ended in Helsinki."

CNN.com - Schiavo case nears critical point - Feb 23, 2005: "A Florida judge is expected to decide Wednesday whether Terri Schiavo's husband can remove the feeding tube that keeps the severely brain-damaged woman alive.
A hearing in front of Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge George W. Greer was under way, on a request by her parents, Robert and Mary Schindler, to block the tube's removal until they can pursue additional legal challenges.
Greer agreed Tuesday to issue a stay until the hearing after a state appeals court cleared the way for the tube to be removed. "

Building the Perfect Budget PC, Part 1 by Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson -- You can build a powerhouse system without breaking the bank. In this first part of a two-part article, Robert Bruce Thompson and Barbara Fritchman Thompson, authors of Building the Perfect PC, show you which components to buy.

Profiling LAMP Applications with Apache's Blackbox Logs by Chris Josephes -- Benchmarking LAMP sites can be tricky; how do you know which pages or applications need tuning? Fortunately, you can easily tune your Apache logs to provide more useful profiling information. Chris Josephes explains a Blackbox log format for Apache httpd.

http://www.onlamp.com/lpt/a/5611
In Profiling LAMP Applications with Apache's Blackbox Logs, I discussed using Apache's built-in logging directives to record server performance metrics. By recording performance metrics, web server administrators can have a historical record of how the server handled incoming HTTP requests. This article expands on that concept by adding a couple of logging directives and recording the logging data directly in a MySQL database.

Pesantren Tak Cetak Teroris
URL: http://www.gatra.com/versi_cetak.php?id=53054

Bandar Lampung, 14 Februari 2005 10:50Ketua MPR Hidayat Nur Wahid menegaskan, selama ini pondok pesentren (ponpes) tidak pernah mencetak para santrinya menjadi teroris, tetapi mendidik menjadi manusia unggul di bidangnya.
"Sebaliknya ponpes sebenarnya dapat mengatasi dan diandalkan untuk mengatasi problem terorisme itu sendiri, karena tidak mengajarkan kekerasan," kata Hidayat, pada peletakan batu pertama pembangunan pondok pesantren modern Gontor VIII di Kampung Kubupalnglima, Tajimalela, Kalianda, Kabupaten Lampung Selatan, Minggu.
Alumni Ponpes Gontor, Ponorogo, Jawa Timur itu menambahkan, kata kunci (solusi) mengatasi terorisme dan persoalan bangsa lainnya seperti kemiskinan dan keterbelakangan adalah pemerintah memberikan kesempatan seluas-luasnya berbagai program di ponpes.
Menurut mantan presiden Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS) itu, ponpes mempunyai potensi cukup tinggi dan teruji untuk pengembangan program meningkatkan kualitas sumberdaya manusia yang bermartabat dan berakhlak mulia.
Hadir dalam acara tersebut antara lain Menteri Agama Maftuh Basyuni, Sekjen MUI Dien Syamsuddin, Pengasuh Ponpes Gontor Ponorogo, Jawa Timur KH Abdullah Syukri Zarkasy, Kapolda Metro Jaya Firman Gani, Wagub Lampung Syamsurya Ryacudu dan Bupati Lampung Selatan Zulkifli Anwar.
Pada acara yang juga dihadiri ratusan alumni Ponpes Gontor baik dari Jakarta maupun yang tersebar di Lampung, Hidayat menyatakan optimistis bangsa Indonesia bisa keluar dari berbagai krisis multi dimensi asalkan tidak menggadaikan harga dan jati diri sebagai bangsa.
"Dalam mencetak SDM yang unggul dan amal soleh, ponpes tidak kalah dengan model pendidikan lainnya," kata Hidayat.
Bahkan dirinya menyatakan sangat berhutang atas jasa dan hasil didikan ponpes yang mengajarkan kesederhanaan, yang hingga kini terus melekat pada diri pejabat negara yang menolak mobil dinas Volvo itu. [TMA, Ant]

Open Source, Open Sesame? (SYS-CON)(Printview): "As Sun open-sources Solaris, and another software development 'community' is tugged into being around it, critics are saying - Red Hat's general counsel Mark Webbink in particular - that the strategy will fail."

Opening Up Java Projects to Open Source (SYS-CON)As open source technology is gaining more popularity in the press and among the general population, there still seems to be a lack of knowledge of what is available via open source amid many software development projects. While the mainstream media and the average computer user thinks of Linux whenever the term open source is brought up, this article looks at the amazing wealth of technology available to Java software development teams

http://www.sys-con.com/story/print.cfm?storyid=48170
Extreme Programming (XP) has been an accepted form of software development for about eight years now. Many of the concepts found in this lightweight method of development have been implemented into the software shops without even the awareness that they were XP techniques. XP takes many of its fundamentals from other iterative development methodologies, including RAD and JAD.

High-Paying Jobs in the U.S.


"Do what you love and the money will follow" is great in theory, but the truth of the matter is, certain jobs and fields simply pay more. The Bureau of Labor Statistics National Compensation Survey, published in August 2004, showed that white-collar earnings -- which averaged $21.85 per hour -- were the highest among occupational groups. Blue-collar pay averaged $15.03 per hour, while the hourly pay of service occupations averaged just $10.40.Though many of these occupations require an advanced degree, there are jobs at every education level that pay more than other jobs for workers with similar levels of schooling. Here, courtesy of the Employment Policy Foundation, is a look at the best-paying occupations at varying education levels:Top Paying Jobs OverallThe jobs that pay the most require at least a four-year college degree. According to the Employment Policy Foundation, the nation's 12 top-paying jobs -- and the mean annual income reported in 2003 (the most recent year data was available) for each -- were:
Physicians and surgeons $147,000
Aircraft pilots $133,500
Chief executives $116,000
Electrical and electronic engineers $112,000
Lawyers and judges $99,800
Dentists $90,000
Pharmacists $85,500
Management analysts $84,700
Computer and information system managers $83,000
Financial analysts, managers and advisers $84,000
Marketing and sales managers $80,000
Education administrators
$80,000

Though many of these occupations require an advanced degree, there are jobs at every education level that pay more than other jobs for workers with similar levels of schooling. Here, courtesy of the Employment Policy Foundation, is a look at the best-paying occupations at varying education levels:Top Paying Jobs That Do Not Require a High School DegreeThese jobs tend to require substantial on-the-job training and work experience rather than formal education and schooling:

Industrial production managers
$36,000
Bailiffs, correctional officers and jailers
$36,400
Paralegals and legal assistants
$36,400
Drafters
$36,000
Construction manager
$33,600
Electricians
$31,900

Top Paying Jobs for High School GraduatesThese occupations emphasize work experience and on-the-job training rather than formal education:

Computer software engineers
$58,900
Computer/information systems managers
$56,400
Computer programmers
$55,000
Network systems and data communications analysts
$49,000
General and operations managers
$48,000
Database, network and computer systems administrators
$48,000

Top Paying Jobs for a Two-Year College DegreeThe following jobs tend to be technical in nature, emphasizing skills developed on the job as well as job-specific training and certifications:

Healthcare practitioners
$66,000
Business analysts
$58,000
Electrical and electronic engineers
$57,000
Mechanical engineers
$56,800
General and operations managers
$54,000
Computer and information systems managers
$50,400

"A look at expected earnings over a lifetime shows the economic benefit of higher education attainment," says Tony Carnevale, who chaired President Clinton's National Commission for Employment Policy and authored several books, including America and the New Economy: How New Competitive Standards are Radically Changing American Workplaces.

A person with a doctoral or professional degree, for example, is expected to earn about $3 million over the course of his or her working life while a person without a high school diploma is expected to earn less than $1 million.

"Despite an increasing supply of well-educated workers, the college wage premium has nearly doubled since 1980, largely because of the added value of a college education in the new knowledge economy," adds Carnevale.

The Employment Policy Forum concurs, but stresses that these numbers are only averages. Individual earnings depend on many factors including geographic location, employer size (average hourly earnings ranged from $15.06 in organizations employing between one and 99 workers to $24.09 in those with 2,500 workers or more), industry (workers in goods-producing industries earned $18.46 an hour vs. those in service-producing industries who earned $16.44 an hour) and the worker's skills and characteristics.

Kate Lorenz is the article and advice editor for CareerBuilder.com. She researches and writes about job search strategy, career management, hiring trends and workplace issues. Other writers contributed to this article.

http://msn.careerbuilder.com/Custom/MSN/CareerAdvice/472.htm?siteid=cbmsnhp4457&sc_extcmp=JS_js7_feb05_home1&GT1=6158&cbRecursionCnt=1&cbsid=bf2225348aa34a0eb828800e27537d2c-161147328-xg-2

Hacking Google by Rael Dornfest, Tara Calishain -- With access to more than three million documents in over 30 languages, Google is a researcher's dream. But like any invaluable tool, knowing the insider tricks of the trade is a must to save time and needless effort. Tara Calishain and Rael Dornfest, authors of Google Hacks, 2nd Edition, have set out to educate the masses to the ins and outs of Google. In today's excerpt, they offer the inside scoop on scattersearching, cartography, Google on the go, gmail-lite, and AdSense. With over 150 million Google searches conducted every day, why be just a number?

Apple Beats Google Into No. 2 Position, Becomes World's Top Brand (SYS-CON)(Printview)What does Apple have in common with Google, Ikea, Starbucks, and Al Jazeera? Answer: it has been rated one of the 'most influential brands of 2004' in a survey of about 2,000 advertising executives, brand managers and academics, conducted by the online magazine, Brandchannel. In fact, Apple came in at No. 1 - edging out Google, that took the top slot in the same survey one year ago.

Some 2,000 advertising executives, brand managers, and academics were asked: "Which brand had the most impact on your life in 2004?"

Asked why he thought Al Jazeera, the Arab News Channel, had made the list of "most influential brands," Brandchannel Editor Robin Rusch said, somewhat controversially:

"With all the news from Iraq and Afghanistan and the 'war on terror', a lot of people are really tuned into the news, and the major news sources have a western bias."

He added: "I think people are tuning in to al-Jazeera and looking at its website because it does offer another viewpoint. For the global community, it's one of the few points of access we have to news from the region with a different perspective."

Less contentious is Rusch's view on why Apple has edged Google out of the No.1 slot.

"The iPod is what has put Apple in the lead this year," he said. "Apple's just done an extraordinary job with innovation, technology and design."

Google's co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page probably took comfort in the fact that Google Inc.'s share price has doubled since they took the company public last year. You can't put the "most influential brand" title in the bank, after all. They can also console themselves, as Rusch pointed out, with the thought of how much growth potential Google still has: only 12.7 percent of the world's population has access to the Internet right now, leaving 5.6 billion potential future Googlers out there.