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Simple and creative tips-and-tricks to make your day easier.

Add day of week to taskbar clock in Windows 8 | 7 In this post we will see how to add the day of the week, that is, Monday, Tuesday, etc to the system tray clock in the Taskbar Notification area in Windows 8 or Windows 7. Add day of week to taskbar Press Win+X in Windows 8 to bring up the WinX Menu. From it, choose ‘Control Panel’ and then, select Region. Now, from the ‘Region’ window that appears on your computer screen, select ‘Additional Settings’ button. Next, from the ‘Customize Format’ window, choose the ‘Date’ tab. Under Short date add ddd in the beginning. That is, make the Short date as ddd-dd-MM-yy. In this case only 3 alphabets will be displayed. viz. Mon. If you prefer the full day displayed viz Monday, then use dddd-dd-MM-yy. Using a comma instead of the hyphen, will make a comma display. Try and see if ddd, dd-MM-yy suits you. Put the day after the date by using dd-MM-yy, ddd if you wish. Play around and see what suits you the best. Click Apply / OK and exit. You will now see the day of the week to displayed in the taskbar. As always, Thank You for your time and I hope you found this How To of interest

Funny People Doing Stupid Thing and Banned Commercials Stupid people that do stupid things

How To Stop Gmail From Sending You Advertisement 'Emails' One morning recently, you and several other thousand people who use Gmail may have woken up to a message with the subject line: "Tame The Data Explosion," or something else unsolicited. That email was not a promotion from a long-forgotten website or a chain letter from a loopy aunt. It was an ad straight from Google, appearing alongside your legitimate email. Depending where Google placed you on its rollout schedule, Gmailers have noticed or will soon notice a drastic change in their inboxes. Where once your email came in one big feed, now it's segmented under tabs labeled "Primary," "Social," "Promotions" and other categories. Google says that it made the change because it "puts you back in control using simple, easy organization." That's true, but there's also a craftier reason behind the update. That "Promotion" tab is the new destination for targeted ads that appear like email, as first discovered by Geek.com. "Like" is the operative word; the ads technically aren't emails. When you click on one, you're either sent to another website or shown a pop-up ad. It's an important distinction for those worried that Google is handing out email addresses to advertisers (which it isn't doing). That reassurance is still unlikely to stop millions from clicking the ads as if they were email. "Instead of ads always appearing at the top of your inbox, they’ve been relegated to a more appropriate place in your Promotions category," Google told VentureBeat. In theory, you won't mind ads being emailed to you as long as they appear in a designated place. How do you purge these "emails" from your inbox? We have your back: If You Want To Get Rid Of One Ad...Perhaps you don't mind the extra emails (you're probably in a minority) but want to stop ads from specific companies. The solution is straightforward, if time-consuming: Just click the "X" in each ad to make it go away. Google is better than practically any other company at learning people's behavior and slowly, you'll teach it which ads you find relevant. If You Want To Get Rid Of All The Ads..Maybe that's not enough, and you never want to see an ad pretending to be an email. Again, the solution is simple: Click on the gear in the top-right on the main Gmail page and under the menu, click on "Configure inbox." This screen will pop up; just uncheck the box next to "Promotions," and like magic, you'll never see Google spam again. If you want to get rid of Gmail's new tabs altogether, go ahead and uncheck all of the boxes except "Primary." There's a tradeoff, though. Do you notice the difference between the two inboxes below? One has the Promotions tag turned off and the other doesn't. With the Promotions tag visible, that American Express ad goes away. But when the Promotions tag is disabled, there's the ad again. It's a game of Whac-A-Mole: Google will shove an ad in front of your eyeballs, one way or another. Why Is Google Doing Any Of This?Google is a for-profit enterprise (and, being worth nearly $300 billion, a quite successful one), so... duh. Specifically in this case, the amount of money Google makes each time someone clicks on an ad -- so-called average "cost per click" -- has been falling for nearly two years, in part because ads on smaller smartphone screens fetch lower prices, and people are spending more time on mobile devices. Those little text ads that appear in every Google search and Gmail inbox are the core way Google makes money, so the decline has put pressure on Google to eke as much money out of its desktop ads as possible. So if you're looking for the ultimate culprit behind new Gmail ads, look no further than the phone in your pocket.

Ransomware: Why This New Malware is So Dangerous and How to Protect Yourself HTG 30 Oct 2013 Ransomware is a type of malware that tries to extort money from you. One of the nastiest examples, CryptoLocker, takes your files hostage and holds them for ransom, forcing you to pay hundreds of dollars to regain access. Most malware is no longer created by bored teenagers looking to cause some chaos. Much of the current malware is now produced by organized crime for profit and is becoming increasingly sophisticated. How Ransomware Works Not all ransomware is identical. The key thing that makes a piece of malware “ransomware” is that it attempts to extort a direct payment from you. Some ransomware may be disguised. It may function as “scareware,” displaying a pop-up that says something like “Your computer is infected, purchase this product to fix the infection” or “Your computer has been used to download illegal files, pay a fine to continue using your computer.” In other situations, ransomware may be more up-front. It may hook deep into your system, displaying a message saying that it will only go away when you pay money to the ransomware’s creators. This type of malware could be bypassed via malware removal tools or just by reinstalling Windows. Unfortunately, Ransomware is becoming more and more sophisticated. One of the latest examples, CryptoLocker, starts encrypting your personal files as soon as it gains access to your system, preventing access to the files without knowing the encryption key. CryptoLocker then displays a message informing you that your files have been locked with encryption and that you have just a few days to pay up. If you pay them $300, they’ll hand you the encryption key and you can recover your files. CryptoLocker helpfully walks you through choosing a payment method and, after paying, the criminals seem to actually give you a key that you can use to restore your files. You can never be sure that the criminals will keep their end of the deal, of course. It’s not a good idea to pay up when you’re extorted by criminals. On the other hand, businesses that lose their only copy of business-critical data may be tempted to take the risk — and it’s hard to blame them. . Protecting Your Files From Ransomware This type of malware is another good example of why backups are essential. You should regularly back up files to an external hard drive or a remote file storage server. If all your copies of your files are on your computer, malware that infects your computer could encrypt them all and restrict access — or even delete them entirely. When backing up files, be sure to back up your personal files to a location where they can’t be written to or erased. For example, place them on a removable hard drive or upload them to a remote backup service like CrashPlan that would allow you to revert to previous versions of files. Don’t just store your backups on an internal hard drive or network share you have write access to. The ransomware could encrypt the files on your connected backup drive or on your network share if you have full write access. Frequent backups are also important. You wouldn’t want to lose a week’s worth of work because you only back up your files every week. This is part of the reason why automated back-up solutions are so convenient. If your files do become locked by ransomware and you don’t have the appropriate backups, you can try recovering them with ShadowExplorer. This tool accesses “Shadow Copies,” which Windows uses for System Restore — they will often contain some personal files. . How to Avoid Ransomware Aside from using a proper backup strategy, you can avoid ransomware in the same way you avoid other forms of malware. CryptoLocker has been verified to arrive through email attachments, via the Java plug-in, and installed on computers that are part of the Zeus botnet. Use a good antivirus product that will attempt to stop ransomware in its tracks. Antivirus programs are never perfect and you could be infected even if you run one, but it’s an important layer of defense. Avoid running suspicious files. Ransomware can arrive in .exe files attached to emails, from illicit websites containing pirated software, or anywhere else that malware comes from. Be alert and exercise caution over the files you download and run. Keep your software updated. Using an old version of your web browser, operating system, or a browser plugin can allow malware in through open security holes. If you have Java installed, you should probably uninstall it. Ransomware — CryptoLocker in particular — is brutally efficient and smart. It just wants to get down to business and take your money. Holding your files hostage is an effective way to prevent removal by antivirus programs after it’s taken root, but CryptoLocker is much less scary if you have good backups. This sort of malware demonstrates the importance of backups as well as proper security practices. Unfortunately, CryptoLocker is probably a sign of things to come — it’s the kind of malware we’ll likely be seeing more of in the future.

Harry Jones, a 76-year-old veteran, was arrested after the police found a hoard of firearms, including a missile, at his home. More than 40 prohibited weapons were seized. Many of them could date back to the First and Second World Wars.

Ballon Bombs - Yes, you're reading that correctly - according to the 1898 Hague Convention, it is against international law to drop bombs from balloons. Japan famously sent scores of balloon bombs to the American Pacific Coast during WWII, with the purpose of causing forest fires. While most landed harmlessly, one did cause casualties - a balloon that landed in a forest near Bly, Oregon, that exploded and killed a Sunday school teacher and five children. The practice of shooting a rifle or dropping a bomb from a balloon is still technically forbidden to this day. 1[/size] Bat Bombs - In the second world war, Americans experimented with a secret weapon designed to decimate Japanese cities. At the time, most of Japan's cities were made of wood and paper. The idea was to release a bomb filled with sleeping bats (captured from caves in New Mexico), wearing collars containing a napalm-like incendiary. Upon release at dawn, the bats would disperse and roost under the eaves of Japanese homes up to 40 miles away. The project, code-named "X-Ray," was tested in 1944, but the war effectively ended with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It might sound funny today, but testing showed these unusual weapons to be tremendously effective...some say even more so than the A-Bomb. Today, bat bombs would certainly be prohibited under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. 2[/size] Bio-Weapons - Believe it or not, bio-weapons are some of the oldest terror weapons known to man. They date back to at least the days of the Mongols, who would catapult rotting, infected bodies over castle walls in order to spread disease and sickness. It's also been suggested that the Black Plague, spread by fleas on the back of rats, and originating from Asia, was the lingering result of a primitive bio-terrorism attack from centuries before. 3[/size] Blinding Laser Beams - This might sound like one of those sci-fi things that would never happen, but the technology's been around for 40 years. "Blinding" laser beams don't refer to the laser "dazzlers" that police and special ops teams use; those are low-powered beams that aren't designed to cause permanent blindness. This ban refers to lasers powerful enough to cause permanent blindness, which is amazingly easy to do, as most juvenile delinquents with laser pointers have been warned. The prohibition against deliberately blinding weapons goes way back to some of the first weapons bans passed in the 19th century. 4[/size] Dirty Bombs - Bombs laced with radioactive material are forbidden under international law, though most countries wouldn't bother with them anyway. The point of a dirty bomb is to irradiate an area and make it uninhabitable -- which means that the "winner" of the war can't go there either. That aside, the amount of radioactive material necessary to make a dirty bomb effective could just as easily be used to build a full-on nuclear bomb. 5[/size] Flamethrowers - According to Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, flamethrowers aren't explicitly forbidden on the battlefield, provided the battlefield is nowhere near civilians. Mostly, this protocol refers to incendiary devices in and around civilian areas. It doesn't necessarily prohibit the use of flamethrowers in, say, an open tank battle or clearing caves in Afghanistan. But most guerrilla fighters hide behind or within civilian areas. If they're using human shields or might have captives flamethrowers are a no-go. 6[/size] Hollowpoint Bullets - Hollow-point bullets (aka "expanding ordinance") were explicitly outlawed for use in international warfare by the Hague Convention of 1899, which was, in fact, only a continuation of the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868. This declaration forbade the use of exploding or expanding projectiles of less than 400 grams, which drew a clear line between "bullets" and "artillery shells." The concept behind the ban was to avoid using bullets that "made death inevitable." Which, some might say, is the whole point of shooting someone in the first place. 7[/size] Locust, Fleas and Rats - It's been done, and to sometimes devastating effect. The Black Plague is theorized by some to be the result of a lingering bio-terror attack from Asia. Today, using hordes or plagues of animals carrying disease in war would be completely illegal. 8[/size] Microwave Lasers (limitation) - Yes, laser cannons are a real thing, and they've been around for quite some time now. Today, the Air Force uses massively powerful laser cannons mounted to aircraft and battleships, which can use them to shoot down incoming missiles from up to 250 miles away. Hypothetically, they could be mounted to tanks and used to incinerate human targets on the ground - but such use of directed energy weapons is currently forbidden, in large part because too low a dose from too great a distance might not kill the target so much as cook their eyes, which would be a violation on the ban against blinding lasers. 9[/size] Mustard Gas - The terror of the trenches in World War I, mustard gas gets its name from its yellow-brown color and its odor, which is apparently similar to horseradish. Because it's heavier than air, mustard gas proved particularly effective in clearing trenches, and was almost single-handedly responsible for the 1928 Geneva Conventions. When inhaled, the gas causes the lungs to fill with fluid, essentially drowning the victim in their own fluids. 10[/size] Napalm - You might love the smell of napalm in the morning, but the same Protocol III (passed after Vietnam) that restricts the use of flamethrowers also limits the use of napalm. It can't be used anywhere near civilian targets, nor can it be used to burn down forests unless the trees are being used to conceal military combatants or vehicles. So, napalm isn't banned, exactly, but more often than not, it can't be used on today's battlefields. 11[/size] Nerve Gas - Nerve gases of all kinds have been systematically outlawed by both the Hague and Geneva from 1899 all the way up to 1993. All nerve agents (like Sarin, VX, Tabun, and Soman) work in the same basic way: By blocking blocking the enzyme that normally destroys a very important neurotransmitter. Basically, nerve agents cause your entire nervous system to malfunction, like an electrical system full of short circuits. Death generally comes as a result of a shutdown of the respiratory system, but not before painful blisters, boils, and internal hemmorrhaging occur. 12[/size] Non Self Destructing Landmines - Since the Vietnam war, decades-old unexploded landmines have been a deadly menace in Southeast Asia. Cambodia has one of the highest rates of amputees in the world, as some 40,000 in its population have stepped on land mines planted during the Cambodian Civil War in 1970. In 2013 alone, some 111 people were killed by land mines buried more than 40 years before. For that reason, as of 1980, mines placed outside of fenced and cordoned areas must use some sort of self de-arming device or self-destruct mechanism set to go off after a certain period of time. Standard land mines may still be used, but can only be employed inside of fenced-in areas, away from civilian populations, and must be removed or destroyed when the conflict ends. 13[/size] Phasers - There are all kinds of directed energy weapons on the table, from "death ray" lasers to sonic cannons to real life plasma rifles. However, as of right now, directed energy weapons with enough power to kill human targets are forbidden in war. This doesn't apply to de-powered non-lethal microwave emitters like the Active Denial System currently in use. ADS puts out enough energy to cause an intense sensation of heat on a large crowd, but it's not enough to cause actual burning. The sensation has been compared to standing a few feet away from a large oven with the door open. It is possible to set the ADS on "kill," but that is illegal for the time being. 14[/size] Plastic Landmines - According to Protocol I of the 1979 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, weapons that use non-metallic fragments not detectable by X-Ray are prohibited in war. The rationale is pretty obvious, since field surgeons can't remove fragments they can't locate within an injured body. This doesn't prohibit the use of plastic and undetectable materials in weapon design, it just means that weapons can't be designed to use undetectable fragments as a primary damage device. 15[/size] Poisoned Bullets - The world's oldest known arms agreement, the Strasbourg Agreement of 1675, explicitly outlawed the use of poisoned bullets. The first guns used in warfare weren't terribly accurate, so soldiers would often supplement the lack of accuracy by soaking their bullets in some kind of poisonous or infectious substance. It was not unheard of for legions of soldiers to stow their bullet caches inside rotting corpses, though the bottom of a latrine pit worked just as well. When France and the Holy Roman Empire went to war, they initially experienced a massive wave of casualties not from gunshot wounds, but from subsequent infection. More than 250 years would pass before Geneva once again addressed chemical and biological weapons. 16[/size] Salted Bombs - Salted bombs are very similar in concept to dirty bombs, but are true nuclear weapons created specifically for the purpose of shorter-term area denial. A "salted" nuke contains an isotope of another substance like cobalt, gold, zinc, or sodium. During a nuclear blast, these elements become a huge cloud of fallout. These types of weapons are the same type used in the Soviet "Doomsday Device" from Dr. Strangelove. Small, one kiloton salted nukes could be used tactically and made so that the radioactive fallout decayed in a year or two, thus denying large swaths of land to enemy forces for a time. But radiation is invisible, and these weapons are generally prohibited because of their potential lethality to civilians. 17[/size] Smallpox Blanket - While America in general has avoided the use of biological and chemical weapons, many historians agree that we did make at least one attempt at genocide through bio-weaponry. America's "manifest destiny" meant getting rid of the original inhabitants of the continent. Many were killed by bullets and blades, but far more were wiped out as a result of diseases introduced by Europeans. Coming from a center of worldwide trade, Europeans developed at least partial immunity to many diseases, while themselves remaining carriers. Where Europeans went, plague almost always followed, helping to exterminate native populations and assisting in conquest. 18[/size] Spiked Pits - These old fashioned death traps are technically prohibited or regulated by Protocol II of the 1979 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. Pits with sharpened bamboo spikes maimed thousands of soldiers in Vietnam and in the Pacific during WWII. Adding insult to injury, the Vietcong and Japanese would routinely roll those spikes in human or animal feces first, causing secondary infections after even the smallest scratch. That, in itself, is a direct violation of the 1907 Hague convention on biological weapons and might even violate the 1675 Strasbourg Agreement. 19[/size] Tear Gas - Believe it or not, the tear gas that police routinely shoot into crowds in America is technically outlawed for use in war by the Hague Convention. Even though it's generally non-lethal, tear gas is still an inhalant chemical weapon that obstructs breathing, that puts it in the same legal class as mustard gas. So: legal to shoot at protesters in Missouri, but not legal to drop on a machine gun nest in Afghanistan. Go figure. 20[/size] Unexploded Bombs - Protocol V of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of "explosive remnants of war," such as unexploded bombs and artillery shells. This protocol came about in the 1990s, when the newest crop of Middle Eastern jihadis began assembling roadside bombs from unexploded Soviet ordinance from the Afghanistan conflict. IEDs are remain a source of terror in that part of the world. 21[/size]

Corner Shot Grenade Launcher Sharp shooters trapped in corners and other closed environments won’t need to engage in blind fire to save their ass anymore. The Corner Shot sports a hinged frame that extends the grenade launcher barrel horizontally at a 60-degree angle, along with a digital camera under the barrel and a video screen that provides sneak-peak viewing and accurate targeting. It’s capable of firing single 60mm rounds, tear gas, and less- and non-lethal explosives, and has a target range of 150 meters as well. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? 1[/size] Quantum Stealth Remember the movie Predator? Remember how the Predator was able to use invisible stealth technology to blend into the jungle environment around him, and how when he moved it looked like the jungle itself was moving? Well, that technology is now in the advanced stages of development by the U.S. military. Called Quantum Stealth, this technology camouflages people by bending light around the object it is hiding. And the result is that people and objects literally turn invisible to the naked eye. The images of Quantum Stealth available on the Internet are downright freaky. The hope is that the invisible cloaks provided by the Quantum Stealth technology will enable soldiers to infiltrate enemy territory without being detected, as well as launch surprise attacks and carry out assassinations. Sounds pretty farfetched, but the future is here and this technology is real. 2[/size] Matador Rocket Launcher Specifically designed for urban warfare, the Matador was built to destroy brick walls and vehicle armor. It uses a warhead with minimum blast back that works best in confined and indoor settings, and features a switch that alters the time intervals between the two detonation charges contained in the projectile. There are two firing modes. Short Interval Mode sets off the second detonation immediately after the first to create a passageway through a wall and Blast Mode can trigger the second explosion inside a building after the first breaks through the wall by increasing the time intervals between both detonations. 3[/size] PHASR Developed by the U.S. Department of Defense, the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response Rifle (PHASR) is a non-lethal weapon designed to disorient and stun enemies rather than kill them. A light-based gun, the PHASR has been designed for use by both soldiers and U.S. law enforcement officials (police). The gun temporarily blinds enemies with focused laser beams. The laser lights, which operate at alternating wavelengths, serve to disorient people who look at them, rendering them unable to stand let alone fight. The good news is that the laser light used in this weapon does not inflict any permanent damage to people’s eyesight. 4[/size] The Active Denial System Another non-lethal weapon developed to help disperse crowds, the Active Denial System transmits an invisible electromagnetic radiation beam that creates a burning sensation on people’s skin—sending them running. Called the “goodbye effect” by senior military officials and a “heat ray” by scientists, the Active Denial System can heat up water molecules on a person’s skin to 130 degrees Fahrenheit from a distance of 500 yards. Controversial in some circles and dubbed a form of torture by some people, the Active Denial System has proven extremely effective. Security experts expect that the system will eventually be used alongside other non-lethal crowd control methods such as tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets. 5[/size] Digital Revolver The Armatix Digital Revolver looks like something out of a science fiction movie, and a version of it was featured in a recent James Bond film. This futuristic pistol has a digital safety mechanism that can only be disabled if the operator is also wearing a special wristwatch that sends the unlock signal to the gun. The wristwatch itself only becomes active once the user unlocks it with their fingerprint. This means that the gun can only be fired by the owner—preventing the gun from being used by people who may steal it. It also means that the revolver cannot be used against its owner. Many gun experts claim that this approach is the way of the future and a great means of ensuring gun safety. How widespread this digital revolver gets used remains to be seen. 6[/size] XM25 Smart Grenade Launcher The programmable grenade launcher carries four tiny warheads and can fire 25mm. shells up to 2,300 feet (almost half a mile). But the X25’s slickest feature is the ability to program the shell to explode at any given point. It also sports different sight, sensor, and laser functions, as well as a short barrel that’s “the size of a cannon”. No wonder soilders refer to it as “The Punisher”. 7[/size] Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit With the help of several universities and high-tech companies, the U.S. Special Operations Command has developed a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) for soldiers to wear in combat. It is essentially a robotic exoskeleton that soldiers wear when fighting in a combat zone. It enables soldiers to withstand bullets and fire, monitor their vital signs, and see in the dark. The Pentagon has dubbed the project the “Iron Man Suit.” There are even reports that the next generation combat suit will be made of liquid metal that can solidify into an impenetrable suit on command. The suits are also expected to increase each soldier’s strength and do pretty much everything but fly. Several prototypes of the suit have been developed, and a first-generation of the suit is expected to be operational with American soldiers in 2018. 8[/size] Tracking bullets Technologically, a bullet is pretty boring. It’s just a slug of metal that flies through the air at high speeds and hopefully kills somebody. Leave it to DARPA to try to jazz up simple munitions by making them able to adjust their course in mid-air. The agency’s Exacto program has constructed .50 caliber shells with inbound computer guidance systems that manipulate small fins on the bullet’s surface that allow it to make course corrections during flight to take environmental factors into account. They even work to home in on moving targets, which is pretty scary to see in action. 9[/size] Meshworms One of the tiniest robots in development — about the size of a fingertip — the Meshworm moves and acts like a small earthworm. It propels itself inch by inch, using artificial muscles that mimic the way an earthworm moves, by stretching one part of itself forward, then pulling the rest of its body along behind it. The Meshworm can move silently into the tiniest places to report back data, such as temperatures inside a confined space. It can also record audio and maybe even video in future versions. Made entirely of synthetic fibrous material, it’s nearly indestructible. You can step on it or hit it with a hammer and it will keep going because the fibers are not damaged by impact. 0 #10[/size]

7 Skype Tips for Power Users Now that Skype has been merged with Windows Live Messenger, it’s more popular than ever. (It is now owned by Microsoft). There’s no way to use Skype with a third-party client, but Skype does offer hidden features that can make it more powerful. These are a few useful Skype tricks you won’t find unless you go off the beaten path, offering ways to sign into multiple Skype accounts, use IRC-style chat commands, record Skype calls, and even disable some of Skype’s built-in advertising. Sign Into Multiple Skype Accounts Unlike some messaging programs, Skype doesn’t allow you to easily log into multiple accounts. Try to launch the Skype shortcut once you’ve already opened Skype and it will just bring your already-open Skype window to the front. But you may have multiple Skype accounts — perhaps you have one for work and one for personal use. Rather than open Skype as another Windows user account, Skype has a hidden option you can use to open a new Skype instance. To do this, press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog. In the Run dialog, enter the following command if you’re using a 32-bit version of Windows: “C:\Program Files\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe” /secondary On 64-bit versions of Windows, enter the following command instead: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Skype\Phone\Skype.exe” /secondary Skype will open a second Skype window, which you can log into as another Skype account. If you wanted to use this frequently, you could create a new Windows shortcut that opened Skype with the /secondary switch. . Disable Contact List Advertisements Skype will always show advertisements in its home pane, but it also shows advertisements at the bottom of your contact list by default. You can click the X button to close these advertisements whenever they appear, but they’ll just keep coming back. But there’s a better way — you can disable them permanently if you know where to look. To disable the contact-list advertisements, or “promotions,” open Skype’s Options window, navigate to Notifications -> Alerts & messages, and uncheck the Promotions checkbox. Edit or Delete Sent Messages This feature also isn’t immediately obvious if you’re used to other chat programs. If you make a mistake when typing a message or send a message you didn’t mean to, you can edit or delete a sent message later. To do so, just right-click a message you’ve already sent and select Edit Message or Remove Message. When you edit a message, Skype will note that the message was edited — and if you delete a message, Skype will display “This message has been removed.” Of course, if your recipient already saw the original message you sent, there’s no way to edit it out of their mind. Record Skype Calls Skype doesn’t include a built-in call recording feature, but you may find yourself wanting to record a call at some point. Perhaps you’re interviewing someone remotely and you want to create a record of the interview that you can refer to later, perhaps you’re recording a podcast, or perhaps you’re having a business discussion and want a record of any agreements you make. There are plenty of good reasons you may want to record a call — aside from the obvious creepy ones. As Skype doesn’t include a built-in call-recording feature, you’ll need to use a third-party application that will do the recording for you. There are several options out there — in the past, MP3 Skype Recorder was recommended to us by a reader and we found that it worked well. Use Screen Sharing Skype’s screen-sharing feature allows you to share your desktop with a Skype contact. You can use this feature to quickly troubleshoot someone’s PC without making them install additional remote access software. Or, you can us this feature to give a presentation and or show anything else remotely. You could also choose to share a single window instead of your entire desktop, giving yourself some privacy. While on a Skype call, just click the + button and select Share screens. You could also just click the + button and select Share screens to initiate screen-sharing while not already on a call. Bear in mind that, unlike traditional remote-access software, there’s no way to give someone else control over your screen. You’d have to walk the other person through any changes you make to their computer if you were acting as remote tech support via Skype screen-sharing. Master Text-Based Chat Commands If you’re a geek, there’s a good chance you’ve used IRC before. IRC offers a wide variety of chat features that are available as text-based commands, and Skype offers many comparable features. In a Skype chat room, you can use the /add command to add a Skype user to the chat, use the /topic command to set a topic for that chat room, use the /setpassword command to set a password for that chat room, use the /setrole command to assign permissions to users in the chat, use the /kick command to kick a user from the chat, or use the /kickban command to kick a user and ban them from rejoining. These are just a few of the chat commands Skype offers — check the What are chat commands and roles? page on the Skype website for a comprehensive list. You could also just use the /help command from within Skype to access a list of chat commands, although you’ll only see the full list if you’re in a chat room with more than two people. Easily Send a File to Multiple People While you’re in a Skype chat with multiple people, you can easily send a file to them all by dragging and dropping the file into the chat room or conference call. Skype will give a copy of the file to everyone, allowing you to quickly share files without the hassle of sending them as an email attachment, sharing them via Dropbox, or even using Skype’s Send File feature to send it to them one at a time. You could also create a group in your contacts, and then right-click the group and select Send File to send a file to every contact in that group at once. It’s an easy way to distribute files to several people at once. Skype may have become popular because it offered dead-simple voice and video calls over the Internet that “Just Worked” without any firewall configuration, but it’s more than a basic program. It offers quite a few power-user features that geeks will appreciate.

I found this on another site, thought I needed to share My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: 'Maybe should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet.' So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those 'cold wax' kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off. No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be? I mean, I'm not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!) So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. ('Cold wax,' yeah...right!) I lay the strip across my thigh. Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works! OK, so it wasn't the best feeling, but it wasn't too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire. With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure , I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip) I inhale deeply and brace myself....RRRRRRIIIIPPP!!!! I'm blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!.... OH MY GAWD!!!!!!!!! Vision returning, I notice that I've only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out...must stay conscious...must stay conscious. Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe..................OK, back to normal. I want to see my trophy - a wax covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pa in, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip! There's no hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX??? Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip...it's not! I touch. I am touching wax. I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake ...remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down. Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut! I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself 'Please don't let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!' What can I do to melt the wax? Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I'll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right??? *WRONG!!!!!!!* I get in the tub - The water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment - I sit. Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub...in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn't melt cold wax. So, now I'm stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It's a very good conversation starter 'So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!' There is a slight pause. She doesn't know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, 'Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?' She's laughing out loud by now...I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box. YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else's night. While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor. Nothing feels better than to hav e your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I'm pretty sure I'm going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event. My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace....the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really ha ve to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY GOD!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It's sooo painful, but I really don't care. 'IT WORKS!! It works !!' I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair.... THE HAIR IS STILL THERE.......ALL OF IT! So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I'm numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point. Next week I'm going to try hair colour...... ======== There are plenty of hilarious reviews of Veet for Men Hair Removal Gel Cream 200 ml on Amazon (89 pages of them). DO NOT PUT ON KNOB AND BOLLOCKS Being a loose cannon who does not play by the rules the first thing I did was ignore the warning and smear this all over my knob and bollocks. The bollocks I knew and loved are gone now. In their place is a maroon coloured bag of agony which sends stabs of pain up my body every time it grazes against my thigh or an article of clothing. I am suffering so that you don't have to. Heed my lesson. DO NOT PUT ON KNOB AND BOLLOCKS. (I am giving this product a 5 because despite the fact that I think my bollocks might fall off, they are now completely hairless.) GOOD RESULTS AT FIRST INTERROGATION Excellent product. Most prisoners confessed within five minutes of the first application. Can recommend. PLEASE DILUTE BEFORE USE I recommend diluting before use. Personally I diluted it with Deep Heat and Oven Cleaner and the resulting pain in my balls was far more bearable. Do NOT get this stuff on your bell-end. http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000KKNQBK

Troubleshoot Your Mac With These Hidden Startup Options [/url] Troubleshooting a Mac is different from troubleshooting a PC, but not all that different. Use your Mac’s built-in startup options to test your hardware, boot in safe mode, reinstall Mac OS X, and perform other system tasks. Troubleshooting a Mac is different from troubleshooting a PC, but not all that different. Use your Mac’s built-in startup options to test your hardware, boot in safe mode, reinstall Mac OS X, and perform other system tasks. To access one of these tools, you’ll first have to shut down or restart your Mac. You’ll then have to press and hold the appropriate key or key combination before the gray startup screen appears. Press the keys right after the startup sound plays. Startup Manager To boot from a specific device, press and hold the Option key while booting your Mac. You’ll see the Startup Manager appear. From here, you can choose to boot from different connected hard drives, USB flash drives, network locations, and other boot devices. To skip the Startup Manager and boot straight from a removable device — for example, a CD, DVD, or USB drive — instead of its internal drive, press and hold C. To boot directly from the network with Netbook, press and hold N instead. Apple Diagnostics / Hardware Test Apple Diagnostics tests your Mac’s hardware to ensure it’s working properly. On Macs released before June 2013, Apple Hardware Test (AHT) will appear instead of Apple Diagnostics. To access this tool, press and hold the D key while booting your Mac. Select your language and your Mac will automatically test its hardware and inform you if anything is wrong. Safe Boot / Safe Mode Macs offer a Safe Mode, also known as Safe Boot. When you boot in Safe Mode, your Mac will check its startup volume, only load necessary kernel extensions, and disable third-party fonts and startup options. It’s like Safe Mode on Windows— it won’t load third-party hardware drivers or startup programs, so you can use this mode to fix problems if your Mac isn’t working or booting properly. To load your Mac in Safe Mode, press and hold the Shift key while it boots. You can stop holding the Shift key when you see an Apple logo and progress bar. To leave Safe Mode, just reboot your Mac without holding the Shift key. Single-User Mode In single-user mode, you’ll be presented with a text-mode terminal you can use to enter commands you might need to troubleshoot problems. This works like Linux’s single-user mode — rather than getting multi-user operating system, you boot directly to a root shell. Press Command + S to boot into single-user mode. To leave this mode, type reboot at the prompt and press Enter. Verbose Mode In verbose mode, you’ll see normally hidden messages appear on your screen. If your Mac is freezing, especially during the boot process, the messages here can help you identify and get help with the problem. Press Command + V to boot into verbose mode. You’ll see the terminal messages appear during the startup process. If everything goes properly, your Mac will boot to its normal desktop. Recovery Mode Recovery Mode provides various graphical tools for working with your Mac. From here, you can reinstall Mac OS X restore your computer from a Time Machine backup, or use the Disk Utility to repair, wipe, and partition your Mac’s internal disks. Press Command + R to access Recovery Mode. If necessary, you’ll be asked to connect to a network so your Mac can download the appropriate recovery software. You can then choose your language and use the graphical tools here. One of the nice things about a Mac is that this is all built-in. You don’t even have to download a Mac OS X installer — if necessary, your Mac will download the OS X installation files for you when you choose to reinstall the operating system. Better yet, it will download the most recent version of Mac OS X so you won’t have to spend hours installing patches and service packs, as you do on Windows

Awesome Luxury Yacht This model is the CRN 125 J'Ade and its pretty impressive. ]

Ingo is a shepard dog and his best friend is an owl named Poldi. The cute twosome was caught on camera by photographer Tanja Brandt and it is heart-warming to see.

How Attackers Could Crack Your Wireless Network Security [/url] It’s important to secure your wireless network with WPA2 encryption and a strong passphrase. But what sorts of attacks are you actually securing it against? Here’s how attackers crack encrypted wireless networks. This isn’t a “how to crack a wireless network” guide. We’re not here to walk you through the process of compromising a network — we want you to understand how someone might compromise your network. Spying on an Unencrypted Network First, let’s start with the least secure network possible: An open network with no encryption. Anyone can obviously connect to the network and use your Internet connection without providing a passphrase. This could put you in legal danger if they do something illegal and it’s traced back to your IP address. However, there’s another risk that’s less obvious. When a network is unencrypted, traffic travels back and forth in plaintext. Anyone within range can use packet-capturing software that activates a laptop’s Wi-Fi hardware and captures the wireless packets from the air. This is generally known as putting the device in “promiscuous mode,” as it captures all nearby wireless traffic. The attacker could then inspect these packets and see what you’re doing online. Any HTTPS connections will be protected from this, but all HTTP traffic will be vulnerable. Google took some heat for this when they were capturing Wi-Fi data with their Street View trucks. They captured some packets from open Wi-Fi networks, and those could contain sensitive data. Anyone within range of your network can capture this sensitive data — yet another reason to not operate an open Wi-Fi network. Finding a Hidden Wireless Network It’s possible to find “hidden” wireless networks with tools like Kismet, which show nearby wireless networks. The wireless network’s SSID, or name, will be displayed as blank in many of these tools. This won’t help too much. Attackers can send a deauth frame to a device, which is the signal an access point would send if it were shutting down. The device will then attempt to connect to the network again, and it will do so using the network’s SSID. The SSID can be captured at this time. This tool isn’t even really necessary, as monitoring a network for an extended period of time will naturally result in the capture of a client attempting to connect, revealing the SSID. This is why hiding your wireless network won’t help you. In fact, it can actually make your devices less secure because they’ll attempt to connect to the hidden Wi-Fi network at all times. An attacker nearby could see these requests and pretend to be your hidden access point, forcing your device to connect to a compromised access point. Changing a MAC Address Network analysis tools that capture network traffic will also show devices connected to an access point along with their MAC address, something that’s visible in the packets traveling back and forth. If a device is connected to the access point, the attacker knows that the device’s MAC address will work with the device. The attacker can then change their Wi-Fi hardware’s MAC address to match the other computer’s MAC address. They’d wait for the client to disconnect or deauth it and force it to disconnect, then connect to the Wi-Fi network with their own device. Cracking WEP or WPA1 Encryption WPA2 is the modern, secure way to encrypt your Wi-Fi. There are known attacks that can break the older WEP or WPA1 encryption (WPA1 is often referred to just as “WPA” encryption, but we use WPA1 here to emphasize that we’re talking about the older version of WPA and that WPA2 is more secure). The encryption scheme itself is vulnerable and, with enough traffic captured, the encryption can be analyzed and broken. After monitoring an access point for about a day and capturing about a day’s worth of traffic, an attacker can run a software program that breaks the WEP encryption. WEP is fairly insecure and there are other ways to break it more quickly by tricking the access point. WPA1 is more secure, but is still vulnerable. Exploiting WPS Vulnerabilities An attacker could also break into your network by exploiting Wi-Fi Protected Setup, or WPS. With WPS, your router has an 8-digit PIN number that a device can use to connect rather than providing your encryption passphrase. The PIN is checked in two groups — first, the router checks the first four digits and tells the device if they’re right, and then the router checks the last four digits and tells the device if they’re right. There are a fairly small number of possible four-digit numbers, so an attacker can “brute force” the WPS security by trying each four-digit number until the router tells them they’ve guessed the correct one. You can protect against this by disabling WPS. Unfortunately, some routers actually leave WPS enabled even when you disable it in their web interface. You may be safer if you have a router that doesn’t support WPS at all! Brute-Forcing WPA2 Passphrases Modern WPA2 encryption has to be “brute-forced” with a dictionary attack. An attacker monitors a network, capturing the handshake packets that are exchanged when a device connects to an access point. This data can be easily captured by deauthorizing a connected device. They can then attempt to run a brute-force attack, checking possible Wi-Fi passphrases and seeing if they will successfully complete the handshake. For example, let’s say the passphrase is “password.” WPA2 passphrases must be between eight and 63 digits, so “password” is perfectly valid. A computer would start with a dictionary file containing many possible passphrases and try them one by one. For example, it would try “password,” “letmein,1″ “opensesame,” and so on. This sort of attack is often called a “dictionary attack” because it requires a dictionary file containing many possible passwords. We can easily see how common or simple passwords like “password” will be guessed within a short time frame, whereas the computer may never get around to guessing a longer, less obvious passphrase like “:]C/+[[ujA+S;n9BYq9z>T@J#5E=g}uwF5?B?Xyg.” This is why it’s important to have a strong passphrase with a reasonable length. Tools of the Trade If you want to see the specific tools an attacker would use, download and run Kali Linux. Kali is the successor to BackTrack, which you may have heard about. Aircrack-ng, Kismet, Wireshark, Reaver, and other network-penetration tools are all preinstalled and ready to use. These tools may take some knowledge (or Googling) to actually use, of course. All these methods require an attacker to be within physical range of the network, of course. If you live in the middle of nowhere, you’re less at risk. If you live in an apartment building in New York City, there are quite a few people nearby who might want an insecure network they can piggy-back on.

1. The most ejaculatory orgasms ever recorded in 1 hour for a man is 16. 2. The farthest a woman has been recorded to ejaculate is about 9'29" (3 metres) 3. The greatest distance attained for a jet of semen that has ever been recorded is 18'9" (5.71 metres) which was achieved with a "substantial" amount of seminal fluid by Horst Schultz. 4. The average speed of a man's ejaculation is 28 miles (45.05kmh). The average speed of a city bus is 25 miles (40.22 km). 5. Having swallowed the most amount of semen ever officially recorded Michelle Monaghan had 1.7 pints (0.96 litres) of semen pumped out of her stomach in Los Angeles in July 1991. 6. The female gangbang world record is owned by a woman named Houston who had intercourse with 620 men in one day! A video was made of this historic event. As it took about 10 hours (with a few very brief breaks) to do it, the average time of intercourse was less than 58 seconds. 7. Women hold the record for having the most orgasms. The biggest amount of orgasms enjoyed by a woman in 1 hour ever recorded is a pussy shattering 134! 8. The male gangbang world record goes to porn actor Jon Dough who worked himself over 55 women in one day. He had 5 to 6 ejaculations. Actually, he was supposed to have had intercourse with at least 101 women, but he did the other 46 two weeks later. 9. The record of the man who has had intercourse the most frequently goes to a man who was recorded to have had intercourse about 52,000 times over a period of 30 years. This means he had intercourse on average 33.3 times a week! 10. Youngest Father - Sean Stewart, of Sharnbrook, England, became the father of a healthy 6 lb. baby boy on January 20, 1998, at age 12.

The events that occurred on 11 September 2001 will forever be remembered by the world. Here are some heart-breaking photos from the day. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 This family photo was taken at the top of the World Trade Center on 10 September 2001 and is one of the last “happy” images taken of the building before devastation struck the following day. 61 62

The largest vessel the world has ever seen Climbing onto the largest vessel the world has ever seen brings you into a realm where everything is on a bewilderingly vast scale and ambition knows no bounds. Prelude is a staggering 488m long and the best way to grasp what this means is by comparison with something more familiar. Four football pitches placed end-to-end would not quite match this vessel's length - and if you could lay the 301m of the Eiffel Tower alongside it, or the 443m of the Empire State Building, they wouldn't do so either. In terms of sheer volume, Prelude is mind-boggling too: if you took six of the world's largest aircraft carriers, and measured the total amount of water they displaced, that would just about be the same as with this one gigantic vessel. Under construction for the energy giant Shell, the dimensions of the platform are striking in their own right - but also as evidence of the sheer determination of the oil and gas industry to open up new sources of fuel. Modules weighing 5,500 tonnes are lifted onto the vessel by huge cranes Under construction in South Korea, Prelude is destined for a gas field off the coast of Australia Painted a brilliant red, Prelude looms over the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard on Geoje Island in South Korea, its sides towering like cliffs, the workforce ant-like in comparison. Soon after dawn, groups of workers - electricians, scaffolders, welders - gather for exercises and team-building before entering lifts that carry them the equivalent of ten storeys up. On board Prelude, amid a forest of cranes and pipes, it is almost impossible to get your bearings. Standing near the bow and looking back, the accommodation block that rises from the stern can just be made out in the distance. The yard, one of the largest in the world, is a mesmerising sight with around 30,000 workers toiling on the usually unseen infrastructure of the global supply of fossil fuels: dozens of drilling ships, oil storage tankers and gas transporters. Park and produce Prelude is not only the largest of all of these to take shape in this hive of activity - it also pioneers a new way of getting gas from beneath the ocean floor to the consumers willing to pay for it. Until now, gas collected from offshore wells has had to be piped to land to be processed and then liquefied ready for export. Usually, this means building a huge facility onshore which can purify the gas and then chill it so that it becomes a liquid - what's known as liquefied natural gas or LNG - making it 600 times smaller in volume and therefore far easier to transport by ship. And LNG is in hot demand - especially in Asia, with China and Japan among the energy-hungry markets. To exploit the Prelude gas field more than 100 miles off the northwest coast of Australia, Shell has opted to bypass the step of bringing the gas ashore, instead developing a system which will do the job of liquefaction at sea. Hence Prelude will become the world's first floating LNG plant - or FLNG in the terminology of the industry. In Shell's view, this means avoiding the costly tasks of building a pipeline to the Australian coast and of constructing an LNG facility that might face a long series of planning battles, and require a host of new infrastructure on a remote coastline. So Prelude will be parked above the gas field for a projected 25 years and become not merely a rig, harvesting the gas from down below, but also a factory and store where tankers can pull alongside to load up with LNG. The Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard on Geoje Island is one of the world's largest Prelude is 488m long and its processing modules dwarf the workers The computer animations make it look easy. In practice, the engineering challenge is immense. To speed up construction, the key elements of the processing system are being assembled on land before being installed on the vessel. During our visit, we witnessed the extraordinary sight of a 5,500-tonne module being winched into position on the deck. Like a massive jigsaw piece, it was a tight fit - given that Shell is planning to squeeze the LNG plant into one quarter of the space you would expect on land. This was the third of 14 modules. The installation took less than a day and was successfully completed but there's clearly a lot of work still to do, which is why Shell officials are coy about committing to a date for when Prelude will actually start work. It looks like being several years at least. Bridge too far? The Shell pitch is that gas, as the cleanest of the fossil fuels, is set to become more important in the coming decades as a far more climate-friendly alternative to coal. And as China tries to clean up its polluted air, largely caused by coal-burning power stations, as I reported in January, switching to gas would surely make a difference. Only up to a point, however: the gas-is-cleaner argument only works if the new supplies of gas actually replace coal rather than become an additional source of fuel. And the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concludes that while gas would be a welcome "bridge" between coal and low-carbon energy for the next 20 years or so, in the long term it will need to be phased out, like all fossil fuels, unless a way is found to capture the carbon dioxide that burning it releases. Shell is banking on gas being in such demand that prices will remain high enough to justify Prelude's cost - which has not been stated but must run into billions. Obviously there are risks. The gas price might collapse, if China's economy dips, or Japan restarts its nuclear power stations, closed since the Fukushima disaster, and suddenly needs less gas. Shell wants the enormous vessel to collect and liquefy gas at sea for 25 years About 30,000 people work in the shipyard Shell's ambition is to launch a fleet of future Preludes to pioneer a new chapter in the story of fossil fuels by opening gas fields previously thought to be too tricky or expensive to tackle. As our lift brings us back down to the quayside, the winter sun bathes the dockyard in golden light and convoys of buses ferry the multitude of workers home. During the night, specialist teams will check for the strength of the welds and the quality of the work. A project of this kind has never been tried before and, like all firsts, Prelude is something of a gamble.

Week in pictures: 13-19 December 2014 Our selection of some of the best news photographs taken around the world this week. A Maasai warrior does the high jump, in which athletes must touch a high line with the top of their heads, at the annual Maasai Olympics in the Sidai Oleng Wildlife Sanctuary near Kilimanjaro, in southern Kenya. President Vladimir Putin has insisted Russia's under-fire currency, the rouble, will stabilise, but warned the economic crisis could last two years. Mr Putin insisted the nation's currency reserves were sufficient to keep the economy stable, saying the central bank should not "burn" its $419bn reserves. Adama Tarawallie is seen with her husband Ibrahim, 31, a suspected Ebola victim, as they wait to be transported from Devil Hole, west of Freetown, Sierra Leone. The country has overtaken Liberia to have the highest number of Ebola cases, World Health Organization figures show. Pope Francis celebrated his 78th birthday as he arrived to lead his general audience at the Vatican. Prince Harry shows children a photograph he has taken during a visit to a school constructed by his charity, Sentebale, in Mokhotlong, Lesotho. Chinese soldiers endured freezing temperatures of about -30C (-22 F) during a training session in Heihe, Heilongjiang province. More than 140 people, most of them children, were killed when Taliban gunmen stormed a school in Peshawar, Pakistan. Here, women mourn their relative Mohammed Ali Khan, 15, one of the students killed in the attack. Two people died, along with the gunman, after commandos stormed a cafe in Sydney, Australia, to bring a 16-hour siege to an end. Prime Minister Tony Abbott questioned why the gunman was not on the country's terror watch list. An oil spill from a crashed tanker in Bangladesh's Sundarbans waterways is threatening a rare dolphin sanctuary and part of the world's largest mangrove forest. Villagers have been collecting oil from the rivers using pots and pans, some of which is sold on. Members of the Winchester Cathedral Choir skated on the cathedral's ice rink to mark its opening.

British police were chasing 34-year-old Tabraiz Hussein when he attempted to throw his drug stash out the window. Stupidly, the window was closed and he ended up spilling $25,000 worth of heroin all over his car and the sidewalk.