Here are some relief efforts and organizations I captured from facebook and twitter

Miami

Haiti relief efforts: ATTENTION MIAMI PEOPLE: Large truck that will be on the corner of 1st & Alton beginning at 6:00 pm today and will be there 24/7 until it is filled. Items most needed: blankets, tents, batteries, candles, clothing, medicine and canned food. Any little thing you can donate please do! PLEASE REPOST!

Hmc record is doing a major food drive in fort laud to help Haiti so please bring ur cans call 954 873 7962

Red Cross needs creole speaking volunteers for a 24 Hour phone bank. Call Mr. Wilfrid @ 305-776-6900 ASAP…don’t forget to txt YELE to 501501 ($5/txt)…u can also

tune in to 97.7fm or www.radiotendressefm.com they are LIVE in Haiti and some people are sending message to people in the states!

Food For The Poor ~Haiti relief efforts~ Collecting Donations Of All Kinds Please Call 1-800-487-1158 To Ask How You Can Help

Container on Wheels will be at the AmericanAirlines Arena starting tomorrow from 2pm-5pm collecting can goods, clothing, water, etc. to help the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti. For more info visit heat.com.

Boston

City of Boston launches assistance efforts for victims and local families impacted by earthquake in Haiti

http://www.neighborsforneighbors.org/2010/01/13/city-of-boston-launches-assistance-efforts-for-victims-and-local-families-impacted-by-earthquake-in-haiti/

Volunteer to travel to Haiti

Islamic Relief USA http://islamicreliefusa.org

www.matadorchange.com, email julie@matadornetwork.com

Relief organizations

Yele.org: Text “Yele” to 501501 ($5 donation). Text “Haiti” to 90999 ($10 donation to the Red Cross).

Google Crisis response:  Support Disaster Relief in Haiti  http://www.google.com/relief/haitiearthquake/

Family member location services http://www.kwch.com/global/story.asp?s=11817499

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

www.cnn.com/impact

AMERICAN AIRLINES taking doctors and nurses to Haiti for free. Call 212-697-9767. LA CA NYC Miami Dallas

presidentialcartel.com

CARE: Care.org or call 1-800-521-CARE

Medecins Sans Frontieres is looking for experienced, French speaking medical and non-medical Field Volunteers who can go to Haiti on short notice. Please contact Kath.Andersen@newyork.msf.org, phone: (212)655-3784

How you can help:
• International Medical Corps
• Direct Relief International
• World Vision
• International Relief Teams
• Yéle Haiti
• American Red Cross
• Operation USA
• CARE
• Catholic Relief Services
• World Food Programme
• World Concern
• Save the Children
• UNICEF USA
• Mercy Corps
• Operation Blessing International
• Shelterbox
• Americares
• Operation USA
• Doctors Without Borders
• Medical Teams International
• The International Committee of the Red Cross
• The Salvation Army
• More ways to help victims of NATURAL DISASTERS

Source: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/

Here are some Analysts from Gartner and Forrester who released at least one Cloud Computing related research in 2009.

Gartner

David W. Cearley, VP & Gartner Fellow

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=25698

http://blogs.gartner.com/david_cearley/

Simon Hayward, VP & Gartner Fellow

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=12498

Daryl C. Plummer, Managing VP & Gartner Fellow

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=7521

http://blogs.gartner.com/daryl_plummer/

Brian Prentice, Research VP

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=25995

http://blogs.gartner.com/brian_prentice/

Martin Reynolds, Managing VP

http://www.gartner.com/AnalystBiography?authorId=7642

http://blogs.gartner.com/martin_reynolds/

Forrester

Stephanie Balaouras
Principal Analyst, Research Director

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/stephanie_balaouras

Jean-Pierre Garbani

Vice President, Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jean-pierre_garbani

Frank E. Gillett
Vice President, Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/jean-pierre_garbani

James Staten
Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/james_staten

Christopher Voce
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/christopher_voce

Jennifer Belissent, Ph.D.
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/Jennifer_Belissent

Randy Heffner
Vice President, Principal Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/randy_heffner

Stefan Ried, Ph.D.
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/stefan_ried

Stefan Ried, Ph.D.
Senior Analyst

http://www.forrester.com/rb/analyst/stefan_ried

Amazon EC2 allows users to provision compute resources on-demand. With On-demand Instances, Amazon EC2 does not require any commitment, sign-up fees, and upfront payments. Amazon Web Services (AWS) uses a monthly billing cycle; therefore users get charged at end of each month for their EC2 usages.

Amazon EC2 charge in 2 dimensions: instance (server) uptime (total number of hours an instance has been running) and bandwidth consumption. There are 2 types of bandwidth charges: “bandwidth in” or “data transfer in” (the amount of data transferred in Amazon cloud) and “bandwidth out” or “data transfer out” (the amount of data transferred out of Amazon cloud). “Bandwidth in” has a flat rate of $0.10/GB and “bandwidth out” has a tiered pricings starting at $0.17/GB. Where it gets little complicated is on the instance (server) uptime. At the end of each month, AWS tallies the total number of instances hours each type of instance ran and multiplies the total number of hour by their hourly rate. Instances hourly rates depend on 3 things: the type of instance, the EC2 region, and the pricing option.

1- Amazon EC2 Instances types
Amazon EC2 has 7 types of instances. Each instance type has 3 main characteristics: number of EC2 Compute Unite (ECU), memory size (RAM), and the size of the local drive.

2- Amazon EC2 Regions
Amazon EC2 has 3 regions: U.S.- Northern Virginia (US East), U.S.- Northern California (Northern Cal), and Europe – Ireland (EU). The hourly rates for instances in Northern Cal and EU are the same, and hourly rates for instances in US East are about 11.76% cheaper than those in Northern Cal and EU.

3- Amazon EC2 pricing options
Amazon EC2 has 3 pricing options. On-Demand Instances (default pricing), Reserved Instances (RI), and Spot Instances (SI).

a. On-Demand Instances
The On-demand Instances pricing is the default pricing for EC2. This pricing does not require upfront payments (CapEx) or commitments. Although AWS can increase users’ EC2 limits, there is no guarantee the instances will be available. The only way to guarantee capacity with Amazon EC2 is to purchase RI. The On-Demand pricing is ideal for burst capacity, dev/test, and POC.

b. Reserved Instances (RI)
RI allows AWS users to reduce their instances uptime costs by about 30% for 1-year term and 50% for 3-years term over the length of the term. RI requires upfront payments. The amount of upfront payments depends on the term of the RI and the type of instances.  Another added benefit for RI is the guarantee capacity. RI guarantees capacity for the instances purchased. I strongly encourage AWS users should purchase RI for their steady usages.

c. Spot Instances
Amazon EC2 auctions un-used EC2 capacity as Spot Instances. Spot Instances allow users to bid on un-used EC2 instances at lower rates than On-Demand instances. However, this auction is a little different than traditional auctions. Amazon EC2 set the hourly rates for each instances type by region and users bid to run Spot Instances at the rates set by Amazon EC2. Amazon EC2 can change the hourly rates of Spot Instances anytime. If the new rates are higher than a user’s original bid rate, Amazon EC2 will terminate the user’s instances. As a result, Spot Instances are not ideal for most use cases and it is not recommended to run critical elements (web servers, data base servers, and most application servers) on Spot Instances. Spot Instances are perfect for load testing, transcoding, files conversions, financial modeling, and for all  applications that that have flexible start and end times.

Net neutrality is a principle that all broadband networks (DSL, Cable internet, dial up…) should be neutral and free of restrictions, which means broadband providers (Comcast, ATT, Verizon, Time Warner….) have to treat all sites, contents, applications, platforms, and devices that connect to their networks equal. For instance, under net neutrality provision, Comcast cannot assign higher value to Google and make it easier for their subscribers to access google.com while they assign a lower value to http://moussadao.com, therefore making it hard for their subscribers to access http://moussadao.com.

Why is net neutrality important?

Without net neutrality, it would probably have been impossible to have sites such as Google, Facebook, twitter, Youtube.com. At their early stages, these sites could have been assigned lower value by broadband providers; therefore broadband providers could have restricted access to these sites and make it hard for subscribers to access them. If access to Google was restricted and google.com was slow to load, mostly likely no one would have used Google.com; therefore we could have never known how good Google search is.

Net neutrality encourages innovation on the internet. It allows entrepreneurs around the globe to focus on creating the next Google, Facebook, and twitter without worrying about broadband providers’ restrictions.

Without net neutrality, broadband providers can make it difficult to access certain type of contents (such as videos, movies and music download…) on their networks. Or they could charge extra (or premium) to access and visit these sites.

What is happening to net neutrality?

The FCC is currently in the middle of debating the future on net neutrality and wants to extend net neutrality to wireless broadband connections.  But, opponents of net neutrality are fighting hard. The nation’s largest telephone and cable companies (ATT, Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner…) want to get rid of net neutrality and be the internet gatekeepers, deciding which web sites go fast or slow and which won’t load at all. They are putting presser on the FCC to not extend the net neutrality provision. 

On the other hand, Google, Amazon.com, Facebook, twitter, and many other corporations and not-for-profit organizations are fighting to preserve net neutrality.

While the Bush administration had taken side with the nation’s largest telephone and cable companies, President Obama is committed to the notion of net neutrality.

If you care about the internet, care about your freedom on the internet, want to see more innovations, continue to access any sites without any restrictions, and want to preserve the internet, join the flight to preserve net neutrality.

• Contact your congressman and senator to voice your support for net neutrality.
• Sign the petition by Save the Internet.

Additional readings about net neutrality
Save The Internet
Net neutralilty wikipidia
Google Blog

Marc Strassman and Etopia News: Producer-reporter of remote video interviews, primarily dealing with climate change and the effort to mitigate it through the rapid and universal deployment of renewable energy systems. You can find lot more interviews by Marc Strassman at http://Zibutu.com

Paul is a founding member of Plug In America and a long-time EV driver and advocate for renewable energy. Paul has worked in the film business for most of his career while keeping involved as a population activist and environmental activist. Paul currently works for SolarCity, California’s largest residential solar installer. Paul also is the president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Southern California.

Tickets for large events such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, always present an opportunity for scammers to go work and scam people looking to buy tickets.  If you are interested in buying tickets for the World Cup next year in South Africa, be aware of scams.  Lots of scams have already been reported and FIFA is trying to crack down on illegal World Cup ticket sales.

Here are some facts about the World Cup tickets

You cannot buy world cup tickets at any of the following sites
    EBAY – http://www.ebay.com
    Craigslist – http://www.craigslist.org
    StubHub – http://www.stubhub.com
    TicketMaster – http://www.ticketmaster.com

You cannot buy world cup tickets from an individual. If someone approaches you and tries to sell you world cup tickets, it is a scam.

You cannot buy world tickets from any business, travel agent, hotel, airlines, and website.

If you receive an email about world cup tickets, it is a scam. Don’t open it and delete it.

 If some hotels in South Africa try to lure you saying that they can get you tickets, it is a scam.

How to get tickets of the world cup?
For most of us, the only way to buy tickets for the world cup is by entering a drawing at http://fifa.com You submit your application to enter the drawing at http://fifa.com during one of the phases. Make sure you have your passport with you since you will be required to enter your passport number.

The world cup ticket sales are divided into 4 separate Ticket Sales Phases going from 20 February 2009 to 7 April 2010.
    First sales phase: 20 February 2009 to 31 March 2009
    Second sales phase: 4 May 2009 to 16 November 2009
    Third sales phase: 5 December 2009 to 22 January 2010
    Fourth sales phase: 9 February 2010 to 7 April 2010
    Final / Last Minute sales phase: 15 April 2010 to 11 July 2010

 There are two types of ticket products available for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™:
    Match Tickets: These are individual match tickets and are available for all matches (1 – 64).
    Team Specific Ticket Series (TST): These are ticket strips to follow the national team of your choice.

Additional information about FIFA World Cup Tickets at the following links:

Sales Phases – When can I apply for Tickets?
How to Apply for Tickets?
FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
Authorised Ticket Sales Channel
FIFA tickets information page
Match Schedule 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa

Who would have thought about it? To understand the dimension of this win for the Huskies, you need to look at their records for the past couple years.

 Coming to this game, Washington won only 1 game out of 13, did not win a single game in 2008 (0 – 12), and lost 56-0 at USC last year. On the other hand, Pete Carroll’s team was 13-1, finished 12–1 last season, won seventh straight Pac-10 Championship, beat Pen State in the Rose Ball last year, beat Ohio State last week, 10 BCS Championships   (1 for Washington),  and ranked #3 in the AP poll.

 How did they do? Well, this victory started at the end of the 2008 season. After going 5-7 in the 2007 season, 4-9 in 2007, and 0-12 in 2008, the Huskies fired their head coach Tyrone Willingham and hired the young USC’s offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian. But Steve did not leave USC alone; he brought with him USC’s defensive coordinator Nick Holt.

 The hiring of Holt was not easy, Holt initially turned down the job in early December 2008. When Holt finally agreed to join Steve Sarkisian in Washington, he became one of the highest-paid coordinator and assistant coach in NCAA football.  Holt deal is worth $2.1 million over three-year; $600,000 in the first year and $650,000 in the second and third years. And that is not all, Holt also will receive a $200,000 retention bonus, payable to him up front, but would have to be returned all or in part, on a sliding scale, if he were to leave before the end of the contract. Not a bad deal.

Washington won this game on defense by not letting USC’s offense take off. By bringing together 2 of the architects of USC’s success the last couple years, the Huskies are on their way to turn around their program. However, the Huskies are not a BCS ball team this year because of their roster, which lack depth. With the current roster, the Huskies will probably finish the season at 8-4.

 As for USC, this is not a new territory for them. They lost to unranked teams each of the last 4 seasons and always managed to play in a BCS ball in January. So, I expect them to play in another BCS ball in January again this season.