Bankers seeking recession affairs

Bankers seeking recession affairs. Public revulsion for bankers one of top reasons cited on adultery site. Reviled by the public and spurned in private, bankers have been looking for solace in adultery, according to a dating Web site for people seeking affairs.

IllicitEncounters.com said it has seen a huge increase in the number of financial workers signing up to have affairs after the collapse of the markets in October last year, and that "finance" continued to be one of the most represented professional areas on the site.

The Web site said in a statement that it has over 380,000 members across Britain of which more than 20,000 work in "financial services" and said it surveyed over 600 men and women bankers to compile a top 10 list of reasons why they embarked on extra-marital affairs.

The list shows that public revulsion for bankers combined with a lack of affection in private was the top reason for having an affair, followed closely by the excitement of doing something risky, escaping boredom, feeding the ego and one-upping the boys with a trophy mistress.

"We were surprised at the honesty of some responses," IllicitEncounters representative Sara Hartley said of the replies, which also showed that long work hours and commuting left many bankers with very little time at home for romance.

"The more time they spend away from home, the less time they have to rekindle that spark."

A common reply from male respondents had to do with boosting egos and giving in to the peer pressure of having a mistress for the sake of status.

"Where I work, many of the tops (sic) dogs are open about their affairs," the Web site quoted "member 23*56" as saying in its statement. "Having a mistress is like having a flash car."

A list of the top 10 reasons bankers gave for having affairs follows:

1. To feel loved
2. For the thrill
3. Unstable home life
4. To escape the mundane
5. Ego boost
6. To avoid costly divorce
7. To lavish attention on someone
8. Because they feel entitled
9. Because they can/opportunity
10. Peer pressure

( Reuters.com )

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Website emails from beyond the grave

Website emails from beyond the grave. The fear of dying suddenly, without the chance to mend wrongs or say goodbye, has prompted an Australian entrepreneur to start a website where people can contact loved ones from beyond the grave.

Security systems retailer Peter Ingram watched as his aunt lost her ability to speak, write, or even smile within just two weeks of being diagnosed with a brain tumour.

She was fully conscious and able to understand what was happening around her, but remained silent until her death, taking her secrets, thanks and regrets to the grave.

The website lets loved ones leave messages - or embarrassing videos - for after they pass away. Picture: AFP

"I'd known her for 20 years and to me that was devastating," Mr Ingram said.

He recently launched Australia's first virtual time-capsule site, FromBeyond2u.com, where the living can leave videos, photographs and documents to be sent out to loved ones after death.

The site charges $US1 for users to store their "cherished digital memories" and programme farewell messages for the time of their death and on fixed dates such as birthdays or anniversaries into the future.

"It's not a new concept, leaving things, letters for people, videos, messages, but the internet has changed what we can do with it," Mr Ingram said.

"You can keep in touch today, tomorrow and beyond."

Subscribers can write their own eulogy and create a multimedia tribute for use at their funeral, and bequeath their photo and video files.

Whilst living, they can use the site as a place to store and share their files with friends and family all over the world.

A certificate with an activation code in the event of death is given to every user to be left with their will or next of kin.

Taboo topics

The website could, of course, have less savoury applications, Mr Ingram said.

"I had a radio station ask me the other day 'What if people leave nasty messages? Maybe I want to tell my mother-in-law for the next 10 years that I didn't like her,'" he said.

"I guess she can change her email address if you keep on badgering her with emails, but that's not what it's about."

People could also use the future messages service to posthumously speak to a mistress or spill their darkest secrets, knowing they wouldn't have to deal with the consequences, he added.

"That's none of my business, you can do whatever you want," he laughed.

Sharing with family

Mr Ingram said he had already accumulated plenty of embarrassing footage of his "angelic" son on the site in preparation for his 21st birthday celebrations.

"This is you chucking a tantrum, this is you when you're nine years old telling me you'll always love me, even when you're a teenager," he joked.

"Hopefully at his 21st I will have 12 or 13 years of backed-up photos and memories and hopefully I'll be there. But if I do kick the bucket they'll all be there for him," he said.

Users can also leave more obscure instructions they might overlook in a legal will, such as where they kept their motorcycle keys or hid precious things, he said.

Far from being morbid or narcissistic, Mr Ingram believes the site encourages sharing with family and community.

"I think the number one (aim is) definitely sharing the love with loved ones and being there for them, and not to be forgotten, that's a fear of mine," he said. / news.com.au

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Aussies would give up sex before internet

Aussies would give up sex before internet. Victorians would give up sex, partner or car before internet. It's official - Victorians simply can't live without the internet.

A new survey shows most of the state would give up sex, our car or even our partner before surrendering the beloved internet.

When given a list of things they could survive without for a month, seven out of 10 Victorians said they would rather give up their partner than their internet - higher than the national average, the Herald Sun reports.

Victorians also claimed they could give up chocolate or their daily coffee in favour of the worldwide web.

Some respondents also claimed they could give up chocolate or their daily coffee in favour of the worldwide web / File

The list of things they were asked to rank in order included sex, their car, mobile phone, annual overseas holiday and landline telephone.

Internet users in NSW, South Australia and Queensland were less likely to trade their partner for the net.

Victorian families have doubled and even tripled their internet usage in the past five years, the Optus Family Communication Survey reveals.

But only 26 per cent is reserved for work or study.

The rest is spent browsing entertainment sites or social sites for personal reasons.

It revealed kids aged 10 to 17 are twice as likely to use the internet as a gateway for social networking than as a tool to help with their homework.

Asked how the internet improved the quality of their family life, nine out of 10 Victorians said it was the best way of obtaining new information.

Eight out of 10 prized it for cheap and effective communication, while others love its ability to let them work from home. / news.com.au

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How to delete your Facebook profile in five minutes

How to delete your Facebook profile in five minutes. DoesDOES Facebook make it unnecessarily hard to delete your profile?

An article on The Punch today details how difficult it has been in the past to delete your profile from the social networking site.

“I set about looking for the Delete button. Ever seen that option? I’ll save you the hassle. There isn’t one,” wrote contributor Lachlan Hardy.

In the end, Hardy was forced to delete each bit of information – such as who his friends were, who he was in a relationship with and so on – individually.

That was about 18 months ago. Since then Facebook has copped more than a few criticisms over the way it handles user data – including a report by the Privacy Commissioner of Canada that found some of its practices may be illegal – and has announced some measures to address them.

So, I figured it was time for another test with a dummy account under the name “Andy Ramadge” – complete with silly photo.

The quick version

If you’re reading this article because you want a quick way to delete your account, log in to your Facebook profile and then follow this link. It should take you straight to the “Delete my account” form.

Read on for how to get to that page within Facebook.

Deleting your profile

The first place most people would look for a delete option is on the Account Settings page. And they’d be out of luck. From there you can only deactivate your profile.

Deactivating your profile is like putting it on ice. Facebook will keep all of your information, but won’t use it or display it to anyone else. This is so you can take a break for a while and come back to it later.

However, I want to delete my profile – so that all my data is removed from Facebook’s servers.

The next thing I did was search for a help page. There’s a button called About at the bottom of each page that will take you to Facebook’s profile, where you can read product announcements and so on.

On the left-hand side, there’s a link to the Help Center (sic). It’s not particularly prominent, but it is there.

The Help Center contains links to question and answer pieces on things to do with Facebook, grouped by topic. Except there’s no topic for either deleting or deactivating your profile.

Thankfully, there’s a list of the most popular search terms on the right. The third and fourth terms, when I checked, were about deleting your profile.

Clicking on one of the relevant search terms will, finally, take you the question and answer page titled “Deactivating, Deleting, and Memorializing Accounts”.

One of the questions is “How do I permanently delete my account?” The answer will try to talk you into deactivating your account instead of deleting it, before eventually offering a link to the page you want.

The last step, a form titled “Delete my account”, is pretty simple. It gives you a warning and asks you to provide your password and fill in one of those visual word tests to make sure you’re not a robot.

And that’s it, sort of. After filling in the form, Facebook will deactivate your account immediately and schedule it for deletion in 14 days, giving you a window of time to change your mind.

“Andy Ramadge” immediately disappeared from search and other people’s news feeds.

Conclusion

Facebook certainly doesn’t make it easy to delete your account. There is no obvious link to the right form, so you have to go searching for it.

Along the way you will be bombarded left and right with information about deactivating your account instead of deleting it.

However it still only took me five minutes to find the right form and fill it out, wiping poor old “Andy Ramadge” off the social networking site for good. / news.com.au

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Google launches new commenting tool, SideWiki

Google launches new commenting tool, SideWiki. Google has unveiled a new tool that allows notes and comments to be posted alongside web pages for others to read.

Google Sidewiki appears as a narrow pop-up browser panel on the left hand side of a website and displays messages from users about the content of the page.

The messages are visible to other users of Sidewiki who visit the site and they can post their own comments but they cannot edit the comments of others.

A website about museums in New York City, for example, would have an extra panel featuring relevant notes and comments from other visitors.

Google, in a blog post, said the new service was a way for web users to contribute "insights" and "helpful information" next to any web page.

An exmaple image of a SideWiki panel. Picture: Google

The internet search and advertising giant said it had developed an algorithm to ensure that the "most useful, high-quality entries" are displayed at the top of a Sidewiki panel.

Sidewiki is a feature of Google Toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers and Google said it would be available soon for Chrome, its own web browser.

The service is similar to other services launched in the past and it met with mixed reviews from technology bloggers.

Ars Technica said Sidewiki was "intriguing" but "it's unclear if the service will really deliver a lot of value" and it could end up being "little more than a glorified comment system".

PaidContent.org said Sidewiki "may anger some online publishers who have commenting systems of their own that they'd prefer visitors continue to use".

A blogger for TechCrunch said he does not have high hopes for Sidewiki.

"Marking up the web has limited appeal to the average consumer," he wrote. / news.com.au

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Google gets fresh as search race heats up

Google gets fresh as search race heats up. Google has rolled out search engine refinements as Microsoft strives to lure people to Bing and Twitter heightens appetites for real-time updates and news.

Google modifications include tools that let people limit online searches to only serve up results from the past hour, or by specific date ranges.

"This can be particularly helpful when you're looking for the freshest information," Google engineer Patrick Riley and product manager Nundu Janakiram said in a blog post.

"Or, if you have some idea of when the information you're looking for may have been published to the web."

Site selection

Google users can choose to be shown search only results from blogs, news, or web pages that they have visited or those they haven't visited.

"This can be particularly helpful when you're researching something you've already explored and you want to return right where you left off," Google said.

"To use this option you'll need to be signed in to your Google Account and have Web History enabled."

A new tool also modifies searches to include more or fewer shopping websites depending on how interested people are in commercial pitches online.

Google put the features in a Search Options side panel it added to search results pages in May. To access the new tools, one clicks on a "show options" link displayed above search results.

Bing's 'decision engine'

The Bing search engine Microsoft launched in May was designed to intuitively understand what people are seeking online and challenge Google.

The US software colossus described Bing as a "Decision Engine" aimed at online shoppers trying to make buying decisions, plan trips, research health matters, or find local businesses.

Bing posted a slight increase in its share of the US search market in August, the third month in a row of modest gains, according to online tracking firm comScore.

Bing increased its market share to 9.3 per cent in August from 8.9 per cent in July and 8.4 per cent in June, comScore said.

Google remained the overwhelming leader of the lucrative US search and advertising market in August with a 64.6 per cent market share, a dip of 0.1 per cent from July. Yahoo!'s share was unchanged at 19.3 per cent in August.

New partnerships

Yahoo and Microsoft, after months of negotiations, unveiled a 10-year web search and advertising partnership in late July that set the stage for a joint offensive against Google.

Under the agreement, Yahoo will use Microsoft's search engine on its own sites while Yahoo will provide the exclusive global sales force for premium advertisers.

Microsoft is also integrating messages from prominent Twitter users into results generated by Bing.

Twitter is seen by some technology analysts as the next frontier in the field of web search because of the real-time nature of the messages from its users.

Twitter's real-time stream of messages of 140-character-or-less is not currently searchable on Google.

Microsoft said its efforts with Bing and Twitter were "an initial foray into integrating more real time data into our search results." / news.com.au

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