Microsoft's Fresh Start for Donated Computers program

If you're an educator, check out Microsoft's Fresh Start for Donated Computers program, which helps schools rejuvenate machines with damaged or missing operating systems:
Has your school ever received donated personal computers that were delivered without the appropriate documentation and CDs for the original Windows® operating system? Microsoft's Fresh Start for Donated Computers program helps primary and secondary (K-12) schools ensure its donated computers are properly licensed—so students and teachers can gain additional access to technology.

To learn more about the Fresh Start for Donated Computers program, select your country or region. If you decide to apply, the license documentation will be provided in the language you select here.

Google Allows Users To Add More Bells and Whistles to Home Page

By Michael Liedtke May 20, 2005



AP Business Writer

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (AP) -- Google Inc. has introduced a new option that will enable visitors to display more information on the online search engine leader's bare-bones home page, a departure that pushes the company a step closer to operating an Internet portal in the mold of rivals Yahoo and MSN.com.

The feature, introduced Thursday and available at http://labs.google.com, allows the millions of Google users worldwide to select components tools located underneath the search engine's hood and display them on the main page.

For instance, a user could choose to have the weather, an e-mailbox, movie listings, top news stories, stock market quotes, and driving directions displayed whenever they visit Google's home page and sign in using a personalized account. The company unveiled the feature during a media day hosted at its Mountain View headquarters.

Displaying a potpourri of information on the home page marks a significant change for Google, which has always greeted its visitors with little more than a box to process a search request, along with a few tabs to navigate to other features, such as news and shopping.

The company decided to give users the option of adding more bells and whistles on the front page because it believes it developed a "critical mass" of products that present helpful information to visitors, said Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer products.

Despite the shift, Google isn't trying to persuade visitors to spend more time on its Web site, Mayer said. "We are still interested in getting people off our site to the places that they want to go (online)," she said.

Even after they create their own version of Google's front page, users still will be able to toggle back to the bare-bones look by clicking on a "Classic Google" link located near the top of the page.

Web surfers who personalize Google's home page will be able to create a site that looks more like Yahoo and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN.com, which both have tried to built multidimensional sites, or portals, designed to give visitors everything they might need.

Both Sunnyvale-based Yahoo and Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft also have spent heavily on building improved search engines to challenge Google's leadership in that specialty, hoping to tap into a rapidly growing ad market revolving around search requests. The companies also both offer tools that enable visitors to Yahoo.com and MSN.com to personalize their home pages.

The bare-bones approach has served Google well so far, helping it create the fourth most trafficked site on the Web, according to comScore Media Metrix, a research firm. Google attracted 78.6 million unique U.S. visitors last month, lagging behind Yahoo (114.8 million unique visitors), MSN (97 million) and AOL (86 million), comScore said.

Google has a strong financial incentive to boost its traffic figures because it maximizes its profits when Web surfers click on advertising links displayed on its site. The search engine also delivers ads to hundreds of other Web sites, but has to share those sales commissions.

Grandparents' £1bn 'property ladder' help

One fifth (18%) of British families rely on help from grandparents to provide financial support for grandchildren throughout their childhood, Barclays research reveals.

Across the UK, grandparents are shelling out over £4 billion each year to help families with childhood costs, which equates to an annual average of £2,303 per family.

According to Barclays, almost a quarter (23%) of this cash is used to help children get on to the property ladder, either via house deposits or contributing to mortgage repayments. Additionally, grandparents’ contributions are important early on in life in terms of helping with childcare costs (35%), as well as fees for university education in later years (31%).

However, over a half of grandparents who help their families out do so by giving cash on an ad-hoc basis (58%) and very few take a more structured approach through an annual gift (22%) or planned investment (16%).

Whilst ad hoc gifts can be useful to meet immediate needs such as school fees, Barclays warn that this approach may not be the most cost efficient way of supporting a grandchild’s longer-term needs such as university fees or a deposit on a first home.

Barclays estimates that if you had invested the £2,303 (nearly £200 a month) given by grandparents each year in the stock market over the last 18 years, the investment would now be worth £54,760. By careful planning and regular investment, the contributions provided by grandparents each year might help towards the £40,000 prospective cost of putting a child through university in 18 years time or to provide the estimated deposit on a first home in 30 years time.

Grandparents based in the South West give the most financial support by giving their grandchildren an average of £4,829 a year, whereas grandparents in the North East are most likely to help out financially (22%) than any other region.

However, many grandparents are not making the most of the £3,000 gift they could make each year which is not eligible for inheritance tax, with only 18% saying they would consider it.

Stephen Ingledew, Director of Barclays Financial Planning, said: "Many families are now finding the need to turn to grandparents for financial support as the cost of property and education bites, and indeed many grandparents will want to help wherever they can. However, we’d urge any current or future grandparents to ensure their finances are working as hard as possible for them and by extension for their grandchildren. A little bit of planning early on can reap benefits for the whole family."

"Many grandparents are generous in giving cash gifts on an ad-hoc basis, such as for birthdays or to help cover a mortgage repayment. But, with an average of £2,303 being handed over by grandparents each year, British grandparents should look at other, more financially sensible options. For example, perhaps look at a planned investment or provide an annual gift such as a cash ISA, where grandparents can save or invest for their grandchildren whilst enjoying tax benefits."

Quote of the Week:

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. - Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Oak And The Rose

An oak tree and a rosebush grew,
Young and green together,
Talking the talk of growing things-
Wind and water and weather.
And while the rosebush sweetly bloomed
The oak tree grew so high
That now it spoke of newer things-
Eagles, mountain peaks and sky.
"I guess you think you're pretty great,"
The rose was heard to cry,
Screaming as loud as it possibly could
To the treetop in the sky.
"And you have no time for flower talk,
Now that you've grown so tall."
"It's not so much that I've grown, " said the tree,
"It's just that you've stayed so small."
Shel Silverstein