An introduction to Credit Card!
Credit was first used in Assyria, Babylon and Egypt 3000 years ago. The bill of exchange - the forerunner of banknotes - was established in the 14th century. Debts were settled by one-third cash and two-thirds bill of exchange. Paper money followed only in the 17th century.
The first advertisement for credit was placed in 1730 by Christopher Thornton, who offered furniture that could be paid off weekly.
From the 18th century until the early part of the 20th, tallymen sold clothes in return for small weekly payments. They were called “tallymen” because they kept a record or tally of what people had bought on a wooden stick. One side of the stick was marked with notches to represent the amount of debt and the other side was a record of payments. In the 1920s, a shopper’s plate - a “buy now and pay later” system - was introduced in the USA. It could only be used in the shops which issued it.
In 1950, Diners Club and American Express launched their charge cards in the USA, the first “plastic money”. In 1951, Diners Club issued the first credit card to 200 customers who could use it at 27 restaurants in New York. But it was only until the establishment of standards for the magnetic strip in 1970 that the credit card became part of the information age.
Credit cards were first promoted to traveling salesmen (more common in that era) for use on the road.
By the early 1960s, more companies offered credit cards, advertising them as a time-saving device rather than a form of credit. American Express and MasterCard became huge successes overnight.
By the mid-’70s, the US Congress begin regulating the credit card industry by banning such practices as the mass mailing of active credit cards to those who had not requested them.
However, not all regulations have been as consumer friendly. In 1996, the US Supreme Court in Smiley vs. Citibank lifted restrictions on the amount of late penalty fees a credit card company could charge.
Deregulation has also allowed very high interest rates to be charged
The first use of magnetic stripes on cards was in the early 1960’s, when the London Transit Authority installed a magnetic stripe system.
San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit installed a paper based ticket the same size as the credit cards in the late 1960’s.
The word credit comes from Latin, meaning “trust”.
Cheques (checks) came into use in 1875.
In Bangladesh, the first credit card facility was started by ANZ Grindlay’s Bank.
As time demanded, all most all the private banks introduced credit cards in the market, some of them, are, Duch-Bangla Bank, Brac Bank, UCB and the very recently IFIC Bank launched its credit card with a tagline developed by its advertising agency ‘Get it hot’ at the lowest interest rate among the competitors.
Stay cool, when it’s really hot!
With summer just around the corner, many find it tricky to live up against its increasing heat. For those who do not have the advantage of using air-cooling machines at home or office, it is even more complicated to find respite in a hot summer day, transpiring into a stuffy night.
It is therefore to your advantage if you can start your day with a cool shower before setting out for everyday drudgery. It is practical to wrap oneself in clothes of lighter fabric and texture during this time. Carrying an umbrella and putting on dark sunglasses are definitely IN this summer irrespective of gender. For men who are office-goers it is imperative they wear pump shoes closed from all sides but students and those working in a less restrictive office environment, can easily try out cool foot wears with enough ventilation. For women, summer is a boon when they have every opportunity to lay bare their enviable collection of classy footwear.
It is crucial to have enough liquid intakes. 2-3 litres of water a day should be the bare minimum. Along with this, fruit juices and health drinks will keep the supply of necessary minerals adequate. Tea and coffee are strong diuretics so keep their intake to the lowest.
With food, it is wise to try out boiled vegetables and meat and fish cooked with little oil. However, it is not unlikely that you will slip out of this routine once in a while, especially at a wedding party or a friend’s birthday. What is important is to be sure that you keep well after everything. Since a hot summer day is the least suitable for working out, one can take up some exercises in the morning before taking shower. This little effort on your part is sure to keep you surprisingly fresh the whole day out.
Last but not the least, this summer whenever you have to take an important decision, personal or professional, make sure you do that with a cool head. Summer can never be better if you keep on doing the right things and saying the right words throughout!
Equipped with all these formula, one might end up enjoying a summer day and might agree with Emily Dickinson, the eccentric spinster of literature:
There came a Day at Summer’s full,
Entirely for me-
Enjoy this summer in style!
The English court rejects marriage over phone
The appellate Court comprising three senior judges- Mr. Justice Wall, Mr. Justice Thorpe and Lady Justice Hallett ruled in the case of Westminster City Council v IC and Others that a marriage which had been made over a telephone was invalid, even though it was valid under Islamic law. The judgment published in the last month produced much debate among the personal law experts of England.
The ceremony took place in September 2006.
The 26-year-old groom residing in England was mentally handicapped and had never met his bride residing in Bangladesh. The parents of the groom originated from Bangladesh but resident in England for many years. The groom was born in 1981 and suffered from severe impairment of intellectual functioning and autism. He needed considerable support in all areas of his life and could not be left alone without risk. He received home care five mornings a week before he attended a day center. The local authority had been involved in supporting and protecting him since he was four years old. The Court observed that the role of marriage in the life of one so handicapped was inconceivable in English society and was ‘potentially highly injurious’ as stated by the court.
The lawyers of the parents argued that it should therefore be recognized in English law. The parents also argued that their son had married in a Muslim ceremony by telephone. The court in response to the argument stated that the groom was unable to give valid consent to the marriage under English Law rather was suggestible and vulnerable. Moreover, the groom lacked the capacity to marry and consent to sexual intercourse and hence, as a matter of law, marriage is precluded. In addition to this the court order prevents contact of the bride and the groom. But under the Islamic Law and the laws of Bangladesh the said marriage is valid though neither party met each other. The groom lacked the capacity to understand the introduction of the bride into his life, which would be likely to destroy his equilibrium or destabilize his emotional sate.
In Bangladesh, the marriage was officially viewed to have taken place on Bangladeshi soil, but as the family had intended to bring the “bride” to Britain, British law had to take precedence.
The panel of judges did not allow the parents the right of appeal to the House of Lords, and a court order ensures that bride and the groom will never be allowed to meet. A full High Court hearing on IC’s case will be held in August 2008.
Source: Timesonline
Banking Tips
Some points to remember while writing a cheque:
Don’t let any one rush you in writing the cheque. Make sure the cheque is properly dated, and bears the current signature that you have recorded with the bank. Make the cheque crossed or account payee for definite receipt by the beneficiary. Always fill up the counter-foil of cheques for future reference and cross-checking with the statement of accounts.
Some points to remember while accepting a cheque:
Avoid cheques bearing signs of alteration, difference in amount and figure. Ensure that the signature matches with any ID the issuer is holding. Avoid bearer cheques, cheques not drawn on local banks by local payees, counter cheques-in other words cheques on which the name of the drawee and account number is not printed. Always avoid post-dated cheques.
Points to consult your bank representative or relationship manager for the better deals:
Ensure that you are availing the right products available at the bank. Find out if you are entitled to waiver on any service charges. Being a loyal, longstanding customer you may be entitled to a lower interest rate on loans or credit card. Therefore, it would be prudent to raise these queries with your Bank official.
Are all banks charging the same rate of service charge?
Not all banks are charging service fees at the same rate. It would be wise to take out your statements for the last year or so and add up the fees and penalties you paid for monthly account maintenance, ATMs, bounced checks, etc. Now compare your bank with three or four other banks. You may discover that you could earn or save by using another bank. Or, you may find that your own bank still offers a good value and that it is willing to make compromises to retain you as a customer.
How can you simplify banking?
You can simplify your life by making your bank (if the facility exist) automatically arrange some of your regular payments, such as your mortgage, health insurance premiums and utility bills. It can be an easy, economical alternative to writing and depositing a lot of checks each month.
Work function of a MIDI keyboard
In order to understand the MIDI keyboard, we should know about the musical keyboard first. A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers on a musical instrument which cause the instrument to produce sounds.
Keyboards almost all share the common layout shown. Musical instruments with keyboards of this type include the piano, harpsichord, virginals, clavichord, organ, electric piano, digital piano, synthesizer, “arranger keyboard” or “home keyboard” (also called “electronic keyboard”), celesta, dulcitone, accordion, melodica, glasschord, and carillon. Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often called the piano keyboard.
The twelve notes of the Western musical scale are laid out with the lowest note on the left; the larger keys (for the seven “natural” notes of the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B) jut forward. Because these keys are often coloured white on a keyboard, these are often called the white notes or white keys. The keys for the remaining five notes which are not part of the C major scale (namely C#/D#, D#/E#, F#/G#, G#/A#, A#/B#) are set back. Because these keys are often coloured black, these notes are often called the black notes or black keys.
The pattern repeats at the interval of an octave. The arrangement of longer keys for C major with intervening, shorter keys for the intermediate semitones dates to the 15th century. Many keyboard instruments dating from before the nineteenth century have a keyboard with the colours of the keys reversed - darker coloured keys for the white notes and white keys for the black notes.
A few electric and electronic instruments have had this feature. It should be noted that the reverse-colored keys on Hammond organs such as the B3, C3 and A100 are not playable keys; they physically latch when pressed like radio buttons, and serve as selector switches for preset sounds. There are 21 white keys on the keyboard and 15 black.
How to make a MIDI Keyboard
MIDI keyboard connects to computer sound card or synthesizer module to create MIDI code.
This Project is built around the 8031 microcontroller. Once keyboard circuit diagram is drawn out, one can construct scanning circuitry that continuously loops through a test of each key to see if it is open or closed.
Circuit Components
Microcontroller, memory, keyboard/switch interface, MIDI/RS232 interface and power supply
Software Algorithm
- The software loops through a check of each 1st switch for every key.
- If it finds that switch 1 is open it checks to see if it was open the last time it looked. If this is the case it continues scanning.
- If it finds that it is open but was closed the last time it looked then it stores info that it is now open and then sends the “note off value” for that key out the midi port.
- If it finds that switch 1 is closed then it checks to see if switch 2 for that key is open.
- If it is open then it increments the velocity register value and continues the scan. If it finds that switch 2 is closed then it checks a register to see if that note is already on. If so then it continues the scan.
- If not then it sends the “note on value for that key out the midi port and also sends a velocity value from the velocity table that is incremented for each key check loop. Therefore, the more times that the software loops the lower the velocity value sent.
Not really Virtual
E-commerce could well change your lot, provided you have some technical know-how and a desire for exploration. As the name implies, electronic commerce or e-commerce is an internet-based business scheme that does not require any particular location, space and other stuff to conduct the operation. That is why it is considered as a virtual platform that dramatically downsizes operation costs and eliminates common hassles.
Nowadays people are accustomed to moving with shopping cart in the marketplace but this will become history in the near future as widespread availability of the internet will make everything readily accessible from any place. Furthermore, the advancement of wireless devices and improvement in mobile internet services will add a new dimension to our lifestyle by making everything easily available.
Before entering into details, a few basics of e-commerce will help. It is a kind of online business that entails an assortment of things such as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, e-marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), automated inventory management systems, automated data collection systems and the like.
Today all e-commerce services operate using websites and sending emails. A customer can order items from a vendor’s website by making payment with a credit card (the punter enters their account information via the computer) or a previously established ‘cybercash’ account. The transaction information is transmitted to a financial institution for payment clearance and to the vendor for order fulfilment. The encryption technology keeps all personal information secure from unauthorised access.
The e-commerce trend began in 1968 when electronic data interchange gave companies the leeway to start electronic transaction. However, it was not until 1984 that a standardised format (known as ASC X12) provided a dependable means to conduct electronic business, and it was not until 1994 that Netscape introduced a browser program whose graphical presentation significantly eased the use of computer communication for all kinds of computer activity, including e-commerce.
Three types of electronic commerce are available today — business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C). B2B scheme provides a direct interaction between two business activities. For instance, a wholesaler purchases one thousand units of printer from a manufacturer and deposits the payment to the manufacturer.
UN/EDIFACT is one of the most well-known and established B2B standards. ANSI ASC X12 is a popular standard in North America. RosettaNet is an XML based, emerging B2B standard in the high-tech industry. An approach like UN/CEFACT’s Modelling Methodology (UMM) might be used to capture the collaborative space of B2B business processes.
For firms in developing countries, B2B e-commerce scheme has emerged as a potential way to reduce costs substantially. It has also given them the opportunity to access global market. Internet-based B2B e-commerce should help producers in developing countries to obtain better information about global market and give them direct access to new customers.
Business-to-consumer or B2C gives businesses the room to sell their goods and services directly to consumers. Suppose you need to buy a book online and go to a particular website to place your order. The portal processes your request and after receiving the payment, ships the book to you.
Consumer-to-consumer or C2C involves electronically-facilitated transactions between consumers through some third party. A common example is online auction in which a consumer posts an item for sale and other consumers bid to purchase it. The third party generally charges a flat fee or commission. Examples of C2C are eBay, amazon.com etc.
Starting a online business is a good decision for which you first need to develop a smart interactive website. Then you select commodities that you want to sell online. You should maintain a good network with others to market your products. Products for sale can be made by you or purchased from secondary sources. You can maintain a warehouse for product distribution.
A newcomer in the market, your first imperative should be building confidence. Collecting email IDs could be a smart a way to send product profile to others. For instance, you send in hundreds of emails to different firms and individuals. If five among them send feedback to you, it will be a breakthrough because you have made it possible with limited resources. The website that posts your advertisement should be intelligent enough. You have to take digital image of each entity and place them on the web. Adding a client interaction form is mandatory to receive order from the clients. Mode of payment can be online or direct hard cash. If online payment facility is not available, you can collect your payment after delivering the products.
Recently another technology called ‘m-commerce’ is gaining huge popularity. Mobile commerce has introduced payment without contact which in practice gives people the true touch of liberty. Today all cellphone manufacturers produce specialised phones with mobile internet facility and the rapid improvement in operators’ network has enabled people to download rich contents on their palm-held devices.
In Japan I-mode service, unveiled by DoCoMo in February 1999, is a lucid example of the resounding success of m-commerce. I-mode facilitates buying tickets, ordering books and getting news delivered to mobile handset. The service has become the largest internet access platform in Japan. In addition, I-mode users can carry out banking transactions with up to 280 banks and securities brokers.
In Bangladesh e-commerce has not yet gathered the momentum. Although there exists some e-commerce websites, they do not provide full-fledged services. The absence of online transaction facility hinders the entire process. The government should come forward and initiate and regulate this service in order to create a true e-business environment in the country.
Cascading Style Sheets
Now folks who are newbie in the field of web design and development can enhance there knowledge to know what is CSS actually? From the wikipedia I have posted this brief overview of CSS
In web development, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a stylesheet language used to describe the presentation of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.
CSS is used by both the authors and readers of web pages to define colors, fonts, layout, and other aspects of document presentation. It is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation (written in CSS). This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentational characteristics, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content. CSS can also allow the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices. CSS specifies a priority scheme to determine which style rules apply if more than one rule matches against a particular element. In this so-called cascade, priorities or weights are calculated and assigned to rules, so that the results are predictable.
The CSS specifications are maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Internet media type (MIME type) text/css is registered for use with CSS by RFC 2318 (March 1998).
I will write about different tips and techniques of working with CSS and CSS based design later
Bangladesh Open Source Network
Throughout history, every generation has had to stand up for freedom. Now it’s our turn
Bangladesh Open Source Network (BdOSN) is a not-for-profit, voluntary organization to promote Open Source (OS) Philosophy in Bangladesh. It was initiated as an umbrella organization of different OS groups and organizations in Bangladesh and now evolves as one of the coordinating hubs for OS related activities in Bangladesh.The following types of memberships are available with BdOSN.
- Individual Membership: Individuals who are eager to support the aims and activities of the Network and aspire to gain knowledge and develop Open Source and Open Content may apply for Individual Membership.
- Civil Society Membership: Civil society organizations which are eager to support the aims and activities of the Network and need assistance for development and implementation of Open Source and Open Content culture may apply for Civil Society Membership. The individual members of each such organization will have the similar facilities that are entitled to an Individual Member.
- Academic Membership: Educational institutions eager to support the aims and activities of the Network and aspire to gain knowledge and develop Open Source and Open Content may apply for Academic Membership. The individual members of each such organization will have similar facilities that are entitled to an Individual Member.
- Community Membership: BdOSN will help local communities to develop their own network. The network will be known as local Open Source Network. Institutional or administrative unit based community network may be formed. All individual members of such OSN will enjoy similar facilities that are entitled to an Individual Member.
- Corporate Membership: Business organizations/organizations which are eager to support the aims and activities of the Network and need assistance for development and implementation of Open Source and Open Content culture may apply for Corporate Membership. The individual members of each such organization will have the similar facilities that are entitled to an Individual Member.
- Sponsor Membership: Organizations who are eager to fund on regular basis or sponsor the aims and activities of the Network may apply for Sponsor Membership. Each such Sponsor Member can nominate up to 1 (one) Observer to the GC. The Sponsor Members will have the same status as Corporate Members in all other respect.
- Patron Membership: Individuals who are eager to fund on regular basis or sponsor the aims and activities of the Network may apply for Patron Membership. The Patron Members will have the same status as Individual Members in all other respect.
Anybody interested in open source may join BdOSN
Human Powered Battery Charger-Kineticel
Still it is conceptual only. The idea is built around battery chargers instead of batteries. The trick would be to discover the materials and environmental cost of adding chargers to relatively simple items in the first place.It is one of the ideas submitted to the Next Generation competition 2007 featured in Metropolis Magazine was this Kinetic Energy-harnessing battery charger by Yael Miller. The concept is to take power from our daily life work - such as working out, flopping around in a baby rocker, vacuuming, or flushing the toilet - add the piezoelectric effect, and come out with batteries that are charged by “human power.”
Imagine all the television remotes we could power just from flushing!
Yael Miller’s “Kineticel” concept proposes to put small piezoelectric chargers inside common household furniture and appliances, trading a little extra effort in your endeavor for freeish power. Kineticel chargers in a set of dumbbells could make electricity while you’re just doing your daily works!
Satellite Jam
This computer-generated image released by the European Space Agency (ESA) on April 15 shows trackable objects in Low Earth Orbit (LOE) around Earth from the North Pole. There are now more than 12,000 objects that are monitored in orbit, 11,500 pieces of which are in low Earth orbit, which is at an altitude of between 800 and 1,500 kilometres, where there are many commercial, military, scientific and navigational satellites. In low orbit, debris can stay adrift for decades before they eventually burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Another 1,147 pieces are in geostationary orbit, about satellite orbits in the direction of the Earth’s rotation, at an altitude of approximately 35,786 km, where telecommunications satellites are typically deployed.
Photo: AFP
