BEIJING, Feb. 5 — “What does Facebook’s Doppelganger Week look like?” asked the New York Daily News. “Depending on who you are, it could look like a Simpson, Michael Jackson, or if you’re lucky, Angelina Jolie.”

(Source: China Daily)

Now it appears that Bill Gates joined Twitter with calculated intentions. After passing 100,000 followers in eight hours (now he has nearly 250,000 fans), the Microsoft visionary used his now-popular account to announce a new web project: The Gates Notes.

The new website offers a collection of Gates-related information with blog-like sections documenting everything from his travels to what he’s reading and thinking about. There’s even a “Curious Classroom” section serving to house Gates’s responses to students, and an “Infrequently Asked Questions” page to address reader questions.
So what’s the point of the site? On your first visit, you’re greeted with a letter from Gates explaining that he regularly takes notes about his work with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He’s decided to share those notes online “in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important.”
At launch, the site is already packed with notes, and we’re impressed and overwhelmed by the collection of content. Now that Gates has captured the attention of more than 200,000 Twitter users, we expect to see him use the platform to share fresh content with his followers and quickly gain an audience for this new online project.

Believe it or not Valentine’s Day is almost here again. This is a day that is tough for a lot of frugal people to contend with. Some people feel like this is an entirely commercial holiday and they don’t want to spend any money to participate in it. Other people see it as a way to celebrate their love for someone but they want to do it in a way that doesn’t cost a lot of money. Still others want to go on nice dates and are willing to work that into their budgets. And then there are the single people and families that may (or may not) celebrate in their own ways. It’s a tough holiday but it’s a holiday that is supposed to celebrate love and that’s certainly a good thing to celebrate.
In honor of the upcoming holiday, we have compiled a list of some of the best links out there for people who are interested in doing Valentine’s Day in a frugal manner. From the links below you will find ideas for free and cheap Valentine’s dates, reducing the cost of Valentine’s travel and doing nice things on a budget. Let us know what you think is the best way to celebrate Valentine’s Day without spending too much money.
Frugal Valentine’s Ideas:

• 25 Frugal Valentine’s Ideas that Won’t Make you Look Cheap. We’re going to start off with one of our favorite posts from our own blog. It was really popular with a lot of our readers and we think that the Valentine’s ideas it offers are going to be just as relevant this year as they were when we published them. We also think you might want to learn our 100 tips for talking about money since discussing frugality at Valentine’s can be a tough thing for some people in their relationships.
• 9 Ideas for Spending Less than $40 on Valentine’s Day Activities. Most couples would really rather have a great date together on Valentine’s Day than spending their time and money on getting gifts for one another. This post has some terrific ideas for how to have such a date without spending more than $40.
• 9 Tactics for a Frugal Valentine’s Day. Here are another nine ideas for how you can cut back on the cost of Valentine’s Day without cutting back on the celebration. These tips focus on both the do’s and don’ts of a date or a gift.
• 4 Frugal Valentine’s Day Gift Ideas. One of the best frugal ideas from this article is the idea of making homemade coupons for Valentine’s Day. This is almost like the bartering system where instead of giving a gift you give your time. Great coupon ideas in this one.
• 8 Valentine Gift Basket Ideas for Frugal Romantics. The idea of giving someone a gift basket is a really popular one during all holidays. However it’s also usually an expensive gift. Luckily it doesn’t have to be. This article has some terrific ideas for frugal, sweet gift baskets for Valentine’s Day.
• Fun and Frugal Valentine’s Ideas. This is a great list that’s divided into ideas that are cute, wacky, cheap, frugal, yummy or family-oriented. One terrific reminder from this article is to wait until the day after Valentine’s Day to buy gifts and then celebrate late because it’s a lot cheaper to do it that way!
• Money Can’t Buy You Love. This article features nine different ideas for spending a lovely evening with someone that you adore and yet not spending a lot of money on your date. A spa-at-home is one of the best ideas from this particular article.
• 10 Frugal Valentine’s Ideas for Under $10. This is a unique list that has some really creative ideas such as hunting down cheap vintage jewelry to give to someone as a gift this Valentine’s Day. What a fun way to give a great material item without spending a lot of money.
• 10 Ideas for a Fun Yet Frugal Valentine’s. Everyone loves top ten lists and there are a lot of them about frugal Valentine’s Day stuff. It starts with devising a plan for your Valentine’s Day fun which makes it a lot more likely that you’re going to have a great time without spending a lot of money.
• 10 Frugal Valentine’s Ideas for Him and Her. This top ten list does a great job of suggesting affordable gifts for both men and women which is nice since a lot of the other articles out there on the topic tend to get a little bit one-sided.
• 6 Cheap Ways to Say I Love You. There are a lot of inexpensive things that you can buy or actions that you can take that will express your love in a profound way. Here are six of them to get you started.
• 17 Things to Write for Valentine’s Day. One of the best frugal gifts that you can give to your lover is the gift of your writing. Take the time to put your feelings into words. There are many different writing-based gifts that you can give to someone for Valentine’s Day and all of them are frugal.
• 15 Cheap Valentine’s Day Dates. One of the best ideas from this article is to get some free old romantic movies from the library and to spend the day watching them together. That’s a great date and a smart tip about saving money all year round by getting videos from libraries instead of video stores.
• Celebrate Valentine’s Day with your Kids. This article provides you with a lot of wonderful tips about how to celebrate the holiday with your whole family and yet not spend a lot of money. These are all simple things that any family can enjoy doing together.
• Valentine’s Day on a Dime. This is another article that has really great tips for frugal Valentine’s with the kids. However it also includes some ideas for adults only. Plus it has a whole section on affordable Valentine’s lunch ideas which is a cool thought.
• 3 Smart Valentine’s Ideas for the Single Crowd. Wisebread has a really great article about how to celebrate a frugal but wonderful Valentine’s Day even though you are single. This crowd tends to get forgotten during Valentine’s Day so it’s nice to see a money-saving writer think about them!
• Inexpensive Valentine’s Day Gifts from the Heart. Music, food, surprises … these are the gifts that really make Valentine’s Day special. They don’t have to cost a lot of money at all but they might take you some time to put them together.
• Frugal, Unique and Meaningful Valentine’s Day Gift and Date Ideas. Well the title of that article just about says it all, right? There truly are some unique tips in this one, too.
• 100+ Cheap Valentine’s Ideas. This is another roundup of links to some great ideas for frugal Valentine’s Day celebrations. A couple of these links are already posted here in this article but a few of them are new.
• 100 Romantic Ways to Show Your Love on Valentine’s Day. Not every single item on this list is frugal. For example, taking a hot air balloon ride together isn’t going to be cheap. However there are tons of ideas on this list that are affordable so it’s worth taking a look at. Staying in bed and snuggling is definitely a free favorite!
• 50 Ways to Be Cheap on Valentine’s Day without Looking Cheap. This is a really comprehensive article filled with creative ideas about how you can have an affordable but wonderful Valentine’s Day this year.
• Reasons to make Organic, Fair Trade Chocolate Body Paint for Valentine’s Day. Not only is it cheap; it’s good for the environment. What a cool, creative, frugal Valentine’s idea!

Which of our promotional codes was your favorite one this week? We thought that these were the top ten promotional codes of the week beginning 25th January 2010.
1) We love this week’s Swarovski Crystal promotional code. It allows you to take £8 off of any order over £100. It’s a great time for a deal like this since Valentine’s is just around the corner. You can use this discount code to get a good deal on a romantic gift. Use before it expires on 15th February.
2) Another common Valentine’s gift that people love to save some money on is flowers. Use this week’s Interflora discount code to get 10% off of your flower order. Expires 6th February 2010. We also have Interflora codes this week for free flowers and free wine so be sure to check them out!
3) If you want a little bit more room to get something less specific for Valentine’s Day then consider shopping at Buy-A-Gift. This is a great site which offers a diverse range of different gifts for nearly every occasion. And of course they have a great selection of Valentine’s Day gifts to choose from. Use our BuyAGift promotional code to get 10% off of your order. Expires on Valentine’s Day.
4) Prezzybox is another great gift store that people are using to buy their Valentine’s items. Use our Prezzy Box voucher code to take £5 off all orders over £25. Expires 14th February.
5) Or how about checking out the Chocolate Trading Company? You can go on their website and order a great set of chocolates to be delivered anywhere in the world. Use our Chocolate Trading Company discount code to take 10% off of your order. This one is even good for people who are late with their Valentine’s planning since it doesn’t expires until 28th February 2010.
6) One of our very best discount codes this week isn’t for Valentine’s Day at all. It’s our Vertbaudet promotional code which is good for a full 25% off of their spring-summer home collection (which is a great collection of kids’ clothes). That’s a great deal! Expires 28th February 2010.
7) Perhaps one of the most practical voucher codes that we offered this week was our PrinterInks discount code. Use it to get 5% off of your ink or toner order as long as you spend at least £50. Plus you’ll be doing a good deed because 5% of your order will be donated to DEC. Expires 28th February 2010.
8 ) Need new shoes? We’ve got a great Pure Footwear promotional code for you. Use it to get 5% off of your order including shoes that are already on sale. Expires 28th February 2010.

10) Looking for a promotional code that you don’t have to use right away? File this one away – it’s a Tesco promotional code that lets you take a full 10% off of your clothing purchase. It’s a great deal that doesn’t expire until August of this year!

If you’re a UK shopper then you probably already do a lot of your shopping online. Now there’s new research to prove it. A recent study about online shopping habits reveals that UK shoppers made up about one third of all European online consumerism in 2009. They weren’t afraid to spend a lot of money online but this doesn’t mean that these consumers were being wasteful. If they used online promotional codes to save money then they might have spent less than their in-store shopping counterparts even though it looks like a lot was spent.
Some statistics revealed from the new research include:

• UK shoppers spent about £38 billion shopping online this year.
• This amount is still only about ten percent of the total shopping done in the UK.
• This indicates that there’s room for even more growth in UK online shopping. It’s predicted that UK shoppers will spend over £42 billion in 2010.
• The average amount spent by individual shoppers in 2009 (who shopped online) was £1,102.
• Some people are even willing to spend an amount like that in one transaction. Approximately one in four people would be willing to spend over £1,000 on one transaction if they were getting a good deal.
• Following the UK in online shopping in Europe were Germany and France but shoppers there spent considerably less in 2009.

Google Analytics is a very useful free tool for tracking site statistics. For most users, however, it never becomes more than just a pretty interface with interesting graphs. The resources below will help anyone, from the beginner to those who have been using Google Analytics for some time, learn how to get the most out of this great tool.

For Beginners

The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.

1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 – A series of detailed posts walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports – This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.

Tips & Tricks

If you’re already fairly familiar with Google Analytics and you’re ready to dig deeper and learn more about how to make use of the information that is available to you with Google Analytics, this list of tips & tricks is for you.

7. Google Analytics Tips for SEO – This posts looks at how to use some of Googles new features for Search Engine Optimization.
8. 8 Useful Google Analytics Tips – This is a great list of tips for someone who has been using Google Analytics and is ready to take it to the next level and/or overcome some of its shortcomings.
9. Web Analytics Demystified – While this post isn’t about Google Analytics specifically, it is a great primer on understanding how to use the data presented by Google Analytics and it uses examples and screenshots from Google Analytics for many of the descriptions.
10. You Cut Quite a Profile – A guest post on the Google Analytics Blog about how to set up multiple profiles in order to filter down certain segments of your data.
11. 5 tips for using Google Analytics – A quick set of tips for getting more out of Google Analytics.
12. 3 Quick Tips to Tag and Track with Google Analytics – A great post on how to segment, track, and tag site visitors.
13. Google Analytics Tagging Demystified – A how-to post on the use of tagging in Google Analytics.
14. 5 tips for getting the most out of Google Analytics – Another quick set of tips for getting more out Google Analytics.
15. Get the most out of your Google Analytics – This post gives you an overall idea of what Google Analytics can tell you by asking some simple questions and showing you how Google Analytics can help you answer them.
16. Getting More out of Google Analytics Goals – A post on the importance of setting up goals in Google Analytics and how to do it.
17. Goal Setting Example with Google Analytics – Another post on setting goals in Google Analytics.
18. Getting the most out of Search Log Analysis and Google Analytics – A post that explains what “Search analytics”, search log analysis and clickstream analysis are and why they are so important.
19. How to analyze results in Google Analytics – As the title suggest this post looks at how to analyze the data that Google Analytics provides.
20. Top Tips for Using Google Analytics – Another quick set of tips for getting more out of Google Analytics.
21. Google Analytics Tutorials: All Together – A list of several video tutorials that include some of the more advanced features of Google Analytics.
22. Google Analytics Tip: Learn How They Found That 1 Page – This post will tell you how to find out how visitors found a single page on your site, which can be useful for figuring out why traffic on your site may have spiked on a certain day, for example.
23. Install Google Analytics Site Search In 5 Steps – This post shows you how to set up the Site Search feature in Google Analytics, which will allow you to analyze your internal search phrases as opposed to those from search engines.
24. Google Analytics Site Search: Working with the Data – A follow up to the above post that explains the data from your internal site searches.
25. Google Analytics Videos on YouTube – A list of official Google Analytics videos that are on YouTube from the Google Analytics Blog.
26. Advanced Use of Google Analytics and the new interface – A great post about some of the more advanced uses of Google Analytics.
27. Google Analytics Tutorial Part 2 – A follow up to the above post that answers questions posed to the author.
28. Tracking social networks with Google Analytics using filters – This post shows you how to set up a filter that will allow you to look at visits from various social networks.
29. The Huge Collection of Google Analytics Tips – A long list of Google Analytics tips and tricks.
30. Advanced Google Analytics: Conversion Goals (Part One) – This is the first in a series of posts about advanced uses of Google Analytics. This post covers how to setup and define goals.
31. Advanced Google Analytics: Conversion Goals (Part Two) – This second post shows you how to set up funnels in Google Analytics.
32. Advanced Google Analytics: Conversion Goals (Part Three) – This third post explains how to track “things that don’t have a distinct page view associated with them.”

Plugins, Hacks & Additions

Want to learn how to get even more out of and extend Google Analytics by extending it with third party plugins, additions and hacks? This list of links is for you.

33. The Ultimate Google Analytics Plugins, Hacks and Tips Collection – A long list of links and descriptions regarding ways you can get more out of Google Analytics.
34. Using MooTools to Instruct Google Analytics to Track Outbound Links – Shows you how to use MooTools to track clicks on links to other sites from your site.
35. Use jQuery with Google Analytics to Track Clicks on Outgoing Links From Your Site – Shows you how to use jQuery to track clicks on links to other sites from your site.
36. 4 Tools to Get More from your Google Analytics – A list of 4 scripts that can be used to enhance Google Analytics using the GreaseMonkey Firefox extension.
37. How to track downloads in Google Analytics automatically – A post on how to track links to documents and outbound links.
38. Google Analytics on iPhone – Shows you how to get your Google Analytics data to display on your iPhone using an web-based application in development by a German developer named Sergej Mueller.
39. 7 Google Analytics Plug Ins & Reports You Probably Didn’t Know About – Links to scripts, plugins and reports gleaned from a Google event that the author attended.
40. Google Analytics for WordPress – A plugin for adding Google Analytics to your WordPress blog.

New & Advanced Features

In October 2008 Google started to release enterprise-class features to Google Analytics. Some of these features include Advanced Segmentation, Custom Reports and Motion Charts. In November 2008 Google also announced a simplified solution for tracking Flash content. The links below will introduce you to these features and show you how you can use them.

41. More Enterprise-Class Features Added To Google Analytics – A post from the Google Analytics Blog that introduces the enterprise-class features that were added to Google Analytics in October 2008.
42. Google Analytics Releases Advanced Segmentation: Now Be A Ninja! – A very detailed post on how to use the new Advanced Segmentation features in Google Analytics.
43. Google Analytics Advanced Segmentation: The Allegory of the Cave – Describes the new Advanced Segmentation features through Socrates The Allegory of the Cave.
44. A deeper look at Advanced Segmentation – Another detailed post about the new Advanced Segmentation features directly from the Google Analytics Blog.
45. The new features are now available in your account! Let’s take a deeper look, starting with Motion Charts – The Google Analytics Blog takes a detailed look at the new Motion Charts feature in Google Analytics.
46. Motion Charts in Google Analytics – A video presentation demonstrating the new Motion Charts feature.
47. Google Analytics Benchmarking: Tutorial, and Things that Make You Go Hmmmmm… – A humorous, yet very useful post on how to set up and use Google Analytics Benchmarking feature.
48. Make a date with data in Google Analytics – While not yet fully implemented, Google has integrated Google AdSense data into Google Analytics and this post from the Google AdSense Blog describes this new feature.
49. Google AdSense Reports to Appear in Google Analytics – A series of screenshots showing Google AdSense data that has been integrated into Google Analytics. This was posted when there was still some speculation around Google releasing this feature, but the screenshots show you what this new feature looks like.
50. Want to track Adobe Flash? Now you can! – Here is the announcement from the Google Analytics Blog regarding the simplified solution for tracking Flash content that they released in November 2008.

Sony’s PlayStation video game console is “poison” and leads children down the capitalist “road to hell,” Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said.

Chavez, in his weekly radio-TV show “Alo Presidente,” called on Venezuelan manufacturers to make “educational” toys and dolls with indigenous peoples’ features to replace capitalistic counterparts like the Barbie doll that “have nothing to do with our culture.”

In expanding on his dislike of western toys and games — he already slammed Nintendo for promoting “selfishness, individualism and violence,” Chavez Sunday took on the world’s top selling game console, Sony’s PlayStation.

“Those games they call ‘PlayStation’ are poison. Some games teach you to kill. They once put my face on a game, ‘you’ve got to find Chavez to kill him.’”

The firebrand leftist president said any game that “bomb cities or just throw bombs,” are sold by capitalist countries to sow violence so they can “later sell weapons.”

They “promote the need for cigarettes, drugs and alcohol so they can sell them. That’s capitalism, the road to hell,” he added.

Venezuela, Chavez said, should be making “educational games,” and suggested designing “little indigenous dolls” to sell in place of dolls “like Barbie, that have nothing to do with our culture.”

Venezuelan lawmakers in October passed a law outlawing the sale of “bellicose” games and videogames that can be punished with up to five years imprisonment.

South Korean scientists have developed a walking robot maid which can clean a home, dump clothes in a washing machine and even heat food in a microwave.

Mahru-Z has a human-like body including a rotating head, arms, legs and six fingers plus three-dimensional vision to recognise chores that need to be tackled, media reports said Monday.

“The most distinctive strength of Mahru-Z is its visual ability to observe objects, recognise the tasks needed to be completed, and execute them,” You Bum-Jae, head of the cognitive robot centre at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, told the Korea Times.

“It recognises people, can turn on microwave ovens, washing machines and toasters, and also pick up sandwiches, cups and whatever else it senses as objects.”

The institute took two years to develop Mahru-Z, which is 1.3 metres (4.3 feet) tall and weighs 55 kilograms (121 pounds).

It could also work with an earlier maid robot called Marhu-M which moves on wheels, since both can be remotely controlled through a computer server.

You claimed Mahru-Z as the most advanced robot in terms of mimicking human movements.

Apart from tackling chores, researchers say it could also be used in conditions too difficult or dangerous for humans. But mass production for commercial use is some way away.

The science institute spends about about four billion won (3.5 million dollars) every year on robot research. It began receiving state funds for the project in 2006.

According to market research firm IDC, vendors shipped 54.5 million smartphone devices in the fourth quarter of 2009, an increase of 39% compared to the same period in 2008.
A lot of this growth can be attributed to Apple and its iPhone, which has grown from 9.1% market share in 2008 to 14.4% in 2009, shipping 8.7 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009. Although some reports claim Apple’s smartphone market share has dropped compared to the third quarter of 2009, Apple can still be satisfied with its impressive overall growth.
BlackBerry manufacturer RIM lately hasn’t been getting as much press as some other manufacturers, but it’s also doing very well, with its market share rising from 15.6% to 19.8% in 2009. Besides RIM, Apple and Nokia (which still holds the first spot in the smartphone market, slightly dropping from 40.0% in 2008 to 38.9% in 2009), the other two names in the top five list are HTC and Samsung with 4.6% and 3.3% market share, respectively. However, this list might get rearranged soon, as Motorola has had significant success with its Droid, shipping 2.5 million smartphones in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to just 1.6 million in the same period in 2008.