Thursday, November 8, 2007

Home Mortgage

The real estate is an asset for the people that give them a satisfaction for the security of their lives. Either you are fulfilling for the loan repayment or you are purchasing a new property, these kinds of deals offered by the mortgage companies are very important. In fact nowadays Mortgage has become a root for any expanding business.

EXPLANATION:

Real estate broker is a kind of intermediary that acts as a dealer between the buyer and seller of the real estate. In the sale and purchase of a real estate e.g. houses and other buildings a real estate agent is involved, who carries out the whole process from buying up to the complete transfer of the ownership. Real estate agents are also known as the real estate broker. When real estate agent acts as a buyer�s agent he facilitates the other person in finding the homes of lowest prices. Real estate agent not only finds out the lowest prices for the buyers but also the good deals and policies. On the other hand if he acts for the sale of the real estate he tries to finds out the highest price giver for the property.

HOME MORTGAGE:

While discussing the real estate the home mortgage is the most important term. This term can be defined as pledge of a property or a real estate either on the temporary basis or the conditional basis for a specific time period to the creditors in order to perform some dealings like repayment of the debts or fulfilling the obligations. This is known as the home mortgage. It is basically secured by one to four family properties.

When the debtor cannot fulfill the obligations on time then the home for sale auctions are carried out.

HOME INSURANCE:

For making the residential easy for the people homes for sale are available for the people on the different mortgage rates. And to further enhance the safety of the residential home insurance being offered.

Basically home insurance is being provided to ensure the durability of the homes. Mostly they have following characteristics:

  • Home insurance is also called home homeowners insurance.
  • It is based basically for the private homes.
  • It can be coupled with other insurances like personal insurance, home losses and accidents, home appliances or other losses on the personal possessions.
  • Cost of it depends basically on three things,
    1. the value of the house
    2. the other value added services
    3. the range of the insured items

A list of the limitations is provided at the time of the purchase of the insurance and typically the natural accidents like floods and earthquakes are included in the list. These natural incidents or the acts of God are not included in the insurance policy. It is for a certain time period during which the person has to pay the premium. The amount of the premium depends on the chances of the replacement of the loss.

Home insurance is best for the investment property because of the chances of the loss is more in the case of the investment property. Therefore to ensure the safety of the investment property it must be insured.

Therefore, the mortgage rate varies from company to company and the value of the property. For this, to make the deal 100 % in your benefits, before making any new mortgage deal the mortgage rates must be searched. Once you come across with an obligation the search of the new mortgage for the real estate may happen.

For this following things need to be considered:

  • plenty of the research
  • the duration of the payment of the debt
  • the reputation of the company with whom you are going to make the deal.

There are many companies that deal with the mortgage business. One such example is the City Mortgage. The City Mortgage has been serving its customers for years for the purchase or the refinance homes. These types of deals also make it easy for the people who otherwise may not be able to afford it. City mortgage provides very low and reasonable mortgage rates with great expertise in terms of the knowledge and the experience.

By keeping all the processes of the lending at the regional level they are providing the first class services. In addition to other mortgage services, it is also providing the clients with following benefits:

  • Mortgage information and consultation services
  • Loan options

West Mortgage is also serving the customers with unique and competent policies. It claims to provide the following benefits to its clients.

  • Home loans to the clients
  • Lowest interest rate
  • Possible closing costs

Almost most of the hurdles that a client may come across in securing a loan have been minimized by the West Mortgage. The most famous mortgage deal is the West Home Mortgage deal which is associated with the home refinance and the repurchase. In Capital West Home Mortgage is customer centered and dynamic. It follows both the legal issues. West Home Mortgage provides a very competitive environment to the mortgage companies.

Mortgage refinance provides an opportunity to the people to fulfill their obligations. Nowadays, theses mortgage companies are providing the best homeowner insurance to the people that promise the saving and the value. Mortgage refinance means that applying for a secured loan to pay back another loan that was being set against the same property. Mortgage refinance is the best option if the interest rate decreases or remains fixed because it provides the low mortgage rates. Before utilizing it things to be considered are as follows:

  • The amount of the saving must be low that the amount of the bill
  • The decision should be taken if you want to pay the first secured loan

The benefit of the mortgage refinancing is that the premium decreases and lowers the mortgage rates. It secures the property and also increases the duration of the loan. . Trend of the mortgage is increasing day by day but it is really beneficial for the commercial and the consumer level.

Mortgage

There are many people who wanted to make their own homes but due to shortage of time they could not be able to make their homes. There are many banks that are specialized for providing homes loan to their customers. The real estate loan is an important business today. There are many companies that are providing homes loan to people who want to use this loan for personal benefit and for construction of their new homes. There are many online banks and financial institutions that are providing with home loans for many people. There are certain factors that are considered by banks to give loans to many other people. First of all, they check the credit worthiness and financial position of a person looking for loan so in this way most of banks approve loans. If your credit record is bad then you will not likely to get good mortgage from banks. However, now the situation has changed and despite of bad credit rating you can further apply and get loans. First of all, you need to find out the right deal for your home so this can be done by using the real estate agent who works for their commission and they will get a good deal for purchasing a home. So you can go for the home mortgage so that the bank can give you loan for purchasing any home for yourself. With the advent of modern ecommerce, there are many banks that are providing their services and operations of bank online. The reason for providing online mortgaging facility is for the convenience of consumers so that they can easily access all information online. There are many websites that are providing mortgage rates to different customers because people always look for the mortgage rates through different websites to find out, which bank is offering low interest rates for their customers.

There are many websites on the internet that are providing free information for their people who want to find out more about mortgage rates and terms and conditions for customers. There are many companies that are providing online data relating to reviews of interest rates of different banks and information about their products online so that you can compare different banking products at a single website to find out which is best for you. There are many people who are not satisfied with their existing loans and they go for refinance mortgage. The mortgage refinance is an option for the people who are not satisfied with their current mortgage and they then go for refinance of their mortgage. You can get low interest rate if you go for refinance. So most of banks usually provide refinancing facility to their consumers so that they can facilitate their customers about different options customer have available. There could be many reasons for refinancing with another bank. The city mortgage bank primary function is refinancing for their customers. You can use the same bank or new bank for refinancing needs and there are number of options available to you for refinancing. Many banks make refinancing more attractive and beneficial for their customer so that they can grab large market for mortgage deals. Another important factor that constitute high portion in the financing of bank is home insurance. You have to take up home insurance as it is compulsory by the law so it also increase the cost for purchasing home. There is a variation between different companies. The homeowners insurance is an important selection by customers for there home. If you wisely select the home insurance that could provide you easy installments then you can get home in an estimated budget. There are many homes for sale available on different websites so that you can easily find out banks for sale. But your investment property is all your own decision so you need to find out how you will manage your budget and will get all expense out of your budget. There are many experts and financial advisors that are providing tips and opinions on investment property for your homes. The insurance policy is another important factor that you could take when purchasing a home and it can help you to cover possible loss caused by any damaged occurred by any natural disaster.

Before purchasing houses you need to seek all the relevant information about mortgage and loan that are offering by different companies so that you can easily find good mortgage deal. The west mortgage is an online famous mortgage service provider so that you can check different options for your banks that can help you to find out information about different mortgage options for you. West home mortgage is offering complete solution for your mortgage needs including insurance coverage and low interest installments so that to facilitate customers to ensure that they get right information. So the right selection of new mortgage helps you to save lots of cost and provides better option for your business and by reducing the ratio of interest rate you can easily pay back the amount of loan you have taken for making your own home. However, refinance a already fiance home can cost you so you better check it out how much cost you have to bear in order to find out information related to your refinance. There are many website on the internet that are providing free services for their customers so you can use Google search engine to find out how you can check different products related to website. So always look for information and then you make final decision of your website so in this way you can easily use different products that can help you to find information about different websites related to mortgage. Most of mortgage companies have provided information on their websites for users so that you can check on your website information about different products so you can take all information from their websites.

Its new -- Mortgage

A mortgage is a method of using property (real or personal) as security for the payment of a debt.

The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. dead pledge) refers to the legal device used for this purpose, but it is also commonly used to refer to the debt secured by the mortgage, the mortgage loan.

In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals and businesses can purchase residential and commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately. See mortgage loan for residential mortgage lending, and commercial mortgage for lending against commercial property.

In many countries it is normal for home purchases to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.


Participants and variant terminology

Legal systems tend to share certain concepts but vary in the terminology and jargon used.

In general terms the main participants in a mortgage are:

Creditor

The creditor has legal rights to the debt or other obligation secured by the mortgage. That debt is often the obligation to repay the loan by the creditor (or its predecessor lender) who provided the purchase money to acquire the property mortgaged. Typically, creditors are banks, insurers or other financial institutions who make loans available for the purpose of real estate purchase.

A creditor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagee or lender.

Debtor

The debtor is the person or entity who owes the obligation secured by the mortgage, and may be multiple parties. Generally, the debtor must meet the conditions of the underlying loan or other obligation and the conditions of the mortgage. Otherwise, the debtor usually runs the risk of foreclosure of the mortgage by the creditor to recover the debt. Typically the debtors will be the individual home-owners, landlords or businesses who are purchasing their property by way of a loan.

A debtor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagor, borrower, or obligor.

Other participants

Due to the complicated legal exchange, or conveyance, of the property, one or both of the main participants are likely to require legal representation. The terminology varies with legal jurisdiction; see lawyer, solicitor and conveyancer.

Because of the complex nature of many markets the debtor may approach a mortgage broker or financial adviser to help them source an appropriate creditor, typically by finding the most competitive loan.

The debt is, in civil law jurisdictions, referred to as hypothecation, which may make use of the services of a hypothecary to assist in the hypothecation.


Legal aspects

There are essentially two types of legal mortgage.

Mortgage by demise

In a mortgage by demise, the creditor becomes the owner of the mortgaged property until the loan is repaid in full (known as "redemption"). This kind of mortgage takes the form of a conveyance of the property to the creditor, with a condition that the property will be returned on redemption.

This is an older form of legal mortgage and is less common than a mortgage by legal charge. In the UK, this type of mortgage is no longer available, by virtue of the Land Registration Act 2002.

Mortgage by legal charge

In a mortgage by legal charge, the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it.

To protect the lender, a mortgage by legal charge is usually recorded in a public register. Since mortgage debt is often the largest debt owed by the debtor, banks and other mortgage lenders run title searches of the real property to make certain that there are no mortgages already registered on the debtor's property which might have higher priority. Tax liens, in some cases, will come ahead of mortgages. For this reason, if a borrower has delinquent property taxes, the bank will often pay them to prevent the lienholder from foreclosing and wiping out the mortgage.

This type of mortgage is common in the United States and, since 1925, it has been the usual form of mortgage in England and Wales (it is now the only form - see above).

In Scotland, the mortgage by legal charge is also known as standard security.

In Pakistan, the mortgage by legal charge is most common way used by Banks to secure the financing. It is also known as Registered Mortgage. After registeration of legal charge, Bank's Lien is recorded in land register stating that the property is under mortgage and can not be sold without obtaining NOC (No Objection Certificate) from the Bank.

Equitable Mortgage

In an Equitable Mortgage the lender is secured by taking possession of all the original title documents of the property and by borrower's signing a Memorandum of Deposit of Title Deed (MODTD). This document is an undertaking by the borrower that he/she has deposited the title documents with the bank with his own wish and will, in order to secure the financing obtained from the bank.

In Pakistan most of the time a loan is secured by using two ways of mortgage, Registered Mortgage along with Equitable Mortgage.

History

At common law, a mortgage was a conveyance of land that on its face was absolute and conveyed a fee simple estate, but which was in fact conditional, and would be of no effect if certain conditions were not met --- usually, but not necessarily, the repayment of a debt to the original landowner. Hence the word "mortgage," Law French for "dead pledge;" that is, it was absolute in form, and unlike a "live gage", was not conditionally dependent on its repayment solely from raising and selling crops or livestock, or of simply giving the fruits of crops and livestock coming from the land that was mortgaged. The mortgage debt remained in effect whether or not the land could successfully produce enough income to repay the debt. In theory, a mortgage required no further steps to be taken by the creditor, such as acceptance of crops and livestock, for repayment.

The difficulty with this arrangement was that the lender was absolute owner of the property and could sell it, or refuse to reconvey it to the borrower, who was in a weak position. Increasingly the courts of equity began to protect the borrower's interests, so that a borrower came to have an absolute right to insist on reconveyance on redemption. This right of the borrower is known as the "equity of redemption".

This arrangement, whereby the mortgagee (the lender) was on theory the absolute owner, but in practice had few of the practical rights of ownership, was seen in many jurisdictions as being awkwardly artificial. By statute the common law position was altered so that the mortgagor would retain ownership, but the mortgagee's rights, such as foreclosure, the power of sale and the right to take possession would be protected.

In the United States, those states that have reformed the nature of mortgages in this way are known as lien states. A similar effect was achieved in England and Wales by the Law of Property Act 1925, which abolished mortgages by the conveyance of a fee simple.

Foreclosure and non-recourse lending

In most jurisdictions, a lender may foreclose on the mortgaged property if certain conditions—principally, non-payment of the mortgage loan—apply. Subject to local legal requirements, the property may then be sold. Any amounts received from the sale (net of costs) are applied to the original debt.

In some jurisdictions, mortgage loans are non-recourse loans: if the funds recouped from sale of the mortgaged property are insufficient to cover the outstanding debt, the lender may not have recourse to the borrower after foreclosure. In other jurisdictions, the borrower remains responsible for any remaining debt, through a deficiency judgment.

Specific procedures for foreclosure and sale of the mortgaged property almost always apply, and may be tightly regulated by the relevant government. In some jurisdictions, foreclosure and sale can occur quite rapidly, while in others, foreclosure may take many months or even years. In many countries, the ability of lenders to foreclose is extremely limited, and mortgage market development has been notably slower.

Mortgages in the United States

Types of Mortgage Instruments

Two types of mortgage instruments are used in the United States: the mortgage (sometimes called a mortgage deed) and the deed of trust.[citation needed]

The mortgage

In all but a few states, a mortgage creates a lien on the title to the mortgaged property. Foreclosure of that lien almost always requires a judicial proceeding declaring the debt to be due and in default and ordering a sale of the property to pay the debt.[citation needed]

The deed of trust

The deed of trust is a deed by the borrower to a trustee for the purposes of securing a debt. In most states, it also merely creates a lien on the title and not a title transfer, regardless of its terms. It differs from a mortgage in that, in many states, it can be foreclosed by a non-judicial sale held by the trustee. It is also possible to foreclose them through a judicial proceeding.[citation needed]

Most "mortgages" in California are actually deeds of trust. The effective difference is that the foreclosure process can be much faster for a deed of trust than for a mortgage, on the order of 3 months rather than a year. Because the foreclosure does not require actions by the court the transaction costs can be quite a bit less.[citation needed]

Deeds of trust to secure repayments of debts should not be confused with trust instruments that are sometimes called deeds of trust but that are used to create trusts for other purposes, such as estate planning. Though there are superficial similarities in the form, many states hold deeds of trust to secure repayment of debts do not create true trust arrangements.[citation needed]

Mortgage lien priority

Except in those few states in the United States that adhere to the title theory of mortgages,[1] either a mortgage or a deed of trust will create a mortgage lien upon the title to the real property being mortgaged. The lien is said to "attach" to the title when the mortgage is signed by the mortgagor and delivered to the mortgagee and the mortgagor receives the funds whose repayment the mortgage secures. Subject to the requirements of the recording laws of the state in which the land is located, this attachment establishes the priority of the mortgage lien with respect to other liens on the property's title.[2] Liens that have attached to the title before the mortgage lien are said to be senior to, or prior to, the mortgage lien. Those attaching afterward are said to be junior or subordinate.[3] The purpose of this priority is to establish the order in which lien holders are entitled to foreclose their liens in an attempt to recover their debts. If there are multiple mortgage liens on the title to a property and the loan secured by a first mortgage is paid off, the second mortgage lien will move up in priority and become the new first mortgage lien on the title. Documenting this new priority arrangement will require the release of the mortgage securing the paid off loan.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Canadian Bureaucrats Don't "Think Different"

"Apple's new store in Montreal has three parking meters on the street in front of it. The city is in the middle of a campaign to reduce downtown parking. In Apple's ever-conscientious attempt to improve design, they offered to reimburse the city for the parking meters and their revenue if the city would remove them. Answer: Non — because 'We've never done it before, so we can't.'"

Software Company Sues Popular Australian Forum

"In a recent announcement on the Whirlpool front page, it appears that accounting software maker 2clix is suing the founder of the forums as the founder "allowed statements 'relating to the Plaintiff and its software product that are both false and malicious' to be published on the Whirlpool forums."

Richard Stallman Proclaims Don't Follow Linus Torvalds

"Here is an interview with Richard Stallman about a range of free software topics including GPLv3 and comment on the Microsoft patent issue. Stallman has a go at Linus Torvalds even suggesting that if people want to keep their freedom they better not follow Torvalds. From the interview 'Stallman: The fact that Torvalds says "open source" instead of "free software" shows where he is coming from. I wrote the GNU GPL to defend freedom for all users of all versions of a program. I developed version 3 to do that job better and protect against new threats. Torvalds says he rejects this goal; that's probably why he doesn't appreciate GPL version 3. I respect his right to express his views, even though I think they are foolish. However, if you don't want to lose your freedom, you had better not follow him.'"

Does 802.11n Spell the 'End of Ethernet'?

"Is the advent of the 802.11n wireless standard the 'end of Ethernet'... at least in terms of client access to the LAN? That's the provocative title, and thesis, of a new report in which the author began looking into the question when he heard a growing number of clients asking whether it was time to discontinue wired LAN deployments for connecting clients. Would 11n, the next generation high-throughput Wi-Fi, make the RJ45 connector in the office wall as obsolete as gaslights?"

DOS 5 Upgrade Video

Every now and then I stumble on something so ridiculous that I have to share it. This is a promotion video to upgrade to DOS 5 obviously made in a different era. Promoting features like mouse support, a graphical shell, and freeing up at LEAST 45k of memory, well, Gimme 5! Did I mention that it's all set to a hip beat? You'll love it. And by "Love" I mean "Stick forks in your eyes".

QNX "Opens" Source Code

"QNX has announced that effective immediately, the company will open the source code to its QNX embedded, RTOS, microkernel operating system. From the press release: "Effective immediately, QNX will make source code for its award-winning, microkernel-based OS available for free download. The first source release includes the code to the QNX Neutrino microkernel, the base C library, and a variety of board support packages for popular embedded and computing hardware." OSNews features an interview with the CEO of QNX, Dan Dodge, on this announcement."

When Ethics and IT Collide

"IT workers have access to confidential data, and they can see what other employees are doing on their computers or the networks. This can put a good worker in a bad predicament. Bryan, the IT director for the U.S. division of German company, discovered an employee using a company computer to view pornography of Asian women and of children. He reported it but the company ignored it. Subsequently the employee was promoted and moved to China to run a manufacturing plant. That was six years ago but Bryan still regrets not going to the FBI. Other IT workers admit using their admin passwords to snoop through company systems. In a Ponemon Institute poll of more than 16,000 U.S. IT practitioners, 62% said they had accessed another person's computer without permission, 50% read confidential or sensitive information without a legitimate reason, and 42% said they had knowingly violated their company's privacy, security or IT policies. But in the absence of a professional code of ethics, companies struggle to keep corporate policies up to date."

Microsoft and Novell Open Interoperability Lab

An anonymous reader writes to mention that the Microsoft and Novell Interoperability Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts opened today. The lab is supposed to allow both Novell and Microsoft developers to work together for better interoperability between SUSE and Windows Server. "Located in Cambridge, the 2,500-square-foot lab and workspace will be home to a combined team of the best and brightest Microsoft and Novell engineers focused on making Windows Server and SUSE Linux Enterprise work better together. The first priority for the lab team will be to ensure interoperability between Microsoft and Novell virtualization technologies. Additional work will include standards-based systems management, identity federation and compatibility of office document formats."

Bossie Awards Honor Open Source Software

"InfoWorld has announced the 2007 Bossie Awards for the Best of Open-Source Software. Awards were given to 36 winners across 6 categories. Honorees include (among others) SpamAssassin, ClamAV and Nessus in security, Wireshark and Azureus Vuze in networking, and ZFS for storage. Interestingly, they split the operating system winners across two distributions, with CentOS winning for server OS and Ubuntu for desktop."

AMD Releases 900+ Pages Of GPU Specs

"Ending off the X Developer Summit this year, Matthew Tippett handed off ATI's GPU specifications to David Airlie on a CD. However, the specifications are also now available on the X.org site. Right now there is the RV630 Register Reference Guide and M56 Register Reference Guide. Expect more documentation (and 3D specifications) to arrive shortly. The new open-source R500/600 driver will be released early next week."

Sun Acquires CFS/Lustre, Becomes Windows OEM

"Sun Microsystems announced today that they are acquiring Cluster File Systems Inc. CFS owns the intellectual property related to and develops the open source file system known as Lustre." Relatedly Sun has also signed an agreement with Microsoft to be a Windows OEM. "Sun and Microsoft will work together to ensure that Solaris runs well as a guest on Microsoft virtualization technologies and that Windows Server runs well as a guest on Sun's virtualization technologies. Sun and Microsoft will work together on a support process for customers who are using the virtualization solutions. This joint commitment to customers ensures that Windows and Solaris will provide a solid virtualization experience."

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Mozilla Quietly Resurrects Eudora

"Eudora first appeared in 1988 and quickly became one of the first popular email applications, enjoying its heyday in the early 1990s as it developed over the early days of the internet. Use of Eudora began to wane in the mid-1990s as the third-party application was muscled out of the market by web-based services such as Hotmail and bundled applications such as Outlook."

Cisco Announces 802.11n Products After All

"The Aironet 1250 access point can be used on its own, or as a thin access point connecting to Cisco's wireless switches - an approach that appears to duck the architectural issues which have split other Wi-Fi players. The AP, due next month, is capable of a theoretical rate of 300 Mbit/s (actual throughput probably around 100 Mbit/s) compared with todays 802.11g access points, and will cost $1299."

Microsoft Ties Windows Live Services to OS

"Microsoft is tying its Windows Live services directly to Vista — a move that should sound vaguely familiar, as it is precisely what the company did to make IE ubiquitous among Internet users. 'A new unified installer for Windows Live services will help users download Wednesday's updates of photo-sharing, mail, instant messaging, online safety and other services, the company said on its Windows Live Wire blog. The new installer also will automatically update those services on Windows Vista and XP going forward.'"

Mandriva Linux 2008 RC 1 Released

"The first release candidate of Mandriva Linux 2008, codenamed Galilee, is now available. The release notes are also available via the wiki. A guide to major new features (some of which are not yet implemented in this release candidate), and the detailed technical specifications are also available. This release candidate is available as a three CD or one DVD Free edition (containing no non-free software or drivers) for the x86-32 and x86-64 architectures, with a traditional installer, and as a mini-CD edition for both x86-32 and x86-64 architectures. A One combined live / install CD edition will be released in the near future (problems with unionfs prevented the One edition from being release at the same time as the other editions)."

State of the OpenJDK Project and Java 7

"David Flanagan, the author of Java in a Nutshell, has a nice writeup on the state of the open source development of the next version of Java. The article explains the difference between the JDK7 and the OpenJDK projects and how to join them. Furthermore, it has an overview of the release schedule, proposed language changes and projects of interest. A more technical and in-depth tracking of the language changes and proposed new features can be found at Alex Miller's blog. This is the first in a series, and 'each future installment will provide an update on what's currently happening in the latest builds from the project, along with a deep dive into a new feature or API that's tracking for inclusion in Java 7.'"

AMD Unveils SSE5 Instruction Set

"Today AMD unveiled its 128-Bit SSE5 Instruction Set. The big news is that it includes 3 operand instructions such as floating point and integer fused multiply add and permute. AMD posted a press release and a PDF describing the new instructions."

Comparing Visual Studio and Eclipse

"Getting started with Eclipse can be confusing. New concepts, such as plug-in architecture, workspace-centric project structure, and automatic build can seem counterintuitive at first. Without waxing too philosophical about IDE design, this article presents the main differences between Visual Studio and the Eclipse IDE."

Programmer's Language-Aware Spell Checker?

"Not all of my coworkers are careful about spelling errors. Sometimes this causes real embarrassment as spelling errors creep into software interfaces. Does anyone know of spell checkers for programming languages? I don't want a text spell checker, I want a programming-language-aware spell checker. A spell checker that I can pass all of my code through and will flag spelling errors in function names, variable names, and comments, but will ignore language keywords, language constructs and expressions, and various programming styles (camel code, or underscores, or...). I want a spell checker that knows that void *functionSigniture(char *myRoutine) contains one spelling error. Does anyone have such a thing for Java or C++? Are there any Eclipse plugins that do this?"

Palm Withdraws Linux-Powered Foleo PC

"Not long after we enjoyed playing with the device at LinuxWorld 2007, Palm has announced that it is shelving the Foleo handheld PC, before it was due to ship, so that the company can focus on a 'next-generation platform.' Palm hasn't ruled out a 'Foleo II' at some point, but for those of us looking forward to dinky Linux-powered laptops it's a bit of a disappointment. Still, with the Asus Eee PC nearby — and at a very low price point — perhaps it was a sensible move by Palm."

Xbox Live Disallows Linux, Unix As Keywords

"The Xbox Live online service disallows screen names like LINUXRULES, L I N U X, and other variations of these kinds. Other bloggers are reporting that variants of 'Unix' also result in the message: 'Your motto contains inappropriate language. Please try again.'"

Palm Withdraws Linux-Powered Foleo PC

"Not long after we enjoyed playing with the device at LinuxWorld 2007, Palm has announced that it is shelving the Foleo handheld PC, before it was due to ship, so that the company can focus on a 'next-generation platform.' Palm hasn't ruled out a 'Foleo II' at some point, but for those of us looking forward to dinky Linux-powered laptops it's a bit of a disappointment. Still, with the Asus Eee PC nearby — and at a very low price point — perhaps it was a sensible move by Palm."

Facebook Exposes Advertisers To Hate Speech

"Does Facebook believe that no publicity is bad publicity? Why else would they leave a group called, "F**k Islam" open since July 21, 2007 despite more than 53,482 members joining an opposing group called petition: if "f**k Islam" is not shut down..we r quitting facebook group? Furthermore, advertisers such as Sprint, Verizon, T Mobile, Target, and Qwest wouldn't be too happy to learn that they are paying for ads on the 'F**k Islam' group pages. Shouldn't a startup like Facebook, reportedly worth more than a billion dollars and with over a hundred employees, be expected to enforce its own Terms of Use in less than six weeks?"

Robotic Presence For a Telecommuter

"Ivan lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and telecommutes to work in Waterloo, Ontario. But in meetings, speaker-phones suck: can't hear everybody, can't move around, no visual contact. So Ivan made an IvanAnywhere robot to give him a physical presence in the office. If Ivan wants to talk to a coworker, he just steers radio-controlled IvanAnywhere into that person's office for a chat."

AMD Launches New ATI Linux Driver

"AMD has issued a press release announcing 'significant graphics performance and compatibility enhancements' on Linux. AMD will be delivering new ATI Linux drivers this year that offer ATI Radeon HD 2000 series support, AIGLX support (Beryl and Compiz), and major performance improvements. At Phoronix we have been testing these new drivers internally for the past few weeks and have a number of articles looking at this new driver. The ATI 8.41 Linux driver delivers Linux gaming improvements from the R300/400 series and the R500 series. The inaugural Radeon HD 2900XT series support also can be found in the new ATI Linux driver with 'the best price/performance ratio of any high-end graphics card under Linux.' While this new driver cannot be downloaded yet, in their press release AMD also alludes to accelerating efforts with the open-source community."

Appeals Court Tosses $11M Spamhaus Judgement

"In a not unexpected move, the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the $11 million awarded to e360 Insight and vacated a permanent injunction against Spamhaus requiring them to stop listing e360 Insight as a spammer. However, the ruling (PDF) does not set aside the default judgement, meaning that Spamhaus has still lost its opportunity to argue the case. The original judge could still impose a monetary judgement, after taking evidence from the spammer as to how much Spamhaus's block had cost them. This is unfortunate considering the legal leverage the recent ruling concerning spyware might have provided for Spamhaus."

Silverlight Released, Linux Version Coming

Today Microsoft announced the release of Silverlight 1.0 for Windows and Mac OS X. This cross-browser, cross-platform browser plug-in is fully supported and competes directly with Adobe Flash. Included in this release was the promise from Microsoft to support the 100% compatible Linux version, called Moonlight.

How PDAs Are Saving Lives In Africa

"UN Dispatch, the United Nations affairs blog I write, just posted an item that may interest this community. Joel Selanikio, a medical doctor and technologist, writes to us from Zambia to relay how PDA devices are quietly revolutionizing public health services in sub-Saharan Africa. Selanikio runs a non-profit called DataDyne.org that trains local health officials to use PDAs equipped with an open source software tool to track outbreaks, coordinate vaccination efforts, and perform other vital public health tasks. So far, says Selanikio, the pilot program in Zambia has been a resounding success.