When did Cricket start?

The game of cricket was started about 600 years ago, according to some sports researchers. An old picture in the Oxford Library shows two persons playing with a bat and a ball.

But according to written records, the first cricket match between Kent and London was played on 18th June 1744. In this match, London was defeated.

The rules of this game were framed a few years later. The length of the pitch was fixed at 22 yards. The wicket was made of two sticks. cricket startThe bat for cricket was designed on the pattern of hockey sticks.

Now there are some changes in these things. The wicket now consists of three sticks and the bat is a straight one, being narrow at the point where it is held by the hand and broader at the bottom.

In 1803, when this game was started, the Australian team came to England in 1868 and played 47 matches with the English team. Australia won 14 matches, lost another 14 matches, and drew the rest of the 19 matches.

The first world Test match was played between England and Australia in Melbourne from 15th to 17th March 1877. This match was won by Australia by 45 runs but Australia was defeated in the second Test Match played at the same place.

Gradually after this, the system of Test matches spread all over the world. More than 800 players of the world have taken part in various Test matches during the last one hundred years.

Nowadays this game has a great attraction for millions of people. Tickets for the test matches are obtained with great difficulty. The commentaries of these test matches are broadcast over radio and television. Every body enjoys these test matches.

Article is taken from:-thegeminigeek.com

Who Invented Jazz?

Jazz took its modern look in the United States in the later part of 19th century and early 20th century when Black musicians there begin playing European music in their own style. Therefore, no single person can be said to have invented jazz. Jazz is often called the classical music of the United States. It was a cultural phenomenon. But there is a musician and a song writer, Clarence Williams, who claims to have invented the term jazz. Critics argue that the term ‘jazz’ originated in the jargon of English poet and play-write Chaucer and Shakespeare respectively.

JazzThe jazz originated when the slaves brought from Africa sang songs, told stories, shared grief and happiness etc in the 18th century. The singer would often call out a line and the rest of the folk would respond to that. These were the beginnings of jazz. In the following century, a lot of Europeans immigrated to the United States, each bringing their own unique musical tradition. An African-American composer, Scott Joplin, combined the European style with the music of the African community. This new genre was then called ‘ragtime’.

In the early 20th century, the ‘ragtime’ started getting popular as more and more black musicians and singers came to sing. In the 1930s a new style of jazz emerged with its highly energetic beats and swing music. The changes continued and the next big impression was left by the Civil Rights Movement of Martin Luther King in the 1960s. The jazz continued to evolve and now we have retro jazz, smooth jazz and other versions.

What Is Swine Flu?

Health experts, doctors and researchers have not only heard of and identified swine flu, they continue to work on preventing and treating this form of influenza. Known by the virus-identifier H1N1, swine flu is causing illness in human beings.

First identified in United States residents in April of 2009, the virus is spreading around the world. The movement of H1N1 has occurred at such an alarming rate that the World Health Organization quickly declared the influenza experience was a pandemic.

Some confusion has resulted from associating H1N1 with the term swine flu. The virus that is making people sick is similar to viruses that usually are found in pigs. But there are major differences between the two, human and swine.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) most of the people who contract swine flu recover without the assistance of doctors or other medical personnel. According to CDC, “Flu viruses are spread mainly from person to person through coughing or sneezing by people with influenza. Sometimes people may become infected by touching something – such as a surface or object – with flu viruses on it and then touching their mouth or nose.”

Swine flu or H1N1 symptoms include body aches, chills, fatigue, cough, fever, runny nose and most of the common influenza symptoms. While many normally healthy people get over this flu without serious complications, there have been severe illnesses, even death, in some individuals. Almost all medical information about H1N1 includes warnings for older people (over 65), the very young (under 5) and for those who have a serious chronic medical condition that weakens the system. People in the high-risk category include the pregnant, those with diabetes and heart disease and so on.

One of the problems with new influenza viruses such as swine flu is that medical personnel don’t have good information about when it occurs, how long it lasts etc. With more common flu viruses that society has dealt with for years there is plenty of information about when to expect them and how to deal with them.

Records indicate that with more common flu viruses, 90 percent of the people who become seriously ill or die are over 65. A few months of study in 2009 shows that H1N1 flu “has caused greater disease burden in people younger than 25 years of age than older people.” (CDC report).

Studies have also shown that those who have swine flu may infect others from about one day before illness to approximately 7 days after.

Vaccines have been developed for H1N1 and the medical community continues to feel this is the best, level-one preventive measure. But people can help limit the spread of H1N1 by carefully covering the mouth and nose when sneezing or coughing. Careful washing of hands may also help. The CDC “recommends that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone, except to go to a medical expert or for absolute emergencies. Avoiding those already ill and avoiding crowds when can be strong preventive measures.

Amazing Facts..

A dime has 118 ridges around the edge.

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A crocodile cannot stick out its tongue.

A dragonfly has a life span of 24 hours.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

A shark is the only fish that can blink with both eyes.

A snail can sleep for three years.

Al Capo ne's business card said he was a used furniture dealer.

All 50 states are listed across the top of the Lincoln Memorial on the
back of the $5 bill.

Almonds are a member of the peach family.

An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.

Babies are born without kneecaps; they don't appear until the child
reaches 2 to 6 years of age.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

Cats have over one hundred vocal sounds. Dogs only have about 10.

"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".


February 1865 is the only month in recorded history not to have a full
moon.

In the last 4,000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.

If the population of China walked past you, in single file, the line
would never end because of the rate of reproduction.

If you are an average American, in your whole life, you will spend an
average of 6 months waiting at red lights.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Maine is the only state whose name is just one syllable.

Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears
never stop growing.

Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.

Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand and
"lollipop" with your right.

The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.

The cruise liner, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of die! sel
that it burns.

The microwave was invented after a researcher walked by a radar tube and
a chocolate bar melted in his pocket.

The sentence: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every
letter of the alphabet.

The winter of 1932 was so cold that Niagara Falls froze completely
solid.

The words 'racecar,' 'kayak' and 'level' are the same whether they are
read left to right or right to left (palindromes).

There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.

There are more chickens than people in the world.

There are only four words in the English language which end in "dous":
tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in
order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

There's no Betty Rubble in the Flintstones Chewable Vitamins.

Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only
on one row of the keyboard.

Winston Churchill was born in a ladies' room during a dance.

Women blink nearly twice as much as men.

Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks;
otherwise it will digest itself.

What Is A 4G Network?

The fourth generation of the wireless networks is called a 4G network. Although it is still in its development stage, various cell phone and related technology companies are actively researching on this technology. The main aim of the research is to ensure that a secure and comprehensive Internet Protocol solution is developed which would have much faster speeds as compared to the older generation networks.

During the 1980s, the 1G network or the first wireless network was developed. In the early 1990s, the 2G network was introduced. The 2G network had the ability to allow more transmissions per communication channel. In the late 1990s, the 3G network was researched upon and developed and during early 21st century it had been implemented in various countries.

Providing higher quality of service is the main aim of the 4G network. The other priorities include information exchanges, better reception and less dropped data. The standards of the present networks are calculated by the ITU or International Telecommunications Union and it had stated that the present networks need to have an improved multimedia message service which includes video services also. A minimum of 100 megabits per second of data rate is recommended by the ITU if a user is moving at very high speeds and one gigabit per second of data rate if a user is stationary. Interactive roaming between various networks is also recommended by the UTI.

There has been an establishment of various groups who work on developing the 4G network. One of the options recommended by these groups is WiMax which is a much faster version of WiFi networks. The packet-based information exchange which is based upon standard IP technology is planned to be utilized too. So, this could be the fastest mobile communication method.

However, there should be development and implementation of smart antennas in order to make an efficient 4G network. A number of methods to transmit data were created with the advent of 2G and 3G networks. The 4G network can utilize these technologies. But standardized antennas are preferred by the ITU and other working groups. Spatial multiplexing is one of the techniques that have been recommended to order to achieve this. In this type of multiplexing, a single receiver and transmitter system is linked to a series of antennas. The space-time exchange rate of data can be speeded up as these antennas have the capability to work simultaneously.

It took a decade for the overall implementation of 3G around the world. However, a much more timely and effective rolling out of the 4G network is planned by the ITU. It is expected that the 4G network will revolutionize the wireless communication systems due to its improved video and technology and much faster speeds. The other factors that are being considered regarding the development of 4G are security and stability.

How To Speed Up A Computer?

A computer is a machine which can be programmed. It receives input, stores data and processes it to give us an output in a useful format. Although, mechanical computers have existed for a long time – abacus and slide rule are good examples of this – electronic computers are a fairly recent phenomenon. This recent phenomenon has become so much an important part of our lives that nothing feels more annoying when computers don’t work or work at a snail’s pace! If your computer is also working slower, then here are a couple of tips you can try:

Booting:
If there are a lot of programs installed on your computer then it would take longer to boot up. It is certainly not advisable to delete some of them, because you may need them, but there is a little thing that we can do. We can identify programs that are least used and then, can load them only when a need arises.

(1) When your computer starts, all the programs that are installed on it are loaded and it takes longer than it would have if only those programs which are used most were to load during booting. So the first step is to click on the Start Menu, go to Run Type (Microsoft configurations). There among other options you will be presented with there two options: Normal Start Up and Selective Start Up. Just click on Selective Start Up tab and select the programs you use most of the time and unmark those, which are not-so-used.

(2) When you are in Microsoft Configurations(MS configuration) mode, you can look for BOOT.INI tab. Click on it and you will find a new box, which reads Timeout. It’s is normally set at 30 sec. which means a delay of half a minute. Change that to 3 sec., click on the tab OK and reboot your computer. After this, it is possible that your computer gives you a pop up saying you’re in selective boot mode; now just disable the window while saving your changes.

(3) There is a program called HijackThis, which can be downloaded from merijn.org. This program will analyze the processes that are running on your computer and will alert you about the things which are not needed.

(4) If you can ascertain that Trojans and Ad Ware are not loading when you boot, it would enhance the performance of your computer.

(5)Once or twice a month, clear all your temporary Internet files, vacant your recycle bin and move files, which are not needed to back up drive. Go to My Computer, click on Properties followed by Tools and then select the tab defragment. It would take some time but improve the booting time of your computer.

(6)If you are leaving your computer for not a long time, say only a couple of hours, then instead of shutting down your computer you can leave it in a stand-by mode. A computer on a stand-by mode remembers everything you were doing but this memory is called volatile memory. You can also save everything; this would an insurance against a power cut.

(7)Hibernate mode is a better option than stand-by mode if you are not going to use your computer for a whole day or similarly for long intervals. Hibernation mode saves an image of your computer’s open application and documents on the hard drive. You can put your computer on hibernate mode by going into the computer’s Control Panel. Turn off your computer holding down the shift key and the Hibernate option will appear, just click on it and your computer will go into a snooze.

How To Get Rid Of Computer Viruses?

Computer viruses are unwanted computer programs. They keep themselves hidden in your computer and then replicate themselves in their own way and multiply (spread). The Internet connects a lot of computers to each other and sometimes, while sharing data; sending emails etc, along with the files, computer viruses also get transmitted. A virus can do anything to a computer – it can delete files, it can corrupt data and it can also disable your computer’s security systems or can damage it irreversibly.

Viruses are sometime transmitted unknowingly but not always because there are people, who are known as hackers, who design these computer programs to break into others’ computers. Their reason could be any i.e. stealing data, personal animosity etc.

Common Types:

Resident Viruses: They remain hidden in your computer. They are in the RAM memory and control and intercept the operations which are carried out by the system. Their primary use is to capture secret information about the user i.e. passwords, credit card numbers etc.

Direct Action Viruses: They quickly replicate themselves and they are designed to fulfill a certain objective. They normally attach themselves to the files stored in the computer and when that file is made to run they get activated.

Overwrite Viruses: Their objective is straightforward – to destroy whatever information it can put its hands on. It deletes all the information contained in a file and copies itself on the files resulting in the files becoming useless.

Boot Virus: Boot system is that part of a computer which stores basic programs like how to start the computer etc. These viruses are after the boot sector of computers. The best ways to avoid them is to write-protect the floppy discs and never start you computer with an unknown floppy disc in the drive.

Macro Viruses: Programs like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint etc, have the ability to use small programs, known as ‘helper’ programs, to expand their functionality. These ‘helper’ programs are called ‘macros’. They remain stored in the document files of a computer. When that file is run, the virus gets activated.

File Infectors: Viruses falling in this category infect executable files (programs). Most of the viruses found today are of this category. Once the infected program is run, they get activated.

Solutions:
The best defense against any type of infection is a virus scanner that not only detects a threat, but eradicates it as well. Installing anti-virus software is the best solution and some of them are available for free:

Commercial:
There are some companies like McAfee Antivirus, the oldest antivirus development company in the world, which are experienced. And there is another of the Norton Antivirus kind, with really heavy antivirus systems. Other famous names include Quick Heal, ESET etc.

Free:
There are some companies which provide antivirus for free for home use. They include Avast Antivirus and AVG. Both are relatively new companies and provide you with an easy to install protection shield. There are other companies too, which make anti-virus software available for free under certain conditions – Avira AntiVirus Personal, Bit Defender etc.