XHTML Explained

by Ross Shannon
Argh! Just when we were all getting comfortable with the HTML 4 stuff they go and change the standards again. Now we have to learn all-new tags and stress even more about browser compatibility... Except not really. This isn't a big shake-up like HTML 4.0 was. See what it's all about below.

Why the Change?

Right, before we get into all this, you should have a
good grasp of the ancient and more recent past of HTML. You can get the full
low-down in

The History of HTML, but I'll summarise:

HTML began as a simple way to



transfer

data between any computer across the Internet; designed for
scientists and researchers with no publishing experience. Over time the web
became mainstream entertainment and new tags were brought in by the browser
companies that didn't go along with this original



aim — presentation became
hugely important and structure and compatibility
started to take a back seat. This meant that some pages were not accessible for
people with the 'wrong' browser or



computer setup.

Thankfully, the use of much of the extraneous
presentational tags has receded in use in recent times, mainly due to the
innovation of

CSS code. Ideal HTML would be purely structural,
with every element concerning how a page is displayed being controlled by a
stylesheet. The
» W3C
(HTML's overseers, whom you should know something about by now) have spearheaded
this desire with XHTML.

Further to all that, in recent times the Internet has
begun to be accessed through new devices
other than the classic computer and web browser arrangement. Things like

PDAs, phones and, er, fridges with



Internet

access are going to become common in the near future. There's
an estimate going around that sometime in the near future,
75% of Internet viewing will be carried out on one
of these many new platforms. The custom-made browsers used in these



systems need to be small for cost-effectiveness. For every
markup error that a browser has to deal with, more code has to be added to the
program. XHTML is a very,
very strict way of coding, which means the
system makers don't have to accommodate for bad markup.

What is
XHTML?

Before I describe
XHTML, it is probably best
to understand where it has come from. All web Markup languages are based on
SGML,
a horrendously complicated language that is not designed for humans to write.
SGML is what is called a metalanguage; that is, a
language that is used to define
other languages. To make its power available to



web

developers, SGML was used to
create XML (eXtensible Markup Language), a simplified version, and also
a metalanguage.

XML is a powerful format — you create your own tags and
attributes to suit the type of document you're writing. By using a set group of
tags and attributes and following the rules of XML, you've created a new Markup
language.

This is what has been done to create XHTML (eXtensible
HyperText Markup Language) — which is why you'll see
XHTML being called a subset or
application of XML. The pre-existing

HTML 4.01 tags and attributes were used as the vocabulary of this new Markup
language, with XML providing the rules of how they are put together.

So, using XHTML, you are really writing XML
code, but restricting yourself to a predetermined set of elements. This gives
you all the benefits of XML (see below), while avoiding the complications of
true XML; bridging the gap for developers who might not fancy taking on
something as tricky as full-on XML. As you're coding under the guise of
XHTML, all of the tags available to you should
be familiar. Writing XHTML requires that
you follow the rules of conformant XML, such as correct syntax and structure.
As XHTML looks so much like classic HTML, it
faces no compatibility problems as long as some simple coding guidelines are
followed.

If all of this sounds a bit heavy, don't worry. Transitioning to
XHTML is quite a simple process, with only a few
rules to remember.

Benefits of XHTML

The benefits of adopting XHTML now or
migrating your existing site to the new standards are many. First of all, they
ensure excellent forward-compatibility for your creations.
XHTML is the new set of standards that the web
will be built on in the years to come, so future-proofing your work
early will save you much trouble later on. Future browser versions might stop
supporting

deprecated elements from old HTML drafts, and so many old basic-HTML sites
may start displaying incorrectly and unpredictably.

Once you have used XHTML for a short time, it
is no more difficult to use than HTML ever was, and in ways is easier since it
is built on a more simplified set of standards. Writing code is a more
streamlined experience, as gone are the days of browser hacks and
display tricks. Editing your existing code is also a nicer experience as it is
infinitely cleaner and more self-explanatory. Browsers can also interpret and
display a clean XHTML page quicker than one with
errors that the browser may have to handle.

A well-written XHTML page is more
accessible than an old style HTML page, and is guaranteed to work in
any

standards-compliant browser (which the latest round have finally become) due
to the insistence on rules and sticking to accepted W3C specifications. As
mentioned above, XHTML allows greater access to
configurations other than a computer and browser.
This interoperability is another aspect
of XHTML's greater accessibility.

XHTML Coding

The first thing you need to know about changing over to
XHTML as the new standard is that there really
isn't much new to learn. No new tags or attributes have been added into your
repertoire, like
HTML 4
(although a few have been deprecated); this is just a move towards good,
valid and efficient coding. XHTML
documents stress
logical
structure and simplicity, and use
CSS for
nearly all presentational concerns. It just means you have to change the way you
write code. Even if you always wrote great code before, there're a few new
practices you need to add in.

What's even more quality about it though, is that a page written entirely in
XHTML will still work fine in the current
generation of browsers, so you shouldn't have any problems migrating your site
across.

XML Declaration

An XML declaration at the very top of your document
defines both the version of XML you're using as well as the character
encoding. It is recommended but not required; as a few

» old browsers will choke on a page that begins this way. For this reason, I
advise against using the correct line:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

and instead using a
meta tag in
the head of your document. If you're using

» Unicode,

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"
/>

And if you're using the more common ISO-8859-1 encoding, use

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
/>

XHTML DTDs

Whether you use the XML declaration or not, every
XHTML document must be defined
as such by a line of code at the start of the page, and some attributes in the
main <html> tag, which tell the browser what language the text is
in. The opening line is the DTD (Document Type Declaration).
This tells your browser and

validators the nature of your page.

A DTD is the file your browser reads with the names and attributes of all of
the possible tags that you can use in your markup
defined in it. Newer browsers will usually have the latest specs written
into their DTDs. The official

» XHTML Strict DTD is available for you to
attempt to read. Declare it by putting this at the very top of your code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD
XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">


That DTD is the one you use if you're committed to writing entirely correct
XHTML code. Strict
XHTML dispenses with a whole lot of
presentational tags and attributes, and is indeed very strict.

    If you choose to use it, you're going to have to become close friends with
the » W3C validator. You won't be
permitted to use the font tag at all, nor will attributes like
width and height be allowed in your tables. You won't
be able to use the border attribute on images, and will have to use
the alt attribute on all images if you want to validate. You get
the idea — almost all presentational attributes are restricted in favour of
wider CSS
utilisation, so unless you know your stuff in this regard, it'd be best to use
XHTML Transitional below.

If you're going to hover between HTML and XHTML
use the next DTD, which is a bit looser, and if you're putting together a
frameset page, use the last one.

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD
XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">


<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD
XHTML 1.0 Frameset//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-frameset.dtd">


Most people will opt for XHTML Transitional,
as changing straight to Strict can be a daunting prospect. If you feel you're
able to work within Strict's constraints, by all means go for it.

    A correct DTD allows the browser to go into standards mode,
which will render your page correctly, and similarly across browsers. Without a
full DTD your browser enters ‘compatibility’, or ‘quirks’ mode, behaving like a
version 4 browser, including all of their associated quirks and inconsistencies.
Also, these declarations are all case-sensitive, so don't
change them in any way.

Finally, you need to define the XML
Namespace your document uses. Don't stress about this — it's simply a
definition of which set of tags you're going to be using, and concerns the
» modular properties of
XHTML. It's set by adding an attribute into the
<html> tag. While we're at it, we specify the language of our pages
too. Modify your tags to this:

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
xml:lang="en" lang="en">



</html>

XHTML Coding Practices

And now the moment you've been waiting for — the different styles of coding
used by an XHTML author compared to the old HTML
methods. You shouldn't have many problems adopting these new techniques, so long
as you work carefully. It should be noted, even if it is an obvious point, that
you really must hand code to be able to write valid
XHTML. No current visual editor comes close to the compliance required.

sourcetip: Even though your code is
changing, your filenames won't have to — you end your files with .html as
always.

1. Tags and attributes have to be lowercase

Whereas before it used to come down to preference whether you used <B>
or <b>, now all of your tags and attributes have to be in
lowercase. This is because XML is case-sensitive — i.e. a tag in capitals is a
different tag to one in small letters.

2. All tags must be closed

Now all of those once-optional </p> and </li> tags are
essential for your XHTML documents to validate.
Even

empty elements like img, hr, and br
must now be closed. You can use a standard forward-slashed end tag, or just add
in a forward slash to the end of the tag.

<br /> or <br></br>

It's recommended that you use the former method here, and leave a space
before the slash so older browsers aren't confused. They'll just ignore the
trailing slash as an unrecognised attribute.

3. Documents must be well-formed

'Well-formedness' is a dream that you were meant to try and make real from the
start, but many coders write badly-syntaxed code. You have to open and close
tags correctly in XHTML, and nest them properly.

Bad: <p>My coding is <b>bad</p></b>

Good: <p>But my coding is <b>good</b></p>

Remember the simple rule you should have been taught at the very start: The
first tag you open is the last tag you close.

4. Attribute values must be quoted

Back in HTML you could leave out the quotes on a number value, like
HEIGHT=3, but now all values have to have quotation marks around them, so
that would become height="3".

5. Attribute Minimisation

Some HTML tags had one-word attributes, like HR's NOSHADE.
You can't use these anymore, and must add the attribute in as its own value,
like so:

<hr noshade="noshade" />

Any browser compatible with HTML 4 shouldn't have a problem with markup like
this.

6. Internal Links

Internal links
in HTML were made using a combination of the <a> tag and the
name attribute. In XHTML, to go along
with XML, you use the id attribute to make these links instead of
the name attribute. For a while you should probably include both so
that your links still work on older browsers, but this will be the method used
in future. The name attribute has been deprecated.

<a href="#section">link</a>

<p id="section" name="section"></p>

Since all tags can take the id attribute, you can now make links
to any element on your page. Most helpful if you add the link to a heading or
specific paragraph.

7. Alternative text in images

While it has always been good practice to add the alt="..."

attribute to your images, now you must add some alternate text to
every image on your page. If your image is purely decorative you can
give it a null alt attribute with a space:

<img src="header.gif" alt=" " />

You could also try adding the title="..." attribute to as many
elements as possible. It's a good

accessibility aid, especially on links.

8. Ampersands in URLs

Ampersand characters are frequently used in page addresses to carry variables,
like in PHP. When
coding these addresses into your XHTML, you must
escape them using the
entity value
&. They'll be displayed as ampersand characters (&) on screen,
of course.

<a href="reviews.php?page=27&style=blue">link</a>

becomes

<a href="reviews.php?page=27&amp;style=blue">link</a>

9. Content must be wrapped in a block-level element

In XHTML Strict, when you add text to your page,
you can’t add it directly into the body element. All text needs to
be within a suitable containing

block-level element, such as a p, a ul or a
div.

---

As you should always have done before, be sure to validate your
document to certify that there are no errors. There is absolutely no
point in writing XHTML if you don't make sure it
is free of mistakes. The online
»
W3C validator will check your code for mistakes and give you a full report
back. Once you can

» understand its occasionally unhelpful error messages, it is an excellent
utility. Make use of it.

Simplicity Pays :: Warren Buffet [ The Second Richest Man Of The World ]

Warren Edward Buffett (born August 30, 1930) is an American investor and the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway.
Warren Buffet :: Simply Secong Richest Man Of The World.

Download Presentation On Warren Buffet

Some Interesting Facts About Warren Buffet
1) He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late !

2) He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.

3) He still lives in the same small 3 bedroom house in mid-town Omaha, that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.

4) He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.

5) He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.

6) His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis.

7) He has given his CEO's only two rules.
Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money.
Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.

8) He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch television.

9) Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.

10) Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.

11) His advice to young people: Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself.


Video Interview Of Warren Buffet The Man:

---

Qutoes From Warren Buffet: The Second Richest Man Of The World, Yet So Simple

---

• "The line separating
  
  investment and
  
  speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still
  further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing
  sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money. After a heady
  experience of that kind, normally sensible people drift into behavior akin to
  that of Cinderella at the ball. They know that overstaying the festivities --
  that is, continuing to speculate in companies that have gigantic valuations
  relative to the cash they are likely to generate in the future -- will
  eventually bring on pumpkins and mice. But they nevertheless hate to miss a
  single minute of what is one helluva party. Therefore, the giddy participants
  all plan to leave just seconds before midnight. There’s a problem, though:
  They are dancing in a room in which the clocks have no hands."
  
  
  
  • Berkshire Hathaway
    
    2000 Chairman's Letter
  
  
  
  

• "Long ago,
  
  Sir Isaac Newton gave us three laws of motion, which were the work of
  genius. But Sir Isaac's talents didn't extend to investing: He lost a bundle
  in the
  
  South Sea Bubble, explaining later, 'I can calculate the movement of the
  stars, but not the madness of men.' If he had not been traumatized by this
  loss, Sir Isaac might well have gone on to discover the Fourth Law of Motion:
  For investors as a whole, returns decrease as motion increases."
  
  
  
  • Berkshire Hathaway
    
    2005 Chairman's Letter
  
  
  
  

• "[The perfect amount of money to leave children is]
  enough money so that they would feel they could do anything, but not so much
  that they could do nothing."
  
  
  
  • Richard I. Kirkland Jr.,
    
    "Should You Leave It All to the Children?", Fortune, 29 September
    1986.
  
  
  
  

• "If I was running $1 million today, or $10 million
  for that matter, I'd be fully invested. Anyone who says that size does not
  hurt investment performance is selling. The highest rates of return I've ever
  achieved were in the 1950s. I killed the Dow. You ought to see the numbers.
  But I was investing peanuts then. It's a huge structural advantage not to have
  a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know
  I could. I guarantee that."
  
  
  
  • 
    
    "Homespun Wisdom from the 'Oracle of Omaha'", BusinessWeek, 5
    July 1999.
  
  
  
  

Confidence

• "I always knew I was going to be rich. I don’t think
  I ever doubted it for a minute."

Experience

• "Can you really explain to a fish what it's like to
  walk on land? One day on land is worth a thousand years of talking about it,
  and one day running a business has exactly the same kind of value."
  

On

Benjamin Graham:

• A story that was passed down from Ben Graham
  illustrates the lemminglike behavior of the crowd: "Let me tell you the story
  of the oil prospector who met St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. When told his
  occupation, St. Peter said, “Oh, I’m really sorry. You seem to meet all the
  tests to get into heaven. But we’ve got a terrible problem. See that pen over
  there? That’s where we keep the oil prospectors waiting to get into heaven.
  And it’s filled—we haven’t got room for even one more.” The oil prospector
  thought for a minute and said, “Would you mind if I just said four words to
  those folks?” “I can’t see any harm in that,” said St. Pete. So the old-timer
  cupped his hands and yelled out, “Oil discovered in hell!” Immediately, the
  oil prospectors wrenched the lock off the door of the pen and out they flew,
  flapping their wings as hard as they could for the lower regions. “You know,
  that’s a pretty good trick,” St. Pete said. “Move in. The place is yours.
  You’ve got plenty of room.” The old fellow scratched his head and said, “No.
  If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go along with the rest of ’em. There may be
  some truth to that rumor after all."

Price Conscious

• "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
  

• "For some reason, people take their cues from price
  action rather than from values. What doesn’t work is when you start doing
  things that you don't understand or because they worked last week for somebody
  else. The dumbest reason in the world to buy a stock is because it's going up.
  "

• "Most people get interested in stocks when everyone
  else is. The time to get interested is when no one else is. You can't buy what
  is popular and do well."

• "We have tried occasionally to buy toads at bargain
  prices with results that have been chronicled in past reports. Clearly our
  kisses fell flat. We have done well with a couple of princes - but they were
  princes when purchased. At least our kisses didn't turn them into toads. And,
  finally, we have occasionally been quite successful in purchasing fractional
  interests in easily-identifiable princes at toad-like prices."- 1981
  Chairman's Letters to Shareholders

• "Never count on making a good sale. Have the purchase
  price be so attractive that even a mediocre sale gives good results."- 1974
  Letter to Shareholders

• "Investors making purchases in an overheated market
  need to recognize that it may often take an extended period for the value of
  even an outstanding company to catch up with the price they paid." - Berkshire
  Hathaway 1998 Annual Meeting

• "If you're an investor, you're looking on what the
  asset is going to do, if you're a speculator, you're commonly focusing on what
  the price of the object is going to do, and that's not our game."- 1997
  Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

• "Despite three years of falling prices, which have
  significantly improved the attractiveness of common stocks, we still find very
  few that even mildly interest us. That dismal fact is testimony to the
  insanity of valuations reached during The Great Bubble. Unfortunately, the
  hangover may prove to be proportional to the binge."- March 2003

• On acquiring bad companies for cheap prices: "In my
  early days as a manager I, too, dated a few toads. They were cheap dates -
  I've never been much of a sport - but my results matched those of acquirers
  who courted higher-price toads. I kissed and they croaked."

• "I like to go for cinches. I like to shoot fish in a
  barrel. But I like to do it after the water has run out."- Oct. 2003 talking
  with
  
  Wharton MBA students

• "The important thing is to keep playing, to play
  against weak opponents and to play for big stakes."- Nov. 2002 talking with
  students at Gaston Hall

Circle of Competency

• "Sometimes you're outside your core competency. Level
  3 is one of those times but I've made a bet on the people and I feel I
  understand the people. There was a time when people made a bet on me."
  
  
  
  • Oct. 2002 when questioned about his investment in
    Level 3
  
  
  • See also wikipedia on
    
    Level 3 Communications.
  
  
  
  

• "There are all kinds of businesses that Charlie and I
  don't understand, but that doesn't cause us to stay up at night. It just means
  we go on to the next one, and that's what the individual investor should do."
  - Morningstar Interview

Sense of Humour

• "Berkshire’s arbitrage activities differ from those
  of many arbitrageurs. First, we participate in only a few, and usually very
  large, transactions each year. Most practitioners buy into a great many deals
  perhaps 50 or more per year. With that many irons in the fire, they must spend
  most of their time monitoring both the progress of deals and the market
  movements of the related stocks. This is not how Charlie nor I wish to spend
  our lives. (What’s the sense in getting rich just to stare at a ticker tape
  all day?)"

• "When they open that envelope, the first instruction
  is to take my pulse again." - 2001 Annual Meeting after mentioning that the
  instructions of his succession are sealed in an envelope at headquarters.
  

• "Those who attended (the annual meeting) last year
  saw your Chairman pitch to
  Ernie
  Banks. This encounter proved to be the titanic duel that the sports world
  had long awaited. After the first few pitches...I fired a brushback at Ernie
  just to let him know who was in command. Ernie charged the mound, and I
  charged the plate. But a clash was avoided because we became exhausted before
  reaching each other." - 1999 Letter to Shareholders

• "We've long felt that the only value of stock
  forecasters is to make fortune tellers look good. Even now, Charlie and I
  continue to believe that short-term market forecasts are poison and should be
  kept locked up in a safe place, away from children and also from grown-ups who
  behave in the market like children."

• At the bottom of the bear market in October 1974 a
  Forbes article interviewed Buffett. Buffett, for the first time in his life,
  made public prediction about the stock market.
  
   
  
  
  • "How do you feel? Forbes asked.
    
     
  
  
  • "Like an oversexed guy in a whorehouse. Now is the
    time to invest and get rich."
  
  
  
  

• "In a bull market, one must avoid the error of the
  preening duck that quacks boastfully after a torrential rainstorm, thinking
  that its paddling skills have caused it to rise in the world. A right-thinking
  duck would instead compare its position after the downpour to that of the
  other ducks on the pond." Letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, 1997
  

Intelligent Decision Making

• "Charlie and I decided long ago that in an investment
  lifetime it's too hard to make hundreds of smart
  
  decisions. That
  
  judgement became ever more compelling as Berkshire's capital mushroomed
  and the universe of investments that could significantly affect our results
  shrank dramatically. Therefore, we adopted a strategy that required our being
  smart - and not too smart at that - only a very few times. Indeed, we'll now
  settle for one good idea a year. (Charlie says it's my turn.)"

• "The fact that people will be full of
  
  greed, fear
  or folly is
  predictable. The sequence is not predictable." - Financial Review, 1985
  

• "I will tell you how to become rich. Close the doors.
  Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful."-
  lecturing to a group of students at Columbia U. He was 21 years old.
  

• "We're more comfortable in that kind of business. It
  means we miss a lot of very big winners. But we wouldn't know how to pick them
  out anyway. It also means we have very few big losers - and that's quite
  helpful over time. We're perfectly willing to trade away a big payoff for a
  certain payoff." - 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

• "The key to investing is not assessing how much an
  industry is going to affect society, or how much it will grow, but rather
  determining the competitive advantage of any given company and, above all, the
  durability of that advantage." - July 1999 at Herb Allen's Sun Valley, Idaho
  Retreat

• "The most common cause of low prices is
  pessimism-some times pervasive, some times specific to a company or industry.
  We want to do business in such an environment, not because we like pessimism
  but because we like the prices it produces. It's optimism that is the enemy of
  the rational buyer." - 1990 Chairman's Letter to Shareholders

• "Success in investing doesn't correlate with I.Q.
  once you're above the level of 25. Once you have ordinary intelligence, what
  you need is the temperament to control the urges that get other people into
  trouble in investing." - BusinessWeek Interview June 25 1999

• "Our future rates of gain will fall far short of
  those achieved in the past. Berkshire's capital base is now simply too large
  to allow us to earn truly outsized returns. If you believe otherwise, you
  should consider a career in sales but avoid one in mathematics (bearing in
  mind that there are really only three kinds of people in the world: those who
  can count and those who can't). " - 1998 Chairman's Letter to Shareholders
  

• "Time is the enemy of the poor business and the
  friend of the great business. If you have a business that's earning 20%-25% on
  equity, time is your friend. But time is your enemy if your money is in a low
  return business."- 1998 Berkshire Annual Meeting

• "Ben's Mr. Market allegory may seem out-of-date in
  today's investment world, in which most professionals and academicians talk of
  efficient markets, dynamic hedging and betas. Their interest in such matters
  is understandable, since techniques shrouded in mystery clearly have value to
  the purveyor of investment advice. After all, what witch doctor has ever
  achieved fame and fortune by simply advising 'Take two aspirins'?"- 1987
  Chairman's Letter to Shareholders

• "We will reject interesting opportunities rather than
  over-leverage our balance sheet." - Berkshire Hathaway Owners Manual
  

• "If you expect to be a net saver during the next 5
  years, should you hope for a higher or lower stock market during that
  period?"Many investors get this one wrong. Even though they are going to be
  net buyers of stocks for many years to come, they are elated when stock prices
  rise and depressed when they fall."This reaction makes no sense. Only those
  who will be sellers of equities in the near future should be happy at seeing
  stocks rise. Prospective purchasers should much prefer sinking prices."- 1997
  Chairman's Letter to Shareholders

Inactivity as Intelligent

• "We don't get paid for activity, just for being
  right. As to how long we'll wait, we'll wait indefinitely." - 1998
  
  Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

• "I call investing the greatest business in the world
  because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws
  you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you.
  There's no penalty except opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you
  like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it."

• "The stock market is a no-called-strike game. You
  don't have to swing at everything--you can wait for your pitch. The problem
  when you're a money manager is that your fans keep yelling, 'Swing, you bum!'"
  - 1999 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting

On Diversification

• "The strategy we've adopted precludes our following
  standard
  
  diversification dogma. Many pundits would therefore say the strategy must
  be riskier than that employed by more conventional investors. We disagree. We
  believe that a policy of portfolio concentration may well decrease risk if it
  raises, as it should, both the intensity with which an investor thinks about a
  business and the comfort-level he must feel with its economic characteristics
  before buying into it."- 1993 Chairman's Letter to Shareholders

• "Diversification is a protection against ignorance.
  It makes very little sense for those who know what they're doing."
  

On Margin of Safety

• "If you understood a business perfectly and the
  future of the business, you would need very little in the way of a
  
  margin of safety. So, the more vulnerable the business is, assuming you
  still want to invest in it, the larger margin of safety you'd need. If you're
  driving a truck across a bridge that says it holds 10,000 pounds and you've
  got a 9,800 pound vehicle, if the bridge is 6 inches above the crevice it
  covers, you may feel okay, but if it's over the Grand Canyon, you may feel you
  want a little larger margin of safety..."- 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual
  Meeting

Efficient Market Hypothesis

• “I’d be a bum on the street with a tin cup if the
  markets were always efficient.”

General Rules

• "Rule No.1: Never lose money. Rule No.2: Never forget
  rule No.1."

• "It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair
  price than a fair company at a wonderful price."

• "You’re neither right nor wrong because other people
  agree with you. You’re right because your facts are right and your reasoning
  is right—and that’s the only thing that makes you right. And if your facts and
  reasoning are right, you don’t have to worry about anybody else."

• "Our favourite holding period is forever." Letter to
  Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, 1988

• "When a management with a reputation for brilliance
  tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is usually the
  reputation of the business that remains intact."

• "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."
  

• "If you don't know jewelry, know the jeweller."
  

• "If you don't feel comfortable owning something for
  10 years, then don't own it for 10 minutes."

• "There seems to be some perverse human characteristic
  that likes to make easy things difficult."

• "One’s objective should be to get it right, get it
  quick, get it out, and get it over... your problem won’t improve with age."
  

• "A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought."
  

• "In the insurance business, there is no statute of
  limitation on stupidity."

• "If a business does well, the stock eventually
  follows."

• "The most important quality for an investor is
  temperament, not intellect... You need a temperament that neither derives
  great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd."

• "The future is never clear, and you pay a very
  high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus. Uncertainty is the
  friend of the buyer of long-term values."

• "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn
  who's been swimming naked."

• "We will only do with your money what we would do
  with our own."

• "Occasionally, a man must rise above principles."
  

• "It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five
  minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."
  

• "Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about
  a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside
  advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his
  stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked."
  

• When asked how he became so successful in investing,
  Buffett answered: "we read hundreds and hundreds of annual reports every
  year."

• "I never buy anything unless I can fill out on a
  piece of paper my reasons. I may be wrong, but I would know the answer to
  that. “I’m paying $32 billion today for the Coca Cola Company because...” If
  you can’t answer that question, you shouldn’t buy it. If you can answer that
  question, and you do it a few times, you’ll make a lot of money."

• "You ought to be able to explain why you’re taking
  the job you’re taking, why you’re making the investment you’re making, or
  whatever it may be. And if it can’t stand applying pencil to paper, you’d
  better think it through some more. And if you can’t write an intelligent
  answer to those questions, don’t do it."

• "I really like my life. I've arranged my life
  so that I can do what I want."

• "Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone
  planted a tree a long time ago."

Walking Away

• "I am out of step with present conditions. When the
  game is no longer played your way, it is only human to say the new approach is
  all wrong, bound to lead to trouble, and so on. On one point, however, I am
  clear. I will not abandon a previous approach whose logic I understand (
  although I find it difficult to apply ) even though it may mean foregoing
  large, and apparently easy, profits to embrace an approach which I don't fully
  understand, have not practiced successfully, and which possibly could lead to
  substantial permanent loss of capital." - in a letter to his partners in the
  stock market frenzy of 1969.

• "I just don't see anything available that gives any
  reasonable hope of delivering such a good year and I have no desire to grope
  around, hoping to 'get lucky' with other people's money. I am not attuned to
  this market environment, and I don't want to spoil a decent record by trying
  to play a game I don't understand just so I can go out a
  hero."
  

Source: WikiQuote

---

Buffett: 'There are lots of loose nukes around the world'
By Lou Dobbs
CNN

---

Sunday, June 19, 2005; Posted: 12:32 a.m. EDT (04:32 GMT)
(CNN) -- The legendary Warren Buffett and I sat down last week to talk about his views on the issues and challenges facing the United States and all Americans.

---

DOBBS: I would like to begin first with something that may surprise a lot of people about you, and that is your interest in biochemical nuclear terrorism and thwarting what you consider to be the gravest threat to the country, and to the world, in point of fact. How did you first decide to focus your energy on that?

BUFFETT: Well, back in 1945, I delivered a paper that told about Hiroshima. And I didn't know much about physics, but I learned. And there's no question in my mind that the number one problem with mankind is the spread of nuclear knowledge.
And, you know, thousands of years ago we had psychotics and we had religious fanatics and we had megalomaniacs. But about the most they could do was throw a stone at somebody if they wished evil on them.
Today, since 1945, the ability to inflict evil, or harm, on other people in huge numbers has grown exponentially. And right now there's the knowledge around to use nuclear material. And we've got to hope that the wrong people don't get their hands on it.

---

Read Full Interview Here

Errors Of Genetic Engineering...

Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave, and And impossible to forget!

A true friend takes interest in understanding what you're all about....

Your Friends will support you....

And respect your creativity for thinking outside the box....

They'll be there when you need a shoulder to lean on....

Or a great big hug....

They see beyond the black and white to discover your true colors....

And accept you just the way you are... Even when you just wake up in the morning

So make your own kind of music....

Follow your heart wherever it takes you....

And when someone reaches out to you, Don't be afraid to love them back....

They may just be a friend for life....

Good friends are hard to find, harder to leave....
And impossible to forget!

So Share this will all your unforgettable friends today....

TopMasala - Quality Time Pass

To join the community of friends, visit

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She is Woman, She is Life....

TopMasala - Quality Time Pass To join the community of friends, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TopMasala/joinCan't see images, just click hereFor getting nice images in your inbox daily, just  log in @ http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TopMasala/join/

Next Generation Development Tech :: Microsoft ASP.NET & AJAX

ASP.NET 2.0 Overview
Visual Web Developer Express Overview


Download the .NET Framework and
Visual Web Developer Express 2005


ASP.NET Video Tutorials
Starter Kits (Ready Made Sites)
Announcements on ASP.NET

Monday, November 27, 2006

Now that ASP.NET AJAX has moved from a CTP release to
its first Beta release, the Videos page features eight updated
“How Do I” with
AJAX videos. Watch the videos, download the samples in Visual Basic or C#,
and discover just how simple AJAX development can be.
Learn with ASP.NET
Podcasts
Visit the new
ASP.NET Podcasts
page and listen to radio shows presented by some of the community’s best-known
developers, including a couple of interviews with Microsoft’s Scott Guthrie.

Welcome Free Google Page Creator, Free Website 100 MB space

February 23, 2006
A few hours ago Google launched Google Pages. If you have a Gmail account you can create your own web site on Google using a very nifty AJAX interface.
Some of the nicest features:
An “undo” button
Ability to add images, links and pages easily
Testing links while in edit mode
100MB of storage
Simple, memorable URL
Google Pages is unofficially out . Rich in AJAX and clean user interface. Have some time to spare ? You just need a Google account you can enjoy this.
I tried creating a my own page on it to see how it works, you can check it at http://goog.adword.googlepages.com/home .

Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.

1. Create your own web pages, quickly and easily. Google Page Creator is a free online tool that finally makes it easy for anyoneto create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.


2. Publish in seconds With one click, the pages you create are ready for your friends, family and the whole world


3. No technical knowledge required.Build high-quality web pages without having to learn HTML or use complex software.


4. What you see is what you’ll get.Edit your pages right in your browser, seeing exactly how your finished product will look every step along the way.


5. Don’t worry about hosting.Your web pages will live on your own site at

http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com