5 Flowering Garden Plants That Scoff at Drought

These five plants performed particularly well, and they seemed to scoff at the drought while other plants around them wilted.

1. Rudbeckia — above

The Rudbeckia genus is perfectly suited for drought-tolerant garden plantings and is commonly available at garden centers. Black-eyed Susan, R. hirta, is so frequently used in landscaping projects that a lot of home gardeners may turn their noses up at them, but give them a shot too.

2. Celosia

Cockscomb’s crested form makes  favorite in this genus, but the feather/flame-shaped blooms are just as drought tolerant.

3. Coneflower

There are a lot of coneflower cultivars available, but none of them seem to hold up as well to drought in my garden as the common purple coneflower.




4. Nicotiana

Several species of Nicotiana are grown as ornamental plants, and their sweet-smelling flowers will have you walking through the garden in the evening to inhale their wonderful aroma.


 


5. Zinnia

There are lots of cultivars available for the garden, ranging in color, height and flower size. For my money, there is no other annual that is able to withstand the heat and drought and still produce beautiful blooms.

MARS PANORAMA

It is fantastic! You can move the image around or up and down. The clarity is amazing. Definitely expand it to full screen and be amazed at the views...WOW

Here's a complete panorama image of Mars taken from the Curiosity camera. Just click on

Mars Panorama.

Interactive 360 degree panorama viewers

To view the cylindric or spherical panorama in a way which you call an Interactive VR Panorama you need a viewer.

During the last years the fullscreen idea introduced by panoramas.dk has been adapted to many other viewers than Quicktime and with the introduction of Flash panorama viewers and the option for Fullscreen in Flash 9 you can now enjoy real fullscreen panoramas which covers all your screen.

20 Benefits of Walking

Indian telecoms not excited about iPhone 5

Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant Apple Inc. recently took wraps off the iPhone 5, creating a great buzz all over the world; but Indian telecom operators are not excited about the newest iPhone at all.

While sales of the iPhones account for a considerable portion of US service operators’ revenues, Indian telecom operators do not the iPhone as a great opportunity.

Indian operators are of the opinion that selling the iPhone is not a good business sense for them because the 

Cupertino firm’s business proposition for Indian operators are very competitive.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an official from a top Indian operator said, “We don’t like their business proposition. They want us to sell a huge number (of the iPhone), which doesn’t make commercial sense.”

Moreover, Indian smartphone market is very price sensitive and thus selling very costly phones is not viable enough.

Even if the iPhone 5 is launched in India, its heavy price will be a major obstacle for consumers. The iPhone 5 is expected to cost in the range of between Rs. 45,000 and Rs. 50,000.

The iPhone 5, which features a bigger (4-inch) display and a slimmer profile than the iPhone 4S, will be available in the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and Australia starting Sept.21st.

UK unemployed numbers fall by 7,000

According to the latest data released, the total number of people without jobs in the UK fell by 7,000 between May and July.

The Office for National Statistics data showed that the number of unemployed stood at 2.59 million, which is about 8.1 per cent of the population. The data also showed that the number of people dependent on jobseeker's allowance fell by 15,000 to 1.57 million, recording its highest fall since June of 2010.

The average earnings increased by 1.5 per cent till July. However, the average earnings fell 0.3% on the previous month. The number of people employed in the country increased by 236,000 to 29.6 million. In London, the number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance fell by a substantial 5,500, indicating that the London 2012 Games played a role in decreasing unemployment in the UK.

The data also showed that the number of part-time workers increased to its highest level since 1992 at 1.42 million. ONS revealed that the number of people employed in the public sector fell by 235,000 to 5.7 million and female unemployment rose by 3,000 during the quarter.

You may get call from Facebook if profile identity is suspect

Social networking giant Facebook is making a "huge effort" to weed out fake profiles to prevent misuse of such identities, a senior company official has said.

"Absolutely, there is a huge effort," Facebook India business manager Pavan Varma told PTI when asked about the company's action on this front.

If Facebook doubts the ownership of an account, it will ask the user to identify himself/herself, he said.

Full Coverage on Apple's new iPhone

The doubt about the authenticity of the account will arise if an account has a generic name instead of a proper name, uses images of celebrities/ cartoon characters as display pictures, or does not have "enough friends", Varma said.

"It could even be that Facebook comes back to you saying, `could you help us identify yourself if you don't have enough friends, because we don't want fake identities," he said.

"We are worried about the experience we deliver....It's not about protecting our brand identity so much," he said.

Recently there were reports of fake accounts being created by computer programs, which are used for inflating the number of "likes" on Facebook page for a brand.

Facebook had recently said it would be taking out fake "likes" generated by spammers, malware and black marketers.

Varma said advertisers must also shed the obsession with numbers. "How does an advertiser today treat a Facebook page? It is treated as a place where they just come with a number of people who are there. But that is a wrong way of doing it," he said, stressing that the conversations around the brand should assume importance rather than the numbers.

Mere "likes" on the page do not help a brand, he said. Companies generally pay Facebook for a dedicated page on its platform that helps them connect with the target audience.

IDBI Bank claims it has over five lakh fans on Facebook, Varma said, who was speaking to PTI on the sidelines of a banking summit.

He added that Facebook, as a medium, is completely secure and cited the case of ICICI Bank, which now offers basic services over the Facebook page by integrating its net banking platform with the social networking site.

Virgin takes West Coast mainline case to MPs

Virgin Trains, a group company belonging to Sir Richard Branson, will appeal to the MPs in the UK to resolve the West Coast mainline case.

Virgin Trains is aiming to legally challenge Government’s decision to award the London to Manchester route to First Group. Virgin has stressed that it cannot afford its £5.5billion bid for the project. Sir Richard Branson will use the hearing before the MPs to convince them that the system does not allow firms to run services at a profit and taxpayers money is then used to meet the gaps.

Due to the legal challenge posed by Virgin Trains, First Group is not likely to receive keys to the line on 9 December for the 14-year contract. Virgin had offered to run the line free of cost until the matter is resolved. However, some leaders might be considering the option of nationalizing the line on a temporary basis.

The leaders have raised concerns about how the decision to change the franchise would affect fares and levels of service on the route. The remarks comes after Louise Ellman, the chairman of the House of Commons transport committee wrote to transport secretary, Justine Greening urging for a delay in signing of the final contract until important issues are discussed.

More than 100,000 members of the public have signed a petition against the decision and it is also being supported by several celebrities including host of TV show The Apprentice, Lord Sugar, and celebrity chef Jamie Oliver.