You’ve seen it in all those feel-good movies – A barely perspiring mother has just given birth to a beautiful, healthy baby. A smiling nurse hands the baby (wrapped in a blanket, all pink and perfect) over to the glowing mother while the father looks on, beaming with pride. The mother coos in her baby’s ear telling her how beautiful she is and the legendary mother and child bonding begins right there. Beautiful isn’t it? You have this picture perfect image imprinted in your mind for years until the day you have to deliver a baby of your very own. You’re so looking forward to being that smiling, glowing mother whispering sweet nothings in your baby’s ear, and to having the whole family gather around you admiring you and the new addition to your family. And that’s when REALITY sets in. By the time you come out of the wretched delivery room after an agonizing 18-20 hour labor, you feel like you’ve just gone to hell and back. You’re cursing the very thought of procreation and don’t have the energy to even lift your head, let alone the baby. You cannot stand the sight (or sound) of ANY relative and as far as your husband is concerned, he better stay as far away from you as possible if he doesn’t want to be turned into a human punching bag. When the baby is handed over to you for that first feeding session, you stare at it like it’s an alien from another planet. What is WRONG with me??! You wonder. Nothing sweetheart! Welcome to the baby blues!

This has to be something new and different, just imagine a whole concert live on YouTube! What prompted a rock band like U2 to make such a decision is not known but it certainly is welcome and history in the making both for the band and for YouTube. Manager Paul McGuinness in a statement said , “The band has wanted to do something like this for a long time”. Well Paul this is certainly good news for the millions of fans out there and it is coming this weekend. So make you PCs, Notebooks, Net books and whatever that you have ready for the fun to begin.

He further said, “it’s the perfect opportunity to extend the party beyond the stadium. Fans often travel long distances to come to see U2 — this time U2 can go to them, globally!” YouTube will stream the concert live across five continents and besides this replays will be available at the U2 website as well as YouTube. The Sunday’s show is scheduled to be held at Rose Bowl California with an expected audience of about a hundred thousand fans. Well if YouTube is thrilled so are we.

Are you planning your upcoming vacation this new year? Do you want to make it one of the most  memorable and luxurious experience of your life? Something you can only witness in dreams like the finest decor hotels with Jacuzzi bathrooms, exclusive spas and exquisite food, unforgettable adventures, romantic hideaways and what not. Well recently, I have come across this brand new site “Hubresorts.com” that gathers all top resorts of the world, Whether you are a Ski buff, a Golf junkie, a luxury seeker or even a casual wayfarer they have all those unique places covered with necessary details in a concise form. The idea behind this new launch is to bring the vacationers and resorts owners together, to network and to make it easy for people to find that perfect place to travel for anyone and everyone. Let’s learn more on what they say about Hubresorts.com

Cancer is a devastating disease and is everyone’s worst nightmare. Worldwide, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer. Over 500,000 women die from breast cancer each year. The risk for women of getting it in their lifetime is about 1 in 8. The bad news is that breast cancer is NOT preventable. The cause of breast cancer remains unknown and there is no known way to prevent breast cancer at this time. There are several effective ways to reduce—but not eliminate—the risk of breast cancer in women at high risk. The good news is that if it’s detected early enough, it’s easier to treat and prevent from spreading. When breast cancer is detected early and treated promptly, suffering and ultimately the loss of life can be significantly reduced. For early stage breast cancer, there are more treatment options, treatment can be less disfiguring and less toxic and survival is improved.

October is the breast cancer awareness month and fortunately, breast cancer awareness is at an all-time high. Many women’s lives are being saved by a heightened understanding of the disease and early detection. And the sole purpose and intent of this post is to let all women know that the ONLY key to surviving breast cancer is early detection and treatment.

Telenor has teamed up with the Tameer Micro Finance Bank for making money transactions much easier and less cumbersome, through a service being dubbed as “easypaisa”. The best thing perhaps is that this service is not limited to Telenor subscribers only but can be availed by subscribers of other operators also. It is even for those not-privileged who do not own a mobile phone. Presently only utility bills payment facility is available and more services like money transfers within country and from abroad are in the offing. The service has been approved by the State Bank of Pakistan.

As of now utility bill payments can be made for gas, electricity and landline phones for select cities of Pakistan for a paltry sum of money and still more is to follow later. People can simply go to the nearest dealer for availing these services, or Tameer Bank, Telenor franchise, Telenor sales & service centers, the detailed list of all cities is available at easypaisa. This indeed a new and much needed facility for the people of Pakistan. As more options for financial transactions are added the service is sure to gain wider acclaim of the public. Now at least people won’t have to wait in long queues lines to pay bills. We really hope hope they make this facility available for making online purchases as well.

Wedding season is here folks which means I need to (yet once again) prepare myself for the onslaught of awful gluttony that accompanies it. As luck would have it, I come from a family for whom socializing comes as naturally as breathing. And for someone like me, for whom the metaphor of “a lump of dough waiting to ferment” has been used by her own mother, this sociability comes at a heavy price. To makes things worse, my in-laws are no better. Missing a wedding would be akin to social suicide! Resultantly, I have worked the wedding circuit quite a bit, and in the process have witnessed (like many of you) the very highs and the very lows of Pakistani society when faced with wedding cuisine.

Laptops are nowadays all rage. They come in all sizes, big, small, slim and fat, they are cute, ugly and irresistible. The newer ones are fast, then there are notebooks which promise to make a hole so large in your pocket that you will have  a hard time recovering form this dilemma. Oh and then the inevitable NetBooks which look like toys, or kids stuff. But now we have Rugged Laptops, or hardened Laptops built for tough environments.

Any electronic gadget can basically sustain a certain degree of abuse, which includes extreme temperatures, bumps and jumps, resistance to liquids (quite rare) and even an occasional drop. But these machines, called Rugged Laptops are built to withstand all such abuses. They are generally meant for the military folks, but may as well be used by anyone who has a lot of outdoor work to do for example archeologists, filed workers (civil engineers), environmental engineers, marine biologists and even wildlife researchers.

The degree of protection immunity to these effects that a machine has is governed by its IP (Ingress Protection) level. This rating simply tells us the amount of abuse a certain machine is able to withstand.

A rugged machine may it be a laptop or a PDA has all the accessories of a normal machine like USB, memory, processor, RAM etc. The only difference is that these machines are able to withstand punishment like strong electromagnetic fields, shocks, extreme vibrations, falls etc. So they are waterproofed to some degree, have shock absorbers, rubber padding or even advanced cooling features for hot climates.

The various items being marketed include rugged thumb drives, rugged laptops, Swiss Army Knives, semi-rugged iPhone protection, iPod covers and waterproof cameras.

Picture this. You’re sitting at your desk, trying to concentrate on the report that you have to hand in within the hour, when your neighbor’s cell phone suddenly starts blaring out an ear-splitting tune. After letting it ring for a few torturous seconds, he finally picks it up and starts yelling into in decibels that would be audible only to dogs. Once the conversation is over, you try to go back to finishing your report when a foul smell literally burns your nostril hair. Apparently your other co-worker just treated himself to a lunch of tuna fish sandwich and eggs and followed it up with a cigarette. You’re finding it difficult to even breathe the same air, yet you push on with your report. When you finally get the printout, a clumsy bafoon bumps into you and spills his entire cup of coffee onto your report. Ready to tear your hair out?

A few days back, I was watching a repeat telecast of a highly popular morning show (for lack of anything better to do), and trying in vain to tolerate the over-the-top and very annoying host. Anyways, the topic under discussion was a new contraceptive method (namely the birth control patch) that a lot of women are still unaware of, but I had heard of because of the ample controversy associated with it. The host and her gynecologist guest were discussing its pros and cons etc and I was shocked to note that there was absolutely no mention of the fact that this method is under severe criticism ever since it was introduced due to the fatalities associated with it.

Do any of these situations apply to you?

• You love the great outdoors but the idea of crawling bugs, mosquito bites, smelly sleeping bags, sudden storms, wild animals, unlightable camp fires, bad weather and leaking tents isn’t very appealing to you
• The mere thought of using nature as your bathroom repels you
• Your picture of a relaxation vacation is NOT sleeping on the hard, lumpy ground and spending all your time trying to cook a decent meal for everyone
• You have a modest budget and can’t spend a lot on your vacation

If yes, then my dears, glamping, which is short for glamorous camping, is just the thing for you!  Glamping is a new camping option which is fast growing in popularity in the travel & holiday industry. As the name shows, glamping is camping with a luxurious difference; it offers the best of both worlds i.e. exposure to the great outdoors but with amenities never experienced before in traditional camping. In short, you get to enjoy the wonders of nature & experience the thrill of camping with none of the fuss. And the best part is, it’s affordable too! After all, even in tough economic times like these, we all want to go for that elusive vacation no matter how cash strapped we are, just to get away from it all!

Glamping offers luxury accommodation that can include everything from big, clean & airy tents, comfortable beds, and carpeted floors to amenities such as wood stoves and power for your PlayStations & hair dryers.