The unmanned Chandrayaan-I spacecraft blasted off smoothly from a launch pad in southern Andhra Pradesh, India to embark on a two-year mission of exploration.

The robotic probe will orbit the Moon, compiling a 3-D atlas of the lunar surface and mapping the distribution of elements and minerals.

The launch is regarded as a major step for India as it seeks to keep pace with other space-faring nations in Asia.

The Chandrayan-I mission envisages placing a 525-kg satellite in a polar orbit 100-km above the moon. The satellite will be launched using a modified version of India’s indigenous Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The spacecraft will initially be launched into a geo-synchronous transfer orbit, and subsequently maneuvered into its final lunar orbit using its own propulsion system.

Once that happens, India will join an exclusive club of four nations - the United States, Russia and China - that have the capabilities to launch a moon mission.

India’s experience in rocketry began in ancient times when fireworks were first used in the country, a technology invented in neighboring China - which had an extensive two-way exchange of ideas and goods with India and was connected by the Silk Road.

The military use of rockets by Indians during the Mysore war inspired William Congreve to invent the Congreve rocket, the predecessor of modern artillery rockets, in 1804.

After India gained independence from British occupation in 1947, Indian scientists and politicians saw the potential of rocket technology in both defense applications and research and development.

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“We saw an opportunity, given how much the Web has evolved, to rewrite the browser from scratch,” says Sundar Pichai, Google’s vice president for product management. The goal, he says, was to create a simple, yet powerful user experience with no interruptions: “The user should enjoy surfing the Web, and the browser should stay out of it.”

If the above is their goal, then I believed Google has achieved it.

The centerpiece of Chrome is the tab, which is located at the top of the browser. If one tab is loading a page, a user can switch to another tab to continue work without waiting. Similarly, if one tab crashes or freezes, you can close that tab without affecting other open tabs. This helps to keep memory jams from bogging down the computer or the whole browser.

When you open Chrome, the default page brings you to your nine most visited sites, giving the page a customized look and feel. It also displays your search history and recent bookmark selections.

One user-friendly feature is that the search and address window have been combined. Now there’s just one box, and it has become a center of power - just starting to type any letter in the alphabet will bring up suggestions. These are culled from bookmarks (Chrome automatically imports bookmarks and passwords from your existing browser) and from popular searches that begin with that letter.

Enough say. I started leaving Firefox behind. To download Chrome: Click Here.

I recommend SiteGround web hosting

Someone invited me to this interesting site.

It’s a new recruiting service for professionals called Blue Chip Expert. It requires a referral, and is designed for full and part time professionals and specialists; they focus on helping top corporations to hire the best “experts” for projects they need to staff.

Blue Chip Expert generates placement fees from hiring companies, and shares portion of these fees with the members, who help build the network of professionals, or their designated Non-Profit . This incentive program allows you to benefit not only from the people you invite, but the people they invite, and the people they invite.

It is simple. You can get a new job or get paid for referring your friends. Signing up is free and takes less than 5 minutes.

For more information: Click Here.

I recommend SiteGround web hosting

It’s time to take stock of what’s FREE and what works. I found a site, which ten’s of thousands are using to host their sites and blogs for free. Mind you, you have to know a thing or two about a thing or two in order to use 10GB.

The site offers the following:

• 20 GB Bandwidth
• 10 GB Space
• PHP and MySql Support
• FTP Access
• FREE Signup

Hmmm….Just another free resource that may work well for some. Click Here.

I recommend SiteGround web hosting