Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer is taking direct control over two of the company s most important businesses The news came shortly after reports surfaced that Kevin Johnson a veteran Microsoft executive in charge of a sprawling division that includes both the mainstay Windows business and the company s shakier online efforts was leaving to head network-equipment maker Juniper Networks Johnson was among the Microsoft executives leading the so-far failed pursuit of Yahoo Microsoft was at one time this year willing to pay 47 5 billion to buy the Internet giant in a bid to quickly gain ground on Google in the critical businesses of online search and advertising But its maneuvers during the past half-year helped drive Yahoo into a search-advertising deal with Google Some observers were surprised by Johnson s abrupt departure though Microsoft says the executive will work to ensure a smooth transition At least one company watcher speculated Johnson might be taking the fall for the Yahoo debacle Others saw it as a more normal transition at the top ranks of a company that has gone through a stressful year Debate about whether to buy Yahoo reportedly divided the executive ranks Microsoft s decision to split Johnson s Platforms and Services Division in two and put the pieces under Ballmer fits earlier patterns the company has followed during times of transition Ballmer has often taken direct control of certain business units for a short period of time to keep close watch on them and then turn them over to another leader said Matt Rosoff an analyst at Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft For example Ballmer took over the small- and midsize-business software unit in 2004 after it turned in one of the company s worst quarterly financial performances In late 1998 before he became CEO Ballmer took charge of the Internet businesses to fill an unexpected vacancy He even moved his office to the part of campus where the group was centered The Platforms and Services Division with more than 14 000 employees will go forward as two separate groups One will include Windows the desktop operating system and Windows Live a suite of online applications such as e-mail and photo-sharing tools that Microsoft is trying to integrate more closely with the operating system A trio of senior vice presidents

Kirby Archer who had previously pleaded not guilty to the September boat hijacking and killings pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree murder kidnapping illegal seizure of a maritime vessel and other charges Prosecutors said Archer 36 and Guillermo Zarabozo 20 hired the charter boat Joe Cool to go to the Bahamas then tried to divert it to Cuba Zarabozo has pleaded not guilty and blamed Archer for killing the captain his wife and two crew members Prosecutors announced Thursday they will not seek the death penalty against Zarabozo whose trial is slated for next month Zarabozo s attorney Bill Matthewman said his client maintains his not guilty plea and he plans to proceed to trial to prove his innocence Prosecutors said they intended to show Archer was the mastermind of the plan and eventually persuaded Zarabozo a former security guard to go along warning that it would be dangerous and they might be jailed or tortured Prosecutors said in court Thursday that the men discussed various plans to get rid of the crew including leaving them on a deserted island The Joe Cool was supposed to have only two crew members but there were four when Archer and Zarabozo boarded They discussed possibly aborting the plan but decided to continue anyway prosecutors said At some point prosecutors said Archer told Zarabozo it was time to act because the captain was acting strangely Archer shot captain Jake Branam and his wife Kelley Branam who left behind two young children Prosecutors allege that Zarabozo used guns hidden in luggage to kill the captain s half brother Scott Gamble and crew member Samuel Kairy The bodies were allegedly dumped overboard though the victims and the murder weapons have never been found After the Joe Cool was reported missing Sept 23 the Coast Guard located the boat adrift and far south of its course to Bimini Archer and Zarabozo were found a few miles away in the boat s life raft along with their luggage and told authorities the boat had been hijacked by pirates Archer and Zarabozo both dressed in khaki jail clothes said little during the hearing I think saving his life was the best reason for the plea change Archer s attorney Allan Kaiser said Jonathan Branam the captain s cousin said he is reminded of the murders every day when he looks at the Joe Cool which is now docked behind his house It s not going to bring anyone back but I think justice is going to be served he said Archer s sentencing is set for October At the time of the hijacking Archer of Strawberry Ark was a fugitive sought for the theft of 92 000 from a Wal-Mart where he was a manager Authorities said he later confessed Authorities previously said Archer might have wanted to go to Cuba because Zarabozo was born there and Archer who speaks Spanish served there as a military police investigator at the U S base at Guantanamo Bay Cuba has no extradition treaty with the United States and rarely produces fugitives being sought for U S crimes Prosecutors are suspicious of Zarabozo s claims that Archer killed all four victims They believe two guns were used and said they plan to show the defendants had multiple weapons on the boat Investigators found four shell casings that prosecutors say they can trace back to a Glock 9 mm magazine Zarabozo purchased because they found a receipt in his home

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Staying in the house for the first time since the von Trapps fled the Nazi regime in the late 1930s has been a deeply moving experience for the second-eldest daughter of Baron von Trapp whose story was made famous by the quot Sound of Music quot film quot Our whole life is in here in this house quot the 94-year-old told Reuters in an interview quot Especially here in the stairwell where we always used to slide down the railings quot Von Trapp smiles as she recalls the memory of her and her six siblings clambering and playing in the villa in the leafy suburbs of Salzburg in Austria and spending nights in hammocks in the park surrounding the family home quot My youngest sister built herself a tree house Of course then we all had to have one as well we loved to climb the trees quot she said Following the death of Baron von Trapp 39 s first wife aspiring nun Maria Kutschera joined the family to teach the children fell in love with the baron and married him in 1927 The family always sang and played instruments together and having lost all their fortune in 1935 in the throes of the world economic crisis their musical talent proved a saviour An opera singer heard the children sing in the park and entered them for a competition Soon the von Trapps started to tour Europe and the United States as a family choir quot We sang a lot and we sang all the time We didn 39 t even want to go for a walk alone because we wanted to sing all the time together quot recalls von Trapp quot My father played the violin and the accordion and I adored him - I wanted to learn all the instruments that he played quot said von Trapp who still plays the accordion SALZBURG SAUSAGES For Baron von Trapp a staunch Austrian patriot and opponent of Adolf Hitler his singing family also provided the escape ticket from the Nazi regime The family did not return from a concert tour in the United States in the late 1930s quot Without the singing we would have never made it to the United States quot said von Trapp While The Sound of Music one of the most successful films ever made produced a series of well-loved musical hits like quot Edelweiss quot or quot Sixteen going on 17 quot the family took exception to the way they were portrayed Julie Andrews starred as the aspiring nun Maria in the 1965 film while Christopher Plummer played Baron von Trapp who was depicted as a strict patriarch obsessed with discipline quot We were all pretty shocked at how they portrayed our father he was so completely different He always looked after us a lot especially after our mother died quot von Trapp said quot You have to separate yourself from all that and you have to get used to it It is something you simply cannot avoid quot Her stepmother Maria had another three children with Baron von Trapp and the family settled on a farm in Vermont in 1942 The villa in Salzburg was taken over by Nazi security chief Heinrich Himmler who used it as a home close to the Austrian Alps until 1945 After the war a missionary order took over the home agreeing to relinquish it for use as a hotel eventually For Maria von Trapp who flew in from the United States to join the opening celebrations of the hotel on Friday Salzburg will also mean satisfying a long-awaited culinary treat quot Today I will eat sausages — this is what I did as a child Sausages in Salzburg are simply fantastic quot

Leonardo Romanelli is an old friend and you may recall his chickpea soup recipe This time he turns his talents to tiramisu A good tiramisu is an extraordinarily lascivious dessert that is perfect for almost every situation from the family get-together through the romantic occasion However most Italian Tiramisu recipes call for raw egg which is potentially dangerous Leonardo avoids the problem by making his tiramisu with zabaione a delicate creamy custard made from egg yolks Considerable enjoyment and no risk To make a tiramisu for 4-8 depending upon portion size expect people to ask for more you ll need going clockwise in a spiral A square of baking chocolate Leoanrdo added more to this piece 2 eggs 9 ounces 250 g mascarpone cheese on the plate with the eggs Espresso coffee the powder shown here 1 3 cup 2 tablespoons 80 g sugar Powdered cocoa about a half cup 2 tablespoons liqueur or sweet wine optional Leonardo used Armagnac 3 4 cup 200 ml heavy cream Savoiardi buy these from your Italian deli or use twice as many ladyfingers Not shown Powdered sugar for sweetening cream

Susine and prugne plums in English the English word prune now refers to dried plums but used to be interchangeable with plum while the Italian Prugna refers to the kind of plum that is dried to make prunes prugne secche in Italian are the result of a happy accident a cross-pollination between wild plums and cherries They are eastern in origin but were already being grown in Syria before the arrival of the Romans Pompey introduced them to Rome in 65 BC and with time they entered the popular imagination as a sort of cure-all plum trees were considered good luck while the fruit was given to the sick to help them recover and to the irascible to calm their minds There are literally thousands of varieties of plums with new kinds emerging all the time — the small green Regina Claudia for example was introduced to Europe in the 1400s by French Crusaders returning from the Holy Land who named it after their Queen In terms of color plums range from green through pale yellow and on to orange red and from thence to purple and blue-black Italians whose annual plum crop is close to 200 000 tons tend to prefer red plums but are quite happy to make do with other colors too When selecting plums the standard rules apply The fruit should look fresh and firm and be blemish free Transparency and shine of the skin are less important as the skins of some varieties of plums have a milky to grayish sheen A final observation Provenance Given the demand for plums they are often trucked in from elsewhere Fruit that is picked and shipped is not going to be as tasty as what is locally grown picked and sold and therefore if you can select fruit that s locally grown Or if your climate allows it plant a couple of plum trees — they blossom beautifully in the spring and there s nothing quite so nice as biting into a perfectly ripe piece of fruit from one s own tree From a dietetic standpoint plums are an excellent source of dietary fiber and are also good sources of vitamin A while they are not particularly rich in calories 60 for 100 g In short they re good for you What to do with them While they are perfect as is at the close of a meal they can also be put to many other uses The Most Obvious Are Jams And Marmalades Confettura di Prugne Fresh Prune Jam This is one of the finest late summer jams and is wonderful for spreading on toast or transforming into a crostata Confettura di Albicocche e Prugne Rosse Apricots and red plum jam Who could ask for more All Sorts of Jams Including Plum This recipe is drawn from Il Re dei Cuochi which was published anonymously in Florence in 1885 Though the author calls for Regina Claudia plums tiny very sweet green plums that appear for only a short time in July you can use almost any good flavorful plum Followed By Desserts Torta alle Prugne This fruit tart is quite elegant and much easier to make than you might expect It will also lend itself well to variations In addition to using plums you could use apricots peaches or nectarines — or a combination of the various kinds of fruit Torta Picnic Alle Prugne This plum cake is quite simple and is also is one of those things one can bring on a picnic with impunity because at the most it will crack a little — not something one normally looks for in a cake but when one stuffs it into a picnic hamper it s an important consideration But There Are Some Savory Dishes With Plums Too Sedani Rigati pasta with Chicken and Dried Prunes A Fairly rich winter pasta sauce Roast Pork Shoulder Butt with Onions and Plums Cooking with fruit will of course impart sweet overtones to a dish and though this sort of thing is relatively rare in modern Italian cooking it was quite common in the past Arrosto Di Vitello Con Susine Savory dishes cooked with fruit were considerably more common in the past than they are now in Italy but they do offer a welcome and rather voluptuous change of pace This recipe calls for Burbank plums but you could use others as well

Jan 3 2007 It used to be easy to define Radio quot wireless transmission by modulating electromagnetic waves using the frequencies below those of visible light quot Okay well maybe for some that s still a bit technical but but at least we had something to set the standard Radio and what we perceive as quot Radio quot has changed and will continue to change It is in a state of metamorphosis brought on by new technologies that have spawned quot new media quot pitted against quot old media quot AM and FM are no longer operating in a vacuum and what is not technically quot Radio quot today - cold become the most dangerous threat to traditional Radio tomorrow Satellite Radio Satellite Radio companies are Satellite Digital Audio Radio Services SDARS They transmit programming digitally using multi-carrier modulation which Whatis techtarget com defines as 147 133 a method of transmitting data by splitting it into several components and sending each of these components over separate carrier signals The individual carriers have narrow bandwidth but the composite signal can have broad bandwidth 148 That 146 s about as technical as I think we should get It 146 s important to note that programming is beamed from earth to satellites and then is either 1 Reflected back to earth where it is sent to repeater stations in larger metropolitan areas and re-transmitted to subscribers or 133 2 Sent directly from space to the receivers of subscribers who are free of encumbrances of large buildings or objects that might block the signal So Satellite Radio subscribers can get programming either directly from a satellite or from a repeater station on the ground which acts as a terrestrial radio station This brings us to a question recently raised by Jeffrey Krauss President of Telecommunications and Technology Policy if some subscribers get their signals from repeater stations 147 Are Sirius and XM Radio really terrestrial broadcasters 148 One way or another Satellite Radio fits the definition of quot Radio quot Cell Phones Audio content broadcast to cell phones 150 whether voice or music - arrives via wireless transmission Cell phones are in reality radio receivers

In Sweden chilled blueberry soup is a traditional summer treat served as a first course or a dessert This soup can also be served warm on a cold day or used as a sauce over ice cream or fresh fruit This recipe was created by famed Swedish chef Marcus Samuelsson Executive Chef and co-owner of Aquavit New York City Prep Time 10 minutesCook Time 10 minutesIngredients 6 cups fresh or frozen blueberries3 4 cup sugar2 tablespoons lemon juice1 teaspoon ground cardamom3 4 cup mango pur 233 e 1 cup Muscatel ice wine or honey wine Preparation In a saucepan combine blueberries sugar lemon juice and cardamom Over medium-high heat bring mixture to a boil Cook and stir until sugar dissolves about 7 minutes Slightly cool blueberry mixture and transfer to a blender container Pur 233 e In a bowl combine blueberry pur 233 e with mango pur 233 e and wine Strain mixture through a fine sieve Cool well To serve Ladle soup into shallow soup bowls or dessert dishes Garnish with fresh blueberries thin melon and or mango slices and lemon zest curls if desired YIELD 1 quart