ZAP INFO

I t's everyone's worst nightmare. Waking up the day before a special event to discover a big, red pimple baring itself for all to see right on your face! Here's how to get rid of it quickly and safely: 1. Don't ever pinch, squeeze or pick at a pimple. This only causes it to become more red and inflamed, and will spread the bacteria and oils that caused it in the first place, to other parts of your face! It can also lead to scars. 2. Every 30 minutes, apply an ice pack to the pimple and hold it there for about 2 minutes. This will decrease the swelling and redness and help shrink the inflammation and pain that sometimes comes along with it. 3. They don't call it concealer for nothing! Covering the pimple with a light dose of flesh-tinted concealer can help mask it when you're in a hurry. It also helps cover up that oily shine. 4. Cleanse your skin 2-3 times a day with mild, unscented soap or a specialized acne cleanser that has no harsh chemicals (such as lye). S...

W ith all of the physical, emotional and hormonal changes in their lives, some teens are especially prone to depression. Here are factors that could trigger depression in teens, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine : Undergoing a particularly stressful event, such as the death of a family member or parental divorce. Being physically or sexually abused as a child. Having a lack of social skills . Having a chronic illness. Living with another family member who suffers from depression. 5 Ways to Fight Depression If you feel depressed, it's best to do something about it — depression doesn't just go away on its own. In addition to getting help from a doctor or therapist, here are 5 things you can do to feel better. Exercise. Take a 15- to 30-minute brisk walk every day — or dance, jog, or bike if you prefer. People who are depressed may not feel much like being active. But make yourself do it anyway (ask a friend to exercise with you if you need to be motivated)....

W e've all been there in the heart-pounding moments at 3 a.m., when we desperately want to be asleep but somehow cannot get there, when we are racking our brains for what is in our medicine cabinet that might help us along or what soothing things mothers and grandmothers did to help lull us back into sweet dreams. While our sleep can be easily interrupted by a wide variety of factors, the stress that comes in getting and staying asleep doesn't make any night more restful. Before you pop a pill or crank up the late late late show or melt down in a fit of insomnia, consider these five things that might just be the sheep you should be counting: 1. Identify the insomnia issue. Americans average seven hours of sleep a night and 60% of us report difficulty sleeping at least several nights a week. The bigger problem is, many people leave it at that, never examining why they are awake long before the alarm clock goes off or everyone else is sound asleep. Where do I begin? The first t...

M icrosoft Corp. is scheduled to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers Monday, despite protests from a slice of PC users who don't want to be forced into using XP's successor, Vista. Once computers loaded with XP have been cleared from the inventory of PC makers such as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co., consumers who can't live without the old operating system on their new machine will have to buy Vista Ultimate or Vista Business and then legally "downgrade" to XP. Microsoft will still allow smaller mom-and-pop PC builder shops to buy XP for resale through the end of January. A version of XP will also remain available for ultra-low-cost PCs such as the Asus Eee PC. A group of vocal computer users who rallied around a "Save XP" petition posted on the industry news site InfoWorld had been clamoring for Microsoft to keep selling XP until its next operating system, Windows 7, is available. The software maker has...

T he new iPhone hasn't even landed in stores yet, but already pundits are grumbling about the revised iPhone, based on demos and published specs, about what the new model has failed to fix since the first-gen device. Yes, we get 3G and GPS, a way to connect to Exchange, and the new app store, but what about everything else? Forbes' Brian Caulfield outlines seven (actually eight) iPhone disappointments, and most of these observations are spot on. Some highlights ( get his full list here ). The cost - I've written about the value proposition of iPhone 3G already , and sure enough it'll cost you an extra $160 or so over the next two years vs. the original iPhone. Worth it? It's debatable, but I can't blame people for not being happy about the service price hike. The camera - Forbes notes that there's still no flash and no video recording on the device. I'll add the camera resolution: We're going to see 8 megapixel cell phone cameras in the U.S. this ye...

F ilipino ring idol and national treasure Manny Pacquiao cemented his place among the legends of boxing with a spectacular ninth round knockout over Mexican-American David Diaz before Pacquiao’s wildly cheering countrymen at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Pacquiao, who has been described by boxing writers as the “Mexecutioner” because of his demolition of Mexican legends Marco Antonio Barrera, Erik “El Terrible Morales and Juan Manuel Marquez and battered pretenders like undefeated Jorge Solis, Hector Velasquez, Emmanuel Lucero and Gabriel Mira, lived up to his billing by an execution-style annihilation of the game but utterly outclassed Diaz. A crowd of 8,326 watched Pacquiao fulfill his quest to re-write history by becoming the first Filipino and indeed the first Asian to win four world titles, not counting the Ring Magazine featherweight championship which he won when he mauled Marco Antonio Barrera into submission in 11 rounds in November 2003 at the Alamadome in ...

M EYRIN, Switzerland - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August. But some critics fear the Large Hadron Collider could exceed physicists' wildest conjectures: Will it spawn a black hole that could swallow Earth? Or spit out particles that could turn the planet into a hot dead clump? Ridiculous, say scientists at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known by its French initials CERN — some of whom have been working for a generation on the $5.8 billion collider, or LHC. "Obviously, the world will not end when the LHC switches on," said project leader Lyn Evans. David Francis, a physicist on the collider's huge ATLAS particle detector, smiled when asked whether he worried about black holes and hypothetical killer particles known as strangelets. "If I thought that this was going to happen, I would be well away from here,...

L OS ANGELES - The buzz over Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker in " The Dark Knight " for the last several months was justified. With his final full film role, Ledger delivers what may be remembered as the finest performance of his career. A press screening of the "Batman Begins" sequel Thursday night had the audience cackling along with Ledger's Joker, a depraved creature utterly without conscience whom the late actor played with gleeful anarchy. At times sounding like a cross between tough guy James Cagney in a gangster flick and Philip Seymour Hoffman's fastidious Truman Capote, Ledger elevates Batman 's No. 1 nemesis to a place even Jack Nicholson did not take him in 1989's "Batman." Nicholson's Joker was campy and clever. Ledger's Joker is an all-out terror, definitely funny but with a lunatic moral mission to drag all of Gotham, the city Batman thanklessly protects, down to his own dim assessment of humanity. Sp...

A rctic sea ice could break apart completely at the North Pole this year, allowing ships to sail over the normally frozen top of the world. The potential landmark thaw - the first time in human history the pole would be ice-free - is a stark sign of global warming , according to an article Friday on the web site of the The Independent, a London newspaper. "Symbolically it is hugely important," said Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center in Colorado. "There is supposed to be ice at the North Pole , not open water." Last year, the fabled Northwest Passage opened as Arctic ice retreated more than ever before. There is no land at the North Pole, but as long as anyone has looked, it has remained a giant block of ice year-round. Scientists have been watching Arctic sea ice melt more and more each year. But each summer in recent years, the amount of ice has gotten thinner and thinner. Each winter's freeze, therefore, results in a thinner ...

Bill gates last day at office make fun of himself UnCUT!!!

B ugatti Veyron 16.4 Pur Sang Cost: $2,000,000 The leap from No. 2 to No. 1 is partially characterized by a leap from flat paint to no paint. If $1.5 million for a “normal” Veyron seems too common and you can’t wait to see whether the rumored convertible will come to pass, try talking an owner out of the Pur Sang that set him back $2 million -- if he was lucky. Even at this price, demand is far greater than production. Maybe it’s because the naked aluminum and carbon fiber save weight, potentially enabling even greater heroics. More than likely, it’s because a few guys saturated in wealth have the ultimate one-up on every other enthusiast for the moment, so why skimp on this one? You get what you pay for: The entire production run will end at five -- how’s that for exclusivity?

T hink you paid too much for your Playstation 3? Don't expect any sympathy from Sony. In the company's fiscal 2008 annual report, Sony revealed that they've now lost roughly $3.3 billion (that's billion with a B) on the Playstation 3 since its launch. That breaks down to $2.16 billion in 2007, followed by a notably smaller but equally daunting $1.16 billion loss in 2008. The reason? Pricing the console below its production cost. That's right - that hefty $599 you paid for the PS3 back when it first launched was significantly cheaper than the cost of producing it in the first place, and while the retail price has come down some, the losses keep piling up. Investors have reason to sweat. In a statement, Sony claimed "the large-scale investment required during the development and introductory period of a new gaming platform may not be fully recovered." They went on to note that they've invested a great deal of money into R&D for the console, a sum the...

H ealthy skin is an essential part of health and natural beauty. Good skin is a reflection of inner health. Causes of Unhealthy skin Faulty diet. Refined foods like white flour, sugar and products made with them, tea, coffee, and soft drinks deplete energy, bring about wrinkles, unattractive skin and premature aging. Lack of healthy blood. Healthy blood adds a glow to the skin and keeps it well-nourished, moist, and free from dryness and roughness. Inadequate cleansing. Very often, our skin looks superficially clean; but they really are not. Dirt and dust particles can hide in the pores of the skin and clog sweat and sebaceous glands. Proper cleansing not only removes all the dust, dirt and make-up, which accumulate during the day, but also stops the oil-secreting sebaceous glands from getting clogged. Diet Diet plays an important role in maintaining the health of the skin. Diet should supply all the nutrients needed to build health, namely, protein, carbohydrates, fats, essential ...

Posted by Dave Methvin , Jun 25, 2008 08:11 PM (Commentary) Under the leadership of Bill Gates, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT ) accomplished a lot. Now he's retiring from the company to dedicate more time to his charitable foundation. Yet I wonder why he's decided that now is the time to move on. I think the answer can be found in a 2003 rant by Bill about his problems in using the Microsoft Web site, Windows Update, and Windows in general. In that e-mail missive, Bill released his frustration about all the problems he had. If you look at the actual problems, though, you might think he wrote that e-mail in 2008 rather than 2003 because few of them have been fixed. In other words, Bill complained but nobody seemed to do anything about it. When the guy at the top can't get his pet peeves addressed after five years, something is wrong with the company. At one time, Gates seemed to have fearsome powers. The "BillG Review" was an event to be dreaded, but most of all an ...

P lanet hunters say it's just a matter of time before they lasso Earth's twin, which almost surely is hiding somewhere in our star-studded galaxy. Momentum is building: Just last week, astronomers announced they had discovered three super-Earths — worlds more massive than ours but small enough to most likely be rocky — orbiting a single star. And dozens of other worlds suspected of having masses in that same range were found around other stars. "Being able to find three Earth-mass planets around a single star really makes the point that not only may many stars have one Earth, but they may very well have a couple of Earths," said Alan Boss, a planet formation theorist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Washington, D.C.� Since the early 1990s, when the first planets outside of our solar system were detected orbiting the pulsar PSR 1257, astronomers have identified nearly 300 such worlds. However, most of them are gas giants called hot Jupiters that o...

T he secret to this inexpensive home whitening method is malic acid, which acts as an astringent to remove surface discoloration. Combined with baking soda, strawberries become a natural tooth-cleanser, buffing away stains from coffee, red wine, and dark sodas. While it’s no replacement for a bleaching treatment at your dentist’s office, “this is a fast, cheap way to brighten your smile,” says Adina Carrel, DMD, a dentist in private practice at Manhattan Dental Arts in New York. “Be careful not to use this too often, though, as the acid could damage the enamel on your teeth.” You need: 1 ripe strawberry 1/2 teaspoon baking soda Directions: Crush the strawberry to a pulp, then mix with the baking soda until blended. Use a soft toothbrush to spread the mixture onto your teeth. Leave on for 5 minutes, then brush thoroughly with toothpaste to remove the berry–baking soda mix. Rinse. (A little floss will help get rid of any strawberry seeds.) Carrel says you can apply once a week.

M ost people either love or hate the iPhone's touch screen, and based on a report on the LA Times , women with long fingernails are among the haters. Why? Well, since the iPhone's touchscreen only responds to electrical charges emitted by your bare fingertips, women with long nails are left out in the cold. A woman interviewed for the article went so far as to suggest Apple was being misogynistic because it did not include a stylus for women and didn't consider womens' fingers and nails when designing the phone. Honestly, though, this same argument has come up against keyboards, touch screen monitors, and anything else that involves the use of your fingers, so should every gadget maker change the design of its products to accommodate users with long nails, or should people with long nails learn to work around this problem like they have in the past? I'd love to hear what Apple has to say about all this, but I doubt they'll ev...

S AN FRANCISCO - A Harvard University dropout who ushered in the home computer age and made billions of dollars along the way will have his last official day of work at Microsoft on June 27. Three people will essentially fill the void left behind when Bill Gates retires from the company he and friend Paul Allen co-founded in 1975. Since Gate's began his transition from leading Microsoft to heading his personally-bankrolled charity, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, his job as chief software architect has been handled by Ray Ozzie. Craig Mundie inherited Gate's chief research and strategy officer duties, while former Harvard classmate Steve Ballmer became chief executive officer at the Seattle-based software colossus. Gates left Harvard after two years to found the firm that became global powerhouse Microsoft. He later received honorary degrees from Harvard and other universities. After retiring, Gates will remain chairman of the Microsoft board of directors and its larges...

M ore than 800 passengers and crew are feared to have died when a ferry capsized during a storm off the Philippines. The sinking of the Princess of the Stars on Saturday was the worst disaster in a weekend of tragedy for the Philippines, as Typhoon Fengshen tore across the archipeligo, bringing floods and gusts of up to 100 miles an hour. Authorities said 227 islanders were dead or missing. The ferry, with 845 people on board including 55 children, was washed onto rocks after its engines failed as it tried to shelter from the storm near land. The captain "gave the orders to abandon ship shortly after it listed," Reynato Lanorio, a crew member, said from his hospital bed. "It seemed like everything happened in 15 minutes. Next thing we knew, the ship had gone under." "Many of us managed to get on the lifeboats, but I don't know if they survived," he said. Four people were washed off his raft by giant waves as he clung...

P ETALUMA, Calif. - Gus the dog has three legs, one eye and no hair, except for a white tuft on the top of his head. He's a real winner. The pedigree Chinese crested won the World's Ugliest Dog contest on Saturday at the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Northern California. His owner, Jeanenne Teed, brought Gus all the way from St. Petersburg, Fla., to compete for the dubious distinction After the excitement of the moment, Teed characterized her dog's reaction: "Well, I think right now he's ready for a nap." The Chinese crested breed is a popular choice in this annual contest. Last year's champ, Elwood, was a Chinese crested and Chihuahua mix. Gus' owner won $500 and will be flown to New York to appear on "CBS This Morning." The event will be aired on the Animal Planet network in October.

M ANILA, Philippines -- Students from the University of the Philippines (UP) staged the annual oblation run Wednesday to coincide with the 100th year anniversary of the state-run university. Dubbed “The Great Centennial Run,” this year’s oblation run was participated in by 100 male students who held red roses and wore gold masks as they took the 30-minute jog from Vinzons Hall to the Quezon Building where the Oblation statue stood. True to the militant nature of the event, which is held usually in December to coincide with the Alpha Phi Omega Fraternity anniversary, the students demanded for tuition rollbacks and fair wages for university personnel. “The oblation run is still relevant because through this we can see that matingkad pa rin ang protesta [the protest is still intense],” said Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay, an alumnus and former prime chancellor of APO fraternity. Binay said the oblation run was proof that the state university was continuing to “breed students for nationalis...

I ntroducing iPhone 3G. With fast 3G wireless technology, GPS mapping, support for enterprise features like Microsoft Exchange, and the new App Store, iPhone 3G puts even more features at your fingertips. And like the original iPhone, it combines three products in one — a revolutionary phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device with rich HTML email and a desktop-class web browser. iPhone 3G. It redefines what a mobile phone can do — again. What’s new on iPhone 3G 3G Speed Surf the web and download email over fast 3G cellular networks. Maps with GPS Find your location, get directions, and track progress along your route. App Store Get ready to browse and download innovative applications for iPhone. iPhone in Enterprise (Microsoft Exchange) Get push email, calendar, and contacts with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.