Facebook's Timeline now available to everyone!

People around the world began seeing messages from Facebook on Thursday encouraging them to start scrapbooking their life.

The service's new Timeline profiles, which Facebook introduced nearly three months ago at its annual conference, is now available to any of the site's 800 million users who decide to activate it. Soon, Facebook will turn it on for everybody with an alert at the top of profiles, the company said in a blog post.

Timeline will arrange a user's posts, photos and important milestones (weddings, births of children, etc.) chronologically in two columns of information, with a blue line marked by dates running vertically down the middle. On the right, visitors can easily skip to certain months or years to see what was happening at that time in a person's life, and below that is advertisements.

In addition to a standard profile picture, users can now set a cover photo, a large shot that appears at the top of each Timeline profile.

Facebook has said the idea behind Timeline is to chronicle someone's life and its major events over many years instead of the social network's current profile pages, which tend to emphasize the here and now.

For those anxious to see what kind of past info or photos Facebook may find, the clock starts ticking as soon as Timeline is turned on. Once that happens, a user has seven days to review the new layout and edit things before it goes public and can be viewed by friends. Each user can choose during that time to unveil their page before the seven days are up; regardless, Facebook will publish the page automatically after a week.

People can choose to "feature" major life events, such as engagements or injuries (which is now an optional type of status update), or hide more embarrassing ones. A new Activity Log page makes it easier to see everything and to find certain posts.

Facebook app developers began testing Timeline profiles in September, and the company has not made significant changes to it since then. This update has followed Facebook's "slow rollout" mantra for product launches.

"We're more than what we did just recently," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the announcement earlier this year. "We want to design a place that feels like your home."

Inevitably, when Facebook makes changes, some users complain about the new look of their pages. In this case, many users may not be fully aware of Facebook's latest redesign until it shows up on the site.

"Facebook is about to completely change the way its profile pages look as part of the website's biggest redesign so far, and only a fraction of the website's 800 million users seem to have the slightest clue," wrote Mashable founder Pete Cashmore in a September column for CNN.

"So yes, you will hate the new Facebook profile when it launches ... " he added. "Then, like me, you'll realize that Facebook has unleashed something so remarkable that you didn't even recognize it at first: A meaningful social network. And ... you'll wonder why life wasn't always this way, and how you got by without it."

Source: CNNTECH

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'Welcome home,' Obama tells troops from Iraq

President Barack Obama on Wednesday welcomed home returning troops from Iraq, hailing their service to help a people they didn't know as an example of what makes America great.

"As your commander in chief, and on behalf of a grateful nation, I'm proud to finally say these two words, and I know your families agree -- welcome home. Welcome home," Obama told cheering troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

"Welcome home," he repeated again, to enthusiastic applause. "Welcome home."

The U.S. military mission that began in 2003 is ending this month, and Obama used the speech to mark the fulfillment of a campaign pledge he made in 2008 to end the war.

Soldiers return to Ft. Hood from Iraq State Dept. contractors remain in Iraq

Noting the almost 4,500 Americans killed and more than 30,000 injured, Obama spoke of the heavy sacrifice and hard work in the Iraq mission.

"Because of you -- because you sacrificed so much for a people that you had never met, Iraqis have a chance to forge their own destiny," Obama said. "That's part of what makes us special as Americans. Unlike the empires of old, we did so not for territory or for resources. We do it because it's right.

"There can be no fuller expression of America's support for self-determination than our leaving Iraq to its people. That says something about who we are."

Obama also paid tribute to the military families back home, noting their struggles to make ends meet during the years of the Iraqi campaign.

"So today, as we mark the end of the war, let us acknowledge, let us give a heartfelt round of applause for every military family that has carried that load over the last nine years," the president said. "You too have the thanks of a grateful nation."

Conservative critics have opposed Obama's decision to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq, arguing that some American forces should remain to help the Iraqis maintain order.

On Wednesday, Obama's opponent for the presidency in 2008 -- Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona -- noted the president had opposed the troop surge ordered by former President George W. Bush that some credit with helping secure stability.

"For three years, the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure," McCain said on the Senate floor.

Sharply criticizing the decision for a full withdrawal, McCain said history would judge Obama's leadership "with the disdain and scorn it deserves."

In his speech, Obama said the Iraq war was "a source of great controversy here at home, with patriots on both sides of the debate."

"It is harder to end a war than to begin one," the president continued in an apparent response to critics such as McCain.

Noting that Iraq today is not a "perfect place" and faces challenges, Obama said, "We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people."

He said, "We are building a new partnership between our nations. And we are ending a war not with a final battle but with a final march toward home."

He credited the efforts of the 1.5 million Americans in Iraq during the war, and said those who served would be honored in perpetuity.

"The war in Iraq will soon belong to history," Obama said. "Your service belongs to the ages."

Obama also pledged continued government support for the military, and for troops and their families after they return to civilian life, even in the face of deficit reduction efforts that threaten deep cuts in the military budget.

"Make no mistake, as we go forward as a nation, we are going to keep America's armed forces the strongest fighting force the world has ever seen. That will not stop," Obama said to cheers and applause, repeating: "That will not stop."

In Washington, a group of conservative Republican senators said Wednesday they intend to propose legislation that would prevent mandated reductions in military spending after a special congressional committee failed to reach a deficit reduction deal last month.

The so-called sequestration trigger under the debt ceiling agreement in August required an additional $600 billion in military cuts because of the special committee's failure to forge a comprehensive deficit deal.

Obama has said he would reject any effort by Congress to avoid the impact of the sequestration trigger, which was included in the debt ceiling deal to motivate legislators to reach agreement on a broader deficit reduction plan.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, challenged Obama to rescind his veto threat, saying deficits can be reduced without "gutting" the military.

Source: CNNWORLD

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Donald makes golf history with Race to Dubai success

Luke Donald has won the 2011 Race to Dubai title to become the first golfer in history to top the money list in both Europe and the United States in the same calendar year.

Englishman Donald needed to finish in the top nine of the season-ending Dubai World Championship at the Jumeirah Golf Estates on Sunday to add the European title to the PGA Tour crown he secured last month.

And he achieved that target comfortably, carding three birdies in his final six holes to shoot a second successive six-under-par 66 -- the joint best round of the day -- for a 72-hole total of 272 (-16).

Tiger holds no terror for golf's new world order

That was enough to come home third in the 58-strong field, three shots adrift of tournament winner Alvaro Quiros of Spain, who held his nerve to post a five-under 67 for a two-stroke success over Scotland's Paul Lawrie.

Prior to the tournament, only Northern Ireland's Rory McIlroy could have prevented Donald from making history, meaning the top two ranked players in the world were fighting it out for European golf's top prize.

World number two McIlroy, who came into the tournament in sparkling form after winning the Hong Kong Open the previous week, needed to win in Dubai and hope Donald finished outside the top nine.

But Donald's third-placed finish meant McIlroy could not overtake his Ryder Cup team-mate no matter what he achieved -- and in the end he finished joint 11th, 10 strokes off the pace, after a third round of 71 in a row.

Donald's year has been a model of consistency, with the 34-year-old winning four times this season, twice on each tour, as well as picking up a host of placed finishes along the way.

He began his season by winning February's WGC-Accenture Match Play title in Arizona, before the pivotal moment in May when he defeated Lee Westwood in a play-off in the European Tour's flagship BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth -- taking Westwood's No.1 ranking in the process.

Donald continued that form into July with a four-stroke success in the Scottish Open at Castle Stuart.

And he effectively secured the PGA Tour title with a two-shot win in October's Children's Miracle Network Classic at Disneyland.

Despite his astonishing success this year, Donald has also suffered heartache in 2011 following the sudden death of his father, and the world number one spoke emotionally following his victory.

Donald told the official European Tour website: "My father would have been very proud and he would just give me a big hug. He hopped into my head quite a few times over the closing stretch."

He continued: "I didn't look at the leaderboard until the 13th hole, but didn't see Rory's name up there so I knew the title was mine."

Including his $1.5m bonus for winning the Race to Dubai, Donald's total earnings from Europe alone this year are $7.143m, with McIlroy collecting $5.35m in second place and last year's winner, Martin Kaymer of Germany, third on $4.67m.

Meanwhile, Quiros finished sixth in the Race to Dubai standings after his second win of the season, following his Dubai Desert Classic success, and sixth of his career.

Quiros had begun his final round two strokes clear of Lawrie, but the former British Open champion had turned things around and was one stroke ahead at the turn.

Going into the final hole, the pair were level. However, Lawrie could only par, while a spectacular eagle putt on the 18th green ensured Quiros ended the season with a prize fund of $3.02m.

Source: CNNSPORTS

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Could Hillary Clinton be Obama's ace in the hole?

Here is what the election next year is about: the fence-sitters, the independent voters. At this point, there is not much President Barack Obama can say that will win over conservatives, and given the current GOP field, he doesn't have to worry too much about losing liberals. But what can he say to convince the middle to give him four more years?

Well, he could start by, to paraphrase Bonnie Raitt, giving them something to talk about.

Vice President Hillary Clinton?

LZ Granderson

Now that's a talker.

Of course if Republicans do something silly like saddle themselves with Newt Gingrich or another polarizing figure, whose politics or past makes the nominee too unappealing to us independents, then there won't be a need for such a change at the top. However, if a moderate does make it out of the GOP, and Obama looks to be in a dogfight, I can't think of a ticket that would generate more wattage than Obama-Clinton '12.

Would the move be characterized by critics as an obvious ploy to attract women?

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Well, yeah. And to a degree they'll be right: After all, this is politics.

But the critics would have to tread lightly, because Clinton would likely be at least as accomplished, and probably more so, than any other person on either ballot. This would not be Obama pulling a John McCain, selecting someone who isn't qualified in hopes of injecting fresh blood into a struggling campaign. If Clinton had to take over the presidency, I think many people on both sides can agree that scenario would be much more desirable than one in which Sarah Palin was running the show. In fact, comparing Clinton's pedigree to Palin's or GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's is like comparing an oak tree to a handful of seaweed.

If Clinton was robbed before, she would receive recompense in 2012, and by 2016 be in an even stronger position to be the first female president than she was in 2008.

Obama selecting Clinton as his running mate in 2008, after a sometimes biting primary season, would have rung hollow. Now, after she's spent four years working with him as secretary of state, an executive partnership would be accepted as authentic. This fall she said she had no interest in running for public office, which is not the same as saying she won't run. The reason why she was even approached with the question is because a fall Bloomberg poll found 34% of Americans believe the country would've been better if she'd been in charge.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said he thought Clinton was going to win the Democratic nomination and that "she's probably the most competent person they've got in their Cabinet," and he suggested she should run against Obama in another primary.

Of course Cheney was pushing his new book and probably trying to sow dissent, but he did echo what most everyone in Washington knows -- Clinton brings gravitas few people possess. If those who rallied around her presidential bid were to rally behind her for the vice-presidential nod, it's hard to imagine who in the Republican field could match what she would bring.

Part of the reason that Obama is vulnerable is not simply that the economy is struggling and Republicans are fired up to defeat him. It's because his base does not appear to be fired up for him to win. Quite a few high-profile supporters have expressed disappointment. Quite a few low-profile supporters have expressed buyer's remorse -- not for picking Obama over McCain but for selecting Obama over Clinton. Putting her name on the ticket as vice president would give Obama something Joe Biden never brought to the table -- buzz.

Energy.

Excitement.

That's no knock on Joe. OK, it is, but I'm sure he knows he can't draw a crowd like Hillary.

Sure, we're 11 months away, and given that Gingrich is the sixth GOP front-runner in less than a year -- including two with reality TV shows -- a lot can still happen. But there is no denying that the electricity Obama generated during the 2007-08 campaign is simply not there this time. Some of his supporters are disappointed with the compromises he's made since taking office. Others are frustrated he hasn't done more to help their specific community or interest group. And while the economy is improving, the recovery numbers are way too pedestrian to be used as an inspiring talking point for voters sitting on the fence.

Back in 2008, political strategists on both sides of the aisle could offer a litany of reasons why Obama defeated McCain -- from the Republican candidate being framed as an extension of George W. Bush, to Obama's charisma and an electorate excited by the opportunity to rewrite history.

But a year from now, there won't be as many variables explaining why Obama won re-election. In fact, the rationale could likely summed up in one word: Hillary.

Obama's one-time foe is now his ace in the hole.

Source: CNNWORLD

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NBA teams to open facilities to players Thursday

After a long lockout, the National Basketball Association will open its doors Thursday for teams to hold voluntary workouts.

The move comes after last week's announcement that the players and owners had reached a tentative deal to end the league's months-long lockout.

The season, that was scheduled to have begun November 1, will now start Christmas Day.

Team owners locked out players in early July as the two sides tried to hammer out a new agreement. The sometimes bitter battle lasted 149 days.

One of the main sticking points was a split in revenues that owners said was unfair.

They sought to change the old revenue-sharing arrangement that gave players 57% of the revenue. The new deal offers a virtual 50-50 split.

Training camps will open December 9, and the season will be 66 games instead of the usual 82.

A previous lockout in the NBA lasted 204 days -- from July 1998 to January 1999 -- before a new collective bargaining agreement was reached by both sides.

Source: CNNSPORTS

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