What's the most recognised logo in the world? It would probably be Google's if only they could stick to one. Yet as the world's most popular search engine tries out a new favicon, Craig Smith says the old branding rulebook is being rewritten.

It's not the size that matters, it's how often you use it. So the thinking goes at Google, which has just revealed the design of its latest favicon - the tiny logo that shows any web user, on any web browser, anywhere in the world, precisely whose internet "real estate" they are currently residing upon.

An example of a favicon can be seen at the top of this page (so long as you are using an up-to-date enough web browser). Just in front of the URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/... there is a small BBC logo. That 16x16 pixel square is the size of the favicon in question, if not the scope.

Google's changing masthead 1998 (top) and now

Now consider that, at the website owner's discretion, the logo appears on every single one of its pages that the world's web population loads. For Google that amounts to upward of 1, 200 million individual searches. Every day.

Add to that its Google News, Google Images, mobile search and multitude of other online services. Suddenly the favicon takes on an importance that belies its fingernail-sized dimensions, and the motivation for Google to roll out its third design in less than a year, as it attempts to get its favicon right, becomes clear.

Google's journey to this latest multi-coloured graphic identity charts a course through some of the unique challenges of favicon design, and through those of logo design in general. The world's leading search engine, whose very name has been adopted as the generic term for finding pages on the web, has achieved web domination without ever having had an actual logo.

Magic Eye style

Think of Google visually and you will probably picture the letters that make up the word Google, picked out in bright primary colours. In the designer's lexicon, rather than being a logo, Google has a logotype - albeit a very successful one around which it is famed for creating ever-changing topical "doodle" themes.

DESIGN A FAVICON What makes a good favicon? Here, BBC designer Mick Ruddy suggests four key points 1. Keep it simple ­- use basic shapes 2. Use a limited colour palette 3. Avoid fine detail or lots of gradients 4. Keep it sharp ­- keep an eye on blurring Design a favicon for us

What Google has so far lacked is the sort of universally recognised icon that identifies a Mercedes-Benz car at distance or, in technology terms, the Apple computer or Yahoo web page - all logos that these brands use as their own favicon, not least because they fit the diminutive dimensions. The word Google, by contrast, would not reduce and still be legible.

Cue the new Google favicon - a rainbow of differently shaped blocks. A bit like one of those "hidden" Magic Eye pictures popular in the 1990s, not everyone will immediately see that the Google favicon blocks interlock to form a "g" shape.

That hardly matters. The design makes best use of favicon limitations and is a marked evolution of Google's previous iterations - a small blue "g" on a white background since June of last year, and a capital "G" before that.

While the old branding rulebook would discourage such regular, radical overhauls, reeking as it does of indecisiveness and inconsistency, in the digital world such rules are temporary, at best.

Steve Plimsoll, of brand consultancy FutureBrand, says the traditional rules on corporate identity are starting to look a little tired.

Mighty morphin logos

"Logos are set to become fluid, ever-changing, customisable, even personalised entities and Google is the first global brand that understands this," says Mr Plimsoll, who is head of digital.

"We are going to have to get used to the idea of our brands changing frequently, and when we do, every three months will seem like the dark ages."

Remind you of anything?

If you don't like the new look, then, you can wait or, more proactively, send the company your own design. When Google unveiled the small 'g' last year, the company's head of search products & user experience, Marissa Mayer, hinted at a transitory solution, saying "by no means is the one you're seeing our favicon final; it was a first step to a more unified set of icons" and inviting users to contribute ideas.

The new favicon is based on a design sent in by André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil.

It may sound indecisive, even amateurish, but the fast-changing nature of Google's digital world dictates it. While the billions of pages of Google's branded "real estate" is the headline figure, its real focus is to keep pace with users' mobile phones, computer task bars and web bookmarks in such a way as to keep directing them effortlessly back to Google - using the favicon as their guide.

For the world's biggest search engine, the world's smallest signpost is one of its most valuable assets.

Craig Smith is a marketing author and editorial director at publishing agency Velo

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You've read about Google's new favicon - now design one yourself - either a personal favicon or one to represent the Magazine, and send it to us.

It's easy to do. You can either use one of the many online favicon generators such as favicon.cc, DynamicDrive, Favicon Generator and Galleryor Antifavicon, or just shrink an image down to 16x16 pixels.

Don't forget to think about what makes a good icon at such a small size - see Mick Ruddy's tips in the factbox near the top of this story

Once you've got your favicon - e-mail it to us at yourpics@bbc.co.uk with the subject line "favicon"

Include some personal details - your name, where you are from etc. And a brief sentence about your favicon. We'll publish some of them on this page later.

Some of your Magazine favicon designs, so far:

Tried to incorporate the BBC reddish news colour. It's supposed to show a "magazine" with the covers forming the letters N (for news!) and M (for...oh you can figure it out!). The background is transparent, so would show white on a browser bar.
Michael Fordyce, Sheffield

Keeping in line with the existing BBC favicon design this version will keep users content that they are looking at the same site. It also uses a simple design for easy recognition.
James Battersby, West Moslesey, Surrey

You said "keep it simple" so here's the standard BBC favicon with 'MAG' written underneath on the Magazine's masthead colour.
Karl Johnson, Thetford, Norfolk

I've opted for a colourful reworking of the BBC initials against a black background - vaguely inspired by the BBC test card.
Tom Kennedy

Tried to incorporate your masthead colours and used the same font as the BBC logo. I think it's rather fetching!
Carl Dersley, Ipswich

Grabbed the banner colours and replicated their structure from the page. Added an 'M'.
Steve, Woking

This uses the design of the site and the site's main colours (black, dark red, teal, white).
Leo, Milton Keynes

Although it chops off some of the BBC logo, it is much clearer I think, and has your corporate news colours. It also makes better use of the footprint. I use it to replace the BBC one in my Firefox browser.
Stephen Daniels, Edinburgh

Just a few minutes "doodling" after reading the article - does it fit the bill?
Gill Jennings, London

Quite simple but effective, I guess...
Guilherme Silva, Porto, Portugal

Wow, there's not much room to work with. I tried to incorporate a folded corner (to represent a magazine leaf), but it didn't work.
Steve, Birmingham

I used the page graphics and layout to design this simple icon, and added the BBC favicon to the black space.
Diane Bay, Wheaton, IL

Here is my take on a favicon for the Magazine section. It seemed pretty obvious to me as to what elements you have in your brand - white text on blue, rotated M in another blue - so used these to make something very simple but hopefully encapsulating all your branding.
Mark, Exeter

Apple sold 88% more iPhones than in the same quarter the previous year

Apple has posted strong quarterly results that beat analysts' expectations and proved the company's resilience to the economic downturn.

The technology giant made a record net profit of $1.61bn (£1.15bn) and posted record revenue of $10.7bn for the quarter to the end of December.

Apple sold more than 22 million iPods and more than four million iPhones.

But the company warned that revenue could fall significantly in the first three months of 2009.

For the same quarter the previous year, Apple's profit was $1.58bn and its revenue was $9.6bn.

It was a great quarter and better than most people expected Yair Reiner Oppenheimer

"Even in these economically challenging times, we are incredibly pleased to report our best quarterly revenue and earnings in Apple history - surpassing the $10bn in quarterly revenue for the first time ever," said Apple boss Steve Jobs.

Increased sales

The company saw sales increase right across its main product ranges.

It sold 2,524,000 Macintosh computers during the three months, up 9% on the last three months of 2007.

It also sold 22,727,000 iPods, 3% up on the previous year's quarter.

Finally, it sold 4,363,000 iPhones, 88% more than in the final quarter of 2007.

However, Apple expects revenue to fall significantly over the next three months.

"Looking forward... we expect revenue in the range of about $7.6bn to $8bn," said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple's chief financial officer.

"It was a great quarter and better than most people expected," said Yair Reiner, analyst at Oppenheimer.

The results come after reports that Apple faces a review by the US Securities and Exchange Commission to check that its recent disclosures about Steve Jobs's health did not mislead investors.

Some schemes are earmarked for remote areas

Do-it-yourself broadband schemes are springing up around the UK as communities refuse to wait for big firms to roll out faster networks.

That is the conclusion of a new report into the state of broadband in Britain.

The Communications Consumer Panel, an advisory body, has mapped over 40 local broadband projects.

They range from a scheme in Hampshire to run fibre to just 30 houses to one in Yorkshire that will connect around 550,000 homes.

Bradnet

Report author Roger Darlington was surprised by the number of schemes available.

"There were a lot more than I realised, which reflects a certain amount of frustration that people are not seeing super-fast broadband rolled out as fast as they would like," he said.

The scheme in Hampshire relates to a tiny hamlet called Bradley, where a local resident is evaluating whether fibre can be laid to the homes of residents.

Hampshire County Council is willing to assist the project, dubbed Bradnet, and money could be made available via the European Social Fund.

Many of the schemes are being planned in partnership with either the local council or the relevant Regional Development Agency.

But some have come from the communities themselves.

In an area outside Birmingham, the Walsall Regeneration Company is working with the Community Broadband Network to replicate the OnsNet scheme in the Netherlands, arguably one of Europe's most successful community-owned fibre schemes.

The scheme would piggyback off a new business centre in the town and would serve Birchills, a deprived community next to it.

Meanwhile in Cumbria, the villagers of Alston are banding together to lay their very own fibre network.

Joined up

Virgin Media has begun to upgrade its cable network

In South Yorkshire an ambitious project aims to see Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology reach 550,000 homes over the next three years.

The project involves local councils, Regional Development Agencies and funding from the European Commission and the first houses should have their connections by the second half of 2009.

The report calls for the jigsaw of networks to be joined up.

"It is vital that they are not standalone but can operate with each other," said Mr Darlington.

Such community-based schemes are no replacement for the plans of the big operators though and will have to exist side by side, said Mr Darlington.

Virgin Media has begun the process of upgrading its cable network to 50Mb (megabits per second). Its network covers half of the country.

Meanwhile BT has pledged £1.5bn to developing fibre networks but has yet to begin work.

It is currently conducting a technical trial at the Foxhall exchange in Kesgrave, Suffolk, involving some 35 homes.

The "Open folder" option appears in the "Install or run program" list

The Conficker virus has opened a new can of worms for security experts.

Drives such as USB sticks infected with the virus trick users into installing the worm, according to researchers.

The "Autoplay" function in Vista and early versions of Windows 7 automatically searches for programs on removable drives.

However, the virus hijacks this process, masquerading as a folder to be opened. When clicked, the worm installs itself.

It then attempts to contact one of a number of web servers, from which it could download another program that could take control of the infected computer.

Bad guys

The worm is unusually clever in the way that it determines what server to contact, according to F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hypponen.

"It uses a complicated algorithm which changes daily and is based on timestamps from public websites such as Google.com and Baidu.com," said Mr Hypponen in a blog post.

"This makes it impossible and/or impractical for us good guys to shut them all down — most of them are never registered in the first place.

"However, the bad guys only need to predetermine one possible domain for tomorrow, register it, and set up a website — and they then gain access to all of the infected machines," he added.

It has also emerged that the virus automatically disables the automatic updates to Windows that would prevent further infection.

As the virus - also known as Downadup - has spread to an estimated 9m computers globally, a number of high-profile instances of the virus have arisen.

The Ministry of Defence has been battling an outbreak of the virus across its network for more than two weeks, and on Tuesday a network of hospitals across Sheffield told technology website The Register that more than 800 of their computers had been infected.

Users are urged to download the KB958644 Security Update from Microsoft to mitigate the risk of infection.

Now go on….
Why foreign currency transactions?

Here are the advantages and value of the Forex market, is the reason why people choose transactions in this market:

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No service charge: No exchange fee, no fee payment, not government fees, no brokerage fees. Brokers will be deducted from the cost of transactions through the points "bid-ask" (average 3-5 pips)
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Not through a set of commands: Transaction currency without intermediaries and allow customer transactions directly with the market and updated information directly on price and exchange rates of currency pairs.
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Unlimited transactions in other markets the transaction is limited by the rate of (for example the right to choose the future for gold is 5,000 ounces). In Forex, may be dealing with only one small $ 300.
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Low transaction fees: transaction fees for small accounts (bid / ask spread) is only about 0.1% with the conditions generally. Account the large transaction costs lower.
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Market transactions 24h: No waiting time markets opened and closed. Transactions at Branch from noon to 6 hours EST Friday, can say FOREX market never sleeps. This is a big advantage for those who want the transaction in time or the time most appropriate day, because you can choose any transaction time (morning, noon, evening or night)
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No one has the ability to market orientation: Forex market is too big and too many people involved who should not, whether the 1 bank, can control the value in the long term. The intervention of central banks only have effect in the short term and not effective. Central banks increasingly have less impact or interfere with the global market.
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Access (Access): Forex is open 24h/ngay from 6g pm Sunday to about 3g pm Friday. Those transactions individual can cope with the news when it was launch than waiting for the bell is the opening of the market when other people have the same information. This allows the transaction to join before the information is detailed analysis of the transaction. Liquidity and transactions 24 hours to allow the participants to the market and exit at any time. There are many Brokerage Forex distribution in each region, the center of the market (Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Paris, London, America, etc. …) is ready to continue offering price and sold.
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Because high Item: Because the Forex market is large, it is easy to account. This helps you quickly perform transactions only with 1 click in normal conditions. You can purchase immediately optional. You can never be "the" in the market. You can also set up automatic mode for floor trading ended order transactions when you achieve the desired profit (rate of interest) or close the market move against the desired (anti-hole)
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Market 2 aspects: money is the pair of transactions, for example: urban / yen, or red / of Switzerland. Each position in relation to the sale of money and this money to buy other. If the transaction believe that Switzerland will co higher than urban rates, they can sell it and buy of Switzerland (sold soon). If people believe the contrary, they will buy dollars and sell of Switzerland (purchase and storage). Potential profits for existing exchange rate (price) always fluctuate. . Forex Transactions allow revenue from the 2 increase and decrease the value of currency-related capital. In each currency transaction, each party and have been lost.
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Excution Quality: Because Forex very or change, most transactions can be done with the current market. In all these markets move fast, can not avoid risk in all transactions (securities, real estate, etc. …) but can be avoided by 1 several software programs of the money brokers currency, the program will notify you in on exactly before making order. You are allowed to choose to accept or avoid risk. Ability to account Forex market wider to the ability to match orders with high quality.

Transactions are confirmed immediately and transactions over the Internet in just 1 copy of the screen computers to record all the activities of transactions. Many people believe that characteristics of the transaction by the Internet more secure than using the phone for transactions. The famous manufacturers such as Charles Schwab, Quick and Reilly $ M Warehouse proposed transactions over the Internet.

They will not risk their reputation if Internet service is not reliable and safe. In situations appear issues technical, computer temporarily stopped work, but with the system set order (ordering) of the broker (broker), the transaction can immediately call for broker to enter or exit from the transaction.

Computer system of the broker (broker Internet) are protected by firewalls to keep information about your account without observation. Concern largest broker is the safety of your account. They must perform several steps to exclude any danger which go by the trade on the Internet.

A Forex transactions on the Internet is not calling for broker. The exclusion intermediary (broker salesman) reduce costs, making the process more quickly placed orders and limited ability to misunderstandings.

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As concentration (Focus): Instead of trying to 1 stock, 1 instrument, mutual funds or property from tens of thousands of things available on the market, the Forex transactions only focus on 1 to 4 money. The contract to change and to include Japanese Yen, the UK, and Switzerland and the Euro. Those transactions are highly successful people focus on the number of investment restrictions. The beginners Forex usually 1 to focus on money and then combine from 1 to 3 in active trading.
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As the trend (Trendiness): In 1 time history, currency has confirmed the trend is important. Each money has "character" of its own and made only 1 trend, regardless of the transaction opportunities in diverse market characteristics Forex.

All orders must be placed through the floor transactions. For currency transactions you need 1 floor trading Forex currency. Most companies dealing with the requirements of deposit accounts vary. You need to ask them the requirements of deposit account if you want to join monetary transactions through the floor of their transactions.

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Next lession ………….. waiting

My English is not good, thanks.

Forex is the acronym of the phrase Foreign Exchange: exchange foreign currency or foreign currency, also abbreviated as FX or spot FX. This is the financial markets of the world’s largest, with the amount of cash transactions per day was up to 1.95 billion USD thousand (2006). If you compare the stock market New York USD 25 billion transactions per day, you will be able to imagine this market is huge how.

Market exchange foreign currency (Forex) market is the currency of the bank was established in 1971 when the exchange rate was floated Famous specific chemical. Market is a range of activities in which currency of each country were discussed with each other and a place to carry out business internationally.

Forex is a group of approximately 4,500 organizations currency transactions, the international banks, the banking center of government and commercial companies. The pay for the import / export as well as the purchase or sale of assets must be through the market exchange foreign currency. This is called market exchange foreign currency "consumption". There is also the first paragraph of the Forex company that is the exposure of finance to the wider economy in a foreign country involved in Forex to offset risks of investing internationally.

Goods in the market, Forex

forex.jpgVay "goods" of the market What is FOREX? The answer is money. Forex transactions are active transaction to buy a certain amount of money and sold a number of other funds by the same time. Money transactions are through brokers or directly by each pair; for example, pairs EUR / USD or GBP / JPY.

Activities FOREX transactions can be complicated for many people because they can not purchase any end-anything in the market. You could simply think of buying 1 Dong money as it does to buy shares of 1 country. When you buy the Japanese Yen, you are impacted foreign currency exchange rates of Japan and indirectly on the Japanese Economy, by the value of the money is a reflection assessment of the market on "health" at present and in the future of a country.

Overview, exchange rates of a currency compared with a currency other is a reflection of the elements of an economy when compared with other economies.

Unlike other markets such as financing, FOREX does not have a financial center or any transaction. Forex market is a market "bank", and based on electronic transactions between systems connect banks with each other, and work 24 hours a day,

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Now go on my lession………………………..

What is money transactions?

7 types of money transactions are most often the market is: Dollar, Euro, Yen, British Pounds Sterling, Franc. Signed all kinds of money, including 3 letters, in the Grade 2 letters first is an abbreviation for the name of national letters and finally the name of the kind of money transactions

When the transaction occurs?

FOREX market is very special compared with other markets around the world. It is similar to that of 1 supermarket Wal-Mart where people can in 24 hours a day. And in such a place in the world, active transactions will take place through the buying and selling foreign currency with banks, in all of the time zone day and night, and only stopped running in a short time last week . You can trade any time during the day depending on what you get in the habit of working the night or morning.

Forex Market

Forex market has been beyond all other markets to become the financial market’s largest and most popular in the world, the transactions by millions of individuals and international organizations. Here, participants will decide the transaction, depending on conditions, prices and prestige of the object.

Chart below shows operating foreign exchange transactions worldwide. USD is the currency transactions are primarily, to be EURO and Japanese Yen standing position 3.

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12 Dec 08 Forex Basic for newbie (Part 2) - Objects involved Forex

Now go on my lession………………………..

Objects involved Forex

During 10 years ago, only the "giant ga" to join a new market was. Conditions for the minimum if you want to transactions during that period that you must have from 10 to 50 million USD to start. FOREX was born at the beginning aims to meet the needs of banks and companies in the industry giant, is not the "chang tí hon". However, with the support of kì di?u Internet, the system transactions online, the company’s transactions have been formed to allow open accounts "odd" to us. Today, the brokers in the market are allowed to break the unit transactions large and allow the transaction Small opportunity to buy and sell any number of any of these values less than this (lots).

Commercial banks have 2 roles in Forex Market

1. Make transactions between the two sides became easier, for example, the companies want to exchange currency (consumers).
2. By the beginning of the buy and sell currency. Bank has role in the currency because certain people believe in the future they will have a higher price (if you buy storage) and lower (if sold soon). People statistics that 70% of the annual income of the international bank was born at the beginning of the currency. The top of the other includes the transaction was successful in the world for example, George Soros.

3 types of Forex include central banks of other countries like bank reserves federal America. Forex their participation to ensure that financial benefits of their country. When central banks buy and sell currency or foreign currency, the purpose is to maintain value for money of their countries.

Forex is very broad and there are many people involved, not a person, only banking center of the new government can control the market. Compare with the level of transactions daily average of 300 billion capital market bond and the government about 100 billion to do transactions on the stock market, the U.S. Forex is very large because the pass rate was 1.9 thousand billion capital per day ( 2006).

Means to participate in market

The word "market" is the name gently mistake in describing Forex transactions. No position money_coin.jpgtrung center for active transactions, as it has in the currency market in the future. Transactions are carried out by telephone and through computers at hundreds of locations around the world. Most transactions were carried out between about 300 international banks where large property transactions for large companies, governments and for their account. The bank continues to provide prices ( "bid" to buy and "ask" for sale) with each other and with the broader market. Only the most recent numbers from 1 in the bank was seen as the current price in the market of that money. The services report separate data provide different information about price "directly" through the internet.

All you need when the transaction is a computer, Internet connection, and the information market.

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14 Jan 09 Start with Forex - Part 1

Forex is an abbreviation for "Foreign Exchange" also called "FOREX" or "Cash FX (FX Spot) or the" Cash "(Spot) is a market-in-hand to foreign currency-largest -World. Flowers-in period, average per day to about 30 billion dollars (30 billion) purchase exchange-change-on-entry of the New York Stock Exchange, but if so-match we will see this number still no larger than about the thousands of under 3 billion (3 trillion) buying and selling exchange-currency-exchange across the World-World (Foreign Exchange Currencies). The so-match was for us to see the Forex market-how great!

We then imagine a simple Forex, such as when we go to tourism-calendar or a European country that we need to change from-conversion of foreign-currency of the countries of our foreign -currency country’s local, so easy for us to-use. Forex is the "foreign-exchange currency" such that, just as our other hand-on the computer, we do not need to go where all! The more we exchange foreign currency to make profits not the money to drink.

A good-more like, for example-we are U.S. $ 100 (money-currency-term U.S.). We used U.S. $ 100 to change the money into Yen (money-currency of Japan).

-For example: * At the time 12:00 AM-points 10 months 06 days in 2007, U.S. $ 100 required to change the 12,362 Japanese Yen (U.S. $ 1 = 123.62 Japanese Yen). After the rules-change complete, we now no longer-at U.S. $ 100 in the bag again, we are 12,362 Japanese Yen.

* Then, at 12:00 AM 30 months 12, 2007, we used the 12,362 Japanese Yen are to change back into the USD. At this time because the value of the USD value is lost, so the rules-change against USD, from 12,362 Japanese Yen, we are to change the U.S. $ 122.00 (because at this rate 1USD = only change is 101.32 Japanese Yen ). So as we are a U.S. $ 22. (122 USD - 100 USD = 22 USD).