The microblogging service Twitter has announced that it will not allow any third party to insert advertisements in user timelines. The company has also upgraded its Terms of Service in regard to use of Twitter API.

According to the blog post, there are two key reasons. “Firstly, third party ad networks are not necessarily looking to preserve the unique user experience Twitter has created…”. Secondly “the basis for building a lasting advertising network that benefits users should be innovation, not near-term monetization.”

After the notification, its own Promoted Tweets will no longer have any competition from the third-party ad networks. Also, this ban is only meant for paid-for-tweets inserted in the user timelines, not against the ads shown on the Twitter timelines.

Celebrating the bumpy ride of America Online's first quarter century of existence.

This week marks the 25th anniversary of America Online, the company that once upon a time flooded the world with free disks, in order to get people to sign up. At one point, during the early years of the Web, a few misguided pundits believed that AOL would eventually kill the Internet itself. It was that popular.

Of course, being a juggernaut in the early 1990s meant having half a million users. The company grew from one million users in 1995 to five million in 1996. That pattern continued until 2002, when the service hit 26.7 million users in the US alone.

Microsoft seems to be everywhere open source is lately.

This week, Microsoft signed the Joomla! Contributor Agreement and handed over some code. Earlier this month, Microsoft sent folks to DrupalCon to talk about the release of the latest SQL Server Driver for PHP (and those representatives were asked every five minutes why they were at DrupalCon).

Last month, Microsoft representatives spoke at the Open Source Business Conference about how it needed to include open source in its "ecosystem" and, separately, announced the open source Microsoft Biology Foundation program.

The Joomla Project has proudly announced the immediate availability of Joomla 1.6 beta (download).IMPORTANT NOTE: This is a beta version and is not intended to run any type of production site. It is intended to be used for evaluation purposes only.

The following is the press release.

Joomla! 1.6 Beta Released – Download the World’s Leading PHP-based Content Management System and Easily Build Websites and Online Applications

New York, New York, May 17, 2010 –  The Joomla Project, a free, award-winning PHP-based content management system that enables users to build websites and powerful online applications, today announced the beta release of Joomla 1.6. Designed to offer enhanced site control and a more polished user experience, Joomla 1.6 will deliver a variety of new tools to improve website management and access, a more robust organizational structure for content control, and various other user-experience improvements throughout the software.

Google pleased millions with its Pac-Man 30th anniversary game. But others just want the pixel muncher to go away.

Google had a big surprise yesterday: A fully playable Pac-Man 30th anniversary game built into its homepage. Here at the Monitor, we joked that this clever birthday present to a true arcade classic would result in hundreds of thousands of lost man-hours as office productivity ground to a halt. Reading through the 50-plus comments left below our Friday story, seems we were right.

"Reporting from South Africa," writes Monitor reader Thuto. "Office productivity down by 60%, bandwidth usage down by 80%, only page visited, www.google.com."

Facing growing protests over its handling of users' personal information, Facebook plans to make changes to the privacy settings available on the world's largest social networking website. But the steps, to be unveiled as early as next week, may not go as far as critics would like.

Lawmakers, regulators, privacy watchdogs and some Facebook users have unleashed a storm of criticism of the Internet company since it launched a program that shares user data with three third-party websites. A number of U.S. senators have called on Facebook to allow users to opt out of that program, which Facebook calls instant personalization.

The 6-year-old private company also has been assailed for technical glitches and loopholes that have exposed some personal data to third parties.

Microsoft has revealed details of a new version of its Messenger chat application, along with the launch of Messenger Connect, which is aimed at web developers looking to create applications for partner sites.

The company said in a blog post that the releases include tighter integration with social networking sites and better quality video.

There’s a lot to love about the Windows 7 operating system: it’s fast, it looks great, and it has some cool features--like Jump Lists for quickly opening recently used files, Homegroup for sharing files between computers, and Aero Snap to help you quickly organize your open desktop windows.

Windows 7 is addresses some of the problems that plagued its predecessor, Windows Vista, such as the Universal Access Control security system, the constant stream of notifications, and the lack of device drivers for printers and other peripherals.

Microsoft hasn’t solved all of those issues--in fact, getting Windows 7 drivers for some printers continues to be a struggle--but so far Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista, despite their underlying similarities.

It is available free of cost because Mercantile, which is maintaining primary name service for NP is providing this service free of cost and will remain so as long as Mercantile continues providing it free. MOS-NP doesn't add any cost for the services it provides regarding the domain registrations.

• Domain registrations under .NP ccTLD is free of cost.
• Domains are registered on a first-come-first-serve basis but terms and conditions apply.
• Domains can be registered only under the following secondary NP domains: COM.NP, ORG.NP, EDU.NP NET.NP, GOV.NP and MIL.NP
• Foreign companies are required to have an official presence in Nepal as a joint venture, partnership, agent, or a licensee in order to qualify to register a domain. Official documents to prove the presence will have to be submitted with the application.
• It may take at least 2 working day to get your domain/s registered or modified. Though it may take longer sometimes depending on the number of pending requests.
• Check the availability of the domain/s
• Submit the registration template from the site www.mos.com.np with all the required information.Your service provider company can be consulted for technical information in the template.
• Review the information for accuracy before submitting.

Information for .np Domain Registration