Munich/Berlin  - Travellers to the United States have been advised to check the new regulations about online registration as early as possible.

Since January 12, travellers to the US from countries that are part of the Visa Waiver Program must go to https://esta. cbp. dhs. gov and obtain pre-authorisation by filling out an online form.

Munich  - It's hard to be 100 per cent consistent. Computer operating systems are no different. The Mac OS tends to be very easy to use, particularly for users who don't need to make major changes to their system. Yet, some programme types just aren't often made for the Mac. One way to circumvent this is virtualisation.

"Virtualisation involves one computer with additional virtual computers running on it, each independent of one another," explains Sven Ahnert, an IT expert and technical book author. The interesting aspect is that no additional hardware is required. With the right software, one standard Mac OS X machine can also run Windows XP.

There's a bit of a dearth of tax and finance programs like Quicken for the Mac OS, for example.

Munich  - The German state of Bavaria demanded Friday that a British publishing company stop reprinting Nazi-period newspapers.

The educational reprints of the hate press have become best sellers in a nation where most people under 80 have never seen Nazi propaganda in the raw and those over
80 do not want to talk about it.

Albertas Ltd hired German historians to annotate the facsimiles and underline the methods of Nazi propaganda. The new weekly series, using papers from the 1930s and
1940s, is aimed at the general public and schools.

Munich  - Lukas Podolski's return to Cologne from Bayern Munich is expected to be finalized next week, officials from both clubs said after a meeting on Wednesday.

"The final decision will come next week. There is a clear tendency towards Cologne," Munich general manager Uli Hoeness told the website of the Bild daily.

Cologne general manager Michael Maier also said that Podolski's future will be decided "early next week."

Munich - Cologne have moved closer to meeting Bayern Munich's transfer fee demands for unsettled striker Lukas Podolski, Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is reported as saying Thursday.

"Everything is looking good. I am confident it will work out," Rummenigge is quoted as saying in the daily tz newspaper.

Bayern want a fee of 10 million euros (13.5 million dollars) for Podolski who would like to return to his former club after failing to establish a first-team place at the German champions.

Munich  - Big sisters could write a song about it, and little brothers could too: Sometimes siblings truly get on each others' nerves, especially when they share a bedroom.

But with a few tricks, the room can be arranged so that both children feel comfortable.

"These days when belts have to be tightened, not everyone has enough space to give every child his or her own room," said author and style consultant Jana Jung of Munich. That does not have to be disadvantageous.