This was too funny to resist putting up. One of those things that you won’t forget when you’re the one trying to explain things with people who don’t know computers or the internet outside of myspace. The scenario is trevor has a trojan on his computer that displays porn pop-ups. Should it be cleaned with antivirus or spyware? I dunno, I hadn’t personally seen it so I told him to get both.

(10:01 PM) Alex Chernikov: but the weird thing is
(10:01 PM) Alex Chernikov: if you actually type out your msn password for your account into the messenger window, it’ll turn into a bunch of stars
(10:01 PM) Alex Chernikov: ******
(10:01 PM) Alex Chernikov: see?
(10:02 PM) Alex Chernikov: i hate that
(10:02 PM) trevor stewart: weird
(10:02 PM) Alex Chernikov: my password is actually pretty common to type
(10:02 PM) Alex Chernikov: like a common word
(10:02 PM) Alex Chernikov: so whenever i want to say ******, it turns out in stars
(10:02 PM) Alex Chernikov: ******!!!!
(10:02 PM) Alex Chernikov: gah
(10:03 PM) trevor stewart: lol
(10:03 PM) Alex Chernikov: didnt fall for that one, now did ya?
(10:04 PM) trevor stewart: stop it! it is pc genius vs. pc literate….of course i’ll believe you
(10:04 PM) Alex Chernikov: illiterate
(10:04 PM) Alex Chernikov: ok, change that
(10:04 PM) trevor stewart: hey…i’m not dumb…..i’m average
(10:05 PM) Alex Chernikov: yes, you know how to use myspace and you only get trojans once in a while
(10:05 PM) Alex Chernikov: makes you quite average id say
(10:05 PM) trevor stewart: lol thanks

…some time later…

(10:23 PM) Alex Chernikov: on the other hand, those popups will stop you from getting on myspace in class
(10:24 PM) Alex Chernikov: which equals better grades
(10:24 PM) Alex Chernikov: nothing will help you trev, not even reformatting your computer
(10:24 PM) Alex Chernikov: sorry, its a lost cause
(10:24 PM) trevor stewart: really
(10:24 PM) Alex Chernikov: better luck next time?
(10:24 PM) Alex Chernikov: and the trojan is airborn
(10:25 PM) Alex Chernikov: so every laptop that enters your house that you think about using for myspace at college will get that infectious trojan disease
(10:25 PM) Alex Chernikov: and the hardrive will fill up at the brink of destruction
(10:26 PM) trevor stewart: are you serious?
(10:26 PM) trevor stewart: plz say no
(10:26 PM) Alex Chernikov: WTF!?!
(10:26 PM) Alex Chernikov: AIRBORN TROJAN!!!

Ah yes, indeed, on the subject of free hosts yet again, and things that I thought would change from last time. If it’s too good to be true in terms of hosting, there has to be a catch somewhere. Somewhere indeed…

The hosting service starts out good
It’s just too good to be true, and they’re still on the internet! First things first – check how long the host has been operating and see how their uptime has been (just because the host says their uptime has been 99.5% or higher doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way). Get to know your host, see how many servers they have running and in which part of the country (stay the heck away from Florida and places that have hurricanes – water + electronics = BAD JUJU!). I don’t know how many times I’ve signed up for a host only to find a week later that there are SQL connection errors, slow load times, or even extreme downtime that goes on for days. And then the host just shuts down and takes all of your files with them (luckily if you know the concept of free hosting, you also tend to know the concept of backing things up).

Ads are evil, even with Firefox and AdBlock
Well, that is, unless you don’t mind them. Problem is, I do! And so do many other people. If your website isn’t selling products with the advertisements that are put up, it’s usually a bad thing. And when your host forces those ads on you, that’s just pure agony (and some ads make it worse with flashing colors and annoying roll down menus). There are only a few ads out there even worth looking at from a designers perspective, the rest suck. Which brings me to my point – if your host makes you put up ads, or even worse, forces them on each page, move to another host. Ads will mess up layouts, destroy any chances of returning visitors, and will make your site look less than professional.

Bandwidth and Space limitations
The more the better (in terms of actual space and bandwidth)…but do you really need that much anyways? My blog actually consists of less than 10megs worth of files. But I always look to the future, and since I’m going to start hosting files and such, I expect my host to be able to hold that up. And even if you only have one 5 mb file being hosted, and that file just got “dugg”, its pretty much DoS for the host in general, paid or free (in most general cases). And if the host doesn’t go down, your bandwidth will go up and strike you upside the head. The worst website is the one that you can’t even see (arguably the one that doesn’t exist). Free hosting may be good for now, but not for later.

Free hosting and free support just doesn’t come hand in hand
There are exceptions, but generally, if you have a free host, you’re not going to get any kind of support. Sure, some people don’t even need support, but if something on your site goes haywire with something that you can’t fix (say something with an SQL connection or FTP going down), you absolutely need to communicate to the support/webmaster to get it fixed. Even for paid hosts, make sure you’re getting proper support, check it before even signing any sort of deals. Ask them for a trial hosting service for a couple of days to check out support response times.

So basically, the main thing I’m trying to get at here is don’t rely on free web hosting because it will actually cost you something in the long run.
Want a free web hosting service? Get any kind of computer, install Ubuntu LAMP on it, hook it up to a 256kb+ line, and there’s a free reliable start for you. Ok sure, it costs you a computer and your internet connection, but isn’t that what you use anyways to read this blog? Maybe then, you can start up your very own free hosting service for others as well and see exactly how all those other free hosts are doing it!

So you have a MySpace account, just like everyone else – the first thing you pretty much want to do with it is make it “unique”. You pull out a template and stick it on to your account. Except, you probably didn’t make the template, so someone else on the internet is probably using the same one, but nonetheless it works. Then someone goes and posts a bulletin about “MySpace Trackers” and how you can see who visited your website and when. All you have to do is post some code into your template or activate it or download something. But the real question is – does it work?

The simple answer is no – there is no accurate way of knowing who visited your page using a MySpace tracker, unless you employ some very tricky tactics (which I shall cover in the technical part of this post).

So what about all the claims of MySpace trackers and how they really work and so on? Most of the sites are made purely to obtain sensitive information, such as your MySpace username and password, and store it into a database. Some are made just for the purpose of spam (repost bulletins). Some can actually have some “tracking” ability, but nothing too complex, as I shall get to in the technical section. Some do all three.

How can you tell if a MySpace tracker is legitimate, at least with the minor tracking that it does? There are a couple of guidelines you may want to follow:
1. There is no innate ability with MySpace to track who has visited your profile – any site that says it can “activate” that feature is a fraud. These sites usually ask for your username and password to your MySpace account.
2. With other sites, never register with the same email and/or(preferably and) password that you have for your MySpace account. Or if asked for your email/profile ID, just don’t give the same password.

So, the Technical Part:
Here are the things you can track with a legit MySpace Tracker (or any kind of SiteCounter/Meter service) –
1. IP Address – the unique Internet Address that your ISP assigns to every computer (or if you have DSL/Cable, it assigns it to your router/modem). An example would be something like the one I have now: 65.103.130.10 (You can check yours here). IP addresses will change constantly unless you have a static IP address (which most people don’t), especially if you have dialup internet like AOL. This makes it somewhat harder to determine who is who when you’re trying to track them. This is probably the most useful piece of info but only if you know what to do with it. You can whois the IP address to see the ISP using DNSStuff which will give you the name of their ISP. Problem is that usually there’s only two good ISP’s in a certain city and everyone is using them. But it can be like 20 questions, it’ll narrow the list down a tiny bit (you have to know who is using what ISP as well). Then, there is a second tactic that’ll give you more precise info but will require more effort on your part. What you do is get a certain person to visit a certain page that only they can access. This includes messages, emails, and comments if the user requires comments to be previewed before they are posted. What you do is insert a different tracking code into a message or comment (I use different “invisible” images that are hosted on my server), check the IP address of the user once they load the image, and then compare that IP to the other IP’s of people who have visited your page. This is the best way to track someone, but it may be somewhat inaccurate just because:
   a. IP addresses change constantly
   b. 65.103.130.10 can be used by me for one day, and then given to someone else (reusable in a way, so a person can think that it’s me who’s accessing their site, but it isn’t)
   c. If the user is using a public terminal or Wi-Fi connection, their IP address will not be the same (unless they use it constantly, and still, it’ll be used by other people)
2. Browser Headers (Referrers) – Basically which page the user is coming from. Unfortunately, with most trackers, you’ll notice that most referrers come from your profile page because usually a tracker has you insert a code with an image or flash content. Each time the image or flash is loaded into a web browser, the server that is called to get the image records your IP address and your referrer (along with the time you accessed it and other info, depending on how good the tracker is). Since the image is on your page, when the browser asks for the image from the server, it sends the referrer information from the current URL it just came from – which technically is the page that you put the image on. With JavaScript counters, you can actually see what page they came from before that (if their browser is set to send referrer headers – most are), but MySpace does not allow JavaScript for good reason. The only thing you can get from the referrer then is just the user’s MySpace “MyToken” value – which serves absolutely no point in regards to tracking a person (it may be useful for something else besides a way for MySpace to store info in cookies, but no one has found it yet or never will). So the referrer is pretty useless.
3. The time the page was accessed/how many times it was accessed – It’ll give you info on how many times your page was loaded and when. You might be able to use this if you constantly look on your logs and compare the times your page was loaded to who was online on MySpace at the time it was loaded. Frankly, people can choose to turn off their “online” status in their profile, so you’d never know. And if two or more people are online at the same time, good luck trying to find out who it was.
4. Browser Type / OS – Are they using Firefox or Intercrap Explorer? Using Windows as an OS? How about Mac or Linux (on a sidenote, I recommend Ubuntu)? Again, you have to know who likes to use what.

SiteMeter/Counter/Tracker Services
» Site Meter – Great service, MySpace compatible, displays a button on your page.
» Stat Counter – Again, great service, needs to be tweaked a bit for MySpace, generally invisible tracker.
» Use your own server that will generate logs – IIS is included into most Windows XP Pro computers. Then there’s Apache that can be used for Linux as well as Windows.

Other MySpace tips
1. If I didn’t mention this a hundred times already – never give out your MySpace password! Or I guess you can if you want to, it’s your account, not mine.
2. You never have to repost bulletins to “activate” features. There is no way that “Tom” or whoever will track your bulletins.
3. Use common sense. If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

EDIT: Update
After further research, there are some sites that can track who visited your profile IF and only if both the person who is tracking you and the person being tracked are signed up for the same service that provides “specialized” myspace tracking. If you’re not part of the tracking site, you will just simply be labeled as “anonymous” to the person who is tracking you and you’re basically back to square one.

Original Article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=33130

ONCE-MIGHTY DELL ended up in court in May charged with ripping off its customers in Washington State, USofA, to the tune of $24 million in sales tax. The court ordered that every penny should be repaid.

The case slipped under the INQ’s radar, so we’re grateful to Bob Sullivan over at MSNBC for sniffing out the facts.

As Bob says, in the connected world the consumer relies on the operators of a web site to apply the correct taxes on purchases, especially if you’re dealing with a big, um, reputable outfit like Dell.

The overcharging occurred from 1999 to 2005, during which period some 470,000 customers in Washington State were affected.

And one lawyer in the affair reckons that when cases in other states are looked into Dell could be looking at a final bill in the order of $100 million.

But, since Dell claims to have made an honest mistake in Washington, it says it will have already handed the cash over to the Washington taxmen.

Lawyer Rick Ellis, however, doubted Dell’s word and, in Massachusetts, filed suit under the state’s deceptive trade practices law.

The taxes relate to maintenance contracts, warranties and the like and the different taxation levels applied to different sorts of contract.

Maintenance contracts attract sales tax because the maintainer actually has to do some work to honour them. Extended warranties are treated like insurance policies because like most insurance policies the insurer usually has to do nothing except take the money and run.

Dell, it seems, charged sales tax on warranties and like and so ended up in the current pickle.

The Washington State class action is the only one yet settled. Further class actions could follow in a number of other states, although one suit in Maine has already been dismissed.

Here’s a tip that I give to anyone and everyone regarding purchasing computers: ALWAYS BUY IT ON EBAY! Yes, there are risks with buying computers from online sources, but its almost always worth it. I bought my Inspiron 9300 more than half a year ago for about $1600 on eBay; looking at the current catalog that Dell just sent to our house, my computer (if it was still new) would still be worth $1700 at the Dell store. On eBay, my laptop is now worth about $1300. Get the picture?

Firstly, my new laptop had arrived on the 20th of December, and here are the specs:

Inspiron 9300 – Intel® Pentium® M Processor 760 (2GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Display – 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen UXGA Display with TrueLife™
Memory – 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm
Video Card – 256MB NVIDA® GeForce™ Go 6800
Hard Drive – 100GB 5400rpmHard Drive
Operating System (Office software not included) – Genuine Windows® XP Media Center Edition 2005
Network Card – Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software – Adobe® Acrobat® Pro 7.0, Adobe® InDesign® CS2, Adobe® Photoshop® CS2, Adobe® Illustrator® CS2
CD/DVD Drives – 8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Wireless Networking Card – Intel® PRO 2200 and Dell 350 Bluetooth Internal Wireless Cards
Office Software (not included in Windows XP) – Corel WordPerfect word processor, Microsoft® Office 2003 Pro
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) – Symantec AntiVirus 9.0
Primary Battery – 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery (53 WHr)
Hardware Warranty – 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
Dial-Up Internet Access – 6 Months of America Online Membership Included
Digital Imaging – Corel Photo Album™ 6 Starter Edition, Adobe® ImageReady
Miscellaneous – Award Winning Service & Support
Operating System Backup & Recovery – PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
Media Center Enhancements – Remote Control for Windows XP Media Center Edition

That 256mb video card really kicks serious kicking places, and the speed of the entire thing is phenomenal. It was quite pricy, though.

Secondly, a nice article on dating computer geeks. The fact that it’s almost entirely true makes a nice bonus.

http://www.completeevil.com/geek.html

And lastly, the essay that I submitted for a scholarship on how technology will advance within the next 50 years. I never really covered that 50 years part well, but instead I inserted great 1984 ideas. It’s not like anyone really reads the essays anyways, I think…

Technology has advanced at a great rate throughout the nineteenth century and continues to grow in both power and speed. Simple mathematical calculations that took hours on the first computer model now take milliseconds to figure on a modern computer. Information is transferred at phenomenal speeds from computer to computer; at the current rate of technological advance, computers will be able to access terabytes of information within databases in mere seconds. Any news, past or present, will be available to anyone who needs it, in any form of media (text, images, or video). Paper books will be replaced by electronic documents or devices and libraries turned into storage areas for servers and e-books. Technology will also be easier to use and be more user-friendly for those who are not technologically apt. More people will be able to work at home from their laptop or desktop computers while achieving the same level of productivity. Cars and other automobiles will have advanced GPS systems that will auto-pilot the car to its destination with less of a chance for collision and avoid other road hazards as well. The issue of privacy will ultimately deter the advance of technology in some aspects, such as recording all the information about a person in one common database (records like current address, phone number, occupation, salary, crimes committed, etc.). If privacy were not an issue, there will most likely be cameras in every room recording every second of everybody’s life. This will be an advantage to the crime fighting force to determine who committed which crime and when. A person’s statement may no longer mean anything, as technology will take the place to determine the truth. This level of technology will not take away anyone’s freedom, but it will make others aware of exactly what people are doing with their “free” time. The advance in technology will aid the field of medical practice, not only with information of current discovered diseases, but also with a method of curing the disease quickly, efficiently, and effectively. Robotic devices could take on the job of the common nurse or of an advanced surgeon. All in all, the advance of technology will bring an advance to society as a whole, making every day tasks of life simpler and more productive.

Oh yeah, to carry on the tradition of computer naming, I have given a name to my laptop. My first computer, Trevor (still runs well, only with 98, though). My second computer, Tanya (still a great computer for any sort of gaming, even with the most intensive games like Call of Duty; now it is owned by my parents). And my third computer, which is my laptop, is named…

…

…oh monkeys, I just remembered that I have homework in about three classes that I need to do, including a stupid 8th grade collage for Family Living. Monkeys. On drugs.

Here’s a little report I did on Linux and the distributions. For a class report, of course, but may be useful to the outside world:

Linux Distributions

Linux is a computer operating system originally made by Linus Torvalds and was released for public use in September 1991. Since then, Linux has been reworked, modified, and improved by thousands of developers. Today, there are many distributions of Linux floating around on the Internet that are made to do specific tasks and work on various computer models.

What is so good about having Linux as an operating system? One of the main reasons that people use it is because it is free. Unlike the Windows operating system made by Microsoft Corp., which will not allow you to redistribute or modify the contents (i.e. its main kernel or other system files), Linux is a free open-source project which will allow you to take it’s kernel, rework anything you want in it to suit your needs, and then either sell it or redistribute it freely. In addition to that, Linux is also very reliable and stable, meaning that you will not receive many unknown errors while you are working or while you are running it as a server. Having virtually no trojans or viruses that can do damage to the Linux OS, the operating system can now boast in superiority over the Windows OS, which has well over 1,000 viruses that can invade it’s system (if not more). When comparing user-friendliness of the two OS’s, Windows will stomp on any Linux distribution out there. Putting it into perspective, the Windows OS was made for the people who really don’t know anything about computers all the way to the advanced computer users. Linux, however, is mainly for people who actually know how to use a computer, run applications, and possibly know a thing or two about how to work in command-line mode. Microsoft Corp. also has a huge support center with people ready to take your questions and help you out with installation, error messages, and other computer-related topics. However, if you are using Linux, there are a few places to go on the Internet and ask questions, but generally, you are on your own. Software compatibility is yet another issue, as some products that work with Windows will not work with Linux and vice versa. However, Linux users can download an emulator that acts as an emulated OS and run programs with it. They can also install Linux on a computer with a different OS (making them coexist) and switch between them whenever they feel like it.

Out of all the Linux distributions out on the Internet, the most popular and most used distribution is the Red Hat Linux, which is now split into two distributions: Fedora Core and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Red Hat Linux is very easy to install, has a good user-interface (especially with that of Fedora Core), and has pretty good tech support. In addition to that, it also has a good combination of packages (software) built into it, and is fairly well sized in terms of downloading. Another popular distribution is the Debian, which has the most packages (8,710 to be exact) out of any other distribution, is compatible with virtually all hardware types, and has a fairly good support system. Unfortunately, since it is the largest Linux distribution out there, it becomes quite a hefty download. Furthermore, once installed with standard packages, the packages and kernel can take up to 800MB of space (2GB with all packages, some of which are unnecessary). Debian systems can also take a while to setup and run. The other popular distribution is known as Slackware Linux. Slackware Linux is the oldest distribution and its main focus is on security and stability. The main idea behind Slackware was KISS a.k.a. Keep It Simple, Stupid, which made this distribution into focussing on the system design instead of the ease of use. Thus, this distribution was made for the more knowledgeable computer user, not for the n00b. Some users of Slackware have stated, “When you know Slackware, you know Linux…when you know Red Hat, all you know is Red Hat.”

All in all, not including privately made/redistributed versions of Linux, there is somewhere over a hundred different distributions of Linux out on the Internet. Each version of Linux serves a certain purpose; a distribution fit for a workstation may not be very good to use as a server. A good list of distributions and their purposes can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution#General-purpose_distributions and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_distribution#Special-purpose_distributions.

If anyone ever asks a question such as, “Is there a particular distribution that would work best with a PIII PC that only has a 4 Gig HD and maybe only 128M of RAM? If so why?” the answer that turns up is quite clear – any popular distribution of Linux is fully capable of working with that computer. Even Debian, fully packed with all of its features, will only take up to 800MB of hard drive space and a minimum of 12MB of memory. The question then becomes, “Which distribution has more cool features in it that we can play around with while the teacher isn’t looking?” Debian Linux, with all of its nice packages and customizability, is the obvious choice.

This tutorial is obsolete and the links were broken. Furthermore there was an iframe embedded here back from the blogger days. The horror. Needless to say, you’re not missing much here.