Hawk’s Babble-Log

<rant>

Here’s some nomenclature for ya: When you load a page, the page loads (it does not fresh). Then, after that, if you want to load it again, you reload the page. There is no “refresh”.

You don’t “fresh” a page, and then “refresh” it. You load the page, then reload it. “Refresh” is what you do in the shower after a workout. Like, “Dang! You better get in that there shower with a whole lotta soap and refresh yourself!”

This “fresh a page” idea came from Microsoft and their “Internet Explorer” web browser. Maybe they were trying to be different. Who knows what they were thinking.

Anyway, if you hit Ctrl-R, you’ll be reloading the page, not refreshening anything.

</rant>

This post has a lot of images. Why? Because I wanted to show what is involved in installing a CPU cooler like this one. Actually, once I started, it didn’t take very long; did it in one evening and finished before bedtime. Who knows… maybe this will be useful to someone!

Here, I’ve removed the original plastic bracket which surrounds the CPU socket. This bracket was used to lock down the original heatsink & CPU fan. See previous game machine posts for detailed pictures of the motherboard and CPU as I assemble them together into the case.

Here, I’ve removed the metal bracket which lays across the CPU on the back of the motherboard. When buying this CPU cooler, I had no idea it would entail removing the entire original brackets. Well, live and learn.

Here are the parts, old and new. Near top-right are the old back-bracket, front-bracket, and heatsink with fan. The new brackets are below, and the new heat-sink is the huge tower of heatpipes and heatfins near center, the Thermalright Ultima90. Bottom is the new fan, way too big but what the heck, let’s see if it fits anyway. It glows evil red, you’ll see, keep reading. That screwdriver, by the way, is one of the most useful screwdrivers I’ve ever used; you can find it at Thinkgeek.

Here, I’ve got the new back-plate installed. It was easy. The instructions which come with it are pretty good, but the stuff they’ve got online is better.

The new support posts are visible here. I’ve already removed all the old thermal paste from the CPU. I used paper towels or small squares of toilet paper to get it off. Be careful with the stuff, the tiniest spec may short out your motherboard There is no new plastic bracket which surrounds the whole CPU area. You’ll see, keep reading…

Here, I’ve put the new thermal paste on, Arctic Silver 5. Good stuff. I used the flat edge of the knife pictured here (it’s not good for much else as it has a tendency to close on your fingers when prying with it). Be sure to spread it nice and thin. Also, you may notice that the two new side-brackets are installed on the posts from the back-plate.

Here, I’ve got the new thermal paste on the bottom of the CPU cooler tower of heatfins and heatpipes. Spread it nice and thin, as even as you can. Use a square of toilet paper or tissue paper to wipe up any excess.

Finally, the new gigantic tower of heatpipes and heatfins (Thermalright Ultima90) is installed on the CPU with plenty of thermal paste, (Arctic Silver 5). I call this tower the “Tower of Coolness”. Makes the motherboard look small. Hell, it makes everything else in my case look small! I had concerns that the side of my case wouldn’t fit. As it turns out, this is sort-of true. You’ll see… wait until I put the huge CPU fan on!

Here’s how the Tower of Coolness is fixed to the top of the CPU. Those two side-screws are connected to the two brackets on either side of the CPU, and those two side-brackets connect to the back-plate. So there is lots of good, solid, non-damaging leverage here. The two side-screws hold down the base of the tower using springs which push down upon a flat cross-bar. The flat cross-bar pushes down upon the top of the base of the tower. This cross-bar piece has a pointed dent in the center, visible in the previous picture, which seats perfectly into the top of the base of the tower. This is the only pressure on the Tower of Coolness, and the only thing holding it onto the CPU. All of these components are visible in this shot. If you look carefully, you can see some of the thermal paste squishing out between the top of the CPU and the bottom of the cooling tower (maybe I put too much on).

Here’s the new CPU fan! It’s huge! It’s taller than the huge stack of heatpipes & heatfins which make up the Tower of Coolness. I think I’m overdoing it a bit here. Oh well, gonna be cool!

Here’s another angle of the new gigantic CPU fan.

Once it’s installed, it will blow air straight up into the power supply’s huge 120mm fan. Perfect.

Here, the mobo has been re-installed in the case, the power supply is also in place, and I’m almost done. Those of you who work with fans like this one may notice that I’ve got it installed backwards; it’s facing down, so it would be sucking air down instead of blowing air up. I realized this mistake and turned it around later on, but didn’t get a picture of it.

Oooo, coool! It’s back in operation and glowing with fantastic red evilness! Everything still works perfectly.

The evil red CPU fan is directly under the tower of coolness, blowing air straight up, where the heat gets sucked through the power supply and out the back of the case. The side of the case no longer fits; the huge 120mm CPU fan sticks out too far. I’ll replace it with a smaller, 80mm fan soon.

OoooOOO! Evil red CPU fan spinning away, good evil glowy red goodness. Just to the right you can still (barely) see the lights on top of the high speed gaming RAM. The blue fan to the left is the one that came with the case, and I’ll be replacing all the original blue fans with red ones soon.

I sure don’t have to worry about my CPU overheating!

This here is the big, bad, ATI Radeon HD 4870. Yep, it’s big, and it’s bad. This card kicks some serious ass. Of course, by the time you’re reading this, it’ll be obsolete/ancient. But right now, it kicks ass and I love it. I got it from mwave.com.

It’s a double-wide card. Even though it only plugs in to one high-speed PCI (x16) slot, it’s so wide that it takes up two slots. This is one of the reasons why I chose the particular motherboard that I did. It’s got room for two of these bad boys. Actually, technically, it can take four, but four double-wides like this one won’t fit.

Yes, those are heat-pipes. This is why it’s double-wide. It’s got heat fins and heat pipes all over the place, and the fan there blows all the heat straight out the back. Nice design, good cooling.

Here’s some info on overclocking this card without buying anything else, but just using the onboard fan:
http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=580

It’s installed, the case side panel is on, the side panel case fan is on (and glowing blue, but soon to be red), and all lights are all on in nifty glowy red goodness. You can see the lights on top of the RAM near the top.

Here’s a better shot, pulled-back a bit more so you can see the whole case. Oh yeah, my new game machine kicks ass. And this new ATI Radeon HD 4870 kicks some serious ass, too! Those red cold cathodes are so bright that they light up my room at night. Who needs a night-light when you’ve got a kick-ass gaming machine with evil-red cold cathodes?

Up next: New CPU cooler with evil-red fan.

Here’s a good article on why I will never buy a Mac:

Apple Faithful: Arrogance Is Not a Virtue, and Why I Will Never Buy a Mac
http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=10209 by Jason Perlow.

Also good history on how Steve Jobs has screwed over others in the past, and isn’t going to stop.

Here, I’ve got pretty much everything ready to go in the case: new power supply, new motherboard with new CPU & RAM, old hard drive and old video card (just to make it work with something). Additionally, I put in both red cold cathodes.

Yet another view of the new cool game machine goodness. You can see the red cold cathodes fixed to the front and bottom of the case. The power box is right next to the one on the bottom, near center, right next to the speaker. This power box powers both cold cathodes.

Here, my new game machine is plugged in, but not yet powered up. Still, the thing has glowing power and reset buttons right on the motherboard! Is that cool or what? I don’t even need to plug it in to a case to turn it on! I love this mobo!

Life! This is a comparison shot between my linux server (green) and the new gaming machine (red). Yes, the linux server was always intended to be green. And yes, the game machine was always intended to be RED. It’s designed for destruction, after all! Destruction of my enemies (both AI and human alike). Muaa aah aaahhh! (evil laugh)

Neither case has the left-side panel installed at this time. The fans are blue because that’s the only option with this case, so I’ll have to get some green and red fans later on.

You may also notice the new high-speed gaming RAM has two little rows of lights on ‘em, red and green! I didn’t even know this when I got it. It’s so cool , they change and flicker with activity! Yes, I also put in a DVD burner drive; how else will I install all my games?

I use the motherboard box to store all the miscellaneous stuff such as cables, adaptors, manuals, screws, unused hardware, etc., when putting together a new system.

Next: New, kick-ass video card.

Autorun is a feature bug in Windows which automatically runs arbitrary programs whenever a CD is inserted in the drive, or when any new USB jumpdrive is inserted into the system.

For example, if I insert my friend’s infected jumpdrive into my Windows machine, and it contains the file AUTORUN.INF in the root of that drive, Windows will run whatever virus is specified in that file, thus infecting my machine. Except that I have autorun turned OFF, so my machine doesn’t get infected, and I am able to delete the AUTORUN.INF file, as well as the virus files on his flash drive.

As far as security is concerned, this is the worst possible bug Microsoft could have ever created (except possibly the semi-automatic virus installer known as Internet Explorer).

How to turn off autorun in Windows XP:

Go here and download Tweak UI (on the right, about half-way down):
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx

This will give you a file called, ‘TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe‘. It’s an installer; run it to install Microsoft Power Toys / TweakUI. No reboot necessary.

Once that’s done, Start Menu -> Programs -> Powertoys for Windows XP -> TweakUI. It looks like this:

In the left pane, click the + next to My Computer, click the + next to AutoPlay, then click on Drives. On the right will be a list of all drive letters possible. Uncheck every single one (with prejudice). It should now look something like this:

Click OK and you’re done!

I see two major things which are wrong here:

1. Microsoft, in an effort to be user-friendly, made this feature bug ON by default. This means that an infected jumpdrive can spread a virus/trojan/malware throughout an office like wildfire. Microsoft wants it like this. Well, they never have been too keen on system security, so that kinda makes sense.

2. Microsoft made it very, very difficult to turn autorun OFF in Windows XP. It didn’t used to be this difficult. In older versions of Windows, you could turn it off from the system control panel. Search the net for instructions, it did not require downloading a utility to do it.

Drawbacks to turning Autorun off

The only drawback to turning autorun off in Windows XP is that CDs won’t start to play automatically when you pop ‘em in. Also, if you’re using a Cruzer Micro USB drive, it’s annoying software won’t launch automatically when you pop the thing in your machine. Actually, that’s a good thing. But if you like it’s annoying software to launch every time you pop it in, then you’ll want to leave autorun turned on for that drive letter. But know this: if your USB stick (or anyone else’s) is infected and autorun is on, it will infect your computer before you can say, “Dang it, Microsoft!” (as soon as you stick it in).

Starring: Christian Bale, Sam Worthington, Anton Yelchin, Bryce Dallas Howard, Moon Bloodgood, Common, Jane Alexander and Helena Bonham Carter. A stellar cast, I like just about everyone on here. I didn’t like John Connor played by Christian Bale, he was just not a likeable character.

Good movie, but I don’t want to see it again.

Why? Because my favorite character died in the end. But if you like action sequences, it’s full of ‘em. And the action sequences are good.

Speaking of action sequences, the T-800 is one tough cookie… but stupid. The only thing keeping the T-800 from killing you is distance. Once it gets a hold of you, you are done. But not in this movie; if you throw everything you’ve got at it and it just keeps on coming, what does it do to you once it gets a hold of you? It throws you across the room, of course. This puts more distance between you and it, thus giving you more time to figure a way to defeat it. If the T-800 really wanted to kill John Connor, it would have simply walked up to him and killed him. Instead, it walked up to him, grabbed him, and then tossed him away. See? Stupid.

There were the standard lines, such as, “I’ll be back.” and “Come with me if you want to live.” Hey Hollywood, how about some creativity?

They show where/how John Connor got his facial scars. They show how Kyle Reese learned the rope-through-shotgun-stock trick.

Watching the previews, I remember hearing John Connor saying something like, “One way or another, this war ends tonight.” At the end, you heard him say something like, “Skynet’s global network is still operational…” I was thinking, “Well, there were a lot of good action scenes, but what was accomplished?” Because of that last line, the war is not over, the preview lied to me, and now there is yet another opportunity to make another movie with little creativity.

I will not be buying this one, unless I can find it used for $3.

I wanted to make a point about these connections. Here, you can see the power connections to the motherboard. Personally, I don’t need the labels, but I love ‘em anyway; it’s a good idea (helps keep the smoke in) even though they are idiot-proof these days.

And here I’m holding the CPU power connectors so that you can see the label. Nice, eh? I love this power supply.

And these little guys… I think this is a huge leap forward. I LOVE these little connectors!

You take the individual case connectors, in this case, the USB connectors, and plug ‘em in to this little blue thing. This little blue thing is labeled on all sides, it’s just brilliant. Once they’re all in there, just slide the whole thing down on to the motherboard! Saves my back!

I love modern technology!

Dear Jeff,

I have a lot of respect for you. I think you’ve done amazing things with Amazon.com. Indeed, truly remarkable things. When idiot investors were walking away from your presentations, you were creating the amazing future which eventually became Amazon.com.

Example: You started Amazon.com as a book store, then just took it to the moon. Outstanding!

Example: Amazon created wish-lists. I don’t know if y’all were the first, but amazon.com was the first site I found that did wish-lists. This made it easy for me to keep track of the items I was saving up for.

Example: Amazon One-Click. It’s very convenient, fast, and easy to set up. Makes shopping on amazon.com a cakewalk! No one else did that, and not many other sites do that now either.

Example: Amazon Associates. Made it possible for me to have an online bookstore without the actual bookstore (or moviestore, etc.).

Example: Amazon Marketplace. I’m not saying eBay hadn’t hit the mark first, but you guys there did a bank up job on the Marketplace and I still find amazing deals there, when I don’t want to pay full price, or when it’s out of print.

Example: Amazon MP3. I like being able to buy the songs that I like on an album, instead of being forced to buy the whole thing. In the past, I have purchased CDs for just one song on the disc. The downloaded MP3 is high bit-rate, and not DRM’ed. This is a big point, as I can put it on any of my audio player devices (like my phone).

Example: Amazon Unbox. I just may use Unbox for all my video purchases. I’m kinda undecided on it, but it’s still intriguing. I can buy a movie and start watching it within about 10 minutes (sometimes less) right on my big-screen computer. Nobody beats 10-minute shipping. Plus, it’s there for me forever (can’t lose it); that’s a big plus.

And finally… The Amazon Kindle. Wow! I love it! I just LOVE IT! This is the device that I want all my stuff on. This is the one. It’s just the right size, in my humble opinion, because I can slip it into my side pants pocket (even with the cover on). I love all it’s features, except the DRM’ed books. I can only read ‘em on the device, not anywhere else; that’s a minus.

From my perspective, it looks like you are giving us people/consumers what we want. I think this is exactly the right thing to do. How do you know what we want? Do a survey. Doing surveys with enough people will give you a very accurate picture of what we want.

In a Charlie Rose interview with Marc Andreessen (creator of Netscape), Marc spoke about the Kindle. He said something like, “Oh, Kindle, I mean, it’s just–it’s gigantic.” He then went on about form factors… “The iPhone with a sort of three or four inch screen… a laptop or netbook with a 12 or 14 inch screen… and now you’ve got the Kindle with a sort of seven inch screen.” He and Charlie Rose go on to talk about others making a bunch of little “pads”, or “net pads”… Marc continues: “Somebody will figure it out. That thing, I mean, the Kindle does books and magazines and newspapers, but that form factor and that shape of a device and that weight in a couple of years is going to be doing video, it’s going to be doing music, it’s going to be doing video conferencing. It’s going to be doing telephony. It’s going to be doing Web browsing. It’s going to be doing everything, right? And so that’s the next — one of the fascinating things is that’s the next screen size and the next killer device, I think, is what’s going to happen.

In a recent interview, you were asked about putting other media (such as video) on the Kindle, and you said something like, “Would you use a Swiss-army knife at the dinner table?”

Actually, I would. But that’s because I’m a geek. And I have used a Swiss-army-knife-style spoon-and-fork thingy for eating a whole meal. It worked quite well, no problemo.

Anyway, here’s my point: I (the consumer) want a device just like the Kindle, which can do e-books (just like it does now), play my MP3s (with all the features of an iPod), full color e-paper, play movies (e-paper is almost there, you can watch demos on YouTube of video-capable e-paper now), with a big SSD (Solid State Disk) to hold my entire library (of everything, audio/video/ebooks/PDFs/etc), two additional SD card slots for my own SD cards, wireless access to the internet (just like it does now), GPS services (just like it does now), longer battery life, and a good internet browser for web surfing & email (such as Mozilla Firefox). You could even hook it in to Amazon Unbox and sell me movies directly to my Kindle. Cha-ching!

I would pay a lot for a device that did all that. I’d bet others would, too.

Cell phones come close, but they’re too small to read whole books on (plus they don’t use e-paper), and they’re also too small for movies/videos. The best a cell phone has going for it is that it’s already networked. I can do a lot with my little flip-phone: web, Gmail, Google Maps, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, texting, IMs, take pictures (and post them to Flickr), listen to my MP3s with sterio Bluetooth headphones, and so on, but it’s not a good e-book reader, and it doesn’t have a fast-enough processor for video.

Now, let me go back a step, back to before there was a Kindle. Sony had a pretty good e-book reader, but it wasn’t networked, you needed to have a computer to put the books into it, there were not a lot of e-books available for it, and it cost a friggin’ arm and a leg.

I would bet I could not have convinced anyone to put any money in to a project to create a cute little e-book reader which used e-paper, ran for days/weeks on a single charge, was networked (for free), had a deal with a big book-seller such as Amazon.com for all of it’s content, ran on a free, open-source operating system (Linux), and did all the other things (such as note-taking) that the Kindle does… and make it affordable. No way, bub. I would have been laughed at, all the way out the door.

Then Jeff Bezos creates and releases the Amazon Kindle. Bam!, now it’s possible. Before that, it was not within the realm of possibility. Now that it’s been released, the Kindle has shown that such a device is actually possible… and is really what people want.

NOW I could convince someone to make such a device. Indeed, I could convince someone (with money) to invest in a project to create the all-my-media-needs device described above, the one which is fully networked over the existing Sprint wireless network, portable (with long battery life), color e-paper, full-motion video, MP3/music player, with lots of storage, web browsing, email, VoIP, everything.

Google may already be working on such a device. Google has money to throw around, and they’ve got talent as well. Just look at what they did for cell phone operating systems with Android. They’ve also got a huge e-book project already in production, and one for the iPhone & G1.

The guy who owns that big news network, Rupert Murdoch, he’s got money to throw around. And he loves the Kindle. I’d bet he’s working on a device to do what you, Jeff Bezos, won’t let the Kindle become.

Let the Kindle fulfill it’s destiny. Create an API for it and let people play around inside it and create with it (just like Google’s Android OS for cell phones).

If you don’t, you will lose the market to devices which do what we want them to do, not necessarily what you want them to do. And if you lose the market, your dream of “everything ever printed available in the Kindle” will not happen.

Thanks for your time.

-Hawk
Humble Kindle owner

Time to put all this new stuff in the case! Here’s all the stuff I had at the time. Power supply, motherboard, 4G RAM kit (2 x 2G), AMD CPU, cables, connectors, manuals, stuff… see pic.

The Motherboard is an ASUS M3A79-T DELUXE, AMD 790FX chipset, ATX form factor, 4xPCI-E(x16) / 2XPCI / 4XDDR2, SATA2 RAID, 1GB lan, 1394 (firewire), lots of USB 2.0, and amazing audio capabilities. CPU type: AMD Socket AM2.

Power supply and motherboard installed in the case. I popped out the connector plate which came with the case, installed the one that came with the motherboard, and it all fits perfectly!

The RAM installed in the motherboard, and the CPU is ready, along with the CPU heatsink & fan.

The RAM is a CRUCIAL 4GB KIT (BL2KIT25664AL80A), high-speed gaming RAM set.

I like this motherboard because I can simply add two more 2G RAM sticks and double it. I’m not saying Windows XP will be able to use it (as of now, not all of my 4G is used), but I can expand it easily. This ease of expansion is important to me.

CPU installed. It went in easy as pie.

The CPU is an AMD ATHLON X2 7750 2.7G - Black. It was just under my pricepoint for this system. I can always upgrade.

And finally, the CPU heatsink & fan. Now I almost have a working computer.

I’ll probably replace this heatsink & fan with the kind I’ve got in my linux server; it looks like a tower of heatfins with a fan on the side.

Most of this stuff has been discontinued, but you can find suitable replacement components at mwave.com

So far, so good! More to come.

When writing negative reviews, I don’t hold back. And this is no exception: 1 & 1 web hosting sucks ass, big time. I would not pay that company one thin dime for anything.

I asked them to add a domain name to my friend’s virtual hosting account, and they were like, “Eh?” I very carefully explained to them (all of them were in Portugal) how to add a domain name to a website. It’s trivial, I do it all the time. No, I’m not transferring a domain, no, I’m not registering a new domain; the domain is already registered and pointing to the correct IP address. All they need to do is add the name to the account and the website will show up.

Nope, they don’t do that. I would need to upgrade to a goddamn dedicated server account in order to do that.

Just now, I logged in to my GoDaddy account and added about 40 domains to my virtually hosted account. As expected, it was trivial! Why can 1 & 1 not do this? Because they’ve got their heads up their asses! That’s why.

Stick with GoDaddy, they allow you do to trivial things with your virtually hosted websites without upgrading to a full-on dedicated server.

And, on the topic of dedicated servers, I recommend serverbeach.com.

Some boneheaded friends of mine got themselves infected with the Email-Worm.win32.NetSky.q worm.

Upon installing antivirus software to handle it, I got an error about how the Microsoft Installer Service was not running. When trying to start it manually (net start msiserver), I got an error about how it was missing or not found or something.

Again, I humbly request a stand-alone scanner/cleaner from anti-malware makers, something than I can run straight off my write-protected flash drive / jumpdrive.

Thank you for your time.

-Hawk
Humble SysAdmin (who now has to wipe the drive and re-install Windows)

http://freeofvirus.blogspot.com/

Remove Fake Antivirus 1.0 is used to remove:

1. Personal Antivirus,
2. Anti-Virus-1,
3. Spyware Guard 2008,
4. System Guard 2009,
5. Antivirus 2009,
6. System Security,
7. Antivirus 2010,
8. Antivirus Pro 2009,
9. Antivirus 360 and
10. MS Antispyware 2009

(all of them are fake antivirus which are viruses or trojans) from your computer.

Remove Fake Antivirus is used to remove fake antivirus which are viruses or trojans.

http://freeofvirus.blogspot.com/

Please make a version of your software which need not be installed into a system, but may be run straight from my write-protected flashdrive / jumpdrive so that I can easily repair / clean infected systems.

Net installers are not helpful.

As it is right now, I can’t even install your software on the infected machine as the infection actively prevents me from installing anything, especially anti-malware-type programs.

Thanks in advance.

A Humble SysAdmin,
Hawk

I’m building a new game machine! Yaayyyy! It’s way overdue.

Here’s the new power supply. It’s a 700W, which should hold me for at least a week, maybe even two. The maker is called “be quiet!”, believe it or not. And with a huge 120mm fan, it’s pretty darn quiet. The type is called “STRAIGHTPOWER”, and it’s got enough cables and connections to power anything I may put in this machine (for a very long time). Most of the connections are labeled with colorful pictures of where they go (which is just nice of them).

This is the case. Yes, it’s the exact same case as my linux server.

I like this case. It’s clear acrylic by Logisys. It’s big enough for whatever I may need to put in it. It’s easy to work on. It’s clear. Did I mention that it’s totally clear acrylic? Way-cool.

This case comes with three small blue fans: one in front, one in the side, and one in back. They are lit by four blue LEDs, one in each corner. No, there is no option for green, nor for red. I’ll eventually have to replace them all with red fans, but they are still cool as-is.

I don’t know if they still have these items, but you can find most of this stuff at mwave.com and frozencpu.com. Mwave beats just about anyone else on price, and FrozenCPU specializes in all kinds of stuff for tricking out your computer big-time. That’s where I got the cool red cold cathodes from (in subsequent posts).

More to come.

I’ve noticed something recently: I don’t use my regular DVD player and my TV.

My Game machine (Windows) provides: Games, Movies, Music, and Internet.

My server (Linux machine) also provides Movies, Music, and Internet, but to a lesser degree Games because there are more developers making games for the Windows platform than for Linux. For example, it was really nice (and surprising) to see Savage 2 run straght away in Linux, right after installation. That was cool. But there is no Call of Duty for Linux (booo!).

More and more, I’m not using my DVD player + my TV; I’m using my computers. I use my game machine to watch movies I’ve got on DVD as well as TV shows on DVD, and also movies I’ve purchased from Amazon Unbox. I actually really like Amazon Unbox. I buy a movie for $15, and it’s always available from their server. This makes it “un-loseable”. I can’t lose it. I can always lose a DVD. However, I can lend a DVD to a friend, or I can take it to a friend’s house and watch it there. It’s tough to do that with Amazon Unbox.

I’ve been buying lots of MP3s from Amazon, especially when I don’t want to buy the whole album. For example, I got Tomoyasu Hotei’s Battle Without Honor or Humanity, and skipped the rest (for the most part).

Then I back up the MP3 file to Amazon’s S3 (Simple Storage Service) using Jungledisk.

I also watch stuff online, from sites such as Hulu.com. There was a way to watch live TV streamed across the internet, but I’ve not researched that recently and don’t much care. It was really crappy quality. So I just buy the TV shows and watch ‘em on my computer.

I don’t even need my regular DVD player and TV anymore. And when I upgrade my monitor, I’ll be able to watch things in hi-def. This seems like a much better investment than a plasma TV. Why? Because my computer can do much, much more than a plasma TV (like hi-def games!).

I’m moving away from the traditional way of watching a movie or a TV show… by not using my TV and instead using my computer.

I’m moving away from the traditional way of listening to music (CD player, tape player, LPs, etc) by using my computer.

I don’t even buy dead-tree books anymore. I buy only books for my Amazon Kindle.

My computers have become the center of all things entertainment in my life. And a big part of this change involves Amazon.com.

Gun control is hitting your target. At least, that’s what it is to me.

But there is another kind of gun control. The kind that says, “You lawful citizens may not own guns.” That’s the bad kind of gun control.

Any law which restricts my rights to own a gun is actually against the U.S. constitution. Therefore, there are many laws, existing right now, which are unconstitutional!

Criminals LOVE gun control. If a criminal is looking at breaking into your house, they sure DON’T want you to have a gun.

Criminals LOVE gun control. If a criminal is looking at mugging you, or pulling his gun on you and robbing you on the street, he sure does NOT want you to be armed. That’s just too much risk.

But with gun control laws, the criminal knows that you won’t have a gun. Therefore, criminals LOVE gun control laws.

You know what the justification is for gun control laws? To make society safer for you. But if the criminals keep their guns anyway, how exactly does a gun control law help me?

The real reason for gun control laws is CONTROL. The governing body wants to be able to CONTROL you without resistance. If they make it unlawful to own guns, it’s much easier to control a population.

If you live in the US and don’t want a police-state, or a dictatorship, learn about your constitution. Read the book The People’s Guide to the United States Constitution by Dave Kludge, then join the NRA. They need your support.

If you’re okay with a police-state, or being ruled by a dictator (or both), do nothing.

The People’s Guide to the United States Constitution by Dave Kludge

http://membership.nrahq.org/

I recommend the Firefox (and Seamonkey) add-on NoScript for advanced web browsing-type people. It is NOT for your mom, unless your mom knows what a javascript cross-site scripting attack is.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/722

This add-on is so successful at protecting your browsing session, it has won security awards. See the link above for all the details.

Here’s the jist: Install it, restart your browser, then browse the net as usual but keep an eye on the little blue S icon in the lower-right corner of the browser. When you hit a webpage which doesn’t seem to operate as it should, click the little blue S icon and start allowing sites/domains to run javascript. Each time you enable one, the page will re-load. You can then test the functionality of the page again, and if it’s still not working, enable another site/domain and try again.

Here’s a brief example with YouTube:

When I first installed NoScript, all javascript was disabled. So when I go to YouTube, the videos don’t play and I get a little complaint in the video section about not having the Flash plug-in installed. I do have the flash plug-in installed, but it’s the javascript which determines what kind of browser I have and then loads the appropriate Flash code.

Here we are at Mike Adams’ YouTube channel. This guy is my hero. In this example, I’m trying to watch one of his videos on the evils of vaccines. However, the video isn’t loading and playing.

First, click the little blue S icon in the lower-right corner of your browser. A list like this popups up:

See how the one on the bottom, youtube.com, is bold? That’s the one you should enable first.

So click on Allow youtube.com and watch the page reload.

Still, however, the video isn’t loading and playing. Click the little blue S again…

The only other site to allow is ytimg.com. I believe this is an image/movie server for youtube (I think).

So click on Allow ytimg.com…

There, now the video is loading and playing. No sweat.

The danger comes in allowing hostile sites. What is a hostile site? It’s a site which intentionally attempts to infiltrate your computer via your browser. If you’re running IE (Microsoft Internet Exploiter), then you’re kind of a sitting duck and you will get infected eventually.

If you’re running Firefox/Seamonkey with Adblock Plus and NoScript installed, you’re virtually bulletproof.

“But Hawk, how do I know if it’s a hostile site?” you may ask.

Well, ya kinda gotta be geeky about it. You’ll have to look at that domain, that website, and make a decision about it. Does it look like a good site? Or is it trying to do wierd things? Does it have a banner ad which reads, “Click here for a FREE virus!”?

I usually will not allow anything on a site that I’m unfamiliar with. I also don’t go looking for trouble browsing wierd sites in the dark allys of the net. But if I did, I would not be too worried about it; I’d just leave everything disabled in NoScript and surf cautiously.

I highly recommend this add-on for Firefox and Seamonkey:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/1865

Example: Here’s Yahoo Mail in IE (Microsoft Internet Exploiter):

Big banner ad at the top and some little thumbnail-type ads along the side. Here’s Yahoo Mail in Seamonkey with Adblock Plus installed:

If you are a “gamer” (like me) who plays games on the Windows PC platform (not consoles), then check this out:

http://www.jact.com/

No, it’s not too good to be true. Yes, it’s almost too good to be true. Yes, it’s a friggin’ dream come true!

In a nutshell: Sign up for an account (they are in beta at the time of this post), download and install the client, play your game as you normally would, earn points (called BUX) during gameplay, then cash ‘em in for stuff.

Here, all your questions are answered:

http://www.jact.com/faq.php