Luke Lorenzo

How To: LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server on Amazon EC2

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 15:04:00 +0000

There are several articles out there outlining the process of getting a LAMP server up and running on Amazon's Elastic Cloud (EC2) service, but most of them seem to be missing some small caveats as well as a couple additional features I wanted my instance to have like FTP access, and VNC access to a GUI as well. Lets get started!

Table of Contents

1. What is this?

2. Prerequisites

3. Create a new server instance

4. Install & Configure Apache, PHP, & MySQL

5. Install & Configure VSFTP

6. Configure Putty to authenticate to your server (optional)

7. Install & Configure VNC

8. Install & Configure Dropbox

9. Resources

1. What is this?

Amazon's EC2 service allows you to host a virtual machine to configure any way you like. You are charged based on your resource consumption at very low rates making this a great way to set up a free hosting account for a small personal site, or even host sites for small business clients if you develop websites professionally. You can choose what operating system you would like to put on your server instance.

2. Amazon EC2 Prerequisites

- If you don't have an Amazon Web Services account you will of course need one. Head over to Amazon Web Services and sign up.

- You'll need java installed to use the web based ssh client to communicate with your instance after it is installed.

- You will probably want a good ftp client to make transferring files to your new web server nice and easy.

3. Create a New Server Instance

There are many ready made LAMP instances available that may reduce your setup time, but this guide is about setting this up exactly how we want it, so we will go with a plain old Ubuntu server and do each step ourselves. Once you've created your instance you will need to find your public DNS address. This will be used several times throughout this process so keep it handy.

The public DNS address may change under certain circumstances, so it is best to associate an elastic IP address to your instance.

Before going any further you need to know about Amazon's security groups or you will not be able to connect to your server via the web. The EC2 service has an external firewall that will block incoming and outgoing traffic by default unless those ports are opened up. This is done using security groups. Create a new security group and open up the following ports:

20, 21, 22, 80, 9000, 50000 - 51000

This is what my security group looks like:

You will also need to create a Key Pair. This will be used for authentication and is required. From the EC2 management console, click key pairs on the left, and click 'create key pair'. You will need to save the generated .pem file on your computer in a place you will not lose it. This same file will be used for every instance you create (If you lose it you can always generate a new key pair).

Now that we have the security groups and the key pair taken care of, go back to 'instances', right click on your instance and choose 'connect'. Make sure your username is set to 'ubuntu' and click 'Launch SSH Client. Once we have a shell prompt, the first thing we want to do is update the packages installed that may be outdated. To do this, simply type:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

Now we need to reboot the server before moving forward with installing our web server components:

sudo reboot

4. Install & Configure Apache, PHP, & MySQL

To Install, execute the following command from the shell:

sudo aptitude install apache2 php5-mysql libapache2-mod-php5 mysql-server

Note: During the install, you will be asked for a mysql password. KEEP TRACK of this password, you will need it later when we install PHPMyAdmin for easy mysql administration.

Once these packages are installed, open a browser and go to your instance address (you can use either the public DNS address, or an IP address if you have assigned one)

Ex:

http://ec2-54-245-13-223.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com -OR- http://54.245.80.236

If all is right in the world you will see "It Works!" in your browser indicating our web server is now up and running.

If you'd like to test PHP, using your favorite text editor, create a new file called test.php. I'm using nano.

sudo nano /var/www/test.php

Type this into the file:

<?php phpinfo(); ?>

Press control+x, press Y when prompted to save and click press enter.

Note: If you receive an error saying you cannot save the file you will need to set the permissions on the var/www/ directory which is explained a bit later in this tutorial (FTP section).

Once you have your test.php file saved, just navigate to the php test page in your browser. Ex: http://54.245.80.236/test.php . You should see a php info page detailing the PHP configuration.

Now we're ready to install PHPMyAdmin which we will use to easily administer MySQL databases.

sudo apt-get install phpmyadmin

At this point it's a good idea to turn on the firewall to harden security a bit. Ubuntu comes with an 'uncomplicated firewall' that can be toggled on and off very easily. Lets turn it on:

sudo ufw enable

Now that firewall is on open up ports 22 and 80. If you want to install FTP you'll also need exceptions for 20, 21, 51000, and 5000. If you're going to enable VNC then you should also allow port 9000. The last two ports can actually be in anything you want so long as it isn't interfering with any other services. These ports are used for passive FTP configuration which we will be using in this tutorial). execute these commands to make your firewall exceptions:

sudo ufw allow 22
sudo ufw allow 80
sudo ufw allow 20
sudo ufw allow 21
sudo ufw allow 9000
sudo ufw allow proto tcp to any port 50000:51000

If you'd like more details on the uncomplicated firewall see the Ubuntu guide on the matter: https://help.ubuntu.com/9.10/serverguide/C/firewall.html

5. Install & Configure VSFTP

You can do this with other ftp servers but the commands below will differ of course. I chose to use vsftpd (or the Very Secure FTP Daemon).

First, we install the package:

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

Now there are several changes we need to make to the configuration file to get this working correctly with amazon's EC2.

First, we need to edit /etc/vsftpd.conf and set some variables.

sudo nano etc/vsftpd.conf

You'll be looking at a list of configuration settings for vsftpd. We need to turn on a couple that exist and add some others that do now. Find the local_enable and write_enable settings and turn them on by uncommenting them (remove the # at the beginning of the line).

local_enable=YES
write_enable=YES

Add these settings to the bottom of the file. (Again if you don't know your server's IP address you can find it by right clicking your instance in EC2 and choosing connect):


pasv_max_port=51000
pasv_min_port=50000
port_enable=YES
pasv_enable=YES
pasv_address=ip.address.of.server
local_root=/var/www

Now restart vsftpd:

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

You can also use (or just "sudo service vsftpd restart" if you have it configured to run as a service already)

Now we need to create a user to use for logging in via ftp:


sudo adduser YOUR_USER_NAME

Follow the prompts and that's it for creating a new user. But now we need to give the new user permissions to write to the www directory:

sudo chown -R USERNAME /var/www
sudo chmod -R 777 /var/www

From here I went ahead and rebooted for good measure although it may not be necessary. Now launch up your FTP client (I'm using FileZilla) and make sure you can connect, upload files, and overwrite files.

6. Configure Putty to Authenticate on EC2

This process entails using puttygen to import your .pem file from your keypair we set up earlies, and converting to a putty key file. There are also a couple settings you want to change such as the username to use (ubuntu). This is pretty well covered elsewhere so I'll just provide the link here. Just keep in mind I was unable to use Amazon's DNS name for my server, but it worked for me using the elastic IP instead:
Putty connect instructions (must use elastic ip not host name!).

One other helpful tip I found was to make sure and set a root password. After setting up putty I was able to log in as my new user automatically with no problem, however I couldn't run any privileged commands because it would prompt me for a password. The simple fix is to go back to the web based client where you already have proper privileges and run this command to set your root user password:

sudo passwd root

7. Install & Configure VNC

As with most cloud hosts, Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) offers only Secure Shell (SSH) access by default to Linux cloud servers. But if you aren't a command-line fan or your application requires a GUI, you can set up remote desktop access to most Linux cloud servers.

First Install the gnome desktop manager:

sudo apt-get install gnome-core

Next install the VNC server itself:

sudo apt-get install vnc4server

Now we set a password by simply typing:

 vncserver

The password cannot be longer than 8 characters. Once the password is set, we want to stop the server:

 vncserver -kill:1

Next, configure the VNC xstartup file so you'll see the desktop when connecting via VNC. Enter nano .vnc/xstartup.

Edit the file until it looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
# Uncomment the following two lines for normal desktop:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
#exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
gnome-session --session=gnome-classic &

[ -x /etc/vnc/xstartup ] && exec /etc/vnc/xstartup
[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
vncconfig -iconic &
#x-terminal-emulator -geometry 1280x1024+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" & 
#x-window-manager &

Save the file and exit. Start the VNC server back up:

 vncserver -geometry 1024x600

Now go ahead and try to connect using you favorite VNC client such as Tight VNC. In the remote host field you will need to add a :1 like this:

Now we need to configure vncserver to start every time the EC2 instance boots up. We need to add an entry in the init.d folder. If you're unfamiliar, the etc/init.d directory is where Linux stores various start / stop scripts for services. We will be adding one to start the vncserver and use the .conf file we just created.

sudo touch /etc/init.d/vncserver
sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/vncserver
sudo nano /etc/init.d/vncserver

Paste the following code into our new the init.d script. Notice on line 8 our default username 'ubuntu' is there. If you're using a different username this will need to be changed.

#!/bin/bash
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: vncserver Required-Start: networking Default-Start: S 
# Default-Stop: 0 6
### END INIT INFO
PATH="$PATH:/usr/X11R6/bin/"
# The Username:Group that will run VNC
export USER="ubuntu"
#${RUNAS}
# The display that VNC will use
DISPLAY="1"
# Color depth (between 8 and 32)
DEPTH="16"
# The Desktop geometry to use. GEOMETRY="x" 
#GEOMETRY="800x600"
GEOMETRY="1024x768"
#GEOMETRY="1280x1024"
# The name that the VNC Desktop will have.
NAME="my-vnc-server" 

OPTIONS="-name ${NAME} -depth ${DEPTH} -geometry ${GEOMETRY} :${DISPLAY}" 

. /lib/lsb/init-functions 

case "$1" in 
start) 
log_action_begin_msg "Starting vncserver for user '${USER}' on localhost:${DISPLAY}" 
su ${USER} -c "/usr/bin/vncserver ${OPTIONS}" 
;; 

stop) 
log_action_begin_msg "Stoping vncserver for user '${USER}' on localhost:${DISPLAY}" 
su ${USER} -c "/usr/bin/vncserver -kill :${DISPLAY}"
;; 

restart) 
$0 stop 
$0 start 
;; 
esac
exit 0

Run the vncserver command once more.

vncserver

And finally, we need to run this command to add our init.d script to system startup:

sudo update-rc.d vncserver defaults 99

Now restart the service:

sudo service vncserver restart

8. Install & Configure Dropbox
The goal here is to allow me to edit files right in my dropbox from my home PC or mobile phone and have those changes automatically sync to my server's var/www directory making the changes live without the need for manually transferring files via FTP. This has also been pretty well documented so I'll simply share a link if you're interested in taking this additional step.
Set up DropBox Selective Sync on Ubuntu EC2

9. Resources

Install LAMP on EC2 in under 4 minutes

Putty connect instructions (must use elastic ip not host name!):

Setting up VNC on Ubuntu 12

Mayan Calendar Predicts Renewal of 100 Year Federal Reserve Charter?

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:52:00 +0000

There is a rumor traversing the echo chamber claiming the Federal Reserve's charter with the US government is set to expire on Dec 23, 2012... just as the final pages are ripped from the Mayan calendar. I can appreciate the wishful thinking... but unfortunately, this belongs in the non-fact category. The original Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was bound by a 20 year expiration date on the authority of member reserve banks ¹. So where did the 100 year rumor come from? It was the Act of July 1, 1922 which changed the expiration to 99 years from the date of organization ². This myth would have held true had it not been for the Act of Feb. 25, 1927 which made the Federal Reserve's power over our monetary policy perpetual ³. Today, only an act of congress can dissolve the Fed.

If it hadn't been for that last amendment, we might have been full swing into a global discussion about renewing the most ambitious wealth siphoning system in history. Unfortunately, the amendment exists and the power of the fed has no such expiration date.

Is this really so bad?

To answer that question, lets take a look at the last 100 years of fractional reserve banking and you can judge for yourself. For those of you who would rather watch a cartoon instead of reading boring posts about our country's economic foundation... I've got you covered:

For the rest of you... lets dig a bit deeper...

How it started...
The push for a centralized banking system began well before our nation was founded. Prior to the establishment of the United States, the big bankers were much more up front about their deceptive banking practices. Take for example the quote often attributed to Mayer Amschel Rothschild... "Let us control the money of a country and we care not who makes its laws." ⁴

Many of our greatest national leaders opposed the banking institutions and feverishly condemned their involvement with monetary policy and specifically the issuance of currency for fear of the abuse that would accompany it. Among these men were Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and many others.

Our story, for the purposes of brevity, begins with the first time our currency was devalued under the banner of financial stability. The Federal Reserve Act was signed into law in 1913 by Woodrow Wilson, and it was about as "Federal" as Federal Express. A cartel of 12 privately owned banks were to take control of the nation's monetary policy. Most notably, this act allowed for the expansion of money supply beyond our nation's holdings in physical reserves. Although it was a pivotal moment in our country's history, it was not nearly as powerful as the Fed we tolerate today. The Fed of 1913 was severely limited, not only by the 20 year expiration date mentioned earlier, but by physical gold reserves. Even at a time when we first began to dabble in the abandonment of hard currency, we still had the good sense restrict the dangerous power of artificially inflating the money supply. To prevent over-inflation, the Fed was only allowed to expand money supply to a percentage above the nation's holdings of physical gold. This act, like the Aldrich-Vreeland Act before it, and the many revisions to the National Currency Act before that, was a mere stepping stone toward the modern monetary monster we know today. If the banks were to have the power they sought, they would have to bastardize hard currency and pry it from the dollar at every opportunity. This is exactly what they did.

As people were slowly introduced to the new financial system, they began to hold gold in events of financial uncertainty. This was exactly what people had done for centuries in order to shield themselves from the devaluation that occurs as the money supply is expanded. The banks knew they needed to eliminate the culture of gold holdings. It wasn't long before the attack on gold and silver based currency continued.

Executive Order 6102
On April 5th, 1933, President F. D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 "forbidding the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion, or gold certificates within the continental United States". This order literally criminalized the possession of monetary gold by any individual, forcing everyone into the new system regardless of their position on monetary policy.

Although by this point the bankers had made great strides toward controlling the US monetary system, there was still a faction of opposition within our government.

Executive Order 11110
Fast forward to June 4th, 1963. JFK authorized the US Treasure to begin printing a new form of silver certificate. $4 billion worth (roughly $30 billion in today's dollars), free of debt, free of interest, redeemable for hard silver reserves. These certificates would not involve the fed at all and would compete with the traditional federal reserve note. 5 Months later, on November 22, 1963 Kennedy was assassinated. Less than 3 months after Kennady was buried the executive order was derailed in March of 1964 when Secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon halted redemption of silver certificates for silver dollars. The new reserve notes were removed from circulation and destroyed with the exception of the few remaining samples held by collectors.

JFK was an opponent of institutional secrecy, an ingredient fundamental to the survival of the Fed by their own admission (more on this later). He was in clear and direct opposition to secret organizations, and made that abundantly clear in a well known speech made two years before his assassination.

We're All Keynesians Now
Unfortunately, Richard Nixon was not among the list of the few courageous men who publicly denounced the abusive monetary system. In a famous speech by Nixon in 1971, it was declared to the world that we had completed our transition from a responsible currency to a system comprised of mythology, theft, and secrecy. Ironically, Nixon's stated intent was to "defend the dollar".

..."the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today."

So was Nixon right? According to the published consumer price index figures over time, one dollar in 1971 has the purchasing power of only $0.18 in today's world ⁵. This was the result of only 40 years of completely decoupling gold from our dollar.

I Must be a Conspiracy-loving Paulbot Moron
Many will argue that wages have increased at the same rate, and so the devaluation is non existent in real terms... but is that really true? In short, maybe the Mayans were onto something after all...

Chart Source: TPM

TPM's Data Source: Economic Policy Insitutte [PDF]

As you can see, something occurred in the early 70s that changed the direct relationship between productivity and compensation. We began to develop a gap that seems to under-compensate workers, and the gap is growing very rapidly. Could it have been Nixon's abandonment of gold backed currency combined with the Fed's persistant expansion of our money supply?

Many will tell you the flexibility provided by the Federal reserve's ability to introduce new money into the system has saved us from imminent financial disaster. Others, including myself, will look at the world around them and call bullshit.

To defend the fractional reserve banking system, you must make several leaps of faith that I am not prepared to assume. The most important of which comes down to the secrecy of the fed (although the politically accepted term has become "the independence of the Fed").

In order to defend this system, you must accept that the individuals granted such massive financial power do not need to be completely transparent or accountable in order to operate in the best interests of the people. You must simply trust that they are behaving responsibly. This is because no government official has the authority to peak behind the curtain and completely Audit the Federal Reserve. In fact, the fed is owned by a group of shareholders whose identities are not publicly known. The Fed of course claims all of this keeps you safe from the meddling of your pesky elected representatives, but how can we ever come to any proper conclusion without all of the information? I'm starting to understand what Kennedy was talking about.

And now, for the grand finally. I have uncovered a massive plan to replace the dollar. In fact, the notes have been drafted and kept secret from the public... until now. It looks as though they have decided to stay with the lovely color scheme we have all come to know so well, but have reduced the size of the bills by about 40% to save paper and ink. Introducing the world's new reserve currency:

So, which of the two fathers of economic theory do you believe?

1 - Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (P.L. 63-43, 38 STAT. 251, 12 USC 221)
2 - Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money 30th Edition, ,George S. Cuhaj, William Brandimore, p. 279
3 - Standard Catalog of United States Paper Money 30th Edition, ,George S. Cuhaj, William Brandimore, p. 279
4 - Rural Credits - Joint Hearings Before the Subcommittees on Banking and Currency of the Senate and of the House of Representatives Sixty-third Congress, Second Session, Washington Government Printing Office, 1914
5 - Inflation Calculator - Dollar Times - http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm

Large Scale Election Fraud in Maine Caucuses

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 18:03:00 +0000

The other day, I woke up and checked the final results from the Maine Caucus that went on the night (and entire week) before. I'm afraid what I found was what looks like the most blatant case of election fraud I have ever witnessed. I'm going to summarize what happened as best as I understand it at this point, who is responsible, who was cheated out of their vote and what they can do about it.

Big story: 140 Towns Unaccounted For? Maine GOP Chair Charlie Webster Calls the Win Anyway. When he receives push-back from the media and local officials, he sticks to his guns saying they will discuss it in March (after Super Tuesday of course) to decide if they will include the neglected votes.

Side story: Totals reported found to be incorrect on multiple occasions as reported by Caucus leaders, either due to addition errors, or just plain wrong information. See breakdown below.

Side side story: Some officials in Maine are speaking up. Washington County commissioner Chris Gardner is pushing the GOP to count the votes there. State Senate President Raye is demanding the votes be counted. Charlie Webster is insisting they will not count toward the official total.

Update: 2/18/2012
The GOP in Maine has released a new set of results. I've compiled a spreadsheet to more easily compare the results: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3169366/Maine_Results_Comparison.xlsx

County by County Problems List

Androscoggin

No problems I'm aware of

Aroostook

Results not broken down by town so we have no way of knowing if some towns were not counted like in the other counties. Aroostook was the only county Ron Paul won in 2008. He won again this year but we cannot verify that there were not towns missing without the results broken down as they should be.

Cumberland

Baldwin, Casco, Frye Island, Long Island, Pownal (25 votes total in 08), Sebago - zero votes reported by GOP
Portland - According to an article published by the Washington Post, a caucus in Portland Maine mysteriously ended up with 19 more ballots in the stack than they should have had. So what did they do? Vote again? Tally what they had? Try to figure out which 19 ballots were bogus? No. They voided the entire caucus. Sounds like someone can slip in some extra ballots and get an entire caucus voided?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/maine-caucuses-provide-a-window-into-ron-paul-delegate-strategy/2012/02/12/gIQARNbC9Q_blog.html

Franklin

Avon (2 votes in '08), Carthage (2 votes in '08), Coplin, Dallas, Eustis, Madrid, Phillips (2 votes in '08), Rangeley, Sandy River, Wilton (10 votes in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP

Hancock

Amherst, Aurora (6 votes in '08), Castine, Cranberry Isles, Eastbrook (2 votes in '08), Franklin, Frenchboro, Gouldsboro, Great Pond, Hancock (19 votes in '08), Lamoine, Mariaville, Osborn, Sorrento (5 votes in '08), Stonington (3 votes in '08), Sullivan, "T3 ND Part of"?, Waltham, Winter Harbor - zero votes reported by GOP
Apparently 10 towns in Hancock were also postponed just like they were in Washington County. Hancock county as a whole received 263 votes in 2008. There are already 315 votes in Hancock being reported indicating a much higher turnout in the county this year.

Kennebec

Clinton, Rome (3 votes in '08), Vienna (1 vote in '08), Waterville (53 votes in '08), Wayne - zero votes reported by GOP
Waterville - +16 votes for Paul? - From a facebook comment on a Bangor Daily News article: " We were robbed of votes in waterville also! Doctor won the place by 16 votes but maine resiults shows 0! Now you guys be the judge and decide whether there was proven voter fraud in GOP Maine!"
China - Official vote total was Romney - 6, Paul - 11, 1 - Santorum, 0 - Gingrich, 0 - Other. WatchTheVote.com totals had a different result: Romney - 3, Paul - 13, Santorum - 1, Gingrich - 1, TOTAL: 18 (Source)

Knox

Isle Au Haut, Matinicus Isle, North Haven - zero votes reported by GOP
Was this the town with a delayed caucus or was that hancock?

Loncoln

Boothbay (18 votes in '08) - two line items on GOP sheet, one is all zeros. Were there two caucuses in boothbay or was this just a typo?
South Bristol (14 votes in '08), Whitefield (6 votes in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP

Oxford

Albany (7 votes in '08), Byron, Gilead (2 votes in '08), Lincoln, Magalloway, Milton (2 votes in '08), Newry (3 votes in '08), Otisfield (15 votes in '08), Stoneham, Stow, Sumner, Sweden, Upton - zero votes reported by GOP

Penobscot

Alton (2 votes in '08) - Total is wrong. Two votes for paul, one vote for 'other' but a big fat zero in the total column.
Bangor - Again Paul bests romney by 10 votes, but the totals column is zero.
Burlington, Carroll, Corinth, Drew Plantation, Edinburg, Enfield, Kenduskeag, Kingman, Lakeville, Mattawamkeag, Maxfield, Mount Chase, Passadumkeag, Patten, Penobscot, Plymouth (10 votes in '08), Prentiss, Seboeis, Springfield, Stacyville, Stetson (2 votes in '08), Veazie (10 votes in '08), Webster, Winn, Woodville - zero votes reported by GOP

Piscataquis

Abbot (4 votes in '08), Greenville (3 votes in '08), Kingsbury, Lake View, Shirley, Wellington (1 in '08), Willimantic (2 in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP

Sagadahoc

No problems I've heard of

Somerset

Anson (4 votes in '08), Brighton, Caratunk, Cornville (2 votes in '08), Dennistown (3 in '08), Detroit (1 in '08), Highland (1 in '08), Jackman (1 in '08), Mercer (2 in '08 both for RP), Moscow (1 in '08), New Portland (2 in '08 both for RP), Moose River (1 in '08), Pleasant Ridge (1 in '08), Rockwood Strip, Starks (4 in '08, 3 for RP), The Forks, West Forks

Waldo

Belfast - +7, +9 or +21 votes for Paul (I've seen this in 3 places with different numbers) - votes from Belfast (largest caucus including 22 towns) . Ron Paul won with 71 votes according to Matt McDonald, the Chairman of the Belfast Caucus. He called the State office and their numbers had Romney winning. By the way, the votes in the Belfast caucus were read publicly.
Belfast (37 in '08), Belmont (3 in '08), Brooks (5 in '08), Burnham, Freedom, Islesboro, Jackson (2 in '08), Knox (11 in '08), Liberty (11 in '08), Lincolnville (7 in '08), Monroe (6 in '08), Morrill (4 in '08), Prospect (2 in 08), Searsmont, Searsport (8 in '08, 5 for RP), Swanville (4 in '08), Thorndike, Troy (5 in '08 3 for RP), Waldo (3 in '08), Winterport (14 in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP

Washington

Washington was postponed due to imminent snow. Turns out the snow storm was miniscule, dropping only a dusting on Washington county, but nevertheless the Caucus totals should still be counted toward the winner right? Wrong. Charlie Webster refuses to allow the final tally in Washington county to count toward the official "winner" of the nonbinding straw vote that has been already been called for Mitt Romney.

York

Acton (14 in '08) - zero votes reported by GOP

I will be updating this article as more info comes in. Feel free to point me in the direction of any additional info you may have on discrepancies in the figures.

Sources:
Official Vote Breakdown from Maine GOP - http://www.mainegop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/me_gop_caucus_results.pdf
Vote Breakdown from 2008 - http://mysite.verizon.net/mark.j.ellis/Caucus%20Tally%20Report.pdf

New Android 3.0 Developer Tools Available

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 21:41:00 +0000

Android Developers Blog: Android 3.0 Platform Preview and Updated SDK Tools

To update, run the Android SDK manager, install the new updates from the available updates option.

Don't forget to update your Eclipse plugin! Launch Eclipse, go to Help > Check for Updates and then restart eclipse after installation.

Painless code syncing from any device with DropBox and GoodSync.

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:56:00 +0000

For years I've been manually coding my web applications using Textpad and have recently discovered a way to configure a few tools to work wonders together. The typical process we are trying to streamline goes something like this:

While at work, launch my FTP client
Download all the latest files from the FTP server
Open the files in Textpad on the work pc and edit them.
Each time an edit is made, upload the file using your favorite FTP client.
Open the browser and refresh the page to check out the results of my new code.
When I'm finished, I have to make sure to close any open files.
Then on my home PC, I again launch my FTP client
Download all the website files to make sure my local copy is up to date.
Open TextPad and begin editing files. If I happened to already have some files open, I'll be prompted to reload the file since we just updated them with the new ones from the server.
Make sure all files are closed when finished.
Repeat again and again for the rest of my life..... or maybe not!

At the end of this process, the files on my work computer are now out of date, and if I forget to download the newest version from the server, I run the risk of overwriting newer files accidentally and will likely proceed to frighten others by loudly exercising my obscenity vocabulary. In addition, every minor change made to the code requires that I flip through several windows to check and see what effect the changes had on the page I'm working on. We are going to resolve both of these issues as well as add another cool feature: the ability to make minor changes automatically from my mobile device using any basic mobile text editor.

Here is the gist of what we're going to do:

Configure two computers (or more) to keep website files and folders synchronized.
Automatically update the website when changes are saved via FTP.
Automatically reload changes made in one location on the other PC(s) if the file was left open.
Allow changes to be made from a mobile device, and automatically sync changes with both computers and the web server via FTP.

Warning: It is important you follow these directions in order. Failure to do so could result in the exact problem we are trying to avoid: overwriting new files with old ones. It is recommended that you back up your files until you are able to test and make sure everything is working properly (although I have not have any problems implementing this solution on many devices).

Download Dropbox via this link and sign up for an account! (Please use my referral link to get an extra 250mb of free storage space!). This will designate a folder on your PC to be a DropBox which will automatically synchronize between all PCS and keep a copy in the cloud for you so you never have to worry about losing those files.
Install Drop box on both your computers. In addition, you can install it on your mobile device as well (optional) .
Create a folder inside your DropBox folder called "websites". Create a folder inside of it for each website you would like to sync. Then just copy your various website root directory files into each new folder. Make absolutely sure you are using the most up to date versions of the files.
Download GoodSync and install it on a computer that is always on. It does not need to be installed on both computers. (In fact, installing it on more than one computer could cause some issues since DropBox is synchronizing between computers they could end up with different "Created" and "Modified" timestamps and producing an endless sync loop. I did not test this.) We will be using GoodSync to update your website via it's FTP sync feature. (Note: You may be able to configure this using a free sync application however I am partial to GoodSync and think it is very well done compared to some of the others I have tried. This site has a few reviews of a couple more popular sync utilities, however the instructions below are specific to GoodSync. If you do use a different sync client, it must support sync via FTP and have the ability to monitor your folders for any changes.)
Configure GoodSync to automatically start when windows does. I also checked 'create left/right sync folders if they are not found' and 'auto hide mini window'. In Tools > Program Options, use the following configuration:
Now we need to configure a sync job in GoodSync. To do this, we will first browse to the folder we want to keep synchronized on the left (Click browse in the upper left hand corner of the window). Navigate to the folder that reflects the root directory of the website you would like to sync (the site folder you created in your DropBox). Next, we need to set up the ftp connection to the web server for this particular site on the right side. Blick browse on the upper right side and enter your host, username and password. Click the "go" button once your info is entered and you will be given a directory listing of the remote server. Click on the root folder that matches the folder you will sync with the folder for that website located in your DropBox. Click ok to get out of that screen and you will see the new sync job listed in GoodSync.

(Please note that if you have a "websites" folder in your DropBox with multiple websites in it like I do, you cannot sync all of the sites at once since each website will have a different FTP host, path, and credentials. )
Click "Analyze" and make sure it is finding the matching files properly and there are no errors. If everything looks good, click the "Auto" button and tick the box to sync on file change like so:
If you have additional websites you would like to sync, return to step 6 and follow the same process and create new sync jobs for each site.
Now in TextPad go to Configure > Preferences. Click on File on the left, and configure the options like this:

I change these settings so that if I leave a file open and change it from another location, when I return to the original PC, the updates are reflected without having TextPad prompt me to reload the file. It's all automatic. This of course you will want to do on each PC you will be using to write code. Also I'm sure there are many other great text editors that support this functionality. Feel free to let me know in the comments.

That's it! So long as GoodSync is running, any changes to a DropBox folder you have configured to sync with GoodSync will automatically be uploaded to your website no matter where the change was made be it at home, at work, or even from your mobile device. I can now edit my website from my mobile phone, ipod, ipad, or any device that supports DropBox without the need to transfer any files at all. Just edit, and save!

I realize there are IDEs out there with plugins that handle much of this as well as text editors with FTP functionality built in, but for me this is the ideal solution. The tools are lightweight and fast (in contrast with many IDEs out there) and once it is configured it is exactly what I wanted.

Hopefully someone finds this as helpful as it was to me =)

FBI Wants to Read Your Facebook Messages

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:24:00 +0000

Being a programmer and not the biggest fan of government intervention in general due to the unintended consequences it usually delivers, I think this is an awful idea. Imagine that every app that is designed, every website that is built, and every tool that is used to allow people to communicate required additional features to allow the government to decrypt the messages it sends and receives. This would take valuable time to build for each developer, would be incredibly expensive overall and would create a barrier to entry for the little guy who wants to learn to program and release some software. Additionally, it could create new technical limitations for developers and could seriously stifle flexibility in some cases. This is the type of innovation inhibitor the country does not need, especially in our current economic climate.

Also, what's the point? What would stop a terrorist organization from writing their own program that didn't incorporate the government mandated decryption capabilities? How would they even know? The only software and websites that would comply with such a mandate would likely have no need for such a "protection".

Additionally, government already generally has access to this type of data via subpoena. They can already subpoena Verizon for example to get your text messages, or Google to get your chat messages or emails even if the government doesn't have the power to secretly decrypt the messages themselves. This bill would only force the terrorist communication away from mainstream communication methods and into the underground where subpoena power cannot find it.

All of that aside, opening a hole intended for use only by the government would almost inevitably lead to new security risks all over the place exposing personal and privater data to malicious eyes (A.K.A. domestic and international terrorists).

Where is this coming from?
Knowing this, why would the government want to implement such a bill? The only reason I can imagine would be to poke a foot in the door to something the government has wanted for quite some time, and has seen some success at achieving.

With the unique challenges that fighting "terror" (which is really a vague term for anyone who opposes the U.S. in its current form and could potentially do the country or its citizens harm), we have had to sacrifice some of our principles to be effective. Not only have we adopted a policy of "pre-emptive war" with other countries and groups (possibly Iran now too if we aren't careful), but the government has also expressed interest in identifying potential patterns in communication in order to identify 'terror' before it happens. The only problem is they are applying this pattern detection to political groups critical of the government, which happen to be the ones who fight for real change, protest, or push back at big brother at all. The term terrorism was redefined with the passing of the Patriot Act, and today it is quite easy to label a group of fed up citizens who protest government policy as domestic terrorists (see article from the ACLU). Knowing that any citizen who becomes politically involved can be easily labeled a domestic terrorist, passing of legislation like this means those individuals can be spied on legally not only over the phone, text message, email, etc but in private online communities as well. Don't believe the government would label a peaceful political activist as a terrorist? There are already over 1 million names on the terror watch list. What about mistakes?

And even if they pass legislation making it legal only when a warrant is issues, it's not like they haven't taken it too far before:

There are hundreds of videos, documentaries and articles like the ones I've posted here outlining details about how the government has taken their intelligence authority too far. Unfortunately it has often been to the detriment of the American people it is intended to protect.

Update: New related info out today. The EFF's FOIA request shows that internal government memos encourage agents to befriend people on facebook in an effort to receive information about them (without a warrant or even probable cause required of course). Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/13/government-spying-social-networks/

The Great Tea Party Hijack of 2010 Chronicled in Video

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:56:00 +0000

I'm afraid the new Tea Party movement is a hybrid comprised of
- the powerful force of frustrated Americans who are tired of politics as usual in Washington
- political opportunists, neo-conservatives & career politicians who see these frustrated Americans as a free ticket to political power.

First let me say, I am one of those fed up Americans. I have followed the real roots of the Tea party since it began to gain traction a couple of years ago to its current state. I have seen the principles on which it is founded begin to resonate with the people as many as ten years ago. I want the Tea Party to be a legitimate representation of this, and to exemplify the incredible grass roots movement I have seen break out across the country since some time in 2007. Unfortunately, the only real tea party candidates who truly represent these ideals are not getting the exposure they need to win their races, or are having a tough time sealing the victory, unlike these new "tea party" candidates like Christine O'Donnell in Delaware and Joe Miller in Alaska. I am afraid these candidates are a compromise given to the people by the powers that be in order to calm the rough seas the GOP find themselves in. I'm afraid they may be designed to help the people feel as though they finally have a say in their government only to give them some of what they want while continuing the endless printing of money and distraction of tireless war. These are the principles neo-conservatives hold closest to their hearts.

Who Started the REAL Tea Party?
The Tea Party we see today is a hijacked version of the true Tea Party. To distinguish the two, I will refer to the movement of the real grassroots (the movement I myself identify with) as the Liberty Movement, and the current more mainstream movement as the Tea Party.

For a long time now, the Liberty movement has been festering like a south Atlantic low pressure system in hurricane season. George W. Bush was elected on a platform for non interventionism and no nation building in 2000. Cutting taxes, getting the government out of our hair, these were all things Bush campaigned on. Unfortunately, as we know, he did not follow through on these things (nation building wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, massive stimulus spending, erosion of civil liberties through the patriot act). We got more of the same. Politicians telling us what they knew we wanted to hear:

The Liberty Movement began to take real form during the race for President in 2008 with the grassroots following that swelled up underneath Texas congressman Ron Paul. The grass roots tidal wave was so strong that his supporters (not his official campaign) organized mass donations in large collectives called money bombs. On Dec 16th 2007 Ron Paul's campaign received an astounding $6 million and change ENTIRELY FROM THE GRASS ROOTS. To this day it is the largest single day haul from any campaign. They also rented a blimp that flew up and down the East coast, something that also had never been done in a presidential campaign, and something that was not organized by the campaign itself but by the grass roots supporters alone. This of course is impressive, but the incredible part is that this was done without the large donations from special interest groups and big corporations that the mainstream media's favorite candidates were receiving at the time. Possibly even more incredible is the fact that this was orchestrated at a time when Dr. Paul's campaign was entirely drowned out by a complete media blackout. In fact, even though Paul:
- defeated some front-runners in early primaries

- crushed every presidential internet poll

- earned record breaking support from individuals across the country (even though it was reported as just over 4 million in 24 hours instead of 6 million total)

- won numerous text polls hosted by the national media (which they publicly marginalized)

- and was by far the favorite of major information hubs like Youtube, Digg, and other community based websites
he was minimized by the media at every pass and received a fraction of a percentage of the media coverage given to their favorite candidates, and was not invited to some of the most important Republican primary debates like the one hosted by Fox News in New Hampshire in 2008

Naturally, his supporters became furious and vowed to continue fighting for the sake of the liberty message. When the time came for Paul to back out of the race he realized a movement had begun, and that he should stay involved and continue to stoke the fire that his campaign had started in America. He created the Campaign for Liberty, a political action committee designed to help his grass roots supporters to continue their mission of pushing for Limited government, less taxes, less spending, sound money, less regulation and government intervention in the affairs of Americans, strong national defense without engaging in entangling alliances and unending undeclared wars, and strict protection of our civil liberties granted by the constitution. These are the principles Paul has stood for since he was first elected to congress in 1978. These are the principles at the foundation of the Liberty movement, and they are also the principles adopted in part by the Tea Party in an effort to lure an existing grass roots movement into the fold of a few players seeking to advance their own political power.

The first Tea Parties began to organize. The grass roots recognized the similarities in their principles and began to accept the Tea Party as a route to further the liberty message. Some of the grass roots favorites began to attend Tea Parties. They would speak at these events and naturally the amount of skepticism held by the original grass roots members of the Liberty movement faded. At times, their differences would flare up, but mostly the Tea Party organizers stayed quiet on the topics that would discourage their new found grass roots members and chose instead to focus on their similarities.

Suddenly, the folks who bankrolled many of the tea party events began to fund new Tea Party candidates who were unknowns to the grass roots. When the mainstream media started to announce big upsets in the senate races and the uprising of the Tea Party, the grassroots communities that remained from Ron Paul's presidential campaign and worked tirelessly supporting their own liberty candidates were a bit confused. How is it that they have never heard of Christine O'Donnell?
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/144610
How were they unfamiliar with Joe Miller?
http://www.dailypaul.com/node/143817
It is simply because these are results of the 'Establishment' version of the Liberty movement, dubbed the Tea Party. The strategic hijacking had brought the Liberty movement grass roots into the fold and had tricked them into gaining attention for candidates that didn't necessarily agree with many of the core principles Ron Paul had ran on in 2008.

The difference between the two groups are not subtle so far, but with any luck the principles of the Liberty movement will overshadow those of the current Tea Party candidates who seem to be making it into the house and senate. The Tea Party seems more accepting of pre-emptive war under the banner of "National Defense". They generally support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and are open to war with Iran (or if they do not support these wars they certainly don't say so publicly).

These new Tea Party candidates tend to be very scant on details. Their websites and interviews proudly boast the easy things like "shrink government" and "cut taxes" but the devil is in the details... details that don't seem to be available to the tea party voters. The modern Tea Party candidates say they would like to cut taxes and shrink government, but they can never seem to articulate what departments would be cut, or where the shrinkage would occur. This has never been a problem for the Liberty movement. They have always been very specific in discussing the details of government waste and what departments we need to rid ourselves of. You certainly never hear them say "End the Fed", which has become a thunderous mantra of the Liberty movement grass roots. You will not hear them question any specific establishment. Instead the message is generalized and vague. To me, these are bright red flags.

The true liberty candidates are having a much tougher time, probably because that establishment money isn't flowing in like it is for the Tea Party candidates who are virtually unknown to the original grass roots community. There have been many grass roots candidates endorsed by Ron Paul. John Dennis is running against Nancy Pelosi in California. This race has had lots of attention from the grass roots because Dennis is a true Liberty candidate completely in line with the Ron Paul principles established during his campaign. Dennis, running in a large state like California, however has not receive anywhere near the campaign contributions that O'Donnell did, and that has everything to do with where the money is coming from. For John Dennis it is coming almost entirely from the grass roots Liberty movement. For O'Donnell it is coming from the wealthy hijackers looking to absorb the liberty movement into the Establishment GOP. Peter Schiff was running in the Connecticut Senate race and was beaten down by a WWE (Wrestling) Executive with boat loads of cash. Again a true Liberty candidate with tons of grass roots support, but just not enough money to make it all the way. Rand Paul having the most name recognition of any Liberty candidate so far managed to win his primary and he may just make it into the Senate, but even Paul has had to face a real uphill battle against Establishment candidates. Other true Liberty candidates include Jake Towne, Clint Didier, and B.J. Lawson, none of which have raised money like O'Donnell has. It goes to show you what kind of power is wielded by the tag team effort of the establishment GOP and the mainstream media.

I'm not saying that this movement as a whole is a horrible thing. I'm saying that we need to be very careful about unwittingly compromising our principles under the "safety" of the tea party flag. Ron Paul himself sums it up quite well:

Who is trying to ride the Liberty Coat Tails?
The candidates being elected under the Tea Party banner are only a small piece of the hijacked pie. The true orchestrators behind the hijack of one of the most revolutionary movements in American history to my knowledge are Dick Armey & Freedomworks, Newt Gingritch, Sarah Palin, and possibly even Mike Huckabee. Weather or not these people are planning a grand absorption of a strong political movement, they are certainly wide eyed with enthusiasm about the possibility of using the fired up masses to their advantage.

Which political philosophy will win in the end?
We have a Libertarian leaning movement that was born from the Ron Paul revolution and those neo-conservatives of the Washington Republican "brand" meeting in the middle to topple the existing Democratic leadership. The question remains, which philosophy will last in the long run and what will the confused mixture that is the Tea Party emerge as in its final form? Will we have a Republican party that returns to its roots of limited government and fiscal responsibility as well as being responsible international citizens? or will be continue the war mongering and quantitative easing loved so dearly by the neo-conservative republican establishment?

Thanks to the internet's role in politics I think the people are awake now, and I do not think we will be fooled. We are no longer forced to listen to what big media wants us to hear. We are no longer limited in what information we receive.

If you want to know what is happening with the true liberty movement, read The Daily Paul. Remember who Fox News is. Remember who MSNBC is. Remember who CNN is. Also Russia Today, BBC, and every other big media outlet. Take them with a grain of salt. Keep an open mind. Research on YouTube. Research on Wikipedia. Research on Wikileaks. Research on Google. Search for your questions and find your own answers.

Net Neutrality - A Tougher Issue Thank You Think

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:28:00 +0000

Net Neutrality has been a hot topic for a while. The fear that corporations would bundle each and every website into 'packages' like cable TV is enough to scare most people into supporting net neutrality at face value, but is that the only side to the argument that the American people need be concerned with? Is this the only thing we have to be afraid of?

No.

There are more than two sides to this story this time around. We have in one corner, the service providers who would love to squeeze every extra ounce of cash from the internet as possible (the blessing and curse of capitalism). In the next corner, you have the government. They tend to gradually grow, consuming private businesses and private interests "for our own good" in each industry they become involved. Then they waste a ton of money on them, use them as political weapons and ultimately siphon money from the American people into the hands of those who are in charge of programs via taxes and inflation. Then in yet another corner we have the American people.

What are we really asking for in net neutrality?

We are asking to be left alone. We are afraid of having a free and open internet dismantled, censored, ruined. We're afraid that the likes of companies like Comcast in all its wisdom will make deals with other companies and giving traffic priority and an unfair competitive advantage over the smaller mom and pop shop, or even personal blogs. We're afraid that these companies could give us access to only pieces of the internet, charging us more for each additional chunk we would like access to.

In normal free markets this is no real concern because competition will eliminate most bad practices, however in the internet service game, we have a country divided up into groups where companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast enjoy regional monopolies. They have no REAL competition, and therefore not nearly as much of an incentive to give us what we really want instead of what would earn them the most money.

So our solution is to ask the government to step in to protect us.... but hold on just one second.

We are starting to realize that if the government steps in to rescue the people from the big bad companies, we will be following a trend that we have seen become all too real in recent months. I'm not going to argue the point, but I think most Americans agree that we should have reservations about government involvement in anything that we wish to remain free (as in freedom, not cost), open (as in everyone has equal access), and unrestricted (as in our first amendment right to freedom of speech). The government has imposed warrentless wiretapping on American citizens, demanded our personal information from Google and countless other companies (citing reasons other than court ordered subpoenas), and has even used any information it could get from the internet to go after citizens for additional taxes.

Barack has come out in support of Net Neutrality.

The things Obama mentions in this video are fantastic, and a sentiment that I think most people would generally agree with wholeheartedly. The problem is, what sort of slippery slope are we opening ourselves up to by allowing the government to regulate the internet in new ways? What sort of new regulations will they add on year after year? How can we be sure future regulations will always be in the true interest of the people and not of the spend happy politicians who need new sources of tax revenue? What happens when there is an incentive for government to ask for more, and then more again?

The question becomes "who do you trust more?" A company who has a regional monopoly and not grounded by the same capitalist forces that keep other companies in check (competition), OR the government, who has shown us that they do not care about your privacy, or about how they spend our money?

So what is the solution? If we can't trust big companies to look after us, and we cant trust big government, where do we turn?

I don't know the clear answer, but I believe it lies in the principles of our republic. When our founders constructed the constitution, they decided that a government could grow to become oppressive and unfair, and it needed the will of the people to provide the authority and keep it in check. It also realized that the people could band together and create a majority that could overpower the smaller less popular ideas unfairly, trampling the god given rights of the minority. This is why they designed the first ten amendments to the constitution. It was a document that took precedence over the will of the majority AND the will of the government. We need a bill of rights (of sorts) for the internet to protect us against both the government, the will of the majority, and the service providers. We also need a way to introduce true competition into the internet service provider market to stimulate competition and in turn produce a better end result for all internet users.

I imagine it would look something like this (extremely rough, and I'm sure some of this is entirely unfeasible, but it should get you thinking...).
Note: The following text is meant to serve individual persons using the internet. Corporations are not considered persons in the scope of the following text.

1. Extend the 1st amendment to specifically cover the internet as well. Each individual has an equal right to express and publish opinion in whatever manner they wish on the internet so long as it does not violate the inalienable rights of another.

2. A user has the right to use his service however he wishes, and should not be subject to any probe or investigation without a court order. This includes identifying the type of traffic that is being transmitted for any reason other than to gather information relevant to the sale of said service. Any data collected in this way must be private and not disclosed in any way that could identify the user without a court order.

3. Extend the 4th Amendment, specifically defining infringement on internet privacy without probable cause and a search warrant as an unreasonable search. This will still allow authorities to obtain a warrant, but aside from that any identifying data, even if identifiable by associative means, that is collected about an individual by a service provider cannot be sold, traded, or disclosed without the clear consent of that user. Any such request by the service provider must give the user an opportunity to opt out, and such option shall always be chosen by default.

4. At no time should any user's access be restricted or limited intentionally. All content should be delivered to the user with an equal priority.

5. A user cannot be charged for access to the internet on any basis other than the cost to deliver that access. Cost to deliver access should not be manipulated in order to change this cost.

Beware The Copyright Troll!

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 00:37:00 +0000

It turns out our grief stricken country is being slapped with yet another epidemic, and this one reeks of the immoral fungi that has grown on the corpse of traditional American values.

The law has yet to adapt to the information age apparently as ethically challenged lawyers like Steve Gibson of Righthaven LLC (a Copyright Holding Company) and greedy businessmen like Sherman Frederick of the Las Vegas Review Journal have partnered up to squeeze bloggers into forking over thousands of dollars for (get this) giving their website traffic! Now I can tell you that if I wrote an article, and a website picked it up and linked to it, I would be thrilled to have so many eyes on something that I had put together. These moral cripples however see dollar signs, and stab the very people who make their websites successful right in the face, all while spewing a misleading sob story of a company who is being taken advantage of by the evil bloggers of the world.

You see, the Las Vegas Review Journal (don't bother visiting their website, they apparently do not want you to visit, and I'd rather not be sued) among other companies have decided to launch lawsuits against tons of bloggers for quoting their articles on their blogs, and linking to them. Some of the websites being sued are developed from user submitted content, meaning the site owner is not even the one who posted the reference to the LVRJ article!

Trolling for intellectual property infringement in the digital space is nothing new. The RIAA, MPAA, and now the MAFIAA have heavy handily wielded their legal prowess against thousands of average Americans who are hardly in the position to pay the substantial damages the law currently demands for a conviction in such cases. They have even sued for the actions of children in the past. As a result, the fear of enormous damages and the promise of substantial legal fees is usually enough to scare John Doe into scraping together all the money he can afford in order to make the suit go away, likely leaving him in debt. This type of prosecution, although having serious morality issues, is not nearly as malicious as the "Righthaven Brand" of intellectual property trolling. The difference is, these people are clearly not interested in stopping the infringement. In fact, the several links scattered across each article to subscribe to an RSS feed, share, print and email the article could easily be construed as encouragement for the exact opposite.

In addition, traditional DMCA infringement cases begin with a cease and desist letter. Righthaven however has found a loophole in the DCMA requiring websites to be registered with the US copyright office in order to receive the safe harbor protections that require a letter to be sent demanding the removal of infringing content in order for the case to be heard by the court.

The fact that Righthaven specifically avoids sending notice to potential defendants further illustrates their true motive of extracting quick settlements from frightened and blindsided citizens.

In the copyright notice for Stephen's Media (parent company of LVRJ), you can see where they are trying to draw the line:

"Stephens Media welcomes hypertext links to its electronically-published textual content. The appropriate method for linking to Stephens Media content is to post only the headline and the first paragraph of a story and then a link to the original textual material."

Anyone living on this planet knows that posting only the headline of an article is unrealistic. To quote a sentence or two from an article to make a point or discussion about the facts contained within an article is common. We do it all the time in our everyday conversations. Take a look at digg.com and see how many thousands of articles were posted today in the very same way. It is considered bad form to steal someone's idea and rearrange the facts as if it were your own original research, but apparently, that's what Righthaven would rather? I seriously doubt that. To try and threaten someone with the draconian damages that are attached to copyright infringement for following a social norm is preposterous, especially when it poses no identifiable damage to the original publisher. Instead of damaging the publisher, being linked to from a successful blog or websites is among the most desirable outcomes of a successfully written article.

The Rumors:
The real entertainment in all of this comes into play when taking a look at the potential connection between the strategy of Righthaven LLC and the agenda of the Obama administration. Although there is no provable or documented relationship between the two, there certainly are some interesting ties.

A quick look at Steve Gibson's work history shows that he worked at Sidley Austin LLP. This is the same firm where Barack and Michelle Obama first met, and both worked as associates. Michelle Obama also worked in the same practice area as Gibson, Intellectual Property Law. The question becomes whether or not they crossed paths in some way? In all fairness the firm's Chicago office has over 500 attorneys now, who knows how many they had in 1990. Also a closer look seems to show that by the time Obama left Sidley Austin, Gibson was just finishing law school.

In addition to the Sidley Austin connection between these three, there is another major player who fits into this Chicago Law firm connection. Victoria Espinel was appointed by Barack Obama as the Copyright Czar. She also worked as an attorney specializing in Intellectual Property Law for Sidley Austin in Chicago. She is now tasked with enforcing the Intellectual Property Rights Act which was passed in 2008. Not surprisingly, she received several letters of recommendation, many of which were lobbying organizations for the RIAA and MPAA like The Copyright Alliance and the National Music Publishers' Association, as well as a letter from the MPAA itself.

To tie it all up, there are of course the numerous statements President Obama has made in regard to his feeling about the new age of widely published public opinion:

How can we act?

Weather or not you believe the story goes all the way to the Whitehouse, I would expect most would recognize the threat this sort of legal argument could pose to the voice of the people against the backdrop of a powerful media driven national viewpoint. The internet has been a conduit by which the voice of the people has been able to reach new levels of exposure. It has informed, educated, and exposed, and reminded us of people and ideas that have been traditionally placed into the shadows by the media's big decision makers. So, while the internet is still free, it is our greatest weapon.

- Do not link to any articles by the LVRJ or any of their sister websites. While you're at it, stay away from any of Righthaven's client websites too. This only increases their link popularity.
- Block companies that enjoy this sort of thing outright. You can do this by adding the lines of text from this post to your computer's hosts file. =)
- Right a message to the site's sponsors informing them of the misconduct of their advertiser.

The Myth of a Biased Internet on "Conspiracy Theories"

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 16:51:00 +0000

It's no secret I am a documentary junkie. Many of the millions of published documentaries seem to present a clear point of view on a given topic. Some try to give a fair account of both sides on the subject of the argument, but usually there is a conclusion that is subtly made by the creator.

Last night I watched a frontline special called The Vaccine War. I have heard of the argument that mandated vaccination is necessary as well as those who claim vaccination can be harmful and cause things like Autism. This particular documentary clearly came down on the side of vaccination. I don't mind documentaries having an opinion. I can decider the arguments for myself and do further research to draw an educated conclusion, and I even disagree with the conclusion film makers come to in many cases.

The problem with this documentary is one that permiated many films I have seen and I have a very serious beef with it. In this example, when those who claimed Vaccinations were necessary life saving mechanisms they also claimed that the internet was largely responsible for the flaring up or a movement of angry parents who incorrectly blame the vaccination process for a serious condition their children "contracted" shortly after being vaccinated. These people claim that the internet is a place where conspiracy theories tend to be more popular than common sense, and an interesting story about "the man" forcing harmful vaccinations into babies catches like wildfire only because people love a good horror story, and these conditions are typically discovered around the same age that vaccinations are given whose coincidence further fuels the angry mob. I believe the internet empowers individuals who normally have no real voice to easily challenge an establishment that they normally would have no means to. No establishment wants to accept a blame for harming human life and so the incentive to uncover an ugly truth does not exist among those in the best position to do so.

This argument has been used to attack those who believe in all sorts of theories and political positions which are much more prevalent on the internet than in the "real world", but I do not believe that free unfiltered speech is the reason for this. I think terrible coincidences should be debated, argued and either confirmed or exposed. The internet pointing out an issue is important, even when a movement is completely wrong. These issues will sometimes be correct, and in that case they will ultimately save lots of lives and correct lots of wrongdoing and corruption in the world. Videos usually have rating systems. Videos are also linked to on websites and blogs when people either agree with them or publish something debunking the theory. These topics catch fire when they have some sustainable merit without adequate opposing viewpoints. There are lots of wacky topics that receive huge amounts of criticism on the internet, and this is the public's way of filtering out the garbage while maintaining the right of individuals to express what it is they believe. To assume I am stupid enough to read only one side of an argument and take up arms against a cause without considering the other side is only valid when the other side of the argument is not available, and in the modern free and open internet this does not happen. Why do established industries feel they are better equipped to come to a valid conclusion than the people are? If there is a competing argument, it will be brought up in comments, blogs, and articles across the internet and anyone researching a topic would not be able to avoid an opposing viewpoint. It is a wonderful example of free speach and to blame this mechanism for causing harm or to suggest it be changed is not only shameful, it would violate our First amendment to free speech which has been a cornerstone to our country's success.

This is something that is coming up frequently these days. Many countries have begun passing legislation curbing free speech on the internet, most notably China. Australia and many other freedom oriented countries have begun to followed suit, including the United States. Consider this video where President Obama tells graduating students that widespread information is dangerous, and that we should channel this information by "educating" people. To me, all information is educational, not only the education provided by those who decide our curriculum. I fear this type of mindset is incredibly dangerous to our sustained freedom.

Consider Wikipedia. The service is a shining example of how the internet as a whole comes to valid and rational conclusions. It is often criticized for being susceptible to misinformation contributed by an "uneducated" public, but any study performed shows the information found in the articles to be as credible and accurate as our highest standards for factual literature such as Britannica [Example]. The internet community as a whole is brilliant, and does not need regulations to protect it from itself, such as limiting or censoring the information which is contributed in any way. To do so, even with the best and most carefully considered intentions, can only undermine the power and accuracy that only free and unbridled speech can provide.

That said, on this particular topic, there are many people who blame vaccinations for serious conditions. I believe this is entirely possible especially given the inclusion of ingredients that we know to be toxins associates with many conditions, but the numbers are very slight and could be completely coincidental. Unfortunately disease and misfortune are parts of life which are unavoidable. The evidence on both sides are circumstantial until we can scientifically rule out each scenario. Some of the scenarios seem to have been ruled out which is fantastic, but to put the argument to rest, clinical studies need to be performed until either every scenario is tested with no link found to the illnesses said to be caused by vaccinations, or a scenario is identified where serious conditions are increased under a specific vaccination combination and the effected children are studied to help determine what is unique about them that they contracted a disease or condition as a result. There is just not enough evidence to make a determination in either direction, however wherever there are questionable or untested results, parents should be presented with the statistics of questionable side effects for their consideration, and information about the diseases these vaccinations prevent against. Under no circumstance should an individual be mandated to be vaccinated. This is a basic human right to own your body and be responsible for your child's health which should never be violated. Unless a parent is knowingly doing harm to their child they should be in charge of the decisions and have the right to protect their child against potential danger as they see fit. Violations of human rights, no matter how small, tend to be further exploited in order to justify further violations in the future which long term can be far move dangerous than any condition no matter how widespread.

Basics of Reversing (Reverse Engineering)

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 17:23:00 +0000

If you aren't into challenges, have never looked at a Rubik's cube as anything but a colorful plastic square, suck at math, are regularly infuriated by computers, and have zero patience, you can stop reading now, there is nothing for you here beyond this sentence. For the rest of you, read on...

Every now and then I come across a topic I am simultaneously unfamiliar and fascinated with. Recently this as been reversing (and yes I'm talking about reverse engineering software, not taking apart your cable box to try and figure out how to get more channels you cheapskate). I have had my share of brushes with reverse engineering, and most of us probably have without knowing it. Anyone who has been exposed to a 'cracked' version of a program, run an anti malware application, got a computer virus, used a key generator, watched a 'backed up' DVD, or used a patch to modify the way a program runs (like removing a nag screen or something similar) has been blessed with the byproduct of reverse engineering software.

In short, reversing is looking at the files that make up a program, and using tools to peek inside, prod around, and find ways to tweak the files and make the system behave the way you want it to. The amount of changes you can make to a binary application are obviously limited and it can be very complex, time consuming and challenging, but the end result is unbelievably rewarding.

Of course I'm not condoning pirating software or violating any applications terms of use agreement, but these sorts of intense puzzles are far more entertaining than sudoku or a Rubik's cube, and can yield some pretty cool results while strengthening your general understanding of exactly how applications work at the ground level. For example, reversing is a powerful tool used to thwart malware and is one of the ways anti spyware/malware applications are able to remove those nasties from an infected system. Awwww, thanks reverse engineering! It is also very useful to developers who want to make their application more secure, after all you have to know how people break into them in order to protect against it (like that movie where Martin Laurence is a thief who becomes a cop and ends up finding out he's pretty good at catching thieves... yea kind of like that).

The thing I've really found interesting is how many new areas studying this topic really opens up. It forces you to delve into assembly language for example, and understand the transmission of network packets at a very different level. Diving into these subjects introduces tools and techniques that are applicable to so many troubleshooting tasks that it can really improve your capabilities as a tech person in virtually any area of expertise.

To get your feet wet, I would recommend searching youtube for videos on ollydbg, IDA pro, (both disassemblers), DeObfuscation, unpacking, and revers engineering in general. Also get familiar with hex editors and what they can be used for, decompilers like flasm and sothink for flash decompilation, etc. etc. etc.

Here are a couple links to sites with lots of different tools you can play with:
http://reversingproject.info/?page_id=153
RCE's tool library

And here is a list of some other apps that I've been toying with as of late:
XVI32, Hex Workshop, PEid, .NET Reflector, OllyDBG, IDA Pro

more reversing resources:
RCE Messageboard - be sure to check out the FAQ, tons of great information on there.
Lena's tutorial series - An excellent set of 40 tutorials including demo files, videos, documentation and even the freeware apps you'll need to get started. Highly recommended.

Bottom line is, if you're not familiar with any of these things, that's ok, you've just got a lot of toying around to do. If you want to try cracking a very simple application, check out oldversion.com - they keep a repository of older versions of all types of popular software that is much less complex and easier to crack than then more heavily protected modern applications (of course this is a sweeping generalization and not universally applicable).

And of course what would a blog post be without a couple little videos to show you what the hell I'm talking about:

Happy reversing =)

Starcraft 2 Closed Beta Lanches

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:39:00 +0000

Blizzard announced today that the multiplayer beta test for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is now underway. The client downloader is available through Battle.net for people who have received invites, and the system requirements have been posted as well. A list of known issues is up on the official forums.

Lots of questions about the Beta have been answered by Blizzard on a German website instarcraft.de. You can access the translated FAQ here.

In addition there have been a few live streams popping up for those of you want to get an early look at the game. Several of them are getting thousands of active viewers only a couple hours after the beta has launched. The masses are certainly writhing in anticipation for their opportunity to either get in on the Beta, or to pick up a copy of the game when it is released later this year. Here are the streams:

Starcraft Method:
http://www.livestream.com/starcraftmethod
Several streams from Starcraftmethod.com

1Up:
http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3177988

LiquidNazgul's Livestream:
http://www.teamliquid.net/video/userstream.php?user=Chill

http://www.livestream.com/jobbies

Wr3k's SC2 stream

KOre's Stream

Response's Stream

Windows 7 Mobile - First Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:14:00 +0000

There's no doubting that the initial end-user impressions scattered in comments across blogs, youtube videos and technology forums from all around the internet have been very good. The only real negative feedback seems to be centered on the bad taste Microsoft has left in so many nerdy mouths over the years, especially in the mobile world. Microsoft has lost over 30% of the U.S. smart phone market share since 2007 and is currently hovering somewhere around 16% and dropping like a rock.

So what has Microsoft done that is making real success a possibility?

They have completely redesigned windows mobile from the looks of things. The new user interface is reminiscent of Windows Media Center in terms of looks and comes paired with a new ideology in terms of navigation and functionality. The information is data-centric unlike our current popular mobile Os platforms like Apple's iPhone OS and Google Android OS among others. The layout makes sense and could really stir things up if the cards are played correctly.

All of this is exciting and all, but I can't help but to be somewhat afraid of what Microsoft will manage to do to undermine its own success. This reminds me of how excited I was about xBox Live and the many possibilities there specifically with the integration with Windows Media Center and how I couldn't wait to replace my cable box with a media center computer and an xBox360. Unfortunately the corporate mentality of Microsoft killed both of these things for me over time. Instead of allowing free and cheap user created content to integrate with xBox and Windows Media Center pcs, we were locked into only playing windows media formatted files and purchasing videos. We were forced to rely on all sorts of hacks and workarounds to get our xvid movies to play on our TV and couldnt enjoy most of what the internet already offers us for free (Like HULU and YouTube!). The dream of a centralized unrestricted home entertainment seems to be hitting road blocks everywhere, and the first one to tear them down will undoubtedly see some real success.

Here are a few items we will just have to wait and see about before we go buying a Windows Mobile 7 device...

Will Microsoft lock down media formats, cripple xBox Live and media center integration or try and heavy handedly push 'premium content'?
Can apps directly integrate with the UI to bring their data front and center (which is what makes this OS so attractive anyway), or will microsoft lock down which services get special treatment? If they can, can I get in and tweak what shows where, when and how it is displayed? This style of interface could quickly become overrun with useless app notifications at time when they aren't needed if I can't have tight control over it.
Can users disable the long transitions? They look great but I'm sure some people would like to shave any extra seconds off their day to day tasks like adding contacts, browsing the internet or looking up someones contact details, etc.

These are just a few things that come to mind, but I'm sure all of the thorough comparisons, benchmarks, overviews, photos and videos that are sure to begin flooding the interwebs will reveal the answers in due time.

Microsoft, don't lock us out of our own content. Don't force us to use something when we already like something else much more. Feel free to give us the option to try something new, but don't flood me with nag screens teasing me to open my wallet to enjoy what I thought I had already purchased (like with xBox), or handcuff me to your favorite video and audio services owned by you and your buddies. You've got a good idea here, and you seem to have done well with Windows 7. Please don't make Windows 7 brief moment of clarity, tell me you've changed for good.

FL Studio 9

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:22:00 +0000

Haven't been toying with this too much these days but figured I'd post what I have done lately anyway. Heres a track I made recently. FL files included so you can tweak it yourself if you like.Feel free to use it as you wish =)

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Dethroned.zip

How to Customize an Office 2007 Installation

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 17:16:00 +0000

Requirements: Office 2007 copied to an accessible network location

To start the customization Wizard launch setup.exe with the /admin switch like this:

Start > Run and then:

"\\server\share\distrib\Microsoft\Office 2007\setup.exe" /admin

This will launch the Office Customization Tool

Each section has options that can be configures, such as adding trusted macros and security certificates of trusted applications, Added the Volume license keycode so it doesnt have to be entered during installation and even customizing outlook exchange server settings to automate profile creation.

Example of licensing and User Interface section:

In the Outlook Section, do the following to auto setup a users profile so you dont have to enter the exchange and user settings each time a new profile is configured:

Once you are done configuring the various options, click File > Save from the main menu.

Save the file (you can name it anything) in the 'Updates' folder located on your network installation source.

Next time you launch the installer (via setup.exe, not the .msp file you created), all of the settings will be automatically applied during installation. The .msp file you created can also be used to update existing installations of MS Office 2007.

The Buzz on Google Buzz

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:11:00 +0000

Over the past few days since the release of Google Buzz I have noticed countless articles stating that Google is stepping on their own toes, people cant wait to see Buzz launched so they can turn it off, and that it's redundant, useless, privacy nightmare, etc etc etc.

This is a far stretch from Google's typical announcement reactions, to for example their up coming 1Gbps fiber to home service . So why the bad sentiment?

Two reasons.

First, the only big complaint people have with Google these days is Power and Privacy (yes that's one complaint). Google holds so much information about each individual's habits that they could probably launch some software that will give you accurate life coaching advice! The fear is that this info could some day (once the 'don't be evil' mantra is worn down by greedy board execs and share holders) fall into the wrong hands, and be used for the wrong reasons. Google Buzz is just another avenue for personal data gathering, which is the most precious type. I could care less if people knew about something as generic as what brand of cell phone I prefer, but to tap into conversation with close friends and family about private matters is a bit invasive. I see Google Buzz taking the wrap for that, but it's just like anything else, just like this blog for example. I just don't post things that are too personal to be public, and that's that.

Second reason is that people already have their beloved Facebook. Facebook is the one hub that has captured the market (which was MySpace's to lose). The universal, no frills, clean interface which brought an older age group into the fold, coupled with the chat feature was a hit.

What do I think will come from Google Buzz?

I think it will do well in due time. Facebook will not be replaced any time soon, but they are having some huge problems. Facebook's site is often so slow its almost unusable. This keeps them from expanding into more robust functionality and paves the way for up and coming competition like Google Buzz. Facebook is also getting into bed with some unsavories like AOL. Just the sheer mention of AOL brings back floods of ~~memories~~ nightmares of gaudy advertisements, ineffective search tools and god awful bloated user interfaces designed for seniors and infants. (Remember when AOL's installer was classified as badware?) Facebook doesn't integrate directly with other popular services the way that Buzz does (well you can make it work, but its a bit clunky and not a tight built in integration like Google Buzz has going). It's also being put right in the face of the entire gmail community which as you know is massive. This will give the service a couple advantages Orkut just couldn't touch, which is immediate membership and consistent member usage. This could be Google's first real shot at entering the world of social networking.

Facebook now has over 100 million mobile users. This number is only growing, and with social tools integrated out of the box with these types of tools this number shows no signs of slowing. Who is the king of mobile app development? Google of course. Their Android team is quickly sweeping the marking and positioned to be a major competitor in the smartphone marketplace for years to come. When all the android handsets start shipping with Google Buzz clients by default (which will possibly become more well produced and useful than the facebook app), and the facebook app is no longer pre installed we might notice a shift of power in the long run.

All in all there are privacy concerns with any social app, and its a new era that takes new responsibility and awareness that nothing is private. Social apps are not going anywhere, and the same complaints can be launched toward any one of the many services floating around out there. Google's ridiculous collection of gobs of personal data is scary as hell, but I dont think that will deter the service from being a success if they can continue to product the type of software we have seen that they are capable of (gmail, android, google maps, and of course search, etc. etc.)

Will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Starcraft 2 Beta Launching This Month, and Final Release Summer 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:40:00 +0000

As confirmed by the Activision Blizzard Fourth Quarter Calendar 2009 Results Conference Call, the Starcraft 2 Beta will be launching before the end of this month. Starcraft 2 is the sequel to the highly acclaimed Starcraft that first launched 12 years ago and still boasts a large online player base, particularly in Korea and other countries. This comes after lots of speculation flying around recently regarding the release date and beta launch date coming very soon, despite several delay announcements since mid 2007. In addition to the beta announcement, there was also mention that the ship date for the first installment of starcraft 2 (Wings of Liberty) is slated to be shipped mid 2010. This can be confirmed by looking at the earnings guidance provided (if you consider attributing the expected revenue increases for Q2 to come from preorders which would likely begin in Q2 also).

According to the call, this will be a global beta with "thousands" of users from the US as well as other nations around the world. We know they gave out several beta keys during Blizzcon over the past few years, several others via their official twitter page, as well as others via several contests they have been running on the official SC2 website. They have also been accepting beta opt ins via the battle.net website so long as you have a valid product key from an existing Blizzard game for some time now, but we still don't know just how many users will be able to get in on the Beta in comparison to how many opt ins they have received, or what the criteria is. All we can do for now is sit and wait for an email...

The conference call was recorded and will likely be available on the Activision website after the call is concluded as well as the slides provided during the call:
http://investor.activision.com/results.cfm

The Missing Software - Painless Imaging

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:01:00 +0000

I think there is a huge hole in the market when it comes to imaging software. We've got some really good companies out there like Symantec and Acronis, but I feel like there is a big gap requiring an IT Administrator to take multiple steps to create a universal image that can be rolled out to many different hardware types throughout the office. This can be achieved using imaging software like Backup Exec System Recovery or True Image in conjunction with Sysprep and MySysprep but its clunky and takes time to set up.

I see it like this. Why cant I just create an image as usual, and have a bootable application that will go to a web based driver repository and download the network and storage drivers needed to boot that image on dissimilar hardware, as well as switch to the correct hardware abstract layer as well as regenerate SIDs AND join the PC to the domain automatically and name the PC according to serial number all in one product? In addition most of these apps support converting to and from virtual images. Forget converting, we want to boot the image so we can update it from time to time and just 'save' it back when we are done installing windows updates.

I've been putting together a tutorial on how to achieve this with BESR and sysprep, but like Conan O'Brien it's not quite ready for prime time yet. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: Somehow I missed UIU (Universal Imaging Utility). I'm trying it out now to see how well it works but it came highly recommended from a colleague. Looks like it does most of what I mentioned above but instead of downloading only your necessary drivers on the fly, it loads a 2GB repository of just about every driver you could need. Luckily it does give you the ability to narrow that down after it is already installed on your base image.

My big question is, will it allow for more flexibility than sysprep in terms of customizing your settings, specifically with computer naming schemes and domain autojoin? We will soon find out.

Introducing the iPad, the iPod Touch for huge people...

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:36:00 +0000

First off, I'm not at all a "bash everything apple" guy. I think they are a tremendous hardware manufacturer, and they generally make some great software too.

At dinner last night I was sitting with two friends who adamantly defended the iPad and how cool it is. They also marveled at how low the price tag was, especially for a new apple device. Had to do all that I could to keep from spitting iced tea all over the table. When I watched the iPad launch video I sat silently, in disbelief. Steve was trying so hard to be enthusiastic about nothing new at all, like the ability to change the wallpaper to whatever you want. If you closed your eyes and couldn't see the device, you would have thought without question this was the release video for the iPod touch. It's the same device, only huge.

I'm not saying the iPad is useless, but I am saying its not such a game changing announcement at all. The iPad has some serious flaws that should have been addressed to make up for its bulk and help this device to stand out. The iPad needed to compete with netbooks and all the upcoming tablets, and I really don't it comes close. You're going to see a lot of other tablets begin to overshadow the iPad in terms of functionality (maybe not in the hype department though, Apple has got that market cornered). There will be a slew of Android based devices from lots of different manufacturers that will out of the box perform a lot of the same functionality and then some, including the Flash support that the iPad doesn't have.

Let us count the ways the iPad is lacking vs a Netbook

- no flash support

- no external storage device support

- no access to non apple media stores

- no built in web cam or camera, or mic for that matter

- can't angle the screen when device is on your lap

- no physical keyboard

- no SD card slot

- more expensive!

What Apple Should have released imo:

The iPad certainly should have had a mic, webcam, sd card slot, usb port for external devices, flash support, and it should come with the carrying case they sell as an accessory, and maybe a digital TV tuner or something to make it stand ABOVE what we already have.

I'll be waiting for the iPad G2 or whatever they will be calling it.

UPDATE: Just days Later We get the announcement that the JooJoo is set to hit the market and has most of the features the iPad is missing. It doesnt have the name recognition but it certainly looks good and has some serious specs to back it up... all for the same price as the iPad. Now that's what Apple should have done. Oh well maybe next time.

Check out the new device here: https://thejoojoo.com/

Use Google Voice to Deal with Pushy Debt Collectors

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:36:00 +0000

It's happened to everyone. You receive a phone call from an unknown number and next thing you know they are informing you that they are recording your phone call. Lots of times after the conversation is over and you think you've made some progress explaining whatever the situation is, and you get a call the next day from someone else who has no idea what you've talked about, or what the previous person had promised you.

For me it was when a mystery account showed up on my credit report and now I had to fight to get it removed. Turned out years ago I was on a short term lease with someone who had stained the carpet in their bedroom. The management company had to replace it and billed it back to us, the tenants. I was unaware of this until seeing it show up on my credit report. After tracking down the collection agency assigned to the debt I began to get the equivalent of Navy Seal trained debt collection efforts in the mount of over $2,000. I wasn't personally responsible for the carpet, but I was on the lease after all. I did what anyone would do and asked them what the minimum amount was that they would accept to clear the debt (since of course they purchased the debt for pennies on the dollar). The process can be pretty daunting if it is considered a legitimate debt, but there are some things you can do to protect yourself when negotiating a settlement. One thing is to use Google Voice to record any conversations with the debt collectors to get them to keep their promises. These guys are shady and they are trained to be that way. For example they will always lie to you and tell you 1) they need an entire lump sum, and cannot accept payments (generally false) 2) they need it within 3 days or some ridiculous timeframe, etc. etc. If they hear 'voice recording is now on', they are much less likely to try and BS you.

It's funny how people change when they are on camera, or being recorded unexpectedly. Doing this is simple, log into Google Voice, press the call button, type in the number to the slimy bill collector, and it will ring your phone. Once they are on the call press the number 4 and you will hear 'call recording on'. Your call will be recorded and will be accessible from your Google voice account. You can even save the file for future reference.

One other good practice is to call them from google voice and record the call, then request they update their records with your Google voice phone number so you can record calls and you no longer authorize them to call your cell phone directly. Let them know it will ring the same phone. They are much less likely to refuse when they know they are being recorded.

The Future of DJ Hero?

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:17:00 +0000

So this past weekend a friend stopped by with Activision's latest creation, DJ Hero. Not being a very big gamer in general I hadn't heard much about it at the time, but now I'm convinced that this is the beginning of something just as big as [if not bigger than :-0 ] guitar hero. I will start by saying I'm entirely biased. Guitar hero was great in concept for me but it lacked most of the music I prefer to listen to on a daily basis. Some of it is great, and timeless of course, but to me it would be more entertaining to play new fresh content, not the same oldies I've heard thousands of times. With DJ Hero it wasn't like that for me. Since these are original mixes I was in love with some of the tracks as well as disappointed by others, but the point remains, they've taped into something new and I'd like to illustrate a few of the ways they could make this game nothing short of incredible.

1 - Build on one game with expansion packs. A lot of people online are complaining about the music in DJ hero and as I said before I love some of it and really cant stand some of the other stuff. Give me an expansion pack loaded with mixes I like and dont force me to buy the crap I dont. If we were to break a lot of this up and let the people decide what they wanted we would have more happy campers out there and overall sales would make up for the losses. Be good to the consumer and they will return the favor.

2 - Include more than just hip hop, specifically Trance, House etc.. Yes the whole DJ thing is synonymous with hip hop, but it is a new world where electronic music is making a strong push. Look at Ultra Music Festival for example. This thing is getting bigger every year and its not showing any signs of slowing down. More than 85,000 people attended in Miami last year alone and the numbers have been climbing by more than 10,000 every year. Not to metion it only just started in 1999.

3 - Build a mix creator. The big obstacle for the game creator is licensing the music. So how can you affort to keep tons of fresh music available to consumers? Let individuals (or real DJs) purchase mix creation software and load their own music sources and design their own beginner, easy, medium, hard and expert tracks for their songs. Original music only, free online community, etc will ensure the game never gets old.

4 - Dual turn table edition. The turntable in DJ Hero essentially simulated dual turntables by use of the buttons on the vinyl itself. My theory is, the closer you can make the game to an actuall DJ experience, the more well accepted it will be and can even be adopted for training purposes for those looking to get into the real thing.

5 - Make a PC Version. The PC game market it a big one. Online community can exist there with much less limitations than console gaming enabling free reign on some of the ideas above. I know lots of people who don't bother with console gaming at all because of the great strides PC gaming has seen over the years. You've already got the hardware, you got the software which should be too difficult to port over to a windows based app, especially from your xBox based code, why not make a PC version?

6 - Genre Filtering - This game is about the music. Give me a simple way to select precisely what type of music I'm into. Let me deselect certain artists for example to hide them from the library. This leads into my next suggestion...

7 - If you have one huge music repository for all the tracks, integrate a song suggestion feature like pandora or apple's genius feature provides. Maybe one day I'm in the mood for classic hip hip, and another day I may want more electronic, while another day I may want rock / hip-hop mash ups.... help me get there.

8 - Customizable samples. A lot of the samples are a complete joke. If I hear that guy say 'check this out' one more time I may just shoot myself in the face. We need more, higher quality sounds and let me put together my own sample kit from the entire library, don't group some decent ones with crappy ones and make me use them all.

9 - Visualization mode. I never got into guitar hero for one of the same reasons I never touched world of warcraft. The cartooney nature of it was a little unbearable. Corney characters and visuals are a turn off. Why not offer a mode that just puts a simple visualization in the background that spins around and goes to the beat? Should be a simple addition and doesn't have to be the default mode by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe it can even be an unlockable item?

In short I'd like to see a DJ Hero experience that is more like my ipod collection. I want to listen to some good music, and the game is almost an accessory that helps me get into the music even more. If I can actually learn something about the real deal in the process I'm sold. If they can do this the game will begin to appeal to an entirely new market, and will be insanely entertaining.

Some of these ideas may happen while others will probably never see the light of day but I think even a few of these could make one hell of a game.

Finally I want to say, I'm not trying to take anything away from the game, I think its insanely addictive as is and a overall good time (my friends think so too), I just couldn't help but think about what else it could be.

Is the Venus Project just a whimsical idea or a real world possibility?

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:32:00 +0000

The Venus Project is an exciting and refreshing way to look at the theoretical possibilities for mankind if we can shed some of our primitive and limited thought processes which currently hold us back as a species, but how feasible is it?

I've been exploring this in great detail I find myself surprised at how possible the creation of a new social structure like the one outlined in the Venus Project may actually be.

The things that make this concept unrealistic are biproducts of our current culture, which would not exist in the society outlined in the Venus Project

Even if this is something we do not realize in or lifetime it is certainly interesting to consider and well worth our serious attention.

in reference to: http://www.thevenusproject.com/ (view on Google Sidewiki)

The Downfall of IBM - Lenovo is Killing Me

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 19:58:00 +0000

On May 1st of 2005 Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo announced the acquisition of IBM's consumer PC branch has been officially completed.

Since then, there have been a lot of complaints about some of the things that have transpired, both on the manufacturing side, and the decision making side of this epic "partnership".

First let me give you a little background. I work for a company that services hundreds of IBM desktops and laptops. We still purchase nothing but IBM (now Lenovo) equipment for our users. Fortunately for Lenovo, it's not my decision to make. I have been working with this equipment for many years now, and have been familiar with IBM laptops since the Thinkpad A20 was released.

Here are a few of my biggest complaints with the "new" IBM that has slowly emerged since the acquisition:

1. Frequency of Hardware Issues and Bonehead mistakes. Without question the number of hardware related issues I encounter on a weekly basis have certainly increased by a substantial margin. There will always be hardware issues but this is just too much. This week I ordered 5 new desktops. 2 of them booted up normally, 3 didnt. Luckily it was a bios & partitioning problem and I was just imaging these drives anyway so I got through it.

2. Driver Updates! Lenovo has announced they are "changing the way" users obtain updates. What they mean to say is they have completely discontinued their software update service that would scan you pc and identify out of date drivers and provide the updates over the web. This was an excellent feature, and most of Lenovo's competitors have something similar in their arsenal of tools.

3. Warranty replacements. Lenovo has adjusted some of the warranty details making certain things less covered (batteries are only warrantied for 1 year even if you purchase a 3 year warranty on your laptop), or more difficult to replace. Before when there was an issue I could call support, tell them what was wrong. If they agreed with my troubleshooting steps and I could reproduce the issue they would accept the repair ticket and send a box and shipping label to return the equipment for repair. Now they make you just through lots of unnecessarry hoops in order to deter you from returning the broken peice of just they shipped you. I don't have time for this.

4. Replacement part price. To replace that battery that isn't covered for 3 years anymore, the cheapest you can find the replacement is about $120 + shipping. For a standard battery, seriously.

5. Preinstalled software SUCKS. This is more of a general complaint, not necessarrily Lenovo's fault since it has always sucked. The Access Connections (which is on by default) can cause conflicts with Win XP built in wireless managhement tools, even if you disable it! In order to resolve the issue, you must ininstall access connections. Also I have seen issues where Access connections drops the signal sporadicly. Also the nagging message center is useless. Way too much junk running needlessly in the background. Best bet is to wipe the machine and start with a fresh OS, and download the drivers (which of course you need to find and install manually now thanks to the geniuses at Lenovo).

6. US company offloading US jobs. It is my opinion that every time a big US company like IBM turns its back on the people who made it such a success, this country slips just a little bit more in the direction it's been going for some time now. Way to contribute IBM! Go China! (sarcasm)

Keep in mind I could easily provide many examples for each one of these issues listed, but this is what comes to mind immediately. Am I the only one wondering what the hell was going on?

FYI I don't care about the typos in this post, I'm taking a lesson from Lenovo on this one. Less is more.

UPDATE: Since originally writing this Lenovo seems to have wised up and has begun to support the System Update tool once again. Thank the lord. But on the flip side of the coin, they have also started delivering 3rd party ads through their message center that are full image based ads that pop up on top of whatever it is that you are working on. Now THAT'S a business strategy folks! Brilliant!

Touch Screen Macbooks in the works? (Rumor)

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:38:00 +0000

Taiwan based company Wintek is reporting that they are working on new touch screen display components for apple. The assumption is that Apple may be working on some touch screen versions of their Macbook line. If they can implement touch functionality as well as they did with the iPhone this is sure to be another great product evolution from the company.

http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20090309PB204.html

Take this report for what it is, a rumor. The folks at digitimes have proven to be hit or miss in the past, especially when reporting on foreign companies. It does seem like a logical product evolution for Apple however.

UPDATE:

It's official, the iPad has arrived. That's right a gigantic iPod touch. Nothing to see here folks, move along.

The Economic Meltdown is not over...

noreply@blogger.com (Luke) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 15:40:00 +0000

So anyone with a 401k account or a stock portfolio knows how bad this has been. Many people I work with have lost close to 70% of their total contributions into their retirement accounts!

How did we get here?
In a word, spending. Spending is ok, if you're spending within your means. We, however, are not. Anyone with any sense at all knows its a bad idea to max out your credit cards. It is even worse to continue to open new cards when you dont have the money to pay what you already owe. As far as the country is concerned, we have a running tab called the national debt. In the 2008 Fiscal Year, 9.2% ($261 billion) of the government's spending was allocated for Interest on the nation debt! This figure will be higher and higher every year if we cannot pay down our debt (which is impossible at our current rate). In addition to the budgeted spending in that fiscal year, the government also recorded a bloated $240 billion deficit (which gets tacked on to the national debt). Every time we pass an unbalanced budget or ask congress for more money for one thing or another (such as our efforts over seas) the money is essentially printed up and thrown on our tab.

Crouching tiger, hidden inflation...
The underlying plague to our governments financial system is very powerful, and very underestimated. Inflation is a perpetual drain on the income of everyone in our country (except the bankers and the government who get to use the newly printed money before it loses value). Inflation rises more rapidly than wage increases, and as a result, we're often losing money even if we're getting an annual raise!

The Federal Reserve often targets an annual inflation rate of somewhere near 1.5%, and their reports usually show them to be somewhat on the mark in most cases. the problem is, the calculations are questionable at best. They are essentially designed not to show high inflation rates! The lower they show inflation rates to be, the higher they anticipate consumer confidence in the markets. If they announced true inflation rates, it would draw attention to the mass printing of funny money and that the dollar is slowly but surely being diluted down to nothing.

Ways inflation numbers are "rigged":

1 - In the early 1990s, "hedonic quality adjustments" were introduced into inflation calculation which allowed a certain amount of subjectivity into determining the price increase of consumer goods. This gave the power to the Bureau of Labor Statistics to fudge the numbers a bit to make it seem as though prices were not increasing as quickly as they really were.

2 - Starting in 1983, the government began measuring the price of housing based on rental price, not actual cost. Since rental prices do not raise as quickly as home values this also helped to underestimate the rate of inflation. Now that housing prices have tanked, we'll see if they switch this back to the actual value to achieve even lower inflation rates.

3 - The government also began to assume consumers would make substitutions in the purchases when the prices increased. If the price of steak went up, they began to assume people would not buy as much steak and go for chicken or pork instead. The issue is, we're adding more subjectivity into the equation. They should be using the numbers as they are, not picking and choosing like this.

There are other tweaks and adjustments that have been made to the calculations over the years. The end result is that the real rate of inflation is much higher than the reported figures. In most cases it is estimated that the actual rate of inflation is as high as threee times what it is reported to be! We all know it to be true when we see the prices in the supermarket and take notice. You probably wouldnt even notice at all if the annual inflation rate was only 1 or 2 percent. You can tell the difference because it is actually much higher than that.

Bandaids for Cancer Patients
You dont give a cancer patient a bandaid, but somehow we see fit to give our dying economy the exact same treatment. Bailouts are bandaids. Stimulus packages are generally bandaids. Lying about the state of the economy to help "market confidence" is a bandaid. These things address the issues at hand

Why it's not going to stop
Both the Bush, and the Obama administration have vigorously attempted to spend our way out of this mess which was caused by spending too much money. Spending money we dont have dilutes the currency and causes inflation. Of course we hide the inflation figures so people are still nice and confident and continue spending money instead of eliminating their outstanding lines of credit and paying down their debt etc. Lack of savings makes it harder for individuals to recover from tough economic times which further contribute to the problem.

There are very few politicians that see the big picture. One of them is the famed Texas congressman Ron Paul. He has been avidly protesting the constant unbalanced budgets we pass as well as the ongoing costs over seas, the bailouts, the stimulus packages etc. etc. etc. He has been fighting this fight for decades and is finally starting to be respected as a result of this monumental crisis. Unfortunately, there are still many people at the top who are greatly benifited by our corrupt financial system.

How can we fix it?
We need to take this much more seriously.
1 - STOP spending money we dont have! If we have to stop fighting wars overseas and stop giving aid to countries who want our help then that's what we have to do to save our country. If we have to encourage non-profit groups to step up and assist with healthcare instead of giving more government handouts and welfare, then that's what we have to do to save our country. No more bailouts, no more stimulus packages, let the banks who mismanaged their money fail. Let the home owners who purchased beyong their means lose their homes. As terrible as all of this is, it will flush the bloated system
2 - Stop hiding the truth from the American people. Stop hiding inflation figures. Start reporting true money supply.
3 - Stop diluting our currency. The more money we print up, the more we dilute the USD. If we can get a grip on money supply and get some control over the Federal reserve, we might stand a chance.
4 - Follow the constitution. If we just stuck to the gameplan our founding forefathers put together, we would have avoided all of this. We gave the Federal Reserve (a private institution) authority to print money at will.
5 - Keep the internet open and free! We cannot allow a censored version of the interenet to emerge like in China. This will give the government the power to keep this type of information from reaching people, since the large media companies are owned by those who stand to gain from our corrupt and broken financial system. You may think this should not be a concern, but pay close attention to proposed legislation related to regulation of the internet and you will begin to see that this is in fact on the table, and it will take a constant fight to keep it off.