EduBoris

Social Engineering is the new way of hacking and getting into systems, here's my case.

Got a phone call today at 2:24PM from an unknown caller. They asked for the person's name (whom the number is listed under) I continued to speak as if I am them as they explained that "your computer was generating errors" or messages or something rather "when browsing the internet and downloading..." of course being in this field I know what they are saying is completely bogus but I wanted to find out more about what they doing, suggesting and their intentions and goals (as I always do with phone calls to me).

I asked who are they, where they calling from and what is the problem. They answered (something like) 'windows department' (I don't remember the exact answer), 'New York' and the problem is 'the errors' (or similar answer) in that order. I got somewhat fed up with the lack of information in the answers and said I am a system administrator and what they are saying is bullshit so they said "it's not bullshit" and that was the last I heard from them as they hung up unfortunately. I do regret ending the conversation short and wish I could get more information that would help in future mitigation of such attackers (training my staff accordingly) and ultimately to convict these criminals.

What I wish to have learned:
What exactly they wanted to do and how did they want to do it?
For example; did they want me to download something on my computer to help 'solve the problem'? (probably a virus or other malicious type of software that would most likely log what I have potentially email username/passwords and bank account numbers and passwords, spreading itself to other computers that mine would be in contact with) or did they want to sell me something (which would be like a scam or fraud) or maybe their intention is to have my computer infected from the conversation of let's say download something and then they would offer whatever they sell to fix it.

Whether they are scamming to get into the computer and have control over it or they just want to make a quick buck is still unclear but from the clues I do have they most likely want access directly into my computer since they did identify as a windows department of sorts.

Many questions still unanswered and I still working on making a recording system because I feel recording phone conversations is important these days to both protect myself and also everyone else as I could report them to authorities to help stop such criminal defrauders.

As always give me your opinions, comments and thoughts. If you have encountered such security threats or have ideas as to how to record conversations automatically when answering my phone.

Thanks for visiting EduBoris blog!

After the massive popularity of youtube there were many niche video hosts created and so here's my take on it with a friend's idea and my programming skills...the website is called www.ranland.com (defunct) and since we didn't have the funds after getting over 100s of hits/day in first week it went down to a steady 5/day so I decided to put out the source code in hopes that someone will find it useful, as always feel free to improve, remix, re-use!

If there's enough demand may place this on sourceforge and continue development.

Features:
-Flash player (flowplayer) with controls (pause play, full screen and seek)
-Video page with description, title, date posted, count views, thumbnail (image) and the flash video
-Share video on Twitter
-Share video on Facebook
-Share video on Google plus one
-Commenting on videos with Disqus
-Next and previous videos buttons
-Random Video button
-Pages (pagination)
-Featured page with thumbnail images, title and short description, order by newest first
-Most viewed page, same as featured but ordered by most viewed
-Search videos (with google custom search)

-auto tweet to twitter when new video added/uploaded

-auto generate sitemap when new video added (great for Google web and custom search)

Instructions:
-Unzip the contents and upload to your root directory
-modify the db.php with your database info (database info will be added soon)
-modify the index.php with contact info (email, facebook and twitter if you have it) and about info
-if you want twitter status updated when new videos added follow the twitter developer instructions (will be provided later)
-database structure (sql download) provided at the bottom, upload it to your mysql database host

How to use:
To post video go to post.php (no login authentication yet) upload via ftp (no browser upload yet) the flash video (.flv -- no conversion yet) to videos directory, upload the image thumbnail to images directory, past the name of image, name of flash file, add title and description, choose date or leave the existing and click to post the video.

The rest will sort it self and work on it's own, featured goes by latest page, most viewed or popular by most views on individual pages. Share them and enjoy!

There's many features that I would like to have done for this project but the development has been halted as the project came to an end and no further videos have been added, if someone is interested in helping with posting new videos I may continue the development with the following being ideas for new features:
-Add html5 video player support (so videos can be viewed on iDevices-ipod,iphone,etc)
-Add tags and keywords to videos for better SEO
-Ability to upload from browser (now it's only text addition in browser, upload files via FTP)

videohost.sql Download 1k

video-host.zip Download 847k

Let me know what you think theborisedu@gmail.com

Pretty simple solution for this I found with slight modifcation.

Place this code with 'otherpage.jpg' as the one you want to print, whether an image or webpage (could even be pdf) and it will prompt for printing when clicked on the button below the code

<script type="text/javascript" >
function printExternal() {
printWindow = window.open( "otherpage.jpg","mywindow");
setTimeout('printWindow.print()', 2000);
setTimeout('printWindow.close()', 2000);
}
</script>

As you see the first step is to open the page (can be html, pdf, jpg or other image, etc).
Second step (after short wait of 2 seconds) start the print built-in javascript function.
Third and final is to close that window after print or canceled.

Now here's how to trigger the external print:
<input type='button' value='print' onclick="printExternal()">

The code can also be modified to have much more customized pages (this is how I use it):
<script type="text/javascript" >
function printExternal(str) {
printWindow = window.open( str,"mywindow");
setTimeout('printWindow.print()', 2000);
setTimeout('printWindow.close()', 2000);
}
</script>

As you see there is now str instead of direct image or file, this allows the function to take it dynamically from page code, now using your favourite server side language you can generate the files from a database (which is what I do in my case with php):

<?php
//this function to get the files
$files = files();

//loop through them
foreach($files as $file){ ?>
<input type='button' value='print' onclick="printExternal(<?php echo $file ?>)">
<?php } ?>

anyway hope this php didn't confuse you but should help in basic scenarios too.

Comment and let me know if you have questions, comments etc.

We all seen these really cool futuristic movies where the character talks to the computer and gets responses with information of various things, whether about something they try to learn or if it's just waking up and hearing the time, weather, news... etc.
Well Sci-fi is really becoming a reality today, everyday something new, and today I discovered something amazing I want to share with everyone reading this blog or just stumbling here somehow or another...

It's called QWiki - pronounced QuickWiki (or watch the video for right pronunciation), here's the Alpha version as of the time of writing: http://www.qwiki.com/about-us

Read or watch their video and try it yourself, it's pretty amazing!

Qwiki at TechCrunch Disrupt from Qwiki on Vimeo.

I was puzzled to find that one of my favourite torrent sites 'thepiratebay.org' was pointing to localhost. Knowing that hosts file could do this, I looked and found the following under "%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\" folder/directory which is where host file resides.
It appears the hosts file was modified on 4/22/2011 which was later matched to my installation of a program called blender. Here's what it looked like:

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.0.1 localhost127.0.0.1 localhost127.0.0.1 localhost127.0.0.1 thepiratebay.org
127.0.0.1 www.thepiratebay.org
127.0.0.1 mininova.org
127.0.0.1 www.mininova.org
127.0.0.1 forum.mininova.org
127.0.0.1 blog.mininova.org
127.0.0.1 suprbay.org
127.0.0.1 www.suprbay.org

If you are not aware this file should not have any domain names (localhost is accepted) all those domains would be blocked and redirected back to the localhost (127.0.0.1).

Obviously someone or something does't want me to visit those sites, so I started looking through installed programs that may have done it but I'm not sure where to look if you have notes comment below!

I noticed only a few things in 'add or remove programs' last used around this date only shows a program called 'blender' and one called 'Avidemux', could they be involved?

I think it has to do with blender whcih is a "free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License"

I find it really strange that a free GNU public license software would do such a thing to modify hosts file and I really hope I am wrong but it looks like this program was installed on that day, I will followup some tests and hope to report this somewhere, somehow (outside this blog)

If you can help in any way, such as testing and reporting that would be great!

thanks for visiting eduboris

The simple answer to the questions "is zeitgeist possible?" keeps staring at me every time I deeply think about it and specially talk about it with certain people.

First, for those who don't know what I mean by zeitgeist, as defined by Wikipedia "the spirit of the times" or "the spirit of the age." but I am actually talking about the ideas of both Peter Joseph of which ideas he learned from Jacque Fresco. Anyways all the information is out there and I wrote about it so I hope you know what I'm talking about by now (ask in the comments if you are unclear).

Second, I see that the answer is no and I'll try my best to explain why I don't see it possible in the very near future although plausible and I really do hope it happens, I will help it happen in all the ways possible by me and of course I am a big believer in this Resource Based Economy ideas brought forth by the two I discussed above.

It comes down to a few variables in my opinion that are still far from being solved, there's much more then money at stake for the ones with money and why they would not give it up for anything else in the world, even a better world for them. This would of course mean a better world for everyone else also. They are in control, they feel in control and they really are for the most part. I'm not suggesting that they want to be a dictator like the many violent ones in the past but to be honest it is not much all that different from those dictators that we have seen in history killing millions of innocent people.

You see all people are not made equal. This is a fact. Some people have a much higher drive for certain different things. Others have various things that make them 'tick'. The top one percent is the one that is in certain power, they have been for many years, in fact probably decades or centuries that had power passed down from generation to generation in secret societies.

But there's some people whom only more recently came into 'power', this power is brought forth by the money, ownership or wealth that they acquire(d). There is certain control in our modern societies, the western civilization is run by control, and by no means am I talking about monarchy or socialism of any type, we are not living in a prison state (yet) but it is very similar in the way we have control above us, there are at least 3 levels of police everywhere in north america. this is easy to show as we are all very aware of this: there is local police which is normally the city or town (if it's big enough) then we have the provincial police (yes I'm in Canada) or State police if you live in the US, and finally there's the federal police or national type of police (RCMP for us in Canada).

So you really have to be fully blind to the fact that you are in control. When you shift your thinking your eyes really open (as it did for me recently and why I'm writing this). Of course there's a need for this in THIS society, and in this environment and economy it is very necessary and this is how things run right now, the problem is because they run like this and they are well enough for us this will continue. Let's explore this further and see if you can follow; we have lots of freedoms, they mostly consist of certain choice, the choice to do or not do things and choose between things that sometimes considered good or bad. The police follow the control system, they obey the laws that were set forth by the other entities, they certainly don't make them. being as they are followers, they will blindly obey those laws and their job is to enforce them upon us, the citizens.

We are full of controllers that enforce things upon us as we see above and in real life all the time. And knowing that this form of control would not happen at all in the zeitgeist or RBE system this is probably one of the biggest fears that people will have; if there is no control who will protect them, but you are truly blinded if you think the police protect; in reality you are much better off not having police at all. I'm not suggesting to fend for yourself in the current system but in the RBE based system the ideas that spawn from it are very promising. There will be a much better way to deal with issues, for example rather then cuffing, and imprisoning people we would have intuitions to deal with the problematic people (if there will be such people out there), it is most likely that there will be issues and so the solutions should be based on real science and real psychology and real research instead of what the current system deems as inappropriate, illegal or intolerable for whatever reason they decided these laws which are not based on scientific facts or research or psychology or in fact any research of anything.

The laws are molded to help society remain functional, productive (but in a monetary sense) and meet the bottom line while remaining as civilized as possible to the big medias of the world. They are essentially heartless and just try to have good PR there is no real care in such people, millions will die and they wouldn’t know about it. We can see that by the wars that we wage, let’s not go into any conspiracy we do know for a FACT that people, American and Canadian people, die from these wars in the middle east. This is a true fact and we can see that they have no care in the world to stop these wars in a peaceful and graceful way, because this is still acceptable by the citizens and until there will be a huge uprising there will be no action to change this. Take action and invest your money in changing the way the world works, all controlling civilizations have too much power of the rest of the world, not only their own people and citizens.

Why do you think there are 3 levels of police for YOU? the answer is: It is for YOU, to control YOU. If you get out of line, as we see in the big protests where they harmless people that have no weapons, no protection stand against armed police with full body and head protection, yet they shoot at the people that have nothing. This is happening in our own backyard and we can’t seem to do a damn thing about it. Let’s re-evaluate everything we are used to and change this for a better world we can all enjoy, not just the top one percent or the rest of the 90 percent that either blind on purpose because they don’t want to care and don’t want to think about the way things are or are really too dumb (which I refuse to believe).

Finally I’d like to leave you with a quote but before I find a good one, here’s mine. You need to learn and action what you see with the time and money that you have simply invest it into getting the truth out there, educate your friends and your family get everyone around you to agree that things must change so we can all do it together.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments or email theborisedu at gmail dot com

My recent friend had a fast found riches that is now in shables and I wondered all these questions (how, why, when etc) about it, after spending some time asking various things I got an interesting picture and maybe some of the readers will find it interesting.

Background:
Male in mid twenties now, dropped out of high school at 16 and became a quick millionaire for a few years [update: he was making only about 100k per year for at least 4 years - never really reaching a million in total but living it up by spending as you will find out], but after the expensive lifestyle the business died (you will find out why below) and now is just a normal guy with interesting story and a few expensive toys (which he has trouble paying for now).

The business was internet website(s) that focus on satellite hacking. Got started by being a vendor of satellite hardware (receiver and/or satellite).

For those unfamiliar (like me) here's how it works: In order to get the satellite service you would need to pay a monthly subscription (along with the hardware cost of the satellite itself and receiver box that connects to your TV), but hacking it became very simple (he described it as easy as sending an email) to circumvent the monthly subscription cost and simply get a free signal.

Bottom line, if you can hack the satellite you can get it for the cost of the hardware itself and there is no need for monthly subscription. The hacking would sometimes have to happen quite often as the system would change things roughly every month, so the users have to come back every month. The business worked on the principle of the traffic of visitors - displaying third party advertising and sponsorships that work with the site directly (find out more from the interview below). Another stream was premium users would pay a smaller fee then monthly cost of satellite subscription and get the hacks faster than regular users which got a delay to create this new stream of revenue (smart).

Back to the story, from the vendor website (selling hardware) he made good but not great money, when a satellite company bought one of the top satellite hacking forums (let's call it X forum) there was another top satellite hacking forum up for sale (lets call it Y forum). Since the X forum seemed to have a bias as it's owned by a satellite company he decided to buy Y forum for the asking price of about 10 thousand dollars cash.

He made several changes to allow for more topics and was able to get the major moderators on board to Y forum from the X forum. When X forum started censoring the topics, discussions and even the spelling name of Y forum. The moderators, top contributers and hackers switched fully to Y forum and of course the regular users followed there to make Y forum a huge success.

Now that the story seems clearer (I hope) here's some more details that I asked him and I formated it into and interview format and paraphrased the answers to make an read:

How did you get started in the website/satellite business?
A high school friend introduced me to satellite hacking (direcTV and free to air), got really obsessed with the stuff, spent days studying it and learned everything about it.

When did you start?
The satellite idea around 2004 and the website in late 2005-2006, made the most around 2007-2008
In late 2008-2009 the hacking was stopped because of the huge investments (millions) the satellite companies spent on security of the system, after that the traffic stopped.

Where did the traffic come from?
Visits mostly North America (USA and Canada). The hacks probably come from South Korea or somewhere in Asia.

How much did the advertising pay?
Thousands from private ads (sponsors) for satellite equipment and thousands more from third party (adbrite, since adsense was running but never paid - it shutdown saying there were invalid clicks) every month.

Where was it hosted?
Malaysia

How much was the hosting?
$1,500/month

Was there other forms of revenue?
Yes, premium accounts that got the hacks faster were paid for by some users, there were also many donations received.

What technology/programming language did it use?
vbulletin - php/mysql forum (not free or open source)

--------
My understanding is the business was run from Hong Kong and funneled the money back through a local one. The expensive lifestyle is not one I would choose with this income but it makes for an interesting story. Leasing an 05/06 Dodge Viper that he still hopes to pay off among other toys, stories and things that shell remain anonymous.

If you have any questions you would like me to ask/answer please leave in the comment or email theborisedu at gmail dot com

Let me know what you think!

After watching a new documentary about Medical use of cannabis, not only did I find yet another documentary about this and all the facts tend to point to the same conclusion; marijuana is great as medicine and should be legalized.

I got inspired to look into a specific treatment for Migraine because it's a topic that is close to me and wanted to get some facts from reliable sources. This is not as discussed in depth on Wikipedia so I decided to check their references and turns out theres quite a bit of research done. This paper reveal another research paper that is full of references throughout the time of the history of usage and treatment specifically for migraine relieve.

(page 41, hemp for headache)"The advantages in its use over that of opium consist chiefly . . .
in the absence of prostration and nausea after its ingestion, and in
the partial lack of soporific power which it possesses as
compared to the opiate, for in certain cases sleep is not always
desirable when pain is to be removed"

There's simply all the facts and research in those papers so the easiest is for me to point you there, so please read and allow for research and if you come to same conclusion as most medical doctors and researches you must also support legalization.

Thank you.

I came across this BBC documentary called Stupidity (watch) and although I didn't think there would be much new just interesting stuff, I did learn a lot; there has not been much research done on the topic of human stupidity.

This is something that we seriously have to look at much closer, we have to consider why we act the way we do, and what to do about it along with the numerous unanswered questions there is about this topic.

After watching the film I also realized why we don't have things the zeitgeist movement talks about, why we are not implementing ideas from Venus project and in general why so many people agree with human stupidity yet can't really do much about it. The fact is most people are stupid. They rather watch Jackass Movie or read about the new baby Brad and Angelina adopted, or hear some jokes about racism in America, than do something about world hunger, invest and use alternative energy instead of paying billions (not millions) to fund a war in the Middle East for the oil rather then switching to alternative energy as a starting point to stop or at least reduce our dependence on oil.

It's easy to understand why we tend to ignore the faults of our own countries, societies and humanities but ignorance is not bliss when there's so much human potential that is being killed. Humanity is therefore stupid as a whole and although we do have superior intelligence to any other animal on this planet we also have the best technology and knowledge of any other animal but that doesn't make us the best we can be.

I believe we have much more potential then meaningless jobs to make money which allows a small percent of human population to live well, tiny population to live amazing and a huge percent to be poor, hungry and die from war, disease (that we can cure) etc.

Well those are my thoughts, they are backed up by facts.
Let me know what you think in the comments below

I recently found this interesting thing called boxee.tv you can either purchase some pre-installed boxee unit or just install on your computer of choice [Linux, Windows or Mac] (and it's free). I made a login (also free) and tried to use it, I have to say tried because I gave up after about 10 minutes. Install is 40mb, not huge but those of use with bandwidth caps we want to limit unnecessary downloading, specially to watch a few things online... easier to go to a good divx streaming website in my opinion.

Anyway just out of sheer curiosity I had a peak inside this app on my xp box, cool enough if you want to navigate using the mouse only (didn't have to in my case)... a little slow for most video cards and worst of all; doesn't play what you ask!

I tried to watch 'South Park' just cause it seemed to be on top of the list, found some episode I think I haven't seen and... after some waiting... tosh.o comes on! [/facepalm]
Yes some show I never watch comes on instead of what I ask... great job guys. Good effort but that's an F for failure!

I like the ambitious effort and it would be quite nice if it works but the fact is, it's just easier to use a streaming website! the toughest part is installing divx web player, or flash player and watch youtube or something.. certainly better than this.

Sorry for the folks at boxee, I hope you didn't invest too much but unless I'm the only one that thinks this (and I hope so for your sake) but unless the issues are fixed, and there's loads of content that we just can't get elsewhere you will not have the edge, and unfortunately may not even survive.

But that's my opinion, let me know what you think in the comments below!

Assuming you have read my previous posts, or at least understand and agree that the current money system is inherently problematic, the easy answer is yes we need to get rid of money and go toward a resource based economy.

The hard question is how can the entire world turn their heads upside-down overnight?
The answer is no they cannot, and they will not. Change will be slow but sure to come because it's easy to see if you just open your eyes. Things like Wikipedia and Linux were the beginning (decades ago), now we see Wikileaks and the Tunisian and Egyptian protests. We can see changes around the world ARE happening, and I think that's the most important part.

The more complex answer is how will these changes manifest? what direction will they take? and ultimatly we WILL, without a doubt, end the money system. One way or another.

As I said to the stubborn entrepreneur I had conversations with about this topic, it is not a question of 'if' it's more about 'when' and 'how' and we can see some of those answers as well already.

As with the zeitgeist movement they have many good answers and suggestions but they often don't have them all and so I think they should really ask the public (they have 500k people signed up) for more inspiration in their forums.

Motivation or incentives - specifically for complex tasks or problem solving it is proven that monetary rewards are almost never (90% of the time) solved fast, high quality and rewarding (to the person) by money rewards. [Reference: "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" watch it on TED]

More conversations and more thoughts have gone on in the past few days and I have taken in more knowledge, here is another documentary along the way that explores how humans exploit resources (tar sands - oil) for monetary gain without any consideration for the precious ones that we really depend on to survive (water) http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2011/tippingpoint/

But I hope you have basic understanding by now so will continue to explore a different system.
As a side note one discussion with immigrants from the former soviet union led them to believe that Zeitgeist is a Communistic Idea. After reading up on it, yes it has many similarities but also many exceptions such as politics and money. Also please keep in mind the soviet union was not communist it was socialist with the goal to get to communism which never manifested. Which led me to believe that the soviet union may have never intended to be truly communistic since I know they had many of their own agendas in place and kept many secrets from its people. After seeing the similarities I thought 'maybe communism is not such a bad idea after all...'

More importantly, we really have to remember is to forget about labels and strict ideas or ideals and to simply work out a new system that will solve our problems and it will never be perfect so we will always keep solving new problems as they come along. That's the only way to make a better system for all of us while not destroying what we have left on this planet in terms of resources. All we know now for sure is the current system really is very bad and it must change. And it will change.

Once we can work out a way for all of us to get physical (or physiological) needs such as clean air, clean water, and nutritious food. Second we need to get our safety needs (that doesn't mean surveillant cameras everywhere!) a warm shelter that is comfortable enough. And now we can start solving real problems like how to reduce our wast or resources, energy and consumption in order for everyone to have a chance to live well and also help solve these problems! (there are many of them; how to reduce toxic use, advance technology and all of that without ever worrying about money).

Some of you may have learned it in school as Maslow's hierarchy of needs, at least in my case I learned it in a high school business class of all places. We distinguished from needs and wants. We learned that in order to sell unnecessary products we have to create the need of those products when really they are simply wanted (you will not die without an iphone - literally you need food and water first and after you have it all else is just a 'want'). Anyway we really need to explore the knowledge we have and technology can accelerated the learning and problem solving along with brilient minds that study the fact that reward of money will not make us happy, nor will the money itself. Problem solving for a purpose, say real world issues that are actually useful will!

Okay, give me your thoughts and comments below.

Have you ever had some long documentary and thought:
How do I post over 10-15 minutes of video on youtube?

Well there are actually two possible answers:
1. Split the video into 15 minute parts.
This could get long process that may be frustrating and technically difficult - I may explore this in another section for those that are interested in the future. Also note that now anyone can post 15 minute videos because the minimum was raised from 10 to fifteen recently.

2. Get on good terms with youtube!

Here's my print screen that shows I am now allowed to post over 15minutes!
But what is my limit? does it mean I'm unlimited? maybe....
More importantly how did I do it? there is no trick, I never contacted them nor did I ever ask for it.
I had many videos (50+) that never infringed on anyone's rights because it was simply me filming some pets and animals (in my backyard or elsewhere) and I presume that because of this 'clean' record with youtube this account was raised and I am now allowed to post videos longer than 15 minutes.

Yey now I can my a documentary of an hour and a half for everyone to watch in one bulk instead of 20 parts :)

Thanks youtube/google.

It's amazing from the time I saw the third Zeitgeist film (about 3 days ago) I have been thinking a little more about these ideas but what's more is I was talking about them much more and interestingly enough for all the questions from people although I didn't have the answers right away I was finding them more and more every day.

Looking at all the problems from a money based system we can say, ok this is a problem but how do we fix it? and there are many more in-depth detailed questions about how a new, money free, system will solve these issues without creating new ones. The answers have been popping up right in front of me over and over again so I can't let this opportunity slip and my train of thoughts are showing me that one day not too long from now, maybe no more than a few years, we will live in a much different world and be thankful for this new systems and technologies while remembering back on how we USED to live and be in awe how it stayed like that for so long.

The StoryOfStuff is what came to me first and I saw the clip on the website and saw that I'm certainly not alone in this, someone (Annie Leonard) already done the research and put it out there in this amazing project initiative to tell the the story of where we get our 'stuff'. She explains the linear path of which stuff go through and while watching this right after 'Zeitgeist: moving forward' it was a really easy link to see that money drives the problems of the excessive creation of stuff with toxins and resources are simply being wasted.

After discussing the ideas of RBE(Resource Based Economy) with an entrepreneur the question 'how will people be motivated?' came very quickly and because I always taking things with a grain of salt (including RBE) I had no real good answer but I did explain the concept of Wikipedia which amazingly was new to him. If you are not familiar you have to watch Jimmy Wales videos (founder of Wikipedia) and read about the ideas and how it runs with literally thousands of volunteer editors that do it for simply the joy of doing it and for no monetary gain. Also I went on to explain about open source projects and the free ideas of Linux technology and how it compares and in most cases is much better than a commercial software like Microsoft yet has no corporate offices nor corporate jets as one film put it. But I also had an understanding with the entrepreneur that these people are numbered (even if by the thousands, we compare to the billions living on the planet today) and it takes a certain individual to do something like that (volunteer editing or programing for free).

Today I finally stumbled upon the answer that will truly apply to everyone when it comes to motivation WITHOUT money. I watched in amazement the short interview with Daniel Pink and continued to research about his book 'Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us' and I found a >> ted video << which is really a must to see to understand what is the true motivation in people and how creativity is actually stifled by the motivation of money (proven in countless experiments for over 40 years). So while you watch that video it will discuss a lot about today's business and companies but keep in mind we do live in this world now and that's the problems he is addressing but why not take out the money altogether and now you see that we are simply better off without it!

Let me know what you think.

Noticed this in some emails probably a few weeks ago, just had a chance to take a screen capture and post it here for anyone interested in what google is up to these days.

The new spot shows up in email "conversations" bottom where there used to be nothing. But this is not always there and as you may know you don't always get too many ads so I find it a good fit, it's not disruptive or anything, google knows how to do ads.

First I wanted to review the movie but since it's been done and everyone has their opinions, mine is that I agree with about 90% of the film and their respective opinions.

The facts that are backed up and true are totally worth looking at and because they are facts and not opinions I will not argue anything there, what is still left to opinion is the change from the momentary system to the resource based system.

The part that I still have to disagree is that computers will run everything, sure the sci-fi movies are becoming reality (technology wise) but it will only happened slowly and that's not how we should go about thinking. What we should do instead is focus on how to change over the minds of everyone and that's what I intend to do in this post.

I decided to put together a list of problems around the world, just from my experiences that I think would be solved if we stay away from a monetary system to a different one, say a resource based economy.

1. Copyright
We all know this is supposed to 'protect' rights of copying materials, but who does it protect? the people who 'invent' or 'create' things that unique enough to say that they own the copy rights and no one else can 'copy' it. This topic is important to me because we all know copying is NOT stealing, and it should never be thought of this way. In fact the only cost to copying is the copying itself, and when we have technology that can copy thousands or millions of digital files for free why should anyone, anywhere be charged for it? think about the resource based economy model and understand that knowledge should be, and will be, public one way or another. Wikipedia comes to mind when talking about public knowledge and a great resource like knowledge should never be thought of as a crime for simply reading, listening or watching any type of information. Entrainment or education it should all be public and free.

2. Piracy
Specifically the peer to peer file sharing in this case. Think about the word 'peer to peer' this sounds great, people talking to other people, sharing information, free, and communities are always good. Well guess who doesn't think so? companies who profit by selling those files (movies, music, software, etc) of course again it comes down to money, and back to the topic of copyright it's very much the similar and the same solution, no copyright laws, no problems. Or even better, no money system, no problem.

3. Drugs
Specifically, plants should never ever be considered a trademark (Monsanto comes to mind - they patent genomes or genetically modified seeds of crops that die after one year in order to produce more profit) and they should never be made illegal because if they don't cause harm to anyone there's no reason to do so. How can a plant harm anyone? with education and knowledge like the tribes that pass down information to valuable plans that heal, feed and help us survive there should never be a problem with natural growing plants (for example a weed that has been proven to be medicinal and recreational called cannabis or more commonly known as marijuana should not be outlawed). Again this comes down to money and the more we think about a problem the solution becomes clear, money is the problem therefore get rid of money system = get rid of the problems.

4. Net Neutrality
This is about internet service providers (ISP) throttling (slowing down) internet use of peer to peer communication, the pressure is clearly applied from companies that produce and distribute music, movies and more which is being shared through these means (Bit torrent for example). Although they claim it's in order to conserve bandwidth, we all know that there is more than enough bandwidth to go around and it's increasing as technology get's better. Another fairly recent change is happening here in Canada and some ISPs in the US is the bandwidth capping - we are being limited to a monthly limit of say 60GB per month (both upload and download combined). This is also the same issue as throttling when you look at the big picture, although I have noticed there is much less throttling since if you go over the limit you pay big bucks (between 1 to 5 dollars per Gig!) So their claim is again that it costs them too much but we know it's just not true, again it's a money thing and in a system that shares resources efficiently rather than for monetary gain it will never happened this way.

5. Government
We all know now, and for a long time that Governments are also interested in money, and very much so. How do we see this? because they not only cooperate but they bend over backwards and change their own laws to obied by big-corps in order to get big funds from them! politicians in general that act in the interest of financially successful corporations (aka big corp) are always getting lots of money back in order to have lots of expensive campaigns which in tern help them win more votes with the public. This system is clearly messed up!
Of course some can argue and say that they are power hungry when they go after different nations, but again this power is delivered through the means of money as we know it, so preventing this power is the best way and removing the monetary system for a better resources based system makes a lot more sense.
Do you agree?

6. Violence
This is discussed quite a bit in the third Zeitgeist movie (very recommended by the way) from psychological aspects to social aspects so the best way is to discuss some hard facts. From the studies that were presented in the film we know there is no violence in tribal communities that share their resources and really live as a community. But there is a lot of violence in monetary based run cities and countries because one way to get money is by using violence if you take the money factor away why would people use violence? they don't it's a proven fact. This brings to the next point...

7. Theft & robbery
With no money system there would be no theft or robbery. But what will we use? the best products ever made in recent history. This means that now we make the worst things? Yes.

8. Products & services
Right now products are made in a way that is cheapest to produce we all know that but if you don't, think about it you want to pay the LEAST so you have more money left for other things. But if you think about resources we are using them up very quickly with lots of toxic chemicals and it's bad for the environment but as long as we get cheaply made and sold products we pay less this is good for us in the monetary system but that is why we need to change the system. Watch story of stuff it tells it best about the cycle. So consider instead using the best possible materials, the best possible technology and make the best product in the monetary system it would cost a lot but in a resource based system we wouldn't pay we just make them for ourselves and use it endlessly because it should last as long as possible. And everyone can and will use these products because they are made so well there is no reason to have one of each! think of cell phones, how many have you gone through in the last 5 years? my guess is at least 3 (that's what I had) if not much more than that, and the old ones are so useless now they are just junk!
In a resource based system there is no junk, there is only things we give back to the environment like a dead tree decomposing naturally adding nutrients into the soil.
With the current scientific facts we have we can run the plant much better but only if we have the minds of the people first.

Money is The Problem.

I will expend the list as I get more time, maybe go into each topic in their own posts in the future but I hope you get the picture if you're reading this now, and please spread the word to the world about this idea = money is the problem, solution is to get rid of the money system once and for all.

Read or watch videos about Zeitgeist and the Venus project

Please watch ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD

Great video, not only is it informational, factual and scientific it also is very entertaining.
But that's not the point, it should wake up the truth and show you what this world is like.

I recently watched interviews with Peter Joseph and thought 'when is the next one coming out?' and here we are this one is great and you don't really need to watch the first two if you have not already, this one will do the trick.

The independent made film that has been screened over 300 times around the world in sold out theaters and freely available to anyone to watch, distribute and remix if they wish - reiterates on the information brought forth in the first two with loads of new information and new ways of understanding, new interviews with intelligent and credible people.

More breakdowns and reviews about it will be coming soon... it's a long video but very important watch for EVERYONE.

Comment below and spread the video as much as you can.

From here it's very easy: http://marionote.wordpress.com/2009/12/12/winscp-script-sample/

"c:\Program Files\WinSCP3\WinSCP.exe" /script=c:\winscpscript\testscript.txt /log=c:\winscpscript\log.txt

Then, create a script file (in this example, c:\winscpscript\testscript.txt.)
# Execute with winscp.exe /script=this_filename /log=logfile.txt
option batch abort
option confirm off
# Use the ip address of your SFTP server, instead of 127.0.0.1
open sftp_login_name:the_password@127.0.0.1

#In order to "cd" or "lcd", use these lines.
cd server_side_directory
lcd c:\client_side_directory

# Normal GET
get Get_This_File

# If you want to save as another filename:
get Get_This_File Get_This_File_local

# If you want to remove the remote file after downloading:
get -delete Get_This_File c:\client_side_directory\Get_This_File_local

# Upload sample script line
put upload_this_file remote_filename

# If you want to rename the remote filename after uploading:
mv remote_filename remote_filename_renamed

exit

Since I really like the Gargoyle firmware and used it on my WRT54GL I wondered if there was a better quality hardware to use with this firmware to get a better performance and even good enough for small business use.

The answer is yes there is plenty of hardware choice when it comes to this (and many other) open source firmware that matches if not surpasses the quality of competing brands such as snapgear and sonicwall firewalls.

Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH can be widely found (amazon shipped fast) and fairly cheap for the hardware you get. Note you even get a community firmware with the router already (dd-wrt.com) but I preferred the gargoyle firmware for many reasons (easy interface + great features) so I wanted to upgrade it but it turns out you will need to do a few tricks to get it on this one!

There's a choice of two possible ways to upgrade, using tftp (the method I used) and some other command line method. I normally like the command line but these were new commands to me so I tried the TFTP method and after about 30minutes to an hour I got it! Here's my definitive guide to get it:

1. it is recommended that you connect to the router through a switch (or a router with dhcp turned off - turning it into a switch) this is necessary step for me since my NIC will be turned off until the right upgrade moment has passed.

2. once connected through a switch I played with the arp command on my windows xp PC and figured out that the easiest is to simply do arp -a and copy the mac of your router (for this example purposes I will use 00-23-69-25-aa-aa)

3. now you prepare the arp command in this cmd window while opening another cmd window for tftp. arp -s 192.168.11.1 00-23-69-25-aa-aa is your command that you keep queued up we will need this later.

4. download and locate the right file which is named something like gargoyle_[version#]-ar71xx-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-tftp.bin - get it from Gargoyle download site by choosing Atheros AR71XX from "Select Architecture" menu.

5. in the new cmd window prepare the tftp command which will be something like this: tftp -i 192.168.11.1 PUT gargoyle_[version#]-ar71xx-wzr-hp-g300nh-squashfs-tftp.bin
(keep in mind you will either need to move to the directory of download in command prompt or place the file under the default location that you are in.)

6. Finally, unplug the router, plug it back in and execute the arp -s command queued up in step 3, try the tftp command, and again if it was timed out, it worked for me after once failed as you see in the image below but keep in mind there were a lot of playing until this stage so check arp -a if it shows the router as static. Also note I was unable to ping the router even though it uploaded the image so that appears unreliable but once uploaded leave it be for at least 5 minutes to do it's work. Done!

Enjoy!

Ever forget the spelling of a word while typing in a web browser?

You notice this red squiggly line under the word to help correct it. See example >>

Spell checkers have made many lives easier, whether you are are still learning English or were born in English speaking family and still have some spelling mistakes from time to time. I'm not sure their real origin but I do remember Microsoft Word's spell checker first, then it was Firefox and Google search, finally now it's Google Chrome... kinda.

This issue happened many different times, you spell a word just wrong enough for Google Chromenot to suggest what you need!
But that's not the funny part, Google search will actually give you the exact word you wanted:

Anyway if you want to see it in action check the video:

Here's what other people had to say: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Chrome/thread?fid=127a69ac5fddee0300049a730630fc0f&hl=en

Ever wonder what British Columbia's most profitable industries are? Logging? Fishing? Tourism? Ever think to include marijuana? If you haven't, think again. No longer a hobby for the stereotypical hippie culture of the ’60s, BC's illegal marijuana trade industry has evolved into a seemingly unstoppable business giant, dubbed by those involved as 'The Union'. Commanding upwards of $7 billion Canadian annually, The Union’s roots stretch far and wide, directly and indirectly affecting all areas of our society. With 65% to 85% of all 'BC Bud' being exported to the United States, it's clear that the BC marijuana trade has become an international issue with consequences that extend far beyond our borders. When there are record profits to be made, who are the players, and when do their motives become questionable?

•Why is marijuana illegal?
•What health risks do we really face?
•Does prohabition work?
•What would happen if we taxed it?
•Medicine, paper, fuel, textiles, food, etc. Are we missing

something here? Follow filmmaker Adam Scorgie as he dives head first into Canada's most socially acceptable illegal activity. Along the way, Adam demsytifies the underground market and brings to light how such a large industry can function while remaining illegal. By interviewing experts from around the globe, including growers, clippers, police officers, criminalogists, economists, psychologists, medical doctors, politicians and pop culture icons, Scorgie explores the cause and effect nature of the business behind getting high.

Nobody's innocent in this exploration of an industry that may be profiting more by being illegal. Join Adam Scorgie as he unravels the mystery of The Union. [Source]

www.theunionmovie.com

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Monday, June 27, 2011

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Sunday, February 6, 2011

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Thursday, February 3, 2011

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Monday, January 31, 2011

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Thursday, January 13, 2011