Now we are looking at $540.00 for his birthday. Now his birthday is in August around other people’s birthdays of people I want to get stuff for and then after that we have Black Friday and Christmas. Oh did I mention I was planning to get engaged to my gf (I do not want to look at rings again) now fiance that year too. So yeah I’m on a budget now. So not backing down by the pressure I figured he has other kids (6 including me lol), I so called them up told them the price and we teamed up to buy him the ipad. My fiance teamed up with me too. By doing this the price was split 7 ways leaving me to  $540/7 = $77.14 and saving me 540 – 77.14 = $462.86. In the end he was happy and we got him the ipad and he still uses it to this day. Funny thing is I think this is the only gift that he has received from my brothers and sisters and I that he still uses.

Now after going to this process you have to ask yourself why do I have to go through this continuous cycle every year not only with my father but friends and family? Than I have to guess what they want which they may not like and spend all this money! It would explain why the majority of the population gives gift cards and hallmark cards or nothing at all. With all this technology and the rise of social networks how come this has not been combated in a graceful way yet?

In comes nobadgift.com! Nobadgift.com was born out of this frustration of birthdays, weddings, father’s day, mother’s day, christmas, going away parties, house warmings, ANYDAY. Now how does it solve this problem. I wanted to first tackle the main problem what do people want? So when you log onto the website, you create a wishlist. After you create a wishlist you add gifts of everything that you want. Next you want to spread the word through facebook, twitter and email. 5 easy steps:

1. Click wishlist tab
2. Create a wishlist of your choosing
3. Add gifts
4. Let your friends and family know
5. And let the good times roll

A computer virus is a computer program that can copy itself and infect a computer without the permission or knowledge of the owner. That is the purpose of a virus and thats all the common user needs to understand, that its whole purpose is to bring you down.

How to get it off my computer

There are several programs out there to remove a virus off your computer for free. Chances are if you have a virus most likely you have a windows operating system. The reality is if you have windows operating system you are more prone to getting viruses than any operating system in the world and why? Simple because that is the most commonly use operating system in the world. So hackers figure in order to get the most information or money we should develop for that operating system. For supporting info, Check out the Apple Commericals.

Here are a list of free virus programs that can remove viruses off your computer

• Avira
• Avast
• AVG

I prefer Avira but everyone have their preferences in this section so try them out. Even still if you caught a virus and removed it you either need to expand your knowledge and/or spend money on a good program to remove any new ones that may come to your computer. So if you wish to spend money on an anti virus program I would get the premium versions of the programs above or check out the top 10 reviews for antivirus programs. I personally suggest Kaspersky, it is such a great program for catching and removing viruses.

How to prevent malicious infections

The best way to prevent viruses is know the most common ways a virus get on your computer. Some of the most common ways viruses get on your computer is through email, downloading illegal software, music from un-accredited sites. These sources are all because the user is unaware of what it could be and open it unleashing a rogue virus on their system. So if you don’t know where it is from or if the website un-accredited DON’T DOWNLOAD IT! Another way is through peer to peer networks or torrent websites. Hackers take advantage of the venues because they know people will know want free software and music but do not realize that will have to pay with giving up the information to viruses.

I would also recommend for you to have firewall. A firewall blocks attacks on your computer and network from hackers. I would recommend comodo and zone alarm. They are pretty efficient firewalls and get the job done. You can even download comodo for free.

Operating Systems that virus prone

The best way to prevent a virus is to have operating system that is incompatible with a virus (commonly windows viruses). When the virus is incompatible with the virus it will become impossible for you the virus to affect your system. Here is a list of operating systems that are incompatible with windows viruses:

• Linux distributions such Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, etc – Cost Free
• Mac OS X (Apple products) – Cost High when compared to other operating systems

I would recommend gettiing Mac OS X which comes with any apple computer. It will be the easier transition from windows and the price is pretty reasonable because of the quality. I will even mention that the macbook pro is the best laptop I have ever had.

Conclusion

Here are your choices when it comes to viruses:

Windows Operating Systems

• Either pay/get free for a antivirus and/or firewall and increase your knowledge on viruses
• Or just have your information be sold to the highest bidder

Linux

• Get a free Operating System and incompatibilty to windows viruses, and learn how to work the operating system. Linux is making things easier for Windows users but it is bit of a learning curve for new users.

Mac

• Pay a higher normal price for operating system and hardware and don’t worry about any viruses, and work in a great environment.

You can make the decision all I do is make your aware your choices. It’s either the red pill, blue pill or green pill. Have a nice day!

1. Vista is such a memory hog and the 64 bit version doesn’t have enough 64 bit programs
2. I was using the 32 bit version of vista and I have 4 GBs of memory and it was only reading 3 GBs.
3. I feel now that suse 11.1 is the best version of suse released and KDE 4.1 is so nice (KDE 4.2 is a little unstable).
4. Linux runs so smooth compared to WIndows and really knows how to use dual core and multi core processors.
5. The Linux community is getting bigger and to find a solution to a problem is becoming more likely.
6. And I finally got Skype 2.0 video to run without distorted images, lol.

Now the last one is what sealed the deal for me because Skype is a program that I use alot. Now after months of researching I can finally unveil how to get it working.

First off let me reveal my specs.

Specs for my laptop

But the most important spec is my webcam which is a Sony VGP-VCC8. First thing first is getting the webcam detected by Linux which would be detected as video0. I’m using the Linux Kernel 2.6.27.19-3.2-defaultx86_64. There are two ways I know of to get this type of webcam working you can get Ricoh R5U870 Linux Driver and follow the instructions for compiling it or add the community repository for SUSE located in Yast for webcam drivers.

After adding this to your repository you will need to go to Yast > Software Management then install luvcview. After doing so open up the program luvcview. If you can view yourself pretty well on the screen, that means everything is good and we can proceed further, if not you go back to the website follow everything thoroughly and make sure you have your kernel headers installed from software management through Yast.

Moving on we now install Skype. After installing skype and creating account for ourselves or logging in we will go to options and proceed to video devices. You should see the Select video occupied by /dev/video0 and to the right of that see test.

Click on test if the image is distorted or blurry then you may proceed if everything is good then you are good!

If your lost with what is going on so far, I will take time out to explain. We have the webcam working properly on our computer because we saw our picture perfectly in luvcview. Now when we open up skype we see a distorted picture which means something is wrong with skype. Which means we need to configure skype correctly.

Now for the kicker

Go to /home/user_name/.Skype/user_name/config.xml

Open up the config file and input

<Video> <CaptureHeight>480</CaptureHeight> <CaptureWidth>640</CaptureWidth> </Video>

In between the <lib></lib>  and close out skype and open again and you will see the problem fixed. Shaggy? It’s fixed and you don’t know why. The reason is that Skype for Linux 2.0 video works in a resolution of 640 by 480. So improper resolution is the problem with skype not displaying the video correctly it took me a few months to figure this out and after you reading this it will take you less than a day lol. Leave comments about what you think.

Safari 4 Beta, is officially the fastest browser to this date. On benchmarks it has blown internet explorer (of course) and firefox out the water with it’s speed. Now that we are stepping deeper and deeper into the age of web applications,  JavaScript is becoming more and more essential. Apple has something called, The Nitro Engine. This Nitro Engine is especially for JavaScript which also beat Google Chrome V8 engine for the JavaScript. The Nitro engine in Safari 4 runs JavaScript 4.2 times faster than Safari 3.

“Apple created Safari to bring innovation, speed and open standards back into web browsers, and today it takes another big step forward,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Safari 4 is the fastest and most efficient browser for Mac and Windows, with great integration of HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards that enables the next generation of interactive web applications.”

i-Bench HTML (in seconds)
Mac and Windows
Safari 4 Beta  - 1.06 s
Chrome   1.0  - 1.38 s
Firefox 3.0 - 3.11 s
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 - 3.16 s
IE 7  - 3.25 s
IE 8 Beta - 4.71 s

i-Bench JavaScript (in seconds)
Mac and Windows
Safari 4 Beta – 0.14 s
Chrome 1.0 – 0.20 s
Firefox 3.0 – 0.76 s
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 – 1.04 s
IE 7 – 1.81 s
IE 8 Beta – 0.73 s

SunSpider JavaScript (in milliseconds)
Mac and Windows
Safari 4 Beta – 657.07 ms
Chrome 1.0 – 853.13 ms
Firefox 3.0 – 2399.20 ms
Firefox 3.1 Beta 2 – 1034.47 ms
IE 7  – 19902.20 ms
IE 8 Beta  – 4137.80 ms

Now the next question is how secure it is? I mean Safari 4 can be fast but if it isn’t secure enough that means you can get robbed faster. Well this is what Apple has to say, “Safari also provides secure encryption technologies to prevent eavesdropping, forgery, and digital tampering while you browse the Internet. It offers standards-based authentication for logging into secure websites, and it supports the most popular proxy protocols.”

So we will see how that will draw out it is still in it’s beta version. I still believe Firefox 3 is the most secure browser, but Safari 4 has the title for the fastest browser for 2009.

Every now and then you need to tune up your programming skills. Even football players have to keep lifting to keep their level of strength.  So as a programmer what do you to keep your level of skill or raise your level of skill? Well I have the answer for you. These are a list of some very good websites to take your programming level too the next level.

• Facebook
• Ed’s Programming Contest Problem Archive
• ACM programming problems

These problems should definitely get your brain going, if these problems are not big enough for you, you can always solve this problem. Tell me how it goes, lol.

When I first heard about the Google Phone, I was a little skeptical about it and saw it as no competition to the Iphone. But after reading and studying the operating system I’m a little impressed. If you check out the news you will see Verizon is even turning to the Android. That is a very big surprise mainly because Verizon keeps it software pretty proprietary.  This also shows indication of desperation or recognizing how superior the Iphone made other phone companies or how superior Google is becoming.

Features

• Documentation for it is beautiful
• Every program is ran independently of each other under a special virtual machine
• Everything application has to be written in Java, lol. (I know I’m going to hear it)
• It uses the Linux Kernel (The backbone of linux which makes it compatible with a large number of hardware) which is a big plus.

This operating system which was first platform on the G1 is actually going to expand into a bigger operating system for the Desktop. So the operating system, Android is actually the new face for the Google Desktop Operating System.

Check it out!

• What is Android?
• Developer section
• Android Blog
• Programs for your G1

Cyber thieves have hit the Veterans Affairs Department, the Transportation Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and several other agencies in the past two years. The Congressional High Tech Caucus is examining the issue, which means funding to protect data is likely to remain strong.  From http://washingtontechnology.com

On December 18, 2008, Reuters reported on a two-day “cyberwar” simulation that revealed the United States is unprepared for a major hostile attack against vital computer networks. “This is equivalent in my mind to before September 11 … we were awakened to the threat on the morning after September 11,” said Booz Allen’s Mark Gerencser. From Booz Allen Hamiliton website

PandaLabs has predicted a continuing increase in the amount of malware (viruses, worms, Trojans, etc.) in circulation in 2009. Between January and August 2008, Panda Security’s laboratory had detected as many malware strains as in the previous 17 years combined, and this tendency is expected to continue or even grow in 2009. From http://govtech.com website

Or just simply google cyber threats in 2009 you will see that it will hit businesses and ordinary alike in 2009. The question is what are you going to do about it? To be continued….lol. Leave your comments, I’m interested to hear your thoughts about this.

1. Check the file permissions for files on your server

If you have files that allow anybody to modify them such as groups and users then you already have a major problem. You need to only allow users to view your content not write to it.

2. Check the privileges of user names accessing the database you are using.

Sometimes granting all privlieges for a username of a database can be dangerous. When designing your website that stores all of your information in a database it is best to split the privlieges between multiple usernames. This could cause the hacker some pain and time when trying to retrieve information from your database.

3. Make sure passwords are above 6 characaters with CAPS and Numbers and double hash them.

When passwords are short lengths and contain no caps and no numbers it makes it easier to do brute force attacks on the websites. So always make sure it is over 6 characters and add caps and numbers to your password. On the backend make sure you double hash passwords. When you double hash them use two different types of hashes. This is will throw hackers off some.

4. Always validate the visitors input.

When you have visitors enter in information that will be sent to the database make sure you protect against query attacks. There are certain combinations that visitors could use to reset passwords or drop your database. So every time they enter in values make sure you have a function to remove bad characters to protect your database.

5. Use computer generated pictures when allowing users to login or signup.

When hackers hack login information, they use a program and to loop through all the possible combinations for a password. If you use computer generated pictures for validation it will cause them even more discomfort for a hackers because they will need a program to read computer generated pictures which is close to none!

6. Use SSL.

SSL is a cryptographic system that uses two keys to encrypt data. SSL creates a secure connection between a client and a server, over which any amount of data can be sent securely. To get a better understanding look below at the block quote from php.net.

SSL/SSH protects data travelling from the client to the server, SSL/SSH does not protect the persistent data stored in a database. SSL is an on-the-wire protocol.

Once an attacker gains access to your database directly (bypassing the webserver), the stored sensitive data may be exposed or misused, unless the information is protected by the database itself. Encrypting the data is a good way to mitigate this threat, but very few databases offer this type of data encryption.

You can buy SSL certificates from your web hosting company or from independent websites.

7. Keep your system up-to-date.

If you are using php 3 and php 5 is out then you need to UPGRADE!!! Usually when you update your system they include patches to solve security problems that the previous release did not have.

8. Customize your security and create no documentation for IT!!!

Most of the time on the internet everybody is using the code because they downloaded it from somewhere in which over a thousand users downloaded the same thing. Hackers will download it to so they can know how to hack it to. If you are real serious about security I suggest you create your own technique after researching other methods out there and create NO documentation for it. I agreed with open source but not when it comes to SECURITY! This will make it hard for hackers and they will move on to an easier website to wreck havoc.

#1 Error – Dell

Dell trying to sell an average customer an operating system that requires some computer expertise.

If Dell is going to sell Ubuntu to the average customer they need to configure it all the way or at least provide some documentation to windows alternatives that is on ubuntu. When she gave it a chance and didn’t like it, the Dell representative discouraged her.

“The person I was talking to said Ubuntu was great, college students loved it, it was compatible with everything I needed,” said Schubert.

Sad to say with Linux that is not the case, it is almost compatible with everything you need.

Solution to this problem: They have a Linux alternative to Microsoft Office called OpenOffice. If she still wanted to be determined to use Microsoft Office she could have used wine which allows you to install windows programs in Linux. Also with the verizon software you could probably use wine or a virtual software to set it up but I’m speaking in theory because I’m not sure what verizon gave her.

#2 Error – The User

Now if you are going to choose an operating system as a user you should do some research if you are choosing something that will run alllllllllll of your software on your computer and then move to downplay a popular operating system such as ubuntu.

Solution to this problem: Just do your research before buying products. I guarantee if you do, you will have a beautiful life.

Conclusion

All in all, dell mess up by convincing her to stay with Linux and voiding her warranty if she decided to switch, and for her to not taking the appropriate time to research her operating system. Linux is a beautiful operating system and is making great strides, but its still lacks the strength to fully grab the desktop market from windows. Reason being that I believe it is still hard for the average user to understand the concept and architecture of linux. I also believe linux should have a desktop helper endowed with artifical intelligence to guide users throughout their desktop to help them understand. Hey it’s an idea let me know what you think.

I want the readers to comment to this article and tell me exactly what you think.