Blog247.Blogspot.com

Last Post?

2005-07-14T19:57:00.000-07:00

Blog247 is now permanently over, but I'm starting a new blog and I'm hoping that all my readers will enjoy my new blog as much or more than blog247. The new address for the blog is http://www.computerkid.blogspot.com/ I decided to start a new blog because it seems that the only people who come to blog247 are people who are looking for information on how to bypass bess. Now I'm fine with people trying to take down the system just like I once tried, but the truth is I really just want to put that incident behind me. You have no idea how much guilt I feel about the whole baddog thing. I blame myself for my computer teacher loosing his position and so when any one leaves a comment about baddog or sends me an email it just reminds me of how terrible I feel about being responsible for accidentally hurting a guy who I admire and respect. So if your a fan of Blog247 please check out http://www.computerkid.blogspot.com/

I dont know what to call this post.

2005-07-10T21:34:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to continue this blog over the summer and I may not ever continue this blog again. The truth is that I'm kind of sick and tired of computers , not that I don't love what they can do. I mean I think the internet is the greatest thing ever, but the fact is that I just need a break from the cyber world for a while and find out what's really important to me. lol, I sound really lame. Anyways I'll probably start posting again in September, but if not you know why now.

spyware adware and everything else

2005-05-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Well I was finally able to convince my dad to buy a new computer and trash the old windows 98. On the old computer there was tons and I mean tons of viruses, trojans, spyware, adware, hijack programs and everything and anything you can possible imagine. I don't know how my father does it but some how he manages to get the worst possible viruses you can think of, in literally minutes. It used to be that I would have to fix the computer all the time and eventually I decided it was just simpler wipe the hard drive and reinstall than spend 5 hours trying to find what the problem was. Well now that we have a new computer I have spent the last 2 days downloading every security measure possible. Because we now have XP we have a firewall built in. So I turned on the XP firewall, I signed up for Nortons trial firewall, and for Mcafee 30 day firewall. So currently I'm running 3 firewalls at the same time, I also downloaded the latest definitions for Nortons virus scan, and Mcafee anti-spyware. I turned on every option there is for Norton including pop-up blocker, ad removal, and even parental controls. I then downloaded xp's service security pack 2 and installed it. I also downloaded from Microsoft the latest version of there Beta anti-spyware program and downloaded the latest definitions for it too. After that I installed Ad-Aware SE personal, Spybot - search and destroy, Hijack This, and then downloaded the latest definitions for all of them. In addition I turned off all active x controls in internet explorer and set all the security options to highest possible level. So as you can see I've had a busy weekend. The next step I took was to set all of the programs to have automated updates and start when the computer boots. Next I am going download a third popup blocker and a couple more anti-spyware programs. As you can see I've done my best to make sure nothing gets to my dads computer, but I'm guessing that within a week it will probably be infected and I'll have to fix it again, but a least what I'm doing now will hopefully buy me a little relaxation time (maybe 5 to 7 days at best). lol

School Site

2005-05-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

In my programming class there's a competition for designing a site that is basically a big online table of contents for our A+ certification book and will be on our schools home site. I'm fairly confident that I am going to be victorious due to that fact that most of the other student's are using html and I'm using almost all CSS. So far the site I've built looks really sweet and even if I don't win I really won't care too much because I'll just change the content of the site to something more interesting and then publish it.

a lot of time and work

2005-05-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

When I started on livelinux.cjb.net I had no idea that I would spend so much time on this one site alone. The site itself has already been created mostly but its the time I have to spend researching and finding the appropriate material that fits the site that takes the most time. I'm searching for live Linux cds that are A) Free to download B) Are professionally built or seem to be C) Have all the applications you would expect any OS to have D) Be cool and different in some way than all the rest. So as you can see I have a few standards that require a whole bunch of time to check out and to make sure that the site I'm building is really offering the best livelinux cd downloads for free.

.tk now sucks

2005-05-05T07:57:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that when you visit www.port81.tk or www.diespy.tk or www.livelinux.tk that you are taken to a .tk advertising page and then have to click on a link to get to one my pages. I really hate that and theres now way I'm going to put with that, so the new address for my sites all end in .cjb.net. They are now www.port81.cjb.net www.diespy.cjb.net and www.livelinux.cjb.net It is a longer address but its not to bad and there's no adds so I can't complain.

LiveLinux.tk

2005-05-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

Well the moment you've all been waiting for is finally here. The site I've been working on for the last 3 weeks has finally been put on the web for all of you out there to check out and enjoy. The site is not a hundred percent complete due to the fact I still need someone to do some major grammar and spelling checks for my site and I need to add in a few final touches. Well I'm sure your all wondering what the site exactly is and what its about. Well to answer all your pressing questions, the URL of the site is www.livelinux.tk and it’s the best kick ass site I've ever built. It contains free reviews and free downloads of the coolest live Linux cd's available. Trust me if you are a computer nerd, geek, or even have the slightest interest in computers you will love this site. If you want to learn more just visit the site for yourself.

What I've been up to...

2005-04-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been working on creating a new website. Its going to be really sweet and I'm sure all of you computer nerds out there are going to love it. Unfortunately it is taking a bunch of time to build this site. I've put in a ton of work into the site already and am spending most of my time trying to get it up and running as soon as possible. I expect that it should be completed within the next 3 weeks and I'm also sure that it will be one of the best sites I've ever built. So stay tuned for new developments.

Diespy and Port81

2005-04-11T18:48:00.000-07:00

Both diespy.tk and port81.tk are up and running once again. I was able to change web hosts, and hopefully I shouldn't have the same problem again. Anyways, please check out both of these sites. There both really great and I put a lot of time and effort into them.

Temporary problem!

2005-04-10T21:48:00.000-07:00

Well as expected after the articles about baddog were published and republished all over the net, there was a very significant increase in the number of people viewing my blog. Now this is a great thing, except I'm sure some of you noticed both www.diespy.tk and port81.tk are down. This is because they have exceeded their monthly file transfer limit that they free hosting site allows me. Don't worry I promise that I'll have both sites back up and running like new in no time (probably by tomorrow night).

My grammer sucks. lol. grammar

2005-04-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

I now am a hundred percent sure that my spelling and grammar really suck. I received many emails informing me of this fact, and I would just like to say in response, I go to a public school what do you expect? lol. Just joking. Actually, usually no one reads my blog or my other websites so it really doesn't matter if my grammar or spelling sucks. Anyways sorry about the grammar errors.
If any of you were wondering Vegas was awesome. The Star Trek experience has a new "ride" and its almost as good as the older/other one. So in conclusion, "live long and prosper" dudes.

What's goin on

2005-03-30T18:26:00.000-08:00

Well nothin much has been happening, and I mean nothing. Port 81 and Diespy have both been failures. I'm not sure why. Both sites are designed very well and serve a useful purpose. Anyways lately I've been working on fixing some of my schools computers. Just doing some basic stuff like fdisk and reinstalling windows but I'm learning a lot (I'm a HTML guy not much of a DOS guy). I've also been working on editing bootdisks and making batch files. The only real news is that on Friday there is going to be a newspaper article about baddog and everything that happened to me and my teacher. O also I'm not going to be writing any more posts starting on Saturday for at least 10 days because I will be in Vegas and the Grand Canon.

What's next?

2005-03-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

I'm now pretty much finished with port81 and diespy (except for advertising them). So now I'm trying to think of something to make a new website on. I want the next website that I build to be about something I know a lot about and a site that I wont have to continually update. I cant really come up with an idea though. Anyways I'm hopping to build another site within the next 3 weeks, so stay tuned. O, and the urls to my latest creations are www.port81.tk
and www.diespy.tk

Die Spy

2005-03-20T09:12:00.000-08:00

Diespy is now on the internet. The URL is www.diespy.tk The site itself isn't finished but I thought that I'd put it on the web so all of you loyal readers could view it. lol.

Die Spy

2005-03-19T13:14:00.000-08:00

Well ever sense the completion of port81 I have been working on setting up a new website "die Spy". The basic template for die spy was taken from a free site but I've totally pimped it out and changed so much that it hardly looks like the original. Anyways what I have on diespy is a bunch of free downloads that will remove spyware, adware, virus's, trojans and pretty much anything else for completely free. The site isn't finished yet but I've been making tons of progress and its pretty sweet already so it should be ready within a week.

I'm finished!

2005-03-09T19:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight I spent like 4 hours finishing all my pages and spell checking them. After I did that I tested my code and I realized that I still had a lot of changes I needed to make. When I clicked on the top links it would open a new page and I realized that was pointless. Then on the main page the lower word links did not point to the right URL. Anyways I fixed all the bugs and everything is running very smoothly. I will continue to add new links and update the site but now everything on port 81 is in working condition and I'm finally done with the real work.

Almost finished

2005-03-08T21:18:00.000-08:00

I've been getting a lot of work done on Port 81 and have been trying to improve it as much as possible. Today I went back and changed all my subpages links to target="blank" so they would open in new windows and make navigation of my site a little easier. I also completed one sub page and am almost finished with another. By tomorrow I should be finished with all of the pages on my site, but then I will need to spend some time running my site through a spell checker and making sure all the links and code work properly on my site. The deadline I have set for myself is Friday, and as of now it looks like I should be able to make that deadline with time to spare.

Brad Pointer... What?

2005-03-06T22:11:00.000-08:00

When I had my friend take a look at my site today the first thing he said was "who the heck is brad pointer?" Well I am brad pointer. When I started port 81 I needed a different email address so I could sign up for services that I already had used on previous sites, also I didn't want to give out any information about myself so I decided to make an online name for myself. But the real reason I decided to make a online name for myself is because I really messed up by putting my real name on the baddog site, so this time I'm not going to make the same mistake (even though there's nothing that could get me in trouble on port81).

Little by little

2005-03-06T11:38:00.000-08:00

Today I added google adsense to port 81 www.port81.tk. I hope I'll make a little money off it that way. I also installed a statcounter, so I can keep track of where my users are coming from and how many users I have. So I've made a little progress on my site and I'm hopping to have it totally completed by this Friday. I am also going to add multiple domain names to my site that way I can submit port 81 multiple times to search engines and help boost my stats. The only big problem that I've found with port81 is that IE and firefox display the css code I have differently. I've fixed this problem the best I can but the different browsers still display the page a little bit differently.

Port 81

2005-03-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

Well you're all probably wondering what I've been up too sense the demise of baddog. Well the answer is I've been designing port 81. Port 81 is a site that will provide people with links to the sites they need to create a professional looking website for completely free. Its not finished yet, but I do have the home page completed. The URL for port 81 is www.port81.tk I have to say that I am really proud of how the homepage turned out, and I think its one of my best design jobs ever. I've been wanting to create this site for a long time, and now that I don't have to take care of baddog I can spend that time working on port 81.

Freedom of information

2005-02-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

It's truly amazing what information your entitled to just because you're an American. Because of the Public Records Act (RCW 42.17) you can almost get any official government documentation you want. Now I know most of you who are reading this thinking "woopdie frikin doo." Well here's an example of just how awesome this really is. You can go to http://lbloom.net/zsp04.html and find out exactly how much money each of your teachers made last year. The guy that created this site has used the Public Records Act (RCW 42.17) to his advantage and has been able to obtain hundreds of Washington state agencies employee salary lists. Now because we are Americans we all have this same right/ability to obtain this information. If you would like to get a public record I would suggest going to http://www.openwashington.com/howto.html. This site will explain to you in an easy to understand way how to go about getting your desired information.

BadDog is over

2005-02-22T18:16:00.000-08:00

The call came when I was in my first period class. I was told that I was supposed to bring my things with me to the office because I was going to be leaving. I made my way to the student office and was then directed into the principles office. Once there I was asked to take a seat by three disciplinary teachers who would be interrogating me on there investigation into baddog. Their first question was the one with the most obvious answer. Did I create baddog. I told them that I had indeed created it; it would have been pointless to lie, my name was on the homepage of the site, all over the forum, and I have many previous entries on this blog talking about baddog. The next step in the process was to ask me why I had created the site. I tried to explain that I had created the site so people could view sites that they had made using geocities, tripod, woomba, ect., and so people could actually do research without having every page being blocked. Well it didn't really matter to the school why I made it, because according to them I still broke the schools internet rules and so they had to discipline me accordingly. The verdict of their ruling was that I should be suspended. This hit me like a train considering that I have never been disciplined by the school before, and I mean never. I never got a pink slip when I was in grade school and never received a citation in middle school so this was a totally new experience for me. The worst part wasn't even the suspension, it was being told that I had to shut down baddog emidetly and permanently if I ever planned on coming back to school (they said it in a kinder way, but I understood what they meant). Once the interview was over and I had caught the city bus back home I booted up my computer and logged onto my webhosting service, then the moment of truth came, DELETION. Cold sweat ran down my face and my palms grew clammy as I my finger slowly reached down for the delete button. Then it was all over, BadDog was officially dead, and this time there was no coming back. The creation I had worked so much on over the last few months was gone and all that work I had done seemed to be for nothing. But the truth is that the BadDog project was one of the greatest learning experiences of my internet life, and I also had a lot of fun doing it too. Overall I can't complain about how things turned out. The disciplinary teachers were extremely kind to me in the way they posed their questions and were also very nice in allowing me to explain my side of the story. I also feel grateful that I only got a suspension and not an explosion. In conclusion everything turned out all right. Well that's not exactly true, I've still got two very angry parents to deal with. lol.

BadDog user base

2005-02-19T09:44:00.000-08:00

Well last Friday I finally got a look at how many people come to baddog from other cities besides Spokane. I was able to view this info because on Friday all of district 81 had the day off so no one from my school district came to baddog. The page loads on Friday displays to me how many outside users I have. On Friday I had approximately 300 page loads, and on average I have about 550. So this means that the outside users are a little more than 50 percent of my total user base.

Baddog blocked

2005-02-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

baddog was blocked today but I have a backup plan, the new address for baddog is now www.baddog.pro.tc not net make sure you put in .pro. So once again the new address is http://www.baddog.pro.tc/ Also I am asking anyone who is reading this post to tell everyone they know who used baddog about the new url and to ask them to do the same. I'm working really hard to get the word out about the new url for baddog and so I need as much help as I can get. I apologize for the inconvenience and I hope that you'll take this post seriously and at least tell a few people. If for any reason you need to contact me you can send me an email to coolrad89@msn.com

www.baddog.pro.tc

2005-02-11T09:20:00.000-08:00

The new address for baddog is www.baddog.net.tf not tc make sure you put the tf. once again its www.baddog.pro.tc

Forum for Baddog

2005-02-09T18:28:00.000-08:00

I have between 550 and 600 people per day come to my website but surprisingly I don't get many emails about what people think of the site or how it could be made better. Anyways I thought a cool way to find out what people thought of baddog would be to set up a forum where people can leave there comments and discuss baddog or Bess with other users. For the last 3 days I have been searching for a unblocked forum that would meet all my expectations. I finally found one and was able to set it up just the way I wanted. I've blocked out almost every curse word I can think of and I have made the forum look pretty good to. Anyways if your a fan of baddog you really should check out the forum and post a message or something. BadDog forum

Goin Good

2005-02-07T09:43:00.000-08:00

Baddog is doin pretty well now. In two periods alone I have more users than I used to in an entire day. Anyways I'm getting more and more users all the time so I'm makin more and more money with google adsense. Unfortunately I've found that google adsense has some problems. First it takes them hours to tell you how many people and clicks you had each day and second on a couple of days they didn't pay me for the clicks I received. The only logical explanation I can come up with to explain why is maybe they think I'm repeatedly clicking on the ads because there computers would show that I have multipe ip address that repeat many times a day. The reason for this is because my user base is generally people who are at school and are using there schools Lan to access the web. I've also redesigned the links on my page a little bit, so it will be easier to navigate my site.

Thanks for Baddog

2005-02-02T18:29:00.000-08:00

Here's an email that I received from a kid and its an example of why I created baddog, and who I created it for.

I recently found out about your website that allows us to bypass the nasty Bess. I tried it at school and to my amazement, I was actually able to research for a homework assignment! I've told my friends about BadDog, they've told their friends, and soon it was all through the school. I just want to thank you for all you've done to allow us some freedom on school computers.
(btw, my school is in western PA, close to Pittsburgh..)

-SimMaster"

I feel like an Idiot!

2005-02-02T06:50:00.000-08:00

"lifes a batch and then you die" you have to know what a batch file is to understand that joke.

BadDog is growing up

2005-01-26T09:36:00.000-08:00

Bad Dog has become an unstoppable force that continues to grow and grow. Yesterday Baddog finally passed the 200 users in one day mark and today I am expecting the same results. Its been rather incredible to see how many users come to baddog and how the number has grown so quickly. Its a fairly simple site but it takes a lot of my time to keep up and running, but its all worth it because I get feedback from people telling me how because they no longer have to worry about Bess blocking sites they can actually get the information that they need for there homework. Anyways its just been amazing to see how many people need this site so if anyone's reading this tell all your friends about the best Bess bypassing system on the net. http://www.badddog.net.tc

Bad Dog Blocked?

2005-01-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

baddog was blocked today but I have a backup plan, the new address for baddog is now www.baddog.pro.tc not net make sure you put in pro. So once again the new address is http://www.baddog.pro.tc/

Bad Dog for all

2005-01-18T21:37:00.000-08:00

Currently www.baddog.net.tc is specifically made for student's of my local highschool to bypass Bess. Baddog is currently designed to match my school colors and I also have a image from my schools main site. Now the design for the site is very good considering the purpose and intended users but I want to help as many people as I can bypass Bess and put an end to censorware, so I am currently considering redesigning my site to fit a broader audience. I am thinking about a black and green scheme or a black and orange scheme, either way I hope that I can get more people to use the site.

Bad Dog vs Bess

2005-01-13T20:52:00.000-08:00

Well today I realized the full reach of baddog (www.baddog.net.tc) so far. In just one day I had a 125 visitors to the site. I also discovered that most of the visitors came in the morning, and that about 98 percent of them came from School district lans. I have also been listening to user feedback and so today I changed the server that I store the other pages of my site on, that way they are never blocked when someone clicks on the links on my page. Also people said the links were not visible/easy-to-read, so I used some css code that makes the links get larger when you hover over them. If you have any more suggestions for BadDog (my bess bypassing site), please email me at coolrad89@msn.com

Sending Bess to the pound!

2005-01-12T22:06:00.000-08:00

Well www.baddog.net.tc has become bigger than I ever dreamed it would. The bess bypassing site that I built for personal use and then accidentally became a phenomena, has gone beyond just LC student's it is now also used by many other schools too. Now that this fact has been brought to my attention I am curious just to see the exact number of users that I have, so tonight I installed a invisible statcounter on the site that will allow me to keep track of how many visitors I have per day, week, month, also I'll be able to tell where they came from and where they went after leaving my site. So in the next few weeks I will regularly reporting the stats of BadDog on this blog. If you would like to use the same invisible statcounter that I use you can sign up for it at http://my3.statcounter.com for completely free. Also if you have any questions or comments about www.baddog.net.tc feel free to email me at coolrad89@msn.com

Top ten worse virus's of 2004

2005-01-04T09:38:00.000-08:00

Here's a list of the top ten virus's of 2004. What's interesting is that number one on the list is "downloader". Dowloader is a program that downloads ad/spyware to your computer when you visit a site by using ActiveX controls, but if you Mozzila you can help protect yourself from this because firefox has active x protection built in.
LIST
1. Downloader.GK (14 per cent)
2. Netsky.P (6.92 per cent)
3. Sasser.ftp (4.97 per cent)
4. Gaobot.gen (4.31 per cent)
5. Mhtredir.gen (4.22 per cent)
6. Netsky.D (3.98 per cent)
7. Downloader.L (3.56 per cent)
8. Qhost.gen (3.48 per cent)
9. Netsky.B (3.45 per cent)
10. StartPage.FH (3.34 per cent)

New years and MSN Video

2005-01-01T08:46:00.000-08:00

Did you miss the new years countdown to 2005, well don't worry you can still watch it even if you weren't taping it. If you have a DSL connection you can go to video.msn.com and watch it as many times as you would like. Along with the latest news stories you can also watch music videos, movie previews and weather reports. There's also tech news reports and sports, so basically threes something for everyone. Overall I was very impressed with this site and its features that included a drag and drop playlist and a video search engine. Another feature that I'm sure all the video geeks will love is msn video brings you new videos from Atom films and weird TV. In conclusion this is just another example of how computers are better than television, because you get the information you want when you want it.

Bad Dog

2004-12-18T10:16:00.000-08:00

I apologize to all my loyal readers for not posting any news in the last week and half, but the reason I have been occupied is because of the creation/birth of a vision I’ve had for the last two years. As you may or may not know, I hate any and all censorware. Lewis and Clark high school has a censorware system created by N2H2 called Bess. I’ve been studying bess for the last two years and I found many ways to bypass her (a her because the logo for bess is a dog). The downside was, I was one of the only people that could bypass bess at my school, or at least bypass bess without to much time and effort. Anyways, my goal was to help every one at my high school to regain there internet freedoms and be able to use the internet in a productive way without the censorware system interfering in the educational process. Last year lots of people were bypassing bess by using Altavistas Babel fish, but that got shut down, and Proxify.com has been insisting that people pay for there service, so this year everyone has been having problems doing what they need to do online especially the student’s in computer classes. To make a long story short I found a proxy that could easily bypass Bess because it was an https not an http so it did not run on port 8080, unfortunately the proxy was at a Chinese web site and had a long address name that was hard to remember, let alone the site was in another language. So what I decided to do was I would use there proxy but incorporate it into my site. Now that the easy part was over, it was time to find a free webserver, that didn’t have advertising, and wasn’t blocked by bess. It took me a while but I finally found the solution, www.woomba.net. It had everything I required for my site, so I got my site uploaded and working in perfect condition. Now most people would assume that the stories over, but let me tell you its far from over. Woomba.net was a good server but the address for my site was now www.woomab.net/baddog, and I felt that it was just to hard of an address to remember, so people wouldn’t want to use my site. The solution I found was that I could use a free redirectional subdomain. I decided to use the company www.smartdots.com for my subdomain. The sign up process was quick and simple and I found just the perfect redirectional name. The address to reach my site is now www.baddog.net.tc. Its short and easy to remember and theres no advertising. Now the question was how do people find out about my site, well it actually completely happened accidently. I was planing on advertising baddog.net.tc on this blog, but before I did I told one or two of my friends about the site so that they could use the site to bypass bess for themselves, well one of my friends, Paul, has a huge moth and by the end of the class period everyone was using my site. Mission accomplished, I had liberated all of computers in the classroom of censorware and hopefully given my other classmates the tools they would need to use the internet in a productive and educational way. Wow, that was a lot of work, and I knew that my work would never be over. I know eventually the school administrators will find out about baddog.net.tc and block it, and that’s why everyday I look for new free unblocked web servers to put baddog on, that way when one is blocked I will just tell everyone about the new location. Now some people have asked me “don’t you think your going to get caught” and my answer is I’ve always known I’m going to one day get that call down to the office and have whoever the disciplinary teacher is ask me in a intimidating tone, “So Conrad do you know why you’re here today?” The teacher will ask me a bunch of questions, and I’ll answer them all truthfully, I don’t bypass bess except to visit this blog and the reason I bypass bess to visit this blog is because I have to (it’s a school assignment). Also I did all of the creation of baddog at home and the school has no authority over what I do at home so basically what’s going to happen they’ll call me down to the office try to make me squirm and then send me on my way. In conclusion I just hope that what I’m doing now will help prevent our country from becoming like china (china has a country wide filtering system) and I hope I inspired future other teens to do the same.

China vs. Football

2004-12-08T20:49:00.000-08:00

Well I'm trying to contain my anger so that I don't hurt any readers feelings. That stubborn Chinese Government has made another really less then intelligent decision. They have gone beyond reason this time, beyond sanity, the committed a crime that's unspeakable, THEY BANNED FOOTBALL. Ok well, they didn't really ban foot ball but they did ban a new foot ball video game called "Football Manager 2005." Why did they ban this you ask. Well simply because in the football game it makes China appear smaller than it really is, its missing a few islands and stuff that china controls. You have to ask your self, Is China really that weak that when some video game gets a map messed up they have to ban it. I mean what's the worse that could happen. Some how this video game is going to make lazy couch potato gamers like me start a civil war or something. Come on. Seriously, this is crazy. The Culture Minister said the game had "content harmful to China's sovereignty and territorial inegrity." Well I don't know if the Chinese government is just scared wimps or just plane out crazy. In conclusion I would like to apologize if I hurt anyone's feelings, I have nothing against Chinese people or against China, but I have a less then high appreciation of the Chinese government.

Atom Films

2004-12-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

You may or may not already know about Atom films, but what you probably don't not know is they added a new feature that allows you too choose from many of the Atomfilms short films and have them professionally burned to a DVD and shipped to you. This feature is now available to you because of the recent partner ship of Atomfilms and CustomFlix. You get to choose 10 of your favorite films and then it will be created for you and mailed to the address you submit. The DVD costs $20 which may sound a lot but when you think about what your getting, ten of your favorite films, and that it costs just as much as a standard new video release, its actually not that bad a deal. If you love Atom Films as much as I do you really should give this new feature consideration.

Geocaching

2004-12-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Now here's a really fascinating hobby that many of us have never even heard of. Geocaching is a game/sport of an adult treasure hunt. When someone goes geocaching what they do is they take there GPS (Global Positioning System) and go to the coordinates that someone has posted online of where a hidden treasure can be found. Now you may be asking your self "Come on how many people actually go out and do this?" Well the answer is shocking, thousands of people all around America every day go geocaching. You can find many web sites that have tons of lists of coordinates of where a cache can be found, and there's many in your area too. How the cache's usually work is: someone takes a piece of Tupperware, puts in a prize and then goes and hides it in the woods or a park, ect. The prize is usually something small like a book or a CD, and occasionally a little money. There are a few simple rules that you must follow to play the game. First when you find and take out the treasure you must also leave something behind so someone else can find the cache. There are also restricted items like food, fireworks and alcohol, so don't leave these items as prizes. In addition there is usually a log book in the trove so people can fill it out and tell about there treasure hunting experience. Now if you think you can take your GPS unit and easily find tones of troves, you are sadly mistaken. This is no easy game. Many times the Cache is hidden on a high cliff or even in some extreme cases hidden underwater, so you actually have to go scuba diving for it. Also GPS systems only get you within 20 feet of where the cache is stored so there's a wide area to search. This is a great game for the entire family, and it gets lazy guys like me who spend all of their day on computer out of the house.

MSN blogs

2004-12-03T09:27:00.000-08:00

MSN will now have available its own blogging service called MSN Spaces. Currently the leader in the blogging front is google with its free service, Blogger. The MSN Spaces is free to anyone who has a Hotmail or MSN messenger account. MSN Spaces has many new features that user will find enjoyable. The MSN spaces will have a permission system that allows you to set who can come to your blog (the levels are public, private or just MSN Messenger Contacts). In addition you can select a layout for the page, and upload images or music playlists. MSN is also currently planning on releasing its on RSS reader, My MSN (if you don't know what an RSS reader is please read the previous post). "This is a simple tool for people to express themselves," said MSN's Blak Irving. The downside of there new service is that it is supported by banner ads that can detract from your pages appearance.
Blogs have grown greatly over the last year in popularity and just yesterday Merriam-Webster named the word blog as the number one word for the entire year. BLog usage has been doubling every five and a half months for the last 18 months according to Technorati, the blog analysis firm.

RSS, What?

2004-12-02T17:47:00.000-08:00

When you have gone to some of your favorite sites you may have noticed a small button that says and wondered what it was for. Well to answer your question, that button and the page it takes you to is one of the most powerful and useful tools on the internet. When a site has that button that means they have a RSS (Really Simple Syndication) enabled site. This means that you now have the ability to grab what is ever on that XML page and put it on your web site. So when that page changes so does yours, this gives your site a powerful resource that allows it to update itself without you having to change a single line of code once the RSS code is installed on your site. But how do you build a RSS feed that will grab all that strange code from the page that the XML button takes you too? Well don't worry about that, because there are many free sites that already have the code built for you, all you have to do is change a few parameters, like what feed you want, the color of the text, ect. The site that I used for the RSS display on the righthand side of this page was http://www.fastbuzz.com. The reason one may want to choose this site to build there RSS reader is because it requires very little programming knowledge and has some cool features like the ability to have the headlines rotate. Unfortunately you don't have as much control over what is displayed or how it is to be displayed as would be desired, so if you want more control and versatility I would suggest using http://www.allrss.com. This program lets you input the exact XML page you want and choose exactly what is displayed and how. It also comes with free design layouts or a blank layout so you can create just the way you want. The downside is, the instructions for how to actually get your RSS reader working the way that it is shown on the site are very unclear. To actually understand what the site was telling me to do took me 2 days, but after that it was simple to change and I love being able to create the reader exactly how I want it. This is the site that I would recommend if you are serious about making your site look professional.

Google vs. Chinese government

2004-12-01T19:36:00.000-08:00

The Chinese government has now blocked the English version of google news! The Chinese government has had a long history of not allowing its people the ability to surf the internet freely. More than 80% of the country's internet traffic goes through ChinaNet, a country wide filtering system. Google has tried to cooperate with China as much as possible and even released a Chinese version of google news that removed new reports that were said to be "politically sensitive" according to the Chinese Government. The Chinese Government in my opinion has taken there filtering system beyond the border of toleration. "China is censuring Google News to force internet users to use the Chinese version of the site which has been purged of the most critical news reports," said Reporters Without Borders. This is not the first step over the line that China has taken. In earlier posts I have written about how the Chinese government has shut down more than 1,600 Internet Cafes between February and August of this year alone. Of the 1.8 million Internet Cafes inspected around 18,000 were shut down until they conformed to all the strict Chinese Internet laws. In conclusion I would like to say this is one of the topics that I feel most passionately about because I believe the Chinese Citizens are having there eyes blindfolded by a government who does not allowing them access websites and news.

Movie downloading

2004-12-01T15:11:00.000-08:00

A Japanese court has now convicted and sentenced Yoshishiro Inoue, age 42, to one year suspended jail term because he used a file sharing program to allow people to download two movies, Unbreakable, and A beautiful mind. "Anyone with broadband access on a computer can with some simple operations become a violator. There's a tendency to forget copyrights and the rights of others," said the Japan and International Motion Picture Copyright Association. He used the program Winny created by Isamu Kaneko, who know is also facing a thee year jail term or a fine up to $3800. Kaneko defenders have started a fund and have been able to pay for his bail. Now both these punishments seem a bit extreme to me, but I we all know stealing is wrong but the fact is that until the music/video companies have some better way of stopping people from downloading then just threats of law suits that nothing is going to change.

Mozilla Firefox

2004-11-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

You may have heard about Mozilla Firefox while sitting around the watercooler at work, but I'm hear to give you the "real deal" about Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla Firefox has been rumored to give Microsoft nightmares. Firefox is a completely free web browser that makes Internet Explorer look like a handheld calculator compared to a super computer. Firefox has just been released this month by Mozilla and has many features that make Internet explorer obsolete. With Firefox you have the option of tabed browsing which means you can view more than one web page in a single window, which allows you to keep your task bar clean and help you stay organized. One of the best features of Firefox is that it keeps your computer safe from spyware by not allowing harmful ActiveX controls to load. Firefox also comes with google search right in the tool bar and from the mozilla site you can download the other popular search engine toolbars for completely free. I also was very impressed with all the configuring options available. You can change basically anything you want, and you don't have to be a pro to figure out how to. I tried changing the proxy that I use and it only took me about 5 seconds to figure out how on firefox. To say the least I was very impressed. I hate Pop ups and so this was the perfect browser for me because Firefox has a completely free popup blocker that actually works; I'm not kidding! Now if you are a loyal Internet Explorer user like I used to be don't worry Firefox comes with all the features that Internet Explorer does like, History, Favorites, Text zooming, ect. Now the great thing about Firefox is that you don't have to be a "techie" to be able to use it, its extremely simple. Now If you have decided to switch to firefox what you need to do is go to www.mozilla.com and then it walks you trough the rest. Its a relatively small program, only 4.7MB and works on both Windows and Mac. Its a synch to install but if you are going to completely get rid of internet explore I would suggest downloading the common plugins like quick time and windows media player after you download the browser. To go to the plugins download page click here. Take my word for it, if you actually download this program and use it you will never feel the need to go back to internet explorer again.

Red vs. Blue

2004-11-29T09:17:00.000-08:00

Many of us know of how popular halo and halo 2 have become, and we all know how much money its made, but did you know that Halo has know moved from the x box to a movie like format. Well actually not a movie but close enough. Red vs. Blue is a group of guys who love the game, and make little mini movies out of there game play. What they do is they record footage from the game then take that footage edit it, and add in special effects, voice overs, ect. They create little mini episodes and are continuing to create a story of two teams of players, red and blue. Duh. They also make these story's very entertaining, and will keep you laughing all day long. Currently they are on there third season and for the holidays they make special episodes. For example on the Fourth of July they made a hilarious episode about fireworks safety and grenades. Then for thanksgiving they made a video a little about politics, a little about turkeys, and whole bunch of random things. The best part about these videos is that they are completely free and that you can download them in 3 different formats, wm (windows media player), QuickTime, or Div x. For all these videos simply go to www.redvsblue.com and start downloading. O and a note to all LC student's, Bess doesn't block this site, so for once you can actually do something totally awesome on the schools internet system without having to bypass the censorware protection.

Cell Phone Viruses

2004-11-28T17:13:00.000-08:00

"Skulls" is the name of a new cell phone virus that has become an increasing problem for cell phone users, and its not the only one. Earlier this month unsuspecting people downloaded what they believed at the time to be free ringtones or screensavers but what was actually the "Skulls" virus. After the Virus was on a customers cell phone it would change all the icons into skulls and crossbones and would disable many of the cell phones features. Viruses like this one are currently mainly for advanced cell phones (cell phones that can surf the web, email ect.) but with the number of advanced cell phones on the rise, cell phone viruses are going to become a very large problem for many many people. For now there is not much users can do to protect them selves from such viruses because companies have just begun to realize that very soon cell phones just like computers are going to need anti-virus, and anti spyware protection. Only about 2 percent of cell phones are "advanced cellphones" but the Yankee Group research firm predicts that by 2008 17 percent will be advanced cell phones. "malicious programs will be as much a problem for cell phones in 2006 as they are for computers today." Said John Pescatore, for the technology research firm Gatner. This may be a rare problem now but there is no doubt that in the upcoming years cellphone viruses will be on the rise. Who knows, maybe in 10 years hackers will be board with cellphones and will be hacking your HDTV's instead.

Internet Pornography

2004-11-26T09:12:00.000-08:00

On Thursday researchers and clinicians testified before a Senate committee and said "internet pornography is the new crack cocaine!" Now this may sound a bit extreme to most of us, but the researchers did make a few undeniable key points. "Pornography really does, unlike other addictions, biologically cause direct release of the most perfect addictive substance." said Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist. Since the Invention of the internet porn has become easier to get and for free too. The basic concern of the clinicians and researchers on Thursday was that we are raising a generation of porn addicts. The researchers showed how the brain reacts to porn, and how porn then becomes addictive; but what the researchers left out of there reports were how sex cab be addictive also. So if they believe porn is bad, does that mean sex is bad too, and that the whole world is just a bunch of sex addicts raising a generation of masturbating internet porn junkies? Well I'm not going to answer that question but I will say that the internet has had one of the biggest effects on our society of all time.

Anti-piracy program

2004-11-25T18:43:00.000-08:00

Piracy of Microsoft's operating system windows XP has become a steadily growing problem for Microsoft, especially in Eastern Europe and in the Far East. Now Microsoft is taking every action possible to stop piracy, Microsoft has now announced that they will exchange pirated copies of there windows XP operating system for the real version to any users who bought the pirated version "under false pretences." This may become a expensive promise for Microsoft to keep, but Microsoft will have a better understanding of the extent of the piracy, and will have any easier time catching the criminals behind the piracy. Slex Hilton, Microsoft's license compliance manager said "Our goal is not to prosecute the individual; our goal is to get to the source." So if you believe that you may have a pirated version of windows XP don't be afraid to have it checked by Microsoft; you don't have anything to lose and you could help put a stop to piracy.

Merger

2004-11-22T09:04:00.000-08:00

Recently AT&T and Cingular mergerd together into one unstoppable corporation. Unfortunately some of the members of these services have reported problems with accessing the online services that the companies provide. The users simply see "At this time we are asking customers to PLEASE be patient with us as we continue with the transitions of our merger," and are forced to try again latter. The companies have been planning the merger for the last two months and have more than 20 million subscribers. The companies have not mentioned the problems that subscribers have been having but instead have said that the "overall the merger is going as smoothly as expected."

Google Scholar

2004-11-18T09:29:00.000-08:00

Google has now released a new search format for people who want to research scientific or academic topics without having to have all those sites that have nothing to do with academics come up in your search results. This may be a new great way to do research for a school project and save time because you wont be going to all those john doe sites that miss lead you. Also when you come to your results page you can click on the words you entered in and google will take you to dictionary.com where you will get the definition. This is just another example of why google is the best search engine online. To try out this new search format for your self go to http://scholar.google.com

spyware

2004-11-17T17:51:00.000-08:00

This week my dad gave me a call and told me that every time he typed in an address and it would take him to a search engine. I knew right away what it was because I had come across previous versions. When ever you didn’t type http the virus automatically routs your request to the site and uses your request as a search engine inquire. Unfortunately this time it was harder to get rid of then it had been in the past. I finally found that I could get rid of the virus by using the spyware removal system, hijack this. It worked really well. Some of the other great free spyware removal tools that I have found are, adware, spybot search and destroy, cw shredder. You can download all of these great programs for completely free at www.pcworld.com.

Disposable DVD's

2004-11-16T09:02:00.000-08:00

Disposable DVD technology has been around for years but has never been accepted by most video rental stores or movie studios. This technology could completely eliminate late fees or even having to ever return a video. How the technology works is, once the DVD is exposed to the oxygen in the air a chemical reaction in the DVD makes the DVD begin to turn red. After one to sixty hours the DVD player can no longer read the DVD and so then the customer simple throws the DVD away. This technology could greatly help companies like netflix, where the company mails you a movie and then you have to mail it back. With this technology the customer would no longer have to mail the video back and would save a great deal in postage cost. Even though this is a great idea and has a huge potential most companies are just not interested in it. Blockbuster spokesman Randy Hargrove said "We really don't see the idea going anywhere, ultimately." So for now it looks like we are going to still have to deal with returning movies and paying for late fees.

X-43A hypersonic aka Scramjet

2004-11-15T09:03:00.000-08:00

Today NASA will test its X-43A hypersonic, a pilotless jet, to see if it can break the speed of the previous fastest jet that went Mach 7 (7 times the speed of sound). This jet is supposed to be able to go 10 times the speed of sound, and will keep that speed for a ten second test. At that speed the jet will be going 2 miles per second. The Scramjet is using a new type of engine "that burns fuel in a stream of air compressed by the forward speed of the aircraft." NASA said that in the future Scramjets will give a affordable, safe alternative to rockets for very high-speed flight. After the plane has done its test run it will land in the Pacific ocean and will not be recovered (even after all the work and time that they spent building the thing)! This is a very important day in rocket history because this may indeed mark beginning the end of rocket technology.

Nintendo DS

2004-11-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

Nintendo (the creators of the gameboy) has now announced that they will release a new wallet sized game system. The new system will have a two screen display which will allow gamers many more gaming options, for example you could be playing a first person shooter game on the top screen and have the map on the bottom screen. The new hand held also comes with a free wireless connection that allows players within 150 feet of each other to play against or with each other. This new handheld is targeted towards an older audience then what the Nintendo game boy was meant for, having games like pokemo’n and Mario. This new hand held is targeted towards the 17 year old age group, but will still have games for its loyal younger users. Another feature that many will find enjoyable especially younger users is PictoChat. PictoChat is a feature that takes advantage of the wireless connection and allows users to send pictures and messages to one another. The Nintendo DS is supposed to be released nov. 21 in the United states to take advantage the after thanksgiving shopping craze, and will be sold for $150.

The power of Blogs

2004-11-13T09:36:00.000-08:00

On November 10 a post was made at www.livejournal.com/users/ea_spouse/ by a woman who said she was the spouse of a programmer who worked at EA games. She tells a compelling story of how her husband has been forced to work insane amount of hours and doesn't get paid for the over time (a modern day endencherd servant). This story really made me open my eyes to how hard and terrible a job being a programmer can be and its bad effects on you. I enjoyed reading the post but what was more amazing than the post itself was the amount of comments the post had. At 9:39 am on November 12 the post had a total of 1082 comments. No I'm not joking! Within 2 days of her posting 1082 people had left a comment and even more people just read the blog. This is just another example of how powerful a blog can be, and that you can have your voice heard if you want to.

USB Flash drive

2004-11-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

For along time I have been wanting to purchase a USB flash drive because they work on almost every type of computer, even mac's. So with a USB flash drive I could save my documents to it and then take those documents between my homes or to school without having to use floppies which can only hold 1.4 mb, compared to usb drives which generally come in 128 mb, 256 mb, 512 mb sizes, and some of the new ones even hold a GB (but there super expensive). Anyways I did some research on the best prices and sizes that would fit my wallet, and after a while of looking one of the flash drives went on a great sale. The drive that came on sale was a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 512MB USB 2.0 Flash Drive . The drive was originally $79.99 and then went on sale for $49.99 plus there is a ten dollar mail in rebate, which brings the grand total to only $30.99. The moment I saw this sale I knew I couldn't pass it up so I drove out to Best buy the next day and bought it. I came home and Tried it on my Windows xp and it worked great. I just plugged it in and a little green light came on, on the usb itself to let you know it is in use. Then I clicked on my computer and the usb drive showed up just like a regular hard drive would. I found that the USB drive also came with some software that you can install if you want on it (you don't have to, its just some free software), the software lets you encrypt the files you put on the USB, so if someone stole it they wouldn't be able to view your files unless they new the password. I also tried the USB on my windows 98 and found that it was just as easy as the windows xp except that I had to download the drivers for the usb, but that was really simple because the manufacture gives you a web address where you can go to download it, and they walk you through step by step. If you've been considering buying a USB drive you really should think about this one because it was the best price for the most amount of storage that I could find anywhere.

IBM supercomputer.

2004-11-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

This week IBM regained its bragging rights for owning the number one fastest supercomputer in the world. IBM is calling the supercomputer Blue Gene and she's not your average PC. Blue Gene was clocked at going 70.72 trillion calculations per second by the Top500 project, which is a group of computer scientists who release supercomputer rankings every six months. This is the first time in three years that America has had the fastest supercomputer. The previous fastest super computer was Japan's Earth Simulator. The Earth Simulator only runs about half as fast as the new IBM Blue Gene. The real advances in Blue Gene are its relatively small size, and low energy consumption. Blue Gene takes about a million dollars to power for an entire year, but if the Earth Simulator were as powerful, it would take $60 million each year to power. This is a huge leap forward in the supercomputer world and is only the beginning. For more details on Blue Gene and previous supercomputers visit http://www.top500.org

Halo 2

2004-11-10T09:22:00.000-08:00

On Monday Halo fans lined up outside of stores hours before the release of the sequel to halo, Halo 2, just so they could be one of the first people to get the game, rush home to play the Halo 2 all night until there eyes are red and swollen from staring at the TV screen, and pass out from exhaustion. The lines for the Halo 2 games circled around buildings and seemed like they would never move. The wait once you were in one of these lines could be hours even if you, like so many fans did, preorderd the game months in advance. Even though the wait was immense and fans grew tired from standing for hours at a time, most fans said that it was well worth it. Fans have been waiting for about 3 years and the release of the game has been highly anticipated during the entirety of its production. The Halo 2 gamers that I interviewed told me that they were most interested in seeing and interacting with the new weapons and the new vehicles. The ability to hold two weapons at the same time has many fans excited. One of the gamers said, (and I quote) "the weapons looked cool dude! DUDE!" The Halo game franchise has become more then just games to many gamers; they have become a way of life. Some of the items in the massive franchise include books and DVD's. The one thing that we can all be sure of is that for the next few weeks we will be seeing a lot less of these gamers because they will be too busy playing on their Xbox's

Fast buzz

2004-11-09T19:25:00.000-08:00

Recently I signed up for a online news update program for blog247 from http://www.fastbuzz.com. The program was completely free and gives my site up to the date information every 15 seconds. If you scroll down my page you will see a big heading called "current news articles" and then under that you will see a list of articles that continues to scroll up once every 15 seconds. Signing up to the site was very easy and took only about 2 minutes total. Unfortunately after signing up everything becomes extremely difficult. It took me approximately 30 minutes to find where the source code was that I was supposed to put on my web site and to change which news organizations my code displayed. Another problem I ran into was the customization of my code. On the fastbuzz site itself you can only change how many articles are displayed from each news organization, how fast your updates rotate, and how many article links you show at a single time. What I wanted to change was the background color, text color, ect. I spent about 20 minutes looking for where to change all these features until I finally realized that you have to manually change the source code yourself (fastbuzz did not mention that.) In conclusion I love the program itself and I have decided to keep running it on my site, but I was extremely disappointed with the instructions the web site gave and would tell anyone who wants to sign up for this program that they should allow at least 45 minutes of time to get everything up and running the way they want it on there site.

Netscape Radio

2004-11-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

Every one loves to listen to music, but it seems that every day you hear about someone paying a huge fine or even in extreme cases going to jail just because they downloaded a song. So how do you listen to the type of music you like without becoming a criminal. Well the answers been in front of you the entire time. The radio! Ok, I know the radio's outdated and that you hate listening to commercials but the type of radio I'm talking about isn't any radio you'll find sitting around your grandma's house. Netscape radio is the ultimate solution. There's only one quick download and a extremely easy installation and then you'll be able to listen to all the music you want for completely free. Netscape radio has "Access to more than 175 stations, including music, news, sports, and local radio." I've used Netscape radio for about 6 months now and I have been very impressed. It has a huge range of music styles and the quality is outstanding. If your tired of downloading illegal songs, or are disappointed with the sound on your old FM radio and hate those ridiculously long ads, do your self a favor and download Netscape radio now!

Is spam a crime?

2004-11-07T09:57:00.000-08:00

Well its finally happened, A pair of Spammers are going to be doing some serious jail time for there crimes. A brother and sister had been sending America Online users junk e-mail aka spam. Now for the first time in the United states there has been a felony prosecution for spamers. The jury decided that Jeremy Jaynes (the brother) should spend 9 years in prison, and Jessica DeGroot (the sister) should be fined $7,500. They were both convicted of three counts of "sending e-mails with fraudulent and untraceable routing information." Now we all hate spam but I feel the sentencing was cruel and unusual. I say if you can put spammers in jail why can't you do the same thing to those evil people that created pop-ups!

Google AdSense

2004-11-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

If your like me and own a web site you’re going to want to listen up, otherwise you’ll probably want to own a web site by the time your finished reading this. Ok lets say you have your own web site and you’ve worked hard to get all those bugs out and you actually have people that come to your site, you’re probably asking your self “What now?” Well let me an answer that for you. Money, it’s money making time. “But how?” your wondering. Google AdSense is the perfect solution. Google AdSense is a totally free program that allows you to get paid by Google for placing Google ads on your site. You get paid per clicks, so the more times people click on the ads on your site the more money you make. The ads you put on your site are only about the stuff that is on your web page. So if you have a site about movies, the ads will also be about movies. In addition you have tons of choices to customize your ads, so the ads on your page will blend right in or if you want stand out. I could go on for hours about how great a program it is and the cool features that keep you up to date on how much money you’ve made, but for full details you need to visit https://www.google.com/adsense/ and from there you can learn anything else that I havn't explaind and sign up for the program.

Gmail

2004-11-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been talking quite a bit about Google and so I feel that I must mention one of Googles greatest endeavors that many people know nothing about. Gmail is a free online email program that gives you a full Gigabyte of storage. Gmail organizes and allows you to search for the email message you want in the same Google format that most people are used to. Another great thing about Gmail is there are no banner ads or pop-ups, there are only text ads that link to advertisers. The only down side that I can find of Gmail is that Gmail doesn’t allow executable files to be sent or received. The reason they do this is because they are trying to protect users from viruses. If your unsatisfied with your current email program because you don’t have enough space to store those pictures your friends send you, or you just are looking for a great free email service that is reliable, you have to go to http://gmail.google.com/ and sign up. Overall this is one of the best free email services available and defiantly deserves to be considered.

The Desktop Search wars

2004-11-04T09:42:00.000-08:00

On Friday, Eric Schmidt, Googles chief executive, announced that Google is now planning on creating and releasing a version of its "desktop search" for the Mac operating system. It's far from ready to be released because google is having to completely remake there program to work on the Mac operating system; and so Gooogle has not currently set any date or timeline for when it will be ready. Also Yahoo has announced that they are planning to release there own desktop search just as google has done. As you can see the desktop wars have just begun and its seems for the mean time that google is in the lead and Yahoo not far behind, so stay tuned and I will keep you updated with all the new information as it becomes available.

Politics and technology

2004-11-03T21:21:00.000-08:00

While I was watching the debate last night I was at the same time sitting at my computer looking for information on articles that I will write about next week. Anyways I happened to go to yahoo and when I was there a map caught my eye. In fact it was much more then just a map it was a map that showed up to the date electoral votes for the candidates. When you moused over each state it told you how many electoral votes it was worth and the percent of the popular vote that each candidate had. Every state was color coded telling which candidate had won and even which states were likely to vote for which candidate. In conclusion I have to say that yahoo really out did them selves this time and has given us one of the best technological news devices on the web for this election. So thanks Yahoo.

This picture was taken at 9:25 on Tuesday.

Google goes beyond...

2004-11-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

Well it finally happened, google has moved beyond its monopoly that exists online into your own home computer. Google has released Desktop Search a very small program that is only 450KB but is extremely powerful. It indexes your entire hard drive and then you can search for emails, chat records, internet history and your favorite computer programs. This most likely will be the next big thing for your home computer. Instead of having to go through tons of different folders searching for you paper or remembering the address of where you saved it you can now just type in a key word and in a blink of in eye you’ve got that word document you worked so hard on. Because it’s a small file it’s extremely easy and fast to download. There’s also many different options you can configure so your search’s are just the way you want them. After you download it it must index your hard drive so this can take a while but after that the program should run very quickly and runs in the background while your computer is idle. To download this really awesome program for completely free (only for windows) go to http://desktop.google.com/

New photo iPod

2004-11-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

ipod has announced that it is going to release a new version of the ipod. iPod Photo is going to be the "next big thing" because it has many cool new features. As the name implies you can view images on the iPod photo. When you are searching your iPod for the photo you want to display your photo's will appear as very tiny thumb nails which can be good and bad; if you have many photos of the same thing it may be hard to tell the difference in them when you are searching for a particular photo but this is not really a problem which will cause much trouble to most users. Another cool feature of the iPod Photo is that you can connect your iPod to your television and display your photos on the TV and show all your friends that camping trip you took. Just like the older versions of the apple iPod it works both on a Mac computer or on a windows PC. The new iPod also has a decent battery life of 15 hours considering that it has to power its really bright 2 inch screen and display pictures while playing that song you love at the same time. Now with all of these improvements there also comes increasing costs. For the 40 gig version $499 and then for the 60 gig version it is $599. So if you were where hoping someone would buy you one for Christmas you may be disappointed unless they happen to be supper rich and even more generous otherwise I would suggest saving your money and waiting to find a good sale.

The solution

2004-10-28T20:59:00.000-07:00

Earlier I was having problems with a free counter that I had acquired from http://www.sitetracker.com/ because I believe it was the cause of what was messing up my code and it had a extremely annoying banner that detracted from the appearance of my site. I had only one choice of action and that was to remove it from my site entirely. After I did so the problem with the source code seemed to disappear and the banner was thankfully gone. Unfortunately I no longer had the ability to see how many people had visited this web site so I went on google and began my search for a counter that would just my needs. After about 20 minutes of searching with no luck for the counter I wanted, I stumbled upon http://my3.statcounter.com. My3.statcounter.com is a really amazing site that will do most of the things sitetracker will do and it will also tell you how many returning visitors you have in a single day and put all the visitor information in an easy to understand chart. Now that's cool, but why I believe statcounter is definitely better than sitetracker is because statcounter has an option of being able to customize you're counter or even better make it completely invisible so no one else but you knows how many visitors you have and there's not any kind of advertising at all. I'm not joking there's no banner ads or pop ups or any kind of small logos, there's no ads what so ever.

Problems

2004-10-27T16:49:00.000-07:00

After putting on the sitetracker I lost the information on my blog. I was able to redo the template but after I did I visited my site a few hours latter and the same thing happend again so what I am thinking is that the site tracker some how messed up the codding of blogger.com and so the only option I had was to remove it. After I removed it I dicided to change the template of my blog so my blog will look and fell more professional because I am really thinking about trying to make some money off it so I won't want my blog to look like some kind of kids site. Anways if you have a blog from blogger.com you might not want to use http://www.sitetracker.com/ because it may do the same thing to you as it did to me.

Site statistics

2004-10-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed the banner running down the left hand side of the page and wondered what it was so I'll tell you. It keeps track of everyone that comes to this site and tells me how many visitors I have had hourly, monthly, ect. It does a wide variety of other things to like it tells me where most of the people have come from. Now its a really cool tool but honestly I don't really need it because I could tell you right now how many people come to this site and that is a big fat zero (except me when I post stuff.) Also I don't like the size of the banner and the company that I got it from http://www.sitetracker.com/ says you can't change the code on it. Anyways if you have a web site like me and you really want to know how many people visit you might want to consider this. I'm going to keep it around because who knows maybe one day I'll actually have someone read what I'm writting right now. I've also been considering adding google ads. When you have google ads on your site you get paid a little every time someone clicks those ads and its not much but a least its something and then I might be able to get my parents off my back about "always being on the compter and that I need to get a job."

Free music FOR REAL DUDE!

2004-10-26T18:37:00.000-07:00

Today I was looking for that song by Marroon 5 called "she will be loved" and I found this really assume site that I think you guys will all love as much as I do now. The address is http://www.mp3shits.com/ and it has one of the largest selections of free mp3 to download that I have ever seen and there actually cool songs too. If you like music at all, in the least bit, or even if you don't, you have to check this site out.

The future of gamers, programmers, and more

2004-10-25T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today we finished watching a movie about video games that we had been watching for the last two weeks (every Monday). After the movie Mr. Marburger asked us to think about what we thought the future of video games would be and how we could use our predictions to make money. I think that the future of video games will be more interactive (most of the stuff will be online) and that the graphics will become a hole lot better. I think that becoming a video game designer/creator will be a very risky job in the future and even right now. Just like writers when you are a designer you either make it big or else you don't get anything at all. If you look at writers for example they may spend years writing a single book and not make any money at all or not enough money to be worth there time and I think that it will be the same with game designers of the future because customers are going to demand only the best, graphics, story lines, and interactive game play, so making a video game will become one of the hardest technological jobs of the future.

Palms for school and for fun and games!

2004-10-22T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well mr. Marburger finally got his palmpilot to work on the shcools internet connection. I remember when I was just a wee freshmen the day mr. Marburger came in with his newly purchased palm. He gave us the same speach that everyone in computer repair heard just this week. Unfortunetly, there were many bumbs in the road to getting the palm to work on the schools conection. The first bump that I can rembember is that he had a diffrent type of card then the schools network and when he tried to take it back to where he had purchased the card they told him he was out of luck. Now I could go on about the other problems but if you are in computer repair you already heard it from mr. Marburger. Anways, I'm not hear to talk about the past I'm here to talk about right now. My friend and I have both been experimenting with the palm and possible how studn'ts like ourselves would use this technology in the future. I have found that the palm goes just as fast as all the other schools computers, but that the web pages are very diffrent when you are viewing them on a palm. The styles is a very easy tool to use but if you wanted to type anything longer than a sentence you need to connect a keyboard to the palm. For using a palm only for educational purposes I see great potential but if you wanted to use a palm for fun and games this would not be the tool for you to buy.

The clock is ticking

2004-10-21T09:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in computer repair half the class took a timed test to see how fast they could remove all the components in the computer and put them back in the correct place. I didn't have to take the test because I am in advanced computers and I am so slow at that. My friends always laugh when they see me working on the inside of a computer because my hands always shake when I'm holding the screw driver like I'm an old man with Parkinson. Anyways today in programming we have been using an ftp (file transfer protocol) to transfer files to one of marbugers computers and then we can get the files from home and view them on the internet. I have used 2 other ftp's before and I find that this a fairly nice one considering its free. I'm just glad that we finally have one at school because I was getting tired of bringing my digital camera to school and putting my files on that.

?--Game--?

2004-10-20T09:26:00.000-07:00

In programming 2 we are working on creating a "game" where you have at least eight different rooms and you are searching for something that is hidden in one of the rooms. We are using image maps to make part of the image of our room into a link like a door that goes to another room in the game. I have been using paint to create my rooms but so far I have been disappointed with the results because I am definitely no artist when it comes to using paint. The game sounds pretty cool but with only using paint makes it become much more difficult. What I really would like to do is I would like to make an online "I spy" game like the books you can buy except that when you click on an object if it is one of the objects you are supposed to find it checks that item off and then when you have found all the items you get to move to the next level (the next I spy challenge.)

ads logins and other problems

2004-10-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

Well I've been working on the expendable martyrs project for about a week now and I have a ok design set up and images so far. What I still need to do is replace the images on the sides of the main index page with better ones because the ones I have there now are just space holders so I can get a general idea of what it will look like. Also I have been having problems with Geocities advertising because when you visit www.expendablemartyrs.net.tc you are actually visiting a geocities site and so the ads are still there but the main problem is that because I am using an inline frame a ad appears twice on the page. So what I did today was that I put a 100% main index frame for the index because I thought it might stop the inline frame from having the advertising because I was reading through geocities ad box documentation and it stated that there was only supposed to be one add per page and that the add box sometimes screwed up because of the different load times of the different frames. Anyways I found that the main add in the right hand corner of the page is gone which is nice but there is still a ad in the inline frame which is really annoying because it takes up so much room. Also I am having difficulty with the information that I need to post because the council of expendable martyrs has not given me enough of there info. What I need is there quotes, there password for the high council login, there personal logos, and there rank. Then I also need general info like what they want the text on the intro inline page to say and what links they want to display. I have kind of hit a ditch in the road because I cant go on without all the needed information especially I cant go on without the logins and list of council members and lower members so I can design the person specific pages.

Proto type for Expendable Martyrs!

2004-10-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well I got a tone done for the expendable Martyrs today. I designed most of there home page and I got the basic outline for the rest of the other pages done. Now I am just waiting to get the pictures that I designed at school to my home computer and then online, and I am also waiting for the members of the expendable Martyrs clan to send me all there individual logos so when I make there personal pages I have there pics there. I also got the webspace from from geocities up and running and then I signed up for the redirectional subdomain from
http://www.smartdots.com/ but I accidentally misspelled the address so I had to go back and sign up everything twice, but now http://www.expendablemartyrs.net.tc/ it is taken so no one else can lay claim and it will soon be up and running in perfect shape.

Images and more

2004-10-14T09:45:00.000-07:00

Last night I was going through a file that I had created when I first got my computer and I called the file programs I don't use. I found that I actually had a lot of image editing software. Now I have plenty of software to create and edit images. Yesterday and today I have been working with powerpoint to create images and I have found that power point is a cool tool but the selection of different types of word art is limited but I can't complain for the most part. Tomorrow Mr. Marburger is going to have us working with img mapping. I have never done Image mapping but I do know what it is and have gone to many sites that use that technique.

Expendable Martyrs!

2004-10-13T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have been lately creating a site for a clan of starcraft fans. I find this very interesting because I have never built a site that is meant for a group. I am currently working on the basic layout. I have decided that I will use an inline frame that is centered in the middle of the page for the main content and that I will use a black background and more of a red and silver style setup for the rest of the page. I have used a button creator to make the menu for there site because I wanted a futurisitc looking design because the game the clan is made for takes place in the future and in space and that's why I decided on this type of layout. www.ExpendableMartyrs.net.tc is the address for the site that I am creating,

Pictures

2004-10-12T09:52:00.000-07:00

Well lately I have been working with picture editing. I don't have any great editors or anything but I am making due with what I have. What I have is paint and A program that came with my digital camera. Using the program that Came with my digital camera I can change the light on the picture and the diffrent types of colors. I can Also Change the picture to black and white which is kind of cool. So basicly for the reasons I need to be able to edit pictures these programs will do just fine for right now.

Pictures, Images, and src

2004-10-08T09:11:00.000-07:00

In programming two mr.marburger is teaching us how to create our own graphics. This is really cool for me because I actually have never made my own graphics from scratch. Usually what I do is I go to a special site that creates graphics or buttons for me, like flash buttons or css files and images. So far we have only learned how to use paint to make graphics but I find that paint is a primitive program and doesn't have all the features I would like but for now I fell that it is a fine program. Latter on we will be using more advanced programs to make images and I am really looking forward to it.

Talking about blogger on blogger. lol

2004-10-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

Today in advanced computers we were required to mess around with the html code on the blogger page. What we were supposed to do today was change the background color and the text color. Now being an advanced programming/computer student I thought to myself "O this is going to be easy!" because I have done the exact same thing many many times before. So I went into the html code and down to the body and typed in bgcolor="orange" then I hit the save changes button and then went to my page. To my surprise nothing had happened, I thought for a second and then I knew the answer had to lie somewhere in the long pages of code that blogger had created. I printed out the code and began to read it, less then 10 seconds latter I saw what I had been looking for, in the head there was a code that said "body{margin:0px;padding:0px;background:#f6f6f6;color:#000000;font-family:"Trebuchet
MS",Trebuchet,Verdana,Sans-Serif;}" I thought that if I changed the text after the background: to the color I wanted that it would change the background color, so I did and I found that just as I had thought it changed the background color. Ok that was good but I was still only half way there, I still needed to change the font color. After I looked at the code for a little longer I realized what I needed to do, what I did was I added color:green; to the code and finally I had done everything that was required of me. I didn't like the changes I had made so I set it back to how it had been, but it was nice to know that if I ever wanted to change the background color or text color or size I could.

Opening Pandoras box. Just kidding!

2004-10-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

In computer repair today we choose the computers that we wanted to use for the rest of the quarter for repair and learning about. I choose the biggest computer I could get my hands on because I like having a lot of room for your hands while your working on the inside of the computer. I also have trouble getting my big hands in to the tiny spaces that require persision and concentration. But today we were just supposed to diagram the computers. Unfortunately I am horrible at drawing and so I decided that I would take pictures of the inside instead of drawing it. I had my digital camera with me and so I took about 4 pictures but the most important one I took was of a close up of the jumpers and shunts, because I also have trouble remembering where they go, then I took my digital camera and I moved the pictures onto my computer. Now if I ever need a real diagram I can simply go into my file and click on the picture.

It's over, I hope?

2004-10-04T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well tonight was the night that I finished my expert system. When I got home I dished myself up a big bowel of ice cream, put in the first matrix movie and started programming my web site. I put in all the information for my answer pages and made my help and about page. Now my site is up and running and if feels good that its done. Now if this site was for real what I would need to do is go back through all my pages and spell check them because I am a horrible speller so I tend to make a lot of stupid spelling mistakes that draw attention away from my page and to the spelling. Anyways, I am just glad to be done. Im not sure if said what the address was for the web site in any earlier entries so I am sorry if I am repeating the same stuff over again but here is the address anyways. www.censorware.net.tc Tomorrow I'll have it graded by mr.marburger and another classroom247 studn't.

How the expert system is coming!

2004-10-01T08:58:00.000-07:00

Well I have all my base pages created. I have a really cool intro page and a very nice basic page layout the doesn't change to much except in one area that way when you change pages your eyes are always drawn to that spot where the information is. The only thing I have left to do is too put the information on my answer pages. I am using a text area to display the answers because often times when you are dealing with censorware you need to edit sorce code or the url. I won't have the project finished by the end of the day but I will by next week. The biggest thing I have learned from this is that using images as links can make your site much more attractive.

Buttons and menus like the pros

2004-09-29T20:33:00.000-07:00

This week I haven't got much work done on my expert system because before tonight I haven't been able to find a design that I thought looked good. But tonight I found this site that creates buttons and menu's for you that you can edit and change and the best part is that this site is totally free. The address to this site is http://www.buttongenerator.com/ This site has a few different buttons and menus to choose from. The only downside is that when you are making a menu it is a little confusing because of there setup and so it becomes time consuming, but for what your getting I would say its well worth it. After I was done with that I looked for similar sites and I found actually quite a few that I think you would really like and that will definitely come in handy in making your sites look professional and as always all the sites I talk about are free. The best site I found were - http://www.cooltext.com/ - http://graphic.discoveryvip.com/

expert system

2004-09-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

Today mr.Marburger talked to the programming one studnts about making an expert system. It sound's really cool so I think I will make one too even though I am not in programming one. I think the topic that I will do will be helpfull html tricks and some basic html tags.

Electro magnet

2004-09-23T10:01:00.000-07:00

Hi today I would like to tell you about how to make an electro magnet. I know this has nothing to do with web design but I think you will find it very interesting. First of all for you readers that don't know what an electro magnet is I will explain it to you. An electro magnet is just like the name says, it is a magnet that runs of electricity. So you can build your own magnet and even have an on and off switch for it. First you will need about 30 inches of copper wire about size 26 and a long nail. Next you will need a battery (I use a D battery). You will also need some type of tape, but it needs to be strong so I would suggest duct tape. Finally, I would suggest some type of padding or cardboard, just something that holds the battery and so you don't need to touch the wire, because the wires can become really hot after a while of use. Ok now that you know what you need you can begin building your own. First take the long nail and wrap your copper wire around it, leave about 4 inches of wire at both ends of nail. Next make sure that your wire doesn't overlap and that you leave a little of the nail uncovered by the wire because this is the part where objects will be magnetically drawn to. Now with the 4 inches at one end of the wire tape it to the negative end of the battery. Now take the other end of the wire and cover it with some kind of padding now when you put the end of wire with the padding on it to the positive end of the battery you will have a functioning magnet. You can also add padding all around your battery to make it look cool. I know I have given terrible directions so if you don't totally understand how to make it with the instructions I have given you, go out on to the web and search for "how to make my own electro magnet." and then you will find detailed instructions with pictures.

Google Cache

2004-09-20T09:55:00.000-07:00

Whenever you search a topic on google, google will display your results by showing you web address of sites that have information on your topic. Google also shows a link that says cached. What this link is, is a link to a duplicate of the page you want to visit except that it is stored on the google server. Now you may ask yourself why would you want to view a cached page. Well the answer is that because it is on the google server you know that the page will load quickly so if your viewing some page that is stored on a server in Africa it can take a while for that page to load but if you use googles cached page system you know that the page will load quickly. Next, sometimes when you click on a link from google you will receive an error message saying the page no longer exists, so if you use googles cache you are granted to view the page.

My idea!

2004-09-16T10:01:00.000-07:00

Recently in Mr.marburgers class, mr.marburger received about 15 old computers. Now the original plan was to fix these computers and then give them to people who needed them. Unfortunately the computers are so old they don't even have Pentium 2 chips so they would be basically useless because almost every program needs a CPU with a Pentium 2 or higher. Now my idea of how to still use the computers and earn some money for computer repair is to have a fund raiser where people pay lets say like 3 bucks to through a computer off the rough of the school or through one of the 3rd floor windows. If any one is reading this please respond by posting a message telling me if it's a crazy idea or if its a great one.

The Way Back Machine!

2004-09-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that one of my links on the left hand side of this page goes to a site called the way back machine. You also probably thought when you read its title that it sounded boring, but the truth is that I use the way back machine when I need inspiration when creating a web page. The way back machine was started in 1996 and is still running today. What it does is it takes pages from the internet and caches them. What this means is that it in a way it makes a copy of pages. I love this site because you can see how google, yahoo, and all your other favorite web sites used to look like and the stages of revision that were made to them so they look like the way they do now. If you ever need an idea for a style of web page or you want to see what people used to like in web page design and still do you should visit http://www.archive.org/web/web.php Also there are many other tools that web designers will find handy on this site.

Tools you need to repair a computer.

2004-09-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

Now when you are in mr.marburgers class you are only required to bring a number two screw driver but I find that if you really want to take repairing computers seriously you need other tools to. One of the tools that I find comes in most helpful when I am repairing my computer's is a needlnose plier. I find that I use a needle nose plier when I am trying to bend a pin so it becomes straight. Also it is good practice to where a ESD rist band when you are repairing computers so that way you don't have to worry about ruining your computer on accident. Also in real life computers use many different types of screws so you need many different screw drivers or what I would suggest doing is getting a screw driver that has interchangeable heads. I also would suggest getting a long number two screw driver because often the main body of your screw driver wont fit in a tight spot so a long head can come in extremely handy. Now if you want the equipment that I have talked about and much much more you can do like I have done and buy a computer repair kit. They are usually about 30 dollars for a good one. They usually are small and compact. I bought mine last year at Comp USA for $30 and I am sure glad that I did.

LC Internet security (bess/censorware)

2004-09-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

Bess is a name that almost every student at lc is familiar with, but not many student's truly understand how bess works so I will try to explain it to you. First a student makes a http request to an outside server (a web page). Second a packet travels over the network to a gateway router. Third, The packet is identified as an http request, and routed to a LAN content filter. Fourth, The content filter compares the requested address with its blacklist (a blacklist is a list of sites that are not allowed) and determines whether to allow or deny it. Fith, If the filter determines to request is clean, it is forwarded to the web site. If the filter matches a phrase or address with one on its blacklist, the request is dropped, and then the bess page pops up. Now that you know how bess (censorware) works you can figure out how to bypass bess. First you can use a proxy server. A proxy is a site that when you type in the address you want it gets the page for you, this works because you are not requesting the web page, the proxy is. Second you can use a translator like www.world.altavista.com. Third you can use a sites IP address. Using a sites IP address will only work some of the time because bess has a lot of ip's blocked. To find out a sites IP address you can use the ping command in the DOS prompt or you can go to http://www.webreference.com/cgi-bin/nslookup.cgi. Next google has cached pages on its server, but these pages are blocked by bess, for exampe if you wanted to view yahoo as a cached page on google the web address would be http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:z-LaVxkhGIoJ:www.yahoo.com/+www%2Byahoo%2Bcom&hl=en&start=1 but as I said this is blocked, but if you put in something=something& between the ? and the q bess won't block it because it only blocks the exact web url. Finally there are many other way's to bypass bess but my point is that bess doesn't work because first of all bess blocks a lot of sites it shouldn't and it is very simple to bypass.

Create your own banner ads for free!

2004-09-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

One of my main goals when building a website is to make it look professional. Today I learned about this really cool site called www.addesigner.com. It allows you to build your own professional-quality banners. Now you may be asking your self "why would I want a banner on my site?" Well, first of all, it makes your site appear very professional. Second, it can promote your own site or a friend’s site, so let’s say you have a friend who has a web site, you and your friend could agree to advertise on each other’s web sites. This site and all sites that I will ever talk about on this blog are completely free. Besides being free it also has a great selection of banner styles to choose from, in all you have a total of 91 different banners to choose from and there is no limit on how many banners you can create. Also you can customize your ad by specifying exactly what you want your ad to say, and even the font styles, font sizes and font colors to use, if you wish! Finally, you can instantly download your banner or you can have it emailed to you. It’s very easy to sign up and even easier to make a banner because the web site explains each step of the process to you in plain language. If you feel that your site seems to amateur or you would just like to add an attention-grabbing banner, you have to check out www.addesigner.com EXAMPLE:

Free domains

2004-09-10T09:41:00.000-07:00

One of the most important parts of a web site is not even on the web page. It's the web page's URL! I feel the url is the most important part of a web site because the url is the very first impression that someone gets about your site. The most common question that I get about my web sites, is "How much do you pay for your domain?" I just laugh and say that I never pay for anything on the web. There's a lot of domain providers that will charge you a monthly fee for a .com or .net but if you know where to go you can get you own domain or subdomain for completely free. Now the truth is nothing is ever completely free, a lot of "free" domain or subdomain companies require that you post an add for there company on your web site, but it is a small price to pay for what your are getting. Most of the free domains or subdomains use a redirectional service to point the url you want, to the page that you specify. So lets say you have a site called www.geocities.com/yoursite but you don't like the whole geocities part because then people think that you are an amateur, so a free redirectional domain can be very handy. Now when trying to decide which domain provider you should use for your web site it is important to consider how they advertise there website. Some domain providers will have a pop up or some will have a frame at the top or bottom of your page that links to there home page. Also you should put a good deal of time in to considering which domain name you want. I would suggest either a domain name that is short and simple to remember or a domain name that explains what your page is about, for example if you had a site about foot ball a good domain name would be http://nfl.yoursite.com/ Now for the part you have all been waiting for (the part where I tell you were to go). There are tons of free redirectioal domains or subdomains available so what I will do is give you three examples of different types of services you could choose from. First is http://just.as/ which is a small redirectional site that gives you many subdomains to choose from most of the subdomains you can choose have either the word as or to in them. For example a subdomain you could choose would be http://mysite.as/yoursite. Also a nice feature about this site is that if you get a certain number of other people to join http://just.as/ and they tell the web site that you refered them, you can get the pop up add to be removed, for more details visit there site. This is a nice free domain provider but it’s not at the top of my list for domain providers because I personally don’t like the list of domain names to pick from, but you might find just the perfect domain name for you there so it’s worth taking a look at. The next site I want to talk about is http://smartdots.com/. This is one of my personal favorite domain providers because of all the cool features. First, there is no advertising at all, you don’t have to have friends sign up or anything, there is just no adds period. Next, The domain names that you can choose from are short and easy to remember and will workwell with any site name. For example you could have a site called http://www.yoursite.net.tc/. Also, All emails that are sent to something@your-name.net.tc, will automatically be forwarded to an email address requested by you! In addition, your site is reachable with or without the www. part. So both http://www.yoursite.net.tc/ and http://yoursite.net.tc/ will take you to your web page. Finally there are many other features to choose from to help attract people to come to your site. My final free domain provider example is http://www.webalias.com/. This site has 30 different, very cool names to choose from and has 4 different types of setup plans. The only setup plan I would suggest would be setup plan one which is just a small pop up window, but make sure that when you sign up you choose setup plan one, because it is by default set to plan 2 and plan 2 includes a popup window and a frame at the bottom of your page, and the frame can be really annoying. This is one of the best providers on the net, just because of all the cool names to choose from, for example you could have http://yoursite.radpages.com/. Also when you sign up you get to choose three different domain names for your site and you can have the name of your site before or after the domain name. So both http://yoursite.radpages.com and http://radpages.com/yoursite would work. The only draw back of this site that I have been able to find is, that when you leave the main page of your site, that in the address bar it displays your real url. This can easily be fixed by making your index page into one frame pointing to the starting page, that way you never even leave the first page. In conclusion I hope you found this information to be useful and if you have any more questions on this topic please fell free to post a comment.

Intro

2004-09-09T15:09:00.000-07:00

Hi my name is computer geek boy, I am a student at LC and am in advanced computers and programing 2. I have taken a entire year of computer repair before, during my freshmen year and I have also taken programing one. The purpose of this blog is to help student's like myself who want information on certain computer subjects like where to get a free domain or where to get free web space. I will try to keep a up to date online journal of what I have done in my computer class's and the information that I feel will be useful to readers.