Just read this morning an article in information week how “hackers are gaining control of web-cams”. I’m here to tell you this little fact of the digital age. NOTHING HAS CHANGED!!!!!!
the internet is no different than walking outside PS it never has been When I leave home I can have my pic taken my whereabouts recorded or I could get killed. Only the latter is not directly true with the net. I was then reminded of my first computer the VIC-20 which led to the Commodore-64 Growing up with little money meant I was very luck as a 13 year old to even get the computer so I had to settle for a tape drive and not the fancy Disk drive at first. (once I proved to Mom I would stick with it she got me one later) So gaming was always high on my list at first I typed in my games copying by hand programs in magazine like Compute’s Gazette. Later I discovered casual copying with close friends all I need was a blank disk and a program like fast hack em and I was in business. My point here is Copy Protection has always been around and so will hacking trust me people the exact same bored kids/people who are probing ports and cracking networks will become security “experts” in the future. “Hobbyists” have driven the fields of engineering and science for years. It’s this tinkering that allows innovation and discovery oh and by the way in some cases it keeps you children interested in a skill that can actually pay off later in life.
It’s not right and it’s not good but if you think this is all new or that it will never happen then you are sadly mistaken. If you believe this is any different from “peeping toms” or common theft you are wrong. The internet makes things faster and lets us all stay in contact with each other in larger numbers than ever in human history. So just like dictatorships are aware we can connect easier making it harder to suppress free thought so can mischief and evil trade ideas and rip people off with blinding speed and volume.
Protect yourself make sure your doors are locked but remember if a truly skilled car thief want’s your car then he has it simple as that. Best you can do as a common netizen is have a router, change your passwords and get some kind of antivirus. Fortunately most of us simply are’t valuable enough to really go after hell i’m living in under 2000 square feet of home in an “historic home” (not the good kind of historic my friend says). How about you?
First off let me state I never thought I would EVER post that I went to the dark side of apple. Don’t get me wrong I always had a healthy respect for Apple products and their fans. However growing up living from paycheck to paycheck the possibility of getting on the Mac train was something I just could not afford. Kind of how you love sportscars but realize you will never be able to buy one.
But I digress…. Recently I had a “special” opportunity to get an IPAD now I didn’t really see the reason for one or why I would even want one but I did know I loved my smartphone (Android). So I got one as a gift fast forward 6 months later. My IPAD is my friend I take it everywhere with me I use it for taking notes, Watching Netflix and reading magazines. Not to mention it’s quite handy in waiting rooms, Airplanes and for keeping you company during household chores.
With the new ICLOUD service this prospect got even better I always have had some of this ability in my PC past between Googledocs and Dropbox but now ICLOUD put it in one easy service. As with all apple the did nothing new they just made it easier just like google (I love GMAIL by the way)
So I decided during another brief financial opportunity I would go Mac. I still have allot to get used to for starters i’m trying to stick with a trackpad for 90% of what I do (not so sure about gaming yet) but gestures are cool.
It’s fast powerful supports a full command line linux style OS and supports windows as well. Pretty cool all around not perfect in fact I could have just as easily picked the lack of features apart here that I would have liked.
But hey I work on applications for a living that cost thousands of dollars let me tell you now none are perfect no matter how much you spend on them.
So yea it’s trendy and fun and I may never go back but I love the fact I can now easily jump from UNIX to Windows to Mac. Something 80% of IT professionals are unwilling to do. Flexibility is what it’s about and i’m lovin it
Wierd tho this is going to take some getting used to you never knew how much you relied on thing like right clicking until its gone the new interface will probably take months to retrain myself with but then again so was Windows 95!
its not that im a voyeur or anything like that although i know i have a bit of that in me. I am facinated by how people are using their computing devices.
Cell phones, tablets or laptops i am really intrigued to notice that tha vast majority of people re either sms messaging on facebook or twitter or Email.
you see i spend most of my computing time in a vastly different form. Also since i have pretty much dedicated a large portion of my life to making sure computers are connected I am hugely curious to see that we spend most of our time trying to communicate with each other in a way that 20 years ago was not really possible.
I serf sites on telescopes, physics and of course computers going to places like lifehacker, endgadget or cnet. I know why this is of course it’s mostly because i’m a social outcast and grew up an only child. But I digress, communicating is at our heart and soul and being able to blast a message out to all of your friends or have a private conversation with one friend in the middle of what would have been an isolated busy bad day can make all the difference.
I think the exchange of inoformation and ideas at a distance and speed that was once not possible is a good thing overall. So that maybe just maybe you can keep in contact with that special person no matter how messed up your week is or how demanding everyone seems to be of your time.
plus its good for reading and grammar too. I mean you gotta be understood right?
I always find it interesting how people are constantly wanting to blame the intenet on problems that have been around for years before the invention of computing.
for example the recent blow up over SOPA and PIPA has both Washington and the public are up in “you broke my GI Joe and im still pissed” arms.
without getting into too much detail the basic debate is that there is this big thing called the internet where anything can happen. Theft, sex, love, change, communication just like real life. My favorite example is its just like going to the mall anything can happen to you. You may buy something then agian you might get shot!
Currently all of these activities can be done over the phone and many of them promoted via TV
my point is that the internet and computing in general is a tool or to better point out it is a utility.
the delevery of which does not need to be policed beyond the bounds of disruption of basic service. Just because the phone company delivers a crank call to you does not mean they should be responsible to go arrest the person responsible. By the same point just because a crazy person goes to a mall and buys say a knife and muggs someone does not mean the mall is responsible for stopping production of knives.
Whenever you propose the securing of a service you will need resources you can’t automate this just ask the TSA how that works at airports!!
By resources I mean people and MONEY. Trust me when I say as an IT professional that the movie and music companies are spending more money lobbing in Washington and in legal services than they are actually securing their own internal networks and procedures.
the ugly truth is they do not want to spend the money to properly secure their overseas factories where dvds are printed due to cost so workers will leak out copies of movies early to the net.
This is only one example of panic spending where money is involved please see our economy for more examples.
Bottom line is a tool is a tool just like the fact that countries like China and Syria need to get used to the idea that people will always communicate with each other. they will mingle pass notes have sex and commit “crime”.
I’m sure the Churches and kings of the old world complained to their enforcers about the peasants not paying taxes to them and were costing them money.
just like wars this is about cash and power plain and simple. Don’t be fooled by the industry line. sure loss is happening and crime is commited but its nothing new just the delivery method has sped up and changed.
In the old west the bank robbers used to get away by horse then later they were refered to as gangsters and got away in cars.
Now they use the internet and move faster. By the way you can say the same for freedom of oppressed people thruought time.Poor handling of a tool is not the tools fault. No freedom is absolute and while I can’t just go out and start hurting people at will the disruption of services should not be tolerated. By the same principal the net cant be a complete free for all but a line needs to be drawn on this utility where just because we have the ability to lmonitor content and limit what travels on it does not mean we should.
The Internet is global and it is not under the jurisidiction of any one country. many oppressive governments now understand more clearly that the genie is out of the bottle by the way we all got together and met. we like it the way it is.
One thing about growing up in the low income area of town teaches you is “you cant save them all”. You see stray pets and abused people and vice versa. The world is a tough place I have just been thankful to have been adoped and where I am today. Gratitude is not a problem for me and while I can’t save all of them and I was raised not to try for fear of getting hurt or worse that does not mean my heart does not go out to them. It does not mean that I don’t feel compassion for another living being who is suffering. it’s sad and all I really can do is be thankful that at least up until now I have a job and can pay my bills and sleep in a heated home. I pray to God for those that can’t.
I woke up it felt like a drive by! Only I barely had time to realize I was waking up when I hear a voice say “your bypass operation has been successful”
My eyes opened and I was already being wheeled out of the operating room. My heart dropped and I was immediately scared possibly more scared than ever in my life. Because I knew that once I crossed over and had gastric bypass there was no going back.
No taking it back after a day or two or half assing it. it was december 1, 2008 a day I will always remember. No more piles of fried food and no more stacks of sugar water! I had just taken the virtual first step out of the airplane and I knew I had made a terrible mistake.
who was I fooling I could not go a single week without my favorite fried food but there I was I had said yes and in what felt like the blink of an eye my body had been altered forever and I was committed. I would need vitamins and meds just to absorb my nutrition properly.
That was three years ago. I told everyone what I did and prayed that I would not screw it up. I can now report from the other side that I have made it further than I ever dreamed possible. I’m still scared and with that comes a feeling of isolation because you alone are on that path. You alone bear the consuqences of your actions. Yet if I never “jumped” I never would have known. In my family when you drop this much money you better mean it and that was allot.
Before that day I also had no idea of how good I could feel and what I could accomplish. I also learned that people DO NOT think before telling you anything about your weight fat or skinny. They can’t help but treat you differently based on your size. I found allot of anger toward the world now that I know. I also wanted to be angry at people who had the strength and did not get to that point. However I did ask for this and I alone had to stop feeling sorry for myself eating to suppress my sensitivity to people. True I don’t have a clue how to interact but Now I desperately need the courage to live and find a life to live for. I have the capability now. I am alive but still unsure how to proceed as the journey continues….
what the hell did I do? why? what now? why even bother to get up? happy gastric re-birthday to me..(so not a real day)
I will report back cause this is some trippy sh*t.
Hangin in there…….
one of the fun things at least to me that happens when you work around a bunch of tech nerds is you will eventually get sucked into an overly dramatic discussion of whos best BLANK is best!
afew days ago it was search engines and i was amazedthat even in this circle of alpha geeks how many were not aware how their favorit go to search engine has changed.
my real favorite was in the middle of us saying google or bing many were saying yahoo and we even had one who swore to their death bed on alta vista.
what i felt compelled to point out look up and email the proof on is that both yahoo and alta vista are actually using bing for their underlying engine because it is not cost effective to do otherwise.
likewise aol’s search (which many do not know is no a leading multimida content porvider think streaming corp audio and video) is powered by google.
bottom mline with a few exceptions out there like spectiality search wolfram alpha most of the old gard in search have been swallowed up by google or microsoft (bing).
bottom line i guess is like religion use the best one you are comfortable with but remember even yahoo inthe top 3 tried using humans to create a directory of the over 109.5 million websites and failed!
i guess the important thing is that we can find thigs faster and more importantly easier than ever before.
What ever happend to space simulations???
Or for that matter simulations in general during the golden PC games period of the 90′s an entire isle was devoted just to joysticks and “alternate” controllers specifically to cater to simulations (mostly flight and space). However today you would be hard pressed to find either the software or the controllers in you local big buy”.
What is he on about?
It all started with a little game called flight simulator in the 80′s made by an amazing company called sublogic who dared at a time of 64k computing to replicate and exact simulation of what it was like to fly an airplane. They even went ao far as to write up a hefty flight manual complete in a spiral bound book form.
As this took off Microsoft brought out sublogic and rebranded flight simulator under its name while a few dared to think of space flight simulators. My personal favorite and allot of others was a game called Elite this little gem was an adaption of a space trader format in which you brought and sold goods from one star system to another. think of a kind of start market but in space and everybody shoots at you along the way. Add in the option of illegal goods and the police and you can quickly image why I spent entire afternoons in front of my commodore 64.
from this the early 90′s emerged and Finally we got wing commander where you could fly around in the new improved graphics and graphics add on cards gave us. Finally lucasarts got on board the train with x-wing and later tie fighter by this time you really could be in star wars. They were pushing it but the graphics were that good.
So in the meantime flight simulation games were not to be ignored from the cash pie. every kind of World War 2 and modern flight simulator you cold think of was cranked out. Games like jet fighter an il2 dogfighting was all the rage.
But to no avail within the space of only a few years they were all gone. seriously these were extremely popular titles with literally thousands of fans and sequals. we all waited each year rushing to the store to drop our money so we could fly agian. However today I can find a first person. shooter every 57 feet.
I can think of only a few half assed attempts to honor the old flight sims now and no direct space fighter simulators. Thankfully there is “Eve Online” but the flight engine is far from direct it is a fund space trading online expierence however but with a very famous and steep learning curve.
So what happened? Did the gaming industry suddenly become allergic to money? Was there an underground pact between them and the controller manufacturers?
The amount of money each series generated had to be huge so what happend.
I try to remember that gaming consoles were not around for nearly 15 years at one point before making a big comeback too. I mean how many shooters or realtime strategy games can you play?
I love my browser and ggogle is pretty much convinced it will be the way of the future
once connected you can grab email play games and most importantly not have to worry about saving anything cause its on the net (most of the time)
today there are more browser choices than ever and guess what? they are all great really i love all my browsers some are better than others at different things bit they all excel at….you guessed it browsing
oh im sure there are people out there holding onto their ie 7 or even (gasp) ie 6
bottom line the older your browser the more wide open you are
1st up is IE 9 the new ie is fantastic and much faster that previous versions it also has the onebox. for searching and typing web addresses which is quite cool
next is firefox which is really the swiss army knife of browsers while all browsers support plug ins this on clearly has the largest number of them and many people can’t live without them.
yep my favorite the first one i pick is chrome for one simple reason……speed its so damn fast and most of the time lets be honest all you need to do is check mail or do a quick search
my next one is opera which really has a strong foothold in the mobile space but has a solid multi use dropbox office browser. i have found myself reaching for it more lately just because i love an underdog and as opera has been around since the 90s you gotta love them.
since i got my ipad i reach for safari more which is a very pretty browser and ranks around midrange in my book very much like firefox.
all of these browsers once they boot are really fast some just boot quicker and some have more features they all support html 5 which is the future as well as java.
I urge you all to load a “secondary” browser and reach for it from time to time ( mine are on my taskbar)
enjoy.
Just this past weekend I decided to play my DVD of Star Wars (ep 4 a new hope special edition for those keeping score) “Han Shot First!!!”
everytime I see it I am reminded of the fact that it was my first real movie in the theater at the first Cine Capri for those of us in phoenix who remember it fondly.
This was a turning point for me at 8 years old it was the day I discovered tech and it drove what would eventually become a career as well as a direction for an only child who was really trying to figure what the world was about.
no status on that yet but at my age now I can see that I think different spending 80% of my day in a computer or laptop and trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life.
I live for computing and figuring out the next problem. I didn’t get people and since gastric bypass I really don’t get them now.
people scare me even more that the potential of not figuring out my next tech problem. Since the op I have encountered people who knew me when I was large and new people who frankly I wonder just how they would have treated me if I was still large.
bottom line for today is computers are much safer and this only child is finding the rest of the world in denial not liking computers while they are madly working their smartphones funny.
same story at all my jobs it doesn’t matter how smart they all are none of them are as commited to technology as I am.
they never had star wars as their first movie and only children…….can sit alone and learn more about a world most people will never understand. the rest see as a paycheck.
its my world. Where I live.
I like it here, never a burden and my only regret is I don’t have enough money for more computers
and that perhaps one day I might just feel safe truly around people agian.
for today I guess i’ll watch Star Wars or some other tech sci fi most don’t like……