Thought and Freedom

Everyone enjoys surfing the internet. Many enjoy it so much that they don’t even use their TV. If they do want to watch programs, they do it online. Some people use Bittorrent, others YouTube, and still others go to special TV websites.

I have found that most websites limit quality for the free content, but good TV websites exist. Here are a few:

• TV-Video.NET- Contains a comprehensive list of programming. They use flash player to play on a small screen, or a nearly full screen, depending on your preference.
• EZTV – If you prefer to download the latest shows and then watch them, this BitTorrent site may be for you.
• CBS InnerTube – Never afraid to almost violate trademarks (i.e. YouTube), CBS has a great list of shows. Be sure to watch them within a couple weeks of the broadcast. The archive only goes back a few weeks, but it is good quality.
• Fox On Demand – Seems good, but a little slow when loading for the first time (even though my internet connection is VERY fast).
• Joost – This one could be good. I have not had much success getting their player to work. Other people swear by this internet TV. I would wait for the beta period to be over if you want a non-error-filled player.
• Finally, you can purchase High Quality Videos of TV shows you missed from Amazon.com

Jessica and I closed on our new home this weekend. It was exciting and stressful at the same time.

We moved most of our stuff into the house on Thursday, and were able to finally get rid of our mini storage facility. Not that it was a bad place, just an extra expense that I could do without.

Then on Friday we headed up to Minneota(which just got an amazing new website) to go to Box Elder Bug Days. It is their annual town celebration. I took a short nap this afternoon since all the moving wore me out this weekend.

Besides that, it has been a pretty nice this weekend. I got a lot accomplished. Jessica signed up for our basic cable from Comcast this weekend, and I signed up for the free router/free modem/$19.99 internet today! One thing I have to say about comcast, their national customer service is lousy, but the local Comcast people seemed great. Comcast (national) collected all my information the other day so I could sign up for basic cable, then pulled a bait and switch maneuver and said that the FCC no longer allows them to sell basic cable, so instead I could upgrade to the next package for $20 more dollars a month. After refusing to agree to those terms, the guy told me I could actually call my local Comcast provider and sign up for basic cable. Anyway, just a note that you can still get basic cable, you just have to be persistent.

Later this week I will be unpacking my computer stuff at my new house and setting up all that. It should be fun.

I’ve always had the best success with good content. Some of my most successful weeks (in number of hits to my website) were do to some popular original articles.

However, sometimes it helps to boost your ratings and get your site out there. Especially when it is new.  There are several good link exchange products out there. Most of the time, you spend time surfing on their linked sites in return for them sending traffic your way. I have compiled a list below:

•  Traffic Swarm
• Blog Village
• Blog Soldiers
• Blog Advance
• Blog Mad
• Blog Explosion

These may be an option for some, but it is not a cure all. You may not necessarily generate the “best” traffic for your site. Dean Phillips suggests that traffic exchanges do little good, other than add “clicks” to your statistics. Of course your site may look catchy enough to get people to stay.

Keep in mind that these can be good for getting your name out there, but also keep in mind that good content, trackbacks, and putting your web address in your email and forum signatures can be even more successful in the long run.

My wife (Jessica) and I will be moving this week. We used some really cool new tools to set up some of our utilities. We went through a service called AllConnect. It did not cost any extra for us and made life a lot easier in this transition.

One service we resisted signing up for was internet. Basically, we have two choices for high speed internet service. We can choose Comcast, or we can choose Qwest. I am leaning towards cable since it has a much higher bandwidth and better promotions.

Fortunately, I don’t need a landline, so the Qwest deals are looking less beneficial to me. I can get the best internet deals for Comcast with a subscription to any cable package (including basic analog). That means that I can get $8.95 cable service and save a bunch of money on internet in the process.

Let me know if you have any suggestions on Qwest vs. Comcast, or on ways to get the best internet deals from either company.

Today was D-Day for my desktop computer. My second hard drive had crashed a couple weeks ago, and I had purchased a replacement. When replacing a hard drive, I like to do a fresh install of Windows. So, I got my disks together and got started.

It was really not that bad. I had my Compaq System Restore CDs and it only took time to get the system up and running.

Of course this would not be very easy without a high speed internet connection. I had to re-download Windows XP Service Pack 2, and more importantly, get all the software from Google Pack.

Google Pack includes all the new computer essentials. It even includes Sun’s StarOffice. According to the Read/WriteWeb blog:

“StarOffice is a direct competitor to Microsoft Office, as it is a full suite of desktop-based office apps that normally retails for $70. It includes word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database”

Also, if you have never seen Google’s photo screen saver, it is well worth the download.

I suppose that I will be further updating drivers and such tomorrow. With all the special downloads that are needed to get a computer running, it is still nice to know that my system is squeaky clean right now.

I never understood 411 service. Why would you pay someone an arm and a leg to tell you a phone number that you can find in any public phone directory online or offline?

Now, companies like Google(1-800-GOOG-411),  1-800-FREE-411, BetterThan411.com(513-701-6918), and others, are closing in on the 411 market. But, their service is different. They offer their service for free.  Usually this involves listening to some advertising in return for their service.

This really makes sense. If you get lost on a way to a restaurant, and are not near your destination, you would definitely have time to listen to an advertisement.

You may not realize it but you are potentially a customer to one of the biggest scams on the internet. It is a money laundering scam in which a company agrees to be an intermediary between buyers and sellers.

This company creates links to your bank accounts and credit cards, and then funnels money between your accounts and others. This is usually done when you request it, but sometimes it is done at other times.

This is where the scam comes in. The company places information in their fine print which gives them sole discretion on how to deal with your complaints about fraudulent money transfers.

Many times, their solution is to ‘freeze’ your account with all the money in that you have placed in their online accounts placed in limbo. They are then free to gain interest on this money without having to worry about you withdrawing the money any time soon.

Furthermore, this scam company fails to post customer service numbers, and only allows contact through email forms on their website. This decreases your ability to ‘C.C’ the email to someone else (like a lawyer or B.B.B representative). It allows the company to also severely limit your communication with them and avoid addressing the real issues.

Finally, if you with to cancel your account, you will be routed through endless to do lists, only to be routed back around. Essentially, they will promise to cancel your account, but never really do so, leaving links to your financial accounts open to be exploited at a later date.

You may wonder which site I am talking about. It is called Paypal.

After an unauthorized user gaining access to my account, I have experienced many of these problems with Paypal. Rather than fixing the problem, they claim it is already repaired (even though me account is stuck in limited access).

For more information about the many customer complaints and the legally questionable activities that paypal has sponsored, visit http://www.paypalsucks.com/.

Bittorrent (pronounced and sometimes spelled “Bit Torrent”) has the potential to completely change the way files are served on the internet. Bittorrent was created by genius programmer Bram Cohan. It allows large files, like open source software distributions, to be downloaded quickly from several “grassroots” file sharers.

This technology is closely related to Peer to Peer file sharing. Bittorrent differs from some file sharing programs in that it breaks up the files into several bite size pieces and allows users to partially download files from several sources.

One major problem with sharing large files over the internet is that many broadband web hosting companies significantly limit your upload speeds. This means that you may be able to download a file at 8mbps but only upload the file to your friend at 0.8mbps. Thats like saying you don’t have a speed limit, but the guy in front of you does (in the no passing zone of course).

This bottleneck is solved by allowing a downloader to solicit pieces of a file from several people who also have pieces of the file. Eventually the goal is to have the whole file, but in the mean time, it significantly increases your ability to download. You can now download from ten people who each upload at 0.8mbps. If you multiply that out, you are now maxing out your download speed. Not bad at all.

Bittorrent can be a little confusing, and may not be for the ungeeky at heart. But with a little background, it becomes much easier. So without further ado, I will give you Terry Pearson’s 7 steps to bittorrent success.

1. Download a Bittorent Client. Bittorent downloads require a special software. Don’t worry, the best of these are free. I recommend Azureus. It is free of spyware, and very reliable.
2. Install the client. This is pretty straight forward. You will need the latest version of the Java Runtime Environment which is provided at the link to Azureus found in number one.
3. Determine a file that you want to download. For starters, go to http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/. You will answer three questions about your operating system and language. After answering those questions, you will begin to download the “.torrent” file. More than likely you will want to choose to “open” rather than save the file. By the way, this is for OpenOffice, an office suite similar to Microsoft Office, but with more features. Sun Microsystems, used to charge for it (under the name StarOffice) but now gives it away in hopes that people buy support packages for the software.
4. Agree to Import Your Torrent. If you are using Azureus, this will be done automatically. It will pop up a temporary message in the bottom of your screen.
5. Wait patiently, and do not shut down your client. Remember that your file is huge. More than likely, it will take a little time, but you will hopefully have a much better download than you would get from a file transfer from one computer. By the way, Bittorent is designed to help those who help others. If you disable sharing your pieces of the file, you are known as a leach. Leaches are often blocked, so you will actually download slower than otherwise expected.
6. Explore your new software. If you are using Azureus, click on “My Library” and go to the “Advanced” tab. You will see a much more “Windows-ish” looking interface. The table will give the file size and status among other things. Some terms that you will come across include Peers, Seeds, and Trackers.
   • Peers - These are computers that you are currently either connected to, or attempting to connect to. Sometimes, Bittorent programs set a maximum number of connections. Therefore, you may have to wait in line for a part of a file.
   • Seeds – These are computers that contain the entire file. It is not mandatory that a torrent have a seed, but torrents with seeds are more likely to be completed since at least one member of your torrent has the complete file.
   • Tracker – This is a server that coordinates how the files will be downloaded. It keeps a record of which computers have certain pieces of the file, and then gets the file pieces to the right places in the most efficient manner.
7. Practice good Bittorent Etiquette. In order to allow others to get completed files, at least one person needs to be sharing each part of the file. Remember that someone shared with you, so please share with them. This could involve keeping the files shared in your Bittorent client as long as possible. The upload rate will usually be slow, so don’t worry about it bogging down your bandwidth. Remember, you can download a lot faster than you can upload.

I am currently in a Java class at my university. This is a language that I think is just wonderful. Java (and  .NET languages) truly utilizes Object Orientated Concepts to the fullest.

When you are learning a language, it is sometimes difficult to test your skills. You certainly think you know a lot about the language, but how do you know that you are an expert? Possibly the best way, besides certification, is to take online tests on the language of your choice.

A great place to look for these online tests is on text book publisher websites. For example, my textbook entitled “Introduction to Java Programming” by Daniel Liang, has a website with source code and tests available to all. This tool makes it very easy to assess your current skill set, and helps identify areas in which you need to improve.

I recently transfered all my domain names to a new hosting provider. In the process of moving the domains, I forgot to change some of the domain name server info, and it caused some domains to be unavailable for a few days.

Fortunately, these were not ‘critical’ domains. If they were, I would have searched for the problems sooner. But, they were basically projects that I was putting together on my own. So, I was maybe the only one that was disappointed when they did not work.

In the process of discovering the problem, I came across a website called DNSReport.com. The site performs 56 tests on a domain, and provides feedback on each. It will let you know what you are doing right, and what you are doing wrong on your DNS.

I ran the test on my domain, and did happen to find a few errors and warnings. After reviewing the information,  I was able to correct a couple of the problems fixed, and am still working on a few others.

Then I checked another website. One that I do not own, but use extensively. What I found was that there were many errors in the DNS records. These errors could result in the mail from the server being marked as Spam,  the ability for malicious computer users to spoof messages, and the possibility of extremely long time periods for domain resolution.

Be sure to check your own domains for DNS problems and fix them as soon as possible. You’ll be glad you tested your site!