One of my favourite pastimes I like to do in Starbucks is eavesdropping on everybody’s conversation online. Since Starbucks offers free internet access, everybody will be busy sipping their coffee and texting messages with their devices. None of these coffee drinkers really know how vulnerable they are and how to protect themselves from theft online like me.
I turn on my Mac and run an application to collect data over the wireless network. Then I go queue up for my coffee. By the time I am back, I have collected enough data for me to read. Most of the data are instant messaging conversations. Sometimes I do intercept email and photos.
If I find something interesting about a conversation, I will lift my head up and try to identify who the person is. One time, my coffee buddy says, “Give him another ten minutes and we can leave.” I subconsciously reply saying, “Take his time, we can leave once he is done with his wife.” He looks up to me and asks how I know he is chatting online with his wife.
What if you are transmitting important information over an unsecured connection and I happen to stumble upon it? How to prevent a thief like me that is snooping what is in the air?
The easiest and fastest way on how to prevent theft online is to get yourself a VPN, short for Virtual Private Network. VPN creates a secure network by encrypting your data between you and your destination site over a public network such as the internet. There are many flavors of security standard known as protocols. The commonly used protocols are IPsec, L2TP, and SSL/TLS. These VPNs can be configured for use in PDA such as iPhone too. For the highest security, use SSL/TLS or sometime also label as SSL VPN.
Get yourself familiar with VPN technologies today, ask for a trial package from your provider and start learning how to prevent theft online.
The King Motorsports / Mugen Civic Si made its debut at the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) convention in Las Vegas. The car showed off its K20 DC5R engine which has a limited slip differential and a 6-speed transmission. The engine had been modified to produce 240hp. The K20 represents Honda’s next generation engine. It does not run on a timing rubber belt. It runs by a timing chain. The engine heads are reversed so that intake and exhaust swap position. Three additional versions of the K20 (K20A, K20B, K20C) engine are available; each sporting subtle variations in their power train assembly.
The new Honda Insight has improved immeasurably since it was first launched back in 1999. Today’s difficult economic times makes the Insight the right answer for the customer on a budget. There has been an obvious slowdown in car sales which is the first reason why the Insight could be the next big thing. The Insight’s base sticker price is significantly lower than any competitor model with similar features. Even if a buyer splurges for a fully loaded Insight, it won’t cost much more than a base model competitor.
Auto makers are making considerable improvements in hybrid engine technology. It now looks as though hybrid is the way of the future and more consumers are turning to these cars to help save them money. Hybrids not only save consumers money at the gas tank but at tax time as well. Depending on the Hybrid, consumers could see up to a $3000 tax credit, and who doesn’t like a break from the government?
Honda’s release of the CR-Z concept car pushes the limits on the marriage of a true sports car to the latest in technology. The new class of vehicle is ready to move Honda even further from its competition in the market for hybrid engines. Honda even calls the CR-Z its lightweight sports car; an indication of Honda’s confidence in the CR-Z’s ability to match its performance to its sporty good looks. The look and feel of a Sporty Hi-Tech vehicle is all that can be said about the CR-Z interior design.
Finally, production of the stimulating “green” cars has been confirmed by Honda. The hydrogen fuel cell based FCX car along with a low weight hybrid sports car will both go into production. This now makes its debut in the near future a reality. Then, the FCX concept will be used in the all new FCV being marketed to both retail and fleet customers in Japan and the U.S.A. The FCV provides the safety comforts which everyone expects from Honda vehicles.
Specifications for the Honda V Flow fuel cell have not yet been provided. However, Honda assures us that the fuel cell stack provides performance equal to almost all current sedans. At the same time, zero emissions are produced except for heat and water.
It’s obvious; customers have a lot to look forward to as Honda continues to look far into the future of hybrid vehicle engineering in support of an entirely new generation.
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Every car has an ECU to control the performance of the car engine. ECU is Engine Control Unit. The standard performance of a car is set by the manufacturer through the ECU. Manufacturer will not program the ECU to the highest output so that the car will get the best fuel consumption.
For those who aim to race, understand that the more power you need, the more fuel you have to burn. Racer like me will not be concern about fuel consumption for the ride.
To squeeze more horsepower from the ECU, I have to cheat the ECU to push the engine to a higher explosion, to get higher output. This trick works only with Fuel Injection car and not on old car with carburetor engine.
First, you need to locate the IAT sensor of the car. IAT stands for Intake Air Temperature. The IAT sensor is the sensor that sends the air temperature signal to the ECU, telling the ECU to manage the amount of fuel for combustion. Generally the IAT sensor is located on the intake tube or somewhere before the throttle body from the intake manifold.
After you found the IAT, remove the adapter from the IAT sensor and you will see the connector with two holes on it. It looks like a normal electric plug label plus (+) and minus (-) signs. Go to an electronic shop and get a resistor of 110 ohm and plug it into the connector.
Before removing the connector, make sure your car engine is off and the key is plug out first, to prevent the check engine indicator light up on your dashboard. After placing the resistor on the IAT connector, remember to wrap it up with a wire tape and make sure the resistor is not loose and not easy to drop off. Next, cover up the exposed two holes on the IAT sensor with wire tape to make yourself feel more secure.
For your reference, Engine Control Unit also known as ECM, Engine Control Module.
My top ten software I will be depending on for the new year 2010. Every year end, I will evaluate and budget what software or tools I need for the next year.
Let start off ending the year 2009 with Time Machine, a backup utility that introduce with OS X 10.5, to backup my whole year of works that store on my machine. Since it invention, backup is no longer a hassle. I still keep my Carbon Copy Cloner to clone hardisk and other stuffs that Time Machine cannot do.
Adium an almost all-in-one instant messaging software that is always turn on, on my Air laptop. Without Adium, my thirteen inch screen will be invaded with all brands of messaging windows. Adium allows me to combine all my different brands accounts into one and skinning it user interface greatly reduce and reclaim my viewable screen property for better use by other applications.
Sociallite replaces Nambu. Socialite keeps all my social networks in one place, one login, one view, keeping it neat and tidy. If you have a thirteen inch screen like me, you will appreciate an application like socialite to manage and organize your friends and give you an overall view of what is going on among them.
In the era of Web 2.0, I am getting more and more dependent on internet, it is very important to me now that what tools allow me to work online safe and fast.
I used to use Rapidweaver daily for rapid deployment of websites. It is a very easy and fun application, but with limited blogging capabilities. Recently I change to Ecto, a weblog client on my Air laptop that allow me to draft my blog post offline and post it later on my WordPress based websites. I still use Rapidweaver for rapid deployment for website that do not need blogging.
My new favorite application is Text Wrangler. An easy and powerful text editor that now replaces my Dreamweaver and other text editors. Text Wrangler let me read web files like HTML, PHP, etc with ease and speed. It also allows me to edit and save online through FTP client, like Cyberduck.
Cyberduck is now my favorite FTP client. So easy to use and have variety of options to configure your login style. I can use it to login to my MobileMe account (formally known as.Mac) and all my FTP sites.
I love iPhoto! It is getting better with newer version. It now have face detection and geotagging but this is not what i use most of the time. iPhoto allows me to upload photos massively to my MobileMe Gallery, Flickr and Facebook. It saves me lot of time on uploading, tagging and managing them.
No more Final Cut and it complicated features to create a five minutes video. iMovies that come with OS X, let me rapidly create video and export directly to my YouTube account or export to my mobile phone. No more like the bad old days to go through codec setting to optimized video export. With iMovies you just concentrate on your creativity.
iBank helps me manage and keep track of my money. Before using iBank, I was using Microsoft Money through Parallels Desktop and that is a troublesome thing to do. iBank also has widgets for the Dashboard that allow me to update my record without opening the application. iBank now simplify my financial management.
Lastly, Viscosity, my newly acquired OpenVPN client. This award winning VPN client keeps all my internet activities safe from preying thefts and allow me to access websites that are blocked by my ISP. My internet speed is much faster and stable now.
My ten software are Time Machine, Adium, Socialite, Ecto, Text Wrangler, Cyberduck, iPhoto, iMovies, iBank and Viscosity. Not enough? Here is the Christmas bonus. Little Snapper, a web snapping utility that let me quickly snapshot websites for future reference or make comment to it. This is also another tool I will be heavily using in the new year.
Here are my top ten software plus one Christmas bonus, I will be using for the year 2010 on my 1.6Ghz Macbook Air Laptop.
Every one of us will come to a time when we urgently need to go online but there is no internet access available. And we will try to move around within our proximity to scan for WIFI and betting on luck that we do not need a password to access it.
Assuming you manage to find a WIFI but you need a password. What do you do?
For me, I will identify the WIFI device and try the factory default password. During the dawn of wireless era, this trick usually works but now people are getting more sophisticated and know how to change the factory password. I used to surf all these products websites and get free download WIFI utility tools and default factory password, and compile a list of it.
Nowaday what I will do is before I go to an unfamiliar place, I will google or ask around for information about free or paid WIFI available at where I am going and make the appropriate choice and backup plan if I ever need urgent internet access.
There are times when I want to show off my skills to my peers or impress my new found girlfriend, I will use a stumbling software to scan the air for nearby wireless. A stumbling software can also detect hidden access point and display their SSID.
After finding all available access points, the next thing you need is their respective passwords to get access. I can run the application to decipher the password but this method takes time. The process may take me from twenty minutes to more than an hour.
A faster alternative is to run a packet capture application on the targeted wireless network. Most of the time it will free download WIFI password in the captured packets. Search through the contents of the packets and any sensible human can detect which one is the password. I just copy and paste, and I have access to the wireless.
To use all these techniques and the required software, you need to practice and learn how to analyze a packet. You can start off by using your own WIFI as your training ground.
Do you feel safe using wireless now? A simple solution to protect yourself from online theft is to use a VPN, Virtual Private Network. A VPN protects the information you transmit over the internet and keep it away from preying sniffers.
Did you know that every year, the United States uses 100 million plastic shopping bags? That means 12 million barrels of crude oil had to be used just to create all of those plastic bags. Those numbers alone do not make a pretty picture. Just think about all of those plastic bags and that when these have completely been used up, it will all just go to landfills and do not decompose for a hundred years.
If we do not act now then we will just be continuing to pollute our land and water with all of these plastics. There is always a solution. While we are waiting for scientists to create a kind of plastic that will decompose quickly and be safer for the environment, we should start using eco friendly shopping bags. We should make it a habit to bring such bags whenever we go to the supermarket and shopping centers so we can contribute in minimizing the plastic wastes.
There are so many benefits of using these eco friendly shopping bags, and the following is just a short list of it.
1. Since crude oil is used to create all those plastic shopping bags, when we use our own fabric based bags, there will be less demand for plastic bags. This means less plastics will be used and since plastics are made from crude oil, less of that greasy and polluting stuff will be needed.
2. You can use eco friendly shopping bags again and again. These are more durable than plastic bags and will certainly last for even hundreds more of uses. This is because most of these bags are made of canvas which is a strong, non woven fabric than can hold a typical list of grocery items.
3. If you want to be fashionable when you go out shopping, now you can with these reusable shopping bags. They come in different sizes, colors, styles, and designs. You can even personalize your own by using some fabric paint, beads and colorful threads.
4. You can help promote being friendly with the environment by creating your own personalized shopping bags and giving them as a gift to your friends and co-workers. In your own small way, you will be helping to spread the word about the importance of taking plastics off the supermarkets and replacing them with reusable bags. Plus, you will be educating people that it is very easy and fun to use eco bags instead.
5. Look for a supermarket that gives credit or discounts to people who shop using their own shopping bags. It is a growing trend among supermarkets to shift to reusable bags instead of the typical plastic kind. Help support this initiative by using your own bag instead, and in turn get something of a bonus from your shopping.
There is no better time to be more concerned for our environment than today. We have the power to make a change, to make our own contributions to keeping our world a better, safer and cleaner place to live in.
There is only one earth. Do your part, save the earth. Start using eco friendly bags. http://www.bagtailor.com/
Like the winds of change, you will notice a drastic change in the engine technology of automobiles to come. Japan’s big car magnet company has introduced the K20A that is being used in the new Honda STREAM which happens to be the initial spectrum to their latest new generation i-VTEC engines. This huge step will lead the way for super high performance engines to come.
The K20 FD2R engine has a 6 speed transmission with many of the good technologies being carried forward enhanced and placed on the new generation engine. The engine which is promoted and seen as Honda’s next generation engines runs by timing chain instead of the normal timing rubber belt and has a reverse engine head.
The K20 engine should not be judged by its power rating but for its brilliant technology that has been put into it. It has been specially put together so as to save on fuel making it economic, with ample of internal combustion force for twisting and turning easily and clean emissions that are managed and bestowed at a higher level with VTEC (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control) and VTC (Variable Timing Control) combined.
The K20 i-VTEC arrangement operates on Honda’s own creation of the VTEC system and adds VTC (Variable Timing Control), that consents for dynamic/continuous intake valve timing and overlapping control. You will find that the K20 comes in various versions, depending on their sporting subtle differences in their power train assemblage. They are available in K20A, K20B and K20C.
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If you are using a shared IP address on web hosting and this IP is being abused by spammer, political propaganda or computer viral activities, etc, most likely the IP address you are using will be blocked. Your site has contents that are not in favour to the other party and the party will blacklist your IP by blocking it to make it unreachable.
To overcome the problems of being blocked, here is the list of things you can do.
1. Contact your web host and ask if they can re-assign you to another set of IP. If you have budget, you can get your own IP address for your website. Having a dedicated IP address also improve your ranking with search engines.
2. Use a IP spoof tool to change your IP address. You can google and read more about it?
3. Use a paid VPN to get access. Most free VPN services use PPTP for communication. A paid VPN service offers you IPSec or SSL increase your chances of reaching the desired site is higher than PPTP.
4. Use a free proxy server. Google “free proxy list” and try your luck. Use free proxy server for low demand browsing because they are over spam by advertisement banners and slow down your browser performance.
5. Install another computer in another location or country, then use remote control software to get access to your computer and access the desired site. If you have extra cash, you can install your own VPN server in another location.
6. Call your friends in another location and login and get access on your behalf.
7. Most importantly, do not offer specific contents and keywords on your websites that speak ill or is against the country you have the most viewers from. Doing so will risk your IP being blocked.
A typical good example to reduce being blocked, is the above point no. 2. Express your contents using commonly used words and offer an action that will lead the reader to find the specific answers you want to give.
Do not use point no. 4 to express your thoughts in an article. The keywords in the sentence, if filtered, it may increase your probability of getting blocked.
Here are the ways how I overcome blocked IP address in a hostile internet world.
