Mike1MB At WebHomeTown.net

U.S. Constitution:

2011-01-06T17:42:00.002-05:00

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Article I

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.

No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three Years after the first Meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent Term of ten Years, in such Manner as they shall by Law direct. The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.

When vacancies happen in the Representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue Writs of Election to fill such Vacancies.

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.

Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.

No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.

The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.

The Senate shall chuse their other Officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the Absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the Office of President of the United States.

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

Section 4. The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day.

Section 5. Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide.

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

Each House shall keep a Journal of its Proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such Parts as may in their Judgment require Secrecy; and the Yeas and Nays of the Members of either House on any question shall, at the Desire of one fifth of those Present, be entered on the Journal.

Neither House, during the Session of Congress, shall, without the Consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other Place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.

Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time: and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.

Section 7. All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively. If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

Every Order, Resolution, or Vote to which the Concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of Adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the Same shall take Effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the Rules and Limitations prescribed in the Case of a Bill.

Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Section 9. The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person.

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.

No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.

No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another: nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear or pay Duties in another.

No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Section 10. No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress.

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

Article II

Section 1. The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.

The President shall, at stated Times, receive for his Services, a Compensation, which shall neither be encreased nor diminished during the Period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:--"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Section 2. The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

Section 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States.

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article III

Section 1. The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.

Section 2. The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;--to all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls;--to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction;--to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party;--to Controversies between two or more States;--between a State and Citizens of another State;--between Citizens of different States;--between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Article IV

Section 1. Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Section 2. The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.

A Person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from Justice, and be found in another State, shall on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having Jurisdiction of the Crime.

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.

Section 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new States shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.

The Congress shall have Power to dispose of and make all needful Rules and Regulations respecting the Territory or other Property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to Prejudice any Claims of the United States, or of any particular State.

Section 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Article V

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Article VI

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwith-standing.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Article VII

The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

Done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth

In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names,

George Washington--President and deputy from Virginia

New Hampshire: John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman

Massachusetts: Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King

Connecticut: William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sherman

New York: Alexander Hamilton

New Jersey: William Livingston, David Brearly, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton

Pennsylvania: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris

Delaware: George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom

Maryland: James McHenry, Daniel of Saint Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll

Virginia: John Blair, James Madison, Jr.

North Carolina: William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson

South Carolina: John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler

Georgia: William Few, Abraham Baldwin

in reference to:

___________________________________________________________________________

U.S. Constitution Text: Founding Document Read By House Republicans (view on Google Sidewiki)

Ashton to CNN... My Kutcher is Bigger Than Your Kutcher - Joel Comm

2009-04-25T13:23:00.007-04:00

So in case you've been in the closet without your BlackBerry, iPhone, and TV, Here's the Deal:

Celebrities have discovered Twitter.
Businesses are discovering twitter, because celebs have.
Celebs are talking about Twitter on talk shows.
Talk show hosts are signing on to Twitter, and talking about Twitter on air.
News shows cover Celebs, News Shows are using Twitter to collect and quickly mini-broadcast.

Even the Greatest Newbie cannot avoid hearing about Twitter, and wondering "what is this about?" So they log on, they follow the Celebs and News people, they take a while to find out their friends use Twitter. They finally get around to following everyday people, family, friends, maybe even you and hopefully me.

What does all this mean to us as Internet Marketers? More prospects in the Twitterverse! But they are harder to get to, because there are so many others vying for their attention. Just Tweeting isn't going to get there, being accessible via Twitter Adds to Your IM Message, but it can't be the only thing. Creating "Viralness" for yourself and your product/service is going to be harder and harder as Twitter grows to reach 100 Million Tweeters. (Wow, do we need to turn the Bass up, it'll sound like AM Radio)

______________________________________________________________

Ashton to CNN... My Kutcher is Bigger Than Your Kutcher
Posted on April 16, 2009 01:10 PM

Twitter has experienced massive growth in the past year, with the number of people signing up each month accelerating. It has also become the media darling of the day. It seems that everyone is Twittering.

However, with only 10-12 million people on the site, its clear that everyone is NOT Twittering.

Don't fret. They will be soon.

So where is the media paying the most attention to Twitter?

You guessed it. It's all about the celebrities.

Shaquille O'Neal can't spell, but he loves to tweet. He challenges people to find him when he tweets about giving away free tickets to a game.

Jimmy Fallon turns a regular Joe (Bryan Brinkman") into a Twitter celebrity when he calls on all his followers to follow him.

And the list of celebrities on Twitter goes on.

Britney Spears, Ellen DeGenres, John Mayer, Lance Armstrong, Ryan Seacrest, MC Hammer and many more have quickly become the Twitter Elite. Most of these are fully embracing the Twitter culture by interacting with their fans on a regular basis.

And of course, there is Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, who recently brought their across-the-room tweets to the general public. Both are receiving massive media attention, especially due to Kutcher's most recent stunt.

Essentially, Kutcher put out a video stating that he wanted to beat CNN's Breaking News Twitter account to one million followers.

CNN has been at the #1 position on Twitter since the election and Kutcher is gaining quite rapidly.

You can read more about the details of the story on Mashable.com.

I'm more interested in how Kutcher and CNN are using Twitter, and why I think Kutcher is more relevant than CNN.

Let's take a look at both accounts.

On the left (yes, that is supposed to be a pun. Deal with it...) is CNN Breaking News.

This Twitter stream is exactly what you would expect... breaking news.

There's no conversation. There's no interaction. There's no dialogue. There's no relationship.

Is there even a person behind the CNN account? If there is, they don't want you to know. They don't WANT you to interact with them. They just want you to read the news as they choose to deliver it.

On the other hand, let's look at Ashton Kutcher's Twitter stream.

True to Twitter culture, Ashton is actually interacting with other people. He's engaging in dialogue. He is communicating with his fans in a down-to-earth way that communicates he gets it. And he cares.

I would like to see him following more people, but that's a matter of personal preference.

Like the email newsletters that clutter your inbox due to their impersonal one-way communication and end up in your trash folder, I predict that the CNN news feed will become less relevant as time goes on.

After all, isn't Twitter made up of over TEN MILLION citizen journalists who are always on the scene and able to report breaking news before CNN has a clue what is taking place?

Wasn't the Mumbai terrorist attack and the Continental plane accident in Denver proof that we the people have the potential to report breaking news far quicker (and sometimes more reliably) than CNN or any mainstream news establishment?

The bottom line is that Ashton Kutcher is demonstrating the real power of Twitter to build relationships and enhance branding. CNN's attempt to bring old media ways to the new media are stale and boring.

Ashton, I'm behind ya bubba. Whether you get to one million before CNN or not really isn't relevant, because YOU are relevant.

Oh, and one more thing. If you are reading this Ashton, I'm happy to send you a signed copy of Twitter Power. Just shoot me a tweet and I'll take care of it.

______________________________________________________________

Mike Cunningham
Download MY Twitter Report No Co$t -Double Opt-in Request form- Download My Twitter Report http://www.webhometown.net/Twitter-eBook.htm +5 Twitter eBook Bonuses

Watch for My New Internet Presence for 2009.

It's Live! See the link on my page now!

2009 The Biggest and Best Ever!

http://twitter.com/mike1mb
Also follow me, I'll follow you back.

One Trillion Dollars ($1,000,000,000,000)

2009-04-09T19:10:00.004-04:00

On my WebHomeTown.net Blog:

Thursday, April 9th, 2009

One Trillion Dollars

($1,000,000,000,000)

How much is that really? What does it look like?

Find out!

Twitter Police Activity

2009-04-08T17:48:00.003-04:00

Sorry some of this Video is Very Dark, not only in content but in Video Quality. Also the sound is set quite loud.

Twitter Cops - Protecting the World From Useless Tweets

posted : Saturday, April 4th, 2009

tags : twitter video hd

neutrino reblogged this from mengto
mengto posted this

2 Comments

Music Industry and Twitter, A Round Up by Adrian Fusiarski

2009-03-12T20:17:00.001-04:00

Jan 25, 2009 Author: Adrian Fusiarski

I’ve been using Twitter ’seriously’ (I’m not sure how you measure that) for a few months now but I was a slow starter as I previously mentioned here.

I think at first the problem for me is that it just seemed like it was going to be another web 2.0 novelty that’d I’d quickly tire of and abandon after a while. I did abandon my Twitter profile leaving myself hanging with less than ten followers and half a dozen posts.

Not for the first time, I was wrong. There are just so many tech and music people ‘twittering’ it kind of reminds you of all the Google euphoria when the search engine was so ubiquitous that ‘to Google’ became a verb.

What helped me a lot was seeking out the help of a bunch of people that did ‘get it’ by searching Google (as always). I thought I’d gather together a bunch of the best online blog posts and articles that I found in my research.

How To Use Twitter For Music Promotion (About.com) Twitter.

About.com Music Careers writer Heather McDonald is always very concise in her writing, unlike me. Once signing up for Twitter Heather recommends, “looking for fellow music types. Music fans, journalists, artists, labels, etc - these are the people you want to follow you.” She continues.

“Twitter can be a great way to not only keep fans informed about your news but it can also make them feel closer to the whole process when you tweet about things you’re working on as you’re doing them. The trick is not to go too far and overload people.”

More...

More Luddites B^&@#ing about Twitter

2009-03-04T22:47:00.002-05:00

March 3rd, 2009 |

social web, web culture

Could be Jon Stewart being sarcastic, but this is a commonly held opinion, by Non Believers.
Let me know How you feel about TV comments about Twitter.

Jason Calacanis - What to do if your startup is about fail (or “Don’t Stop Believing”)

2009-02-27T03:34:00.001-05:00

What to do if your startup is about fail (or “Don’t Stop Believing”)

Location: Mahalo HQ, Santa Monica
Date/Time: February 26th 2009 6:25pm
Subscribers: 12,483
Rock out To This While Reading: Don’t Stop Believing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ip1zsUIosoA
Forward To: Startups that are hitting the wall

A lot of CEOs with less than 12 months of capital left have been
asking me for advice about what to do, given the massive economic
turmoil we’re facing. I thought I would take the time put these
various conversations into one email to help those who are “up against
it,” as we say in Brooklyn.

Now, sprinting to the startup precipice is one of the most horrible
and exhilarating experiences you can have as an entrepreneur.

The exhaustion sinks in as you slam on the brakes. You dig in your
heels and watch the dirt and pebbles fly off the cliff as your left
foot dangles down in the ravine, with your right foot desperately
trying to save you. Your momentum could–if the wind kicks in–send
you straight down to your death. Heck, even the two inches of earth
under your right foot could give way and send you to your death. Or,
you could slip and fall on a magic carpet that will take you to the
Promised Land.

OK, that last part is made up. You’re probably screwed and you know it.

This email is intended for startup companies with less than 12 months
of cash in the bank, who know in their hearts that their VCs have lost
faith, and that Google, Yahoo or Microsoft aren’t going to pick them
up on a magic M&A carpet ride.

This is the email I’d like you to forward to your friends who are
running startups that could go under in 2009.

Some background
————————-
I’ve been to the precipice and faced the fall a couple of times. I’ve
learned a couple of things from the experience. I can tell you that
the first time it happens, you’re terrified, because everything you’ve
done–all the effort and dreams–will probably be lost (like tears in
the rain).

More...

Katy Abby Says: My smartphone is smarter than your smartphone!

2009-02-26T12:50:00.001-05:00

WACKY WEB WEEK

My smartphone is smarter than your smartphone!

By Katy Abby

It happens every time: just when you think you've got the newest, slickest, most-awesome gadget on the market, a new model comes along that makes your posh purchase look like peanuts. Nowhere is this more apparent than with cell phones. Today's latest smartphones top their predecessors by offering mind-blowing features that we could barely dream of in years past.

Enter the Pomegranate. It does absolutely everything you'd ever want a cell phone to do, and then some! Just don't tell your iPhone .... Play the video

Help people find this article on the Web (explain):
Digg	Delicious	Reddit	StumbleUpon	Other	Permalink

How to use TweetDeck - Mike's Recommended Twitter Application

2009-02-18T20:20:00.004-05:00

Blogging Art and Practice
A blogging coach’s tips and techniques for a better blog
By Kathy Purdy

TweetDeck is the most useful application for managing Twitter that I’ve found. While many call it “intuitive,” some of my clients are intimidated by it. Perhaps they don’t realize it has tooltip-type hints when you mouse over the various buttons, or maybe the tips don’t explain enough. For those of you who want more than tooltips, here is a basic introduction to TweetDeck.

Organize your screen with these buttons

The following nine buttons function as toggles. That is, click once to open, and click again to close. They are found at the upper left of your screen. (Where appropriate, I’ve linked to some tutorials on another site that explain certain functions in more detail.)

More...

Click here to type a message (status update). When you click this button, several other buttons become available which I will collectively refer to as the tweetbox. They are explained below.
This opens or closes a column that shows all updates from everyone you follow. Usually it’s open.
Click this button to start a new group.
Click here to set up a search column.
Click here to start a column that monitors all replies to you. (That is, all messages that have @yourtwittername in them.)
If you want to have a column of all your direct messages, click here.
This button sets up a column with all your favorited tweets.
Twitscoop enables you to see what the hot twitter topics are.
12seconds is “the best place online for video status updates.” When you click this button it will ask you for your login.

More...

Other Twitter tutorials

The advantage of a still tutorial such as this one is that you can refer to it as you’re using TweetDeck. But a video tutorial can help give you the big picture. I chose these particular tutorials because they illustrated features of TweetDeck that I haven’t covered in this tutorial. You will find a lot more videos on YouTube about TweetDeck, but most are of poor quality.

* How to Create a Group and Use the Search Function
* Rearranging Columns, Search Function, Change Settings (including colors)
* New features in the latest version 0.21b
More...

Look for the links to Ian Dodsworth Interview, the originator of Tweetdeck.
I love Tweetdeck and Find Grouping makes Twitter so much more managable.

Mike
http://www.twitter.com/mike1mb

New Blog Posts at WebHomeTown.net

2009-01-27T20:21:00.001-05:00

So you want to know all about Basketball, or Feng Shui, or maybe even Bad Breath or my all time favorite, Affiliate Marketing.

Well We've got a blog with all that and More. New Topics all the time and new facts.
Read these excerpts:

Affiliate Marketing Parasites:

Affiliate Marketing Parasites:
No, We really mean Web Sites, but it did catch your attention didn’t it?
Choosing the Perfect Web Hosting for Your Affiliate Sites
OK. So you have finally decided to become an affiliate marketer. You have finally settled on what products you are actually going to sell. Now, how to promote them?
Very little, if any, [...]

Theories of Feng Shui

Theories of Feng Shui
Feng shui theories today work with the goal to arrange the environment made by humans in certain spots known to have good Qi. In order to find this spot, it should be the right location and an axis in time based on the accepted theories. In order to understand it better, here [...]

Where You Get Basketball News First?

Where You Get Basketball News First?
It is amazing how the different medias of communication can provide news, as in first seen, first heard, and what more can a basketball fan want than first hand basketball news? This is the glory humans have achieved by seeking modern devices than those that are in the [...]

The Different Bad Breath Herbal Remedy

The Different Bad Breath Herbal Remedy
You know you have the big H or halitosis or in even simpler terms, bad breath, but you’re ashamed of going out in the open and get it cured? Try home remedies with the different bad breath herbal remedies available. These procedures will help treat your current annoying oral condition [...]

Mike1MB's Blues Hour

2008-08-05T00:21:00.000-04:00

My 1st Ustream.tv show Mike1MB's Blues Hour

Twitter Repaired, Wolfenstein Redux, Spam King Suicide, No Stop Signs,

2008-07-24T12:33:00.023-04:00

More re storation underway

5 hours ago

We’re still putting follower/following relationships back into place. There will be inconsistencies over the next several hours as this restoration takes place. We will provide more updates as they become available.

Update (2:14p): we’re going into maintenance mode to speed up some of the recovery work we’re doing. We’re think the downtime will be brief.

Update (2:34p): Maintenance was only about 5 minutes. We’re still restoring data.

Update (3:36p): We believe that by around 7p Pacific around 95% of the data will be recovered.

Followers and Followings Restored 7 hours ago

We have restored 99.6% of the following/followers that temporarily disappeared as a result of a database error. The remaining 0.4% are on their way back.

NOTE: Although we have fixed the problem, the numbers and profile pictures in your sidebar will probably not be accurate until tomorrow afternoon because they are cached.

Wolfenstein Redux, No It's Your Next Windows.

Windows Blackcomb / Vienna (Codenames)

Wait For It: About 1:50 into this presentation get you pistol ready.
Start Shooting Nazis!

Update: Fugitive 'Spam King' Found Dead With Family

(many people made comments on the original ZDNet item, wishing Death to this guy.
I'm sure no one wanted that at the cost of two innocent lives. Tragic.)

By Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek , July 24, 2008 07:05 PM

Edward Davidson, the "spam king" who reportedly forced his wife to help him escape from a Colorado prison on Sunday, has killed himself, a woman, and a toddler, according to The Denver Post.

Earlier Thursday, Colorado NBC affiliate 9News.com reported that three people had been found dead in an apparent murder-suicide in the area of East Arkansas Place, near the town of Bennett, Colo.

More...

‘Spam King’ escapes from federal prison

Could This be What Twitter's been trying to find? Certainly this is a dangerous criminal on the loose, but did we have to lose half of our Contacts? Many Questions Unanswered.

Posted by Ryan Naraine

Edward “Eddie” Davidson, a notorious e-mail spammer who was sentenced to jail time in April, has escaped from a federal prison camp in Florence, Colorado.

Davidson (left), also known as the “Spam King, made a run for it when his wife visited him last Sunday and is now officially listed in “escape” status, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He was last seen in Lakewood, CO.

The FBI, IRS, and the Rocky Mountain Safe Streets Task Force are helping the U.S. Marshals in the search for Davidson.

Davidson was housed in a minimum security facility. Minimum security institutions, also known as Federal Prison Camps (FPCs), have dormitory housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and are work and program-oriented. FPCs are generally located adjacent to larger institutions, where inmates help serve the labor needs of the larger institution.

This from the Rocky Mountain News:

“He jumped in the car with his wife,” said Will Cochenour of the Lakewood police Tuesday. “When they were leaving, he forced her in the car, brought them home and left after a change in clothing. He’s still at large.”

More...

Michel Fortin Twittered:
This is the funniest video I've seen in a while!

Having seen Cluster Mind F**ks at the Corporate level, I agree. It takes a committee to really screw something up right.

Twitter Repaired, Rumor MacBook Touch, Twitter Squeeze, Knit Gas Mask

2008-07-23T18:59:00.018-04:00

Yes there's a lot happening today on the Web/Net, What do YOU call it?
Results: 33% Net 33% Web 33% Internet - not quite a Universal Answer.

I personally had a great day thanks to Mark Ress and his Ustream.tv God is Good Show. Good Friends and Strangers taking time to be thankful, ask for help or blessings.

More re storation underway

5 hours ago

Update (2:14p): we’re going into maintenance mode to speed up some of the recovery work we’re doing. We’re think the downtime will be brief.

Update (2:34p): Maintenance was only about 5 minutes. We’re still restoring data.

Update (3:36p): We believe that by around 7p Pacific around 95% of the data will be recovered.

I'm missing Twitter right now so I thought I'd start with that as my lead story:
Missing followers Wed 24

Folks are reporting problems with missing followers - that is, seeing the follower counts drop on their profile pages.

We’re looking into this now.

Update: We’re going to go into maintenance mode to correct this problem.

Updated follower/following counts 2 seconds ago

We’re still in the process of recovering from the missing follower/following problem that occurred earlier today. Over the next several hours, you may see inaccurate counts or timeline inconsistencies as the correct data is propagated to all parts of the system.

One thing to note: Even after this recovery is complete, your counts may appear lower than previously. In almost all cases, this is not due to missing data. The counts we display on your profile page are not always up-to-date. For example, when we remove spammers from the system (which we’ve been doing a lot lately), the follower counts are not updated in real-time.

As we push out the changes to fix this afternoon’s problem, the counts will be updated to reflect the latest numbers.

New Twitter Anti-Spam Bot Causes Chaos

Written by Sarah Perez / July 24, 2008 6:00 AM / 15 Comments

Twitter Anti-Spam Bot Punishes Community Managers and Causes Follower Counts to Drop

Did you notice a big drop in your Twitter follower numbers yesterday? It seems that the Twitter team recently decided to step up their Twitter spammer detection, and, in typical Twitter fashion, their algorithm sent the service haywire, leading to yet another sighting of the Fail Whale while the issue was resolved. Meanwhile, Twitterers everywhere were in an uproar over their lost follower counts.

Spam Detection Goes Too Far

Earlier this week, ZDNet reported that many Twitter users we re no longer able to add followers thanks to the new limits put in place to discourage spamming. Unfortunately, this action caused some major trouble for community managers, like Pandora's Lucia Willow, for example, who stated her case over on Get Satisfaction. In addition to Pandora, Comcast, Jet Blue, and several others were also affected. In order to add new followers, they had to delete older ones - not a good idea for those that want to stay tuned into their community. More....

Rumor: MacBook touch Coming in October

Those of you clamoring for an Apple tablet may finally get what you've been waiting for. According to a MacDailyNews source who leaked wireless iTunes a week before its official announcement, we can expect a sort of "MacBook touch" in October. And the source wasn't light on the details, either:

Think MacBook screen, possibly a bit smaller, in glass with iPhone-like, but fuller-featured multi-touch. Gesture library. Full Mac OS X. This is why they bought P.A. Semi. Possibly with Immersion's haptic tech. Slot-loading SuperDrive. Accelerometer. GPS. Pretty expensive to produce initially, but sold at "low" price that will reduce margins. Apple wants to move these babies. And move they will. This is some sick shit. App Store-compatible, able to run Mac apps, too. By October at the latest. More... Picture Only

Twitter Squeeze

This is being leaked out only to my readers and Twitter followers!

The Twitter Squeeze is coming…

Twitter Squeeze is the most exciting strategy I've developed since Blog and Ping!

More... The Ustream Video introduction Only Perhaps the weirdest thing I saw today: Knitted Gas Mask

Sarah Lane, remember her from TheScreenSavers, now host of DIY variety show popSiren Asked on Twitter if someone would knit this for her. After reading about it, I have to agree this is a useful idea. Maybe the cyclists could use these in Beijing for the Olympics.

Using Twitter, My Advice, Info and Tips

2008-07-20T12:38:00.006-04:00

Note: This was an Email, that one of the recipients asked to publish, and sure you can just give me the Props!

This Email is primarily to my friends from the abandoned Social Butterfly Empire, but I'm copying some others, who are also friends and will respect our intentions. Those intentions are learning, discussing and sharing knowledge, news, tips, advice and anything else that improves our ability to Social Network.

I'm going to turn this conversation into a discourse on Twitter. That's where I've been making new friends in the same arena that we met in. Web2.0 Social Marketing! I've found that Twitter is an ideal way to learn and research Internet Marketing in the Social environment.

One thing I can tell you for sure is that the Twitter Internet Marketing community is great.
If you are not following them, and there is no group, you're missing the best part of Twitter and maybe of the whole Web2.0 experience. Here are 6 names that I believe should definitely be on your list of following.

The way I've built my list of peeps I'm following, is by looking at people I like, and following who they follow. The other thing is when you click on a person in someone else's following list, Right Click to open in a new tab. Then you can find out about that person in that tab. When you are done, simply close it and go back to the original list tab, and look at someone else.

When I look at a person, I scan their tweets to see if they are interesting to me, especially if they have tweeted links to sites. I'll open that URL, usually a tiny, in a new tab, and see if what they tweeted was interesting to me. If a person just has tweets about their eating, drinking, dog walking, etc and not much else, I don't need to follow them. The other thing that influences me heavily is the information about their website. Not having one is a pretty good sign that this person isn't sharing, and that's the key to Twitter.

And any time you see someone with very many people they are following and very few following them, beware, they are probably not following for good reasons. But if examining a follow candidate it doesn't hurt to see who they follow. Applying the Kevin Bacon 6 step theory works. If you get to know them and they know somebody influential, eventually you too will know somebody influential. Key in all this is participating in conversations with other Twitterites in a way that makes them appreciate and desire to be your friend. Making that first, second or even third contact requires that you listen, actively to what your target is saying. There will come a point that you feel you know enough to comment in a way that applies to their subject. The comment you choose to make should be non-threatening, add to the conversation, and not necessarily require an answer. Questions are usually answered when germane to the subject, but may not be, if they are considered nosy, disruptive, or off topic. Many active Twitterers receive hundreds if not thousands of comments daily, don't be disappointed if they don't answer immediately or ever, to one particular comment. Comments scroll by quickly on such a person's home Twitter page.

I shouldn't have to say what is not a good thing to say as a first comment,. You know what you consider to be intrusive, rude or pushy. Apply your own standards and think of how the other person might feel. Feelings are important, how someone feels positively about you, makes gaining their confidence and friendship easier. It may never be appropriate to try and sell a new friend your product or service, certainly not early in your acquaintance. (hidden link above) By listening to them over time, you may find they have a need, then of course as a friend offering help you are welcomed. Remember I'm talking about being in the sphere of Internet Marketers who are using Twitter to create their own Social Web2.0 presence. Many of these people are experienced professionals, with systems, groups, and subscribers of their own. Some have thousands of customers for their products and mailing lists of enormous size.

There are many tools you can use to add to Twitter. Twitter doesn't have to be seen only in a browser window.

One up and coming alternative is TweetDeck. This does require the installation of the Adobe Air Platform, which is free and totally unobtrusive when installed. Its new so there aren't a lot of applications yet. One other Air application I know of is MeBone a chat client aggregator and replacement.

What might be the most popular Twitter client is Twhirl. Twhirl operates as separate Sidebar type tool on the desktop. It too is an Air Application. Advantages to using Twhirl are the ability to cross post to FriendFeed, Pownce and Jaiku.

If you are a Firefox user which you should be, (Internet Explorer has so much bad publicity, I'm not going to add to it here) the TwitterFox addon is a handy status bar tool to view recent posts and make comments.

Like everything else in the world today there is a Wikipedia article on Twitter. There you can read about the history, uses, and technology of Twitter and more.

Those are just suggestions, there are dozens of Twitter accessories/addons. A good place to learn more about Twitter is the Twitter HandBook, right now its on its way to the publisher. But you can read practically everything in it at TwitterHandBook.c om as it is being written online in an interactive way. This book is written by: Warren Whitlock & Deborah Micek .

Throughout this, I've only mentioned Coachdeb twice, but I feel a better introduction is necessary. She's the Queen of Tweets and her authorship confirms this. Here's what you'll find about her in the Twitter Handbook:

Deborah Micek is a co-founder of the international business coaching company RPM Success Group ® Inc. She and her partner John Paul are authors of the 1st book published on New Media Marketing: Secrets Of Online Persuasion. They are creators of the ONLY Web site system to put New Media to work marketing FOR you — BLOG i360™.

/End Twitter Story

On to other things of interest to my marketing friends, perhaps you would find selected Bookmarks interesting, I'll try not to overload.

Mike's space Microsoft's Live Blogging space

MyYahooBlogLogMike1mb

My Flickr Page

PeoplePlus - brightkite.com Ask me for an Invite!

Discover the hidden communities behind the places that you visit. Brightkite lets you make the connection and start a conversation.

Get Satisfaction A service you can use as your own support team, Free

USTREAM.TV Something I should Make better use of, I Will!

Free Req Webcam, Mic to Broadcast, record your own Videos

Stream Video clips, Internet Radio Cams, News Events or Watch Free TV Online. USTREAM.TV Shows: LIVE VIDEO, Webcam & Video Chat Rooms, Streaming Broadcasts

TinyURL.com - shorten that long URL into a Tiny URL

HotWords.com - What is the World Searching for? Keyword Search Rankings

Twitscoop - What's hot on twitter right now? Twitscoop, what's hot on twitter right now?

SEONIK - SEO link generator Analyze your web a page at a time

Social Bookmarking Sites

Social bookmarking sites are a popular way to store, classify, share and search links through the practice of folksonomy (an Internet-based information retrieval methodology consisting of collaboratively generated, open-ended labels that categorize content such as Web pages, online photographs, and Web links) techniques on the Internet.

Ok that's a start I have hundreds, maybe all not as good as these, maybe better «-- blatant teaser.

And in Closing: Here's an interesting article from Coachdeb's husband, they are so cool. They have the vision of Web2.0 and a plan.
http://tribalseduction.com/blog/play-big-brother-with-crazyegg/

How Freddie/Fannie Fallout Could Affect Main Street - NYTimes.com

2008-07-12T10:24:00.003-04:00

If you're wondering "Why would Mike post this?", you have to realize that what happens to Freddie and Fannie trickles down a long way. Those scatologically inclined know what runs downhill. Most of us don't live on the financial mountaintops, this is going to affect us. Let's see how, read on:

By RON LIEBER

Published: July 12, 2008

The stock market swoon over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac this week has left many consumers scratching their heads, wondering if buying a home is a worse idea than it was seven days ago or whether to take down the “for sale” sign in the yard.

So now is a good time to step back and assess the landscape.

Thus far, the biggest damage has been mostly to Fannie’s and Freddie’s investors, though the overall stock market has recoiled as the companies stumbled. In the housing market, consumers are still moving into new homes, and people continued to close on new loans Friday.

But if you are shopping for a home or a mortgage or considering selling a home, you may wonder what will happen next if things get worse for Fannie and Freddie. Will mortgage rates rise, and home prices fall further? Could the troubles affect the rates you are charged for other loans? Answering these questions starts with a brief (I promise) primer on what the two entities do and why they’re important.

More...

Liberate Your Control Freaks!

2008-07-10T13:52:00.009-04:00

My friend, Alex Simpson, shared a great Presentation about Social Media over at his blog recently

(Visit him here)

If you enjoyed this presentation - I’d highly recommend making ACID LABS a regular read - better still, go there and subscribe to their RSS feed. When it comes to social media - Stephen Collins and Acid Labs kinda sorta know what they’re talking about - a lot more than me for sure - and that’s why I’m keeping their site on my reader list!

As always, a wee comment wouldn’t go amiss from you 1-2 readers

Alright Alex, I’m stealing this for my New Site too.
I think you’re going to like it! And you’ll be among the first to know about it. So many great ideas floating around, I need to hole up and write some original stuff. I faced this in High School, where I said it’s impossible to be original at this late date. And that God was Man’s symbol of his own deficiencies. Man invented God to be inferior to! Well boy did I get squelched, “Kierkegaard already said that and Blah Blah.” For crying out loud, was he 16? Did he live in a town/city where the most common advice from elders was, “you don’t want to work at the Steel. Get out of here and live!”

Now It’s Get Out and Live! Doesn’t matter from where, Just Do It! (sorry Nike)

Approximately 800 vulnerabilities discovered in antivirus products | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

2008-07-10T00:08:00.004-04:00

Zero Day

Ryan Naraine, Dancho Danchev, Nate McFeters

In what appears to be either a common scenario of “when the security solution ends up the security problem itself”, or a
product launch basing its strategy on outlining the increasing number of critical vulnerabilities found in competing antivirus products, the IT/Security consulting firm n.runs AG claims to have discovered approximately 800 vulnerabilities within antivirus products based on exploiting a standard malware scanning process known as “parsing” :

“During the past few months, specialists from the n.runs AG, along with other security experts, have discovered approximately 800 vulnerabilties in anti-virus products. The conclusion: contrary to their actual function, the products open the door to attackers, enable them to penetrate company networks and infect them with destructive code. The positioning of anti-virus software in central areas of the company now poses an accordingly high security risk. The tests performed by the consulting company and solutions developer n.runs have indicated that every virus scanner currently on the market immediately revealed up to several highly critical vulnerabilities. These then pave the way for Denial of Service (DoS) attacks and enable the infiltration of destructive code – past the security solution into the network. With that, anti-virus solutions actually allow the very thing they should
instead prevent.”

More....

How did n.runs manage to discover the vulnerabilities they claim they found? By following the very same logic on which a great deal of the current vulnerabilities are based on, the way in which the scanner parses the file it’s supposed to scan :

More....

My comment on ZeroDay:

Isn't there anywhere in the world today that you can feel safe? These are the people we are paying to protect us. Like a Bullet-proof vest made of Swiss Cheese! But so far, unless I do something stupid, I go Virus free. Something stupid defined as listening to someone who told me the problems I was having with receiving Ustream.tv was my firewall. Sure enough I opened it up and Ustream did improve, and for a couple of days I was happy getting a much faster video, better sound, faster video. And then, Bang! Pop-ups, Freeze ups, Browser crashes, you name it.Thankfully I've had plenty of experience cleaning up other people's messes, usually far worse than this.

Took several passes with 3 different cleaners, but its gone and life is normal again. It was a long weekend!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

What The F**k is Social Media? by Marta Kagan

2008-07-03T00:31:00.006-04:00

Ok the asterisks are important. Maybe the word offends you, that's why they are there. Whatever Watch this presentation. It contains your future. I'm not kidding, this is Real!

Note: I just realized I did not give credit for this Amazing, Insightful, Genius SlideShow to Marta Z. Kagan.

Marta Z. Kagan

Social Media Evangelist | Online Marketing Pro

| View | Upload your own

I've been trying to say this to everyone I meet, sometimes it falls on deaf ears.
Get a hearing aid, you're not too old.

George Carlin's Last Interview

2008-06-24T19:47:00.005-04:00

Monday was a sad day, thankfully, some of the man has been preserved in what he, himself, called 'the most complete interview I’ve ever done." Congratulations to Jay Dixit! I just read that HBO/Showtime will be airing a retrospective of his live performances. Time to get out the Tivo/VCR whatever. Below are the great Questions Jay asked. For more go to the original Brainstorm Blog.

Jay Dixit

June 23, 2008 in Brainstorm

Jay Dixit is a Senior Editor at Psychology Today.

Ten days ago, on Friday, June 13th, 2008, I had the extraordinary privilege of talking to George Carlin. As far as I know it was the last in-depth interview he gave before he passed away yesterday at age 71. Originally it was slated to run as a 350-word Q&A on the back page of Psychology Today. But I was so excited to talk to him—and he was so generous with his time—that I just kept on going. By the end I had over 14,000 words.

On stage, George Carlin came across as a grouch, often vulgar and sometimes misanthropic. But with me he was patient and warm, happy to talk through the minutiae of his creative process and eager to share stories about his childhood, his evolution as a comic, and his influence. What struck me most was the joy in his voice as he talked about the wonderful feeling he got in his gut while writing. I was also moved by the gratitude he expressed for his mother, who he said “saved” him and his brother—leaving her bullying, alcoholic husband when George was just two months old, getting a job during the worst years of the Depression, and raising two boys on her own.

He spoke about the pride he took in his work. As a ninth-grade dropout, he said, it was gratifying to see his words quoted in textbooks, classrooms, and courtrooms. And he was proud to have inspired other comedy greats, who routinely called him to say, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be doing this." As he looked back on his astonishingly prolific 50-year career—which includes 130 Tonight Show appearances, 23 albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, and one Supreme Court case—the interview became a sort of retrospective of his life.

Finally, after two hours, he gently mentioned that his arm was getting tired from holding the phone. “I really appreciate all the thought you’ve put into all these questions. Really, it’s the most complete interview I’ve ever done,” he said. “Is it tomorrow yet? I think it is.”

“It feels like it is,” I said, struggling to keep up with his wit.

“All this is for a quote unquote back page?” he said.

“This is for the back page, but, I don’t know, I just love you and your work so much!” I gushed. “I just had so much I wanted to ask.”

At the time, I was embarrassed by what I’d said. But when I heard the sad news this morning, my feelings changed instantly. I’m honored that I got to speak to him, and I’m grateful that I got to tell him how much I admired him before he died.

It would be impossible to overstate George Carlin’s contribution to standup comedy. Along with Richard Pryor and a few others, he essentially created the genre as we know it today. But he was more than just a comedy pioneer. He was a freethinker who never backed down, and he truly changed the course of American culture. He will be missed. —Jay Dixit

Selected Questions from the interview:

How do you think about comedy and self-expression? Expressing what’s within vs. looking at the outside world and making observations?

Do you go around observing and trying to collect funny things? Or do you just live your life and then say how you feel about what you happen to have seen?

Do you think that the richness you described comes from just being able to access more experiences, having information on file? Or is it judgment?

You talked about how comedy's all about incongruities, contrasts, exaggeration. Do you think about those techniques or those principles of humor consciously?

Do you think there are any downsides to having gotten to the point where you are, where all of this is happening automatically? Or are there some advantages a 20-year-old would have?

You talked about how wonderful it is, this feeling of writing. So what is your process like?

And what's your filing system?
What's the process of going from something that's true about the world—observing it—to actually making people laugh?

How is it that you find things that are unexpected?
You made an analogy to playing the violin. I wanted to ask you about mastery. You’ve been doing this for, as you said, over 50 years, and it seems like you've only gotten better with time. So I'm wondering what you think has enabled you to do that. Is it like playing the violin? Is it just practice? Is it getting good feedback? Is it—you know, what is it that allows you to hone your craft?

What is your philosophy about physical performance? You walk around a lot, you make a lot of gestures.

Were you always making people laugh, sort of automatically, just because of your personality?

Can you remember the first joke you ever told?

I want to talk about the transformation that you did in the 60s when you went from what you once termed the “middle-American comic” to this different persona—it was much more subversive. How did that happen and why did that happen?

In what way did the mescaline and LSD give you the insight and the confidence to make this transformation? What role did the drugs play?

So after that transformation, to what extent is the persona that you have on stage—to what extent is it your real personality? I know you’re making jokes and some of that involves exaggeration, but do you feel that you’re acting angrier, more bitter, more caustic on stage? Or are you just being yourself as accurately as possible?

So it sounds like it is your true personality, but it’s heightened for the stage.

So let me latch onto that metaphor: you’re grabbing somebody and you’re saying, “Don’t you see it? Don’t you see it?” But if you really don’t care about America, then why are you doing it? Why are you on stage? Is it just because you want to express yourself? Do you want to help people?

So how would you say that you feel towards people? You say on the one hand you are sort of contemptuous but on the other hand you want their approval in some way? Is that not a contradiction?

Let’s switch gears a little bit and let me ask you about religion. I mean you were talking about it decades ago. Now, atheism and religion bashing have gone mainstream: Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. You were way ahead of the curve. What’s it like hearing them saying many of the things you said in the 1970s?

You were central in the Supreme Court case in which justices affirmed the government's right to regulate your “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” act on the public airwaves. How do you think about the role of vulgarity in your humor?

What’s the funniest bit you’ve ever heard?

How has your comedy changed over the years?

You asked me to remind you to tell me about Arthur Koestler.

So, sitting in front of a computer, “Wait till they hear this, this is great material.” What’s the difference between that and actually standing on stage hearing the audience roaring with laughter?

Let me ask you about your influence—how do you feel that you have influenced other comedians?

Do you mentor other comedians?

Has your sense of humor helped you in other areas of your life, besides your career as a professional comedian? Meeting people? Making friends? Dealing with loss?

I guess I'm pretty much done. We've been talking for a long time and I really appreciate your taking all this time. Was there a good question you thought people should ask that never got asked?

So the last question is: What are you working on now?
Is there anything else you want to add?

No! And I really appreciate all the thought you’ve put into all these questions. Really, it’s the most complete interview I’ve ever done. Is it tomorrow yet? I think it is.

Read the Full Interview

My Special Sauce and a lesson from the Kung Fu Panda!

2008-06-22T23:12:00.007-04:00

In a recent article Alex Simpson wrote about a lesson taught/learned from the movie Kung Fu Panda! Well that made me hungry with all the talk of recipes and "secret ingredients."

Okay - down to the lesson! There’s a point in the movie where Jack Black, sorry, PO Panda, opens the mysterious Dragon Scroll only to find out it is completely blank! He’s then told “There is no secret ingredient in the secret ingredient soup” And i though - BINGO! that’s marketing summed up - there’s no secret ingredient! Its all about trying ingredients to make the recipe that works best for you, and more over, that of your client. There is no magic bean, no special sauce, no “brand X” to make marketing strategy work without fail!

But it also reminded me of:

My Special Sauce:
My family loves my special spaghetti sauce. It's really not that special and as Alex suggests above it’s the combination of many things. Here is the first time written never to be duplicated recipe:

Start Here:
5-7 Large onions, sliced, diced, cubed or all of those.
6 Sweet Peppers, I prefer 3 green, an orange/yellow and 2 reds. Again sliced, diced, etc. No seeds, of course.
2 Long Italian Frying peppers sliced into circles or half moons.
A Tablespoon or two of Olive Oil
Saute' all that over medium heat in wok or large pan (Teflon helps) until everything is no longer crisp. Use a strainer to drain the oil for re-use. Put aside in a bowl.

Mushrooms, regular fresh white mushrooms, or canned if necessary about 1 Lb. fresh and/or 3-4 cans.
Red wine vinegar about 1/4 cup
Garlic, Garlic and maybe more Garlic! 2-3 heads about 12-20 cloves each, peeled, sliced, juicy. Or the jarred kind already diced fine, about 4 Tablespoons.
Add the oil saved above back to pan/wok add the garlic simmer carefully until garlic is browned but not blackened.
Add the red wine vinegar stir for a minute or so at high heat, reduce add the mushrooms. Saute until fresh mushrooms are shrunken appropriately. or until canned mushrooms seem to be fully cooked, they are to begin with that's what makes them tricky. You get the idea!
Time to strain this again saving the oil/juice. just add to the bowl with onions etc.

Now for the true flavors,
2 Lbs of Ground Beef
1 Lb of Ground Pork
1 Lb of Ground Veal
Into the wok/pan add about half your saved oil/juice. Break the meats up as you stir, reducing them to just crumbles. Along the way add in Pepper, I use both black, coarse grind and fine white ground pepper. Add some salt too, a pinch is too little a cup too much. Here's where I spice it up a bit, Basil, Rosemary, Thyme, maybe a little celery salt, oregano, naturally, and whatever else catches my eye.
When nicely browned, strain again hold in wok and add in all the previous ingredients. You should now have about 7-8 lbs of materials.

Onto making the sauce.
I use a 20 Qt pot as this is a big lot.
I like the Classico brand they have many varieties, I mix and match about 8-12 jars plus a big #10 can of stewed plum tomatoes, heat for a bit adding 5-8 whole bay leaves, maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 bottle of red wine, something that got opened and stayed open too long, not a good bottle. Then in goes all the veggies and meat. This should have brought that 20 Qt. pot up to about an inch below the top. If it didn't then maybe it's time for a few more jars of Classico, or a quart of regular V8 or more tomatoes of some kind. After you've go this heated up to a very slow boil, just a bubble now and then.

It's time to taste, I like to get a Tablespoon and try to capture a mushroom, pepper and some meat, let cool and sample. This will not be the final taste but should give you an idea where you're going. Most likely if you were shy, Salt is first addition. Maybe more pepper, maybe some garlic or onion salt, maybe more red wine.

Tricky Part I
Here comes a very tricky part, I like to add sugar, but unless done very carefully or in the form of simple sugar(sugar in water until it's all liquid, ratio about 5:1 ) it will drop to the bottom of the pot and burn. There's nothing you can do, if you feel that something is stuck to the bottom of the pot, it is. Stir gently and just don't go all the way down when re-canning. By the way that's where we're headed. We're going to use the Classico jars to put our sauce into when we're done. Plus some other containers, 1Qt Baggies about half full are good for 2-3 person dinners.

Sounds fairly easy, but here's what makes it really work. Making sure the temperature is less than a boil, allow the mix to simmer/cook with a lid on but not sealing for 8-12 hours. Stirring as often as you can, usually I do this overnite so that means either the wife or I getting up several times each during the night, stirring and tasting. A trick I use with a gas stove is taking one of the burner rings not in use and putting it atop the one I'm cooking on. This raises the pot away from the direct heat, which reduces the chance of sticking. Tasting all night long is a bonus, and allows to get a feel for making adjustments.

Tricky Part II
I like to add Cheese to my sauce, usually 3-4 kinds, Romano, Parmesan, Fontina, and Gruyere, being the best. These have to be added slowly and near the end of the cooking as they will definitely stick, not only to the bottom but also to the sides of your pot. Total mix is about 2/3 cup but ratio is to taste/availability.

Usually this recipe makes us sauce for a month or 2 depending of course
how often we have pasta.

But in My Special Sauce there is a hidden secret ingredient:

TIME!

The Time it takes Chopping, Slicing, Stirring adds up to between 6-8 hours.

The Time Slow cooking until everything blends perfectly, 8-12 hours.

The Time we enjoy that sauce over almost 2 dozen meals over 2 months.

The Time I took to write that up and post it, and share it here.

The Time I get to hear from those who love it or hate it.

PRICELESS!! Of course!

Inconveniencing Your Audience Increase Your Persuasiveness

2008-06-14T11:35:00.003-04:00

Just a Snippet: Go to Article

How can inconveniencing your audience
increase your persuasiveness?

Colleen Szot is one of the most successful writers in the paid programming industry. And for good reason: In addition to penning several well-known “infomercials” for the famed and fast-selling NordicTrac exercise machine, she recently authored a program that shattered a nearly twenty-year sales record for a home-shopping channel. Although her programs retain many of the elements common to most infomercials, including flashy catchphrases, an unrealistically enthusiastic audience, and celebrity endorsements, Szot changed three words to a standard infomercial line that caused a huge increase in the number of people who purchased her product. Even more remarkable, these three words made it clear to potential customers that the process of ordering the product might well prove somewhat of a hassle. What were those three words, and how did they cause sales to skyrocket?

Szot changed the all-too-familiar call-to-action line, “Operators are waiting, please call now,” to, “If operators are busy, please call again.” On the face of it, the change appears foolhardy. After all, the message seems to convey that potential customers might have to waste their time dialing and redialing he toll-free number until they finally reach a sales representative. Yet, that surface view underestimates the power of the principle of social proof: When people are uncertain about a course of action, they tend to look outside themselves and to other people around them to guide their decisions and actions. In the Colleen Szot example, consider the kind of mental image likely to be generated when you hear “operators are waiting”: scores of bored phone representatives filing their nails, clipping their coupons, or twiddling their thumbs while they wait by their silent telephones — an image indicative of low demand and poor sales.

Now consider how your perception of the popularity of the product would change when you heard the phrase “if operators are busy, please call again.” Instead of those bored, inactive representatives, you’re probably imagining operators going from phone call to phone call without a break. In the case of the modified “if operators are busy, please call again” line, home viewers followed their perceptions of others’ actions, even though those others were completely anonymous. After all, “if the phone lines are busy, then other people like me who are also watching this infomercial are calling, too.”

More...

culture that a struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips

2008-06-09T13:35:00.002-04:00

Nick Carr: Is Google making us stupid? | The Open Road - The Business and Politics of Open Source by Matt Asay - CNET News.com

Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who views it as further evidence of a soundbite culture that struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips?

It's not yet on the Web, but the July issue of The Atlantic has an exceptional and provocative article by Nick Carr, asking "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" It's a riff on Carr's book, The Big Switch (reviewed here), but covers new ground and has me worried. Carr writes:

The human brain is almost infinitely malleable...James Olds, a professor of neuroscience who directs the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University, says that even the adult mind "is very plastic...The brain...has the ability to reprogram itself on the fly, altering the way it functions."

As we use what the sociologist Daniel Bell has called our "intellectual technologies"--the tools that extend our mental rather than our physical capacities--we inevitably begin to take on the qualities of those technologies.

"Excellent!" you say, "Now I'll be able to retrieve an infinite amount of information, like Google." Maybe. Or maybe our ability to retain and process information will continue to dwindle. Remember books? Those were the things we read before e-mail, Web browsing, and Twitter came on the scene.

Speaking of Twitter, am I the only one who views it as further evidence of a soundbite culture that struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips?

More...

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Attn: Alana Taylor, You missed the Big Party! Via Reuters 6/6/08

2008-06-08T17:06:00.003-04:00

Widow throws party to find place in heaven

PATNA, India (Reuters) - A rich 80-year-old Indian widow has spent
thousands of dollars on a feast for 100,000 people in the hope it would
please the gods and open the doors of heaven for her, local officials
said.

People from surrounding villages and towns were fed lunch over two consecutive days by Phuljharia Kunwar, who lives in the eastern state of Bihar and has no family or relatives.

Kunwar spent $37,500 on the feast. Local officials
More...

M.P.A.A - Laser-Printers Downloading Indiana Jones

2008-06-05T20:20:00.004-04:00

By Brad Stone

A new study from the University of Washington suggests that media industry trade groups are using flawed tactics in their investigations of users who violate copyrights on peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

Those trade groups, including the Motion Picture Association of America (M.P.A.A.) Entertainment Software Association (E.S.A.) and Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.), send universities and other network operators an increasing number of takedown notices each year, alleging that their intellectual property rights have been violated under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Many universities pass those letters directly on to students without questioning the veracity of the allegations. The R.I.A.A. in particular follows up some of those notices by threatening legal action and forcing alleged file-sharers into a financial settlement.

But the study, released Thursday by Tadayoshi Kohno, an assistant professor, Michael Piatek a graduate student, and Arvind Krishnamurthy, a research assistant professor, all at the University of Washington, argues that perhaps those takedown notices should be viewed more skeptically.

More...

Aiptek Introduces PocketCinema V10 Mini-Projector

2008-06-05T19:55:00.001-04:00

At Computex 2008, Aiptek is showing its PocketCinema V10 mini projector.

read more | digg story

Outlook Web Access Corrupts HTML Attachments

2008-06-05T12:47:00.003-04:00

Worried about why you're not getting the full content from your Email? If you're in a corporate environment, this may be the reason. Microsoft is protecting you!

By Scott Dunn Windows Secrets

The "Safe HTML" filter in Microsoft's Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server deletes code from HTML attachments without warning.

Microsoft claims the filtering protects users by removing malicious elements, but the deletions can ruin a collaborative project and the "feature" isn't present in any other Microsoft mail products.

Microsoft Exchange stealth-edits your e-mail

If you use Microsoft's Outlook Web Access (OWA) to send someone an HTML file, don't expect them to see any of the file's comments or scripts. The file you receive may look completely normal, but Microsoft has edited the comments from the file along with other material the company considers dangerous.

It gets worse. According to Microsoft Knowledge Base article 899394, OWA may corrupt the structure of the message, remove some advanced functions, and eliminate other harmless content in the message itself or any attachments.

"Even if an e-mail message appears to be unmodified in Outlook 2003, that same e-mail message may be missing content when you view the message in Outlook Web Access," the article states bluntly.

You needn't even view the attachments to have them modified by the service. Merely right-clicking an attachment and saving it to your computer causes the file's code to be stripped. Microsoft calls this feature of OWA "Safe HTML" filtering.

OWA is a component of Microsoft Exchange Server that provides a browser-accessible version of Microsoft Outlook for anyone who needs to access mail, calendar, and contact info remotely.

The filtering is intended to eliminate malicious scripts and "all potentially unsafe content" from the e-mail messages OWA receives, according to the Knowledge Base. However, as the KB article concedes, some "non-malicious content" may be removed in the process.

The feature was introduced with Exchange Server 2003, but remarks on a forum at MSExchange.org indicate that the filtering is still part of Exchange Server 2007. In one post, a user complains that OWA 2007 is removing JavaScript embedded in his HTML attachments.

It's annoying enough to have the JavaScript edited out of your HTML files, but it's difficult to comprehend how HTML comments, which are not executable, could contain malicious content.

HTML comments start with "". They cannot contain the characters "--" or ">". The comments are not visible in a browser unless you view the page source. They can also be seen if you open the file in a word processor or other text or HTML editor.

Such comments allow Web developers to insert instructions, feedback, and other information that may be useful to clients or co-workers. For example, a page's visual designer could use comments to give coding instructions or feedback to the page's HTML coder.

If the intended recipient of a comment receives the file via OWA, the page will look normal in a browser, but its HTML code will have no JavaScript or comments at all. OWA provides no warning of the deletion, so the recipient has no idea that the file ever contained any comments.

At least you'd know something is wrong with the file if the e-mail program blocked or deleted the attachment, popped up a warning, or added its own warning comments to the attachment. Simply editing the attachment without warning can be completely misleading to anyone who isn't aware of this "feature."

Outlook and other e-mail clients automatically block attachments with certain extensions, such as .js for JavaScript. But in these cases, a warning appears in the mail explaining that the attachment has been blocked.

Safe HTML filtering is found only in OWA. Neither the desktop version of Outlook nor Microsoft's other mail products (Windows Live Hotmail online and the downloadable Windows Live Mail) edit the content of messages or their attachments. Consequently, users of OWA have no precedent to prepare them for or warn them about this behavior.

Stealth security does customers a disservice

Why would Microsoft create one version of Outlook that differs so significantly from the others? For that matter, why include this feature in only one of the company's many mail products?

The Microsoft Knowledge Base article states:

"The filtering in Outlook Web Access for Exchange Server 2003 is more rigorous than the filtering in Microsoft Office Outlook 2003. The reason is that the Outlook Web Access browser interface has more security requirements than the Outlook 2003 interface."

Unfortunately, the article does not explain why the OWA security requirements need to be stricter than those for Outlook itself. If the browser-based version of Outlook is inherently riskier than the desktop version, why isn't Safe HTML filtering used in Microsoft's other Web mail products?

No easy way to preserve your HTML files in OWA

The only workaround offered by the KB article is to post files that you don't want corrupted to a shared network resource and then send the recipient a link to that location via e-mail.

An alternative is to compress your HTML files into a .zip file prior to sending them as e-mail attachments; OWA does not edit the contents of compressed files.

Of course, people expect the files they send via e-mail to be delivered in the same condition in which the files were sent. If a file can't be sent for any reason, customers have every right to expect a warning or explanation.

OWA does neither. The service silently edits perfectly safe comments while giving the impression that your e-mail and attachments have arrived in the same state they were sent in.

It's time for Microsoft to provide clear warnings of this behavior as well as an option for turning the "feature" off.

Teens await arrest after Comcast attack

2008-06-01T15:54:00.003-04:00

Posted by Elinor Mills 35 comments

Updated at 12:15 p.m. PDT to clarify that Comcast wasn't technically hacked, but that its domain and Web site were hijacked.

Two teenagers who say they hijacked Comcast's Web portal on Thursday also say they expect to be arrested for their actions.

"I wish I was a minor right now because this is going to be really bad," 19-year-old "Defiant" told Wired's Kevin Poulsen, who managed to get a one-hour phone interview with Defiant and his 18-year-old cohort "EBK."

"I slept in my clothes, because the last time they came, I was in my underwear with my dong hanging out and shit," Defiant said of a past raid.

On Thursday, Comcast's portal was defaced, leaving some e-mail subscribers without service. On the site, the hackers referenced their group: "KRYOGENICS Defiant and EBK RoXed Comcast."

The teens say that after they initially managed to take control of Comcast's registrar account at Network Solutions, they called the company's technical contact to tell him, but he dismissed their claim and hung up on them.

That response angered EBK, who says he then decided to redirect traffic from Comcast's site to other servers. "I wasn't even really thinking," he said. "Plus, I'm just so mad at Comcast. I'm tired of their shitty service."

Meanwhile, the teens say they did not grab user names and passwords during the hack, even though they could have.

Alana Taylor Posted - Social Networking Wars [FUNNY!]

2008-05-29T12:43:00.005-04:00

Social Networking Wars [FUNNY!]

Hahaha I always imagined Friendster to sound Nick Jr.! But where was Twitter? I wanted the Twitter bird to fly in and save the day! Or maybe walk in... since it's always down.

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Double, double

2008-05-25T15:48:00.001-04:00

Be sure to change your language when people don't understand. Not your tone.

read more | digg story

Michel Fortin Blogged this The Lines That Divide Us

2008-05-19T09:44:00.002-04:00

The Lines That Divide US

This is moving stuff Get your tissues out. People have to learn to be nicer.
All of us need to FEEL more, and perhaps talk less.

We have all been judged at one point. But if you have ever judged others, particularly if you feel your judgments — no matter how small — were inconsequential or meaningless, you have to watch this video.

Get Your Name On!

Mike

$100 laptop' nonprofit now teamed with Microsoft

2008-05-16T11:04:00.011-04:00

I've written on this before the genius of Nick Negroponte, and the breadth of this initiative, touch me deeply. I urge everyone to support this in any way you can.

Mike

By BRIAN BERGSTEIN – 9 hours ago

BOSTON (AP) — The One Laptop Per Child project is about to find out whether Microsoft Corp., a rival the nonprofit group once derided, is the solution to its problems in spreading inexpensive portable computers to schoolchildren.

Microsoft and the laptop organization announced Thursday that the nonprofit's green-and-white "XO" computers now can run Windows in addition to their homegrown interface, which is built on the open Linux operating system. That had been anticipated for months, but it amounts to a major shift.

Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of the laptop project — which aims to produce $100 computers but now sells them at $188 — acknowledged that having Windows as an option....Continue

Jack Humphrey - Falling in love with blogging again

2008-05-12T23:50:00.004-04:00

May 11, 2008

I feel like a relationship expert this weekend. It seems that we’ve reunited hundreds of people and their blogs in the last week since we launched TrackBoost and Utility Poster.

I had a feeling this might happen. Bloggers often have a love/hate relationship with blogging because of the demands a blog makes on us as writers and “filters” of information.

We love the traffic and having no restrictions to what can be achieved with a popular site. But we hate having to be responsible for putting up great posts day after day. Sometimes you’re into it and sometimes you’re not.

Problem is, people are searching right now to find you on new keywords and through buzz generated about your latest and future posts. Having a blog is like caring for a Great Dane. It must be fed, a lot, to really see growth and to establish authority.

Money for Something

The good part is, unlike a Great Dane, a blog will make you money the more you feed it.

As the web settles into a pure dynamic landscape, where information truly flows, changes, and syndicates itself, we are all collectively realizing that content development and publishing has to be done regularly and done well to compete with others who “seem” to have no trouble at all feeding the beast.

The new users of TrackBoost and Utility Poster are finding that they too can “seem” to be at their computers day and night producing great content. While actually not spending as much time at it as before.

And the beauty of these two tools is that they will only produce bad results if users are bad editors or filters of the information they collect to post. Because we left the human element in the process and didn’t try to make anything close to a spammy information scraper or outdated RSS poster to create great posts, your personal touch and style is left in the process.

A Boy and His Blog: Reunited

This post would normally have taken me at least an hour+ to put together by hand. Going back and forth to all those sites getting the title, URL, snippet, and trackback URL for each and every story is a nightmarish scenario we all know too well.

Of course the research to find all that content is a whole other matter, taking a considerable amount of time the old way. Add another 30 minutes to the task for a reasonable search and review, sifting through many poor or average posts to come up with the gems.

I made the post above in about 25 minutes last night.

One new TrackBoost and Utility Poster owner had this to say:

“Been playing with these tools for a couple of days. They are addictive. Nice work.”

Dean’s last blog post..Make Your Relationships Stronger In The Midst Of Conflict

Addictive? I thought about that for a moment and realized he’s right. I too play with both apps frequently and, consequently, post more often here and on remote blogs because I enjoy it so much.

Enjoy blog posting?

That’s new! But having the right tools makes the job easier as well as making research fun again because all the hurdles to finding and posting good content have been removed, leaving us to focus on the fun parts of blogging: posting great content fast and seeing immediate results as readers comment and submit your posts to social news and other social media sites.

A reader submitted the post above to StumbleUpon last night right after I posted it. I logged on this morning to a nice bump in traffic from that one source (above what I normally get on a Saturday night)!

So much fun, that I even enjoyed putting this post together, word for word, a little more than usual.

Buy TrackBoost and/or Utility Poster Here

All of Inflation’s Little Parts (The New York Times)

2008-05-08T13:01:00.004-04:00

Below is an INTERACTIVE FLASH IMAGE, Click to follow link and see how we really spend our Money.

May 3, 2008

All of Inflation’s Little Parts

Each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
gathers 84,000 prices in about 200 categories — like gasoline, bananas,
dresses and garbage collection — to form the Consumer Price Index, one
measure of inflation.

It’s among the statistics that the Federal
Reserve considered when it cut interest rates on Wednesday. The
categories are weighted according to an estimate of what the average
American spends, as shown below.

An Average Consumer's Spending

Each shape below represents how much the average American spends in different categories.
Larger shapes make up a larger part of spending.

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Michael Balzer, University of Konstanz (Germany)
Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox/The New York Times

Neil Young chronicles music career

2008-05-08T12:48:00.004-04:00

JavaOne '08: Neil Young chronicles music career

Rocker demos multimedia project using Java

Legendary musician Neil Young shows off a new multimedia project spanning his music career. Joining Young onstage at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco to demo the project--which uses Java and Blu-ray technology--is Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz and Rich Green, Sun executive vice president of software.

Length: 10:43

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Jack Humphrey's Trackboost and Utility Poster

2008-05-02T09:28:00.002-04:00

Trackboost and Utility Poster Answers

from Link Building and Blog Marketing by Jack Humphrey

In this video I answer some of the common questions that have come up in the fantastic feedback we’ve been getting for Trackboost and Utility Poster.
I also let everyone know when to expect the release of both titles and
expose a brand new feature added to Trackboost in the last 24 hours.

Popout

Tags: blogging software, trackboost, utility poster

Mike's Twitter

2008-05-01T17:32:00.000-04:00

Twitter Updates

Rapping SEO Tips

2008-05-01T12:40:00.002-04:00

Ok, maybe you (and Me too) are not a Rap fan.

But this is pretty awesome and on topic for this group of "marketers."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NObvDpQe7k

I ran across this while browsing Chris Baggott's Guide to Blogging Yes another voice about blogging, with a product, who would've believed it. The product is interesting in that it makes the point about Corporate blogging and co-ordinating it as a true business strategy for large corporations or even medium to small businesses with more than one voice.

Compendium Blogware makes blogging make sense. Learn More...

I'm impressed by the video and am off to investigate the associated product Conversion site. Well that didn't take long or much effort. The Rapper is variously known as MoSerious, The Poetic Prophet, The SEO Rapper, etc. He's an employee of Pop Labs, and his "personal blog" is Mo Serious Thoughts.

Note: you've heard these disclaimers before, I have no interest, compensation etc. from either of these companies. I am not affiliated, or JV ing with them, just passing along something of interest here.

Get Your Name On!

Mike

Saturday 4-19-2008 Rolling Thunder and Full House Cycle Poker Run for Children's Miracle Network

2008-04-19T21:50:00.001-04:00

Today on the way to the shop, I doubled back to see what was going on at a Motorcycle Shop we pass everyday. there was a tent outside and lots of people and bikes. Turns out it was a Poker Run to benefit the Children's Miracle Network. Rolling Thunder Va Chapter1 was sponsoring it in conjunction with Full House Cycles. I'd been wanting to stop and talk to Full House for a while now, so it was a good prompt. Immediately, all I did was U-turn to scope it out, since we had to open shop on time.

When I got to the shop, I went to both of their web sites and downloaded Logos. Next I put together a Corel DrawX3 image with the Logos and additional text, including the name of the event, date, and phone number of Full House, along with another 2 lines of text with our name and web site address. Once I had laid out the three Logos, and the text, I grouped them into a single object and placed 5 copies of the image on my 11x17 page. One had to be rotated 90 degrees to get them all on. I ended up with 6 images @ 8" x 3.5". The heat transfer process was next, I printed to our Epson 4800 on a roll of special transfer paper. Step 3 was cutting the images to size and taping them to 6 of our 11oz ceramic steins. In step 4, I heat press using a special mug press at 400 degrees for 330 seconds. This transfers the ink from paper to the ceramic, in full color. Final step was peeling the paper and tape from the steins, and repacking them into the original box. Since that took a little time, i flashed with a second idea, we also have a Can Cooler sleeve that is ready for Heat transfer. so I printed another page and warmed up the 16' x 20" flat heat press. When ready, 400 degrees, I transferred 6 at once to the Can Cooler sleeves, these only cook for 45 seconds.

Now about 2 and a half hours had passed, and was really worried that Poker Run had already made their tour and was back to Full House. Marcia printed up a packing slip in Quickbooks and away I went, only about a half mile or so. When I pulled in the parking lot I was relieved to see that they hadn't returned. Carrying my still hot box of steins and the 6 cozys in a ziplock bag, i went to the table and started to explain to ladies manning the tent that I had prepared a Donation for Rolling Thunder's effort in behalf of Children's Miracle Network. I was explaining that I felt both were great organizations and did good things, when the roar (Rolling Thunder means roar of a group of motorcycles) of the return of the Poker Run. My timing couldn't have been better!

I showed the owners of Full House Cycles samples of the Steins and Coolers, and chatted with them a bit about our businesses. All together I only spent about 15-20 minutes at this event and store. When i got back to the shop, which Marcia was tending, I had barely sat down, and the phone rang. It was Kim from Rolling Thunder asking if the Chapter could get more of the Steins and Coolers, and what price. I was already feeling the joy of having done a Good Deed, but hear it was making a return! All together, this was great day at our business. Not bad for a Saturday where we only open for 4 hours, to accommodate people who can't get away from their own jobs during the week.

This is an awesome story - please watch

2007-08-27T20:27:00.000-04:00

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cunningham
To: Mike Cunningham
Sent: Wed, 29 Aug 2007 6:14 pm
Subject: This is an awesome story - please watch
As a personal favor to me please watch this and share your comment s with me. I am just amazed by this. I wish I was involved.

MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte's dream is to put a laptop computer into the hands of every child. Lesley Stahl reports on his progress in Cambodia and Brazil.

http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=2830221n

Thanks
Mike Cunningham

Gates sells more Microsoft stock, filings show

2007-03-04T21:59:00.000-05:00

Wow I wish I had that kind of problem! Wonder what he is going to do with it this time? Give it to somebody probably, maybe a cure for cancer? diabetes? Who knows?

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Bill Gates, chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., sold 4 million shares of the software giant's stock over the last three days of February, bringing his total sales for the month to 20 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For the month February, Gates has sold 20 million shares of Microsoft stock to raise about $580 million, the filings say. Gates still owns 917.5 million shares of Microsoft after the share sales, according to the filings. This represents about 9.2% of total diluted shares outstanding as of Dec. 31.

And he did this on Monday before the market had one of its worst days ever. Can't have too much Luck!

Julie Amero Case - Witch Hunt in Connecticut

2007-02-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Is this a miscarriage of justice?

A substitute school teacher in Connecticut has been found guilty of exposing children to porn.

She could face up to 40 years in prison.

However, there are some interesting aspects to this case:

* The defense contends this was a case of spyware on the school machine — a barrage of popups.

* The school did have content filtering but the license was expired.

* According to another article, “Computer expert W. Herbert Horner, who performed a forensic examination of the computer for the defense, said Amero may have been redirected to the sexually-oriented sites through a hairstyling site accessed from the computer. He said the site allowed spyware to be downloaded onto the computer which allowed the pop-ups.”

* And, according to one source, the Trial Judge, Hillary Strackbein, “was seen falling asleep during proceedings and made comments to the jury that she wanted the case over by the end of the week. It was also reported that Judge Strackbein attempted to pressure the defense into an unwanted plea deal, in place of a trial. The defense attorney for Amero, moved for a mistrial shortly before closing arguments Friday, based on reports that jurors had discussed the case at a local restaurant.” (I believe that the judge questioned the jurors subsequently and they denied having discussed the case.)

* And, the detective in the investigation "admitted there was no search made for adware, which can generate pop-up advertisements".

Was justice done here? A bad spyware infestation can splatter a machine full of porn popups and it’s a bit unnerving to think that a teacher could get hard prison time for something that was likely to have been completely innocent.

Alex Eckelberry

More Details Emerge in the Julie Amero Case

by Andy Carvin, 3:51PM

Ever since substitute teacher Julie Amero was convicted last month of exposing her students to pornography on her classroom computer, bloggers have been debating who’s to blame, with most siding with her. Now, a published interview with a tech consultant who analyzed the Internet user logs for the day of the incident raises some difficult questions about potential failures of the school’s IT department.

The blog Network Performance Daily, which has been following the Amero case closely, published an interview with Internet consultant Herb Horner. Horner analyzed the user logs of the PC accessed by Amero, but was not allowed to present all of his findings to the jury.

Note: I’ve removed the URLs of websites referencing porn.

On October 19, 2004, around 8:00 A.M., Mr. Napp, the class’ regular teacher logged on to the PC because Julie Amero being a substitute teacher did not have her own id and password. It makes sense that Mr. Napp told Julie not to logoff or shut the computer off, for if she did she and the students would not have access to the computer. The initial user continued use of the PC and accessed Tickle.com, cookie.monster.com, addynamics.com, and adrevolver.com all between 8:06:14 - 8:08:03 AM. During the next few moments Julie retrieved her email through AOL.

[Link] was accessed at 8:14:24 A.M., based upon the hair style images uploaded to the PC we were led to believe that there were students using the computer to search out hair styles. The user went to http://www.crayola.com at 8:35:27 A.M. The user continued accessing the original hair site and was directed to [link]. This site had pornographic links, pop-ups were then initiated by [link]. There were additional pop-ups by realmedia.com, cnentrport.net, and by 9:20:00 A.M., several java, aspx’s and html scripts were uploaded. A click on the [link] icon on the [link] site led to the execution of the [link] script along with others that contained pornographic links and pop-ups. Once the aforementioned started, it would be very difficult even for an experienced user to extricate themselves from this situation of porn pop-ups and loops.
All of the jpg’s that we looked at in the internet cache folders were of the 5, 6 and 15 kB size, very small images indeed. Normally, when a person goes to a pornographic website they are interested in the larger pictures of greater resolution and those jpgs would be at least 35 kB and larger. We found no evidence of where this kind of surfing was exercised on October 19, 2004.

According to this interview, it would seem that Horner believes that the chain of events leading to the appearance of pornographic images began with accidental access to a porn site bearing a similar name to a legitimate site. His remarks regarding the size of the images also suggest that the offending images were pop-up images rather than the full-size images one would expect to find when purposefully visiting a particular site.

Horner goes on to comment on his inability to present all of these findings to the jury, and its impact:

We asked the prosecution to arrange for the defense to have unfettered access to the internet so that we could reenact the events of October 19, 2004. It was not granted. I went to court with two laptops and a box full of reference material prepared to very clearly illustrate what happened to Julie Amero. But, the prosecution objected because they were not given “full disclosure” of my examination. I was allowed to illustrate two screens, that of the [link], and [link] sites.

This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my career, knowing full well that the person is innocent and not being allowed to provide logical proof.

If there is an appeal and the defense is allowed to show the entire results of the forensic examination in front of experienced computer people, including a computer literate judge and prosecutor, Julie Amero will walk out the court room as a free person.
Let this experience stand as a warning to all that use computers in an environment where minors are present. The aforementioned situation can happen to anyone without fail and without notice if there is not adequate firewall, antispyware, antiadware and antivirus protection. That was not provided by the school administration where Julie Amero taught.

Brian Boyko, blogger at Network Performance Daily, considers the implications of these events and wonders what it means to IT managers:

There’s tons of commentary on the web railing about the outcome of the Julie Amero case itself, but what I think we need to talk about is, what does it mean for IT?

This case hints at a possible “worst case scenario” for IT departments and network managers in particular: will IT ultimately be held responsible, just as Julie Amero was, for the material that gets distributed over their network?
Today, IT isn’t just responsible for uptime - they’re also, in many ways, responsible for the experience of end-users of the network. In the Amero case, this appears to have been taken a bit too far. In this case, there was no record of network activity during and before the event. If the computer could have been shown to access some of the offending Web sites before Ms. Amero entered the classroom that morning, for example, it would have been powerful evidence for the defense. If the pornography sites were only being loaded after Ms. Amero walked in, it would seem powerful evidence for the prosecution. Either way, this case would have been better served if there was an existing record of what packets were downloaded when.

While Boyko’s post doesn’t specifically address school technology directors, it easily could have done so. I haven’t seen a huge amount of discussion from the IT management perspective, but that may change, particularly if she is given a prison sentence. Whether you blame Amero or not for what happened, there’s no denying that the network in place that day allowed pornographic images to appear on the computer screen. If incidents like this happen again - and they will, no doubt - will schools’ IT departments find themselves guilty of negligence? -andy

Filed under : Internet Safety, People, Policy
Responses

Thank you for your coverage; if you plan to do any follow-up, I’ll be happy to share any information we’ve uncovered.

— Brian Boyko
— Editor, Network Performance Daily.

By Brian Boyko 12:11PM on 06 Feb 07

I really feel I need to comment. This trial has all the earmarks of a kangaroo court, or justice fitting of some uncivilized nation. That the defense was barred from presenting the most obvious and logical of arguments is infuriating. I write because the same thing happened in our household. Whenever we would access the MSN home page, disgusting porn pop-ups would appear and there was no getting rid of them. We have young kids in the house that frequently open my wife’s computer. Fortunately, we saw the problem and addressed it before any “damage” was done. The solution? Remove and re-install MSN software. Apparently, the adware was attached somehow to the MSN program from some point forward until we took the link away. I pray that someone in the legal system will listen, open the case again and conduct a fair, civilized trial. Not knowing all espects of the case, I can’t go so far as to declare innocence for Ms. Amero, but two things are clear - 1)it CAN happen to anyone and 2) the trial should be declared invalid.

Respectfully submitted - Larry Christianson, Oregon

By Larry Christianson 6:19PM on 13 Feb 07

Again, a travesty, a witch hunt, successful.

Mr. Napp logged on, told Julie Amero to NOT log off or turn off, and, Julie Amero left the room for a restroom break, Then, Mr. Napp, the regular teacher, left for the day, prior to her return!

7th grade students, unsupervised, roamed the web, on an old Gateway, running Microsoft’s Windows 98 on a school network that had let their firewall/AV program licenses lapse.

Julie returned, pop-ups were happening, she blocked the view, went for help, was promised by a teacher in the lounge that the Principle, Mr. Fain, would respond, which he never did, and he, plus the IT department, gets off scot free?

Now, the Detective had two hours training, via telephone, and a simple $19 program, but is suddenly proclaimed by the prosecutor to be their ‘expert’, who admits he never searched for malware on the system.

What a perfect case for judicicial and Prosecutorial
misconduct, being that the Judge Hillary Steinberg is alleged to have slept through some of the case, had instructed the jury that she wanted a quick verdict, and had attempted to coerce Julie Amero into a guilty plea bargain! It smacks of bias!

Oh, the jury was alleged to have discussed the case over lunch in the nearby diner, but, without being sworn in, stated to the Judge they had not.

This case cries for Appelate reversal. All you folks running Microsoft, should simply run a LiveCDrom, which would have got her class on the Internet, without any pop-ups, and no history!

By Old Techy 8:48PM on 13 Feb 07

A brief scan of the news of the day led me to the story of Julie Amero. My initial reaction was “How great a tragedy that someone’s life has been turned upside-down by an act not within her control.” Moreover, facing the idea of up to 40 years in prison for it — even if this were a true crime, is this a legitimate punishment?

I thought that before I go out and start my own crusade to “Free Julie Amero,” it would be appropriate for me to get a few more facts about the case. A quick Googling and that’s just what I got when I read your piece. I’m truly baffled by the lack of knowledge, understanding, and the willingness to accept the truth about the Internet: it PREYS on people like Mrs. Amero — constantly entering into our personal space (i.e. � our computer hard drives) carrying out tasks without showing itself, loading unwanted, harmful software and “toolbars” that do nothing but collect more data to use for commercial purposes, steal personal information, and slow your computer down to a snail’s pace. And for this, we get the first American teacher to face up to 40 years in prison � yes, prison — for something where from the facts the readers of “Windows for Dummies” could derive “reasonable doubt.”

This country needs to do something about the high-jacking of John and Jane Doe’s privacy. Companies and individuals alike are force-feeding us more junk mail, circulars, pop-up ads and unwanted email then EVER. If porn, print advertising, spam and the software programs that generate it all didn’t pump BILLIONS of the Almighty Dollar into the economy, we’d all be standing at the steps of Capitol Hill demanding that our elected officials — who supposedly represent our best interests — put an end to it all. No, REALLY, put an end to it all!

And lo, the proponents stand behind the cloaks of �free enterprise� and my personal favorite, “free speech.” Ah, the good �ol Constitution….

But what if no one wants to hear it?

Julie Amero is a sacrificial lamb to the Gods of Ignorance and Enterprise, while the greater good of the Internet continues to bear a world-wide-bad-rapp.

And Johnny Cochran is furiously tossing in his grave.

By Christopher 2:42AM on 14 Feb 07

Hmm.. Why is it that people are so willing to accept the story that students accesses a malware-laden website?

Was it not Ms. Amero’s statement that she didn’t know which students were at the computer? Did the investigating officer not indicate that he was unable to locate any student who could corraborate Ms. Amero’s version of the events (except to say that they saw porn on the computer while she was sitting in front of it)?

Is it not true that Ms. Amero purposely went to dating websites and her personal email accounts - in violation of district policy which forbid using school computers for personal entertainment? Is it not true that these accounts were accessed while Ms. Amero was to be teaching a class?

Does Ms. Amero not have a computer in her home with many of the same “cookies” from these porno sites logged in? Is it not true that Ms. Amero, when interviewed by police, responded that she, “couldn’t remember” why she went to cookiemonster.com, eharmony.com, or tickle.com? Is it not true that there was less than 1 minute between Ms. Amero’s accessing of her personal AOL account and the offending “hairstyle” website?

C’mon people, malicious spyware wasn’t even part of her defense! Her statements to police (and her own attorney’s opening arguments) were that she didn’t expose children to pornography.

Note too, that Ms. Amero didn’t notify anyone (not even the teacher that was logged in) of the incident? It came to light only after 12yr old students complained to other school officials that she had been “watching naked people on the school computer.” Even by the defense’s own expert, no pornographic sites were ever logged in prior to Ms Amero’s day in front of the computer… Nor were any pornographic sites logged after her day of “teaching.” (Incidently, the computer in question was not removed from the classroom until several days later.) Why is it that the malware only became active when Ms. Amero was sitting at the computer?

Why didn’t she turn off the monitor? Throw a coat over it? Why did her students report that she simply sat at her computer for the entire period?

Finally, why hasn’t anyone actually published the transcripts of the case to reveal the details? The lead detective says:

“No one’s called or written me to ask for the facts. I have received a deluge of hate email and phone threats. I’ve returned the emails, offering the facts. I’ve returned calls to those who would leave their number, offering the facts. They just call me names and hang up. I offer the facts (in the form of recovered source code et all) to anyone who would request it. I’m not hard to find.
You have based your opinion on the disinformation fed to you by the media and by defense. As a result, the real victims have been forgotten and I have been the target of ridicule and death threats.
The verdict reached by a jury of the accused’s peers was just. The evidence presented in court was factual and forensically sound. The “clicked link” story has been turned into something other than what it is.
Once sentencing is done I intend on presenting the evidence to anyone who wants to know the truth, though I doubt the conspiracy mongers want the truth. I have explained the process of investigating these types of crimes to Network Performance Daily.
You may also read the tale spun by the Expert on the same site. I have the evidence to prove this charlatan is being less than truthful and I would appreciate someone demanding from him the source code containing the malicious active content of which he speaks. As for the trojans, viruses, worms, and adware he spoke of: what were they? when were they created locally? what do they do?? He didn’t say.
To all those of little faith who believe the Government (aka: BIG Brother) and its minions would conspire to persecute innocent, GOD fearing individuals for entertainment I say GET A GRIP.
Again, once sentencing is completed I would be very happy to share with you the evidence so that you are better able to form an educated opinion. Your missing 990 pieces of this 1000 piece puzzle.” - Mark Lounsbury

By Robert 2:57AM on 14 Feb 07

I am absolutely appalled in this day and age of technology that the answer isn’t obvious to everyone with the slightest experience with computers. I, too, shed tears for Ms. Amero and am outraged that “innocent until proven guilty” didn’t prevail.

Unfortunately, I know that she is telling the truth because almost the exact thing happened to me about 10 days ago. My husband googled “spyware” and shortly after that we had an ad for an antivirus program with pictures of graphic pornography become our homepage!!! Thank God that we discovered this and not our daughters. One of the pictures was a very young naked woman with a dog in a sexual position!! Very repulsive. I literally cried and had to leave the room and ask that my husband get rid of it. I wanted to throw the computer out the window. It can happen to anyone, uninvited. The whole thing is a tragedy.

By Susan 10:19AM on 14 Feb 07

‘Robert’ (above) asks, “Why is it that people are so willing to accept the story that students accesses [sic] a malware-laden website?”

It really doesn’t matter who accessed the malware-laden site. Even the Pope himself would have run into the same trouble considering that there is no way to definitively predict which sites contain malware before they are accessed, and on an unprotected PC, malware basically gets free reign to do what it wants anyways, despite what a user might do to attempt to curtail it.

Does Ms. Amero not have a computer in her home with many of the same “cookies” from these porno sites logged in?

What in the world does this have to do with anything? Her home PC was not on trial here.

Is it not true that Ms. Amero purposely went to dating websites…
not proven
… and her personal email accounts - in violation of district policy which forbid using school computers for personal entertainment? Is it not true that these accounts were accessed while Ms. Amero was to be teaching a class?

Let’s see - Substitute teachers tend to get called into a class at the last moment, usually due to some unforeseen circumstance (such as illness). Is it unreasonable (for example) to allow a teacher (who may not have been able to communicate with her spouse via other means) the chance to send a notification to her spouse that she’s been called out and will not be at home that day? As a husband, I’d sure like to know if my wife was unexpectedly going to be away from home for the day. And such notice could hardly be characterized as ‘personal entertainment’.

Is it not true that Ms. Amero, when interviewed by police, responded that she, “couldn’t remember” why she went to cookiemonster.com, eharmony.com, or tickle.com? Is it not true that there was less than 1 minute between Ms. Amero’s accessing of her personal AOL account and the offending “hairstyle” website?

These other sites could easily have been accessed automatically (without human intervention) by a compromised browser caught up in a popup storm. The timing of it all suggests that that is, in fact, just as likely.

Note too, that Ms. Amero didn’t notify anyone (not even the teacher that was logged in) of the incident?

Not true. There was testimony from at least one other teacher that Julie asked for assistance at the time it happened, and that she reported the incident to the vice principal of the school at the end of that day.

Why is it that the malware only became active when Ms. Amero was sitting at the computer?

An individual user has zero control over when and where malware will rear its ugly head on a compromised PC.

And concerning the quote attributed to Mark Lounsbury regarding some investigative work by “Network Performance Daily”, “I have the evidence to prove this charlatan is being less than truthful…” , I (and I’m certain many others) can’t wait to see this evidence.

Bring it on.

I predict it will simply be more evidence of shoddy police work, more shirking of responsibility by the school administration, and more evidence of inexcusable ignorance of technical matters within the legal system.

I hope this issue becomes the catalyst for an overhaul in the justice and education systems.

By Rob 3:54PM on 19 Feb 07

To anyone who yet blames Ms. Amero for this incident, I say hogwash. I spent five minutes researching this case, and I can tell you that I’ve heard enough.

I am willing to lay my livelihood on the line right now. A scan run on the computer in question absolutely will find multiple instances of various sorts of malware. This computer was a mess. It sounds exactly like something a client would bring me to fix. Once, and once only, because after that I would insist that it was time to get a new PC (Windows 98 is over, time to move on), and I would kit it out with all the anti-nonsense security software they’d need.

This is a travesty and a stupid, stupid disaster. I do hope that it does not stand.

By Derrill 4:52PM on 19 Feb 07
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Follow Up Vista

2007-02-02T15:18:00.000-05:00

I got an E-mail asking for recommendations, I don't specifically recommend brands or models. Although I do give some opinions about companies.

I thought a shoppers guide might be helpful.

Please feel free to share this with anyone you think it would help or even entertain.

Dear Someone,

This is probably longer and more than you expected, I'll be using it with others. And I'm working on my writing skills.
One thing to know as far as Brand: HP and Compaq are one Company, other than that, choices are Dell (mail or Web only), Gateway (slipping), IBM (more expensive), Acer (limited sources) and eMachines (designed to be cheaper). For laptops add Toshiba as a big player.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where do you normally go for computer software or supplies? Most likely Staples, Office Max or Depot, or Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA. I'll bet. Don't forget Costco, BJ Shopper or Sam's clubs. If one of these is the case, or maybe at different times you go to all of them, Wait until you are absolutely ready, on the Sunday before get the ads from the paper for all of these places.

DO NOT BUY WITHOUT COMPARING AS MUCH / MANY AS POSSIBLE.
Plan on at least two days for shopping, (probably means your weekend or day off. Be aware most of these places start new sales on Sunday so everything changes from Saturday's prices/models etc. First Day may actually take all week but start on Sunday, buy on Friday or Saturday unless you arrive at a decision sooner. Also like many businesses, quotas are important and they are usually Month ending so the later in month might be better deals.

First Day or Two, Go to Stores-Get Information from all.
Overnight, Decide on what you want to buy
Second Day, Go to store with PC YOU WANT-work out a deal including Upgrades/Software/Accessories and Warranty (if you need/want Extended.)

Now you have to ask yourself the big question: "What can I spend?" Set a 'mental' Price Range, you have to know what kind of computer user YOU are first.
Are you someone who needs:

BASIC, E-mail, simple Web services (Googling, News and Weather, Free online games), not much else.

Next up is the ENTERTAINMENT USER, the above plus one or more of these; Music Downloading;Online or Downloaded Videos (TV episodes or movies), Games but not overly competitive (see GAMER), Heavy Porn Surfing (XXX Pictures and Videos).

GAMER, what is that you ask, Someone obsessed with Games; Must have the latest and all of them, Hours playing especially online competition, Needs every edge to beat the other guy (Hardware boosts), Like: NASCAR Racing, HALO, Warcraft, Command and Conquer, Everquest, Halflife, and more. Key point here: Video Cards Rule!

BUSINESS Probably not you, but BASIC Plus Strong Need for Spreadsheet and Database and compatibility with corporate standard, possibly Web Publishing and Graphic tools too. Simple answer, BASIC plus MS Office and a Memory and Hard Disk Upgrade on top of the out of the box BASIC.

Finally there is one more category, it has several names:
GEEK, (Spoiled Brat, Power User, Tech Crazy, More Money than Sense, in a very short word ME, darn it) Must have Latest Hardware, Fastest, Biggest, etc.

Remember we're talking PCs here not Apples that's a whole different story, in another language.
Only you can say whether you need/want a laptop (Pluses: Portable Duh!, less space, FRAGILITY - Minuses: Less Power/Speed, smaller screens)

So, lets kind of set Price Ranges: for Laptop Add
BASIC $400-700 $200
ENTERTAINMENT $600-1000 $200-300
GAMER $900-5000 $600-2000
BUSINESS $700-1200 $200
GEEK $1200-unlimited (networks, printers, multiple computers and laptops) you know who you are.

Shopping Criterion:
Processor; BRAND (Intel or AMD), TYPE (Intel should be Pentium D/Duo Core, AMD 64) AMD $ave$, Speed (close to 2.0 minimum, 3.0 Plus best)
Hard Disk; Size (including multiples, portable storage counts as add-on) 100 GB Minimum, 200 Plus Best
Memory; Size, Upgrade or not? 1GB minimum, 2 best
Optical Disk: Type, (CD/DVD, RW? DL?) CD/DVD RW unless you can't ever believe you'd make a movie for your DVD player, (you're probably wrong)
Video: Size equals speed (also dedicated or shared video memory{low end and laptop}) 256MB Minimum
Display: Type, LCD/CRT (CRTs are dead) Size, 17" minimum, at time of Purchase ask about Upgrade, often cheap then.

Assumptions -- Any new PC will have both Modem and Network connections, Sound on Motherboard, Multiple USB 2.0 Ports along with Standard Parallel, Serial (Game Port?) Floppy drive (becoming irrelevant), Media slots for Flashcards/Memory sticks etc., Vista OS and Security Software

Attached is a page to use to WRITE DOWN what each Store tells you. Print a bunch of copies and take a pencil when shopping.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: someone@aol.com [mailto:someone@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 7:13 AM
To: mike1mb@comcast.net
Subject: Re: FYI: Microsoft Vista

Mike, I am going to purchase a new computer in the next 60 days or so .. something fast and easy with a lot of memory. Do you have any suggestions I would like to stay with HP ???

Someone

Microsoft Vista

2007-02-02T15:15:00.000-05:00

Hey maybe this will interest you and prove to be helpful too. Upgrade Season/Fever arrives.

Here's an excerpt from a fairly reliable report on Microsoft Windows Vista, (Full report) Interesting that the "tech savvy" readers at ZD.Net slammed this review. Problem with that audience base is its like trolling for trout in the ocean, too many barracuda and sharks. Meaning Unix and Apple lovers, both of whom would bash Microsoft no matter what was written by whom. I haven't personally tried Vista, I prefer to wait about 6 months until others have finished the testing and MS issues most of the patches. Anyhow for those looking for something about Vista in a lighter vein, I've also attached a PDF file, of a Vista upgrade Decision Tree Flowchart. While not X-rated or even Scatological, there are some things that might be offensive in some way, so please understand, THIS IS A GAG, I AM NOT THE CREATOR, BUT I LOVED IT. Also on a serious note, some of the final stage decisions are accurate.

Mike Cunningham

Despite some world-class efforts to gin up controversy over Vista, there's nothing scandalous to report. No devastating security breaches, no data-destroying bugs. A few pieces are still missing, including Windows Mobile Device Center, the software that replaces ActiveSync to connect Smartphones and PDAs to Windows Vista. As of this morning, it's still in beta, with no announced date for the final release. Likewise, the hardware to connect digital CableCARD devices to Vista Media Center has been announced and demonstrated but still isn't available for sale.

You've probably already got a pretty good idea of whether you're interested in Windows Vista or whether you want to steer clear. In lieu of a review, I'll share some of my experiences and answer a few questions that I've been asked repeatedly in recent months.

If you're buying a new PC, do you want Windows Vista?

Of course you do. When you purchase a new PC, the price for Windows Vista is essentially the same as the equivalent XP edition, but you get a more robust, attractive, usable, and secure operating system with some very compelling extras. About the only reason to deliberately avoid Vista is if you use a critical software program or a hardware device that isn't supported.

So where are the killer features?

If you go through the mainstream media and read reviews of Windows Vista, the absence of a "killer feature" is the criticism you'll find the most often. Fair enough. Most of the features in Vista are improvements, not completely new. I'm not sure exactly what would qualify as a killer feature for a computer operating system in 2007, but if I had to pick three features to highlight these would be at the top of the list:

Windows Photo Gallery. Ho-hum, right? Just another lightweight program to import photos from a digital camera? What most reviewers miss is Photo Gallery's support for the Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP), developed by Adobe and used in a variety of professional-strength photo-editing applications. When you tag a JPEG or TIFF photo with keywords in Windows Vista, those tags are stored directly in the file as metadata, which you can use to search, sort, and filter images in Photo Gallery. That's a great leap forward from Apple's iPhoto and Google's Picasa, both of which store metadata in sidecar files rather than in the image itself.
Windows Speech Recognition. You probably haven't heard much about speech recognition in Windows Vista. If you did, it was probably thanks to a demo that went awry last summer and was widely reported. That's a shame, because the built-in speech-to -text conversion software in the final release works exceptionally well for controlling the Windows interface and dictating text.
Windows Desktop Search. Yes, you have lots of third-party desktop search options for Windows XP. I've tried them all and never found one that was reliable enough for daily use. What makes Vista's search so useful is the fact that it's integrated directly into the operating system, so you can search in the Start menu, in Control Panel, in Explorer windows, and in common dialog boxes. I miss this capability most when I sit down at a Windows XP machine and try to find a specific Control Panel option. It also just works. I haven't had to rebuild indexes or mess with search settings on any Vista PCs in my office.

What all these features have in common is that they're legitimately part of the operating system. Metadata and search are tied directly into the file system, which is a core feature of an operating system, and speech is just another form of input replacing or augmenting the keyboard and mouse.

How much hardware do you need?

The myth is that Vista requires a hefty, expensive new PC to work properly. The reality is any edition of Windows Vista will work very well indeed on relatively inexpensive hardware. In the week leading up to the official consumer launch of Vista, I've seen name-brand notebook PCs with dual-core Intel CPUs, 1GB of RAM, and Aero-capable graphics hardware selling for $599 or less with Vista Home Premium edition.

theproguy: Improve your Google Ranking

2006-09-14T22:03:00.000-04:00

theproguy: Improve your Google Ranking

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger - WikiHow

2006-09-14T01:24:00.000-04:00

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger - WikiHow

Ok here it is - The 1st Blog

2006-09-10T08:48:00.000-04:00

Thanks for Viewing!

Lots More to come, as I learn the ropes. I want to put a lot of the Articles, Reviews, Sites, etc about eCommerce that I've been looking at here for reference.

Ebay Solutions Directory

Federal Reviews

Over 350 Reviews And Articles About Scams,Gurus, And Internet Marketing Guaranteed To Save You Thousands Of Dollars

Samples:

Mike1MB At WebHomeTown.net

U.S. Constitution:

Ashton to CNN... My Kutcher is Bigger Than Your Kutcher - Joel Comm

One Trillion Dollars ($1,000,000,000,000)

Twitter Police Activity

Music Industry and Twitter, A Round Up by Adrian Fusiarski

More Luddites B^&@#ing about Twitter

Jason Calacanis - What to do if your startup is about fail (or “Don’t Stop Believing”)

Katy Abby Says: My smartphone is smarter than your smartphone!

How to use TweetDeck - Mike's Recommended Twitter Application

Organize your screen with these buttons

New Blog Posts at WebHomeTown.net

Mike1MB's Blues Hour

Twitter Repaired, Wolfenstein Redux, Spam King Suicide, No Stop Signs,

5 hours ago

Update: Fugitive 'Spam King' Found Dead With Family

Twitter Repaired, Rumor MacBook Touch, Twitter Squeeze, Knit Gas Mask

5 hours ago

Updated follower/following counts 2 seconds ago

New Twitter Anti-Spam Bot Causes Chaos

Written by Sarah Perez / July 24, 2008 6:00 AM / 15 Comments

Spam Detection Goes Too Far

Using Twitter, My Advice, Info and Tips

How Freddie/Fannie Fallout Could Affect Main Street - NYTimes.com

Liberate Your Control Freaks!

Approximately 800 vulnerabilities discovered in antivirus products | Zero Day | ZDNet.com

Ryan Naraine, Dancho Danchev, Nate McFeters

What The F**k is Social Media? by Marta Kagan

George Carlin's Last Interview

My Special Sauce and a lesson from the Kung Fu Panda!

Inconveniencing Your Audience Increase Your Persuasiveness

culture that a struggles even to think beyond 140-character blips

Attn: Alana Taylor, You missed the Big Party! Via Reuters 6/6/08

M.P.A.A - Laser-Printers Downloading Indiana Jones

Aiptek Introduces PocketCinema V10 Mini-Projector

Outlook Web Access Corrupts HTML Attachments

Teens await arrest after Comcast attack

Alana Taylor Posted - Social Networking Wars [FUNNY!]

Double, double

Michel Fortin Blogged this The Lines That Divide Us

$100 laptop' nonprofit now teamed with Microsoft

Jack Humphrey - Falling in love with blogging again

All of Inflation’s Little Parts (The New York Times)

An Average Consumer's Spending

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Michael Balzer, University of Konstanz (Germany) Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox/The New York Times

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Michael Balzer, University of Konstanz (Germany)

Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox/The New York Times

Neil Young chronicles music career

Rocker demos multimedia project using Java

Jack Humphrey's Trackboost and Utility Poster

Mike's Twitter

Twitter Updates

Rapping SEO Tips

Saturday 4-19-2008 Rolling Thunder and Full House Cycle Poker Run for Children's Miracle Network

This is an awesome story - please watch

Gates sells more Microsoft stock, filings show

Julie Amero Case - Witch Hunt in Connecticut

Follow Up Vista

Microsoft Vista

theproguy: Improve your Google Ranking

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger - WikiHow

Ok here it is - The 1st Blog

Sources: Bureau of Labor Statistics; Michael Balzer, University of Konstanz (Germany)
Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox/The New York Times