Monsuco's Blog

Blog Moved

2007-02-06T07:36:00.000-08:00

For technical reasons, the blog is moving. The new blog is now located at this address. Please update your bookmarks and feeds.

My Samba class

2007-02-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

I have been learning to use Samba (a Unix equivalent to Windows Server). Samba is used to network Windows and Linux machines. It is being finicky. I am doing most of this in VMWare Player. It is fun getting school credit to learn to do something I would have wanted to learn about on my own anyways. I also aim to learn Apache (a webserver), Xen (similar to VMWare only linux only), and tons of other server software. I hope to have a full Linux web server soon enough. Linux has been awsome on the desktop, and I can't wait to see it on the server.

In other news Microsoft has released Windows Vista. I am curious. I have heard from some it is a lot better, but I have heard from some it is far worse. I will stick with XP for my Windows partition as it is pointless to upgrade an old PC, I would only use Vista if it comes with a PC or if you really need something such as DirectX 10. Vista ain't nearly as good as Linux, I know that.

My new classes

2007-01-17T06:22:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted in forever. I am now taking a class in server administration through my UHS independent study. I hope to learn to use Apache, Xen, VMWare Server, and Samba. I will need another independent study because I did not get into history of rock and roll. I need ideas so if anyone actually reads this, could you please post them.

Retro emulation

2006-10-26T19:40:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, I have been messing around with DOSBox which is an open source DOS emulator. It can emulate the x86 platform and allow you to play all your old MS-DOS games and software. You can adjust the speed of DOSBox as well as the frame rate. CTRL+F12 speeds it up, CTRL+F11 slows it CTRL+F8 increases frames per second, CTRL+F7 slows it. You can mount directories using the mount command. I suggest making a DOS folder to store your DOS software in. Let's say you want to mount the dos folder which is located at something like /home/monsuco/dos/ then you would type

mount c /home/monsuco/dos

and it would mount the dos folder as C. Then just type C: to switch into the fake C drive. DOSBox is an emulator, so if you have a really crappy computer, it may not be able to do really well at those later DOS games that were released. It works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. If you want to use it for gamming, you could go to Abandonia to download some abandonware games. I am uncertain of their copyright though, but many are completely abandoned.

Time for a trade in

2006-09-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

I finally made a claim on the warranty of my Palm Pilot. My Tungsten E has served me well for the past few years. I am pleased with how well it has performed but it has been messed up over the years. The screen is partially unilluminated, there is a chip in it, and the charger shorted out, as well as scuffs and other stuff. I think it is time for a change. I intend to get a TX to replace my Tungsten E. Currently, Palm makes a few different PDAs. There is the Zire, which is their basic entry level organizer. There is the Tungsten E2, which is like the E only with a newer PalmOS, more memory, and Bluetooth. There is the TX, an extention to the T5 and T3 line up. The TX has more space than the E2, as well as WiFi, Bluetooth, the Blazer Browser, and some other stuff. There is the Palm Lifedrive, the first Palm with a hard disk in it. It features WiFi, Bluetooth, a 4 GB HDD, and some flash space too. Then there are the Treos. The 700 P has palm OS and the 700 W has Windows Mobile.

I believe I will go with the Palm TX if it ever goes on sale.

School is starting soon

2006-08-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Well, school is starting fairly soon. I am sorta glad, it was getting rather dull not having anything to do but my latin for the summer (and maybe I can get a bit of help on it when school starts). I will miss hanging around at home but I am getting bored. Plus I will get the laptop back. I wonder if I ever really will learn to program Java and C? I sure hope so. I might learn a tad bit of C++ as I think most GUI's for programs need C++.

I have been playing around recently with the LiveCD of Sun's Project Looking Glass. It is a fun little 3D desktop environment written in Java. It is fun to play with. The CD is based on Slax (Slackware Live) but it is easy enough to use. It needs reasonably modern hardware. I wouldn't try it with less than 512 MB of ram (and a swap partion) and reccomend 1GB. I would also reccomend having either an ATI or NVidia graphics card (it comes with drivers). It is much cooler looking than Windows Vista's Aero, and OSX's Aqua.

Lenovo to Load Linux on ThinkPad Laptop

2006-08-04T21:37:00.001-07:00

Recently, IBM and Lenovo announced they plan to sell a laptop with Suse preloaded on it. I am glad that they decided to do this. I personally believe that the one major thing holding linux back is that no major PC makers preload linux onto PCs or offer PCs without Windows. HP has also allowed a few of their PCs to have linux on them as an OEM option, and Dell has the nSeries that are sold with FreeDOS. Sure, that is a start, but what would be nice is if a company offered to sell all of their PCs with the option of choosing between linux and windows (with a lower price for linux of course). It would be an easy way to sell computers for a lower price without risking profits. I am not surprised that IBM did this, as IBM has disliked MS ever since their messy breakup over the OS/2 project. I suspect HP may also start supporting linux since they feel MS's choice to delay Vista has hurt them a lot more than it hurt rival Dell as HP sells goods via store and Dell sells via internet or phone order.

The ultimate live CD

2006-07-25T14:59:00.000-07:00

Sorry I havent posted in a long time.

Earlier this week, I was playing around with Knoppix a useful and powerful linux distro. Knoppix is designed to be used entirely as a "live" CD. All you do is download it, burn it to CD, and then reboot with it in the CD drive. No installation needed. It is a great way to learn linux (it is rather slow though, as it must run from a CD, also, you need about 256 MB of RAM for it to work.) When you reboot and remove the CD, it goes back to using your normal OS. There are two versions of Knoppix. The CD and DVD. The CD has about 2 GB worth of compressed software (it uses on the fly decompression) and the DVD has about 8 GB of software. If you have a large enough swap partion, you can actually design your own knoppix CD. Knoppix comes with lots of FOSS software preinstalled (and if you have a large swap, or a lot of ram, you can temporarily add more). It has multiple desktop environments and the like. It also comes with Fuse installed (previously it used captive) to write to NTFS, the file system normally used by Windows XP and 2000 and NT. It can also write to Fat, Fat 32, Ext 2, Ext 3, and I think Reiser, Reiser 4, and HFS are supported too. It comes with a rootkit checker to remove linux rootkits. It also has ClamAV to allow you to disinfect a windows partion if your system gets infected, so it makes a great recovery CD. It has loads of FOSS stuff installed and is a great learner disk. It can also be used to investigate hackings. It can also assist in the backing up of data if your windows or linux partion is so screwed up that it must be formated or reinstalled or if the boot sector of the HDD is damaged. You can also have it set up swap partions if it needs more RAM. It uses the Union FS to enable it to merge CD data with RAM. It also has several linux games, open office, firefox, konqueror, Wine, winetools, and many other useful programs installed. You can install knoppix to the HDD (it is a debian based distro) but it is probably better to use debian or ubuntu as knoppix is not ment to run from the HDD and it may not work out too well.

Fun with Ubuntu Dapper Drake

2006-07-06T21:35:00.000-07:00

Recently Ubuntu has released version 6.06 LTS codenamed "Dapper Drake". Ubuntu is an easy to install and use, but powerful linux distribution. I had installed Ubuntu on my old basement PC, but wanted to try it on modern hardware. So I decided that since I still occasionally seem to need Windows for things like syncing with my MP3 player, I would "multiboot" my upstairs PC. I used a bootable CD called GParted to resize my hard disk. My HDD is 200 GB in size. Previously about 194 of it was for Windows, and 6 was for the recovery partion. Now I resized everything and gave Linux 40 GB and gave 1 GB for use as a Unix swap file (Linux, BSD, and other Unix-Like OS'S use a section of the HDD for swap so that if the RAM is filled, it can use the hard disk, Windows uses a swap file rather than a partion). Then, since I prefere KDE over Gnome (both are desktop environments, each just looks different, but they do the same thing) I chose to use the KDE based Kubuntu version. New users may prefer gnome though. I was impressed. Unlike the old installer CD, the new one is run via a "live" demo CD. The live CD boots from the CD drive into linux, and gives you the option of installing to the HDD. I should mention, that to multiboot, when installing and trying to multiboot, do not just keep hiting next. When you get to the partioner, stop and manually edit things. Ubuntu needs 1 partion formated as ext2 or ext3, and a swap (give about 512 mb for basic use, if you program or do heavy video editing, you may choose to give 1-2 GB of swap. I advise setting this up using GParted). Tell it to set the ext3 (I reccomend 3 over 2) partion to be the active one. Then just let it install.

Once again, when it gets to the partioner, DO NOT TELL IT TO ERASE THE ENTIRE HARD DISK.

If your lucky, linux will detect all hardware and properly set itself up. Laptops tend to be picky, as some Wi-Fi cards are not supported, and sometimes getting suspention to occour when the lid is closed is sometimes hard.

Robbed!

2006-06-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, we were robbed. My family's garage was broken into and several hundred dollars worth of stuff was stolen. This included an expensive bike, several hundred dollars worth of fishing gear, fishing polls (including an expensive fly rod), and hundreds of dollars worth of tools. They must have considered stealing our ski gear because that was moved around but not taken. They also dropped off a crappy bike for some reason. I think they realized that the bike they stole was nicer and they were out of room. They also didn't take my brother's bike, just my mom's. Heh, I guess they saw how smashed up my brother's bike is in due to the 12 or so wrecks he's been in with it. Our house hasn't exactly been lucky. Since we moved in, this house has been directly struck by lighning, caught on fire twice (both were minor electrical outlet fires due to the lightning damaging electronics), robbed, and several pipes have broken. Dang, our house is cursed. We will be talking to the police and looking at pawn shops to see if our stuff shows up. I should mention, a neighbor said that she was looking for her dog which got out at 3 AM one night. She said she noticed about 6 garage doors on our cul de sac were open. She said she didn't think much of it at the time, but I bet that those had all been broken into. Thank god I double check all the doors to make sure they are locked (both deadbolted and that thing that makes it so the knob will not turn are locked.) otherwise, they could have gotten in our house. All I know is that if I found one of them in our house, well then one of us would die cause I sure as hell would try to kill anyone who broke into our house. I am a little creeped out cause these guys also stole the two rifles that were in our garage. They were both air rifles, so I am not worried about them, but I sure as hell hope they didn't steal any real ones from neighbors.

FSF - Protesters provide a nasty "vista" for Gates

2006-05-23T18:14:00.000-07:00

According to the Free Software Foundation the first ever major anti-digital restrictions managment protest were held at a Microsoft conferance. Protesters wore hazmat suits and passed out fliers. Hopefully, this will help to encourage the downfall of digital restrictions managment. That, and the fact that the RIAA may be entirly obsolet. In the past, the RIAA was an organization dedicated to the cause of bitching about how much they lost each year to people copying cassets and to taking money from musicians. Now, legitimate, DRM free sites like e-music allow for artist to bypass the RIAA and sell songs that work on the iPod or any other MP3 player. Indie artist can make money and e-music makes money and the consumer gets tunes. Also, the RIAA has said that they cannot compete with filesharing. This is true, the RIAA can't, but artist can. The RIAA will die, but the music will prosper. Artist will begin selling music via their own sites or through their own initiative. They will sell for a low price, but make all of the profits (when you pay $1 for an iTunes track, about 55 cents goes to the RIAA, 30 cents or so goes to Apple Computing, and a mere 15 cents goes to the artist).

Sony, worse for musicians than pirates!

2006-04-30T00:43:00.000-07:00

According to CNET,Sony only pays some artist 4 cents per song. I cannot believe Sony. Payola, infecting people's computers with malware, and now this. I guess I will continue to refuse to buy from Sony. It seems like it is better to support an artist by going on a P2P network, downloading some of their songs, then sending them a letter with a few bucks in it. Hopefully soon, BMG and the other music companys will hit bankruptcy and the RIAA will die off. Sony looks like it is becomming the first fallen giant.

Enough of this! The government must stop regulating the internet

2006-04-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

According to CNET Congress is creating an insane new digital copyright bill. This piece of trash will only involve the government more in a place they need to leave. The internet is not the enemy, DRM is the enemy. If this law passes, I would say people should break it. There is no way any sane human being could see this as fair. The DMCA is unconstitutional enough. This is downright like an RIAA ran dictatorship. I reccomend voting against any bribed jackass in congress that votes for this law, and if this law passes, I would say, break it. This is foolish. The public needs to NEVER buy from the RIAA and MPAA. Pirate everything and starve those corrupt bastards of all their money! Code is a form of speach and expression, just like books and the like, and thus, is protected by the 1st amendment. This law would unconstitutionally restrict code and it would make it illegal to possess tools that could be used for copyright infringment. Hopefully the government will tell the RIAA to beat it. The DMCA MUST BE REPEALED. This law would give someone who commits the psudocrime of piracy 10 years in prison. There are SEX OFFENDERS WHO SERVE LESS JAIL TIME THEN THAT! If this kind of trash passes for law in this country, I can see me moving to a country with sane copyright laws (by which I mean, weak copyright laws) and distributing tools that remove digital restrictions managment and tools which aid in piracy. Piracy is becomming more of a good thing in my mind. It is not theft, as theft hurts the victem, while piracy does not. I urge everyone to write to congress telling them not to pass this. I also encourage everyone to write to our president and tell him to veto it if it comes to him (few vetoed items will ever gain a 2/3s override). I have agreed with much of what the Bush administration has done, but I would never agree with this. I would rather have a liberal in office than have this law. Hopefully, if it passes, enough lawsuits by the victems will defeate this law. I also encourage everyone to write to the RIAA and MPAA stating you will no longer buy from them due to digital restrictions managment.

Fortunitly, not everything is being infested with digital restrictions managment. GNU and the Free Software Foundation are about to change the GNU general public liscense to ban people from implimenting DRM in GPL based products. This would mean TiVo could no longer use linux to power their boxes or they would be forced to play fair and ditch DRM. This would prevent people from destroying the OS's security with poorly written, closed source, Hollywood rights infringment.

Also, quit buying MPAA films. Either pirate or do without. Quit buying RIAA songs, either go indie, pirate, or do without. Don't buy from Napster, iTunes, or any other sites. Buy from All of MP3, Bleep, and eMusic instead. Also, send letters to artist, actors, and producers telling them that you won't commit piracy unless they only provide DRMed items. Use free software and refuse DRM. Destroy big media!

Searching for a job

2006-04-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

I have gotten a job app from Carls Junior, and hopefully, I will get a job there. I am just a high schooler, so there's no rush to get one, but it sure would be nice. I think I'll change some things in te blog layout soon.

Greetings from Lubbock

2006-04-08T09:45:00.000-07:00

I am in Lubbock Texas. Oh how exciting /sarcasm. Bleh, I am leaving today though. I have no idea how I will get home. Hopefully I don't have to ride the bus, as I had to ride the bus from Raton to Lubbock, and that was long, dull, and slow, but a bus is more comfortable to ride in than a car.
This laptop has been amazingly useful. I have used it to show my grandma and great grandma a lot about the web. I can find unencrypted wifi signals at both their houses.

FrostWire

2006-03-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

I have found a great LimeWire alternitive, FrostWire. FrostWire doesn't nag you to buy a pro version and recently, limewire decided to develope code to block unliscensed files from Gnutella. Fortunitly, limewire is open source. FrostWire is located in another country and will never block unliscensed materials. Screw you RIAA, you will never win. The hobbyist, hackers, music lovers, freedom lovers, and intelegent people will always win.

QEMU Virtual PC Emulator

2006-03-05T22:32:00.000-08:00

QEMU is a program that allows for your computer to act like there is another computer inside of it. It is a great tool for those who want to learn to use Linux or run two opperating systems at once. The only issue QEMU has is it is rather slow. This is because it must emulate all processes. To put it simply, it makes your computer act like there is another computer inside of it, and it has your processor act like it is a second processor. QEMU works on Linux, Unix, BSD, Mac OSX, and Windows 2000 and XP. Also, there is an app called QEMU accelerator, which reduces the emulation through a process of virtualization, were your OS and the guest OS share some resorces rather than devide them. Unfortunitly, while QEMU Accelerator is free, it is only free as in free beer, not free as in freedom. You may not redistribute, reverse engineer, or modify the accelerator.QEMU needs a decent computer to run well. In particular, it uses a large quantity of RAM.
If you want some ready made OS images to run on QEMU, try Free OS Zoo. Free OS Zoo is a site that makes .img files of ready to run OSs. Go ahead give em a shot. I would make sure you have the latest bittorrent client avalible. I would go with Azureus. Bit Torrent is a P2P protocol that reduces strain on servers by allowing people downloading a file to download from each other. There are many bit torrent clients. I recomend Azureus because it has many great features while also being compatable with most of the other ones. It features peer exchange to find more peers. It also allows for encryption, to prevent ISPs from blocking it. Some internet service providers, such as Cox (USA) and Rojers (Canida) block BT because it uses a lot of bandwidth and they are too cheap to buy more. Encryption prevents them from being capable of doing that. If you use an ISP such as Comcast, which doesn't block or throddle traffic, it will not encrypt to allow it to communicate with other nonencrypters but will still encrypt with the encrypters.

Back to QEMU. Some Windows users may need 7-Zip to unpack the .tar.gz and .tar.bz2 files. 7-Zip is a valuble compression tool.

Then visit the downloads page. Download the OS you want to try and go nuts. (warning, carve out some time to download, it takes a while. I recommend setting Azerous to download all of them over the course of a day or two and leaving the PC on if you have broadband. If it only lets you DL 2 or so at a time, right click each of the ones that wont start and hit "force download".) If your like me and don't like most command line applications (with exception to DOS and Linux terminal, command line is te suxor), you can try one of their graphical QEMU managers. Their listed on the download page. Tell me if ya need help. Have fun. Also, there are versions of React OS, Puppy Linux, and Damn Small Linux that run on QEMU inside of Windows (or another Linux Distro) without you having to install QEMU. You may want to search for em.

CC Some Rights Reserved

2006-02-27T23:11:00.000-08:00

In the event that anyone reads this blog, I have decided to license it under a Creative Commons license. I am doing this because I feel that it is the best license available. I choose to go with allowing commercial use and derivative works, but I did limit it with a copyleft. A copyleft is the use of copyright law to control derivative works. If you want to create a work based on this one you can, but you must use the same license I used to do so. Copylefts are used to prevent commercial takeovers of a work. For example, there was a famous incident were Microsoft referred to GNU General Public license, a popular open source license which uses copylefts as a cancer on the software industry after they were forced to give away the source code of a piece of developer software which M$ used pieces of Linux's code in. Linux is a GNU GPL piece of open source software (most distro's are anyways)
The only other thing you must do to comply with this license is remember to cite me as the original author. I see CC licenses as the solution to today's copyright problems. Check out their website. I hope you too decide to author any of your creative work under a CC or GNU license.

More on my grand linux idea

2006-02-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

I have gone a long way on learning linux. I have leaned some of the methods of installing things, although I won't be able to use automatix for everything, and I have no idea were the installed program folder is. I know I installed a few things I don't have launchers for (shortcuts).

I have a screenshot of my new desktop:

Ubuntu Linux

2006-02-21T21:09:00.000-08:00

I am trying very hard to learn to use a new and exciting version of Linux OS called Ubuntu Linux for use on our spare basement computer. Ubuntu aims to be reasonably easy to use, free (as in freedom to modify, redisitribute, and change) and suitable for all needs. It is fun, but it ain't Windows, that's for sure. Linux is fun. I have used Damn Small Linux some too. DSL aims to be light and able to work on older PC's. It weights in at just 50 MB of required disk space (compaired to the 1,000 MB or so required by Windows XP) and needs 8 MB of RAM but in order to run without virtual memory, it require's 16 MB (Windows XP requires 128 MB to run at all and 256 MB to run without using virtual memory for the OS.) DSL is so insanely small, it can fully run INSIDE of Windows running as a program. Due to the heavy amounts of emulation required, doing this slowes DSL down by 5 or 6 times. Both distro's rock.

Internet Explorer 7: Beta 2 Preview

2006-02-09T14:36:00.000-08:00

Internet Explorer 7: Beta 2 Preview
Ok, this browser is a piece of crap. It is light years beyond IE 6.0, but still buggy (granted, it is a beta) and it looks like crap.

Cool

2006-02-04T16:08:00.000-08:00

My school decided to lend me a laptop for a while. It doesn't mean I don't plan to eventually get my own though. I may get a rebuilt laptop. If so I may have to get my own OS. If so, Windows, which cost like $70-$100 wouldn't be my first choice, I would probably try Linux. I would use Ubuntu

PeerGuardian 2

2006-01-28T20:04:00.000-08:00

I would like to mention my love of this well known program, Peer Guardian 2 which can block "bad" IP's from accessing your computer. It isn't perfect, but it helps. It can prevent people such as the RIAA, MPAA, hackers, advertising companies, spyware companies, and other bastards from connecting to your PC. I wouldn't rely on it to let you safely DL 1,000 songs, but it reduces your risk of your PC being probed. It won't work on MUTE, because MUTE doesn't use direct IP connections, but Gnutella (used by Limewire, Bearshare, and some other clients), Fast Track (used by Kazaa, Grokster, and many others), Bittorrent (used with anything that uses .torrent files), and OpenNap (used for Lobster, Gaim's Napster Protocol, and some others). It will also prevent those bad IPs from probing your computer's ports.

Xbox-Linux

2006-01-26T16:08:00.000-08:00

Well, I have decided to purchase a second Xbox (an original, not a 360) and run Xbox-Linux on it. If anyone has done this before, I would of course appreciate their help. I have been curious in Linux for a while. Running it on an Xbox should work, but there is one thing to note about the Xbox, it has very weak hardware by today's standards. It has the following specs:
64 MB of RAM that is built into the motherboard
8 GB of hard drive space (newer models come with 10 GB, but the extra 2 GB is normally not used)
Pentium 3 processor
DVD Drive with a modified power supply(some are fairly picky about running CD-Rs, CD-RWs, DVD-Rs, or DVD-RW's)
An Ethernet port for use with LAN games or Live.
4 USB 1.1 ports (the controller ports may not look a thing like USB ports at first glance, but take a closer look, they are simply modified to look different and they have one extra wire.)

I know that there is a version of Linux called Damn Small Linux that has very low system requirements. Here are the requirements that DSL needs to run:
8 MB RAM to run at all, 16 to run without having to immediately draw from the hard disk virtual memory to run the OS. (To put this in perspective, the new version of Windows, Vista, is expected to need 512 to run without immediately using virtual memory.)
50 MB of HD space (I know Windows usually can take anywhere from 500-2,000 MB hard drive space)
A compatible processor, almost any Intel or AMD runs well.
A CD drive is normally required, but I will use a flash stick instead.

Now, MS didn't want you to be able to run Linux on your box, so they put a mix between ROM and Flash that runs at startup that prevents your Xbox from running anything that isn't either:
1. Music
2. Games that have been digitally signed by MS
3. DVDs

A Linux installer is non of these. Thus, there are two ways to put Linux on a box:
1. The first method is the hardware method. With it, you solder a mod chip onto the motherboard that allows the Xbox to run any unsigned code. This method is legal, but you can do illegal things, such as copying games that you rented or were lent to you onto your hard drive. The biggest advantage of "hardmodding" to run Linux is you can add more hard drive space on to the box. I don't know how to solder, so I won't use this method.
2. The second method is the software method. Although you can't run a Linux installer CD ad bootup due to the unsigned code ban, some of MS's games allowed you to save your profile to a memory card. A memory card was basically a modified flash drive. The controller it plugged into used a modified USB hub to split the connection. With some games, most notably Mech Assault, MS forgot to stop the games from loading and executing unsigned code. The box sees games as safe, so it will run code from them. You can take a copy of Mech Assault and either by modifying a controller into being flash drive compatible, or by purchasing a MS Xbox USB adapter for use with the Phantisy Star Online Keyboard, you can put a "save game" on a flash drive that is really a Linux installer. When mech assault sees it, it will mistake the executable code for a save game and run it. This method is called a "Softmod" because no modifying of the Xbox is needed. I will use this method. Also, you can still use the Xbox for games, but it will no longer run on Xbox live which can detect and ban modified Xboxes. It is also legal. The only problem is, I cannot replace the hard drive.

I plan on buying an old Xbox, 4 USB adapters (or maybe one with a hub if it is cheaper, or if it is cheaper, four controllers and four USB extending cords and I will make my own.), I may not be able to use my regular flash drives, so I may need to buy a new one of those as well, a USB mouse (or if cheaper, a regular, 3 button ball mouse with a USB adapter), and a PSO keyboard.

Any tips would be appreciated.

Filesharing without IP sharing

2006-01-17T16:54:00.000-08:00

MUTE: Simple, Anonymous File Sharing Wow. It looks like another hurdle for those idiots at the RIAA and MPAA to deal with. MUTE is an anonymous P2P network. Unlike Gnutella, Open Nap, FasTrack, or Bittorrent, MUTE does not reveal your IP address. Your IP is like an address for your PC. In order for the RIAA or MPAA to sue you, they must first obtain your IP. With Limewire, your IP is clearly visible. With MUTE, military grade encryption turns your IP into a hash. This makes it so that the RIAA and MPAA cannot trace your IP to your ISP and force them to tell who you are. MUTE is still young, so it isn't exactly rich with features, and all that encryption and the fact that it must connect to several "nodes" makes it slow. However, you won't get sued. Horray to that.

Happy New Year

2006-01-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Happy new year everyone.

OK so it just looks awsome

2005-11-22T20:22:00.000-08:00

Ok I play Halo, and I took this pic, it looks awsome!

GiveUpAlready.com - AFK announcenment

2005-11-22T14:25:00.000-08:00

GiveUpAlready.com - AFK announcenment

As you can see, I will be AFK for a while due to me going to Utah. I am going because my dad's friend lives there.

If you would like to contact me with regards to my blog (and some of my thoughts on Gaim)

2005-11-16T14:45:00.000-08:00

I would enjoy talking to anyone who reads this blog, so I guess I will give you my e-mail and IM names.

E-Mail: monsuco at gmail dot com(remove the spaces and replace the at and dot with their correct symbols)

AIM: Monsuco123
ICQ: 316740641
MSN: kwestboy at comcast dot net (don't e-mail this address, I no longer use it)
Yahoo: Monsuco
Google Talk: monsuco@gmail.com

Also while I am on the topic of instant messaging, I would like to mention one of my favorite instant messaging programs, Gaim. I have a link to the Gaim site down at the bottom of this page, and I have it there for a dang good reason. Gaim is definitely one of the best pieces of IM software available. What it is is an open source program that can access almost all of the chat and instant messaging programs around. It is currently compatible with:

OSCAR (AOL's proprietary IM protocol. AIM and ICQ both run on the OSCAR protocol and use the same server, and yes, a person on AIM can send an IM to a person on ICQ)
BLOGGER (you have to download a plug in for this)
Battle.net (also requires a plug in)
Gadu-Gadu (an IM service popular in Poland)
Groupwise (a server application made by Novel)
IRC (Internet Relay Chat is a very popular chat room protocol)
Jabber (An open source IM protocol, it's most notable use is with Google Talk)
MSN (The MSN messenger service)
Napster (No, you cannot download music, but there is an open source chat protocol based on Napster's software)
QQ (An IM service that is popular in China, you will need to download a plugin for this)
Sametime (It has something to do with lotus, and it requires a plugin)
SILC (Secure Internet Live Confrencing is a chat room protocol similar to IRC but it concentrates far more on security. All messages sent of SILC are encrypted, and it is possible to make private encrypted channels.)
SNPP (Allows you to send messages to pagers, this requires a plugin)
XFire (reqires a plugin)
Yahoo (send IM's through the yahoo IM service)

Gaim also allows you to download plugins that enable encryption of certain protocols, such as OSCAR and IRC. (SILC is always encrypted, even without this plugin)

You can find the plugins for Gaim at Source Forge. While you are there, you should consider bookmarking Source Forge, as it is one of the best sites avalible to download open source programs. In case you do not know what open source is, I will tell you. Open source software is software that has a special end user liscense that gives you, the end user permission to use the software (for free), view and modify the coding of the software (for example, you may legally reverse engenier the program all you want), create plugins (programs that enhance functionallity of the software), and redistribute the software. Also, even buisnesses may use open source products for free (and modify the coding and the like).

A simple way of summing up the defenition of open source is anyone may download the program for free, anyone may modify the program for free, and anyone may redistribute copies of the program (including modified copies) for free. The advantages of using open source programs (such as Gaim) are:

1. Far greater security: If someone finds a security hole in the openly viewable coding of open source software, and they figure out how to change the program so that the security flaw is no longer a threat, they can usually submit their version of the software to the open source comunity and that fixed security flaw will most likely be repaired in the official version.
2. Rapid growth: Because anyone can view the coding to open source software, anyone who knows how to program and has something they want to add to the software to add to functionality, they can do so and submit their version of the software to the open source community.
3. People can write plugins which are programs that add a feature or make a change to the way the software works.
4. Commercial instetutions can use the software: To have a liscense classified as open source, the program must be avalible to everyone who wants it, including buisnesses. This is not true of freeware.
5. Open Source almost never will contain any malware: If a program is open source, and it's makers tried to include malware, programers would find out and critisize the program into submition or they would redistribute versions of the software that lacked the malware.

I am a very big fan of open source software, and I use several open source pieces of software on a day to day basis. I believe that open source programs such as Linux, Open office, Gaim, Firefox, and Thunderbird will one day become major challenges to closed source software companies such as microsoft because a company out to make money cannot compeate with a user ran piece of software that is made by and for it's users.

Also, if you want to get a version of Gaim for your USB keydrive, zip disk, Jar disk, removable hard drive, or super floppy, you can use the official version from Source Forge, or I made a self extracting file which can be downloaded here. I made the encryption extentions work with it and added in extra protocol support. Also, other extentions have been installed on it. I will try to update it, but if I forget to update it more than a few days after they release a new version of Gaim portable, let me know through e-mail.

Well, I am going to start talking a bit on one of my intrests

2005-11-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

My biggest intrest is technology. I have always been facinated by it. Ever since I was forced to learn to type because my writting was unreadable to my teachers, I have been learning more and more about technology. It is amazing. I don't know what will happen in the next ten years, but I know it will be impressive. I have a few theories about what will happen soon. I have theories on the future of all different types of technology. I will start with what I believe will be the future of internet access:

I believe that DSL, Cable, and satalite one day will compleatly replace dial-up. I will explain what exactly each of these technologies is.

I will start with explaining DSL. DSL is, for those of you who don't know, a method of connecting to the internet using your phone line, but it doesn't clog the phone. How, simple. Your telephone uses analog signals, but it only uses about 3% of all the avalible frequencies on the copper wires located in a phone line. DSL uses that other 97% for internet. Currently, DSL is limited by distance. Phone signals couldn't travel very far were it not for amplification devices, that is devices placed every so many miles on a phone line that rebroadcast the phone signal. Special amplification devices must be added to the phone line to strengthen those DSL signals every so many miles as well. Also, most fiber optic lines cannot carry DSL signals without special converters and special fiber optic lines. However improvments are being made in fiber optic lines to convert and trasmit DSL. Soon you may not have to live near your phone company to get DSL. I believe DSL will drop from being $30 or so a month, to being $15 a month due to heavy competition amongst phone companies.

Cable may be around for a while, but I doubt cable will stay on cable wires forever. I believe soon, cable based internet will be moved to the section of the frequency spectrum currently used for analog television. I have heard the government has plans to buy back that end of the frequency spectrum and resell it to sources such as this. I believe that an individual will not have a cable ISP, but they will be comunal, payed for by home owners assosiations. Each little comunity will have an internet broadcast station funded by HOA money. The broadcast station will be connected to all the nearby houses to provide them with internet service. The tower will transmit and recieve information to and from their ISP company over reasonable distances (a few miles). Also, all those houses will have both CAT5 and Wi-Fi. CAT5 for desktops, Wi-Fi networks for laptops.

Satalite internet will probably grow. I believe it will become common in rual areas were little else is avalible. Directway is currently one of the few satalite internet providers, but I believe soon they will face great competition. Satalite internet holds great potential in remote areas that currently would be stuck with dial up. I believe satalite internet will eventually drop from costing $60 a month to $30 a month.

Wi-Fi is currently popular in coffee shops and such, but I believe it will be replaced by a newer technology. I am not certain of the exact name of this new technology, but basicly you replace your Wi-Fi card with a special reciever and a transmiter similar to a cell phone transmiter. Currently there are hacks for the Treo smartphone that let you recieve dial up from anywere using blue tooth, and there is Verison broaband access which is like Wi-Fi only without having to be in a hotspot. Also, Google is looking into becoming a free Wi-Fi ISP that will support it's service with ads.

I will make more predictions on technology latter. (Heh, seeing as how I am very interested in technology, I bet I will talk a lot about technology in my blogs. I may even give you some tips.

Things about me.

2005-10-28T16:16:00.000-07:00

Well, last night I never mentioned in my new blog, anything about myself. I am a high school student in Colorado. I am interested in technology, games, and science. I may sound like a geek right off the bat, but I do have a life to an extent. I spend a lot of time either at school, online, or just hanging out at home either watching the news or the History channel. I have decided that I will be able to express myself online through blogging. I figure, with all the time I spend online, I might as well do something creative.

I am gonna try blogging now.

2005-10-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

I am not one who normally gets caught up in web trends like blogging, but I think I will try. I am not 100% certain of what this blog will wind up turning into, but hopefully, things go well. I will add more to this blog tomorow.