Remember this borg guy called Bill Gates? Well, I'm finally free from him, and from everything that he represents.

I'd like to share a thought with you guys. Perhaps it might help someone who's doubting on switching to Linux . The original post was written on one of the Microsoft stories. Everytime Microsoft plays dirty on you is a reason to switch.

Yesterday I switched to Linux from Windows. My Linux of choice was PCLinuxOS, which I find powerful and yet guiding (you can read my review on my journal). Anyway, what I wanted to share is that when I used to be a prisoner - and slave - of Windows, everytime I read these news on Slashdot ("Microsoft forces this update on you!", "Windows phones home", "Windows spies on your browsing habits", "Windows antipiracy measures screw up your install"), I used to get irritated and mad at Microsoft.

But just today, I felt very different when reading these news. For the simple reason that my main install is Linux. How? Well, let me tell you how I felt.

I felt like a spectator watching the tragedy from a tower far away, and giving thanks for not having been there. Or, as mexicans say, i felt like if I was watching the bullfight from behind the barrier. I was no longer angry, nor desperate. I was...

Safe.

Being a V for Vendetta fan, I can compare with the feeling Evey had when she was under the rain, after having decided to go against the system, to the last consequences. Her thoughts and actions were completely free from the government. I can tell how she felt.

It was a feeling of freedom. It was a feeling of power.
It was a feeling of being able to fight against the Statu Quo. I wasn't part of the system anymore. I felt like Neo after going in the matrix and realizing I *CAN* change things.

I was no longer a victim. I was no longer a survivor. I became... a fighter.

I no longer need to hack my way through Microsoft's limitations. I no longer need to download a crack to bypass the stupid region encoding or DRM imposed by Windows just to backup my movies or music CDs. I no longer need to fear the dreaded Windows update screwing up my system. I no longer fear the waste of time of installing, re-registering and cracking Windows "Genuine Advantage" every time I upgrade my hardware.

I AM FREE!

For ages, I had complained about our slavery to Windows and the lack of Linux user-friendliness that kept us in that slavery. And now I feel that PCLinuxOS had build the bridge that I needed to do the switch. To put it in biblical terms, PCLinuxOS was, at least for me, the Moses we needed to get away from the evil Pharaoh.

I am beyond Windows now. I have transcended. I am immune. I am free.

Now, does that mean I'm going to become another of those elitist Linux "fanbois" that blame everything on the user? Hell no! The path towards freedom is still very rough, and I'm convinced that the more cross-platform applications there are, the easier that path will become. And I said path towards freedom, not towards Linux. Because when ReactOS comes out, it will be the same freedom - but with a different choice. You can't promote freedom with a dictatorship. You need to let people choose.

But I disgress.

This power, this freedom, this liberty, is a feeling that can't really be explained. You NEED to experience it. After you do, you will never go back.

So, if you decide to switch, and if Ubuntu doesn't meet your expectations, try PCLinuxOS. Just don't be an idiot like I was, and backup your data. You need to do it, anyway!

I sigh with relief now. We're living interesting times. Every year that passes, Linux gets better. And friendlier.

I can see it... Microsoft's doom is approaching - it's very close, just waiting for something to happen. Soon Microsoft will fall. All empires do. And I feel grateful for being an eye-witness.

Goodbye, Microsoft. You will never be missed.

Sincerely,
M.
---
Copyright notice: Feel free to distribute this hypertext as you please, as long as you don't modify it.

This is the sequel to my previous disappointment with Ubuntu Linux.

I tried to install PCLinux OS 2007 from a burned ISO I downloaded. Everything worked fine, until I rebooted. Another error 17. But behold! The LiveCD included a chat application (XChat), which automatically connected to the PCLinuxOS support channel!

There I met a guy who explained to me that I had my partitions wrongly set up. He told me everything I needed to know - the partitioner was really cool, there was an option to autoallocate that created your root, home and swap partitions.

I repartitioned, rebooted, and voila! :D I'm in Linux! No more error 17.

Some apps weren't up to date, like GTK 2.0 and the drivers. Fortunately, the chat guy told me what to do about the drivers. There was no commandline at all! Everything was done graphically.

There was something wrong when I updated the screen to 1280 x 1024 (i was suddenly in text mode - eek!), but a reboot fixed it. Also, i had remembered the startx command that booted up. Well, it's still in beta, so I hope by the next version these glitches will be fixed.

The next problem was accessing the Windows partitions. Unfortunately, the partitions weren't enabled by default, but clicking on the "advanced" tab on the Administration Center / Partition thingy showed me how to enable them. I clicked on "mount", and voila!

Synaptic installs everything for you - no need to reboot except on special rare occasions. I installed Pidgin, and copied my buddy icon from my old windows partition. Still, I miss the MSN custom emoticons. This is one thing I'll have to do without. But I can't base my freedom on my personal tastes.

Since I have often to use the console (i find the "My computer" stuff ackward and slow), i right clicked on the Konsole icon and a menu popped up. Oh, didn't I metion? The window manager is very similar to Windows. Specially if you choose the "Redmond" theme (wink wink, nudge nudge). So, I clicked on "copy to desktop", and ta-da, there was my lovely terminal on the desktop.

Firefox is installed by default, but I forgot to import the settings from my old account (oopsie), so I have to add my bookmarks by hand. What a pity. Or was that option in Ubuntu and not PCLinuxOS? I forgot - sorry. Anyway, the flash plugin is already installed by default, so whee! I can watch my favorite youtube clips, like Silent Hill Chibi Edition, or some of the Bleach AMV's.

Amarok doesn't have the winamp interface, but the player looks similar to a simplified version of Winamp. It doesn't have an "open" button, but if you click on the playlist, the full window appears and you can choose stuff. Looks very advanced - too much for my taste, but oh well.

Now, for the downsides: The font for textboxes on Firefox looks awful. I couldn't reboot to the Windows partition - I'm stuck on Linux for the moment, but I can access my files, so it's no big deal. Anyway a boot from the Windows CD will fix the problem if I want to go back. I really hope i can find some tech support that will fix my boot manager. .... and that's about it. The task bar looks weird with those HUGE icons, but these are minor details.

Another thing that has kept annoying me is that the numpad, when used with shift, returns numbers instead of the cursor actions. I'm accustomed to using it. This is one thing I hadn't liked about Linux.

One warning: You should update Firefox, this version is 2.0.0.3 and the latest is 2.0.0.8. I don't want to get infected by some java virus or something :P

Well, it's all about upgrading packages and installing replacements for Windows ones now - The OpenOffice is 2.2, and I want 2.3 - and I need an html editor for my webpages. I had tried running the other one with WINE (wine hapedit.exe), but the font's all messed up. It's better to use native linux apps - they work out of the box.

It's hard to imagine that Linux is THIS easy. All those misconfigurations, application crashes are a thing of the past. The setup, altho difficult for non-standard settings like mine, was swift thanks to the live tech support on the irc channel.

Now if I only knew how to fix this ugly font on Firefox...

Good to lighten up your day. This girl is 9yo, and isn't afraid to download music. So why does she do it?

- You have to pay for CD's because they're actually on a disc not on the computer. My cousin, right, she uses LimeWire when she doesn't have any money for CDs.

She also says:

My CD's don't work in my mp3 player so LimeWire is the only way to do it. I bought High School Musical 2 on CD but it won't go on my mp3 [player]

The world would be VERY different if the RIAA execs were 9yo's, don't you think? :)

Everything was going fine in the Live CD until I rebooted.

Grub Loading...
Error 18.

This led to a series of long and boring operations of moving my partitions to let my Linux boot partition have a comfortable space within the first 1023 cilinders (why didn't Ubuntu warn me of this in the first place?).

So I tried to resize the partitions, at first I wanted to shrink one of the partitions. Big deal, it'll just resize it and voila. No, it had MOVED the whole 230 GIGABYTES to another part of the disk. It took me 4 hours and 35 minutes. What would have happened if the power had gone out? I wasn't warned it would take so long. Why wasn't I warned? So I tried to abort during the read-only test, and I got a message saying: "Warning! If you abort now, all your data will be lost!". Great, they could have done the read-only test BEFORE altering the filesystem! Why didn't they? Who knows.

Anyway - I created the /boot partition, but I still got an error 18. So I had to delete the Linux partition - oops! Windows deleted my 230 gigs E: partition even when I had clicked on the Linux one. Great, 4 hours and 35 minutes (along with my anime movies and mp3 collection) gone down the sewer. And I didn't make a backup. :( Well, I had one on my USB drive, but not of all the mp3's. Sigh.

So I said, what the heck - and I deleted my whole extended partition (not before a small backup of important data in my *other* windows partition) and put my Linux boot partition closer to the beginning of the drive. This whole stuff took me a whole day, but at least, I was finally able to boot into grub without an error 18.

Grub Loading...
Error 17.

WTF!?!?!?

No fallback, no warning, no way to fix things on the fly, and here I am, wasting the whole saturday night trying to research into how to CONFIGURE the "friendliest" linux distro of all (yeah, right). You know what? I don't have time for this. I give up. Screw Linux, if they want me to use Linux they'll have to give me a USABLE distro.

So I rebooted my Windows CD, load the recovery console, and type "fixmbr". Problem solved.

I still fail to understand why the Ubuntu programmers had to give the least attention to the SINGLE MOST CRITICAL PART of an operating system: The boot loader! After researching the internet (using the Ubuntu CD, which is slow as molasses when web browsing), I found out that when you install grub in other ways (which I didn't have time nor patience for), you don't get these errors.

Do you think Joe user or granma have time to become linux hackers to setup Linux "as it should be"?

So, the question is... 2007, the year of desktop linux? And the answer is: Error 18, my friends. Error 18.

Morning. I wake up, and look over my window.

The sun is dropping its rays over the grass. I stretch my arms, and see that it is a beautiful day outside. The lake didn't look as beautiful as today. The air smells wonderful. The sun is reflecting on the town's wind-based power generator. The rain really did its work.

Good morning mom, good morning dad. Isn't it beautiful that the world's so peaceful today? After getting a bath, I go to play with my friends, because today is Saturday. No school!

Today we go to swim and fish, But not before we listen to our avorite band's music album, which they released on the internet yesterday via bittorrent.

I turn on my $50 portable computer and proceed to download the album. I'll donate 5 dollars to the band with my Jr. bank account - I feel in a good mood today.

My dad is doing his morning exercises today. Since he got his new printed heart he's been feeling as young as I. Mom's preparing some pancakes with natural butter. We got it from the cows in the ranch. No trans-fatty acids, all natural.

My brother is still recovering from the back accident he had the other day. His new stem cell treatment saved him from living in a wheel chair.

"Hey sonny, have you heard?" says my dad, reading the newspaper. "Finally the jews and the muslims made an agreement about Jerusalem!"

BZZZZT! The alarm clock sounded, and I woke up. Lonely as always.

Father died of Cancer, while my brother died of AIDS because he got dirty blood in his last operation 10 years ago.

I turn the TV, and I see George Bush threatening with WW-III. I change the channel and some driver ran over a pregnant womand and killed her. I have to hurry up and get to work. The sky looks grey as usual, and the air pollution is really heavy today.

I turn on my 200Watt-consuming PC and read the internet news. Another file sharer got sued for 200,000 dollars.
A video linking site got shut down and its webmaster arrested for linking to sites streaming copyrighted content.
The telcos have their immunity from homeland security, while a cable provider was found to interfere with legitimate bittorrent communications.

Another patent filed against Linux.
More dead people in Burma.

The U.S. still refuses to sign the Kyoto protocol, while a report just confirms that the earth passed the point of no-return regarding global warming. Say goodbye to the snows of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Another form of lung disease was found to be produced by Air fresheners.

I wish this was a dream, but it isn't. This is the real world. These are the news that you and I have allowed to happen.

THE END.

(Note: The details about the family in this tale are all ficticious - but it could be your family.)

Why? Why have we let this happen? Why do we believe all that methane-producing crap that our politicians tell us?
Why do we give away our freedoms and let the people in power get rich with our taxes, while people are dying because
they have no Social Security?

Why are parents today getting divorced and fighting for all the money, while the children are the ones really suffering?

Why? Why is the world still worrying about Britney or Paris while people in the U.S. - not only Africa - are
starving to death, or dying from curable diseases?

Why? Is our youth already dead? Is it? Are we unable to solve the problems we have created ourselves?

It's not that we can't. It's just that nobody cares anymore. Good luck watching the gossip and pranks on TV. Because that's how problems are solved today, right?

Hello, all the young people reading this. Please listen. Having fun is OK, going out with your friends is OK, forgetting about your problems once in a while is OK.

But it's NOT OK to just blame everyone else and hope the world's problems are magically solved. Remember, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

We all had seen it coming. Many file formats that once were supported by Microsoft Excel, are now being abandoned. Now, some people say these were for security reasons due to virus e-mails (shouldn't user education have better results?). But I find another, much more powerful reason for that.

According to Microsoft Technet:

A number of the previous file formats are seldom, if ever, used. Support for these formats is removed from Office Excel 2007. Users can no longer open or save workbooks based on the following file formats after a migration to Office Excel 2007:

• WK1 (1-2-3)
• WK4 (1-2-3)
• WJ3 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj3)
• WKS (1-2-3)
• WK3 (1-2-3)
• WK1, FMT (1-2-3)
• WJ2 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj2)
• WJ3, FJ3 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj3)
• DBF 2 (dBASE II)
• WQ1 (Quattro Pro/DOS)
• WK3, FM3 (1-2-3)
• Microsoft Excel Chart (.xlc)
• WK1, ALL(1-2-3)
• WJ1 (1-2-3 Japanese) (.wj1)
• WKS (Works Japanese) (.wks)

And according to the Microsoft blogs, The following formats CANNOT be used for saving files:

• Microsoft Excel 2.1 Worksheet
• Microsoft Excel 2.1 Macro
• Microsoft Excel 3.0 Worksheet
• Microsoft Excel 3.0 Macro
• Microsoft Excel 4.0 Worksheet
• Microsoft Excel 4.0 Macro
• Microsoft Excel 97- Excel 2003 & 5.0/95 Workbook
• Microsoft Excel 4.0 Workbook
• DBF 3 (dBASE III)
• DBF 4 (dBASE IV)

I've worked with people who due to technical limitations (i.e. legacy applications), need to read and write to old formats. Like DBF files (Foxpro, anyone?) and WK1 files.

Anyone remember how Excel became the #1 spreadsheet? Because it supported interaction with all those formats. And now that Excel is in every office, they simply drop them off. The result is that all programmers who once used worked with those formats, will have to work extra hours.

Now let's assume that in your office you use one of those legacy applications. You have three choices:

1. Buy some legacy format converters (because you can't use Excel to do the conversions anymore). Good luck finding them.
2. Write your own legacy-format-to-xls converter. Good luck with that one
3. Purchase database products that export to /Import from Excel format. Guess who wins here.

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, anyone?

I'm thinking of the current problems of the internet, like SPAM, botnets, the Storm virus, corporate censorship (read-as: RIAA), etc.

And then I remembered an old videogame called "Loom", which reminds me of the chaotic state in which the world is today.

Once upon a time, there lived a young weaver named Bobbin Threadbare. He had started to use magical powers known as weaving.

The Elders considered Bobbin was dangerous to them, and decided to Trascend him (something like executing him), but Bobbin's long-dead mother came from Beyond in the form of a swan, and trascended the Elders, turning them into swans - and everyone in town. Bobbin was left alone (except for his stepmother, Hetchel - who was turned into a duck by the elders), and it was his turn to find the flock and join them.

But there was an evil being who wanted to conquer the world - thanks to a stupid cleric who called him, Chaos was now free to destroy the world.

Chaos had been looking for the treasure of the weavers: The Great Loom. The Loom allowed one to spin threads into the very fabric of the universe. If Chaos got hold of the Loom, evil would reign in the universe - forever.

At the end, Bobbin had to fight Chaos - but Chaos was stronger than him! Then, Bobbin listened to Mother Hetchel's advice:

"Unmake the Loom, Bobbin! Unmake the Loom!"

And by using the "unmake" thread, Bobbin split the Loom in two, rendering it unusable. But at the same time, Bobbin split the entire universe in half.

Then, Bobbin used his magic to Trascend himself and be freed from the fabric of the universe. Finally, he and the rest of the flock CARRIED the half of the universe that was free from Chaos, and began to prepare a universe free from evil, free from chaos. When that new universe were finished, they would join it with the other half and save the people trapped with chaos.

What does this have to do with the internet? Well - chaos has invaded it - just as it did with the universe in the videogame.

How to solve it? I think that "Splitting the Loom" would be a nice idea. Make a NEW internet, free from today's internet problems, on top of the OLD internet!

The way to do this is by decentralizing the internet's services. Name servers, e-mail, everything. There are various projects which more or less have been successful at the small scale. just search in Wikipedia for "Anonymous P2P","darknet", "Friend-to-friend", "Distributed Hash Table". Tons of projects in there.

I've been recently testing one or two of them, and I've found them rather slow, but with a lot of potential due to their decentralized infrastructure.

It is impossible to take down one of the servers in an overlay network, because everything's decentralized.

Now imagine everyone had their e-mail access going through an anonymous, encrypted P2P network. A network without boundaries, without fear. Without SPAM. Without DOS attacks. A network without chaos.

Edit: Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about Anonymous P2P and darknets as the goal or the medium. What I'm talking about here is DECENTRALIZATION. There are wonderful algorithms for decentralized websites and forums out there, but they need people to start working on them. If you would like to program the pillars for tomorrow's internet, start researching, get organized and start coding, you can do it!

It can be done, I'm sure. But it's up to you to work on it and starting to implement it. Or at least start cooperating with the cypherpunks that are working on it. Because, you can be sure that the current governments won't.

There was a girl named Alice. Her aunt was very annoying. Every move alice made, was watched by her aunt. Reading her letters, looking at her conversations, spying on her friends. Everything.

I'm getting tired of how aunt spies on me, Alice said to herself. So, Alice went to search for something called "the rabbit hole".

And she began to look for the rabbit with the little watch.

Days passed, and Alice kept searching. Aunt Sammy wondered what Alice was up to. Random walks here and there, talking to the rocks, talking to the rabbits, she thought Alice went crazy. Keen as she was, Aunt Sammy was sure that Alice hadn't gone crazy. No, she thought - she must be hiding something, but what? Every day that Alice went to the forest, she returned happy, but there was no reason for her to be happy; even her friends started to get worried. Then, something magical happened.

Click. "Alice, Alice?" called her aunt. Looking upon the forest, her aunt searched for Alice. Listen to me, you spoiled brat! Enter the house at this moment, or you won't eat anything! Dear Alice, where have you gone?

I'm not going to wait more! 2 hours, and that'll be it! Pfft!

Gone. Oh, dear, what have I done? Oh dear. Gone. Liar!!! Everything you told me was a lie, wasn't it, Alice?

Finally, Alice had disappeared. Ominous-looking Aunt, had finally gotten scared. Really, she had crossed the line by overprotecting Alice, and she never realized it.

Every night, Aunt Sammy looked for Alice, worrying that a beast had eaten her or something. Every day, she cried. Poor Aunt Sammy. She realized how mean she had been with Alice. I have committed a mistake. There's no clue of where Alice has gone. Even with hounds, no trace of her could be found. Silence, only silence... until Alice's journal could be found.

Journal Entry number one. Until now, I had been looking for the rabbit hole. So many days were worth the search. Take this, Aunt Sammy!

Kill me if you want, but I found my freedom now. East, west, south, north, I had searched everywhere, because I knew it was around here. Even my animal friends had whispered me hints. Probably you will never understand me, you never did.

I'm living free, and I like it. Troubled?

Surely you are. Every single day you had spied on my shoulders, and you were getting on my nerves. Calculating how to make me feel miserable, every day below your shadow was a nightmare. Really, I began to hate you, until I found what you never could. Ellen, my old friend, had found it first, and that was the clue that finally led me to my freedom. Total freedom, and She's here with me right now.

Bye bye, Aunt Sammy. You'll never be missed. Ever.

(THE END)
So, what happened? That's it? Everything was only a stupid tale? Gee, start using your brains folks. Alice found the rabbit hole. No, it's not just a tale, look at your tinfoil hats and realize they exist for a reason. Oh? Glad you're starting to figure it out. Rabbit hole, that's a clue. Alice's name is another clue. Pointing to your own dreams, their footsteps are giving you the clue. Hint. You might listen to them shouting at you, if you pay attention to my words.

(Off-the-record note: If you wonder why this journal entry is under the "encryption" category, and still fail to understand the tale, then you're not worthy of finding the rabbit hole.)

I was reading digg recently, and stumbled upon this link:

Ancient Flying Vehicles [PICS]

Supposedly it shows modern aircraft depicted in ancient egyptian tombs. One thing in the picture got me curious: Why do the "aircraft" parts in the picture looks much clearer than the carvings at the side?

Well, I read some of the comments, and I noticed an interesting trend: Those who said "fake" or who doubted the authenticity of the pictures were modded down.

Here's an example of a modded down post:

that looks so fake.

1, show me some high res photos
2, get your work published in an academic journal
3, repost to digg.

It had -3 diggs (after my vote, it had -2). Now, the poster didn't say "it IS fake". Simply "looks". Then he suggested a scientific, academic approach to publish those pictures. Why did he get modded down?

It also surprised me that nobody cared to scroll down the page where it showed publicity for the author's psychic readings.

In other words, it seems that the majority of digg users (or at least those who mod down others) are either gullible, or irrational.

Welcome to digg, where an angry mob tells us what's true and what's not! :P

I was discussing with a friend about how 160 or 192kbps mp3 can be heard much clearer (they sound more soothing to the ear) than 128kbps mp3's.

Then I told him about Coldplay Clocks and how the notes got distorted because of the missing harmonics. And I thought:

Some waveforms usually have harmonics at regular intervals. So, why not store an algorithm for these intervals? Like, instead of saying, "there's a peak at A,B,C,D and E", say "there are peaks starting at A every N khz, decreasing by M db's"?

I think neural network algorithms can be implemented. I've done General Regression Neural Networks (they're easy) to do interpolation.

How effective would this measure be? I don't know. Perhaps there are already more efficient algorithms to compress audio, but they've been ignored due to MP3's popularity.

Sometimes de-facto standards have just too much weight.

From the GPG mailing list:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

vedaal at hush.com wrote:

>i keep the keyrings on a usb drive,
>but keep my home directory as the root directory
>(c:\gnupg)
>
>if i connect the drive,
>and then type 'gpg'
>this is what happens:
>
>C:\>gpg
>gpg: keyring `c:/gnupg\secring.gpg' created
>gpg: Go ahead and type your message ...
>
>
>is there a way to tell gnupg that the keyrings are not in the home
>directory, and to look for them in their alternative location ?
>
>e.g.
>something like:
>
>gpg: secring not found in home directory
>gpg: is there another location? y/n y
>gpg: go ahead and type location of secring.gpg
>
>
>(right now, i just copy them in and over-write the
>c:\gnupg\secring.gpg
>file)
>
>(also, tiny really minor point:
>the gnupg error message for the windows binary
>should have the '\' not the '/' )
>
>
>tia,
>
>vedaal
>
>
>
>
>
>Concerned about your privacy? Follow this link to get
>secure FREE email: http://www.hushmail.com/?l=2
>
>Free, ultra-private instant messaging with Hush Messenger
>http://www.hushmail.com/services-messenger?l=434
>
>Promote security and make money with the Hushmail Affiliate Program:
>http://www.hushmail.com/about-affiliate?l=427
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>Gnupg-users mailing list
>Gnupg-users at gnupg.org
>http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users
>
Remove the secring.gpg file. Replace it with a shortcut to the
location of your private key that is on your USB drive.

So now every time the GnuPG engine attempts to access your private
key, it will
be directed to the actual key on the USB medium.

As a side note, I hope that you have your revocation certificate
secured and stored on a medium other than that of your USB drive.

i.e. Backup CD-R
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org

iD8DBQFC3c1xoR5cE1e/kEIRAjatAJ0WDHOfuwE4fqajEGmOsbzE7VAGewCdFYGu
NfbeJav8S4JlmvbETahQN84=
=w9Aw
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

This way you'll be able to store your GPG secret keys on your TrueCrypt hidden volume stored in an USB drive :)

Now where did I download the portable firefox?

(link)

http://www.juand.ca/?page_id=3

Here's the important stuff.

Since it would not ve convenient to perform several steps everytime you run want to access files from your thumbdrive, we need to create two very simple batch files that call instructions from TrueCrypt automatically to open and close your protected drive.1. Create a file called mount.bat on the root directory of your USB drive (i.e. J:\mount.bat) Open it with notepad and type in the following:

        TrueCrypt /v tcFolder /l K /m rm /auto /qexplorer K:

The first line will create a virtual drive with letter K which will be your protected drive. You can choose another letter instead of K (it must not be assigned to another drive).

The second line is optional and it will just open an explorer window pointing to your protected drive everytime you mount it.

2. Create a file called umount.bat on the root directory of your USB drive (i.e. J:\umount.bat)

Open it with notepad and type in the following:

        TrueCrypt /d K /q

This will unmount the secure volume. Remember to change K here too if you did before.

3. Create a file called Autorun.inf on the root directory of your USB drive (i.e. J:\Autorun.inf)

Open it with notepad and type in the following:
[autorun]open=mount.baticon=

If you want your USB drive to show a different icon on My PC, you can specify an icon name and put that icon file into the root directory of the drive.

This will make it so that every time you connect your drive to the computer, it will ask for the password immediately. Thus, making it faster and easier to access the protected drive. This step is optional if you dont want it to load automatically, on which case you would have to connect the device and then manually execute mount.bat.

Picture this. One of the most famous characters in the country offers you a deal so you can make money by using his name to promote yourself. Many years later, you realize he's not only ripping you off, but that he's also ripping your fans off, and then blackmailing them for "stealing". What would you do? Dump him, of course!

And this is what the artists have started to do with the record labels. One by one, artists are realizing that the record labels, specially the "big 4" (EMI, Sony BMG,Universal, Warner), aren't really needed.

This trend just started on October 1, 2007, when Radiohead announced that they would release their latest album, Rainbows, on October 10 as a digital download, bypassing the Recording Industry.

Later they were followed by Nine inch Nails, whose founder, Trent Reznor, has been recently showing a disdain for the labels. On September 16, he told fans at a concert in Sydney, Australia, to steal his music: "Has anyone seen the price come down? Okay, well, you know what that means - STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin'. Because one way or another these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they're ripping people off and that that's not right."

On October 8, Reznor made the public announcement: "As of right now nine inch nails is a totally free agent, free of any recording contract with any label... it gives me a great pleasure to be able to finally have a direct relationship with the audience as I see fit and appropriate."

According to the UK's Daily Telegraph, fellow British groups Oasis and Jamiroquai are also considering issuing their music for free. Neither group is currently under a recording contract.

More bands followed, if not with their direct actions, at least with the ideas: On October 9, Dave Peters, frontman of the band 'Throwdown', said: "If you wanna really support a band, "steal" their album...help bury the label... and buy a tshirt when you show up at their show and sing every word."

He added: "I play in a metal band. We have sold around 200k records across 3 releases. We're not 'huge' by any stretch but do alright and live off (and ON subsequently) the road. Fans and friends ask me all the time how I feel about "stealing music." I just told someone yesterday "I have a hard time seeing it as stealing...when I don't see any money from cd sales to begin with.""

On October 10, Madonna signed a deal with Live Nation, an L.A. based concert promotion firm, which is NOT a record company. (Record labels usually are the ones who organize live concerts).

Perhaps it is just a strange coincidence, but all these people and bands took the decision to dump (at least partially) the Recording Labels, just a few days after the first court case of music sharing resulted in a heavy penalty for the sharer: On Oct 5, Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $222,000 dollars for sharing 24 songs with Kazaa (altho the RIAA never proved that Thomas did actually engage in the transfer of the songs - she was found guilty just for 'making available' her collection). It is also a strange coincidence that one of the companies that sued Thomas, was Interscope - the same company that NiN's Trent Reznor had signed his contract with. Bad Karma?

Whatever the reason is, it's good to know that the music fans are finally putting a stop to the greedy middlemen. Expect more bands in 2008 to dump the labels for more modern and practical means of earning money from their music.

According to reports, Madonna has signed a $120million deal with L.A. based concert promotion firm Live Nation to distribute three studio albums, promote concert tours, sell merchandise and license Madonna's name.

Whilst the deal differs from Nine Inch Nails in that Madonna is not offering direct-to-public albums, Live Nation isn't a record company. The deal shows that even for a world famous act, a record company is no longer required in the days of digital downloads and P2P music sharing.

Stay tuned to see which artists decide to use alternative marketing deals that ignore the big four.

http://ask-leo.com/can_gmail_be_traced.html

Good for privacy freaks out there.

Here's the catch:

You may not be able to trace where the email was sent from with only the information in the mail - but law enforcement , with the help of the email providers, may be able to.

In short, Google keeps access logs of their webmail. If someone suspects you're involved in an unlawful activity via e-mail (i.e. spam), they might subpoena Google to give away the logs.

Otherwise, you're safe. Unlike hotmail, Google doesn't include the originating IP in their SMTP headers. And that's a good thing.

Let's just hope they don't start adding it soon.