Tag Archives: truth

Reviews

Beware of GISOL

➡ Updated 11/4/2008: See FOX News expose GISOL for the crooks they really are, and watch the two people behind the scam literally run from the camera. Watch the video on YouTube or below, and make sure to read through my original post about them, as well as the over 300 comments posted by other people who were each scammed by GISOL. My thanks go to Mike of Report-Gisol.com for doing the legwork to get these criminals on TV.

These same crooks have been calling me from private phone numbers, harassing me, and trying to intimidate me into letting them post responses on my website. They’ve tried repeatedly to post comments on this post and on my other post about them, and I refuse to let their lies go through to the live site. They need to be in jail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rm43tNGx8I

I wrote a post over a year ago detailing my nightmare experience with GISOL, a supposed web hosting company whose performance was missing in action and whose promises were stuffed so full of lies they were busting at the seams. I encourage you to read about what I had to say, but more than that, to also read the comments. You see, my story struck a chord with other users who were lied to and swindled out of their money by the thieves at GISOL, and they left poignant comments detailing their plight.

Today, another poor soul left a long comment explaining what happened to her, and I was so incensed I needed to do something more. I dugg my own post, and if you have a Digg account, I encourage you to digg it as well. Also, forward the link to my post to your friends and other folks who you know. Let’s get the word out about that rotten apple called GISOL. They should NOT be in business. They’ve got an F rating from the Better Business Bureau, tons of complaints have been filed against them, yet they’re still around. It’s just not right. Let’s tar and feather them, and let’s run them out of town.

Standard
Lists

Condensed knowledge for 2007-05-14

Today’s calorie-free serving:

  • Clive Thompson from the NYT has a detailed write-up of what’s involved if small bands want to get their name out there these days. The almost-requisite MySpace page is a given… But while the web makes it easy for them to get their names out there, keeping up with the fans becomes a full-time computer job — just what they were trying to avoid when they became musicians. And at some point, the relationship reaches a plateau. A single human being can only keep up with a limited number of fans before they are overwhelmed. But the fans don’t care, they each want personal interaction. Sounds like a very non-fun experience for the musician.
  • Mandy Sellars in England suffers from a very rare condition called Proteus Syndrome. She will likely lose her legs. The article talks about her desire to experience life, and daily struggles.
  • This is good reading for us IT geeks: Top 7 things system administrators forget to do.
  • The NYT has a great profile of Walt Mossberg. The article not only talks about his career, but also about where things are going in terms of journalism when you factor in this “new media” we keep hearing about…
  • Mental_floss talks about the world’s most wanted (and expensive) poo. It’s ambergris. Yuck.
  • Look At This has posted a full-length movie called “When the Wind Blows“. It’s about an elderly couple who build a bomb shelter. When nuclear war breaks out, they survive, but unfortunately succumb to the fallout radiation while waiting for the government to help them. Here’s a direct link to the video.
  • According to this article, Bill O’Reilly uses old propaganda techniques to bias his listeners toward those he doesn’t agree with. Interesting stuff.
  • A pair of falcons has made their nest in the building of the San Jose City Hall, and they’ve installed a falcon cam for us web visitors. Neat!
  • Some charlatan who claims he’s Jesus Christ incarnate is fooling plenty of people down in Orlando. Don’t these people bother to read the Bible?
  • A brave little terrier saved 5 New Zealand kids from being torn up by violent pit bulls. Unfortunately it ended up so injured they needed to put him to sleep, but the children weren’t hurt.
  • Apparently ceiling height can affect how people think and act. A taller ceiling can make you more creative and artistic. Very interesting stuff!
  • Weirdomatic has a post with examples of old, creepy ads. I don’t know, Max Factor’s beauty micrometer seems reasonable enough, given the need to look fairly perfect on screen. Have a look and decide for yourselves.
Standard
Thoughts

Keeping up with the news

It’s so easy to spread yourself thin these modern times… You’ve got news up the wazoo, 24×7, from a gazillion sources. On top of that, you’ve got blogs, with experts expounding on the virtues of this and that, and why it should matter to you, and you’ve got feeds of all sorts you can subscribe to, and podcasts you can listen to, and videos you can watch on these humongous video sites like YouTube and Google Video and Revver and plenty more. If that’s not enough, you can watch tens, if not hundreds, of TV channels, and the programming variety just boggles the mind.

Trouble is, most of this is garbage, and you can’t keep up with all of it. As addictive as it is to read a ridiculous amount of news, and be at the top of the game on many subjects, it’s wearisome, stressful and exhausting. It’s not seldom that I found myself bleary-eyed and listless after catching up on the news these past several years. And yet, I still didn’t learn my lesson, and wanted more, more, more. Well, you can’t have it all. It’s humanly impossible to stay plugged into many sources at once, and expect to get anything else done. You end up becoming part of the pipe, unable to contribute, overwhelmed by the information, receptive but useless, a consumer, not a producer.

I suppose if that’s all you want to be, that’s fine, but I’d rather make content, not consume it. I want to leave a mark, not go through life eating, sleeping and watching TV or reading the news. More than that, and I suppose on a more basic level as well, I want to get some work done, not waste my day away. So, for the umpteenth time, I’ve come to the realization that I need to cut down on my news addiction. It’s good to stay informed, but it’s better to stay alert. And it’s even better to get my plans accomplished. Which for me includes work, consulting, photography and blogging on weekdays. On weekends, more consulting, photography and blogging, reviews and sometimes, podcasts. And somewhere in there, I’ve got to squeeze in downtime with my lovely wife and a movie then and now. Not to mention that I’ve got other projects waiting on the back burner.

The thing is, reading the news in itself doesn’t take that much time. At most, it takes one to one and half hours per day. I don’t think that’s a lot of time. But, it IS a lot of information. And information processing wears you down, particularly when it comes from many sources. If you don’t believe me, try picking up a few tens of books, and rapid-read a few pages from each. See how you feel at the end of that little power session! When we read the news, it’s the same thing. We don’t notice it these days because it’s so easy to subscribe to a ridiculous number of various sources in news or feed readers. They aggregate all of that content for us in one place, and we just browse through and read. But it’s all written by different people, on different subjects, in different styles, with differing levels of emotion. Our brain has to adapt to each style of writing and process all of that information in a short amount of time.

Add to that the emotion we spend if we get worked up about an article. I’m guilty of that a lot. If I read someone’s getting abused somewhere, I’ll get mad at that injustice. Some days that anger will affect me for more than half a days, and truth be told, there isn’t a darned thing I can do to help that person or people other than share that article with my friends or on my blog. The amount of help that provides is questionable and depends on the situations. Some are helped by more media attention, and some aren’t. So what’s the good of getting worked up over them? I don’t know. I do know I can’t help it, so the only way for me to stay focused on what I need to do is to avoid those articles. Otherwise, I end up shooting myself in the foot and I can’t meet my goals.

So while it’s not about the time, although it’s nice to gain an extra hour here and there, it’s about the effect of the news on you or me. That’s why I’ve already started to pare down on the amount of news sources I read. I’ve cut a few out today, and will continue to cut them down till I arrive at a good balance between quality of information and time spent reading it. And I encourage you to do the same. Don’t think I hold myself immune from this. If you find that I don’t add value to your day, then unsubscribe. Far be it from me to waste your time and keep you from doing something useful.

Here’s to a productive use of our time here on earth, brief as it is!

Standard
Reviews

The Insider (1999)

The Insider (1999), is a thrilling, suspense-filled movie depicting the events that surrounded the 60 Minutes Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco executive. He was the first to give public testimony that the addictive properties of nicotine were well known, and manipulated, inside tobacco companies.

I saw it last night, and it was my first time seeing it. All of the actors in it were really good. I understand that the movie fictionalized some of the events that took place, for dramatic effect, but the general gist of what went on is certainly portrayed.

This is a wonderful movie to watch, because it portrays one man’s struggle with his conscience. Should he do the right thing, and risk losing his job? Then, should he continue to do the right thing, and risk losing everything, including his family, and possibly incur jail time? Those were tough times for Dr. Wigand, and because he chose to do the right thing, people are much more aware of the negative health effects of nicotine. The backhanded tactics used by tobacco companies are now common knowledge, and consumers are safer because of it. Millions of people can probably thank him for motivating them to stop smoking, and this movie played no small part in that.

Standard
Reviews

Dictionary of Information Security by Robert Slade

Dictionary of Information SecurityHave you ever wondered just what the jargon of information security specialists really means? What are all those arcane words they throw around to scare us into submission as they lock down our computers even tighter? “What do you mean, we can’t even install a screensaver now?! Can I at least use the bathroom without your permission?”

Unfortunately, there are a lot of dumb Information System Security Officers (ISSOs) at corporations and organizations. I’ve known a few myself. These are the folks that barely know what they’re talking about, and go by the latest article they read. Their reaction to a new piece of software is to lock down the system and disallow it even before they research it properly. Case in point: was Skype shut down at your place of business or at a friend’s workplace? That was a dumb ISSO in action. They also know so little that they simply throw words around, and anyone with a little knowledge of computers can tell when they mess up. “No, ROM is not RAM, and no, it’s not a 300 Gigabit hard drive, it’s a 300 Gigabyte hard drive.”

That’s why books like this Dictionary of Information Security really help. We can educate ourselves, and know when they’re wrong. We can tell when they’re BS-ing, and when they’re telling the truth. My experience has been that they BS for 80 percent of the time, and don’t know what they’re talking about for the other 20 percent. “No, RSS doesn’t stand for Really Scary Stuff, it stands for Really Simple Syndication. And yes, it’s okay for us to subscribe to RSS feeds. Really.” Or, “No, this is a perfectly harmless screensaver. It’s not a RAT (Remote Access Trojan). You’re a rat, for all I care.” I could go on and on…

I love this book. Robert Slade did a great job putting it together, and the terms are explained in language that anyone possessing a cursory knowledge of computers can understand. I’m amused by the forewords, acknowledgments and preface. They’re abnormally long for a book this small, but that’s to be expected. This is, after all, the first Dictionary of Information Security, and a precedent has to be established, so to speak. But once you get down to the terms, you forget about all of the beginning sections, because if knowledge is power, this book packs a wallop.

Get it, and read it. I know it’s hard to believe, after all, who’d read a dictionary, but I’d read this one. And keep it around for reference. And when your ISSO gets on your nerves, start encrypting all your emails with PGP if he doesn’t stop scanning them. Or, if he doesn’t stop blocking access to your webmail account, set up a VPN connection to your home network and do all your web surfing through that. That’ll knock his SOCKS off! Let the fun begin!

Standard