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rvalkass

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Everything posted by rvalkass

  1. rvalkass
    You can only see your own earnings. There isn't any way for you to turn it off though, so that they don't display. Plus, if you did that, you'd have no idea how many myCENTs you had until they started flowing into your billing account.
  2. rvalkass
    A couple of simple things to try:Are the image files all individually CHMOD'd to 0755, or just their containing folders? Make sure each individual image has the right permissions.Check your .htaccess files to see if there are any rules that may be forbidding access to those folders.Also, did the forums work when you tested them locally on your own PC? Did all the images show up then?
  3. rvalkass
    What about users who don't have Java installed, or block Java applets in web pages? Java is also, in my experience, one of the slowest things you cna add to a web page, and a cause of many hours of personal frustration and anger and the browser continually freezing. No. No. No. Breaking the user experience in that way is a horrific thing to do to your users. Plus, it wouldn't work if the screenshot was taken by an external application. Plus, as you say that would only affect users of IE, who have a hard enough time as it is They certainly don't need to find out that people are messing around with their clipboard without their knowledge.
  4. rvalkass
    An Tramposch has said, most new TVs and computer monitors (that are any good) feature Picture In Picture (abbreviated to PiP). That allows you to have one input take up the whole of the screen (your PC's output) and one input gets overlaid on top of that, often in one corner, taking up around a quarter of the screen. Check before you buy though, as some TVs only let you use certain combinations of inputs for PiP, and in a certain order. Make sure that you can set the TV signal to be the smaller image, and a PC input to be the larger 'background' image. The alternative is to make use of a website such as TVCatchup and play the TV through your browser. You can place that window on your PC wherever you want, and move it around easier than you can with PiP if it starts getting in the way. Depending on the speed of your PC and Internet connection, however, this may not be an option.
  5. rvalkass
    It only seems to be affecting corporate customers rather than personal PCs, but I know many companies encourage employees to install the enterprise antivirus on their personal computers (I know my University does) so that may well cause a lot more problems than they anticipate. The numbers are also huge - companies are reporting numbers of affected PCs in the tens of thousands, and this is a worldwide issue. They've now released a fix for computers than have been borked by this update, but the process to fix them is a long one, involving booting into safe mode, manually updating the antivirus, and copying a version of the affected file from a working XP machine. Not so bad if you've only got a dozen or so PCs to fix, but a big company with thousands of computers has got a long task ahead of them. That's just downright dangerous if you're running Windows It will be interesting to see if McAfee offer any sort of compensation to companies affected by this update. No doubt their terms and conditions contain a small clause allowing them to destroy your PCs, but they should really be fixing this themselves.
  6. rvalkass
    If all you're trying to do is set up a redirect from a nicer URL to Google's complex one, why not create the sub-domain you're trying to redirect (using cPanel) and create an index.html file inside that subdomain containing the following: <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"><html> <head> <title>Redirecting...</title> <meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=google-dashboard-url; </head> <body> <p>Redirecting...</p> </body></html>The only difference with this method is that people will get redirected to Google's URL. Fine if your only issue is remembering it or typing it in, but no good if you wanted to hide any Google element of your mail service.
  7. rvalkass
    You've most likely messed up. The CNAME records are not set correctly, as can be seen from a traceroute on mail.nifraproductions.co.cc: CONSOLE TraceRoute to 208.87.243.146 [mail.nifraproductions.co.cc] Hop (ms) (ms) (ms) IP Address Host name 1 14 21 61 72.249.128.109 - 2 22 9 6 206.123.64.22 - 3 15 17 10 64.129.174.181 64-129-174-181.static.twtelecom.net 4 67 87 75 66.192.241.218 peer-02-ge-1-0-0.lsag.twtelecom.net 5 51 43 44 216.151.129.30 xeex.cr1.sjc1.psychz.net 6 48 55 44 208.87.243.146 gamma.xisto.com Trace complete That sub-domain is still pointing at Xisto's servers, so never reaches Google. The page you see is the default page shown on Xisto's servers when there's nothing there to show the user. This page shows specifically that the CNAME record for mail.nifraproductions.co.cc simply points back to nifraproductions.co.cc
  8. rvalkass
    In the UK pretty much anyone can own a shotgun, or multiple shotguns, as long as the barrel is longer than 24" and the bore is over 2". Other firearms are under much stricter control, and you must provide a valid reason for owning one (generally related either to your work or to sport) to the police. I'm not sure how the law would treat a case where someone has used a shotgun to defend themselves, but I imagine it would not be favourable unless the attacker was also armed with a firearm. The law in the UK allows "reasonable force" to defend yourself, family and property. Generally, that means using household objects (not specially designed weapons, as that shows intent to harm) of the same type your attacker is armed with (so you couldn't stab them if they're only armed with a pebble, for example, but you could throw blunt objects at them). This provides defence and security to people from attackers, while not requiring firearms and the dangers associated.You can also look at the statistics. The United States, each year, has around 28 firearms murders per 1,000,000 people. For the UK this figure is 1 firearms murder per million population. That figure includes Northern Ireland, where gun laws are far more open and allow the ownership of firearms for supposed self-defence.
  9. rvalkass
    Which of these do you honestly find easier to remember? Password: S7u|>1d! Passphrase: I can never remember those stupid, complex passwords! In the situation where the person trying to hack your password has physical access to either you or the machine storing the data then the battle has already been lost. There are plenty of ways to get at the data by either resetting the password or getting the original password out of you. Either way, a password is no more or less secure than a passphrase - they're both useless. How are the words not random? Generally there are around 72 characters you can type on the keyboard that you can use in a password. There are over 600,000 words you can use in a passphrase, each one a jumble of letters. So, if an attacker knows you use a passphrase, there are over 600,000 words they can put in each position. If they know you use a password, there are only 72 characters they can put in each position, making the job far far easier. Using lyrics from a song isn't the only method for getting a passphrase, which severely limits the usefulness of knowledge people have about you. Because kettle leads are so hard to get hold of Or a universal laptop power supply. Or a screwdriver and just remove the hard drive. I can't see what use hiding the power cord is if I'm honest. Reducing the string to only the first letters with punctuation makes the password much much much easier to hack. I can't stree enough how bad an idea that is - to go from a highly secure passphrase to an effectively useless password. The most advanced technique I can see in the future is to use Markov chains to predict words commonly seen together. However, on small sections of text such as passphrases, I doubt they would be that effective. Possible options for passphrases are not limited to song lyrics. Anything will do. Some workable examples: I hate this vile green login box... One day I'll own that Ferarri! I never could get the hang of Thursdays In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. That last one is easy to remember (if you're a fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide) yet is virtually impossible to crack with current technology. The others are fine too, and even include symbols for those people/password-strength-checkers who still think they have a noticeable effect on security. Never using the same password for multiple accounts is a given, and excellent advice. Encouraging the use of short passwords comprising random symbols is just foolishness and leads to reduced security.
  10. rvalkass
    QI, that wonderful bastion of knowledge, actually showed that less than 1% of the Internet is made up of porn. Over 80% of it is dedicated to advertising however
  11. rvalkass
    It seems other people have had the same idea of using pass phrases: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ https://kb.iu.edu/d/acpu The dictionary attacks generally just check for passwords that are one word long (such as "password" or "football") or words with a number tagged on the end ("password42", "football7"). Multiple words aren't often searched for. Multiple words with capitalisation aren't often searched for. Or with punctuation added. Even if you assume the passphrase is being cracked by trying all possible words, separated by spaces, the number of combinations is still huge. There are 616,500 wordforms in the OED, so an 8 word passphrase has 616500^8 = 2x1046 possibilities. An 8 symbol password, using 72 symbols, has 72^8 = 7.2x10^14 combinations, and is much harder to remember. Current hardware can try approximately 250,000,000 passwords per second. So, to be certain of cracking the 8 character random symbol password it would take 40,000,000 seconds, or around 33.5 days. The pass phase, of 8 words long, and trying to crack it with all permutations of words (not individual letters) would still take 9.66x1032 days, or 2.64x1030 years, which is roughly 2x1020 times the age of the universe to date.
  12. rvalkass
    It's caused by differences in the mechanisms used to detect where your fingers are. The system used on the Nintendo DS (and other systems that use a stylus and register only one point on the screen at a time) work using a grid of cells on a top and bottom layer. When you push the layers together with the stylus, this causes a measurable change in current, and the system can work out which cell you're pushing on, and therefore where you're trying to click on screen. This system needs quite considerable pressure sometimes to get it to work (as many frustrated touch-screen users can confirm) and can only detect one point on the screen at a time.The system Apple and most other new devices use is a projected capacitive system. The screen comprises a fine grid of cells, each with a voltage across them, and therefore an electric field. Touching the screen (or even just getting close to it) causes a change in the capacitance measured by the device across the screen (as the human body is capacitive, and hence why a plastic stylus usually doesn't work). With this system you can detect multiple points on the screen at once, but it's much more expensive to implement. You also get fingerprints all over your screen
  13. rvalkass
    A better password would actually be a passphrase. What makes a password take longer to crack is length, not an array of weird characters (although that helps). Obviously, as passwords get longer they become harder to remember if they are something like Tr4pSevenTeen!Wo0h!?, but a lyric from a song is easy to remember and quick to type (as you are typing normal words, rather than searching around for weird symbols). For example take the lyric Living in an Amish paradise. Assuming the password is made up of only letters and spaces, that's still (26+26+1)^27 = 3.6x1046 possibilities for that length of pass word. An 8 character password incorporating a selection from 100 different symbols only has 1x1016 possibilities, and is much harder to remember
  14. rvalkass
    1. Trust in Encyclop?dias An encyclop?dia is only as trustworthy as its sources. A published book is less likely to contain random errors (ie. it has been produced with good faith) but there is no way to correct unintentional errors. Online sources can be edited at the drop of a hat for illegitimate reasons, but then they can also be corrected instantly. Both are only as reliable as the sources from which they draw their information. This is why it's so important to look at the sources for any text and consider exactly where they've got their information, any bias, etc. Newspapers, despite being a published resource, are notoriously bad at listing their sources, and editing text to suit their own spin. 2. Pub Bets This links back to the first one - people can easily find a website that supports either side of a point of view, even for apparently 'factual' things. Most of the questions raised in these bets are things that are commonly held misconceptions (the sort of questions that feature on QI) so there are plenty of places on the Internet that contain the wrong answer. If anything, the Internet just fuels these debates rather than putting a stop to them. 3. Your Old Flame People who are using electronic means (like SMS or MyFaceSpace) to discuss their love and relationship with another person must be the east romantic people on the planet. How on earth can you discuss something like that without being there with the person, seeing their body language, hearing their actual response? The mind boggles. 4. Civil Discourse I agree with this one. The perceived anonymity gives certain people a feeling that they can do or say whatever they feel like to other people. There have been plenty of reported cases in the media of people being bullied and driven to depression and suicide because of the behaviour of other people online. That lack of personality some people feel when they're just talking to a screen name is worrying. 5. Listening to Albums Am I the only person who still goes in to HMV and browses CDs? When I buy a CD, it may occasionally be online, but I still buy a physical CD that gets shipped to my door. I like having the whole album, I like having the artwork, I like having something that a faceless corporation in America can't suddenly decide I'm not allowed to listen to any more. My CDs play on any device, I can rip them into any format I choose and do what I like with them. Plus, a physical CD normally costs no more than downloading the tracks - sometimes even less (tracks sold as downloads for 99p each, physical CD album of 12 tracks costs ?3.99 delivered to my door... go figure). 6. Expertise I don't think everyone instantly thinks they're an expert, they just learn a little knowledge about specific tasks/topics when they need it. While that can be a bad thing, it at least means that people are trying to learn more and educate themselves. That's something that required expensive training and books in the past. 7. Nigeria's Reputation Any scammer deserves to lose whatever little reputation they have. If Nigeria wants to lose the image these spam emails created, perhaps they should do more to combat them. The same goes for banks and other businesses that suffer from people creating phishing emails. If more was done to combat them, the reputation of legitimate businesses would remain intact. 8. Gud Spelling I manage to find friends that text in proper English so you can actually understand whatever they're saying If words do ever get shortened to fit within SMS limits then that doesn't spill over into any other sort of writing - it really is just to save that few pence on another text message for the sake of a few characters. I know this isn't always the case though, but so what? Language evolves (the US spell words like colour and favourite wrong, but they get along just fine ) and as long as the recipient of the message understands it, that's fine. If they don't it leads to hilarity 9. Celebrity Celebrities haven't had a private life since they started thrusting themselves into the public eye so much. Newspapers and magazines have long had the same effect, and radio and television after that. The Internet has not made such a huge difference as people make out. But really, who cares what these people do any more than you care what a random person down the street does? It doesn't matter. Let them get on with their lives. 10. Sex Just reminds me of a story I saw on the news of a couple getting divorced because the wife cheated on her husband in Second Life, and the husband was visiting a virtual prostitute. I believe they then started arguing over who got custody over the helicopter gunship they had parked outside their virtual mansion.
  15. rvalkass
    Take a look at free, Creative Commons audio websites. For example, Soundclick have the ability to search for Creative Commons licensed music, which you can use for free. Jamendo also hold Creative Commons music and audio which you can use. Free Loops and ccMixter are also worth a look.
  16. rvalkass
    Likewise. I think the other parties shy away from saying anything because current budget cuts mean that improvements can't be made - we can only stay where we are with regards to the number of police officers, etc. Rather than be honest and say that, the major parties just avoid saying anything at all. Judges are the be all and end all with respect to the interpretation of the letter of the law, along with precedent set down by previous judges and juries. The recent cases of MPs selling their ability to pass laws to the highest bidder adds a frightening new element to this too. True about assaults, but Britain is still behind many other nations such as the US and South Africa. Also bear in mind differences in categorisation of them. I know I keep going on about statistics, but they make a huge difference. I was trying to make the point that many MPs live in areas such as Chipping Norton, Didcot, Henley-on-Thames, etc. These are predominantly high wealth areas and cause the MPs (on colossal incomes and expenses) to become detached from those people they are supposed to be representing. They don't, for example, experience the same rates of burglaries, car crime, violence, etc. as the rest of the country. To them, crime is not a high priority. While the outcomes are true, their proportionality is not. If the tabloids were believed, not a single criminal would ever have been sentenced to prison. The story "Burglar gets 6 month custodial sentence" is fairly unremarkable, although far more common. Take a look http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/
  17. rvalkass
    In most situations, I would disagree with this point. While there are extreme examples (grossly magnified by the media) the vast majority of situations see criminals punished, and those who abide by the law with cordial relations with the police. Where I live the police hold regular meetings with residents to keep both the residents and the police up to date with various issues that need dealing with. The police also regularly walk their beats, and are friendly to people rather than creating a "them and us" situation, and willing to help those citizens who need it. Yet we have one of the lowest crime rates in the country, so criminals are clearly punished when necessary and whatever they are doing is having an effect. The Tories care only about upper-middle England, and are totally unaware of the world outside of rural Oxfordshire and Surrey. Their policies on crime are useless simply because the worst crime they ever experience is someone pouring bubble bath in their local duckpond. Labour have also moved the same way in recent years, and both Labour and the Tories have lost any remaining shred of credibility due to the expenses scandal. The BNP and UKIP are both single-issue parties, with little else in the way of policies on general issues - does anyone have any idea of the BNP's education policies for example? And I fail to see how either of them would tackle crime effectively. Introducing corporal punishment for petty crime is possibly the worst policy I have ever heard from a political party. What evidence do you have for this? The European Sourcebook shows that things aren't exactly as bad as you may think. It is also important to consider the differences in laws between countries. What goes down as a drug crime in the UK for example, is considered on the same level as a speeding ticket in some countries, while is punished even more severely in others. This applies to all sorts of crimes, and is something to bear in mind. For example, the rate of crime in England and Wales is currently growing at only the 10th fastest rate in Europe, behind Greece, Switzerland, Poland, etc. The crime rate in Scotland has actually fallen in recent years. According to recent figures, on the number of criminal offences per person, the England and Wales are second in Europe behind Sweden, Scotland is 5th and Northern Ireland is 10th. Countries like Finland, Belgium and Denmark have very similar figures - there really isn't a lot in it at the top of the table. As Finland is often considered one of the safest nations in Europe, the quality of all these statistics needs to be called into question - just what exactly counts as a crime? Remember also that many studies use peoples 'perception' or 'feeling' of security, safety and criminality in their home country. Considering the media in the UK, that's a useless metric to use for anything.
  18. rvalkass
    What length? As I understand it, serialize creates a string you can store in a database, file, whatever that can be 'decoded' by PHP to recreate the original variable or object. At no point do you need to pass the length of the object or serialised string that you are reading. How does using functions like mysqli_real_escape_string() and stripslashes() work? As long as you undo whatever action you've done to insert the serialised string into the database, you should be able to unserialise it with PHP again.
  19. rvalkass
    Trap18.com - like Xisto, but one better AtWisdom.com - shorter than Xisto, easier to type quickly, and suggests that when you arrive at the site, you are at wisdom / you have arrived at knowledge (the same idea as I believe was behind Xisto). My only worry with this one is that it may confuse people in speech coming out as "w w w dot at wisdom dot com" - that "at" could confuse people.
  20. rvalkass
    Some form of watermarking is probably your best bet then. Put your name/URL/whatever somewhere centrally in the image. Do it fairly small and in a way that 'blends in' with the background (ie. not 72px bold red text). This doesn't directly stop people copying, but it makes it obvious if they do - and you still get credit. Unfortunately you'd have to place the watermark in the centre to avoid people cropping the images to cut off your watermark. If you're intending to use the images for commercial purposes (ie. selling the rights to them or selling prints of them) then you can just put low-quality versions online (either very compressed JPEGs, or just small sizes) so that they are useless for commercial purposes, but people still get an idea of the image and whether they want to pay. It also depends on how far you want to go i protecting the images, and who you're trying to deter. If you set the images as the background for a DIV element using CSS, you can't copy the image with right clicking in most browsers. You can go further by placing a DIV over the image of exactly the same size, with its background set to a repeated 1px square that is a transparent PNG or GIF. The image is still viewable in the browser, and right clicking and selecting "View Background Image" just presents the user with a 1px transparent square rather than your image. Of course, looking through the CSS reveals the actual path to the image. And nothing can stop people pushing the "Print Screen" button on their keyboard
  21. rvalkass
    There are two ways to look at this: 1. It's Impossible Anything you place on the web, by definition, has to be downloaded to the user's PC before they can see it. They have therefore already been copied on to the user's computer, and from there they can do whatever they like with them. 2. You're Already Covered Copyright law in most countries around the world already protects you. In most countries your work is under your copyright from the moment of it's creation, which means that people can't copy it in many ways (except under fair use). To enforce this you would need proof the work is originally yours, the date of its creation, the identity of the person copying it, and proof that what they're doing isn't covered by fair use. If you are that desperate to stop people copying your work, consider whether you should actually be releasing it at all (in any form).
  22. rvalkass
    Use JavaScript to take whatever they type in, and append it to your URL. Then forward the browser to that address. So, if your URL is http://www.example.org/ and the user types in directory then combine those two with JavaScript and forward the user's browser to http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. I'm not sure how you would check the existence of the directory with JavScript however. PHP is also an option, but I'm not sure exactly how that would work with your requirement for 'automatically' taking them to the directory. The same logic applies to taking the input from the user, sanitising it, and adding it to the URL. To check the directory exists use the PHP function file_exists.
  23. rvalkass

    New Here =]

    rvalkass replied to reytic's topic in Introductions

    You need to create an account at the billing site: https://support.xisto.com/ Make sure you use the same email address as you used for your forum account. Make at least 5 good quality posts in sections of the forum that count posts (ones that don't are clearly marked) and wait for an hour or two. Your myCENTs will then show up and get calculated. When you have 100 cents they are converted to $1 in your billing account to spend on hosting and domains.
  24. rvalkass
    Slightly late, slightly rubbish, but here is my sig for this week. Next time I'll remember the date and give myself more time
  25. rvalkass
    I did I'm sure other people will. The best analogy I can think of is that it looks like a sign above a shop, but with one of the letters missing. You know what should be there, but it just looks sloppy and like they don't really care. It's the image that stands out on the front page, and is the first thing visitors will see. It's important to get those first impressions right. All of these are looking much better and more professional. Your only contact method is still email. Take a look at Xisto's site. In the bottom right hand corner you find the address. This adds credibility to the company, and security for the customer. A telephone number is also good. I would certainly add these to your site. I tend not to deal with companies if they make it at all hard to find their contact details, and I'm sure many people are the same. The fact you've used some sort of privacy protection on your WHOIS records also removes credibility and trustworthiness from the site. I also agree with Sky that the TOS looks awful There's no need to go for those horrible colours, so change them to match the rest of the site. On a related note, you may also wish to review those terms. For example, the first one states "no illegal use", but under whose laws? The same goes for item 21. You're based in the UK, your server is in the UK, so why would US and Canadian laws be relevant? Item 29 mentions an AUP, yet I can't find one anywhere on the site. Items 30 and 31 combined seem to allow you to charge people infinitely by cancelling their account and then charging them to reinstate it, without any reason and with no limits. A little disconcerting for any serious customers. Not providing notice is also somewhat mean. You've got contact details for your customers, so contact them to let them know if you change the TOS.
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