Canadians for net neutrality

Here is a message from a group fighting for something I feel quite strongly about, Net Neutrality. If you are not sure what net neutrality is, here is a definition:

"Network neutrality is a principle that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers or governments on consumers' access to networks that participate in the internet. Specifically, network neutrality would prevent restrictions on content, sites, platforms, types of equipment that may be attached, and modes of communication."

They have a facebook group as well where you can get more information, but here is a message from the OpenMedia.ca team:

Big Telecom has decided to fight their customers instead of working to make the Internet more open and affordable, but together we can turn Canada from a digital laggard to a leader in connectivity and innovation.


Big phone and cable companies are losing control but they are not giving up without a fight—in fact they’re doubling down on greed. These companies are raising prices across the board while they still can, and trying to cozy up to policymakers: Bell has just appointed former Industry Minister Jim Prentice as a board member, and Telus has done the same with former Conservative MP Stockwell Day.


The Internet impacts every aspect of our lives, and we all deserve a say in its future. Take a moment to provide OpenMedia.ca with key input here: http://openmedia.ca/engage


Thanks to you, our petitions saw viral growth this year, and we gained national media coverage and caught the the attention of the Prime Minister’s office. You forced a CRTC review on Internet metering, and OpenMedia.ca testified at the subsequent public hearing this summer. The stakes were high and the pressure was on at the CRTC’s landmark hearing, but we held our own against the Big Telecom lobby. By the end of the two-week proceeding, nearly everyone was shunning usage-based pricing schemes, but we’re not done yet. Now, more than ever, we have to keep up the pressure so that the decision makers know Canadians want an open, affordable Internet.


We’ve gained momentum and Ottawa is starting to listen. Let’s keep up the charge.


Here are a few easy ways you can help right now:


1. If you haven’t already, fill out our pro-Internet survey: http://openmedia.ca/engage


2. Make a donation (http://openmedia.ca/donate, or help us continue to bring your voice to Ottawa by becoming a monthly donor (http://openmedia.ca/sustainer).


Your support has allowed us to get this far. Thank you so much for your ongoing efforts to champion the open and affordable Internet.


Onward,


Lindsey, Steve, Reilly, and the OpenMedia.ca Team

Germany and their inflation phobia

We are and have been in the middle of a period of economic uncertainty. A lot of experts have warned that a double dip recession is a possibility and the ones that don't believe that, still agree that economic recovery in the industrialized world has been very slow since 2008.

The US was the main focus of the recession that started in 2008, despite the involvement of many other nations in its development. While the US is still a very similar country in terms of economic policies to what it was in 2008, this time around economists have indicated that economic instability for the next recession is likely to come from the EU. Countries like Greece, Spain and Portugal are some of the main problem nations, but there are a lot of other trouble makers as well. However, not all countries in the EU are in trouble, which may be the only reason their economy hasn't collapsed yet. Germany has had a strong economy for many decades, and despite the economic events in recent years, the nation still boasts of fiscal responsibility and economy stability.

Recently, as expected, a lot of the troubled nations have been approaching Germany for loans and other forms of help. Not only that but they have also been asking for help from the European Central Bank. One interesting bit of information about this central bank is the conditions in which it was created. Back when European nations decided a centralized bank would be a good idea, Germans were very hesitant, so in order to go ahead with the creation of the ECB, a clause in the contract said that the ECB could not engage in quantitative easing. This was a main condition in order to keep Germans comfortable with this unification.

The European systemic instability that we have been seeing has led some countries to ask the ECB for help, even though the help they are asking for is prohibited. The other interesting aspect of this story is the reason why Germany is so reluctant to allowing the central bank to print money.

This goes back to the 1920's and it has everything to do with inflation. After WWI the german government was in a lot of debt, so they had to borrow a lot of money from the rest of the world and often that wasn't enough. This led the government to issue an order to their central bank to print as much money as they needed. This obviously led to a massive loss in value of the Deutsche Marks (German currency), which is another way to say high levels of inflation ensued. The following decade of high inflation is thought to have enabled the Nazi party to gain popular support. Social distress caused by hyperinflation in Germany was not very different from the social distress in Italy that allowed for the rise of Fascism in that country. So it isn't hard to understand why Germans are so hesitant to break these rules established during the institution of the ECB. This is aside from the obvious fact that printing money to pay debt seems like a shortsighted solution to anyone with half a brain.

xfce4 application finder for Ubuntu

I've been running Ubuntu on both my laptop and desktop, however I'm not using Unity on my laptop just to conserve some resources. One of my favorite features of Unity however is the lens to look for applications by name, for anyone not familiar, it is basically a "search engine" for your PC. As you type the name of the program or file you are looking for, a list starts to populate, and if I'm not mistaken, this list takes into account how frequently you use those apps. Anyway, it's pretty great, but my laptop is just using the old GNOME interface and some of my apps apparently don't show up on the regular menu, so I was wondering how to open them as a Linux noobie. I found a great little tool to search for apps inside your HD, this is called xfce4, and it shows up in your Applications > Accessories menu if you are running GNOME and have it installed. You can use this on KDE and Xfce as well, I don't believe this comes installed with any of the Ubuntu distros, but it's worth checking it out if you don't have Unity running.

To get this little app just type:

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install xfce4-appfinder

Configuring conky on ubuntu

Hello, so on a previous post I mentioned conky, this great and light system analysis tool for Linux. I mentioned how to get the thing, but I said nothing about how to use it. It turns out conky is not as foolproof as gkrellm2 which I use on my laptop, and since I'm a complete Linux noobie I figured I could write something here about how to get conky going if you are a complete Linux virgin.

So as I mentioned on the other post, downloading it is easy, you can use synaptic or the terminal typing:

$ sudo apt-get install conky

Now once you do that, configuring the thing can be done using gedit. At this point I know what gedit is, but in case you don't, it is just a text editor for GNOME, equivalent to kate from KDE or vi, among others. I use kate on BackTrack but on Ubuntu I've been using gedit. Anyway, to get that going type:

$ gedit ~/.conkyrc

Just to make this noobie proof, ~ is usually used to refer to your /home directory, if you noticed when you open the terminal you see a ~ and that indicates you are on your /home, if you type something like cd /, this will take you to the root directory and you won't see that ~ any longer. Another neat little trick is that you can use cd ~ (change directory) to go to your /home. That means ~/ is leading you to a directory directly under your home, and the period right after the slash indicates this folder is a hidden folder. Neat little fact, unlike windows, in Linux a hidden folder is indicated by it's nomenclature, meaning anything with a period in front of the file name indicates a hidden file/folder.

So as you open this file, if you haven't done this before, your configuration will be blank. This is where you can configure conky to look and do whatever you want, since you probably don't know what you want I will post my configuration so you can just copy that for the time being and change it if you wish, this will be at the bottom of this post, you might need to expand it. Note that I'm a noobie too, I'm still trying to figure out how to get my network info to show up. I will post what my conky looks like when I open it up. So once you finish adding the code you can save the file and close gedit. Go back to the terminal and in order to open conky just type :

conky

... and voilà.

here is what my conky looks like... later I'll post a pic of my two Ubuntu desktops, just cause they looks so sexy (my wife hates when I call things sexy :)

Linux img editor (gimp) and how to change the unity laucher bar on ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhall)... oh and conky

So I've finally installed Ubuntu on my main machine, and my slow transition to Linux has been coming along nicely. My first Linux install was the 11.04 (Natty) which was the first Ubuntu version to come with the unity shell interface. This has a lot of users kind of upset. Since I didn't really know much about the previous gnome interface I didn't find it too bad. The only problem I faced in my first install was the fact that unity was fairly resource intensive for my crappy laptop. Let me clarify this, it was more intense than the GNOME interface but it was still a major improvement from my Windows XP install in that same computer. After I discover I could easily change my laptop to the "classic interface" I decided to do that. This made my Ubuntu so much smoother on that computer that I am definitely happy to give up the interesting layout that comes with Unity. If you don't know how to do that, it's very easy... when you boot your Ubuntu and come to the login screen, select your user and you will notice a few things change in the bottom bar, and it should say "Ubuntu" there. Click on it and change it to the "Ubuntu Classic" option, that's all. If you need even more RAM it may even be better to pick the "no effects" option.

Anyhow, I have now installed Ubuntu on my desktop as well and on this one I will keep the unity interface, just cause it looks nice and I can afford the resources it will eat up. The only issue I have with it at this point is the fact that I think the bar is a bit too bulky, and I want a bigger looking workspace. So I just found out how to get around this issue.

First download and install the compizconfig-settings-manager
$ sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Then open the compizconfig-settings-manager by clicking on the Ubuntu button on the top left of your desktop and type:
compiz

At this point you should see the CompizConfig Settings Manager icon, click on that. A Screen similar to the system monitor will pop open. There will be some categories like General, Accessibility, Desktop and so forth (picture below). From there look for "Ubuntu Unity Plugin" which is under Desktop.

At this point look for the tab experimental and look for launcher icon size which should be set to 48 from default, I ended up picking 36 which made the icons to a nice size, but test it out and see what works for you.

Conky: I'm also trying out another system manager program called Conky. It's similar to the other one I've posted before but may be a bit more customizable and more lightweight, I'll try it out and let you guys know how it is. Here is a link to it and the command to get it from the terminal:

http://conky.sourceforge.net/documentation.html
$ sudo apt-get install conky

GIMP: On a completely different topic, I just wanted to mention GIMP Image Editor. It is a image editor like Adobe Photoshop. The beauty is that this is an open source project and it is cross platform, so I can easily use it on my windows and my linux without any hassle. To get this gem you can either use your Synaptic Package Manager and look for gimp or you can pick it up through the terminal (Ctrl + Alt + t) by typing:

These two just update your repo lists (not a bad idea to do that every now and then)

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Then to install GIMP

$ sudo apt-get install gimp

In general I do like using Synaptic cause I'm a Linux noobie, but I am trying to get into terminal use as much as I can. For some more brushes and plugins if you want you can also type:

$ sudo apt-get install gimp-data-extras

$ sudo apt-get install gimp-plugin-registy

Just as an extra here is a nice link with some suggestions for basic applications for fresh ubuntu installs, worth taking a look if you want more stuff on your linux. Also while writing this I've been listening to this great guy playing some music on youtube, his name is Viktor Cepeda. He does an awesome song for minecraft too, check it out.

Delving into Linux - wget, metasploit (Ubuntu) and searching for files

I've been spending a significant amount of time learning more about Ubuntu lately and I have to say, Linux impresses me more every day. I figured I should share some of my most recent finding with my readers.

wget - This command line tool comes on Ubuntu out of the box, and probably other linux distros as well I would imagine. It is great for downloading things, giving you the ability to resume unfinished downloads as well as being quite a persistent little app. Not only that, but it also allows you to download full websites through it, which I still haven't learned how to use. Anyway, here are some links to help you get started using this tool.

15 wget examples
Download an entire website (saved on your home folder by default)
http://www.go2linux.org/limit_rate_resume_downloads_wget

Metasploit - This is a popular pentesting framework that I first discovered in my BackTrack distro. I wanted to start learning how to use MSF on my Ubuntu distro and this guide helped me get it setup fairly easily

http://www.redspin.com/blog/2011/08/19/installing-metasploit-4-in-ubuntu-11-04/

Recoll - This great little tool allows you to search through your computer files. It is an open source application available for many different distros and it is not terribly bulky to run. I tried google desktop but that didn't quite work out for me.


http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/

Prey - stolen laptop story

I was just browsing around when I found this pretty neat story about someone that had their laptop stolen, and using a software called "prey", were able to recover it. Here is a link to it:

Lifehacker - How I Got My Stolen Laptop Back Within 24 Hours Using Prey

Tor project - protecting privacy while browsing

I just discovered a nice little tool to help protect me from the dangers of browsing. This tool is called Tor. This is a free software that helps you protect yourself from network surveillance and traffic analysis. If you care about anonymity online, this may be a good option. In order to get it running you can do some reading and get the app here:

Ubuntu instructions
Ubuntu installation
More Ubuntu network privacy info
Windows instructions

Tor also has a plugin for Firefox, and since I'm a Firefox user I will also need Torbutton

Just a note, Tor will help you with anonymity, but in no way it is perfect, there are still risks. Not only that but be aware that using Tor will probably slow down your internet, so use it as you see needed. If you have the firefox plugin you can enable and disable it whenever you want, which adds a bit of flexibility depending on your needs.

Ubuntu - I'm a convert

I've been contemplating the idea of trying Linux out for years. Back in high school I even bought a book on Red Hat and tried to install it to my second HDD. It worked, sort of, I got it running but couldn't figure out how to configure anything. That led me to some significant frustration and I eventually put away linux, thinking that was that. Well recently I've been fooling around with some NetSec stuff and I came by this very cool linux distro which I found out I could run off of a USB drive. I read a bit more and found out that installing this distro (BackTrack) on a USB stick was actually pretty easy. So I did that and just out of my adventures into NetSec topics I was exposed to some Linux. I felt that it wasn't that difficult to figure things out in BT, and I didn't mind the terminal stuff since anything I didn't know I could just google. One thing led to another and a few months later I started to read more about this really cool distro called Ubuntu which apparently seemed to be very popular. I figured the popularity of the distro is probably a sign that it is actually accessible to linux noobies, and I was right. Last Friday I decided to partition my laptop so that I could try out ubuntu on it.

It has been almost a week later and I have to say I love it. Ubuntu is very stable, pretty lean, which makes my laptop much more usable now compared to my winXP boot. I absolutely love repo and how easy it is to navigate it. For those that don't know what repo is, it is basically like the iTunes app store. It is a compilation of servers where people that develop open source (FREE) software posts all their goodies, so you can just browse thousands of applications and install whatever you need, all for free. It's quite amazing and they have a wonderful selection of programs that really makes windows for me just half necessary. I think because I am into gaming I will still use windows for that. Linux has Wine which allows you to play win games, but I don't mind running a windows machine. Also, MS Office still a must for me, open office just doesn't cut it. Repo works off of the terminal as well, and installing software on linux is even easier than it is on Windows. I have to say, for anyone still intimidated to get into using this amazing free resource, don't be... There are quite a few Linux distros available that will make your transition super easy. I've been reading a lot and listening to some great podcasts about linux, so if anyone has questions about Linux and whether or not you should try it out, please msg me.