Here is a list of my Furlough days for the 2009-2010 academic year.
Dec 21st
Dec 22nd
Dec 23rd
Jan 19th
Mar 26th
April 9th
May 28th
This year is going to be rough, wife also has 9 furlough days of her own.
Recently in MyBlogs Category
The morning started off at 8am, or just before. It is a little earlier than my usual 8:45am start. Today I took most of my things out of the Landers Lab that will be following me over to my new position. With my old desk not supporting a computer or monitor the room is starting to look empty.
I worked on some code for the Housing price estimator today, as well as helped some student trouble shoot some login/ Bradford registration issues. Some of the recent accounts were created without passwords, making it impossible for users to login and register their computer. This problem is being handled by UCS and will be fixed really soon.
The next few weeks will be intense training to get up to speed prior to fall term, to interview and hire for my old position and get them trained and ready for new student week. I am very excited to take on this role and to further my programming skills.
Windows XP/Vista, Server 2003/2008
We all know that Shutdown.exe is the built-in command line utility to shutdown, restart or logoff your computer, but most people don't know that there is a built-in GUI front-end as well.
This interface makes it very easy to shutdown/logoff/restart a list of computers (browse for computers via the Windows shell), input a timeframe for the action and log an event to the system.
The command: Shutdown.exe -i
'-i' has to be the first command-line option if you use others.
It may be old news to many but still a good tool.
A Minnesota woman was ordered to pay a $220,000 judgment for the illegal sharing of 24 copyrighted songs. link
“..The RIAA sued Thomas for copyright infringement and unlike the vast majority of people sued by the group, Thomas chose not to settle her case for what is typically a few thousand dollars. Instead, she decided to defend herself in court. She strongly denies sharing music files.
But a 12-person jury in Duluth, Minnesota found in favor of the RIAA. They ordered Thomas to pay $9,250 for each of the 24 songs she was accused of sharing.
..”
The Minnesota woman accused of sharing songs through the KaZaA file-sharing network.
Who is responsible for P2P software on your computer? And who is responsible for the downloading of illegal materials using the P2P software?
From my perspective any software that is intentionally installed on ones computer makes the owner/user solely responsible for the application. P2P software is not a virus so the software was intentionally installed. Second P2P software in itself not illegal, it is the downloading of illegal files that gives P2P software a bad name and ultimately gets the owner/user into trouble.
We discourage the use of P2P software and its use on our campus network. We have posters and flyers for students to see, so they can comprehend the severity of using such software for illegal means. We will even help uninstall any P2P software to the best of our ability; however the owner/user is still responsible for their computer. So it is there responsibility to make sure the software is gone, not running or not used for illegal downloading.
How do they catch owners/user downloading illegal files? P2P software can be used for both downloading and uploading. You can be caught for either offence. Even if you uninstall the software you can be prosecuted for an offence that was performed before the software was removed from your computer. So it really is best to have not stolen the software in the first place. So the adage really does apply, “If you do the crime, prepare to do the time?, or “pay the fine?.
Here is some general info by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/default.asp
Here is some info on penalties for breaking the copyright laws.
http://www.riaa.com/issues/piracy/penalties.asp
Aloha, see you on the 13th…
I am off to the island of Maui for a week.
Below is an copy from the RIAA about P2P and its fines.
Penalties of Piracy
The principle that the work that one has created belongs to the creator and should be controlled by you is as timeless as it is global. Around the world, this principle is encoded in law. "Copyright" is a term of intellectual property law that prohibits the unauthorized duplication, adaptation or distribution of a creative work.
In the recording industry, there are usually two copyrighted works involved:
The copyright in the musical composition, i.e. the actual lyrics and notes on paper. This is usually owned by the songwriter or music publisher.
The copyright in the sound recording, i.e. the recording of the performer singing or playing a given song. This is usually owned by the record company.
On the federal level, titles 17 and 18 of the U.S. Code protect copyright owners from the unauthorized reproduction, adaptation or distribution of sound recordings, as well as certain digital performances to the public. The penalties differ slightly, depending upon whether the infringing activity is for commercial advantage or private financial gain. Under U.S. copyright law, "financial gain" includes bartering or trading anything of value, including sound recordings.
Where the infringing activity is for commercial advantage or private financial gain, sound recording infringements can be punishable by up to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Repeat offenders can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. Violators can also be held civilly liable for actual damages, lost profits, or statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringement, as well as attorney’s fees and costs.
The online infringement of copyrighted music can be punished by up to 3 years in prison and $250,000 in fines. Repeat offenders can be imprisoned up to 6 years. Individuals also may be held civilly liable, regardless of whether the activity is for profit, for actual damages or lost profits, or for statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringed copyright.
I took off the 21st and 22nd of this week to go to Detroit Lake and play in the water. My cousin brought up his boat and we did some tubing, it was a blast, forgot what it was like to be skipped across the water at 50 MPH, then crash…We were up there for a few days camping, boating, and telling stories. It was a blast!
Today is the 4th of July, and I will be spending it with my family. We are planning to watch the firework display here in Independence. We have been watching fireworks here for about 10 years now. They are some of the best I have ever seen and we usually run into a few friends along the way. Maybe I will see you there.
Today Michael took me out for lunch for my birthday. I really appreciated it and so I thought I would post it in my blog for everyone to see, well those who ever read it. Thanks.
Today my 10 year old is having a school promotion. She just finished the 5th grade. Wow I am starting to feel old now. I decided to take the day off.
Is P2P software Illegal? Can I get in trouble for using it? What could it hurt?
Well p2P software is “Not Illegal? but downloading of copyrighted materials like songs movies or software is illegal. If you download a file without paying for it you may be downloading a copyrighted file. MP3’s are probably the most widely downloaded file using P2P software. The gray part for some users is “I paid for this version of Limewire? so it is not illegal to use it. Sorry to tell you but it still may be illegal. Some of these P2P companies provide a free version or a gold version that is paid for. The “paid for? version only means that you paid for the P2P software not any of the files you download using it. This might mean that there will not be any ads displayed on the screen bugging you or having a constant reminder to register the product. Downloading of any file that the owner does not grant you access to is stealing. And by owner I mean the person who created or has legal rights to the file.
Can I get into trouble for it, YES. It is your responsibility to verify the file is not copyrighted before attempting to download. Recently a new law was passed making a person found guilty of illegally downloading/distributing materials liable to a fine of $250,00 per article. You can also face jail time. The sad part is how many people do not see this as illegal or do not have the morals to stop themselves from such acts.
As a computer Technician I see hundreds of computer that are infected with viruses and spyware. What does this have to do with P2P well, a lot. Viruses and spyware are very common and rampant in the P2P community. I also see a correlation to the students who have viruses and I look and guess what, Limewire, or Morpheus, or Bit Torrent. Makes you think, is it worth it?
Recently while reading through my Resnet Listserve I came across a very hot and controversial topic; “The banning of MySpace.com on the Texas campus of Del Mar?.
“The community college has blocked the site in response to complaints about sluggish Internet speed on campus computers.?
"This was more about us being able to offer Web-based instruction, and MySpace.com was slowing everything down," President Carlos Garcia said.
"We pay for school and the resources that are used," said Zeke Santos, 20. "It's our choice, we're the ones paying for our classes. If we pass or fail, it's up to us."
Del Mar has taken the stance that this site is hindering the ability of the college to provide educational web content to their students. Many posts have come into the listserver describing their views and ideologies. Some agree some disagree, and some just look at the repercussions this could bring. The group that seems to be PRO MySpace has concerns such as. If MySpace.com is bringing down the campus network, maybe we need to upgrade and get more bandwidth, is one echoing sediment. The other repeating statement seems to be the sediment that the students are paying for this service what they do with it is up to them. Students who live in the resident halls need both educational and personal internet/network needs. While this seems to be the side of the Pro MySpace camp the other side does not seem to share in its perceptions of what a campus network is intended to be used for. They do not see a separation between the network students use in the Reshalls and the network used by Fac/Staff/ and students in academic pursuits. They see the network a a shared resource that needs to be kept in balance. I found an interesting solution as I read through post after post on this topic.
“The Resnet pipe is separate from our main academic and research network pipes. Even different IP address space.
We do very little shaping. We do have a penalty box system though.
Students can use 5 Gbytes per 24 hours. After that they are slowed to 100kbps. This catches 3% of students, and really does have enormous impact on moderating student Internet behaviour. Students also automatically go into the penalty box for not having a lease or using a pirated IP. - Dennis?
Here is a link to the MSNBC story Texas community college bans MySpace.com
The balance of Academia and personal use is indeed hard. This is a topic that actually goes way beyond MYSpace.com. Setting policies similar to this one needs to be heavily researched before being made. There are a lot of aspects that play into these types of polices like money, perceptions, educational value, and personal needs. I have not made up my opinion on this matter so I am only trying to describ what I read and relay it to whom ever reads this.
I did not do any blog entries last week, Disneyland was to blame. I took my two kids ages 10 and 6 to Disneyland over spring break. We spent 2 days doing Disneyland and Disney California. Opened and closed the park on both days, for a total of 28 hours of rides and games. With both children being tall enough we went on just about every ride in the park including the Screaming an upside down rollercoaster and the Tower or Terror, a 13 story free falling elevator ride, we even managed to hit Dumbo a few times.
I learned some interesting information last night while trying my first Raid 0 configuration on my personal computer at home. Let me start off with my specs:
MB – Asus P5LD2
CPU – Intel P4 640 3.2Ghz
Ram – 2 GB
Video – ATI Radion x800 Pro
Hard drive – 2 X WD2000JS 200 GB SATA II 7200 RPM
OS – Windows XP org OEM (does not have SP1 or SP2)
First off I already knew Windows XP would not recognize the two 200GB drives to their actual size without at least SP1, and I did know Windows does not see SATA II drives without hitting F6 at the beginning of setup and using a raid driver from a 3.5 in floppy. However even after I setup the BIOS and the controller card as Raid 0 I still ran into some problems and was stumped. I was getting an error 0x000007B during setup. I spent a few hours doing searches on the internet with no luck until I came across what looked as a bazaar post in a forum for someone who was having the same problems with the same Mb and Hard drive setup. His solution actually had nothing to do with the RAID configuration, drivers or anything you might associate with the install. The solution he posed was to move your CD-Rom off of the main IDE channel to the ATA 66/100 channel. I thought what could that have to do with it, but I did it and BAM! It worked and installed with no further problems. I only wish I knew what size of striping I should use, everyone had their opinion some small some big, depends on what you are doing… So I left it at the default 128 bit size. Let me tell you I notice a day and night different in speed when in Windows and also when in games. The Load times for my games drop dramatically and there was no lag or hesitation experienced during game play. I recommend RIAD 0 to everyone. I know it does not have a redundancy for data backups, but the performance is so nice.
This week we moved all of the Housing computers from their offices to temporary locations, some to the RHA/RSC offices and others to the Landers lab. Each computer had to be setup and tested after each move. This took some time, we also had to clear out the computers that were in the locations that the housing staff was going to use. The carpet in the Housing office was installed in record time which is allowing us to move the computers back in relatively soon. Along with the computer we had to move a few printer including a large laser printer, and BIG MAC.. and oh ya the names fit, they were both big and heavy instruments. In all we unhooked, moved, setup, tested 10 computer and 3 printers, then turned around and redid the process putting them back in their new locations.
On 11/8/05 I had the luxury of receiving a new computer. I was using a spare from Michael Ellis. The new computer was very nice, 3.2GHz, 1GB ram, 19? flat panel monitor. It will last me for some time I imagine. I was a little surprised to see it was a desktop and not a tower, but it seems to take up less room and is very quiet. I got it setup in place and running on the 8th. Today I will install the Applications I was using on the other computer like MSN Massager or Trillion, and MRTG (Active Perl, MRTG, supporting Perl classes). I am also setting up Outlook as my email client because the Sun internet client seems to be buggy at times. Well I off to finish setting up this bad boy…hehehe
I am in the process of building a new computer for my home. Here are the specs for my new computer.
Case
Thermaltake Lanfire with heat and fan control
MB
Asus P5LD2: Intel Pentium D/Pentium 4 HT/Celeron D
DDR2 Standard: DDR2 667 max 4GB (4x 240pin DDR2)
FSB: 1066/800MHz
PCI Express x1: 3
PCI Express x16: 1
Supported CPU Technologies: Hyper-Threading Technology
Processor
Series: Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz
64 bit Support: Yes
Hyper-Threading Support: Yes
L1 Cache: 12KB+16KB
L2 Cache: 2MB
RAM
PQI 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin SDRAM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Unbuffered Dual Channel
DVD burner
LITE-ON Beige 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2M Cache IDE CD Burner
Video card:
Radeon® X800 Pro PCI Express® 256MB DDR memory
12 parallel rendering pipelines
PCI Express® X16 lanes support
Direct X® 9.0 and OpenGL® 2.0 support
DVD video playback
Dual display support
3Dc™ Support
HTDV Support
Continue reading New Home Computer.
Recently we have been seeing alot of AIM messanger viruses floating around the Reshalls. On 10/10/05 we had a string of students get the Trojan.Vundo virus. A little bit mast since it can not be removed by a virus scanner. I used the Vundo fix program offered by Symantec Corporation, sice the student had it installed and was not being reported by Sophos. The fix however did not find nor did it fix the virus. I was able to remove the infected file by booting into DOS mode and removing it from the system. Once Windows XP starts it locks the file and can not be removed, that is why it was only being detected by Norton AV and not removed.
Today I figure I would find out how to customize my blog page. Mike showed me where the templates are and off I went. I changed the color scheme and added the blog links section. Not too much altering but enough to make if a little more personal.
I just got my Blog setup and ready to tell all.
