Windows Security

The book I read to research this post was Hacking Exposed Windows 3rd edition by Joel Scambray which is an excellent book which I bought from amazon. No matter what you do to secure windows it will never be 100% secure the best you can hope for is to make it as difficult as possible. Microsoft releases security patches on the 2nd tuesday of the month. You must download these. The most common virus problems are when someone hasn't kept their pc upto date & hence made it vulnerable. When you set up a website you shouldn't register your details publicly many hackers use this information. It costs extra to have your web host provide default details but it's worth it. It's worth mentioning that there are websites that provide information like the IP address on any computer & this is very useful to hackers. They can use john the ripper to crack passwords & it's a free program. They can use fakeGINA to crack your log on password & can also remotely reboot your machine. NAT is another password cracker. Netbtscan will hack your bios. Another trick done by hackers is called SQLinjecting & is basically entering SQL statements into a form in the hope it will do something like drop a table. No website with a backend database is totally immune from it. Another trick is to enter nonsense information into a form & again no website is totally immune from that.

Sales Closing

The book I read to research this post was Sales Closing for Dummies by Tom Hopkins which is an excellent book which I bought from amazon. The no 1 reason somebody doesn't buy something is because they weren't asked properly. You should never say something like will you buy it? Instead you should ask them indirectly. Something like will you be paying by cash, cheque or credit card? That way you don't lose face if he doesn't want to buy it yet & you can still work on him to buy it. You may have a closing room but you should call it something like the conference room. In the original series of star trek there's a funny scene where Scotty the engineer is on holiday & for some light reading he is reading a book on how warp drives work. If you are getting into sales you must learn to enjoy it & just like anything else you enjoy you must enjoy reading about it & also you must spend at least an hour a day reading about it. You must also practise selling every chance you get. You should be honest when selling & if a person genuinely won't benefit from your product you should say so. The last thing you want is that person bad mouthing you on the internet. You should believe in your product & if your product is no good you should change jobs.

Basra

The book I read to research this blog was Target Basra by Mike Rossiter which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Basra was the capital of Mesopotamia around the time of the second world war at that time it was occupied by british troops so as to protect its crude oil. It was occupied again by british troops during & after the second gulf war. A lot of the trouble with iraq can be traced back to the iran-iraq war when more than a million people lost their lives. It was one of the most gruesome wars of this century & indeed iran used their own conscripts to clear minefields. Also they would force their own conscripts to charge in mass at iraq machine gun positions. During this time the west supported saddam as the lesser of 2 evils. When iraq invaded kuwait, iraq was nearly bankrupt & much of it was owed to kuwait. Saddam was under the impression he had one the first gulf war after all he remained in power. He thought his main threat was from dissidents in his own country after all it was a military coup that brought him to power. The majority of Basra is shia & are opposed to saddam. The allied forces top priority in the second gulf war was to take baghad & depose saddam. Basra was their first major success. The shias rebelled & members of saddams forces tried to massacre them. The british who were nearby were forced to take Basra so as to protect the civilians. They were unable to bomb the iraq positions because of the close proximity of the civilians. They allowed the iraq forces to retreat northwards so as to minimize the amount of fighting required. They also liberated Al Qasr which was a nearby port where most were sunni & were loyal to saddam. A lot of the population in Basra weren't very happy with the british being there. They often pulled people in for interrogation & there was a lot of organised crime involving the 3 factions of shias like illegally stealing crude oil & then reselling it. A practise worth $200 million per year.

PHP & MySQL Web Development

The book I read to research this post was PHP & MySQL Web Development for Dummies All in One by Janet Valade et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. 60% of all sites are powered by apache, php & mysql, 30% use windows internet information server which does the same job as apache. Apache is apparently more reliable & is open source but both are free. WII Server is supplied with windows but is not installed by default. When people use PHP & MySQL they download it as a package which includes Apache & phpMyAdmin. PHPMyAdmin enables PHP & MySQL to work together. The main packages are

WAMPP which works with windows.

MAMPP which works with macintosh.

XAMPP which primarily works with linux but there are versions for macintosh & windows.

Linux & Macintosh usually comes with apache installed so you won't need to install it unless you need to update it to a later version.

The book recommends using PHP 5 because 6 was in beta but that has probably changed by now. PHP 5 has lots of features that weren't available for PHP 4. Apparently a lot of web hosts don't support PHP 5 or charge extra but the upgrade is worth it.

MySQL is an open source database & would be used with a website for things like a customer database or a product catalogue.

Social Bookmarking

The ebook I read to research this post was Social Bookmarking which I downloaded for free from obooko.com It's an excellent ebook which I wish had been longer but the author whose name I'm not sure of has written a full length book on the same subject & this ebook was written to promote it.

There's 2 types of social bookmarking

1 social news where news stories are often the theme. These rate individual articles.

and 2 social bookmarking which rate whole websites.

A good example of a social news site is delicious.com It's an important difference because you obviously will have to visit social news sites more often. It's suggested that you sign up to at least 25 sites of both types. This is potentially giving your site exposure to millions of people. Another important point is don't just spam these sites with stuff about your website. Try & seek material from the web that's useful. You can maybe note what's recommended on one site & mention it on another. This is the most effective way of attracting people to your page. Also use social media sites, the big 3 are facebook, myspace & orkut. I would add black planet & google+ to that.

Incidentally you need to give your site 18 months to see significent growth. A good idea is bookmarking demon which will post comments to lots of social bookmarking sites in one go although you still have to initially sign up to them.

Social Bookmarking

The ebook I read to research this post was Social Bookmarking which I downloaded for free from obooko.com It's an excellent ebook which I wish had been longer but the author whose name I'm not sure of has written a full length book on the same subject & this ebook was written to promote it.

There's 2 types of social bookmarking

1 social news where news stories are often the theme. These rate individual articles.

and 2 social bookmarking which rate whole websites.

A good example of a social news site is delicious.com It's an important difference because you obviously will have to visit social news sites more often. It's suggested that you sign up to at least 25 sites of both types. This is potentially giving your site exposure to millions of people. Another important point is don't just spam these sites with stuff about your website. Try & seek material from the web that's useful. You can maybe note what's recommended on one site & mention it on another. This is the most effective way of attracting people to your page. Also use social media sites, the big 3 are facebook, myspace & orkut. I would add black planet & google+ to that.

Incidentally you need to give your site 18 months to see significent growth. A good idea is bookmarking demon which will post comments to lots of social bookmarking sites in one go although you still have to initially sign up to them.

Animal Husbandry

The book I read to research this post was Living the Country Lifestyle All in One for Dummies by various authors which is an excellent book which I got from kindle. This book is about the traditional skills like spinning, knitting & traditional cookery. One of the things it looks at is keeping farm animals which I am going to write about. The list of working animals which means they are kept to supply things like meat or to do jobs ie pull a plough, anyway it's almost endless but there are a few that are the most popular.
Cattle can be pack animals or can provide meat and/or milk. It's worth looking at what's traditionally kept in your area & what local farmers are keeping. Some people with not much land keep mini cattle because they are more productive per acre.
Sheep are best for meat whilst lambs which is offputting to some people & the best meat comes from newborn ones. You may have to hire a sheep shearer can be quite expensive.
Goats produce excellent milk but the meat tends to need stewing especially from older ones & milk producing breeds.
Llamas can be used to carry a pack but their hooves can split if they carry a human but they produce wool which has to be combed out & they are cheap especially in the USA.
Horses are cheap to buy but expensive to look after. They also may need shoeing if used on hard ground or carry heavy loads.
Rabbits breed rapidly & can supply meat & skins & also supply as pets.
Chickens, turkey, geese & ducks can all be used to supply meat. In the case of chickens that are egg producers a light must be provided for at least 12 hours a day to maximize egg production.
Bees are good as farm animals & are quite productive at producing honey but a lot have been wiped out by a virus. Having said that your garden will be well pollinated.

Coney Island

The book I read to research this post was Coney Island by Professor Solomon which is an excellent book which I downloaded for free from

getfreeebooks.com

Half the book is about the history of coney island & the other half is about when he visits there.

Originally coney island was inhabitated by the carnesie native american tribe who didn't live there but used to go there to collect clam shells. It became popular with americans when a linking bridge was constructed in the 19th century & then became really popular when it was linked to new york by rail. It was nicknamed sodom by the sea because of things like prostitution & gambling which went on there. John McKane was mayor & was a bit of a racketeer taking kickbacks from places like the gambling dens. He also rigged the local elections & was a law unto himself. When they finally indicted him they were able to clean the places image up a bit. Hot dogs & roller coasters originated there. Also when the incubator was invented none of the hospitals were interested so the inventor displayed premature babies in them & people paid to go in & see them. Over 7000 babies were rescued in this way until the hospitals took the invention seriously. Also the 1st amusement park was here. Two of the amusement parks got burnt down although 1 got rebuilt. Nowadays coney island is quite seedy & is part of brooklyn.

Business @ the Speed of Thought

The book I read to research this post was Business @ the Speed of Thought by Bill Gates who is the owner of microsoft. It's an excellent book but is a little out of date. I bought it from a car boot sale. The market for businesses is getting more & more competitive. This is good for the customer because it means prices will be reduced, specifications of products will increase & customer service will improve. Boeing for example now don't build a prototype of an aircraft they are developing. Everything is developed digitally & this enables them to give the workers & design people only what is relevant to them to do their job. Workers are equipped with a digital lens device that shows them where a part goes & how to connect it. Boeing has reduced the cost of developing & constructing aircraft by 30-40%.

Marks & Spencer have stores all around the world & did their computer processing at a central location. This meant they could only process data when a store was shut & the available time got less & less. This also meant the mainframe at the central location was hugely expensive. Now they have a server at every store & most of the processing is done on site. In addition they have computerized tills connected to the stores server & you can buy any of the stores products at any till.

Certified Cisco Network Associate

The book I read to research this post was CCNA for Dummies by Silviu Angelescu which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. If like me you have no intention of taking the CCNA exams this book is still a great introduction to cisco networking. CCNA stands for certified cisco network associate & for those interested in taking the exams I'll write a bit about that. The CCNA is the entry level to cisco certifications. To pass you must acheive 85% & has 3 major components which are internet telephony, wireless networking & storage networks. There's some questions that are multi choice & have 1 answer, some with more than 1 answer & questions that you have to write a brief answer to. When you pass the exam you are certified for 3 years & then must either retake the exam or take a higher exam like CCDA. CCNA is more general in its syllabus whereas the higher exams focus more on cisco product knowledge. Cisco leads the world in products like routers & switches.

Photo Voltaic Design & Installation

The book I read to research this post was photo voltaic design & installation for dummies by Ryan Mayfield which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. PV stands for photo voltaic & is a fancy name for solar panels. These are panels that convert the suns rays into electricity. To start with you need to plan the installation you will need a small camera to photograph the site & a pyronometer to measure the strength of the sun. Then you need to measure the area where the panels are going  & multiply it by the suns strength & multiply that by the average hours of sunshine.

When you fit the panels bear in mind that while there is daylight there is an electric current flowing. If you are connecting directly to the mains you will need an inverter to step up the voltage. You will need a charge limiter if you connect to batteries because a spike can damage them. The batteries need to be deep discharge because you will discharge & recharge them completely. The cheapest batteries are lead acid but nickel cadmium are better. If you do the job yourself you have to get the wiring certified.

PHP 4

The book I read to research this post was Teach Yourself PHP 4 in 24 Hours by Matt Zandstra which is a very good book which I bought from amazon. PHP started out as a language which connected databases to websites but now has evolved into a full web language. It tends to be used in conjunction with apache server & mysql although will work with most operating systems & databases. PHP, apache & mysql are all open source which basically means they are free. You can write PHP with a simple text editor like notepad which is included with windows. PHP is always enclosed in HTML brackets. One of the things it works with is boolean logic & with that some of the notation may seem a bit strange to the untrained eye ie equals is depicted by 2 equals signs.

Tunnel Tags

The book I read to research this post was Networking & Network Access Protection by Joseph Davies et al which is an excellent book although I wouldn't recommend it to people new to computing also I bought it from amazon.

I thought I'd write a bit about the tunnel tag. It's a vendor specific attribute or VSA  & is used with RADIUS wireless networking. The value you choose for tunnel tag is used for all RADIUS properties used in that policy. This identifies them as belonging to the same tunnel. A tunnel tag is not always required & is dependent on the vendor for your switch or access point.

Sales Prospecting

The book I read to research this post was Sales Prospecting for Dummies by Tom Hopkins which is a very good book that I bought from amazon. Sales is the art of finding potential customers to sell to. Many salespeople ignore the fact that their best potential customers are friends & family & their referrals. Somebody did a survey that showed that you do cold calling you will have a success rate of 10% but if you call on referrals that rises to 60%. It's a good idea to get the referrer to contact the person he is referring & even if that person doesn't buy there & then they may at a later date. Going back to the idea of selling to friends & family, chances are they see you in a good light, they know you really well & they know you believe in the product which makes them ideal customers. Some people think sales & friendship should be kept separate but if you believe in the item & it's genuinely helping your friend in some way there is nothing wrong with that. A saying which is worth bearing in mind is if you help enough other people get what they want they will help you get what you want. That's a quote from Zig Ziglar who is a famous business coach.