Rootkit follow up

Just a follow up to that last post… Sony has released a program to remove the cloaking technology that hides their files (the rootkit) so if you have installed the software that comes with one of these CDs then be sure to remove it this way. Here’s a nice program to scan your computer for rootkits. It doesn’t remove them but it lets your know if your security has been compromised. Often the only way to get rid of them for sure is to format your hard drive.

The CD that (could have) killed my computer

I recently bought a new CD from Switchfoot called “Nothing is Sound”. Its my new favourite CD but it has a dark side to it… not the music but what is physically on the CD. It contains Sony’s shady anti-priacy software on it. What’s so bad about this software? Well it uses something called a “rootkit” to hide itself from detection by any other software. Sony’s software can’t be uninstalled without contacting Sony and going through some hoops. See this Washington Post article for more on that. Now, I don’t pirate music and I have a legitimate CD for every MP3 on my computer (no file sharing either), but the problem is that this rootkit leaves computers open to attack by hackers and viruses because all a hacker needs to do is make a virus that starts in $sys$ and its undetectable by any anti-virus software. Fortunately, the day before I bought the cd I saw an article on Slashdot about this problem so I had a heads up. When the CD is inserted a window comes up with the license agreement. If you agree then it installs its DRM software on your computer... locking the songs to your computer and not allowing you to play them on other computers if they’re ripped from the CD. The ironic thing is that if someone did want to pirate the CD, there is nothing stopping them at all. All it took to prevent the software from being installed was to press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and close the program from the task manager and I was free to copy all the songs as MP3s onto my hard drive using Musicmatch Jukebox. Record companies need to learn that stuff like this is just going to make your legitimate customers hate them even more when people computers suddenly fill with viruses after listening to the latest CD, while doing nothing to stop piracy at all.

Gas Gambling

Yeah yeah I know…. Its been a while but I’m a busy guy. I’ve been thinking about something that’s on the minds of most people these days: gas prices. Its really quite a strange thing… the more I think about it, the more buying gas seems to have become a form of gambling. Gas prices gradually go down and down until they reach a certain point. As its going down you have to guess how low you want to go before you buy gas, because at any given point the price could jump anywhere from 10 cents to 30 cents (this is in Canada for those of you who don’t know). I feel like I’m on a game of The Price is Right or something. I also don’t understand how gas in our area right now is about 75 cents per liter while in the Toronto area its 15 cents more expensive. Why is our area so special right now? Not that I’m complaining, but I’d still like to know.

UPDATE OF DOOM!!!!

Hello my reader(s?)

Just thought i'd give a little update as to what new and crazy things have been happening with me...

Well my official youth responsibilities are now over. Its a strange feeling knowing that I will have saturdays off now. I'm so used to saturday being youth night now that it kinda makes me sad that I left. But everyone has to move on as some point. I feel like I didn't get my total alloted youth time because I joined so late. It was the middle of grade 11 before I started coming regularly. I had so many good times there and they people I met changed my life forever... heck if it wasn't for the youth I would never have met Leanne! That in itself is more than worth the time and effort I put into leading the past 2 years. I've been blessed so much by the youth group. Its so sad that so many people never get to experience anything like a youth group. Its a time of your life when you need people around you your age and with your beliefs to build you up. When you're stuck around people that constantly swear and talk about revolting things all day at school you need that time to just have good clean fun.

The current youth group is FAR less clique-ish than the young adults group. I'm sorry to any of the YA's reading this but thats just how I see it... I don't feel like I fit in there. Talking to them one on one or in small groups is great, they're really nice people, but as a group its just so different. Which is why I really don't intend to attend YA regularly... maybe once in a while... we'll see. Don't me wrong though, I'm not bitter or angry at any of them. It just doesn't feel like a family to me.

Word publisher

I’m just trying out the new publishing from word thing for the blogger.

Another Year Begins

Well i'm starting school again now... this will hopefully be my last year of school ever. Its going to be pretty crazy but I can safely say its the least stressful beginning of school i've ever had. Probably because I know everyone in my classes and all my teachers and I don't have any stupid elective courses that I don't want to take. It can't possibly be worse than last year... I hope

New stuff on the site

I have added a cool photo album and a stupid main page for my site. Check it out if you are bored :)

http://thatguy.homedns.org

I really miss Leanne. Yeah. She needs to come home.

Money

Wow this is amazing! People are actually using the Marc Fund. I have enough money to take me and Leanne to Wendy's now and buy the most expensive value meals we want! Only problem is I have to pay a service change to get the money out if I don't reach $150 so help me out!!!

I also received my annual Visa money back reward today. I got $73.36 back from them which is defenetly nice, but that also means I spent over $9000 on my Visa this pat year! Where did I get that kind of money? To be fair, I guess my tuition, books and my laptop are all included in that amount so that kinda makes sense. Oh well, its always nice when credit card companies GIVE you money!

Jumping to conclusions

Ok, so perhaps I read into the check a little too much. Turns out the money is from some deposit I paid in first year, and they changed they payment thing so now they're refunding everyone's $100. That's definitely a relief and its nice to get a free $100... but it still would have been nice if they had given me SOME explanation with the check so I would have been able to avoid all these headaches.


Well its about one month until my band's gig at Ontario Place... oh its gonna be rockin! Check out our bio on the site:

http://www.encounterontario.com/entertain.asp?sub=bios_vskyline

Conestoga College

Ok so I am quite angry today. Not to the point where I would break something but still quite ticked. I received a check in the mail from Conestoga for $100 today with no explanation given. Normally I would be happy to get a check in the mail but my concern is the no explanation that was given. What I'm worried about is that they decided to fail me in a course and not tell me because the person I talked to said it was probably an overpayment. This is not looking good. So now I'm waiting for a call back from my "records officer" for an official explantion, but I don't have much hope. Work is gonna be rough tonight cause i'm going to be preoccupied with this all night. ARG! How can any organization be this irresponsible and careless with its customers?

Therefore I suggest everyone avoid attending Conestoga College at all costs! They will screw you over so many times. Go to Mohawk or something.

As for the Best Buy problem I had, they let me exchange the DVDs today for a different brand with no problem at all. They may sell bad quality products but at least they have a good return policy!

The Marc Fund

I'm pleased to introduce the MARC FUND!

http://thatguy.homedns.org/misc/fund.html

Check it out!

In other news, I'm quite ticked off with Best Buy. I bought these blank DVDs and they were defective (couldn't be read after burn), so I exchanged them but these have the EXACT same problem. This is garbage. I've gonna try to exchange them for a different brand. Word of warning: Don't buy DYNEX DVD-R's.

So far from home

Well i'm in North Bay right now visiting my Nana. I haven't been here for about 3 years so its long overdue that I come here. Its hard spending more time away from Leanne especially after she is going to be gone next week, but its a worthy cause at least.

I've been having a good vacation, nice and relaxing. Me and Leanne went with Elaine and some of her family to Wonderland last week, and that was rockin. I wanted to get one of those old timey photos with Leanne but they were insanely expensive so we decided we would make our own! We'll show them good!

I really hope things go well when we start up the factory again on Saturday. I really don't know whats going to happen but I will defenetly enjoy getting the income again.

More stuff than you can handle

Well I finally got certified at work so now i'm on my own. And I sure got thrown right into it! All kinda of crazy stuff breaking down, and me forgetting stuff... it was quite delightful, in an insanely stressed kinda way. Oh well, at least I have a job in the first place. Only two more shifts until the plant shutdown and then its 2 and a half weeks off! I am going to enjoy that greatly and spend ridculous amounts of time with Leanne as well!

Nights of Fire coming up this weekend! It should be awesome, especially seeing as this is the summer kick-off with rockin music and free food. Hurrah! You should all come.

Good stuff cancels out bad stuff

Had an awesome weekend. Pool party at youth then I got to go to Leanne's family gathering thing which is kinda like a mini youth event in itself since so many people attend my church from that family. And again returned to the same pool I was at the day before. I took lots of videos of the weekend and hope to get a few up here soon.

Then I had some stuff that wasn't so good. Like how I found out I got 0 on this assignement in school and got an "Academic Offenses Form" in the mail. But through some negotiating and such I managed to get the form removed from my record but still got the 0. Oh well, better than nothing. I hope I still passed the course!

I had to go home from work last night at 1:30 am cause they ran out of material. It was really weird. My boss just came by and was like "Put everything on hold, we're going home." So i'm a little ticked cause I don't get paid for the rest of the shift I was supposed to work. Oh well, thats life.

Too much power in the courts

Ok I changed my mind... I am going to say this today after all.

I think the main thing that I am concerned about in the gay marriage issue is the lack of protection for ministers who do not wish to perform same sex weddings. Now i'm sure your first reaction will be "Oh that's ridiculous! The bill addresses that issue completely!" Well here's the reason I am worried:

I believe the higher courts of Canada have way too much power. Some may remember that a few short years ago it was actually ILLEGAL for homosexual people to get married because of legislation actually put through by the Liberal party (interesting how they changed their minds so fast). But that was easily overturned by a judge who spat in the face of democracy and threw out the law. This PROVES that ultimately judges have full power over this country and nothing parlement can do can stop them. Therefore if a judge rules it is a hate crime for a minister to refuse to marry a same sex couple there's nothing that can stop them! Then we can kiss religious freedom goodbye! Hurrah! :P

So much to complain about...

...so little time.

Oh man I missed a day of blogging. This will never do! I apologize.

I'm actually kinda tired from working so much so I'm just going to put off my comments till tomorrow since I have the whole day off! woohoo!

Edit: What the... 13 comments so far on what has become the "gay marriage post". This is nuts!

So I changed my mind

Yeah I decided I'm not going to get scared off by some wacko that has an opinion different than mine. This is MY BLOG and I will say whatever the heck I want on here :) This political stuff sure gets lots of comments though. Now I know how a certain liberal talk show host on 570 News *spits on ground a la Corner Gas* must feel.

Once again, thank you all for your comments.

So my guitar effects board appears to be broken. It won't work at all unless you put a memory card in. I really hope that holds for now because we're going into the recording studio on Sunday. Nothing must stop me from recording this time! All my faithful readers on here will be able to hear our songs once they are done.

Wow people actually read this?

I'm actually getting comments on here. I'm suprised. Someone even actually cared enough about my last post to write a massive rant about how wrong I am (although it didn't make much sense). Thank you very much anonymous commenter :)

edit: I don't want this to turn into a political debate blog so that will be the last political comment I make on here :P

So tonight we'll be working on our third year project for school. I hope we get lots accomplished because we have insane amounts of things to do. I'll be happy as long as I don't have to move much... lousy 36 hours of work in 3 days.

What is happening to Canada?

I'm really starting to get worried about living in this country. I mean with all the government scandals that have been happening here in the last little while I am truly worried about the future of democracy here. When you hear stories about Liberal MPs bribing Conservative MPs to pull them over to their side, and them actually accepting the offer, it really makes my skin crawl. Then you hear interviews with people like Karen Redman that have admitted them will put forward their personal views ahead of majority of the people they represent for what they believe is the "greater good". That's NOT what their job is, and that is not democracy.... more like... democrazy! Ok, that was lame :P But you just wait, next election no one will care at all about this and they will happily elect a Liberal government because they're too scared of change! Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? BAH!

Well today is the big Queenston youth trip and I am stuck here at home because I have to work tonight. BAH again! Oh well, at least I got to see everyone off... and yes I did come to see EVERYONE off (:P James lol) although I was especially happy to see one certain individual. At least its nice weather so they're hopefully having a good time. I would have probably gone if we would have been back before 7. I hope this job doesn't ruin too much of my summer. I don't mind the job, its just the freaky hours and missing out on stuff that I don't like. Oh well, there's lots of summer left.

Another day... I mean night done

Just finished another night shift at work. Not too bad, however I just took a gravol and am now very very tired. I just got an awesome e-mail from Leanne though so that cheered me up!

I really should tell some people about this blog so I'm not writting to no one. I will really try and have some content on here so its not just me ranting about stuff no one cares about!

On that note, here's a smattering of video clips from the recent church picnic.

High Quality
Low (barely watchable) Quality

First entry

Well hello. As the subject states, this is my first attempt at blogging. It seems like an interesting fad that I simply MUST be a part of, and since I really can't remember how to program HTML well, I figured I might as well put it on here!

Ok time to get ready for work.