More Miscellaneous Facts

I mentioned a while back that I have been online for quite a while.  Well, I have been, and I wrote my first full-length piece for The Game Board back in June of 2003.  I added it all up and, including this post, I have written 1,069 posts and articles.  I have only written 291 posts for Swamp Gas, but I wrote 670 blog posts and 108 longer articles for The Game Board and Alien’s Planet.  The blog only started with Alien’s Planet back in March of 2004.  I didn’t post everyday as you can probably tell.  I was wondering how much I’ve published online, and there is my answer.

Of course, that’s only part of the story, comments are another thing.  I didn’t add commenting on Alien’s Planet until about a year after I started, so those numbers are alittle less impressive.  So far, the Swamp has 1,321 comments (as of 11am), Alien’s Planet had  2,315 blog comments and only 86 article comments.  The to-date count stands at 3,722 comments.  So that’s the rest of the story.  It will also be the last bragging post I do for a little while.    Thanks for your support.

My Musical Memories, #3

This week’s musical memory comes courtesy of my brother, Evil-E.  He introduced me to this album on the way to the Duct Tape Festival in Avon Lake, OH.  It’s not the usual first album or classic album that was very popular on the radio.  It is, however, an excellent album to say the least.

Type-O Negative
Bloody Kisses
1993

I do remember hearing “Christian Woman” off this album many years ago, but I never gave it much thought.  Then I heard it again, thanks to Evil-E, and I heard even more of this album including “Black #1,” “Bloody Kisses” and a remake that completely sold me on the album.  Even though I was never a fan of Seals & Crofts, I always liked the lyrics to their best-known song, “Summer Breeze.”  Type O Negative remade this song for the album.  Bloody Kisses is a very dark, heavy album with some excellent songs on it.  I highly recommend it if you like the Gothic metal sound.  If not, listen to it online, first and see how you like it.

Next week, I will share with you the album I was introduced to on the way home from the Duct Tape Festival.  No, it sounds nothing like this one, but it is a lot of fun.

Nothin’ But Scrap Metal

Another newcomer to the Saturday Scavenger Hunt, crazy4coens over at Raising Sunny, has chosen the word this week and she chose SCRAP.  The first thing I think of is my first car and how it probably SCRAP metal by now.

This is my 1990 Chevy Cavalier.  I got it in 1992 and drove it until December 1999 when I traded it in with 105,000 miles on it.  Surely it’s a cube by now.

This is my first computer.  It’s dead now and good for nothing but scrap, but I am waiting until I find a good, trusted company that will dispose of it locally.  I don’t want it sent to a third world country to pollute their environment any more.

There you have it, my look at scrap for this week.  Now I am just waiting to see who crazy4coens tags for next week’s word.

Focus-Free Friday

It’s been a while since I’ve downloaded my brain to my blog.  There’s a lot up there to empty out, so let’s get started.

First of all, the answer to the Trivial Tuesday question was Cpt. Eugene Cernan.  It was not Michael Jackson.

If you noticed, I mentioned nothing of the deaths a couple weeks ago.  I did make dedication on my blog to one of them, my tag line (below the title) is in honor of Billy Mays.

I’m a watcher of Discovery and History Channels, and this trend of “extreme jobs” shows is making me laugh.  There are way too many and they keep getting more extreme, like “Ice Loggers.”  I guess “Swamp Loggers” isn’t extreme enough.

My laptop is in for service for the third time.  I sent it in a couple weeks ago to have a keyboard problem fixed, but all they did was restore the original system configuration.  That meant erasing and reloading my hard drive.  This did nothing for the keyboard, but it cleaned up my hard drive (both the C and D drives).  I told them I wanted it sent back at their expense, overnight, since I had been without my laptop for 8 days prior.  They paid for shipping, FedEx ground, so I will be without it all this week and into next week.  This sucks.

I’m still unemployed.

I was playing with Ubuntu Linux on my computer (you can try it out on a CD) and am now thinking about killing my desktop Windows installation to go Linux.  Everything I use on my laptop is free or open-source except for the operating system (I won’t kill the laptop Windows install at the moment).

Oh yeah, and about my post on router set-up for dmarks.  I didn’t want to throw too much extraneous information out there.  I wanted to focus on security and was going about it from the point of view of people who currectly have wireless routers.  I am currently using 802.11g which suits my needs.  My advice is, if you’re gonna buy a router and the N is the same price as the G, buy the N.

Next week, I am going to talk about something a little lighter, A look at free e-mail accounts and how they’ve evolved.  It’s not really going to be a huge expose or anything like that.  Just a comparison between then and now.

Anything you want me talk about?  I love getting suggestions and responding to them.

That’s it, my memory is dumped.  I have to that every so often or my head tends to explode.  Have a good day and weekend.

Popsicle Appreciation Day

Here’s me enjoying a Popsicle on this auspicious occasion.  It’s a kiwi/strawberry flavored one.

Follow This Route

Because there are so many different routers out there, I am not going to tell you how to set up your particular router.  Everything I mention in here should be universal from router to router.

This is the post some of you have been waiting for.  I am going to help you secure your computer and your data online.  Many of you have routers in your homes and some of those routers are wireless.  The first factor to consider is, do you use your wireless connectivity or did you buy the router because you figure you might need it one day?  If you don’t need a wireless connection, go into the settings and turn it off.  Seriously.  I mean it.  The only thing you’re doing by keeping it open is letting your neighbors have free Internet service and full access into your computer.

Another thing to consider is that all of the wireless protection in the world is not going to do any good if you don’t change the password for the router itself.  I just finished up at a school that was using two routers, one wired and one wireless.  I entered each router’s address and in the password box entered “admin.”  Guess what?  You got it, I had access to both routers.  So, change your password before all else whether the router is wireless or wired.  And remember, don’t use your dog’s or kid’s name for a password.  Refer to my post, Secure Yourself, for a refresher course.

Now that your password is secure it’s time to set up some wireless security (if you’re sure you need wireless access).  The best wireless security available today is WPA2 Personal (from here, simply WPA2 since Enterprise is used in business) with a randomly generated shared key.  Since truly random strings are impossible from a computer, we’ll have to settle for pseudo-random strings.  The link to GRC’s Perfect Passwords site is in my Secure Yourself post, got there, grab that middle string and use it as the WPA2 Shared Key.

If your computer isn’t up to date for one reason or another, or a device you use is a little too old for WPA2, try WPA.  I had trouble connecting my laptop, which was reverted to Windows XP Pro SP2,  to my router which is configured for WPA2.  Microsoft has updated this problem since and WPA2 can be used with XP Pro.

I used WEP encryption for a while, but found out that no matter how random the key is, it can still be broken by an experienced hacker in about a minute.  Therefore, this security method is discouraged because it’s useless.  Stick with WPA or WPA2 for best results.  Unless you live in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors or people around, then you don’t need wireless security.

As one final reminder, if you want to keep from getting awful viruses, worms and trojans…KEEP WINDOWS UPDATED!!!  It will also allow you to use the latest third-party security algorithms.  I hope this helps you, but if you have questions, please, feel free to ask either in the comments or e-mail me (aliencg [at] gmail dot com).  Remember, the only stupid question is the one that is not asked.  Have a nice day.

Science Minds Countdown, #5

This week, I am traveling back in a time a little bit to one of the all-time great science minds.  He was truly versatile and there seemed to be nothing he couldn’t do.  There are others coming up but he was the original multi-faceted talent.

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer

The toughest part about Leonardo is writing about him, where do I begin?  We all know he painted The Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and the drawing, Vitruvian Man.  He also had many other drawings of machines and devices that were never thought to have been built, but were absolutely possible.

He approched science by observing and describing, in meticulous detail, everything he saw.  He lacked formal mathematical education so he did not conduct experiments or theoretical explanation.  It was because of this that he was ignored by scientists.

He was highly interested in anatomy and studied under his teacher, Andrea del Verrocchio.  Because of his art background, Leonardo was a master of topographic anatomy.  He also dissected corpses (with permission) so that he could illustrate a volume on anatomy.

Leonardo was also interested in flight and wrote on the flight of birds.  He also drew up the plans for a hang glider and helicopter.  His hang glider was constructed a few years back and proved to be successful.  There is so much more I could write about Leonardo, but I could go one for days on his work.

The hardest part about this post was figuring out what not to say about da Vinci.  He was so versatile and contributed so much to art, science, medicine and music.  There you have it though, a small primer on Leonardo.  Have a good day.

Trivial Tuesday

Here we are again, gathered together to try to answer another trivia question.  In two weeks we will observe the 40th anniversary of the moon landing.  As we all know, Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.  This week’s trivia question is similar.

Who was the last man to walk on the moon?  That is, the last man to have his feet on the surface of the moon.  He is American.

Good luck with this one and have a good day.

Gardening With the Alien, Week #17

Welcome to Week #17 in the garden and I have some newcomers to the party.  My decision to not grow anything but tomatoes and an herb garden next year still stands, my soil needs help badly.  This week, I want to look at the best growing section of my garden, the swimming pool with the Chinese veggies.

I did harvest some of these for an excellent stir fry and will probably do it again very soon.  They each have a very different taste and allow for excellent flavor.  Now let’s look at the newcomer…

My old boss brought me a couple basil plants.  The basil I tried to grow ended up getting choked out along with all of the other herbs.  The basil is a welcome addition to my garden.  There you have it for another week, enjoy the pictures.

My Musical Memories, #2

This week, I look at what could be the newest album in my collection.  It is, however, an album that expanded my musical taste even further.  It also made me realize that there are still good albums being made.  The way I happened upon it was a total accident, but it turned out to be a good thing.

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
Raising Sand
2007

Ro0bert Plant, former front man and lead singer of Led Zeppelin, and Alison Krauss, country and bluegrass singer/songwriter, teamed up back in 2008 to make this truly amazing album.  Made up of country songs from back in the 1950’s, they lend their unique styles to the music and make it something new and different.  The only original song is “Please, Read the Letter,” written by Charlie Jones, Michael Lee, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant.

I first ran across this album while flipping through the channels one day and ran across a concert with Robert Plant (he was singing an old 1920’s song). After he was done, Alison Krauss came out and sang, “When the Levee Breaks,” by Led Zeppelin.  They then sang some songs apparently off their album and then did Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog,” as a duet.  It was new, it was old, it was different.  I found myself looking through iTunes to find this album.  After a few song samples I was authorizing the purchase.

This album made me realize that there is plenty of great music out there.  What I didn’t realize until about three days later was that this album won five Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.  Some of the songs to note on here are the previously mentioned, “Please Read the Letter,” “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us,” and “Gone, Gone, Gone (Done Moved On).”  Every song on this album is superb, though.  There’s a classic rough-cut style to it in my opinion.  If you’re a music lover, get this album, you won’t be sorry.

So, there we have another Musical Memory in the books.  I hope you enjoy this new feature as much as I enjoy bringing it to you.  By the way, if you look up CMT Crossroads and look for Plant and Krauss, you can watch the concert.  Have a good rest of the weekend.