Just because it is on the internet doesn't make it so

In the past the only way people were subjected to "news" or opinions were through the TV, newspaper or the water cooler at work. The nice thing about these mediums were you could turn off, ignore or avoid them if you didn't agree or didn't care about it.

In today's society the Internet is the ruling form of media for almost everyone. The problem with this is any idiot can put forth their opinion and push it out everywhere and there is little to no recourse if they are wrong or just plain ignorant of the facts (yes I see the irony of posting about this on the internet). With blogs, Facebook, Twitter and open forums on every website it has come down to the point where anyone with a computer and access to the Internet can put their opinion out there and can even call it fact if they want to. Society is at the point now where there is very little, if any, intelligent conversations that happen over the Internet when it comes to open forums such as Twitter or Facebook or even if you go to your favourite sports site and see all the comments below a story. People hide behind the anonimity of the Internet and say things that they would never say to you in person or if they did would probably end up getting in to a fist fight and then it would be over. The problem with this is there is no ending to it. People continue to squabble over things making rude comments back and forth to each other and the conversation becomes more heated and more useless.

So how do we change this? There are two ways in reality, remove open forums (not going to happen) or people need to grow up and either not post inflamatory things or if you see it don't engage the person.

Arguing with people on the internet will not enhance your life in any way and in fact will probably end up causing you more stress than it needs to. I constantly go on sport sites, forums, Twitter and Facebook and all the while I try not to engage people. Sometimes I get sucked into it but as I get older I realize that it just isn't worth it and I refrain from posting and just bite my tougue.

I will end it off with something I heard years ago when the Internet was first starting (this will probably make some people angry) "Fighting on the Internet and winning is like being the smartest kid in the dumb class, you are still in the dumb class, you have nothing to be proud of."

Technology and security

Time for something completely different.

I am an IT guy and have been for almost 20 years now. I started before the internet, before colour monitors and before Windows. I have seen a huge change in everything technology and I have managed to keep up with it.

With all the new technology and how everyone stays connected I always get the question, "How can I make sure no one is hacking into my home computer?".

It's quite simple 99% of people will never ever be hacked unless they piss someone off. Hackers do not attack home users. What people fail to realize is they aren't really that important in the over all aspect of the computing world. Someone is not going to hack you to get your bank card information or your pictures of your pet/kid/spouse. They also make the mistake that if they get a virus that they have been hacked. If you get a trojan or a virus you have not been hacked, you went to a bad website and got infected. Buy a virus scanner clean your computer and move on.

The next question they ask is how do I make myself more secure. Well that's an easy one, put passwords on everything use different passwords for everything and make sure you have secured your wireless network. Will this prevent you from being hacked. Absolutely not. If you pissed off a hacker and he really wants to get your information or screw with your computer, he will.
The Pentagon spends billions of dollars on IT security every year and they get hacked about 10,000 times a day. Now before you say that is BS, people hack in but they don't get anywhere because the Pentagon also has watches on every part of their network and they shut people down as they get through security walls. So with that in mind do you really think you can spend any amount of money that will prevent people from hacking you if they want to? The answer of course is no.

The best security you can do is to watch where you surf, where you bank, and constantly check online to make sure no one has hacked your information. It's more about being aware of when something goes wrong then to prevent it from ever happening.

For those that say it is never safe to shop online or enter any personal information online I will ask you one simple question. Have you ever handed your credit card to a waiter or waitress and have them walk away from you? If you have how do you know they didn't just replicate your card and selling it or using it right now?

The internet is no more or less secure than everyday life, the thing is people are just more aware of things now.


So to end be safe where you surf and have fun on the internet.

NHL saves itself....

I normaly rant about some very random stuff. Today it is about the NHL.

Yesterday Ilya Kovalchuk signed a whopping 17 year contract with the New Jersey devils. This contract would have him playing til he was 44 and the last 5 years of the contract were basically at league minimum.

The NHL stepped in and rejected the contract due to "Salary Cap circumvention". Thus the NHL is stepping in and trying to save itself from well itself.

I have no problem with players going out and trying to get the most money for the most number of years that they possibly can but the GM's, Owners and the NHL really need to set up better rules to save themselves from being stupid. The salary cap was put in place to prevent GM's from signing tons of players for stupid salaries and thus forcing small market teams to fold as they wouldn't be able to compete. The GM's however have found a way around this by signing players to ridiculous long term contracts with the final years at extremely low salaries in order to drop the cap hit down and fit them in to the team.

My theory if the NHL really wants to save itself from these GM's it has to setup a couple new clauses in the CBA (the players would probably reject this).

1) No contract can be longer than 5-7 years and the cap hit is averaged over the largest 3 years of the contract.
2) No player can make more than 12% of the salary cap. This would prevent teams from over paying for players.
3) Put in that agents make a flat rate paid by the teams for every player they sign, not a precentage. agents will then try and get as many clients as possible signed not focusing on getting the biggest contract to get paid the most.

It should be a pretty simple break down for GM's in todays NHL. 3rd and 4th line players should not be making more than 2-3 million a year, 2nd line players should be making max 5 mill a season and your top 3 should be making no more than 7 million a season. The problem is GM's are tasked at making their team the best and have to answer to the owner and the fans that are screaming for top players. With this pressure GM's will always try to sign them and pay bigger bucks to get the coveted free agents. The NHL must step in to prevent the players from holding the GM's over the barrell and prevent the GM's from hurting the system.

Remember when movies were affordable?

Tonight I took my son to see The Last Airbender. He was very excited to see it and although I did not really care if I saw it or not I went to the brand new CrossIron Mills theater, which is Cineplex's newest and fanciest theater. They were only showing it in Real3D which means an extra 3 dollars per ticket. So with one Adult and one Child movie ticket, 1 Large combo for me and 1 kids combo for him the grand total comes out to 49.82.

I remember when a family of four used to go to the movie (not that many years ago) and it came to 50 or 60 dollars for four tickets and four combos. Cineplex and the movie industry as a whole is complaining of poor box office numbers for movies. Well here's a thought, LOWER PRICES. When it costs a family of four over a hundred dollars to go to a movie do you really think they are going to go out even once a month, specially considering half the movies that are released are recycled crap that the parents saw when they were kids.

Don't blame piracy and the Internet for your low ticket sales, lets start by lowering ticket prices so the average person can go to the movies a few times a month and once that is solved maybe you can start producing original movies again.

How do you remember?

So yesterday was November 11th which here in Canada is Remembrance Day and in the US is Veterans Day.  As with most people my kids had the day off from school and my day off from work was lost due to an emergency coming up.  Most of my clients worked in lieu of a day off at Christmas time.  So my question is how do you remember the sacrifices that the soldiers made and are still making if you are working and probably worked right through 11:11am with out ever realizing that you are to pause for a moment of silence.

I understand that in our society of mixed cultures that new immigrants may not realize the significance of November 11th nor do they probably care, but should that not be something taught to new immigrants to the country and taught to our children in school so that we don’t forget the sacrifices made to make our life better?

I know that one day is not really that big of a deal compared to what the soldiers went through but I think that is the least that our country can do for those that were killed, injured or simply fought so that we did and do not have to.

Today’s society has become forgetful and complacent with where we are in the world standing and it is a sad day that I think in the end will hurt us as a whole. With that I will leave you with a famous quote “Those who forget history are bound to repeat it”. Remember the past and if you see a soldier or veteran walking in the street don’t forget to stop and say thank you.

To be vaccinated or not?

Today Canada has released the vaccination for the H1N1 virus and are pushing radio ads, newspaper ads and pamphlets to say that you should be vaccinated and what to do if you get this horrific deadly disease.

I agree 100% that if you are at high risk for something you should get vaccinated for it. If you are not a high risk person I wonder why you would put your body through anything that could have possible side effects, one of which is death.

Some numbers for you to think about before you decide on whether or not to get the H1N1 vaccine. 250,000 - 500,000 people die every year from the regular run of the mill flu that you never hear about. This year (since January 1), 5000 people have died from the H1N1 virus world wide. Of those people that die from the regular flu or H1N1 nearly all of them have an underlying health issue that is exasperated by the flu and that is what actually kills them.

So I implore you before being a sheep and going and getting it just because everyone is telling you too, do your own research , talk to your doctor, see if your at high risk or not and decide based on facts whether or not you should put your health at risk by either getting this shot or by getting the flu. We are not talking about the black plague here, it is just a flu bug much like any other flu bug that you may catch this year.

H1N1, Pandemic or News Story?

So the top of the news list recently has been H1N1 and the way governments around the world are handling it (or mishandling it if you talk to certain people). I have an issue with the way this story is being portrayed and how misinformed people are about this "evil flu".

In 1976/77 a swine flu spread across the US and the world. People feared it was the same flu that caused world wide chaos and death in 1918 so they began to panic and called on the government to do something. They quickly released a vaccine for this flu and it turned out the vaccine killed more people than the actual flu did. Many to this day still believe it was more a political problem than an actual pandemic.

Now flash forward to the current situation, the media is hyping about how bad this flu is, how it is spreading world wide at unprecedented speed and how with out a vaccine the death toll will be massive. The WHO called it a pandemic before it ever left Mexico, the world has seen deaths in the hundreds (yes that is correct hundreds, not thousands, not millions but hundreds). Most people that get H1N1 get a runny nose, high fever, cough, sneeze and feel dead to the world for a few days up to two weeks (wow that sounds like how I feel when I get any flu). So what makes this flu so much different than any other flu strain that is floating around? I really don't know, I'm not a doctor or a scientist but the only difference I have seen is that it is giving the media tons to report on and the government's of the world something to fight over.

Now that fall is here and "Flu Season" is right around the corner what will happen? We will see death's from H1N1, we will see death's from other flu strains but the world will continue to survive and the government's will continue to fight, and the media will continue to blow things out of proportion in the name of ratings and sponsorship dollars. My advice to you is quite simple, ignore the hype, ignore the media, tell the government to get back to working on real issues and if you happen to get the flu, take something for it and if it seems to be getting worse go see your doctor and get him to give you something to help you out with the fever and the pain.
I personally will not be worried about dropping dead from any form of the flu but I will stock up on Nyquil cold and flu and will take to bed rest if I do get sick.