I’ve recently been working on a new OSS project, and it’s finally been released on the phux Development forums. As it’s open source, it will remain free and the community has full access to modify it as they wish. If you do modify it, we ask that you post the mod’s in our modifications forum so that other users can have the chance to use it if they want.

Public modifications that are deemed fit by the community and the phux dev team, may be added to the phux releases (granted that the publisher gives us permission). Enjoy, learn and share.

Link: http://forum.phux.org/viewtopic.php?f=41&t=20

Open sourcing the world, one app at a time.
~Nito @ phux Development

Sorry about the downtime. After about 12 hours of the site being down, it finally picked up the new DNS servers. We decided to change hosting companies, after our websites were getting throttled for hours, leaving visitors getting only half loaded pages, or pages not loading at all. Not good. So, after a couple of days of combing through web hosts, we’ve come to HostGator with the hopes of a better tomorrow.

Now, for those who don’t know, we were previously with HostMonster. They implemented CPU Throttling on their servers. They say this is for the better good of all accounts. The real reason for this? It’s likely that due to the economy (if you look at the time-line, it makes sense) they implemented a way to throttle the connections to every website across the map, to stop from “over-using” their bandwidth, which in their own writing, is unlimited. Unlimited at what cost? The cost of not having a usable website for an average of 7% of the month. This is a HUGE hit to take, for anyone.

Greedy bastards, pure and simple. And their excuses when you ask why your website is being throttled so much? “Your (As in you, the customer) scripts are faulty” or “You’re calling too many sql queries” <–WTF?! Now, I tested this with a single static pages website. No sql queries, no php. Just simple html, with css, images and some text. It was throttled for an average of 1.8 minutes every 3 hours. Total time up: ~2 days. Total hits: 7… Seven hits, no sql, no php, and it was throttled.. Seriously? All I have to say, is that if you plan on going with HostMonster, make sure you’re ready to have a lot of unexpected downtime.

Just wanted to wish all my readers a happy 4th of July before it’s over. We spent the weekend up in the Thousand Islands. A few fireworks Saturday night, but nothing worth spending the night outside to watch. The fireworks here in Rochester are still going off, and I assume they will be for the next week or so as usual.

Anyways, hope every one is having a safe and fun weekend, because I know I sure did. =)

Recently, I’ve been asked by a few people what my thoughts and opinions are on the fees that banks impose on their customers. Banking fees are an unneeded hassle. For a lot of people, they can be the difference between eating and going without food. There’s quite a few fees that banks impose to squeeze out every penny they can from people. I’ll be going over some of the ones that I’ve either encountered, or have enough knowledge about to post on.

Overdraft fees are probably the most widely known. This is a fee that a customer is charged because they ended up spending more money than was in their account. Now, my beef with this one is that banks should have a safety net for customers. I’m sure everyone’s aware of the magnet strip on the backside of your debit/credit card(s). This is used to identify your card, and is tracked in real-time. Now, if you take that into affect, a bank *should* be able to in fact track your purchases. Most purchases aren’t updated in your banking account until the transaction has been confirmed via the business you made the purchase at. If this were implemented, a cease could be sent if you try to make a purchase over your balance (The same way your credit cards do if you try to make a purchase over your spending limit). The average overdraft fee is $25 (United States) but, can run up to $40 depending on the financial institute you’re with.

Maintenance fees most likely come in second. This is a fee that is usually imposed if your balance is under a certain limit (determined by the bank). Honestly, you have to seriously ask – who the hell came up with this idea? Now, if my account isn’t at the predetermined balance set by my bank, how could it help to impose a fee? I know from reading that my bank imposes a $8 maintenance fee and a $35 overdraft fee. Here’s a dramatic example based on my banks fees. Say my bank account has $7.99 in it, and they decide to hit me with a maintenance fee. This would deduct $8, leaving me with a balance of negative 0.01. Now because of that, my account would then get an overdraft fee for $35, making my new balance negative $35.01. Could you imagine getting that, all because your account didn’t have the designated amount set by some six figure a year CEO…

The easiest way to avoid fees is to use the bank as little as possible. Some of you are probably saying “But all my money goes in there!”. My question to that is – why? I tell this to everyone I know, and anyone who asks me – If you only have a checking account (most people do these days), always make sure that you keep at least $50 in it at all times for emergencies. This should be your minimum balance, making sure that you won’t get a maintenance fee for not having the min balance limit. On top of the $50 you have, if you pay bills with checks, electronic payments or your debit card, make sure to have just enough to pay them. The rest can be kept in a home safe (You can get firesafe safe starting at $30 – a great investment), or a safe deposit box. If you’re into stocks, then put some into the stocks. Direct Deposit is a great invention, and I strongly suggest that you use it but, I also suggest that you withdraw what you’re not going to use on bills and put away outside of the bank.

Ya know, I was going to write an exorbitant post bashing BP but, I think we need to look at the people who have continued to allow this corrupt corporation to stay in business, continually harming the environment. Now, I’m no conservationist but, I do what I can to help and I do have a fucking problem when a company with subsidiaries that have felony charges in at least two states (Alaska and Texas) is allowed to continue to put us all in danger. The government is all about “Going Green” but, does this only apply to us, or should it in fact apply to large companies as well? Can you say fucking hypocritical?! I’m sick of hearing how the government wants me to go green, and then watch as they sit back and watch companies like BP kill our ecosystem.

Then you give them the okay to use a dispersant that’s been banned in another country, because it was scientifically found to have an adverse effect on the marine environment?! Give me a fucking break here… Hey, Lisa Jackson, I think I have some orange scrub some where around here to get the oil off your hands.

And Obama, oh man… Kick someones ass? That’s cereal business right there. You are not Clint Eastwood, and this isn’t Heartbreak Ridge. Your words aren’t worth shit. How about instead of “kicking someones ass” you actually take a corrupt business down? Oh no, that would mean losing a potential contributor – if they aren’t already… See, if you look at Mr. Barry Soetoro’s (Barack Obama) contributors for his presidential campaign, it seems he got quite a bit from investment banks, who in return received financial support after he was “elected”.

So, Obama – how do you manage to get the oil out of your suits?

Resources:
BP Cover up’s: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/06/12/plans-to-clean-up-the-oil-spill–dolphins-with-mops-aquaman-or-blame-the-french.aspx
Barack Obama Contributors: http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cycle=2008&cid=n00009638

In my last post, I told users that I am writing a calorie script – this includes a weight-loss/gain calculator, and the ability to track progress. However, I’m running into a snag, as there’s a lot of controversy surrounding the best way to calculate the needed daily calorie intake to hit your target weight in a set time period. The following are all formulas I’ve run across while researching this.

One More Bite:

Desired_Weight x ALM

Peer Trainer:

(Curr_Weight – 10) + (Height_Inch x 4.6) + (Age x 4.7) x ALM

(Wednesday, December 02, 2009, 9:37 AM) Peer Trainer:

Target_Weight x 10

(Thursday, March 30, 2006, 8:35 AM) Peer Trainer:

((Curr_Weight x 11) – Calorie_Min) x Target_Days = a

(Target_Loss_Gain x One_Pound[3500 calories]) – a / (Weekly_Work_Out x Target_Weeks)

BMI Calculator:

Curr_Calories / 20%

*ALM = Activity Level Multiplier

If anyone has other references, suggestions, or knows an accurate formula for weight-loss/gain, feel free to leave a comment below.

I came across a question on answers.yahoo that I felt was somewhat – unintelligent? It stated something along the lines of “Is it alright for me to put 1,000 ‘good’ calories in, and then burn 1,500 calories daily?”. Then I did a little searching, and realized that most individuals have absolutely no idea how many calories they should be putting into their body to make up for what the exert during any given day.

Here’s how calories work… Contrary to popular belief, there is no average based on normality ie. 2,000/daily. It ranges based on four aspects, which are age, height, weight and your exercise routine. I found a few websites that offer visitors to view their estimated daily calorie intake, but any that allow you to manage it so that a user can manage weight loss are all paid membership websites.

I’ve started writing a script that will allow individuals to do the above, free. Because, why should you have to pay cash to use something that you will be inputting all the numbers yourself? So as most of my scripts, this will be completely free, and completely open source for others to learn, share and modify as needed to fit your needs.

You can find the script in ZIP format at http://phux.org/downs/calories.script.06072010.v0.0.1[www.nitobelmont.com].zip.

You can also find the script in readable format in a post on the phux forums: http://forum.phux.org/index.php/topic,316.0.html

Feel free to leave suggestions, feedback or comments =)

Haven’t written a post in over a month. I’ve been working for a bit-torrent website as lead developer, as well as working on a past project (phuximg), which is a image hosting script designed mainly for torrents and gaming guilds. It’s ran around memberships, and teams, which sets it apart from most of the other image scripts, that only allow you to manage your own personal images – if at all. It will be Open Source – as most of my scripts are – and will be posted on SourceForge.net.

I’ve also taken a couple of small vacations up to the family cottage in the Thousand Islands. Here’s some pictures…

Me, lounging.

Molly, my moms dog.

Lakefront.

A carp couple.

Bullhead guarding nest (The female’s hiding in the weeds).

Random bug – about 3 inches long o.O.

Mama duck.

Before you read this, please be warned that there is an excessive amount of profanity, vulgar remarks towards other countries, and government officials.

Humanity makes me fucking gag. Seriously, the hypocrites, band wagoners and just plain fucking idiots that roam this planet make me sick to my stomach. All the times people have said that our economy’s in the shits. Well, I fucking wonder why. Let’s see here………

We have a war, oops, I mean a “conflict” that was started for what? Revenge? Oil? Does any one even know anymore, if they ever did. Billions upon billions of dollars from the US Government going over to support troops, not only from our own country, but from others?! We’re paying to train the Iraqi military. We’re forking the bill to keep the NATO forces there.

We’re supporting other countries in times of “need”. You had a hurricane? Alright, here’s our military, a few million dollars, food, some doctors, and whatever else we can scrounge up for you. They only need you, because their own government can’t control it’s own fucking country.

Universal Healthcare? Seriously? Have any of you ever been to a hospital in Canada? Get the fuck outta here with this shit. And they want it mandatory? Fuck you. You can throw my ass in jail, but I’m not buying healthcare because you fucking said so. The USA isn’t ran under dictatorship, bitch. Get the fuck out of office, Obama. You’re a fucking disgrace to our flag. The USA doesn’t band-wagon with other countries. We were built on the belief that we shouldn’t be forced to think how others think, or do what others do, just because some one in power says that’s the right way.

Send us to Mars? Really, Obama? For fucking what? It already costs billions to send a rover there, could you imagine the bill to send a shuttle with actual people? lmfao… You sir, are the fucking fail.

Those commercials on TV. “For just 35 cents a day, you can feed this starving kid in Africa.”. Oh really? Well for 35 cents a day, you can feed a few homeless kids in AMERICA! Instead of sending money to other countries “starving people”, why not send it to your local soup kitchen, and make a difference in YOUR country.

If you want to successfully build our country back up, deal with the issues WITHIN OUR COUNTRY. What about other countries in need? What the fuck about them? I don’t see any other NATO countries rushing in to help them, do you..? Why the fuck is it always the US? Throw another couple billion on to our debt there, asshole. No one will ever notice…

This is a quick and easy way to determine which page you’re currently on, and then setting your menu button’s overlay based on that page.

First we need to create a function to determine the page we’re on.
function getCurrPage() {
return substr($_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"],strrpos($_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"],"/")+1);
}

Next we need to check our this against the menu.
$thisPage = getCurrPage();
if($thisPage == 'index.php') { $navHome = '[Current Class]'; } else { $navHome = '[Noncurrent Class]'; }
if($thisPage == 'search.php') { $navSearch = '[Current Class]'; } else { $navSearch = '[Noncurrent Class]'; }
if($thisPage == 'about.php') { $navAbout = '[Current Class]'; } else { $navAbout = '[Noncurrent Class]'; }
if($thisPage == 'faq.php') { $navFAQ = '[Current Class]'; } else { $navFAQ = '[Noncurrent Class]'; }
if($thisPage == 'contact.php') { $navContact = '[Current Class]'; } else { $navContact = '[Noncurrent Class]'; }

After everything’s been checked, you can simply set your menu as-needed.
echo $navHome . $navSearch . $navAbout . $navFAQ. $navContact;

If you’re dealing with a dozen or more menu links, it would be more efficient to create an array to scan and verify the current page, but this will work fine for smaller menus. Enjoy.

I recently received an email from the address security@onlineupdate.com. They’re trying to phish for PayPal accounts. The contents of the email read as follows.

Dear shiping angel,
We recently reviewed your account, and we are suspecting that your PayPal account may have been accessed from an unauthorized computer.
This may be due to changes in your IP address or location. Protecting the security of your account and of the PayPal network is our primary concern.
We are asking you to immediately login and report any unauthorized withdrawals, and check your account profile to make sure no changes have been made.
To protect your account please follow the instructions below:
* DO NOT SHARE YOUR PASSWORD WITH OTHER USERS
* LOG OFF AFTER USING YOUR ONLINE ACCOUNT
Please click on the following link, to verify your account activity:

http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_login-run

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and appreciate your support in helping us maintaining the integrity of the entire PayPal system.
Please login as soon as possible.
Thank you,
PayPal Security Center.

The link within the email directs you to “cheersandgears.com/waw/”, which has been flagged as a forged website.

The headers are as follows:

Content-Type: text/html; charset=”iso-8859-1″
Date: 02 Apr 2010 22:53:05 +0800 [04/02/2010 08:53:05 AM MDT]
Delivery-date: Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:34:02 -0600
Envelope-to: [My Email]
From: PayPal
MIME-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <20100402225305.0A9EC7129E153A42@onlineupdate.com>
Received: * from [72.253.60.56] (helo=server1.tnwre.com) by [My Email Server] with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Nyr7Z-0005Dm-K9 for [My Email]; Mon, 05 Apr 2010 12:34:01 -0600
* from onlineupdate.com (h186-210-66-252.seed.net.tw [210.66.252.186]) by server1.tnwre.com with ESMTP; Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:04:25 -1000
Return-path:
Subject: shiping angel, your PayPal account will be closed on 03/04/2010

Obviously, they have no idea how to read a calendar. If the senders email address doesn’t send a red flag up for you, the subject line should. Since it’s a month behind.

*Tips to keep you safe.
Always scroll over links in your emails. If they don’t lead to the website that the email is referring to, it’s most likely a phishing attempt.
Right-Click the link, and copy/paste it in to Google. This will more than likely bring up reviews and scam reports on the website in question.
If it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. It’s always better to manually type out a URL you know than to click a hyperlink you don’t.

With phishing at its all-time high, you should always be careful of the emails you open, and the links that are contained inside of them.

Supreme Commander 2, which dropped on store shelves March 2, 2010, is a great real-time strategy game. I like the scroll-out full battlefield view – which I think the C&C team should think about incorporating in to their own game, at least for solo campaigns and skirmishes. I also like the scavenging ability and field commander. There’s one “research” I found that I think is either bugged, or they just laughed as they added it. The Cybron faction has a research under the Structure tab, which allows you to convert energy in to mass. My opinion – don’t research it, unless you have a mass amount of energy stations built. It *will* drain your energy, and very quickly. You will struggle to keep unit production up, and you can forget about having your experimental units on queue re-cycle.

I’ve had Supreme Commander 2 installed for a little over 2 days now, and have already completed 9/10 of the full campaign on hard. I do enjoy the “experimental” units for each faction, and how the tie the storyline together throughout the campaign. I feel the campaigns for each faction could have been longer, as I don’t plan on playing multiplayer, and I foresee the skirmishes becoming less and less enjoyable as the time goes on. Don’t get me wrong, the AI is written excellent (during campaign), but it’s sort of like the C&C Generals AI, where it becomes extremely predictable (perhaps a patch will come out for that).

I do think this is a game that was creatively written, and I look forward to any expansions, or future SC games that may come out, but my opinion on replay value for Supreme Commander 2 is moderate. This is due to poor Skirmish AI, and a very small campaign mode. Your best bet for skirmishes would be through Steam, where you can play against other players.

G.ho.st – Global Hosting System – announced in the beginning of the month that it will be shutting its services down to its extensive community on March 15, 2010. This comes right after a switch to a new domain located at ghost.cc, and promises of new features. Any where you look, you will find the following message to its users.

Dear Ghost User,

We hope you have been enjoying our free Ghost service. Regrettably changes in the marketplace mean that it is no longer economical for us to host the Ghost service and we will be closing down the service on or around March 15. We will instead be focusing on licensing or selling our technology to larger companies.

We advise you to migrate ALL important folders, files and emails to another secure place before March 15. You might like to consider Google Docs or Microsoft SkyDrive for files and services such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail for email. Some instructions for migrating data are included below.

We are really sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you and are very grateful for the fantastic support we had from our community.

For those unfamiliar with the G.ho.st service, it was an extensive free Web OS. You were granted larger storage space based on referrals – 1GB per successful referred sign up. Being a Web OS, they offered an integrated messenger, email client, mp3 player, office applications (spread sheets, etc.) and many other features that made this the worlds most versatile Web OS.

Reading the G.ho.st forums, you can see that many of the G.ho.st users are unhappy with the decision to shut its services down. Many of whom state that they would gladly pay a premium fee for the service. G.ho.st won’t state whether or not they have already found a buyer for their service, or if it will be permanently commercial. They’ve also started a petition which can be found at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/ghostpersonal/

I know that all of the continual users will miss this service, and I hope that when it’s sold, the new owner releases it as a public service – even if it is a paid service.

Beside being a web and software developer, I also have a family. For the past couple of months, my grandfather has been going through chemotherapy for multiple cancers. It started with cancer in his blood, which led the doctors to find cancer in his esophagus and elsewhere in his body. I suppose it’s possibly caused from the drinking and smoking he did earlier in his life.

I’ve watched him slowly degrade from the energetic man I looked up to as a child, to what he’s become due to the cancer and chemotherapy. A walking skeleton with flesh pretty much sums his appearance up now. The doctors said that the cancer could spread to his brain, and after the past few days, it seems that has happened. He’s delusional and paranoid. He has barely eaten anything in the past three days, and has started to live in his own world.

I spent the better part of Saturday night and Sunday morning making sure he didn’t some how injure himself. After being awake for over 24 hours, I finally crashed around 6am Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon brought more delusions. He thought that the bathroom was the den, and attempted to use the bathroom near one of the couches. He started walking around the house with no pants on afterward.

Later, we found him in the kitchen with all the stove burners on, and the sink filling up with hot water. He started rambling about getting the gas and electric company, and having my grandmother arrested. After a couple of minutes of that, he started spouting about my grandmother and uncle stealing all of his money, and put his finger in my uncles face, who grabbed his wrist. I quickly grabbed my uncles hand, and sternly told him to let go (The urge to punch my uncle in the face for that almost got the better of me). I started to lead him in to the living room to sit down, when he started ranting about the food being poison. I assured him that was the same food we had eaten earlier that day, and got him in to the recliner in the living room.

I sat down with him, while my uncle made him a cup of coffee. He asked why this was happening to him, and all I could do was shake my head. He then started talking about god, and how “the rest of them” were the devils servants, referring to my grandmother and uncle. He then put out two fingers, and drew a cross in the air, stating that he had forgiven me of anything I had done in the past. I smiled and got his coffee.

I’ve been periodically checking on him for about 4 hours now. He’s been asleep for about 3, and hopefully that will help…

-Nito

Yesterday, I posted about how I found some of my old writings on a data disk.

This is another one of them, but it’s more along the lines of: wtf was I thinking when I wrote this shit?!

Entitled: Numeric Prophecies

Now, for all of those that think they know
Come in and take a look
‘Cause i’m not your typical, or about average stalker
I’m a riddle, entangled in rhymes
Sift through, and find a numeric talker
Wouldnt you like figure me out
Learn how my twisted mind works
Although I use numeric riddles
Its not as easy as one, two, three
Take me to a doctor
As he performs psycho-analysis
His mind will be on overload
My riddle’s forever engraved
As for the rest of you
Take a grasp on this
There is nowhere to hide
A dog is mans best friend
Always at your side
But one day that dog will turn
The process of nature
And the cycle of life
Ones blood for another
But its yours that it takes
Have you figured it out
Or do you need more time
There is an answer
Numeric of course
Try a percentage
A few fractions to add
If it werent for our mothers
There would be no sins
But if there werent any fathers
How was the world to begin
The world turns
And life progresses on
There are shadows at your side
In the midst of all its chaos
Think about it for a few more years
And maybe you’ll have a solution