We at phux are setting up a world wide event dubbed “Consumer Blackout”, where we will be shutting down our personal ISP’s for 24 hours at 1am Eastern on December 31st. You can find the event page on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/ConsumerBlackout. You don’t need to sign up for the event on Facebook but, we would like to keep track of the number of participants.

Event Overview:
One day without accessing the internet. One day to show the big corporations that we can exist without them. The fat cat needs to go on a diet, and you can help. We need to take a stand and show the corporations that we are not just sheep. We are more than a status on a social network. More than a six figure annual bonus.

Your rights, your freedoms, your very essence as a human being is being sold to the highest bidder, and all anyone ever cares about is sharing with the world that they just had toast, or they’re dying their hair red and they hope it doesn’t turn out shitty, or what studid show is on and what they think about it. You have so many opinions about people, shows, books, movies, school, haircuts, pets, drama, rumours, funny pictures, sad pictures, that you fail to realize that all of these things are necessary for you to remain oblivious to the fact that it’s only a matter of time before everything that you own and cherish as a human, your basic human rights, and everything that they mean will soon be a denomination folded up in somebodies wallet!

Ryan: “Invite your friends. We need to show the world that the cashcow known as the internet is sustained by us, and us only. Maybe then big money-making companies, who make their money from us using the internet, but wish to control what we think, say, and do on it will get the hint that we aren’t fucking around anymore. Think of this as an Occupy Wallstreet for the internet! We need to take a stand on the streets, and on the wire! Time is running out.”

We hope you will join us in this decisive strike.

Best regards,
Nito

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been a huge number of emails sent out as part of a phishing scam involving ACH and FDIC. Below are what the emails read (they may change over time):

Subject: FDIC notification
From: no.reply@fdic.gov
Message: Dear customer,
Your account ACH and WIRE transaction have been temporarily suspended for security reasons due to the expiration of your security version. To download and install the newest installations read the document(pdf) attached below.

As soon as it is setup, you transaction abilities will be fully restored.
Best Regards, Online Security departament, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Subject: ACH Payment 2318207 Canceled
From: account.manager@nacha.net
Message: ACH Payment Canceled

The ACH transaction (ID: 51800395),
recently initiated from your checking account (by you or any other person),
was canceled by the other financial institution.

Rejected transaction
Transaction ID: 8574210513218
Reason for rejection: See details in the attachment
Transaction Report: report_082011-65.pdf.exe (self-extracting archive, Adobe PDF)

13450 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 100 Herndon, VA 20171 (703)561-1100 2011 NACHA – The Electronic Payment Association

These emails contain an attachment. Do *NOT* download or open this file. It will install a variant of the Zeus or ZBot trojan on your system. They aim for account information, mostly regarding banking. Again, if you receive an email do not open the attachment. If your email provider allows you to mark it as a phishing email, do so and then delete it (if it hasn’t been already).

Are you one of the many people that hates all the Facebook application spam crap? Whelp, this entry is going to show you how to block all apps from your feed.

First: Click “Account” at the top-right of the page, and then “Privacy Settings”.

Second: Find “Apps and Websites” at the bottom of the page, and click the link entitled “Edit your settings”.

Last: Find “Apps you use”, which should be at the top of the page, and click the link entitled “Turn off”.

After confirming, you should now have an app free news feed on Facebook. Enjoy.

SolaceNet has been a project of mine for about a year and a half. I talked with one of my good friends, and we decided to sit down and start work on it. We didn’t even have a name for it until about two months into the project, lol. Some of you who don’t read my blog or know me are probably asking yourselves ‘what the hell is SolaceNet anyways?’. Whelp, I hope to break down what SolaceNet is in this post since I haven’t really done that yet.

So what is SolaceNet?

We hope that it will become the number one destination for gamers world wide. Social networking for gamers, by gamers is pretty much the basic concept of it. Now we know there’s hundreds of ‘gaming social networks’ out there, but none of them can actually pair you with other gamers you may know from specific games (and we don’t even need your email and password to find them!(Sorry, I just really dislike that type of spam – which is what it is)).

But why reinvent the wheel?

Good question, and the answer is pretty straight forward.. If you have no competition, there is no real motivation to improve and expand. That’s the philosophy that all businesses *should* have, though they usually don’t.

Do you see companies like Facebook or Twitter as competition?

In some ways, yes. Facebook and Twitter are two great social networks, but they’re not really setup for gamers. If I wanted to post that I just earned an achievement on XBL, I’d have to connect a third parties web application to post it for me.

So you’re opposed to using third party applications?

Not at all, I encourage the integration between websites. However, having multiple social networks do the work that could be done by one is wasteful in my opinion. Centralizing all data without having to create, set up, maintain and keep track of multiple accounts sounds a lot easier and cleaner, doesn’t it?

Dennis Fong has already created two gaming social networks. How do you plan on competing with someone with that much experience under their belt?

Yeah, Dennis created two of the largest and most well-known gaming social networks, but it comes back down to the motivation to improve and expand. He has virtually no competition. XFire was purchased by MTv, and hasn’t had any major overhauls since. He then turned around and developed Raptr that trumped XFire in every aspect. So aside from that, there’s no one to compete with. A few social networks here and there, but they’re all platform specific – XBOX here, PS3 there. We have quite a few things on SolaceNet that will make us a strong competitor with Dennis and his team of developers over at Raptr.

Can you be more specific when you say “a few things”?

At this point in the development stage, I can’t disclose every part of SolaceNet. Competition is all about knowing your competitors and creating something bigger and better after all.

Where can gamers go to check out SolaceNet?

Gamers can head over to SolaceNet.com and sign up. We’ll be giving everyone who signs up now exclusive access to our alpha and beta versions of the website and software.

As a project manager, I’m in charge of overseeing the development of projects. I was recently asked about my technique, and how I’m able to output a steady flow of web applications in such short amounts of time, compared to the larger companies who tend to take an exorbitant amount of time.

What can wait, and what can’t?

Sticking strictly with the original idea(s), notes and layout(s) is always the best way to develop a project, but there may be times when you sit down with your team or client and more ideas come up. You have to decide what can wait, and what can’t. There’s a few things you need to consider before you make the decision to archive the idea for after release.

Is it a necessity?
Does it need to be integrated in order for the website to function correctly?

How long will it take to write and integrate?
Time is always a big deal in the development stage. If it’s going to push your projected release back more than a month, you should make sure it’s something that has to be there prior to launch.

Will the database and SQL statements need to be edited or rewritten?
Having to go back and edit or rewrite SQL statements may seem trivial, but after your application is live you’re looking to decrease downtime. Changes to the database structure can prove to be more of a problem than it would be to spend a little more time on the initial development.

These are only a few questions that you should be asking yourself, your team and the client.

Your undivided attention.

Each project should get your undivided attention. This is why smaller web companies and teams tend to thrive more than their larger counterparts. Taking one project per team at a time will put you and your team(s) under a LOT less stress, and allow for the fastest completion of a project. Dealing with client’s one at a time is a lot easier than having an inbox or voicemail full of questions or ideas for multiple and then trying to sort them out in a timely manner.

Wait, what? I didn’t get that email..

Make sure everyone’s on the same page. It’s not fun trying to explain to a client that you’re behind because of no communication or someone not completely understanding what needs to be done.

Large companies make me lol irl.

Big companies tend to take mass projects at once, which put their developers (if they aren’t outsourcing to another country, which at least 1/3 do) in an extremely stressful situation as they’re usually assigned to more than one project at a time. Large companies tend to only see clients as dollar signs. Have you ever actually read some of the contracts these guys make you sign before they agree to developing your dream? Most have clauses stating that even if you back out of the development or postpone it, full payment will still be due. This – in my professional opinion – is wrong. I understand the need for profit, and that when a client cancels a project, you’re potentially losing out, but charge for work completed, not as a whole. This brings me to my next topic – source rights.

Source rights are the rights to the actual source code, images, etc. Many companies will charge you an additional fee for this, starting around $1,000 (lowest I’ve seen). This is mostly used for free advertising, as they can (and most likely will) place their companies name and web link on your front page. For the people that understand the basic concept of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you know that free link placement on your index is never something you want, unless it’s reciprocal. Even then, it depends on the quality of the web page yours is on.

The simple fact of the matter is, you can’t just go around and share personal information across unsecure channels.

If I were to create a social network right now, ask you for your name, home address, telephone numbers and email accounts, then go on to say “All information entered within this network can and will be broadcast to whomever asks for it.”. How many people do you think would enter any information? Social networks are not meant for sharing personal information outside of its own network. People do not want their information shared, and if you do so without consent of the user, you’re liable to all sorts of lawsuits.

His points were all directed towards the “openness” of the internet – being able to access all points of information without restriction. This is still done to a point – yes, even on social networking. See, there’s this little thing called personal security settings.. A user can choose to allow information to be picked up from search engines, and any other crawlers that may scan that site, but to allow for all of a users personal information to be shared.. Well now, you may just as well create a new database account, post the credentials for it on your front page and let everyone have at your members table.

And his views on Apple, although I agree with him, are pointless. You don’t sign up to Ebay to shop for goods sold on Amazon, do you?

Seriously, some people need to think about the foolish things they say before they talk – especially when it’s going to the media, and ultimately on to the web where it does what? Gets shared freely without restriction to the whole of the web.

Good game, dumbass.

You can view the article expressing Tim Berners-Lee’s views here.

As we work on Solace, it’s becoming apparent to me just how large of a undertaking this project is. Although with the addition of two new developers, the task doesn’t seem quite as daunting as it was when Ryan and I started development. Still, the amount of work load on each dev’s lap is tremendous, and I’m wondering just how long it’s going to actually take to get this software and website up and running in a stable condition.

Our original projection had been the end of this year, but that was back in the beginning of the year. Now it’s the end of the year, and the entire website is undergoing a complete rewrite – front and back-end. I guess we’ll take it one day at a time. I just hope it doesn’t become to overwhelming, because we can’t afford to hire additional developers at this point…

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

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 =)

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.

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.

As most of my regular subscribers may know, I’m anti-facebook, and have been since a few months after they came out. I read a piece on their newest monopoly move the other day about their patent application, which has everyone in the OSS world in an uproar.

On August 9th, FaceBook applied for a patent on Crowdsourcing Translation.

What is Crowdsourcing Translation?
The Crowdsourcing Translation has been used for years by multiple sites to allow members to create multilingual translations for websites/pages. It is a free open way to translate web pages to other languages.

What it means if FaceBook gets the patent?
To sum it up, it means that FaceBook would hold exclusive rights to Crowdsourcing Translation software.

What are my thoughts on this?
If this gets passed, OSS is doomed. Why you ask? Because this means that the government is overlooking the fact that this has been an open source of translation for years, and just allowing the first person/company with the money for to apply to get the patent.

What do you think about FaceBook trying to patent this open translation tool?

I started working on Midget URL again today, and ended up a few functions I think it needed…

1. Added a search function. This allows anyone who wants to look up what the actual site is for a Midget URL to see all the information we have on it. It includes the real URL, total clicks (an overall count of how many people have clicked that particular link) which can be helpful if you’re trying to keep track of it, the date the link was added to our database, and the description (which is completely optional) that the uploader added.

2. The “Look Up” page, which displays the search query output. I also added WebSnapr’s Thumbnail API, so visitors are able to see the image prior to visiting it.

3. If you’ve been to Midget URL before today, you’ll notice that there is now a “Deletion Password” box in the upload form. This will allow the user adding the link to delete the link at their own discretion. (I’m still working on the actual deletion page)

What do we have planned for the future of Midget URL? More functionality, while still keeping it as simple as possible. Possibly user defined url’s. Maybe even a true masking (No ad’s) service… But for now, we’ll stick to the basics, and keeping it simple and user-friendly.

Until next time,
Nito

So I’ve been doing a lot of bashing lately.. I just really hate when big companies change tactics because of competition. In this post, we have Facebook in the spotlight (yet again). What a fucking surprise, right? You’re probably asking yourself, wtf did Facebook do to piss Nito off this time?! Well, Aside from being a bunch of money hungry corporate assholes who can’t seem to understand that competition is GOOD for business, they’ve just fucking ripped Twitter off.

Some of my readers might not be aware of this, but Facebook attempted to buy out Twitter, who just turned around and gave them the bird. Facebook obviously didn’t like the tweet that Twitter gave them, and so here we are – Facebook attempting to make their network more along the lines of Twitters (This makes me lol hardcore).

Anyways, Facebook is (or maybe already has? I deactivated my account after the last rant about them) adding a function that will now allow you to ‘follow’ a user, instead of adding them to your friends list. Sound familiar? It should, that’s the way Twitter creates its users friends lists. So, was this at all neccesary by the people over at Facebook? Fuck no. They have a fucking friends list already, wtf would the point be in allowing others to stalk you too?

This is how I see it… Facebook sets all profiles, images, videos, etc. to public by default now and now they’re allowing ANYONE to STALK you.. Are they looking to get into the shithole as hard as MySpace is now? Have you looked at the stat’s between MySpace and Facebook lately? MySpace dropped dramatically, not only that, but now they’re downsizing their employee base.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I got on to Facebook because MySpace turned into a shithole over run with bots and kids that annoyed the fuck out of me. Facebook offered top-notch privacy, not allowing ANYONE to see shit about you unless you added them,a nd even if you did, you could limit what some people saw. And now they open the network, and allow stalking. For the fucking fail!

I can see the freelance boards now – “Looking for Facebook bot!” – “REQ’s: Must be able to auto-set follow and store addresses. Must also auto-post comments and auto-request friends!”.. You know, I see their next step in this piece of shit plan of theirs… “Hey, we should so totally allow anyone to post comments on peoples pages!”..

Fuck you, Zuckerburg, you greedy fucking piece of shit. You should have taken Microsofts offer- You’d of fit right in with the rest of the succubus staff there. You sir, are the fucking fail.

-Nito

I ran across this post from one of my followers on Twitter about how Facebook is scamming advertisers out of thousands of dollars with fraudulent clicks.. Advertisers are reporting 10:1 ratios, which pretty much means, for every 10 clicks, 1 is legit or actually recorded outside of Facebook. What a fucking piece of shit company.

See, there’s some times you need to keep some of your shit to yourself. If Facebook hadn’t opened their network to so many fucking developers, but instead charged them propietary fees to post their app’s and shit they wouldn’t need to pull stupid ass stunts like this. But then again, we’re talking about yet another online media community, which means that they’re nothing more than some money hungry suit wearing corporate douches.

In my honest opinion, advertising on Facebook to begin with is a fail. Sure, maybe you get a few legit clicks, but that fucking site is riddled with thousands of bot’s, which means that most of the clicks you get won’t be worth shit anyways. The advertising worth on that site is less than the towel I use to blow my nose with.

So for all you little investors, put your cash into other sites. You wanna get some cheap ass advertising, that’s going to get you a nice amount of clicks? You can go to Today.com or look for personally owned blogs with a couple hundred posts and a decent amount of subscribers. Send the owner an email, and make an offer.. I’m sure it wouldn’t have to be too big, since they probably don’t make cash outside of Google’s AdSense or some other low level advertising.

That’s it for now..

-Nito