How to buy Ripple (XRP) using Coinbase and Binance in 5 steps

Ripple is surging like crazy right now. In the last day or so it's surpassed Ethereum in market capitalization to now be the number two cryptocurrency in the world! Some are attributing this to a new deal between Ripple and Japanese credit card companies. Via CNBC: Ripple rose 20 percent Wednesday to an all-time high.  The gains followed news that Tokyo-based financial services company SBI Holdings and its subsidiary SBI Ripple Asia announced the establishment of a "consortium" with some Japanese credit card companies to utilize blockchain technology, according to an online translation of a release. Ripple and SBI Holdings created SBI Ripple Asia in January 2016. It wasn't clear what the extent of Ripple's involvement would be in the...

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How is Linux built?

While Linux is running our phones, friend requests, tweets, financial trades, ATMs and more, most of us don't know how it's actually built. This short video takes you inside the process by which the largest collaborative development project in the history of computing is organized. Based on the annual report "Who Writes Linux," this is a powerful and inspiring story of how Linux has become a community-driven phenomenon. Via The Linux Foundati...

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Big banks are getting on the blockchain bandwagon

Bitcoin, and other cryptocurrencies were originally created to bypass central banks and put the power of currency in the hands of the individual. It was also created so governments and banking institutions couldn't control the flow of money, and in essence, control the funding of speech and other ideals. Just look at what happened to Wikileaks. Well just as many libertarians were popping champagne bottles over the success of Bitcoin in 2017, it looks like their enemies, central bankers, are now getting on the blockchain train. Via Wolf Street: As a general rule, most bankers disparage cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin, as anything but purely speculative instruments. But they don’t disparage blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies....

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Script For Configuring Ubuntu Server Easily

I work in a big VMware environment. Something like 95% of our servers are virtual. That makes things real easy for me when someone wants a new server for something. I can spin a new server up in just a few minutes, and just a few clicks of a button. One of the things VMware gives us is the ability to create virtual machine templates. Also, with templates we can also do really cool things like sysprep Windows templates at the time of deployment, and it’s all built right into vSphere. One thing I like to do also is have a template of Ubuntu Linux on hand in case I want to setup a quick Linux server. For Linux, I prefer to use Open-VM-Tools instead of the native VMware tools for Linux. For me it is just easier to install, and I can update the...

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A quick reference chart to subnetting and subnet masks

No matter what everyone is saying, IPv4 is still widely used in internal networks. Just look at any home wireless router these days. Just about none of them come pre-configured for IPv6. The same goes for most businesses. Unless you are a giant corporation, or you run an ISP company, the demand for IPv6 for the internal network hasn't grown all that much. At least, not from what I've seen. That being said, the ability to know subnetting, and carve out IPv4 networks is still a valuable skill to know. Sure, there are subnet calculators available, but sometimes having a quick reference chart available that you can tack to your cubicle wall is more handy. So, I give you my subnetting reference chart! It will give you a quick reference to...

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Merry Christmas! Enjoy this free 4 hour hacking course!

Everything you need to get started as a hacker and take your hacking skills to an expert level is included in this free screen capture HD video tutorial course! Begin with the basics of hacking including what is ethical hacking, introduction to hacking terms, and how hackers setup their computers. Follow along as you see exactly what software you need including VirtualBox and Kali Linux. See what to do next after you download VirtualBox, create your virtual environment, and install Kali Linux. Meet the Linux terminal you will use to do your work in including the basic functionalities and Linux Command Line Interface (CLI). See how to navigate in Kali Linux and then get started with the real hacking! Learn Tor, proxychains, Virtual Private...

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Easily the best alternative to Google Adsense I've found

I mentioned a little while ago that I was going to test out monetization using Coinhive. Well, it was an interesting concept, but in practice it really wasn't that profitable. Even when I tried setting it to auto-run in the background, it just wasn't worth the effort. I've decided to ditch that completely. That being said, I have found a new advertising service that so far seems to be generating numbers I used to see when I was using Google Adsense years ago! Before this, the only advertising service that made me any kind of money on a monthly basis was Amazon CPM ads, but they removed Bauer-Power's eligibility too. I just don't get it! Now, at the end of 2017 and going into 2018 I've found a Google Adsense alternative that is really generating...

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#Bitcoin plummeted last night, but experts are telling people to hold

Last night was a real shit storm for Bitcoin, where it plummeted 33% in one of the biggest drops in recent weeks. The drop has left many novice traders worried and ready to pull out now. From Ars Technica: After rocketing to a high above $19,500 last Sunday, bitcoin's price has been steadily dropping this week. Those losses accelerated overnight, with the cryptocurrency falling below $13,000.  Bitcoin's losses come amid a broad cryptocurrency selloff. As of Friday morning, every major cryptocurrency was posting double-digit 24-hour losses. Ethereum is down 28 percent over the last 24 hours, Bitcoin Cash is down 37 percent, and Litecoin is down 32 percent.  To be fair, all of these currencies—like bitcoin—have seen massive gains...

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Search engine to help you find Linux alternatives to Windows programs

I pride myself on creating Bauer-Power years ago, and have it be a great resource in finding not just Windows program alternatives, but alternatives to expensive software in general. I am not a software developer, so my philosophy in technology has always been to spend more money on the hardware, and run open source whenever possible. That is why when I found a search engine that is dedicated to doing the same, I figured I should share it with you! The search engine is called Awesome Cow! From their page: AwesomeCow.com - a search engine designed to help those who want to start using Linux, but this search can be useful for advanced Linux users too.  Search is simple to use - you simply enter the name of the program that runs on...

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I've saved my first $1000 using Acorns!

I first wrote about mindless investing using the Acorns app back in April. Well, in just 8 months, I'm proud to say that I've finally hit my first $1,000 using the app! It may not sound like much, but it is when you consider how difficult it is to save money sometimes. With this app, you just sit back and it takes care of everything for you! As I mentioned in the article back in April, you set the app to auto invest money once a month. I have it set to save just $5. On top of that it rounds up every purchase you make to the nearest dollar, then takes that difference and automatically socks it away for you into an investment account where it can grow much faster than it could in a typical savings account. You can also set what kind of...

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How to limit bandwidth for WSUS downloads

I have been a WSUS user for years. Although there are better patch management tools out there that are also way more expensive, WSUS still manages to stick around and get the job done... For Microsoft related updates at least. Anyway, for the last two months we've been getting hit with bandwidth overage charges at my day job. We have a 6Mbps circuit that is burstable to 10Mbps. Anything over 6Mbps results in overage charges which are not well received by upper management. Here is a look at the past week from our ISP's perspective: Here is a look at our WSUS server's network interface usage: It's pretty obvious don't you think? On top of that I ran a data collection from our firewall starting around the time of the spikes and...

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I've decided to ditch Coinhive

I wrote a little while back that I was going to give Coinhive a shot for monetizing Bauer-Power. I also published a story this morning on how I tested loading Coinhive shortlinks in an invisible iFrame to make it more worth my while. I actually wrote that post last week (It just published this morning), and after letting it run for a week, I've determined that Coinhive mining from my blog just wasn't profitable. I've ran Coinhive banners since the beginning of the month, and implemented the hidden iFrames last week. Even with that, I've only mined 0.01681 XMR which at the time of this writing is only worth about $6.34. Sorry, I can make better money using other advertising services. In fact, I started using a new one that I will write about...

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How to make Coinhive autostart in the background when someone visits your site

I wrote a little while back that I was going to give Coinhive a shot for monetizing Bauer-Power. The sucky thing about it is that using their Simple Miner UI, it requires users to actively press the start button to start the mining process. I'm going on on a limb here to say that 99.999999% of the people visiting your website won't click the start button at all. People want their free content, and they don't want to throw anyone a bone. That's why AdBlock is so popular... According to Coinhive's documentation, they did this because AdBlockers were blocking their miners. From their page: Shortly after the launch of Coinhive, several Adblockers have begun blocking our miner. This is unfortunate because we intended Coinhive to be an alternative...

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What's a computer? Does Apple think we're really this stupid?

In the above pretentious as fuck advertisement for the iPad Pro with iOS 11, Apple says we may be closer to a PC free world than we think. How do they say it though? They take a nerdy girl, and make her ask "What's a computer?" I hate Apple, and all Apple products. Mainly because they are all over priced proprietary pieces of shit. I also hate them for this bullshit. Apple must really think people are stupid! News flash, just because you have an Apple logo on your tablet, does not make it somehow NOT a computer. Everyone knows what a computer is too, and Apple's overpriced hardware is still at the end of the day, just a fucking computer! Don't pretend that it isn't, and we won't pretend that your shit isn't made for non-tech savvy i...

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The FCC's regulations on the internet have been killed. Are we "feeballing" again? #NetNeutrality

I have been a pretty big proponent of actual Net Neutrality. By that I mean that I feel that governments and ISP's should leave the Internet the hell alone! The Internet is the ultimate experiment in human freedom, and the sharing of limitless information is incredibly valuable. So like many people, I have fallen in with those on "the left" when it started to become apparent that the FCC was going to repeal Obama era regulations to "protect the Internet". However, the following from Reason TV has started making think that this recent action from the FCC might not be as bad as I had thought. Via Reason TV: Progressives are freaking out now that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is beginning the repeal of Net Neutrality regulations,...

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htaccess not working with https on Apache

I noticed an issue the other day on a Wordpress server I manage that runs on Ubuntu. We have several virtual directories on that server that use rewrite rules in an htaccess file to present content from a different website. If we use http, it works great! If we use https, we get a page cannot be found error. What gives? Well, it turns out that out of the box the /etc/apache2/sites-available/default-ssl has the following setting: <Directory /> Options FollowSymLinks AllowOverride None </Directory> <Directory /var/www/> Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews AllowOverride None Order allow,deny allow...

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How Secure Is Your Operating System?

Ever wonder how secure your information truly is? What security protocols do you practice? Maybe creating a password? Locking the computer so others cannot access your data? Bypassing windows passwords only takes a minute or less and the windows 10 installation disk. Thus far, I have been successful in using the Windows 10 disk to bypass account passwords and even activating deactivated accounts on Windows Server 2012, Windows 10, Windows 7, and Windows 8.1. I have yet to test the technique to bypass locked computer accounts in Windows XP and Vista, but I do not foresee any complications with those operating systems. Before you think this makes you safer because you use Mac OS X. I have also been able to bypass root level account passwords...

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10 Upcoming Gadgets and Technologies to Change the World

Digital technology has come a long way through all leaps and bounds over the past five years. Cloud computing, smartphones, and multi-touch tablets are the innovations which revolutionized our personal and work life. Well, it's just a beginning. Technology will get even better. In the near future, we could lead a life just like in sci-fi movies. So, get ready to slice Ninja fruits through your gestures and control the desktop with eyes, print your own physical product, and enter into the virtual world and experience virtual reality. Here's is the rundown of top 10 real-life, upcoming gadgets and technologies which will change the world. Google Glass Augmented Reality is already here in the forms of simulated education and experiment app....

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When I made this video, #Bitcoin was trading for $12.83

I made this video for my old Tech Chop video series back in October of 2012! When this video came out, nobody really had heard about Bitcoin at that time. It was trading for roughly $12.83 per Bitcoin then, and mining was still relatively profitable. Now mining has stopped being profitable, but since Bitcoin is now trading at around $18,000 people are still making money! Bitcoin mining itself isn't profitable anymore, but you can still get into cryptocurrency mining, and transfer your earnings into something worthwhile like Bitcoin, Litecoin or Ethereum using MinerGate! Check them out...

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Google Creates More Magic With Pixel 2

Google Pixel 2 XL Google has raised the curtain on the newest edition of its Pixel phone line and Android fans will not be disappointed. A worthy successor to the original Pixel, the Pixel 2 combines an outstanding camera with reliable software and an attractive design, all in an aluminum waterproof package. The phone is available in two sizes the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. Unlike Apple and other manufacturers the large and small versions both are identical in guts and performance. Look under the hat and you'll find the same Snapdragon 835 processor, 4 gigs of RAM, and the same 64 or 128 gigs of storage. The camera is the same as well. Both run Android Oreo with no bloating or customizing to the operating system. Battery life is around 7...

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If you have an HP laptop, you might have a keylogger installed

HP has done it again. They have screwed over their customers by leaving something nasty installed in over 460 of their laptop models. This nasty thing is a keylogger program that can be used by hackers to log your every keystroke allowing them to capture your most sensitive passwords! This isn't the first time they've done this either! Back in May, security researchers discovered a keylogger hidden in HP's audio drivers. ZeroHedge recently reported about spyware being pre-installed on HP computers as well! How low will these guys stoop to snoop on their customers? Well, this time the keylogger was found in the touchpad driver. Via The Hacker News: A security researcher who goes by the name of ZwClose discovered a keylogger in several...

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Book Review: Security and Privacy in an IT World: Managing and Meeting Online Regulatory Compliance in the 21st Century

My good friend and mentor (Basically the guy who taught me everything I know about Linux) , Craig MacKinder, recently wrote a book! It is called Security and Privacy in an It World: Managing and Meeting Online Regulatory Compliance in the 21st Century. MacKinder is the owner of Blueshift Information Systems Inc, has been in the IT industry for over twenty years, and he's probably forgotten more about the business than I may ever know. When he told me that he wrote a book, I was pretty excited about it! Here is a description of the book from Amazon: Regulatory compliance has historically been a concern of only a company's legal and finance departments. However, as e-commerce continues to dominate retail both in the United States...

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Former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler Says Ajit Pai is Selling Out Consumers At Behest of ISP's

On Monday we reported that Ajit Pai would not delay their vote to overturn Obama era protections of net neutrality. This was in response to senators requesting that the FCC delay their vote. One can only assume this is because Ajit Pai is an asshole that doesn't give a shit about consumers, and only the interests of ISP's. One might also speculate that he is probably taking bribes from ISP giants like Verizon and AT&T... I digress... Anyway, yesterday Pai's predecessor, Tom Wheeler slammed Ajit Pai's plan to eliminate net neutrality. He basically called Pai out for selling out consumers and entrepreneurs at the hands of large ISP's. Via Ars Technica: "ISP monopoly carriers have been trying for four years to get to this point," Wheeler...

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Over 31 Million Ai.type user's info leaked in massive data breach

Researchers from Kromtech Security center have discovered that personal information from around 31 million users have been leaked online due to a security vulnerability in the popular smartphone keyboard app Ai.type. The data was found online and can be accessed by anyone without a password. Via The Hacker News: Founded in 2010, Ai.type is a customizable and personalizable on-screen keyboard for mobile phones and tablets, with more than 40 million users worldwide.  Apparently, a misconfigured MongoDB database, owned by the Tel Aviv-based startup AI.type, exposed their entire 577 GB of the database online that includes a shocking amount of sensitive details on their users, which is not even necessary for the app to work.  "...they...

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Mining Bitcoin on a 55 year old IBM mainframe works worse than expected

I ran into an interesting blog post today where a guy named Ken Shirriff decided to test what would happen if you mined Bitcoin on a 55 year old IBM 1401 mainframe! If you think he was able to really crank out hashes on that old giant monstrosity using punch cards and assembly language, well... you would be wrong. Via www.righto.com: The IBM 1401 can compute a double SHA-256 hash in 80 seconds. It requires about 3000 Watts of power, roughly the same as an oven or clothes dryer. A basic IBM 1401 system sold for $125,600, which is about a million dollars in 2015 dollars. On the other hand, today you can spend $50 and get a USB stick miner with a custom ASIC integrated circuit. This USB miner performs 3.6 billion hashes per second and uses about...

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FCC Chairman Ajit Pai basically tells net neutrality supporters they can eat a bag of dicks

FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai (Asshole) OK, to be perfectly honest, the title of this blog post is not an exact quote. FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai did not actually tell net neutrality supporters that they can eat a bag of dicks, but he might as well have. According to our last blog post, 28 senators were asking the FCC to delay their vote on repealing net neutrality regulations implemented by the Obama administration. Well, Ajit Pai said they will not be delaying the vote, and also said net neutrality supporters are "desperate". Via Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission will move ahead with its vote to kill net neutrality rules next week despite an unresolved court case that could strip away even more consumer protections.  FCC...

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