The about: URI Scheme

Many web browsers implement an internal URI scheme to access built-in features, advanced functionality, default warning/error messages and "easter eggs". In most cases, the scheme name for these URIs is "about:".

The following are lists of about: URIs available in recent versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox / Seamonkey & other Mozilla compatible browsers, and Google Chrome & Chromium.

Internet Explorer
More information: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/183978

Customized "about:" URLs can be defined for Internet Explorer in the Windows Registry under the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\AboutURLs

The following list is mainly for versions 6 (SP2) and above.

about:blank	Displays nothing -- a blank page.
about:DesktopItemNavigationFailure	Displays the default error page used when the browser can not navigate to the provided local desktop URI.
about:Home	Displays the current defined home page (the page that loads if you click Internet Explorer's Home button in the page navigation toolbar)
about:mozilla	Displays an empty blue webpage. Removed in Windows XP SP2, but can still be accessed using res://mshtml.dll/about.moz
about:NavigationCanceled	Displays the default error page used when the browser aborts loading a page (user cancelled).
about:NavigationFailure	Displays the default error page used when the browser can not navigate to the provided URI.
about:NoAdd-ons	IE 7 and above: Displays the warning page used when the browser starts up in safe mode (add-ons disabled).
about:NoAdd-onsInfo	IE 7 and above: Displays further help information about running the browser with add-ons disabled.
about:OfflineInformation	Displays the warning page used when the browser is in offline mode.
about:PostNotCached	Displays the warning page used when the browser can not reload a page without resending previously submitted form data.
about:SecurityRisk	Displays the warning page used when the browser prevents loading a page due to user-configured security settings that are too low.
about:Tabs	IE 7 and above: Displays the help information page about using tabs.
about:inprivate	IE 8 and above: Displays the help information page for the InPrivate browsing feature.

Mozilla products: Firefox, Seamonkey, etc.
More information: http://kb.mozillazine.org/About_protocol_links

about:	Displays a product information page, including name, logo, version, links to licensing information, etc.
about:about	Displays a list of about: URIs available (not available in Firefox)
about:blank	Displays nothing -- a blank page.
about:bloat	Available only in developmental versions of Mozilla-based products.
about:buildconfig	Displays information about options used to build/compile the web browser software.
about:cache	Displays cache entries & statistics.
about:cache-entry	Displays information about a specific cache-entry. The cache entry must be identified within a querystring. Generally you would not enter this yourself, as the links using this URI are generated by the about:cache viewer.
about:config	Allows you to access and modify all configurable options available in the software, including advanced/experimental settings.
about:credits	Displays an alphabetically organized list of contributors.
about:licence	Displays licence information
about:license	An alias that performs the same function as the above about:licence URI.
about:logo	Displays the logo image used in the software.
about:mozilla	Displays an page containing a excerpt from "The Book of Mozilla" (not an actual book)
about:neterror	Displays a generic built-in error page (Cannot Complete Request)
about:plugins	Lists all available plugins, including details such as versions, file locations, etc.
about:robots	Firefox 3.0 easter egg appearing after March 8th, 2008
about:blocked	Firefox 3.0 blocked information page used by the malware protection feature.
about:rights	Shows licensing information for the Ubuntu 8.10 shipped version of Firefox.

Google Chrome / Chromium
More information: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/09/google-chromes-about-pages.html

about:memory	Lists the browser's memory usage details.
about:stats	Lists counter and timing statistics of internal methods/functions.
about:network	Network I/O tracking & status tool.
about:internets	An easter egg which makes reference to the "internets" Bushism and "series of tubes" Internet memes
about:histograms	Displays text-based histograms measuring the performance of internal browser methods/functions.
about:dns	Displays DNS lookup performance and caching statistics.
about:cache	Displays a list of webpage resources stored in the local browser cache.
about:crash	Displays the "sad tab" error page -- used when a page causes the current sandboxed browser process to crash (Aw, Snap! Something went wrong while displaying this webpage...).
about:plugins	Lists all available plugins, including details such as versions, file locations, etc.
about:version	Displays version information for various components.

TechTip: Taming Adobe Flash Plugin for Firefox

As I've said before, Mozilla Firefox 3.x is currently my preferred web browser, whether it's on Linux, Windows or any other platform that it has been ported to.

Firefox, like any piece of complex software however, is definitely not perfect. Some problems are beyond Mozilla's control though -- for example problems caused by badly behaved third-party plugins. Arguably the most irritating plugin problem impacting Firefox users today is caused by Adobe/Macromedia's poorly written Shockwave Flash plugin (NPSWF32.dll).

Flash is the de facto standard for delivering interactive rich media content over the web. It is so widely used that the Flash plugin is a must have for any major modern web browser. The problem however, is that Adobe's Flash plugin (all previous versions including the latest version 9.0 r124) for Mozilla Firefox & other Mozilla-based browsers is a resource hog and has a tendency to slowly leak memory and become unstable if left running for too long. For the most part, the Adobe Flash plugin for Firefox works adequately, but I would venture a guess that for upwards of 90% of web browser stability problems that users encounter in Firefox -- such as freezing up, crashing or sucking up system resources (CPU & memory), etc. -- the culprit is most likely Adobe's Flash Plugin.

Comparatively, the Flash ActiveX control for Microsoft's Internet Explorer seems to perform much better in terms of resource usage and reliability, however performance of the Flash plugin is hardly a deal breaker for me.

Google Chrome uses the Mozilla-based browser plugin system, and therefore uses the same Flash plugin that Firefox uses. Consequently, Chrome suffers from pretty much all the same Flash plugin problems that you might encounter in Firefox. However, since Chrome isolates memory for each process/tab and plugins, it is easier to control / kill & restart dysfunctional processes and plugins using its built-in Task manager.

Lately one particularly annoying problem that I've suddenly started to experience with the Flash plugin in Firefox is that every time after restarting from hibernation in Windows XP, there is no sound in any flash content (for example YouTube videos & other flash animations). Closing and restarting Firefox fixes the problem, but it's a pain. I usually like to have Firefox save and restore my session and all my tabs, which makes it a little easier, but it's still an big inconvenience nonetheless.

The Solution:

I have recently come across a workaround for this issue which doesn't require closing and restarting Firefox entirely. Simply go to the Tools menu, choose Add-ons to open the Add-ons manager window, choose the Plugins category, then look for and select the Shockwave Flash plugin. Hit the Disable button, which will kill Flash on all web pages you currently have open in Firefox, then re-enable the plugin and close the Add-ons window.

You will need to reload any web page with flash content, but this should clear up most Flash plugin-related problems without having to restart the web browser entirely.

Just for kicks, open the Windows Task Manager along side the Firefox Add-ons manager window. Switch to the Processes tab and locate firefox.exe. Watch what happens to the memory usage as you disable the Shockwave Flash plugin... satisfying, eh?

This trick of disabling and reenabling individual plugins in Firefox without restarting the whole application can probably be applied to any misbehaving plugin (not just Adobe Flash), or when you suspect that plugins are chewing up your resources and you want to try manually flushing the memory used by the firefox.exe process.

Google Chrome - First Impressions

Google has just released the first public beta version of their new web browser, named Chrome.

Having only heard rumours of this via various tech blogs and news websites only one or two days ago, I was quite surprised to see a beta released so quickly. Information that I had read about it regarding its speed, security, stability, compatibility and features were quite compelling to me.

In terms of web browser preference, I am definitely hands-down in the Mozilla Firefox 3 camp, so the fact that Google chose to use Apple's OpenSource WebKit rendering engine instead of Mozilla's arguably more tried-and-true Gecko engine seemed like a very curious decision to me.

Granted, my previous experience with WebKit based browsers was limited... I've used Apple Safari (on Macs) only a few times, and wasn't blown away by its capabilities/performance. When Apple released Safari for Windows, I decided to take a pass because it seemed somewhat bloated. In my experience, Apple is notorious for bundling unnecessary crap in their Windows software (i.e. iTunes & QuickTime for Windows), and my opinion was that their web browser didn't really offer anything new or better compared to Firefox.

I've also used briefly used Konqueror before on KDE-based Linux desktops (which uses the KHTML rendering engine -- indeed, WebKit was forked from KHTML). But just like Safari, the lack of features, compatibility and performance failed to impress.

At any rate, Google Chrome seemed to offer a web browser that hits most of the big points for me, so I decided to give it a spin. Here's my checklist, along with my personal ratings & observations:

1. Support for contemporary and modern web standards: 4/5
   - Passes Acid1 & Acid2 tests, scores fairly well on Acid3 (slightly better than Firefox 3.0.1)
   - No major problems noticed using any of the websites that I access frequently or on a daily basis (e.g. Google, GMail, Google Reader, Windows Live Mail (Hotmail), Facebook, Slashdot, various websites that I developed, etc.)
   
2. Speed: 5/5
   - Speed is one of the major talking points with Chrome, and I can confirm that it is definitely very speedy, particularly the handling of Javascript. As a test, I tried running my Stop the Clock at 1000 Google gadget. The clock incremented so fast the first time I ran it, that I didn't realize that it had already passed 1000 and had actually already stopped at its limit before I noticed.
3. Memory optimization & efficiency: 5/5
   - When I read that Google Chrome uses separate processes for each tab & plugins instead of multiple threads, the first thing that concerned me was the amount of memory & overhead that this would require. After opening a fair number of tabs and websites I was pleasantly surprised to see how little memory each process used. System memory usage in total also appeared very reasonable.
   - Precise garbage collection works very well, and just as promised. As a matter of fact, this is something I wish Firefox had -- and could very well have soon, since Chrome is open source and some code from it is likely to end up in Firefox sooner or later.
   - Tip: Right-click the small empty area between the new tab button and the minimize button and choose the "Task manager" option to see exactly how memory is allocated by all open Chrome tabs & processes. This feature is something I like very very much.
4. Security and Privacy protection: 4/5
   - Sandboxing seems to work properly and as expected (which it should for any respectable web browser). Google claims that their sandbox implementation reduces the likelyhood of security exploitations. Without personally performing any formal testing or source code examination however, I would just have to take Google's word for it.
   - The incognito mode -- essentially a browsing mode which allows "untracked" surfing -- is a very welcome feature. Similar features are expected to be available in the next versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, so the fact that Google Chrome offers this now is very pleasant news. On a side note, these "private" browsing modes only prevent tracking from taking place, they are not 100% anonymous sessions since data encryption still doesn't take place unless the websites you are visiting use SSL.
   - The Google blacklist service -- similar to what Microsoft and Mozilla have done for their browsers, a blacklist service is provided by Google to protect against phishing. While not foolproof, this is a feature that has become fairly standard in modern web browsers.
   - Advanced cookie control and security policy standards such as P3P are not currently available as far as I can tell. I can't give Google Chrome full marks for this reason, but otherwise security in Chrome seems to be very good.
5. Usability, features & bloat: 3/5
   - Chrome is meant to be a minimal, no-nonsense web browser, and it succeeds in that regard.
   - Chrome installs into the user's application data folder. There doesn't seem to be a way to change this or install it globally for all user accounts on a computer. At about 80 MB per user per installation, this seems slightly weighty. Also this makes it less likely for novice/average users to install and harder to centrally administer.
   - There doesn't seem to be any simple user interfaces for managing add-ons, extensions and updates.
6. Developer features: 3/5
   - Javascript console & debugging features are provided and appear to be done very nicely.
   - Viewing page source is also well done.
   - Advanced developer tools (such as the Firefox Firebug extension) currently don't exist, since an addons system doesn't seem to be available at this time, and these capabilities are probably not necessary to be included as standard built-in features for all users.
7. Cross-platform compatibility: 1/5
   - Currently only a version for Windows XP & Vista has been released. Mac & Linux versions are planned, but until then Chrome is unfortunately Windows only.

Final verdict: 25/35 = 71%

In summary, Chrome is most definitely a well built and solid web browser that is worth checking out. When Firefox 3.0 was released earlier this year, my initial thought was "this is exactly how a web browser should be built". After giving Chrome a spin however, I am equally impressed if not moreso considering it is the first public release and yet only a beta version.

Chrome still doesn't provide a lot of convenient features that I use everyday in Firefox, and currently doesn't seem to offer much in terms of add-ons & extensions. So for now, Firefox will still be my preferred everyday web browser for general use and web development. My prediction is that a lot of code will eventually be shared between Google Chrome and Mozilla browsers, so eventually we'll be seeing the best of both worlds and major improvements in both browsers, and very possibly others.

Stop the Clock at 1000

Another Google Gadget...

I was digging around some old files on my computer and came across this little game that I whipped up back in 2004. It's loosely based on the carnival-style reflex-arcade game-of-skill of the same name (except without the ticket payouts).

In case the title isn't clear enough, the purpose of the game is to basically stop the clock when it reaches 1000... as simple as it sounds, this requires quick reflexes and a bit of luck.



Have fun!

Programmer's Calculator Google Gadget

Sometimes when I run into a coding problem in the middle of a programming project, I create a new separate file to experiment and test theoretical solutions instead of messing around with the larger project that I'm working on. I usually prefer to use JavaScript as a experimenting language because:

• JavaScript is fast and easy to write and test.
• It's an interpreted language so no recompiling is needed.
• It's readily available and standard in all modern web browsers.
• It provides a basic, but fairly good set of features that can usually be easily retranslated later to other more powerful languages.
• It is fairly easy to debug (especially with the Javascript error console in Mozilla/Firefox browsers).
  

This programmer's calculator began as just that: a experimental JavaScript web page that I whipped up to test base conversions. I realized afterwards however, that there could perhaps be some practical future use...

Many programmer's calculators out there currently only handle one base at a time, and simply don't provide certain conversions such as ASCII/Unicode characters or RGB which are easy enough to implement. Also, a good amount of code in typical calculator applets/gadgets is usually dedicated to having pretty graphical user interface which frankly I think is usually entirely unnecessary for computer-based calculator applets. (You do have a real keyboard in front of you already, don't you?) For serious programming, the leaner and meaner it is, the better.

So without further ado, here it is:

Description: A programmer's calculator featuring multiple simultaneous conversions and common operations. Instantly converts between decimal, hexadecimal, binary, octal/any base between 2-36, character codes, and 24/48 bit RGB. Operations supported include Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and bitwise NOT, AND, OR, XOR.

Rock Paper Scissors

I recently decided to start tinkering with developing for the Google Gadgets platform. Google Gadgets is a wrapper API used to create mini-applications that can be embedded into various Google services and properties such as iGoogle, Google Desktop, Orkut, Blogger, Google Page Creator, as well as web pages in general.

Here's a simple little Javascript game of Rock Paper Scissors that I wrote about 3-4 years ago (with a few updates/enhancements), and decided to make into my first Google Gadget. I haven't published it to the Google Gadgets directory yet, but you can use the add button below to add it to your iGoogle homepage.

Of Scams, Spam and Other Cybercrap...

In my posting about "get paid to..." websites like Bux.to, I had quickly mentioned that I would try to write something about how to recognize scams, hoaxes, urban legends, phishing, get rich quick schemes, etc... I would even include chain letters / e-mail forwards (ugh) in this list of what I consider to be nefarious "social engineering"-type activities. I will just be collectively referring to these using the term "cybercrap" going forward for lack of better terminology and for simplicity's sake.

Getting duped by cybercrap is probably more common than anyone would like to admit or imagine. It can sometimes happen to even the smartest, web-savviest of people. Some schemes have become so sophisticated and persuasive, that being able to recognize them as cybercrap would require a deep understanding of how certain Internet communication protocols and software work... knowledge that most average Internet users would most likely have virtually no familiarity with.

• Perhaps the most obvious and telltale sign of scams in general (not necessarily web or e-mail based scams, but also those that come via phone, postal mail or in person) are ones that come unsolicited, asking you to disclose financial or socially sensitive information -- things like bank or credit card numbers, driver's license or social insurance numbers, etc. -- usually on the premise that you have won some type of prize in a draw that you do not remember entering, or a promise that you'll be receiving significant sums of money, exotic vacations or major prizes like automobiles & appliances in return.
• My basic rule is that it is usually harmless to provide personal information that can be found in a phone book like your name, address and phone number... but even then, it is advisable to use caution and discretion, since you probably don't want to verify this information to suspicious parties in case it is used for a junk mail or calling list.
• If the offer comes disguised under the name (or variation of a name) of a reputable company, service or charity that you are a customer of, there is no reason for them to be asking you again for information that they should already have records of. If information needs to be verified, you can ask what they currently have in their records and confirm whether updates are needed.
  
• If you have won a prize, there is no reason that you should ever have to provide financial information such as your bank account, credit or debit account numbers, have to commit to purchasing something first, or have to be charged any type of "handling" or "processing" fees -- even if it is just a penny... once a scammer has access to your accounts, it is already too late.
  
• Your Social Insurance/Security number should never have to be disclosed to any commercial organizations. The only parties that should ever need this information is yourself, the government, your employer and your financial institution. If you are requested to also provide one or more pieces of government-issued identification number such as your driver's license or passport number, etc., this should immediately raise red flags, there is a very good chance the information will be used for the purposes of identity theft, or for applying for credit cards or bank accounts fraudulently under your name.
• All your correspondence with a reputable company that comes unsolicited should always remain courteous and professional at all times. If the representative that you are corresponding with becomes pushy, rude, impatient or excessively persistent, even after you have repeatedly declined, you can safely bet that you are probably not dealing with a legitimate organization. It would be safe to consider that the person is probably trying pressure and extract information from you. Even if they are indeed legitimate, you should always be treated respectfully as a prospective or valued customer. You have every right to choose to refuse your business to them if you feel that you are being not being treated respectfully. You have no obligation to provide explanations for refusals, and you certainly do not have to try ending the call politely. Simply hang up.
  
• If you receive a phone call and a recorded message instructs you to press a number on your phone keypad to "claim your prize" or to "speak to a representative", do not press any numbers. Simply hang up. There is no reason that you should need to take any action to speak to somebody when you were the one who received the call in the first place. There is a chance that by pressing the indicated number, that you will be transfered to a line where you will be changed expensive tolls or overseas long distance fees.
  
• When registering accounts on websites, consider the information that is being asked for. Again, it would be wise to use the "phone book" rule.
• Because the nature of the Internet is virtually "anonymous", there is nothing stopping you from "testing the waters" by providing inaccurate or incomplete information. This is an especially helpful tactic if you are in doubt. You should always be able to go back to edit or correct your profile information afterwards if you choose or need to do so. At the very least, you should be able to simply cancel your test account and register a new account using more accurate information.
• In addition to your regular e-mail address, I would advise setting up at least one semi-anonymous "junk" e-mail account using any of the myriad of free web-based e-mail account services that are available (such as Microsoft Hotmail/Windows Live Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Google GMail, etc.). You can then provide your "junk" e-mail account for website account registrations, mailing lists, and other potential spam-generating sources. This can help you to keep your main e-mail account cleaner for personal or professional correspondences only.
  
• On a side note, speaking as somebody who has experience developing and maintaining various websites, I would personally just hate it if people kept registering dummy accounts. Providing false information when registering a profile may be against the terms of service for some websites, and impersonation or using information that does not belong to you may even be unlawful depending on where you live. Please use discretion. If possible, cancel any dummy accounts that you have created if you decide not to use the website.
  
• If you need to provide payment via credit card, verify that the website is using a secure form of data encryption or authentication system (known as Secure Sockets Layer - SSL). Most modern and widely used web browsers should indicate this by displaying security icons (e.g. a lock/key) somewhere, and change the colour of the your address bar (usually yellow -- use caution or avoid submitting data if the address bar turns red or remains white). Also check to ensure that the URL in the web site address bar begins with "https://" (secure HTTP) instead of the standard "http://". Depending on your web browser's security preferences, you may also see a confirmation prompt dialog window.
• Note that just because a website uses SSL and data encryption, this does not necessarily guarantee legitimacy. It is quite easy to create fake signed certificates -- although it may not necessarily appear to be issued by an authentic "root" certificate signing authority. Most web browsers should (depending on your security preferences) display a prompt dialog to warn you of this, but more often than not, the average Internet user would probably not understand or basically ignore the prompt anyway.
• If available, using trusted third-party escrow payment services like PayPal could help to provide an extra layer of security and peace-of-mind.
  
• Be extremely cautious if you choose to respond to unsolicited offers via e-mail -- better known as "spam". As a matter of fact, you should always simply ignore and delete spam messages. Never click on any links, images or download/open attachments in suspicious e-mails.
• Never reply or click links that are provided to "unsubscribe" from spam e-mails. Spammers usually use responses to in order confirm that your email address is an actively used e-mail account with a real live person on the other end. Chances are "unsubscribing" from spam message will only result in you getting even more spam, as your e-mail address will probably be sold to other spammers looking for verified working e-mail addresses.
• Checking the e-mail header data and sender domains may help somewhat, however for most average Internet users, deciphering this information is probably not practical. Also, the presence of faked headers may easily mislead or confuse even those with intermediate knowledge. Checking that the domain of URLs in the message simply by eyeballing the status bar of your web browser or looking at the sender's email address domain is also not always reliable. Checking links, form targets and other references would likely require examining HTML source. Not only would you need to have good knowledge of HTML, but without very careful evaluation, some of the more well-crafted phishing messages obfuscate or create illusions that links are pointing to legitimate domains when in fact they are not. In short, the only way to really determine with absolute certainty if a message is a phishing scam, is if you have the knowledge to properly analyze headers and HTML source code... knowledge that average non-technical users most certainly wouldn't have.
  
• Phishing schemes are typically e-mails sent to you disguised to be from reputable organizations that you might actually have a prior established relationship with. Obviously if you do not do have prior business with the organization that you have received the message from, you can be fairly certain that the message is part of a phishing scheme. Make it your practice to never click any links or send any information requested via e-mail. Even if the message is threatening that your account will be canceled or that your service will be in some way affected unless take some kind of action, you should never click any links provided in the e-mail message. Open the website directly by typing the URL yourself in your web browser address bar (or use your bookmarks/favorites), and confirm on the website if action really needs to taken on your part. If so, you should be able to enter the needed information on the website itself.
• Help to stop fraudsters by reporting them to the appropriate authorities. In Canada, PhoneBusters is a government and RCMP/OPP-operated public service programme devoted to investigating and stopping fraud. Their website also has a lot of very helpful information about how to recognize, report and stop fraudulent activity, as well as a list of known popular scams that are currently making rounds.
  
• Hoaxes, urban legends, chain letters & forwards: these are e-mail messages that your friends, family, co-workers and other contacts forward en-masse to practically everybody they have listed in their e-mail address book. Forwards could be considered as any innocuous viral FUD (fear, uncertainty & doubt) "news" stories, rumours, plain text games, images, slide shows, movie clips or documents that usually have some kind of message -- sappy, scary, mundane, offensive, x-rated or otherwise.
• Forwards are mainly just harmless fun that you or your contacts just want to share for a laugh. Sometimes they can be interesting or entertaining, but other times they may be annoying, impersonal, or a nuisance if you have received the same thing multiple times before from other contacts.
• Chain letters, hoaxes and urban legends are those that attempt to play on your emotions or make dubious claims. Usually they include claims that by simply forwarding the message on to as many of your contacts as possible, wonderful and magical things will happen to you (or terrible things if you don't). Regardless of whether you are superstitious or not, there is nothing that any e-mail message can technologically, physically, metaphysically or magically make possible by simply forwarding the message to X number of your contacts.
• Bill Gates or insert_name_of_a_famous_billionaire_or_corporation_here can not track private e-mail messages and certainly nobody could know who you are & where you live based on your e-mail address alone. There's a good chance that nobody, no matter how rich or famous they are, is going to be sending their fortunes out to millions of random people any time soon... that's a whole lot of tax paperwork!
  
• A deposed Nigerian prince probably wouldn't be needing the help of a completely random stranger to help him wire large sums of money from his bank account.
  
• A gorgeous babe, handsome hunk or your secret crush will not be spontaneously compelled to call or show up on your doorstep to passionately make out with you because you were such a big hero and you forwarded an ancient druid prayer to 50 friends.
• Something "special" or "totally worth it" will not pop up on your screen after you forward the message and press random key(s) on your keyboard... OK, maybe something can, but that only means that either you were duped into doing something that your computer operating system or application already does anyway, or that your computer has been infected with a virus, worm or malware.
  
• Little Timmy who fell down the well and died will not come to haunt you at night because you neglected to forward his tragic story to at least 20 of your friends.
• Perhaps the only thing that might happen is that you would make yourself look foolish to your friends for believing such nonsense (unless all your friends also don't know any better).
  
• Snopes.com is a fairly extensive website resource which contains lots of excellent information debunking many hoaxes, myths, urban legends (there are other hoax-busting websites out there, but Snopes is probably the most well-known in my opinion). Chances are, there is already something there that covers or touches on the very e-mail forward (or a variation of it) that you received. Instead of impulsively believing information that has been forwarded to you via email, do some research and get the straight facts & truth first.
• Search reliable and reputable news outlets and find credible sources to verify claims. It is absolutely frightening how many people just take information that has been sent to them from friends via e-mail as truth without checking. Even though so-called "references" or "authoritative" sources may be provided, references can be faked very easily. It is generally not a good idea to just take the word of a complete stranger as truth, even if it is from a "friend of a friend's sister's ex-boyfriend's aunt". If a story really is as significant as it appears, there should probably be something about it that has been reported recently by major news outlets.
  
• If you must forward a message, help to stop spread misinformation and FUD by replying or forwarding the facts along with the message. Not only would you look smart, but you would be helping to better inform your friends, relatives and overall make the world a better place. ;-)
  

Phew! This was an exceedingly long and rambling post! I hope it helped, even if you might have already known some or all of this already. Even though a lot of this could probably be considered as common sense, the fact is that year after year, people really do still continue to fall for scams and hoaxes. I don't claim to know everything or be a fully qualified expert on this subject matter, but having an extensive background in computer programming and having been on the Internet since the early WWW stages around 1993, I merely just wish to share my own personal experience.

What I have touched on here barely scratches the surface of the subject of cybercrap -- this is such an broad, extensive and voluminous subject that I can not say that I have covered every aspect. I might write more about this in a future posting. Stay tuned!

Get Paid To...

Does anybody remember those "get paid to surf" websites back in the late 90's? Does AllAdvantage ring a bell? I never made very much from those programs, but I do fondly remember getting cheques in the mail and cashing them in. It was such a satisfying feeling to make some extra bucks without hardly any effort.

After the so-called "Internet bubble" burst, it seemed that the free ride was over and the Internet advertising industry was all but dead... eventually Google came along, and it seemed that with their Adsense and Adwords programs, Internet advertising was making a slow but steady comeback... It was only a matter of time before real "get paid to..." websites would start reappearing.

I have seen a handful of "get paid to..." websites over the past several years -- most of them offering a few cents or fractions of a cent, or points which could eventually be convertible to cash payment or other rewards. Typically all you would have to do is complete surveys, or get ads sent to you via email.

Bux.to is a more recent "get paid to" website that I've encountered and seems fairly promising. From what I have seen so far, it looks fairly safe and legit (I think I might write up something later about how to recognize hoaxes, scams, phishing & get rich quick schemes).

The account registration does not require that you provide much personally identifiable information or any payment. All you need to provide is an email address and the email address that you use to receive PayPal payments (so as a matter of fact, you can register virtually anonymously if you choose to do so).

They offer 1 cent for every ad you visit, and the only condition is that you have to keep each ad page open for at least 30 seconds. Obviously, you probably wouldn't be able to make very much money just by viewing ads alone; you can probably expect to make about only 10-30 cents per day directly. However, the amount multiplies if you have referrals. The minimum cash-out amount is $10.00.

You literally have nothing to lose, and a little bit to gain, so why not at least give it a try? Gather up a bunch of your friends and check it out: http://bux.to/?r=ahsy. Remember to make sure that my ID "ahsy" is in the referrer field when you register! ;-)

So much for this "blogging" stuff...

Anyhoo, decided to finally update this thingamajig for the the sole purpose of shamelessly plugging a new project website that I've been doing for a friend.

http://tomahawkchips.googlepages.com/

Spread it around, folks! I swear, submitting a URL to Google and the other big search engines is virtually impossible nowadays, but I guess it's not their fault that the site doesn't really have very much on it so far to get it indexed. Perhaps just posting the link here will help... don't even talk about getting a good page ranking at this point :-(