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In which no amount of using the f-word is enough to even come close to demonstrating my disgust with the scum of the Internet 27 Aug 06

Since the early days of the World Wide Web, there have always been douchebags on the Internet. The worst kind are domain squatters, who make millions just registering domain names and selling them to others for a hefty profit.

When I first heard about it in the mid-1990s (maybe 1995?), I didn’t give it too much thought because they only gave trouble to the big companies, such as IBM and Microsoft. Before those big companies established web sites for consumers to access, they were beaten to it by a few guys who made a few bucks.

The state of cybersquatting is horrible now. To put it this way, FUCK those bastards and may they rot in Hell for their unethical behaviour. Yeah, maybe it’s cool to make a few bucks off a big company (scratch that, it’s still not cool), but FUCK YOU for being such BLOODTHIRSTY LEECHES and going after EVERY RUDDY address under the burning sun. Nowadays, if you misspell anything on the bloody web, you’re bound to stumble upon a squatter site filled with advertisement.

Today I decided that it was finally time for me to get a .com address for my web site, since .tk was to tacky.

I tried chris.com. Understandably, it was taken since there are thousands of other people in the world named Chris. I tried chu.com, but that was also taken. Fair play, there are other people with my last name.

I then got creative and tried chrischris.com. Taken. chrischrischris.com. Fucking taken. Who the fuck registers chrischrischris.com?

After speaking on the phone with my girlfriend, I thought about getting kickassblog.com. I wasn’t surprised to see it taken.

I then came up with kablog.com, which is a play on words for kabob and a short for of kick ass blog. Would you fucking know it, those fuckers even took it. kablogs.com was a ripoff of Digg.com, filled with a huge banner advertisement.

What the fuck am I going to use as a domain name now? I want something I can keep for at least 5 years, because those fuckers will steal your domain name the moment it expires, if you even delay in renewing it.

Go to Hell and don’t come back.

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.

My laptop has explosive speed and it explodes 24 Aug 06

There is something seriously wrong here. Within the past 2 weeks, HP, Dell, and Apple are all recalling their laptop computer batteries dating back to 2003 (and maybe beyond). There are millions of laptop computers involved and millions of batteries will need to be replaced by the manufacturer of the computers.

The batteries affected all have a chance of exploding they heat up during the course of normal use, and not only if somebody plays around with them. We’ve talking about laptops exploding on your lap while you’re typing at that next revenue report.

This isn’t a complete coincidence. All three companies’ affected batteries are made by the same company, and all signs point to Sony. The batteries are made in Japan too, not in China as some might expect such defective products to originate from. Dell is expecting to have to spend $200 million US to recall the batteries, with Sony shouldering most of the cost.

I use one of the affected laptops: an Apple 12 inch Powerbook. However, I did a check on the Apple web site, and my battery isn’t said to be dangerous, even though the model of the laptop is. Furthermore, other web sites are claiming different, and that my laptop is indeed under danger. Hopefully they can clear out this mess.

The good news is, maybe we can be lucky and a kid has his laptop battery explode while he’s browsing MySpace, thus hampering his ability to pass on his genes for future generations.

Another funny thing is that Sony hasn’t recalled any of their own batteries for their own brand of laptops (Vaio), which leads me to believe that their laptops don’t have the same problems as Dell, HP, or Apple’s. I’m going to paraphrase Sun Tzu’s The Art of War here:

Sell defective goods to your enemies, but keep the good shit for yourself.

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.

Somebody didn’t get their birthday party invitation

Wow, it sure sucks to be Pluto. In an international conference with scientists from around the world, they’ve decided that our ninth planet is in fact, not a planet due to its small size.

For the first time since 1930, there are eight planets in the solar system.

LINK: Pluto Stripped of Planet Status

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.

Aww crap 19 Aug 06

Sucks to be this guy:

Elation turned to despair for a Quebec man last weekend when a mistake in a Montreal newspaper led him to believe he had a winning ticket in last weekend’s $43.2-million Lotto 6-49 jackpot.

If this were me, I’d raise some hell. Imagine winning that much money only to find out some dumbass messed up.

Link: Just imagine! Paper’s mistake had man believing he won lotto

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.

Some tips for safe computing 16 Aug 06

If you don’t want problems with computers, there are actually a few simple and free ways you can go about your computing experience:

1. Get antivirus software, but not anything you have to pay for. I’ve had horrible experiences with the offerings from McAfee and Symantec/Norton. Not only do you have to pay for the software and updates/subscriptions, but there are also headaches as they often install themselves on everywhere in your computer’s file system and are tremendous memory and resource hogs. I highly recommend that you get a freeware virus scanner, my personal favourite being Grisoft’s AVG Antivirus. (http://free.grisoft.com/). There are other ones out there too, including ClamAV, NOD32, among others. All of them have free automatic updates so you don’t have to worry about virus infections.

2. Practice safe computing. If a web site looks fishy, don’t go to it and don’t download anything from it. People will tell you to use Firefox or Flock or whichever other web browser, but Internet Explorer or anything is fine as long as you don’t go to any bad sites. Don’t download suspicious files either, and I highly recommend turning your Internet connection off when you’re not browsing the web or downloading files. If you must download files, don’t use suspicious software programs. Bit torrents are usually your safest bet for movies and music.

3. Get a spyware scanner, or better yet, get multiple. Even if you don’t browse sketchy sites, it’s a good idea to protect yourself from these annoying pieces of software. Many worm writers are now switching to writing spyware and adware because it earns them more money from advertisements shown against your will on your computer, and unfortunately there is not a single product that can completely clean your computer from spyware. Two good free products to deploy are Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft Ad-Aware. Also, beware of pop-up windows that tell you to scan for adware, etc. They usually try to sell you a worse product to “scan for adware” when in fact they install more onto your computer.

To summarize the above, don’t trust anything on the Internet unless it’s from a legitimate source.

These recommendations are pretty much for all Windows users. There are people who will just laugh and tell you to switch to Linux or Mac, but that’s not always the best option for everybody, since many of us need to use certain programs only available for Windows, plus Linux, despite its advances, still present quite the difficulty curve even for Windows power users.

This ClashBang.com article was written by Chris Chu. Tired of privately venting his frustration in vain, Chris decided to share his discontent with the rest of the world.