Vulnerable wireless networks

There was an interesting program on TV yesterday. I was really shocked to learn that a person armed with a wireless enabled laptop with some software, which can be easily downloaded from the Internet, can break into a wireless network in minutes. The network they hacked into was a so called "secured" one with a password, like ours.

You might be surprised at the number of people who leave their home wireless networks open, without any passwords. In my own neighborhood, I can see at least 2 unsecured home networks, which means that anyone with a wireless card can access the net using the open network. This unauthorised access is called leeching.

If you are a generous chap with plenty of bandwidth to spare and leaving the network intentionally open to allow other unfortunate people to access the Internet, I salute you. However, if it's unintentional, it can be dangerous. It's not only the fact that people are taking up your bandwidth, some malicious people can actually see what websites you visit, your travel plans, what you buy and even your credit card details.

The leach might not be your neighbour's tech savvy teenage son but a guy with evil intentions in a van parked outside your house.

So is your wireless network secure?

Tags: Leeching Security Wifi

More than one credit card

How many credit cards do you really need?

I have just one credit card. It's not a platinum card or even a gold card, it's a basic card, which I signed up for during a promotion.

It's really surprising when I learn that people have 4 or 5 or even more credit cards. I mean, why do you need to sign up so many for? if you spend more, then maybe you should upgrade to one with a higher credit limit.

While I was writing this my wife came over , read what I had written and said "I have 3 cards". So I posed the question to her.

Well she listed out the reasons:
- Lower credit limit of the first lead her to take a second one. She just couldn't let the first one go because of the loyalty points she had already accumulated.
- 0% balance transfers also help to reduce the interest on the cards.
- The third card was taken up during a promotion in order to grab some prizes, plus it didn't have annual fees, meaning free for life.

Some credit cards companies even offer cash back for credit card loyalty.
Just remember to compare credit card offers.

Take care not to fall in the credit card debt trap. Use them wisely.

Sponsored

News from Muslim World

Just learnt from the BBC that 130 people have been killed in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, rival Palestinian factions from the Hamas and Fatah, are killing each other in the Gaza Strip. According to this report, they have agreed on an immediate ceasefire - again. Hope they keep it this time.

Things have cooled down a bit in Lebanon after last weeks fighting and the clerics are trying their best to keep peace.

Fighting still continues in Afghanistan with the Taliban taking over a town.

Over here in the UK, police are still holding nine Birmingham men arrested over an alleged kidnapping plot, in a Coventry police station. They were alleged to have plotted to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier and then post up videos on the net.The names of some of the guys have come out.

Best place for coupons

Coupons distributed through the Internet have become popular with a lot of businesses because there is no printing or postal cost involved. These coupons can be used by customers to obtain a discount or rebate when purchasing a product.

Came across this coupon website, which provides coupon codes for a huge number of stores including some very big names such as Walmart, Dell and Gap among others.

As Valentine's day is coming up soon, you might want to take a look at their Flowers and Gift coupons on offer. The "one dozen roses, get 6 Free" offer from the 1-800-Flowers.com website looks really attractive.

Go and check out the offers on Couponchief.com

Sponsored

Humans cause Global warming

Picture of Greenpeace activists scaling the 327 meters high Eiffel Tower in Paris, France to unfurl a giant banner delivering the Climate Change message 'It's not too late to save the climate'.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) adopted the Summary for Policymakers of the first volume of “Climate Change 2007”, also known as the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4) yesterday in Paris.

The report, drafted by around 500 of the World's top scientists, supported by hundreds of other contributors, say that humans are most probably causing global warming.

Is that something surprising?

So it's not a question of whether there's Global warming or not but rather who causes it.

According to the report, World temperatures will likely rise 3.2 to 7.1 degrees Fahrenheit, and sea levels will rise 7 to 23 inches, plus another 4 to 8 inches if polar ice sheets keep melting. Means that a lot of place including London will be in danger of coming under the waves.

The responses from various governments were quite interesting.

The EU said it was the starkest warning yet, while the UK said climate change threatened world peace and prosperity.

On the other hand, a White House spokesperson said that this report "will be valuable to policymakers".

Related Links:
- International climate change report rings the alarm bell
- Greenpeace analysis of the IPCC Climate Change confirmed – now take action before it’s too late

Tags: Earth Environment IPCC

Free cartoons by Gaspirtz

Oliver Gaspirtz's funny cartoons have appeared in most major American magazines such as the National Enquirer, Sun, Saturday Evening Post, Funny Times, etc. as well as in international publications including Britain's famous Punch and Germany's Eulenspiegel magazines. In 2000, he decided to publish his cartoons exclusively on the internet in 2000.

He definitely has a weird and dark sense of humour.

I learnt that these cartoons were first drawn on paper, then scanned into the computer and colourised in Photoshop.

For more background info on the artist, check out his Biography.

I almost forgot to tell you that everybody is free to use the cartoons on his site. You can even download a collection of his cartoons as a zip file. 

Won the SEO challenge

Found out yesterday that I have won the SEO challenge #1 organised by the WangCyber forum.

The objective of the contest was to reach the highest ranking possible on Yahoo and Google search engines results for the phrase melayu boleh using legal SEO methods.

I didn't think I could win because I entered the contest quite late. However, my post Melayu Boleh went straight up to #4 on Google 2 days after I published it. Subsequently, the day after that, it disappeared completely from the results pages. It was a roller coaster ride with my position going up and down. I even went up to #2 on Google.

On Yahoo, it took quite a bit of time but slowly but steadily climbed up to the 5th position. It's actually at #4 today. I guess this is due to the different ways search engines spider websites.

How did I do it?

I have some advantages over the other participants which gave me that extra edge:

1. I have been blogging for a little over 3 years now and my page rank is quite high - between 4 and 5. Any post I write is automatically ranked higher.
2. My blog is in English. A lot of the other participants' blogs are in Bahasa Malaysia and thus, their reach is quite limited.
3. I have been doing this professionally for quite sometime now.

As many of my regulars know, I had started a project called the "Melayu Boleh project" that asked people to help me to get on top of the search engine results, by linking to my post.

And a lot of people did link back to the post.

You can do what ever you want but if people don't link back to you, your site won't go up on the results page or if it's up, won't stay there for long.

Thanks to Mohd. Suhaimy, netpreneur and founder of the Wangcyber forum for running this contest (I will contact you soon) and Eches for informing me about the contest. He came third in the contest.

Tags: Melayu boleh Malay SEO