Facebook Never deleted my account after years

So after over a year after deleting my #Facebook account and not signing into it.  My wife wanted me to get back on.  When I deleted my Facebook I went through all the trouble of doing it properly.

Penetration Test Information Gathering

After taking many classes on Advanced penetration testings i find that many of these classes are very basic when it comes to their subjects. So here are some resources to better round off your penetration testing in more depth than just the basics that most of these "Advanced" classes go through.

Remedy 7.x, 8.x and possibly 9.x login password decoder

So recently I have been doing some QA for a BMC Remedy product that my work is starting to work with. One thing i noticed right away is that the cipher that they use is extremely bad and basically plain text.

College not required: A guide to starting in InfoSec

So recently I had someone tell a community member that you needed to go to school like everyone else and pay to learn infosec. For some reason this bugged me because I really only see college degree as a rubber stamp for HR I would like to tell you that is a lie and here is why.

Choosing an Operating System for Your DIY Computer

One of the most important decisions you make with a computer is not one processor you have or how much ram is in your computer but it is what operating system you are using.  Most people when they think about computers they think about getting Windows or an apple computer.

Best way to get Visitors to your Website

So what is the best way to get visitors to your side?  This is the question every company asks about it self.

Commission Junction vs Amazon Affiliates.

I have been doing Commission Junction for a while now and have also been doing Amazon Affiliates for a while. Both handle fairly well. Though I recently dropped my Commission Junction affiliation.

Theming our Android OS

When Theming your android device there are somethings that I like doing. For one I like seeing the background and don't like the look of having large widgets on my home screen.

I personally don't like the Stock UI that comes with my Samsung Galaxy SIII. So I have removed it and went with a Custom Rom called Cyanogenmod I prefer their custom book logo and their system icons then that of samsungs.
You can find Cyanogenmod located here.
http://www.cyanogenmod.org/

Though I am not fond of the default Launcher. So I use the NOVA Launcher. When Using the nova launcher it lets me change the way my home screen looks. I do not like having the google search on the home screen. I use the menu button to bring up the google now to search. It also gives a lot of other controls.

The next thing is using the nova launcher to change the icons.  I prefer round icons than the default ones that come with android. The Rain apps look like the screen shoot bellow.

For the background I use a Anime hd wallpaper app to get the background. They have loads of different anime pictures.

The Clock you can customize the color to meet what your background is. The clock app that I am using is BobClockD3.

Let me know what you think. there are many other things out there that can be used out there to help you theme. Though these things generally depend on what rom your using and the launcher.

Happy theming,
-Local Tech Repair Admin

Why I Root

Rooting is one of the things that techies love doing when ever they get a smartphone, be it iOS or Android. We hate to be told what we can and can't do with the software that we buy and the hardware we get. Rooting gives us the power to turn a phone from an ok device to a powerhouse for computing.

Android Gaming - 2013

I once heard that the android and mobile os was going to replace the traditional console.  Though what I have seen is that android does not have the development quality as that of the console market. 

United States Economy Is Bad

Plain and simple the United States economy is doing bad. The President is trying to put an upbeat spin on things but in all reality it is really in the hole. The evidence is all around you just ask your neighbors if they feel they are doing better now than they did a 2 or so years ago.

Our Advertisers - Commission Junction, Amazon, Adsense

It has been a while sense I have talked about the advertiser that help make this blog what it is. Well maybe not that much mostly just me ranting. But besides that let me explain why I use these different advertisers and why I don't use others.

My view on advertising is not for a huge money making website. If it was I wouldn't be writing a tech blog instead I would be writing about how to make money off your website, how to loss wait, or even running a porn website. But sense I am not in this for the money which would be nice if it did support that though. So sense I am not in the game to bombard my users with advertisments hoping that they will view them and click on them. For instance i don't use popup windows, I don't just a banner ad, I don't use ads that i feel take away from the content of the page.

So This is why I use these ad generators.
First and foremost is Amazon. I tend to prefer product based ads because ads that are based on commision. Not because I feel that they make more money but because I feel that they can add to the content of my posts. For instance if I was talking about the Kindle Fire like I have been lately. I would add a link to amazon which sells the Kindle Fire or give a graphical ad that shows the price also so that you don't have to leave the page to see how much it cost. These types of ads I feel help the user get information that they are looking for and also possibly earn me some money in the mean time. For me Amazon does an amazing job for these ads. Sense I can select specific ads based on what I am writing about and link directly to the page that that product that I am reviewing is located on. I also feel that this has a better turn around. Not only does amazon provide direct product ads they also allow me to provide a store which I can select which products and/or categories that i want in there. For instance in Local Tech Repairs store you will notice a Featured page that shows things that I feel will be useful to my views. All in all Amazon I feel gives me the best targeting of any of the advertisers I have used.

Second is a click based ads also known as Pay Per Click (PPC)
This you may notice on the is on the left side the only flash based ad on the site. and others are text based ads that try to blend in so that they do not distract the user from reading what I feel is important information. Though these are not as targeted as the amazon ads but they do bring something to the website as they treat the users that are looking for information. If I can't provide the information that they are looking for maybe maybe the ads on the side of the page may give some indication of were they may find that information. For instance if a viewer was reading a review that I did on anti virus software they may not like the product I reviewed but they may notice a Norton or AVG ad on the side of the page. And go there to see if that is right for them. I am not a huge fan of this type of ads sense many sites do take this method way to much and fill their pages with flash ads everywhere. Which is why one of my first articles on this site was how to block ads. Which I am perfectly fine with you doing on my site I understand. Sense this is not a job for me yet I tend to not mind if people block them. Though if you do find the information useful I hope you pass it on to your friends.

The third is Commission Junction
The only reason why I use this is because both bestbuy and newegg are advertisers with this company. So sense I write about tech I want to give my users the best prices and options to find. For instance if I am reviewing a hard drive enclosure or some other electronic device I want to lead the user to the best priced item so that they can save money and not have to work as hard shopping around. Though the problem with commission junction is that they don't have much product placement ads like amazon does. Amazon I can go to any page in their website and create a link to that exact page. Where with Commission Junction I have to work within the confines of the links that each company posts on their page. Along with this each company I need to apply to be a representative for. So for instance I was denied by Carbinite online backup. This maybe because in my article on Online backup for Business I was very critical of how expensive they where compared to their competitors. But o well doesn't hurt me at all.

This is why I use these Advertisers. So far I have been very happy with them. Not to mention I love amazon not to mention they pay out the smallest amount. $10 if you select amazon gift card.
I have looked into other companies and other methods just to see how they work and what not.

I looked into payperpost
what turned me off about pay per post is just the thought of giving up my ethical responsibility in looking out for my viewers just to make a buck. This turned be off very fast. Not to mention that I had a hard time ever getting any offers. I know people don't mind just filling up their pages with paid posts but I am proud that almost 100% of my posts are original. Yes there is one that is copied which is about kindle shortcuts. Other than that my website is almost all 100% original writing. which probably shows.

Another is InfoLinks
I tried this for a little while but never found that the pay was good and that the links where deceptive. I don't like misleading my viewers just to make a few cents on a click. I prefer to keep my viewers engaged in the content that I am writing instead of distracting them with a whole lot of links. Not to mention that InfoLinks did not give reliant information on the content I was writing. If they had done better than adsense I would have been happy to switch. But because of the ads that they where showing compared to the content I was writing about I found it distracted more than it added to my content.

Thanks for reading,
Local Tech Repair Admin

If you have any opinion about these advertisers or others let us know. If you had a bad experience or a good one I love user comments.

US Internet Censorship - Protect IP and COICA Internet censorship

Internet censorship is something that we see in china and other communist states and in movies and books like 1984 and v for vendetta. Censorship is not something that a free person should like or even ever want to go near. Though to many times governments and companies use fear tactics so that you feel either afraid or guilty for not giving up your freedom.

In the name of protecting you from frauds or protecting jobs. The music and movie industry are moving to try to get the government to do their jobs so that they can save money. Let me tell you right off the bat. I am very pro business and very much a capitalist. Though that does not mean I don't come out against bad practices of companies that try to buy the government or people like the music and movie industries have for a long time. But I do understand why they do it (so they can make more money).

For those that don't know what these legislations are here is a quick read.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protect_IP_Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combating_Online_Infringement_and_Counterfeits_Act

Lets look at what the sides are saying.

movie and music industry are saying that these bills would save jobs by shutting down other countries sites that could be illegally selling their goods and costing them money that could be going to more movies and more music and etc.

That the current laws have been watered down by the courts and that it is costing them lots of money defending their intellectual property. The most recent example they point to is Viacom vs Google's YouTube service. They say the courts made the wrong decision by not holding YouTube responsible for what its users were doing.

Next is that the laws are becoming out dated and need to be updated so that it is easier on them to protect their property. They point to the current DMCA problem as when they point out infringing and lets say it is a youtube video that when youtube takes it down another pops right up. So sense google is following the law and doing what the law says they are annoyed that they have to keep watching all the different sites around the web and they can't just hold the website responsible for what their users are doing.


there is a little video from the opposition:

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

The opposition of this are major internet companies which makes sense sense they will be the ones that will be being charged with enforcing these rules and also be the ones that will most be hurt by them either by lawsuits or taken off line.

So lets look at what this bill really does. This bill will shut down illegal website though it will also shut down many legal websites sense there is no way for bing or youtube to know what things are legally uploaded and which are not. This means sense they will be held responsible for what their users upload to their sites they will be as Draconian as possible to protect them selves. Though in doing so also killing their business.

Though won't this protect the entertainment industry? No just like Digital Rights Management(DRM) those that copy and steal still are able to and find ways around it. For instance they may block the name thepiratebay.org but those that are going to pirate will just use a proxy out side of the US to download the files and go ahead and download the stuff anyways or they will just go to the IP address for the website instead of the domain name. This does nothing to stop people from stealing other than hurt legitimate businesses. Just like DRM only hurts legitimate customers when pirates have the game cracked before the game even comes out to people. Example Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was cracked a half a day before it even came out.

This means that sense the entertainment industry can't force other countries to change their laws and do things how they like to then they try to put sanctions on those countries that don't play by their rules. If you believe anything in other countries sovereignty then you should be against this bill. Sense The Internet has no borders when it comes to information. You can easily go to a Chinese website with out having to get a passport.

Places like this blog may even shut down just because i linked to a site that could be used for pirated stuff.

But beyond the law it self which sounds noble. we have to ask different questions

who will determine what sites are even illegal or not. How this bill will work out is the entertainment industry will use their lobby groups to get the ear of people in government so that they can easily just shut down sites that have copy infringing information on them with out any due process. changing the process of innocent till proven guilty to guilty till you prove your innocents which could kill your business in the mean time. Sense copy right cases takes years to finish in the US. Can you imagine Google disappearing from the internet for a year or 2 before they come back online. how would that effect their business let alone a start up.

Next thing is will this protect small inventors from their information from being stolen? can you imagine a small business going up to the government enforcers and telling them that maybe apple stole some of their code in their new iphone and sense they are selling infringing information on their website that the government now needs to shut down apple.com. I don't think this will help any small business inventors or any of the major job creators in this country.

These bills are not going to protect everyones copy rights but only the few and rich.

If you feel that these laws over stretch their bounds and want to speak out against them stand strong
This website has an easy way to email your Representatives with out you having to do much.
https://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173
for more information and better email system
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/112-h3261/show

If you don't get involved then you will loss your own freedoms and rights.

Helping the world with your computer

Ever want to be part of something big and help change the world? Do you think you can't afford to give money to things like finding a cure for cancer and what not? Well lets talk about how you can help change the world.

Something that I personally been doing for some time now is dedicating part of my CPU down time (When I am off the computer or not playing games) to helping projects like finding a drought resistant crop, cure for cancer, and many other projects. I am a member of the World Community Grid. I use a program called Boinc which gives me numbers to crunch on my computer then I upload them back to the server. Though this is all done by the software so I don't have to worry about doing any of that manually.

World Community Grid is just one of many different project communities out there that try to get you to donate your idle processing power to them.

But here are some safety tips if you are going to donate your time. make sure that your fans on your computer are clean and unblocked sense they will be blowing more and if they are blocked your risk over heating your computer. keep an eye on the temperature of your to make sure your staying in the safe range for your processor. This is very important if you are using your GPU to process also sense this will increase the over all temperature of the system and also risk over heating your computer. If your temperature over heats this can be bad on your computer hardware and can damage it so it is best to stay on the safe side and clean out your fan and heat sinks.

If you want to check out some of the completed work that World Community Grid has done. check out this link

I would suggest that everyone checks this out. If your worried about it taking up all your processing power you can limit it to x percentage of your processor. You can also set days a week and many other settings so that the processing does not bug you or when your are using the computer that it does not run at all but only when you leave or have nothing running.

I hope you look more in to this as this is one way many millions of people could help find a cure for things like cancer or find better foods.

Hope you join me,
-Local Tech Repair Admin

I am no longer a facebooker

I had been using Facebook for a few years now but with the recent changes and the growing privacy concerns on how Facebook uses and does with your information I finally got fed up with it and decided to leave for greener pastures.

With so many other social networking sites out there there is no reason why I should have to put up with a site that is doing what they will with my information with out keeping my own interest at heart. With more and more features coming out for facebook I always feel on the defensive trying to figure out what do I need to change in my privacy policy on facebook so that I can continue remaining private and not have my information leaked everywhere. Sense facebook has a general policy of automatically assuming that people want the new feature and requiring people to opt out of all these things it because work trying to keep up with the new feature and how these features leak your personal information.

One of these features is something called "Frictionless Sharing" that is raising many peoples eyes on how much do you want facebook posting online about what you do online. As a guy do you want your friends to know that you like chick flicks? do you want them to know them to automatically update your friends when your watching it or listening to music or reading articles. Sense you don't know what sites use the facebook like button script and which ones do not it makes it hard for you to be able to avoid different sites. This requires you to contently be removing your cookies in your browser to stay private when you surf the web. Though the thing is are they only going to be using cookies or are they going to be using other methods of hacking your browser to gather the most information out of you as possible? It is yet to be seen how they will implement this feature.
If you like to know more about this feature PCWorld has a good article
http://www.pcworld.com/article/240592/facebooks_frictionless_sharing_a_privacy_guide.html

Another is the timeline feature. This gives a history of what you been doing on facebook and will probably include what you did online and when you did it. This is great information if you are and advertisor but it is not something I really want to know of my friends. Again you will need to go set your privacy settings to make sure it is limited so that you can remain private.

Along with other things like Facebook never deleting your account, posts, partial posts, posts you delete, etc. has put a very bad taste in my mouth specially that facebook allows police and governments access to your information with out court order or much of any legal process.
Not to mention a whole lot of viruses and malware are being transported via Facebook.

Well i am currently in my 14 day notice to Facebook on my deletion of my account. For some reason it feels like I am quitting a job having to give 2 weeks notice.

-Local Tech Repair Admin

Facebook Ripping off Google+

One thing I noticed recently is that Facebook started to rip off Google + with the more privacy options like Google + main advantage over Facebook was. now that Google+ does not have this advantage over Facebook it may take longer for users to start moving from Facebook to the new Google service. Though is the Facebook feature as easy to use as Google+'s service? i don't think it is as Google+ still has a nicer interface and the ability to filter out is just all around easier on Google+ than it is on Facebook. Though Google is fighting an uphill battle with the user base. Facebook tough seems to only have put half its heart in developing their privacy settings and the new rip off of Google+'s selective postings seems just does not seem to hold up but atleast they tried to copy something good.
How do you feel about the new privacy per object/post for facebook? is it just a rip off of Google+ or is it really something else?

-Local Tech Repair Admin

My Experience with Yahoo Answers - aka suspended

So I recently tried out Yahoo Answers to try and help people out with their computer security problems. There are a lot of people that have computer virus problems on there and some of the trusted contributors don't give the best advice on how to actually get ride of them. So I figured I would try to help give a better answer that would be more accurate and better server the users.

Sense I work in the industry of computer repair and have been doing it for many years I know my way around virus removal and easy ways of doing it. But after answering 2 peoples problems I was immediately reported on by another member which I do not know who did or even why so I get suspended.

One of the questions was that the user got hacked and they where seeing lots of popups now. so i responded with the following

"first thing you can do is shut the computer down. then there are many different anti virus scams/viruses out there. but just to make sure that your clean you may want to go through a few steps. if you only have one computer start it up and go to only this address http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ then follow the instructions http://www.hirensbootcd.org/change-the-boot-order-in-bios/ this will get you booting in to a safe system so that you can make sure your computer is clean and if no clean it effectivly follow these steps http://localtechrepair.blogspot.com/2011/05/basic-repairing-of-virus-infected.html once your sure that there are not viruses make sure you have a good anti virus http://www.av-test.org/certifications then to make sure you are not open to attack i would not use internet explorer but use a browser like firefox, chrome, opera, or anything really besides internet explorer as it is open to many attacks"

well I guess someone did not like my answer. This surprised me because I did not think I violated any rules when posting that response. So I tried to figure out what the reason for suspension was for because I am sure I followed all the community guidelines.
http://answers.yahoo.com/info/community_guidelines

The only thing I could think why someone may have reported it is because I used a blog URL which may have violated the "Exploiting the community" which goes like this.

"Yahoo! Answers is a place to gain knowledge, not customers, page views, or dates. If you have years of experience in something, have a special hobby, own your own business, or if you are a knowledge partner, it's OK to accompany a good, on-topic answer with a link to your website, blog, or email to offer more information. However, it is not OK to post links that are unrelated to the topic or are clearly meant only to solicit others for personal and financial gain. Also prohibited are solicitations like "Will you add me as a contact?" or propositioning people. Read more"

so even according to that I did not brake that rule because the post I selected was directly related to her problem and how to best resolve it.

So when I got a response from the appeal it basically said the reason why your suspended is because you could have broken a term of service or community guideline. Weird? does not answer the question why or even though I thought I have not.

So I currently have no clue if someone just reported me because they wanted their answer to be the best or what but yahoo still has not responded why at the time of this writing.

The reason why my answer is better than all the rest. None of the other answers take in to account that if your system is infected with a virus you can not trust what the system tells you. For instance a rootkit is designed to stay hidden so when it attaches its self to the kernel and starts modifying system calls no matter how many times you scan the system the rootkit will tell the virus scanner that there is no file in a location when there is a file in the location or it will deny access to all of memory or a half dozen other things that rootkits and viruses do to avoid detection. The only way to be sure that there is nothing is by not ever booting into the system to do the virus scans. This must be done from a live cd or another computer that is not infected to scan the kernel and the hard drive for viruses the only thing that you can not detect is rootkits like system management module rootkits, bios rootkits, and the blue pill (which dies on shutdown because it lives in memory as a vm).

So the process that I suggested is truly the only one that will 99% guaranty that your system is clean.

So far I am displeased with either the stupidity of yahoo's tech support or stupid users that just want to get their name higher by hurting the rest of the population or both.

I hope this is a valuable lesson for those are thinking about contributing to yahoo answers.
I am not the first one that has had this happen to them.

If you have a question ask in comments even if it is not completely on topic I will try to answer it or write a new post answering it and post a link in comments.

thanks for reading
Local Tech Repair Admin

Father's Day Tech Ideas

Father's Day is coming up here soon and you will be hit with ads for all different type of tech trying to be sold for your days. so what are some ideas if you need some. I will try to help with some things I like and would enjoy to have. 

Yes I am a father and do enjoy tech but hey I am a tech geek I guess. I don't really need the best and newest type of gadget but these are some things I know I like.
Obviously there is gift cards and one of my favorite sites that I go on to buy things from is amazon. Mostly because they are large cheap and I get free 2 day shipping because I am a prime user.

Gift Cards

I love android recently my wife got a android tablet and I started looking at nicer ones. o this one is nice. The dual core Nvidia processor it just makes me just want to sit down and just look at it. This tablet also is Cnets top pick for android tablets as of June 10, 2011. It runs 3.1 android that is specifically built for tablet devices.
Samsung Galaxy Tab (10.1-Inch, 16GB, Wi-Fi)

If your dad likes reading more than playing around on tablets or the tablet is to far out of your price range maybe a kindle will do him better. I use the amazon kindle so much that it is crazy I used it for school and I use it to read news and books. I could not imagine life with out it now that I have experienced the kindle
Kindle 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 3G Works Globally, 6" Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology

If your looking for something that will help your dad then maybe look for a kinesis keyboard. These keyboards are expensive but help your dad from getting carpel tunnel in his hands from stressing his hands from typing.
Kinesis Advantage USB - Keyboard - USB - black

if you have suggestions of what would be nice or what you would like let us know.
thanks,
local tech repair admin