Jim Seaman – web log

In this mini-depression lots of folks are out-of-work, others are enduring hour and wage cuts. Many of these people are facing the time limit on receiving unemployment payments. But there is money out there just waiting to be claimed by anyone.

Individuals, companies and government agencies are all offering incentives/rewards for all sorts of things. Check out this list that I put together:

NASA is always offering up challenges for new ideas:
Nasa.gov
There is a $50,000 reward for locating a woodpecker:
ibwo.org
Microsoft is offering up $250,000 (that’s right, a quarter million) for info on the a-holes that unleashed a virus on the world:
Microsoft.com
Or you could report your ex-employer for software piracy – the reward is up to $1,000,000 (one million):
bsa.org

And if you hang out with the wrong crowd there are always lots of rewards offered up to help solve crimes. Some are offered by the police others by those that were wronged.

Nelly offers up $10,000 reward to catch burglers
US Fish and Wildlife offers $10,000 for info on shooting of Whooping Crane

I know I use the Internet a lot more than the average person but the figures below show that I’m not all that out of line!

American adults are now spending an average of 13 hours a week surfing the Internet, according to new data from Harris Interactive, up from only seven hours in 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002. This isn’t the highest ever year, though: in 2008, the average peaked at 14 hours per week—which Harris attributes to the presidential election and the beginning of the current financial crisis—before settling back down to 13 hours in 2009.

The number of adults using the Internet at home has increased dramatically over that same time period, too. Harris says that a mere 22 percent accessed the Internet at home as of January 1998 (as well as 22 percent at work); that number has gone up to 76 percent accessing it at home this year and 40 percent at work. There has been an increase in Internet use while at “other” locations as well (school, coffee shops, etc.), reflecting our growing use of laptops and other portable devices.

Apple says it’s not to blame for a series of exploding iPods and iPhones, according to a report published on Friday. The company has been under fire, so to speak, for devices overheating and shattering across Europe and the U.K

Yeah … it’s all a plan by Google and Microsoft to try to gain market share.

While it looks almost the same from the public side, I have performed a major upgrade of the software that runs this site. One of the reasons I hadn’t been doing much with the site is because of the constant attacks from hackers and spammers that I was having to deal with. Hopefully those will stop with this major upgrade. I went from Version 1.5 to 2.8. My site was last updated back in 2005 – that’s a long time as far as web stuff goes.

Let’s hope it works!

I haven’t posted to my blog for a long time but I can’t stay silent any longer. I didn’t really lose interest but rather was waiting until I moved the blog (and some other websites) to a new hosting account. I just hasn’t happened so I’m back with all of my pent up opinions.

Some of you readers may be aware that I have several websites on the Internet. Currently all of them are hosted with a single company located in Tampa, Florida. I have been reasonably happy with their service but I always have my eyes open for something better.

And a recent piece of spam email promised just that!
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This post is different from most on my blog – it is not about me but rather is a story told to me by a friend. I think he has some interesting things to say and I’ll be quoting him throughout the rest of this post. Got it?

Quite a few years ago I was involved in distributing mp3’s on the Internet – nothing big time, just the ripping and conversion of CDs into mp3 format. Nothing was sold – no money was made – the mp3’s were made available over the Internet via FTP and IRC channels. It was strictly a labor of love done anonymously. I don’t have exact numbers but over the years, the quantity of files distributed via these methods was well into the 100’s of thousands.

Today these FTP servers and IRC channels with mp3’s have largely disappeared. There are still a few around if you know where to look (try IRC networks in countries other than the United States or Europe) but even these are disappearing. One source of pirated mp3’s has remained and is going stronger than ever – that is Usenet – it’s older than the Internet and it’s anonymous. To clear up a bit about what it is read this: article.
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If you have been around the Internet for long you have likely been exposed to the unofficial rules of conduct that are commonly referred to as netiquette. Life on the Internet would be much nicer if everyone would at least keep these rules in mind when using their computers.

I’d like to propose an addition to the list … something that we do everyday with people we deal with directly, be it face-to-face or via telephone or even e-mail. The simple act of saying thanks!

Saying “thank you” doesn’t even occur to most people who browse the Web, but a lot of people have spent many hours in their attempts to share their knowledge (or whatever else may be the subject of their website) with the world. When you visit a site you like (or have found to be helpful), be sure to click on one or two of the ads that are on that site. It doesn’t cost you anything and it gives a couple of cents income to the webmaster. Those cents accumulate and, with enough visitors, may become enough to pay for their hosting expenses! A very simple, but effective, way to say THANKS!

I’ve been busy again. This time remodeling another of my websites: www.CoinShowDates.com

It is a site I created a couple of years ago that lists upcoming coin shows based on where you click on a map of the US. It is driven by MySQL and PHP coding. In the past, I had to enter all the info about the coinshows. Now it is setup to allow the show promotors to be able to update their own information. Give it a try: www.CoinShowDates.com

Well I’ve been sort of ignoring my blog for the last few weeks as I’ve been working on a couple of other websites and I can only take so much computer stuff in at one time. But at last I’ve got one of them under control … not finished by a long shot but it is up and running.

It’s a site for and about photography, check it out if you like at: www.jseaman.com

For the last couple of days I’ve been installing and customizing a new feature here on my website. It’s called Exhibit Engine and it allows for displaying my photography in various ways. It’s built around MySQL and PHP and with it visitors can create photo galleries on the fly based on different categories.

I’ve only uploaded a few dozen photos so far and created a few static galleries. I’m still learning all that it is capable of and there is really nothing fancy setup yet. Give it a try: HERE and see what you think.

Volunteer computing is a little known area that has developed on the Internet over the last 8 to 10 years. It is a situation in which large numbers of computers (their use volunteered by members of the general public) provide computing and storage resources to scientific studies. Volunteer computing is being used in high-energy physics, molecular biology, medicine, astrophysics, climate study, and other areas. A couple of the early volunteer computing projects were the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Number Search and SETI@home (analysing radio signals for signs of extra terrestrial life).

I started taking part in the SETI@home project back in 1999. I recently decided to seek them out once more and load the client program on my current computer. I found that things have changed!
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I’ve always been a reader … there are hundreds of books on various shelves around the house and magazines are everywhere! But I haven’t bought a printed novel in years. Why? Because I’ve discovered how to make e-books readable!
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