Decrypting Reality

To the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

2009-06-14T16:45:00.009-04:00

An open/public letter

http://shakh.blogspot.com
/2009/06/to-social-sciences-and-humanities.html

On behalf of the Canadian citizens among my family, which includes myself, we urge you to follow the advisement forwarded below.

Sincerely,

Daniel Shakhmundes, B.Sc.
-------------------------------------------
Phone: 1-905-321-9898
Email: d@shak.ws
HTTP://Shak.WS

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Goodyear, Gary - M.P.
To: 'D.Shak'
Subject: RE: Community Action Alert on York University conference questioning Israeli's right to exist
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2009 11:33:34 -0400

Dear Mr. Shakhmundes,

Thank you for your correspondence on the conference at York University entitled, "Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to Peace". I will ensure that the Minister is made aware of your comments.

I would like to encourage you to also write to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to share your thoughts with them. As you may know, the Council funds academic conferences under their "Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences in Canada" program and is responsible for grant decisions under the program. You can reach them at: webmaster@sshrc-crsh.gc.ca

Sincerely,

Stephanie Thomas

Member's Assistant
Office of the Hon. Gary Goodyear
Minister of State | Science and Technology
Suite 117 Confederation | Pièce 117 Édifice de la Confédération
House of Commons | Chambre des communes | Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
tel: 613.996.1307 | fax: 613.996.8340
goodyg@parl.gc.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: D.Shak [mailto:daniel@shakhmundes.net]
Sent: June 9, 2009 12:10 PM
To: Goodyear, Gary - M.P.
Subject: Community Action Alert on York University conference questioning Israeli's right to exist

To the Office of the Hon. Gary Goodyear
117 Confederation Building
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
T: (613) 996.1307
F: (613) 996.8340
E-mail: goodyg@parl.gc.ca

DEAR MINISTER GARY GOODYEAR:

* Thank you for your request to the SSHRC that it reconsider its
support for the June 22nd-23rd conference at York University
titled, "Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths
to Peace". in light of the serious concerns that have been
brought to light. As a Canadian citizen, I appreciate it.

* I urge you (the Minister) to direct the SSHRC to immediately
withdraw its funding from this sham of a conference that seeks
to delegitimize the Jewish State and its supporters here at
home.

Sincerely,

Daniel Shakhmundes, B.Sc.
-------------------------------------------
Phone: 1-905-321-9898
Email: d@shak.ws
HTTP://Shak.WS

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: JEWISH CANADA
To: Daniel@Shakhmundes.Net
Subject: Community Action Alert on York University conference
questioning Israeli's right to exist
Date: 8 Jun 2009 16:25:24 -0400

COMMUNITY ACTION ALERT

REGARDING UPCOMING YORK UNIVERSITY CONFERENCE

QUESTIONING ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST

B'nai Brith Canada has brought to urgent attention of the Government the
sponsorship by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council
(SSHRC) of an upcoming June 22nd-23rd conference at York University
titled, "Israel/Palestine: Mapping Models of Statehood and Paths to
Peace". As many of you know, this conference being held under the guise
of academia is in fact a blatant exercise in anti-Zionist propaganda.
Its entire thrust calls into question the Jewish State's very right to
exist, and promises to be a veritable "who's who" of anti-Israel
propagandists.

We were disturbed to learn that the SSHRC, a federal agency that is
answerable to Parliament and which reports directly to the Minster of
Industry, was listed as a lead sponsor on the conference's website,
contributing both moral and financial support.

Subsequent to our appeal to the Government on this matter, the Hon. Gary
Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, released a
statement on the conference that is reproduced below. While the
statement stops short of announcing a funding withdrawal, it does bring
into question the SSHRC's continued support for the conference.

Statement from the Hon. Gary Goodyear

OTTAWA, June 5, 2009 - The following is a statement from the Hon. Gary
Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, on the
conference at York University entitled, "Israel/Palestine: mapping
models of statehood and prospects for peace".

"Our government is committed to the principle academic independence and
the independent, arms-length, peer review process for assessing
applications for research grants.

"It has come to my attention that following a recommendation of a peer
review board earlier this year, the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council provided $19,750 under its Aid to Research Workshops
and Conferences Program to a conference at York University entitled
"Israel/Palestine: mapping models of statehood and prospects for peace".

"Approval of this funding was based on an initial proposal that did not
include detailed information on the speakers at the conference. Since
funding was provided, the organizers of the conference have added a
number of speakers to their agenda.

"Several individuals and organizations have expressed their grave
concerns that some of the speakers have, in the past, made comments that
have been seen to be anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic. Some have also
expressed concerns that the event is no longer an academic
research-focussed event.

"Therefore, I have spoken to the president of the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council to bring these concerns to his immediate
attention and asked that Council give them full consideration. In
particular, I asked that the Council, once they have seen this
information, to consider conducting a second peer review of the
application to determine whether or not the conference still meets
SSHRC's criteria for funding of an academic conference."

ACTION ALERT - WRITE TO MINISTER GARY GOODYEAR

* Convey your thanks and appreciation to the Minster for his
request to the SSHRC that it reconsider its support for this
conference in light of the serious concerns that have been
brought to light.
* Urge the Minister to direct the SSHRC to immediately withdraw
its funding from this sham of a conference that seeks to
delegitimize the Jewish State and its supporters here at home.
* Please send a blind carbon copy of your letter to B'nai Brith
Canada at bnb@bnaibrith.ca

Office of the Hon. Gary Goodyear

117 Confederation Building
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
T: (613) 996.1307
F: (613) 996.8340
E-mail: goodyg@parl.gc.ca

B'nai Brith Canada has been active in Canada since 1875 as the foremost
Jewish human rights organization. To learn more about its advocacy work
and diverse community and social programs, please visit
http://www.bnaibrith.ca.

Relaunching Shak.WS for 2008

2008-04-14T10:16:00.002-04:00

It's been half-a-year since D.Shak launched a new website for himself. Back then, he moved to Netenberg's Click Be! from a design he built from scratch during his early days at Brock University.

In March 2004 Daniel Shakhmundes launched his blog Inspiration, now called Decrypting Reality, using Blogger.com (BlogSpot.com) now owned by Google. He's had his hand on the pulse of blogging and content management systems for over four years now, and all the while he has been seeking an elegantly-programmed standards-compliant open-source extensible web-based software-application that could be used for himself and clients too. That's a tall order to fulfill, but WordPress has been doing it since 2003.

After five years, the WordPress “state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability” has matured to a level of quality that is rarely matched, even by its commercial and proprietary counterparts.

That being said, welcome to Shak's new website built on WordPress!

TV, Movies, Anytime, For Free

2008-03-21T14:28:00.007-04:00

Now open to the public:

hulu

Legitimately featuring content from more than 50 major content providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and more.

Try AnchorFree's Hotspot Shield if you are getting the error “Unfortunately this video is not currently available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Thanks to AnchorFree's Hotspot Shield I am now able to watch the Simpsons, Family Guy, Saturday Night Live, the Office, House, Medium, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, New Amsterdam, Prison Break, and Lipstick Jungle (to name as many popular shows as I can bear to copy/paste) with high quality and minimal/few commercial interruptions. I think traditional brick-and-mortar movie-rental businesses are at the end of their life-spans, including Blockbuster - even snail-mailed movies delivered to your door cannot compete with the instantaneous & on-demand digital delivery of hulu.

Shak Attack on YouTube

2007-11-07T14:20:00.000-05:00

Daniel Shakhmundes' (Shak) board-breaking demonstration:

Hosted by Sensei Kristina Brandy of Shin Gan Karate in Welland (Niagara), Ontario, Canada.

Demonstrated techniques include punch, back-fist, classic karate chop, elbow (front and back), and roundhouse-kick.

Thank you to everyone who attended this event live!

Direct link to Shak Attack on YouTube:: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJhDT4AGPII

More Microsoft Woes: IMAP

2007-10-29T15:31:00.000-04:00

More hassles courtesy of Microsoft:

They can take standards compliance to new lows;

my experience with IMAP and MS Outlook was not surprising, but still frustrating enough to write this Blog Post.

I used the following links to [hopefully] resolve errors that one of my clients kept getting in Microsoft Outlook:

Basically, Microsoft Outlook (and Outlook Express as well, from what I read) do not implement IMAP protocol as per the specification. I believe the IMAP4 protocol is superior to POP3 - greater functionality allows for better access and management of email. The problem is that the mentioned Microsoft email clients have a tendency to pop-up timeout errors repeatedly, even though everything is fine [aside from Microsoft's implementation of IMAP].

I had to modify the configuration of my mail-server (courier on CentOS Linux), which now allows for more concurrent connections from the same IP address. Doing so partially defeats the purpose of IMAP (long-term persistent connections), which saves the overhead of repeat connections & authentications (i.e. one of POP3's many disadvantages). Unfortunately, Microsoft sometimes takes a good thing and contaminates/compromises it, and does so without rectifying it.

I hope this Blog Post encourages people to dump their Microsoft email software. Novell Evolution provides the best features of Outlook, while maintaining standards compliance, higher security, higher performance, and progressive updates/development. I spent the time to write this Blog Post because other great people around the world finally made Evolution on Win32, so you can run it on Windows XP!

Here's to Microsoft playing friendly or getting left behind,
Shak

Dump Microsoft Windows Vista

2007-09-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

It's not just propaganda,

it's official

Microsoft acknowledges that “Vista Concerns Mount”

by extending the availability of Microsoft Windows XP for another five months!

More details are available on InformationWeek.com

It's typical of Microsoft to miss their target dates. I won't be surprised if they continue to extend the availability of Windows XP. Instead of eventually upgrading to Microsoft Windows Vista, people will be switching to the top Linux distributions such as openSUSE and PCLinuxOS.

Be careful w/personal pix!

2007-07-21T15:30:00.000-04:00

Some good humour,

with thanks to my Mama for forwarding it!

A man moves into a nudist colony.

He receives a letter from his grandmother asking him to send her a current photo of himself in his new location.

Too embarrassed to let her know that he lives in a nudist colony, he cuts a
photo in half & mails it.

The next day he discovers that he had accidentally sent the bottom half of the photo!

He's really worried but then remembers how bad his grandmother's eyesight is & hopes she won't notice.

A few weeks later, he receives a letter from his grandmother.

It says: “Thank you for the picture. Change your hairstyle... It makes your nose look too short.”

Love, Grandma.

FW: Japanese Technology

2007-07-17T22:26:00.000-04:00

How the mouse cursor works;

thanks to Wendell Wilks for this terrific web-page:

This might be a little technical, leave it to the Japanese to figure this one out. Have you ever wondered what makes the arrow cursor move through the screen?? Click on the link, move your cursor in the middle of the screen, and see what happens....

http://www.1-click.jp/

For Customers of YourNameSells.com

2007-04-23T16:22:00.000-04:00

URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT:

A Brief Message to update the customers of YourNameSells.com as to what is happening with their websites and domains.

From Dot Connect

Canadian Anti-Semitism Checkup

2007-01-18T21:54:00.000-05:00

First, the good news:

[Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation (OSSTF)] Teachers withdraw Israel boycott resolution.

However, in Toronto where I was born and live near, Jew-haters such as Jason Kunin and Hyssam Hulays are relentless in their attempts to dissolve the Jewish homeland:

Anti-Semitism and the Ontario Teachers' Union

Resolution on Israel proposed by teachers angers Jewish group

With such constant attacks, it's no wonder that things like SHUVA (The Israel Emergency Aliya Movement) exist!

I wish that anti-semites in America would make better use of the educational and academic institutions; teaching more positive and relevant material, rather than their misguided and ignorantly biased condemnation of a very small country that undeniably belongs to the Jewish people.

340 Duster Test-Drive

2006-12-22T16:00:00.000-05:00

Today, I took this bad boy for a spin:

I didn't mind the rainy weather, which allowed for some innocent tire-spinning ;-)

The experience came courtesy of Johnex3 Motorsports in Niagara Falls. Older than me, but fresh from California, this 340 Duster is a nostalgic ride for Anthony and his contemporaries, and a trip into the past for me. Wikipedia has information on the Plymouth Duster, if you're interested in more about this car.

Computer Desktop Software Comedy

2006-12-10T16:00:00.000-05:00

An ingenious animation of a battle taking place on the desktop of some digital animator (noogai3?)!

This post is my first one successfully initiated from YouTube.com. However, the Title field was not filled in, leaving me to do some post-post editing...

Wellspring Niagara video

2006-10-08T00:39:00.000-04:00

Fulfilling the dream of Aldo Mantini, who lost his life to cancer at age 31, and inspired many in his community to work together to bring this type of supportive care to Niagara, the Wellspring Niagara centre offers a wide range of programs to people living in the Niagara region.

To the late Asya Gendler, who passed away February this year, I would like to dedicate my charitable work of transcoding the Wellspring Niagara video from DVD and publishing it to the internet.

CIBC Run for the Cure

2006-09-27T18:07:00.000-04:00

Support Daniel Shakhmundes in the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure.

I am participating in the
Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure,
on
Sunday, October 1st
and I am asking for your support for a cause that is very important to me.

This year, an estimated 22,300 Canadian women and 160 men will be diagnosed with
breast cancer. We know research is making a difference. Lives are being saved
through earlier detection, and more effective treatments are improving the
quality of life for those who receive this devastating diagnosis.

I am one of 170,000 participants who will all be walking or running on Sunday,
October 1st and I need your support. Donating online is quick, easy and secure!
You can pay by credit card and within 30 minutes, you will receive a tax
receipt for any donation that has been successfully received. Your donation
will be added to the critical funds raised by the Run, and will be directed
towards research, education and awareness programs.

May my great aunt Rest in Peace, Asya Gendler, 1922-2006. Let a cure be found for Kristin Ingraham.

Thank you. I appreciate your support!

Daniel Shakhmundes

Political Actions Irony

2006-09-25T10:30:00.000-04:00

Actions Speak Louder Than Words:

Arising from email with a friend,

A tale of [Canadian] political irony.

Read it and weep:

From: My Friend

Subject: very interesting

Date: Sat, 23 Sep 2006 23:05:51 -0400

from the Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060923.NOTEBOOK23/TPStory/National

A tale of two speeches

A busy (mischievous?) senior Liberal staffer decided to compare former Liberal prime minister Paul Martin's speech to the United Nations last year with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's effort this week.

The easiest way, thought the staffer, was a count of "relevant" words. And this is what he came up with: Mr. Martin said the words "development or aid" 11 times compared with six for Mr. Harper. Mr. Martin said "human rights" 13 times; Mr. Harper said it three times.

The words "environment or climate" were said five times by Mr. Martin; those words did not pass Mr. Harper's lips. However, Mr. Harper said "military" four times compared with one time for Mr. Martin. The word "terror" was spoken six times by Mr. Harper; Mr. Martin never said it. He also never said the word "war;" Mr. Harper said it three times.

Dear Friend,

The news you relay certainly exemplifies the Liberal way - to dodge facts-of-reality by removing context, history, and surrounding circumstance(s). Does such a superficial count of words does mean much to anyone? In a world where actions speak louder than words, Liberals and their followers should find better things to do.

Irony was at full-strength when I clicked the link, because the resulting page was a request for a globeandmail.com registration, and provided the following article sample:

Domi's wife names Stronach as mistress
By JANE TABER

Saturday, September 23, 2006, Page A6

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach has been named as the other woman in a divorce application filed by Leanne Domi, the wife of former Maple Leafs tough guy Tie Domi.

Ms. Domi, who has been married to the hockey player for 13 years, says in the 20-page document filed in court this week that she believes her husband and Ms. Stronach have been involved in an "intimate sexual relationship" since he "began working with her on her political campaign in January, 2006."

The full text of this article has 854 words.

It is true, “actions speak louder than words.”

Thank you for the amusing combination of news articles,

Daniel Shakhmundes

Happy New Year!

2006-09-24T15:22:00.000-04:00

By Dan Meth

Shana Tova!

Welcome to the Jewish year 5767.

Rewards of a Righteous Database

2006-09-20T11:23:00.000-04:00

Siblings reunited 60 years after Holocaust

Updated Mon. Sep. 18 2006 11:26 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Canadian Simon Glasberg, 81, left, kisses his sister Hilda Shlick, 75, from Ashdod, Israel. (AP / Emilio Morenatti)

A brother and sister have been reunited six decades after the Holocaust -- thanks to a website set up in Israel.

Simon Glasberg, who lives in Canada, and Hilda Schilk, who lives in Israel, long thought each other dead, but finally found each other following the efforts of Schilk's grandchildren.

The grandchildren had been searching the 'Central Database of Victims' Names' website in Israel and discovered a page of testimony filled out in memory of their grandmother.

The page had been submitted by Schilk's brother, who believed she had been killed during the Holocaust.

Using the website, the grandchildren were then able to trace their grandmother's remaining siblings.

After flying into Israel from Canada, Glasberg spoke to reporters Monday about the tearful reunion with his sister.

Flanked by family members at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, an emotional Glasberg said he "didn't even know she was alive."

"I looked and looked and I couldn't find her," he tearfully told reporters. "My parents also used to cry whenever they remembered her."

Simon Glasberg, 81, of Ottawa, Canada, left, and his sister Hilda Shlick, 75, from Ashdod, Israel, meet at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, Monday Sept. 18 2006. (AP / Emilio Morenatti)

An equally emotional Schilk said she was "very happy to see him. I am excited."

Schilk's grandson David described the reunion as "very emotional, and there were a lot of tears."

Speaking to Israel International News, David said "Simon landed in the airport, came out, and then stood there, not knowing where to continue. We then went in and his nephew said, 'Simon, this is your sister' and he burst out crying. They haven't left each other since then; they talk in Yiddish, laugh, cry, and tell a lot of stories."

The testimony on the Victims' Names website says Schilk was born in 1934 and the family lived in Romania during the Holocaust years, before travelling onto Poland and Ukraine.

Some of the family spent some time in a work-camp and after the War, some of the siblings moved to Israel.

Simon served in the IDF during the War of Independence, but moved afterwards to Canada, in the footsteps of his older brother, INN reported on its website.

Though they were both in Israel at the same time, Simon and his parents and siblings didn't know his younger sister was alive.

Reunion

It was only via a Yad Vashem Page of Testimony that her elder brother later filled out for her, as if she were dead, that led to the reunion, INN said.

Another older brother, also in Canada, was too ill to make the trip to Israel, but the reunited family is planning to visit him in Canada soon, David told Voice of Israel Radio.

"We always wanted to know about the family's past, and we always tried to find new details," David told the radio station.

"She never liked to talk about it. One day I learned that her maiden name was Glasberg. I went to the Yad Vashem website, filled in her details without telling her, and within a minute I found a page saying she had been killed in the Holocaust."

After a few weeks, David and a sibling had tracked down their grandmother's brother's son in Canada, and he led them to their grandmother's surviving siblings, INN reported.

The Central Database of Victims' Names contains around three million names of Holocaust victims.

Some two million of the names come from 'Pages of Testimony,' while the remainder are from archival lists.

At least 10 million people have reportedly visited the website since the database went online in November 2004.

Cache of address:: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/
20060918/siblings_holocaust_060918/20060918/

Light-emitting shirts!

2006-09-13T12:04:00.000-04:00

Philips Lumalive:

Light emiting textiles/cloth,

Adding a totally new dimension to fabric!

Check out this cool new technology Philips is showcasing at IFA 2006 in Berlin. It's amazing! They are integrating LEDs into fabric and had some jackets and a couch there. Really cool!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd99gyE4jCk

Punnadhammo Bhikkhu Response

2006-08-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

Dear Punnadhammo Bhikkhu,

Regarding your posting/article/letter on the Toronto Star:

I thought you would enjoy the included/attached image, containing a wise quote from Golda Meir: "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

It is established fact that the cowardly terrorists use their own civilian people (even children!) as shields in many ways.

Anti-Israel and anti-Semite terrorists (such as "Hezbollah") leave Israel and Jews no recourse. If we followed your advice, Jews would not have their home-land, and furthermore would be even closer to annihilation.

I agree that the most recent "war" in the Middle East [as with any other war] is awful. I wish that more Arabs and Muslims would take your advice and be more proactive in stopping their brethren from terrorizing Jews. Living in your forest monastery retreat, your perspective on world events is clearly deficient. I would recommend that you spend your time further researching Middle East events and history, before you put your foot in your mouth again. This war is more about the existence Israel than the control of a river. In virtually all situations following the establishment of Israel (in which even the UN was involved), Israel's actions have been in self-defense. Even Shaolin Monks behaved in a similar fashion, learning and training to defend themselves when peace was not an option.

Israelis lead the way to a "moral revolution" in being a wellspring of goodness for the world and their neighbours, while the latter allow terrorists and hate-mongers to encroach upon Israel's border. Such extreme transgressions require severe response & reaction. Israel's actions are a direct result of Lebanon's disgusting complacency, as the latter permitted Hezbollah to saturate Southern Lebanon with schools preaching hate, violence, use of weapons, etc.

I am proud to be a Canadian in support of Israel. I support Prime Minister Harper's stance towards the Middle East, as I have a lot of Shakhmundes family that was killed in the Holocaust. Check Yad Vashem's Shoah Victims' Database if you do not believe me. Canada is not failing our ethical litmus test, but people like you are undermining it!

Please learn to be more reasonable for the future,: Daniel Shakhmundes

Voicemail Restored

2006-08-08T12:23:00.000-04:00

Following up on my previous post

that was dedicated to Rogers Wireless' awful service,

my voice-mail works again!

I hope that they can avoid causing any more problems again today.

Rogers Wireless is Irresponsible

2006-08-08T11:04:00.000-04:00

Rogers Communications Inc.

refuses to make amends for providing unreliable/dysfunctional service,

by providing pathetic excuses!

I also called my wireless dealer, Link Mobile Communications, and have as much news as I could gather on this issue that affects many local cellphone users:

This morning, one of my clients, Dave Sabo of Niagara Online, made a surprise visit to my home. He was a bit concerned, because he tried calling me, but some stranger's voice was enunciating an unfamiliar greeting on my voice-mail! I immediately called my own phone to find that indeed the greeting message was different, and I did not change it!!

Using Skype, I called Rogers [for free]. Of course, after navigating menus to Wireless Tech Support, I had to wait on hold. “Curt” answered and authenticated the call. I gave him a brief description of the problem. He then said that he would forward me to tech support, and I waited on hold yet again. For some reason, I thought selecting Wireless Tech Support would take me directly there... Anyhow, 15 minutes from the initiation of my call to Rogers, I finally reached “Jason”. He said there is a problem with the system affecting many customers and there is no ETA on a solution/fix. I said I would like my account/bill appropriately credited. Jason replied that it is not possible for Rogers to credit all their customers. I rebuked “yes it is”, so then he forwarded me to Customer Service, and I was put on hold yet again. At least the wait was only a few minutes before “Philip” answered. I provided him the background information as to why I was calling. Phillip's response was very disappointing to me; he told me that voicemail free and I cannot be credited for it. I told him that's ridiculous - voicemail is part of my package/plan, so perhaps I should be credited the whole thing then! He said I was wrong, and that voicemail is provided free on top of my wireless plan. What a pathetic excuse; I pay $80 to $100 per month, and none of that covers my voicemail?! Philip refused to provide anything other than apologies.

Last but not least, I called Link Mobile Communications, my wireless service dealer. I was told that 10 other people have already called about the same problem. Apparently it has something to do with the [very poorly carried out] launch of a new or additional caller identification system.

In conclusion, I would just like to state that I am very disappointed that a monstrous corporation and conglomerate refuses to be accountable and make amends for their own mistake that disrupts a service for which they are paid. This fact implies that Rogers Communications Inc. is greedy and unethical (and therefore amoral as well). Unfortunately, I do not have any better suggestions at this time...

russian climbing

2006-07-15T18:47:00.000-04:00

crazy!!

Phenomenal skills are demonstrated here, in what looks like a decrepid Russian town. This is raw!

Instant Messaging with Meebo

2006-07-09T20:08:00.000-04:00

Web-Based Instant Messaging:

Convenient from virtually any computer with a web-browser!

Thanks to my comrade Caleb Booker for this hot tip:

meebo.com; simultaneously connect to multiple IM networks/protocols in one convenient web-based interface.

As of this writing, meebo works with

AOL
ICQ
Yahoo!
Jabber
GTalk
MSN

I just gave meebo a try with my MSN and Yahoo! accounts, and it worked fine in my limited trial. I will definitely keep meebo in mind for those times when I cannot use Gaim.

New Site: TORAINC.COM

2006-07-06T11:35:00.000-04:00

The new torainc.com is live!

It is one of the recent projects that has kept me busy lately

For promoting their company world-wide, TORA Inc. wanted a clean, simple, and easy-to-navigate web-site.

Key specifications for the new torainc.com's development were tight/small pages to prevent the need for scrolling, and a consistent header/top/navigation spanning the entire width of all pages.

Enjoy!

2006-06-02T11:52:00.000-04:00

CUPE-Ontario: Inappropriate and misguided!

CUPE stands for Canadian Union of Public Employees

News / National Post

2006-06-01 - Toronto

Jewish advocacy group denounces move by union to boycott Israel

Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith would like Canadians to denounce CUPE-Ontario's planned boycott of Israel. A 10-page manifesto is available to be signed online at http://www.bnaibrith.ca/CUPEPetition.html. Canada's largest union
voted unanimously at a May 27 conference to join an international boycott against Israel "until that state recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination." B'nai Brith executive vice-president Frank Dimant said: "We hope to draw public attention to the inappropriate and misguided interference by the union, which is devoting time and resources to advance an anti-Israel agenda at the expense of concentrating on areas that should fall within its mandate."

In addition to signing the online petition, I have submitted the following feedback/comments directly to CUPE, using a form on their web-site: http://www.cupe.ca/BE_feedback.php

Your anti-Israel activities demonstrate utter ignorance and are an embarrassment to Canada and Ontario. As a local citizen, I demand you to stop immediately. Given that you claim to be anti-discriminatory, such anti-Semitic propaganda is hypocritical. The directors of your organization should apologize for condoning such disgusting behaviour.
If anything, you should be supporting Israel, and for many good reasons.

2006-05-10T00:23:00.000-04:00

After a recent “portupgrade -a”, I am having a problem with missing icons in Evolution 2.6.1 on FreeBSD 5.4. For reference, here is a screen-shot. A couple guys on the freebsd-gnome mailing list are trying to help me out...

2006-04-20T11:04:00.000-04:00

Business is awesome!

2006 has been a record breaking year for me:

Just take a look at my Clients page - since my first year operating entirely as an independent consultant, it has grown substantially.

April's biggest news was the launch of a new web-site for the Professional Academy of Hair Design (in Welland, Ontario), and the beginning of marketing and publicity for the behemoth Niagara Online Network in which I am involved.

2006-04-14T13:25:00.000-04:00

Hag Sameach!

Before Shabbat kicks in at sun-set tonight, here's a short, quick, and new blog entry for y'all...

Jews around the world are celebrating Passover these days.

Check out a short but funny “Happy Passover” animation (and promotion for a new book by Sam Apple), and read about Passover on Aish.com.

2006-04-11T15:49:00.000-04:00

Star Ray TV

186 Main Street
Toronto, Ontario
Tel:(416) 693-7400
Email: srtv@srtv.ca
Web site: srtv.ca

April 10, 2006 Press Release
For immediate release, Toronto:

The Latest CRTC Outrage

The CRTC is continuing a pattern of fraudulent behaviour in its dealings with Star Ray TV. The community TV station filed an application with the CRTC for a low power television license in June 2004. Since
then the CRTC has been using various bureaucratic devices to ensure that Star Ray never gets a hearing. Recently the CRTC sent back the Star Ray TV application claiming it was "incomplete." No reason was given. This occurred over a year after all application "deficiency" questions were answered. Star Ray TV called the individual responsible for processing the application.
This individual stated that he "heard" that the application was returned meaning that he was out of the loop. He was the one that crafted the deficiency questions!

Says Jan Pachul, the station's founder;" The CRTC is not above using fraud and breech of trust as tools to keep our local programming off the air. The arrogant CRTC seems to think they are above the law and any kind of behavior including criminal is acceptable. They have been getting away with white collar
crime for years; I guess they have this notion that laws are only for little people like us. The CRTC has no shame; their only concern is the next CRTC employee that is going to get a big promotion getting hired by a corporation needing special favours from the CRTC. The corruption is easy to figure out, just look at interventions submitted to the CRTC by major broadcasting organizations and see how many have been signed by former CRTC employees."

Recently Star Ray has become politically active writing letters to Prime Minister Harper and other members of parliament. Mr. Harper's office did reply and forwarded our letter to Beverly Oda, the new minister of heritage. According to the Conservative Party candidate handbook, the Conservative Party "supports the restructuring of the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, reducing its mandate to registration and/or marketing of bandwidth and to dealing with international communications negotiations." Star Ray TV maintains that the CRTC is an affront to democracy and should be dismantled.

The CRTC has a long history of denying licenses to new entrants in broadcasting assuming that the application got to the stage of a hearing. Examples include TVN, a company who tried to establish a local station in Niagara Falls and the Toronto Star who made a bid for southern Ontario stations that would have included 85% Canadian content. It is unknown how many applicants were given a similar "run around" like Star Ray TV and denied a hearing. Star Ray TV would like to hear from individuals that have a similar story to tell about the CRTC.

For more information, please contact Jan Pachul directly at (416) 693-7400, email srtv@srtv.ca, or visit the Star Ray web site at srtv.ca

More commentary on this issue can be found at TOchat.tv Star Ray TV's forum under the topic "The CRTC and Star Ray TV: Questions and Answers."

2006-04-03T12:21:00.000-04:00

Is GoDaddy still cutting-edge?

I will render my judgement based on the response to the following comment that I submitted on a blog article of Bob Parson's:

Dear Bob,

I still think you are a phenomenal business man. However, I think people are suggesting that it LOOKS like GoDaddy may be following the general decline of an increasingly crass business/marketing/corporate culture. I love boobs, however, your responses appear to be rhetoric at a time when your customer support provides me irrelevant and inconsequential responses. I am just about ready to make a different registrar my favourite choice. It seems to me that you are losing your focus, which is unfortunate, because you used to be cutting-edge all-around.

As stated this morning, if my issues aren't resolved, and the type of poor performance in a particular support incident is not accounted for, I bet that your customers with differing morality/ethics will inevitably have no reason to stay with you.

Readying for an exodus,
Daniel

2006-03-28T18:02:00.000-05:00

A digital photograph of

TVN Niagara's Exec.VP, CIO, & VP Engineering:

Tracy Wilks, Daniel Shakhmundes, and David Storey, respectively.

Taken last year, around the time of TV Niagara's CRTC hearing in Niagara Falls.

Groundless criticism from an anonymous comment to my previous blog post inspired me to choose this picture of awesome times; positivity to balance out the negativity.

2006-03-25T12:25:00.000-05:00

Tim Horton's IPO:

I'm not really into Tim Horton's; face it, the coffee is made using cheap beans and most people only like it for the drug (caffeine), added fatty cream and processed sugar. However, I do find the stock market of interest, and now you can buy some Timmie's on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

Check out the Tim Hortons Inc. stock performance on Yahoo! Canada Finance.

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) was yesterday (Friday, March 24^th, 2006), and it looks like it hit the market at about CAD$32, dropping to around CAD$28 by the end of the day.

2006-03-04T15:43:00.000-05:00

OpenOffice.org - the best Microsoft Office alternative!

If you haven't yet heard of OpenOffice, then you better pay attention:

According to the front page of OpenOffice.org, “OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.”

Much to my satisfaction, I've been using OpenOffice for years. All the while, I have been wondering why anyone would pay hundreds and even thousands of dollars for less-capable software such as Microsoft Office.

2006-03-02T11:29:00.000-05:00

Skype 2.0, now with video calling

Just over a year ago, while I was in Israel, I used Skype to “call” my girlfriend in Canada, for free!

Using my laptop on downtown Jerusalem's free public wireless internet access (it provided at least 20 KBytes/sec), there was no cost at all (aside from my computer ;-)

I just noticed that a new version of Skype was released yesterday.

Skype now does video calling. Note that Skype just went from version 1 to version 2, so it is a major upgrade.

2006-03-01T23:23:00.000-05:00

DART0609

Dedicated to Barnsley.ca

2006-02-01T01:28:00.000-05:00

TVN on Google Video:

Following my January 28^th post,

The TVN Presentation to CRTC (June 6^th, 2005) is live on Google Video!

Now anyone can easily display this video on a web page, just like this:

2006-01-30T15:13:00.000-05:00

Printer Magic:

Redirecting oldschool old-style LPT/LPT1 print jobs to a USB printer;

For when one needs to do their printing with a USB printer, but using [old] software that cannot print to a USB printer.

One of my clients replaced a printer, but needs to print from an old program (“Auto Body Estimator”).

A Google search for “INTERCEPT OR capture OR redirect lpt OR lpt1 usb” led me to Connecting an MS-Dos Application to a Printer on a USB Port on Windows 2000, which helped solve the problem, even though I am using XP.

2006-01-28T13:29:00.000-05:00

TVN Presentation to CRTC (June 6^th, 2005):

I just tried submitting this video to Google Video.

In the process, I made a list of all the speakers in the video.

I didn't end up using that list for the Google Video submission, so why not post it here, instead of leaving it unused...

Ted Salci, Mayor of Niagara Falls

Dolores Fabiano, Welland Pelham Chamber of Commerce

Wayne H. Redekop, Mayor Town of Fort Erie

Jack Miller (retired writer of Toronto Star) resident of St. Catharines

Susan Odell, President, East Dell Estates Winery

Brian E. Merrett, former Chairman, Niagara Parks Commission

Lilita Stripnieks, CEO St. Catharines Public Library

Patrick Gedge, CEO, Niagara Economic Tourism Corp.

Lucy Huot, Director General, Club 2000 Niagara (FRENCH)

Gary Burroughs, Lord Mayor of The Town of Niagara-on-the-Lake

Donald J.P. Ziraldo, Co-Founder and President, Inniskillin Wines Inc.

Paul T. Speck, President, Henry of Pelham Winery/Chair Wine Council of Ontario

Al Slattery, President Al Slattery Ford

Tim Rigby, Mayor City of St. Catharines

Chief David General, Six Nations Council

Dr. David Atkinson, President, Brock University

Daniel J. Patterson, President, Niagara College

Erika Beatty, Executive Director, Niagara Symphony

Leonard Pennachetti, President, Cave Spring Cellars Ltd.

Ron Bodner, Mayor of Port Colborne

Nancy McIntosh, Chair, Niagara Falls Visitor and Convention Bureau

Robert J. Spence, President & CEO, Niagara Auto Club & Travel Agency

Simon Clery, Simon Promotions Inc.

Charles Gervais, Employment Development Consultant, HRDC

Allen Gelberg, Director Of Sales & Marketing, Vintage Inns

Peter Partington, Chairman, The Regional Municipality of Niagara Falls

Victor Ferraiuolo, Vice President, Niagara Falls Tourism

Ruedi H. Hafen, President, Operations Manager, Niagara Helicopter Ltd.

Gail L. Davidson, Administrative Manager, InTouch Communications

Damian Goulbourne, Mayor of Welland

A special thanks from TVN Niagara Inc. (including myself) goes out to all volunteers, from business leaders to politicians, who took their time to voice their opinions in front of the camera.

2006-01-26T23:33:00.000-05:00

TVN Niagara Inc. Files Appeal of CRTC decision to Federal Cabinet

Wendell Wilks announced the news on January 19^th

I just got to posting it today; I've been so busy. Why doesn't CRTC Chair Charles Dalfen practice what he preaches?

2006-01-25T22:09:00.000-05:00

Free Windows Memory Diagnostic software from Microsoft...

I didn't know about it until I reported a Windows XP crash to Microsoft.

Microsoft Online Crash Analysis served up a page with the Windows Memory Diagnostic User Guide and a link to download it.

“If you want to test your RAM more completely, you can run the extended test suite by pressing T while Windows Memory Diagnostic is running. You should then let Windows Memory Diagnostic run overnight.”

2006-01-24T23:27:00.000-05:00

Physics Meets Philosophy

(a short and sweet blog posting)

It just occurred to me this evening:

Newton's third law of motion, the law of reciprocal actions (“for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”), is basically a scientific explanation/application for the concept of yin and yang in physical reality.

Some searching on Google quickly showed that many other people have already contemplated this notion. I guess that's what happens when one has studied both physics and Chinese philosophy...

For fun, here is an oldschool picture of me defying physics:

2006-01-24T15:32:00.000-05:00

My Latest Video Project:

“Cobras on the Parkway”

Recorded October 2005

Watch it now on YouTube.com

2006-01-19T12:04:00.000-05:00

Digital Media Broadcasts On-Demand

The “television viewing audience” is beginning to spend their time elsewhere:

The internet

I rarely watch standard “broadcast television”, since I can access TV shows, movies, and music on the internet. I have business interests in on-line marketing and promotion, and am on the extreme side of the shifting demographic, so I thought that it would be a good idea to start listing web-sites that are good portals to video and audio. There are only a few to start, but they have enough content to keep one's attention for endless hours:

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.: The videos are contributed by a worldwide membership. It is free to contribute, and free to watch too. Good use of contemporary technology allows one to receive updates when their favourite members post new videos.
Google Video - Search thousands of videos, TV shows, movies, and more: Still under development, but already put to heavy use by netizens. Check out the official About Google Video page for more.
Blish.com, the easiest place to buy or sell digital content: I just found this site today, so it is new to me. Not having known or used it, I can't vouch for it. However, Blish looks like a good web-site to round off this list here, since it looks like a good place to promote my interests with video, audio/music, and images/photography.

2006-01-18T22:34:00.000-05:00

Today I became a 1^st Time Donor

To the Canadian Blood Services

One of my new (and great) clients has a habit of donating blood every couple months

I asked if I could join him; why not?

It was a fun experience. Everyone was very nice at the St. Catharines location we went to. I thought that I would feel side-effects from the decreased amount of blood in my system, but neither HTML code nor a glass of [red] wine (cab.merlot) phased me afterwards; still had plenty of energy and my wits about me. Looks like the Canadian Blood Services has another regular donor!

Now, time for a good night's sleep.

2006-01-09T10:05:00.000-05:00

SPAM is just as pathetic on the phone as it is by email

I just got a phone call from some Toronto number that is unknown to me

I said, “hello, Daniel speaking!” A female voice replied “please wait for an important message; all of our operators are currently on hold”

Are people expected to take some unsolicited call from an unidentified organization/machine, only to be put on hold from the get-go?

Not only was I distracted from what I was busy doing, but I was expected to just sit there and wait without any good reasoning; how utterly disrespectful! Have marketers' ethics sunk so low as to require some sort of SpamCop for the phone? Obviously, I hung up immediately following the above-quoted “introduction”

2006-01-09T00:08:00.000-05:00

Blogs wear out quick on some writers

I noticed quite a few blogs today that had no more than a few posts. Some blogs only had one post. These were not new blogs, either.

In the spirit of developing my blog, I made my first edit to actual template tags

Prior to today, I have just been adding the content, and modifying the narrow right column

I removed a couple <ItemPage> tags in the heading code, which conditionally supressed the HTML that links (anchor tag, <A>) my blog title (Decrypting Reality) to the root address of the blog (http://shakh.blogspot.com).

2006-01-01T16:55:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

Today is also the 8^th and final day of Chanukah

I found an interesting page on “Hanukkah Word Origins” with some other related information on Dictionary.com

Gotta love the Reference.com set of web-sites, which include Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com

2005-12-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

My father's up-coming book finally gets a release date:

“A Better Organization: Facing Challenges to Civilization” by Lev Shakhmundes goes on-sale December 1^st, 2006, at Amazon.com

Check out the Editorial Reviews, Book Description, and About the Author, which are already available on Amazon.com

Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas!

Given that the word “Chanukah” is spelt various ways in English, I referenced Aish.com to use a proper one from an authenticated/verified/veritable/validated, authoritative, dependable, factual, faithful, learned, legit, recognized, reliable, righteous, scholarly, trustworthy and truthful source (go Thesaurus.com!).
Aish HaTorah is a non-profit, apolitical network of Jewish educational centers, with 25 branches on 5 continents. Aish provides opportunities for Jews of all backgrounds to discover the beauty and meaning of their heritage in an atmosphere of open inquiry and mutual respect.
Aish.com is the complete Judaism website, covering Jewish Holidays, Israel News, Holocaust Studies, Jewish Spirituality, Weekly Torah Portions, Parenting, Dating, Marriage, Bar Mitzvah, Shabbat, and more. They also have a live streaming video-camera feed of the Western Wall.
Just over one year ago, I finished spending close to two solid months of exhaustive studies at Aish HaTorah's exceptional branch in Jerusalem, so this honourable and relevant mention was due.

2005-12-24T23:52:00.000-05:00

Another CRTC Scandal

Star Ray TV [community television in Toronto] is also having odd difficulties with the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

Check out the latest news on Star Ray TV's web-site:

"The Grinch Who Stole a TV Station"
Star Ray TV receives a Yuletide Letter from the CRTC
on http://srtv.ca

I caught wind of the latest developments there from the Star Ray TV Press Release of December 21, 2005.

2005-12-22T16:02:00.000-05:00

TV Niagara to file court challenge

BY GREG FURMINGER Tribune Staff

Printed from www.wellandtribune.ca web site Thursday, December 22, 2005 - © 2005 Welland Tribune

Thursday, December 22, 2005 - 09:00

Local News
- WELLAND - Wendell Wilks is still programmed to get a Niagara television station up and running.

And
Welland city council is backing the businessman who claims the CRTC’s
decision handed down last month not to grant TVN Niagara a license
violated the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I was tremendously disappointed when I read the decision, and I read it in detail, said Ward 2 Coun. Barry Sharpe.

At
Tuesday night’s council meeting, politicians endorsed a resolution
supporting Wilks, who is putting an argument together that the CRTC
ruling is in violation of freedom of the press and other media.

Wilks says it would be the first such challenge.

There
has never been an argument on Constitutional grounds, he said in an
address to council, saying he spoke as a Niagaran who is not being
treated fairly and not as a jilted applicant.

Wilks said it’s
unfair that said anyone can start a newspaper or produce an online
newscast, and they don’t have to jump through the same hoops as someone
wanting to provide the same information via TV.

Wilks, who said
he’s been accused of being the Don Quixote of Niagara for tilting at
windmills, has plans to start what he said would be Canada’s first
entirely high-definition television station, starting with 34.5 hours a
week of local programming costing some 3.96 million.

Those figures include 19.5 hours of local news that would cost the station 2.4 million.

Wilks criticized claims of Toronto and Hamilton stations that say they are tuned into Niagara.

We
are a place where there’s a lot more than calamities and tragedies and
body-bag stories, he said of what he perceives to be their only
interest in the region.

He also said they worked together against his application at licence hearings in June.

We think they do not want Niagara infringing on their revenue.

Ward
1 Coun. David Alexander compared the TVN bid to the Avro Arrow plan
scrapped by John Diefenbaker’s Conservative government in the 50s.

Larger forces conspired to take that away, Alexander said, adding many still have ill feelings about that decision.

Wilks
said Toronto station owners have not made efforts to open a station in
Niagara because they have maxed out their licensing abilities.

That, he suggested, leaves him and his partners alone in trying to bring a station to Niagara.

ID- 138359

2005-12-22T09:37:00.000-05:00

Tai Chi Chuan videos on-line

“Shaolin” on Friendster sent me the link, way back in August, but I just got to it now...

Check it out:
A Series Of Video Clips Showing Basic Taijiquan Training In Shaolin Wahnam

From the the very same web-site came this image: Sifu Wong and Sifu Rama demonstrating "Striking Hands" at the Guan Yin Temple in Costa Rica

P.S. This is my first post in which I added an image using Google Picasa. I must say, Blogger and Picasa have some slick integration. However, I specified “Large Image”, and the image is small, even if you click on the image...

2005-12-21T23:07:00.000-05:00

Rogers Communications' official rebuke/resolution

in response to the news “Terror group cloned cellphones of Rogers execs”, printed in my previous blog posting

also brought to my attention by the same source shortly afterwards:

First and foremost, the media stories reference two separate issues that should not be confused – Cellular Cloning and Cell Phone Theft.

1) Cellular Cloning:

The reference to Mr. Rogers and other senior executives having their numbers intercepted (cloned) dates back to a situation that occurred in 1998 on a single Rogers' executive phone. Cellular cloning involves the fraudulent use of other individuals' wireless numbers to place calls, thereby resulting in charges on a customer account for calls they did not make.

At that time, cloning was an industry-wide problem which has been removed as a result of the industry move to digital technology. In fact, the vast majority of Rogers' customers today are on GSM digital phones, the world standard upon which more than a billion phones are in operation worldwide, and cloning of these phones is virtually impossible. Analog phones today represent less than 2% of our customer base.

Rogers has an existing policy of contacting consumers if fraud is suspected; our automated systems monitor calling patterns and will flag irregularities for review by our fraud team. However the specific details around fraud detection criteria are proprietary to Rogers and are not shared publicly, in order to protect our customers' interests. We do not want to offer any information publicly that may assist in illegal activity.
While no company or industry is immune to fraud, Rogers has a leading-edge security system that uses the best technology available to monitor customer accounts to help us detect and stop fraud.
2) Cell Phone Theft:
Ms. Susan Drummond's situation had to do with a lost or stolen phone and had nothing to do with cloning. The phone charges have now been eliminated and costs will be reimbursed. Ted Rogers was personally involved in helping to resolve the issue with Ms. Drummond's Wireless account and apologized on behalf of the Company.

2005-12-20T14:30:00.000-05:00

Shame on Rogers Communications:

Terror group cloned cellphones of Rogers execs

From Sympatico / MSN : News : CTV.ca

Updated Sun. Dec. 18 2005 8:54 AM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

A group linked to terrorist organization Hezbollah has cloned the cellphones of Rogers Communications executives, including that of CEO Ted Rogers, The Globe and Mail reported Saturday.

Cloning involves duplicating a cellphone's number and encrypted security code.

The story came to light after law professor Susan Drummond returned from a month-long trip abroad, only to find her Rogers cellphone bill was more than $12,000, The Globe reported.

The Rogers Wireless bill listed more than 300 calls made in the month of August, some to foreign countries, including Pakistan, Libya, Syria, India and Russia.

When Drummond called about the bill, she was told she would have to pay it -- and that prompted her and her partner, Harry Gefen, to begin researching the cellphone giant.

In September, Gefen attended the Toronto Fraud Forum -- an annual conference for security experts -- where he spoke to Cindy Hopper, a manager in Rogers security department.

She told him that terror groups had repeatedly cloned cellphones of Rogers executives to make thousands of calls overseas, The Globe reported.

Hopper also said terror groups had identified Rogers executives as perfect targets because the company would be reluctant to shut off their phones due to inconvenience to busy executives.

Gefen, who is a technology journalist, tape recorded his conversation with Hopper, who did not know he was an aggrieved customer, according to The Globe.

Based on that interview, Drummond is considering legal action against Rogers. She claims that Rogers can spot a fraud-in-progress, and yet does not shut down the phones.

Rogers has automated security systems alerting them to radical changes in calling patterns, Hopper reportedly told Geffen.

2005-12-18T21:51:00.000-05:00

Anyone who likes Google,

should like my new "Chicklet"!

It will always be handy on the right side of my blog.

Even if you haven't checked out Google homepage or Google Reader, try the "Chicklet" button!

I also enabled commenting to my blog posts again. I saw an option to "moderate" them, so I decided to try the feature again.

2005-12-11T23:52:00.000-05:00

Still Exploited:

It has been one week since my previous post regarding hacked site "Together For Better Health" of Niagara Health System | Hotel Dieu, a client of Think Digital Media

Check out the the hacked site translated from Spanish to English, thanks to Google Language Tools

Even in English, it doesn't make much sense to me

2005-12-04T12:51:00.000-05:00

Exploited:

Think Digital Media client Niagara Health System | Hotel Dieu gets hacked!

While checking out links on Think Digital Media's Clients page, my friend nevesis found a defaced web-site.

We'll see how long they take to recover from the abuse, but in the meanwhile, check out http://www.togetherforbetterhealth.ca - "Sitio HACKEADO...."

Thanks to nevesis for relaying this amusing news. Apparently the site was hacked on November 24, 2005. Today is December 4, 2005, which means that so far the problem has been neglected for a week-and-a-half.

While writing this blog entry, I also noticed that some files and data are exposed on Think Digital Media's own web-site.

If anyone connected to Think Digital Media pays attention to their web-server logs & statistics, they will find a link to this blog, so let's see how long it takes for any sort of reaction.

2005-12-02T11:20:00.000-05:00

What is with MS Outlook's "winmail.dat" issue?

And can Google Mail (Gmail) handle it?

Sometimes when I get email from someone who is using Microsoft Outlook, the attachments are trapped in a "winmail.dat" file. In my case, I am using Novell Evolution on FreeBSD+XOrg+KDE, but I found many people with other email clients who are complaining about the problem too.

Today, as an experiment, I redirected an email containing a winmail.dat file to my Gmail account and also to another email address that I check with MS Outlook 2003. Of course, the latter showed the attachment (a PDF) fine. More-pleasing was the absence of winmail.dat in Gmail, as it handled the quirky Microsoft Outlook data with no problem.

Even though I am very busy today, I thought this experience would be worth sharing, rather than getting left behind in the To-Do pile...

2005-12-01T23:52:00.000-05:00

How to display your web site logo on the address bar and in the favorites list

Thanks to Google, I found that great tip within minutes

Now my Daniel.Shakhmundes.Net logo will display on the address bar and in the favourites list

I used the SoulJourneys styled icon for this first icon
(foreshadowing of future graphic creativity)

2005-12-01T12:45:00.000-05:00

Today, a new name for the blog...

Inspired while skimming a theoretical research paper in High Energy Physics

The title "Decrypting Reality" came to mind, because that's what physics looks like.

A search on Google found only ONE link for the exact phrase "Decrypting Reality" (i.e. with the quotes):

A Poem About Poetry, The Art Of Self Expression

How about some fundamental aspects of noncommutative geometry?

I take it there will soon be at least two results on Google for "Decrypting Reality"...

2005-11-21T16:13:00.000-05:00

Have Your Say

I am upset that the CRTC denied TVN's application!

Go to http://Support.TVN.ca and share what you have to say too

2005-11-18T12:17:00.000-05:00

It's a sad day in the news today for Niagara, Canada

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) denies an application for a broadcasting license to operate an English-language commercial television station to serve St. Catharines and the Niagara region.

In doing so, the CRTC implies that it wishes for the continuation of Niagara's weak economy and lack of community cohesion

Having lived in Niagara most of my life, with my closest family here, I am very attached and concerned for my community. Today, I am embarrassed to call myself a Canadian and terribly upset that I pay taxes for such incompetent governance

My best wishes and regards go out to Wendell and Tracy Wilks, a father and son team, who set fourth to assist Niagara in it's social and economic need. Sure, they are business-men who identified an opportunity to make money, but in my opinion, they are also some of the most kind an honourable men to have graced this region, as are the rest of the TVN team, many of them residents of Niagara, who joined TVN in the endeavour to give Niagara a voice of it's own in the broadcast television world. The truth is that coverage from "CH Hamilton" does not do Niagara justice; they are more interested in the status-quo of redundantly simulcasting non-Canadian and non-local content for the benefit of the profits that are hoarded by their select few.

It is just so terribly disappointing to see the Niagara Region be so oppressed by it's own government. For further reading, a direct link to the CRTC's statement can be found on the front of TVN's web-site.

2005-11-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

The war on spam

I check my email this morning, and find that I have 5 comments on my Blog

They were all "comment SPAM"

So, I have changed my comments setting to "Only Members of this Blog"

I've had a few "comment spams" here and there, with only one comment that actually had any relevance. Now that I think about it, I will just remove the ability to comment. If anyone wants to comment, they can email me.

I will conclude this post with a link to SpamCop, because that's where I send all my spam email. Most of my email addresses have been published on the web and in use for years, but I don't get very much spam. At most, I get 10 spam emails per day, for all my accounts, but normally the amount is closer to 5 per day. It takes a few months before the filthy spammers start removing you from their dirty spam lists, but from my perspective, this sort of proactive activity is the only way to combat spam. So, check out http://SpamCop.Net/ and help in the fight against those parasitic and pathetic spammers!

I'll return to my FreeBSD adventures shortly...

2005-11-03T17:58:00.000-05:00

Spiral Rebuild

portupgrade

Still working from the FreeBSD Handbook
Chapter 4 Installing Applications: Packages and Ports
4.5 Using the Ports Collection
4.5.5 Upgrading Ports

"pkg_add -r portupgrade"

That's all I had to do. After executing “rehash”, I could run “portupgrade”.

At least this task didn't take as long as the previous couple...

2005-11-03T16:20:00.000-05:00

Spiral Rebuild

Updating the ports tree with CVSup

One of the first things to be done upon installation of a FreeBSD system, is to update the ports tree, which contains information on the many programs which are available [and maintained] on FreeBSD.

To get started here's a good read:

FreeBSD Handbook
4.5 Using the Ports Collection
http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/ports-using.html

In my case, I ran the following command to install the CVSup program:
pkg_add -r cvsup
(I installed XWindows/XOrg, so I did not use the “cvsup-without-gui”)
I copied /usr/share/examples/cvsup/ports-supfile to ~root/, which contains the information CVSup needs to update the ports tree.
Then I edited the above file to reference the CVSup mirror closest to me [Canada]: cvsup1.ca.FreeBSD.org

Instead of having to remember to do “cvsup ports-supfile”, I made a very simple script: ~root/scripts/ports_update

#!/bin/sh
cvsup ~root/ports-supfile

Yes, I put ports-supfile where the FreeBSD Handbook suggested.

Now that my ports tree references all the latest software and versions, I need to get portupgrade working. Then I can move onto reinstalling software, such as Samba, KDE, etc.

2005-11-03T15:13:00.000-05:00

Spiral Rebuild

It's time to upgrade Spiral, my FreeBSD server, from version 4.10 to 5.4 (the latest STABLE release)

An initial install of FreeBSD is pretty easy, so I've skipped that part...

Mitch/Graphicgreen gave me a new 9GB SCSI hard disk. I took the Adaptec SCSI controller out of wounded (also being rebuilt), put it into Spiral, and attached the new SCSI drive and SCSI CD-ROM

FreeBSD 5.4 was installed on the new SCSI drive, so that I would not have to clear any existing data. After having made that much progress - getting the SCSI hardware installed and boot-worthy with FreeBSD 5.4 running - the goal is now to restore all of the services that Spiral provided me:

250 GigaBytes of storage available on my network, accessible to computers running Microsoft Windows, for housing my digitized movie and music collection, among other things.
What I call a "Persistent Remote Desktop" - computers running UNIX-like operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD do not need to be rebooted often, unlike Microsoft Windows. So, I run XWindows on Spiral, which I can connect to from anywhere with an internet connection. In essence, I can access my desktop from virtually anywhere, with all my files, email, messaging, and much more, always at my finger-tips.
Apache web-server.

Anyhow! I need to mount the old file-systems on the IDE hard disks, which contain the data from when FreeBSD 4.10 was operating. They should mount with every boot, since it will take me a while to restore all the services and data.

The IDE hard disk detection at boot-time:

1) ad0 19456MB <SAMSUNG SV2042H/PK100-16> [39549/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA100
2) ad2 238475MB <WDC WD2500JB-00GVA0/08.02D08> [484521/16/63] at ata1-master UDMA100

The first disk is the
20GB disk that houses the system and user files.

The second is a 250GB
data-drive, which was made accessible to the network via Samba.

FreeBSD Disklabel Editor output for disk ad0:

Part	Mount	Size (MB)
ad0s1a	<none>	128
ad0s1b	swap	496
ad0s1e	<none>	256
ad0s1f	<none>	256
ad0s1g	<none>	18325

ad0s1g must contain the user data, since it is the largest. I made a directory /mnt/spiral1g to mount /dev/ad0s1g with the command “mount /dev/ad0s1g /mnt/spiral1g”. I could now use “ls” to list the files in there. The “home” directory (user-data) and other good stuff was inside.

I followed the same process to mount the other partitions.

ad0s1a contains kernel files, so it must have been “/” aka “root”.

ad0s1b gave me an “incorrect super block” error when I tried to mount it. I know, I know, it's “swap”...

ad0s1e contains “cron”, “mail”, and other system-stuff.

ad0s1g must have been “/tmp”, since it contains lots of jibberish that is typical for that directory/partition/file-system.

Now I can “ee /etc/fstab” and have the old file-systems mounted automatically.

After a reboot, the four mountable partitions are all hooked up with their respective /mnt/ mount-points.

A quick check with disklabel on /dev/ad2 shows only one partition: ad2s1e

I added it to /etc/fstab, mounting on /liberty, just like it used to. mkdir /liberty; reboot

The 250GB data-drive and all of the file-systems (other than swap, of course) mount automatically and are accessible for me to restore what I need from Spiral's days of FreeBSD 4.10.

Reference:

Frequently Asked Questions for FreeBSD 4.X, 5.X, and 6.X - Chapter 9 Disks, Filesystems, and Boot Loaders

2005-11-01T11:32:00.000-05:00

Google TVN CRTC Hearing Transcript Shortcut

Want to quickly find the transcript from TVN's hearing with the CRTC, from last summer, June 6, 2005?

It's easy, just search for "Shakhhmundes", as this link to Google shows:

http://www.google.com/search?q=shakhhmundes

Thanks to Nikkie for leading me to this discovery <3

It works on Yahoo! too!

2005-10-28T16:28:00.000-04:00

Local News:
Storm brewing on Glenridge

By Marlene Bergsma

Thursday, October 27, 2005 - 01:00

- Ray Brodeur is sick of the impact students are having on his neighbourhood.

“I’ve lived here 40 years,” said the south St. Catharines resident, who is regularly awakened by the noise of partying students, and who picks up nearly a dozen beer bottles from his lawn each weekend. “Why should I have to move because of them?

“Thank God for all the cold and rain we’ve had. You wouldn’t normally pray for rain, but it keeps them (students) off the streets,” said Brodeur. “You don’t know the troubles we’ve had in the south end here.”

That’s why Brodeur and many of his neighbours intend to be at a public meeting hosted by the City of St. Catharines Tuesday night, to tell city officials what they think of a plan to increase the residential density along Glenridge Avenue.

The plan comes after a development freeze was imposed on all the properties on Glenridge between the CNR tracks and the base of the escarpment in June 2004. The city had received an application from a landlord who wanted to turn a four-plex into a six-plex, and city planners wanted time to study the whole neighbourhood.

Last month, city planners proposed the density along Glenridge be increased to permit six-plexes and apartment buildings.

Brodeur thinks that would be a mistake because it will only mean more students living in the neighbourhood.

“It won’t solve anything for the people who live in Old Glenridge and the people who live in south St. Catharines,” he said. “The students will still be there.”

Carolyn Toth, a member of Concerned Citizens of St. Catharines, also rejects the idea, and said her group is distributing hundreds of notices throughout the neighbourhood, alerting residents to the upcoming meeting.

“This is the solution the city has come up with when student housing landlords want to make more money,” said Toth. “It will just mean intensification of noise, intensification of parking, intensification of garbage. The residents are very upset about it. The only ones who aren’t upset are the landlords.”

For its part, the city knows the Glenridge intensification is only “a small part of the puzzle,” said Judy Pihach, a planner.

“It’s not going to solve the problems,” she agreed. “Zoning doesn’t deal with student behaviour, or noise or parking enforcement. Those are bigger issues.”

But by encouraging more development along a main corridor with bus service and easy access to the Pen Centre and Brock University “it may take some of the heat off the student housing market.”

Pihach said there are no guarantees, but if more housing is available along Glenridge, students may prefer the convenience of living on a main artery, and the result may be fewer student houses on quiet residential streets.

Six-plexes also require site-plan control, which would give the city the right to determine fencing, garbage storage, parking and landscaping for new developments, said Pihach.

The city can’t zone against students, she said, it can only zone for housing type.

Two weeks ago, Brodeur was awakened by the noise of a crowd of students after a night of partying at an outdoor patio of a Pen Centre bar. At 2:45 a.m., he followed the sound of the noise and drove to Jacobsen Avenue.

“There was one guy and one girl having sex on the front lawn of a house, there were two girls completely passed out on a boulevard, and one guy passed out on a lawn, and the police are sitting in their cruiser looking at this stuff.”

Brodeur said he asked the officers why they weren’t arresting people, and was shocked by their response.

“They said ‘We were told not to arrest them because the Crown attorney doesn’t want to prosecute them,’ ” saidBrodeur. “There was 150 students out there and they don’t want to get out of their car.”

Niagara Regional Police Sergeant Todd McKinnon said he is unaware of such an instruction from the Crown attorney. He said enforcement of laws depends on the situation, but police are issuing noise tickets.

On another occasion, Brodeur claims he chased eight youths who were stealing his neighbour’s gas barbecue.

“I am just getting frustrated; I have just had it with this crap.”

That’s why Brodeur won’t be surprised if the meeting Tuesday is packed.

“I can see the frustrations people are going through.”

The information meeting will be held at Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School on Nov. 1, from 7 to 9 p.m.

A final decision on the Glenridge intensification issue will be made by city council after a public meeting on Nov. 28.

ID- 131137

2005-10-20T09:28:00.000-04:00

War on the War on Drugs

A search on News.Google.com will turn up some provocative articles, as recent as today

Norm Stamper was chief of the Seattle Police Department from 1994 - 2000, and he is standing up against the USA's ineffective and opressive "war on drugs"

Here are just a few links to the related news articles, of which there are many more:

Further fortifying the need to revise drug laws, is a fascinating discovery: The role of marijuana/cannabinoids in neurogenesis. A search on Google News for 'neurogenesis' turns up at least 25 unique articles, almost all of them hailing this new discovery.

2005-10-19T09:39:00.000-04:00

This evening I will resume my martial arts training at Glenridge Martial Arts

I have been on hiatus for about a year now

I am excited in my resolve! I am hoping that many of my friends will join me in this most-healthy pass-time.

My intention is to continue learning Goju Ryu, with some Jiu-Jitsu in addition. Once I am a black-belt in the former, I will start adding weapons to my repertoire.

2005-10-12T09:57:00.000-04:00

I have a couple interesting things to mention at the moment...

Entertainment/Media

Following my reposting of an email from Jay Lupish, regarding the 1 Second Film, I realized that I might already be listed on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), thanks to a very small role/part in Carey Lewis' award winning "Streets of Wonderland". I did a search for "Shakhmundes" on IMDb, and voila: Dan Shakhmundes on IMDb

Technology

I have mixed feelings about this development:

Microsoft and Palm join forces on the Treo to shake up consumer electronics industry (InfoWorld.com)

I grudgingly admit Windows Mobile on the pa1mOne Treo is a killer combo with significant advantages over existing Blackberry and PalmOS solutions, but only because we live in a Microsoft-based world [these days].

2005-10-10T11:24:00.000-04:00

Date: Tue, 04 Oct 2005 21:33:18 -0400
From: Jason Lupish <mailbox@loaddstudios.com>
Subject: the 1 second film

Hey Everyone,

I just wanted to let everyone know about a cool project that some film
students are doing in New York,

http://www.the1secondfilm.com/

It's called the 1 Second Film. Basically it's a film that is 1 second long, that is made up of 12 different paintings. Each painting makes up 2 of the 24 frames that it takes to make 1 second of film.

They are doing this for charity (The Global Fund for Women, a 501(c)(3) non-profit grantmaking organization that supports women's human rights around the world. For more information about the Global Fund for Women, visit: www.globalfundforwomen.org)

Basically you can donate anything you want, 1-9 dollars gets you an associate producer credit, 10-99 gets you a producer credit, and 100+ gets you an Executive Producers credit. Once you've donated, and your name has been added to their list you can add your name to www.imdb.com and get listed next to other people like Kevin Bacon, Selma Blair, Pierce Brosnan, Steve Buscemi, Tom Green, Andy Dick, Alan Cumming, and many more.

It's a very cool project for a great charity, check it out, and help support.

Jay

2005-09-28T11:50:00.000-04:00

FreeBSD is really pissing me off. Check out this portupgrade output:

** Listing the failed packages (*:skipped / !:failed)
        ! www/mnogosearch (mnogosearch-3.1.21_1)        (unknown build error)
        ! multimedia/libxine (libxine-1.0.1)    (bad C++ code)
        * multimedia/xine_artsplugin (kdemultimedia-xine_artsplugin-3.4.2)
        * multimedia/kdemultimedia3 (kdemultimedia-3.4.2)
--->  Packages processed: 32 done, 294 ignored, 2 skipped and 2 failed

Could it be that the libxine contributers/developers wrote bad code and slipped it past the FreeBSD maintainers? That proposition sounds rediculously embarassing to me, even though it is all free. I could be to blame; I am still running FreeBSD 4.10-RELEASE, but it's not that old, and I have done my "portupgrade -a". I am going to put the latest production release of FreeBSD 5 into Spiral...

2005-09-22T10:33:00.000-04:00

Ontario's Worst Roads

Check out the web-site, http://worstroads.ca/, and put in a vote!

You also get the options to send your comments to the mayor (I did not go that far), and fill out a questionnaire (I did not do that either, because it did not allow me to put something like "unsure" for too many questions).

One item of interest to me, is the Worst Road Rankings for the City of St. Catharines; some of the comments are pretty funny. Lastly, a supplemental link to my vote for Glendale (East of Merritt).

2005-09-21T11:31:00.000-04:00

Uptime for Windows

From:	nevesis
To:	slovo
Subject:	Windows uptime
Date:	Wed, 21 Sep 2005 00:16:00 -0400
Mailer:	Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2670

Does XP PRO come with uptime.exe ? if not goto http://www.microsoft.com /ntserver/nts/downloads/management/uptime/default.asp
its a pretty nifty util, run it with the /s option
copy it into your c:\windows\ directory and run it from CMD

2005-09-13T16:09:00.000-04:00

Butchering Microsoft Windows

Around this time last year, I was rebuilding a computer system for one of the companies I was involved with. It was a working system, with Microsoft Windows NT or 2000 on it, which was to be redeployed as a FreeBSD machine. Before installing FreeBSD, I thought it would be fun to delete system files while the system was running, instead of simply wiping out the existing hard disk data/partition(s). The experiment left me with a couple amusing screen captures to show:

The first is a funny dialog box stating "Insert your now." and the second shows a mutilated Windows Explorer window.

2005-09-12T12:14:00.000-04:00

Entertainment

Streets of Wonderland makes it's rounds

A high-school acquaintance, Carey Lewis, has chosen movie/video production as his career of choice. His latest film, Streets of Wonderland, in which I appear briefly, is showing at multiple film and video festivals. So far, it is doing quite well, winning several awards. Check out the trailer/teaser and more information on the web-site of BacklotRebels.

2005-08-11T12:17:00.000-04:00

Recovering a Windows XP Product Key

Mostly thanks to an article on Experts Exchange

Recently, data in the C:\Windows\System32\ directory (or "folder") of a client's computer became corrupted. The system would no longer boot - following the Windows start-up screen (with the cheesy little scrolling thingy), a blue-screen [of death] appeared, but was only displayed for the slightest fraction of an instant, as the PC rebooted immediately afterwards.

An OS reinstall might be required, but the client lost his installation CD and documentation referencing the Product Key, which is required for legitimate/licensed use of Windows XP. Instead of spending time and money getting Microsoft to provide a replacement Product Key, we decided to try and extract the license data from the corrupted drive, since it must be on there somewhere (intact, hopefully).

Here is the process I went through:

The afflicted system needs to be booted from a source other than the corrupted disk (which no longer boots successfully). For example, "Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment)", or ERD from Winternals will allow you to boot from a CD. In my specific recent experience, there was a SCSI card in the machine. So, I hooked up a spare 9 GB Seagate SCSI drive, which my friend Mitch recently donated. I had not tried it out, and this experiment seemed like a good opportunity. I booted from a Windows XP install CD, and installed XP onto my spare SCSI drive, using a common/illegitimate Product Key (of course, this machine was not going onto the network as-such). In hindsight, I could have just taken the client's HD, and put it into another PC, but I also wanted to make sure that the rebooting was not a recently-developed hardware problem. Anyway, the point here is that you somehow boot up and have the drive with unbootable Windows XP installation accessible.
I had obtained a "DOS-based cd key retriever", which I downloaded from the following address:
   http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/
      Utilities/
      System_Maintenance_and_Repair_Utilities/
      Registry_Viewer_for_Win9x_ME_NT_2K_XP.html
From a command-line, I used this program to access the file \Windows\System32\config\software on the problematic drive (in my case, it came up as E:).
Inside the registry file, the entry "\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion" needs to be located and then exported. You may have to start browsing from an entry named $$$PROTO.HIV, and specify HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE when you are asked to "Select root key". You will have to "Enter file name" to export to. In my case, I exported to a floppy from which I ran the RegViewer on the client's PC after booting from the SCSI disk.
Using RegEdit on another [working] computer, export the same key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion) to another file, for the purpose of retaining your original license data, which you are about to replace ;-)
On that other [working] computer, double-click the .REG file you exported from the problematic drive (on the floppy I just used, in my case), and it will be imported into the registry of the working computer you are now using, replacing the same data you just exported.
Now you can use KeyFinder by Magic Jellybean Software to display the Windows XP Product Key! Make note of it, as this was the goal.
Having achieved the goal, double-click the second registry export (with the original license/key data of your working PC) to reimport it and restore/revert your tinkering.

2005-08-03T14:03:00.000-04:00

BY LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF A PERSON, YOU HAVE TO DECIDE IF HE IS A COMPUTER GEEK OR A SERIAL KILLER. GO WITH YOUR GUT FEELING AND CLICK ON YOUR CHOICE. YOUR SCORE WILL BE GIVEN AT THE END.

http://www.malevole.com/mv/misc/killerquiz/

Thanks to Tracy Wilks for passing on this amusing link

2005-07-23T13:32:00.000-04:00

Ontario ruling a Catch 22 for Segways

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 Updated at 11:38 PM EDT

Canadian Press

This article is from The Globe and Mail: Ontario ruling a Catch 22 for Segways and edmontonsun.com - Canada - Segway rider gets fine

Niagara Falls, Ont. — In what is believed to be a Canadian first, a Niagara Falls real estate agent has been ticketed and fined for driving a two-wheeled battery-powered scooter on a public street.

Pierre Lefeuvre, 54, made headlines last fall after he was charged with failing to have a licence and insurance for riding his Segway Human Transporter along a city street.

Mr. Lefeuvre took his battle to provincial offences court Wednesday, claiming the high-tech gadget that can move at speeds up to 20 kilometres an hour, isn't a motor vehicle, and thereby didn't require a licence or insurance.

Justice of the peace Santino Spadafora dismissed his claim, saying Segways fall under the Highway Traffic Act's definition of a motor vehicle and that police were justified in filing the charges.

“They are motor vehicles and subject to the laws under the Highway Traffic Act,” Justice Spadafora said, before imposing a $90 fine for failing to have a licence plate on the vehicle.

Charges of failing to have insurance and making an improper left turn were stayed.

Mr. Lefeuvre argued he had tried unsuccessfully to get insurance and a licence for the machine.

“I tried everything. I talked to a lot of people,” he said.

At the local licence bureau, he was told Transport Canada didn't consider the device a vehicle and would not issue plates and his insurance broker couldn't find an insurance company that would provide liability insurance for the device.

“My client has done everything possible to get plates for this device, and insurance, and has been refused,” defence counsel Morley Kitchen told court.

“When a person is charged with not having plates or insurance, there's a logical inference they can be obtained in the first place. How can you convict someone on something they can't obtain?”

Crown prosecutor Anne Swayze argued Segways fall under the definition of motor vehicle under the traffic act.

According to the Ministry of Transportation, however, the device does not meet Ontario's equipment safety standards for on-road use. They can only be operated where the act does not apply, such as on private property.

Mr. Lefeuvre was charged last Sept. 5.

Mr. Lefeuvre described the upright scooter as a personal assistive device, similar to that of a wheelchair, which does not require plates or insurance.

“I use it to run errands and to go see people,” he said.

2005-06-20T01:50:00.000-04:00

So much to do, so little time...

This month, I haven't posted to my blog as much as I would have liked to. I thought I'd mention some of the things that have kept me busy:

A Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) hearing, with the TVN team
Graduation from Brock University (B.Sc., Computer Science)
My girlfriend Nikkie's graduation from Niagara College
Working for Bowes IT Solutions, at the Canadian office of Altius Games
Performing some computer maintenance and upgrades for one of the great TVN shareholders
Building up Shakhmundes.Net (displaying three languages [English, Russian, Hebrew] with their differing character-sets was interesting) and Daniel.Shakhmundes.Net
Hanging out at Renegade Tattoo, the tattoo parlour of my buddy Dave

And that's just the tip of the iceberg! I'd go on, but it's way past my bed-time.

2005-06-01T17:54:00.000-04:00

The privilege of driving is given to too many people who are not competent enough to be in control of something as potentially life-threatening as an automobile.

Image taken with my palmOne Treo 600.

2005-05-27T00:40:00.000-04:00

Language Tricks

You may have seen this one in an email forward...

I think it is quite clever and amusing:

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer inwaht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

2005-05-24T01:13:00.000-04:00

The LiveJournal of Mitch (GraphicGreen)

He is my friend, but I have never checked his LiveJournal before, so I am linking it here as a reminder.

2005-05-21T00:43:00.000-04:00

OldSchool HighSchool Programming

Dancin' d00dz & Terra Force 2 revived on http://Daniel.Shakhmundes.Net/

We are going back to the mid-90's here!

Wow, I was programming in BASIC and C a decade ago...

2005-05-19T12:06:00.000-04:00

Record sound & video on palm1 Treo 600!

Ryan Rife has programmed two applications for the Palm/Treo: SoundRec and MovieRec.

I think he's making some excellent progress, and to think, he's virtually doing it for free.

Check it all out on his web-site: infinityball.com

I definitely plan to revisit in the near future and make a PayPal donation.

2005-05-15T00:38:00.000-04:00

Spammer sentenced to 9 years

First felony spam case in U.S.

Jeremy Jaynes remains out of prison pending appeal.

The Associated Press
Updated: 8:39 p.m. ET April 8, 2005

Damn spammers. If they put him in jail, won't he have internet access there too? I say, move him to a third world country.

I use SpamCop.net with great dedication. As a result, I only get a few spams a day. I think it is much better than using filters, which require maintenance/management, and scanners, which sometimes block good emails yet miss spam. It may take up to a few months to produce a noticable reduction in junk email, but it will get many of those jerks off your back with continued use.

2005-04-22T13:11:00.000-04:00

Happy 73rd Birthday to my Grandmother Ba

She is the greatest Grandmother - So great that she can love someone as crazy as I.

2005-04-15T09:04:00.000-04:00

Ephedra Ban Lifted by U.S. District Judge

FDA says it's evaluating the ruling before deciding whether to appeal

HealthDay Staff - 2005-04-14

Although I did not expect seeing such news, I am glad to see the USA take this positive move. Ephedra/ephedrine is becoming more difficult to acquire in Canada, but it is still not too hard to find it. I take Ephedrine (8 to 72 milligrams) a couple times a month at the most - when I feel like boosting my energy or opening up my respiratory system (enhance sport activity or alleviate congestion). It is definitely not a harmful drug when used responsibly, like any other potentially beneficial substance. Anyhow, what kind of joke is it for the USA to ban simple stimulants such as Ma Huang, when they have explosive growth in the "energy drink" industry (Red Bull is a good example)?

2005-04-13T13:09:00.000-04:00

that is hilarious! freakin' Norwegians...

On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 09:25 -0400, nevesis wrote:
http://www.yagoohoogle.com/

2005-04-13T00:21:00.000-04:00

Adventures in maintaining FreeBSD

I stole a little bit of bed-time to look into the problem from earlier today... I figured I may as well upgrade Gnome, since I'm not even sure what version I am running. If portupgrade is not suitable for upgrading Gnome, I may be a year behind. I should probably make sure Gnome is up-to-date to help ensure that it functions properly, especially since the rest of the system [as far as I know] has been rebulit...

gnome_upgrade.sh reported:

"Not enough space in /var/tmp to log the upgrade. Please set the MC_TMPDIR variable to a location that has at least 200 MB of free space, then restart the upgrade."

I had an annoying time getting over this issue: I always forget how to set [environment] variables, because the different shell interpreters (such as sh, csh, tcsh, and bash) can have slightly varying methods of doing so. Do you use `set' and `export', or `setenv', and then do you assign a value to variable name by putting an equal-sign (=) or a space ( ) between them? Those several common possibilities offer enough permutations to prevent one from guessing the correct syntax. I checked /etc/passwd to recall what shell interpreter my root account uses: csh. Somewhere on the web I found the syntax information I needed to produce the correct command:

setenv MC_TMPDIR /tmp

I now have gnome_upgrade.sh running "The Big Update". It says will take a LONG time, and suggests that if I've been planning a day trip, now would be a great time to take it. I think it's a little late for a day trip. I hope going to sleep for the night will be good enough...

2005-04-12T14:59:00.000-04:00

A wonder of the world through a technological wonder.

2005-04-12T09:44:00.000-04:00

Adventures in maintaining FreeBSD

So, I finally got tired of not being able to have clicked URL links come up in Firefox from email browsed in Novell/Ximian Evolution. To date, I have always right-clicked the link, selected "Copy Link Location", and then pasted it into Firefox's address bar.

I am running KDE as my Window Manager, and have set up Firefox as the default browser in KDE's control panel. However, because Evolution is a Gnome application, it is also affected by Gnome's configuration. In this case, KDE's web-browser setting is not observed by Evolution.

Off I went, trying to figure out how to change Gnome's default web-browser. I tried loading all of the command-line names for Gnome Control Center I could find on the web... gnome-control-center, gnomecontrolcenter, gnomecc, and none of them worked. I expected them to be there, since I had Gnome applications installed; I guess that assumption was not very correct. I ran `locate gnome | grep control | more' and found there was a port named `gnomecontrolcenter'. I ran `portupgrade -NRPO gnomecontrolcenter' (I use -O because something is wrong with my pkgdb, I don't necessarily recommend using it) and it's building as I write this blog entry.

I should probably mention that if you're running Gnome on FreeBSD, you will probably want to check out the Gnome area on FreeBSD's web-site.
Gnome still cannot be upgraded using portupgrade - a special script is made available to upgrade Gnome on FreeBSD.

Well, the build finished, and I can run `gnomecc', but I have not been able to solve my problem. I changed a couple settings and went as far as restarting X Windows (`vncserver', in my case). I don't have time today to play further, but I intend to properly upgrade Gnome and read up more on configuring it to use Firefox as the default web-browser.

Later!

2005-04-11T11:48:00.000-04:00

The Computer Operating System FreeBSD has finally forked a STABLE branch in the 5^th major release version. I am going to upgrade around late-April to early-May.

Good timing too, because I would like to run the BitTorrent client/server Azureus on my FreeBSD machine, but there is some pain-in-the-ass problem with installing Java on 4.x; a patch was implemented for 5.x, but details were sketchy with 4.x.

2005-04-06T15:08:00.000-04:00

Philosophy/Buddhism

I have published all my notes from PHIL 2P17: Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, a course that I took from Brock University's Department of Philosophy (Humanities Faculty) throughout January to April 2005.

2005-03-31T12:01:00.000-05:00

Adventures in using my palmOne Treo 600 as a portable audio player

I found a great article on the web-site of NormSoft Inc. (producers of the Pocket Tunes audio player), which gives excellent information and solutions for taking calls handsfree and using the PalmOne Treo 600 as a portable audio player. The article is titled "Why can't I use headphones with my Treo 600? The sound still comes out of the speaker, even with headphones plugged in!". In the explanation of the problem, it gives several very helpful links and ideas on hardware that is suitable for the Treo 600.

It definitely helps solving yesterday's difficulties. All that remains is to try out my Sony Ericsson P800 stereo handsfree set and/or acquire some additional hardware...

2005-03-30T22:59:00.000-05:00

Adventures in using my pa1mOne Treo 600 as a portable audio player

I thought it would be pretty easy to play MP3 format audio files on my Treo 600. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, and especially not without spending some money.

I purchased a 512 MegaByte (MB) Secure Digital (SD) from someone on eBay, and it just came in the mail today. It may be worth mentioning that I got my card for approximately the retail price of a 256 MB SD card; eBay is great for good deals on tech.hardware. So, now that my Treo has plenty of memory installed, it's time to use it for something I really love: Listening to music.

The first challenge I tried to solve was getting the music files onto my Treo. Most of my music collection that is on my computer is in MP3 format, which is the most common and wide-spread format these days, especially with current consumer electronics now able to play it. I made a search or two on Google, looking for instructions or directions. I found a couple sets, nearly identical, recommending that I use an SD card reader/writer. I thought that suggestion was a bit of a drag, since it would involve buying more hardware. Then I realized that I had an SD card slot in my laptop, which I have never used (I've had the laptop for about a year and a half now), since I have not had any devices that used SD memory. Copying the files turned out to be pretty easy. I spent the day beating up the SD card; throughout the tinkering I was copying and deleting music in various formats. At one point, when the SD card was in my [Windows XP] laptop, I deleted a file, and it disappeared from the list. However, the file was not actually gone - it was still there, just 0 bytes in size - and a refresh or something similar would turn it up. I formatted the card to a FAT32 file-system. My Treo did not like this format, and asked to format the card itself, which I let it do. Aside from that issue, I did not have any problems copying/moving files around. I guess the required format is FAT, but I'm not really sure - whatever it is, Windows XP was able to manipulate it.

Once I got some MP3s onto the SD card, I popped the card back into my Treo 600, only to find that there was no software to play the audio files. I figured I could find some free MP3 player somewhere on the web. I was wrong again! To make a long story short, I could only find 2 items of PalmOS-compatible software:

1) RealPlayer: I have not used RealPlayer ever since I found out they were sneaking spyware into their desktop software. I don't know if they still do such a sneaky thing, but I will no longer use any of their unethically developed software, thus avoiding the issue entirely. I did read that if you install the RealPlayer .prc file, it forces installation of some other ones. Sounds to me like they are still the same old assholes.
AeroPlayer: 2) AeroPlayer from Aerodrome Software; AeroPlayer is free. However, one must pay in order to use the MP3 plug-in. HOWEVER, it plays audio in Ogg Vorbis format for free.

I decided that of the only two options I found, I would only try the one that didn't attempt to infest my property with junk. Plus, I read that Ogg Vorbis is often preferred over MP3 by audiophiles, so I thought it was worth exploring. I don't mind having to convert some files when I want to make them portable.

I went to Ogg Vorbis' web-site and downloaded their own official command-line tools, which allow you to encode (oggenc.exe), decode, and do some other things with .OGG files. I spent a good amount of time encoding some full-quality .WAV files. At this point I ran into another problem. Now that I had an audio player, and audio files in a format the player would play for a long time to come (i.e. no 'shareware' trial expiries interrupting my pleasure), I found that when my Treo's screen turned off, the audio would start skipping. I'm not really sure why. I have two guesses:

When the screen is off, the Treo goes into a mode that consumes less energy, and subsequently has less processing power available in this power-saving mode.
The data-rate required to read the audio data from the SD card exceeds that of my Treo.

Either way, I find it completely unacceptable to have my music blanking/gapping out or skipping. My first encodes were done in almost the highest quality; I used level 9 (parameter to oggenc: -q 9), out of a maximum of 10. A couple encodes later, I was playing .OGG files encoded at a quality level of 6. I still experienced some interruptions in the output, but at least they were less frequent. I ran out of play-time, so that is the best result I could produce today. I will try encoding at quality level 5, and hope that I don't have to go any lower.

I am almost ready for the final challenge in this adventure: Putting speakers to my ears and hearing the music in stereo! My Sony Ericsson P800 came with a pair of ear-buds that also had a microphone attached (a 'hands-free headset'), so I thought that the Treo 600 would come with something equivalent, and make this last requirement a snap. Strike 3; I'm definitely 'out'. For crying out loud, the Treo 600 came with a one-budded (or single-budded?) hands-free headset! What a disappointment :-( I am out of time and energy to continue on. I conclude this adventure with my findings [so far] of hardware that will allow me to listen to audio/music in stereo on my Treo 600:

Handspring Treo 600 PDA 2 in 1 Handsfree Headset and MP3 Headphones:: Looks to be the same thing as what my Sony Ericsson P800 came with, and exactly what I was hoping my Treo 600 included. Seems to be the most expensive option...
Headset for Treo 600:: Earbuds... No microphone. No good; I want to be able to take calls 'hands-free'!
Treo Stereo Headphone Adapter:: The cheapest option, allowing me to use any headphones with the normal 1/8" (one-eighth of an inch, or 3.5 millimeters (mm)) plug, but still no microphone for taking calls 'hands-free' on this option either!

Before I buy anything, I will try my Sony Ericsson hands-free earbuds headset thingy. The jack on it is the same size as with the Treo 600...

2005-03-29T21:13:00.000-05:00

Some of Daniel Shakhmundes' web-sites

Some of my other notable work:

The Leave the Pack Behind logo, which they have been using for years.
It is visible in many Ontario universities and colleges, as well as
their web-site on the top-left corner: http://leavethepackbehind.org/

The cover design for Lev Shakhmundes' book "We Are Different - So What",
which you can see near the top and on the left side of his web-site:
http://wearedif.net/

2005-03-29T19:11:00.000-05:00

My relationship with Zinio

From: Zinio Customer Support
To: d_shakhmundes@yahoo.ca
Subject: I clicked on Account Cancellations (at the bottom of your email) and it took ... [Incident: 050328-000302]
Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:56:59 -0800 (Z) (13:56 EST)

Hello, Recently you wrote to Zinio Customer Support. Below is our response, along with a summary of your request. If this does not solve your issue or answer your question, you can reply to this message.

Subject

I clicked on Account Cancellations (at the bottom of your email) and it took ...

Conversation History

Response (Lynn) 03/29/2005 10:56 AM

Hello,

We received and processed your "unsubscribe" request, and your Zinio account is now closed. You will receive no further email communications from Zinio, and no further magazine deliveries.

Should you wish to reopen your account at any point in the future, please feel free to contact us.

Sincerely,
Zinio Customer Support

Customer (Dan Shakhmundes) 03/28/2005 09:47 PM

I clicked on Account Cancellations (at the bottom of your email) and it took me to this form. This does not look like an Account Cancellation form. I find most services/companies often provide a link to unsubscribe to email. How come you make it so difficult? Is it because your software is bloated and unappealing?

Before I tried Zinio, I thought it was a good idea. Then I tried Zinio Reader, for eWeek magazine, and I did not like it. I did not like your nasty copy-protection junkware, which makes me feel like I am infecting my computer with something; with your ugly little systray icon and your bloated "Delivery Manager" running in the background. I did not like how limiting the viewer was - not much benefit over a paper copy - keep in mind this is coming from someone who dislikes paper (I just thought that Zinio Reader sucked so bad...). I will not try Zinio again (not so soon, at least), just as I now refuse to use RealPlayer ever since they put Spyware in there. From a software developer and programmer stand-point, I think Zinio is poorly written/implemented, and a poorly executed idea/concept for software.

Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to cancel my account, the intention for which I clicked the link you provided. I hope your "Account Cancellations" link was not some sort of deceptive tactic...

Question Reference #050328-000302
Choose Magazine Title: Magazines
Sub-Product: eWEEK
Category: Unsubscribe Me
Date Created: 03/28/2005 09:47 PM
Last Updated: 03/29/2005 10:56 AM
Status: CL: answer sent
System Type: Windows XP

2005-03-29T12:45:00.000-05:00

Daniel Shakhmundes' Brock Notes

This semester's courses:

PHIL2P13 - Indian Philosophy
PHIL2P17 - [German Philosophy of] Chinese Philosophy

I am thinking of posting/publishing the rest of my university notes, but just thinking about it...

2005-03-28T16:22:00.000-05:00

Adventures in maintaining FreeBSD

portupgrade is finally done... That was definitely no less than two solid days of building/compiling! It is nice to finally run my favourite apps (Novell Evolution, Gaim, and Firefox) again, and KDE 3.4.0 has some noticeable improvements over the 3.2 series (yes, it has been about a year since I did a proper upgrade on Spiral). Most notably, is the inclusion of the KOffice office applications. I tried opening an OpenOffice Writer (.sxc) document in KWord, which seems to have worked quite well. The only thing that may not have worked/rendered, was a page border, but I did not spend much time verifying the possible issue (I have an essay on the Buddhist Dharmapada/Dhammapada to finish!).

Decrypting Reality

To the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

An open/public letter

On behalf of the Canadian citizens among my family, which includes myself, we urge you to follow the advisement forwarded below.

Sincerely,Daniel Shakhmundes, B.Sc.-------------------------------------------Phone: 1-905-321-9898Email: d@shak.wsHTTP://Shak.WS

Relaunching Shak.WS for 2008

TV, Movies, Anytime, For Free

Now open to the public:

Legitimately featuring content from more than 50 major content providers including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, and more.

Try AnchorFree's Hotspot Shield if you are getting the error “Unfortunately this video is not currently available in your country or region. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Shak Attack on YouTube

Daniel Shakhmundes' (Shak) board-breaking demonstration:

Hosted by Sensei Kristina Brandy of Shin Gan Karate in Welland (Niagara), Ontario, Canada.

Demonstrated techniques include punch, back-fist, classic karate chop, elbow (front and back), and roundhouse-kick.

More Microsoft Woes: IMAP

More hassles courtesy of Microsoft:

They can take standards compliance to new lows;

my experience with IMAP and MS Outlook was not surprising, but still frustrating enough to write this Blog Post.

I used the following links to [hopefully] resolve errors that one of my clients kept getting in Microsoft Outlook:

Dump Microsoft Windows Vista

It's not just propaganda,

it's official

Microsoft acknowledges that “Vista Concerns Mount”

by extending the availability of Microsoft Windows XP for another five months!

Be careful w/personal pix!

Some good humour,

with thanks to my Mama for forwarding it!

A man moves into a nudist colony.

He receives a letter from his grandmother asking him to send her a current photo of himself in his new location.

FW: Japanese Technology

How the mouse cursor works;

thanks to Wendell Wilks for this terrific web-page:

This might be a little technical, leave it to the Japanese to figure this one out. Have you ever wondered what makes the arrow cursor move through the screen?? Click on the link, move your cursor in the middle of the screen, and see what happens....

For Customers of YourNameSells.com

URGENT ANNOUNCEMENT:

A Brief Message to update the customers of YourNameSells.com as to what is happening with their websites and domains.

From Dot Connect

Canadian Anti-Semitism Checkup

First, the good news:

[Ontario Secondary Schools Teachers Federation (OSSTF)] Teachers withdraw Israel boycott resolution.

However, in Toronto where I was born and live near, Jew-haters such as Jason Kunin and Hyssam Hulays are relentless in their attempts to dissolve the Jewish homeland:

340 Duster Test-Drive

Today, I took this bad boy for a spin:

I didn't mind the rainy weather, which allowed for some innocent tire-spinning ;-)

Computer Desktop Software Comedy

Wellspring Niagara video

CIBC Run for the Cure

Support Daniel Shakhmundes in the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure.

I am participating in the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure, on Sunday, October 1st and I am asking for your support for a cause that is very important to me.

Political Actions Irony

Actions Speak Louder Than Words:

Arising from email with a friend,

A tale of [Canadian] political irony.

Read it and weep:

Domi's wife names Stronach as mistress

Happy New Year!

By Dan Meth

Shana Tova!

Welcome to the Jewish year 5767.

Rewards of a Righteous Database

Siblings reunited 60 years after Holocaust

Updated Mon. Sep. 18 2006 11:26 PM ET

CTV.ca News Staff

Light-emitting shirts!

Philips Lumalive:

Light emiting textiles/cloth,

Adding a totally new dimension to fabric!

Punnadhammo Bhikkhu Response

Dear Punnadhammo Bhikkhu,

Regarding your posting/article/letter on the Toronto Star:

It is established fact that the cowardly terrorists use their own civilian people (even children!) as shields in many ways.

Links:

Voicemail Restored

Following up on my previous post

that was dedicated to Rogers Wireless' awful service,

my voice-mail works again!

I hope that they can avoid causing any more problems again today.

Rogers Wireless is Irresponsible

refuses to make amends for providing unreliable/dysfunctional service,

by providing pathetic excuses!

Sincerely,

Daniel Shakhmundes, B.Sc.
-------------------------------------------
Phone: 1-905-321-9898
Email: d@shak.ws
HTTP://Shak.WS

I am participating in the
Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation CIBC Run for the Cure,
on
Sunday, October 1st
and I am asking for your support for a cause that is very important to me.

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) was yesterday (Friday, March 24^th, 2006), and it looks like it hit the market at about CAD$32, dropping to around CAD$28 by the end of the day.

Following my January 28^th post,

TVN Presentation to CRTC (June 6^th, 2005):