SexSwap is part of Gamma Entertainment
www.gammacash.com/frameindex.php3

This is the almost weekly SexSwap News-Tips-Trix and it goes to all members of SexSwap and SexSwap2 and AsianSwap and GaySexSwap and SexSwap2000 Banner Exchanges. It contains information on SexSwap, Porn, Tips'n'Trix, and software reviews for the adult webmaster. I perform all literary stunts without the use of nets, safety cables, spell checkers, or grammar fixers, and this tends to leave the reader in a state of bewilderment...you will get used to it.

REMOVAL INSTRUCTIONS -> click www.sexswap.com/removal.html

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GAMMA LINKS
(quick links to all our resources)

CASH www.gammacash.com
TGP tgp.erotism.com/
TGP BUILDER maximize.gammacash.com/buildgallery/
CONTENT www.gammae.com/webmasters-content.html
FREE HOST www.erotism.com/
WEBMASTER AREA maximize.gammacash.com/
NEWS www.gammae.com/gamma-news.html
CHAT chatboard.gammae.com/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi
SEXSWAP www.sexswap.com
TRIX ARCHIVE trix.sexswap.com
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MERRY CHRISTMAS! another year has flown by. I heard there is not much snow over most of the US and canada yet but I imagine there is a good chance for a dumping in the next 6 days. The weatherman says 2001 is the second warmest season on record!
www.weather.com/newscenter/topstories/recreation/nparks/011218xnpksx2ndwarmestyear.html
Let me see if they are making snow on the mountain behind my house
www.mtbaldy.com/cam.htm
May 6th! That sounds like there is no snow. We have had very little rain here this fall which is nice. Alright...enough about snow. This week is an average sort of sexswap news week. There are 3 interesting articles in response to D Trees question on her logs and brute force password attacks. To summarize, it would seem that most ISPs or hosts are now writing their own custom Apache Mods and router mods to deal with these. There seems to be various ways to do it...they are all sort of complex and no one wanted to share their code on the issue since it sounds like it was a pile of work to write. The opinion of most of these webmasters was that the stuff available for sale on the web was not strong enough to deal with the modern attack. The old attack was on IP, hammering the server. The modern attack is where a hacker sneaks onto 10+ boxes of others, then initiates mutliple attacks from multiple IPs and multiple proxy servers which makes it so you have to ban IPs temporarily. Read more on this below and if you have more ideas or comments on this, please email me. There seems to be some search engine news this week with Yahoo and Google both in the news. Yahoo makes a bid offer on hotjobs...you can listen to me rant below, and google is beta testing a giant mail order section which is rather neat. And at the end, Melody "The Legal Lady" and I go toe to tow on "Ginger". Meoldy thinks I am a crusty nay sayer that is not giving this earth changing invention a fair chance. I say that although the invention is awesome from a technical perspective, I fear the investors have convinced themselves that it is more than it really is. A great debate on technology and how it effects us.

This week was great fun since I was finally, after a month of trying, able to get my last daily driver box up in speed. I got it from a PII 450 to an overclocked PIII 952 ! You can read about the fun below and I actually used ebay which is a rare occurance for me =) One last thing...I review 3 of the latest bulletin board packages..chatbear, vBulletin, and UBB threads.

THIS JUST IN (READ IF YOU USE CCBILL)
I just received an email from Dayne "the Baron Of Bandwitdh." Completeweb believes a hacker has found a security breech in CCbil and may have obtained the list of thousands of customer and their log ins. Here is the email...if you are a completeweb custom or ANY ccbill user, you should change your password right now

Dayne writes:
Earlier this morning we determined that CCBILL billing services
has had a *major* security breach. It appears that someone
has obtained the entire list of tens of thousands of CCBILL
customers which includes all websites login information for FTP
and SSH access.

What this means is that someone can login to your server with
YOUR own user id. We have seen several accessed across our network
so far, and the perpetrators have installed rogue software under
the compromised users name.

IF you are a subscriber to CCBILL services, please login to your
server and change your user password immediately!

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on with the show...let's start off with the BIG internet news...

ONLINE SPENDING JMPED 91% EARLY DEC
what did I tell you =)
industryclick.com/magnewsarticle.asp?newsarticleid=266631&magazineid=153&SiteID=2
that is a huge growth number....things are rapidly changing as people accept using online to make purchases.

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GOOGLE TARGETS CATALOG BUSINESS from Leper
catalogs.google.com/
msnbc.com/news/673852.asp?cp1=1

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YAHOO MAKES OFFER ON HOTJOBS FOR $436M
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34834-2001Dec12.html
Will Hotjobs make out like bandits or will hotjobs make out like bandits? The deal is 50% cash. What on earth could the revenues of HotJobs be a year? I can't believe they make stink. Why don't we take a look at how they are doing
moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/results/hilite.asp?Symbol=HOTJ
oooo hoo hoo hoo. Just wonderful. They are grossing $124M a year...and making <-$30M> ...what a great buy. I am beginning to wonder if yahoo will even be around in 3 years. I am considering more and more to short the stock. They were once the only game in town and so everyone used them. Now I know almost no one who uses them to search. Google is the king of search and the others are money burners. Also, note that Hot Jobs revenue has fallen every quarter this year. Uck.

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ONLINE SHOPPING LEVELS UP 50% OVER 2000 from RIchard
www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/15318.html

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HOW TO BURN THROUGH $600 MILLION from Richard
news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-8179749.html?tag=dd.ne.dht.nl-sty.0

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PLAYBOY TELLS HOW TO RUN A PORN SITE from Richard
This made flames shoot from my nose since Playboy (last I had read) had still been losing money online. My old sexswap links to the old playboy stories seem to now be dead from previous issues since they showed very weak financials..does anyone have any recent financial links on how playboy is currently doing? This story is analogous to the CEO of excite telling us how to run a profitable ecommerce site.
www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10738,2833281,00.html

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BAG OF SALT TABLE O' TRIX CONTENT

3 CHATBOARD FORUM PACKAGES by Guru Of Gif
GOOD MAINSTREAM SPONSORS from James
SEVERAL BANDWIDTH TESTERS from James
THOUGHTS ON GOTO from T.
BAD_TRANS VIRUS, OUTLOOK AND NAV from Snailey
UPTIME AND SERVER STATS from SignGuy
PRO-LEVEL BRUTE FORCE PROTECTION from Darren
PRO-LEVEL BRUTE FORCE PROTECTION from Interstel
PRO-LEVEL BRUTE FORCE PROTECTION from Rebel Hawk
HOLE FOUND IN LOGIN OF SUN & IBM UNIX from Dan
NORTON NAV VBOX ERROR SOLVED from Dixie
REVERSE BURYING - A SAD TREND IN LINK TRADES from Kal
NORTON FREE SECURITY AND VIRUS CHECKER ONLINE by Guru Of Gif
GREAT VIRUS RESOURCES by Guru Of Gif
SEARCH UTILITIES FOR VIRUSES by Guru Of Gif

MORE NEWS
/******************************************
UK HIGHSCHOOL CALENDAR 'TOO SEXY' from Allen
news1.iwon.com/article/id/43676|oddlyenough|12-15-2001::03:07|reuters.html

NET SUIT TARGETS OBSENITY LAW from Charles
www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,49044,00.html?tw=wn20011212

THE POWER OF DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING FINDS LARGEST PRIME from Richard
news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-8159590.html?tag=dd.ne.dht.nl-sty.0

WEBIS GOLDMINE FOR MARKET RESEARCH from Richard
www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/15257.html

FREE HOSTING COMPANY ON EBAY from Paul
cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1676527034
Paul writes
here is the URL for the site on the sale below
www.psend.com/

INDIA WEIGHS WAR WITH PAKISTAN
Yikes!
www.msnbc.com/news/671951.asp?pne=msn

SHAMELESS PLUGS - CAVEAT EMPTOR
/******************************************
REGISTER NEW BIZ DOMAINS!
Register your new biz domains now!
www.newdomains.intl-ltd.com
adultsonly@bigfoot.com

ADULTSEXCONTENT - HIGH-QUALITY MPG- & PICS-CONTENT!
SpecialDeal (-01.30.2002): Buy 2 CDs + 1 more FREE; Email after order!
www.adultsexcontent.com/default.html
webmaster@adultsexcontent.com

SOFTWARE HARDWARE
/*****************************************
AWESOME VIDEO SPECIAL EFFECT SOFTWARE from James
James writes
www.csb-digital.com/alamdv/
download version 1. its a cool ass special effect program like explosions, lightsabers, etc that you can edit into your .avi & .mov files. It looks cool as hell....I cant figure it out

www.csb-digital.com/highvid.php
get the free serial code to unlock it.

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DYNAMAT TO QUIET COMPUTERS
the same stuff used in cars and race cars to quiet muffler sounds
www.dynamat.com/computer.htm

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TRICK FLASH MEMORY READER
ever notice how there are like 4 types or more of flash memory now...Smart Media, Memory Stick, MultiMedia Card and more. When this cool product is one box that reads them all and is less than $100 !
www.addonics.com/product/Pocket_DD.htm

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VICIOUS NEW GAME COMPUTERS
hmm, they are in the mags but dead on the web
www.viciouspc.com

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HOW'S THIS FOR A WHACKY CHAIR
www.edra.com/pink/anemone/macro01_e.html
and it is not free at $2650

TRIX
/******************************************
3 CHATBOARD FORUM PACKAGES by Guru Of Gif
I thought I'd bring up chat boards again. There seem to be hundreds of them now. Many are very fast and efficient database style running PHP and MYSQL. Here are 4 of the ones I seem to see often.

CHATBEAR
www.chatbear.com/new/
cost $0
example site
www.chatbear.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?boardid=390
example category
www.chatbear.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=boardlisting&boardid=9&view=flatold
example thread
www.chatbear.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?action=viewthread&threadid=754,1008017342,8826&id=104511&boardid=9&view=flatold

vBULLETIN
www.phpportals.com/
cost $160
example site
www.phpportals.com/forums/index.php?menu=11
example category
www.phpportals.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=d356d1ed485adfcb6889666abf943ab2&forumid=12
example thread
www.phpportals.com/forums/showthread.php?s=d356d1ed485adfcb6889666abf943ab2&threadid=2620

UBB THREADS
cost $229
Both "Tom's Hardware" and "MadOnion" are using this newer product from the classic Ultimate Bulletin Board folks. It is interesting since the sites looks so different. Check out these examples
example site "Tom's"
www.community.tomshardware.com/community/wwwthreads.pl
example site "MadOnion" (PRO-LEVEL)
discuss.madonion.com/forum/wwwthreads.pl
example category
www.community.tomshardware.com/community/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=comp_cpu
discuss.madonion.com/forum/postlist.pl?Cat=&Board=mo3dmark2001
example thread (long so you will need to copy paste)
www.community.tomshardware.com/community/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=comp_cpu&Number=239104&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5
discuss.madonion.com/forum/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=mo3dmark2001&Number=210346&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=0&fpart=1

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GOOD MAINSTREAM SPONSORS from James
James writes
Not all non adult sponsors are a joke =) Heres a few that he might consider. I've been using all of these for about 2 years now. They always pay, and on time. & you can make some decent cash off these. & yes, a couple are referral links....hope ya dont mind =)

www.freethingz-affiliates.net/up.asp?i=1105
get paid $.25 for each free tee shirt request. The person has to refer 5 friends.
I use it and it does very well.

www.labelboy.com/partners.html
Free address labels....they pay every 2 weeks and you have to ask for a desired price. I get $.20 per registrant.

coldfusion.affiliateshop.com/SignupAffiliatePage.cfm?AID=011892
Free Catalogs from catalogs.com Everyone loves these! =) & they pay $.55 per signup

www.fineclicks.com/cgi-bin/fc/referral?justfs
Theres about 100 "pay per lead" offers here. Like free chocolate, candy, magazines, credit cards.
Payment ranges from 3 cents a lead to $20 a lead. Plus they have a page with all the offers you can just link to.

www.websponsors.com/cgi-bin/referral.cgi?userid=204
They have about 175 "pay per lead" and "pay per sale" things with a customized free2try page with all of the offers. ie: www.free2try.com

www.pregnancyweekly.com/cgi-bin/at.cgi?a=142800
pregnancy weekly - they pay $1.00 for each person who registers & gets their pregnancy weekly newsletter. The affiliate link is on the bottom of the page.

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SEVERAL BANDWIDTH TESTERS from James
James writes
its a lot of internet speed tests on 1 site.
home.cfl.rr.com/eaa/Bandwidth.htm

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THOUGHTS ON GOTO from T.
T. writes
Just thought I would send you my thoughts, you might find them interesting.
Every time I read something about goto (overture- what the hell kind of name
is that?), I just shake my head at how these guys have been able to pull the
wool over everybodies eyes. I was one of the original advertisers on goto
when they first came out. I used to run some adult sex toy sites, so we tried
them out. We were actually getting some good results at about 5-10 cents per
bidded key word.

We installed some software on the site to track not just click thrus but buy
thrus from goto. At first we would spend $500 and month and made like $2000
in profit. That kicked ass. As the bids kept creeping upward for key words we
kept advertising and bumping up our bids to stay on top. We did that for
about another 6 months eventually spending $5000 a month. Now bids were about
35 cents for top key words like "Sex Toys" One day we said, lets run the
software again and see what we are getting. We almost crapped our pants. For
our $5000 a month we were getting $3500 in sales. Our mark up was 100% so
that meant we were grossing $1750 in profit, but it was costing us $5000 a
month in advertising. We were netting a $3250 loss each month!

What caused this problem was 2 things: This was right around when goto
started pushing for affiliates pretty heavily. They got a bunch of sites that
set up search engines with hard coded search key words. People were in
looking for naked pictures and clicking on the "sex toy" link thinking they
would get sites with pictures of girls with vibrators, but all they got was
sites selling vibes, this drove the traffic way up but these surfers would
click into your site, and click back out. We argued and argued with goto
about how they were letting their highly targetted traffic get diluted but
they didn't care. We sent them before and after traffic logs and the sites
doing it.

The second thing was just click thru economics, at 35 cents a click it wasn't
profitable anymore. Right after we said enough is enough, the top bid for
"sex toys" climbed to $1.80 a click thru! I used to check the bids once in a
while and just sit there wondering how in the hell these companies could burn
through that much money? Unless they had a 1000% mark-up there was no way
they were making money. We concluded two things: either they just didn't
track their sales and had no idea they weren't making money or they were just
trying to knock the other sites out by taking traffic and sales and therefore
over the long run cause the little guys to go away.

I still swear when I look at bids for any competitive term that the only
company making money is goto and not the sites bidding. I'm still just amazed
that there are so many business owners who have no idea their money is just
being flushed down the drain. If they installed some buy through software
they would shit their pants! Delay's site and others like it if they get
enough widespread use will have a detrimental effect on goto and the goto
clones if people start paying attention.

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BAD_TRANS VIRUS, OUTLOOK AND NAV from Snailey
Snailey writes:
1) Bad trans virus
I use Outlook Express and it stops that thing. When I open mail Outlook prompts what to do with attachment , then I click Cancel and simply delete the mail. Ive downloaded Norton trial and checked whole machine was clean thought I received 10-15 bad transs a day in a peak. As to Norton - it catches Bad trans before Outlook does but when I check to delete infected file nothing happens , I must still delete it manually. Norton is not one year trial , its 30 days trial , you have virus updates free for one year so you must pay again to be up-dated.

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UPTIME AND SERVER STATS from SignGuy
SignGuy sent me this awesome link to a site that tracks uptime on a server AND what software flavor that server is running. You can even check out your own site. Here is WWW.LIPS.COM on the Baron's rock steady BSDi
uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?mode_u=on&mode_w=on&site=www.lips.com

Check out your own site or others by entering it in the search box
uptime.netcraft.com/

What to see the PRO-MASTERS of UPTIME...its all hardcore UNIX baby...wow...almost 4 years without a reboot!!!!
uptime.netcraft.com/up/today/top.avg.html

The longest Linux box comes in at #42 and is the ICQ mail server which must take a pounding
uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?site=mail.icqmail.com

Gary wrote me with some of their stats
Gary writes:
We have 2 in the 710 days range, most others have been upgraded in one way or another so are much less, but still many hundred days. Interesting site though!
www.completewbe.net

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PRO-LEVEL BRUTE FORCE PROTECTION from Darren
Darren writes
Hi Andy, I noticed D.Trees write about brute force
attacks on her members area. We have been hosting
adult sites for years, and have been watching this
type of activity since day one. We have tried
everything from the cheap .cgi programs, a well known
remotely hosted one, and an Apache module that costs a
few thousand dollars, but is the best by far. They can
ALL be beat due to the fact there are 1000's of open
proxy servers publicly available, and brute force
software that allows you to go through a list of them.

Here is how our software works. We have the absolute
best software written to stop this type of activity,
and yes, as I said it can be beat.

What happens is someone loads a list of proxies. Then
they rotate through the proxy list using a different
IP for each hack attempt. Our software logs this, and
if one IP (for example) tries 10 login attempts and
fails it gets blocked. Of course if someone has 1000
proxy IP's they will get 10 000 attempts to break in
before our software blocks their entire list.

Here is the downer to this. When someone tries to
login with a false username/password they get an
Apache 401 error, meaning Authentication required.
Now, after one IP gets (for example) 10 of these
errors, it gets blocked by our software. Now, they are
getting a 403 apache error message meaning Access
forbidden. So basically our software is saying " You
tried to log in 10 times from the same IP, none of
them were right, you are blocked from our server now"

What sucks is most of the brute force member area
hacking software written will continue to hack the
members area even though the ip is blocked. This is
where we find the problems...the IP is blocked but the
software continues to run generating 403 errors
instead of 401's. Of course there is less overhead on
the server with a 403 error, but it does create large
log files.

We have had .cgi scripts written that hide the members
area URL to avoid brute force programs being run, but
then some of them will brute force a .cgi script
trying to log in which really fux things up as we all
know how much overhead perl uses. :))

As a webhost, I don't consider this a DOS attack. Even
with several 100 login attempts a minute, our servers
do not slow down. It is annoying to watch in real
time, though, especially when their IP is blocked and
the software they use still hurls away.

The best way to handle them? Get a webhost with
industrial strength software to stop this type of
attack. Don't use crappy perl scripts, or remote
member area protection companies. There is no
substitute for a well written Apache Module written in
C++! :) Ours uses no overhead on our server...at all!
We could have several 100 people attacking a site, and
not even notice it at all. Of course, they are not
getting in, just getting 403 error messages.

The only other way I can think is having a login
script written in perl or php that a brute force
program will not run against. This hides your members
area, and script kiddies are lazy and will move on to
the next site if they can't figure out how to brute
force yours easily.

If you have any questions, e-mail me back. If anyone
is having problems and needs a good host, tell him to
write me. We do have real e-mail and domains, I just
like to be discreet.

Regards,
Darren
darren_bsd@yahoo.com

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PRO-LEVEL BRUTE FORCE PROTECTION from Interstel
Interstel writes
Its not really a denial of service attack since those are designed to take
you off the air. These are designed to breach a password. The only method
that works is an interactive Firewall system that can be supplied by an
Apache mod that continuously checks for multiple failed 401's from the same
IP in a short span of time. And the firewalling should be a dump to dev
null not a denial. That way you lock their machines up trying to access a
black hole.

Its a fairly complex solution. Depending on how its implemented it can be
processor intensive and usually works best if you have an independent
firewall box routing all traffic anyway although individual Firewalling
running on the box itself is workable too.

We charge several thousand dollars for the solution. Its one of our best money makers.

Interstel
interstel@tampabayadult.net

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PRO-LEVEL BRUTE FORCE PROTECTION from Rebel Hawk
Rebel Hawk writes
In reply of DOS/brute force attacks i've been fighting them for a long
time and developed an script run by cron each minute, which checks the
log file for attacks and smoke out the offending IP (by blocking it at
router level) for 15 minutes, then release it.

The main thing here is to slow down the DOS enough to neutralize its
clogging effect, the script is not designed to completely stop the
password discovering, although it will do in the 98% of the times, but
eventually they will figure out some keys, so to be completely shielded
you must use a separate routine to block the compromised U/P for
sometime to avoid the bandwidth theft.

I've found out that they use public proxies, so you can't ban the IP
forever, or you risk loosing many customers, as those IPs are proxies
and used by *Many* people, the best way after much experimenting is to
ban the IP for 15 minutes and the release it again, that will prevent
the attacker to find out any passes, also, the down curve is arithmetic,
this is, as more IPs you block, you increase the number of tries for
each IP, making it easy for you to smoke the other IPs out.

Also it is needed that your host checks out for spoofed IPs, otherwise
the script will do nothing but block innocent IPs

I've been having this attacks since months ago, sometimes the assholes
tries 1 U/P per IP making it very, very difficult to smoke them out, but
with this script i can catch them in about 10 mins.

I can't disclose the code here for security reasons, but explaining the
inner workings will help you deal with this assholes

Another idea will be to collect enough IPs from the attacks and as soon
as an attack is detected, block them all for some mins, that will
completely frustrate the assholes, but that should need a large
'frequent delinquent' IP database, i actually have such data, and i plan
to build such database in the near future, even i've though that i could
share that database with other webmasters so we can build some sort of
black list. I don't know, i'm open to ideas, you can drop me a line to
Peter AKA Rebel Hawk
service@scylla.charybdis.net

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HOLE FOUND IN LOGIN OF SUN & IBM UNIX from Dan
www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/12/13/unix.hole.idg/index.html

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NORTON NAV VBOX ERROR SOLVED from Dixie
Dixie had the exact same problem as I did with NAV and she called tech and solved the riddle of fixing it.
Dixie writes:
referencing the Norton problem from your letter (below) I used to
have that problem too. I am still using Norton, I fixed the problem by
calling their tech support and having them mail me a CD to re-install from.
I'm not sure if you had done this, but when I originally installed the
antivirus program, I had done it from a download from their website. They
say that sometimes there are glitches with the downloadable version. When
you re-install it from the CD, it's a much cleaner installation and I have
not had a Vbox error since I did this (a year ago).

If you had done your installation from the CD originally instead of a
download, then never mind :-) but I thought just in case you had done it
from the download, I'd pass on this info.

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REVERSE BURYING - A SAD TREND IN LINK TRADES from Kal
Kal writes
I have been noticing a trend for some time with alot of sites.
Most webmaster are not going to swap links with a site that burys their
link back in a place that has little chance of returning some traffic. An
extreme example I have run across was a site that after you had gone
through several levels of the site, you finaly find a small link to a
friends page, and on that friends page there was another small link called
BANNER LINKS, the link was barely noticable amongst another 100 text links,
and when you went to it, no banners, just small size 1 links. My link was
totally buried, I never got any traffic back.

My philosophy is that once a surfer is in my site, he should have access to
my links page no matter what page he is on, main, samples, links, join
pages. To be fair to your swap partners, the surfer should have easy access
to a links page with the sites you have swapped links with. I swap all the
time with other sites that don't exactly follow my philosopy, but only when
someone is out and out trying to steal traffic do I refuse a swap.

But as mentioned, I have been seeing a trend lately that is starting to urk
me, I call it REVERSE BURYING. Simply, it is where a surfer clicks a link
to go to a site, and they have to wade through a bunch of pages and/or
popups to ACTUALLY GET TO THE SITE! The extreme of this is, you never
really know where the site begins or ends. You click a link and are taken
to a full page ad for a program, with maybe a small link saying, "no
thanks, I want to go to....", you click this link and get to a banner farm
with another small link to the actual site, click it and maybe actualy get
to the site, but get several popup. Finally you get to the site where the
surfer might actually get to click on your link. What is happening is they
are burying the actual site behind a bunch of programs, the surfers don't
have easy access to the sites links paterners who are sending these
surfers. I guess there is nothing wrong with this technique, but I don't
think it's fair to link partners.

Another kind of REVERSE BURYING I have seen is where the site just makes it
difficult for the surfer to do what he is there for. One very big sex
search engine that has been around for years, (no I won't mention the name)
I used to have all of my sites listed with them, used all their services
including a banner swap; well you click the link to go to the search engine
anymore and what you get is a very small console with no controls that
makes the search engine experience impossible. At the same time a full page
pops up with their programs and all the features to sign up for. I think
this is out and out thievery. You send them traffic, and get nothing back.

The big guys that have started doing this are cutting their own throats,
people will stop linking and sending them traffic and they will stop being
big guys. Straight traffic sharing done fairly is the only way to go.

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NORTON FREE SECURITY AND VIRUS CHECKER ONLINE
securityresponse.symantec.com/
security2.norton.com/ssc/home.asp?j
security2.norton.com/ssc/home.asp?j=1&langid=us&venid=sym&plfid=22&pkj=LKNJORVWHFHMFNZMBBX

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GREAT VIRUS RESOURCES
here are a few resources that I find very useful in dealing with the daily threat of viruses and also hoax viruses. My mom up in canada emailed me today in a panic...of course one of her pals forwarded one of those emails that had been forwarded 1000 times with an evil virus warning "you must delete this file" and "it is bad bad bad and will cause hell and damnation". I wrote my mother to relax and let me do a quick search. The instructions in the forwarded email were for a BarkPark virus...I could get nothing on the engines with that and then I searched for the file they say was evil sulfnbk.exe ...much to my enjoyment, it was yet another classic virus hoax.
securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/sulfnbk.exe.warning.html
www.antivirus.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoax5.asp?HName=SULFNBK+Hoax

SEARCH UTILITIES FOR VIRUSES
securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/vinfodb.html
vil.mcafee.com/default.asp?
housecall.antivirus.com/

INTERESTING SITES
/******************************************
LANDOVER BAPTIST from Roxanne
Roxanne writes
Andy! You're always looking and talking about strange things you find on the net. Look at this! I thought it was real at first! :)
www.landoverbaptist.org/

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WEB HOSTING ON EBAY from Paul
Paul writes
Go to ebay.com type in “ hosting “
www.ebay.com
search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?MfcISAPICommand=GetResult&ht=1&SortProperty=MetaEndSort&query=hosting

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PICK YOUR PRESENT MAINSTREAM SITE from Darren
Darren writes
www.pickyourpresent.com
We have developed (and just launched last month) a new type of gift
certificate that is perfect for the work-o-holic techies who on December 23
realize that they need to actually buy some gifts.
Bought like any emailable gift certificate, the recipient is invited to
"pick any one item" from a catalog of thousands (up to fifty thousand)
choices, all without knowing how much you spent.
Your recipient never has to add their own money, or even shown items for
more (or less) then the ePresent you sent them. With shipping included in
the price of an ePresent, they just pick their present.

GURU OF GIF
/******************************************
UPGRADING THE LAST BEAST BOX
My daily driver still had not been successfully upgraded after several failed attempts. I did some additional research in the Asus P2B-LS slot 1 motherboard. I found the best info in the ASUS newsgroup
alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus
groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&group=alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus
groups.google.com/groups?q=P2B-LS&start=10&hl=en&group=alt.comp.periphs.mainboard.asus&rnum=16&selm=39C9CEF4.106B1DA3%40its.dtu.dk

I was able to determine that many people were very successful using a slot 1 adapter, often referred to as a slocket, and a PIII FCPGA coppermine 850 (100fsb), which they all overclocked to 950. This would get me very very close to my goal of 1ghz or faster. There were a few snags in the upgrade path.

1. CPU VOLTAGE
in order to do some tricky overclocking on older boards, you have to alter the CPU core voltage

2. SLOCKETS NOW HARD TO FIND
slockets were hot 1-2 years ago. Hardcore overclockers have long left them since motherboards are now using flat chips. These cards were very hard to find.

3. NEED RARE GEN 3 SLOCKET
slockets had three generations. Generation one was a simple card like the one at Mwave and these now go for $5. Generation two had some jumpers and you could alter the FSB. New CPUs do the multiplier themselves so you only need FSB. Generation three have evern more features and the ability to control CPU core voltage.

I originally tried a first generation slocket. This just left my screen black and I could not post to bios. I then tried this very fancy PowerLeap 1.2ghz Tulaten Clery PLiP3.
www.powerleap.com/Products/iP3.htm

Again I could not post and could not figure out how to change voltage. I sent the product back for a refund and believe it does not work with my motherboard but it does work with others. They even reference Dell's tech support website as a possible upgrade path for some Dell's. I decided I would give it one last try with a generation 3, Abit SlotKET III
www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/00q2/000511/pentiumiii-03.html

these were impossible to find online. I eventually decided to belly up to the bar and try "ebay", a site I rarely shop at. I found two of them. One new, one used. 1 day left at auction and the new one was $21. I put in a bid. I also said to myself "fuck, I've been chasing this damn thing all over Tarnation, I better win this auction or have a conniption fit". I put the max bid at $50 rocks. Here is the auction...that badboy went for $43 =)
cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1305169866&ed=1007747158

I installed the new card and first time I flick on the machine...black...no post. Dag gummit! I fiddled with some jumpers and I had BIOS post! 566 PIII. Hmmm 566? Well that is not too bad. More fiddling and "I AM THE KING" said I to my wife who responded with her "that's nice dear". The screen said Pentium III 950mhz! WoooHoooo PeeeePoooo!. I then ran 3Dmark2001 and shattered the 1000 barrier. Since I was able to upgrade the box finally, I decided to go wild and order the ATI Raedon 8500 video card which is kicking ass in tests. Karl the UPS man dropped it off today. A new world record for me and I shatter the 5000 barrier!!!! Here are the test results from the 4 upgrade hops
416 - PII 400 - TNT2 Ultra
gamershq.madonion.com/products/orb/?publish_compare.shtml?&project_type=6&dprid=2195127
762 - Celeron 366 - GeForce2MX
gamershq.madonion.com/products/orb/?publish_compare.shtml?&project_type=6&dprid=2104011
1220 - PIII 950 - GeForce2MX
gamershq.madonion.com/products/orb/?publish_compare.shtml?&project_type=6&dprid=2195136
PIII 950 - Raedon 8500
gamershq.madonion.com/products/orb/?publish_compare.shtml?&project_type=6&dprid=2207858

Do you know what is still wierd...if you look at the 950 results...it says that my FSB is 60 MHz ? I wonder if that is just an error because of the overclock or if it is actually running at 60 which means I better toggle some switches. If it si running at 60, the multipler would be 16 and this does not make any sense so I think it is just a whacky glitch.

Do I notice a difference in the speed? Not really =) It boots a little faster. In games, the ATI card blew up every 3 seconds in Half-life. One of the guys on my game server informed me there is a special HL ATI patch so I got it and hope to test and feel the speed :) I can bump from 640x480 up a notch or two now.

RAEDON 8500 - My first impressions give this a 7/10. My computer screen I normally set to 75mhz refresh rate. On the GeForce cards this looks good,but on the ATI it looks like a strobe light. I will have to move the refresh higher, which I fear since I have blown this monitor up three times for mysterious reasons. I need to play with the card more this week and see if it grows on me.

Update: I found that the normal refresh rate setting does not work...I found one inside the ATI control panel and it had the power to make the change and make my screen like it used to be. My two snags have been solved and I am up and running just fine on the new card.

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MELODY "THE LEGAL LADY" AND I DEBATE GINGER
Melody "the legal lady" who has been the favorite legal advisor for sexswap since as long as I can remember, has decided to take my views on Ginger with a "bag of salt". First let me giev Melody a big plug..copyrights, trademarks, offshore banking, vegas corps, you name it, she can help you
www.legallady.com

Meoldy and I go toe to toe on this one =)
Melody writes:
Andy, why the heck is it I always find myself disagreeing with you these days?
I often agree with your business opinions.
I'm partially disabled with a form of arthritis, so I speak from a place of
knowing, as we injuns like to say. The reasons I'm excited by Segway and
think it's the best thing since sliced cheese (though definitely NOT more
important than the internet...I think we need to recognize the Bozos...um,
I mean Bezos...who said that) include:

1. It stands up. It allows a walking pace without walking. You will be
able to ride it places that the disabled would otherwise require a
wheelchair (there are lots of us with mobility issues who are not
wheelchair material). If you've ever ridden in one of those
three-wheeler/four-wheeler carts, you'd know that it places the rider on
the level of a child. It also resembles an "old lady cart" - at 42, I'm
not yet ready to concede my youth to grannyhood). Granted, Segway roughly
resembles a backward push-mower, but it's got it all over the Rascal-type
carts, which though they may spackle them with all sorts of sporty names,
they still amount to a granny cart.

2. It will not fall over. Anyone with kids will know how popular the
scooters have become, even among older folk. Anyone with kids will also
know that said kids tend to fall down, go boom. The same can be said for
those "sporty" granny carts that get stuck on high curbs, embankments,
railroad crossings, whathaveyou. I once had to tow my mother-in-law over
one of those rr tracks - she couldn't do it by herself. If riding the
Segway, she'd be able to drag it over it without further delay.

3. It helps people get where they are going faster and more
efficiently. The whole idea of economy is doing more with less. If time
is money, then the idea of enabling people who would otherwise be walking,
to get from point A to point B without public conveyance (which is
time-wasting and costly), is golden. One can well imagine that Bezos'
Amazons will work faster and better on their new Segways. Essentially,
Segway adds onto the commuter rail system and all other forms of public
conveyance, making them faster, cheaper and more dependable. Take the
Segway to the train, put Segway into carrying bag, hop on train.

4. The expense will go down: and the result will be an inexpensive,
reliable alternative to getting into a car and driving on local
errands. It will make, as I've said, commuting to the Metrolink, here in
LA for instance (and by LA I mean the entire county), a real
possibility. No need to wait for a bus to get to your connection. In
fact, the impact to the working class and the working poor alone will be
amazing. 3K is half the cost of even the most economical car. Can you
imagine the added time at home with their families? My friend Maeve
commutes four hours a day via bus from her home in an LA suburb to her job
in downtown LA. She takes a bus and a bus and a bus to the Metrolink, then
back home again. The Segway (which she is eagerly awaiting) would be an
affordable add-on to all that. It would eliminate the bus nonsense, cut
her commute insanity, and save money to boot, when you consider the cost of
transfers in Los Angeles.

5. It takes up less space than cars. Right now, acres of land must be
used to park the cars around the local Metrolink. The same number of
Segways could be readily (and more securely) locked away in a fraction of
the room. Also, commuting with Segways would be like having moving
sidewalks. Ever been to LAX or another airport with moving
walkways? Where are the people primarily standing? The Segway is a
personal moving sidewalk.

6. The ecological impact should be obvious.

In short, this isn't the savior of society anymore than the original
2-floppy-drive XT was the agent of change for international
commerce. It's a prototype, a beginning, a place to start, which Kamen
(to his credit) always said it was, but people eager to jeer and sneer,
ignored his statements.

Guru-Of-Gif fires back:

1. IT STANDS UP
I had not thought of your point of being at eye level, but my counter point is...such "stand up" electric carts ALREADY exist and are used in industry. Bruce already wrote that they use these where he works and they work great
www.mapv.com/images/u-1267.jpg

2. IT WILL NOT FALL OVER
here is the whole focal point of the issuse...I believe everyone is taken by the point that we have two wheels that do not fall over...so what...make it out of four wheel AND you can then add some suspension "like shocks etc" and have a better ride, that is simpler. There is no need for the computing power and gyroscopes to balance on two wheels...it is magical, but unecessary. One point you made that you win on is "it's lightness" to get unstuck on curbs etc...BUT I talked with Richard the engineer and Bruce who both agree with me, and they could design a four wheel model that would cross railroad tracks and most likely go up curbs...so, I give that point back to you. One of the biggest problems with "getting stuck" is too small of tire diamter on those rascals etc

3. IT HELPS PEOPLE GET WHERE THE ARE GOING FASTER
I just don't think it does because of the added problems. I do not see this working in a crowded new york street. Perhaps it would work in an airport situation as you described but this leads to a host of other problems...what do you do with your ginger now...it has to be taken on the plane...where do they store it AND your luggage AND have you been to the airport and SEEN the size of bags that people have these days. They must way 4 tons. I see no way a little old man or lady is going to ginger around and carry a monster bag at the same time. The one big problem that I still see is range...15 miles or less...6 hours to charge...this means the owner must charge the unit daily...owners are lazy, but I imagine they could make a charging stand

4. EXPENSE WILL GO DOWN
Yes but, you could make a 4 wheel version today for 1/8 the price AND even at $500 each, I do not see them ever becoming more than a toy for adults or kids

5. LESS SPACE THAN CARS
Again, I love the example of the metrolink since that makes great sense, but once again we run into theory and not reality. There are no places to store these at any metrolink. Nor have I heard of any metrolink offices making room for them. Remember, the full days charge is 15 miles. This means you HAVE to be less than 7 miles from the metrolink...I would be $100 that 90% of LA people are not 7 miles from a commute gather point...I know I am not AND...here is the biggest point and again it is math...IF you are 7 miles from the metro spot...that is 1 hour away by Ginger. That adds a lot of time to anyones's commute and no one will put up with that. Even if you are 3.5 miles...that is over a half hour of ginger travelling just to get to your metro area. Again, I see no one in LA patient enough to do this AND carry all their crap and get sunburnt on suny days and freeze on cold days.

6. ECOLOGICAL IMPACT
This can only be a good thing but the problem is that it is wishful thinking and that never wins over consumers. For someone to TAKE OUT the car, Tony Soprano style, you would need to produce an electric vehicle that is cheaper than the car, goes 800 miles to the charge, and can do 100mph, all for less more than the equivalent of 80 cents a gallon. Otherwise it will never be accepted. The infrastructure of petrol base fuels is fierce and will take a monstrous idea to surpass.

I like everything Dean Kamen has to say and he has a noble quest, but I think everyone has been hypnotized by the fact that one magically balances on two wheels. I saw Leno, Sting and Russel Crow ride these around the stage on Leno last night. They looked great fun but the lads looked shakey at best. I do not see people with disabilities flying around on these since these guys had their hands full. Kamen has already raised $180,000,000 so you and he may certainly prove me wrong in the end...time will tell =)

thoughts? arguments? think Ginger is the Bee's Knees? bring it on -> andy@lips.com =)

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A LITTLE MORE FUEL FOR THE GINGER DEBATE from Bruce
Bruce writes:
It becoming painfully clear that this whole "scooter concept that will change the world" has been done before and all attempts have failed miserably :)
www.nationalpost.com/search/story..html?f=/stories/20011214/863404.html&qs=scooter

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FIGHT TONIGHT
here is a fun fight for you to watch tonight with the popcorn and Jim Beam
David Tua is back in action...I think it will be a short fight and he will knock the guys block off
www.nzherald.co.nz/latestnewsstory.cfm?storyID=333740&thesection=sport&thesubsection=latest

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those are my stories...Happy Holidays!

chow mein wayne

Andy
andy@lips.com