Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Use Amazon WebPay to Meet Rewards Card Minimum Spending Requirements [Money]
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via Lifehacker by David Galloway on 8/27/11
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Monday, August 22, 2011
Running Shoe Finder Offers Sneaker Recommendations Customized to Your Body a...
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via Lifehacker by Melanie Pinola on 8/22/11
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Friday, August 19, 2011
Escaping the firewall with an SSH tunnel, SOCKS proxy, and PuTTY
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via Extremetech by Sebastian Anthony on 8/19/11
Once upon a time the thought of a firewalled, cordoned, and censored web was enough to send chills up the spine of any internet user. As the years have passed, however, our sentiment has softened. A completely free, decentralized, and unaccountable web might sound ideal, but in actuality it's a very tall order for any large, centralized institution to successfully manage. As a result, the web itself — the backbone — is still free, but schools, offices, ISPs, and even a few countries have started to filter your connection to it.
Now, most surfers aren't even aware that their web access is being filtered, but for tuned-in power users and libertarians the effects of filtering, traffic shaping, and censorship are an assault against their most vital human rights. Fortunately, with a free program called PuTTY, a process called SSH tunneling, and SOCKS proxying, almost anyone can escape their local firewall and enjoy the web in its free and original form. As a rather nice added bonus, SSH tunneling also encrypts all of the data that passes through your local network and ISP, ensuring that no one can snoop on your communications.
Skip ahead to the actual walkthrough
PuTTY and SSH
PuTTY is an SSH client. You can use it to access a remote CLI, or you can use it to set up a tunnel — and that's what we're going to do now.
Tunneling
When you type a URL or click a link, a request travels from your computer, through the local router and modem, over your ISP's network, across the internet, and into the remote web server. Your request can be filtered at any stage, but generally it's at the local router (the school/corporate firewall) or at the ISP (traffic shaping, federal censorship).
Tunneling bypasses the local router, modem, and your ISP's network, and connects you directly to the internet. If you're in China, for example, SSH tunneling all of your traffic through a computer in America will bypass any national-level filtering and censorship. The actual act of forcing your web traffic through another computer (and another port) is called SOCKS proxying, incidentally — and you can SOCKS proxy without SSH, but it's less secure and more likely to be filtered by your local ISP.
Setting up a tunnel
This guide will focus on using PuTTY, which is only available for Windows. There is a section at the end for Mac and Linux users.
First, download PuTTY (putty.exe). It's a free, standalone program that doesn't require installation — so just make a shortcut on your desktop or taskbar.
Next, you need to find a remote Linux server to use as the end point of your SSH tunnel. You can use a free one (which might involve you jumping through a few hoops to get an account activated), or you can rent a cheap virtual private server (VPS) for around $5/month (which you could also use as a development server or BitTorrent seed box). Either way, you need an SSH account on a remote server, and the IP address and port that you need to connect to.
Now open PuTTY and fill in the Host Name and Port. Make sure SSH is selected from the Connection Type. It should look something like this:
In the left-hand panel, navigate through Connection > SSH > Tunnels (see below). Enter 8080 in the Source Port box and select the Dynamic radio button. Click Add and "D8080″ will appear in the Forwarded Ports list.
Now head back to Session at the top of the left-hand panel, type a name in the Saved Sessions box ("tunnel"), and click Save. Click Open at the bottom of the PuTTY and a new window will pop up asking for your login name; type it in and press Enter. Type your password in and press Enter.
Voila! You now have an open SSH tunnel.
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Monday, August 15, 2011
Gadgetwise Blog: Q&A: Planning Ahead for a Lost Password
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via NYT > Technology by By J.D. BIERSDORFER on 8/15/11
In the old days, you could create a password-reset disk to use in case you forgot your Windows administrator password. But can do you do this on a Windows 7 computer with no floppy drive?
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Sunday, August 14, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Friday, August 5, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
11 Legal Ways To Pay No Taxes. No Bunker Required.
11 Legal Ways To Pay No Taxes. No Bunker Required.
It's tax time, so you're probably wondering, man, do I really have to give the government so much of my money? If you're rich, the answer is no! Step 1: Be a millionaire. Step 2: Hire a flashy accountant. Step 3: Have them use one of these 11 completely legal ways the wealthy use to avoid paying taxes. One of them, which Bloomberg Businessweek calls "The Friendly Partner," allows for a property to be sold without any capital-gains tax at all.
How it works is that the two parties form a partnership. The guy with the property contributes it to the partnership and the buyer contributes his cash to the partnership. The cash and the property are now assets of the partnership. Then the partnership takes out a loan for just below the value of the property, using the property as collateral. Then the partnership distributes the cash loan to the original seller. Boom, the real estate is sold with zero capital-gains tax. Pretty savvy!
Remember, tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance, on the other hand, is the stuff of kings and heroes.
How To Pay No Taxes [Bloomberg Businessweek]
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Birth Control To Be Covered By Health Insurance Without Copay
Birth Control To Be Covered By Health Insurance Without Copay
Late last month, an Institute of Medicine panel issued recommendations to the White House that birth control, along with a variety of women's health services, should be covered under the Affordable Care Act. Earlier today, the Dept. of Health and Human Services made its final decision on the matter public.
Among those items that will be covered by most insurance plans without patient copay:
* FDA-approved contraception methods and contraceptive counseling;
* well-woman visits;
* screening for gestational diabetes;
* human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing for women 30 years and older;
* sexually-transmitted infection counseling;
* HIV screening and counseling;
* breastfeeding support, supplies, and counseling;
* domestic violence screening and counseling.
New health plans will need to include these services without cost sharing for insurance policies with plan years beginning on or after August 1, 2012.
One of the biggest concerns about making these services available without copay is that insurance companies will still need to make up the costs elsewhere. This likely means even higher monthly rates for policyholders.
Defenders of the plan argue that, by making preventative care more affordable and easier to get, insurers and healthcare providers will see a decline in the number of patients seeking costly care later.
Affordable Care Act Ensures Women Receive Preventive Services at No Additional Cost [HHS.gov]
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