Everything Great is *Nixbased

I was planning to get this out before Christmas but we had some problems at the Datcenter where this server is located so it will have to serve as a general gift giving guide to those whom have reptile hobbyists in their lives.

With this time of year came much deliberation on what to buy friends and loved ones, what would really show them you care. In the spirit of giving I thought I would write a list of gift options for that reptile hobbyist in your life, Maybe you can use it next year or for a different occasion. Each of these options show that you really do care about them and their pets, that you have taken your time to do the needed research to discern truth from fiction and the good from the bad. These items would make great gifts for reptile lovers not only at Christmas but on any occasion.

1) Megaray MVB

The Megaray line of products from ReptileUV is arguably the top preforming and most complete line of bulbs designed for use with reptiles on the market today. The most common product sold by ReptileUV are their Mercury Vapor Bulbs (MVB). MVB’s combine UVA, UVB and heat into a single bulb meaning in most cases that a hobbyist can avoid using multiple lights and fixtures to satisfy the lighting needs of diurnal species kept in captivity. The Megaray MVB has been shown to produce an amount of UVB more comparable to the sun then that of its florescent tube counterparts as reported here: http://www.uvguide.co.uk/mercvapournarrowfloods.htm.

When choosing an MVB from ReptileUV you have the option of the self ballasted (SB) or externally Ballasted (EB) line. The SB line are those which produce both heat and UVB where as the EB line only produces UVB. The benefit however, of having the EB is that the life of the bulb is much longer as is the guarantee (SB’s are guaranteed for 6 months where as EBs are guaranteed for a year). The downside is that you still need an external heat source. If choosing the SB line I recommend the 100w option, if this ends up not being warm enough a regular incandescent can be used to raise the temperature where as with the 160w or higher versions it is much harder to control temperatures as MVBs can not be put on thermostats.

Before buying the SB line of MVBs or any other MVB be sure that the enclosure it will be used on has ample distance for the light to be placed. With the 100w SB this would mean no closer then 12″ from the highest point of the reptile when basking.

2) Feeders

Just like any animal reptiles need to eat and depending on what reptile and how many their are to feed it can be quite the blow to the reptile hobbyists pocket. Most lizards are omnivorous or insectivorous but their are some exceptions such as the green iguana. Captive snakes however are mainly consumers of rodents no bigger then 1-1.5 times their girth. It is important to pay attention to what the keeper is feeding each animal before buying feeders as a gift. Pay attention to not only the species of feeder but the size as well.

Depending on your location their are many great places to buy feeders, some of which I have taken the time to list below:

Canada

• www.ca.herpfeeders.com
• www.canadianfeeders.com
• www.canadiansilkworms.com/
• www.silkworms.ca

US

• www.sunshinemealworms.com
• www.coastalsilkworms.com
• www.reptilefood.com
• www.armstrongcricket.com
• www.themousefactory.com
• www.rodentpro.com
• www.us.herpfeeders.com (soon)

UK

• www.rickslivefood.co.uk
• www.livefoods.co.uk
• www.thelivefoodwarehouse.co.uk
• http://shop.pollywog.co.uk

3) Cricketfood

When i mention CricketFood I do not mean the junk from the local pet store filled with less then optimal ingredients. What I mean is the amazing cricket food and worm bedding from www.CricketFood.com. Though at 1st glance it seems that this maybe a high price to pay just to feed some insects you must remember, you are what you eat and the same goes for reptiles. The difference I have seen while using the CricketFood.com line of products has been amazing. Not only do my crickets have a much lower (almost non-existent) death rate but all of my reptile look much more healthy.

Not only is their cricket food and worm bedding great but they also make a salad topper which is VERY helpful in getting herbivores and omnivores to eat their greens (not to mention the salad topper is great for them). This is a unique product that would really show the reptile lover that you care.

4) Serpenco Prints

Lets say your not really into the ideas so far, that you want something thats a little more decorative. If such is the case you need to check out the photographic prints Rich Z has available over at Serpenco. These 8×10’s are stunning examples of great photography featuring some of the most beautiful animals in the business.

http://www.serpenco.com/shop/customer/home.php?cat=255

5) Temp Gun

Temp guns are, in my opinion a must have for any reptile keeper. They are relatively inexpensive and allow the keeper to get a real-time temperature reading within seconds just by pointing the device at the spot in which they wish to know the temperature of. Not only are these devices great for the reptile hobby, they also have hundreds of other uses like diagnosing automotive issues or thermal issues when dealing with PC maintenance and repair.

The most common temp gun is the PE-1 from Pro exotics which runs about $25.00 US. The PE-1 can be purchased from http://www.proexotics.com/store/product.php?productid=16211.

6) Reptiles Magazine Subscription

Reptiles Magazine is the most well respected reptile related magazine in publication today. This magazine has up to date articles and information from some of the industry’s leading experts at a great price of 14.99 per 12 issues from many different checkout sources. All you need to do is a Google search.

7) Steve Irwin He Changed Our World Memorial Tribute DVD or any of his DVDs

Steve Irwin was probably the best known reptile lover/keeper/breeder and conservationist whom has ever lived. Being as such he is an inspiration to many and will never be forgotten. A great gift for any reptile lover is the Steve Irwin He Changed Our World Memorial Tribute DVD available from http://www.australiazoo.com.au/tributedvd.php. Not only is that a great choice but really any Steve Irwin DVDs would be a great choice when you don’t know what to buy that special someone. You can’t go wrong with a legend.

Custom Enclosures

The ultimate gift for any reptile keeper would be a custom enclosure from one of the better known enclosure designers. This however is expensive and can take months to actually be built. That being said it is rather easy to construct one of great quality yourself as long as you have the tools and are just a little bit handy with a tape measure and some other basic tools by following this guide: http://www.freewebs.com/crossfireenclosures. Not only is this cheaper then the custom made option but you can say you built it from scratch and gain the admiration of that loved one whom you are gifting it to.

After reading The Germiest Places in America and the recommendations it gives I started to picture a world full of Howard Hughes clones using antibacterial soap and wipes for everything they touch. Yes some of the recommendations are good such as wiping down equipment at the gym and cleaning the remote in a hotel room before using it but in general the article capitalizes on the fear of the cowardly society we seem to have become. Society in general lives in fear, we are too careful. Our bodies were designed to “take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’”. Not to mention not all bacteria are bad. Here’s a quote from the above mentioned article “Tubs typically had more than 100,000 bacteria per square inch!”, sounds bad doesn’t it? What they don’t mention is when the tubs tested were last cleaned, what jobs the users of the tested tubs held and what bacteria were found. They also mention E. coli, what they fail to mention is that the most common “bad” E. coli strain is E. coli O157:H7. Other forms of E.coli are found in our intestines and other areas of our body and actually help us live healthy lives.

We develop the antibodies of our acquired immune system as we’re exposed to bacteria and viruses, if we constantly try to use antibacterial products in excess it stands to reason that we aren’t helping our immune system to strengthen it’s self. I’m not saying their isn’t a time and place for proper hygiene, that’s a given but it seems that some people go overboard. Instead of pushing the whole fear aspect and telling people to use antibacterial products on everything why don’t these authors write more articles teaching people to eat more proabotic and prebiotic rich foods?

Most, if not all of the places listed in the above article are ones the average person should know can carry mass amounts of germs so I don’t even really see the need for such an article though, anywhere mass amounts of people come in contact with or that’s used to clean something which was once dirty is going to collect undesirable organisms/microorganisms fast…is that really hard enough to understand that we need a 10 page article on it?

So I haven’t been writing on here but allot has been happening. For now I’m going to talk about torrents and Oink among other trackers. OiNK as you probably all know was taken down not so long ago and two new trackers popped up attempting to fill the void while other established trackers seen a huge increase in members as well. The two new trackers are Waffles and What. I am not a member of Waffles as of yet but am a member of what. From what I hear both trackers complement each other very well so I will be checking out waffles in the future.

Demonoid was also taken offline recently, with the troubles concerning the CRIA earlier this year and no word from Deimos nobody can say for sure if Demonoid is down for good or if this is just temporary. Currently the page displayed on the Demonoid domain reads as follows:

“The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.

We have brought online a forum in order to help the community stay together. This forum is not file sharing related in any way, it’s just a mean to help the community stay together - please read the forum rules before posting.

You can visit the forum by clicking here”

To top it all off the “Web Sheriff” has decided to team up with Prince and attempt to sue The Pirate Bay. Have fun with that one Prince. After this long you would think artists and others would get the hint that A) shutting down a BT tracker hurts their record sales and lowers the respect their former fans had for them and B) TPB has been approached and sued by more then 1 person/organization and is still there so one person isn’t going to take them down.

There is more BT news such as how to get around Comcast’s Sandvine setup but I’m tired of writing. I promise updates will be more frequent from now on.

The Ultimate Fighter reality show has been a hit season after season, being someone who is involved in the world of MMA I have enjoyed the show even when the content is obviously cut and re-mastered to portray a specific character (like all reality TV). On Episode two of season 6 that I just finished watching there was an interesting theme, or sub-plot. Coach Matt Hughes, a believer in the Christian faith brought bibles for each member of his team to practice and asked if each member would read The Book of Esther. Now, I’m not Christian and Hughes isn’t my favorite fighter by any means but I can see both a fair and a not so fair side to this. Hughes tells everyone reading The Book of Esther is an option, which they do not have to do so. He also mentions that it’s “just a story” when Mac Danzig opts not to read it, he does seem pushy at this point but I will give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

The not so fair side of things was pointed out by Matt Serra when he asked if their were any Jewish members on the team, implying that it would be insulting to people not of the Christian religion and that religion and training are two different entities which do not need to collide (I think the Jewish celebration of Purim has something to do with this area of the bible though correct me if I’m wrong please). On the other hand when you are really interested in anything be it Christianity, MMA or any other topic you tend to want to share it with others. This is where I feel people get edgy because beliefs are such a touchy subject. If he had brought in a bunch of fly fishing mags would people have been so touchy about it (those on the show and on the net)? I don’t think they would have, I think he would just get laughed at.

Personally it seems like a lot of editing to make Hughes seem like an inconsiderate ass and people are overstating the meaning of the whole thing just because it was a bunch of bibles. As you can see from Mac Danzig’s blog their was a reason he brought in those bibles, it wasn’t out of the blue, it was however probably a poor decision image wise as it is not hard to see why people may think he was taking advantage of the situation. We have all met others who try to push their religion onto other people. As for him saying he would be the queen in The Book of Esther, you guys can play with that all you want, I will keep my trap shut because if he’s the queen and he can beat my ass what would that make me?

Overall I think Hughes may have just been eager to share another passion he has with people who already have something in common with him. Trying to open new doors maybe, I’m not sure. What do you guys think?

PS. For those of you who misspelled “The Book of Esther”, you may want to correct it. It is not “The Book of Ester” as was printed on many other MMA lovers’ blogs I frequent.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is one that I personally feel is beneficial to everyone. For those of you who do not know about OLPC take a look at http://www.laptop.org/. The machine it’s self known as the XO-1 is a rather powerful machine for the price (see specs here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XO-1_(laptop)) and the cause is a great one.

Recently the OLPC association announced your chance to get OLPC laptops, which were previously only available to governments, and other similar organizations will be available via a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a limited time starting Nov. 12^th. What this means is if your wiling to buy one for a child in a less privileged geographical location you will be able to buy 1 for yourself as well. To see the initial announcement visit here: http://www.xogiving.org/.

From what I’ve read it will be a 2 week offer. I think it would be great to make this a permanent thing, it eliminates the issue of governments of under developed countries needing to choose between this program or things like building educational facilities and makes people in more privileged countries happy to be able to both help a child while getting something materialistic that’s really cool in return. It would also eliminate the fears of a “black market”.

Anyone out there thinking of participating or have any thoughts on the impact of such an offer?

I didn’t report on UFC 75 on Sept. 8^th because it sucked to the point I didn’t feel motivated to write but I’m here to report on UFC 76 now. Also The Ultimate Fighter is back and UFC Fight Night was decent but more to come on TUF in the coming weeks, the 1^st episode never is that interesting.

When I 1^st thought about the fight card for UFC 76, there was one fight maybe 2 I thought were worth watching, I wrote the rest of the card off as typical UFC hype. Last night however as I watched the event I had a rather abrupt reminder that such thinking was an error in judgment. The entire event was one of the best I have seen from the UFC. I have never been so happy when so many fights have gone to the judges. I was happy because of the excellent skill level shown and my desire to see more.

The 1^st 3 televised fights were extremely technical battles; the third between Jon Fitch and. Diego Sanchez was amazing. At one point late in the round Diego sunk in a DEEP triangle choke but Fitch escaped it. For those of you whom have never heard of Jon Fitch, this fight will amaze you. Then there was the fight I was looking forward to, Mauricio “Shogun” Rua Vs. Forrest Griffin. Shogun showed he had acclimated to the cage by opening up a new cut above Griffin’s eye with an elbow but Griffin dominated him and ended up choking his ass out with a RNC. I should have bet on this fight, I would have won big.

Now the last fight was Chuck Liddell vs. Keith Jardine, damn did The Dean of Mean ever land some deadly leg and body kicks. Chuck was outclassed. This one really surprised me I mean it’s the Iceman after all, how could he lose two in a row like that at this stage in the game. To give chuck credit he did land some good punches but it just looked like Jardine had him a little frustrated with his movement and style. It went to a decision but it was obvious who was taking that W with them to the after party.

Why do people eat “fast food”? I’ve never truly understood why people flock to places like McDonald’s or Burger King. We hear daily about the poor quality of food at such establishments and receive a poor quality of service while at them, yet billions of people still flock to their nasty food day in and day out. The idea that people are so shaped and controlled by the mass marketing of such garbage is almost terrifying. Heck it is even to the point that L.A wants to new fast food joints in some parts of the city, are we really to the point where the government needs to step in and control our food choices?

I was speaking with a friend the other day that was at work at the time. She informed me she had purchased a salad from Burger King for 6 dollars and something and even at that price they forgot the dressing. When asked why she went to BK for food she told me she was running late and needed something fast. This whole idea I don’t understand, have we in the western world been so influenced by the main stream advertising that we can’t think for ourselves AT ALL? It takes me around 30-45 minutes to prepare 7 nutritional meals for my day which I am able to carry with me in a cooler anywhere I go using a method designed by Dr. John Berardi over at Science Link Inc. It takes me anywhere from 10-30 minutes to get some horrible food from a fast food chain and costs 10x as much at said chain. How is this fast food? Where is the upside?

Yes some of the fast food chains have a few healthy options such as Wendy’s chicken salad or chili but most people don’t go this route or don’t really know what the healthy choice is. They often rely on the marketing instead of the facts. The fact is “garbage in, garbage out” if you don’t do your research on the things you eat before you eat them your not going to be in great shape. Even at home people tend to eat like crap. They don’t plan ahead.

Have you seen Super Size Me or Fast Food Nation? They are real eye openers for some while others ignore them and many real scientific studies and continue to abuse their bodies. You can eat healthy and it can taste great. When I ask people what they prefer between fast food and a home cooked meal, it is usually the home cooked meal. So if “real food” tastes better, is healthier, quicker, to prepare, cheaper and doesn’t come with the headache of bad customer service and forgotten items what’s stopping you from eating healthy?

How many of you remember a time when the Internet wasn’t cluttered with intrusive ads and lame phishing attempts? I do, and I wish it could go back to that state. Recently I have noticed a major increase in popup, pop under and animated ads on websites with large user bases. As you can see from this site I have nothing against using ads, I just wish Webmasters would do it in some sort of ethical manner. Statistics show that intrusive advertising does NOT work so why do these Webmasters continue to load even more of it onto the web?

Due to these annoying ads I am now forced to implement ad-blocking solutions on my home and work networks. It sucks because I like to support sites that use non-intrusive ad methods but some people have ruined that for everyone, at least in my case. For those of you who need an ad-blocking solution I have outlined the methods I am currently using below.

The 1st step is to change the DNS servers your network is using over to OpenDNS. Though not directly related to ad-blocking OpenDNS is generally a faster DNS then the DNS servers provided by your ISP and protects against phishing attempts. Corrects misspellings and allows you to block sites easily via their online interface among other things.

To setup OpenDNS visit http://www.opendns.com/ and follow the instructions for the hardware you are using. In short all you need to do is change your networks DNS servers to 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220 (on your computers network connection if you are directly connected or via your routers admin interface if you are on a network) and optionally create an account via the OpenDNS website for all the bonus features the service provides.

Now if your not using Mozilla Firefox as your browser I suggest you start doing so. Mozilla has pretty good built in popup blocking and two great extensions called Adblock and Adblock Filterset.G Updater. If Firefox is already installed type “about:config” into your browser and in the filter box type dns, it should return a result of network.dns.ipv4OnlyDomains along with a few others. Change the value of network.dns.ipv4OnlyDomains from .doubleclick.net to true.

Now go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1136 and
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10 and grab the Adblock and Adblock Filterset.G Updater extensions. If Firefox isn’t installed, install it, follow the steps above and then grab the extensions. This extensions are an optional step as the next step accomplishes the same task (in some ways) but I like to have as many layers of protection as needed within reason. Avoid Adblock Plus as it has some memory management issues.

The SafeHistory extension for Firefox is another worth mentioning, it allows control over cookies and allows you to defend against some web privacy attacks. The extension can be found here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1502

In Firefox, Tools>Options>Privacy tab> you can manage how the browser deals with cookies as well, for those of you who are really paranoid, set the cookies to be deleted when the browser closes. You can also mange what sites are allowed to set cookies within Firefox.

The next step that is needed is to go to http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html and grab the installer for “Mike’s Ad Blocking Hosts file” (if your using *nix grab the file for manual installation) The site explains installation in a rather simple format so let’s skip ahead. So you have the ad blocking hosts file installed but you notice the surfing is a little slower. What you need to do is browse to the directory where the file is installed and modify the entries in the hosts file, for those of you who used the Windows installer the directory is:

XP: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc
2000: c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc
95/98: c:\windows

Open the hosts file with your favorite editor and change all instances of 127.0.0.1 to 0.0.0.0. On Linux I use vi, on Windows I use Editpad lite as it is free, lightweight and has the search and replace functionality. This will stop the looping connection attempts to your local machine when you browse to sites which contains ads blocked via the host file. One thing to note is that using 0.0.0.0 may cause issues with some applications. If you notice an issue you can always change it back to 127.0.0.1.

Depending on your setup there are other ways to accomplish ad blocking on a network wide basis such as blocking via an internal DNS server. I may cover solutions like this if there is a interest, until then this should help the average user block ads and some malicious traffic.

I have always liked the whole idea behind Freecycle. For those of you who don’t know what The Freecycle Network is, here is an explanation from Wikipedia:

“The Freecycle Network (often abbreviated TFN) is non-profit organization registered in the state of Arizona, USA, that organizes a worldwide network of “gifting” groups, aiming to divert reusable goods from landfill. It provides a worldwide online registry, and coordinates the creation of local groups and forums for individuals and non-profits to offer and receive free items for reuse or recycling, promoting gift economics as a motivating cultural outlook. “Changing the world one gift at a time” is The Freecycle Network’s official tagline.”

To simplify even further I offer my definition: The Freecycle network is a bunch of groups (mainly yahoo groups) which trade their unwanted stuff to each other instead of tossing it in the trash. Their are groups for different regions all over the world, sometimes there may even be multiple groups for areas near you.

Okay now since we all get the idea, I’m moving on. The reason I really like the idea of Freecycle is that it’s free. I like free stuff and so does everyone else in the world. In some areas you can even find a free car up for grabs from time to time. So it all sounds great right? Well in some areas it is, atleast according to my buddy Trent his area is great about being fair and using the system the way it is designed. Not so much in my area.

Each area has it’s own variants on the basic rules and etiquette of the local Freecycle group. The local group has an extensive set of guidelines most of which are rarely followed such as:

KEEP IT FREE, LEGAL & APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES. This means, for example, no Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms or Drugs, legal or otherwise. Two strikes and you’re outa the group. This is our main Freecycle rule to live by and it’s a pretty easy one at that. No advertising your yard sale, though, as you’re looking for money and that isn’t free..

YOUR FIRST POST EVER TO THE GROUP MUST BE AN OFFER In the spirit of giving, we would ask that you make your first posting to the group an “OFFER” . No offer is too small…

NO TRADING PLEASE. Go to your local trading organization for this. It can be quite fun.

Each section of a rule indicated in bold is broken on a regular basis. The part about that which really bothers me is the Keep it Free rule. One would think this is a given seeing as the name is Freecycle after all but somehow when requesting an item I get people emailing with items for sale and even a few items for sale make it onto the group messages.

The other thing that bothers me is the pattern I’ve noticed as of late. I notice items being added, immediately going to pending pickup and then taken status within a 5 minute time period. This is physically impossible if the item was actually freecycled. There are obvious abusers of the system as well. People register with multiple accounts while others just trade between small groups of friends. What a waste of time, effort and bandwidth that is. Heck I’ve even seen Freecycle users collect items for free and resell them at yard sales.

What is needed in this case is a total change in who is moderating (or not moderating) the group.

I’m curious if anyone else has experienced this with a Freecycle group. Don’t get me wrong, I know some groups are doing it right and that is great but I’m at the point where the local group is not going to see me posting my items anymore. I’d feel more secure giving them to the Salvation Army.

Note: This is Posted in General tech because it’s mainly an online activity and a sort of social network on the web.

Is it just me or is their too much information out there? When looking up anything on the net we go take a gander at Google and browse through the results reading everything we can. When the subject we are searching is really significant in our lives we sometimes even join online communities related to that topic. The problem is the advice within various communities seem to shape the views of many people therefore creating so many opinions on the same subjects that a new person looking for answers related to that subject don’t know who or what to believe.

Just look at ant subject at all, on any given subject there are thousands even millions of webpages, books, videos and personal opinions. It’s overwhelming. Even attending higher education gets us no closer to the truth on many occasions. If a degree held the answers then a common curriculum would exist for each subject between all educational facilities. The fact is to find an answer to any question a person must research to find others opinions then actually try each suggestion and see what fits their situation the best. After all, even the experts disagree.

I want to someday be a writer; I want to write about reptiles and captive care. The entire reptile industry is filled with contradicting opinions and those who just “follow the leader” so to speak. When I entered the community as a hobby many moons ago I decided that I would not be a follower, I would try differing opinions and see which best suited various situations. I have since made some small innovations in the community and helped many with their setups. That being said for every 1 person I help I find two more whom are willing to argue that something I have tested and found to be a bad idea is superior to the advice in which I give. So what’s my point? My point is that when researching anything remember to try different options before discounting them or arguing with others, remember that opinions often differ but attitude and the way you present yourself are what people remember most.