Tips: AOL Jacked your firefox search.

So you use the URL bar to search google, all the time. One day, after installing AIM, your search magically changes. What should have been Google results in Firefox are now AIM results. Your search has been hijacked by AOL. Not the first time they've done something shady but, fortunately there's a solution.

1. Open firefox, type in "about:config" in the keyword box
(where you usually type you web addresses).

2. Type in "keyword.url" at the top where it says "filter"

3. Right click "keywork.url" from the results and select reset.

That's it. Problem solved. You're welcome.

Hydrogen Peroxide Works Wonders

I was recently amazed at some of the common ailments that simple hydrogen peroxide (sometimes diluted with water) can cure. I had an ear infection, went to www.earthclinic.com and read a lot of comments about hydrogen peroxide. Among other things, it cures ear and sinus infections. So I tried it. Yes, it works. I got a free syringe from the pharmacist and squirted some into my ear, let it sit for a few minutes and then drained and dried it. Repeat. People have posted some variations of this cure in detail on that site. Check it out.

I also had weird dry scaling patches (psoriasis) on my eyelids. I had tried lotions, oils, tea tree oil (which is usually a favorite), alcohol, antibiotic cream, etc. Once the hydrogen peroxide started working for my ear infection, I figured - why not. In only a few days of applying it once or twice a day, the tender, flaky, irritated, embarrassing patches were completely gone! I am quite pleased. But wait there is more.

I was originally turned on to earthclinic because a friend had a bad yeast infection and didn't want to take a week of medication prescribed by her doctor. Wanting a more natural approach she searched and came across an easy quick cure using hydrogen peroxide on earthclinic.com. This site is great because it is everyday people like you and me posting natural cures and comments about cures.

The first time I was impressed by hydrogen peroxide was several years ago when I had inadvertently gotten bug repellent (100% deet) on my tongue. Ok, I'll tell the story. I was in Africa and applied it to my face (surprisingly, it didn't melt my face off but it melted some of my plastic stuff). Soon after I licked my lips, getting a little deet on my tongue. Well, I couldn't taste anything for almost 2 weeks. I felt like I had paint on my tongue. I went to the doctor when I returned to the States but he was of no help. I tried the CDC but they were useless as well. I was loosing my patience because not only had I lost my sense of taste but also my sense of smell. That deet is some nasty stuff. So in frustration, I went into the bathroom and looked for ANYTHING I hadn't already tried to relieve my suffering. Wouldn't you know it. I gargled once with hydrogen peroxide and my tongue was back to normal. I was so grateful and amazed.

Just recently I have been learning about the amazing properties of water so it doesn't shock me anymore that hydrogen peroxide could be so healing. What shocks me is the fact that such easy, safe and inexpensive cures have been kept from pubic knowledge for so long. I'll address my amazing water findings in another blog but for now, if you know of any great home remedies, go to earthclinic and share with the rest of us.

Quotes I love

Love all, trust few, wrong no one

Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding. ~Albert Einstein

"Don't make someone your priority when they make you their option"


The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.

- Ernest Hemingway

Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future.

- Fulton Oursler

"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Lying is done with words and also with silence.

- Adrienne Rich

Counting your time is not so important as making your time count.

-Unkown

Don't try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough.

- Arthur Freed

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
- A. Sachs

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it.
Bill Cosby

Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think - in a deeper voice.
Bill Cosby

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Bill Cosby

Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it.
Bill Cosby

I am not young enough to know everything.
James M. Barrie

If you're good at something, never do it for free.

- The Joker

One characteristic of winners is they always look upon themselves as a do it yourself project.

- Denis Waitley

If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
- Woodrow T. Wilson

When deali​ng with peopl​e,​ remem​ber you are not deali​ng with creat​ures of logic​,​ but creat​ures of emoti​on.​

- Dale Carne​gie

Happi​ness is not a rewar​d it, is a conse​quenc​e.​ Suffe​ring is not a punis​hment​, it is a resul​t.​

- Rober​t Green​ Inqer​soll

Only a fool tests​ the depth​ of the water​ with both feet.​

-unknown

You can only blame your problems on the world for so long, before it becomes the same old song.

-uknown

Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.

-W. C. Fields

Fortune and love favor the brave.

-Ovid

News: X-rays emitted from ordinary Scotch tape

No, it's not an April Fool's joke. (I checked the date of the article) MS NBC reports that scientists have discovered that ordinary Scotch tape can produce X-Rays. Though don't worry about exposure it can only occur in a vacuum the presence of air somehow nullifies the X-Ray production.

Read about it here

Practical Tips: Green Apples- The Greener side of Apple Computers

You may have heard that apple will take an old ipod back and safetly dispose of it. What you may not have heard is that they do the same for computers, monitors, cell phones and laptops. Apples recycling program will allow you to recycle your old computers and monitors when you purchase a new mac regardeless of make or model. The same goes for your old monitors or laptops. Apple will also take back ANY old cellphone, no purchase necessary. As if that isn't kind enough they've teamed up with FedEx to offer free recycling. Who knew going green would get so easy?

For the no purchase ipod and cellphone recycling program just click the link below.
Apple Ipod/Cellphone Recycling

Cure Cancer and Some Other Stuff Too

I recently attended a raw (vegan) food festival in Sedona, AZ called Raw Spirit. I went, as a favor to a friend, with an open mind to learn what I could and have a good time. I never thought I would be advocating a raw food diet but now I am. All of the "raw people" I met were healthy, glowing, toned, energetic, clear thinking and happy. Many I spoke with said they turned to eating raw because they had serious health problems like cancer or diabetes. All of the ones I spoke with had been completely cured and don't even get common illnesses like colds or the flu anymore, nor do they experience typical aches and pains associated with their age or life in general. There were "less healthy" raw people there but they would always confess to not being 100% raw or having had relapsed into an unhealthy diet for one reason or another.

I attended some seminars on fighting cancer and diabetes and was absolutely amazed. I listened to doctors who cure people of cancer and diabetes in days or weeks without chemo or radiation unless absolutely necessary. So if you know of anyone with these health problems or any others, please encourage them to look into raw foods. It could save a life. There are "healing centers" across the country. It is worth some research time online to find a legitimate place near you or a sick loved one. I am not going to bash "traditional" doctors in this blog but I will say that they are just not trained for this kind of stuff so they can't guide you in this direction. I wouldn't ask my dentist advice about open heart surgery, so why ask a traditional drug prescribing doctor advice on natural cures?

Another thing I never knew is that cancer feeds on sugar. A friend, who is overcoming her cancer now, was told by her raw food nutritionist that everyone with cancer has Candida, which causes cancer and other lovely health problems. A quick google search of the terms "candida and sugar" produced several websites that said the same thing. This is not a plug for artificial sweeteners, they are also bad for us. But if sugar causes candida and candida causes cancer - lay off the sugar!

Superfoods are also extremely important. Superfoods provide high concentrations of the minerals and vitamins we need making it less important for us to eat large quantities of food to thrive. Most raw foodies say they don't even eat 1/2 of what "normal" portions are because they are getting what the body needs already. Although Superfood is not an "official" term, even sites like WebMD are hip to their power.

I don't have all the answers after one weekend but I can say that I have lost weight and feel better after eating raw for just a little over a week. And I'm not even 100% raw (maybe 75-80%).

I encourage anyone interested in feeling better than they ever have, being healthier, stronger and maybe even smarter than they have ever been, to look into the raw food lifestyle or at least Superfoods. I won't say that it is easy, raw foodies all own food dehydrators, cookbooks, blenders and buy organic veggies. But I will say that after a few days I could feel a difference. So for me, the extra work and ridicule from my "cooked" friends and family is worth it. I got sick when I ate meat after a week of eating raw - of course fast food wasn't really a good choice. I won't be giving up my sushi anytime soon but I also don't want to go back to feeling how I did before (which I thought was pretty good at the time). Some of the raw food is really really good. And some of it isn't so great. But you can say the same for cooked food.

Take a raw food challenge for your health - read up on it, download some recipes and try it for a couple of weeks. Start out gradually. It's very hard to jump straight into 100% raw. Just like you can't go from being a couch potato (cooked or not) to a marathon runner in one day. Eat happy, eat healthy.

Ecstasy Myths Debunked

One of the major myths pertaining to MDMA, also known as ecstasy, involves "ice cream sized scoops" being destroyed in the brain. This is not true. The myth started circulating after an erroneous study that was published. You can read more about it here. You can also hear the retraction on an NCR news cast that I found on youtube here.

Other myths include dangers of drinking too much water.
Also False. Drinking too much water is only dangerous due to depletion of electrolytes. Drink a Gatorade, Disani or Powerade every few bottles and you'll be fine.
Water myth debunked here

And finally does ecstasy drain your spinal fluid?
No. You can read more about that one here.

Tips: Natural Birth Control Method

clipped from www.lifescript.com Birth Control, The Natural Way The pill doesn’t thrill you. You’re sick of fumbling with condoms, sponges and foams. You’re in a committed, monogamous relationship… but not looking to start a family. Well, there’s an all-natural – and widely misunderstood – option that can keep you from getting knocked up. And no, it’s not the rhythm method… Is FAM the Right Choice for You?

News: Inhaled Sugar Helps Clear Lungs in Cystic Fibrosis

clipped from www.lifescript.com Inhaled Sugar Helps Clear Lungs in Cystic Fibrosis NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Inhalation of a sugar called mannitol improves lung function in patients with cystic fibrosis, a serious genetic disorder characterized by abnormally thick mucus secretions in the lungs and other organs, according to a report by Australian researchers in the journal Chest. Anna Jaques, of Pharmaxis Ltd. in Frenchs Forest, New South Wales and colleagues explain that inhaled mannitol works by drawing fluid into the lungs, which dilutes the thick secretions in the air passages. These diluted secretions are easier for the patients to clear from their lungs.

News: Laser light switch toggles beam up to 100 billion times a second

clipped from www.nytimes.com Engineers Make Leap in Optical Networks Published: October 27, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 26 - A team of Stanford electrical engineers has discovered how to switch a beam of laser light on and off up to 100 billion times a second with materials that are widely used in the semiconductor industry. The group used a standard chip-making process to design a central component of optical networking gear that is potentially more than 10 times as fast as the highest-performance commercial products available today. The communications industry now uses costly equipment to transmit data over optical fibers at up to 10 billion bits a second. Researchers, however, are already experimenting with optically linked computers in which components may be located on different sides of the globe. Cheap optical switches would also make it possible to create data superhighways inside computers and reorganize them for better performance.

Tech: Removing Knight.exe

I bought a new flash drive from OCZ a beautiful 16GB flash drive. I connected it to a foreign machine and when I put it back into my computer, virus. No big deal AVG detected the virus and I selected remove. At first I thought it a bit odd cause the other machine didn't have access to any network or internet. I should have known better. The next thing I knew the flash drive stopped working. When I plugged in the drive I received a "mixed content" popup. The normal choices to open in folder view or to open selected files with a video player had dissapeared. I tried accesing the drive from my computer but it simply asked me to choose a program to open the "whole drive" with, as if it was an application. I stumbled across the directions below to remove "knight.exe" which still didn't give me access to the drive, and since I didn't have access to the drive I couldn't do one of the steps (Step 3b). I realized I might be able to access the drive another way. I opened the drive using izarc as if it were a zip file. I needed to open it directly through izarc's menu. Nothing shows up initially but if you choose, file type>all, you'll see the file autorun.inf. Delete that and you'll be done. I recommend you follow the instructions bellow in their given order until you get to that step. Paste a comment if this helps.

Note: You may be able to use any program to access the drive through the program's "Open" Dialogue, as long as the program has a "show all files" option. To delete simply right mouse click and select delete.

These instructions courtesy Precise Security:
1. Temporarily Disable USB Drive to autorun (Windows XP):

a. Open Windows Explorer or press the Windows + “e” key.
b. Right-click the drive of the USB Drive. Then select Properties. Drive Properties will appear.
c. Select the AutoPlay tab.
d. Choose Select an Action to Perform
e. At the bottom of the selection, click Take no Action, then click Apply.
f. Click OK to exit Drive Properties.

2. Show Hidden Files
a. Open Windows Explorer
b. Go to Tools > Options
c. On View tab, mark Checked the “Show Hidden Files and Folders and “Hide Protected OPerating System Files” Unchecked.

3. Delete the files manually
a. Go the USB Drive and delete autorun.inf
b. Go to C: Drive and delete autorun.inf
c. Go to C:\Windows and delete Disk Knight.exe

4. Modify Windows Registry
a. Go to Start > Run then type regedit
b. On Registry Editor, go to Edit > Find and type “knight”
c. Delete all entries it found.

5. Connect to Internet and update your AntiVirus

6. Reboot your computer in SafeMode
a. During BootUp process Press F8 continuously until selection appears
b. Use Arrow Up+Down to select SafeMode on the selections menu.
c. Hit Enter to proceed.

7. Scan your computer with an updated AntiVirus and delete all infections it founds.

Note: You may enable autorun of the USB Drive by reversing the process in Step 1.

Tips: Geotagging Photos with Picasa

Every digital image is encoded with digital information, EXIF, aside from the actual picture. That information holds interesting data: When the picture was taken, if it was modified and when it was last modified, Camera information, focal length, Camera make and model among other information.

We'll be focusing on one of the little known and little used fields called a geotag. A geotag allows you to identify the location where the image was taken using longitude and latidude based coordinates. This can be determined from the camera, external GPS device or embedded later. This gives you a new way to sort and search through your photo.

Another option is to wait until you've finished taking photos and add all the location details once you've downloaded the images to your PC. There are a variety of ways to do this, but one of the most straightforward uses a combination of Google's Picasa software and the company's Google Earth application.

This Excerpt is courtesy of Cnet (Click title for full article)

After downloading your photos into Picasa, it's simply a matter of clicking on the tools tab and selecting the 'Geotag with Google Earth' option. This opens the mapping application in which you navigate to the place where the photo was taken. A single click then embeds the relevant latitude and longitude details into the photo's EXIF metadata file.

Grammar: NEVER end a sentence in a preposition or not

We're told in school to never end a sentence using a preposition.. why? I ran into the answer.

It was John Dryden who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end of a sentence, probably on the basis of a specious analogy to Latin. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. English syntax does allow for final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or I asked her which course she had signed up for. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have stilted and even comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying "This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put."·Sometimes sentences that end with adverbs, such as I don't know where she will end up or It's the most curious book I've ever run across, are mistakenly thought to end in prepositions. One can tell that up and across are adverbs here, not prepositions, by the ungrammaticality of I don't know up where she will end and It's the most curious book across which I have ever run. It has never been suggested that it is incorrect to end a sentence with an adverb.

Source: TheFreeDictionary.com (click title for page)

Firefox Addons: Clipmarks

What can I do with Clipmarks? Save your clips on clipmarks.com. You can save clips publicly for others to see, post them to Facebook, or embed a widget of them on your own site. You can also save clips privately for your own viewing later. Your clip collection is searchable from any computer with an internet connection (including your iPhone, Blackberry, etc). Post anything you clip directly to your blog. It's by far the quickest way to update your blog with compelling things you find on the web. Supports Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, LiveJournal and more. Email anything from a web page without ever leaving the page. Import your contacts to instantly email friends and family interesting things from the web. The content you clip and a link to the page is automatically included with each email. Print just the parts of the page you really need. Save paper, save money, save trees.

Emails: 2 Tough Questions: Modified

Starting a new section of useful email based info I've received. Useful for any reason, it may be spiritual, inspirational or educational.

It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts.
Here are the facts about the three candidates.. Who would you vote for?


Candidate A
Associates with crooked politicians, and consults
with astrologist
He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and
drinks 8 to 10 martinis a
day.


Candidate B
He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until
noon, used opium in
college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.


Candidate C
He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian,
doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.





Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt
Candidate B is Winston Churchill
Candidate C is Adolph Hitler

Tips: Gas Tips

At the price of gas nowadays we can always use a little info on how to stretch the galon to get more bang for out buck. Below is an email I received from a friend. If anybody can give me verifiable citations I will gladly add it to the article. As it stands these tips really don't hurt to try.

Here at the Kinder Morgan Pipeline where I work in San Jose, CA we deliver about 4 million gallons in a 24-hour period thru the pipeline. One day is diesel the next day is jet fuel, and gasoline, regular and premium grades. We have 34-storage tanks here with a total capacity of 16,800,000 gallons.


* Only buy or fill up your car or truck in the early morning when the ground temperature is still cold. Remember that all service stations have their storage tanks buried below ground. The colder the ground the more dense the gasoline, when it gets warmer gasoline expands, so buying in the afternoon or in the evening....your gallon is not exactly a gallon. In the petroleum business, the specific gravity and the temperature of the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, ethanol and other petroleum products plays an important role. A 1-degree rise in temperature is a big deal for this business. But the service stations do not have temperature compensation at the pumps.


* When you're filling up do not squeeze the trigger of the nozzle to a fast mode. If you look you will see that the trigger has three (3) stages: low, middle, and high. In slow mode you should be pumping on low speed, thereby minimizing the vapors that are created while you are pumping. All hoses at the pump have a vapor return. If you are pumping on the fast rate, some of the liquid that goes to your tank becomes vapor. Those vapors are being sucked up and back into the underground storage tank so you're getting less worth for your money.


* One of the most important tips is to fill up when your gas tank is HALF FULL. The reason for this is, the more gas you have in your tank the less air occupying its empty space. Gasoline evaporates faster than you can imagine. Gasoline storage tanks have an internal floating roof. This roof serves as zero clearance between the gas and the atmosphere, so it minimizes the evaporation. Un ike service stations, here where I work, every truck that we load is temperature compensated so that every gallon is actually the exact amount.


* Another reminder, if there is a gasoline truck pumping into the storage tanks when you stop to buy gas, DO NOT fill up -- most likely the gasoline is being stirred up as the gas is being delivered, and you might pick up some of the dirt that normally settles on the bottom.

News: Content sensitive image resizing

This one's is pretty impressive. A group of scientist came up with an algorithm for resizing an image. The idea is to stretch or shrink the image while maintaining the image's main focus. Unlike standard non-uniform stretching or contracting, which leads to distortion, this method allows the subject to stay uniform while modifying the contents of an image. The image is treated a lot like an MP3. What MP3 does for compression is it removes sounds that people cannot ordinarily hear and thereby makes the file size significantly smaller. Click heading for video. I've also added a link to the internet resources section, on the right, to a web based application based on this algorithm.

News: 10 Times Longer Battery Life

Stanford materials scientist Yi Cui has found a way to create a silicone anode. Scientists knew that this material would create, at least theoretically, an enormous 10 fold increase in charge capacity but they were never able to achieve it. The problem was the silicone anode would crack or degrade due to extreme expansion. That was overcome by creating a an anode out of silicone nanowires. The space between the nanowires would allow for the expansion to take place without the anode cracking. (See picture above) As always, click heading for full article.

News: I can finally eat KFC

For quite some time I've been boycotting KFC because of their inhumane treatment of chickens prior to slaughter. I can happily say that Both KFC, their parent company(Yum!) and Tyson have instituted a policy for humane treatment of their chicken. I'm not too sure about Tyson's policy but you can read about it in this pdf.

Yum! is also the parent company of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's and A&W. Click heading for full story.

News: Running on Water

Here are two stories about two, apparently different, Japanese car manufacturers that claimed to have produced vehicles that run on good ol' H2O... I'm not so sure..

Vehicle 1

The problem with this vehicle is, although it seems great.. where are they getting the hydrogen from? There is no talk about using electricity to extract hydrogen. The paperwork that the company files even claims it runs on compressed hydrogen. How do they generate the Hydrogen and if they generate it in the vehicle is the compression done on the spot? Although it works with hydrogen, based on what I've seen, I would classify this vehicle as a steam vehicle. If they can prove that the hydrogen is derived from the water.. then we're talking.

Vehicle 2

The problem I have with this vehicle is how does it generates electricity from water. How? We all know how to generate electricity from hydrogen, which in and of itself it's hard enough. The second problem is you also need electricity to separate the hydrogen from the water (As far as I know). If you keep using and generating electricity.. what's left to fuel the vehicle? I'm not a physicist and can't do the math.. but I think somethings up here.. If I'm not mistaken, every time you convert energy from one form to another some energy gets expelled... something gets used up. I don't know. Though I would love to know how these two vehicles really work.