All Posts by Paul

Star Trek: Into the Darkness is better the awesome! (Redone)

Paul

Got off from work!

I really wasn’t sure if I would be able to get into seeing this movie. I’d thought this would be packed and no available tickets. I was surprised to see how sparse it was at the theatre. I admit I went right before the 5 o’clock rush hour. I really thought it would be a line of people waiting to get into the movies. I was disappointed about that particular dream. I wanted to think this movie was going to draw people in like Star Wars did in the 1980’s and 1990’s. It was only a dream, I guess.  

May contain Spoilers!

I won’t say this will be a total spoil free review or even a try to prevent this. It is after all going to spill out because I can’t really make points without talking about the movie. So if you feel you can’t take the spoilers. You best bet is to go to another email. I am sorry but that is just me!  

From Iron Man to Star Trek

When I first started talking about Iron Man 3, I got a lot of activity from people who wanted to know about Science Fiction. I did know I wanted to go see the movies and thought this email group would be good for that. So I thought about it and wanted to make it a possibility. Well you are looking at it now!

Physics and Enterprise

Upon starting off on this movie, their is some great scenery of a people we have yet to encounter in this great Star Trek universe. That being beside the point we also see Enterprise under water with pounds of pressure on the ship. I really can’t say if this is possible, but if we really did the math on this. You would be saying “Hmm” too. I am sure the ship wouldn’t be able to survive. If I remember right Gizmodo did something similar to with Kirk surviving jumping out of a moving motor vehicle. I fancy myself as being logical so this kind of thing did strike me rather peculiar that they thought this was a possibility. Role

Reversal Roles

If you haven’t seen the movies or the shows then you might not get how some of the roles that happen in this movie were completely reversed. I won’t say the names but I actually loved the concept of this. We do however get to see a small glimpse of Leonard Nimoy but it wasn’t like he was their the whole movie. Just a scene or two with the other Spock. We also get to see a glimpse of how the Chain of Command is supposed to work and why it is a necessary evil to some and others it is just necessary. I honestly believe this movie had some great examples of this throughout. We get to see Kirk saving Spock, and Spock saving Kirk, a rather symbiotic relationship. Not knowing who will actually save the day. Kept me on the edge of my seat all through the movie.

Enterprise NCC-1701

The Enterprise is a beautiful ship. I love how J. J. Abrams did the ship and a lot of the CGI that came along with it. You almost wish this was the ship we saw in the old series. You long for the day that we go back to where everything began. I must say the time paradox has resolved itself nicely. It isn’t as pronounced as it was in the first movie but you still get the feeling something isn’t quite right.

Final Thoughts

I will recommend this to anyone who likes Star Trek and Science Fiction. If you liked the first movie, you will definitely like the this movie. I do hope I didn’t spoil it for anyone. It was just some total good and nice that I will be buying this when it comes out on DVD or maybe the just the Digital version. If you know someone who might like this movie just let them read this themselves and maybe helped someone find the pleasure of Science Fiction.

Remember to join my mailing list to get this and other great insights into the Movies and shows that I watch!

Thumbs up to Virgin Mobile, At least they care!

Paul

Your account has used 85 percent of your data usage cap. Once you reach 2560.000MB (Which is 2.56 Gigs) of usage, we’ll reduce your data speeds through 05/26/2013.

To check out your account online, go to virginmobileusa.com any time. If you’d like to talk about this notice, please give us a call at: 888-322-1122

Did you know?

  • Your PIN is required whenever you contact us so please have it on hand when you call or access your account online.
  • If you recently provided us with a new email or mailing address, we are required by law to send notices (like this one) to your old address for the first 30 days. Once the 30-day transition period has elapsed, we will send notices to the new email address.

Keep rocking, Virgin Mobile

 

Dear Virgin Mobile,

Thank you for your kind warning and letting me know about my Soft Data cap.   I really wanted to know when I reached a new level of data usage.  I really don’t care about the slowing down of speeds, it isn’t like you will bother me much.   At least you didn’t do what Straight Talk did and advertise they are unlimited but yet I would get calls after calls.  

Please keep on working,

Paul Sylvester

 

 

The Kyocera Rise Falling Apart Problem: How to fix it!

Paul

The Rise Falling Apart!

When I first wrote about My Kyocera Rise from Virgin Mobile.  I got a lot of people asking about if there was a fix for this without calling VM!  If yours is just coming apart from and you wondering how to fix it.  I am here to help.  I went back and got my VM phone before I mailed it off and looked it over.   I found the six screws that were supposed to hold it in place, most of them were missing.   I don’t know if it was the dropping of the phone that caused this or it being in my back pocket.  Some how those screws came loose and just came off the phone.   You will need to pop off the back cover of the phone to verify that it doesn’t have the four screws like you see in the picture above.   If it doesn’t have those screws then you can easily fix this without calling VM!

Found Screws!

I have Glasses and I am always having to repair and fix them.   So I had a 250pc Micro-Screw Assortment for Eyeglasses & watches.   I started looking around for the right size.   You basically start with the biggest and work your way to the smallest.   I don’t recall which ones I used but you will find the ones that will fit those four holes.   Once that is done just make sure to tighten those suckers, don’t break the head off the screw.  Just enough to keep it tight, if it seems to feel like it is loosening from time to time, just pop the back off  and tighten them some more.

What you will need:

Save time and effort from calling Virgin Mobile about sending a replacement phone.   You can just fix it yourself.   Just make sure the Phone is put together before you start screwing in those screws and your phone should last much longer.

Paul Sylvester

 

How password security will change in 10 years!

Paul

Passwords are going out the Window!

We’ve seen in the past where people have used such words as ninja, jesus, 12345678, and password!  I’ve talked about Lastpass in the past and I really believe they are the best possible combination of the two. With the recent questions of Password Length and Password Strength, I have come to the conclusion that in the coming years.   People will be doing a 3 factor authentication and having the passwords as a back up.   It really would be nice to have two ways to authenticate and not have to put in a password.

3 factor authentication!

I know your Password! Click image to see!Three factor authentication is a simple concept.   Since we have a password we can simply use two other ways to authenticate for example a cell phone and maybe a Yubi Key.  The password will be the backup for one or the other.  If you lost your phone and still would need to authenticate you password would be one you can use in an emergency. Thus it really becomes a 2 factor authentication but since we could use all three to authenticate it would make it that much harder for a hacker to brute force an attack and get your sensitive data.

2 factor authentication!

Although most people don’t think of this but having a limited number of possible access to the important data can make it just that much harder and maybe get the hacker to go somewhere else.   What about social networks?  Do we really need that for social?  I am thinking maybe and it just depends on how you login in the first place.   I would love most of them to to maybe let me authenticate with Google and come back to them but that leaves a large hole.   It just depends on how valuable your social status is and what the possible outcome of someone getting a hold of that social network.  

Elite passwords!

Some would call it “leet” speak,  and I’ve heard people say this is something we should do in reguards to making a password.   I tell you know, we already have a 2,000 most common passwords and I am betting it has some really good leet passwords already.  So what makes a hacker no try those to hack your account.   I would think these would be tried after the primary just because this would also be the easiest way to gain access to an account.

In Ten years!

I am pretty confident in ten years we will see something like this happen and we will no longer be depending on a system that was developed in the late 1990’s.   We have to be ready for change and keep it.  I just hope it happens sooner rather than later and that most companies should jump aboard and help us get this implemented.   I don’t know how hard this will be but it will be nice to not have to worry about a password anymore with my bank or other financial institution. 

Paul Sylvester

Library administrators just don’t get it and that just bugs me!

Paul

Blocking Proxpm

At the Library!

You hit the road for your favorite library and you decide you want to protect yourself from all those snooping people who like to watch what you do.   The problem is you have an unprotected and unencrypted network.   You try as you might to get a VPN setup and you just can’t connect.  So you try to find other VPN’s that woul work and your instantly blocked.  They’ve installed websense into their serves to prevent people from using a VPN.  

Not all VPNS are bad!

When I found this out, I was really irked by them preventing me from visiting such website.  I suspect they are worried someone will use a VPN to visit porn sites or research something bad.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they woul allow people to use VPN or ones they trust but this is a blacket attempt to prevent people from using them.  

Ways they can help people wit h security!

If they want to prevent this an still monitor traffic.   That is also fine with me, I understan this.   I just don’t feel comfortable using a public wifi without some privacy protection.   What if somone gets my credit card while I am using their public wifi.  Would they be liable?  More than certain, they have some clause to prevent this.

All they would have to do is make all open wifi spots encrypted with a way for guest to login to.   They wouldn’t have to have a different password for every person login in.   A simple guest password would suffice and make every wifi connection secure to prevent someone from snooping over the air transmissions.   libraries probably won’t do this but I am asking they look into this problem and come up with a solution to help us security minded people.   If they do nothing, then nothing will be solved.  

Paul Sylvester