Category: The Internet

How to install a free SSL Certificate using cPanel

If you want to do this, the only hassle is that you have to redo it every 3 months. So if you’re willing to do that, you will never have to pay for another SSL certificate for your website.

Here it is the secret in easy steps. Bookmark this page.

Go to zerossl.com

zerossl.com homepage.

Click “Online Tools”

You will go to a page that says: FREE SSL Certificate Wizard. Click on the START button in the top section. See below.

This brings you to the following screen.

In this case we will ignore the left half of the screen. Type your domain name on the right side. Use both yourdomain.com separated by a comma and a space with www.yourdomain.com as indicated above.

On the bottom right there are two boxes, click them both. Then click NEXT.

This will now “Generate your CSR”. Just wait until it completes. It takes a minute.

Then you come to this screen below.

Here you download a copy of your SSL request and click next. Your account key will then be generated. This also takes a minute. Just wait until it’s done.

Then download your two keys. Once that’s done, do not close this page. You will still need it. Open a new tab and go to your cPanel. In my case I use GoDaddy.com, but whatever provider you use, the cPanel setup will be basically the same.

Inside your cPanel, open your File Manager.

  1. Find a folder called public_html and navigate into it.
  2. Inside public_html create a folder called .well-known [the dot in the beginning is important]
  3. Navigate into .well-known and create another folder called acme-challenge
  4. Navigate into that folder and then upload the two files you downloaded from zerossl.com. They will look something like this:

Once these files are uploaded with your cPanel, navigate back to your cPanel main page and scroll down until you see “Security”. Under that section click on SSL/TLS.

Then click on the last item below. It’s under Install and Manage SSL for your site (HTTPS) and it’s called Manage SSL sites.

Then you come to a page called “Manage Installed SSL Websites”. You must find your website for your certificate.

Then click on Update Certificate. This will bring you to a page with three boxes. You will paste information into these three boxes that you still have on your open zerossl.com page.

Information from the right hand side of the zerossl.com page is actually two keys. Copy that and paste it into the top box of your cPanel Manage SSL page. It will say it’s an invalid certificate because you have two certificates. You have to find the middle part and cut and remove it out, then paste that into the bottom (not the middle) of the Manage SSL page. Then you go back to the zerossl.com page and copy the information from the left side of the screen and paste it into the middle box of your Manage SSL page.

That’s it.

How to Get Firefox to Play Amazon, Netflix and Hulu Vidos on Archlinux

The main reason I always install Google Chrome on any linux distro I happen to be running is that Chrome will by default play videos from Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu without a hitch, whereas Firefox will not. In fact, neither will Chromium.

This is because Google has built proprietary flash graphics inside of Chrome.

However, after listening to several podcasts about how Google is sharing our information and how tracker cookies are being placed on our machines without our knowledge or consent by Chrome, I decided to have another look at the problem of getting Firefox to play online video content from the above mentioned providers.

This tutorial is for ARCH LINUX. If you’d like a similar fix for FEDORA LINUX, then click here.

Fixing Video for Arch Linux

Here’s what I discovered: It’s an easy fix.

First of all, I recommend you to install yay, which is an alternative to yaourt. To do this simply go to the command line and type in the following:
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
$ cd yay
$ makepkg -si

Once yay is installed then you need to install flash as follows: yay -S flashplugin
$ sudo pacman -Syyu firefox

Next, if you haven’t already, install Firefox as follows:
$ sudo pacman -Syyu firefox

At this point, I needed to reboot and/or logout and login. I then loaded Firefox and navigated to Amazon Prime videos. Try to watch a video and it will give you an error, but you’ll notice in the upper left corner of Firefox a little message will appear that says something like “Enable DRM content?” Click yes, and from that time on you’ll be able to watch Amazon Prime videos, Netflix and Hulu all from withing Firefox.

Now you can ditch Chrome. They’re tracking you.

GoDaddy vs WordPress.com: Pros and Cons

For two years I hosted this site on WordPress.com even though I had a GoDaddy hosting plan. Previously, all my sites on GoDaddy were designed by me from the ground up and were mostly static websites. So when my wife decided to create her own site on WordPress.com, she talked me into starting my own: RationalThinking101.com.

I liked having a WordPress site on WordPress. The pros were many. I could see Stats, how many visitors I was getting and from which parts of the world. I would get likes and comments left by other wordpress.com users. It was great.

However, when it came around to renew the whole package this year, it seemed expensive. Why pay all that when I can host it myself on GoDaddy for free (since I already owned a hosting plan there).

Having made up my mind, I began the arduous procedure of how to move the site from one hosting plan to the other, how to install a free SSL certificate, how to get all the files transfered and so on. It was a hassle, and in the end not perfect. The site has been transferred but some of the media files are missing and some of the links don’t work.

Not only that, no one from wordpress.com “likes” or visits my site anymore, and I don’t have stats telling me how many countries my visitors are coming from.

It is cheaper.

So the pros of moving are: It’s cheaper.

The cons of moving are:

  1. It was a hassle and some files were lost.
  2. Some links don’t work anymore.
  3. I don’t have the stats I used to have.
  4. I don’t get “likes” from my wordpress.com followers.
  5. In fact, I have no idea at the moment what kind of traffic this site generates at all.

I’d say the cons outweigh the pros and it’s better to have a site hosted on wordpress.com or wordpress.org unless price is your number one bottom line.

Do you believe NASA when they state that they destroyed the technology to return to the moon?

NASA never said anything like that. What did happen was that when the Apollo program was shut down, the building that the Apollo’s were built in was retooled for newer technology. In the process, some parts were thrown away because they were outdated and better stuff was available.
The reason we stopped going to the moon, at the time, was the Vietnam War. Congress needed to cut NASA’s budget to finance the war. After the near disaster of Apollo 13 and waning public interest, the money wasn’t there for continuing along that line.
Times have changed. The moon is a target once again. In the meantime, we have placed quite a few satellites in orbit around the moon. Due to problems with gravity variances on the moon, most of them have fallen from orbit and crashed on the moon’s surface or have become dead because of loss of power. However, there are at least three satellites right now that are active and in orbit around the moon. They are the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), as well as the two ARTEMIS probes, which are functioning.
So not only did NASA not lose the technology, but we’ve been sending stuff to the moon for awhile. It’s just that we haven’t sent people in awhile.

Yahoo is dead

Sad, really. Yahoo is dead. I met my wife in a Yahoo chat room. Yahoo chat rooms no longer exist.
It used to be a huge company. Advertised on TV. “Yahoooooo!” Big deal on the stock market.
No more. No more chat rooms either. It’s a gonner. Email only, and then if you’re foolish enough to have a yahoo email address, it’ll get filled with ads. Plus they have had security leaks. Bad deal. Poor Yahoo.
Email and news. Not a shadow of it’s former self.

The Free & Open Source Image Editor

The header logo I use on this site was created by me with the help of a program called GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) which is free to download and use. The creators call it “a free and open source image editor.” It’s all I use.
The GIMP was originally designed for Linux but nowadays it’s been ported over to work on pretty much any operating system you might be using.
In the olden days I used Photoshop, but as you know Photoshop costs a lot of money. The GIMP is every bit as powerful as Photoshop, perhaps even more so, and it’s free.
Of course, doing stuff in the GIMP is different than doing stuff in Photoshop, but still once you get the hang of it it’s easy peasy.

What nobody is telling you about the cyberattack

By Wayne Boyd May 14, 2017: There are many aspects to this ransomware attack that have yet to be mentioned.
All of the systems attacked, it seems, are running older, unpatched, sometimes even illegally cloned versions of Microsoft Windows. The cyber attackers are using ransomware that exploits these older versions of Windows. Essentially they tell their victims that if they don’t pay their files will be deleted. If their system had been updated, then the attack would not have been successful. Everybody knows this.
Issue number one:

  • Microsoft demanded money for an upgrade.
  • When people didn’t pay up, cyber terrorists demanded money through ransomware.
  • Microsoft did not orchestrate the attack, but essentially they did demand money for already functioning operating systems. People were sandwiched between two parties, both demanding money to keep their system safe.
  • Microsoft did, after the fact, cave and provide upgrades for free.

Issue number two:

  • There are alternate secure operating systems that do not cost money to purchase, install and keep upgraded.
  • Save money, drop Windows, install Linux, run your hospital, package delivery company or government on open-source software.

Issue number three:

  • Bitcoins. The alternative currency. It’s legal. It is so secure, in fact, that the cyber attackers are demanding they be paid in Bitcoins. This is the currency of the future. I read in an article that Bitcoins was a form of cyber currency used by criminals. Well, guess what? Criminals use paper money too, and non-criminals use Bitcoins too..

New Google Earth launches with incredible new 3D views of our world at the click of a button

THE WHOLE WORLD IN YOUR HANDS

Tech giant reveals stunning update that allows users to soar past towering skyscrapers and mountains in stunning accuracy

By Neal Baker

GOOGLE has launched an update to Earth that allows users to see the world’s greatest wonders in all their glory.

Tech wizardry means that armchair travelers can see towering skyscrapers, tourist hotspots and treacherous mountains all in stunning 3D.
And your view is fully changeable, with every picture able to turn on a 360-degree axis.
The planet’s major cities and landmarks are all covered, meaning you can swoop through the streets, dodging, trees, cars, cranes and buildings that are all rendered with astonishing accuracy.
But one such landmark that isn’t covered is the White House, leading to speculation that security fears may have held back the project.
But top sights like the Shard in London, Mount Everest, the Colosseum and the Eiffel Tower can all be appreciated in outstanding detail.