Macbook Update, Fonero Haven, Commercial Darknet and College!

I have ordered and I am expecting delivery of my brand new Apple MacBook (or BlackBook as some call it)! It will be a Black, 2Ghz Core Duo, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB HDD (5400 RPM) MacBook, complete with a remote, Bluetooth 2 and Wifi functionality. Not mention cool applications such as iSight built in Camera, Front Row ( a media center) and Spotlight search technology. It cost me close to €2.000, so hopefully it will be worth it ;-)

I have also joined, for a month, a commercial darknet. Don’t know what that is? It is basically me paying for an extra layer of security, 128-bit encryption to a Swedish Internet service provider. Why? Well that means that if my ISP ever got a court order from a company, they would not have any records on me, since it will be encrypted, leaving them with no trace of what I have been upto. Don’t get me wrong I am a totally law abiding person, and the law says I have a right to privacy. I am just enforcing that right, in case my ISP was collecting anything (BT is my ISP), like my passwords. I also share my connection through my FON router, so as I will be using VPN encrypted network, I can prove 100% it wasn’t me who abused my internet connection, clearing me of liability. Ars Technica has an interesting article on the matter. That said, I have heard little of file sharing implications in Irish Law.

Also, I am one of the newest members of the FON community Wifi project. What the hell is this I hear you ask? Basically you share your internet connection, either for free (like I do)or for a small fee to others. If you share yours for free, you get free access to other FON routers worldwide. If however you “milk your wifi” (aka. make people pay) you hve to pay to use other foneros[sic] routers.

I see Leaving Cert results are out today! I am not looking forward to the year ahead, my last year of secondary school, 6th Year. I will be sitting the Leaving Cert next June, and well to say its no easy task to do well would be an understatement! I do Physics, German, Engineering, Irish, English, Maths, Geography which all will be tested! I wish everyone who has done it, the very best of luck this year, and I hope they all get the results they want. Each of your six best subjects is picked, all weighted on points and automatically submitted to the Central Applications office which holds a list of predetermined points on courses in registered institutions. Based on the availabilty (read “supply and demand”) is whether you get the course, as points fluctuate. They have rounds of offers, until all places are filled. No idea what I want to do, but I am looking in the sub <350 points range, shouldn’t be too hard to achieve!