Blog for "the-enabler" of the letsnet.org network

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

The way you manage - or fail to manage - your trust could make it a sham, writes ROB STOCK.


Family Trust expert Martin Hawes is warning of a legal "train wreck" heading New Zealand's way.

Hawes, who has sold more than 100,000 books on family trusts, says there is a proliferation of "disaster trusts" which are not worth the paper their deeds are written on.

In October, the Sunday Star-Times warned that many trustee-beneficiaries of the estimated 200,000 family trusts were treating the property in their trusts as if it still belonged to them. Hawes says this could amount to tens of thousands of trusts that would be ruled "shams" if challenged in court.

Among clients to Hawes' wealth-coaching operation in Queenstown, as many as one in six arrive with trusts that could fail if challenged in a courtroom because of the cavalier way in which they are run.

While most trusts are well set up, Hawes says, many are managed badly, or not managed at all.

This makes it clear to the court that the settlors still see the property in the trust as their own, and that means the trusts are trusts in appearance only, but not in substance.

People simply don't understand that when they set up a trust, the property no longer belongs to them, but to the trust."

The likeliest way these trusts would be challenged is not by creditors, Hawes says, but by marital partners in the event of a divorce or split. And they know just how the trust has been managed, and would be prepared to stand up in court to bust the trust wide open.

Hawes says: "Case law under the Relationships Property Act will certainly come. Lawyers will look to get the property within trusts declared as relationship property, and the partner bringing the action will know exactly how their ex-partner has run that trust.

"People set up trusts as an insurance policy, but many are voiding them by not managing them properly," he says.

Disaster trusts he has seen in the last year include:

Trusts where the settlors have been left by their lawyers to manage the trusts themselves.

Trusts where there were no records at all, where no accounts have been done and where there is no minutes book.

House trusts where settlors have made alterations to the house out of their own pockets.

People taking income from rental properties they have put into trust, or using trust chequebooks to do the grocery shopping and then claiming that the trust was making a distribution to them.

Hawes recommends a "mate's car" approach to managing family trusts. "If you borrow a mate's car you treat it better than you would your own," he says.

Extending that to trusts requires moving away from using terms like "my trust" and seeing it in terms of managing an asset to which you have limited rights.

He says many family trusts need a trust warrant of fitness from a lawyer, and not the lawyer who set up the trust.

All trusts need adequate records, a minutes book and annual accounts. One day these may need to be produced in court to prove the trust is not a sham.

All trustees need to be involved in all decisions and all beneficiaries must be considered in relation to every decision. There also needs to be a minuted official annual meeting.

It is essential that trustees who are also beneficiaries do not intermingle their property with trust propert.

All income from trust property should go into the trust before it is distributed, and no capital expenditure, other than routine maintenance, should be done on trust property without going through a formal process with the trust.

Allocating blame for the coming legal trainwreck, Hawes says: "I would put the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the lawyers and accountants and financial advisers who have sold trusts and then abandoned their clients to manage them themselves."

Hawes is not alone in his accusations. Trust expert John Brown says: "I think many people are too afraid too look too deeply at the way they are managing their trusts."

But cases before the courts are showing the inviolable nature of trusts is under siege.

"Because of the number of trusts, we have a tidal wave that has been building and building, and it is starting to break," he says.
END
Aimhi of letsnet.org, found this at http://www.stuff.co.nz. You might want to keep an eye on them.


MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

Here's what the go, http://www.live365.com/stations/10164 for the Golden Ago of Radio recorded shows.

Oh! and they've got Glen Miller and many others. If you start liking listening to radio over the net there's a way to find other stations, http://www.radio-locator.com

Marry Christmas, enjoy.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

I said I'd put more info on DSL in a later entery, well;

DLP stands for Digital Light Processing, a unique projection technology developed by Texas Instruments and based around a proprietary semiconductor called a digital micromirror device (DMD). A single high-intensity light source is reflected off the DMD, which modulates the light by rapidly manipulating the angles of hundreds of thousands of tiny mirrors on its surface. On its way to the DMD, the light passes through a rapidly spinning color wheel that alternately filters it into red, green, blue and sometimes white or yellow spectra. By temporally coordinating the mirrors' modulations with the sequence of colors passed through the color wheel, the DLP light engine can create images with very subtle color variations, which are then magnified and projected onto a screen. For a more detailed examination of DLP technology, see our in-depth primer. DLP projection TVs come in screen sizes of approximately 42" and up.

Strengths
More expensive than CRT projection systems but less costly than LCD or plasma, DLP projection sets deliver excellent picture quality. The DLP light engine is capable of very high brightness (though not as bright as LCD), so a DLP set can be viewed even in bright room conditions. The distance between the pixels on a DLP display is quite small, minimizing the "screen-door effect" (seen more prominently in LCD displays) to create a full, seamless image. Because of DLP's fine reproduction of blacks, its contrast performance is superior to any other non-CRT projection technology. The single-light-source design eliminates the convergence issues that plague CRT and some other projection systems, and limits maintenance costs (a single bulb to replace, for example).

Considerations
DLP is not as bright as LCD technology, nor as compact as LCD or plasma flat-panel models (though the typical DLP rear-projection set is much shallower than most CRT-based rear-projection systems). Additionally, certain especially sensitive viewers notice an artifact commonly referred to as the "rainbow effect," a consequence of DLP's temporal approach to color formulation. Those viewers may momentarily see the light split into its component color spectra as their eyes travel quickly from one part of the screen to another — particularly when seated close to the screen. The unlucky few will likely find this quite distracting; fortunately, most viewers won't even perceive a problem. The latest-model DLP sets incorporate improved color-wheel technology in an effort to further minimize this artifact.

The bottom line
DLP rear-projection HDTV sets offer several advantages over CRT rear-projection systems, for a modestly higher price — along with video performance that's superior in some ways to more expensive flat-panel displays. Their impressive price-to-value ratio makes them well worth considering if you're not fixated on a wall-mountable TV.


MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

More then likely your computer has a 32 bite Main or Mother board(the board everything else click into). Well, 32 is going to 64 early next year. Which may mean alot of things like, a new OS from Microsoft(around the end of the next yr.). And that any computers that your looking to buy right now will be sporting a lower price when the 64s come out, Jan.or Feb. We've been waiting four yrs for this to happen. It was going to happen and then there was that TECH CRASH on the Stock Market. So, don't buy a computer for this Christmas just to have it lose half it's value shortly after new years. Want till after new years and buy then for the best price and should you just buy a 64 in 05, well that up to you but by this time next yr. the 64 bite puters should have gone from $1500.00 to half that. Have fun.

Oh! I said I'd talk about Flat screens too. Well, they should be dropping in price over the next yr. by about 50%. Just like they did this year. And DLP (Digital Light Processing) is the standard to go for. I'll be put in more info in, as I did months ago, in an entery I'll have to later today or tomorrow on DLP. Or, you could go to bestbuy.com, put your pointer over the Electronics tag to see and click on Televisions, scroll down to the "Research Center" and click on the "HDTV Information Center" hyperlick. At that pages scroll down to the section on "Picture" and under "which display techonlogy is right for you" click on "DLP". Or use this lick, www.bestbuy.com On DLP
The long and the short of it is I'm waiting till this time next yr. I work to hard for my money to not.
List say that the TV you want is $2000.00 today and it's going to $1000.00 in 12 months. 1000 divided by 12 = 83.33 a month I'm saving. And that's TAX free money. Call me if you don't understand that one. I'll put it this way 14 yrs. ago, maybe 16 , not sure, I bought a TV that I still have today. Back then I paided $1000.00 or so for it. And that was alot of money back then. Lets say 15 yrs. So, 1000 divided by 15 yrs. = $66.66 a yr. or $1000 divided by 180 months(115 yrs. in months) = $5.55 a month is what it's cost me to have that TV. The better the item you buy for the beter the price means you'll have it longer and have spend you money better. Oh! And doing it this way I've not paid any interest to anyone and that makes it an even better deal. I'll dye owning this TV or whatever you want to call them today.




MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

Overwhelmed, some willing to trade privacy for security
By Bob Sullivan
Technology correspondent MSNBC

Virus attacks. Phish scams. Zombie armies. The Internet is a jungle, and according to many experts, getting more perilous all the time. And behind nearly every Internet menace is a single problem: vulnerable personal computers.

Criminals hijack consumers' PCs by the thousands every day and use them to do their dirty work. Armies of zombies, for example, are now regularly used to attack Web sites and extort their owners.

Because all computers on the Internet are connected, the Internet is only as safe as its weakest link. And right now, the weak link -- home computers -- is pretty weak.

The task of keeping home computers safe, and free from Internet prowlers, is entirely the responsibility of individual consumers. Asked to download software patch after software patch, update their virus software and configure their firewall, most people simply don't do it.

"We are not trained to be the chief information officer of our home PCs," said Bentley College professor Mary Culnan, who recently directed a survey called Consumers and Internet Safety.

The survey found that only one in 10 consumers update their antivirus software regularly.

Making it worse in part is the proliferation of broadband connections, which are easier to hack and much more valuable to hackers. A recent government report said use of broadband doubled in the United States from 2001 to 2003.

Most don't know the risk
Most people apparently don't even know they are at risk. A recent survey released by America Online and the National Cyber Security Alliance indicated 77 percent of consumers think they are safe online -- but follow-up visits showed two thirds didn't have up-to-date antivirus software or firewalls, and 80 percent had spyware on their machines.

And so, Internet providers are hard at work examining another, radical possibility: Taking the job of keeping computers safe away from consumers entirely.

"America Online and other companies have realized it's impossible for consumers to do all the technology fixes they need to do to keep their computers safe," said Andrew Weinstein, AOL spokesman. "Consumers are tired of figuring out what they need to do to stay safe online."

The suggestion seems simple: Why can't a big software company like Microsoft, or a large Internet provider like AOL, simply take over home PCs and make sure they are safe before they connect to the Internet?

Privacy fears
There is, however, one catch, and it's a big one: Many privacy advocates and consumers don't want a company like Microsoft or American Online meddling with their PCs.

"The problem is when they tell consumers that means you have to let us scan your computer, the answer from an American audience can be, 'No you don't get access to my machine,' " said Bill Stillwell, Security Technical Program Manager at Microsoft Corp.

The software giant founded the Global Infrastructure Alliance for Internet Safety after a wave of computer worms plagued the Internet in 2003. The group, largely made up of Internet service providers, is considering methods for easing consumers' responsibility for their safety.
(Microsoft is a partner in MSNBC.com)

Some ISPs, for example, are already testing checks that would simply knock users offline if their computer isn't up to date, and point them toward what they need to do to be secure.

"We are already working on quarantining people," Stillwell said. "We have ISPs today already involved in proof of concept, that when a user logs in, they scan the machine, and tell them if they are up to date. If not, they dump them in the 'padded room.' "

The idea of forced security was a main topic at a Bentley College conference held last week in Waltham, Mass., called "Securing the Weak Link in Cyberspace," following the release of the school's survey. In the study, 56 percent said they thought security updates should be automatically installed by manufacturers, but 32 percent said the measures should be voluntary.

Alan Paller, director of research at security training firm SANS, said the time has come for this training wheel version of the Internet.

"All of us are grandma some of the time," he said. "There will be people who say, 'don't touch my machine,' but this is the answer to how do we protect people from extortion and denial of service."

Paller favors a system implemented by Internet service providers that simply prevents users from gaining access to the network if their computer is found to be unsafe. But don't expect Internet providers to go it alone on such a plan -- the competitive disadvantage would be too great.

Market forces at play
"It's not in their business interest to do so. If they insist, they would lose sales," said Pradeep Khosla, dean of Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering. Consumers would just use other ISPs without restrictions, he said.

Furthermore, Khosla said, companies would be loathe to take on extra liability, and cannot guarantee that they will be able to make computers 100 percent safe. Instead, he thinks market forces must slowly solve the problem

"If one ISP guarantees a slightly more protected level of service, for example, then you will see how competition will take over," he said.

That's also the approach favored by AOL, Weinstein said. Like MSN and Earthlink, the firm is aggressively marketing safety tools like spam filters and pop-up blockers as part of its service offering, something Weinstein referred to as "seat belts and air bags" for the Internet.

"The goal of the Internet is not to block off large sections of it. When you do that, you catch a lot of legitimate people," he said, citing attempted enforcements of anti-pornography laws that inevitably caught up legitimate Web sites in their webs. "There are unintended consequence of setting huge areas out of limits."

The largest hands-off security effort to date has been Microsoft's automatic updates for Windows. Consumers who sign up for the service download software patches regularly and automatically. With 230 million computers signed up, the service has been a modest success, said John Pescatore of Gartner Research. But it's imperfect.

"There are a couple of problems. It only patches the operating system," he said. "And frequently, auto-update downloads the patch, but the install doesn't complete for some reason ... or you reach a point where it says, 'insert your office CD.' And many consumers don't have it."

There are other problems, too. Because consumers modify their systems with complex non-Microsoft software, there's no way the software giant can test for every possible configuration -- and some problems will always occur. That's one main objection for those who would tell large Internet providers to keep away from their systems: What happens if the ISP breaks it?

"This is just such a huge, complex problem," Bentley professor Culnan said. An overarching solution that guarantees PC safety is probably some time off, she said.

So for now, the current system which relies largely on consumer vigilance will remain in place.

Culnan thinks greater efforts must be made to educate consumers to help themselves, such as aggressive marketing of StaySafeOnline.info, the consumer-focused site published by the government-sponsored National Cyber Security Alliance.

"It's really a social marketing challenge," she said. "An FTC commissioner made this comment at the workshop, that when he was a kid during World War II he picked up tin cans because it was in the national interest. Well, on the Internet, everybody needs to pick up their tin cans. But the issue is not viewed that way (today). "
© 2004 MSNBC Interactive END

The problem is, by the time Aol and the others get around to doing something like gaving you security you could be killed. I'm alot faster and sooner to tell you what you need and how to do it. If you'll just tell me about yourself BEFORE you have the problem. Make since? Be early on safety. Now go to Radio Shack and get that router for Christmas. Linksys 4 port or 8 port. Stop using the "big Blue E" browser, and start using Firefox and Opera. And stop using Outlook and switch to Thunderbird by Mozilla. Just like Firefox. Do those thing before you "HAVE LEARNED YOUR LISTEN"


MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

What more can I say, other than buy your computers locally. And gee, I think I've said that before. Once or twice.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

And here's how, I "left my cam on" after working with a cliants, and then went to a chat room and THAT'S HOW THEY GOT IN. Remember that when your cam is on you have an "open port" and that means that anyone can get in though it. By opening up the port, you left open a side door or window, HA HA. Which means that you've OK'ed someone, with the right software, to go right though your router, and firewall software and put a program in the puter that the cam is open on. In other words, the other computers on the network are OK. The opening went ONLY to the computer with the cam on. Like a conduit. The interesting thing here is that some of my thoughts worked any way. Because I don't keep my BIG drive as my "C:" drive. My C drive is a small drive (6 to 10 G)which means that the worm or virus, really don't know which at this time, looked for the Big drive (60 G), which is where I kept my back ups for the network. I can redo the back ups now or after I found and cleaned out the "bad boy" program. which now is wanting to go after the small drive. So, that puter is off the network and I'll take the drive and clean it and clean the bios and we'll see. PLEASE DONT' ASK ABOUT HOW YOU CAN DO THIS. THERE A TIME TO TURN IT OVER TO THE PROS. AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM. And yes I know how it done but no, I'll be having this done for me. Now all I have to do is find someone to not only do it but will do it now. Christmas you know.

BE SAFE out there, and remember to THINK. That's what I didn't do, I forgot to turn of my cam after I was done with it and see what happens.

MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

And if you've tried Firefox from Mozilla.com go back and look at Thunderbird. That's Mozilla email clients. Steelhoof, he's a member of letsnet.org, has been checking it out and using it now for months and has dropped outlook for thunderbird.



MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

Your Default Browser is the one that your system will automatically open when you click on a link outside of an open web page.

Anyone remember how to change which is your default after you have told the system to stop with the popups that keep asking you to make the other browsers default?

Change Default Browser within Windows

* Windows XP:
o Go to START, then click “Set Program Access and Defaults”. Then select custom and select the browser you would like to use as the default and click ok. (You can also find “Set Program Access and Defaults” by going to the control panel and selecting Add/Remove programs).

Change Default Browser within Browser

* Internet Explorer:
o Open internet explorer and go to Tools ==> Options ==> Programs. Check the box that says “Internet Explorer should check to see if it is the default browser.” Close internet explorer. Open internet explorer. It should ask if you want to make internet explorer the default browser.

* Mozilla Firefox:
o Open Firefox and go to Tools ==> Options ==> General. Click the “Check Now” button in the default browser section. If Firefox is not the current default browser it will ask you if you want to make it the default, otherwise it will let you know that it is already the default browser.

(It should also be noted that on an OS X(mac) you change your default browser by opening Safari, clicking the Safari menu, click preferences. Under the General tab you have an option to select your default browser.)


MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".

---

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."-- Aldous Huxley

As the prostitute said, "It's not the work, it's the stairs." As told to me by Elaine Stritch, star of stage, screen, & TV, right after she won her 1st Emmy. Ago 79.

---

Microsoft poo-pooed Finjan’s report last week that a malicious web site could bypass the browser warning and download bad stuff to your PC. The hole in Internet Explorer even affects Windows XP systems with Service Pack 2 installed. Now that a French web site has posted demo code, Microsoft says it’s working on a patch.

The rest of the story. OR you could just believe it all now and change over to FireFox and or Opera.

MY ADVICE endeavors at keen.com. The number is 1-800-275-5336 (800-ask-keen) + ext. 0329063 for tech stuff, 0329117 for running a small business, and 0329144 on investing. Want to CHAT, I use Yahoo's IM as the_web_ster. View me in the Friends & Family part of webcamnow.com, just click on "view cams", then in the Java window click on WebcamNow Communities drop down arrow & select Friends & Family. Under the live webcams look for & click on me "the_webster".