So your quest for fitness continues and like me, you’re lazy. That’s good, after you’ve read this you can lay down and do abdominal exercise without feeling guilty. You remember sit-ups and how much you hated doing them — me too. The reason you hated doing them was that you had to do so many to accomplish so little.
I’ve studied this problem because studying is easier than doing sit-ups. My studies have led me to some conclusions. Continue reading ‘No Gym Required: Abs Exercises’
Today marks the beginning of the third year of The Confidential Resource blog.
Chris Pierre of Evince Services Inc. in Ottawa told me about a site called loco citato that has links to several good Social Network Mapping tools.
Last year I wrote about the Tort for Negligent Investigations and how this would reach out and touch a Private Investigation firm in Canada soon.
The Ontario Court of Appeal has expanded the tort of negligent investigation to allow employees to sue private investigators hired by employers to probe suspected wrongdoing in the workplace. The unanimous ruling by Associate Chief Justice Dennis O’Connor and Justices Marc Rosenberg and Kathryn Feldman extends the newly created tort of negligent investigation to private investigators. This tort was first recognized by the Supreme Court in 2007 as applicable to police.
In Correia v. Canac Kitchens, 2008 ONCA 506 & [2008] O.J. No. 2497, the court has imposed a new duty of care regarding investigators. The plaintiff was an innocent employee mistakenly fired and arrested for theft following a private investigation launched by his employer. His name was confused with that of another employee with a similar name. The sequence of events that led to erroneous identification of Mr. Correia is summarized in the chronology in paragraph [8].
Every Private Investigator in Canada should pay close attention to this case and the circumstances that gave rise to it.
With Windows XP, to clear the page file on shutdown go to Control Panel->Administrative Tools-> Local Security Policy->Local Policies->Security Options->Shutdown: Clear Virtual Memory Pagefile … enable it. It is wise to enable this setting on every computer you use.
We tell people to travel with a “clean” laptop. However, Windows creates a lot of temporary files. The most damaging can be the Page file. Everything that went into virtual memory is there in a file on the hard drive. Of course you should also use a good file erasure programme before shutting off the laptop.
Starting a competitive intelligence research project, an investigation, or due diligence research usually entails a detailed look at the corporate filings, share structure, and accounts of the target or subject company.
On the island of Great Britain, there are two separate registries, one for England and Wales, and another for Scotland. Both of these are operated by Companies House. The accounts and filings for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland take the same format.
On the island of Ireland, the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment of the Northern Ireland Government, (DETINI) houses the corporate filings and accounts. Corporate filings in the Republic of Ireland may be obtained online from the Companies Registration Office.
On the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey the corporate filings are handled at the Jersey Financial Services Commission and the Guernsey Registry. Jersey and Guernsey are tax havens, and companies incorporated there do not normally file accounts.
The Isle of Man is a tax haven, and companies incorporated there do not normally file accounts. The Companies Registry holds corporate filings, and is part of the Financial Supervision Commission. Continue reading ‘Corporate Filing Searches on the British Islands’
One of the problems with office work is the long periods spent sitting. This is hell on the abs and back. We obsessive types work right through lunch and wonder why we are so hungry when we come-up for air.
To avoid this, I installed XNote Stopwatch and set it in countdown mode. Every 45 minutes it beeps and reminds me to get up and move around. Usually, that means doing some stretching, sit-ups, Hindu squats, or some push-ups. Just a few of each to get the blood flowing and remind the body of what it is really meant to be doing.
Evidence Eliminator and similar software can kill out files and perform other tasks. But their use can raise red flags in a legal dispute.
But the wiper programs don’t ensure a clean getaway. They leave behind a kind of digital calling card.
“Not only do these programs leave a trace that they were used, they each have a distinctive fingerprint,” Kessler said. “Evidence Eliminator leaves one that’s different from Window Washer, and so on.”
I recommend the use of file erasure tools, especially when crossing international borders with computers. If you use such a programme regularly you have plausible deniability if you’re accused of erasing data to keep it from the police or the courts. If you always use it, then its “fingerprint” will always be there. If the install date matches the computer’s purchase date, then they can’t say you did this to eliminate the evidence the courts or police were seeking. Also, get a receipt for the wiper programme to show when it was purchased for the same reason.
File erasure programmes are part of prudent security practices and should not be viewed as something suspicious.
I don’t know how I ever lived without it — I really don’t. BIG monitors are great. Size does matter! Two big monitors are even better. I used to do real manly work, but I swear, having those two big monitors is better that driving a 200 ton dump truck or blowing-up a bridge.
When I produce a report, two monitors makes it much easier to arrange the source material, cut and paste, create citations and foot notes. This is more than a convenience. This allows me to produce a better product with less effort and to do it quicker.
To use two monitors you require a true video card. A video card built into the motherboard will not work. You will need a DVI cable for the main monitor and an analog cable for the second monitor. When you first connect the monitors it is not likely that the second monitor will work until you go into Display Properties >Settings and check “Use this device as the primary monitor” for the DVI monitor and then select the second monitor’s icon and select “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor”.
A good example is the NNDB Network Mapper. The NNDB Network Mapper contains relationship data for over 32,000 individuals and organizations and allows you to view their connections with a high degree of granularity.
Using visual tools like NNDB will make competitive intelligence and investigations easier to manage as this type of software becomes more refined and common.
In Power User 110 - Browser Add-ons I recommended the following two FireFox add-ons:
Tab Mix Plus provides all sorts of Tab options that don’t exist in Firefox.
Internote allows you to create persistent sticky notes on a web page which will be there once you return. Notes are very customizable, and come with many small, useful features. A manager is available, in which you can see all of your saved notes, edit them, print them, and delete them.
Neither of these is compatible with FireFox 3 and no updates are available at this time. It looks like there may be a updated version of Tab Mix Plus at some future time.
This is not a new issue. A 2004 PC World article described the technology. In February, 2008, I wrote about the EU concerns that these secret printer ID codes may break EU Privacy laws. The EFF has a list of the printers that print these secret codes used by the US government to match a document to the laser printer that produced it.
Another article about this appeared in USA Today a few days ago.
Printer dots raise privacy concerns
The dots, invisible to the naked eye, can be seen using a blue LED light and are used by authorities such as the Secret Service to investigate counterfeit bills made with laser printers…
Privacy advocates worry that the little-known technology could ensnare political dissidents, whistle-blowers or anyone who prints materials that authorities want to track.
The dots are produced only on laser devices and not ink-jet printers, which are most commonly used at home…
As an investigator, this might present an opportunity if the dot pattern is consistent enough to be matched to a particular printer or printer type without being able to decode the dots. If this were the case, then you might not need the ability to decode the dots in some instances. For example, at a company with many different types of laser printers. The process of elimination might indicate which printer(s) could have created a document.
One of the problems with loosing weight is seeing where all the calories we take in come from. A study scheduled for publication in August’s American Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that people who kept no daily food records lost an average of four kilograms, while those who kept six or more per week lost an average of eight kilograms.
This approach has been advocated for controlling personal and family budgets for decades. It is surprising that somebody had to go to the trouble and expense of conducting such a study to prove something so obvious. Simply put, you have to see your mistakes to make changes and you have to see your successes to repeat them.
Franchises identify themselves in the marketplace by using a common name and trademark. Each user of the name purchases a franchise which allows the franchisee the right to use the name. This is where the fun begins.
The franchisee will be a company or partnership with rights to use the name. In Canada, the right to use the name will normally be filed as a Business Name Registration. This allows a person, company, or partnership to operate under a name other than his or its proper name.
Now imagine you have a franchise at 123 Main Street in some Ontario town or city. How do you distinguish it from all the other franchises using the same business name?
In Ontario, OnCorp will allow you to view a list of all the business name registrations along with the recorded addresses.
A mouse click in the check-box next to the registration with the correct address will get you the Business Name Registration, and that will tell you the name of the company or partnership that owns that franchise location.
As I surf, Alexa Sparky provides each site’s traffic rank and a historical chart of traffic in the bottom right-hand corner. This is useful for evaluating the reliability of the data on the site. This tool helps evaluate sources without being influenced by elaborate Web site designs.
Of course Alexa Sparky is far from perfect, it does not provide a full ranking, but it can help you identify better content. For instance, a site that is ranked in the mid-six-figure range has a large following. A site like Danger Room with a mid-three-figure ranking has an enormous following, larger that many newspapers and newsstand magazines.