Free iPhones, Anyone?

No, this is not a joke. You really can get an iPhone for free, and it's not a scam. I will give you the link later, but today, I will show you the steps and how it works.

When you enter the website, it will ask you to create an account and select a free gift. You may recieve some spam from this because of the third-parties involved, so you may want to create a new email account exclusively for this.
After you've created and verified your account, you are now on the next stage - completing an offer. Simply choose a third-party offer of your choice (this is where the spam usually comes from), and complete the offer. Some offers may be free, and others may cost money. Some of the offers are actually quite useful, because you get to test a few things for only 1-5 USD, and you get a free gift with it. If you do not want to pay for the offer, then you have the choice of choosing a free offer. These offers are made by real companies, and you can search them on Google or Wikipedia to verify their authenticity. If you would not like to complete an offer at all, then there is the option of refering an extra three referrals (which I will explain later) to count as one completed offer.

Finally, after you complete the offer, you are on your way to referrals. You need to get a specified number (27 for the PAYG iPhone 3GS 32GB) of referrals for the gift to be sent to you. A referral is just what it sounds like - one person you refer to the website. Each referral must create an account and complete one offer for it to count. If your referrals are suspicious of the offers and would not like to complete them, simply tell them that they can substitute an extra three referrals for a completed offer.

After you have completed all the steps, you will need to click on Verify. Then, your free gift will be sent directly to your door!

More on this will be available in the next post.

An Interesting Concept

So yesterday, I was looking through the list of great schools at www.GreatSchools.org, and I found something really cool. It's a concept called Virtual School, and many states in the US have already founded their own virtual public schools with the founding company K12. Virtual Schools are essentially online schools - they teach everything that a normal school teaches, except that the quality of education is better (as the teacher to student ratio is 1:1), and many regular school downsides, such as bullying, cease to exist. I think that we might consider this type of school, and if we do go to Shanghai or Beijing in the future, then we might enroll in the K12 International Academy.

Facebook! Finally!

Recently, there has been a lot of blocking going on in China. All the popular sites - YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Facebook... All gone in China because of the government's blocking scheme. A couple months ago, I tried a little program called Freegate to remedy this problem. It worked for a few weeks, but then it stopped working. I think this problem was most likely caused by the Chinese government detecting Freegate and blocking access to its servers. Back then, it appeared that Freegate's development had halted, because its website only provided the download site for the old version, 6.xx. Because of this, I stopped finding ways to bypass the blocking, as it appeared that nothing could work.

Recently though, my mother came home from work and said that her co-worker had copied a program onto her laptop that would bypass the Chinese firewall. I asked to see the program, and that program was Freegate. I immediately responded, saying that Freegate does not work, but when she opened it up, it worked. I also noticed that the version number was 7.00. It appeared that Freegate had been updated and it now works! Now, Freegate is regularly updated, and it can give you access to all sites that were previously blocked. It's also remarkably fast for a proxy; it can stream YouTube videos at about 85% of the speed that was possible when YouTube wasn't blocked yet.

For all of you who are still bound by the blocking of the Chinese government, I recommend that you use Freegate. You can find it in Google. Please note that the download site for Freegate has been blocked, so if you're not already using an unblocking software such as Tor, then you can send an email to me at derekcheng6@yahoo.ca to get it.

SSAT Test Issues

So yesterday, I went and did another practice SSAT test. I did pretty well - I got full marks on both quantitative sections. However, the reading comprehension and vocabulary sections were where I didn't do so well. Well, it wasn't really that bad - it was still slightly higher than average, but still not good enough. After my practice test, I analyzed my test, and I found my problems.

I found that most of my problems are related to not understanding classical writing. The paragraphs and poems written by authors from a long time ago are just too hard to read. Lately, I have been reading more classical stories to try and fix that issue. I am also trying to find explanations and maybe a few worksheets for each classical novel I read.

Next issue is vocabulary. I don't think there really is a way to learn vocabulary, because the only way is to memorize. But I do think that there are more efficient ways to memorize, too. My Defining Twilight books are great, but I didn't see many of its words on the test. I'm thinking those words might be too hard for the SSAT, but I have no other way, so I'm still going to have to do it this way.

Is any one of you guys gonna try the SSAT? Let's compare scores!

Best Firearms for Military

I think the US military is desperately relying on old firearms. The standard issue M16 rifle is seriously getting out of date, as it's almost 60 years old now. Even with all the new upgrades, it still cannot match Kalashnikov reliability and ruggedness. The same goes for the M4 and M4A1 carbines, which are just shortened versions of the M16A2 rifle. The M9 pistol (known to civilians as the Beretta 92FS) is, in my opinion, underpowered for military use. The 9mm cartridge does not have much stopping power, and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan are reporting that it takes multiple hits with an M9 to down an enemy. The round we should be using is the .45 ACP, which is quite famous in America, and also has a lot of stopping power. The reason for that is because it is very wide, and that accounts for reports of one-shot kills with this round. The original pistol that used the .45 ACP was the Colt M1911 and M1911A1, but those guns are severely outdated, as they are almost a century old. The new design that should be used is the Glock 21, which fires .45 ACP and utilises a high-cap 13-round magazine, compared to the M1911 mag which only holds 7 rounds. Glock pistols are also renowned for their reliability and safety, using the trademark "safe action" system developed by Gaston Glock. All Glock pistols are also exceptionally light, because they use a high strength plastic body instead of a metal one. This almost beats the M9 in every aspect.

For the M16 replacement, the AK-101 is a very nice contender. It was developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov, and it was based on the AK-47, so of course it inherits the legendary reliability of the AK family. The Americans also love 5.56mm, and the AK-101 is chambered in 5.56, so it would be perfect. The only modification needed to be made would be to accept STANAG magazines.

Back to Blogger

Yay! I can finally post here again! China's stupid blocking scheme is blocking everything that I try to view - Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia pictures, Blogger... But I have finally found a way to get past it. I just use a special little program called Freegate, which transfers you to their servers before you reach the Internet. This method works beautifully, and you can view almost every webpage very quickly. For those of you who also live in China and want to try it out, simply Google it; it's very easy to find. I recommend you use the latest version which is 7.02, but you can still use version 7.00 if you cannot find the latest version.

From now on, I will be double-posting my blog entries here and on my Windows Live Spaces account, so you're welcome to choose which one you'd like to view. I will be reposting some of my new entries here so that you can still read my other blog entries here.

Now, I need to get to work. See you soon!