Costa Helped Me Become Published

The long awaited novel’s “The Brotherhood Of The Realms” and “On A Storyteller’s Night” by Writer/Author, Marcus De Storm, would never have been possible, if it wasn’t for Costa Coffee House in Wetherby. This was according to the Author himself who placed a Blog Blurb on the internet.

‘Due to the assistance of Wi-Fi and the laid back comfortable conditions that Wetherby Costa gave me, I was able to complete two of the twenty-five novel’s which accompany the series of “On A Storyteller’s Night”, which also includes the Pilot novel. I would be pleased to share this information with any other Writer/Author, who is looking for that special place to chillax and write their works and projects.’ Marcus wrote.

Wetherby Costa Coffee House which is situated next to the Wetherby Bus Station has been the local watering hole for Marcus De Storm during the two year project, as well as the creation of “The Storm Writer’s Circle”, which has been set up to help other Writer’s and Author’s find sources of Publishing needs.

‘Its hard to believe that two years ago, my wife and I walked into Wetherby Costa Coffee House and immediately became comfortable – as comfortable as an executive revisiting their own favoured Wine Bar and being greeted with a smile of service. With Wetherby Costa, the entire transformation from our usual Café – The Gourmet situated on the Shambles, Wetherby – where they talked about getting Wi-Fi for the many computer workers that visit the establishment, but alas did not take the initiative; with more than 68% of Café’s and Coffee Houses now catering with free Wi-Fi and Internet Access, sales projections alone have doubled (even tripled) in many areas where the lack of the 21^st Century technology has shown a mass slump.’

So, why Costa Coffee House, if the availability of Wi-Fi was not there?

‘The bottom line here is not the fact that ALL Costa Coffee Houses offer free Wi-Fi and Internet Access, it is the all-around feel of the establishment, the attitudes of the staff that work there and, a mutual sense that it almost like “Home from home”, whichever way you want to look at it. When my company began the “Great Latte Tour” more than two years ago, we found that out of eight Café’s in Wetherby, only three were compatible with the challenge results. Costa Coffee House has remained Storm Multi-Media Technologies Ltd number one Coffee House, while still in second place is The Gourmet on The Shambles in Wetherby. For the Café to become best known for its unique tastes, surroundings and approach of the staff in general, they have to work for the benefits or the prize – and Costa has succeeded in all of these challenges and necessities.’

Future Directions

With several novel’s destined for publication throughout 2012, we asked what the future holds and which direction the whole Author status is going to go?

‘There are some 53 writing Projects associated with my name, and five of these Projects are to be completed within the year (2012). With global sales climbing each week of “The Brotherhood” and that of “On A Storyteller’s Night Book 1” on eBook, the main emphasis is now directing toward a new release which is not Crime/Gore/Horror, but Sci-Fi. Of course, the new Project details will be released very soon, but until then, I can safely say that there are enough covered topics and categorised Story-Shorts and Novels in my locker that will serve as entertainment for everyone. With the help and assistance of Costa Coffee House in Wetherby, where I can purchase my wake up Latte, chillax and complete a chapter or two in the forty-five minutes that I am welcomed there, then the world will see much of the work I have to share.’

As announced by Marcus De Storm, the new novel “On A Storyteller’s Night Book 1: The Beginning” will be released on schedule for the 1^st June 2012 in Paperback format, and one month later Book 2: The Sanctum, will be released to eBook first where it will follow shortly after in Paperback, too, but no firm date has been set by the Writer. Until then, we have to make do with the mysteries of the two novels already available and await the new Project.

© GWN 2012/Marcus De Storm 2012.

Pirate Bay Launched With New IP, Optimized For Proxies

Pirate Bay

Pirate Bay responds to blocks.

Users in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Italy have been blocked from accessing the Pirate Bay, as widely reported. Now, the notorious BitTorrent site has launched a new site at 194.71.107.80, which may be reachable in those countries, for now.

The new site is also optimizes for use with proxies, which can help to get around a national or local block of a website. It is likely that the new IP address will be blocked in affected countries very quickly, but the proxy optimization might be useful for some users.

It is somewhat different than the normal Pirate Bay site, in that it only posts links to magnet files, it does not allow logins or comments, nor does it allow you to upload.

BT, Virgin Media in broadband subsidy spat

Virgin Media says UK government subsidizing BT.

Labour MP Chi Onwurah has attacked the coalition government’s rural broadband plan, telling a the House of Lords communications select committee that the current system is skewed toward BT.

Virgin Media has backed the comments made by the shadow business minister. UK counties have been allocated a share of £530m of government cash for broadband schemes. The counties aim to match the government funding and contract firms to roll out high-speed Internet access in the areas.

Contracts have been awarded in Lancashire and Rutland so far, both to BT. In some areas, BT is the only firm bidding for contracts, with rivals Fujitsu and Cable & Wireless withdrawing from the process in many areas. Virgin Media says it is not in the best interest of consumers for a single entity to win all contracts, and criticized the BDUK, the group that oversees the government’s broadband strategy.

Virgin Media chief operating officer Andrew Barron said that some of the funds should be used to fund Wi-Fi and 4G networks in rural areas, but BT has said the closed nature of Virgin’s networks exclude it from the process.

“BT would be more than happy to compete directly with Virgin for BDUK funds but we doubt that will happen. That is because Virgin have steadfastly refused to provide open wholesale access to their network – a key BDUK requirement – and because they have shown no interest to date in supplying rural areas with broadband,” a BT spokesman said in a statement.

ITC Judge: Xbox 360 Should Be Banned From U.S.

An ITC judge has ruled this week that Microsoft Xbox 360 should be banned from import into the U.S. due to violations of Motorola patents.

The console violates four patents, says Law Judge David Shaw. Shaw made his original ruling in April and has now recommended a full injunction on sales and import into the States Shaw made his initial ruling against Microsoft in April, and now recommends a ban on sales and import of the game console.

Gamers should not fret, however, as Shaw’s ruling needs approval from the ITC board of commissioners, with a deadline of August 23rd. After that, if the board approves, then they will still need to get a signature from the President before the ban goes into effect.

The Motorola patents relate to H.264 codec for online video.

Motorola’s fight with Microsoft goes farther than just one video patent, and has extended to multiple nations and patents related to Android, as well.

GTA V Will Launch Before March 2013, Say Analysts

Take-Two’s financial figures appear to anticipate major launch.

The publishers’ figures show that it anticipates between $1.75-$1.85 billion for the year ending March 31, 2013. According to analysts, this figure hints heavily that Rockstar’s anticipated next instalment of the Grand Theft Auto series will launch sometime before then.

Wedbush Securities’ Michael Pachter had already said that the delay of the upcoming BioShock title hinted that GTA V will launch, and now he agrees with other analysts that Take-Two’s revenue projections make the case even stronger.

Pachter believes that the guidance is “unattainable” without a major Rockstar title. He believes the developer will provide $1.1 billion to Take-Two’s bottom line, with $300 million coming from Max Payne 3 and its DLC, and a further $150 million from Rockstar’s existing catalog. That leaves a void of $650 million, which Pachter believes could easily be accounted for by GTA V.

There were also reports that Microsoft’s Xbox Support Twitter feed had accidentally revealed that GTA V will launch in 2012, but that it removed the tweet later on. Adding to fuel to the speculation, the support team later Tweeted, “There is no official release date for [GTAV], and we are not aware of what date it comes out.”

Facebook, Banks Face Lawsuit Over IPO

Investors angry about information disclosed before the IPO.

A writ filed in a Manhattan court alleges that Facebook and the banks that lead its recent floatation did not inform all investors of its revised growth figures.

Morgan Stanley has already been brought up by U.S. financial regulators, who say the firm may have questions to answer about the highly-publicized Facebook IPO. The bank however, said that it fully complied with all the rules.

The lawsuit alleges that the banks and Facebook concealed a “a severe and pronounced reduction” in growth forecast during the flotation marketing process.

The floatation did not get off to the right start on Friday, when it was affected by technical glitches on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Since then, the value of Facebook shares dropped from the $38 float price.

It is also being reported that the Senate banking committee may take a look at the issues surrounding the Facebook IPO.

Firm Fined For Angry Birds Scam

Latvian firm fined £50,000.

It had added knock-off copies of games such as Angry Birds to the Android Market. While they were eventually rooted out and removed from the service, they had already been downloaded by many people, who then discovered that they were being charged £5 a pop for premium SMS messages.

PhonepayPlus, an industry watchdog, said that these kinds of scams are a growing threat.

In addition to the £50,000 fine, the Latvian company must also refund another £28,000 to mobile users. “It is hectic,” Nitin Lachani, researcher at PhonepayPlus, said to the BBC. “These guys are coming up with more and more sophisticated malware.”

“There is a wider issue here. There is malware out there which can gain total access to your phone. A cyber criminal could then deliver apps to your phone which could tap into your phone calls, your messages. You’ve got to be think that phones are like computers and there is a massive link to your phone bill or potentially your credit card.”

Generally speaking, the biggest threat to Android users is installing applications from untrusted sources, but in this case, the malicious apps had actually gotten to the Android Market. They were removed along with others back in November.

DNS Changer Virus Spells ‘Internet Doomsday’

The end is nigh, according to the FBI. “Internet doomsday” will strike us all on 9 July when the domain name service changer virus will disconnect many internet users from the web.

PC users whose machines are infected with the DNS changer malware must disinfect their computer by 9 July, or they will be prevented by accessing the internet.

DNS changer has already forced users to fraudulent websites, interrupted web browsing and exposed affected computers to other malicious viruses, according to the FBI.

The virus works by redirecting computer users to criminals’ DNS servers. DNS servers are the critical internet link that switch domain names like Google.com into a series of numbers that computers use to talk to each other.

The virus initially appeared via an online advertising campaign, which directed web users to criminal sites when they clicked an ad.

Users of infected computers are directed to dodgy websites when clicking seemingly genuine sites. Clicking Amazon for example, could steer a web users to a site that is unaffiliated with Amazon, exposing users to viruses and denying genuine sites from advertising revenue.

Symantec said in a statement: “DNSChanger has been around for a while now and from a technical perspective nothing has changed from what we know. It should be pointed out that only Windows and Mac users are affected. Linux, Android and IOS users are not.

Users who encounter problems with internet connectivity may need to contact their IPS for their original DNS settings or use a public DNS such as google on 8.8.8.8. Also, various ISPs have already implemented some sort of DNS checks to ensure their customers are either notified or fixed before everything goes dark.”

The DNS virus was allegedly unleashed by six Estonian nationals who have been arrested and charged by the FBI after a two year operation.

The six were charged with running an internet fraud ring that “infected millions of computers worldwide with the virus and enabled the thieves to manipulate the multi-billion-dollar internet advertising industry”.

Kaspersky Lab, which is investigating the situation, told The Huffington Post: “Our experts at Kaspersky Lab are analysing the technical details of the malware attack that has affected a number of oil facilities in Iran. Preliminary data suggests that files on several computers were overwritten with garbage code, after which the hard disks on the targeted systems were wiped clean by a malicious program.

“The data currently available neither confirms nor disproves the theory that this incident was caused by a malicious program linked to the notorious Duqu or Stuxnet programs. At the present time, we have not identified any of the files of the malicious program that wipes the system clean.” they said.

There are a number of ways to avoid “internet doomsday”. Kaspersky Lab offers TDSSKiller, which detects and removes DNS Changer, while a simple visual check is available at dns-ok.us.

“The Brotherhood” Goes To Print

As reported a little while ago, Marcus De Storm, Director of “The [MKDS] Network 2012, released four of five eBooks onto the Internetwork – before the 1st June 2012 deadline, we may add – where they have received some very good Global “Feedback”. And, as a reward to those that have been asking if the eBooks are going to Print any time soon, Marcus has released his first book of many on Amazon (Global).

“I have been receiving emails from people in both the USA and Europe asking me if I have any plans on releasing the eBooks into Printed Paperback? Of course, my initial intentions were to keep the four books on Kindle eBook, while completing another four to five volumes of ‘On A Storyteller’s Night’, and then release ‘The Brotherhood Of The Realms’ as an exclusive. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way at all.”

With more than 2,140,000 hits to his name on the Search Engine, more than 500 Article Based Reports, 48+ BlogSite’s, 2,000+ Poems, 4 Novels and more than 170 Story-Short Novel’s to his name, not to mention his Awards picked up along the way as “Poet Elite” and “Poet Laureate”, Marcus De Storm sets to make a huge impact on the world like nobody would believe – and that’s a hell of a lot of unbelievers. But, when asked what he expected from the release of both ‘eBook and Paperback’, his simple answer was:

“I’m doing this for the passion of Writing, not for money or glory as many people would believe. From the very beginning I have always maintained that my Writing’s are for the world to read, nothing more, and if there just happens to be money generated from the sales of that written material, then so be it.”

The Brotherhood Of The Realms (eBook & Kindle) is available now on Amazon

On A Storyteller’s Night Book 1: The Beginning (eBook & Kindle) is available now on Amazon.

Reflection Of A Poet’s Life (eBook & Kindle) is available now on Amazon

The Private Poet 2012 (eBook & Kindle) is available now on Amazon

The Brotherhood Of The Realms – Available SOON in Paperback on Amazon – Details to follow.

‘Game Of Thrones’ Quickly Becoming The Most Pirated Show On The Planet

The HBO blockbuster hit show “Game of Thrones” is well on its way to becoming the most pirated TV show in 2012.

According to data from P2P analysis firm Big Champagne, the show has been downloaded over 25 million times on public torrent trackers, alone, since April, when the show’s second season began.

“It certainly appears to be the most pirated show of the year,” notes John Robinson, a senior media analyst with Big Champagne. “The fact that it’s consistently at the top of the Pirate Bay’s top one hundred TV show chart seems like a pretty in-your-face leading indicator of the huge volume at which this is being shared.”

Looking back, the first season of Game of Thrones was the second most pirated TV season of all time, right behind the latest season of “Dexter.”

However, the latest season of GoT is already handily beating the last season of Dexter, as per this chart: