Author Archives: Berto

About Berto

Hi! This is my blog!

IT JUST GOT REAL: Quitting My Sales Job to Start My Own Business

This week, I tendered my resignation to my employer, National Instruments, in order to focus on my own internet marketing business that I started.

I spent 1.5 years as an Applications Engineer at NI Corporate in Austin, TX, and almost 4 years as a technical sales manager in the South Bay / Aerospace Corridor of Los Angeles (where I currently plan to stay).

There is never a good time to leave a sales job. It …

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Announcing Crash Test – Tues 4/27 11PM EST on Spike TV

Last fall, I filmed a reality TV pilot for Spike TV called Crash Test. On Tuesday, April 27th, Spike TV is going to air the pilot at 11PM EST (check your local listings – DirecTV and other satellite networks will be off of the east coast feed!).

In Crash Test, Hollywood stunt expert Jack Gill leads an elite team of stuntmen, scientists, and investigators as they recreate full scale accidents to prove who …

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My Top 15 Albums of 2009

While 2009 was an incredible year for me, its music will go wholly unremembered. To prove my point, there is not a single album on this list that will make it to my top 10 albums of the decade (coming soon).

2009 brings a few major themes that you will see here:

  • Female vocals – Anneke Van Giersbergen is everywhere. Theatre of Tragedy pulled the surprise of the year, the Gathering put out yet another

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How to Disable Root Logins in phpmyadmin with Ubuntu

Edit – April 29, 2011 – This is no longer working for me in Ubuntu 10.04 with everything updated. If you can figure it out, please drop a comment!

This took me a bit too long to figure out. Using Ubuntu 8.10 on a server, I wanted to use phpmyadmin to graphically manage my MySQL databases, but disallow root logins for security reasons.

There are two things you must do in the phpmyadmin config file …

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My Top 15 Albums of 2008

Happy New Year! It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, my top 15 albums of 2008!

2008 was great (although I didn’t blog much) – there could easily be 20 albums on this list. Links to past lists: Top 15 Albums of 2007, Top 15 Albums of 2006. Here we go:

  1. Amon Amarth – Twilight of the Thunder Gods Last year I said European Death Metal was dead? Think again.

    Not since

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How to Buy and Own Gold – The Layman’s Guide to Escaping the Dollar

For nearly 40 years, the government and Federal Reserve has been destroying the value of your money. If you’re like me, you don’t support any bailout plans which effectively give money to criminals at the expense of a worse dollar and higher cost-of-living.

This post is not meant to discuss those issues – it’s here to discuss one solution for your personal savings – how to hedge on some gold (and silver) to preserve personal …

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