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Armin van Buuren is the most ‘dangerous’ DJ in the world

OK, this is interesting. I like this guy’s stuff.

DJ Armin van Buuren tops the 9th annual Intel Security Most Dangerous Celebrities list.

Source: Armin van Buuren is the most ‘dangerous’ DJ in the world

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Technology podcast 221 is now available for September 26, 2015

OK folks, our RSS feed has our latest podcast just released. Below, you will find the show notes and I hope you will enjoy the cast.

On this edition of the podcast, I talk about my IOS 9, my first impressions in audio but you can read the blog too. Transit App released an update to their app, and I talk about that as well. Finally, Out With the Old and in With the New: Meet the Chip-Embedded Credit Card – McAfee is also talked about as well. The total time of the podcast is 1 hour and 39 minutes. We hope you enjoy the cast!

Contact information is available on the blog on our pages that are available on this blog.

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Out With the Old and in With the New: Meet the Chip-Embedded Credit Card – McAfee

Here’s something I think everyone should read I found today. October 1 is one week away, and I’ve already got my new card. I’ve had it awhile now. I know other places already have this technology, but I did find this article useful.

The credit card is a powerful tool — it’s thin, portable, and, thanks to a small magnetic strip on the back of the card, gives you immediate access to credit or cash at a moment’s notice. While the concept of credit and charge cards has been around for ages in various forms, it wasn’t until …

Source: Out With the Old and in With the New: Meet the Chip-Embedded Credit Card – McAfee

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Apple releases 9.0.1 of IOS

Today, IOS 9.0.1 is released to fix some bugs, however, they don’t think it fixes some of the issues reported when 9 was released. Apple Vis has an article right here for you to read. I thought I’d pass this along for those who don’t know. Take care.

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Should Hacked Feds Lose Security Clearance?

OK, I just read an article that the F-secure folks tweeted out entitled: Should Hacked Feds Lose Security Clearance? I understand where the person is concerned that if we are working for the government, we need to be aware of Phishing e-mail so we can protect their information. I can agree with this, however, with the latest in how they are crafted, it can be quite interesting knowing whether it is worth it to click on the links. I think what I’d do is if I wasn’t sure, I would click through to see what it was about, but if it was asking for information, I would exit, just like I did now. Also, I would want to make sure that I read the E-mail carefully, such as “hello paypl member” vs “Hello (name)” where name in parens indicate the name of the account. Depending on the address, I would know for example, that my government address is not associated to any services, so I know not to provide any type of info, even if I did click on links. This is a touch call, because I can see where if you are providing information, you shouldn’t be trusted with stuff that you wouldn’t share with the public anyway, however, if this is going to be implemented, it needs to be done the right way. I’d be interested how this would be implemented, and we’ll go from there. Your thoughts are welcome.

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IOS 9, my first impressions

Hi folks,
I’ve upgraded my IOS device to 9, and found only 1 app I can confirm that does not work at all in 9. Other people may have similar bugs, and things that are reported may never happen to you. Apple vis compiled some items I thought I’d mention, and then I’ll give my thoughts so far.

I was just taking a look, and it did seem to take quite awhile on the apple logo for my iphone 5s. I just decided to wait it out, and soon my phone started talking. I noticed that it had changed my voice to the smaller version, and it braught me to a setup screen which I don’t remember doing for 8. Herbie indicated I did, and maybe I did. I don’t remember. I had meant to write the developer of Transit App and let them know their app doesn’t seem to work at all with IOS 9. This afternoon, I shut off voiceover, and tapped on the buses to see about getting the screen that drops so I can see the times. No dice. Touching on the bus list yielded the map and various streets. Nothing but flashing like it wiggles with voiceover off. I still plan to write them, so it can be fixed. I’m sure they’re at hard working on it and will release soon.

Speaking of transit, I was reminded about the apple maps. I am not convinced this is the right solution. For my area, the closest station it seemed to bring up was out on the Orange Line busway, a few miles away. Even while I was sitting at a bus stop, the closest station was 2.1 miles away. Even when I was approaching Tampa Avenue, the app was showing me Tampa Station on the orange line and i selected bus stops, not train stations. Fail.

I took a quick look at settings, and found they nmoved their battery stuff to the main screen and added an option for battery saving mode. Tomorrow will definitely be the day to check that out, as I have a longer day and I will be testing that out.

I was reading the notes while the phone was downloading the update, and it said that we could leave messages if facetime is missed. By chance, Herbie didn’t take my call, and i thought I’d leave a message, but it returned me to what i was listening to instead. Apple, that is not impressive. Maybe it’ll be fixed in 9.1 which is in beta as we speak.

What is really interesting is Pandora. After buying a day pass to take advantage of the free day since my WIFI went down on their 10-year-anaversary day, the bugs I had reported to them where the bio section of the profiles on their tracks seems to read more. It was hard to duplicate, not sure if apple changed something, or if they fixed it, but I was able to read several even when my phone was locked.

I still need to check out the podcasts from Apple Vis dealing with IOS 9. That’ll be tomorrow’s project, before and after a class i must attend. I did read all of the above items except for the deaf blind one, which I want to do. Is there anything you guys want to send me? Please reach out, contact info is on the blog. You can also contact me on Twitter, Facebook, and SMS/imessage. Keep in touch!

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Appeals court strikes a blow for fair use in long-awaited copyright ruling | Ars Technica

Copyright owners must consider fair use, and Universal now faces a trial over it.

Source: Appeals court strikes a blow for fair use in long-awaited copyright ruling | Ars Technica

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Freshbooks continues to get better accessibility wise

Today, I set up a new client and baught a domain for them through another service. Freshbooks continues to show me why I had chose them for billing my clients. Today’s creation of the client and their invoices which will start soon, show me how committed they are.

  • You are now able by PC to successfully create your client.
  • Each client may have multiple contacts and each can have their own login.
  • The client created included contact info for both people.
  • The invoices were easy to create through the recurring profile system. It includes the start date, how often, the client, and what we’re billing for.
  • Options for discounts and P.O. numbers were easy to skip if needed. Even prorating the first invoice was an option, but they wanted to be billed on a certain day, so no P.O. is needed nor the prorate.

I’m feeling pretty good about this company, I’m liking what I see. I’m a Window-Eyes user, and I assume all of this is accessible with other screen readers as well. If you’ve used Freshbooks, and you’re using another Assistive Technology product, I’d love to hear from you about your usage. Get in touch, and lets talk. Great job, keep up the great work!

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Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) | Internet of Things Poses Opportunities for Cyber Crime

We always try to talk about being as secure as possible, here’s something that is of interest. Do take a look at this one.

Source: Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) | Internet of Things Poses Opportunities for Cyber Crime

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My personal review of windows 10

Hi all.
Well I have been needing to service 2 systems from family one of them a
server style desktop the other a laptop.
Both are dule cores, both have round 2gb of ram.
One of them was well broken sort of and the other had win 10.
Things I like about windows 10 include the following.
1 speed, I couldn’t believe how fast starting even on a core2 duo win
10 is really fast running and starting if I didn’t know any better I’d
say I was using my i5 duel rather than a core2 duo especially since the
same system had been slow on win 7.
Ofcause the system needed a little spyware clearing but it was not
really bad just left over fragments, and a hard drive full of junk.
Coppying a flash drive to the system was really fast and a integrity
check was really good.
2. Windows is spying on you.
Ok, its a misnoma to think windows is actually spying.
Firstly all those settings are easy to find and read.
Things you will want is calindar, microphone, and camera access.
You may not want contacts access but you may want it.
What you will want to turn off right away.
advertising access, location access, and radio wifi sence access.
You will also want to turn off smart filter store access, and turn on do
not track access.
You want to set your windows updates to warn you before restarting, you
will want to set the data for updates to be sent only internally over
your internal network and not the net saving you data.
You will want to pick a solid color or a picture for background rather
than have automatics take over and slow things.
You will want to make sure your drivers are updated, from actual
hardware drivers sites not the ms generics.
The manufacturer of the devices vary but I have found printers as old as
2005 with driver updates and some video cards unless they are really old.
Your high def device may actually have a driver and you may want to
install whatever that driver is to get full power, on the other hand
your standard hd driver may be enough.
Make sure system restore is on and above all use a local account.
Turn off cortana especially if you don’t use it or don’t have a mic
plugged in all the time.

Sadly that was the only good point I found over windows.
A lot has changed since 7, the file menu does not have the new folder
option anymore, you have to go to a toolbar, I couldn’t get the edit
menu to pop up, there was no select all.
Also windows help kept launching.
I have used microsoft edge and just preffur internet explorer or firefox.
Progress bars with nvda were not read in a lot of places and that was a
bit of a pain.
If you run things in admin mode forget doing it from search I was not
able to I had to go to the folder, search the file and run it like that
there must be a better way I am sure.
I missed seeing what extra features came via windows update, reading
what things were etc.

Back to privacy, if you don’t need apps like twitter or facebook or
connecter, or whatever, turn it all off, you may want to keep clock and
alarms on.
I was able to strike the programs list once but never managed it again.
In conclusion while win10 is a nice os to have and I could use it, there
were some frustrating issues, in particular that the file explorer is
just a plain ribbon.
I am also saddened to report that bar a few different sfx most are win8 sfx.
I did manage to clear the notification centre but wasn’t able to restore it.
If you are a simple user like me well 7 is where you go, I am happy to
be returning to my win7 desktop though with 10 there is not as much
resistance as 8 was.
Also if a driver fails you can choose not to install drivers
automatically if you want.
I didn’t keep the system on for that long while figuring it all out and
updating it but I had a better experience with it than the 7 laptop, a
dell with video cards no longer existing to a hot cpu, noisy fan, full
of spyware and a bad memmory module to boot.
Oh well, with these out the way, I am looking to the next system to fix
that is on win 10, an i5 and man is it messy always is.

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Coder pleads guilty to writing Gozi banking trojan

I love seeing articles like this, and according to Coder pleads guilty to writing Gozi banking trojan here’s some good news. Guy even admits it.

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NV Access currently down

As of 8 PM, NV Access is back up and running. I got an E-mail saying it was up, and it seems to be working just fine now. Thought I’d update this to let you know.

Original post:

After the release of podcast 221, I was sent an E-mail telling me that NV Access, the folks that develope the NVDA screen reader, is offline. I searched for the NV Access site, and went to its domain to see if a message was up, or if it was non-responsive. As of 2:20 PT, it is down, and Check Site a site that can check a domain to see what they get, also reports it down. I like this service because it can continue to check a site, and send an E-mail, SMS, or tweet to your username, once the site comes back online. I did this when BARD and the zone were having issues. As of 2:20 PT in the afternoon, the zone is back online and functioning, but BARD still has a message up. I think they’ll get it up soon. This goes to prove what I’ve said before. Not all sites are going to be up all the time, and we’ve got to relax. If anyone has reported the site as not working to NV Access, great. I didn’t see any tweets about the issue through their official twitter account I found also through Google. You are welcome to post updates if you wish, but i thought I’d post this in case others didn’t know. Thanks for stopping by!

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Library of Congress’s computer woes also disrupt national service for blind and disabled users

Hi folks,
We recently released podcast 220 of the tech podcast, and I was trolling twitter, and found Library of Congress’s computer woes also disrupt national service for blind and disabled users which sheds some light on what is going on with BARD. Like I’ve said on the podcast, other sites may be offline too, including the zone, which is still having technical issues after a failure according to the site. The article talks about the bigger picture at the library and their technology, and the fact the guy who has been heading it talks about retiring after 28 years. I’m glad I’ve got plenty of books, and I’m sure my books podcast will continue even if I can’t get the books the way I want to post them to the blog. We’ll just have to see what happens.

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Technology podcast 220 for September 5, 2015

Podcast 220 can be found on our RSS feed.

Welcome to podcast 220, we hope you will enjoy the app demo of Hurricane Tracker which was a rough demo, but good just the same. We also talk about BARD and the Zone’s outages, and mention that these sites are not the only sites offline. There could be many sites offline, and we all need to relax. We also talk about the document aspect of the Kindle app for PC and what I’ve found with it too. Contact me at 206-222-3143 for comments if you wish or find other contact info on the blog. Enjoy the cast!

Comment here, or find contact info on the site.

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Data Breaches by the Numbers | SecurityWeek.Com

Here’s something of interest I found in my E-mail talking about breaches. I’ve been thinking and I put my thoughts on the cast that its going to get worse I didn’t know how bad, but I knew, bad. Check this article out.

A quantitative analysis confirms the rising tide of breaches and gives us insight into how they are happening.

Source: Data Breaches by the Numbers | SecurityWeek.Com

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Bard is down, a larger picture

OK folks,
I posted on my books blog a notice that BARD was down. I also saw tweets concerning the downtime of BARD and how we as people with disabilities are shortchanged. First, according to this article entitled: NLS BARD Service Remains Down, Part of Larger Library of Congress Outage (blind bargains) this seems to be related to the scheduled maintenance that took place over the weekend ending August 30, 2015. According to what I could tell, BARD was up for some of the day Monday, then had intermitantissues. Then it went completely down. As someone who understands technology, I’m here to say that these types of things take time to figure out. If it is part of a larger outaage, they need to trace what happened, and determine what part of the core service failed. I don’t know how the inner workings of the Library of Congress works, and I don’t know if any of us do. When I posted Bard is temporarily down”> I only knew what I was told by my library here in Los Angeles. I can’t begin to imagine how many service are running on the same system that BARD is, but from what I read from the Blind Bargains article, this is more than BARD that is down. I’m sure an E-mail and message will be posted and sent when they figure out what is up, and I am sure we’ll find out in due time. There are other places for books, including Kindle, Ibooks, and tape/CD. I’ve got so many books downloaded and on my phone already, I am not worried about it, and there are other things to do then worry about what is up with BARD. I’m sure glad we have choices, and lets just see what the core problem is and lets see how they will fix it. I’m sure they are trying the best they can.

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