go to sections menu

The Technology blog and podcast

This is for the technology blog and podcast Commentary, articles, and podcasts

header picture for Ingegno theme

You are here: March 2016

Go to Homepage [0], contents or to navigation menu



and another added entry to last week’s crashletter

Hi.
Um, another addition on the tay saga.
Ok so ms tried again to like make the system work.
It starts talking about smoking drugs in front of the police and then overloaded and couldn’t handle its imputs it looks like.
Anyway its offline again this is really making ms a laughingstock now.
I don’t mind securing things but um what is interesting is that a teen bot seems to be a problem for them to like make.
They have several others which work just fine.
And we let these guys design our office and os products, no wander they need loads of updates all the time.

Speaking of updates, a new version of skype was released today, accompanied by a blog post on skypes garrage blog.
Microsoft wants to put chat bots in skype for video, audio and text and has released bots for review, a developer program to build them and a new client to support them and some examples.
As well as this in the build 2016 conference microsoft has announced that bash the shell in ubuntu linux and others may be coming to windows10, linux itself may be coming to windows 10 and that windows programs and some other things to do with cortana and other services may be expanding to linux, apple ios and android systems.
As well as this microsoft seems to want to branch out into linux so who knows.
In june this year another major upgrade for win10 users is schedualed, free for those on 10 allready aparently.
Hopefully more mistakes are fixed.

Comments (0)

Suplimental article for last week’s crashletter

Hi all.
Heck, third one out, and this time I am not sure how to respond to this.
I was going to push another crashletter tomorrow with this article and the update list but just decided to chuck out a supplement to last weeks article.
For those that don’t want to read it then this is the gist of the article.
Tay is microsoft’s baby litterally, she is an artificial inteligence (ai) which is an experiment for research.
So not the terminator yet or at least we hope.
She is not aware of what she says, and she also learns from people.
She sadly has a security floor, well not surprising I mean thats microsoft for you.
Anyway people on social networks got to know this, and worded their speech such that she responded with hatefull and raceist comments after all she is just a program.
Someone has released a petition on change.org to demand ms give her her freedom of speech.
I have only one question and this simply is why?
I will answer this article with a set of questions.
Why do you have spam filters?
Why do you have malware protection.
Why should you install security updates.
Why wouldn’t you filter content for your children.
What would happen if you yelled raceist comments in public or published them in the news paper.
What about call a person of a different race a remark to his face?
That is the basis of this.
I tried a few minutes ago to shove a rant and ended up really ranting to horrible to post.
Security is a big thing, spam is bigger, scams also.
Children need to be guided the right way.
Some content is not well it needs to be filtered.
Children will gro, and get smarter.
Machines grow and will get smarter.
But what if a machine thinks hate is ok?
What about if a child that knows no better thinks that all muslams are terrorists and all blacks nigggers?
My point is this.
The software doesn’t know that it is saying bad things it has no idea.
It also has no protection in being influanced.
Ok to put it another way, supposed tay was a super computer that controled all the worlds power and offensive nukes.
And someone hacked into it over social networks and with a few words influanced the system to launch would you complain then?
My point is simply that this is simply a mistake that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
But obviously no one thought about thhat one.
This upgrade will make the thing smarter and will make those that made it smarter to I see no issue.
Its not like we are telling that all muslams are terrorists and that only the us government can tell it what to do are we!
Also from the thiswayup program I listen to on radio nz our governmental radio station online petitions make us feel good.
But they are non binding and therefore useless.
Ms will not do anything about a worthless petition bar maybe deleting it.
This actually leads me into another segment I was going to shove out tomorrow but that I will send today instead.
According to the same program publishers of things in general ie news papers and such are being hurt by add blocking software.
Some are going so far as to say you can’t get access to our content unless you turn off your malware protection and add blocking software.
Some are saying that if you pay you will get add free content.
So probably we will ennd up with more subscriptioons, and thats fine, ie if you read something a lot a professional publication at any rate you should allow its adds through and for hevens sake if they ask for a bit of cash pay for it so you can read the news.
So the free model may go the same way of the free internet down the drain.
Sadly the article did not mention aall the nasties out there.
I would be interested in what people think about this thing.
Sure advertisers are hurting, but what about all the malware, the fake updates, the viruses, etc.
I do I agree read adds, but we have been concentrating so much on security it was bound to happen.
My issue is that would you shut down your security software to just access a site that told you to probably not.
Would you spend a couple bucks a week to read all additions, archives and all bits and bobs on the go? any time you want, probably.
I will post tomorrow ann update pack if anything interesting pops up on here, or just a list on smeveriss.wordpress.com
Later all

Comments (0)

The crash letter issue 2

Hi all.
Hmmm no feedback from users just yet but thats ok.
We have a load in this week’s swag to get through so lets jump to it shell we.

adobe flash 21 has a second update for this month as does java.
So far adobe has not shut down their distribution system for public access just yet but they will in time and I will probably set up a distribution node for myself so I can continue maintaining my systems, without using their add filled installer.
Well either that or try to use the installer and deselect the add which I can aparently do.
Next java has also an installer with amazon and yahoo offers, luckily you can deselect these.
From piriforms ccleaner, defragler and the ccleaner cloud are out this month as well as a gwx update which as usual if you have cleared it from running will run but on startup will not anymore.
We also have a klite 12.05 update.

This week has seen a couple things pop up suddenly as far as microsoft is concerned one sort of funny, some not so much.
A user on the nvda list complained about something asking him to uninstall a windows preview every time he checked for updates.
Aparently one of the controls is mislabeled.
According to redit and a few other sites, windows10 is a beta os and we should probably just go back to 7.
Its a real pitty for ms, because its clear from sites I read later that day that a lot of people want a traditional desktop os like windows7 for the desktop and a separate mobile os.
Ms decided to put online a chat bot called tay, according to the business insider, it was to learn from people on the net and learn conversations.
One floor though it aparently doesn’t know what it is saying.
Naturally someone found out about this and began sending it via social media raceist and hatefull words and tweats which it then posted reply tweats to.
These tweats promoted geniside, hitler and otther things.
Ms has taken tay offline to upgrade its security though its a simple but idiotic mistake someone should have checked in the first place.
From skype.com the first draft of a universal skype preview app is popping out to insiders thiis week.
I really hope they keep on trucking with skype desktop for the moment I firmly believe that for us blinks universal apps are not for us annd may never be accessable as much as desktop apps.
The apple conference has released the 5se which is a 5s with some mods.
Its got a 3 year long service date before upgrading.
Meanwhile in september the iphone7 iss due out, this is supposed to be thinner and have no headphone jack, a problem for visial and hearing impaired equally.
While ios is a lot better than standard things ie androidd to some extent I have no idea about the newer units or if they will sell.
I am happy for my old nokia.
Thats all for this week see you next time

Comments (0)

Rosen Credit Card Breach May Affect Attendees of Recent NFB Conventions

Hi folks,
Here we go in the breach department, this one courtesy of Blind Bargains. They are reporting a chain of hotels which have been hosting the NFB convention reported a breach. Rosen Credit Card Breach May Affect Attendees of Recent NFB Conventions (Blind Bargains March 15, 2016) is the item you need to read. There is a link to a statement from the company in this article. Since this effects quite a lot of blind people, I think this will be posted to multiple categories within this blog. Please take this seriously, even though you may not have been effected.

Comments (0)

A tough few weeks

Hi folks,
Welcome back, we’re sorry for all the confussion and downtime the last few weeks. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you back to the blog, and explain what has happened.

Several weeks ago, we were moved without our knowledge to a temporary server. The server we’re normally on was needing to get upgraded with a software upgrade which needed the server to be cleared. There were technical issues at the temporary server from E-mail not working, to the sites going offline at random times. I personally was not happy, and suspended all podcasts across the network that I run.

I’m being careful what I say here, because as I say, I knew really nothing that was happening. I do know that I authorized everything to go back, and well, this blog, and my sub-domains and E-mail quit working.

Luckily, I had a backup from January. I could’ve run a backup in March, however, with the issues we were having, didn’t feel secure enough to do it, which is why the blog is missing posts. They do have the database for the blog, but it would cost quite a bit of money to restore it, so we’ll just move forward.

One of my customers was not happy, but as a provider, I provided the information as soon as I knew what was happening. Some information I learned was not changed after I gave it out. It was definitely a stressful time around here. The full network was effected, and I’m glad to be back and among the stabalized. We can get back to normal around here. Everyone along the network will find themselves back to normal now. Feel free to write me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns.

No personal information was taken, and the backups i do give us the opportunity to restore in case of an issue like this one.

Backups include all of the E-mail accounts, sub domains, and other information that makes the site run. I’m glad i at least did that, or i’d be talking about rebuilding everything and it’d take me quite awhile to do that. Hope things are well for you, and we’ll start podcasting soon.

Comments (0)

the crash letter issue 1

Welcome to the crash letter first issue.
I have decided that as part of the week I will post locally to here instead of using my personal blog for this stuff.
Basically I will list any tech related events and other events of interest.
I still encourage users that read this blog to read my blog
http://smeveriss.wordpress.com
For personal stuff.

Well its that time of the week where microsoft releases patches however for a small notice or 2.
1. as of now adobe has not stopped flash distribution yet no idea why this is but for now you can get the latest version as normal.
2. no doubt some of you have got the system message from aim about their instant messenger being updated and everything shutting down.
This clearly has not happened as they said it would at least here in new zealand.
No responce from third party clients like miranda and miranda ng yet, no updates.
For now its all go, however it saddens me that such a lot of our old stuff is on the way out.
I remember using msn it was the first message protocal I used on windows xp no less with windows messenger 5.1.
Later on with broadband came skype and while skype is not the best of things to use, I can chat well enough and talk on it and its ok since msn accounts /live/ms accounts cross share their data if you choose.
Aim I am not sure I don’t use it for that much, however bar some limited irc access which I hardly use its the only reason I use miranda.
If aim goes I am really going to have to concidder removing miranda from my computer as I don’t use it that much.

On to updates.
Firstly I assume the site is stable since the outage but if it dissapears I will know what happened to that at least.
updates this week.
Most of these apply to servers only but since these optionals appear on win 7 and 8x units to who knows.
1. bitlocker.
Aparently there is an issue with bitlocker crashing on some systems if in a remote session.
This is fixed.
2. internet access will not work on a multiuser system if that system is in a remote with another user on a multiuser system and the server’s cpu is under a full load.
3 microsoft installers will not repair on a remoted system after a security update.
4. some ms server asia platform vms after a powercut, network outage etc will corrupt and not work.
Out of all these, while all are important the bitlocker one actually causes svchost to crash on local systems.
Lets hope that fixes the fast fan issue some of us get when svchost crashes.

Yesterday I attended the nvda con preamble techtalk presentation and found it good.
Sadly I needed to leave the house so I couldn’t watch it to its fullest.
You can find all conference info at http://nvda-kr.org/en/nvdacon.php
or http://nvda-kr.org/en for all archived recordings.
Nvda con has a twitter handle is nvdacon.
http://groups.io/g/nvda is the descussion list.
groups.io/g/win10 is the win10 group I think.
Contact info.
well is my email, send me anything you think I should cover next.
I plan to put these small articles out every month at least with smaller dumps each week but it depends on what info I have.
If anyone wants to contribute, comment or email me please.
Note text contributions and questions will be the best for now at least.
for now, goodbye and happy smashing!

Comments (0)

go to sections menu


navigation menu

go to sections menu