Showing 1-10 of 20 results
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The world knows where you've been
Life, James Hein, Published on 16/01/2019
» A reminder for those operating in the digital world. This includes the internet, your phone, social media and basically anything in the public sphere. You can all but guarantee that everything you post online is eventually available to everyone. It doesn't matter what promises your provider might offer -- and maybe they're even being as honest as they can be -- eventually your data will turn up on a public server somewhere. The golden rule is simple: if you don't want everyone to see something, then don't post it anywhere on public networks.
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Mind your passwords
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/01/2017
» Google, Facebook and Apple are the names of a few companies working on artificial intelligence (AI). I don't mean the kind of AI that simply teaches machines to be useful to humans, though that is also being done everywhere. I mean the self-aware kind. After so long at it I think the bigger organisations are locked in a series of dead end paths. Instead, I predict the first breakthroughs will come from small, even one-man operations thinking outside the cube. As an aside, when it comes to the search giants like Google or Yahoo and social media sites like Facebook, they all have their biases so the results you see may not be all that comprehensive, balanced or accurate.
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You can forget HAL 9000
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/12/2018
» It has been over five years and it was time for a new PC. It took a while to pull together, required an eclectic set of carefully chosen components, and I paid someone to put it together for me, having done that myself too many times in the past.
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Best to avoid FB's Onavo Protect VPN
Life, James Hein, Published on 28/02/2018
» If you use Facebook, you may have seen an option in the Settings menu under Protect to download the Onavo Protect app for Android and the iPhone. Don't. It is basically an app that allows Facebook to spy on you, even more than it already does. The app is a Virtual Private Network or VPN. In simplest terms this will encrypt and route all your network traffic through a server in addition to the one your ISP provides. This allows you to appear to be somewhere else, so you can watch, say, local content there for free and it will stop most agencies from spying on what you might be doing.
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A very taxing problem for all
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/03/2017
» Every government wants taxes. It is, after all, how the salaries get paid, and how funds are raised for re-election and looking after the country, often in that order. Consider the UK as an example. Starting in April, there will be a new set of tax regulations based on the IR35 guidelines. With the uncertainty surrounding this change there has been a rush of IT contractors leaving government positions, in many cases over half, halting a wide range of projects. This has been happening for over a year now with, as an example, the Ministry of Defence losing 30 out of 32 contractors last year. When the process of government is stopped because of taxes imposed, you're probably doing something wrong.
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Xiaomi sale nets B11bn
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/04/2015
» In a recent Asian sale the Chinese electronics manufacturer Xiaomi sold more than 2 million phones and a range of other electronic devices including over 200,000 MI Bands (like a FitBit). Leveraging off new deals in India they did all of this and more in a 12 hour period. Xiaomi was also smart enough to apply localisation features and add software relevant to the local markets to their phones, something others have often failed to do well. The total received for the sale over the period was around 11 billion baht across India, Malaysia and Indonesia.
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How secure are our secure transactions?
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/10/2014
» So far, this month has been security issue after security issue. Not counting the usual Microsoft updates, Adobe has been having all sorts of vulnerability problems, which explains the rapid fire updates you keep seeing on your computer. The biggest hit nation so far this month, however, has to be South Korea.
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The power of power
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/08/2014
» During a recent power failure I contemplated how reliant we are on technology. I suspect the quickest way to hear people scream these days is for any nearby telecom tower go offline. This would affect phones, tablets, notebooks and anything else that requires a data or wireless connection for internet access.
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Will IT firms tighten their belts in 2014?
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/01/2014
» It is just after New Year and things are quiet in the IT world as people reflect on the past and try to work out what is coming in the future. One of the stories that caught my eye was that Hewlett-Packard is planning to make 34,000 positions redundant by the middle of the year. The problem is that HP is not selling its products _ at least not in the volumes required to keep the positions active. They blame this on a contraction of the PC market, poor enterprise demand as companies tighten their belts, competitive pricing pressures and poor currency exchange rates. I suspect that HP will not be the only company to tighten its belt in 2014.
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Don't bank on security of websites
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/01/2014
» In more hacking news this week, the names, home and email addresses, phone numbers and other personal information of around 70 million Target shoppers were grabbed in yet another a database raid that included 40 million credit card details. One of the reasons I use PayPal is because I only have to give my credit card details to one provider. I try to minimise who gets access to my credit card and banking details and PayPal is one way to do that.
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