Showing 1-10 of 23 results
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In 2020, China heads into 1984
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/10/2019
» China will have 626 million CCTVs installed by 2020. That's close to one for every two people in the country. By the end of 2019, any application for Internet access will require first having your face scanned. In 2020, if you want to surf the web you will first have to pass a facial recognition process. If you are recognised and your social score is high enough you will be able to connect. This directive comes from the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Technology.
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Limiting discourse, leaking borders
Life, James Hein, Published on 19/06/2019
» It is difficult to ignore the latest moves by social media providers like YouTube to change their terms and conditions so as to block individuals and groups they don't like. The shift from an open platform, where all ideas are welcome, to one more concerned with the window of discourse is disappointing, and points to the huge pressure being applied by a small number of special interest groups, mostly via advertisers. The really sad part of this is that there are already indications that Minds, a supposed open alternative, is already censoring content, so for the moment at least I need to withdraw my recommendation for that platform.
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What will 5G mean for you?
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/04/2018
» Is 5G going to save those people with bad internet connections? As the world moves more towards mobile platforms, users want faster and more reliable services. I know I do. 5G is being touted as the way to that future, with the promise of a high-def movie download in seconds and other benefits, like better access to the often-mentioned Internet of Things, or IoT.
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It's time to update those passwords
Life, James Hein, Published on 14/03/2018
» If you've ever wondered if your login details have ever been grabbed by one of the ever increasing hack breaches then I suggest you go to Troy Hunt's "Have I Been Pawned" website at haveibeenpwned.com. You could troll through the Dark Web and look at the actual data, but this is a lot easier and safer. Once there, search for your usernames and email addresses. Yes, more than one of mine had been hacked. If you use the same username, email address and password combinations for every site you sign up on then this becomes very important. Imagine there is some site that has been hacked for which you use the same combination you do on your banking site. Now the hacker has your banking login. I keep similar combinations for those sites I don't care about if they go in as me, but stricter and individual passwords for places like banks and PayPal. If the blood just drained out of your face as you think about this, then it may be time to update a few passwords and logins.
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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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Protecting your privacy
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/04/2017
» Internet privacy is dead, at least in the US. This will trigger a rush to VPN's, the use of Tor browsers and advanced encryption, for some. In the US, new legislation allows your ISP to collect and store all of your browsing history. This will include length of time spent on sites and pages visited. The information will be at the mercy of the ISP to keep or use it to apply social engineering in terms of recommended sites and marketing. While the point seems to be to allow ISPs to make more money, the scary part for some will be that hackers seem to be able to regularly hack into ISPs and grab stored data.
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Not all cookies created equal
Life, James Hein, Published on 15/02/2017
» I was on a technical support call recently after having problems accessing a service provider's product. The advice given was "Use Internet Explorer and make sure to clear all cookies and cache". There are multiple issues here. The first is coding to a single browser platform, and all too often that is still Internet Explorer. According to www.w3counter.com, the current usage stats for browsers is Chrome at the top (with 58.4%), followed by Safari (13.3%), Firefox (9.5%), IE and Edge (8.1%), and Opera (4.4%). Another problem is with the advice to clear all cookies. This is like using an atomic bomb to get rid of a mosquito. If you have years of cookies working for you, then one bad one shouldn't be taken care of by getting rid of the lot. I advised the help-desk staff member to review their suggestions, especially since this was the first time I had used IE to access that site, so there would be a fresh cookie.
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The road ahead
Life, James Hein, Published on 04/01/2017
» So it's time for 2017 predictions. For a start, I see this being a better year overall as far as technological improvements go. I base this on the possible freeing-up of resources under a Trump-led US, but that of course all remains to be seen.
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How to be a Scrivener
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/08/2016
» As readers might appreciate I have been writing in some form or other for many years. This includes two-and-a-bit novels the first of which I am in the process of final editing and until recently I was using Microsoft Word. In the world of self-publishing and preparing for Amazon’s Mobi or for everyone else’s ePub, Word is not the right tool. My recommendation is Scrivener which is available for Mac or Windows. This appears to be the ultimate tool for the writer, be they fiction, non-fiction, researcher or blogger. The application is inexpensive even for a lifetime licence that covers everyone in your household. It handles everything you will need to prepare what you are writing for publishing apart from your own creativity. My only criticism is the lack of a version for Android but hopefully that will come. You can get a 30-day free trial from www.literatureandlatte.com and there is a lot of free training materials available.
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How to be a Scrivener
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/08/2016
» As readers might appreciate I have been writing in some form or other for many years. This includes two-and-a-bit novels the first of which I am in the process of final editing and until recently I was using Microsoft Word. In the world of self-publishing and preparing for Amazon's Mobi or for everyone else's ePub, Word is not the right tool. My recommendation is Scrivener which is available for Mac or Windows. This appears to be the ultimate tool for the writer, be they fiction, non-fiction, researcher or blogger. The application is inexpensive even for a lifetime licence that covers everyone in your household. It handles everything you will need to prepare what you are writing for publishing apart from your own creativity. My only criticism is the lack of a version for Android but hopefully that will come. You can get a 30-day free trial from www.literatureandlatte.com and there is a lot of free training materials available.
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