Last Commented Technology Blogs (217)

There are few public parks with model aircraft flying sites provided by Palm Beach County - Parks & Recreation where people go to visit and fly airplanes, helicopters and drones.

One problem is many are within 50 miles of president Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat and the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) has banned all model aircraft on days when he's in town.

I believe the normal restrictions are 400 feet maximum altitude and no flying within 5 miles of a commercial airport.

So any Palm Beach modellers who only fly weekends and holidays get shut down when the president is at Mar-a-Lago on those days.

Happy flying... !

I am quite thankful for the real ones I get. But many come in without photos, and in black and white, and never seem to really exist. Not being a cyber hero, can't figure it all out. But seem like scammers.

I try to backup my cellphone to a computer once a month. Since it's running an Android O/S on a Samsung, gmail handles all my contacts, data and apps. If my phone were lost/stolen most of the data can be restored. The exception is if the thief decides to crack the phone and delete my information. That's reason enough to have a copy on my personal computer where I can restore the image via USB connection.

The one thing I wasn't backing up is the 128gig SD memory card and more than 4,000 photos, documents and videos. Many of my photos are work related and in separate folders. I was copying them to a computer folder by folder. When I hit the camera folder, Windows took a long time to calculate the time required to copy to the hard drive. It then reported some crazy 20+ hours to do it. Ahhh... okay, let it happen. I'm in no hurry. Anyway Those time reports aren't accurate. It did take about 2 hours to copy all the information I needed to save.
Halfway through all this, I realized I could have turned the phone off, removed the SD memory, plugged it into an adapter and directly connected it to the computer. That speed increase is easily 10 times faster than the cable method.

well... duh!! That's what I'll do the next time I do a backup.

SAMSUNG is to start work on the first ever smart TV that can be controlled by the user's mind, according to reports.

The software will allow people to change channels and the volume using only their brain.



Samsung are to start testing first smart TVs that can be controlled by your mind, according to reportsSamsung says it is developing the technology with the help of a team in Switzerland to help those with disabilities.

The research, called Project Pontis, wants to enable "users with physical limitations to change channels and adjust sound volume with their brains".

Brain-monitoring sensors and eye-tracking hardware are currently used to identify what selections the individual intends to make.

But they hope to make so advanced it will be able to work on brain commands alone.

That means you’d only need to think about changing the volume for it to happen.

The company predicts new prototype testing in early 2019 and there is not any suggestion it would be commercially available product.

It is currently aimed at specifically helping those with severe disabilities.

My computer did 2 updates yesterday. Virus protection and Firefox.
Now, all the websites are hesitating to load.
In the bottom corner of the Firefox window I see: Performing a TLS Handshake...
Searching Google I see there is an issue with the TLS Handshake causing it to 'hang' when loading pages. So, I opened Google Chrome and I'm getting the same delay.
Explorer has the same issue.
Three different browsers and they are all acting the same. I suspect it's related to the virus software update and since I have it installed on a few computers, I'll go around and check to see if they are all running with the same update.

Like I have time to troubleshoot computers this week...

Google has this to say about it "The Transport Layer Security (TLS) Handshake Protocol is responsible for the authentication and key exchange necessary to establish or resume secure sessions. When establishing a secure session, the Handshake Protocol manages the following: ... Authentication of the server and optionally, the client."

Donald Trump: We Will Not Tolerate Censorship, Blacklisting, Rigged Search from Big Tech

President Donald Trump vowed to stand for free speech on Thursday, warning Big Tech against censoring conservative voices.

“I’ve made it clear that we as a country cannot tolerate political censorship, blacklisting, and rigged search results,” Trump said, calling out social media companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

The president commented on the issue at his campaign rally in Indiana on Thursday night, ahead of the midterm elections in November.

Trump said his administration would always stand up for free speech for “all Americans,” warning the left that their own voices could someday be censored.

“We will not let large corporations silence conservative voices,” he said.

Trump suggested that such activities were un-American, reiterating the principle of free speech.

“We’re not going to let them control what we can and cannot see, read, and learn from, we can’t do that,” Trump said. “America is a free country and we’re going to stay always a free country.”

This topic get me interest to write over here,”The topic connected but alone”. Technology is broad in our society to rely on and use every time to make our work convenient and fast. As a millenial the digital technology becomes high tech and useful to to communicate your love ones ,friends and etc...these days , those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies .one, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will always be heard ;and three that we will never have to be alone.I want to make a call .Now it’s :I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text .the problem of this regime of I share therefore I am that, if we don’t have connection ,we don’t feel like ourselves .so what do we do? We connect more and more but in the process ,we st ourselves up to be isolated.how do u get from connection to isolation? You end up isolated if u don’t cultivate the capacity for solitude ,the ability to be separate,to gather your self .solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to people and form real attachments.when we don’t have the capacity for solitude , we turn other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive . When this happen ,we are not able to appreciate who they are.It’s as though we’re using them as a spare parts to support our fragile sense of self .we slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone.when I went to fast food I saw a family gathering instead they are meeting up to had a conversation all of them it seems they don’t know each other because they aren’t talking nor to share any topic to be talked .all of them are using cellphone ,I said to myself is that a family gathering? Not even talking each other ,no attachment ,might they came coz of they are connected as family ...most of us 24/7 using mobiles , even doing laundry, cooking, cleaning house , we keep fidget and feel bored without phones but always bare in our mind we must to give time our family to talk to and to treasure the time were you are together....those little devices on our pocket are so powerful that they don’t change what we do but change who we are....

Crime doesn't pay or so they say... If you don't get caught it probably does pay and that's why so many scammers are making careers out of cheating people. As we deal less with cash & checks and more with debit & credit cards the chances of getting scammed become greater.

I was coming back from a project in downtown Miami and stopped for gas. I paid at the pump with my business debit card and bought lunch & a drink with my personal debit card. The attendant had a smile on her face as I swiped the card and entered my PIN. It did seem odd why she was smiling. Two days later my bank phoned as I was overdrawn and they wanted to verify some recent purchases. $7 at a convenience store, $25 at a fried chicken restaurant and nearly $2,000 at a grocery store. the $7 was me and the other 2 were fraud. My comment was who can buy $2,000 in groceries without drawing suspicion? Both purchases were in the downtown neighborhood.

Chip cards have reduced the amount of ATM or POS fraud, but not all businesses use them. Typically, a thief will install an overlay to the existing card skimmer that reads cards before the real card reader. There is a 2nd add on device with a tiny camera recording keypads to see what the user types for the PIN. The thieves return to retrieve their equipment and use the data to steal money from the people who used the ATM's while the devices were installed.

The video attached shows surveillance how quickly someone can install a credit card skimmer.

I used to work for a company who manufactured upholstered furniture. They processed raw lumber to make the sofa and chair frames. Deliveries came by flatbed trailers and stored outside under the cover of an aluminum roof. 20-30 boards were brought into the wood shop as needed and cut to size to fit the specifications required to make each order.

My boss found that a new delivery had insects living in the wood and sent a letter to the supplier to pick up the material and deliver a fresh load that didn't have 'wood borers' nesting in the lumber.

That was the first time I had heard the term wood borers and as a resident of South Florida being a hot and humid climate, termites were the main insects found eating wood. There are also some variety of beetles that manifest themselves in lumber and appear years later... sometimes after the wood has been made into furniture.

A client of mine found a beautiful grand piano in a warehouse and had it delivered to her home and set up. Not long after, she noticed mounds of fine dust-like particles appearing on the carpet... that was the work of termites. The piano had to be removed and taken to an exterminator with a fumigation chamber designed for furniture and large items.

I have my house tented for termites every 6 to 8 years as that is recommended because whatever brought hungry termites into the house is still there. The wall construction, roof trusses and planking is raw wood. It's on my 'do list' of things for this year.

Every time it's fumigation where they cover the house in heavy tarp and fill the space with gas that displaces the oxygen killing the bugs... all the bugs.
Soon after fumigation, carpenter ants come to eat the dead termites. According to the exterminator, they don't eat wood. Their only interest is the termite dinner.

I found another company who does a different type of extermination where they spray the wood with a chemical coating to create a barrier. If the termites eat that, they die. The process requires them to drill holes in obscure places to spread the chemical, but they guarantee 100% kill.

The negative part of tent fumigation is termites can return within days as there is no poison to stop them and the chemical process stops their return and is cheaper.

After all these years of conventional termite treatment, I'm inclined to try the new technology method.

So much for a boring blog!

Thanks for reading...

I've spent most of my working life in finance and yet I can't get my head around bitcoin / digital currencies / cryptocurrency. It's, like, electronic, you can't actually see it, touch it or spend it, but it gets more valuable all the time - wha?

Am I being super thick? Can anyone explain it without posting in links to sites I've already given up trying to understand?

I didn't even know whether to classify this blog as gaming or technology