Dr. Bill.TV #361 – Audio – “The Very Dry Throat Edition!”

Firefox drops Google as default search, signs five-year deal with Yahoo, watching online is more common, Flurry says, but TV is not dead, malware spreading on Android, an Open Source notebook, GSotW: FileZilla! Android 5.0, ‘Lollipop’ performance issues.

Links that pertain to this Netcast:

TechPodcasts Network

International Association of Internet Broadcasters

Blubrry Network

Dr. Bill Bailey.NET

FileZilla – FREE FTP Client and Server


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Android “Lollipop” Disk Encryption Causes Serious Performance Issues!

If you recently upgraded your Android device to Android 5.0, known as the “Lollipop” version, you may be experiencing some strange performance issues after the upgrade if you enable encryption. It appears that the problem is caused by disk encryption of the Android device which can be turned off in the new Nexus devices. It is a “feature” and not a bug! However, users are very upset by the performance hit that this new feature causes. In testing a Motorola Nexus 6 that didn’t have encryption enabled (which is not the way it normally comes) testers at AnanTech discovered that it was, in fact, the disk encryption in the Nexus 6 that slows down the read-write disk speeds… and, unfortunately, you can’t turn it off once enabled.

During tests with a Nexus 6 running without encryption, and another one with it enabled, they saw as much is a 63% decline in read performance and a 50% decline in write performance in the device with encryption enabled. If your math impaired, in terms of understanding those numbers, that’s a big deal!

Now, if you want to turn off your disk encryption in order to see at a performance improvement; you can’t on the Nexus 6 or Nexus 9, at least not at this time.

The geeky folks over at XGA are tinkering with a new boot.img image that will disable the forced encryption, but this is annoying fix for a problem that Google should have already provided a workaround for. We should not have to rely on some hackers to fix their problem!

One would hope that Google will respond to this and give users a way to encrypt their phones and restore performance to reasonable levels!

Geek Software of the Week: FileZilla!

FileZillaI simply can’t believe that FileZilla has NOT already been a GSotW, but I did a search on the site, and it hasn’t! What!?! I use it almost as much as I use ANY piece of software! I use it on my Linux systems, on my Mac systems, and on my PC systems! Dewd! How did I not mention it already?!? (well, I have mentioned it in my “perfect Linux builds” posts, but… wow!) This has been a major oversight! So, consider it rectified!

FileZilla – FREE FTP Client and Server

“FileZilla, (is) the free FTP solution. Both a client and a server are available. FileZilla is open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Overview
FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive graphical user interface.

Features
Among others, the features of FileZilla include the following:

  • Easy to use
  • Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
  • Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, Mac OS X and more
  • IPv6 support
  • Available in many languages
  • Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
  • Tabbed user interface
  • Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
  • Bookmarks
  • Drag & drop support
  • Configurable transfer speed limits
  • Filename filters
  • Directory comparison
  • Network configuration wizard
  • Remote file editing
  • Keep-alive
  • HTTP/1.1, SOCKS5 and FTP-Proxy support
  • Logging to file
  • Synchronized directory browsing
  • Remote file search”

An Open Source Notebook? Yes, Please!

I totally want one!

Geek – By: Lee Mathews – “Supporters of software freedom and open source have plenty of choices when it comes to apps. When it comes to hardware? Not so much. The Librem 15 laptop is hoping to change that.

Like the clunky old netbook that Richard Stallman bangs on, the Librem 15 is all about FOSS. It’s a beast of a machine that features a quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GT840M graphics, and a 15-inch 1080p display. Purism, the company behind the Librem 15, plans to ship a customized version of Trisquel Linux (one of the few distros that gets a thumbs up from the FSF). The Librem 15 certainly looks good. It’s relatively slim at 22mm and not too heavy, weighing in at 4.4 pounds — comparable to similar systems from OEMs like Asus and Dell.

This laptop would eat the last FSF-certified machine we wrote about for lunch. It’s also a huge step up from the DIY Novena, though it’s worth noting that the Novena is genuinely totally free: hardware, firmware, software. That’s why it runs an underpowered Freescale CPU instead of a ballsy Intel Core chip.

A totally free gaming laptop is an interesting — albeit slightly conflicted — device. Even if founder Todd Weaver and Purism manage to get Intel to free up all their closed binary blobs, the games you would likely want to play on a machine like this probably aren’t FOSS.

There’s an ever-growing list of good, free, open source games out there. There are more titles coming to Steam for Linux all the time, too, but the $1,400 Librem 15 is open hardware that wants desperately to play in the closed-source world of PC gaming. It’s a steep hill to climb, to be sure.

Still, if you’re committed to the FOSS movement, the Librem 15 could be the horse you want to back. Companies like Purism can’t achieve their goals without funding, so head on over to Crowd Supply and pledge if you’d to help them succeed.”

If you want one, order it here: Crowd Supply – Librem 15 Laptop

Malware for Your Phone – Just What You Need! (Not!)

(Cross-posted from the Hand Held Hack) I HATE Malware. I am OK with lining up the perps that write it and shooting them (metaphorically.) I guess.

Malicious Software Said to Spread on Android Phones

Bits Blog – New York Times – By: Nicole Perlroth – “For years security researchers have warned that it was only a matter of time before nasty digital scourges like malicious software and spam would hit smartphones.

Now they say it is has finally happened.

A particularly nasty mobile malware campaign targeting Android users has hit between four million and 4.5 million Americans since January of 2013, according to an estimate by Lookout, a San Francisco mobile security company that has been tracking the malware for about two years.

Lookout first encountered the mobile malware, called NotCompatible, two years ago and has since seen increasingly sophisticated versions. Lookout said it believes, based on attempted infections of its user base of 50 million, that the total number of people who have encountered the malware in the United States exceeds four million.

Criminals infect smartphones primarily by infecting legitimate websites with malicious code. When victims visit the site from their mobile phone, they inadvertently download the code, in what is known as a “drive-by download.”

In other cases, the attackers sent spam from hijacked email accounts to their victims. That technique, Lookout’s researchers say, successfully caused more than 20,000 infections a day. More recently, researchers say, attackers have been tricking their victims into installing the malicious code by disguising it as a ‘security patch’ in an email attachment. In others, spam emails advertised weight loss solutions with a link that served up malware to Android users.

The attackers goal, researchers say, is to infect as many smartphones as possible and turn them into a so-called botnet, a network of infected devices that can be used by attackers for various malicious purposes. Lookout’s researchers say there is evidence that Not Compatible’s authors are renting out control of infected mobile devices to people who have used them to simply send out more spam or buy up event tickets in bulk from from Ticketmaster, Live Nation, EventShopper and Craigslist. Some have used infected devices to try to crack WordPress accounts.

Lookout says the malware, now on its third iteration, allows infected devices to search for and communicate with other infected machines and share intelligence. Attackers also have found a way to encrypt communications between their command and control center and infected devices, which makes it more difficult to detect and decipher.

The latest version, Lookout said, ‘has set a new bar for mobile malware sophistication and operational complexity.’

All this malicious activity can be costly. The criminals are incurring data charges on phones that, ultimately, victims are held responsible for. As if that weren’t annoying enough, researchers say the malware causes tremendous battery drainage.

As with most malware discoveries, Lookout, the company sounding the alarm, has a stake in raising concerns about the security of mobile devices. Its mobile security application, which is available for both Apple’s iOS and Android-powered smartphones, is able to identify the NotCompatible malware and keep it from infecting Android devices that have downloaded the Lookout app.”

TV Is Not Dead – But Second Screens Abound!

I watch with my computer or tablet nearby to check IMDB, or some fact, or background, to the story… yep. I guess I am not alone!

Watching shows online is more common now, Flurry says, but TV’s hardly dead yet

PC World – By: Ian Paul – We’re all spending more time with smartphones and tablets. So much so that the “second screen” may now be the “first screen,” depending on the data you read.

Mobile analytics and advertising firm Flurry released a report on Tuesday that says Americans spend close to 10 minutes more per day on mobile devices than sitting in front of a television. The report is a mash-up of mobile device usage from Flurry’s own analytics as well as comScore’s, and average TV usage from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Flurry says Americans spend two hours and forty-eight minutes watching TV, while mobile device usage is now at two hours and fifty-seven minutes.

Flurry’s latest report was inspired by a recent presentation by Benedict Evans, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

The story behind the story: Flurry’s report, while interesting, works only if you buy into the BLS data, which is from a self-reported study called the American Time Use Survey. Numbers from metrics firm Nielsen tell a different story. In September, Nielsen issued its cross-platform report for Q2 2014, which says American adults spent an average of four hours and thirty-six minutes watching live TV (on a television set) every day between April and June.

Many of us use both simultaneously

One notable thing Flurry said it couldn’t measure was how much overlap there was between TV watching and mobile device usage on an average day. However the company guesses it’s a lot, which is probably right.

Thinking about my own TV watching, I know I spend all kinds of time on my smartphone. I could be checking an actor’s name on IMDb, quickly responding to email, texting with friends, or browsing Twitter and the news if I lose interest with the bigger screen. Whatever it is I’m watching, my smartphone is always close at hand.

Even if you put more stock in Nielsen’s numbers than the BLS stats, it seems inevitable that smartphones and tablets will replace the television in terms of time spent. Many metrics firms, including Nielsen, report on the rapid increase of mobile device usage—especially when it comes to apps.

It also just makes sense. ‘As more consumers use mobile devices for almost every daily task, it seemed only logical that they would turn to their phones more often than their TV sets,’ Flurry said in its report.

If you need further convincing about the coming (or present) dominance of mobile devices, check out this data from a British survey published in April: Adults in the U.K. were asked which device they would miss most if they had to give it up. The older the respondents, the more likely they were to choose television as their most missed media activity, the survey said. For people between the ages of 16-34, however, the top choice was their smartphone.

As Evans said in his presentation, ‘mobile is eating the world.’

But even as mobile devices replace the television at the top of the attention heap, the content is following. TV titans are redefining themselves as entertainment producers for all platforms: For example, CBS and HBO recently rolled out standalone online streaming packages, pitching a tent for their products in a mobile-dominated media future.”

Firefox and Yahoo – What?

Oh, you have to be kidding! YAHOO?!? What is up with that?

Firefox drops Google as default search engine, signs five-year deal with Yahoo

TheVerge – By: Russell Brandom – “Today, Yahoo and Mozilla announced a five-year partnership that would make Yahoo the default US search engine for Mozilla’s Firefox browser on mobile and desktop. In December, Yahoo will roll out an enhanced new search function to Firefox users, and will also support Do Not Track functions in Firefox as a result of the partnership. The agreement also sets the stage for future product integrations, but so far the companies are keeping quiet on what those might be. Firefox has lost market share in recent years but is still used by roughly 17 percent of webgoers. According to Mozilla CEO Chris Beard, Firefox users search the web more than 100 billion times each year, suggesting a major windfall for Yahoo as a result of the deal.

By comparison, only 10 percent of web searches are made through Yahoo, which is powered by Microsoft Bing. But Google and Bing have both made major gains in recent years. Nonetheless, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said search traffic is still a major priority for the network, and one they expect to explore through the new partnership. ‘At Yahoo, we believe deeply in search – it’s an area of investment, opportunity and growth for us,’ said Mayer. ‘I can’t wait to see what innovations we build together.’

Google has been Firefox’s default browser for ten years, so the new partnership represents a significant break. In a subsequent blog post, Mozilla CEO Chris Beard described the decision as a strategic one. ‘Our agreement came up for renewal this year, and we took this as an opportunity to review our competitive strategy,’ Beard wrote. ‘We believe it will empower more people, in more places with more choice and opportunity to innovate and ultimately put even more people in control over their lives online.’ Mozilla is also setting Yandex as the default search engine in Russia, and the move opens up the company to work with more local partners. Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, eBay, Amazon, Twitter and Wikipedia will continue as alternative search options in the US.”

Dr. Bill.TV #360 – Video – “The End of the World Edition!”

Microsoft is Open Sourcing .NET! It IS the end of the world! Microsoft wins Mobile Pwn2Own! Google Play Music subscribers to get YouTube Music Key, Facebook reduces ad, GSotW: BOClean! A Lantern for the OuterNet! Win95 on iPhone? Dalek Security guards!

Links that pertain to this Netcast:

TechPodcasts Network

International Association of Internet Broadcasters

Blubrry Network

Dr. Bill Bailey.NET

BOClean Anti-Malware


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Dr. Bill.TV #360 – Audio – “The End of the World Edition!”

Microsoft is Open Sourcing .NET! It IS the end of the world! Microsoft wins Mobile Pwn2Own! Google Play Music subscribers to get YouTube Music Key, Facebook reduces ad, GSotW: BOClean! A Lantern for the OuterNet! Win95 on iPhone? Dalek Security guards!

Links that pertain to this Netcast:

TechPodcasts Network

International Association of Internet Broadcasters

Blubrry Network

Dr. Bill Bailey.NET

BOClean Anti-Malware


Start the Video Netcast in the Blubrry Video Player above by
clicking on the “Play” Button in the center of the screen.

(Click on the buttons below to Stream the Netcast in your “format of choice”)
Streaming M4V Audio





Streaming MP3 Audio

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Security Guards That Look Like Daleks!?!

Security Guard Daleks!It’s the end of the world, I’m tellin’ ya!

This Company Is Making Robot Security Guards That Look Like Daleks

Gizmodo – By: Chris Mills – “If you’re sitting down at the drawing board to design a robotic security guard, and you don’t want people to run the other way screaming ‘oh hell no’ at first sight, here’s a little tip: don’t make it look like the evil killer robot from a science fiction show. (Dr. Who, of course – Dr. Bill)

The K5 is a robotic security guard being developed by California startup Knightscope (I’m pretty sure that’s also the name of the world-ruling megacorp in some dystopian sci-fi movie), to provide an alternative to flesh-and-bones security. The robot isn’t armed (thank Christ), but it’s about five feet tall, outfitted with an array of sensors to detect humans and phone home, and yes, it exists outside of a lab. In fact, there’s a fleet of five patrolling Microsoft’s Silicon Valley campus as we speak.

The robots are kitted out with four cameras, one on each side, plus microphones, weather sensors, GPS, and a laser rangefinder to help navigation. If you try and mess with it, the robot will ‘beep ominously’, before sending a SOS to its control center.

Realistically, these things aren’t going to be replacing security patrols any time soon — I can’t imagine it’d be that hard for a determined human to evade a grown-up Roomba, or there’s always the option of just pushing it over. But for some mundane tasks — I’m particularly thinking parking attendants — this thing could actually make sense. Just do not, under any circumstances, give it a weapon. And, um, maybe rethink the styling a little?”

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