I read the article this morning with delight. Another enlightened soul, another pragmatic businessman who understands cost versus benefit.

I have never bought an Apple product even though they are generally quality devices.

Why?

Cost versus benefit.

They are overpriced.

They may have been more user friendly and less problem prone in the past, but I do not believe that to be true now.

I have encountered as many or more problems with Apple computers in my sphere of influence.

From Market Watch October 8, 2015.

“Why I dumped my Apple iPhone for a Microsoft phone

Oh, and I’m not comparing the latest, most high-end models either. I’m not talking about the iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, nor about the latest Windows alternative.

I wanted a solid smartphone for work, including email and various online, social media and professional applications, and a few other things.

At this point, the rate of evolution is such that even basic smartphones would be considered amazingly advanced pocket computers by the standards of a couple of years ago. I didn’t need the absolute latest so I went for the entry level.

I bought a brand-new iPhone 5c on eBay EBAY, +0.00% as soon as Apple discontinued their regular sales last month. The price dropped about 50% overnight. I chose the 5c because it basically does about the same as the 5s for about half the cost, and because the plastic body means it’ll cope better if I drop it. (The 5s looks really beautiful — until you enclose it one of those big, ugly plastic cases.)

Meanwhile, by happenstance I also found myself simultaneously the owner of a Nokia Lumia 635, which costs just $70, compared with around $250 for my discounted 5c, and $450 for a 5s from Apple.

And to my surprise, it’s the iPhone, not the Lumia, that I’m dumping.

The screen is much bigger. The phone is lighter. The keyboard works better for my fingers.

I can add all the memory I want through SD cards. The Windows Phone does absolutely everything I want, just as well as the iPhone or better — for a fraction of the cost. It also comes with Microsoft Office. And it will be updated to Windows Phone 10 later this year.

Oh, and it’s a minor point, but I don’t need to buy a special iPhone cable to charge it. The Nokia uses standard micro-USB. Apple must be the only phone company that still pulls that annoying proprietary-cable crap. Even Sony SNE, +1.63% has given in.”

Read more:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-i-dumped-my-apple-iphone-for-a-microsoft-phone-2015-10-08?page=1

I grew up in the city but both parents were raised in the country.

Many of the prior generation, the greatest generation knew how to grow and preserve their food.

It is widely accepted that if we experience a catastrophe that shuts down grocery stores for 3 days, there will be widespread panic.

Knowing how to grow your own food and to harvest seeds could easily keep your family alive if things get really bad.

It could be a really bad recession.

Despite the fact that I have been really busy, I have been honing my gardening skills and learning much more about the whole process. The cycles of seasons and seed harvesting.

This past winter I have experienced a number of “firsts.”

I have successfully harvested and replanted seeds from my crops.

Yesterday I planted corn and green beans and watered them with a rain barrel that I constructed.

It is amazing how much water collects after a average rainfall.

One thing I discovered about bell pepper and tomato seeds was that I could harvest them from a fruit and immediately plant them.

You can still dry them for later planting.

This winter I have kept alive bell pepper and tomato plants and harvest all through the season. Though smaller than normal, they were great to use fresh from the garden (bay window).

A few weeks ago I was going to pick some of the smaller peppers and to my surprise found this.

The Forge is Greensboro North Carolina’s first Makerspace.

From the Greensboro News Record.

“Pi Day (3/14) Career Exploration Jobs Event

9:25 a.m. – noon, March 14, The Forge, 115 W Lewis St.
Career Exploration event spotlighting math-intensive jobs. Employers will be in the workshop area focusing on aviation manufacturing, machining, and welding jobs and in the “soft space” we will have employers looking for talent in IT and code-related jobs.
Information: Employers may contact Joel@skilltv.net to reserve a table.”
Read more

From The Forge.

“Amenities

• 24/7 hours of operation
• A/V system with projector
• Business class internet and WiFi
• Business class server network
• Community space with kitchenette
• Conference room
• Patio area with parabolic canopy
• Rapidly growing inventory of equipment
• RFID access control system
• Secure environment
• Three phase power

Facility Specs

• 3,700sqft
• 2 Bathrooms (ADA compliant)
  • 1 Shower
• 4 separate areas
  • Workshop
  • Collaborative
  • Conference room
  • Patio
• Garage door
• RFID access system
• CPI monitored security system
• 3-phase power”

Read more

Thinking of starting a business now or later?

Of course you will want a catchy, meaningful and easy to remember business name.

After you have chosen a business name, you should reserve a “.com”, domain name.

I have done this on numerous occasions.

First, give some thought to your business name and try not to limit the scope of your potential business activities if applicable.

Next do a search on the internet to see who, if anyone is using your name and what your competition is.

Next, check with your Secretary of State’s office, or other state agency, to see if the name is being used.

Concurrently have some idea of what type of business organization you will use. Corporation, LLC, etc. You may need to consult a tax/business expert for advice.

As soon as you have a handle on your business name, reserve one or more domain names. If you are reserving a .com you may want to also reserve a .net and other
suffixes to keep a potential competitor from usurping your internet name.

If you have chosen a web hosting provider, you can search for a domain name and purchase it there, although it is often provided with the initial cost of hosting,

If you have not chosen a hosting provider or early on you just want to search for a domain name, here are some suggestions:

InstantDomainSearch.com

“See Domain Name Search Results As You Type

Just start typing! If the domain name you are looking for is taken, you can click WHOIS to find out who registered it or the URL to visit the website.

We apply a $0.99 coupon for .com domain names when you buy at Go Daddy. The offer is valid for only one .com purchase, and does not include the ICANN fee of $0.18 per
domain name per year. That’s a sweet deal!

Love the site? Spread the word on Twitter and Facebook!

All domain searches are encrypted over https, and searches do not leave our servers. Your search results are not recorded. Pressing Enter or Return will take you
directly to Go Daddy or the registrar you’ve chosen where you can buy your domain name. Good luck!”

Search

DomainsBot.com

“The domain name search engine!

Available domain suggestions + expired, expiring and for sale domain name search + whois lookup. Domain + Twitter + Facebook identity suggesitons.”

Search

PCnames.com

“Check Domains, Instantly!

Based on your query, PCNames.com instantly checks whether .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us, .mobi and .name domain names are available. The domain search results
will appear with 2-second delay for your convenience.

Your domain search results are not shared with 3-rd parties. However, we keep history of your recent domain searches and favorite domain picks so you can easily follow
up on all the important search results.”

Search

From Entrepreneur.

“Do’s and Don’ts of Securing a Domain Name

Consider these six tips from small-business owners and experts before deciding on a website name.”
Read more

From Sovereign Man February 20, 2015.
““We messed up badly here”: Lenovo admits to putting tracking software on your PC”

“Lenovo Group, the largest computer manufacturer in the world, has made a rather stunning admission that they have been pre-installing tracking software on their PCs.

The tracking software is made by a company called Superfish, which apparently paid some “very minor compensation” to Lenovo for putting the software on people’s computers.

The Superfish program is a total disaster.

It has image recognition algorithms which essentially monitor what a user is looking at… then suggests relevant ads based on what it thinks you might like.

This is not only REALLY high up on the creepy scale, it also completely destroys Internet security.

Whether you’re buying something online or accessing Internet banking, the Superfish program essentially cuts the secure link between you and sensitive websites that you’re trying to access.

According to the first user who found the vulnerability a few weeks ago, “[Superfish] will hijack ALL your secure web connections (SSL/TLS) by using self-signed root certificate authority, making it look legitimate to the browser.”

This means that the tracking software basically fools a web browser into believing that a connection is secure when it’s not… all for the purpose of pushing more ads in your face.

This scheme is so powerful that even if users uninstall the Superfish software, the security breach still remains.”
Read more

A friend of mine has a coffee shop that I frequent.

He recently went to Time Warner Business class and installed a faster router.

When the router was up the speed was fast.

But it began malfunctioning adn requiring numerous resets.

Time Warner technicians came out, diagnosed their equipment and performance and discussed the results and possible problem areas.

I happened to be present then and the question of Mac addresses came up.

I did some research and the new non commercial Linksys router has a limitation of 32 Mac addresses.

After some trial and error testing and more discussions my friend had his technical support person make some adjustments.

This solution seems to work.

There is now a guest signon screen. In this setting many of the customers have computers and almost all smart phones.

It does not take too many customers to hit the 32 Mac address limit.

Also, the router is reset, unplugged, several times a day.

After unplugging, 10 seconds are waited before plugging back in.

This is not a myth. They learned the hard way.

I told them to wait 10 seconds and that has worked.

You may wonder why.

From How To Geek.

“SuperUser contributor Phoshi offers a great, concise reason why it’s a valid procedure:

A lot of modern technology contains capacitors! These are like energy buckets, little batteries that fill up when you put a current through them, and discharge otherwise. 10 seconds is the time it takes most capacitors to discharge enough for the electronics they’re powering to stop working. That’s why when you turn your PC off at the wall, things like an LED on your motherboard take a few seconds to disappear. You probably could wait a different time, but 10 seconds is the shortest time you can be sure everything’s discharged.

Why fully powering down the device matters hinges on how data is temporarily stored in it. A typical modem or router has two types of memory: Non-volatile Memory (NVRAM) and regular old Random Access Memory (RAM) like the kind in your computer. The router boots off the code stored in the NVRAM and then uses the RAM just like your computer would to write temporary variables, execute code, etc. By fully powering down the device and letting the electrical charges dissipate, the RAM is wiped and, upon rebooting the device, the micro operating system in the device has clear RAM to use.”
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I have heard experts say that we are within 5 years of vast improvements in solar energy technology so they will become very cost effective and competitive with conventional energy sources.

Perhaps we are closer than that.

I continually hear about efforts from the Germans (no surprise) where they indicate their installations are already cost effective.

There are 2 primary components of a solar installation.

Solar cells, which make up solar panels, and inverters, which convert the DC electricity from the cells into usable AC electricity.

The increasingly more popular type of inverter is grid tie which sends the electricity into the power grid to offset usage and/or generate revenue.

From ARCTERN Ventures.

“Our Story

Two bright entrepreneurs + giant problem = big reward

In a market economy, solving a big problem generates a big reward. We aggressively seek out the most disruptive ideas to solve the biggest problems of the 21st century: climate change and resource scarcity. We are not afraid of early-stage cleantech investing, in fact, we believe the most attractive investment opportunities are early-stage. However, to do a deep dive on hundreds of ideas to select the most promising ventures requires extensive resources. By leveraging our unique relationship with MaRS, one of the largest innovation centres in the world, we are able to comprehensively review hundreds of early-stage cleantech ventures to select game-changing ideas with lowest risk, highest reward profile. We then work closely with the most promising of these ventures to develop and fund a highly focused plan that wrings out the risks and positions the company for market success.

We are entrepreneurs, not passive investors. We’ve lived it. We like to roll up our sleeves and get involved. As active board members, we passionately support the entrepreneurs in building management teams, developing strong commercial opportunity pipelines, and forging global partnerships.”

“9th January 2015

2015: Solar’s Rise, Oil’s Demise

Oil prices have dominated the energy news in the later half of 2014, particularly here in Canada where, in recent decades, we have unfortunately become more dependent on volatile and uncertain oil revenues. This story has overshadowed solar’s quiet but very successful struggle against fossil fuel based electricity generation.

We are at the beginning of a decades long overhaul of the global energy sector that will see solar come to dominate global electricity generation (and likely transport fuel through low cost production of hydrogen for fuel cells). This isn’t just my opinion, its a prediction by one of the most conservative energy agencies on this small planet, the International Energy Agency (IEA), which predicts solar will be the largest source of electricity globally by 2050. That’s up from less than a quarter of 1% today.

The price of solar dropped 12-19% in 2013/2014 and this years price drop will be a near repeat (NREL). Solar is on track to be as cheap or cheaper than average electricity price in 47 US states by 2016, according to Deutsche Bank. This is without any radical technology breakthroughs being commercialized! Just imagine the potential in a few years with some of the breakthrough innovations showing promise (including two of our portfolio companies, Morgan Solar and Sparq Systems). Presently, the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany has solar cells with more than double the efficiency (46%) of current commercial PV solar modules, however, there are surely cheaper, more efficient ideas that will emerge from the labs and garages around the world.

Solar and oil are on on very different trajectories: solar getting cheaper each month – driven by unlimited human ingenuity; and oil (extraction) getting more expensive – driven by the realities of finding and recovering a limited resource.

We’re making our bet on human ingenuity. Start shifting your assets to the renewable energy economy before they get stranded.”

 
“20th October 2014

SPARQ Systems Secures $11 million to Launch Next Generation Microinverter

San Francisco and Toronto, Oct. 20, 2014 – SPARQ Systems today announced $11 million in funding led by ArcTern Ventures, a Toronto-based cleantech venture capital firm, and Jones, Gable, and Co., a full service investment dealer based in Toronto. SPARQ Systems’ technology converts power produced from solar panels into electricity that can be used by the grid.

“This funding will launch our next generation uQuad microinverter, resetting the bar for residential solar systems,” said Dr. Praveen Jain, Chairman and Chief Technology Officer of SPARQ and Canadian federal research chair in power electronics. “We saw an opportunity to take a completely different approach in microinverter design using ideas from the power electronics, aerospace, and telecom fields. The result is the next generation in microinverters.”

SPARQ System’s uQuad is the world’s first 4-in-1, 1,000-Watt residential microinverter that independently optimizes power from up to four solar modules. The uQuad is also the first commercially available ‘smart’ microinverter, with full reactive power control as well as film capacitors to ensure it lasts as long as the solar modules – 25 years or more.

“We spend a lot of time looking at groundbreaking solar technologies and in SPARQ we saw a truly unique advantage over traditional microinverters,” said Murray McCaig, Managing Partner at ArcTern Ventures. “The SPARQ team has done a superb job of translating innovative technology into a better product for solar system installers and home owners.””

 
Read more

From the Internet Explorer Team Blog January 22, 2015.

“Project Spartan and the Windows 10 January Preview Build

Thursday, January 22, 2015 12:08 PM

Yesterday, we announced that Windows 10 will ship with a brand new browser, codenamed “Project Spartan.” Designed for Windows 10, Spartan provides a more interoperable, reliable, and discoverable experience with advanced features including the ability to annotate on web pages, a distraction-free reading experience, and integration of Cortana for finding and doing things online faster.

Spartan is a single browser designed to work great across the entire Windows 10 device family – from keyboard and mouse on the Windows 10 desktop to touch, gestures, voice, controllers and sensors.

Powered by a new rendering engine, Spartan is designed for interoperability with the modern web. We’ve deliberately moved away from the versioned document modes historically used in Internet Explorer, and now use the same markup as other modern browsers. Spartan’s new rendering engine is designed to work with the way the web is written today.

Like Windows 10 itself Spartan will remain up-to-date: as a service, both providing new platform capabilities, security and performance improvements, and ensuring web developers a consistent platform across Windows 10 devices. Spartan and the new rendering engine are truly evergreen.

Spartan provides compatibility with the millions of existing enterprise web sites designed for Internet Explorer. To achieve this, Spartan loads the IE11 engine for legacy enterprise web sites when needed, while using the new rendering engine for modern web sites. This approach provides both a strong compatibility guarantee for legacy enterprise web sites and a forward looking interoperable web standards promise.

We recognize some enterprises have legacy web sites that use older technologies designed only for Internet Explorer, such as custom ActiveX controls and Browser Helper Objects. For these users, Internet Explorer will also be available on Windows 10. Internet Explorer will use the same dual rendering engines as Spartan, ensuring web developers can consistently target the latest web standards.

What does this mean to web developers?

If you are building a public consumer-facing web site here’s what you need to know:

Our new rendering engine will be the default engine for Windows 10, Spartan, and Internet Explorer. This engine has interoperability at its core and consumes the same markup you send other modern browsers. Our standards support and roadmap can be found at http://status.modern.ie.

Public Internet web sites will be rendered using the new engine and modern standards, and legacy Internet Explorer behaviors including document modes are not supported in the new engine. If your web sites depends on legacy Internet Explorer behaviors we encourage you to update to modern standards.

Our goal is interoperability with the modern web and we need your help! You can test the new engine via the Windows Insider Program or using http://remote.modern.ie.

Please let us know (via Connect or Twitter) when you find interoperability problems so we can work with the W3C and other browser manufacturers to ensure great interoperability.”
Read more

Microsoft just announced the release of Windows 10 which will be a free upgrade for PC Windows 7 and 8.1 users and Windows 8.1 phone users. There will be no cost to keep it current going forward.

One of the new features, Cortina, is on my Windows Nokia Lumia 630 phone that I have been using for about 6 months. So far this has been one of my favorite cell phones in over 20 years.

From To Market News January 21, 2015.

“What’s new in Windows 10 for PCs? A lot.”

“Coming into today’s Windows 10 event, we already knew a lot about Microsoft’s latest and greatest. The company explained the thinking behind its new OS back in September, and the Technical Preview has been available for months. The core change comes in the form of a revitalized desktop experience — one that puts the best of Windows 7 and 8 into a single package. Windows will also now better match the convertible devices Microsoft is pushing, with a consistent UI across all platforms, but there’s a whole lot more to explore here, including some features detailed today for the first time. Let’s take a closer look.”

“If you’ve been following Windows Phone at all, you’ll know what Cortana is: Microsoft’s take on a personal digital assistant. The mobile version offers features that are a mix between Siri and Google Now, but the PC version has a few added benefits. Cortana plugs into Windows search, meaning if you ask for “PowerPoint slides about the charity account,” it’ll search your computer and OneDrive accounts for relevant files.”

“Perhaps the biggest news, though, even if it doesn’t benefit the majority of Windows users — is that Windows apps will now be universal and run across PC, tablet, phone and even Xbox One. That doesn’t mean PC users won’t be getting new apps as well. Microsoft blazed through a load of new apps for Windows.”

“As early reports suggested, Project Spartan is a new browser for Windows 10, entirely separate from Internet Explorer. Sure there’s a very clean, almost Chrome-like design, and a brand-new rendering engine, but the focus here is on social sharing. You can highlight and annotate websites before sharing them with friends, kind of like having Skitch built right into your browser. There’s also Cortana integration and a reading view that, much like Pocket, lets you read pages offline.”
Read more

From the Microsoft Windows Blog January 21, 2015.

“Today I had the honor of sharing new information about Windows 10, the new generation of Windows.

Our team shared more Windows 10 experiences and how Windows 10 will inspire new scenarios across the broadest range of devices, from big screens to small screens to no screens at all. You can catch the video on-demand presentation here.

Windows 10 is the first step to an era of more personal computing. This vision framed our work on Windows 10, where we are moving Windows from its heritage of enabling a single device – the PC – to a world that is more mobile, natural and grounded in trust. We believe your experiences should be mobile – not just your devices. Technology should be out of the way and your apps, services and content should move with you across devices, seamlessly and easily. In our connected and transparent world, we know that people care deeply about privacy – and so do we. That’s why everything we do puts you in control – because you are our customer, not our product. We also believe that interacting with technology should be as natural as interacting with people – using voice, pen, gestures and even gaze for the right interaction, in the right way, at the right time. These concepts led our development and you saw them come to life today.

Delivering Windows as a Service and a Free Upgrade to Windows 10

Today was a monumental day for us on the Windows team because we shared our desire to redefine the relationship we have with you – our customers. We announced that a free upgrade for Windows 10 will be made available to customers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 who upgrade in the first year after launch.*

This is more than a one-time upgrade: once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, we will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device – at no cost. With Windows 10, the experience will evolve and get even better over time. We’ll deliver new features when they’re ready, not waiting for the next major release. We think of Windows as a Service – in fact, one could reasonably think of Windows in the next couple of years as one of the largest Internet services on the planet.

And just like any Internet service, the idea of asking “What version are you on?” will cease to make sense – which is great news for our Windows developers. With universal Windows apps that work across the entire device family, developers can build one app that targets the broadest range of devices – including the PC, tablet, phone, Xbox, the Internet of Things, and more.

For our enterprise customers, we’ll continue to support the way many of them work today, with long-term servicing for their mission critical environments. With Windows 10, a best practice we recommend for many enterprise devices is to connect to Windows Update and be kept up-to-date with the latest security and productivity improvements as soon as they are available. You can learn more about our commitment to enterprises here, with much more to come in the following months.”
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If you read our article yesterday, January 18, 2015, you know that no router is safe from hacking.

Read more

So, what can you do to improve your odds of not being hacked?

From We Live Security July 22, 2014.

“Wi-Fi security – steps you can take now

A We Live Security video guide offers basic tips on how to secure home routers - and offers a good starting point for ensuring a Wi-Fi network isn’t vulnerable to snoopers and other unwanted ‘guests’.

Harley says, “Firstly, ensure your firmware is kept updated.” Firmware is the code and data which allows routers to function – similar in some ways to a computer operating system, but with the crucial difference that updates (to protect against bugs) often have to be installed manually.”

“Check your settings again

Changing passwords is an essential first step – but it’s worth checking back that your router’s settings haven’t changed, as this can be a problem with some models.

Harley says that users should always, “Change default router administrator usernames and passwords, and change the default SSID.” The SSID is the name of the network – which is broadcast to anywhere within Wi-Fi range. Leaving it as a default can broadcast information that is useful to an attacker – such as the model of router you are using, or whether you are using one supplied by your ISP. When choosing a new network name, avoid any personally identifying information such as your name or house number.

It’s worth considering making yours a “hidden network” – disabling the broadcast of the SSID’s name. That way you’re less visible to attackers – and to connect new devices, simply type in your network’s name on the gadget.

Harley warns that these precautions can be wasted if your router’s software is updated – which can occasionally revert settings to the default. “After any update, check these settings have not reverted,” he says.

WEP is not your friend

If your family or business has had the same router for  a long time, you may be using WEP – an outdated form of encryption that can be cracked easily, even by unskilled hackers. Most new routers will use the more secure WPA2 standard – but if your router has been around for a while, it’s possible family members may have chosen WEP to connect older devices such as Nintendo’s first DS handheld. “Don’t use WEP encryption, if anyone still is,” Harley says. “If the router doesn’t allow anything else, time to change it. WPA2 is reasonably secure.”

Even if you’ve had trouble connecting mobile devices to a network, leaving it “open” is always a bad idea. Harley says, “ If you’re not using encryption at all, fix it.”

Know who is connecting to your network

Harley says that controlling which devices can connect to a network offers another layer of reassurance. “MAC filtering reduces the risk from intruder machines using your network,” he says.

Any PC or mobile computing device has a unique identifying number known as a MAC address. If you access your router’s settings, you can select which devices can and cannot connect to your network – meaning for instance, a neighbor couldn’t log in, or a teenage visitor could not access unsuitable sites via a smartphone.

Add the MAC addresses of all authorized devices in the home – iPhones, tablets, laptops etc. – to the router’s authorized list. No other device will then be allowed on the network. You can find the MAC addresses of mobile phones and other portable devices under their network settings, though this will vary for each device. Check with the manufacturer.”
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