NC #583 Airport Firmware Update, Dumb Question on Older Hardware Security, Ocktobud Waterproof Earbuds, Tunity, Security Bits

Steve and I are about to become grandparents, so there’s likely to be some disruption to the show schedule in the next few weeks. I guest hosted the SMR Podcast last week with Terrance Gaines at smrpodcast.com/…. My video tutorial on Affinity Photo is up at ScreenCasts Online. I made a tutorial on how to upgrade the firmware on your Apple routers, in Dumb Question Corner we all about how to secure older hardware, Denise gives us a listener review of the Oktobud SM01-X7 Waterproof Bluetooth Earbuds, and I’ll tell you about Tunity to hear broadcast TV on your phone.

mp3 download

Hi this is Allison Sheridan of the NosillaCast Mac Podcast, hosted at Podfeet.com, a technology geek podcast with an EVER so slight Macintosh bias. Today is Sunday July 10, 2016 and this is show number 583.

We’re on high baby alert here now, Lindsay’s baby is due on the 20th but he’s shaping up to a big boy already so the betting pool believes he’ll be early. There’s two reasons you need to know about our impending grand baby. Number one, because if there’s anything that might get in the way of the NosillaCast coming out on time, this could be it. There’s a much better than average chance that there won’t be a live show next Sunday too. If she has the baby early next week we could be at Macstock, or if she doesn’t have the baby we could be at home. Hard to say. The second reason you care that we’re having a grandchild is that you should probably unfollow us on social media. Remember how insufferable we were when Tesla first arrived in our lives? And then it happened again with the kittens Ada and Grace? Well can you just imagine how annoying Steve and I will be when we have a grandchild? Take this as a warning, if you don’t heed it you only have yourself to blame.

I’ve mentioned that the SMR Podcast is one of my favorite shows. The hosts, Chris Ashley, Robb Dunewood and Rod Simmons are great guys, have an interesting take on tech and also discuss social issues, TV shows, sports and gaming. They can be all over the map but they’re always entertaining. Well this week, all of them were out of town, so they asked Terrance Gaines, aka BrothaTech and I to host the show for them. We had an absolute blast talking tech doing it and I hope you’ll go subscribe to hear Episode #308: Ebony and Ivory at smrpodcast.com/….

Chit Chat Across the Pond

In Chit Chat Across the Pond this week, Bart takes us through the last episode of learning the language of Javascript in Programming by Stealth episode 18. We learn a few new things, tie up some loose ends and get ready to step outside the playground. Go check it out, it’s episode #446 of Chit Chat Across the Pond over at podfeet.com/…. Or even better, subscribe to Chit Chat Across the Pond in your podcatcher of choice!

Full Affinity Photo Video Tutorial on ScreenCasts Online

As if this wasn’t enough fun for one week, my full 50 minute video tutorial on Affinity Photo is now up on ScreenCasts Online. This was a very challenging video to make because I had to cram a super capable image editor into such a short amount of time. Luckily Todd Olthoff had just finished a four part series on Photoshop so I didn’t need to explain how to use an image editor but rather to explain the interface of Affinity Photo and any highly unusual tools it has. The more I worked on this video tutorial, the more I learned about how incredibly capable Affinity Photo actually is.

The folks that make Affinity Photo have over 40 short videos showing how to do specific things, but they didn’t have a video explaining the interface yet. I’ve been watching their short tutorials (even their new beginner series) and I learn something new that Affinity Photo can do each time. I just saw one explaining how you can add new light sources to your photos, which looks like black magic to me. Can’t wait to test it out.

Anyway, Don has a free 14 day trial for ScreenCasts Online so you can use that to see the video, or you can buy it a la carte on the AppleTV using the new ScreenCasts Online Showcase app. If you can wait till the end of the month, my Affinity Photo tutorial will also be in the ScreenCasts Online Magazine for iPad as well. I’m really rather proud of this video, can you tell?

CotEditor follow up

A couple of weeks I told you about a sweet little text editor called CotEditor that Trevor Drover found in response to Allister’s challenge on G+ I loved it but I said in my review that the one thing I missed from using Atom was a way to see whether I had correctly closed all of my brackets. It seemed to sometimes show the matching brackets but I couldn’t find the pattern to when it worked. I suggested that since Trevor found CotEditor, it was his job to find the pattern for me. Well Trevor wrote back:

You threw down the challenge to me to find out why CotEditor sometimes highlights brackets when navigating code.

Well my preliminary investigation found that the system is not very good but reproducibly shows that if you place your cursor before the end bracket then use the forward arrow key to pass over that bracket it will briefly highlight to bracket at the start of that function. I’d like to see it work both ways.

I tested Trevor’s method and indeed it does work. What he means by “both ways” is that CotEditor only lets you move over the ending bracket to see the starting one, but you can’t arrow over the starting one to find the ending bracket. I definitely would like to see it work both ways, and keep it highlighted till I move away. In any case, it’s a minor problem and I’m still loving CotEditor from coteditor.com/….

Blog Posts

Airport Firmware Update

Dumb Question Corner – Can Older Hardware Stay Secure?

Oktobud SM01-X7 Waterproof Bluetooth Earbuds by Denise

Note – price went from $50 to $60 since Denise recorded this review just a few days ago. These fluctuations happen on Amazon (the Smartbean I love so much moves from $12 to $25 and back, and the Audio Technica ATR2100 goes from $50 to $80 and back on any given day of the week.

Tunity to Hear Broadcast TV on Your Phone

Security Bits with Bart Busschots

Important Security News

Microsoft have changed their Windows 10 upgrade dialogue, it now has a visually obvious button for declining the upgrade – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
- RELATED – MS paid a Californian $10K after an 'unauthorised' Windows 10 upgrade – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
- RELATED – MS have now enabled full-screen 'reminders' to upgrade (with a 'Remind me Later' button, but no button to say 'No' permanently) – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
US Department of Homeland Security have requested permission to start collecting social media usernames at US borders – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
Having won their appeal, FaceBook is now free to track all Belgians again – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
A virginia Judge has set a very dangerous precedent that because computers can be hacked, no one has any reasonable expectation of privacy on any computer, and the government are free to hack any computer without a warrant (the judgement is being appealed) – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
Security researchers have found a weakness in full disk encryption on Android phones with Qualcomm chipsets – arstechnica.com/…
Another of the celebgate hackers pleads guilty, could get up to 5 years in prison – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
There is a fair bit of media hype abut the fact that there are four Mac backdoors in the wild ATM – bear in mind, these are all Trojans, and all blocked by Gatekeeper's default settings (Editorial by Bart: no need to panic, just continue to be vigilant) – arstechnica.com/…
- A detailed look at the most high-profile of these new Trojans – OSX/EleanorA – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
TPLink loses control of one of its setup domains – but it's not as bad as it sounds – arstechnica.com/…
Security researchers find that at least 10M Android phones (of which 0.85M are in the US) have been infected with auto-rooting malware – the malware takes advantage of the fact that so many Android phones are running un-patched versions of the OS, with known vulnerabilities (Editorial by Bart: this is like the bad old days of Windows 95 again – devices on the internet with known security holes, and insanely poor update processes) – arstechnica.com/…

Notable Breaches

The US IRS have killed their beleaguered e-File PIN system after noticing yet more suspicious activity targeting it – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
A careless customer exposed the entire 2014 Thomson Reuters' World-Check confidential intelligence database, including details on 2.2m suspected terrorists and money launderers – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…
The full scale of last year's Wendy's breach has been made known – 1,025 locations were affected (a list of locations by state has been published) – krebsonsecurity.com/…
A database with the names and contact details of 50,000 police in Baton Rouge has been leaked, apparently in retribution for the police killing of Alton Sterling – nakedsecurity.sophos.com/…