Plain Text Productivity Redux

Almost 2 years ago, I set out on an experiment in plain text productivity. I won’t say the experiment was a failure; I did learn from the experiment, and gaining knowledge is usually a positive outcome. In the end, I switched back to OmniFocus, the OS X- and iOS-specific app I’d been using previously. In the last few weeks, though, I’ve revisited the idea of a plain text productivity system as part of my migration to Ubuntu Linux as my primary desktop OS, and I think I’ve resolved some of the issues that were present in my last attempt.

To recap, in my previous attempt I settled on the TaskPaper format (named after the OS X app of the same name). The format is extraordinarily flexible, and the OS X app is more powerful than you might expect. However, I uncovered some issues that made the solution untenable; namely:

  1. Handling future tasks is a problem.
  2. Handling repeating tasks is a problem.
  3. Handling tasks with due dates is a problem.
  4. Handling lots of tasks is a problem.
  5. Keeping task lists synced across computers can be a problem.

At the time, the app had no way to dynamically respond to Continue reading

Technology Short Take #76

Welcome to Technology Short Take #76, the first Technology Short Take of 2017. Normally, I’d publish this on a Friday, but due to extenuating circumstances (my mother-in-law’s funeral is tomorrow) I’m posting it today. Here’s hoping you find something useful!

Networking

Mac malware is found targeting biomedical research

A Mac malware that’s been spying on biomedical research centers may have been circulating undetected for years, according to new research.Antivirus vendor Malwarebytes uncovered the malicious code, after an IT administrator spotted unusual network traffic coming from an infected Mac.The malware, which Apple calls Fruitfly, is designed to take screen captures, access the Mac’s webcam, and simulate mouse clicks and key presses, allowing for remote control by a hacker,  Malwarebytes said in a blog post on Wednesday.The security firm said that neither it nor Apple have identified how the malware has been spreading. But whoever designed it relied on “ancient” coding functions, dating back before the Mac OS X operating system launch in 2001, said Malwarebytes researcher Thomas Reed in the blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mac malware is found targeting biomedical research

A Mac malware that’s been spying on biomedical research centers may have been circulating undetected for years, according to new research.Antivirus vendor Malwarebytes uncovered the malicious code, after an IT administrator spotted unusual network traffic coming from an infected Mac.The malware, which Apple calls Fruitfly, is designed to take screen captures, access the Mac’s webcam, and simulate mouse clicks and key presses, allowing for remote control by a hacker,  Malwarebytes said in a blog post on Wednesday.The security firm said that neither it nor Apple have identified how the malware has been spreading. But whoever designed it relied on “ancient” coding functions, dating back before the Mac OS X operating system launch in 2001, said Malwarebytes researcher Thomas Reed in the blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 Cool Security Startups Vying for Glory at RSA Conference

Hot topics at this year's RSA Conference in February will include cloud security, Internet of Things security and encryption -- and all of those issues unsurprisingly are represented among the 10 finalists announced for the event's annual Innovation Sandbox Contest for startups.I ran the company descriptions provided in the RSA Conference press release about the contest through a Wordcloud generator and produced the spectacular graphic above that put "data" protection at the heart of what these newcomers are addressing. The biggest shock for me was that machine learning didn't get mentioned in each description...but it did make the cut in three of the 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 Cool Security Startups Vying for Glory at RSA Conference

Hot topics at this year's RSA Conference in February will include cloud security, Internet of Things security and encryption -- and all of those issues unsurprisingly are represented among the 10 finalists announced for the event's annual Innovation Sandbox Contest for startups.I ran the company descriptions provided in the RSA Conference press release about the contest through a Wordcloud generator and produced the spectacular graphic above that put "data" protection at the heart of what these newcomers are addressing. The biggest shock for me was that machine learning didn't get mentioned in each description...but it did make the cut in three of the 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s new Linux option for Azure is Clear in the cloud

Microsoft announced today that it has added support for the Intel-backed Clear Linux distribution in instances for its Azure public cloud platform.It’s the latest in a lengthy string of Linux distributions to become available on the company’s Azure cloud. Microsoft already supports CentOS, CoreOS, Debian, Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Enterprise Linux, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu in Azure instances.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Windows 10 peeping: Microsoft fails to understand the uproar + Oracle patches raft of vulnerabilities in business applicationsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Slack finally launches threaded replies

Slack, the popular work chat app, has launched one of the features that users have been clamoring for over its entire lifetime: threaded messages.On Wednesday, the company began the process of rolling out the update to all of its users, which will allow them to keep conversations about a particular topic corralled into a single thread. The feature is designed to keep conversations on a particular topic out of the main flow of a chat channel, the company said in a blog post.Starting a thread just requires users to hover over a message, click the “Start a Thread” button, and type their response. Replies will be grouped into a sidebar thread, and a small link will appear below the original message showing who has replied to a thread and how many replies it has garnered.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New $29 Pine64 computer takes on Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3

Raspberry Pi's new Compute Module 3 has serious competition coming its way from the maker of the Pine64 board computer.The new SOPINE A64 64-bit computing module is a smaller version of the popular US$15 Pine64 computer.It was announced the same week as the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3, which is a smaller version of the popular namesake board, was released.At $29, the SOPINE A64 roughly matches the price of the Raspberry Pi Compute Module 3, which ranges from $25 to $30. The new SOPINE will ship in February, according to the website.The SOPINE A64 can't operate as a standalone computer like the Pine64. It needs to be plugged in as a memory slot inside a computer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fraud for online holiday sales spikes by 31%

Fraud attempts on digital retail sales jumped 31% from Thanksgiving to Dec. 31 over the previous year, according to a survey of purchasing data from ACI Worldwide.The fraud increase was based on hundreds of millions of online transactions with major merchants globally. Also, the number of e-commerce transactions grew by 16% for the same period, ACI said.Some of the fraud attempts came from the use of credit card numbers purchased in underground chat channels, ACI said.“Given the consistent and alarming uptick in fraudulent activity on key dates, merchants must be proactive in their efforts to identify weak spots and define short and long-term strategies for improved security and enhanced customer experience,” said Markus Rinderer, senior vice president of platform solutions at ACI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fraud for online holiday sales spikes by 31%

Fraud attempts on digital retail sales jumped 31% from Thanksgiving to Dec. 31 over the previous year, according to a survey of purchasing data from ACI Worldwide.The fraud increase was based on hundreds of millions of online transactions with major merchants globally. Also, the number of e-commerce transactions grew by 16% for the same period, ACI said.Some of the fraud attempts came from the use of credit card numbers purchased in underground chat channels, ACI said.“Given the consistent and alarming uptick in fraudulent activity on key dates, merchants must be proactive in their efforts to identify weak spots and define short and long-term strategies for improved security and enhanced customer experience,” said Markus Rinderer, senior vice president of platform solutions at ACI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This is what the first iPhone protoype software looked like

With the iPhone celebrating its 10-year anniversary last week, there have been quite a number of interesting stories highlighting just how impactful Apple's iconic smartphone has been. While there's no denying that the iPhone helped create the modern day smartphone market as we know it, it's just as remarkable that the iPhone has remained the "smartphone to beat" for nearly a decade now.As time has marched on, we've slowly but surely learned more about the process that led to the iPhone's creation. As is well known now, Steve Jobs during the early iPhone development days tasked two separate teams to come up with varying iPhone designs. One such design was to be based on the iPod's clickwheel, while the other was designed to be a touchscreen running a variant of OS X. Ultimately, Apple wisely opted to go with the latter design.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AMD talks tough as it drums up support for 32-core Zen server chip

At CES, AMD launched its first Zen chips for PCs, called Ryzen. Next on deck is the 32-core server chip code-named Naples, which will ship in the coming months.Naples doesn't have an official name yet, but the expectations are high. While Ryzen is set up for success in PCs, it's a different story for Naples, which has to take on Intel's juiced-up Xeon chips, which are used in most servers today.AMD is trying to drum up excitement for Naples, which will be released in the first half of this year. It's promoting Naples using the same tactic as it did for Ryzen -- by talking about the performance benefits of the Zen CPU.The Zen CPU core in Naples will provide the same performance benefits as in the Ryzen chips. AMD claims a 40 percent improvement in instructions per cycle, an important metric to measure CPU performance, compared to the company's previous Excavator architecture.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Failure to patch known ImageMagick flaw for months costs Facebook $40k

It's not common for a security-conscious internet company to leave a well-known vulnerability unpatched for months, but it happens. Facebook paid a US$40,000 reward to a researcher after he warned the company that its servers were vulnerable to an exploit called ImageTragick.ImageTragick is the name given by the security community to a critical vulnerability that was found in the ImageMagick image processing tool back in May.ImageMagick is a command-line tool that can resize, convert and optimize images in many formats. Web server libraries like PHP’s imagick, Ruby’s rmagick and paperclip, and Node.js’s imagemagick, used by millions of websites, are based on it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Failure to patch known ImageMagick flaw for months costs Facebook $40k

It's not common for a security-conscious internet company to leave a well-known vulnerability unpatched for months, but it happens. Facebook paid a US$40,000 reward to a researcher after he warned the company that its servers were vulnerable to an exploit called ImageTragick.ImageTragick is the name given by the security community to a critical vulnerability that was found in the ImageMagick image processing tool back in May.ImageMagick is a command-line tool that can resize, convert and optimize images in many formats. Web server libraries like PHP’s imagick, Ruby’s rmagick and paperclip, and Node.js’s imagemagick, used by millions of websites, are based on it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Could zombie toasters DDoS my serverless?

With serverless, there is essentially no limit on the number of requests you could be handling — the service scales up automatically and almost instantaneously for every concurrent request. This is great if your product suddenly becomes successful, as you don’t really need to plan for additional scale; it is all handled for you automatically without even the need to think about an autoscaling set-up. But what if your service isn’t suddenly rising up the popularity charts, and is simply the victim of a coordinated attack by a botnet? You’re being charged by the function call. Could the unlimited cost of all those function calls take you out of business? —The New Stack

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