Bushfire Tech Tips

With the holiday and fire season upon us, it is a good time to review what tech options are available for staying safe this time of year. From a fire perspective there is the usual alerts page from DFES (dfes.wa.gov.au) which provides information on larger incidents, these can take a while to become published but are the authoritative source of information on these fires . If you want to get details on what is happening in real time during a fire, the DFES central command radio channel is broadcast on the internet through broadcastify (http://www.broadcastify.com/listen/feed/1432/web). This provides communications between fire fighters and DFES, such as  situation reports, on a regular basis. To keep a watch on weather conditions consult the bureau of meteorology's fire weather forecast at http://www.bom.gov.au/wa/forecasts/fire-southwest.shtml. Landgate Firewatch provides a map of current fires (with a couple of hours delay) as well as lightning strikes. This can be accessed from http://firewatch.landgate.wa.gov.au. It also pays to be aware of  total fire bans and vehicle movement and hot works bans. These can be found on the DFES website and your local shire webpage. It also worth keeping an eye on your regional facebook page, but the reliability of information may not be guaranteed. That being said, it is one of the quickest ways for information to be shared, but it always pays to verify the information before jumping to conclusions. 

If you are concerned about a local fire then keep an eye on the horizon to see if there is a smoke plume and what direction it is travelling in. Being aware of local weather conditions, such as wind speed and direction can help you assess the fire danger. This may be the best way to verify for yourself what is going on. I have setup a personal weather station for this very reason (see my blog for setting up a personal weather station). It also pays to have a bushfire plan in place well before you need it. DFES provide a lot of good resources for preparation of a bushfire plan. 

Lastly, if you really want to know how to deal with a bushfire, join your local bushfire brigade where you can get trained and take part in protecting your local community. Contact your Shire for further details. 

Wearables

I have previously written about activity trackers, devices which you can use to track your fitness and general activity. The market has now moved on to integrate this technology into wearables. These are traditionally watch like devices that have technology embedded in them to communicate with your smart phone. The Apple Watch was released in April this year and has set the trend for fashionable wearable technology. The touch screen face is in a rectangular shape and there is a button and rotary knob on the side.  There are many choices of bands to suit your style and these are easily interchanged. In terms of functionality, the Apple Watch can provide all your smartphone notifications to your wrist, which is convenient as long as you customise the settings so you are not constantly bombarded with irrelevant email notifications. You can also read your messages and emails on your the device. as well as take phone calls Dick Tracy style as the Watch includes speakers and a microphone. You will need to be in bluetooth range of your phone for this functionality to work though. The Apple Watch retails from $799 to over $1600 depending on the model and accessories chosen.

Samsung have released their second iteration of smart watches with the Gear S2. This has a more traditional round watch face which I prefer the look of. It is probably suited to a male wearer as it is sizeable, equivalent to a sports watch. I had a look at one of these when I was passing through Singapore recently. I really liked the way the screen could be flipped though using the rotating bezel on the outside of the watch face. It is an elegant design feature. The screen is also touch operated and shows the usual notifications, much like the Apple Watch. Unlike the Apple Watch the Gear S2 is not able to make or take calls directly but it can notify you who is calling and allow you to reject the call or send a preset text message. The device is IP68 certified which means it is dust and water resistant up to 1.5m, but I would not be taking it for a swim any time soon. Integration with the Samsung fitness app provides a wealth of fitness metrics too. The device charges on a wireless dock which is a neat feature. The Gear S2 retails from $499.
If you want a wearable that is not brand specific you can look at the Android Wear, which is compatible with all Android phones. Traditional watch brands like Tag Heuer are realising that they need to adapt to the changing market and have started to develop smart watches too. There are also a number of cheaper wearables on the market but features will vary along with the price and these may leave a bad impression due to their limitations.

http://www.apple.com/au/watch/
http://www.samsung.com/au/gear-s2/
https://www.android.com/intl/en_au/wear/
http://www.wareable.com/smartwatches/should-you-buy-a-cheap-smartwatch-on-amazon-2008

Travel Tips

If you are planning on travelling and want to be able to keep your apps and data handy, then here are some useful tech tips. You will need a USB 3.0 portable hard drive, VeraCrypt encryption software and the Portable Apps program. 1TB portable drives are available for under $100. You can use this to store your photos and documents and to load the Portable Apps program to access useful programs such as Chrome, Skype etc.

It is a good idea to encrypt your hard drive in case it gets lost or stolen while you are travelling. Encryption is just a means of obscuring the contents of the hard drive. A password is required to make the data visible. VeraCrypt is a free encryption utility that can be used for this purpose. To be able to load VeraCrypt on any computer it is advisable to create a separate partition on the external drive. This creates a 2 logical drives on the external drive so when you plug in the drive it will come up with 2 drive letters (one for the veracrypt files and the other for the encrypted data). You can use PartedMagic to create the new partition. This only has to be a small partition to load the VeraCrypt files. I recommend making it 32GB. The rest of the drive is then free to be used for the encrypted data (on a 1TB drive this will be about 900GB). Load VeraCrypt and create a new volume. Choose Encrypt a non-system partition/drive then choose Standard VeraCrypt volume. Select the data partition you created earlier and then the level of encryption required. VeraCrypt will then prompt for a password that will be used to decrypt the volume. Once this has finished encrypting you can setup the smaller drive with the VeraCrypt files. Go to Tools | Traveler Disk Setup in VeraCrypt. Select the small partition you created (which is unencrypted, in my case the 32GB drive) and then click on Create. This copies the VeraCrypt files to the drive which allows you to load the encrypted volume in any computer. Note that if you login to a computer with a limited user account (i.e. does not have full access to the system) you may not be able to load the encrypted partition. Most home computers won't have this problem though.

Now you can install the Portable Apps software on the encrypted drive. Choose which apps you want to use. Once this is all installed you can dismount the encrypted volume and unplug the portable drive.So what you now have is a drive with your favourite portable apps that is securely encrypted and can be loaded on most computers. For more information follow the links.

http://portableapps.com/

https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/

http://partedmagic.com/

iPad Pro and iOS9

Apple have released their latest version of the iPad. It is called the iPad Pro and it is distinct in that it is has a 12.9 inch screen compared with the iPad Air 2's 9.7 inch screen. This model will be available in Australia in November. Pricing has not yet been released but you can choose from a 128GB wifi and cellular model or a 32GB or 128GB wifi model. I am pleased to see that 16GB is no longer available as this is a very limited capacity and leaves hardly any room for other apps and data once the iOS and updates have been installed. Other than the larger screen size and a newer CPU, the Pro appears to have the same specifications as the iPad Air 2. This is no surprise as Apple like to drip feed features so they have something to market at the next hardware release cycle. For those wanting a larger screen experience the iPad Pro should be a welcome addition to the Apple line up. 

Speaking of iOS, Apple have updated this to version 9. This is to improve features such as multitasking on the larger iPad screen (you can have a split screen with 2 apps running simultaneously). There are supposed improvements to Siri, which include helpful suggestions (paper clip anyone?). In addition battery life should be improved with smart use of sensors that can tell if the phone is facedown and other improvements to the operating system. Apple have also realised that people don't want to download monolithic OS updates and have allowed for smaller updates in the future. 

One feature that people may need to be wary of is the Wifi Assist option. This detects if you are in a marginal wifi area and switches to the cellular (or mobile) network to improve network performance. There have been reports of people using 3 times as much data on the their mobile plans, so it is recommended that this be turned off if you have a limited data quota (let's face it who doesn't at the rate the telco's charge us for mobile data). Lastly it is wise to make sure you have backed up your data before upgrading the operating system. A reboot often helps to clean up any misbehaving apps as well. Better to be safe than find you have to reset your device and start from scratch.

Avoiding Adware

Adware is becoming more than just annoyance. It can cripple your internet speed and slow down your computer. There is some serious money to be made by adware makers as they direct your internet traffic to their sites. The end result is a lot of popups and irrelevant search results in your web browser. Adware developers are getting sneakier at luring people into installing their products. The unassuming internet user can easily download a malicious verison of a legitimate product. The installation may look the same but in fact it is just a wrapper for adware. 

To avoid this mistake, make sure you only download from legitimate websites. Also whenever installing a program make sure you only select the features you actually want and not the unnecessary additions. This can be hard to do as software developers try and hide the tick boxes and optional choices from the unsuspecting end user. Anti virus software is not always capable of detecting adware installations and will allow you to override any warnings it may present. Games, free ring tones and video converters are amongst some of most common vessels of infection. Any download can be a potential vector for infection so it pays to use the legitimate app stores and websites. Drive by infections can also occur through malicious web page ads. There have been cases of popular websites serving up malicious ads (most recently MSN). These are rare occurrences though. 

There are some things you can do to protect yourself: Make sure your programs and operating system are current; Install an ad blocker/privacy protector (my current favourite is Ghostery), and check for adware infections on a regular basis. My stock go to for this is ADWCleaner (downloadable from toolslib). For more persistent infections Malwarebytes is a good option. Lastly check your browser search engine settings. Make sure it is set to Google, Yahoo or Bing, anything else that you have never seen before should be deleted. The search engine settings can be found in your web browser options.

https://toolslib.net/downloads/viewdownload/1-adwcleaner/
https://www.malwarebytes.org
https://www.ghostery.com

Windows 10

Windows 10, Microsoft's latest operating system, was released at the end of July in Australia. If you are wondering what happened to Windows 9, Microsoft decided to skip a number and go from Windows 8.1 to 10. It seems that Microsoft's marketing team want to seperate the latest Windows release numerically and figuratively from the unpopular Windows 8 family. Although extensive testing was carried out in Windows 8, the focus was primarily on the ability for Windows to become a tablet interface and largely ignored the dissatisfaction from traditional Windows desktop users. Now the pendulum is swinging back to the desktop space and Windows 10 has included features that make it easier to use in this modality, such as the beloved Start Menu. They have also made Windows store apps run in the desktop and not full screen as they used to (e.g. Mail and Calendar), which will actually make them useable in my opinion. The good news is that if you are currently running Windows 8 and would prefer a better desktop experience, you can get a free upgrade to Windows 10. This also applies to Windows 7 PCs. Microsoft has been very aggressive in pushing out the free upgrade and would be keen to remove any vestiges of Windows 8 from the planet. My opinion is that this is probably a good thing, especially for current model PCs, but older Windows PCs may not benefit as much from the upgrade (although Microsoft seem confident that Windows 10 will be compatible with most devices). If you do want to upgrade you will need to download the 3GB update from the Windows store. Do a google search on "Windows 10 upgrade" to find the exact details. 

Some other notable features of Windows 10 is the new Web browser called Microsoft Edge. This has the ability share and edit web pages on the fly and store favorites and PDF documents all in one place. Cortana is Microsoft's version of Siri, the voice recognition software. I have always found these apps to be limited so I don't hold out much hope on the accuracy of Cortana's interpretations. In addition I worry about the privacy aspect of sending my voice and images to Microsoft. This is true for any of the vendors that provide these interpretive services so it pays to check the privacy settings for these apps.

Overall Windows 10 promises to be an improvement and an apology to faithful Windows fans for mistakes of the past. Microsoft seems to have struck a reasonable balance between the tablet and desktop modes which people are operating on these days. For more information check out the following sites:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/windows/10

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2955454/windows/windows-10-superguide-everything-you-need-to-know.html

Internet access in our region

Last month I released a survey to measure internet usage and satisfaction in our region. I received 57 submissions. ADSL and mobile broadband are the most common means of accessing the internet. Most people thought the value of broadband had remained the same and 31% stated value had decreased. Most people thought wireless broadband was a serious option for internet access. Generally households have multiple computers with the majority of people using the internet for web browsing, email and social networking. Interestingly a high percentage of households use the internet for studying (61%) and either working from home (57%) or running a business (52%). Sentiment towards the NBN was equally weighted between positive and negative but analysis of the comments showed the negativity was due to the unlikelihood of it reaching residents or inability to access it. A common complaint was the high cost of data and lack of coverage in the area. On the positive side, people are looking forward to improvements the NBN can provide and additional competition that can improve the cost of internet access. Over half of the respondents would connect to NBN if it was available, 3% wouldn't and 40% were not sure if they would. The most common choice for speed of access was the highest possible (250Mb/100Mb, although this is not being offered by the NBN) with a large number not sure what speed they would choose. People are prepared to pay between $50 to $100 for internet access, while 10% were prepare to pay whatever it costs to get it.

Overall there seems to be a lot of interest from residents in improving internet access and speed in the area. Some good news is that the Federal Communications department has approved funding in round one of the mobile blackspot programme and this combined with the Royalties for Regions-funded Regional Telecommunication Project will provide funding for four areas in the Shire of Chittering (Bindoon West, Upper Chittering, Lower Chittering and Wannamal). Local government planning approval will be required for new towers. In Bindoon, some local residents have been vocally opposed to the tower on Bell Hill, while NBN have argued it is the best site as it reaches the most people. Hopefully a suitable resolution can be found to resolve the deadlock so the deployment of improved communications can be progressed. It would good to hear what the councillors have to say on this matter and what options are being proposed to resolve this issue.

Survey results can be seen accessed at http://ow.ly/OSYeg
Map of mobile blackspot funded areas http://nationalmap.gov.au/ (filter on funded mobile blackspots)