Short Films – The short (8:40) science fiction film “Singularity” was published to YouTube in November of 2015 by The CGBros. The synopsis:
In the midst of a war between humans and sentient androids, a Delta Force team must battle a dangerous enemy to rescue the US President.
This was a well done film which I really like. It starts with a black screen with audio that sets up the situation, so have the volume up when you begin the film.
Product Announcements – Simpleum Media GmbH of Hamburg, Germany is proud to join the European Cyber Security Months in October 2017 again this year. In celebration, the German company halves the price of their software this weekend to facilitate the access in the encryption also in terms of price. Under the motto “Now everybody can encrypt” the company offers SimpleumSafe for Apple Mac, enabling users to encrypt data without technical knowledge.
SimpleumSafe is an easy-to-use app for password-based encryption of personal and professional data. Thanks to proven AES-256 encryption technology, used by government, banks and industrial enterprise, all kinds of digital information are well protected against attacks from the Internet, as well as unauthorized access.
Ingeniously simple, simply ingenious:
SimpleumSafe combines intuitive operation and ease-of-use. Much of what users have already learned during daily use of the Mac can be applied using the Encryption-App.
Opening the safe and decryption of files is done via a user-defined password. Moreover, SimpleumSafe offers numerous tools for importing, organizing, tagging, and editing of the files. SimpleumSafe is designed for the average consumer, who wants to protect and archive personal information, as well as for companies who are interested to protect personal information and secret documents from unauthorized access.
Why choose SimpleumSafe?
Nowadays it is not enough “only” to encrypt your data to be protected. If you want to view, edit and organize the encrypted files, they also must be protected. It is important not to leave any trace on the system, and even if a Trojan looks over your shoulder, it can not copy all your files to the Internet.
SimpleumSafe goes a different way than most other encryption programs. After authorization with a password, the files are not provided in the file system. Otherwise they would be completely vulnerable from this moment on. SimpleumSafe makes its own file system and has its own finder. Thus the files remain encrypted for the entire time.
Features:
System Requirements:
Special Price: SimpleumSafe for Mac is available from Friday, 29.09.2017 till Sunday, 01.10.2017, for the promotional price of $8.99 USD (instead of $17.99) in the Mac App Store – in German and English.
Book Reviews – “The silent Corner” eBook was published in 2017 and was written by Dean Koontz (http://www.deankoontz.com). Mr. Koontz has published over 100 novels as well as several novellas.
I received an ARC of this novel through https://www.netgalley.com in return for a fair and honest review. I categorize this novel as ‘R’ because it contains scenes of Violence. The story take place in various places in the US, but mostly in California.
Jane Hawk, the primary character of the story, is an FBI agent who’s husband unexpectedly committed suicide. After she got over the shock, she took a leave from the FBI, liquidated everything, dropped off the grid and began to investigate.
Fearing for her son’s life, she leaves him with friends and sets off on her own. She finds that suicide is on the increase and many are as strange as her husband’s case. As she tracks down the trail of a ‘brothel’ with beautiful women willing for clients to do literally anything, she discovers that nono-scale technology may be what is creating these docile and cooperative young women. And it may well be at the root of the suicide of her husband and others. That information comes with a price. She soon finds herself a hunted fugitive. Will she find the truth and will she be able to stay alive?
I thoroughly enjoyed the just shy of 11 hours I spent reading this 466 page Science Fiction Mystery Thriller. I have read many Dean Koontz novels. This one strays from the earlier thrillers with more of a paranormal twist. This one reminds me more of a Michael Crichton novel. I liked the character of Jane Hawk and the way the novel ended I expect . . . I hope to be reading more with her at the core. The cover art is OK. I give this novel a 5 out of 5.
My book reviews are also published on Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/31181778-john-purvis).
Coffee – This is a day late to celebrate National Coffee Day. but knowing about highly recommended coffee houses is always a good thing. I save lists like this for when I am planning a trip.
To celebrate national coffee day here are some of the best coffee houses across our nation.
Coffee culture is booming and with it more high quality coffee houses are opening.Each have there own style, coffee blends, unique menu items, and techniques.
There are many great coffee houses, however I chose to highlight a few that stand apart. These coffee houses are well known for uniqueness, quality, popularity, and dedication to the art of coffee.
Here are my top picks for Noteworthy Cafes in the U.S.:
Madcap Coffee(Grand Rapids, MI)
Madcap Coffee has won me over by offeringtasting flights, use of latte art, and serving espresso in snifters.
However, what really set them apart most of all wasimplementinga zero waste policy; trading trash cans for bus bins and sorting all of their trash into compost and recyclables.
Heart Coffee(Portland, OR)
Coffee drinks & gourmet baked goods offered in stylish…
View original post 704 more words
(See my other Coffee related posts) – National Coffee Day is celebrated every year on 29 September in the US. Internationally the day is 1 October. As of 2021, there are 39 countries around the world with their own national coffee day [2, 7]. I enjoy coffee! I drink 4–5 cups almost every day. Then sometimes another 2–3 cups of decaf.
Historically coffee first appears in 15th century Yemen. Some put the date of coffee as far back as 850 AD. By the 17th century, coffee had made it way to Europe. Coffee rose to popularity in the US after the war of independence from Britain. [3, 5, 7, 8]
The first time coffee was given a day of recognition seems to have occurred in Japan in 1983. The first time coffee was recognized in the US was in 2005. International recognition first came in 2014. [2, 3]
There are many ways to celebrate National Coffee Day. Many coffee shops join the celebration by offering coffee specials. Every year brings a different set of Coffee Deals. Search for National Coffee Day in your search engine of choice to find what is available. These days are also for promoting fair trade coffee. [1]
Product Announcements – TunesKit Software of London, United Kingdom has released DRM Media Converter for Mac v3.5.1, the upgraded version of its featured DRM removal product for Mac OS X. This version adds support for iTunes 12.7 on macOS 10.12 Sierra or lower. Till now, all TunesKit DRM media converter for Mac (and Windows), except Audiobook Converter that may still take a few days to get update, would work perfectly with the newest iTunes 12.7 when removing DRM protection from iTunes M4V videos, Audible audiobooks, as well as Apple Music songs, etc.
Along with other new world-shocking products like iPhone 8, iPhone X, Apple TV 4K, Apple also launched the new version of iTunes 12.7 on the occasion of its tenth anniversary. Once it’s released, iTunes users can download the new upgrade for both Mac and Windows. However, TunesKit DRM removal product users, especially those using the Mac versions must have found that those tools can’t work as expected once the iTunes was upgraded to v.12.7. As a professional and customer-oriented iTunes DRM removal solution provider in the world, TunesKit R&D team began to seek for the fix as soon as the error occurred. Thanks to persistent hard work and continuous tests, they finally made a breakthrough on this issue and found the ultimate solution, making TunesKit the first developer that fixed the iTunes 12.7 incompatibility error in iTunes DRM removal area.
“Apple has strengthened its DRM encryption method with the release of iTunes 12.7. Therefore the old decrypting core used by TunesKit DRM removers can’t suppose to work any more.Fortunately, our programmers invented a new advanced DRM cracking technique completely different with the old one and it apparently turns out to working pretty well.” said Lee, TunesKit R&D director. “We also received some customers’ concern about converting the new 4K iTunes movie content with TunesKit. As a result, we’ll keep testing the program on our end and try our best to support those 4K movies in the near future.”
To sum up, no matter you are using the Mac or Windows version of TunesKit DRM media converting software, you can go ahead to upgrade your iTunes to 12.7 without worrying about the compatibility at all. However, Mac users should be well noted that the solution for iTunes 12.7 on macOS 10.13 High Sierra is still under development. Therefore those newly released TunesKit DRM removal products for Mac can only work well for iTunes 12.7 under macOS 10.12 or earlier.
To get the latest versions of the upgraded TunesKit Mac products, please either use the built-in auto upgrading or download the latest setup files from TunesKit Download Center.
Beer – Every day is some kind of ‘National’ day. I thought that this one was worthy of celebration with your own brew of choice. Beer is one of the oldest and most popular beverages in history (personally, second only to coffee). Some breweries date back to as early as 1040. The Weihenstephan brewery in Bavaria has been in continuous operation since then.
There are many varieties, though they all fall into two broad categories – ale or lager. The simplest explanation to differentiate between the two is ale is brewed with top-fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) and lager with bottom-fermenting yeast (Saccharomyces uvarum). You can read more here and here. For most, the difference is in how th beer looks, smells and tastes. Ales tend to be more fruity, while lagers are more clean, crisp tasting.
If you are on Facebook, you can follow National Drink Beer Day.
Short Films – The short (17:11) science fiction film “Payload” was published to YouTube in September of 2017 by DUST. The synopsis:
A family of scavengers. A corrupt spaceport. A callous matriarch. A home in the shadow of a space elevator. After a brutal attack on his father, Simon Carter must sacrifice everything to save his family.
Well done as are most of the DUST productions. The location is in a remote part of Australia around the base of a space elevator. A very bleak existence.
The latest version of macOS, High Sierra, is now out and we can rush to install it. Personally, I am waiting a few days to make sure there are no surprises.
Something that you might want to check before you take the plunge is the compatibility with your frequently used macOS Apps and High Sierra. Fortunately Apple World Today has compiled just such a list.
While I am sure most if not all of the issues will be eventually resolved, if you rely on one of these Apps you may want to delay your upgrade.
See my other macOS articles
Product Announcements – B-Eng of Fehraltorf, Switzerland has released Enigma 1.0, the company’s powerful new utility to encrypt files on any Mac computer. Easy-to-use, yet powerful, Enigma is the tool of choice when it comes to privacy protection. With a simple and straight forward user interface, you can easily protect your data.
Enigma uses military standard and government standard encryption algorithms that are strong enough to withhold almost any attack. Using a computer with a performance of 2 Gigaflops the estimated time for cracking this encryption is 9.1732631e50 years, this equals to 1.1*10^77 possible combinations.
Main features of Enigma for Mac:
“With cyber security already an ever-evolving threat, we decided to provide a tool that helps with protecting sensible data. As app developers we indeed have data that we want nobody to see, and Enigma was developed just for this purpose. Once a password is set, encryption can simply be done with a right click, and decryption is just as simple,” according to Christian Schaffner, General Manager of B-Eng. “Of course, the rules for using a secure password still applies, the best encryption does not help at all if a weak password is used.”
System Requirements:
Enigma 1.0 is 2.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the Mac App Store in the Productivity category.
John's Notes 