CAMACOL honors all who served.
CAMACOL honra a todos los que han servido.
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Monday, November 9, 2015
12 Must-Have Tech Gifts Under $50 (PCMagazine)
We are living in a technological environment, and our presents belong to that environment... So for $50 or less these are real presents, which will be appreciated...
Your boring old HDTV can be upgraded into a Web-enabled smart TV for just $35. The latest version of Google Chromecast$35.00 at TigerDirect.com is a tiny, minimalist dongle that connects to your set via HDMI and allows you to stream an ever-expanding variety of Web content over your Wi-Fi network. You can use your phone, tablet, or PC to "cast" content from YouTube, HBO, Hulu, Spotify, Netflix, and many more platforms directly to your formerly dumb set.
This 32GB JumpDrive M10 Secure from Lexar sets itself apart from the many, many other thumb drives out there by securely locking data inside a password-protected vault using 256-bit AES encryption (that's not robust enough to keep the NSA out, but it's enough to keep most non-state sponsored hackers out of your stuff). In addition to simple encryption capabilities, the M10 Secure also comes with beefed-up deletion protection, so a deleted file can't be found through file-recovery attacks. The drive also comes fitted with an external e-ink display that serves as a thermometer-like storage meter.
Perhaps, it's not the sexiest of gifts, but it may very well be one of the most useful. The 32GB JumpDrive can be found for around $35, but is also available in 16GB, 64GB$51.22 at Pricefalls.com, and 128GB capacities with corresponding price tags.
Tile
"Siri, where are my keys?" Don't ask her, she doesn't know JACK about where your keys are. BUT if you were to adhere a tiny, Bluetooth-enabled Tile dongle$25.00 at Amazon to your keys (or any oft-misplaced item of your choosing), your phone could help you locate it in no time.
By accessing the connected Tile app, you can find your lost items by 1) remotely prompting the dongle to emit an audible beacon or 2) using sensors to visually let you locate the dongle. (You can even access your Tile on a desktop computer or on somebody else's mobile device.) Conversely, if you are in possession of the dongle, but are missing your phone, you can prompt your phone to beep by double pressing the dongle.
If you want a stylish and capable activity tracker, the minimalist $20 Flash Link from Misfit$19.99 at Dell will help you keep on top of your exercise routine via a small clip-on device. But don't let its diminutive size fool you, the Flash Link is far more than a mere step counter. It quantifies your movements, calories burned, and distance traveled, and even comes with settings for specific sports and activities (the waterproof design even lets you swim with it).
For the aspiring connected grill master in your life, the $40 iGrill Mini$34.10 at Amazon will help transport their meat into the Matrix. The iGrill Mini connects to a heat-resistant probe which you stick inside your cooking protein. It beams a steady stream of data via Bluetooth to a connected iOS or Android mobile app, which has a variety of presets that will help you cook the perfect dish with settings for proteins (beef, turkey, fish); preparedness (rare, well done); and cooking medium (barbecue, cooker, oven).
Jony Ive's opinion notwithstanding, your smartphone's external design is your device's least important attribute. You invest quite a bit of money in your device, so you should be sure to protect it from the many bumps, drops, and squashes that will almost certainly befall it.
There are a variety of "rugged" phone cases out there, but one of the most respected names in the protection game is Otterbox$99.95 at OtterBox, which offers a bevy of quality buffers for all manner of makes and mobile models (most hovering around the $50 mark).
Die, cable providers, DIE! Nobody likes you! Fortunately, it's easier than ever to have a robust entertainment life without being tied down to a cable provider. One of the best ways to get your TV fix is with a Hulu subscription. If you have friends who aren't sure if they want to commit to $8 (ad-supported) or $12 per month (ad-free), you can give them a trial gift card for anywhere from $15 to $100.
Next year is set to be the year of virtual reality with the launch of a number of high-profile VR sets—Oculus Rift being the most prominent. But if you want to stick your face in the Internet, there's no need to fork over several hundred for the privilege when Google has a capable and very affordable option in the form of Google Cardboard. And it's available right now.
Cardboard isn't a product as much as it's a platform that can be accessed through just about any smartphone (Android or Apple) via third-party headsets that begin at $10 (with higher-priced, not paper-based products also available). The best part is that there's already a bunch of VR content designed for Cardboard out there including an ever-expanding collection of "360 videos" on YouTube.
Light your house like it's 2015! Connected LED bulbs are not only guaranteed to last decades, but you can control them from anywhere via your Wi-Fi network. With WeMo Connected bulbs, you have the ability to turn lights on or off via an app on your mobile device, set them on a regular schedule, or control them when you're away from home.
Would you be prepared if the lights went out? One gadget that might help you or a loved one is a water-powered (yes, water-powered) flashlight. The H20 Blackout Buddy$15.38 at Amazon can provide up to 72 continuous hours of light with a simple dosage of water. It might not be the gift you want, but it's probably the gift you need.
The new 7-inch Amazon Fire tablet$49.99 at Amazon is far from the best tablet in the world, but it is almost certainly the best $50 tablet in the world. You wouldn't want to do any serious photo or video editing; save that for the super-sized iPad Pro. But if you just want to stream YouTube clips, read books, and play games, then this is the slate for you.
What role does your smartphone serve that is more vital than sharing your selfies with the world? And don't offend your social circle by always delivering the same shot prominently featuring your forearm leading up to your phone. Start taking your selfies seriously with a proper selfie stick$29.99 at Amazon. This is your digital reputation we're talking about here.
Friday, November 6, 2015
E N M I O P I N I O N: (Ricardo Tribin)
Servir es mi ocupación, decía un amigo
Y es que servir es una ocupación que puede ser primaria,
secundaria, terciaria, o mínima, según lo que cada cual decida hacer en su
vida. Hay que personas que nunca dan nada de sí mismas y pedirles un favor es
casi que una ofensa para ellos. Por tal motivo se pierden la alegría del servir
y en no pocos casos viven en continuos estados de ira, tristeza, amargura, y no
poca frustración.
El que no vive para servir, no sirve para vivir, expresa un sabio
decir en el que precisamente se coloca al servicio como algo de alta prioridad.
De ahí que el santo de Asís dijese que prefería e imploraba por servir en vez
de ser servido, implicando con su sabio compartir la importancia de ayudar a
otros.
De otra parte, y ello sin ni siquiera imaginarse, cuando se sirve
aunque no reciban agradecimientos o dadivas de quien recibe el servicio,
temprano o tarde llegara lo dado y multiplicado debido a leyes de karma
positivo en la existencia de las personas. De ahí que servir a los demás es
mucho mejor que andar refunfuñando por donde se esté y deambulando en la
amargura, que el egoísmo proporciona.
Miami, Noviembre 4 de 2015
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Paquito D'Rivera...Jazz under the Stars 2015 @ Miami Dade College
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Wednesday, November 4, 2015
Employment Alert : Access Miami -City of Miami-
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Come
and join the City of Miami CareerSource center staff for a Hiring Event @ the
City of Miami Center
Various
positions available for the Food Service Industry
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Recruitment
Details
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Important
Information
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Tuesday, November 3, 2015
The 5 most frightening data breaches
Ashley Madison (2015)
All data breaches are scary, but some just have that extra scream factor.
In arguably the most embarrassing data breach of the bunch, a group calling itself "The Impact Team" stole 37 million records from adultery website Ashley Madison, including many records that customers had paid to have deleted.
Virtually all of the company’s data was stolen in the hack, including records that suggest most female accounts on the site are fake, and that the company used female chat bots to trick men into spending money.
LivingSocial (2013)
Daily deals company LivingSocial had its network compromised in 2013, with hackers stealing roughly 50 million names, email addresses, birthdays, and encrypted passwords from its SQL database.
Sony PlayStation Network (2011)
Game over, man. In April 2011, hackers raided Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) service, stealing personally identifiable information from more than 77 million gamers.
Sony was further criticized for delaying the release of public information about the theft and for storing customer data in an unencrypted form.
The attack took Sony’s PSN out of service for 23 days.
Internal Revenue Service (2015)
Nigerian scammers pilfered more than $50 million from the U.S. Treasury via an embarrassingly simple 2015 hack of the Internal Revenue Service website.
Information scraped from previous data hacks was used to steal Americans’ identities and request copies of past tax returns on the IRS website. The crooks then filed new tax returns with falsified data, requesting big refunds.
The hack caused massive nightmares for the estimated 334,000 people whose records were stolen before the IRS shut down the transcript request service.
Target (2013)
Hackers installed point-of-sale malware on Target’s computer network sometime in 2013, resulting in the theft of more than 70 million customer records. Stolen data included payment card numbers, expiration dates, and CVV codes.
The retailer reached out to affected customers by offering free data monitoring (standard practice) and a 10% off discount on a future shopping trip. But it was too little, too late; same-store sales slid in the quarter following the hack.
Other cases:
Anthem (2015)
Anthem, the United States’ second largest for-profit health insurer, disclosed in February 2015 that it had lost 78.8 million unencrypted customer records to criminals. Names, social security numbers, email addresses, and income data was stolen.
The rare piece of good news: Financial and medical records were not affected.
Adobe (2013)
Adobe revealed in October 2013 that hackers had stolen 38 million active customer IDs and passwords, forcing the company to send out a wave of password reset warnings.
Weeks after, the news got worse for the company: The thieves also made off with the source code for its popular Adobe Photoshop software.
eBay (2014)
Talk about an inside job: In 2004, online auction house eBay suffered the largest hack in U.S. history, losing 145 million login credentials to a hacker using an internal eBay corporate account.
Names, email and street addresses, phone numbers, and birth dates were compromised, but thankfully, passwords were stored in encrypted form.
Home Depot (2014)
In September 2014, Home Depot admitted that it fell prey to hackers who installed antivirus-evading malware on its self-checkout registers. An estimated 56 million sets of customer payment card data were stolen in the attack.
The company’s losses related to the event are expected to top $1 billion when all of the lawsuits are finally settled. Only $100 million of that will be covered by insurance.
JP Morgan Chase (2014)
The September 2014 breach of JP Morgan Chase proved that even the largest U.S. banks are vulnerable to data theft. Online banking login details were not stolen, but crooks did get their hands on 76 million sets of names, emails, addresses, and phone numbers of bank customers, creating serious phishing concerns.
A group of Russian hackers is believed to be responsible for the attack.
PNI Digital Media (2015)
PNI Digital Media, the company that handles online photo printing for CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Costco, and many more national chains, lost an unknown number of customer records to hackers in 2015.
Given that the company boasted more than 18 million transactions in 2014, it's likely that this breach affected tens of millions of Americans.
Heartland (2008)
Credit and debit card processing firm Heartland Payment Systems became one of the largest data breach victims in U.S. history when hackers compromised more than 130 million accounts in 2008.
The criminal ring involved in the Heartland data theft was also found to be responsible for the 2005 hack of TJX Companies involving 94 million records.
Monday, November 2, 2015
These Are the Charts That Scare Wall Street (BusinessWeek)
Breakevens that go bump in the night and other spooky things.
Sometimes there are announcements that send chills down Wall Street's collective spine. Other times, it's a well-defined trend portending disaster or threatening to upend the status quo that inspires fright.
With Halloween just around the corner, we asked some of Wall Street's brightest for the charts that are more terrifying than Freddy Krueger. This is what we got back.
Deutsche Bank's chief U.S. economist, Joseph LaVorgna. "Take a chart of the ISM-adjusted Philly Fed survey and show it vs. the ISM. Tells us we're going into the mid-40s very soon on the latter. If that doesn't scare you, I'm not sure what will!"
Citigroup chief market strategist Tobias Levkovich pointed to data from the NFIB survey of small businesses. "This is our lead margin indicator which suggests that margins will start to come down next year," he said. "This is not the end of the world, but people could be worried if they want—kind of like being scared of a jack 'o lantern but [for] no good reason."
JPMorgan Chase chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli looked at soaring commercial real estate values, which have also been catching the attention of regulators recently. "It looks frothy," he noted.
Renaissance Macro Research head of U.S. economics Neil Dutta said he's spooked by a market that seems unprepared for interest rate hikes in the face of inflation. "What scares me is that the market is barely priced for five rate hikes over the next several years," he said. "Unemployment will be below 5 percent and inflation above 2 percent. So the futures market strip scares me."
Renaissance Macro Research head of U.S. economics Neil Dutta said he's spooked by a market that seems unprepared for interest rate hikes in the face of inflation. "What scares me is that the market is barely priced for five rate hikes over the next several years," he said. "Unemployment will be below 5 percent and inflation above 2 percent. So the futures market strip scares me."
Deutsche Bank's chief international economist, Torsten Sløk, also underscored the degree to which investors may be caught off guard by a rate hike. "Since the October FOMC statement came out we have seen a solid move up in rates and the pain trade in markets at the moment is if rates continue to trend higher going into the December FOMC meeting," he said. "My sense is that not many investors are prepared for a rise in long-term interest rates."
RBC Capital Markets senior U.S. economist Jacob Oubina is daunted by demographics: "My biggest concern is longer-run in nature: The reality that shifting demographics (the sharp divergence between strong growth in the retiring population vs. weakening growth in the working age population) will create both challenges for potential GDP growth (lower) and budget deficits (much higher)."
Société Générale global strategist Kit Juckes is worried that the European Central Bank's stimulus lacks the necessary efficacy to kick-start credit growth. "The ECB’s balance sheet is growing again, but it’s hard, perhaps impossible, to see any evidence that bond-buying (or super-low rates for that matter) and breathing any life back into private sector lending. The inability to revive lending severely hampers the Euro Area recovery and is a reason why growth continues at such a disappointing pace. There is little leeway for adverse shocks from, say, China. As for the ECB, its most effective policy tool is the Euro. If QE only works by boosting asset prices, it won’t do much for growth, but a weaker currency can help exporters. Only problem—Europe’s not alone in wanting a weaker currency these days."
Fundstrat Global Advisors Managing Partner Thomas Lee highlighted sovereign credit default swap (CDS) spreads for Brazil and Russia as particularly spooky:
Forex.com senior market analyst Matt Weller thinks this chart keeps Janet Yellen & Co. up at night. "If I’m a Federal Reserve policymaker, the scariest chart I’m watching is the chart of five-year, five-year forward inflation expectations. In essence, this chart shows what the market expects the inflation rate to average over a five year period, starting in five years (i.e. the expected inflation rate from 2019 to 2024). In the most recent Fed minutes, the central bank noted that '… inflation was running below the Committee’s longer-run objective, but longer-term inflation expectations were stable.' If this measure of long-term inflation expectations continues to fall however, we could be in a low interest rate environment far longer than anyone expects."
Bespoke Investment Group analyst George Pearkes, in contrast, said he's spooked by the way the market interprets inflation expectations and the "alleged credibility of this deeply misunderstood indicator."
Credit Suisse Asset Management's head of fundamental strategies alternative fund solutions, Kelsey Deshler, highlighted an old markets chestnut. "While market liquidity has reverted back to pre-global financial crisis levels, liquidity risk has actually increased, resulting in wider bid-ask spreads and an inability to easily sell a position," she said. "In other words, liquidity is there but when you (and everyone else) need it, it may cost you. A scary thought indeed!"
Convergex chief market strategist Nicholas Colas went with food stamp participation in the U.S. "Food stamp participation is still very high for what everyone is calling a ‘recovery.'" he said. "Contrary to some criticism, this is a reasonably well administered program, and the fact that participation remains so high this far into an economic expansion is another way of showing how uneven the recovery has been."
Watch Next: Evaluating the State of the U.S. Economy
Evaluating the State of the U.S. Economy
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