safety

Ask My Buddy

If you have Amazon Alexa, Google Home, or Microsoft Cortana in your house, here is a personal alert service that could be very helpful someday: "Ask My Buddy". 

Lets say you have "Ask My Buddy" set up, have Alexa, and you fall in your house and need assistance. You simply call out "Alexa, Ask My Buddy for help". It will send a text message or phone call to people that you've set up to be alerted.

Here are a couple of links with more information:

https://www.askmybuddy.net/

https://www.amazon.com/Beach-Dev-Ask-My-Buddy/dp/B017YAF22Y

This service would be especially helpful for the elderly or those w live alone, or perhaps need assistance when they are temporarily alone. We just did a demo in our house and it worked great.

Jim Hamm

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Security Concerns

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        Keep up with the latest information on computer security problems.  The recent Black Hat conference underscores how vital computer security is, and how much Apple is at risk.  Jim Hamm found two articles from InfoWorld that we need to read. This one and this other one. 
        Here's the parts Jim wants to emphasize, "The author—who, interestingly, is a full-time principal security analyst at Microsoft— observes the following: 'So when I'm asked if Microsoft or Apple's security is better than the other, it's not a question even worth answering. Overall, computer security is pretty bad. Nearly any company can be hacked, with just a little research and know-how.'"
        And here's Jim's emphasis:  "OS X or Windows—it doesn't matter—one should just use common sense and caution on the internet. As for 'Cloud' computing or storage, I personally would never store anything of a personal or critical nature on a server somewhere. I prefer to have my 'offsite' storage on an external hard drive that I can store where I want."
        With all the new devices, iPhone, iPad, etc. along with our personal computers the personal information floating around, available for any hacker is astounding.  Thanks, Jim, for sharing your viewpoint.