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Showing posts from December, 2015

Scottsdale server gets giant tips from a generous customer

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(Source: MGN Online) SCOTTSDALE, AZ (KPHO/KTVK) - A Scottsdale server had a very happy holiday season, thanks to one generous customer.  Sarah Schopfer has only worked at EGGstasy, located at Scottsdale Road and Shea Boulevard, for a few months, but it's really paying off. In mid-December, she got a $100 tip from a customer. Then, a week later, that same customer returned with a $1,000 tip. "Honestly, I didn't know how to react when it happened. I opened up the tip book just like I always do, and when I saw the number, I was pretty overwhelmed," Schopfer said. Schopfer tried to return the tip, telling the customer it was too much, but he insisted she keep it. Now, she's planning to pay that generosity forward by giving away at least half of her windfall. Copyright 2015 KTVK (KPHO Broadcasting Corporation). All rights reserved.

Massive trove of US voter data discovered on Web

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facebook twitter linkedin googleplus email comments more reddit pinterest tumblr A publicly available Web server has exposed more than 191 million US voter records. William Whitehurst/Corbis If you have voted in a US election recently, there's a good chance your personal information is included in a trove of voter data found on a publicly available Web server. A misconfigured database has exposed the personal information on more than 191 million US voter records, according to Chris Vickery, a security researcher who made the discovery and shared his findings with Databreaches.net for a story published Monday. The database contains information required for voter registration -- including names, home addresses, date of birth and home phone numbers -- as well as voting history since 2000. By comparison, the US Census Bureau found that 142.2 million US citizens were registered to vote in 2014 (PDF). ...

Data on 191 Million U.S. Voters Was Leaked Online, Says Security Researcher

A security researcher with a knack for uncovering data breaches says he's discovered a trove of information including names, addresses, phone numbers, and dates of birth for more than 191 million U.S. voters on a publicly available server. Researcher Chris Vickery says the database, which appears to be stored on a server accidentally configured to be accessible to the public, doesn't contain information like Social Security numbers or driver's license numbers, according to a Monday post on DataBreaches.net, an anonymously published watchdog site that frequently shares his findings. The database lists whether voters are registered with a particular party but not how they've actually voted in particular elections. Vickery has previously reported millions of accounts' worth of data mistakenly stored in publicly accessible databases by insurance claim management software company Systema Software, security software firm Kromtech, HIV-positive dating app Hzone and a H...

Improving Price/Performance with Intelligent Server Adapters (Part 2)

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This is the second article in a three-part series that takes an in-depth look at the promise and pitfalls of using general CPUs in host-based networking applications, and it explores the different server networking hardware technologies being used to deliver better price/performance for host-based networking. The first article focuses on the potential issues and the importance of hardware-accelerated host-based networking. This article explores the three fundamental technologies being used in these intelligent server adapters and provides guidance on solutions that deliver best price/performance for host-based networking. Data center operators deploying or evaluating host-based networking applications face the challenge of cost effectively scaling networks to 10, 25, 40 and 50GbE using COTS-based server platforms. As outlined in our previous article, host-based networking functions such as vSwitches that are implemented purely in software are expensive and inefficient at 10GbE and hi...

IT Innovators: Secure Your Hybrid Cloud Virtual Machines by Encrypting Them

A common concern voiced by people wary about moving sensitive workloads into the public cloud component of a hybrid cloud is that running their virtual machines (VMs) on someone else's infrastructure opens up the possibility of the owner of that infrastructure, or a nefarious third party that compromises that infrastructure, gaining access to their contents. Put another way, people ask "how do we know that Microsoft or another public cloud provider won't peek into our VMs to see our secrets?" There are certainly policy and legal reasons why that won't happen. But, there are also technological solutions you can put in place to ensure that even if someone could get access to the virtual hard disk files of VMs running in Azure, they won't be able to read their contents because they would be encrypted in their entirety. Azure Disk Encryption is a feature that allows you to enable the volume encryption functionality built into the supported operating systems of...

Turn a Mac mini into a media server with Plex

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With the arrival of the fourth-generation Apple TV, I found myself trying out the Plex media server, and I realized that using Plex is one of the best ways to watch media on the Apple TV. You can install the Plex server software on a variety of devices: your Mac, a PC, a NAS (network attached storage device), and more. (Heck, you could even set it up on a Raspberry Pi.) It's advantageous that Plex's server be always on, so you can start watching your movies and TV shows without having to boot your Mac. If you have a large media collection, you may want to use a Mac as a dedicated device to run Plex. The Mac mini is a perfect candidate for this. Plex doesn't need a lot of horsepower to manage and stream your media, unless it transcodes video. (If you do have a lot of videos that need transcoding, a NAS might not be a good fit for Plex.) In this article, I'm going to tell you how you can set up a Mac mini as a dedicated Plex server. You can, of course, use that Ma...

The App-ocalypse: can Web standards make mobile apps obsolete?

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Getty Images It's the apps. The iPhone and Android conquered the world because of the apps. More specifically, what keeps Android and iOS dominant is the utter lack of those apps on competing platforms. But today, the mobile landscape is significantly different than it was a year or two ago (let alone five). Today, apps aren't really necessary. In fact, it's easy to envision an excellent, software-rich mobile device that uses the Web instead of apps. There's currently a litany of problems with apps. There is the platform lock-in and the space the apps take up on the device. Updating apps is a pain that users often ignore, leaving broken or vulnerable versions in use long after they've been allegedly patched. Apps are also a lot of work for developers— it's not easy to write native apps to run on both Android and iOS, nevermind considering Windows Phone and BlackBerry. What's the alternative?Well, perhaps the best answer is to go back to the future and do...

Server System and Server Motherboard Market 2015 Industry Size, Trends, Research and Analysis to 2019

2015 Global Server System and Server Motherboard Industry Report is a professional and in-depth research report on the world's major regional market conditions of the Server System and Server Motherboard industry, focusing on the main regions (North America, Europe and Asia) and the main countries (United States, Germany, Japan and China). Access full report visit at http://www.9dresearchgroup.com/market-analysis/server-system-and-server-motherboard-market-2015-global.html The report firstly introduced the Server System and Server Motherboard basics: definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain overview; industry policies and plans; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, capacity utilization, supply, demand and industry growth rate etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, inve...

Inventec becomes largest server ODM/OEM, says paper

Inventec becomes largest server ODM/OEM, says paper EDN, December 28; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Monday 28 December 2015] Inventec has become the world's largest server ODM/OEM with a global market share of about 30% and clients including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Lenovo, according to a Chinese-language Economic Daily News ( EDN ) report. Inventec has secured orders with shipments scheduled through 2016 and its revenue proportion for servers will rise from 25% in 2014 to 30% in 2015 and is likely to rise to 35% in 2016, the paper said. In addition to servers, hand-held devices are a source of revenue growth. Inventec expects to ship 50-60 million hand-held devices in 2015 and aims to ship 70 million units in 2016, the paper indicated.

OpsMgr: SQL Server Visualization Library with Legacy Components Now Available

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Back in November this year, the SQL Server Engineering Team released the latest version ( 6.6.4.0 ) of the SQL Server and Replication management packs . In addition to health monitoring capabilities, this management pack includes new and enhanced summary dashboards for SQL Server 2008 and 2012, and a datacenter dashboard template to allow users to create custom dashboards with the same visualization capabilities for other components or applications monitored by their Operations Manager environment. The datacenter dashboard  template and the new summary dashboards are based on a new standalone WPF/Silverlight application component defined in the SQL Server Visualization Library management pack from version 6.6.0.0 onwards. Since version 6.6.2.0, the components used to define the previous versions of the SQL Server summary dashboards (multi widget/component) have been deprecated and removed from the main SQL Server Visualization Library management pack. Therefore, importing any ver...

Waitress $1,000 Tip As Giant Christmas Gift For Being Server At Olive Garden

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A waitress gets a $1,000 tip at an Olive Garden restaurant as a special Christmas gift from a family of five. Waitress Kathryn Irwin didn't notice the tip she was given at first because she was busy working, according to Atlanta Journal Constitution . The $1,000 tip shocked Irwin after she was serving a North Carolina family. What started as a normal day at work turned out to be one the waitress says she'll never forget. Waitress gets $1,000 tip at Olive Garden "I was busy doing some side work and ended up going back to my table thinking I should grab the guest book off the table. It was still a few minutes before I actually opened it and when I did eventually open it and I saw it, I was in disbelief. I couldn't even believe (it). I was trying to figure out if they made some type of error," she said. The 24-year-old waitress with the $1,000 tip at Olive Garden has worked at the restaurant full-time for three years and has plans to go to college. "...

The 'Until Next Alarm' Feature In Do Not Disturb Mode Is Weirdly Disappearing From 6.0.1 Devices

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What the hell? After many users were happy to see the "until next alarm" option return to Android's somewhat nebulous "Do Not Disturb" mode after upgrading to the cutting-edge 6.0.1 build of Marshmallow, several have now reported that the feature is once again gone. What's going on here? Android Police readers have alerted us to the odd change, and Android users on Reddit are also scratching their heads. This problem doesn't seem to be specific to any one phone or tablet, as Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6, and Nexus 5 owners have reported the same behavior. To be clear, this is the "until next alarm" option disappearing from the Do not disturb screen (see above) after upgrading to 6.0.1. Some are reporting that it goes away after a reboot, but others have seen it disappear literally before their eyes. Many users saw that it was gone after Friday, December 25th. It's possible that displaying the alarm option is controlled by some se...

Disable NVIDIA Streamer Service and other NVIDIA processes

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NVIDIA Streamer Service, NVIDIA Streamer Network Service and NVIDIA Streamer User Agent are three of the many processes running on Windows machines that are powered by recent NVIDIA video cards. NVIDIA is notorious for pushing the limits when it comes to adding new services and processes to its drivers, and if you check your process listing on your Windows PC, you may very well see more than 10 different NVIDIA processes running on it. You can verify that easily by using Ctrl-Shift-Esc to open the Windows Task Manager and scrolling down to processes starting with the letter N. Some of these processes may not be needed at all, and chance is good that the NVIDIA Streamer related services fall into this category. NVIDIA Streamer Service A recent check on a gaming machine revealed nine NVIDIA processes, and that is after using the custom installation option during installation of the graphics card driver on the system (not installing any 3D content). So what is the NVIDIA Str...

Christmas glitch allowed Steam users to see others' personal info

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facebook twitter linkedin googleplus email comments more reddit pinterest tumblr Some gamers were "Steam"-ing on Christmas as Valve's popular digital gaming store was afflicted with server and privacy problems. The glitches with the Steam service, including users being able to see others' personal information as well as the store itself going offline, were the result of a technical error that has since been fixed, a Valve representative said in a statement Friday. Valve's Steam store went offline on Christmas as it was allowing some users to see pages meant for other users. Valve "Steam is back up and running without any known issues," the statement reads. "As a result of a configuration change earlier today, a caching issue allowed some users to randomly see pages generated for other users for a period of less than an hour. This issue has since been resolved....

Windows 10 IoT web server login and password?

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I love robotics, I am not ashamed to admit that! I love Azure and tying old robots to the service bus and making them do all sorts of awesome things! So for me it has always been what can the microcontroller do vs. the computer connected to it? Normally I would use a small laptop consuming service bus messages and an Arduino to control relays and all the other "robot" stuff. But today I installed Windows 10 IoT on Raspberry PI; wow life changing! With 17 GPIO and full .Net code support, it's all you need! So this short post is really about after you install IoT on your Raspberry and need to connect to it via. Web browser (after Windows 10 IoT is installed, it gives you a small webpage to access). ID: Administrator PW: p@ssw0rd Step 1: Copy IP Step 2: Open in browser and enter above credentials   Bam! Awesomeness!  {{html Body}}

You Can Control This Family’s Christmas Lights: Twitch Plays Light Op

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For many people, Christmas is one of the rare times when they can be with their loved ones. For Ken and Rebecca-Ellen Woods of Fairbanks, Alaska, it's also an opportunity to connect with virtual visitors from all over the world. Since 2010, they've allowed people to control their home's Christmas lights over the Internet. Their website has a livestream from the webcam aimed at their house as well as links to toggle groups of lights on and off. Rebecca-Ellen arranges the lights while Ken handles the server that controls the flow of power to the lights. They started with only a single string of lights, adding more and more every year. One thing they took out? The lights inside their house. As you can imagine, having lights flickering at odd hours made it hard for the Woods family to sleep. Fortunately, they don't have any nearby neighbors, so feel free to play with the switches for as long as you want. [embedded content] Head to Woods family's website to joi...

Phantom Squad Launches DDoS Attack, Takes Down EA Servers

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Phantom Squad hackers launched DDoS attacks on EA servers, which resulted in a few hours of downtime. The hacking group might also carry out more cyber attacks during the holiday period. (Photo : Andreas Rentz | Getty Images) A hacking group going by the name of Phantom Squad launched DDoS attacks on Electronic Arts servers on Tuesday. A Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack is an effort to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic from multiple sources. In mid-December, Phantom Squad threatened to carry out cyber attacks from Dec. 24 to Dec. 31. According to The Hacker News, Phantom Squad wants to disrupt the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live over Christmas. The hacking group also released a number of tweets via @PhantomSquad, which has since been suspended, regarding their DDoS attack intentions. "We are going to shut down Xbox live and PSN this year on Christmas. And we are going to keep them down for one-week straight," ...

How to use free Wi-Fi safely for banking, shopping and browsing

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A woman walks past a WiFi-enabled phone booth in New York. (REUTERS/Keith Bedford) Public Wi-Fi is a convenient way to check Facebook, browse the Internet or do some online shopping on the go without putting a dent in your cellular data plan. (Use this free app to find Wi-Fi anywhere you go.) Unfortunately, if there are hackers on the same network, there's a good chance they can snoop on what you're doing or even take over your accounts. Aside from hackers, the government and Internet service providers also can monitor your connection to see where you go, and, if they want, what you do. If you aren't a fan of that, and few people are, there is a way you can keep these parties out of your business. The state of Internet security But before I talk about that, let's do a quick review of the security measure that's already in place: an encrypted connection. Any finance, medical or shopping site that's even a little security conscious is going to prov...