We have talked about Apple’s unique commitment to accessibility for all of their products but so far we have concentrated upon the main “hero” products (Mac, iPad, iPhone). This week I will go over some of the accessibility features that are present ford the Apple Watch. You may find some of these handy. The Apple […]
Apple announced their 2nd quarter financial results on Tuesday and once again they outperformed the expectations of the analysts. For the quarter, Apple had revenue of $58.0 billion and net quarterly profit of $11.6 billion, or $2.46 per diluted share, compared to revenue of $61.1 billion and net quarterly profit of $13.8 billion, or $2.73 per […]
Well, actually Apple wants you to buy-in to their vision of TV for the future. So many of us are cutting the cord or dropping satellite service to strictly go with streaming their content that it was inevitable that Apple would refine their TV offering. Apple TV already is my hub for content and has […]
Grace and I have a few more days alone and then we have a bunch of visitors coming for the holidays and through the first part of the new year. Key West is making plans to improve its bike paths and bicycle access with the goal of making the city the most bicycle friendly in the USA. It is such a small and very flat island that biking is the best way to get around. Parking is so tough that bikes are essential even with a resident sticker.
How about those Boston Celtics, though? After suffering a miserable start, they seem to have suddenly gotten their act together and wiped off 7 straight.
Thank you so much for reading this issue of Kibbles & Bytes!
Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
Don & Emily
It took a really long time but Philips Hue lighting has finally fixed one of the most annoying issues with their smart home lighting. If you suffer a power outage, the default for Hue lights has been to return to the full ON stage when power is restored. That means, for example, at my house on Prickly Mountain where I have many Hue lights, that if we get one of our frequent power outages or blips, when the power is restored every light in the house comes on with full brightness. That tends to be a rude awakening.
This is the reason that I unplug my Hue controller when I rent out my house in the winter to skiers. They could be very confused if there is a power outage!
You must upgrade your iOS Hue app to version 3.11.0 and then you will need to go to each individual light in the new “Power-on Behavior” setting where you can choose either “Philips Hue Default” (which turns the light on with full brightness) or “power loss recovery” (which reverts to the last used color and brightness ). Setting it to power loss recovery will leave the light off when power is restored.
Unfortunately, there is no way to set all of your lights at once to power loss recovery so you must go into each individual light and set it the way you want. I am going to set mine to all be in their last state. For safety reasons I could see why some people might want one or two to come on automatically after a power outage.
I have noticed that some Hue lights are not supported, at least at this time. I cannot make too much sense why some are supported and some are not but perhaps there will be further updates. Nevertheless, this is a big improvement.
Apple announced that the series 4 Apple Watch would feature a new health feature which was the ability to generate an electrocardiogram (ECG) which is a medical test that detects heart problems by measuring the electrical activity generated by the heart as it contracts. This was finally released in the latest Watch OS update. Strangely, those, like me, that were running the beta versions of the Watch OS, had to wait a few more days before we got the feature.
I found it very simple to set up and to take an ECG an, in conjunction with Apple’s Health app on your iPhone, you can store the data or share it easily with a medical professional. I shared mine with my nurse practitioner, who is basically a wise guy, and she said I should do it again when I am walking up a steep hill. That might have to wait for Vermont since there ain’t no hills here in Key West!
But seriously, there have already been stories of people discovering that they have a serious medical condition with their heart rhythm by using the Apple Watch. Apple’s commitment to providing tools for health goes beyond just closing your exercise rings and with this ECG function it goes to diagnosis. I can’t wait for them to figure out how to measure blood sugar, too.
First step in getting this function is to rush out and buy an Apple Watch series 4 from Small Dog Electronics. Okay, you don’t have to rush, but we do have some in stock if you are interested. Next, you must be sure to have the latest Watch OS which is 5.1.2 and the latest iPhone OS which is 12.1.1.
Once you have updated your watch and your iPhone, launch the new ECG app on your watch. The first time you run the ECG app it will tell you to set up the ECG function within the Health app on your iPhone. That threw me at first since I could see no place to set it up in the Health app. But, after I restarted my iPhone, it was right there and simple to set up.
From there, doing an ECG is wicked easy: launch the ECG app, place your finger on the crown of the watch, and wait while it counts down 30 seconds.. For 30 seconds, the electrical activity of your heart will draw a red trace across the watch’s screen. That’s it. You can do it anytime that you have 30 seconds to spare.
When you set up ECG in your Health app on your iPhone it will ask you if you want notifications of possible Atrial Fibrillation. Now, I know that too many notifications is a real hassle, but a notification that your heart is acting up is probably one that you want to turn on. Atrial fibrillation occurs when the heart beats in an irregular heart rhythm where the upper chambers of the heart beat out of sync with the lower chambers. Afib can cause blood to clot in the heart which can lead to heart attack, stroke or other complications.
You can view the ECG in the Health app on your iPhone, and it has a button to export a PDF for your medical professional. This is just one of the ways that Apple is using its technology to help you manage your health.
Dear Friends, This week I got called for jury duty here in Key West. I thought it was funny how so many of the prospective jurors knew each other or knew the defendant or the law enforcement officers. A small community of locals and a lot of tourists on this little island. It was a […]
Remember when the city of Atlanta got held up for ransom by hackers? Or the same thing in the plot of a few movies? Well, ransomware is real, but recently there has been a slew of blackmail spam that has gotten people concerned. I first heard about it from a friend who called me to say that they got a letter demanding ransom and that the letter had one of their passwords in it. I told him to bring in his iMac for us to check out. A few days later, I got that same letter and it had one of my old passwords.
Have you recently gotten an email whose subject line says something like “Change your password immediately! Your account has been hacked.”? If not, it may be only a matter of time before you do. It’s a scary message, especially because it will contain one of your passwords, some threats, and a demand for bitcoins. Worse, the password is likely one you’ve used in the past—how could the hacker have discovered it? Has your Mac really been taken over?
Relax. There’s nothing to worry about.
This “blackmail spam” has been making the rounds on the Internet recently—we’ve heard from several clients who have received it, and we’ve gotten copies too. The message purports to be from a hacker who has taken over your Mac and installed spyware that has recorded you visiting web sites that aren’t exactly G-rated. The hacker also claims to have used your Mac’s camera to photograph you while you’re browsing said non-G-rated sites and threatens to share those pictures with your contacts and erase your drive unless you pay a ransom using Bitcoin.
This blackmail spam has raised so many pulses because it backs up its claims by showing a password that you’ve used in the past. Hopefully, it’s not one that you’re still using, because it was extracted from one of the hundreds of password breaches that have occurred over the past decade. Impacted Web sites include big names such as Yahoo, LinkedIn, Adobe, Dropbox, Disqus, and Tumblr—thieves have collectively stolen over 5.5 billion accounts. Just last week Starwood and Marriot revealed that over ½ billion accounts were compromised. It’s all too likely that some old password of yours was caught up in one of those thefts.
Concerning as the message sounds, all the details other than your email address and password are completely fabricated. Your Mac has not been hacked. There is no malware spying on your every move. No pictures of you have been uploaded to a remote server. Your hard drive will not be erased. In short, you have nothing to worry about, and you should just mark the message as spam.
However, if you’re still using the password that appeared in the message, that is cause for concern. It means that any automated hacking software could break into the associated account, and it must be a weak password if the bad guys were able to decrypt it from the stolen password files. Go to Have I Been Pwned and search for your email address. If it shows up for any breaches, make sure you’ve changed your password for those accounts.
As always, we recommend that you create a strong, unique password for each of your Web accounts. The easiest way to do this is to rely on a password manager like 1Password or LastPass to generate a random password. When Safari asks you if you want to use a “strong” password – say yes! Then, when you want to go back to that site, the password manager can log you in automatically. It’s easier and more secure.
If you’re still concerned about your passwords, call us and we can help you get started with stronger security practices.
Dear Friends, Lots of snow and cold in Vermont and (too much) sun here in Key West so Grace and I went to New Orleans for a few days where we spent some time with her “name twin” Grace Mayer and her husband, Reeves, who were gracious enough to let us stay in their wonderful […]
Grace and I were FaceTiming with family on Thanksgiving as they celebrated in frigid Vermont where the temperatures there approached zero. We were in shorts and sandals as we headed out to a local restaurant for our Thanksgiving meal.
Grace usually cooks Thanksgiving dinner, but this year we are leaving on Sunday so we thought it best not to let leftovers linger as we will be visiting New Orleans to watch a Celtics/Pelicans game and sort of re-do our ill-fated trip there last spring when Grace crashed her motorcycle. I think we might have more fun this time!
Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!
Your Kibbles & Bytes Team,
Don & Emily
