Chromebit – Tech Help LA

Chromebit – A full Chrome OS-based computer on an HDMI stick.

The $85 Chromebit is a 75 gram (or 2.6 ounces) stick that you can plug into any HDMI port — whether that’s a regular computer screen or that large TV in your living room. It comes with 16GB of onboard storage (in the form of relatively cheap and slow eMMC storage) and 2GB of RAM.

Google – Chromebit Device

In many ways, it’s a larger, bulkier version of the old Chromecast stick. Just like that device, it comes with a dedicated charger, but unlike the Chromecast, it also features a USB port. The Rockchip-based Chromebit comes in “Cacao Black” and “Tangerine Orange,” but overall, it’s a pretty unassuming device that’s mostly meant to disappear behind your screen anyway (hence why I’m not sure why there is an orange version).

While most people will likely want to use a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard to connect to the Chromebit, the USB port allows you to plug in wired peripherals as well (and with a USB hub, you could even plug in multiple devices).

Because it’s a full Chrome OS machine, you can pretty much run any web app on it. It’ll let you play movies and TV shows from Google Play, Netflix or Hulu, just like any other Chrome OS device, for example.

You could probably use the Chromebit as a somewhat cumbersome media center in your living room if you wanted to, but it’s really at home in a school, enterprise, or maybe call center. As long as the work only involves web apps (or maybe a remote connection to a more fully-featured machine), the Chromebit is up for the job and can turn any screen into a usable desktop.

In the U.S., the Chromebit will be available at Amazon, Fry’s and Newegg (interestingly, Google’s usual Chrome OS partner Best Buy isn’t part of this initial list of vendors).

Contact Tech Help LA for more info on the Chromebit device.

Apple buys Beats Electronics for a reported $3.2 billion

Mike Snider, USA TODAY

Beats Electronics executives, President and COO Luke Wood and co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine.(Photo11: Beats Electronics)

Apple is set to acquire headphone maker and music company Beats Electronics for a reported $3.2 billion.

The acquisition could be announced as early as next week, the Financial Times reported, based on people familiar with the negotiations. USA TODAY independently confirmed the talks through a source who is not authorized to speak publicly about it.

If consummated, Apple’s purchase of Beats could represent the company’s largest acquisition ever. Apple and Beats declined to comment on the report.

Music mogul Jimmy Iovine and producer-rapper Dr. Dre co-founded Beats Electronics seven years ago and launched the high-end headphones craze. Earlier this year,they launched Beats Music, a premium music-streaming service.

Should the acquisition go through, it would be ironic in a way. Dre and Iovine came up with the idea for Beats by lamenting the decline in sound quality ushered in by Apple’s own iPod and the MP3 era.

“For convenience and speed, everyone sacrificed sound,” Iovine told USA TODAY three years ago. “The emotion of the music is almost unrecognizable to what is recorded in the studio,” said Iovine, who is the chairman of Interscope/Geffen/A&M records.

The two set out to market headphones that reproduce, Iovine said, “as close to the sound I hear in the studio as possible.”

They introduced the original $300 Beats Studio model in 2008 and since then, Beats has expanded its lineup to include other headphones with the help of Lady Gaga, LeBron James and Justin Bieber, as well as portable speakers and even music-processing technology for cars, computers and smartphones.

In launching Beats Music in January, Iovine told USA TODAY that “with the headphones, we hit an emotional chord with hardware. Now, it’s all about completing a circle and giving people the full experience of music.”

This would be Beats second go-round with a phone maker. Electronics maker HTC bought half the company in 2011 for $300 million, and Beats Audio was introduced to cellphones. Last year, Beats bought back all of HTC’s share of the company and got a reported $500 million investment from The Carlyle Group.

The report was met with mixed responses on Twitter Thursday night. Buzzfeed business editor Peter Lauria tweeted, “Ouch..9 months ago, HTC sold its stake in Beats for $265 million..now Apple is going to buy Beats for $3.2 billion.”

GigaOm founder and True Ventures partner Om Malik tweeted: “Google spends $3.2 billion to buy the future & data. Apple buys bad headphones & a junk-service from music promoters. Worse use of corp $$$s.”

AS HEARD ON 790AM KABC

What Is the Heartbleed Encryption Bug?

Social Networks

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Facebook	Unclear	Yes	YesYes	“We added protections for Facebook’s implementation of OpenSSL before this issue was publicly disclosed. We haven’t detected any signs of suspicious account activity, but we encourage people to … set up a unique password.”
Instagram	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“Our security teams worked quickly on a fix and we have no evidence of any accounts being harmed. But because this event impacted many services across the web, we recommend you update your password on Instagram and other sites, particularly if you use the same password on multiple sites.”
LinkedIn	No	No	No	“We didn’t use the offending implementation of OpenSSL in http://www.linkedin.com or http://www.slideshare.net. As a result, HeartBleed does not present a risk to these web properties.”
Pinterest	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We fixed the issue on Pinterest.com, and didn’t find any evidence of mischief. To be extra careful, we e-mailed Pinners who may have been impacted, and encouraged them to change their passwords.”
Tumblr	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We have no evidence of any breach and, like most networks, our team took immediate action to fix the issue.”
Twitter	No	Yes	Unclear	Twitter wrote that OpenSSL “is widely used across the internet and at Twitter. We were able to determine that [our] servers were not affected by this vulnerability. We are continuing to monitor the situation.” While reiterating that they were unaffected, Twitter toldMashable that they did apply a patch.

Other Companies

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Apple	No	No	No	“iOS and OS X never incorporated the vulnerable software and key web-based services were not affected.”
Amazon	No	No	No	“Amazon.com is not affected.”
Google	Yes	Yes	YesYes*	“We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.” Search, Gmail, YouTube, Wallet, Play, Apps and App Engine were affected; Google Chrome and Chrome OS were not. *Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry.
Microsoft	No	No	No	Microsoft services were not running OpenSSL, according to LastPass.
Yahoo	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.” Yahoo Homepage, Yahoo Search, Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Food, Yahoo Tech, Flickr and Tumblr were patched. More patches to come, Yahoo says.

Email

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
AOL	No	No	No	AOL told Mashableit was not running the vulnerable version of the software.
Gmail	Yes	Yes	YesYes*	“We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.” *Google said users do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry.
Hotmail / Outlook	No	No	No	Microsoft services were not running OpenSSL, according to LastPass.
Yahoo Mail	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.”

Stores and Commerce

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Amazon	No	No	No	“Amazon.com is not affected.”
Amazon Web Services(for website operators)	Yes	Yes	YesYes	Most services were unaffected or Amazon was already able to apply mitigations (see advisory note here). Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon EC2, Amazon Linux AMI, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Ubuntu, AWS OpsWorks, AWS Elastic Beanstalk and Amazon CloudFront were patched.
eBay	No	No	No	“eBay.com was never vulnerable to this bug because we were never running a vulnerable version of OpenSSL.”
Etsy	Yes*	Yes	YesYes	Etsy said that only a small part of its infrastructure was vulnerable, and they have patched it.
GoDaddy	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We’ve been updating GoDaddy services that use the affected OpenSSL version.” Full Statement
Groupon	No	No	No	“Groupon.com does not utilize a version of the OpenSSL library that is susceptible to the Heartbleed bug.”
Nordstrom	No	No	No	“Nordstrom websites do not use OpenSSL encryption.”
PayPal	No	No	No	“Your PayPal account details were not exposed in the past and remain secure.”Full Statement
Target	No	No	No	“[We] launched a comprehensive review of all external facing aspects of Target.com… and do not currently believe that any external-facing aspects of our sites are impacted by the OpenSSL vulnerability.”
Walmart	No	No	No	“We do not use that technology so we have not been impacted by this particular breach.”

Videos, Photos, Games & Entertainment

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Flickr	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began working to fix it… and we are working to implement the fix across the rest of our sites right now.”
Hulu	No	No	No	No comment provided.
Minecraft	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We were forced to temporary suspend all of our services. … The exploit has been fixed. We can not guarantee that your information wasn’t compromised.”More Information
Pandora	No	No	No	No comment provided.
Netflix	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“Like many companies, we took immediate action to assess the vulnerability and address it. We are not aware of any customer impact. It’s a good practice to change passwords from time to time, now would be a good time to think about doing so. “
SoundCloud	Yes	Yes	YesYes	SoundCloud emphasized that there were no indications of any foul play and that the company’s actions were simply precautionary.
YouTube	Yes	Yes	YesYes*	“We have assessed the SSL vulnerability and applied patches to key Google services.” *Google saidusers do not need to change their passwords, but because of the previous vulnerability, better safe than sorry.

Financial

All the banks we contacted (see below) said they were unaffected by Heartbleed, but U.S. regulators have warned banks to patch their systems.

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
American Express	No	No	No	“There was no compromise of any customer data. While we are not requiring customers to take any specific action at this time, it is a good security practice to regularly update Internet passwords.”
American Funds	Yes	Yes	YesYes	American Fundstold customers to change their username and passwords, as the company “learned of a very narrow window of risk to those who logged into americanfunds.com between December 12, 2013 and April 14, 2014.”
Bank of America	No	No	No	“A majority of our platforms do NOT use OpenSSL, and the ones that do, we have confirmed no vulnerabilities.”
Barclays	No	No	No	No comment provided.
Capital One	No	No	No	“Capital One uses a version of encryption that is not vulnerable to Heartbleed.”
Chase	No	No	No	“These sites don’t use the encryption software that is vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug.”
Citigroup	No	No	No	Citigroup does not use Open SSL in “customer-facing retail banking and credit card sites and mobile apps”
*ETrade**	No	No	No	E*Trade is still investigating.
Fidelity	No	No	No	“We have multiple layers of security in place to protect our customer sites and services.”
PNC	No	No	No	“We have tested our online and mobile banking systems and confirmed that they are not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug.”
Schwab	No	No	No	“Efforts to date have not detected this vulnerability on Schwab.com or any of our online channels.”
Scottrade	No	No	No	“Scottrade does not use the affected version of OpenSSL on any of our client-facing platforms.”
TD Ameritrade	No	No	No	TD Ameritrade “doesn’t use the versions of openSSL that were vulnerable.”
TD Bank	No	No	No	“We’re currently taking precautions and steps to protect customer data from this threat and have no reason to believe any customer data has been compromised in the past.”
T. Rowe Price	No	No	No	“The T. Rowe Price websites are not vulnerable to the “Heartbleed” SSL bug nor were they vulnerable in the past.”
U.S. Bank	No	No	No	“We do not use OpenSSL for customer-facing, Internet banking channels, so U.S. Bank customer data is NOT at risk.”
Vanguard	No	No	No	“We are not using, and have not used, the vulnerable version of OpenSSL.”
Venmo	Yes	Yes	YesYes	Venmo sent an email to its users, saying the company took “immediate steps to patch the potential vulnerability” and recommended that they change their passwords.
Wells Fargo	No	No	No	No reason provided.

Government and Taxes

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
1040.com	No	No	No	“We’re not vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, as we do not use OpenSSL.”
FileYour Taxes.com	No	No	No	“We continuously patch our servers to keep them updated. However, the version we use was not affected by the issue, so no action was taken.”
H&R Block	No	No	No	“We are reviewing our systems and currently have found no risk to client data from this issue.”
Healthcare .gov	No	No	No	“Healthcare.gov consumer accounts are not affected by this vulnerability.”
Intuit (TurboTax)	No	No	No	Turbotax wrotethat “engineers have verified TurboTax is not affected by Heartbleed.” The company has issued new certificates anyway, and said it’s not “proactively advising” users to change their passwords.
IRS	No	No	No	“The IRS continues to accept tax returns as normal … and systems continue operating and are not affected by this bug. We are not aware of any security vulnerabilities related to this situation.”
TaxACT	No	No	No	“Customers can update their passwords at any time, although we are not proactively advising them to do so at this time.”
USAA	Yes	Yes	YesYes	USAA said that it has “already taken measures to help prevent a data breach and implemented a patch earlier this week.”

Other

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
Box	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We’re currently working with our customers to proactively reset passwords and are also reissuing new SSL certificates for added protection.”
Dropbox	Yes	Yes	YesYes	On Twitter: “We’ve patched all of our user-facing services & will continue to work to make sure your stuff is always safe.”
Evernote	No	No	No	“Evernote’s service, Evernote apps, and Evernote websites … all use non-OpenSSL implementations of SSL/TLS to encrypt network communications.”Full Statement
GitHub	Yes	Yes	YesYes	GitHub said it has patched all its systems, deployed new SSL certificates and revoked old ones. GitHub is asking all users to change password, enable two-factor authentication and “revoke and recreate personal access and application tokens.”
IFTTT	Yes	Yes	YesYes	IFTTT emailed all its users and logged them out, prompting them to change their password on the site.
OKCupid	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We, like most of the Internet, were stunned that such a serious bug has existed for so long and was so widespread.”
Spark Networks (JDate, Christian Mingle)	No	No	No	Sites do not use OpenSSL.
SpiderOak	Yes	Yes	No	Spideroak said it patched its servers, but the desktop client doesn’t use a vulnerable version of OpenSSL, so “customers do not need to take any special action.”
Wikipedia(if you have an account)	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“We recommend changing your password as a standard precautionary measure, but we do not currently intend to enforce a password change for all users.” Full Statement
WordPress	Yes	Yes	YesYes	WordPressconfirmed that it was vulnerable to Heartbleed and that it has patched its servers “within a few hours of the public disclosure.” WordPress is not forcing users to change their passwords, but said users “are welcome” to do it.
Wunderlist	Yes	Yes	YesYes	“You’ll have to simply log back into Wunderlist. We also strongly recommend that you reset your password for Wunderlist.” Full Statement

Password Managers

	Was it affected?	Is there a patch?	Do you need to change your password?	What did they say?
1Password	No	No	No	1Password said in a blog postthat its technology “is not built upon SSL/TLS in general, and not upon OpenSSL in particular.” So users don’t need to change their master password.
Dashlane	Yes	Yes	No	Dashlane said in a blog post users’ accounts were not impacted and the master password is safe as it is never transmitted. The site does use OpenSSL when syncing data with its servers but Dashlane said it has patched the bug, issued new SSL certificates and revoked previous ones.
LastPass	Yes	Yes	No	“Though LastPass employs OpenSSL, we have multiple layers of encryption to protect our users and never have access to those encryption keys.” Users don’t need to change their master passwords because they’re never sent to the server. But passwords for other sites stored in LastPass might need to be changed.

Office for iPad Released

Tech Help LA – News
Office for iPad. It’s your Office when and where you need it.

Introducing Office for iPad.

Tech Help LA – News

Google Voice – GV Notifier for Windows

If you are using Google Voice, here is a tool that you may like to use on your Windows PC. This tool allows you to have the freedom to text and make calls using your computer rather than having to rely on your mobile device 100% of the time. At Tech Help LA we find it very useful and thought we would share it with others. Help is our middle name.

3rd Party source download link -> Tech Help LA – GV Notifier
Original source download link -> GV Notifier

Mint.com – Your financial life, all in one place

Your financial life, all in one place

Mint pulls all your financial accounts into one place. Set a budget, track your goals and do more
with your money, for free! Watch the short video

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At Mint, we believe money is for living. So we make everything
simple and streamlined. Sign up takes less than five minutes.
Then Mint automatically pulls all your financial information into
one place, so you can finally get the entire picture.

Gives you total visibility

Stay on top of your finances. See what’s happening with all your accounts – checking, savings, investments, retirement – at any moment of the day. And our free mobile apps mean you can track your money on-the-go.

Helps you reach your goals

Set a budget and create a plan to reach your personalfinancial goals. You can track your progress online or stay up-to-date with monthly emails. And we’ll help you achieve your goals faster with helpful free advice and next steps.

Trusted, safe and secure

Mint has more than 10 million users who know their information is
always secure. That’s because we use 128-bit SSL encryption – the same
security that banks use – and all data is protected and validated by
VeriSign and TRUSTe. Plus, since Mint is read-only, no money can be
moved in or out of any account. Learn more

Over 10 million users agree

We’ve been a Money Top Pick, a PC Magazine Editor’s
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Watch the short video

Professional Email Services

Reliable, powerful email that’s available when you need it

Access your email from anywhere with Tech Help LA’s Professional Email Services

$99/year Unlimited Email Accounts
(POP/IMAP – For Mobile Devices, Outlook, Mac Mail, Thunderbird, and more…)

Get a professional email address – available from any web browser, your mobile phone, tablet, or even offline. Tech Help LA’s Professional Email works with Microsoft Outlook® and offers a 99.9% up-time. AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo will not give you a professional presence when corresponding with your network. Getting your own email address (YourName@PickYourName.com) is easy and will make you look more professional.

Chromecast

$35 Buy now

Sit back, watch together

With Chromecast, you can easily enjoy your favorite online entertainment on your HDTV—movies, TV shows, music, and more from Netflix, YouTube, Google Play, and Chrome. No more huddling around small screens and tiny speakers. Chromecast automatically updates to work with a growing number of apps.

Watch thousands of TV shows and movies on your TV. Download Netflix

Enjoy trending videos, old favorites, and everything in between on your TV. Download YouTube

Send movies, TV shows, and music from Google Play to your TV. Visit Google Play

Cast a tab from Chrome to enjoy online videos, music, photos, and more on your TV. Download Chrome

Remote free

Chromecast works with devices you already own, including Android tablets and smartphones, iPhones®, iPads®, Chrome for Mac® and Chrome for Windows®. Browse for what to watch, control playback, and adjust volume using your device. You won’t have to learn anything new.

Plug in and play

Get started in 3 easy steps: plug Chromecast into any HDTV, connect it to WiFi, then send videos and more from your smartphone, tablet or laptop to your TV with the press of a button
See it in action

Chromecast

Everything you love, now on your TV.

$35 Buy now

Goodbye to Outlook Hello to Thunderbird

Thunderbird
FREE Email Application that’s easy to set up and customize
And it’s loaded with great features!

Thunderbird Free Download English (US)

Google – Chromebit Device

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Social Networks

Other Companies

Email

Stores and Commerce

Videos, Photos, Games & Entertainment

Financial

Government and Taxes

Other

Password Managers

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Your financial life, all in one place

Makes your life easier

Gives you total visibility

Helps you reach your goals

Trusted, safe and secure

Over 10 million users agree

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Like this:

Reliable, powerful email that’s available when you need it

Access your email from anywhere with Tech Help LA’s Professional Email Services

Share this:

Like this:

Sit back, watch together

Remote free

Plug in and play

Chromecast

Everything you love, now on your TV.

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Like this:

Thunderbird FREE Email Application that’s easy to set up and customize And it’s loaded with great features!

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Thunderbird
FREE Email Application that’s easy to set up and customize
And it’s loaded with great features!