Online marketplaces can be used to sell houses,

Increasingly, the Internet is becoming full of sites where you can advertise items for sale or swap. These range form online-auctions sites like eBay through to “online-classifieds” sites like Craiglist, Gumtree or Le Bon Coin, to online car-sales or house-sales directories like Carsales.com .

…cars including classic cars ….

A problem that can easily happen with these sites is where someone can use various forms of fraud or trickery to scam you out of your money or have you misrepresent the goods being sold. This doesn’t matter whether you are the buyer or the seller of the goods concerned. A friend whom I go to church with passed on an email about a bad experience that someone he knew had when he sold a vehicle on Carsales.com .

Deal with the site directly

… or boats

As you manage your interactions with these online marketplaces, use the same cautions as what would be expected for online banking and broking. Here, you need to be suspicious of phishing approaches and interact with the site using its known Web address. This is a good time to add the online marketplace to your browser’s Favourites or Bookmarks; or create an operating-system link (available on the Desktop to the marketplace.

It is also a good habit to monitor the ad on the Website to make sure it hasn’t been modified by anyone but you if you are selling the goods in question. This is important in relationship to the price of the item being sold.

eBay – one of the most common online marketplaces

As well, deal with your email service in a cautious manner. Here, if you use a Webmail service, log in to the Webmail service by starting a Web browser and logging in using its Web address or coming in to the service using an entry point that you preset for it.

Settle the transaction in a traceable manner

As you settle the transaction, make sure you use a payment system like PayPal where the payments can be traced and you can reverse the transaction if there are questions about the goods. This is more important if the goods aren’t being handed over in person.

Craig(s)List – the popular online-classifieds Website

As well, deal with the payment system “at the horse’s mouth” when following up the transaction by using the system’s Web site. This is important when you are dealing with high-value goods.

Beware of transaction values that are way over or under the odds

Transactions that are way “off the beam” should ring alarm bells. This is important whether you are a buyer or seller. because a person who is offering well over the odds for something you sell may be engaging in a fraudulent transaction. Similarly, goods advertised well below their expected value may have many questions about their provenance or condition.

Research the goods you buy

When you are buying goods through an online marketplace, make sure you know about the goods you intend to buy so you can make an informed decision. This may involve researching the Web generally about the item, dealing with online forums specific to the kind of item being sold or simply talking with one or more people who are knowledgeable about the goods.

In the case of vehicles, watercraft and aircraft, find out their fair market value through resources like the Red Book (Australia, New Zealand or Asia Pacific), Kelly Blue Book or NADAGuides in the US, or Parkers Guides in the UK. If you are dealing with a “classic”, it may be worth contacting a club associated with that marque or model, or browsing through a magazine dedicated to those cars like Hemmings to assess the real value of them.

As well, use resources like CarFacts (Australia) or Autocheck to verify if the car has been stolen or written off, or if there are debts outstanding on it. In some cases such as a car that was just privately imported, you may have to use similar resources based in a country other than your own as well as your own country.

Making contact with the other party

Try to make contact with the other party at least through the online marketplace’s enquiry system so you can exchange more details about the goods that are the subject of the transaction. It is also a better idea to make a telephone call with each other so you can be sure you are dealing with a real person. Sometimes making a Skype or Viber videocall can work wonders so you can see whom you are dealing with and you can have them show you the item in question.

For high-value items like vehicles or boats, make sure you can see the item in person. This is to verify the goods are genuine and you can assess its condition properly. This also includes being able to take the vehicle for a test-drive to put it through its paces. In the case of vehicles especially when one is buying their first car, I have always advised bringing one or more friends along when seeing the seller and the vehicle in order to obtain a better opinion about the vehicle.

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Smartphone accessory puts HIV diagnosis in doctors’ pockets | Engadget

My Comments

Smartphones will soon come in to play with more pathology tests

Increasingly, the smartphone’s integrated camera is being used as part of machine vision for medical applications. These technologies are based on the concept of litmus paper which changes between different colours depending on whether a chemical solution is acidic or alkaline, something a few of you may have seen demonstrated in the high-school chemistry class. The first application I highlighted was to use a urinalysis “control stick” along with the smartphone’s camera and a special app to identify what is in urine that is passed. Now this technology is being brought to blood analysis mainly to test for HIV, E. coli and staph in a patient’s blood. Here, a very small amount of the patient’s blood needs to be put on the film and it be examined by the smartphone’s camera with that phone running a special app. It avoids the need to send the sample to a laboratory to be analysed, because the film turns a different colour in the presence of an antibody makeup representing a particular disease. This is pitched at third-world communities or rural communities where it is cost-prohibitive for them to have a pathology laboratory located in a short-enough distance to provide quick-enough turnaround for test results for these diseases. There is even the ability where the pictures can be sent out to somewhere else for better expert opinion if the testing centre doesn’t have someone who is skilled enough. There are plans to even adapt this technology to detect more illnesses or check for pathogens in food and water. What I also see of this is it could open the path to “on-the-spot” screening-type pathology tests that dodge the need for sending out samples to a lab which I see as a boon for rural communities or telemedicine applications.

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SES teams up with rival Hispasat to launch SAT>IP industry alliance | VideoNet TV

My Comments

What SAT>IP is about with satellite TV

Previously, SES Astra have launched a standard for broadcast-LAN transmission of satellite-TV signals around a home or similar computer network. This standard, known as SAT>IP or can be known as SAT-IP, is based on UPnP technology but with the ability to transmit broadcast selection and satellite selection information to the server devices.

This was initially setup for the SES Astra satellite infrastructure that was common in Europe but SES have partnered with Hispasat who are a Spanish TV satellite operator competing with them to push SAT>IP across the whole of the European TV satellite space.

Devolo dLAN TV SAT Multituner SAT>IP server

This is because an increasing number of companies are manufacturing equipment designed for this infrastructure, including Panasonic who are fielding a range of Smart TVs with client functionality. For that matter, some of their “lounge-room” TVs are offering the server functionality so they can work with the existing satellite-TV infrastructure yet pass this on to SAT>IP clients.

SES are also stepping back from promoting this standard and are putting the mantle of promotion on to the supporters and adopters who are developing the equipment. This is to encourage an operator-neutral attitude towards implementing the broadcast-LAN technology for satellite TV.

It is also worth noting that a network can have multiple SAT>IP servers on it which can also cater to multiple-dish setups where there is a goal to receive content from multiple satellite platforms, something that may be of importance in Germany especially. Who knows what this could lead to with a level playing field offered by SAT>IP.

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Local government could also improve the reality of proper broadband in the country

Good Broadband Helps Lift Rutland to Top Halifax’s 50 Best Rural Areas | ISPReview

My Comments

I have given increased coverage to the subject of rural broadband, including implementation of next-generation technologies in the country.

Here I have stood for proper rural broadband due to raising the bar for people who live or work in the country rather than treating them as second-class citizens, something I have experienced with radio, television and telephone. An example of this was a telephone service that was frequently riddled with crosstalk, a radio service with reduced access to music content or a TV service with unreliable reception.

In the UK, the Broadband Delivery UK programme assisted by British Telecom made sure that real broadband passed 98% of the county’s premises courtesy of fibre-to-the-cabinet technology. This was also complemented in some villages with fibre-to-the-premises technology courtesy of Gigaclear and Rutland Telecom. This has been demonstrated as a way to lift the value of the properties in these areas as the quality of broadband service can improve one’s online life.

But real broadband in rural areas has been seen as contributing to an improvement to quality of life in these neighbourhoods, which was highlighted in a Halifax survey that was just published. Halifax factored the quality of broadband service in to this list with a bandwidth of 2Mbps or greater as a positive influence. Here, the Rutland neighbourhood appeared at number 1 thanks to the Gigaclear and BDUK

These figures could be used by local government and citizen groups to substantiate why real competition is important for Internet service and why country areas need real Internet service that is reliable. It can also be used by national governments to define the standard of adequate broadband Internet service and justify having this service covered by a universal-service obligation along with protection of real competition for these services and the provision of public money to set these services up.

Article

Thecus Adds NAS With UPS Inside | SmallNetBuilder

From the horse’s mouth

Thecus

Press Release

N5810PRO 5-bay NAS Product Page

My Comments

A common issue with running a network-attached storage is making sure that the data is intact even if things go wrong with the AC power. This is something that can easily go wrong in regional and rural areas where there is a combination of overhead power lines and overgrowing trees and it just takes a tree or branch to fall down for the power to go out, or if your premises has ageing electrical infrastructure.

Typically this will involve the use of an uninterruptable power supply which effectively is a battery bank for your computer device, giving it a bit of time to properly shut down if the power fails. These are separate devices that you have to buy and plug your NAS into and most of them have the ability to signal to the NAS to appropriately write back the data and properly shut down when the power is out.

But Thecus has solved this problem with the N5810PRO which is a 5-bay small-business NAS that has an integrated uninterruptable power supply. This battery bank provides enough power to cause the NAS to write back all of data to its five disks and properly shut down, but you don’t have to have a separate device to achieve this.

It also has the other expectations of a small-business desktop NAS such as server functionality for a wide variety of tasks alongside even a server-side implementation of McAfee’s anti-virus software. As well, there are the 5 Ethernet ports which allow for serving 5 different physical networks or providing a “fat-pipe” from a suitably-equipped switch. Oh yeah, it also supports SMB/CIFS, DLNA, iTunes for the file transfer and can run multiple RAID volumes across the five disks.

But could I see the integration of a battery backup / UPS function in a NAS become a product differentiator? This could be more so with “small-business” models and the battery capacity could be a product differentiator in itself especially if the goal is to provide long-run failsafe operation.

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Windows 10 Apps Will Be ‘Windows Apps’ Or ‘Windows Desktop Apps’ | Lifehacker

My Comments

Windows 10 – what it’s about

Microsoft is taking bolder steps towards having software developers write one piece of software that runs across multiple types of devices. Previously, if one wanted to develop a program to run on a Windows Phone, the Windows 8 computer or XBox, they had to prepare three discretely different packages with user experiences that play in to the capabilities of the different devices.

Skype – an example of an app that has been demonstrated to work across Windows 10 and Windows Phone

TripAdvisor – an app that would be written to work across the phone or regular computer

Now Microsoft is using Windows 10 as a vehicle to encourage the development of a program that runs on a Windows Phone or small tablet, a regular computer running Windows 10 including a 10”-13” tablet or “2-in-1”, or the XBox. Each of these device classes has a different user experience need so there is the idea to develop a different screen for each of the different classes.

There will be the idea of packaging software as “Windows Desktop Apps” which are like the traditional Windows apps we run on regular desktop or laptop computers, while there will be the Windows Apps that run on the different user experiences such as the Windows Phone or the XBox One. This even applies to future device form factors that Microsoft will target Windows at.

It is symptomatic of the way software development is heading towards where a single program package can be pitched at multiple device form-factors like a handheld mobile device, a tablet, a regular desktop / laptop computer, a TV-based game console / media player and even an in-car display. An example of this is what Google is achieving with their Android platform where a software developer can write a program that plays well for the Android phone or tablet and for a TV (Android TV), in-car display (Android Auto) or smartwatch (Android Wear) just by adding a few lines of extra code pitched at the platform.

What will typically happen will be the provision of a “responsive design” user interface that adapts to the device that the user is running the software on, along with code that can run on the classic Intel processors or the ARM processors. This may be a cinch for various “front-end” programs for online services or some games where there is a desire to have access to all functionality no matter the device.

On the other hand, office productivity software may be focused to allow full-time document creation on a regular computer or quick amendments on a phone or small tablet but wouldn’t play with the XBox One. Or similarly, an MMO game may allow you to use a regular computer or the XBox One to engage heavily with it, including playing the highly-interactive segments but may allow you to use the phone to play it in a reduced-interactivity “incremental” manner.

What I see of value is that someone could get an app off the ground to run on a regular Windows computer, a Windows Phone and, where relevant, the XBox One as one effort. As well it could effectively mean that there are fewer platforms to target when developing that great app yet there is a similar or better level of market reach as they have had before.

Article

HP taps Bang & Olufsen for audio tech now that Apple has Beats | Engadget

HP Partnership With Apple’s Beats Officially Ends as HP Moves on to Bang & Olufsen | MacRumors

From the horse’s mouth

Bang & Olufsen

Press Release (PDF)

Hewlett-Packard

Press Release

My Comments

B&O will start to appear in HP computers very soon

Over the last many years, most of the Windows-based laptop manufacturers have been working with companies in the sound-recording and sound-reproduction space to improve the way these computers have sounded. This is whether through the integrated speakers or when they are connected to external speakers or headphones and was seen as a way to compete with Apple for music recording and reproduction.

The knowhow associated with this sound system will affect how the next HP laptop is designed

As I have seen with the Hewlett-Packard laptops that I have reviewed, HP had partnered with Beats by Dr Dre, known for headphones and speakers with a very impressive bass response, to improve the sound from their laptops. But lately Apple bought out Beats and HP realised they couldn’t continue this partnership.

Bang & Olufsen Form 2 headphones

Bang & Olufsen has been well known for some very impressive hi-fi and video equipment, speakers, and audio accessories that are works of art in themselves for a long time.  For example, I had cited their single-piece music systems such as the Beocenter 7000 series, the Beocenter 9000 series and Beosound 9000 CD changer as being above their peers for sound quality even in their days.

They also have designed the ICEPower power-amplification modules to allow sound to be amplified by a compact device that is efficient with power and heat. Of course, B&O has related to a wide range of music from the classics through jazz and classic rock to current popular music and made their brand have that same kind of appeal as the Jaguar or Range Rover cars. This is where a premium brand like these isn’t just about being a status symbol, but is about enjoying the legendary expertise that the brand is all about.

But they have dabbled with sound tuning for ASUS, initially on a project basis but had applied the technology to a larger range of laptops under this brand.

So B&O have decided to pick up the mantle and offer the sound-tuning expertise to HP. This will also be about sharing the design expertise that is associated with how the Beomaster 1900 or Beosound Ouverture were designed. This includes preventing audio-noise sources like the power supply or other control circuitry from adding noise to the signal path.

Let’s not forget the way they have designed their speakers, headphones and similar equipment where they use a special cubic room for measuring the acoustic characteristics for the device they are designing. Here, this could lead towards being able to answer the question about how a laptop or tablet’s integrated sound system can be improved upon, making for a product that is more listenable.

The “Bang & Olufsen” brand will appear on the premium HP computers such as the Envy, Omen and Spectre lineups while the B&O Play lifestyle-focused brand will appear on the Pavilion computers, the tablets and accessories. Here, the B&O influence will affect HP computers that are being released through this year onwards.

I would see this partnership celebrate the expertise that both HP and B&O are about when it comes to their proficiencies rather than the bragging rights that is associated with a particular brand. Could that newer HP Envy or Omen complement that Beocenter?