Top Bananas | Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Touch Bar Used for Cheating?

Posted on January 31, 2017 by admin Posted in Education, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: North Carolina has banned the Touch Bar from being turned on during bar examinations.

When test takers show up to take North Carolina’s bar examination, they must turn the Touch Bar off on their MacBook Pros. The explanation for this is that it’s possible to program the Touch Bar to display answers to the test questions. This fact immediately creates more questions. First, the fact that test examiners are worried that the Touch Bar could be programmed to display answers shows the flexibility of the Touch Bar compared to the row of function keys that largely sit unused on many computers.

Second, if test examiners are worried about people programming the Touch Bar to hide answers, why are they allowing laptops into tests in the first place? Although it’s possible to program the Touch Bar to display answers, wouldn’t it also be possible to write a program to display answers on the ordinary screen of a laptop as well?

What’s to stop someone from simply accessing the Internet through a laptop and accessing answers that way as well? Why force people to turn off the Touch Bar when taking the bar examination in North Carolina but allow them to use a laptop of any kind in the first place?

While it’s likely the Touch Bar could be used for cheating, it’s also likely that any laptop could also be used for cheating as well along with smartphones or smart watches. The real solution might be to ban all forms of electronics while taking a test.

In the old days, schools debated the use of pocket calculators in the classroom. When programmable pocket calculators arrived, teachers worried that students could hide answers in the programmable features so they initially banned calculators altogether. When that later proved impractical, they allowed calculators in with tests.

Not knowing the circumstances surrounding the use of laptops in taking North Carolina’s bar examination, it’s impossible to say with certainty that banning the Touch Bar will keep people from cheating but allowing them to use laptops will not. However, it does seem odd to arbitrarily ban the Touch Bar while allowing the much larger screen of a laptop to be freely available. Couldn’t a clever student simply hide answers in a macro created in a program like Microsoft Word, which could reveal an answer by simply pressing the right keystroke combination?

To pick on the Touch Bar seems a bit odd. As the Touch Bar becomes more common, this ban will likely be removed. Still, this highlights both the flexibility of the Touch Bar and the curious logic behind test examiners in trying to prevent cheating but allowing laptops to be used as long as they don’t have the Touch Bar turned on.

As always, technology often races ahead of rules and regulations. To read more about North Carolina’s ban of the Touch Bar during bar examinations, click here.

Fitbit Profits Plunge

Posted on January 30, 2017 by admin Posted in Business, Hardware Leave a comment

What it is: Fitbit’s recent earnings report reveals declining sales and revenue.

When Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s CEO at the time, laughed at it. Within a few years, Microsoft was an also-ran in the smartphone market and the iPhone was dominant. At the same time, Blackberry and Nokia were smartphone leaders and kept insisting they could compete against the iPhone until it became obvious that they couldn’t.

The problem was that the iPhone offered far greater features than current smartphones were able to offer, so consumers gradually shifted to the iPhone and smartphones that mimicked the iPhone running Android. Together, Android and iOS dominate the smartphone market and it’s highly unlikely that anyone will change that any time soon.

In the wearable computer market, Apple dominates with the Apple Watch. While the Apple Watch hasn’t become an overnight sensation, neither was the iPhone. It took several years before the iPhone dominated and during that time, competitors gradually lost both market share and revenue until they couldn’t compete any more. With the Apple Watch dominating wearable computers, Fitbit is the next company to get hurt.

Fitbit specializes in the fitness tracking market. The big problem with that is that the Apple Watch can do that too and so much more. Fitbit is like Nokia or Blackberry trying to compete against the iPhone. Whatever a Blackberry or Nokia smartphone can do, the iPhone can do too much easier while offering so much more. The iPhone was essentially a computer in your pocket and the Apple Watch is a computer on your wrist. Fitbit can’t compete with that.

For people who just want an inexpensive fitness tracker, Fitbit is fine. For people who want health monitoring along with the ability to take calls and purchase products using a secure payment system like Apple Pay, Fitbit is not the answer but the Apple Watch is. By offering so much more, the Apple Watch is slowly dominating the wearable computer market while even Android Wear hasn’t gotten much traction in the market place yet.

Fitbit’s future is dismal. They can’t compete against the Apple Watch so they can only target the fitness market with lower prices. That insures they’ll only grab a smaller percentage of the market while earning far less to help finance future developments. The pattern is familiar. Fitbit’s future is following the path of Blackberry and Nokia.

Already Microsoft seems to have abandoned their Microsoft Band and Fitbit’s struggles highlights the problem with competing against the Apple Watch. If you’re going to compete, you have to offer at least similar features and Fitbit can’t do that. Android Wear has a chance, but given the fact that most Android device manufacturers lose money selling Android devices, there’s little profit (and a whole lot less incentive) to develop Android Wear smart watches as well.

Not everyone needs a fitness tracker like Fitbit and not everyone needs an Apple Watch. However, while the Fitbit is great for tracking your exercise routine, the Apple Watch is far superior in tracking your health. Although many people don’t think they need an Apple Watch, people do want to monitor and improve their health. Eventually they’ll realize that the Apple Watch could be one tool that could help them live a healthier life.

Paying for better health may seem like an unnecessary luxury, but it’s not. Whether they admit it or not, everyone wants better health, especially the moment they start losing it. Young people often overlook health issues but older people do not. The paradox is that younger people are also more prone to accept new technology while older people are not. Yet older people are the prime candidate for the Apple Watch.

So don’t expect the Apple Watch to suddenly grow massively into another iPhone, but do expect companies like Fitbit to continue to struggle and eventually fail against the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is far more important than you might think. Fitbit just found this out the hard way by losing money and market share with no hope in sight.

The Problem with Anti-Virus Software

Posted on January 29, 2017 by admin Posted in Software Leave a comment

What it is: Anti-virus software is meant to protect a computer, but often causes more problems as a result.

In the old days, PCs were completely unprotected. When the first viruses appeared, they could easily infect practically any PC available. That’s when companies started creating anti-virus programs that could detect and remove viruses.

For the most part, anti-virus programs worked although some were far more effective than others. The biggest problem anti-virus programs faced were false positives and false negatives. A false positive meant that an anti-virus program would claim there was an infection when there really wasn’t. A false negative meant that an anti-virus program would claim a PC was safe when it was really infected.

Hackers often made a game of targeting anti-virus programs to show how insecure they could be. Such viruses would often infect anti-virus programs first and modify them so they could hide on a PC undetected while spreading. The ultimate problem with anti-virus programs was that they took up memory and often slowed a computer down a bit in return for constant monitoring and protection.

Yet anti-virus programs kept falling behind hackers because an anti-virus program could only detect and remove known viruses. So hackers simply kept making new viruses. That meant users had to keep anti-virus programs constantly updated for maximum protection. Users often failed to do this, which meant they had a false sense of security.

Perhaps the biggest flaw of anti-virus programs is that they often came with flaws of their own that viruses could exploit. This would be like installing a lock on your door only to find out that lock was defective and made your home less secure instead.

Because anti-virus programs were software, and every software came with bugs and flaws, as anti-virus programs got bigger and more complicated, they also came with more bugs and flaws. Such bugs not only could make a computer less stable, but also more susceptible to infection from viruses due to their own flaws. Eventually anti-virus programs got so large and cumbersome that their drawbacks started to outweigh their advantages. Now it’s gotten to the point where Robert O’Callahan, an engineer at Mozilla, has told users on Windows 8.1 and up to ditch any antivirus (AV) that isn’t Microsoft’s own Windows Defender.

In the Macintosh world, most Macintosh users haven’t needed to install anti-virus programs as religiously as Windows users have although the number of Macintosh malware has been steadily rising. The huge problem with many Macintosh anti-virus programs is that they focus on quantity rather than quality. Read the marketing blurb about most Macintosh anti-virus programs and they’ll claim they can detect thousands of viruses. However, if you examine the actual program, you’ll see that most Macintosh anti-virus programs detect Windows viruses (so you don’t spread them to Windows computers) and a whole host of much older Macintosh viruses that can only infect older Macintosh computers such as those running HyperCard.

In other words, most Macintosh anti-virus programs are relatively useless, gobbling up memory and processing time and protecting you from non-existent threats. There’s still a threat of Macintosh viruses, but the threat is so minimal that it’s like buying flood insurance for a typical home. Just as a flood could hit a home not in a flood area, so could a virus infect a Macintosh, but the probability is fairly low.

Ultimately the decision is to use an anti-virus program or not. With a Windows PC, use Microsoft’s free Windows Defender program, or any other free anti-virus program. Protection shouldn’t cost you a thing in either money or time. With a Macintosh, you have the luxury of not using an anti-virus program at all. Just look at any Macintosh in an Apple Store that’s completely open to the Internet. If viruses were such a threat, you would expect all those Macintosh computers to be using anti-virus programs, but they aren’t. With a Macintosh, an anti-virus program is an option.

The biggest threat to your computer is never malware but your own behavior. Most malware won’t infect your computer without your cooperation, such as an enticing e-mail trying to trick you into opening a file attachment. As long as you understand safe computing practices, you’ll protect your computer far more than relying completely on an anti-virus program.

In the end, you are the best security for your computer, for better or worse.

Apple vs. Amazon in the Home

Posted on January 28, 2017 by admin Posted in Hardware, Software Leave a comment

What it is: Apple and Amazon are battling for dominance in the smart home market. Amazon is winning but they’re going to lose without security.

In 2014, Apple introduced HomeKit, a framework for connecting and controlling smart home accessories through an iPhone/iPad. Yet years later, HomeKit has made little progress in the smart home market. On the other hand, Amazon recently released Echo, which allows voice control of various devices in the home. In a short time, Amazon has amassed a large collection of third-party accessories compatible with Echo.

On the surface, it looks like Amazon is winning the smart home market while Apple is losing. Part of the reason is that Amazon makes it easy for third-parties to create compatible devices. On the other hand, Apple makes third-parties pass a rigid series of inspections that require only using certain chips, being built in approved factories, and undergoing testing by Apple to insure quality. The result is that it takes third-parties a long time to pass Apple’s HomeKit requirements while it only takes 10 days to get approval to work with Amazon’s Echo.

So naturally it makes sense that more products would support Amazon in a shorter period of time, which makes it look like Apple is falling way behind while Amazon looks poised to dominate the smart home market. But here’s the catch: security.

Just as Apple’s App Store greatly minimizes the risk of downloading malware compared to Android’s more open app store, so will Apple’s higher HomeKit restrictions result in greater security than Amazon’s far more open policy. When you connect multiple devices to your home, manufactured by different companies that didn’t rigorously test their devices for either compatibility or security, guess what? There’s a greater chance of third-party devices not working correctly with devices from other manufacturers, and there’s an even greater chance that third-party devices will be easily hacked. If you thought keeping malware off a Windows PC or Android smartphone was troublesome, now you have to worry about malware infecting your smart home devices.

On the simplest level, that means hackers could simply disrupt or disable your smart home accessories such as temperature control or lights. On a more serious level, do you really want a smart home that can be easily hacked to allow an intruder to unlock your front door and turn off your burglar alarm?

Amazon’s approach focuses on openness, much like Android. Unfortunately, such openness also minimizes security. When smart home devices are manufactured by different companies using chips from unknown sources, it’s easy for government agencies to slip in their own malicious, eavesdropping code to allow smart home devices like Amazon’s Echo to not only listen to commands but also to record nearby conversations. Without security, your smart home could be turned against you by either allowing outsiders to spy on your activities or allow intruders to easily break into homes as if the front door were left wide open and you left a message to the intruder letting them know exactly when you’ll be on vacation and for how long.

The huge flaw with Amazon’s far more open approach is that a smart home demands security and Amazon’s solution is never going to give that to people. On the other hand, Apple HomeKit initiative may seem to be taking longer, but it’s focused on security first and foremost. By going through Apple’s testing, Apple can minimize the risk of rogue smart home devices going on the market either through deliberate design or programming flaws that could be exploited by others. By using only certain chips, Apple can minimize the risk that intruders can’t slip in unknown chips with deliberate design flaws embedded in them. Plus by using certain chips, Apple insures greater compatibility with other HomeKit devices.

By forcing third-parties to only manufacture HomeKit devices in certain factories, that once again minimizes the risk of rogue actions taken by government agencies to embed malicious chips into third-party devices. In other words, Amazon’s open approach allows rapid adoption, but all that adoption will come to naught when Amazon smart home devices frustrate users with incompatibility issues and malware problems. Even worse, when hackers start burglarizing Amazon smart homes easily by disabling burglar alarms because Amazon third-party devices were easily hacked, guess how many people will want to buy an Amazon connected smart home?

Amazon will be able to offer cheaper prices and wider selection of accessories today, but they will get seriously burned in the future when security flaws make setting up an Amazon smart home frustrating at best or downright insecure at worse. Amazon’s open approach to the smart home is a disaster waiting to happen.

On the other hand, Apple’s slow HomeKit adoption focuses on security. HomeKit accessories will likely cost more and be fewer in number, but they will offer far greater security and compatibility than Amazon devices can ever offer.

So the choices boil down to cheap prices and wide selection with Amazon in return for greater incompatibility issues and no security whatsoever, or Apple’s HomeKit approach with higher prices and less selection of accessories in exchange for greater compatibility and much greater security.

Ultimately, do you want security for your smart home or not? If you don’t care about security, then you might as well remove the locks from your doors and windows right now and hook your home up with Amazon smart home accessories. If the idea of removing your locks on all your home’s doors and windows doesn’t make sense, then neither does Amazon’s smart home business model.

Perhaps the most alarming indication of the future comes from a statement by an Amazon spokeswoman who admitted that her company can not guarantee the security of third-party hardware, which is something Apple does. If security for your home is important enough for you to lock your doors and windows, chances are good you’ll want Apple’s HomeKit or a similar security-focused solution rather than Amazon’s open approach. Amazon’s open approach will help it grab market share, but if it ultimately makes your home less secure, then Amazon’s smart home approach is destined to go down in flames and spoil the idea of the smart home altogether.

Security by Default

Posted on January 27, 2017 by admin Posted in Software Leave a comment

What it is: OpenBSD is one of the few operating systems designed with security in mind.

Imagine building a house with plenty of open doors and windows along with easy access for outsiders to casually stroll up and walk through your house any time they want. Now after designing a house that’s open and inviting to everyone, how do you suddenly secure that house from intruders?

Now imagine designing a house from the start to be secure. Such a home would be far more secure than a house retrofitted at the last minute with security measures. That’s essentially the story of operating systems.

The goal of most operating systems is never security. Instead, most operating systems try to bolt security features on as an afterthought, which is never as secure as an operating designed for security right from the start. If you’re truly interested in a secure computer, the best option is to use a secure operating system such as OpenBSD.

OpenBSD is not only designed with security in mind, it’s also designed with default settings to maximize security, not necessarily to maximize convenience of the user, which is the way most operating systems work. That means if you install OpenBSD, you can be certain that it’s secure unless you start fiddling with settings and turn off various security features.

OpenBSD highlights the dilemma of computer security. Most products are insecure because security costs time and money. Yet failing to use security can cost even more time and money, especially if someone steals valuable data or simply crashes your computer. Given a choice between paying an initial upfront cost for security or ignoring security and paying a much larger cost in the future, most people prefer the latter option and simply hope nothing bad will ever happen to them.

For individuals, this might be a valid strategy since few hackers will deliberately target individual computers, but for corporations, this type of thinking is a recipe for failure.

Security is going to cost you in one form or another, either today or tomorrow, but there will be a price to pay. Since OpenBSD is also open source and free, there should be no reason why more people shouldn’t be using OpenBSD.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of OpenBSD is that you need to be a tech-savvy user to install and use it. Unlike Windows and macOS that are much easier for novices to use, OpenBSD is really designed for people comfortable with fiddling around with settings and unafraid of command-line user interfaces that are far more primitive than familiar graphical user interfaces.

So the dilemma boils down to ease of use vs. security, and ease of use typically wins every time. That’s good for hackers because they know they can exploit most operating systems easily. OpenBSD is not immune to security threats, but it is far more secure by default than practically every other operating system. To gain security on other operating systems, you need to be tech-savvy as well and be unafraid to fiddle with settings and installing different types of programs. So if you’re going to secure any computer, it makes far more sense to start with a secure operating system rather than use an insecure one and try to make it more secure. After all, doing either task requirers tech-savvy skills and familiarity with computers so you might as well choose the most secure option possible (OpenBSD).

Unfortunately, OpenBSD is unlikely to suddenly become the most popular operating system in the world because ease of use will triumph over security almost every time. Still, don’t say you weren’t warned that a more secure operating system was available. The next time you become a victim of hacking, chances are good a more secure operating system like OpenBSD could have prevented the problem.

To learn more about OpenBSD, click here.

Running Windows on a Macintosh

Posted on January 26, 2017 by admin Posted in Software Leave a comment

What it is: Wine is an open source program that lets you run Windows programs on a Macintosh.

Many programs only run on Windows. Even though Microsoft Excel originated on the Macintosh, Microsoft has improved the Windows version of Excel far faster than the Macintosh version. The end result is that Excel on Windows is still more capable than Excel on the Macintosh. Because many people absolutely need the advanced features of Excel on Windows, they have to run Windows even if they’d really want to use a Macintosh.

For many people, it’s often cheaper and easier to just use a Windows PC. While the initial cost of a Windows PC may be less, there’s the hidden cost of time later when dealing with security and confusing user interface options on Windows. For that reason, many people prefer to pay more up front to use a Macintosh so they’ll have fewer problems in the future.

Of course, if you want to use a Macintosh but need to run Windows programs, you have several choices:

Wine
CrossOver
Boot Camp
Virtual machine software like VirtualBox, Parallels, VMWare Fusion

Wine is an open source program that anyone can use for free. The main idea behind Wine is to run Windows programs on a Macintosh without needing to buy or install a copy of Windows. Since a copy of Windows costs around $100, you can avoid this extra expense by simply avoiding Windows altogether, yet use Wine to run Windows programs on a Macintosh.

The big problem with Wine is that it may be technically intimidating to install and set up for many users. If you like the idea of Wine but prefer having support to help you install and troubleshoot the process of running Windows programs on a Macintosh without an actual copy of Windows, you may prefer CrossOver. CrossOver is simply the commercial version of Wine so you’re paying for support. The idea behind both Wine and CrossOver is to let you run Windows programs without buying or installing a copy of Windows.

The drawback of both Wine and CrossOver is that not every Windows program is supported. If you need absolute Windows compatibility, then the safest option is to use either Boot Camp or a virtual machine program like Parallels. Boot Camp lets you install a copy of Windows on your hard disk so when you turn on your Macintosh, you have a choice of either using macOS or Windows. Essentially Boot Camp turns your Macintosh into a Windows PC for ultimate compatibility.

The huge drawback with Boot Camp is that turning your Macintosh into a Windows PC negates any advantages of using a Macintosh. To use macOS, you have to exit out of Windows and Boot Camp and load macOS. That means you either use macOS or Windows, but you can never use both at the same time. For occasional use, Boot Camp may be fine (and it’s free with every Macintosh), but for extended use, Boot Camp probably isn’t the solution.

Perhaps the best option is to use virtual machine software. If you’re adventurous and willing to wade through technical details, use VirtualBox, a free, open source program. If you’d rather have better support and simplified installation, then choose Parallels or Fusion.

The main idea behind a virtual machine is that you must install a copy of Windows on your Macintosh, but the virtual machine software runs Windows in a separate macOS window. That means you can run macOS and Windows at the same time. Even better, you can copy data from a Windows program and paste it into a Macintosh program and vice versa, so virtual machine software provides the most flexibility.

The drawback is that you need to buy and install a copy of Windows on your Macintosh, and virtual machine software is slightly slower than running Windows in Boot Camp. Yet the advantages typically outweigh the drawbacks so if you absolutely need to run Windows on a Macintosh and need guaranteed compatibility, then you’ll need to buy a copy of Windows and install it in a virtual machine program like VirtualBox or Parallels.

So the free options for running Windows on a Macintosh include:

Wine — may not be compatible with all Windows programs
Boot Camp — forces you to choose running either macOS or Windows and requires buying a copy of Windows
VirtualBox — requires buying a copy of Windows and may be difficult for novices to set up and install

The paid options for running Windows on a Macintosh include:

CrossOver — may not be compatible with all Windows programs
Parallels — requires buying a copy of Windows
VMWare Fusion — requires buying a copy of Windows

At one time, Parallels and Fusion were heated rivals where Fusion was slightly more stable than Parallels but Parallels offered more features. Lately, VMWare seems to have neglected Fusion to the point where Parallels is now the undisputed leader being both more stable, faster, and more feature filled than Fusion for the same price. Given a choice, you’d be better off choosing Parallels than Fusion although you can’t go wrong with Fusion.

No matter how you run Windows on a Macintosh, the combination of Windows and macOS running on the same computer gives you greater versatility than any Windows PC. With a Windows PC, you can never run macOS legally. With a Macintosh, you can run Windows and macOS, making the Macintosh the best value for someone who needs to run Windows programs but wants the greater security and ease of use of the Macintosh.

To learn more about Wine, click here.