Tech of the Day

[Daniel E.]

Customized dark themes for Visual Studio:

The Best High Contrast Themes in Visual Studio Code

Most high contrast themes can be hideous, but ones that aren’t have improved my coding experience.

python.plainenglish.io

"Dark Mint — acai is my personal favorite theme because it has a nice palette with some high-contrast elements, but it still looks modern and simple."

 

[Daniel E.]

From what I have read, Google Reviews gets 20,000,000 new reviews a day. In any case, their algorithms tend to overgeneralize for threats/fraudsters.

If your reviews stop showing up publicly, there is an appeal form:

Local Guides Appeal form - Local Guides Help

support.google.com

I don't plan to appeal since I got tired of leaving reviews anyway with no clear benefit to anyone.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Google Local Search is especially backed up at the moment.

For more information and insights, see

Local Search Forum

A forum for local search professionals, consultants, and business owners to learn everything that's going on currently in the local SEO & Google My Business world.

localsearchforum.com

You don't need to register there unless you want to. There's a wealth of information about Google bugs and updates and working around them thyat are open for unregistered visitors to read.

 

[Daniel E.]

That reminds me: A somewhat mixed bag of reviews for a new business is potentially less scary/inhibiting to me than no reviews at all.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

I agree. I think that's generally true.

 

[Daniel E.]

7 Ways Chatbots Improve Life - insideBIGDATA

Our friends over at Yellow.ai have put together a list of 7 ways that Chatbots are being used to engage, analyze, and ultimately satisfy the end user, customer and employee for today’s forward thinking companies. Gartner research predicts that by 2026, the chatbot industry will grow into an...

insidebigdata.com

Immersive training is becoming increasingly common. Using VR/AR headset technology in conjunction with Advanced Virtual Assistants can be an effective tool for onboarding and welcoming new employees to a company and can tailor training to focus on relevant skills development efficiently to quickly get people up to speed with a tailored approach.

Immersive Learning - What it is, Benefits and How to Implement - Future Visual

Could immersive learning not only hold the key to addressing the challenges of the digital age, but significantly improve education and skills development by harnessing the power of technologies such as virtual, augmented and mixed reality?

www.futurevisual.com

Augmented Reality
Rather than blocking out the real world, augmented reality blends it with digital content. Digital assets can take many shapes and forms, so it can be flat and 2D, which is great for instructional information, or be more complex and ‘real’ in 3D. Content can be triggered by specific objects or geographical places. Mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets allow the learner to access content, making it easily accessible. Widely recognised examples include Pokémon Go and Snapchat filters.

The Strange, Nervous Rise of the Therapist Chatbot

Your next mental health checkup might be with a therapist who lacks a human touch.

www.thedailybeast.com

“If you talk to me a decade from now, I think most of the chatbots will be generative,” said Jacobson. “And that’s because the experience is more human-like.”

For now, most chatbots are “structured”—every response is predetermined and triggered by if-then situations. Many also include a point-and-click experience: The chatbot may ask you about your mood, provide some options, then offer advice based on how you respond.

The hope is that generative chatbots will enable more dynamic, human-like conversation by comparison...

“The question that I’m thinking about when I do my work is not whether or not this can replace clinicians—which I think will never be the case,” Jacobson says. “But is it better than nothing? Yes. This is a highly accessible way of enhancing the scale and impact of evidence-based treatments.”

"Works with my body" is the new "works on my machine" - A Testers Odyssee

Most folks have heard a developer say "It works on my machine".So build upon that, I created a new version for VR: "Works with my body".

hanseatictester.info

 

[Daniel E.]

How to install Homebrew on Mac and why you should do it

Learn about Homebrew and what benefits it has for you. Step-by-step guide on how to install Homebrew on Mac.

setapp.com

The macOS command line interface can be intimidating — but there’s lots of value inside. By using the command line, you can solve many tasks on Mac by running commands in Terminal. It helps streamline a lot of work, especially for software developers.

Package managers like Homebrew make the command line interface even more powerful. In this tutorial, we describe how to safely install and uninstall Homebrew on Mac. We also suggest a few tools similar to Homebrew you could benefit from.

 

[Daniel E.]

How to Access your Mac Remotely from Any Device and Anywhere

Learn more on how to access your Mac from another location, and enable to remote-control macOS from another device including iPhone, iPad, and other.

setapp.com

For devices using the same macOS, you can allow remote Mac login using a Secure Shell (SSH). This enables Mac remote desktop access using a Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

To set up Remote Login:

• Go to System Preferences > Sharing
• Select Remote Login.
• Choose which users you want to have remote access to or the ability to control your Mac.

You can either select All Users, which means any other device on your network, or any Mac you own, can access and connect, or click the plus sign to pick the exact users.

 

[Daniel E.]

Set up a VLAN on Mac

Use Network preferences to set up a virtual local area network (VLAN) on your Mac.

support.apple.com

A virtual local area network (VLAN) is a method of creating independent virtual networks within a physical network. Using a VLAN can help you with network administration by allowing you to separate segments of the LAN (like departments of a company) that shouldn’t exchange data using the LAN.

------

VLAN - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

VLANs can be used to partition a local network into several distinctive segments, for instance:[4]

• Production
• Voice over IP
• Network management
• Storage area network (SAN)
• Guest Internet access
• Demilitarized zone (DMZ). ["In computer security, a DMZ or demilitarized zone (sometimes referred to as a perimeter network or screened subnet) is a physical or logical subnetwork that contains and exposes an organization's external-facing services to an untrusted, usually larger, network such as the Internet."]

 

[Daniel E.]

3 Virtual LAN Tips For SMBs

Virtual LANs aren't just for large organizations with multiple departments. Consider these three scenarios for how they might benefit smaller office environments.

www.networkcomputing.com

Separating Both Data And Users

In some settings, there's good reason to separate both users and data altogether, such as in retail businesses that offer public Wi-Fi. You don't want your customers' iPad traffic intermingling with your payroll or HR systems, not just for security reasons but for performance reasons, too. Again, VLANs can be a tool for keeping public and private apart...

"By associating each WAP [Wireless Application Protocol] to a separate VLAN ID, the firewall can identify wireless [and other] devices on the guest network, and can therefore apply a unique set of filtering and bandwidth policies," Gudeli said. "Meanwhile, the VLAN switch will ensure that the guest network cannot interact with resources on the internal networks, such as a file server, intranet or network printer."

 

[Daniel E.]

GitHub - a2o/snoopy: Snoopy Command Logger is a small library that logs all program executions on your Linux/BSD system.

Snoopy Command Logger is a small library that logs all program executions on your Linux/BSD system. - GitHub - a2o/snoopy: Snoopy Command Logger is a small library that logs all program executions ...

github.com

"Snoopy Command Logger is a small library that logs all program executions on your Linux/BSD system."

 

[Daniel E.]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/sendtokindle

Reading your documents and web content on Kindle is now easier than ever. Use Send to Kindle applications to read on your Kindle devices and free reading apps on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Android phone and tablet.

From your browser​

Send news articles, blogs posts and other web content to read them anytime, everywhere on Kindle devices or reading apps.
›Send to Kindle for Google Chrome

From your desktop​

Send your personal and business documents to read them anytime, everywhere on Kindle devices and reading apps.
›Send to Kindle for PC
›Send to Kindle for Mac

From your e-mail​

Attach and send your documents to Kindle using the "Send-to-Kindle E-mail Address" to read them anytime, everywhere on Kindle devices and reading apps.
› Send to Kindle by E-mail

From your Android device​

Send documents from your Android phone or tablet to read anytime, everywhere on your Kindle devices and reading apps.
›Send to Kindle for Android

 

[Daniel E.]

42% of Tesla Autopilot Users Say They Feel 'Comfortable' Treating Their Vehicles as Fully Driverless

Hey Elon, it turns out people think cars are driverless when you call them 'full-self driving.'

gizmodo.com

“Track tests and real-world crashes have provided ample evidence that today’s partial automation systems struggle to recognize and react to many common driving situations and road features.”

 

[Daniel E.]

New, free tier for Oracle Cloud services, including 200+ GB of online storage:

https://www.oracle.com/cloud/free/

Always Free cloud services​

Services you can use for an unlimited time.

• Two Oracle Autonomous Databases with powerful tools like Oracle APEX and Oracle SQL Developer
• Two AMD Compute VMs
• Up to 4 instances of ARM Ampere A1 Compute with 3,000 OCPU hours and 18,000 GB hours per month
• Block, Object, and Archive Storage; Load Balancer and data egress; Monitoring and Notifications

[Side note: AlmaLinux now available [free] on Oracle Cloud Marketplace - AlmaLinux OS Blog]

 

[Daniel E.]

But the most interesting thing to me from Oracle, MySQL HeatWave, is not free (except for a free trial):

MySQL HeatWave includes in-database machine learning ("HeatWave ML"). "Deploy MySQL HeatWave on OCI, AWS, or in your data center."

Related documentation:

MySQL :: MySQL HeatWave User Guide

dev.mysql.com

MySQL :: MySQL HeatWave User Guide :: 3 HeatWave AutoML

dev.mysql.com

Moved

docs.oracle.com

GitHub - oracle-samples/heatwave-ml

Contribute to oracle-samples/heatwave-ml development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Lumen5.com is awesome. Their free online software does most of the work for creating a Youtube video based on text or a webpage (like my Change.org petition). The free version does leave the last frame to credit Lumen5. The free version is fine with me since the cost to upgrade is $29+ if paid monthly.

4 Killer Ways to Convert Your Blog Posts into YouTube Videos | HostGator

You spend days writing and crafting the best content for your blog, but most of those blog posts will go unnoticed. Repurpose your blog posts by turning them into videos and get started on a video marketing strategy.

www.hostgator.com

 

[Daniel E.]

15 Open-source Full-Text Search Engine Solutions for developers

Full-Text Search is a technical term referred to advanced linguistic text query for a database or text documents. The search engine examines all the words stored in a document as it tries to match certain search criteria giving by the user. Many web websites depend on Full-text search to perform

medevel.com

 

[Daniel E.]

Joplin is An Amazing Open-source Note-Taking app and Evernote Alternative

Joplin - an open source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation capabilities for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS.

medevel.com

Joplin is a free open-source note-taking app that can replace the popular commercial Evernote app, as it is totally free, works on all popular platforms including mobile, and offers different options to sync and backup your data.

Joplin comes with a professional user-friendly interface that plays well with almost all operating systems, it supports Markdown as the primary syntax, comes with a split interface for editing as well as real-time previewer, and more.

 

[David Baxter PhD]

For Xenforo, the recommendation is Elastic Search There are a few addons, including one "official" Xenforo addon, that facilitates or extends Elastic Search.

 

[Daniel E.]

From what I have seen so far for Xenforo, I like the Elastic Search addons mostly for showing related forum threads.

Similarly, I saw this last night for Wordpress:

ElasticPress

A fast and flexible search and query engine for WordPress.

wordpress.org