Tekguild

12/20/2024

The future of home automation, including voice control, is open source and runs locally.

Don't be tied to companies that abuse your data, change or discontinue products without regard to the customer or outright screw the pooch with their app (Sonos!).

Bring choice to voice - the best way to get started with voice

12/20/2024

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/us-considers-banning-tp-link-routers-over-cybersecurity-risks/

The U.S. government is considering banning TP-Link routers starting next year if ongoing investigations find that their use in cyberattacks poses a national security risk.

10/13/2024

New Google Gmail AI scam

This is a story of a super realistic Gmail AI scam call that could trick a vast number of people. Don’t be one of them. Read on.

09/06/2024

This weeks cybersecurity report, brought to you by my good friend, Dieter Van der Stock.

Criminals will dig deep from the well of their corrupted souls to bring you...

2FA Bypass as a service. Yes, you read that right - get yer codes here! (or not, b/c they've been busted)

Supported by 1Password.

08/30/2024

I did a lot of smart home integrator work when I lived in CA, which makes this article very interesting.

It never mentions open source software and devices (Home Assistant) and I can tell you that the companies products they DO mention are not as great as they make them out to be. In fact - 10 years ago they were worse, in many ways, than some 'consumer' products like Roomie Remote or Logitech Harmony.

This one really got me:

"Increasingly, however, vendor software enables homeowners to modify scenes or even to create their own from scratch. Crestron Home’s Bryan Celli demonstrated his company’s software’s capability during a virtual tour of Crestron’s New York showroom in August. Running the software on an iPad, the homeowner can create and name a new scene; set lights, music, HVAC, security settings, or other elements; and save the scene with a single keystroke to phones and to handheld remotes and touchscreens around the house."

Buddy, I was doing this 10+ years ago - where's Crestron been? They make this out to be some kind of breakthrough, but it's really just them trying to catch up.

Anyways - if you're doing 'smart home' stuff, take a look at Home Assistant first.

For a reliable and easy-to-use home automation system, work with a professional integrator. Learn more about smart-home tech, here.

06/21/2024

BACK UP YOUR DATA!

BACK UP YOUR DATA!

BACK UP YOUR DATA!

You do *not* want to find yourself with a dead/dying hard drive (which includes devices like iPads and such) that hasn't been backed up.

Data recovery is heinously expensive and does not even come with any guarantee of data recovery.

The last quote for data recovery from a 1TB spinning platter drive (as opposed to solid state, which also can fail) was $1500-$3700.

Suddenly that $100 for a backup drive doesn't seem so expensive.

06/19/2024

Why is it so hard for companies to give their products unique names? Not doing so creates all kinds of problems, confusion and frustration down the line.

Apple has become the absolute worst. How do you search for how to edit photos in Photos? I mean, sure, you can add 'mac' or other keywords, qualifiers, etc, but it still makes it far more difficult to sort through good results unlike if it were named 'Diopter' or something.

A companies own support system has to deal with similar product names, creating extra work when trying to help customers.

How many frickin CoPilot's are there now? Github, Microsoft, CoPilot AI, Copilot Money, Copilot client software and the list goes on.

How do these products end up getting named because there appears to be something awry in the process...

06/19/2024

Apple as a major security flaw in their M series chips - and it's not patchable.

Hackers can harvest encryption keys from Macs and MacBooks.

06/18/2024

Tired of all the b.s. that these home automation platforms lay on you?

I know I am. Perfectly good products going right in the trash because companies refuse to support them.

Frequent issues due to mergers, acquisitions and simple mismanagement.

I'm going open source with Home Assistant.

Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first. Powered by a worldwide community of tinkerers and DIY enthusiasts. Perfect to run on a Raspberry Pi or a local server.

05/24/2024

Ruh-roh!

“Unprecedented” Google Cloud event wipes out customer account and its backups:

UniSuper, a $135 billion pension account, details its cloud compute nightmare.

12/03/2023

How do you feel about a business that has an email address or contact form on their site, but does not reply to them, citing that they're 'too busy'?

01/11/2022

Very interesting to see how slow (UK!) some countries overall broadband speeds are.

Satellite internet is making headlines across the globe as Starlink continues to launch service in new countries and Viasat plans to acquire Inmarsat. We’re here to check in on our ongoing series on satellite internet performance around the globe with fresh data from Q3 2021 to see if Starlink’