Dropbox users are being advised to change their passwords

Earlier this year, reports first began to appear that a historic data breach at Dropbox may have exposed tens of millions of user passwords, after a file claiming to contain approximately 100 million Dropbox account details was made available for anyone to download.

Dropbox has confirmed to the media that a 5GB archive of files, containing the email addresses and hashed passwords for some 68,680,741 accounts, is genuine.

https://www.grahamcluley.com/

Apple should repay Ireland 13bn euros

Ireland should recover up to €13bn (£11bn) from Apple in back taxes, the European Commission has ruled. After a three-year investigation, it has concluded that the US firm's Irish tax benefits are illegal.

The Commission said Ireland enabled the company to pay substantially less than other businesses, in effect paying a corporate tax rate of no more than 1%.

Ireland and Apple both said they disagreed with the record penalty and would appeal against it.

www.bbc.co.uk

Deal of the day: Amazon Fire Tablet - under £40!

Amazon Fire Tablet, 7" Display, Wi-Fi, 8 GB (Black) £39.99

A great tablet - for a ridiculously cheap price. BTW: I have one, and it's fab!

www.amazon.co.uk

Calli has just had a haircut & is still too hot!

Well done Pam - another top notch puppy bath & trim!

Calli is only 2 years old, but after Pam has done her thing, dear Calli seems so much younger (& smaller!).

Amazing to think that our pup was from Zante, but struggles with the heat in England.

Don’t fall for tech support scammers offering costly PC cleanup "solutions"

We’re all familiar with how telemarketers occasionally interrupt our lives, often at the most inopportune times. However, even more upsetting is receiving an unexpected phone call claiming that your PC has been infected with viruses and can be cleaned only for a hefty fee. What’s worse is that the caller is almost certainly a fake — a bad guy who pretends to work for Microsoft or one of our partners.

http://blogs.microsoft.com/

Manic Street Preachers - Forever Delayed - Greatest Hits

A fantastic collection of the Manic's music.

If you are an occasional fan, and not sure where to start - get this album.

Truly brilliant rock, and a real bargain at under £4!

www.amazon.co.uk

Recycle (the right items!) for Hampshire

As reported in this BBC article, the amount of household rubbish being rejected for recycling in England has increased by 84% over the past four years, government figures show.

Councils say they are working to stop people putting the wrong items in bins.

The cost to local authorities of re-sorting so-called contaminated recycle bins is said to be the primary reason the vast majority of the waste is being rejected.

Were you aware that these items can't be recycled?

Pizza Boxes (if stained).

Paper Coffee Cups.

Weezer - Thank God for Girls

The brilliant track "Thank God for Girls" by Weezer, of their 2016 White Album.

They are definitely back on form once more.

If you liked Blue & Red, you'll love this!

New 1200cc V4 Norton road bike - on the way...

Norton has revealed details of its 200bhp, 1200cc V4-powered sports bike (set for release in 2017):

• 1200cc 72 degree V4 - 200+bhp but focus on drivability, character and design quality.
• Full carbon body work.
• Aluminium fabricated main frame made from aerospace aluminium and billet parts, welded in house and hand polished.
• Carbon wheels.
• Single sided swingarm, either carbon or billet, yet to be determined.
• LED headlamps with angel eye daytime running lamps.
• GP spec electronics with full colour dash, traction control and ABS.
• Billet yokes, hand polished.
• Underseat fuel tank and GP style bike packaging.
• Top line running gear, Ohlins gas forks and TTX rear shock.
• Under slung silencer with titanium headers.
• Brembo mono block brakes.

https://www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/

Network Attached Storage - NAS

Network-attached storage (NAS) is a computer data storage device connected to a computer network providing data access to group of clients. 

NAS systems supplied by Donline are networked appliances which contain two or more hard disk drives, arranged as a  RAID array, which provides redundancy should one hard drive fail.

Network-attached storage removes the responsibility of file serving from other servers on the network. Potential benefits of dedicated network-attached storage, compared to general-purpose servers also serving files, include lower initial costs, faster data access, easier administration, and simple configuration.

Contact Donline to find out how a NAS device can assist your business or home!

EPA fines Harley-Davidson $12,000,000

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) have just come to a settlement agreement with Harley-Davidson, which sees the American motorcycle manufacturer agreeing to pay a $12 million fine for its Screamin Eagle “super tuner” devices.

While not quite the Dieselgate scandal that caught Volkswagen circumventing EPA emission standards, Harley-Davidson’s “super tuners” do provide an aftermarket solution for motorcyclists to circumvent the emission devices on their motorcycles.

http://www.asphaltandrubber.com/

Steam game keys and user details stolen after hack

A known vulnerability found in older vBulletin forum software, which powers the Steam's community site, allowed the hacker to access the Steam databases.

A little over nine million keys used to redeem and activate games on the Steam platform were stolen by a hacker who breached a gaming news site last month.

The user data stolen from the forum includes full names, usernames, scrambled passwords, email addresses, dates of birth, join dates, avatars, Steam usernames, and user activity data. Facebook access tokens were stolen for those who signed in with their social account.

http://www.zdnet.com/

What’s a computer? Just ask Cortana

Nuff said!

Deal of the Day: a great 22" LG Screen at a great price!

LG 22MP58VQ 22" DVI HDMI IPS Monitor: £84.99

IPS Panel Technology

1920 x 1080 Full HD

5ms Response Time

HDMI, VGA & DVI-D

Flicker Safe

www.ebuyer.com

Utility Warehouse: go for Gold, really win with Double Gold!

Click here to find out how you can get the Utility Warehouse to replace all of your bulbs with "brilliant" LED bulbs - supplied & fitted for free, with a lifetime guarantee! Save money, energy, and help the environment.

www.utilitywarehouse.org.uk

This Week on Windows: Win10 Anniversary Update

The Windows 10 Anniversary Update begins rolling out today for customers around the world. The Anniversary Update is full of features and innovations that will bring new experiences with Windows Ink, Cortana, gaming and more. To give you an overview of new features that are rolling out in the update, check out the video above. It’s a part of a new weekly series we are piloting called This Week on Windows, where we’ll bring you the latest in Windows news, apps, and tips from experts here at Microsoft.

Read more at: blogs.windows.com

The IBM PC is 35 - Happy Birthday! 12th August 1981

It wasn’t the first personal computer. Nor was it the most advanced. 

But shortly after the IBM Personal Computer arrived in 1981, it became the leading platform in the revolution that brought computing out of the glass house and into daily life.

www.ibm.com

Sage data breach

A message to our UKI customers - August 2016:

We believe there has been some unauthorised access using an internal login to the data of a small number of our UK customers so we are working closely with the authorities to investigate the situation.

Our customers are always our first priority so we are communicating directly with those who may be affected and giving guidance on measures they can take to protect their security.

If you have any concerns at all, you can reach us on the following contact details:

The dedicated helpline number is 0845 145 3345 - please leave a message with your details and we will get back to you as soon as we can. You can also get in touch with us by emailing us at customercontact@sage.com

http://www.sage.co.uk/

Update (19/08/2016) to this important story:
https://www.grahamcluley.com/

Google Chrome axes Flash - for good

Google Chrome will begin blocking 90 per cent of the web's Flash content from next month.

Flash has fallen significantly out of favour in recent years. It has also been repeatedly proven to be insecure, and security experts have been calling for its retirement for the past several years. Given that most of the web now runs on HTML5, they argue, having Flash enabled is more of a security risk than a benefit.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/

Microsoft Windows 10 Anniversary Update adds polish

A year after it was first launched, Windows 10 continues to evolve. Now, as the product moves from its “free to everyone” model, the company has released the Anniversary Update. This builds on Windows 10’s most successful features while significantly changing those that users have found to be annoying, irritating or just plain missing...

http://www.alphr.com/

Bullguard Summer Sale! 60% OFF!

Get BullGuard’s award-winning protection with 60% off!

BullGuard Internet Security 2016 has been awarded ‘best buy’ and ‘best-in-test’ by the leading independent consumer testing organisations in the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and Germany.

http://www.bullguard.com/

DABS: Denmead Activities and Bible School

What is DABS?

Denmead Activities and Bible School - organised by the three Church communities of Denmead - has been running every summer for over 30 years.

http://allsaintsdenmead.org.uk/

http://www.waterlooville-catholic.org.uk/

http://denmeadbaptistchurch.org.uk/

Four days of Faith and Fun for children aged 5 to 11- with games, craft, singing, Bible stories and much more - every August. There are creche facilities for young children of helpers.

http://allsaintsdenmead.org.uk/dabs/

Microsoft says patch your Windows PCs now against critical security vulnerabilities

Every month has a second Tuesday, and that means every month has a Patch Tuesday – the day when Microsoft issues its regular as clockwork bundle of security updates, fixing vulnerabilities in its software that could be exploited by malicious hackers.

Yesterday was no exception, as Microsoft issued nine security bulletins – five of which were given the highest severity rating of “critical”.

http://www.welivesecurity.com/

iPad, iPhone user? Critical update available now! iOS 9.3.4

Apple has just released iOS 9.3.4, the latest versions of its mobile operating system for iPhone and iPad users, and owners of the devices are recommended to upgrade as soon as possible.

The reason why you should update your iPhones and iPads? Well, it’s not because of any fancy new bells-and-whistles that Apple has introduced to the operating system, but because it has fixed an important security hole under the hood that if left unpatched could have opened opportunities for hackers to run malicious code on your device.

https://www.hotforsecurity.com/

Today's Reading, by C.S.Lewis. On goodness...

Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. 

The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. 

An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.

From Mere Christianity

Compiled in Words to Live By

Tilt Brush: Painting from a new perspective

This is a really cool fusion of technologies:

HTC Vive and Google Tilt Brush (available on Steam).

Looks like VR is finally going to get some traction!

Found a USB Flash Drive in the street? Don't plug it in to your PC!

Plugging in that USB stick you found lying around on the street, could lead to a security breach.

"…we dropped nearly 300 USB sticks on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus and measured who plugged in the drives. And Oh boy how effective that was! Of the drives we dropped, 98% were picked up and for 45% of the drives, someone not only plugged in the drive but also clicked on files."

It seems folks just can’t resist picking up a USB stick that they see lying around. It only took six minutes for the first device that he “lost” to be picked up.

http://www.tripwire.com/

Austin Vince takes on the Africa Twin at the Honda Adventure Centre!

This great little video features the slightly mad motorcycle adventurer Austin Vince, at the brilliant Honda Adventure Centre in Wales - where he has a play on the superb Honda CRF1000L Africa Twin.

Honestly, what's not to like!

Contactless Payment Cards: Security?...

This form of payment has been available in the UK for a little while. You can pay for your goods "Contactless" (up to £30) using an appropriate card, smartwatch, fob, sticker, smartphone, etc...

The banks say: "Touch your Contactless Payment Card (device) on a payment reader at thousands of your favourite retailers across the UK and you've paid, just like that! There's no need to fumble with cash, or enter a PIN and what's more it's ready to use today."

Many of us take these payment methods for granted. However:

Are these forms of payment secure?

Just how close do you have to be to get a reading from a card (etc)?

Can "the bad guys" read my cards in my wallet / pocket / purse / handbag?

Do I need a RFID blocking Wallet?

https://news.slashdot.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp63MZ6RudE

Before you post that comment...

https://xkcd.com/481/

HP apologises after £1.58 laptop error

HP has apologised after an error on its website let shoppers buy expensive laptop computers for less than £2. One device was listed with a previous sale price of £2,376, but was "reduced" to £1.58. "This has now been corrected with related orders cancelled."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/