And now for something completely different! Crosstourer to CB1000R+

I bought Holly our Honda Crosstourer Highlander back in 2014. Kim & I have loved our trips out on her - many local, but also Ireland, Wales & our Camino. However to every thing there is a season, and I felt that it was now time for something different...

As you may have noticed, I like to test bikes from the various dealerships around us, and came to a shortlist of two models: Indian FTR1200 and Honda CB1000R+. Although the Indian was a fab ride, I decided that the Honda was the bike for me. The CB1000R is (sort of) a naked FireBlade - which makes it a "cheeky little number"! The "+" is a special tricked out edition with a quickshifter, heated grips, rear seat cowl & some added aluminium bling. Usually "+" bikes are only available in black, I have one of the only CB1000R+ bikes in stunning metallic "candy chromosphere red".

Discussions were had with four Honda dealerships, and Paul Styles at Doble Honda came up with the best package. So on a distinctly wet Wednesday (8th July) morning I rode up to Coulsdon & traded in our lovely Holly for a very shiny CB1000R+ in red! The ride back was also wet, which (literally) took the shine off my lovely new bike. 1st thing I did when I got home was hose down the bike & dry her off!

I managed to get out for a spin at the weekend - on a sunny, warm Sunday afternoon - and enjoyed every second. Of course this is a hugely different motorcycle from the Crosstourer: over 60Kg lighter, faster, lower centre of gravity, sticky sport tyres, etc. What a blast!

Kim & I are going to miss the comfort of the Crosstourer (and the ability to do big distances), but ironically, getting a faster sportbike might save my license! Wind protection is much better on adventure bikes, gearing is much higher, so it is very easy to end up going "quickly" without realising it. On a naked sportbike, any speed feels quick - which oddly enough tends to slow one down!

Holly's new owner will hopefully enjoy her as much as we have: ~19k miles of wonderful, trouble free riding (of course - it's a Honda!). Over my ~6 years of ownership, I tweaked her significantly from original spec - so Holly's next owner should be able to enjoy adventures as soon as they can turn the key!

I've Christened the new bike "Ariel", and have so far added ASV C5 clutch & brake levers a Givi tank bag (that allows my phone to double as a SatNav), more farkles to follow! Watch this space...

www.honda.co.uk

BBC Chain Reaction: Tim Vine Interviews Sir Ken Dodd

In this edition (originally released: 27 March 2017), Tim Vine turns interviewer and invites his chosen guest Sir Ken Dodd into the Chain Reaction hot seat.

Chain Reaction is the talk show with a twist where one week's interviewee becomes the next week's interviewer. John Cleese was first in the hot seat back in 1991 and since then, a procession of big names from the world of comedy and entertainment including Jennifer Saunders, Jarvis Cocker and Eddie Izzard have helped continue the chain.

Tim Vine is best known for his frenetic stage shows, rammed full of rapid one liners, songs and props. He previously starred in BBC1s Not Going Out, ITV1s The Sketch Show and hosted the seminal Channel 5 quiz show Whittle.

Revered as one of Britain's funniest comedians, Ken Dodd has enjoyed a professional career spanning over 60 years during which he has received numerous awards and accolades. Ken Dodd was made Sir Ken in the 2017 New Year's Honours List; and is a comedian of legendary status who has been entertaining audiences for a lifetime of happiness and laughter.

Recorded at the Bluecoat in Liverpool, Tim talks to Ken about his long career, the length of his live shows, and performs a Liverpudlian version of Hamlet...

www.bbc.co.uk

One out of every 142 passwords is '123456'

In one of the biggest password re-use studies of its kind, an analysis of more than one billion leaked credentials has discovered that one out of every 142 passwords is the classic "123456" string.

The study, carried out last month by computer engineering student Ata Hakçıl, analyzed username and password combinations that leaked online after data breaches at various companies.

These "data dumps" have been around for more than half a decade, and have been piling up as new companies are getting hacked. The data dumps are easily available online, on sites like GitHub or GitLab, or freely distributed via hacking forums and file-sharing portals.

Over the years, tech companies have been collecting these data dumps. For example, Google, Microsoft, and Apple, have collected leaked credentials to create in-house alert systems that warn users when they're utilizing a "weak" or "common" password.

Furthermore, the Have I Been Pwned online service also works on top of these leaked data dumps and credentials.

Please dear reader - take security seriously. Here are five things to know to hep you pick a good password.

www.zdnet.com

Unacceptable, where is my privacy?

Voice assistants in smart speakers analyse every sound in their environment for their wake word, e.g., «Alexa» or «Hey Siri», before uploading the audio stream to the cloud. This supports users' privacy by only capturing the necessary audio and not recording anything else. The sensitivity of the wake word detection tries to strike a balance between data protection and technical optimisation, but can be tricked using similar words or sounds that result in an accidental trigger.

Well this makes an interesting read... My SONOS One triggers to the word "Unacceptable" - which is pretty odd as it doesn't sound at all like "Alexa"!

unacceptable-privacy.github.io

Michael Nazir-Ali: Why can’t Britain’s foreign aid be used to help Christians too?

Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali writes: For years now, the British government has prided itself on how much money it gives away in foreign aid. But of course it’s not just the amount that matters - it’s how effective it is. Now that the Prime Minister is to wrap the Department for International Development back into the Foreign Office, it’s a chance for us to ask again: who are we as a country? What are our values? And how can we ensure that taxpayers’ money is well spent?

It can be difficult to ensure that a recipient of aid is legitimate and worthy. That’s why there’s been a tendency for the UK and aid agencies to rely on giving to foreign governments and their bureaucracies... 

Read the rest of this thought provoking article here.

www.michaelnazirali.com

Recover lost files on Windows 10 - using the new Windows File Recovery App

Accidentally deleted an important file? Wiped clean your hard drive? Unsure of what to do with corrupted data? Windows File Recovery can help recover your personal data.

For photos, documents, videos and more, Windows File Recovery supports many file types to help ensure that your data is not permanently lost.

Recovering from a camera or SD card? Try Signature mode, which expands beyond NTFS recovery and caters to your storage device needs. Let this app be your first choice for helping to find what you need from your hard drive, SSD (*limited by TRIM), USB drive, or memory cards.

Visit aka.ms/winfrhelp for the user guide.

This app requires Windows 10 v2004.

NB: If you want to increase your chances of recovering a file, minimize or avoid using your computer. In the Windows file system, the space used by a deleted file is marked as free space, which means the file data can still exist and be recovered. But any use of your computer can create files, which may over-write this free space at any time. 

www.microsoft.com

The psychology of social engineering - the “soft” side of cybercrime

Forty-eight percent of people will exchange their password for a piece of chocolate, 91 percent of cyberattacks begin with a simple phish, and two out of three people have experienced a tech support scam in the past 12 months. What do all of these have in common? They make use of social engineering: when an attacker preys on our human nature in order to defraud. Also in common, these small, very human actions have led to billions of dollars of loss to global business.

People are by nature social. Our decision making is highly influenced by others. We are also overloaded with information and look to shortcuts to save time. This is why social engineering is so effective. In this blog, I’ll share the psychology behind Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion to show how they help lure employees and customers into social engineering hacks. In this article, we'll provide some tips for using those principles to create a social engineering resistant culture.

www.microsoft.com