Thursday, May 3, 2018
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Pebble smartwatch
You have a cellphone, maybe a tablet. Sometimes you lug around a laptop. Do you really need one more gadget on you?
Yes, you do. You need a smart watch. At least, that's what I learned after I got the Pebble, a $150 watch that connects wireless to iPhones and Android smartphones to notify you of incoming calls, texts and emails.
The Pebble has a lot of rough edges, but it does a good job of demonstrating the potential of "wearable" computing. Apple has filed patents that demonstrate it's working on a watch, and other "smart" watches are proliferating.
The Pebble has impeccable underdog credibility as the brain child of a 26-year-old Canadian entrepreneur who struggled to find money to make it until he posted his project on the fundraising site Kickstarter. There, it was a runaway success, raising more than $10 million in less than a month from nearly 70,000 friends and strangers.
What's great about the Pebble isn't that it's particularly smart on its own. Considering that it's a watch with the processing power of a cellphone from 2008, it really doesn't do much out of the box. In fact, it does less than many sports watches; you can set alarms, but it doesn't come with a timer.
The watch qualifies as a "smart" device because you can download and install applications, such as a timer. So far, the apps are pretty rudimentary. Apart from the timer, the only app I bothered to install is one that walks you through a popular seven-minute workout routine.
The Pebble's real use is as an extension of the smartphone, a replacement for the ring signal.
Think about it: how many times have you missed calls and texts because the ringer was off, and you didn't feel the vibration because the phone wasn't on you? Or you forgot to turn the ringer off, and it rang at the wrong time? These things used to happen a lot to me. The Pebble put an end to that.
When you get a call, text, email or calendar reminder, the Pebble vibrates. You can set it to provide you with Facebook notifications, too. Because it's strapped to your wrist, it's a signal you can't miss, yet it's unnoticeable to anyone else. After a few days, I turned off the cellphone's ringer and vibrating alert - and left them off. The Pebble's vibrating alert was right for every situation.
The Pebble also gives me the freedom to distance myself from the phone. Rather than carrying the bulky thing in my pocket so I could feel it vibrating, I leave it in my bag. At home, I leave it on the charging stand in the foyer.
The Bluetooth wireless connection between the phone and the watch works fine throughout my small New York apartment. The company says the range is 20 to 30 feet. It worked at longer distances in my test, but I wouldn't count on it maintaining a connection throughout a multilevel home.
The Pebble doesn't work flawlessly with every phone, so buyer beware. It worked fine with aKyocera Torque, a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a Motorola Razr M. All of them use Google's Android software. With a fourth Android phone, the HTC One, the connection to the watch dropped many times a day, and it wouldn't reconnect automatically once it dropped. That made the Pebble pretty useless. A colleague tested the watch with her iPhone 4 and found that while it maintained the connection fine when the watch and phone were close by, it wouldn't reconnect automatically if they got separated and then reunited. That was annoying.
With the right phones, the only thing I had to worry about was turning off the connection between the phone and the watch at night, so it wouldn't buzz me in bed with incoming email. Yes, I've actually started wearing the watch to bed. The vibrating alarm wakes me up without disturbing anyone else in the room, and I never have to fumble for the alarm on the nightstand.
If every buzz from the watch sent me scrambling for my phone, the setup would be pretty annoying. But the watch's stamp-sized screen shows the first few lines of every incoming message, or the name and number of the caller, so a glance at the watch reveals if the message is one to ignore or get on quickly. You still have to fish out the phone to reply, though. The watch has only four buttons, and there's no way to type on it.
The watchmaker calls the black-and-white screen "e-ink." That sounds like it's a paper-like display of the kind found on Amazon's monochrome Kindle e-readers, but that's not the case. The Pebble screen is a liquid-crystal display that doesn't need a backlight to be legible in indoor or outdoor light, which helps save battery power. There is a backlight that kicks in whenever a button is pushed, so the watch face is legible in darkness, too.
You can pick from a dozen digital watch faces and flip between them using the watch buttons. Some of them are more amusing than useful, such as one that shows the time in binary numbers. Some are animations of analog faces. One shows 4:20 written out as "four twenty."
What's baffling - and a major downside to the Pebble - is that none of the watch faces have the basic indicators we expect from a smart device: whether it's connected and whether it needs charging. You need at least five button presses to reveal the connection status. One press will get you to a battery indicator, but it will only tell you if you battery is low. It doesn't tell you when it will die.
The battery lasts for about a week, but there's plenty of variability, so I wouldn't be comfortable just setting a reminder to recharge the watch every Monday. The manufacturer says a full charge takes about two hours, but if you're not keeping track of the time, the watch doesn't help you: It doesn't tell you when the battery is full so you can stop charging.
The battery life is bit disappointing. Six years ago, I tried a Sony Ericsson watch that connected to a phone and lasted three weeks on a charge. But the unit weighed nearly half a pound because of its big battery and metal body, and it had only a one-line digital screen. The rest of the face was given over to an analog display. Overall, it was far less useful, and the weight made it uncomfortable. Today, there's a competing smart watch called the Cookoo that claims to last a year on a button cell battery because it takes full advantage of a new low-energy Bluetooth technology.
The Pebble is light but chunky. It's thick enough that it gets caught in tight shirt cuffs, and it looks odd on a narrow wrist, like most women have.
The "lens," the watch's window pane, is made of tough plastic. It's not as hard as the glass covers of top smartphones and watches, and it took me just two weeks to scuff it, though the damage was hardly noticeable.
It's rare for a new type of gadget to find a place in my life, but the Pebble did just that. I'm hoping it will improve through software updates, but if it doesn't, it's still a keeper - at least as long it works with the phone I'm using.
With more smart watches on the way, the Pebble is a good portent for the field - a sign that computing can get even more useful if it gets close to our skin. A lot of people have gotten out of the habit of wearing watches and use their phones to tell the time instead. The Pebble demonstrates that there's still life in the watch, when it works with the phone.
Yes, you do. You need a smart watch. At least, that's what I learned after I got the Pebble, a $150 watch that connects wireless to iPhones and Android smartphones to notify you of incoming calls, texts and emails.
The Pebble has a lot of rough edges, but it does a good job of demonstrating the potential of "wearable" computing. Apple has filed patents that demonstrate it's working on a watch, and other "smart" watches are proliferating.
The Pebble has impeccable underdog credibility as the brain child of a 26-year-old Canadian entrepreneur who struggled to find money to make it until he posted his project on the fundraising site Kickstarter. There, it was a runaway success, raising more than $10 million in less than a month from nearly 70,000 friends and strangers.
What's great about the Pebble isn't that it's particularly smart on its own. Considering that it's a watch with the processing power of a cellphone from 2008, it really doesn't do much out of the box. In fact, it does less than many sports watches; you can set alarms, but it doesn't come with a timer.
The watch qualifies as a "smart" device because you can download and install applications, such as a timer. So far, the apps are pretty rudimentary. Apart from the timer, the only app I bothered to install is one that walks you through a popular seven-minute workout routine.
The Pebble's real use is as an extension of the smartphone, a replacement for the ring signal.
Think about it: how many times have you missed calls and texts because the ringer was off, and you didn't feel the vibration because the phone wasn't on you? Or you forgot to turn the ringer off, and it rang at the wrong time? These things used to happen a lot to me. The Pebble put an end to that.
When you get a call, text, email or calendar reminder, the Pebble vibrates. You can set it to provide you with Facebook notifications, too. Because it's strapped to your wrist, it's a signal you can't miss, yet it's unnoticeable to anyone else. After a few days, I turned off the cellphone's ringer and vibrating alert - and left them off. The Pebble's vibrating alert was right for every situation.
The Pebble also gives me the freedom to distance myself from the phone. Rather than carrying the bulky thing in my pocket so I could feel it vibrating, I leave it in my bag. At home, I leave it on the charging stand in the foyer.
The Bluetooth wireless connection between the phone and the watch works fine throughout my small New York apartment. The company says the range is 20 to 30 feet. It worked at longer distances in my test, but I wouldn't count on it maintaining a connection throughout a multilevel home.
The Pebble doesn't work flawlessly with every phone, so buyer beware. It worked fine with aKyocera Torque, a Samsung Galaxy Nexus and a Motorola Razr M. All of them use Google's Android software. With a fourth Android phone, the HTC One, the connection to the watch dropped many times a day, and it wouldn't reconnect automatically once it dropped. That made the Pebble pretty useless. A colleague tested the watch with her iPhone 4 and found that while it maintained the connection fine when the watch and phone were close by, it wouldn't reconnect automatically if they got separated and then reunited. That was annoying.
With the right phones, the only thing I had to worry about was turning off the connection between the phone and the watch at night, so it wouldn't buzz me in bed with incoming email. Yes, I've actually started wearing the watch to bed. The vibrating alarm wakes me up without disturbing anyone else in the room, and I never have to fumble for the alarm on the nightstand.
If every buzz from the watch sent me scrambling for my phone, the setup would be pretty annoying. But the watch's stamp-sized screen shows the first few lines of every incoming message, or the name and number of the caller, so a glance at the watch reveals if the message is one to ignore or get on quickly. You still have to fish out the phone to reply, though. The watch has only four buttons, and there's no way to type on it.
The watchmaker calls the black-and-white screen "e-ink." That sounds like it's a paper-like display of the kind found on Amazon's monochrome Kindle e-readers, but that's not the case. The Pebble screen is a liquid-crystal display that doesn't need a backlight to be legible in indoor or outdoor light, which helps save battery power. There is a backlight that kicks in whenever a button is pushed, so the watch face is legible in darkness, too.
You can pick from a dozen digital watch faces and flip between them using the watch buttons. Some of them are more amusing than useful, such as one that shows the time in binary numbers. Some are animations of analog faces. One shows 4:20 written out as "four twenty."
What's baffling - and a major downside to the Pebble - is that none of the watch faces have the basic indicators we expect from a smart device: whether it's connected and whether it needs charging. You need at least five button presses to reveal the connection status. One press will get you to a battery indicator, but it will only tell you if you battery is low. It doesn't tell you when it will die.
The battery lasts for about a week, but there's plenty of variability, so I wouldn't be comfortable just setting a reminder to recharge the watch every Monday. The manufacturer says a full charge takes about two hours, but if you're not keeping track of the time, the watch doesn't help you: It doesn't tell you when the battery is full so you can stop charging.
The battery life is bit disappointing. Six years ago, I tried a Sony Ericsson watch that connected to a phone and lasted three weeks on a charge. But the unit weighed nearly half a pound because of its big battery and metal body, and it had only a one-line digital screen. The rest of the face was given over to an analog display. Overall, it was far less useful, and the weight made it uncomfortable. Today, there's a competing smart watch called the Cookoo that claims to last a year on a button cell battery because it takes full advantage of a new low-energy Bluetooth technology.
The Pebble is light but chunky. It's thick enough that it gets caught in tight shirt cuffs, and it looks odd on a narrow wrist, like most women have.
The "lens," the watch's window pane, is made of tough plastic. It's not as hard as the glass covers of top smartphones and watches, and it took me just two weeks to scuff it, though the damage was hardly noticeable.
It's rare for a new type of gadget to find a place in my life, but the Pebble did just that. I'm hoping it will improve through software updates, but if it doesn't, it's still a keeper - at least as long it works with the phone I'm using.
With more smart watches on the way, the Pebble is a good portent for the field - a sign that computing can get even more useful if it gets close to our skin. A lot of people have gotten out of the habit of wearing watches and use their phones to tell the time instead. The Pebble demonstrates that there's still life in the watch, when it works with the phone.
Monday, July 1, 2013
what is BFE
What is Base Filtering Engine?
Base Filtering Engine Service (BFE) is a service that controls the operation of the Windows Filtering Platform. Windows Filtering Platform (WFP) is a network traffic processing platform that allows software to “hook” into Windows networking stack and perform such functions as firewall, traffic shaping, filtering, accounting, etc.
This service is essential for operation of many firewall products: Windows built-in firewall, Norton Internet Security, Trend Micro Internet Security, and many others.
DU Meter also depends on BFE for network traffic accounting, and will display “service data is stale” error if BFE is not working properly.
Why BFE is missing or disabled on my computer?
There are viruses/trojans in active circulation that disable and remove the BFE service as a first step in the infection process.
In January 2012, I followed some link from Google, and immediately my Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus popped up and warned that real-time protection caught and disabled several viruses and trojans (Trojan:Win64/Sirefef.B, DDoS:Win32/Fareit.gen!A, Rogue:Win32/FakeRean, PWS:Win32/Karagany.A).
However, this was too late. The damange is already done. My BFE service and Windows firewall service were disabled and deleted from the registry.
Apparently, the malware that does this is exploiting a Flash vulnerability, therefore if you have Adobe Flash in your browser and it is not updated to the latest version, you could be infected by just visiting a wrong web page. I have User Account Control (UAC) enabled on my Windows 7 computer, but it didn’t prevent the infection.
How to restore Base Filtering Engine after it went missing?
Since BFE is needed for proper firewall operation, it is important to restore it as soon as possible. The following steps are the easiest way to solve this problem:
- If BFE disappeared recently, use System Restore and roll back to a pre-infected state. However, if you don’t know when Base Filtering Engine was deleted, or if it was deleted before your System Restore points were created, skip this step.
- Scan and disinfect your whole system with an antivirus. No point restoring BFE if it is going to be deleted again by a resident malware.
- If the System Restore didn’t restore BFE for you, follow these steps:
- Open Control Panel, search for “Services” and open “View Local Services”. Double-check that “Base Filtering Engine” is missing from the list. The steps below are pretty invasive, and should not be followed if BFE is listed in the list of services.
- If you don’t have a third-party firewall: check if “Windows Firewall” is available in the list of services. You’ll need to restore it too, if it is missing.
- If BFE or Firewall services are missing: download the following Registry files (make sure you download the correct one for your operating system — Windows 7 or Vista):
- Create a System Restore Point (just in case something goes wrong).
- Double-click on the downloaded BFE and (optionally) firewall repair registry files, extract the .reg file from the downloaded .zip file (usually by just double-clicking it), say “Yes” to the Registry Editor to add the data to the registry.
- Fix permissions in the registry:
- Open Registry Editor (type regedit in Start Menu):
- Navigate to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BFE\Parameters\Policy - Right-click and select Permissions
- Click Add, enter “Everyone” and click OK
- Click on Everyone in the list at the top, and check the “Allow Full Control” checkbox below.
- Ckick OK to dismiss this dialog.
- Reboot and verify that the services were restored.
- Update your Adobe Flash so you wouldn’t get infected again.
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Surrendering To The Fact That Life Isn’t Fair
One of the mistakes many of us make is that we
feel sorry for ourselves, or for others, thinking that life should be fair, or
that someday it will be. It’s not and it won’t. When we make this mistake we
tend to spend a lot of time complaining about what’s wrong with life. We
commiserate with others, discussing the injustices of life. “It’s not fair,” we
complain, not realizing that, perhaps, it was never intended to be.
One of the nice things about surrendering to the fact that life isn’t fair is that it keeps us from feeling sorry for ourselves by encouraging us to do the very best we can with what we have. We know it’s not “life job” to make everything perfect, it’s our own challenge. Surrendering to this fact also keeps us from feeling sorry for others because we are reminded that everyone is dealt with a different hand, and everyone has unique strengths and challenges, according to Law of Karma.
The fact that life isn’t fair doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything in our power to improve our own lives or the world as a whole. To the contrary, it suggests that we should. When we don’t recognize or admit that life isn’t fair, we tend to feel pity for others and for ourselves. Pity, of course, is a self-defeating emotion that does nothing for anyone, except to make everyone feel worse than they already do.
When we do recognize that life isn’t fair, however, we feel compassion for others and for ourselves. And compassion is a heartfelt emotion that delivers loving-kindness to everyone it touches. The next time you find yourself thinking about the injustices of the world, try reminding yourself of this very basic fact. You may be surprised that it can nudge you out of self-pity into helpful action
One of the nice things about surrendering to the fact that life isn’t fair is that it keeps us from feeling sorry for ourselves by encouraging us to do the very best we can with what we have. We know it’s not “life job” to make everything perfect, it’s our own challenge. Surrendering to this fact also keeps us from feeling sorry for others because we are reminded that everyone is dealt with a different hand, and everyone has unique strengths and challenges, according to Law of Karma.
The fact that life isn’t fair doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do everything in our power to improve our own lives or the world as a whole. To the contrary, it suggests that we should. When we don’t recognize or admit that life isn’t fair, we tend to feel pity for others and for ourselves. Pity, of course, is a self-defeating emotion that does nothing for anyone, except to make everyone feel worse than they already do.
When we do recognize that life isn’t fair, however, we feel compassion for others and for ourselves. And compassion is a heartfelt emotion that delivers loving-kindness to everyone it touches. The next time you find yourself thinking about the injustices of the world, try reminding yourself of this very basic fact. You may be surprised that it can nudge you out of self-pity into helpful action
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Must read
One who eats more than required will dream very much while
sleeping, and he must consequently sleep more than is required. One should not
sleep more than six hours daily. One who sleeps more than six hours out of
twenty-four is certainly influenced by the mode of ignorance. A person in the
mode of ignorance is lazy and prone to sleep a great deal. Such a man appears
to be always dejected and is addicted to intoxicants and sleeping.
In the Gita Krishna cautions that one who dreams too much while
sleeping cannot properly execute yoga. One should not sleep more than six hours
daily. Nor can one infected by insomnia, who cannot sleep at night,
successfully execute yoga, for the body must be kept fit. Thus, Krishna
outlines so many requirements for disciplining the body.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Story Of A Tea Cup
"There was a time when I was just a dumb
lump of red clay. Then one day my master came. He took me, brought me home,
rolled and pounded me on a wooden table. Again and again, he poked his fingers
into me until finally I yelled out: 'Don't do that! Leave me alone!' But he
only smiled and gently said: "Not yet!"
Then, whoommmm! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly spun around and around and around until I lost all my sense of direction: 'Stop it; don't you see that I'm getting sick? Quickly, take me from the spinning wheel!' But the master only nodded in understanding and quietly said: "Not yet!"
Then he placed me carefully into an oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door: 'It is hotter than hell - I'm burning to ashes. Please get me out of here before it is too late.' I could only read his lips as he shook his head from side to side and silently pronounced, "Not yet!"
After I had cooled down he carefully picked me up, looked at me and brushed some dust away. Then he brought the colors! The fumes were horrible! 'Please... you have no mercy! Please, Stop it!' But he only shook his head and said: "Not yet!"
An hour or later he came back and placed a mirror before me and said: "Look at yourself!" And I did.What I saw amazed me. 'That's not me!' I said. 'It is too beautiful...' With a very compassionate voice he spoke: "This is what you are meant to be," and then he explained: "I know it hurt you when I rolled and kneaded you on the table. But if I had not gotten the air out of you, you would have broken. I knew you must have lost all your sense of orientation when I was spinning you. But without this you would never have come into this form. I know the fumes of the colors were intolerable when I painted you all over. But if I had not done that, you would not have had any color in your life."
God is the potter and we are the clay. He will mold us and will expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we will become a perfect piece of His liking.
Then, whoommmm! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly spun around and around and around until I lost all my sense of direction: 'Stop it; don't you see that I'm getting sick? Quickly, take me from the spinning wheel!' But the master only nodded in understanding and quietly said: "Not yet!"
Then he placed me carefully into an oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door: 'It is hotter than hell - I'm burning to ashes. Please get me out of here before it is too late.' I could only read his lips as he shook his head from side to side and silently pronounced, "Not yet!"
After I had cooled down he carefully picked me up, looked at me and brushed some dust away. Then he brought the colors! The fumes were horrible! 'Please... you have no mercy! Please, Stop it!' But he only shook his head and said: "Not yet!"
An hour or later he came back and placed a mirror before me and said: "Look at yourself!" And I did.What I saw amazed me. 'That's not me!' I said. 'It is too beautiful...' With a very compassionate voice he spoke: "This is what you are meant to be," and then he explained: "I know it hurt you when I rolled and kneaded you on the table. But if I had not gotten the air out of you, you would have broken. I knew you must have lost all your sense of orientation when I was spinning you. But without this you would never have come into this form. I know the fumes of the colors were intolerable when I painted you all over. But if I had not done that, you would not have had any color in your life."
God is the potter and we are the clay. He will mold us and will expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds that we will become a perfect piece of His liking.
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