https://mspoweruser.com/onedrive-placeholders-coming-back-now-called-demand-sync/

Yup, the much loved feature that was removed is returning. Thanks to @David-Scammell for pointing me to this one.

http://gizmodo.com/german-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-the-internal-combustion-en-1787574000

By 2030, and requires EU ratification. But it is likely that Germany will make the EU petrol and diesel free in 14 years. Norway is already ahead of the EU in this area.

The lastest release of the Ubuntu operating system, Ubuntu 16.10 has arrived and is available for immediate download and installation.

http://devproconnections.com/development/linux-foundation-takes-javascript-under-its-wings

JavaScript is now under the governance of the Linux Foundation.

https://www.channele2e.com/2016/10/21/microsoft-ceo-offers-sql-server-on-linux-update/

“Overall, we are very, very excited about what we are seeing with SQL on Linux because the entire idea was to be able to have a full conversation around the data [across Windows and Linux] with customers,” Nadella said on the earnings call. “One of the related conversations involves our analytics and advanced analytics. We’ve done some very, very compelling work again across Linux and Windows and then of course the cloud.”

In many circles, SQL Server on Linux is considered Microsoft’s answer to Oracle on Linux and Unix. Microsoft in March 2016 introduced a “free” SQL-on-Windows offer to counter Oracle. It’s a safe bit Microsoft will make a similar SQL-on-Linux offer when that database arrives in mid-2017.

https://www.linux.com/learn/chapeau-exactly-what-linux-desktop-needs-0

Yes, it is a real thing, a pill that you take that puts a sensor in your gut that allows you to track fart development from your cell phone. This is 2018 people, the future is finally here.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/01/with-ingestible-pill-you-can-track-fart-development-in-real-time-on-your-phone/

https://www.howtoforge.com/tutorial/how-to-install-lmd-and-clamav-on-centos-7/

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1908199-new-version-of-nymaim-malware-targets-high-level-managers

A new version of the Nymaim malware family targets high-level managers with attached malicious Word documents and drops ransomware and banking trojans.

The cyber research team at Verint posted that this new version has upgraded its code to keep security tools from locating it and has advanced delivery methods.

The Nymain family originally surfaced in 2013 and has consistently evaded security teams by morphing its code. It went quiet for a time while their developers created a new version but over the past six months it has resurfaced stronger than ever with a 63 percent rise in attacks over 2015.

This most recent version offers brand-new features, particularly new delivery mechanisms, obfuscation strategies, and the use of PowerShell. The new blacklisting technology observes how a targeted computer communicates with the internet, and then verifies query results for names of popular security defenses. Technical Background details at: http://cyber.verint.com/nymaim-malware-variant/

What To Do About It

A prevention strategy for this threat would be to blacklist the IPs contacted by this malware at the firewall and blacklist the URLs at the proxy-level, so long as your network supports this kind of filtering. Next, have good endpoint protection, along with anti-phishing and web control capabilities, keep it all up-to-date, and of course step all employees through new-school security awareness training.

Preventing employees from falling for these types of social engineering attacks is a critical piece of your defense-in-depth. See how thousands of organizations create a "human firewall" that stands between you and a ransomware infection. Get a demo and see how this will drop your support tickets. And then find out how incredibly affordable the subscription is!

@stus

https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/products/Servers/Lenovo-x86-servers/Lenovo-System-x3650-M5/5462/solutions/HT502912

Symptom

Lenovo M5 or X6 systems running Microsoft Windows Server 2016, Server 2012R2 or Server 2012 can be rendered inoperable after applying one of the updates specified below for Microsoft Windows Server:

• Windows Server 2016 November 2016 Rollup: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3200970
• Windows Server 2012R2 November 2016 Rollup: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3197874 or https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3197873
• Windows Server 2012 November 2016 Rollup: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3197877 or https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3197876
• Security Update MS16-140: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3193479

Only Lenovo Systems running Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012R2 and configured with secure boot are exposed. Lenovo Systems running Windows Server 2016 are exposed regardless of the secure boot configuration.

The system will not complete POST and hangs at the Lenovo splash screen.

It's been one month since CloudFlare has been in front of MangoLassi and in the interest of being transparent and this just being fun and interesting, we are going to grab the analytics and show them here.

We could have waited a few days to get better numbers because the first two days of CF were "ramp up" as we started getting more traffic. But why wait and hide that, this is great at showing how things have improved from what little we know from before this time. These numbers include literally the first full day of analytics from CloudFlare so nothing is missing (the day before this was a half day where CF was turned on partway through the day.)

That's 11.778 total requests through CF! As you can see, caching doesn't do a lot for us, but it does something for sure. You can also see how after the first two days, our sustained traffic levels are higher so the first two days, and maybe part of day three, were still the system getting up to speed. Also the cache warming up.

http://blog.amplifi.com/2016/12/06/the-evolution-of-home-wi-fi/

Part 1: From Apple AirPort to AmpliFi Mesh Technology, by Robert Pera

A long time ago (at least in technology years and even before iTunes or iPhone), I started my career at Apple Computer as part of the wireless hardware team where my initial project would become the industry’s first 802.11g router with a blazing top speed of 54 Mbps! (Pretty fast at the time — this was 2003.)

The Apple Airport Router
Although that design is well over a decade old, its impact on the next generation of wireless routers is now evident. The Apple Airport product family did a couple of things very well. The first was a smoother user experience which integrated into OS X auto-detection and a configuration utility. The second was an impressive industrial design which integrated the antennas inside a slick-looking enclosure making them invisible from the outside.

(Nearly all the “mesh Wi-Fi” entrants into the consumer space now market around these at one time very unique attributes of the original Apple Airport design.)

Apple Airport Extreme

UniFi Enterprise Wi-Fi Technology
Years later, I would draw inspiration from the Apple Airport when designing the now ubiquitous UniFi wireless Access Point. For those not familiar with UniFi, it is a software defined networking (SDN) platform from Ubiquiti Networks (www.ubnt.com) which allows multiple networking devices (routers, switches, AP’s, and more) to be “unified” across unlimited geography and managed within a single software controller. Recent advances in features and performance have accelerated its growth into becoming the highest volume shipping “Enterprise” (or managed) Access Point in the world with increasing shipments of several millions units per year. UniFi systems are now ubiquitously deployed in hotels, schools, offices, airports, and more.

The industrial design of the UniFi access points draws inspiration from the original Apple Airport router I worked on, but utilizes a much slimmer profile — specifically for aesthetic placement on walls and ceilings. It also has a defining “personality LED” in the form of a glowing ring which can change colors or blink to describe the state of the AP.

UniFi Enterprise Wi-Fi Technology

This year, Ubiquiti Labs has introduced UniFi’s little brother to the world: AmpliFi. If the goal of “UniFi” was to unify enterprise networking deployments for central management, the goal of “AmpliFi” is to amplify modern home network coverage and performance — essentially eliminating dead spots throughout every square foot of every home.

Often when starting a project, we draw inspirations from other great designs. In the case of AmpliFi, there were two specific industrial designs that gave our team inspiration. The first was a product from Apple that I consider a classic in the history of industrial design: the G4 cube. Why the cube? Because it looks fantastic on a desk. Whereas UniFi AP’s were designed to look “complete” when installed on a ceiling or wall, I felt the cube was the starting point for a router design because it just looks “complete” sitting on a shelf or desk.

The second was the Nest Thermostat. Specifically, its circular LCD has a “wow” factor which is also quite useful in providing status and feedback.

Apple G4 Cube and Nest

If you look closely at AmpliFi’s router design, then you can spot the inspirations from not only the G4 cube and Nest Thermostat, but also from UniFi as well. Because the UniFi AP is defined by its “personality LED”, I wanted to port it to AmpliFi to provide some kind of continuity between the designs. In this case, the personality LED “glows” from the base of the unit and is also controllable by the AmpliFi mobile app.

AmpliFi HD Mesh Router

As with many great designs, you will find a level of attention to detail inside the product that matches that of the outside. The AmpliFi router’s challenge was to reconcile 3 critical design requirements to optimize form and function as described below:

1. Physical footprint
   No one wants a device that takes up a lot of desk space and so we needed to compact AmpliFi’s footprint as much as possible. We managed to get AmpliFi Router’s footprint down to a very slim size, less than 4 inches in each dimension.
   

AmpliFi HD Mesh Router next to Xbox One S

2. Antenna performance
   Good antenna range performance is correlated with physical area and isolation, which is why best performing range AP’s have antennas that stick out. We took advantage of the cube geometry and dedicated the full top half of the product to a well isolated 3×3 MIMO “Super Antenna” which beats out every router we have tested with traditional external antennas in range performance comparison testing.
   

AmpliFi HD Mesh Router 3×3 Dual-Band “Super Antenna”

3. Thermal performance
   AmpliFi’s combination of dual‑radio 3×3, 1750 Mbps performance along with
   5-port Gigabit switch plus Bluetooth and separate controllers for audio and the LCD require hardware placement spacing and airflow considerations. We split up the boards into a stacking style and below an independent ground plane. This provides increased airflow while keeping the footprint small and providing great isolation between the hardware electronics and antenna for great wireless performance.
   

Exploded view of AmpliFii HD Mesh Router mechanical design

For me personally, using great new products and being able to trace back their inspirations through design observations is highly enlightening. Although often invisible to the end market, nearly every innovation, from smartphones to electric cars, has been an exercise in leveraging and improving previous innovations in creative ways that tap into new value.

Ubiquiti was in a unique position to solve the general dissatisfaction with consumer Wi-Fi technology by leveraging my personal experience in the original Apple Airport Router product designs combined with our development experience and IP from the Enterprise Wi-Fi UniFi platform (which is quickly becoming the standard for high-performance Wi-Fi applications in professional applications). The result is the elegant AmpliFi Mesh Wi-Fi technology platform which we hope will set a new standard for consumer Wi-Fi networking design and performance.

AmpliFi HD Mesh Router

---

Robert Pera started his career at Apple Computer, where he was a hardware engineer following M.S. and B.S. studies in Electrical Engineering. From there he went on to boot-strap Ubiquiti, providing connectivity technology bridging the digital divide for hundreds of millions of people around the globe while also becoming a model of efficient business operations — organically evolving from boot-strapped startup to a public company with billions of dollars in historical revenue and an operating margin profile of 37% — one of the best in the industry. He is also the Controlling Owner of the Memphis Grizzlies franchise of the National Basketball Association.

http://phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LibreOffice-5.3-Features

LibreOffice 5.3 is expected to be released this week as the latest feature update to this cross-platform, open-source office suite. Here's a quick feature overview look for those interested in LibreOffice 5.3.

LibreOffice 5.3 will include many user-interface UI/UX improvements and the initial work on the MUFFIN project.

This new release also supports more spreadsheet functions, new templates for Impress presentations, a better OpenXML filter, PDFs can now be inserted as images into documents, and a plethora of other work.

LibreOffice 5.3 should also offer faster rendering performance and another big addition is the new text layout engine that settles on HarfBuzz for rendering.

LibreOffice 5.3 also marks the first source release of Libreoffice Online for web-driven collaborative editing of documents in the web browser. LibreOffice Online can be easily deployed via a public Docker image.

More details on the changes for LibreOffice 5.3 can be found via the release notes. Stay tuned for the official 5.3.0 announcement around 1 February.