Just a guy in Vermont trying to connect all the dots...
Dan York
Author's posts
Feb 19
Wire 1.4 on iOS Tweaks The Display And Adds Avatars To Chats
Today the team at Wire rolled out a new version 1.4 of their iOS app. As they say in the release notes visible in the AppStore, the changes are:
- Added avatars and blurred background in conversations for improved readability.
- Added colored background images in the conversation list
- Improved tutorial hints
- 1Password support
- Bug fixes and improvements
More to the point, the Wire team outlined the thinking behind these changes in a blog post on February 2, 2015. At the time they indicated the changes were available right then on Android and it apparently took this long for Apple to approve the new version for iOS (depending upon when Wire did in fact submit the new version to Apple).
I'm admittedly in a bit of a mixed mind with regard to the evolution of the chat interface. Here is what a Wire chat looked like on my iPhone 5s before (left) and after (right) the upgrade to Wire 1.4 (click/tap the image for a larger view):
On the plus side, I do find the avatars helpful as visual identifiers that help you easily see who is writing what in the chat window. Particularly if people use the same avatar image as they do on other networks and messaging systems, it becomes easy to rapidly identify who is writing.
On the negative side, I did like that the previous version used the full width of the screen and also had a slightly larger font size.
I've just started using the new version so don't yet have much experience with the other new features. The change in the display was quite noticable, though.
What do you think? If you're using Wire, do you like the new changes?
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Feb 19
Free DNSSEC Webinar Today From BT Diamond IP At Noon US Eastern
If you are interested in learning more about DNSSEC and DANE, you can join in to a free webinar today that BT Diamond IP is holding at 12 noon US Eastern (a bit over an hour from now). You can sign up at:
http://btglobalevents.com/BTGlobalEvents/Index.aspx?inviteeCode=80690.184220.1308
It’s free of cost but in signing up you do provide your contact information to BT. If you can’t view it live at noon today by signing up you will be able to view the recording and also download the slides.
Tim Rooney at BT Diamond IP asked me if I would participate and I’m glad to do so. I’ll be giving an overview of DNS and DNSSEC, talking about DANE and giving an overview of the DNSSEC resources we have to offer here at Deploy360. Tim will be doing a deeper dive into some of the security topics, discussing the DNSSEC Survey they recently completed and briefly touching on a couple of BT solutions in this space. We’ll end with a question and answer period where people can ask us questions.
As with any webinar or event from a commercial vendor, we’re always a bit careful to note that we are not necessarily endorsing or promoting the products from that vendor. BT Diamond IP is one of many vendors who provide products and solutions that help companies with DNSSEC (and also IPv6). They happened to ask me to participate and I’m glad to do so to explain how DNSSEC works and how it and DANE can make the Internet more secure. I’m also glad to participate in webinars for other vendors, too.
I like the set of slides that Tim and I have put together and I think this should be a very useful and educational session! Please do join us if you are looking to learn more about DNSSEC and DANE!
P.S. And please visit our Start Here page to learn how you can begin with DNSSEC today!
Feb 18
IPv6 For Network Operators Book (ISOC Argentina Chapter)
The ISOC Argentina Chapter recently published a new book in Spanish focused on IPv6 for network operators. You can download the book for free in PDF form here:
The ISOC Argentina Chapter has previously published a book IPv6 For All: A Guide for IPv6 Usage and Application in Different Environments that is also available for download.
Feb 18
Watch The US National Curling Championships Live All This Week
If you want to watch some outstanding curling, the US National Curling Championships are streaming live out of Kalamazoo, Michigan all this week and you can watch them live at:
These are the best Men’s and Women’s teams in the US all competing to be “Team USA” and represent the USA in the World Curling Championships coming up for Women on March 14-22 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan and for Men on March 28-April 5 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The remaining games that will be streamed live are:
Wednesday, 8 a.m. ET Heath McCormick v. Korey Dropkin
Wednesday, 12 p.m. ET Patti Lank v. Kate Bert
Wednesday, 4 p.m. ET Brady Clark v. John Shuster
Wednesday, 8 p.m. ET Erika Brown v. Nina Roth
Thursday, 8 a.m. ET Brandon Corbett v. Paul Pustovar
Thursday, 12 p.m./4 p.m. ET Tiebreaker games, if needed
Thursday, 8 p.m. Page playoffs, women’s teams to be determined
Friday 12 p.m. Page playoffs, men’s teams to be determined
Friday, 4 p.m. ET Women’s semifinal
Friday, 8 p.m. ET Men’s semifinal
Saturday, 10 a.m. ET Women’s final
Saturday, 3 p.m. ET Men’s final
We should see some outstanding curling this week!
Feb 18
Watch The US National Curling Championships Live All This Week
If you want to watch some outstanding curling, the US National Curling Championships are streaming live out of Kalamazoo, Michigan all this week and you can watch them live at:
These are the best Men’s and Women’s teams in the US all competing to be “Team USA” and represent the USA in the World Curling Championships coming up for Women on March 14-22 in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan and for Men on March 28-April 5 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
The remaining games that will be streamed live are:
Wednesday, 8 a.m. ET Heath McCormick v. Korey Dropkin
Wednesday, 12 p.m. ET Patti Lank v. Kate Bert
Wednesday, 4 p.m. ET Brady Clark v. John Shuster
Wednesday, 8 p.m. ET Erika Brown v. Nina Roth
Thursday, 8 a.m. ET Brandon Corbett v. Paul Pustovar
Thursday, 12 p.m./4 p.m. ET Tiebreaker games, if needed
Thursday, 8 p.m. Page playoffs, women’s teams to be determined
Friday 12 p.m. Page playoffs, men’s teams to be determined
Friday, 4 p.m. ET Women’s semifinal
Friday, 8 p.m. ET Men’s semifinal
Saturday, 10 a.m. ET Women’s final
Saturday, 3 p.m. ET Men’s final
We should see some outstanding curling this week!
Feb 17
Video: VUC 528 Provides An Update On Matrix.org And Wire
Last Friday's VUC conference call / podcast / hangout provided some interesting updates about the ongoing work at Matrix.org to build services for scalable, distributed and federated collaboration systems as well as some discussion of Wire, the app I've written about here. Guests included Matthew Hodgson and Amandine Le Pape from Matrix.org, as well as the usual cast of characters and a couple of live demonstrations, too.
You can view the episode web page and listen to the show here:
I joined the show about mid-way through and naturally wound up talking about IPv6, the Internet of Things (IoT), ICANN, DNS and other topics.
FYI, some good info about Matrix.org can be found in their FAQ. Back in November 2014, there was also another VUC episode focused around Matrix.org.
It was an enjoyable show and I'd encourage you to give it a listen.
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Feb 17
How To Turn Off Sounds In The Facebook iPhone / iPad App
Do you want to turn off / disable the sounds that Facebook just added to the latest version of their iOS app for iPhone and iPad? If you are like me and find these kind of sounds associated with actions (such as "keyboard clicks") annoying, here's what you need to do.
1. Go Into The Settings Inside The App - First you need to tap on "More" in the lower right corner of the app and then tap on "Settings":
2. Go Into "Sounds" - Next tap on "Sounds":
3. Turn Off "In-App Sound" - Finally, just tap the slider to turn off the sounds.
Now, maybe you like these kind of sounds... but I personally don't. I'm the guy who turns off "keyboard clicks" because I do NOT want to hear a sound whenever I tap a key.
I don't want aural feedback.
Some of you may... and that's fine. I don't.
Someone at Facebook seemed to think that we all wanted this and so they added it in to one of the recent releases and... ta da... as soon as we updated the Facebook app on our iPhone or iPad we started getting clicks and swishes and other sounds.
This points to one of the larger issues with our new world of mobile "apps":
We are at the mercy of whatever the app developer wants to do.
If this were a browser-based "app" (a set of web pages), we could typically configure the browser to not play any sounds - and then all web pages would be subject to the settings in the web browser.
But we've left that land where the web browser serves as our window to content. Instead we have custom-designed apps where we have to figure out where the settings are in each of the different apps.
For instance, when the sounds first started in the Facebook app, I went into the generic "Settings" app in iOS to try to find out how to turn them off. I looked under:
- Sounds
- Notifications
and couldn't any settings in any of those places to turn it off. Only then did I tap on the "More" inside the Facebook app to see if there were any settings there.
Now... the good news is that at least Facebook gave us a control to turn the sounds off! They didn't have to and could have just made that a mandated part of the app.
But that's back to the point... for the convenience and simplicity of using a mobile app, we've surrendered control to the whims of the application developers.
I'm personally not really thrilled about that evolution of the mobile Internet, but it's hard to see how we walk back to a different path...
An audio commentary on this topic is also available:
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Feb 17
TDYR 225 – How To Disable Sounds In The Facebook iOS App
Do you want to turn off the sounds that Facebook recently added into their iPhone/iPad/iOS app? Here's how you do it... as well as some commentary about how the user experience is changing as we increasingly use mobile apps. Read more: http://www.disruptiveconversations.com/2015/02/how-to-turn-off-sounds-in-the-facebook-iphone-ipad-app.html
Feb 17
Anyone Else Having TweetDeck Not Show Search Results?
Anyone having trouble with TweetDeck not showing results for some columns? Today 5 of my 12 columns are failing to load with this error:
No recent Tweets.
New Tweets will appear here.
You can see part of what I'm seeing here:
They are all columns that are configured to show search results for certain terms. They've been working wonderfully until last night when I opened up TweetDeck on a home computer (an iMac) after being away for a week. I've tried:
- Closing and restarting the application (multiple times).
- Changing the search query to trigger a reload of the column.
Nothing works... and I know there are new tweets to show for some terms, in part because I can see them in other working columns... and in part because I have sent out tweets using the search terms.
TweetDeck's Twitter account shows some issues with logging in, but that works fine for me. Tweetdeck is working fine for sending tweets, sending direct messages and for some of my searches... but just not for others.
I've tweeted TweetDeck asking about this, but not heard anything yet, so I'm just curious if others are experiencing anything like this.
Anyone?
P.S. And yes, I know there are now many other tools... but I've been a TweetDeck user since its very early days and have my searches and systems that, until today, have worked wonderfully for me.
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Feb 16
FIR #795 – 2/16/15 – For Immediate Release
Quick News: Vint Cert warns of lost digital data, will UK introduce eBay-stile online courts?, Snapchat Discover an early success, France demands future leaders speak English; Ragan promo, News That Fits: would you pay to comment?, Dan York's Tech Report, employee ambassador program case study, Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, listener comments, Forbes puts native ad on its cover, the last week on the FIR Podcast Network, Igloo Software promo, five hashtag best practices; music from Hot Buttered Rum; and more.
