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Malwarebytes.org is a great way to protect your computer or phone and its free.

The download used to be the premium version, which only worked for 14 days. To continue your freebie, you had to go into the settings of your account and turn off the premium version. This wasnt obvious, so many people continued paying for years. We did.

The difference between Malwarebytes Free and Malwarebytes Premium is this: The free version cleans up problems after theyve occurred. The premium version gives you protection in advance. For safetys sake, we decided on a lifetime subscription to the premium version. This is no longer available. Now the premium version costs $40 per year.

Even with the best protection though, its a good idea to watch yourself, especially on Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving. Malwarebytes.org suggests going to a stores website instead of searching for it. This is a good idea whenever you know the name of the company you want. Well never forget the time we searched on Sony support and ended up on a bogus site. The smooth-voiced gent that came on the line advised us that we had a bad virus situation and took control of our computer with one of those remote control programs. The screen began to fill with hundreds of error messages wed never heard of, and he said: Well you can see the problem. But we can fix that. It will cost $299. Joy was on the phone by that time. Hang up, Bob said. What, Joy said. Hang up, Bob said again. And so it went, until Joy had an Aha! moment and hung up.

Other safety tips: Ignore pop-up ads, avoid scams on Facebook and never use a debit card or a public WiFi connection to shop. There are more tips at blog.malwarebytes.com.

Let there be music

Lately weve been using the free Google Play Music to play the music we like.

Google Play Music lets you store up to 50,000 songs on their site for free. Even a long classical piece is considered a song. An easy way to upload them is to use the free Music Manager, which you can find by searching on the phrase Google Music Manager.

Whenever you put new music on your computer, the Music Manager will automatically upload it to your private account in Google Play Music, which is a free app for Android, iPhone or on the web at play.google.com/music. Alternatively, theres a free extension for Chrome users, but it doesnt work well.

Speaking of frustrations, sometimes we land on a page asking us to pay for Google Play Music. We fell for that last year but later decided we didnt need the $15-a-month premium version. The premium version takes out the ads and gives you 40 million choices, plus commercial-free radio. But if you just plan to hear your own music list, there are no ads anyway. Or you could turn the volume down when ads are playing. Spotify, which is similar, is $10 a month. Playing our computers music files on the Spotify desktop app worked fine, but we couldnt figure out out to play them on Spotifys mobile app.

To get music from CDs into digital form so theyre ready to upload to Google Play, use Windows Media Player, iTunes, or a free program like Media Monkey to convert them into digital files. A savvy reader points out that the version of WIndows Media Player for WIndows 7 and 8.1 may be discontinued soon. His clue: There is no longer a website to connect to for information about each piece.

Internuts

How old is that dog? Search on that phrase Calculate Your Dogs Age with this New, Improved Formula. to find out The calculation is exponential: A 2-year-old dog is equal to a 42-year-old human, a 5-year old dog is 57 and a 10-year-old dog is 68. The American Kennel Club, however, disagrees. They say a 2-year-old is 24, and after that each year of a dogs life is equal to five human years. By that formula, Joys dog lived to be 99. He was still going strong until he accidentally ingested something poisonous.

The Strangest Questions Ever Asked of New York City Librarians. Search on that phrase to find examples, such as What kind of apple did Eve eat? Or: Do you have any inspirational materials on grass and lawns? Check with your local librarian for their favorite questions.

Wireless Passwords From Airports and Lounges Around the World. Search on that phrase to find all the passwords you need to connect to WiFi at major airports. We saw passwords for the Admirals Club, for the Delta Sky Club and many more.

MyFridgeFood.com. Check off the items you have in your fridge from their list, and youll get recipes. When you see a good one, click Bookmark it and its saved on the site.

You can filter results to make recipes for vegetarians, diabetics etc. Or restrict it to a category like sandwiches, appetizers or salads.

A pox on subscriptions

A reader writes that hes getting a new computer but doesnt want to get the new version of Quicken accounting software, with a yearly cost of $35 for the starter edition. We say, why not use your old software on your new machine?

Its always great to stick with what youre used to. According to the Quicken community support pages, anything from Quicken 14 on up will work fine with Windows 10. Were big fans of old versions. Joy used Microsoft Word 2007 until it finally stop playing nice on her computer. Bob is still using it. (Dont tell anybody.)

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On Computers: What price protection? Try free - Worcester Telegram

True to form, Waves is bringing out the big guns (and bigger discounts) for Cyber Weekend. Not only have they launched a brand new, free Berzerk distortion plugin, but they've dropped some huge discounts on top plugins, bundles and music-making software.

One of the best deals of the bunch is the $550 discount on their jam-packed Silver plugin bundle. Silver is currently priced $99.99, but stick the code BF50 in at checkout to receive a further $50 off.

Waves Silver is a feast for music makers. It includes 16 plugins for music production, mixing and mastering, including compressors, EQs, reverb and delay, bass enhancer, special effects and more it would make a great addition to any recording setup.

That plugins list in full: C1 Compressor, DeEsser, Doubler, Enigma, IR-L Convolution Reverb, L1 UltraMaximizer, Maxx Bass, MondoMod, PAZ Analyzer, P10 Equalizer, Renaissance Axx, Renaissance Compressor, Renaissance Equalizer, S1 Stereo Imager, SuperTap, TrueVerb.

But that's not all. Waves is offering a free plugin to anyone who spends over $50 and two free plugins for $100+ transactions. Choose any from this list.

Get your fill and start making music today!

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Waves' Silver plugin bundle has dropped from $599 to $49.99 with this epic Cyber Weekend deal - MusicRadar

Zoho Corporation, a comprehensive IT management software provider, is gearing up to serve the vibrant startup community and digital transformation trends in Southeast Asia where different countries are at different stages of development. It is doing this by helping companies and developers make mobile and web applications with low-code platforms.

The Indian startup began with six employees in 1996 and now has 7,000 employees in 180 countries, operating 45-plus cloud applications for more than 45 million users.

"In Thailand, the internet economy was worth close to US$6 billion in 2015 and by 2025, we are looking at up to $50 billion, which is probably two times what it is today," Gibu Mathew, vice-president and general manager of Asia-Pacific at Zoho, told Asia Focus.

"For Southeast Asia, the internet economy is going to be one of the highest reasons for growth in general for the region as well."

Southeast Asia now 360 million internet users, 90% of them connected via mobile, while the internet economy is expected to reach $100 billion by the end of this year. Mr Mathew notes that the region now boasts 10 unicorns, or businesses worth $1 billion or more. Most are in Indonesia which is helping the local economy but Zoho also sees interesting trends in Thailand.

The Net Pracharat policy, a Thai government project to provide free WiFi and low-cost broadband infrastructure to more than 40,000 villages that broadband internet has not reached, is helping on the connection side, Mr Mathew said.

As of last year, the project had brought broadband internet to more than 24,700 villages, with another 15,723 scheduled to be connected this year. As of November 2018, there were about 4.5 million users registered for WiFi Net Pracharat, and new registrations are taking place at a rate of 200,000 to 300,000 each month.

This development is supporting the first major trend in Thailand which is digitisation of the economy. This can be seen in the rise of various applications in e-commerce, music streaming, online gaming and even immigration services. By 2022, 61% of the Kingdom's economy is expected to be digitised.

The value of the country's e-commerce market alone is expected to increase from $900 million in 2015 to $18 billion in 2025, according to a forecast by Bain & Co.

"Small changes are happening here in Thailand and it is happening one step at a time, but where we are definitely seeing a lot more digitised activities here such as e-commerce and peer-to-peer," said Mr Mathew. "Singapore is a little bit more advanced where government services have gone to the level of having AI-driven chatbots already, and Thailand is slowly getting there."

Other countries that are moving along on their digitisation journey include Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, he added.

"Indonesia has a demographic advantage with a lot of young people joining the workforce with all sorts fresh ideas, which is reflected in the numbers of startups it has," he said.

"But Indonesia does not have enough investment in broadband like Thailand so it is not that one country is blessed with everything. Some might have natural resources and some might not but every country in this region has its own strength."

Vietnam also has a young population who are more tech savvy than most in the region, but the problem there is also infrastructure, which is still not on par with the likes of Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

Cloud allows businesses to leapfrog technology trends, similar to how a village in Africa can solve a lack of electricity by putting up solar panels instead of installing electrical cables and poles

Gibu Mathew,vice-president and general manager for Asia-Pacific,Zoho Supplied/Zoho

The second trend Zoho is witnessing is the push toward cloud and cloud-native applications, which will give a further lift to digital transformation.

"Cloud allows businesses to leapfrog technology trends, similar to how a village in Africa can solve a lack of electricity by putting up solar panels instead of solving the problem by installing electrical cables and poles," he said.

Cloud technology allows companies in Southeast Asia to skip through stacks of applications such as virtualisation, networking, middleware and data centres by jumping directly into the public cloud and building their own solutions there.

The public cloud is where a provider such as Zoho can help companies make their own applications. It does this by providing low-code, and even no-code, platforms that add a layer of simplification, with simple drag-and-drop elements to build mobile and web apps.

"The technology to create applications is becoming a lot easier, where we have gone from micro-bit programming to normal languages and now to low-code platforms," Mr Mathew explained. "Somebody has to write the code but it can be made easier, and that is what a platform like Zoho can actually do."

The beauty of low-code platforms is that you can write the code once and then export the application you have written to support multiple form factors including websites, mobile and tablet applications.

"Before, you needed to learn how to write Swift code for iOS, Java for Android and something else for the web, but with a low-code platform, you can just write a set of code and then export it to three, four, five different platforms," he said.

"One of our clients actually wrote a code back in the BlackBerry days in 2003 and they were able to export those apps to iOS in 2018. That's the value of what constant innovation can bring."

With low-code platform, customers can build apps with less technology and fewer technical experts by just dragging and dropping different functions into a standard field provided in Zoho's public cloud, which the company helps transform into applications. With such ease, the company now owns at least 45 applications that it has created in-house and its database now have more than 2 million apps within it.

"Our customers have built out more than 2 million applications over the last decade using our low-code platform," said Mr Mathew.

Apart from the drag-and-drop application builder, Zoho also offers customer relationship management software, WorkDrive software for sharing documents, an AI-powered Office Suite for creating and sharing content, human resource and finance applications, along with online marketing tools.

"The app builder can also be used with all of our other applications to solve various business functions in your organisation and that is our strength," he said.

One of the latest technologies the company offers is the ability for companies to "chat" with their data. An AI-powered assistant called Zia helps businesses collect customer data, write a document, or just look for sales numbers.

For example, all you have to do is to write a request such as "show me support tickets by channel this month", then Zia can generate a bar chart on the fly. Another product, Zoho Writer, grades people on their writing, helps correct grammatical mistakes and offers tips on ways to avoid run-on sentences, overuse of adverbs and more.

"The AI-bot allows you to chat to your collective data in our Zoho Analytics tool, and this is done using natural language processing. So you can actually talk to your data via Ask Zia, which will generate the same result."

The company is one of the few to offers prebuilt contextual integration for all 45 cloud applications that it has created, which means a company can use Zoho cloud software to run its entire business. It also is one of the very few public cloud companies, other than Microsoft and Goggle, to offer email software with Zoho Mail.

"Each of our products is a product on its own and some of our applications such as Zoho Writer are absolutely free for personal use. All you have to do is to sign up with us," he added.

Continued here:
Life in the low-code cloud - Bangkok Post

Credit: iStock

Carpal tunnel is a term that strikes fear into everyone that uses a computer, and we all know how much computers are used in laboratories and research in general. Everything from data entry to notation and protocol documentation to grant, article, and proposal writing is digital today. But repetitive motion and associated musculoskeltal disorders (MSD) are not limited to computer users.1 In this article, we will discuss the technical aspects of repetition/duration and force as it applies to ergonomic risk in lab and office settings. And we will offer solutions to get you through the days and weeks pain-free.

The definition of repetition is doing things over and over again. In repetitive work, the same motions are performed using the same parts of the body in the same way, time and time again. In activities such as typing, mousing, or entering data by referencing paper source documents, the affected muscles, tendons, and joints can be used thousands of times a day, week after week, year after year. The risk of injury is even greater when repetitious jobs involve awkward posture (e.g. bent or flexed wrists) or forceful exertions such as repetitive overreaching for the mouse (which can lead to shoulder and neck pain).

Our goal from an ergonomic standpoint is to, first and foremost, strive for neutral and balanced actions. Additionally, reducing the number of repetitions experienced by each set of muscles, tendons, and joints throughout the workday and allowing time for recovery is paramount. The body has great capacity to repair itself. Problems arise, however, when the amount of damage or stress accumulated over the course of time overtakes the bodys ability to repair. This is when we experience pain. If the cumulative damage continues without allowing time to recover and heal, there is the potential for serious injury.

In order to introduce healing time, short breaks in repetitive tasks bring significant benefit. Break up data entry with variations in activity such as filing, reading, using the copier, or any other task that uses different muscles and motions than computer use. It is also good to include micro-breaks of just a minute or two every half hour or so during long data entry periods. Research has shown it is often better to take many small breaks than one long work break during the day. Try using software that tracks keystrokes and mouse movement and alerts you when breaks are appropriate.

It is critical to examine and analyze the work being performed. Examine the job on a task-by-task basis. In many cases we have seen unnecessary repetitive work performed due to poor process design or evolution over time. When evaluating, ask yourself can parts of this process be automated? Can equipment be linked directly for data collection? Can steps be eliminated or modified to improve flow or actions? Investigate use of barcodes and readers to reduce data entry or entry readable/scanable forms or other types of information collection. It is always worth investing time to engineer a solution that will save significant time and effort in the long run.

Pain is often reported from mousing and usually attributed to over-use, and is often combined with poor mouse location. The conventional mouse requires a great amount of work tobe directed through one arm, shoulder, and hand. It is a good idea to try to distribute this work and share it between both sides. One approach is the use of keyboard commands. Most operating systems contain keyboard commands or shortcuts for common tasks. Taking the time to explore and use these can greatly reduce mouse use, and once you get familiar with them will actually speed up your work.

Related Infographic:Ergonomic Safety

Another remedy is to try one of the many alternative or ergonomic mice now offered. Some allow one to use both hands for mousing, sharing work between hands. Software programs allow you to automate common tasks (e.g. autofill) and develop scripts called macros to perform, reduce, or eliminate many actions. Their use can significantly decrease the amount of typing you need to do.

Force is the amount of muscular effort needed to perform work. Fatigue and injury track with the amount of force exerted. The more force required, the higher the risk of both.

Exertion force depends on many factors, including:

Goal number one is to always have a neutral and balanced posture. Goal two is to reduce the number of repetitions or duration of exertion experienced by each set of muscles, tendons, and joints throughout the workday. Number three is to reduce the force applied to perform the task. OSHA provides excellent help through their eTool on ergonomics.2 Strive to recognize and reduce all the risk factors both on and off the job to effectively reduce the potential for repetitive motion pain and injury.

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Ergonomics in the Lab - Lab Manager Magazine

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The "Global and Taiwanese Software Service Industry Year Book 2019" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The global information services market value grew from US$877.5 billion in 2017 to US$113.9 billion in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 4.6%.

Thanks to the development of the IoT applications, the demand for various sensing devices and middleware of intelligent networks also heat up, and the growth continued to expand in scale. Therefore, global software market value grew from US$66.1 billion in 2017 to US$899.1 billion in 2022, with a compound annual growth rate of 5.9%.

This report provides an overview of the global IT software service market in the areas of system integration, data processing, information software, cloud service, and information security; a look into highlighted topics in AI, information security, and financial technology; examines the future outlook of the IT software service and market.

Key Topics Covered

1. Development of Global IT Software Service Market

1.1 System Integration

1.2 Data Processing

1.3 Information Software

1.4 Cloud Service

1.5 Information Security

2. Development of the Taiwanese IT Software Service Market

2.1 System Integration

2.2 Data Processing

2.3 Information Software

2.4 Cloud Service

2.5 Information Security

3. Highlighted Topics

3.1 Artificial intelligence

3.2 Information Security

3.3 Financial technology

4. Future Outlook

Companies Mentioned

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/r/4z13qp

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Global and Taiwanese Software Service Industry Year Book 2019 - ResearchAndMarkets.com - Business Wire