End of August Locksmith Update

Another locksmith posts this time
http://locksmith.iblogger.org/2019/08/25/locksmith-los-angeles/
http://locksmithlosangeles.is-best.net/2019/08/25/locksmith-los-angeles/
http://locksmith.likesyou.org/2019/08/25/leos-locksmith-los-angeles/
https://alocksmith4u.ml/los-angeles-locksmith-key-service.html
http://locksmith.do.am/publ/247_asap_locksmith_la/1-1-0-1

http://locksmith.22web.org/2019/08/28/locksmith-los-angeles/

Garmin Vivofit 2 review

I've been living with the Garmin Vivofit 2 for a couple of months now, and I've become quite attached to it. I've tested a few of these step-tracking wearables now and ended up frustrated and, so some of the smart bands have told me, with a high heart rate.

For the sake of my 'wellness', I've decided that perhaps the best way to approach them is by setting expectations low and being pleasantly surprised. So, whereas in the past I've unboxed these things and expected them to be a doctor, personal trainer and life coach strapped to my wrist, with the Vivofit 2 I started out with the thought of "this is quite a nice waterproof watch for £90" and went up from there.

By now, with these bangles, I know that the calorie counting will be wrong, unpredictable and inconsistent and that sleep analysis is pretty much a joke across the board (I've come to look at the slumber-reading element of wearables with fondness, a bit like those x-ray specs you'd get in old joke shops – of course they don't work, but it's a bit of harmless fun!), so all I really want is consistent step counting with a graph.
Battery and screen

Battery? Nah, mate, this thing stays on for a year, straight out the box. No weird lose-it-and-you're-stuffed charger; no taking it off, ever – not even in the shower, as it's waterproof to five metres; no leaving it in a hotel. Brilliant. By their very nature, all wearables should be like this.

I loved the screen. Although it might seem a bit old-fashioned to have a big rectangle embedded into the strap, it made me happy.

It also has a nice button, which you press to control everything. A band such as the Garmin Vivosmart looks more modern, with a screen smoothed seamlessly into the strap, controlled by gentle tapping, but it's temperamental and hard to read at times. This is just a big old plastic screen with a button, on a rubber strap: winner.

It's worth noting, here, some details about the set-up. One button does it all, meaning you have to hold down for some things, double press for others, etc.

It can be tricky working out what to do straight out of the box, but when you download the Garmin Connect app and fill in your details, you get a handy email explaining all that very clearly.

Intel's 32GB Optane Memory storage accelerator reviewed

Intel's Optane SSD DC P4800X looks like a performance revolution for certain data-center workloads, but the company's Optane plans for plain old PCs are a bit more modest. A couple weeks ago, Intel let loose the details of its Optane Memory cache, a small slice of 3D Xpoint storage that sits on an M.2 gumstick. If you're not already familiar with Optane Memory, you should go read my introductory article now—I won't be rehashing much of that content here.

As a brief refresher, Optane Memory is meant to give a shot of SSD-like speed to systems that rely on hard drives alone for storage when used with its companion software. The underlying 3D Xpoint tech seems ideally suited for that purpose, given its high performance and responsiveness at the low queue depths typical of desktop workloads. About 80% of desktop PCs will ship with nothing but a hard drive in 2017, at least if you believe Intel's numbers. At first glance, that would appear to give Optane Memory a broad potential market.

However, Optane Memory's platform requirements and pricing seem to pose some hurdles for the product. The $44 16GB module and the $77 32GB module that will be available at launch only work with PCs with 200-series motherboards and Kaby Lake Core CPUs. Budget builders and system integrators who might have wanted to pair Optane Memory with Intel's Kaby Lake Pentiums are out of luck.

That's a shame, because Optane Memory only seems to make sense for a narrow set of systems right now given those restrictions. To start off, I went looking for the price range one needs to pay a major system integrator to get a PC with a reasonably-sized SSD as a system drive. (128GB SSDs don't count these days.) I found that $1000 buys a Dell XPS Special Edition tower with a Radeon RX 480, a 256GB M.2 SSD, a 1TB hard drive, and a Windows 10 license. Pretty dear, all things considered, but it's what's on offer.

Also see:  DROBO MINI

The most expensive Dell desktop PC I could find without an SSD on board is a "New Inspiron Desktop" with a Core i5-7400, integrated graphics, and a 1TB hard drive inside for $630. Given that spec, I expect Optane Memory will probably show up most often in prebuilt PCs selling for $700 or less. Dell's cheapest seventh-gen Core system with a hard drive as its only storage device runs $429, so I'd guess $500 is about the price floor for an Optane Memory-equipped system. Potentially tight window of opportunity, like I said.

PC DIYers face a different set of choices around Optane. Using our Budget Box as a starting point, one has to factor in at least an extra $27 or so for the Core i3-7100 CPU one will need at a minimum, $44 to $77 for the Optane Memory device itself, and at least $50 for the WD Blue 1TB 7200-RPM hard drive we like. If a builder were to spring for the $77 32GB Optane Memory module, that would take the total platform cost to about $150, or the same as a 480GB-class SSD these days. Even the 16GB module at $44 keeps the total platform cost tantalizingly close to that of a 480GB drive.

As just one upgrade recipe for our Budget Box parts list, one could step down to a Pentium G4560 to save $27 over the Pentium G4620. Scratch the WD Blue 1TB off the parts list, add in the virtual $44 or $77 from the Optane Memory modules, and we end up close to getting a 480GB SSD for the same price as the Optane Memory upgrade would have cost, slightly lower CPU performance and lower total storage capacity aside. Point is, builders have choices in this market, and Optane will need to perform well to justify its platform price tag.

Now that we have Optane Memory in the lab, I'm going to find out just what offers to a hard-drive-only system, and whether the performance it offers is worth the extra cost and strict platform requirements it brings with it. Given the cost breakdown I outlined above, I'll also be comparing Optane Memory's performance to that of a comparably-priced 480GB SSD. Let's dive in.

The testbed and our testing methods
To let me take Optane Memory for a test drive, Intel sent over not just an Optane Memory module, but an entire PC to go with it. The company put together a rough equivalent of the New Inspiron Desktop I just described for me to test with. Here are its full specs as it turned up in the TR labs:

Our thanks to Intel for providing the PC to make this review possible. Here's a glimpse of this box and its innards:

Being the gamer that I am, I couldn't rely on Intel's integrated graphics for my testing. To remedy this system's weak gaming performance, I installed EVGA's GeForce GTX 1050 Ti Superclocked graphics card.
This $140 card doesn't need external power to deliver high-quality gaming performance, so it was a natural fit for this PC. Our thanks to EVGA for letting us get our grubby paws on this budget-friendly pixel pusher.

Here's a bonus image of the Optane Memory module itself, if you were curious. It looks like just about every other M.2 gumstick on the market. It's what's inside that counts, though.

As always, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Each test was run three times, and we took the median result of the three. We used Windows' Balanced power profile for our tests. To ensure similar test conditions at the start of each benchmarking run, we restarted the PC after every measurement. We connected the PC to a 3840x2160 monitor running at 60 Hz. With those introductions out of the way, let's get to testing.

Solar+Storage Offers Hope as Irma and Harvey Plunge Much of the Southeast into Darkness

The 2017 hurricane season is forcing many communities and states to once again focus on disaster preparedness and the critical role of resilient power during emergencies. With millions left in the dark throughout the Southeast, hurricanes Harvey and Irma have been another wake-up call to the vulnerability of the country’s aging electricity system and a reminder that disadvantaged communities are often hardest hit when disasters strike. Despite widespread outages, a few success stories have also emerged, demonstrating the potential of solar+storage to deliver reliable power in the face of extreme weather.

Hurricane Irma was the most powerful storm to hit the U.S. coastline since Katrina struck land in August 2005. According to reporting by The Atlantic, more than 10 million people in Florida lost power, setting a new record for hurricane-related outages in the U.S. Hundreds of thousands of Florida residents were still without power more than a week after Irma passed through, and utilities have said it will take months of work to rebuild the grid. Another million customers lost power in Georgia along with hundreds of thousands in North and South Carolina. Harvey severed power to more than 300,000 customers in Texas.

So far, over 20 deaths in the U.S. have been attributed to Hurricane Irma, with at least eight of those tragically occurring due to loss of electricity, which caused a loss of air conditioning in a senior care facility in Hollywood, Floa. In Texas, heavy rains led to diesel generator failures that resulted in toxic chemical fires at the Arkema chemical plant.

But along with these all-too-familiar types of tragedies, there have been some rays of hope for the future: multiple Florida residents were able to keep their homes powered during outages thanks to residential solar+storage systems, Florida’s SunSmart E-Shelter Program provided solar+storage powered communications and charging for residents at multiple schools across the state, and one Florida city kept traffic lights running with portable signals powered by solar+storage.

These success stories are encouraging, but it’s disheartening to see communities suffer again through lessons that we should have learned before. Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy already showed us that the grid is vulnerable, diesel generators fail, and the most vulnerable members of our communities are most at risk during weather emergencies.

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Clean Energy Group highlighted the need for new resilient technology solutions in our report Energy Security and Emergency Preparedness: How Clean Energy Can Deliver More Reliable Power for Critical Infrastructure and Emergency Response Missions. That was 12 years ago, when many were still uncertain about the cost and performance of solar power, and battery storage was largely unknown. Seven years later, Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast with such devastation that the need to develop better resilient power solutions once again began to resonate with federal, state and local leaders.

The following year, Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) officials from the Northeastern states most impacted by Sandy issued a report for the President of the United States, Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Strategy: Stronger Communities, A Resilient Region. The report put forth recommendations that prioritized:

1) addressing the heightened risk to vulnerable populations

2) making the supply of power to critical community facilities smarter, more flexible and resilient to extreme weather events

Many organizations, including Clean Energy Group, prepared analysis and reports addressing how the states impacted by Sandy could rebuild their grid infrastructure and distributed generation resources in more innovative, resilient, and sustainable ways to enable both mitigation and recovery strategies that could lessen the harmful impacts of long-term grid outages. Clean Energy Group also took on the role of assisting states and communities in implementing these recommendations, helping them get resilient power technologies installed and working to provide backup power where it is needed the most.

Clean Energy Group’s Resilient Power Project (RPP) has been working with states and communities across the country since Superstorm Sandy to advance new policies and programs that can enable more development of resilient renewable energy and energy storage solutions to benefit low-income and otherwise disadvantaged communities. RPP’s 2014 paper, Resilient Power: Evolution of a New Clean Energy Strategy to Meet Severe Weather Threats, outlined the dangers that power outages can pose to our most vulnerable populations, the failures of traditional backup power sources, and the opportunities to develop distributed energy systems with clean and dependable energy technologies. Since then, we’ve focused our efforts on analyzing the economics of resilient power systems (Resilience for Free and Closing the California Clean Energy Divide), exploring system financing (Financing for Clean, Resilient Power Solutions and A Resilient Power Capital Scan), and supporting the development and deployment of battery storage integrated with solar PV (Resilient Power Project Toolkits and Featured Resilient Power Installations).

The project has seen significant progress and over the last four years: the cost of battery storage and solar PV (for example: RENOGY 150 WATT SOLAR PANEL ) has dramatically declined, more of these systems are being deployed, and more vulnerable populations are realizing the economic and resilient power benefits of solar+storage.

One recent example of our efforts is the Sterling Municipal Light Department’s energy storage system. Clean Energy Group just released a short documentary video on this project that is saving ratepayers in the Town of Sterling, Massachusetts about $400,000 a year in electricity system costs, while also providing resilient solar+storage power to the town’s police and emergency dispatch center in the event of a long-duration power outage. This project came about because of a state grant from the Community Clean Energy Resiliency Initiative, a program that was established by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. It demonstrates how state leadership and resources can enable a new, more resilient energy future.

In the immediate aftermath of the storms, as we struggle to comprehend the widespread damage and suffering they’ve caused, the challenges become more apparent. We can learn from this, and we can take steps now to avoid the same dire consequences the next time. But that will take resources and a commitment by leaders to implement new solutions to fix old problems.

Are you tired of the constant need to manually open and close your garage door every time you need to get your car in? Do you find it annoying to have to pull over and get out of the car in order to unlock your garage and isn’t this causing you a lot of inconvenience? If so, you should definitely check out this Liftmaster 8500 review, one of the best garage door openers available on the market. This is a device that would allow you to automatically open the door of your garage. However, this is not the best part. You can do it while you are in the car thanks to the remote control. That’s right – you won’t have to think about where to pull over during a high-traffic hour if your garage is close to the road. However, let’s take a look at some of the capabilities so you can see for yourself that this device is definitely worth spending your money on.

Liftmaster 8500 Review

Are you tired of the constant need to manually open and close your garage door every time you need to get your car in? Do you find it annoying to have to pull over and get out of the car in order to unlock your garage and isn’t this causing you a lot of inconvenience? If so, you should definitely check out this Liftmaster 8500 review, one of the best garage door openers available on the market. This is a device that would allow you to automatically open the door of your garage. However, this is not the best part. You can do it while you are in the car thanks to the remote control. That’s right – you won’t have to think about where to pull over during a high-traffic hour if your garage is close to the road. However, let’s take a look at some of the capabilities so you can see for yourself that this device is definitely worth spending your money on.

Motor

The Liftmaster 8500 is equipped with a powerful 24V DC motor that is going to provide you with enough power to lift off even some heavy-duty garage doors. At the same time, it features electric mechanisms, which means that there is not going to be excessively loud mechanical sounds when you trigger the open or close process. This is incredibly convenient and appropriate because it makes it perfectly usable for a garage which is under a habited room. So, if you have your bedroom over your garage, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you will be woken up if someone decides to open the garage door.

Security

The device is armed with a feature called Smart Garage Door Opener (for example: MIGHTY MULE MM562 ) This is patented technology that would allow you to program a variety of security codes from the Control Panel or from the power head. This means that you can rest assured that no one else besides you and the people that know the security code would be able to open the door with the remote. It is quite a relief, especially if you have accidentally lost or forgotten the remote control somewhere.

Safety

Apart from being undeniably convenient and well secured, the Liftmaster 8500 also brings a large amount of safety on the table. This is all thanks to the patented Protector System. This is a technology that uses sensors to project a light beam which is invisible for the human eye across the garage door. This way, if something is in the way while the door is closing it would automatically reverse the door. So if by any chance you have hit the closing button on the remote while you are still parking your car, you don’t have to worry about the door smashing over the roof.

Apart from those major benefits, there are also a variety of other very helpful features that deserve a proper mention.

• The unit is equipped with a remote light which is capable of delivering up to 200 watts of light. It could be triggered by a motion sensor to provide an additional sense of security and you can also use it to provide greater visibility while you are parking your car.
• The device is incredibly easy to mount thanks to the system which allows you to install it without any rails to hang on.
• Another thing to look at is the Auto-force feature. This smart technology would keep track of temperature alterations as well as the floor height and the door track movement and adjust the force accordingly.

Anyways, there are also some minor setbacks to this garage door opener. For the sake of full disclosure, we are going to present you with a list of the advantages and disadvantages of the door opener in order to make an easier comparison and determine for yourself whether or not you want to buy it.

Pros and Cons of Liftmaster 8500 Garage Door Opener

Pros:

• The electrically powered motor that ensures incredibly quiet operation. You won’t have to worry about your garage door opening with excessive noise.
• Tons of security is provided thanks to the incredible Smart Garage Door Opener technology which allows you to program your own codes. Make sure that no one else but you can access your garage without knowing the code.
• The device provides a lot of visibility and it comes with a powerful 200 watts lightning which is definitely going to make parking during the night a breeze.

Cons:

• The Liftmaster 8500 is incredibly sensitive to alterations so if you make any kinds of spring adjustments you should be doing so with great care.
• Some of the units are known for blowing off circuit boards which could cost expensive repair works. It is highly advisable that you consult a specialist if something like this happens.
• Even though the device is incredibly easy to install, you might find it rather harder to actually adjust it in order for it to function properly.

Amazon starts bricking hacked Fire TVs in latest firmware update

You might want to consider twice before hacking your Amazon Fire Stick with Kodi set top field to have its restrictions.

While in the newest firmware update for Amazon Fire Stick unlocked, Amazon has added a mechanism that establishes whether you’ve grounded (aka hacked) the unit and if therefore, renders the set top field absolutely worthless. Together with that, the update prevents you from downgrading to a youthful edition of the firmware, according to AFTVnews.

“‘Self-destruct’ eFuse put into the kernel which gets triggered if an older bootloader can be used. This implies Amazon Fire Stick for sale that update to investment 51.1.4.1_user_514013920 can never be downgraded, even when a strategy to root them is discovered,” AFTVnews’ firmware notes state.

The firmware was launched last month and involved new assistance for Perfect Audio, a computer device “sleep” function feature, and a few different alarms and whistles. I’m guessing that is exactly what the majority of Amazon Fire Stick hack entrepreneurs discovered regarding the updated application, since many people both don’t have the specialized history to root their device or are pleased with the Amazon Fire Stick jailbroken for sale as is.

However many people are motivated to root their Amazon Fire Stick jailbroken since Amazon doesn’t offer you usage of electronic press from Flash storage units and won’t allow you to download apps in the Amazon Fire Stick free channels. It’s somewhat frustrating, as the consensus among geeks appears to be that you ought to be capable of do what you may desire with anything you paid for.

Amazon, however, has no fascination with obtaining the Amazon Fire Stick jailbroken with Kodi perform outside of its long-term approach.

Why? Well, Fire TV comes at charge, meaning Amazon Fire Stick fully loaded doesn’t make any money off the device itself. Alternatively it relies on digital media sales (buying or renting movies, television show periods, programs, etc.). This seems like a-sound business-plan as the only factors you can purchase around the Fire TV are from Amazon. Thus if Amazon Fire Stick Kodiabruptly has opposition from Google, it becomes less popular with produce a branded set top box.

Google Continues Getting Local Businesses Online; eBay, Bigcommerce Partner to Sync Your Inventory

Whether you run a retail business in your local community or online, you can benefit from the use of certain online tools. For instance, Google is offering free workshops for local businesses to show they how to benefit from Google’s online business tools. And eBay and BigCommerce just announced a joint sales platform to increase reach for ecommerce businesses.

Read on for these headlines and more in this week’s Small Business Trends news and information roundup.

Retail Trends
Free Google Workshops Offered To Show 63% of Local Business Owners What They’re Missing

Free Google workshops will be offered across the United States during the first week of May in an ambitious effort to help small businesses improve their online presence. Why? Because only 37 percent of small businesses claim or update their local listings on search engines — and Google wants to change that.
eBay and Bigcommerce Open Joint Sales Platform with Bigger Reach for Your Inventory

Bigcommerce, an Australian-based ecommerce startup that provides storefront software to help you get your products online and start selling, has announced it is entering into partnership with eBay to provide a scalable solution for efficiently managing of inventory and orders on both marketplaces.