#using only the cloning tool from a cheap app

[idontknowreallywhy]

I committed a terrible crime but I can’t stop laughing at it

[highqualityreviews]

Voisi AI Elite Review: The Ultimate Toolkit for Advanced AI Voice and Language Solutions

Unleash Your Creativity In Any Language With 450+ Lifelike Voices, Voice-Cloning, Music & More

Create Audio Narrations, Podcasts, Conversations, Songs & More

Voisi Is The Complete Language Toolkit, Not Just Text To Voice:

Translates Voice or Text

Translate text or audio between all the prominent language

1. Converts Audio To Text

Convert any audio to text in all the prominent languages

2. Converts Text To Voice

Convert text to voice in all the prominent languages

3. Converts Audio To Audio

Convert audio files and change voice, language or both

4. Create Conversations

Create conversations in any language you want with the AI voices of your choice

5. Clone Voices

Clone your voice and create your projects in multiple languages

6. Create Music & Songs

Create background tracks, songs and music in multiple styles and languages

All The Best AIs

Choose from the world’s best audio and language AIs. All in one place

Multi-AI Voice Platform

Get access to all of the best Voice AIs of the world from top providers

450+ Voices

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1.Automate Your Voice Tasks

Create Workflows and quickly do your repeated voice and language tasks

2. Most Affordable Voice AIs

Save cash every time you do a voice or language task on Voisi

3. Create Voice Overs & Narrations

Create voice overs for your videos, narrate audiobooks & blogs

4. Create Conversations

Create Voice Conversations of two & more people

The Only AI Voice Toolkit That Gives You All The Top AIs

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Voisi Automation

Create Reusable Workflows That Allow You To Do Anything With Voice & Language In Seconds, Not Hours

Benefits

audio to text.

Convert

text into audio

Convert

audio into text and then translate it into another language.

Convert

audio into text and then translate into MANY languages

Translate

text to another language and then make audio of it

Convert

audio to text, translate it and then make audio in the new language.

Convert

audio into text, translate it into many languages and then make audio in all those languages.

Create conversations

Go Beyond Voice-Overs & Narrations Voisi Lets You Create Conversations With 2 Or More Speakers

Other AI tools allow you to create voice-overs and narrations but creating conversations with them is not possible because they cannot handle multi-voice.

Voisi can handle Multi-voice, people conversations.

Create dramas, engaging conversational stories and conversational Podcasts easily with Voisi.

No special formatting needed. Just feed in your Conversation script.

Clone Your Voice:

Clone Your Voice With A 15 Second Sample & Use For Voice-Overs & Conversations

Voisi also has Voice Cloning. Yes, you can clone your voice and use it to make conversations and narrations easily. Create conversations with your cloned voices and AI voices. Mix & combine as you want.

Clone your voice with just 15 seconds of sample.

Works in 17 languages. English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Hindi, etc.

Create narrations, conversations and more. Combine with ready AI voices.

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More Lifelike Voices Than Alternatives:

Get The Biggest Range of Lifelike Voices From All The Best AI Companies

Why should you limit your audio choices to just one or two voice options? Your creativity and productivity will take wings if you have the best voices for your projects.

Integrates OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM & other providers of Voice generation AIs.

100s of unique and different lifelike voices.

Find the perfect voice for any project or purpose.

Get a live preview of every voice option in the app.

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Save $100s In Voice & Processing Charges:

Voisi Gives You Cheap Access To Expensive Platforms Through Our Special Agreements

Some of the platforms that we have inside Voisi will charge you $100s more when you go to them direct. Yes, that’s how it works. You’ll have to pay higher cost in processing or even a monthly price to get access.

Voisi gives you all the access for a low cost thanks to our special effort in securing you the best deal.

No monthly fee or charges payable to the platform that you want to use.

Good prices and savings over high-priced ‘end-user��� deals.

Access to platforms, voices and capabilities that are not available to normal users.

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Create Multi-Lingual Website Pages:

Grab More Leads, Sales & Prospects With Multi-Lingual Websites

Voisi can translate your landing page into any language you want in a matter of seconds. No need to translate bit by bit, just feed it a page and it gives you the HTML in another language.

High quality webpage translation using top AIs.

Created 100% valid HTML. Just the same you feed it.

Convert your landing page and host it in any language you want.

👉 >>Click Here for Get Instant Access To Vosi AI Toolkit << 👈

100s of Languages:

Work With All The Prominent Languages Of The World

Need text or audio translated to your audience’s language? Voisi can take care of that. It integrates all the top language AIs and can transcribe and translate using all of them.

Transcribe audio to text using OpenAI Whisper or one of the several other AIs.

Translate into the language of your choice using all the top AIs available.

Generate audio into any language you want with multiple voices and accents.

Speaks Your Audio In Any Accent:

Voisi Supports Foreign Voice Accents & Speech Patterns, Even Exotic Ones

Got an audio where you want to show a foreign person speaking English? Voisi accents are not limited to the UK & US alone. You can get a speaker of virtually any accent.

French, Italian, Indian, Russian. Prepare your content in any voice accent you want. Even get the accent of a US speaker speaking French. Voisi lets you create any content with confidence!

All major global accents available in all major global languages.

US, UK & dozens of other accents.

Create dramas, conversations, narrations, fiction, podcast and anything you want.

Grow Your Business In Any Market:

Translate Ads, Podcasts & Create Local Blogs, Conversations, Stories In Any Language

Local languages are far less competitive than English. If you target your audience in their mother-tongue then you have a higher chance of reaching the right audience.

Create text content like blog articles, ads or social posts in any language you want by translation.

Create audio in any language you want easily by converting text to audio or audio to another language audio.

Supports all popular languages worldwide.

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Show Up In Unexpected Places:

Appear In Local Search Engines, Directories & Websites With Local Content

You need traffic and the best way to get traffic is to go where the competition is low.

Create content and rank it easier in local languages.

Add your content to local aggregators, web directories and search engines.

Create local language Podcasts and content to reach any market.

The Most Affordable Voice-AI System:

Use Popular AIs Without Buying An Account Or Paying Subscription

We bring you the best way to access all popular voice and language AIs in one single platform.

No need to create multiple accounts on several platforms.

No need to pay expensive subscriptions on several platforms.

No minimum charges.

We do bulk deals with platforms and pass on the benefits to you.

Create Music & Songs With AI:

Make Original Music & Songs With Your Chosen Lyrics Using AI

Need background scores or even songs for your videos? No problems! Voisi has music and song generation. Put in your lyrics and you can create a song, or describe the kind of music you want.

High quality AI music with multiple instruments.

Choose any style you want. Example Rock, Rap, Disco, Country, Electronic, Bollywood & more.

Feed in your lyrics and create custom songs.

Copyright is owned by you.

👉 >>Click Here for Get Instant Access To Vosi AI Toolkit << 👈

Be Everyone’s Voice & Language Expert:

Every Business Needs Voice & Language Content. Tap This Huge Market With Voisi

Right now thousands of businesses are looking for service provider who can create local language content for them.

Local language audio content, translations, local language websites. People need all of these and more to grow their audience. Voisi makes everything accessible.

Create voice and language content for any niche.

Life-life voices can be used to create videos, audio, podcasts, voice-overs, narrations, presentations and more.

Voisi Is Getting Better & Better:

New Voices, New Languages & New AIs Added All The Time

AI is evolving rapidly and you need to keep pace to exploit it to the best possible extent. Voisi is constantly updated to add new capabilities. We are adding and upgrading AIs constantly to make it better.

More languages, more voices and more accents through more AI integration.

New technologies are available as soon as they come out.

No need to subscribe to multiple apps to get the latest AIs.

Voisi:

What you can do with voisi

Everything You Need To Create Breathtaking Content

Proudly Made by Teknikforce - A 5 Stars Company

Voisi AI Elite

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Support For All AIs

250+ Voices (Upgrade Inside For 45o+)

20 Minute Audio Size Limit

5 Workflows

Conversations (10 Mins Limit)

Music & Songs Generation

20,000 Free Credits

Self Business Use License

Perfect for Solo Creators

All Features Included

One-time Payment

Free Upgrades For 1 Year

24 / 6 Chat Support

Unlimited Version Upgrade Available Inside (Special Low-Cost One-Time Deal)

Money Back Guarantee

Making up your mind is hard, especially when it's a new technology that you haven't tried yet. Well,we really want you to have the first mover's advantage, and that's why we are prepared to bear all the risk.

Here's our guarantee!

Buy VOISI Elite, and use it for up to 30 days risk-free. If you don't like what it does for you and your business, just let us know within 30 days through a support ticket at https://teknikforce.com/support and we will refund you 100% of the money you paid

Support Guarantee

Bad support can destroy your investment and happiness. When you buy from Teknikforce you get the guarantee of good quality support.

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We have 24 x 6 chat support here. Yes, if you ever have any issues using VOISI Elite, just come to this website and talk to our live support agent. We are always here to guide you.

24 Hours Ticket Response Guarantee

When you open a ticket with us, you’ll get a guaranteed response within 24 hours.

Live Assistance Guarantee

Having trouble making something work? Our tech agents will help you on Skype and on Teamviewer / Ultraviewer to fix your problem.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is this app for?

Anybody who wants to grab traffic from the local markets. If your buyers or prospects speak other languages, then you must reach them in their language.

Is it expensive?

This is the cheapest voice AI can get. We are grabbing the best rates for voice and text conversions from the AI companies and passing you the best rates.

Will I get more voices?

Yes, as newer options become available we will add those. It already has 100s of voices in many languages and more are being added regularly..

Why is it so affordable?

Because it need not be expensive. We created Voisi as a part of our expanding software suite and our mission is to make it your favorite voice & languages tool. We are a multi-product company and don’t depend on just one product to drive our revenues, thus we can afford to keep our products affordable.

Can I upgrade if I buy Elite or Pro now?

Yes. You can upgrade later, but be warned the price may not be the same. You might end up paying more. If you think you can use the features or Pro or Pro extra, get it now.

Can I use Voisi to create conversations?

Yes, Voisi is the only tool that can generate conversations. Just give it a text conversation script and it’ll have fantastic conversational audio for you without a hassle.

How can I cancel my purchase?

If you are not happy with the purchase just email us at support@teknikforce.com, talk to our Live Chat Support or create a support ticket within 30 days of the purchase and you will get 100% of your money back.

Our Customers Love Our High-Value Products And Voisi Is No Exception

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[glassshard]

What are your thoughts about AI art? Should artists be worried? Or do you think interest will eventually fizzle out like NFT's did this year?

Computer-assisted tools have been helping creators since the beginning of computers - that's why we invented computers. To help us, and make our work easier. Even something as primitive as Photoshop's clone stamp or its bump map tool or auto-flatter. The mandelbulb renderer I use for the khert backgrounds. The 3D models I happily draw over when I don't feel like working out the perspective of a crossbow.

So I'm a big fan of computer assistance in the creation of artwork. I'm also a big fan of the idea of AI art speeding up the creative process for everyone. It's going to happen and it's only going to get better and better at what it's doing, so it's best to be flexible and accept it

But yeah, a lot of artists need to be worried. There will always be work for the cream of the crop - for the best concept artists like Craig Mullins and such - but AI is probably going to take a big bite out of the industry and make it harder for many artists to justify their positions.

It's possible that the very opposite of what you suggested will in fact happen. That AI art will be seen as cheap, samey, and low quality in its proliferation and accessibility, and that original artist pieces will only grow in cachet and value as less popular artists are shouldered out of the creative space by Darwinian AIs. So everyone will want to invest in the new Sakimichan NFT, but no one's commissioning furry porn from that quiet little dude on Twitter anymore because Midjourney can render up all the wolf knots the customer desires.

NFTs as we know them are just financial schemes, but AI art has actual utility, and it's already being used in production pipelines. It's not going anywhere. It's going to fill up stock illustration merchants and those will be sold to news sites and app developers. Illustrators already have a hard time and it's not going to get any easier.

I think the question is how far will AI extend out into the casual art customer space and can it satisfy their needs with the specificity they demand. Right now specificity is still a weakness of AI. It can't render every panel of a comic page, for instance, with specificity and consistency.

But it'll probably get there~

[romeovu-blog]

Cruise Plus Intensive X1, Automobile Scanner Smarter than Trip Computer

Nowadays, the new car displays the necessary information such as average fuel mileage, running speed, and travelable distance through the trip computer through the Trip Computer. Some vehicles are digitized to the engine oil and coolant temperature, which was only visible on the tachometer.

If you can show the driver what you want to do with a trip computer, would not it be better for vehicle maintenance if you can see other information such as battery charge, voltage, and individual tire pressure?

Recently, Smart On Communication released 'Cruise Plus Intensive X1' as OBD2 car scanner related to this. Even before this, other vendors are importing and selling OBD2 car scanners from China, so you may think there is no difference. Please look at the summary below to understand why.

OBD2 car scanner? How to use? OBD (On-Board Diagnostics) is a device that we can refer to as 'on-board diagnostics'. (OBD2) which can check whether there is any abnormality of vehicle by receiving real time numerical value such as transmission, steering, and braking system (OBD1) by mechanical operation of engine controlled by ECU, OBD1 Scanner. Nowadays, it is called 'OBD2 scanner' for convenience.

The OBD2 scanner is divided into a scanner for the maintenance of the vehicle that blocks the malfunction of parts that can not be identified by the naked eye, and a general-purpose scanner that displays diagnostic information of the vehicle and other information in real time. The Cruise Plus Intensive X1 is the latter.

Usage is simple. If you open the fuse box, you can see the trapezoidal terminal with 16 pins at the bottom. This terminal is the OBD2 terminal where the OBD2 scanner can be inserted.

If the purpose is simple check, connect the OBD2 scanner as it is. If it is intended for long-term use, hold down both side fixing levers of OBD2 terminal and push back, then it will go down and change into a structure that can be filled in the fuse box.

The Renault Samsung QM3 does not have an OBD2 terminal in this area. If you lift the rubber seal in front of the gear knob with a tool such as a credit card, you can see the same type of OBD2 terminal shown in gray. Connect the scanner to this terminal and start the vehicle.

If the X1 is connected intensively, you can see the blinking blue LED. It is a signal to wait for Bluetooth pairing with a smartphone. At this time, the driver should pre-install the cruise plus app and the monster gauge app, and after pairing with the smartphone using the terminal setting and setting the car type, & Lt; / RTI & gt;

The vehicles that can be supported by the Cruise Plus Intensive X1 are indicated on the Support Vehicle Information page of the Monster Gauge homepage. Hyundai and Kia Motors have been in QM3, QM5, SM3, and SM5 since 2013 (including the 2006 Avante HD), Chevrolet since 2011 (Lacetti Premier 2009 and Winstorm 2006) Are supported.

The data collected by the in-vehicle OBD2 scanner is first transmitted to the data server through the wireless data communication network (3G / LTE) or the Wi-Fi network of the smart phone and the smart communication is operated and managed Are accumulated.

Chinese OBD2 scanner, difficult to trust Besides the Cruise Plus Intensive X1, there is also an OBD2 scanner that is imported and sold in China. It is relatively cheap at around 50,000 won, so the driver who knows the OBD2 scanner may decide to purchase. If you can show the necessary information anyway, you can think that you do not need to buy expensive money.

An industry observer said, "OBD2 scanners made in China, which are imported and sold domestically in Korea at low prices, have a large fluctuation range due to the long delay time, and some information is virtual, making it difficult to trust the data." The third-person OBD2 scanner that the writer owns is just a clone, he said. The average fuel consumption is more than 1 km / l.

Cruise Plus Intensive X1 uses CAN communication to scan and display the car's key information, but with a wider transmission bandwidth, dozens of pieces of information can be shown at a time, and latency is much better than Chinese OBD2 scanners The data reliability is high.

For example, Hyundai Kia Motors' fuel mileage selection contest is known to use OBD2 scanners supplied by Smarton Communications every year. The average fuel consumption is calculated by analyzing the actual amount of fuel injected into the injector, mileage, and running speed, and the actual error is less than 1%. If the reliability of data is undervalued, it would be difficult to apply the product.

Smarton Communications has released Big Data, which collects the average fuel efficiency of four mid-size sedans, including Hyundai Sonata, Kia K5, Chevrolet Malibu and Renault Samsung SM5, on its monster gauge homepage.

[boyproblcms-blog]

How To Set Up & Use An HSA Including Eligibility, Tax Advantages, And Reimbursement

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Photoshop Cc Free Download Mac Full Version

Download Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 Mac Full Version (MacOSX) Adobe Photoshop CC 2015 MacOSX Full Version – Users should have installed this design graphics software before on their devices. As one of the best digital drawing application, photoshop cc have tons of features to fullfil your curiosity. How to Install Photoshop CC 2018 MacOSX Offline: Download Photoshop CC 2018 mac full version free from the available link; Turn off your internet connection; Unzip with the default zip from Mac; Then Run the Photoshopinstall.pkg file; Wait until it’s finished, but don’t run it first! Now, make sure your internet conditions are still OFFLINE. Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 free download, the best application for photo editing, in Adobe Photoshop CC 2017 you can access new tools, And it’s all are for using to edit the photo with best graphics.by using the photoshop cc you can resize and change modes of blend, colors, and commands of Photoshop with the new feature, users can use the search function to find directly all the tools, users. No, Photoshop is our most up-to-date version and the only version of Photoshop you can download for a free trial. Do students get a discount if they decide to purchase after the free trial? Yes, students and teachers are eligible for a big discount on the entire collection of Creative Cloud apps — 60% off. Install Install Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 seperti biasa sampai selesai; Hilangkan checklist pada “install hi.ru as homepage” Tunggu sampai selesai maka akan langsung full version (Pre-activated) Selamat mencoba. Coba Juga: Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 Crack Gratis. Free Download Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 Terbaru Full Version Crack.

Nowadays, with the advent of digital photography, editing your photos is just about as important as taking them! This is because, through the editing process, you can change mistakes and correct imperfections and even alter certain aspects of your photo to give it a unique and more professional look! You can even make radical changes like changing backgrounds or even introducing people and items that weren’t there in the first place! In other words, with the right editing tools and skills, you will have complete control over how your photos turn out!

But how do you edit your photos? Some of you may be asking, well, the answer is really simple: you’ll need a computer and the right image editing software! When it comes to image editing software suites, the most famous and widely used one is definitely Adobe Photoshop! It is being used by millions of photographers and artists all over the world, as well as hobbyists! Its latest version has just been released! Let’s see how it fares in my Photoshop CC 2018 review!

License Free Trial

File Size 1.5GB

Language English

Developer Adobe Inc.

Features of Adobe Photoshop CC 2018

It seems like the people over at Adobe, have outdone themselves this time! They have taken all the elements that made the previous versions of their multiple award-winning image editing software suites, Photoshop, to the next level! Photoshop CC 2018 has more tools than its predecessors and its user interface is much more intuitive and user-friendly! You will be able to convert your black and white photos to colored ones with just a click of your mouse, while thanks to its state of the art raw image processing algorithms, you will be able to edit and alter your photo, without damaging the original photo!

Of course, no Photoshop review would be complete without mentioning its new smart features! Photoshop CC 2018 will automatically take care of many of the most delicate and time-consuming editing processes for you! Complex selections, for example, will now be handled automatically: just select the general area and the software will take care of the details for you! Then there’s the amazing content-aware fill feature, which will automatically fill the blank space left in the photo after you remove an element from it! All these and many more features, make Photoshop CC 2018 ideal for both professionals and amateurs alike!

How to download Adobe Photoshop CC 2018

If you want to buy Photoshop CC 2018, you shouldn’t have any problems since it’s available in pretty much all well-known computer software retailers! If you want to get it really cheap though, your best bet would be to buy it online! If you want to get Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 for free, you can get the full version installer from our website.

Photoshop CC 19.x System Requirements

macOS

Multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support.

macOS version 10.13 (High Sierra), macOS version 10.12 (Sierra), or Mac OS X version 10.11 (El Capitan).

2 GB or more of RAM (8 GB recommended).

4 GB or more of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system).

1024 x 768 display (1280×800 recommended) with 16-bit color and 512 MB or more of dedicated VRAM; 2 GB is recommended.

OpenGL 2.0-capable system.

An Internet connection and registration are necessary for required software activation, membership validation, and access to online services.**

Photoshop Tools

Pen Tool

There are some various versions of the pen tool which is provided by the Adobe Photoshop CC 2018. The pen tool provided has the capability of making an accurate flow of lines which could be easily be changed by the help of the anchor points. It also provides the feature of making the freehand lines and drawings, this can be achieved by the help of the freeform tool. It also provides you with a tool named the magnetic pen tool which can help you to merge the path created very close to the outline of the object of an image. This feature could be very helpful for separating them from any particular background.

Free Adobe Photoshop Cc Latest Version Download For Pc

Clone Stamp Tool

There is also a Clone Stamp Tool provided in this software. This tool helps you to create an exact same part of an image to another part of the same image which could be achieved in the form of a brush. It gives you the authority to decide to weather the creation of the new image is to be made in full or in a part depending on the mode. It even helps the user to make an exact copy part of one layer to another layer. The Clone Stamp Tool could be a very beneficial tool for copying objects or even deleting any error or mistake in the image.

Shape tools

The photoshop provides you with a tool named Shape Tools which consists of an array of many shapes like lines, rectangles, polygons, ellipse, etc. You are even allowed to make vector graphics with the help of direct tools like pen tool, direct selection tool, etc.

Can i download from articulate 360 on mac. We have a lot of material to cover, so we mute your microphone to maximize our learning time together.

Cropping

Adobe Photoshop also provides with the cropping tool which can be utilized when an individual wants to crop a specific required amount of area of a displaying image and can discard the portions which are outside the selected area. Cropping tool allows you to enhance the photo’s composition by reducing the size of your image. It is located in the toolbar in the upper right side of your screen. To crop the image, the user just have to place the cursor over the screen and drag the cursor over the required area he wants to crop and as the enter key is pressed, the area outside of the selected area will be discarded and the selected area will be cropped and the part will be discarded will help to reduce the file size.

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Adobe Photoshop CC 2018 free Download for Mac OS (Full Version) - ISORIVER

Nowadays, with the advent of digital photography, editing your photos is just about as important as taking them! This is because, through the editing process,

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Operating System: Mac OS

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Application Category: Photo Editing

[blognine622]

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10

In summary, this article is for: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Works on 32/64-bit. And it addresses issue of: Prolific PL-2303 Driver Fix (VID067B&PID2303) Driver issue will show inside your Device Manager like this: (Notice in above picture, yellow triangle next to 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM X. Provide an INF file that specifies the Ports device setup class and the Serial function driver as the service for the port. To configure a serial port as COM port, comply with the requirements that are defined in Configuration of COM Ports. Download Windows USB 2.0 Drivers Updates. Usually USB 2.0 means a faster connection speed and this is the major difference (generally but not always) between USB1, USB2 and USB3, with the latter providing super speeds of up to 5Gbps.

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10 Pro

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10 Windows 7

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10 64-bit

Article credit goes to: ifamilysoftware.com ---

Purpose of this article is to guide you on how to FIX the 'Prolific USB-to-Serial' driver issue with common cheap units.

In summary, this article is for: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. Works on 32/64-bit.

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10 Pro

Pluralinput keyboards driver download. And it addresses issue of: Prolific PL-2303 Driver Fix (VID_067B&PID_2303)

Driver issue will show inside your Device Manager like this:

(Notice in above picture, yellow triangle next to 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM X)'. That means correct driver version is not installed.)

And if you double-click on it, you will see:

(Notice in above picture, Code 10 error. This confirms you need to install correct driver file.)

Issue will also may show messages like this:

'This Device cannot start (Code 10)'

'No driver installed for this device'

'Device driver was not successfully installed'

Available forum solutions to this problem are half-baked. Even vendors selling their 'USB to Serial' adapters are baffled.

Main cause of this issue is because the device you own contains a counterfeit 'Prolific' chip (China clone).

The counterfeit chip use the same Vendor ID (VID_067B) and Product ID (PID_2303) - as the authentic Prolific chips.

To solve this intellectual infringement - original Prolific company modified their newest drivers to render the counterfeit adapters unusable. Unfortunately this decision also renders all earlier adapters inoperative.

The Prolific 64-bit drivers that Microsoft supplies via Windows Update, Versions 3.4.67.325, 3.4.25.218, 2.1.51.238 and 3.4.62.293 - will not work with most adapters and therefore shows the generic 'Code 10' error.

Or you may get no error at all, but your device will still not work.

If your adapter was working prior to going to Windows Update, you can 'roll back' to the previous installed driver and all will be well once again.

However if you didn't have a previous driver installed that worked - you'll have to go through the process of removing any PL-2303 driver installation programs, the actual driver files, and the information (.INF) file, BEFORE you are able to successfully install the correct driver.

(What worsens this issue is that there are many 'Prolific Driver Removal Tools' that do not work properly.)

And Windows 8, 8.1 and Window 10 are set by default to automatically update your drivers without your permission or even notifying you of the update.

So no matter how many times you remove the driver files and reboot - the next time you insert the USB-To-Serial adapter, Windows installs the newest non-working version again.

Only 64-bit driver I have ever found that works with all the 'Prolific' adapters is Version 3.3.2.102.

Below installer program will remove all of the incompatible drivers — make a change so that Windows can never update the driver without your approval — and install the Version 3.3.2.102 compatible drivers.

All Windows 64-bit operating systems including Windows 10

Prolific USB to Serial Adapter .

Device using PL-2303 H/HXA/HX/X version chips

Driver Version: 3.3.2.102

Driver Date: 09/29/08

Supported device ID and product strings: . VID_067B&PID_2303 for 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port'

Steps:

Download and save the 'PL2303_64bit_ Installer.exe' by clicking here.

Unplug all USB-To-Serial adapters from your computer - and double-click on 'PL2303_64bit_Installer.exe'

When it prompts you, plug in one (1) of your USB-To-Serial adapters and click 'Continue'.

Reboot your computer. That's it!

Troubleshooting:

You must follow ever step in the process in exact order. Belkin usb devices driver download for windows.

If you still receive an error after running the PL-2303_64bit_Installer.exe and your device is plugged in - go to Windows Device Manager.

Windows Vista/7/8/10: Control Panel » System » Device Manager

Windows XP: Control Panel » System » 'Hardware' tab » Device Manager

Scroll down to Ports (Com & LPT) and double-click on 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM#)'.

In the Properties Window, Click on 'Driver'.

The 'Driver Version' must say '3.3.2.102' dated 09/24/08.

If not, then the correct driver is not installed. Unplug the USB-To-Serial adapter and run the 'PL2303_64bit_Installer.exe' again - following the directions precisely until the correct driver appears.

Windows 32-bit Fix:

All Windows 32-bit operating systems from XP up

Prolific USB to Serial Adapter .

Device using PL-2303 H/HXA/HX/X version chips

Driver Version: 2.0.2.8

Driver Date: 11/20/07

Supported device ID and product strings: . VID_067B&PID_2303 for 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port'

Steps:

Download and Save the 'PL-2303_Driver_ Installer.exe' by clicking here.

Run the installer program. If it offers a choice to remove the driver, then select to remove the current 'bad' driver. Then run the installer again to install the correct driver.

Troubleshooting:

If you still receive an error after running the PL-2303_Driver_Installer.exe and your device is plugged in, go to the Windows Device Manager.

Windows Vista/7/8/10: Control Panel » System » Device Manager

Windows XP: Control Panel » System » 'Hardware' tab » Device Manager

Scroll down to Ports (Com & LPT) and double-click on 'Prolific USB-to-Serial Comm Port (COM#)'.

In the Properties Window, Click on 'Driver'.

The 'Driver Version' must say '2.0.2.8' dated 11/20/07.

If not, then the correct driver is not installed. Unplug the USB-To-Serial adapter and run the 'PL2303_Driver_Installer.exe' again, following the directions until correct driver appears in Device Manager.

Removal of this tool:

The Prolific 32-bit PL-2303_Driver_Installer is a 'Program' file and therefore installed to your computer and must stay. If you want to delete it - use the Windows 'Uninstall a Program' or 'Add or Remove Program' feature - however this will also uninstall the driver itself.

-- Key words: Sabrent, SBT-USC1M, Prolific, PL-2303, PL2303, USB to Serial, VID_067B, PID_2303, Code 10

-->

For certain Universal Serial Bus (USB) devices, such as devices that are accessed by only a single application, you can install WinUSB (Winusb.sys) in the device's kernel-mode stack as the USB device's function driver instead of implementing a driver.

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10

This topic contains these sections:

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10 Windows 7

Automatic installation of WinUSB without an INF file

As an OEM or independent hardware vendor (IHV), you can build your device so that the Winusb.sys gets installed automatically on Windows 8 and later versions of the operating system. Such a device is called a WinUSB device and does not require you to write a custom INF file that references in-box Winusb.inf.

When you connect a WinUSB device, the system reads device information and loads Winusb.sys automatically.

For more information, see WinUSB Device.

Installing WinUSB by specifying the system-provided device class

When you connect your device, you might notice that Windows loads Winusb.sys automatically (if the IHV has defined the device as a WinUSB Device). Otherwise follow these instructions to load the driver:

Plug in your device to the host system.

Open Device Manager and locate the device.

Select and hold (or right-click) the device and select Update driver software.. from the context menu.

In the wizard, select Browse my computer for driver software.

Select Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.

From the list of device classes, select Universal Serial Bus devices.

The wizard displays WinUsb Device. Select it to load the driver.

If Universal Serial Bus devices does not appear in the list of device classes, then you need to install the driver by using a custom INF.The preceding procedure does not add a device interface GUID for an app (UWP app or Windows desktop app) to access the device. You must add the GUID manually by following this procedure.

Load the driver as described in the preceding procedure.

Generate a device interface GUID for your device, by using a tool such as guidgen.exe.

Find the registry key for the device under this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetEnumUSB<VID_vvvv&PID_pppp>

Under the Device Parameters key, add a String registry entry named DeviceInterfaceGUID or a Multi-String entry named DeviceInterfaceGUIDs. Set the value to the GUID you generated in step 2.

Disconnect the device from the system and reconnect it to the same physical port.Note If you change the physical port then you must repeat steps 1 through 4.

Writing a custom INF for WinUSB installation

As part of the driver package, you provide an .inf file that installs Winusb.sys as the function driver for the USB device.

The following example .inf file shows WinUSB installation for most USB devices with some modifications, such as changing USB_Install in section names to an appropriate DDInstall value. You should also change the version, manufacturer, and model sections as necessary. For example, provide an appropriate manufacture's name, the name of your signed catalog file, the correct device class, and the vendor identifier (VID) and product identifier (PID) for the device.

Also notice that the setup class is set to 'USBDevice'. Vendors can use the 'USBDevice' setup class for devices that do not belong to another class and are not USB host controllers or hubs.

If you are installing WinUSB as the function driver for one of the functions in a USB composite device, you must provide the hardware ID that is associated with the function, in the INF. You can obtain the hardware ID for the function from the properties of the devnode in Device Manager. The hardware ID string format is 'USBVID_vvvv&PID_pppp'.

The following INF installs WinUSB as the OSR USB FX2 board's function driver on a x64-based system. Mdg computers canada laptops & desktops driver download for windows xp.

Starting in Windows 10, version 1709, the Windows Driver Kit provides InfVerif.exe that you can use to test a driver INF file to make sure there are no syntax issues and the INF file is universal. We recommened that you provide a universal INF. For more information, see Using a Universal INF File.

Only include a ClassInstall32 section in a device INF file to install a new custom device setup class. INF files for devices in an installed class, whether a system-supplied device setup class or a custom class, must not include a ClassInstall32 section.

Except for device-specific values and several issues that are noted in the following list, you can use these sections and directives to install WinUSB for any USB device. These list items describe the Includes and Directives in the preceding .inf file.

USB_Install: The Include and Needs directives in the USB_Install section are required for installing WinUSB. You should not modify these directives.

USB_Install.Services: The Include directive in the USB_Install.Services section includes the system-supplied .inf for WinUSB (WinUSB.inf). This .inf file is installed by the WinUSB co-installer if it isn't already on the target system. The Needs directive specifies the section within WinUSB.inf that contains information required to install Winusb.sys as the device's function driver. You should not modify these directives.Note Because Windows XP doesn't provide WinUSB.inf, the file must either be copied to Windows XP systems by the co-installer, or you should provide a separate decorated section for Windows XP.

USB_Install.HW: This section is the key in the .inf file. It specifies the device interface globally unique identifier (GUID) for your device. The AddReg directive sets the specified interface GUID in a standard registry value. When Winusb.sys is loaded as the device's function driver, it reads the registry value DeviceInterfaceGUIDs key and uses the specified GUID to represent the device interface. You should replace the GUID in this example with one that you create specifically for your device. If the protocols for the device change, create a new device interface GUID.

Note User-mode software must call SetupDiGetClassDevs to enumerate the registered device interfaces that are associated with one of the device interface classes specified under the DeviceInterfaceGUIDs key. SetupDiGetClassDevs returns the device handle for the device that the user-mode software must then pass to the WinUsb_Initialize routine to obtain a WinUSB handle for the device interface. For more info about these routines, see How to Access a USB Device by Using WinUSB Functions.

The following INF installs WinUSB as the OSR USB FX2 board's function driver on a x64-based system. The example shows INF with WDF coinstallers.

USB_Install.CoInstallers: This section, which includes the referenced AddReg and CopyFiles sections, contains data and instructions to install the WinUSB and KMDF co-installers and associate them with the device. Most USB devices can use these sections and directives without modification.

The x86-based and x64-based versions of Windows have separate co-installers.

Note Each co-installer has free and checked versions. Use the free version to install WinUSB on free builds of Windows, including all retail versions. Use the checked version (with the '_chk' suffix) to install WinUSB on checked builds of Windows.

Each time Winusb.sys loads, it registers a device interface that has the device interface classes that are specified in the registry under the DeviceInterfaceGUIDs key.

Note If you use the redistributable WinUSB package for Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, make sure that you don't uninstall WinUSB in your uninstall packages. Other USB devices might be using WinUSB, so its binaries must remain in the shared folder.

Chiron Port Devices Driver Download For Windows 10 64-bit

How to create a driver package that installs Winusb.sys

To use WinUSB as the device's function driver, you create a driver package. The driver package must contain these files:

WinUSB co-installer (Winusbcoinstaller.dll)

KMDF co-installer (WdfcoinstallerXXX.dll)

An .inf file that installs Winusb.sys as the device's function driver. For more information, see Writing an .Inf File for WinUSB Installation.

A signed catalog file for the package. This file is required to install WinUSB on x64 versions of Windows starting with Vista.

Note Make sure that the driver package contents meet these requirements:

The KMDF and WinUSB co-installer files must be obtained from the same version of the Windows Driver Kit (WDK).

The co-installer files must be obtained from the latest version of the WDK, so that the driver supports all the latest Windows releases.

The contents of the driver package must be digitally signed with a Winqual release signature. For more info about how to create and test signed catalog files, see Kernel-Mode Code Signing Walkthrough on the Windows Dev Center - Hardware site.

Download the Windows Driver Kit (WDK) and install it.

Create a driver package folder on the machine that the USB device is connected to. For example, c:UsbDevice.

Copy the WinUSB co-installer (WinusbcoinstallerX.dll) from the WinDDKBuildNumberredistwinusb folder to the driver package folder.

The WinUSB co-installer (Winusbcoinstaller.dll) installs WinUSB on the target system, if necessary. The WDK includes three versions of the co-installer depending on the system architecture: x86-based, x64-based, and Itanium-based systems. They are all named WinusbcoinstallerX.dll and are located in the appropriate subdirectory in the WinDDKBuildNumberredistwinusb folder.

Copy the KMDF co-installer (WdfcoinstallerXXX.dll) from the WinDDKBuildNumberredistwdf folder to the driver package folder.

The KMDF co-installer (WdfcoinstallerXXX.dll) installs the correct version of KMDF on the target system, if necessary. The version of WinUSB co-installer must match the KMDF co-installer because KMDF-based client drivers, such as Winusb.sys, require the corresponding version of the KMDF framework to be installed properly on the system. For example, Winusbcoinstaller2.dll requires KMDF version 1.9, which is installed by Wdfcoinstaller01009.dll. The x86 and x64 versions of WdfcoinstallerXXX.dll are included with the WDK under the WinDDKBuildNumberredistwdf folder. The following table shows the WinUSB co-installer and the associated KMDF co-installer to use on the target system.

Use this table to determine the WinUSB co-installer and the associated KMDF co-installer.

WinUSB co-installerKMDF library versionKMDF co-installerWinusbcoinstaller.dllRequires KMDF version 1.5 or later

Wdfcoinstaller01005.dll

Wdfcoinstaller01007.dll

Crea laptops & desktops driver download for windows 10 64. Method 1: Create a New Folder with a Keyboard Shortcut. The fastest way to create a new folder in Windows is with the CTRL+Shift+N shortcut. Navigate to the location where you want to create. Communicate using videos:. excite and engage your learners. improve retention of information. add character to your e-Learning. own the content you create. Download drivers for all laptop and netbook modes or install DriverPack Solution software for automatic driver update.

Wdfcoinstaller01009.dll

Winusbcoinstaller2.dllRequires KMDF version 1.9 or laterWdfcoinstaller01009.dllWinusbcoinstaller2.dllRequires KMDF version 1.11 or laterWdfCoInstaller01011.dll

Write an .inf file that installs Winusb.sys as the function driver for the USB device.

Create a signed catalog file for the package. This file is required to install WinUSB on x64 versions of Windows.

Attach the USB device to your computer.

Open Device Manager to install the driver. Follow the instructions on the Update Driver Software wizard and choose manual installation. You will need to provide the location of the driver package folder to complete the installation.

Related topics

WinUSB Architecture and Modules Choosing a driver model for developing a USB client driver How to Access a USB Device by Using WinUSB Functions WinUSB Power Management WinUSB Functions for Pipe Policy Modification WinUSB Functions WinUSB

[c-bstudios-blog]

exe to apk converter

Edward “whistelblower” Snowden, currently in exile in Russia has just released a privacy protection app that turns your aging exe to apk smartphone to produce spy tool. The app is called Haven: Keep Watch and is still in beta. The purpose behind the app will be give you a “way to protect your personal space and possessions” without compromising on solitude. The app essentially leverages all the sensors in your device (camera, accelerometer, microphone, etc.) to explain to you of any intruders entering your personal space. This personal space could be your hotel room for women bedroom or also a safe or desk drawer. The app is made to prevent the so-called “Evil Maid” attack that targets unattended computers. This could be in a hotel room, an office space or even your bedroom. This "evil maid" might infect your PC with spyware, rifle by your files and more. The app will apparently give journalists, activists and the paranoid a cheap tool for keeping watches. The cameras can be used to detect motion, capture images and video, other people. All of this could be sent directly to a device of option. The mic could be used to detect sudden noises and yes, it can, in turn, be used to trigger the camera to capture supply of the racket. The same applies into the ambient light sensor, which can detect, say, the lights being turned as well as off or a flashlight passing the actual phone. Even the accelerometer can be repurposed as a vibration sensor for detecting any unexpected movement. In fact, anything can supply as a trigger, even the air pressure sensor captured in some phones. It can even be triggered when the phone is plugged in or power is turned on and off. Unlike a regular security camera the Nest Cam, hypothesis that Haven communicates directly with a tool of your deciding which is. Better yet, you can use Signal (a secure messaging service) and Tor (a secure form of internet) to send info only to you in a secure fashion. Other services like WhatsApp and Google Drive also are used, if you so desire. The device also keeps an on-device log of all events. Researchers say a recently patched vulnerability in Android’s exe to apk converter could leave users vulnerable to attack from signed applications. "An attacker can replace a trusted application with high privileges (a system app, for instance) by a modified update to abuse its permissions. According to the targeted application, problem . enable the hacker to access sensitive information stored by the device or even take over unit fitted completely," GuardSquare says. "Alternatively, an attacker can pass an improved clone of a sensitive application to be a legitimate update, one example is in the context of banking or communications. The cloned application can as well as behave like the original application but inject malicious behavior." The vulnerability, CVE-2017-13156, was addressed in patch level hands down the December Android update, so those who get their patches directly from Google should be discussed. Unfortunately, due to the nature with the Android ecosystem, many vendors and carriers are slow to release fixes. There are, however, some mitigating factors that can keep vulnerable machines included. For starters, GuardSquare notes, the attack could not be performed through the Play Store, so apps obtained from that service should be secure. Additionally, version 2 of the Android APK performs a more thorough check of the signature that would catch the combat. "Older versions of applications and newer applications running on older devices remain susceptible," the company said. "Developers should at the minimum always apply signature scheme v2." The vulnerability, dubbed Janus, would allow a malicious application to add bytes of code to the APK or DEX formats used by Android applications without affecting the application's unsecured personal. In other words, a scumbag could pack an app with malicious instructions, and still contain it read by Android as a trusted piece of app. The problem, say researchers with mobile security firm GuardSquare, lies in during Android 5.0 with exe to apk and later handles the APK and DEX files for some applications. By only checking for certain bytes in an application's signature, the devices could read an altered signature as authentic and support malicious instructions with regard to inserted an APK or DEX file without being observed. The entire project is available on GitHub and is open-source. Anyone can examine the code and modify it to their loving. The app is the result of a collaboration between The Guardian Project — a project that aims creates secure apps, services and devices for secure communications — and also the Freedom of the Press Foundation — which protects and defends “adversarial blogging. Snowden is the president of however. Initial reports suggest the app is hypersensitive with Wired reporting that the app triggered “hundreds of alerts” as soon as the phone was added to a PC along with a running fan. Clearly, there’s a legitimate reason why the app is still in beta. The app is available on the Google Play Store only and is offred from here and can examine its code or download the Android APK on GitHub here.

[erossiniuk]

Using Git Flow with GitKraken and Azure DevOps

In this post I want to explain how using Git Flow with GitKraken and Azure DevOps. Also, I give you an idea why these tools combined can help us in many areas including collaboration, git concept learning curve, code quality, code consistency, and code stability. If you want more information how to use Azure Resource Groups, look at this post. If you are looking for an idea how to transform your company in a new digital scenario, I wrote this post.

Teamwork

Having multiple developers working on the same projects isn’t always easy especially when you try to not step on each other’s feet. A new coder on the team can break the project branch with one wrong commit and affect all other members. Which sometimes ends with stressful and complete chaos for a short (sometimes long) period time on the entire team. Unit Tests can’t be done on dev because the feature isn’t completed yet. What features are being worked on and by who.

Git Flow to the rescue

With GitFlow branching strategy and some settings on Dev Ops no commits can be done directly on the develop branch. Each developer is required to create a feature branch off the develop branch. All work related to the feature they are working on will be done there. Once a feature is considered done, the developer has to create a pull request to merge their feature into the develop branch. Their pull request then has to be reviewed and approved by the project lead, or another member of the team.

Pros we see:

It forces the project to be split into little features

Corrupted commits don’t affect other team members

Dev can easily relate their feature (pull request) with bugs, tasks, and stories

Dev branch will receive only approved code (more stable, less potential bugs)

Code Review

Even as a small company, we struggle to find the right process to perform code reviews. It can be hard to find a tool to review commits correctly or easily provide feedback on the developer’s code you are reviewing. Azure DevOps offer a smart and very user-friendly way to remedy that challenge and it was a huge success using this feature during our last project.

Pull Request & Azure DevOps to the rescue

As mentioned in the previous point. Once a feature is considered done the developer has to create a pull request asking his feature to be merged to the develop branch. With a few settings on Azure DevOps, we can set multiple criteria for a pull request to be approved.

Be approved by one or multiple team members

The project has to build with no errors

All code review comments must be resolved

One or more work items must be associated with the pull request

This gave us an incredible way to keep the code consistent, easily explain to your peers what is wrong with their code or approach and at the end lower the number of bugs present in the application.

Definition & Tool

Git

Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

Git is easy to learn and has a tiny footprint with lightning fast performance. It outclasses SCM tools like Subversion, CVS, Perforce, and ClearCase with features like cheap local branching, convenient staging areas, and multiple workflows.

Why git is called a distributed source control system?

This is very important and probably one of the biggest mindsets changes we had to do from switching from TFS to Git.

A distributed source control system has each user create a copy or clone of a repository on their local machine. All commits made by the user are done so only on their local repository and not directly to the origin repository (server). To synchronize changes between a client and origin repository the user performs, pull and push commands. This allows the user to work independently of others. Then pushing their changes and pulling in the most recent changes when they need to.

In the figure below we have the origin repository while each user has their own repository. With changes being synced back and forth between the origin.

Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps formerly known as (VSTS) is a recent continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) service provided by Microsoft. It works with any managed Git provider and can deploy to most major cloud services, which allow for Azure services. Azure DevOps provides pipelines to configure and automate builds and releases to different environments. These pipelines can be in YAML or as visual models in the Azure DevOps webpages. Azure DevOps is a fast way to automate build (CI) and deploy (CD) projects and make them available to users. source

GitKraken

GitKraken is a Git GUI client for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It helps developers become more productive and efficient with Git. It’s free for non-commercial use. (Need a Pro license to connect to Azure Devops)

GitKraken simplifies complicated commands into drag and drop actions. It makes working with remote repositories easier through integrations with GitHub, Bitbucket and GitLab. It allows you to resolve merge conflicts without ever leaving the app. And it supports Gitflow, Git Hooks, LFS, and more

Official site https://www.gitkraken.com/git-client

GitFlow

GitFlow is a branching model for Git, created by Vincent Driessen. It has attracted a lot of attention because it is very well suited to collaboration and scaling the development team.

Key Benefits

Parallel Development

One of the great things about GitFlow is that it makes parallel development very easy, by isolating new development from finished work. New development (such as features and non-emergency bug fixes) is done in feature branches, and is only merged back into main body of code when the developer(s) is happy that the code is ready for release.

Although interruptions are a BadThing(tm), if you are asked to switch from one task to another, all you need to do is commit your changes and then create a new feature branch for your new task. When that task is done, just checkout your original feature branch and you can continue where you left off.

Collaboration

Feature branches also make it easier for two or more developers to collaborate on the same feature, because each feature branch is a sandbox where the only changes are the changes necessary to get the new feature working. That makes it very easy to see and follow what each collaborator is doing.

Release Staging Area

As new development is completed, it gets merged back into the develop branch, which is a staging area for all completed features that haven’t yet been released. So, when the next release is branched off of develop, it will automatically contain all of the new stuff that has been finished.

Support for Emergency Fixes

GitFlow supports hotfix branches – branches made from a tagged release. You can use these to make an emergency change, safe in the knowledge that the hotfix will only contain your emergency fix. There’s no risk that you’ll accidentally merge in new development at the same time.

Environment Setup

Create a new project

First thing let’s create a new project on Azure DevOps. Of course, you have to make sure the version control is set to Git. The other options can be set to your preferences.

Welcome to your newly created project.

Connect GitKraken to Azure DevOps

First thing is to connect GitKraken to your Azure DevOps. For that, you are going to need to create a Token

When opening GitKraken you should see Azure DevOps option available (Pro Version)

Enter your devops url and click “Generate a token on Azure DevOps”. 

You will be redirected to your AzureDevOps personal setting and will be invited to create a new Token

Give it a name and depending on your preferences you can set a maximum of one-year validity.

Then switch to a full access scope.

Once you click on create Azure DevOps will give you a Token to copy.

Copy that token and return to GitKraken to past it. 

Once you click on Connect you should see your token

You can then make sure SSH Key has been correctly added to your DevOps SSH public keys

Now your GitKraken is successfully connected to your Azure DevOps

Clone your Git Repo from GitKraken

Now you are connected to your DevOps organization you can clone your newly created project.

GitKraken will clone to the location you indicated and invite you to do an initial commit to initialize the repo.

Once the initial commit is done you should see the following screen 

To confirm that you repo was correctly initialize. You can navigate to the Repos tab of your project on DevOps and you should see a master branch with a readme file in it.

Initialize Git Flow branches from GitKraken.

We are now going to initialize the Git Flow branching strategy with the help of GitKraken. It will give you a quick way to create new branches (develop, features, releases or hotfixes.)

From GitKraken open the Preferences

And then reach the Git Flow menu

Then click on Initialize Git Flow

You will see now that new menu appeared on your GitKraken main screen but also develop branch was created locally.

As mentioned earlier Git is a distributed source code repository

For now, develop is only on your local machine. That’s why we can’t see it on the remote yet. It needs to be pushed.

On GitKraken you can see what is on remote and what is on local by checking little icon. Little computer is where local is and the DevOps team logo is where remote is.

On the screenshot bellow, I need to push my local to remote if I want to init the develop branch.

And that’s the beauty of Git. You can do as many checking you want locally before sharing it with the rest of the team.

First, you need to checkout the development for Git to point to this branch.

Normally with command line, it would be done by

git checkout develop

Within GitKraken you can simply double click on the develop from Main area or left panel.

Now develop should be focused. 

Now you can click push to push all the develop changes from local to origin. This will create the branch on the server.

Unless you want to rename anything or have multiple remote you can confirm by clicking submit.

If everything went well you should be able to see the develop branch on remoteand logo from team should be also beside develop.

Setting Branch Policies and Pull Request

As mentioned earlier we want to block people from pushing directly to the develop branch forcing them to create pull request and also setting some rules for a pull request to be approved. (like can’t be approved by yourself and so on.)

Go on Repo-> Branches menu of Azure Devops

You should see the two branches master and develop

First, little thing to do (optional) is setting the develop branch as the Compare one. Then all the features branch will take the develop branch as a comparation reference and show how many commits behind or ahead it is.

Click on the 3 dots and then Set as compare branch

Then we want to setup Branch Policies by again clicking the 3 dots and then Branch policies

You can now set the rules as you wish.

Having Reviewers

Linked work items

Resolved Comments

Merge type

Build validation (we will do a tutorial on this topic as well)

etc

As mention in the disclaimer of that page setting rules will automatically apply the following. 

For the purpose of this tutorial I’m going to activate only a reviewer and comment being set to resolve. (I can approve my own pull request but it is for this tutorial purpose)

Here is option example:

Congratulations! Your environment is now ready to use and setup correctly.

WorkFlow in Action

Starting a feature

Now we are starting a new project which will be a small API made with node.js.

Let say you have all your user stories setup with tasks on DevOps

The first feature I’m going to work on is project setup. (note here the project is a sample one very small but normal features are a group of one or multiple tasks and not user storied like this example.)

Just to confirm my setting applied. I’m trying to commit my initial files to the develop branch

I am able to push against dev locally but when trying to push on remote I have the following message

Creating a feature from GitKraken

Click on Open GitFlow panel on the left panel of GitKraken

Select Start New Feature

Then type the name of the feature and click start feature

Now we can see that we have a local feature folder created with a project-setup branch in it (only locally for now). I can now push my changes to that local feature branch.

Notice that Gitkraken has a nice code comparison tool with different types of view including side by side view.

We can now as manycommit we want on our local branch. When a feature is done or when we want to share progression we can push all the changes to remote

Create Pull Request with GitKraken

Now it is time to ask for the feature to be merged with develop branch.

Of course, pull request can be created on dev ops directly, command line etc.

Here we are going to create a pull request via GitKraken.

Two ways of doing it.

Click Create pull request menu

Or Drag and Dropping the feature branch to develop

We can enter the information we want and then create the pull request.

You can now view your pull request on azure. It needs now to be approved to be merged on develop

Pull Request on Azure Devops

General View

Adding Work Items

You can now add work items related to the pull request (they can be automatically close when pull request is approved )

Adding Reviewers

Reviewers can be set and they will receive a notification via email automatically

Set auto-complete

One nice feature is you can set some rules whenever the PR is approved like

Deleting feature branch automatically

Set related work items to be resolved, completed, closed …

Merge Type

Now Pull Request is fully setup and is waiting to be approved

Pull Request Approval and Code Review

As a reviewer, you will have all you need to see what was done for that feature.

Azure devops provide a nice and easy way to review and give feedback on your peers’ code.

Indeed, in one view only you can scroll through all the changes at once.

Feedback on code

As mentioned, reviewers and any people can leave a comment on a specific line of code or an entire file.

Entire file

Specific line

A nice feature is the fact that comments can be rich and including many formatting/tagging/images/Pull Request or items reference and much more.

Now a comment is posted we can see on the PR timeline a policy that it doesn’t comply to rules of having all comments resolved

The developer will be notified about the comment and make the required changes or reply to the comment

He can push his new changes and reply to the comment by tagging the reviewer for example.

The new commit will appear in the Pull Request timeline

If change is good then the reviewer can now resolve the comment

Now Pull Request is ready to approve. The reviewer can click on Approve.

The PR will now indicate that the changes will be merged into develop. 

Once Merge being completed the Pull Request will be set to completed

We can also notice the Tasks and User Story being closed automatically

Finally, we can visually see the merge happened in GitKraken

Notice also that feature branch was deleted from remote. To keep things clean it is better to delete it also locally

Multiple Features / Conflicts

Now any developers can start there one feature without affecting the develop branch

In the following example, we can see 2 features going on products and orders

Following the previous pull request creation sequence each feature will have its pull request once completed.

 We can see that develop now is behind and can be tested with the previous request being approved

We will end with pull request for each feature

It can happen that the order of Pull Request being approved and changes may trigger conflicts.

For example, while working on orders feature (product and many others were already done.) Two developers changed the application variable name.

Result being Pull Request indicating that there is a conflict

Merging and Resolving Conflicts using GitKraken

To have pull request completed and conflicts resolved. The developer needs to merge all the develop changed into its feature.

In that case, we are going to merge develop into feature\order

It can be done by drag and dropping develop on the feature branch

Then the conflict will be detected

Clicking view conflicts will show all the files that cause the conflicts

You can click on each file and have access to a very user friendly editor where you can select or exclude any line or even edit the output as needed

Once conflicts edited click on save Now Merge is ready to Commit and Merge

Once commit is pushed. The Pull Request will be ready to be completed.

Once completed you can see how dev once merge before feature being merged itself in develop

Conclusion

In conclusion, this is the recap of how Using Git Flow with GitKraken and Azure DevOps. We did a retrospective on this project and all the team members agreed by saying this workflow really help the project and all its participants. All devs have a different level of experiences and different preferences but everyone agreed this was the way to go to work together.

GitKraken really simplifies everything when it comes to deal with all the Git concepts without using a console any single time. This is definitely a tool we want to keep in our work and it will be hard to go back on other code source repositories like TFS or SVN.

Having Git Flow and Pull Request policies in place was a bit challenging at first but in the end, we were always able to provide nice and smooth feedback on each other code which ended with much more consistent and solid code without enforcing strict coding style policy.

Azure Devops is a must-have for us now. Everything is very user friendly and the number of things we can do with this tool is amazing. One of the policies we had for pull request was the application being able to build (.NET core api + angular). We didn’t have last-minute bad surprise we an application not able to build for production and not being able to deploy.

The post Using Git Flow with GitKraken and Azure DevOps appeared first on PureSourceCode.

from WordPress https://www.puresourcecode.com/tools/azure-tools/using-git-flow-with-gitkraken-and-azure-devops/

[keithos]

Building the PiWriter868

In November of 2012, I wrote a book.

I'd participated in a global writing challenge called NANOWRIMO - National Novel Writers Month - and managed to achieve the aim of producing 50,000 words in the 30 days of November.

Since that time, it's been my ambition to not just write, but to publish.  I've set that goal for myself every year when I do my year-end review.  I have handwritten outlines for books and stories in various places.  In attempt to kick start, I've also signed up for NANOWRIMO in subsequent years with limited writing success.

The 2012 novel also sits waiting to be edited and expanded; there's a significant time jump in it to get to the ending which I feel needs another 50 to 100,000 words to close.

It's my feeling though that a writer, just as any other craftsman, needs tools appropriate to their task.

In my more prolific teen years, that tool was Uni-ball’s Onyx fine tip pen.  It was a relatively costly but happy indulgence, and helped me to fill many a copybook with teen angst.  In later days that I carried a Palm PDA, Landware's GoType keyboard and eventually Palm's own portable folding keyboard were easy options for text input.

I wrote the 2012 book on the laptop that I owned at the time.  And future attempts at both writing and completing another November challenge were done on an Asus Chromebook C100.

I'd stumbled at one point across a company called Astrohaus who touted their distraction-free writing machines, THE tool for keyboard-dependent writers on the go.  Boasting e-ink screens like Amazon's Kindle e-reader line, long battery life, and keyboards meant for typing for long stretches, their Freewrite devices were a compelling solution to my writing goals, but for one thing.  There really was no way I could justify their price as an amateur writer who had never sold a piece of work.

At around US$600, a single-purpose device like that would have to be paying for itself, and I'm not anywhere  near where I could be in order to be making money from my work.  But Astrohaus planted a seed and a need, and I was sure that I could do what was necessary to build a tool that would serve me that one main purpose - writing.

A good friend did ask while I talking to them about the build mission, why not just use the Chromebook?  At the time, I had not long before performed minor surgery to replace a battery that had started to swell, and the replacement battery itself had stopped taking charge just weeks out of its stated warranty.  I didn't feel up to sourcing another aftermarket battery to possibly have that go that route again.  Yes, I could have coughed up the cash and bought something new.  The C101, the newer version of the C100, would run me around US$330.  But I liked the idea and the challenge of putting something together myself.

Research suggested that I could build something around the Raspberry Pi Zero W as its core.

The Pi Zero is a $10 single board computer that is so small it can fit into an Altoids tin with room to spare.   Powered by Raspbian, a Debian Linux based operating system tuned for the Raspberry Pi platform, it's a full computer capable of running a wealth of Linux applications, including productivity software like LibreOffice, a Microsoft Office clone.

There is a purity though to a command-line interface that had me leaning away from the windowed environment.  The key experience in the final solution would be the writing of words after all.  Point and click functionality would be secondary.

The best writing solution, to me and also to the people at Astrohaus apparently, was one that got out of your way and allowed you to just write.

Enter WordGrinder, a cross platform terminal-based application that runs on both UNIX and Windows, and gives me just what I need in order to write without thinking about anything but the content.  The app does permit some basic formatting that isn't displayed obtrusively on the screen - except for bold and centering - none of which you need to see when drumming out content.  It reminds me, honestly, of WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, a word processor which I recall fondly.

Two other apps complete the software build.

Ranger, a file manager, makes browsing the file system and moving documents around a little easier than using the bare command line.

Alpine, a text-based email client gives the solution its connection to the world outside of it.  It's own dedicated Gmail address means I can both store documents in my inbox and flip docs to and from my main machine for more comprehensive editing after creative activity is done.

One of the biggest complaints about thin, light and cheap laptops is usually the keyboard.  But the RaspBerry Pi Zero W has both USB connectivity and Bluetooth, so the world of input devices is available to me.  And after shopping around a bit, I landed on the Logitech K380.

This is one of these best portable Bluetooth keyboards around.  Subjectively, the typing experience on the K380 can only be beat at its size by something more expensive with mechanical keys.  It’s quiet, has good key travel, is a literal joy to type on, and runs forever on a pair of AAA batteries.

The easiest way to attach a display to the Raspberry Pi is via its HDMI port.  Other technical options are available, but HDMI is the easiest.  In early fiddling, I was able to connect it to a 21-inch monitor and use it just like any other desktop.  Sticking to a command line interface though means that a big screen isn't a necessity.

Taking lead from the Freewrite, I tried an inexpensive five-inch LCD for size.  It's workable, but you don't see very much of what you're working on.  Five inches could be considered a truly focused writing solution, creating a narrow window around just the current thought.  But that felt way too small for me personally.

Seven inches at 1024x600 resolution proved to me to be a more optimal screen size for writing.  The screen I chose by electronics manufacturer GeeekPi is pretty well constructed, and was plug and play.

The Raspberry Pi can be powered via one of its micro USB ports, which means that a standard phone charger can power it up.  That also means that it can be run off of any commodity power bank.

Most power bank have a few lights on them to give you an idea of how much power they have left.  Here though it was also important for the power bank to give a more accurate read out of its remaining charge.  So I paid a little more for a battery with a percentage read out.    The selected 10,000 mAh battery powering the Pi Zero and seven-inch screen thus promised calculated run time of just under six hours before the battery dropped to zero percent.

The final basic technical solution comprised the following:

Raspberry Pi Zero WH - US$14.95 from PiShop.us

Pi Zero Case Kit - US$9.99 from Amazon

GeeekPi 7-inch screen - US$28.99 from Amazon.com.  The list price is actually US$59.99, but I had a $25 gift card to use when I bought it.

10,000 mAh battery bank with percentage level display - US$26.99

Miscellaneous ribbon cables for HDMI and USB connectivity - US$30.00

Logitech K380 Bluetooth Keyboard - US$21.95 from Amazon, as a certified refurb item

MicroSD card, to hold operating system, applications and data - Free, because I have a few of these knocking about

Software - Raspbian, WordGrinder, Ranger, Alpine - all open source - Free

Total outlay, before shipping and taxes - US$132.87

That's represented significant savings on the Freewrite's US$599 list price and even on it's fellow Freewrite Traveller's US$349 discounted price.  The Traveller lists at US$599 as well.

A brass standoff kit for mounting the components cost an additional US$7.99, and a power switch board, the RemotePi from MSL Digital - admittedly gratuitous but with much utility - cost around US$25.

The housing - Gary Aboud might be happy to hear - is made up of two covers of a vinyl-covered MDF storage chest available at Mode Alive at TT$89.00 a pop.

Honestly, the first box was acquired for its latch and the design of its hinges.  They support the cover and hold it upright when the box is open.  The cover was also the perfect height, width and depth to hold the seven-inch screen.

A second box was purchased when I realised that the cover was also just the right depth to accommodate all of the other components.  So two boxes were taken apart to make a slimmer box out of the two covers.  The bases weren’t wasted though.  They themselves were put together to make a larger storage box. 

(For ease of reference going forward, I'll refer to the final solution as the PiWriter868.)

Why go through all this?

The cost saving is the biggest and most obvious reason.  Granted some money was spent on components that didn’t make it into the final solution.  But ultimately, the final solution does cost less than something purchased out of box to meet the stated need.

Yes, a cheap laptop can be had for less than US$200, especially if you consider refurbs and open-box options.  But there are few differences between the PiWriter868 and a cheap laptop. 

Every component of the PiWriter868 is replaceable, and I can choose components that fully satisfy me personally or any specific requirement.

Further, the combination of a seven-inch screen, a full-size comfortable keyboard, and six hours of battery life would be virtually impossible to find in a laptop under US$200.

If any one component of a cheap laptop were to fail, the entire thing would be headed for a landfill because cheap portables aren’t constructed for repair-ability and upgrades.

Case in point here is what I described earlier about replacing the battery in my Chromebook.

By comparison, changing the battery in the PiWriter868 is as simple as unplugging the micro USB cable and plugging it into a new battery bank.  In fact, the next planned update is to replace the 10,000 mAh battery bank with a 25,600 mAh battery.  That would take current estimated run time from just under six hours to somewhere in the vicinity of 14 or 15 hours.  An upgrade like that wouldn’t be possible with most laptops on the market today.

Should the screen begin to go, the micro SD card begin to give problems, the switch start to behave flaky, even if the Raspberry Pi itself prove faulty over time, all components can be swapped out at cost.  Again,a cheap laptop would have to be replaced in its entirely or far more expensively repaired.

Software can also be readily updated or replaced as necessary.  If I found a software solution better than WordGrinder, it could be installed, configured and used.  With the Freewrite, I'd be stuck with whatever they'd be providing on their platform, and in this case, also stuck with their cloud solution if I'd decided to use that as well.

At the end of the day, the PiWriter868 gives me exactly the functionality I want  in a package that I can continue to tailor as I go along.

The PiWriter868 is also an argument for the use of more cost-effective technology in our schools and the country as a whole.  While I use it myself as a terminal-based writing machine, it is capable of running a full GUI and GUI-based apps.

If a fully functional computer can be built around a US$15 board that can use just about any modern TV as a monitor with any inexpensive keyboard and mouse combo on the market, why are we giving children in schools thousands of dollars worth of PC equipment?

What’s keeping us from doling out inexpensive single-board computers to our school kids and allowing them to construct solutions around them while learning about deskside and other sensing technology?

What’s stopping the country from licensing a single-board computer design, manufacturing and servicing a board with a Trinbagonian stamp, and rolling them out as part of a more cost effective solution to the deskside technology needs of the public and private sector?  In most cases, one needs only a word processor, spreadsheet application, presentation software, and a web browser, all of which are available.

But that discussion is for another post.

POSTSCRIPT: This text of this post was written on the PiWriter868.

[simplypsd1]

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: Should You Switch?

Affinity Photo has been receiving rave reviews from designers and photographers alike, looking for a photo editing software solution that’s not crazy-expensive but has in-demand features. But can it replace Photoshop?

While Affinity Photo isn’t super-cheap, you only have to buy the software (and any add-ons you like) just once, making it a somewhat viable option if you don’t like the monthly subscription fees that come with Adobe Photoshop.

Here’s a look at a few of the reasons you might switch from Adobe Photoshop to Affinity Photo (and a few reasons why it might not be the best fit for you!)

1. All the Photo Editing Capability You Need

Affinity Photo, which has desktop and tablet versions available, is a professional photo editing tool. It has all the features – from raw editing to digital painting to batch processing to multi-layered compositions – that you would expect. This is not some lame web app.

Affinity Photo is a robust photo tool.

It even does some things I didn’t know I needed, such as 360-degree photo editing and professional retouching. The retouching tools are especially nice with brushes such as clone, burn and dodge, but also an inpainting brush, frequency separation capability and liquefy features.

And you can add on all kinds of plugins to streamline workflows. (This is a newer feature that has been growing.)

It’s also pretty inexpensive. The desktop version is $49.99 one time. There’s no monthly fee. (But you do also have to pay for add-ons or plugins and the app version.)

2. Create Customizable Workspaces

Most of us probably think of our tools and desktop environments as workspaces; in Affinity Photo these are “personas.”

Each persona comes with a set of tools made for the task at hand – there are five to choose from – so you can flip from project to project.

You can also set the design of the workspace to fit your personal taste as well, with light and dark interfaces to choose from. There are also customizable toolbars and more keyboard shortcuts than you can count.

And it’s easy to use.

3. Import and Export Native Formats

While you do have to spend some time retraining your brain to work with new software, it does work with the files you already have. Affinity Photo lets you important and edit Photoshop files and you can export anything as well.

It maintains layers, effects, and adjustments so that the integrity of the design or edits does not break down if the file is opened by users on different software.

This can make switching a little easier and prevents some issues with versioning and platforms. All file types also work across all devices and operating systems.

4. It Includes Fun App-Like Tools

One of the things that set Affinity Photo apart from Photoshop is some of the fun app-like tools that are a standard part of the software.

Pano Stitching

Put together multiple images using a stitching algorithm so that you finish with a single stunning panorama. Plus, the software makes everything align and does full perspective corrections so no one will ever know you started with multiple images.

Vector Drawing

One of the limitations of most photo editing tools is that they only work in raster formats; Affinity also allows you to create vector shapes and elements to use within the editor.

Save Your Undo History

Even after you close Affinity Photo, the undo sticks. It actually saves with each document so that you can go back to any undo stages at any point in the editing process. (Now this is a time-saver!)

Focus Merge

Merge multiple images at different focal distances for an amazing depth of field. Smart tools adjust alignment – so you don’t have to do it by eye – and helps you figure out the best angles/options to use from your raw photo set.

Liquify Effects

Turn any image into a puddle with a few clicks and brushes that push, twirl, pinch, punch, freeze and thaw in a real-time mesh that helps reimagine images.

5. Works on Desktop and iPad

If you work between multiple devices frequently, this is a nice option. The iPad version even lets you work on native (including PSD) files.

For users that working across desktop and iPads is common, this tool is probably the best option out there. Photoshop does have an app – and it’s getting better – but the full-scale functionality here is hard to beat. (The app was named one of Apple’s best of 2017, and has continued to get better since then.)

5 Reasons You’ll Probably Stick with Photoshop

For some of us, Photoshop is that old trusty tool that we can’t leave behind. And that’s OK too. Not everyone will want to make the switch to different editing tools.

Affinity has its own “suite” with photo and design tools, but not everyone wants to make a complete switch from industry-standard tools.

The tablet version is iPad only. And while it is nice; this requires a separate license or download fee.

It might be a little too gimmicky if you are just bringing in raw images for a batch edit. While there is batch capability, if you already have an action that works and efficient setup, there’s not a lot of reason to learn new software for repeated tasks.

While it seems pretty zippy, Affinity Photo has more lag and slowness than Photoshop for high-powered editing.

There’s a learning curve to new software. Some people just don’t have the time or want to learn something new. (Affinity Photo does have a free trial if you want to take it for a spin before committing with a credit card though.)

Conclusion

So, should you make the switch to Affinity Photo from Photoshop? It really comes down to how you work and what features are most important to you.

Users who want more app-like tools, fancy editing features and mobility will probably prefer Affinity Photo. High-power raw photo editors or designers working with other Adobe tools, will likely prefer the fluidity of one “suite” of software.

from Design Shack https://ift.tt/2WgxpIe

Affinity Photo vs Photoshop: Should You Switch? Read more on: Simply PSD Blog

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[xtravirt]

Horizon, Horizon and Horizon – Clearing up the confusion!

by Curtis Brown

VMware’s virtual desktop and application publishing portfolio has gotten increasingly complex of late, with a mix of cloud and on-premises offerings, and this is even before you consider the components that make up the supporting pieces, such as User Environment Manager, App Volumes and integration with Workspace ONE.

In this article I hope to provide you with a (little) clearer view as to which Horizon to look out onto (pun intended).

 The On-Prem option – Horizon 7

This is the ‘great original flavour’ of VMware’s desktop virtualization offering.  The customer provides the tin to host it all on, builds a VMware vSphere estate (with VMware vSphere for Desktops included in the suite) and then layers on the VMware Horizon components for delivery of either Virtual Desktops or Remote Application publishing.

It does have several pro’s and cons –

You have flexibility on the scale and architecture, including geographic locations.

Scaling from very small to incredibly large, through the ability to leverage Cloud Pod Architecture.

Proximity to on-premises services and corporate network users can be an advantage, particularly for client/server resources.

Scaling down is expensive as you own the tin it’s hosted on.

It can generate VDI desktops, RDS Desktops and applications, using a number of delivery methods (Linked, Instant and full clones) of whatever specification you’ll need.

Being the most developed product, in combination with being in a customer-owned environment, it has a greater range of integration points with third party products, for example, there are numerous application delivery tools available.

When On-Prem is also Cloudy – Horizon View on VMware Cloud on AWS

This next offering is also the newest.  VMware Cloud on Amazon Web Services (VMC on AWS) is an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) offering that allows a customer to purchase VMware vSphere environments on AWS. As an IaaS solution, the customer has more control over the estate than would be the case in most XaaS offerings, to the point that it is possible to deliver VMware Horizon View on the platform.

Functionally, this is the same as the on-premises Horizon View, right down to the point that you build your own servers for hosting the otherwise identical components, however, there are a small number of caveats.  The biggest one of these is that you can’t use Linked Clones for delivering desktops – only full or instant clones are supported.  Although given that Instant Clones are rapidly superseding Linked clones, this is not that much of a loss.

As this is a Cloud solution, there are still questions to answer with respect to connectivity to on-premises resources, though if application services are moved to AWS, this is less of an issue.

By leveraging multiple tenants and AWS connectivity, it is possible to scale outwards for geographical and resilience reasons.  It is even possible to run a Cloud Pod federation that includes both on-premises and VMware Cloud on AWS-hosted Horizon Pods.  It’s a little more elastic than an on-premises solution in that you can scale down the VMware Cloud on AWS tenant.

Going Full Cloud – Horizon Cloud

The next option is VMware’s true Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) offering, Horizon Cloud.  Currently, this is available in two flavours – Horizon Cloud on IBM Cloud and Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure.   Each of these have slightly different attributes that affect use cases, however as both use a common management backplane, they’re similar to administer.

The key thing that separates the Horizon Cloud flavour is that because it’s a DaaS offering, the buyer is literally just an administrator of desktops – all the broker components and (in the case of the IBM Cloud hosted) infrastructure is controlled and maintained by VMware.  If you require elasticity in scaling both up and down, this is the most dynamic offering as it is purchased in desktop capacity units as a subscription service.

Horizon Cloud on IBM Cloud

This is hosted on an IBM platform based on VMware vSphere technology.  This option is comparatively cheap and is intended to be the ‘all in one’ greenfield solution as the license includes the compute capacity as well as Horizon licensing.

It can provide full VDI desktops, or Remote Desktop Session Host (RDSH) based desktops and published applications.  For VDI, it can produce non-persistent desktops using Linked Clone technology. There are several Nvidia GPU offerings for graphic intensive desktops, but only for full VDI.

While this solution offers VMware App Volumes for application delivery to the desktops (no user assigned disks), it does not support the use of App Volumes with RDSH servers, unlike the Horizon View offerings.

As a DaaS offering, rather than IaaS, integration is limited – for example, little ability to leverage virtualisation-based app delivery tools outside App Volumes and no agentless anti-virus.

Horizon Cloud on Microsoft Azure

By leveraging the same broker technology and management portal as Horizon Cloud on IBM Hosted, it is now possible to deploy on your own Microsoft Azure tenant.  In this case, an appliance is used to automate the cloning process for deploying full clones in Azure – there is no Instant Clone capability here currently.

This is largely intended for those who want to do desktop virtualisation and already have Azure. It’s not particularly cheap as you must pay both VMware (for Horizon licensing) and Microsoft for the Azure VMs. While it has no App Volumes support at all, it does, however, have enhanced 3D graphics support through Microsoft Azure GPU-enabled infrastructure for RDS workloads.

Closing Thoughts

The choice is quite broad, but must be considered with care, leaning heavily on the use case.  The discovery process is more critical than ever and should be embarked upon before signing on the dotted line for a product to ensure that not only is the solution sized and designed correctly, but that the correct platform is selected in the first place.

The Horizon Cloud DaaS offerings are compelling, but they aren’t a panacea – you still need to design and administer the solution.  You’ve only eliminated the infrastructure support and moved your desktops further away from your users and their data.

Horizon View remains the most flexible product and, with the VMware Cloud on AWS support, even offers a cloud presence and better scaling options than previously.  An interesting option here is a hybrid approach of Horizon View on-premises, but federated with an AWS hosted tenant for DR.  The disadvantage is that you need to keep the platform running rather than throwing infrastructure issues over the fence to VMware and that infrastructure will be costly.

Ultimately, it’s a ‘choose your poison’ decision, which re-emphasises the point above – don’t rush in and buy first/design later – carry out a proper investigation into the options and decide based upon business requirements and use cases.

Xtravirt have been involved in End User Compute virtualisation projects of all sizes for many years, bringing a broad range of skills and experience to the table. If you are looking to deploy a new digital workspace solution or wish to enhance or upgrade what you currently have, we can help. We have a long track record of successful workspace projects and can provide advisory, design and implementation services to create the right solution for your organisation. Contact us and we’ll be happy to assist you.

[workfromhom]

10 big announcements from Day 1 of F8

Day 1 of Facebook’s F8 conference was packed with announcements and updates. Here are 10 big takeaways from Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote on Day 1. You can find full coverage and analysis of F8 here. 

1. Facebook announces a dating feature 

Your next fling could start on Facebook. The company announced a new set of dating features that it will start testing later this year. Users can opt in to create a dating profile visible only to non-friends who also opted into dating. Since it has more data on you than any other app, your matches could end up being a little more relevant.

2. A new privacy control called Clear History is in the works 

Facebook will launch Clear History, a new privacy feature allowing users to delete data Facebook has collected from sites and apps that use its ads and analytics tool. This means you can scrub some of your browsing history from Facebook’s data store. Mark Zuckerberg likened this to deleting cookies from your browser history.

3. Video chat and anti-bullying features are coming to Instagram 

Instagram is launching video chat. We don’t know what it looks like yet, but chances are it’s a straightforward feature that will expand on Instagram’s existing messaging tools. Instagram is also getting a new filter to protect users from bullying comments, and an improved Explore tab.

4. Facebook is reopening its app review process

Facebook will re-open its app review process following the pause it took after the Cambridge Analytica crisis – welcome news for developers.

5. Oculus Go goes on sale for $199

Oculus Go, Facebook’s cheap and capable VR headset, is now on sale. It costs $199 for the version with 32GB of onboard storage, and $249 for the 64GB variety.

6. Messenger gets a new look and chat translation 

Chat translation will roll out in Messenger through Facebook’s M Suggestions assistant. Messenger is also getting a cleaner look focusing on its core utility – chat.

7. Introducing 3D photos 

Facebook is bringing 3D photos to the News Feed. Chances are you’ll see them pop up in your friends’ status updates in the coming months.

8. WhatsApp’s Snapchat Stories clone hits a DAU milestone 

WhatsApp has snatched an international growth opportunity from Snapchat. WhatsApp Status now has 450 million daily active users.

9. AR camera effects comes to Instagram 

The augmented reality platform on Facebook has largely been hampered by the fact that it’s only on Facebook. Now, the AR camera effects platform is landing on Instagram, an audience devoted to photo-sharing.

10. WhatsApp is adding group video calling and stickers 

Group video calling and stickers are coming to WhatsApp. in the coming months, users can have at least four people on a single split-screen video call.

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Sentinel loads up with $1.35M in the deepfake detection arms race

Estonia-based Sentinel, which is developing a detection platform for identifying synthesized media (aka deepfakes), has closed a $1.35 million seed round from some seasoned angle investors — including Jaan Tallinn (Skype), Taavet Hinrikus (Transferwise), Ragnar Sass & Martin Henk (Pipedrive) — and Baltics early stage VC firm, United Angels VC.

The challenge of building tools to detect deepfakes has been likened to an arms race — most recently by tech giant Microsoft, which earlier this month launched a detector tool in the hopes of helping pick up disinformation aimed at November’s US election. “The fact that [deepfakes are] generated by AI that can continue to learn makes it inevitable that they will beat conventional detection technology,” it warned, before suggesting there’s still short term value in trying to debunk malicious fakes with “advanced detection technologies”.

Sentinel co-founder and CEO, Johannes Tammekänd, agrees on the arms race point — which is why its approach to this ‘goal-post-shifting’ problem entails offering multiple layers of defence, following a cyber security-style template. He says rival tools — mentioning Microsoft’s detector and another rival, Deeptrace, aka Sensity — are, by contrast, only relying on “one fancy neural network that tries to detect defects”, as he puts it.

“Our approach is we think it’s impossible to detect all deepfakes with only one detection method,” he tells TechCrunch. “We have multiple layers of defence that if one layer gets breached then there’s a high probability that the adversary will get detected in the next layer.”

Tammekänd says Sentinel’s platform offers four layers of deepfake defence at this stage: An initial layer based on hashing known examples of in-the-wild deepfakes to check against (and which he says is scalable to “social media platform” level); a second layer comprised of a machine learning model that parses metadata for manipulation; a third that checks for audio changes, looking for synthesized voices etc; and lastly a technology that analyzes faces “frame by frame” to look for signs of visual manipulation.  

“We take input from all of those detection layers and then we finalize the output together [as an overall score] to have the highest degree of certainty,” he says.

“We already reached the point where somebody can’t say with 100% certainty if a video is a deepfake or not. Unless the video is somehow ‘cryptographically’ verifiable… or unless somebody has the original video from multiple angles and so forth,” he adds.

Tammekänd also emphasizes the importance of data in the deepfake arms race — over and above any specific technique. Sentinel’s boast on this front is that it’s amassed the “largest” database of in-the-wild deepfakes to train its algorithms on.

It has an in-house verification team working on data acquisition by applying its own detection system to suspect media, with three human verification specialists who “all have to agree” in order for it to verify the most sophisticated organic deepfakes. 

“Every day we’re downloading deepfakes from all the major social platforms — YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, then there’s Asian ones, Russian ones, also porn sites as well,” he says.

“If you train a deepfake model based on let’s say Facebook data-sets then it doesn’t really generalize — it can detect deepfakes like itself but it doesn’t generalize well with deepfakes in the wild. So that’s why the detection is really 80% the data engine.”

Not that Sentinel can always be sure. Tammekänd gives the example of a short video clip released by Chinese state media of a poet who it was thought has been killed by the military — in which he appeared to say he was alive and well and told people not to worry. 

“Although our algorithms show that, with a very high degree of certainty, it is not manipulated — and most likely the person was just brainwashed — we can’t say with 100% certainty that the video is not a deepfake,” he says.  

Sentinel’s founders, who are ex NATO, Monese and the UK Royal Navy, actually started working on a very different startup idea back in 2018 — called Sidekik — building a Black Mirror-esque tech which ingested comms data to create a ‘digital clone’ of a person in the form of a tonally similar chatbot (or audiobot).

The idea was that people could use this virtual double to hand off basic admin-style tasks. But Tammekänd says they became concerned about the potential for misuse — hence pivoting to deepfake detection.

They’re targeting their technology at governments, international media outlets and defence agencies — with early clients, after the launch of their subscription service in Q2 this year, including the European Union External Action Service and the Estonian Government.

Their stated aim is to help to protect democracies from disinformation campaigns and other malicious information ops. So that means they’re being very careful about who gets access to their tech. “We have a very heavy vetting process,” he notes. “For example we work only with NATO allies.”

“We have had requests from Saudi Arabia and China but obviously that is a no-go from our side,” Tammekänd adds.

A recent study the startup conducted suggests exponential growth of deepfakes in the wild (i.e. found anywhere online) — with more than 145,000 examples identified so far in 2020, indicating a ninefold year-on-year growth. 

Tools to create deepfakes are certainly getting more accessible. And while plenty are, at face value, designed to offer harmless fun/entertainment — such as the likes of selfie-shifting app Reface — it’s clear that without thoughtful controls (including deepfake detection systems) the synthesized content they enable could be misappropriated to manipulate unsuspecting viewers.

Scaling up deepfake detection technology to the level of media swapping going on on social media platforms today is one major challenge Tammekänd mentions. 

“Facebook or Google could scale up [their own deepfake detection] but it would cost so much today that they would have to put in a lot of resources and their revenue would obviously fall drastically — so it’s fundamentally a triple standard; what are the business incentives?” he suggests.

There is also the risk posed by very sophisticated, very well funded adversaries — creating what he describes as “deepfake zero day” targeted attacks (perhaps state actors, presumably pursuing a very high value target).

“Fundamentally it is the same thing in cyber security,” he says. “Basically you can mitigate [the vast majority] of the deepfakes if the business incentives are right. You can do that. But there will always be those deepfakes which can be developed as zero days by sophisticated adversaries. And nobody today has a very good method or let’s say approach of how to detect those.

“The only known method is the layered defence — and hope that one of those defence layers will pick it up.”

Sentinel co-founders, Kaspar Peterson (left) & Johannes Tammekänd (right). Photo Credit: Sentinel

It’s certainly getting cheaper and easier for any Internet user to make and distribute plausible fakes. And as the risks posed by deepfakes rise up political and corporate agendas — the European Union is readying a Democracy Action Plan to respond to disinformation threats, for example — Sentinel is positioning itself to sell not only deekfake detection but bespoke consultancy services, powered by learnings extracted from its deepfake data-set. 

“We have a whole product — meaning we just don’t offer a ‘black box’ but also provide prediction explainability, training data statistics in order to mitigate bias, matching against already known deepfakes and threat modelling for our clients through consulting,” the startup tells us. “Those key factors have made us the choice of clients so far.”

Asked what he sees as the biggest risks that deepfakes pose to Western society, Tammekänd says, in the short term, the major worry is election interference. 

“One probability is that during the election — or a day or two days before — imagine Joe Biden saying ‘I have a cancer, don’t vote for me’. That video goes viral,” he suggests, sketching one near term risk. 

“The technology’s already there,” he adds noting that he had a recent call with a data scientist from one of the consumer deepfake apps who told him they’d been contacted by different security organizations concerned about just such a risk.

“From a technical perspective it could definitely be pulled off… and once it goes viral for people seeing is believing,” he adds. “If you look at the ‘cheap fakes’ that have already had a massive impact, a deepfake doesn’t have to be perfect, actually, it just has to be believable in a good context — so there’s a large number of voters who can fall for that.”

Longer term, he argues the risk is really massive: People could lose trust in digital media, period. 

“It’s not only about videos, it can be images, it can be voice. And actually we’re already seeing the convergence of them,” he says. “So what you can actually simulate are full events… that I could watch on social media and all the different channels.

“So we will only trust digital media that is verified, basically — that has some method of verification behind that.”

Another even more dystopian AI -warped future is that people will no longer care what’s real or not online — they’ll just believe whatever manipulated media panders to their existing prejudices. (And given how many people have fallen down bizarre conspiracy rabbit holes seeded by a few textual suggestions posted online, that seems all too possible.)

“Eventually people don’t care. Which is a very risky premise,” he suggests. “There’s a lot of talk about where are the ‘nuclear bombs’ of deepfakes? Let’s say it’s just a matter of time when a deepfake of a politician comes out that will do massive damage but… I don’t think that’s the biggest systematic risk here.

“The biggest systematic risk is, if you look from the perspective of history, what has happened is information production has become cheaper and easier and sharing has become quicker. So everything from Gutenberg’s printing press, TV, radio, social media, Internet. What’s happening now is the information that we consume on the Internet doesn’t have to be produced by another human — and thanks to algorithms you can on a binary time-scale do it on a mass scale and in a hyper-personalized way. So that’s the biggest systematic risk. We will not fundamentally understand what is reality anymore online. What is human and what is not human.”

The potential consequences of such a scenario are myriad — from social division on steroids; so even more confusion and chaos engendering rising anarchy and violent individualism to, perhaps, a mass switching off, if large swathes of the mainstream simply decide to stop listening to the Internet because so much online contents is nonsense.

From there things could even go full circle — back to people “reading more trusted sources again”, as Tammekänd suggests. But with so much at shapeshifting stake, one thing looks like a safe bet: Smart, data-driven tools that help people navigate an ever more chameleonic and questionable media landscape will be in demand. 

TechCrunch’s Steve O��Hear contributed to this report 

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Can Media Temple Webmail

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The 12 Cleverest Tech Ideas Of 2018

This is the time of the year where we tech journalists like to talk about big things: The best products, the major trends, the colossal screw-ups. Still, why not take some time to appreciate the little things? Sometimes the best ideas in tech aren’t the ones that transform lives, but the smaller-scale innovations that make our daily routines a bit easier or prove to the rest of the industry that there’s a better way to do things. Herewith, a tribute to the cleverest ideas we saw this year.

Notification Killer

With Android 9 Pie, Google made a big deal about the “Digital Wellbeing” feature that can monitor and limit your time with specific apps. That’s a nice addition, but Android 9’s most mindful new feature is much more subtle: When the system notices that you routinely swipe away notifications from a particular app, it’ll offer to disable those notifications permanently. This is the most proactive step yet by a mobile operating system to deal with notification overload.

Notch Begone!

“The fewer moving parts, the better” is a good rule of thumb for consumer tech products, so it’s anybody’s guess how well the Vivo Nex phone’s motorized, pop-up selfie cam will hold up over time. Still, it does make the phone pretty to look at, with no unsightly camera notch to break up the all-screen design. At a time when many Android phone makers are embarrassing themselves with cheap iPhone X clones, you have to admire this small act of resistance.

The Spill-resistant Smartwatch

Even if you never have to use the Apple Watch Series 4’s automatic fall detection, you might appreciate that it’s there. Apple trained the Watch’s motion detection algorithms to recognize the distinct upward gesture that our arms make reflexively during a hard fall. If you take a tumble, you can then notify emergency services and your emergency contacts by swiping on the screen; the Watch will do so automatically if you’re not moving after a minute or so. Along with the Series 4’s built-in ECG, this feature could help save lives.

A New Breed Of Bundling

The idea of bundling services together at a discount is neither new nor innovative, but the partnership between Hulu and Spotify is more inspired than most. Although the two companies aren’t related, they probably figure the same crowd that’s interested in the streaming on-demand video might also want to stream on-demand music. Those who pay for both can now get a $5 per month discount. The bundle is both a fine growth tactic and a sly way to migrate customers out of Apple’s billing system (and corresponding 30% cut of subscription revenues), as the only way to get the deal is directly through Spotify’s website.

Over Here, Uber

To spare you from gesticulating wildly on crowded street corners, Uber now lets you light up your phone’s screen with a unique color. The feature, called “Spotlight,” is supposed to help drivers pick riders out of a crowd, and prevent passengers from having to hunt for their ride when it doesn’t have its own light-up “Beacon” on the dashboard.

Just The Free Stuff, Please

Roku has recently made a mission out of surfacing free video on its streaming players and smart TVs. This fall, for instance, the company launched a “Featured Free” section on its home screen, pulling together ad-supported movies and shows from a wide range of sources. Most impressive, though, is the “free” filter on Roku’s voice remote. Just ask for “free sci-fi movies,” or “free sitcoms,” and your Roku will spit back a list of results that won’t cost you anything. When most other platforms are more interested in peddling subscriptions, Roku’s focus on freebies is a refreshing change of pace.

Not Just For Drawing Anymore

With the Galaxy Note 9, Samsung managed to pack a Bluetooth radio into its S Pen stylus, transforming it from a writing tool into a versatile remote clicker. By pressing a button on the pen, you can advance through PowerPoint slides, and control media playback.

Browsing Without A Trace

Even if you’re browsing the web in a private or incognito tab, websites can still get an idea of who you are through a method called “fingerprinting.” With this method of tracking, websites try to pick out individual users through the unique attributes of their computers, such as system configuration, fonts, browser plugins, and time zones. In MacOS Mojave, Apple’s Safari browser only supplies limited system information to websites, so that every Mac looks the same. Sorry, snoops!

A Camera That Knows Where You Are

Sure, it’s too bad you can’t trust the company behind it, but the camera on Facebook’s Portal smart display has a brilliant way of following users around the room during video chat. By not making users stand in one spot, Portal solves the biggest annoyance with video chat on other smart displays, such as Amazon’s Echo Show and the Google-powered Lenovo Smart Display. Here’s hoping other companies will shamelessly copy the approach, a tactic Facebook can surely appreciate.

Keep Quiet, Alexa

Next time you feel like to turn down the thermostat in the middle of the night, try whispering your request to Alexa. Assuming that you’ve enabled Whisper Mode, your Amazon Echo will whisper back. To be clear, this is incredibly unsettling in practice, but it’s a clever idea and it can be useful if someone’s sleeping right next to you. (See also: Brief Mode, which replaces many of Alexa’s spoken responses with a chime.)

Putting Shortcuts To Work

With iOS 12, Apple included a new feature called Shortcuts to help people get things done faster. The praise here isn’t so much for Apple itself, but for all the folks who’ve come up with handy Shortcuts on their own. By using Shortcuts, you can talk to Google Assistant through Siri, download videos from YouTube, bypass paywalls online, and quickly dictate text into your clipboard. The possibilities for cleverness are practically unlimited.

Posting Into The Void

In a former life, Brizzly was a social media app that added richer features to Facebook and Twitter feeds. It was bought by AOL in 2010 and suffered the sort of fate that usually transpired for cool things that were bought by AOL. This year, original founder and Google Reader creator Jason Shellen bought Brizzly back and promptly turned it into a social media posting tool that goes nowhere. Brizzly posts are neither saved nor published, so you can have all the satisfaction of blurting out your thoughts online with none of the potential embarrassment. Shellen has made vague promises of an actual product to come, but for now, Brizzly is part joke, and part release valve for our dumber musings. Read the full article