The content below is taken from the original ( Using Recommenders to keep your cloud running optimally), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

The content below is taken from the original ( UK govt publishes contracts granting Amazon, Microsoft, Google and AI firms access to COVID-19 health data), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Questions linger over involvement of biz linked to Dominic Cummings and Vote Leave campaign

UK government has published the contracts it holds with private tech firms and the NHS for the creation of a COVID-19 data store, just days after campaigners fired legal shots over a lack of transparency.…

The content below is taken from the original ( Sega wants to turn Japanese arcades into ‘fog gaming’ data centers), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Sega marked its 60th anniversary this week with a tiny version of the Game Gear. But that's not the only thing on the company's mind at the minute. It's working on a system that would turn Japanese arcades into small data centers.According to Weekly…

The content below is taken from the original ( 4 out of 10 Organizations Now Use Virtual Desktops or DaaS for Remote Work – But List Cost, Complexity, and Security as Issues), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Cameyo , the Virtual Application Delivery platform provider, today announced the results of a new survey and a report from IT analyst firm Enterprise Read more at VMblog.com.

The content below is taken from the original ( How to disable the Insert Key in Windows 10), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

The Insert Key can often be irritating on your keyboard. If you mistakenly press it when operating, it switches to Overtype mode, and then you […]

This article How to disable the Insert Key in Windows 10 first appeared on TheWindowsClub.com.

The content below is taken from the original ( Not just its retro console that’s MIA, Atari is a no-show in court, too: Reborn biz ignores hardware architect’s lawsuit over unpaid wages), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

12,000 people waiting for hardware, 500 might get it this month. Might

Atari is on track to lose has lost by default in a lawsuit brought by the architect of its much-delayed VCS games console over unpaid wages.…

The content below is taken from the original ( Barmy ban on businesses, Brits based in Blighty bearing or buying .eu domains is back: Cut-off date is Jan 1, 2021), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

If you’re not registered somewhere in the union, you can’t use the TLD

Any Brit based in the UK, and not in the EU, will have their .eu domain taken away from them on January 1, 2021, according to the latest iteration of rules published by the TLD’s operator EURid.…

The content below is taken from the original ( Popular dev tool Visual Studio Code finally arrives on less popular ARM64 Windows), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Now you can program like a native with your £899 Surface Pro X – keyboard not included

Good news for those who have splashed the cash on Microsoft’s flagship Surface Pro X – the software behemoth has emitted an ARM64 build of Visual Studio Code.…

The content below is taken from the original ( Easy Internet For Retro Computers With The PiModem), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Retro computers are great, but what really makes a computer special is how many other computers it can talk to. It’s all about the network! Often, getting these vintage rigs online requires a significant investment in dusty old network cards from eBay and hunting down long-corrupted driver discs to lace everything together. A more modern alternative is to use something like PiModem to do the job instead.

PiModem consists of using a Raspberry Pi Zero W to emulate a serial modem, providing older systems with a link to the outside world. This involves setting up the Pi to use its hardware serial port to communicate with the computer in question. A level shifter is usually required, as well as a small hack to enable hardware flow control where necessary. It’s then a simple matter of using tcpser and pppd so you can talk to telnet BBSs and the wider Internet at large.

It’s a tidy hack that makes getting an old machine online much cheaper and easier than using hardware of the era. We’ve seen similar work before, too!

The content below is taken from the original ( First Look at Azure Static Web Apps), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

At Build 2020, Microsoft announced Azure Static Web Apps, a new way to host static web apps on Azure. In the past, static web apps, which are just a combination of HTML, JavaScript and CSS, could be hosted in a Storage Account or a regular Azure Web App.

When you compare Azure Static Web Apps with the Storage Account approach, you will notice there are many more features. Some of those features are listed below (also check the docs):

• GitHub integration: GitHub actions are configured for you to easily deploy your app from your GitHub repository to Azure Static Web Apps
• Integrated API support: APIs are provided by Azure Functions with an HTTP Trigger
• Authentication support for Azure Active Directory, GitHub and other providers
• Authorization role definitions via the portal and a roles.json file in your repository
• Staging versions based on a pull request

It all works together as shown below:

As a Netlify user, this type of functionality is not new to me. Next to static site hosting, they also provide serverless functions, identity etc…

Let’s check out an example to see how it works on Azure…

GitHub repository

The GitHub repo I used is over at https://github.com/gbaeke/az-static-web-app. You will already see the .github/workflows folder that contains the .yml file that defines the GitHub Actions. That folder will be created for you when you create the Azure Static Web App.

The static web app in this case is a simple index.html that contains HTML, JavaScript and some styling. Vue.js is used as well. When you are authenticated, the application reads a list of devices from Cosmos DB. When you select a device, the application connects to a socket.io server, waiting for messages from the chosen device. The backend for the messages come from Redis. Note that the socket.io server and Redis configuration are not described in this post. Here’s a screenshot from the app with a message from device01. User gbaeke is authenticated via GitHub. When authenticated, the device list is populated. When you log out, the device list is empty. There’s no error checking here so when the device list cannot be populated, you will see a 404 error in the console.

Note: Azure Static Web Apps provides a valid certificate for your app, whether it uses a custom domain or not; in the above screenshot, Not secure is shown because the application connects to the socket.io server over HTTP and Mixed Content is allowed; that is easy to fix with SSL for the socket.io server but I chose to not configure that

The API

Although API is probably too big a word for it, the devices drop down list obtains its data from Cosmos DB, via an Azure Function. It was added from Visual Studio Code as follows:

• add the api folder to your project
• add a new Function Project and choose the api folder: simply use F1 in Visual Studio Code and choose Azure Functions: Create New Project… You will be asked for the folder. Choose api.
• modify the code of the Function App to request data from Cosmos DB

To add an Azure Function in Visual Studio Code, make sure you install the Azure Functions extension and the Azure Function Core Tools. I installed the Linux version of Core Tools in WSL 2.

Adding the function (JavaScript; HTTP Trigger, anonymous, name of GetDevice) should result in the following structure:

Next, I modified function.json to include a Cosmos DB input next to the existing HTTP input and output:

{
  "bindings": [
    {
      "authLevel": "anonymous",
      "type": "httpTrigger",
      "direction": "in",
      "name": "req",
      "methods": [
        "get",
        "post"
      ],
      "route": "device"
    },
    {
      "type": "http",
      "direction": "out",
      "name": "res"
    },
    {
      "name": "devices",
      "type": "cosmosDB",
      "direction": "in",
      "databaseName": "geba",
      "collectionName": "devices",
      "sqlQuery": "SELECT c.id, c.room FROM c",
      "connectionStringSetting": "CosmosDBConnection"    
    }
  ]
}

In my case, I have a Cosmos DB database geba with a devices collection. Device documents contain an id and room field which simply get selected with the query: SELECT c.id, c.room FROM c.

Note: with route set to device, the API will need to be called with /api/device instead of /api/GetDevice.

The actual function in index.js is kept as simple as possible:

module.exports = async function (context, req) {
    context.log('Send devices from Cosmos');
  
    context.res = {
        // status: 200, /* Defaults to 200 */
        body: context.bindings.devices
    };
    
};

Yes, the above code is all that is required to retrieve the JSON output of the Cosmos DB query and set is as the HTTP response.

Note that local.settings.json contains the Cosmos DB connection string in CosmosDBConnection:

{
  "IsEncrypted": false,
  "Values": {
    "AzureWebJobsStorage": "",
    "FUNCTIONS_WORKER_RUNTIME": "node",
    "CosmosDBConnection": "AccountEndpoint=https://geba-cosmos.documents.a...;"
  }
}

You will have to make sure the Cosmos DB connection string is made known to Azure Static Web App later. During local testing, local.settings.json is used to retrieve it. local.settings.json is automatically added to .gitignore to not push it to the remote repository.

Local Testing

We can test the app locally with the Live Server extension. But first, modify .vscode/settings.json and add a proxy for your api:

"liveServer.settings.proxy": {
        "enable": true,
        "baseUri": "/api",
        "proxyUri": "http://172.28.242.32:7071/api"
    }

With the above setting, a call to /api via Live Server will be proxied to Azure Functions on your local machine. Note that the IP address refers to the IP address of WSL 2 on my Windows 10 machine. Find it by running ifconfig in WSL 2.

Before we can test the application locally, start your function app by pressing F5. You should see:

Now go to index.html, right click and select Open with Live Server. The populated list of devices shows that the query to Cosmos DB works and that the API is working locally:

Notes on using WSL 2:

• for some reason, http://localhost:5500/index.html (Live Server running in WSL 2) did not work from the Windows session although it should; in the screenshot above, you see I replaced localhost with the IP address of WSL 2
• time skew can be an issue with WSL 2; if you get an error during the Cosmos DB query of authorization token is not valid at the current time, perform a time sync with ntpdate time.windows.com from your WSL 2 session

Deploy the Static Web App

Create a new Static Web App in the portal. The first screen will be similar to the one below:

You will need to authenticate to GitHub and choose your repository and branch as shown above. Click Next. Fill in the Build step as follows:

Our app will indeed run off the root. We are not using a framework that outputs a build to a folder like dist so you can leave the artifact location blank. We are just serving index.html off the root.

Complete the steps for the website to be created. You GitHub Action will be created and run for the first time. You can easily check the GitHub Action runs from the Overview screen:

Here’s an example of a GitHub action run:

When the GitHub Action is finished, your website will be available on a URL provided by Azure Static Web Apps. In my case: https://polite-cliff-01b6ab303.azurestaticapps.net.

To make sure the connection to Cosmos DB works, add an Application Setting via Configuration:

The Function App that previously obtained the Cosmos DB connection string from local.settings.json can now retrieve the value from Application Settings. Note that you can also change these settings via Azure CLI.

Conclusion

In this post, we created a simple web app in combination with an function app that serves as the API. You can easily create and test the web app and function app locally with the help of Live Server and a Live Server proxy. Setting up the web app is easy via the Azure Portal, which also creates a GitHub Action that takes care of deployment for you. In a next post, we will take a look at enabling authentication via the GitHub identity provider and only allowing authorized users to retrieve the list of devices.

The content below is taken from the original ( How to always show full URLs in Chrome browser on Windows 10), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Earlier, many users had raised objections over the company’s unilateral decision to hide the start of website URLs from Chrome’s omnibox. Fortunately, this concern has […]

This article How to always show full URLs in Chrome browser on Windows 10 first appeared on TheWindowsClub.com.

The content below is taken from the original ( Python Is All You’ll Ever Need In This Linux Distro), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Choosing the perfect Linux distribution that satisfies your personal needs and likings can be an impossible task, and oftentimes requires a hint of Stockholm syndrome as compromise. In extreme cases, you might end up just rolling your own distro. But while frustration is always a great incentive for change, for [Josh Moore] it was rather curiosity and playful interest that led him to create snakeware, a Linux distribution where the entire user space not only runs on Python, but is Python.

Imagine you would boot your Linux system, and instead of the shell of your choice, you would be greeted by an interactive Python interpreter, and everything you do on the system will be within the realms of that interpreter — that’s the gist of snakeware. Now, this might sound rather limiting at first, but keep in mind we’re talking about Python here, a language known for its versatility, with an abundance of packages that get things done quick and easy, which is exactly what [Josh] is aiming for. To get an idea of that, snakeware also includes snakewm, a graphical user interface written with pygame that bundles a couple of simple applications as demonstration, including a terminal to execute Python one-liners.

Note that this is merely a proof of concept at this stage, but [Josh] is inviting everyone to contribute and extend his creation. If you want to give it a go without building the entire system, the GitHub repository has a prebuilt image to run in QEMU, and the window manager will run as regular Python application on your normal system, too. To get just a quick glimpse of it, check the demo video after the break.

Sure, die-hard Linux enthusiasts will hardly accept a distribution without their favorite shell and preferable language, but hey, at least it gets by without systemd. And while snakeware probably won’t compete with more established distributions in the near future, it’s certainly an interesting concept that embraces thinking outside the box and trying something different. It would definitely fit well on a business card.

The content below is taken from the original ( How to keep your motherboard clean and protected), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

A damaged motherboard likely means the end of your computer in most instances; therefore, folks must always take precautions to make sure the motherboard stays […]

This article How to keep your motherboard clean and protected first appeared on TheWindowsClub.com.

The content below is taken from the original ( Job Application Script Automates The Boring Stuff With Python), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Job hunting can certainly require a good amount of hoop-jumping in today’s age. Even if you’re lucky enough to have your application read by an actual human, there’s no guarantee the person on the other end has much of an understanding about your skill set. Oftentimes, the entire procedure is futile from the start, and as a recent graduate, [harshibar] is well aware of the soul-crushing experience investing a lot of time in it can be. Well, as the saying goes: if you can’t beat them, join them — and if you can’t join them, automate the hell out of the application process.

As the final piece of a “5 Python Projects in 5 Days” challenge [harshibar] set for herself — which also spawned a “Tinder for Netflix” for the web development section of it — she essentially created a web-scraper that gathers job openings for a specific search term, and automatically sends an application to each and every one of them. Using Beautiful Soup to parse the scraped pages of a certain job portal, Selenium’s browser automation functionality to fill out the online application forms, she can get all her information into the form saving countless hours in comparison to the manual alternative. The program even hits the apply button.

While the quantity-over-quality approach may not be for everyone, there’s of course room for more filtering and being more selective about the job openings beforehand, which [harshibar] also addresses in her video about the project (embedded below). And while this won’t fix the application process itself, we can definitely see the satisfaction a beating-them-at-their-own-game might provide — plus, it can’t have a worse miss rate than your typical LinkedIn “recruiter”. Still, if you’re looking for a more systematic approach, have a look at [Lewin Day]’s view on the subject, he even has advice job hunting is still further down the road for you.

The content below is taken from the original ( TinyML is giving hardware new life), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Aluminum and iconography are no longer enough for a product to get noticed in the marketplace. Today, great products need to be useful and deliver an almost magical experience, something that becomes an extension of life. Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) is the latest embedded software technology that moves hardware into that almost magical realm, where machines can automatically learn and grow through use, like a primitive human brain.

Until now building machine learning (ML) algorithms for hardware meant complex mathematical modes based on sample data, known as “training data,” in order to make predictions or decisions without being explicitly programmed to do so. And if this sounds complex and expensive to build, it is. On top of that, traditionally ML-related tasks were translated to the cloud, creating latency, consuming scarce power and putting machines at the mercy of connection speeds. Combined, these constraints made computing at the edge slower, more expensive and less predictable.

But thanks to recent advances, companies are turning to TinyML as the latest trend in building product intelligence. Arduino, the company best known for open-source hardware is making TinyML available for millions of developers. Together with Edge Impulse, they are turning the ubiquitous Arduino board into a powerful embedded ML platform, like the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense and other 32-bit boards. With this partnership you can run powerful learning models based on artificial neural networks (ANN) reaching and sampling tiny sensors along with low-powered microcontrollers.

Over the past year great strides were made in making deep learning models smaller, faster and runnable on embedded hardware through projects like TensorFlow Lite for Microcontrollers, uTensor and Arm’s CMSIS-NN. But building a quality dataset, extracting the right features, training and deploying these models is still complicated. TinyML was the missing link between edge hardware and device intelligence now coming to fruition.

Tiny devices with not-so-tiny brains

The content below is taken from the original ( Google’s ‘Sodar’ is an AR tool for social distancing), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Google has a new augmented reality tool that can help you follow social distancing rules when you do have to venture out of your home. It’s an experimental project called “Sodar” — introduced by the Experiments with Google account on Twitter — that c…

The content below is taken from the original ( More like apartment lab!), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

submitted by /u/nopantsdancemusk to r/homelab [link] [comments]

The content below is taken from the original ( Hear about RISC OS Direct in Wakefield on 2nd June), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Without setting a foot outside your own door! Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) meetings routinely take place at the West Yorkshire Sports and Social Club – but those regular meetings have been put on hold by the current health crisis. However, the lockdown situation doesn’t necessarily mean meetings are prevented altogether, only that they […]

The content below is taken from the original ( How to add All Tasks and Disk Management to Control Panel in Windows 10), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

If you often open the Control Panel to access various tools and options, then you can add All Tasks and Disk Management to it so […]

This article How to add All Tasks and Disk Management to Control Panel in Windows 10 first appeared on TheWindowsClub.com.

The content below is taken from the original ( Rehost or modernize existing applications and support modern cloud apps with Azure SQL), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Azure SQL is the family of SQL cloud databases providing flexible deployment options for a wide variety of application patterns and control requirements.

The content below is taken from the original ( Boot Your Pi over USB), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Historically, booting a Raspberry Pi required an SD card. However, if you follow [tynick’s] instructions, you can get a Pi 4 to boot from the USB port. Combine it with a small solid state disk drive, and you’ll get great performance, according to his post.

The caveat is this depends on a beta bootloader and, of course, you’ll still have to boot from an SD card at least once to load that bootloader. If you were deploying something serious, you’d probably want to make sure the bootloader is suitable for your needs.

In fact, most of the work here is doing the prep work. You have to grab the new bootloader and flash it. You also have to make some changes to get the boot code to check the USB port. You also install the operating system image on the SSD just like you would an SD card.

After that, it is easy to copy the boot files to the USB drive and you are ready to go. This would be a great use for an old SSD if you pair it with a USB adapter.

According to the post, the SSD is about ten times faster than the SD card, so the performance boost is significant. Of course, some of this depends on the USB adapter, and [tynick] recommends a particular one that seems to work well.

The Pi 4 is already fast, especially with a 64-bit OS. If you don’t like the SSD bootloader, you can do a similar trick to boot from the network.

The content below is taken from the original ( HP’s latest monitors cut blue light levels to help you sleep), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

How do you make monitors that stand out when the features are often interchangeable? Build in technology that helps after you shut them off, apparently. HP has unveiled a string of E-Series monitors that are billed as the first ergonomic display with…

The content below is taken from the original ( Arm goes off road… map: Cortex-X1 touted for phone, tablet, laptop processors needing Apple-level oomph), to continue reading please visit the site. Remember to respect the Author & Copyright.

Meanwhile, A78, Mali-G78 and Ethos-N78 announced, too

Arm today will unveil its Cortex-A78 CPU core, lined up for next-gen phones, tablets, and laptops, and go off roadmap with its Cortex-X1.…