The post-2016 MacBook Pro could — quite generously, I think — be described as a “shower of shit.” I’m still not exactly sure what Apple was thinking when it shipped a laptop with no USB-A ports and a keyboard that doesn’t actually work.

They’re bad, but until recently, those wedded to Apple’s ecosystem could at least purchase the more conventional 15-inch 2015 MacBook Pro.

I did say “until recently,” because as spotted by the eagle-eyed folks at 9to5Mac, Apple has discontinued sales of the only really true pro laptop in its computer lineup.

If you want to buy an Apple laptop with a keyboard that doesn’t break with the chance contact with a speck of dust; has USB-A ports and an SD card slot; and doesn’t require you to buy a myriad of arse-clenchingly expensive dongles, your only options are the wheezing, aging MacBook Air, or to head to eBay or Craigslist.

The move comes at the same time it updated its current-generation MacBook Pros with faster processors, more RAM, and not a lot else.

A notorious ‘download bomb’ exploit, where users are bombarded with automatically downloading files when they visit a specific website has returned with a vengeance after having been patched out in Chrome earlier this year. Most major browsers are affected by it aside, interestingly, from Microsoft Edge. 

Bleeping Computer reports that the exploit was originally discovered late last year. It works by initiating thousands of downloads when a user visits a specific webpage, which makes it impossible to leave the site in question (unless a user pays for a shady bit of ‘tech support’).

Read more: Amazon Prime Day

Thankfully, it was a fairly easy process for Google to patch out the issue, and it did so at around Chrome 65. Unfortunately, users have noticed that with Chrome 67 the bug has returned, and now it appears other browsers are also affected, including Firefox, Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera (to a more limited extent).

There’s one major browser missing from that list, and it’s Microsoft Edge, which has a user base that has historically lagged far behind all its competitors. It’s not yet clear why it’s unaffected by the exploit.

As we’ve seen from recent cyberattacks such as WannaCry and NotPetya — which are generally attributed to North Korea and Russia respectively — attacks on critical infrastructure can have a devastating impact on industrial production and hence on quarterly profits, with global estimated losses in the billions of dollars.

Additionally, targeted cyberattacks like TRITON that compromise large-scale cyber-physical systems — such as petrochemical mixing tanks, turbines, and blast furnaces — can cause catastrophic safety failures, environmental damage, and even loss of human life. (TRITON is generally attributed to Iran.)

The growing number and sophistication of malicious cyberattacks on critical infrastructure have led European Union (EU) legislators to adopt the Network and Information Security (NIS) Directive (NISD). The new directive requires companies from critical infrastructure sectors to adopt specific technical and organizational measures to manage threats to their networks and information systems.

While the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a privacy directive focused on organizations that collect personal data, the NIS Directive is focused on strengthening resilience for providers of critical infrastructure services. In particular, NISD applies to organizations that provide “essential services” in critical infrastructure sectors such as energy, transport, banking & financial, water, health sector, and digital infrastructure (ISPs, DNS providers, etc.).

EU member states had to incorporate the Directive into their national laws by May 9 of this year — a couple of weeks before GDPR went into effect — and are required to identify operators of essential services by November 9. So while we’ve seen no actions yet against providers, we could begin to see the effects of the new laws by the end of the year.

We’re currently living in a digital age where almost everything can be accessed with just an internet connection. With this in mind, it has become crucial for businesses big and small alike to have some sort of online presence. The internet is a big place, which means there are various ways to make your mark online in an achievable and cost-effective manner.

With its growing influence in the world today, social media has become a necessity for businesses to open a direct line of communication with customers. While some companies are so popular that they don’t need much to build their social media presence, small businesses will need to work harder in order to create a strong social media presence.

Once that decision has been made, following a few simple steps will place you on the right path:

Pick the right platform for your business

The first decision you to make is which social media platforms you want your target audience to find you on. You need to be wherever your customers are, whether it’s on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat or something you haven’t even heard of.

Among the seizures were opioids, over 100 guns (including a grenade launcher), $3.6 million in gold and cash, and 2,000 bitcoins. Law enforcement also grabbed bitcoin mining devices and cars bought using the ill-gotten income. Officials didn't name all the those facing charges, but examples ranged in age from 21 to 34 and included multiple people in New York and California.

This isn't a decisive victory over dark web markets. By its very nature as an anonymized, highly secure space, the "Darknet" (as the DOJ calls it) makes it relatively easy for bootleggers to operate in relative obscurity. It does show that the US is willing to stage large-scale busts, though, and serves as a reminder that even a space as secretive as the dark web is vulnerable if someone can compromise it from the inside.

Screen fatigue is real. Between phones and laptops and TVs, it seems as if the world is covered in glowing glass boxes.

At first glance it might seems as if Lightform, a new projector system that casts light onto any surface, is part of the problem. Then you see what it can do.

Created by a team of engineers with a background in augmented reality, the small box works like an ultra accurate projector, mapping light onto any shape or surface. The gadget is basically a high-powered computer in a box that comes loaded with a processor and high-resolution camera. Connect it to a projector via HDMI cable, and it’s able to create a fine-tuned map of a room (including the objects in it), and map light in baffling accuracy.

What does this look like? Sometimes like a shimmering cactus.

Other times like a glowing desk.

Wi-Fi devices have been using the same security protocol for over a decade. But today, that’ll begin to change: the Wi-Fi Alliance, which oversees adoption of the Wi-Fi standard, is beginning to certify products that support WPA3, the successor to the WPA2 security protocol that’s been in use since 2004.

The new protocol provides a number of additional protections for devices connected over Wi-Fi. One big improvement makes it harder for hackers to crack your password by guessing it over and over again, and another limits what data hackers can see even once they’ve uncovered the passcode. Nothing will change as far as users see it; you’ll still just type in your password and connect to the network.

WPA3 protections won’t just flip on overnight — in fact, it’s going to be a many-years-long process. First, you’ll have to buy a new router that supports WPA3 (or hope that your old one is updated to support it). The same goes for all your gadgets; you’ll have to buy new ones that support WPA3, or hope your old ones are updated. Fortunately, devices that support WPA3 can still connect with devices that use WPA2, so your gadgets shouldn’t suddenly stop working because you brought something new into the house.

The first big new feature in WPA3 is protection against offline, password-guessing attacks. This is where an attacker captures data from your Wi-Fi stream, brings it back to a private computer, and guesses passwords over and over again until they find a match. With WPA3, attackers are only supposed to be able to make a single guess against that offline data before it becomes useless; they’ll instead have to interact with the live Wi-Fi device every time they want to make a guess. (And that’s harder since they need to be physically present, and devices can be set up to protect against repeat guesses.)

WPA3’s other major addition, as highlighted by the Alliance, is forward secrecy. This is a privacy feature that prevents older data from being compromised by a later attack. So if an attacker captures an encrypted Wi-Fi transmission, then cracks the password, they still won’t be able to read the older data — they’d only be able to see new information currently flowing over the network.

Are you in need of some quality icons for your website or app, but don’t want to make them yourself from scratch? We’re here to help!

Ahead is an epic A-Z list of free icons marketplaces and websites to get the most gorgeous icons from for your next design project.

1001 Free Downloads grants you unencumbered, royalty-free access to vibrant collections of icons and vectors that can be used for both personal and paid undertakings.

While AlienValley carries premium designs that come with a price tag, it also has a truckload of freebies that are no less beautiful. These top-notch graphic assets are good for commercial use too, making sure all your design needs are met above and beyond.

The ultimate resource for free design materials, All-Free-Download not only offers icons, but also high-definition photos, video clips, fonts, and graphic art. With almost 17,000 icons to choose from, it provides a wide range of styles and subjects.

JA City Guide - A Creative Joomla template specially designed for Travel and tour guide websites is now available for download. In this blog post, we will review the core features of templates with snapshots. The template comes with an amazing flexible layout that has pre-made smart styled pages: Listings page with advanced search and filter, Location, Restaurant, Hotel page and support popular community extension Jomsocial.

JA City Guide template fully supports JA Mega Filter to build advanced search and filter page, Popular JomSocial community component to build Community page and support all Joomla default pages with special style. The travel Joomla template is fully responsive, built with robust T3 Framework, integrates Bootstrap 3 feature and fully responsive.

Core features of JA City Guide Joomla template:

Let's review the features with the screenshot of JA City Guide Joomla template:

Designed for Travel and tour website

JA City guide is a dedicated template designed for travel and tour websites, With powerful features and easy way of customization. You can create a Search and Filter page with JA Mega filter and social community pages with Jomsocial extension, The Joomla template gives all options that required to create a travel and tour guide sites, There are dedicated pages for search and filter, Location, Restaurant, Hotel page and Community etc.

"The Sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in it's net of wonder forever."

Never before and since (with exception of BBC2's - Blue Planet's Sir David Attenborough) has one man been so influential as the late Commandant Cousteau in taking us onto his exploration voyages around the Sea's and Oceans of the world. He has shown the intricate secrets of the Oceans to millions, if not billions and still does till today. But he has also showed us 'humanity' and it's behavior on the environment, sometimes even in first person.

I got to know about Cousteau's world through the works of 'Didi' Frederic Dumas - Le Monde du Silence. At age 10 I moved to the North Sea and from then on the Sea and I became inseparable; due to this passion the man had instilled in me.

Many continents and Oceans later (I am now 47) I can only attest to witnessing the increasingly rapid death of the Oceans for which he warned us many times more than 50 year's ago.

Let's have a look at this man's 10 + a dolphin most famous quotes and warnings.

I've been telling friends and family members for years to upgrade their old computer instead of buying a new one. Unlike phones and tablets, which get substantially better every year, computers haven't really gotten that much better for common tasks in the past five to ten years.

Unless you're a gamer, or do demanding work like high resolution photo or video editing, you're better off sticking with what you've got.

The most substantial upgrade you can make is swapping out your computer's old hard drive for a solid state drive, which stores your data on blocks of fast flash storage (like your phone or tablet) instead of spinning platters.

I cannot overstate how big of a difference this makes — everything from booting up your machine, to launching apps, to saving files will be faster. And unlike most upgrades, which require you to buy a specific part for a specific machine, any SSD can work in basically any old computer, Mac or PC, desktop or laptop.

On the Internet, the devil’s in the defaults.

You’re not reading all those updated data policies flooding your inbox. You probably haven’t even looked for your privacy settings. And that’s exactly what Facebook, Google and other tech giants are counting on.

They tout we’re “in control” of our personal data, but they know most of us won’t change the settings that let them grab it like cash in a game show wind machine. Call it the Rule of Defaults: 95 percent of people are too busy, or too confused, to change a darn thing.

Give me 15 minutes, and I can help you join the 5 percent who are actually in control. I dug through the privacy settings for the five biggest consumer tech companies and picked a few of the most egregious defaults you should consider changing. These links will take you directly to what to tap, click and toggle for Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.

[15 more default privacy settings you should change on your TV, cellphone plan, LinkedIn and more]

Since Mark Zuckerberg’s 2018 announcement that the Facebook algorithm will prioritize “meaningful interactions” from friends and family over content from brands, it has become trickier than ever to ensure your organic content gets the screen time it deserves. But, Facebook is still the largest social media network in the world. Making its algorithm work for you is key to a successful Facebook marketing strategy.

Read on to find out:

How the Facebook algorithm works in 2018

On January 11th, 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its News Feed algorithm to prioritize content from “friends, family and groups.”

“As we roll this out,” Zuckerberg wrote, “You’ll see less public content like posts from businesses, brands, and media. And the public content you see more will be held to the same standard—it should encourage meaningful interactions between people.”

Zuckerberg cited “a responsibility to make sure our services aren’t just fun to use, but also good for people’s well-being” as justification for the change, admitting that businesses will have to work harder than ever to gain their customers’ attention on the platform.

If you’re a social media marketer, you know how difficult it can be to find the perfect image to accompany a post. We all know that photos are one of the most important components for boosting engagement, but unless you’re willing to pay for it, finding a great one can be seriously time-consuming.

That’s why we put together this handy collection of free stock photo websites. Bookmark it for quick reference.

22 of the best sites for free stock photos

Every image site in the list below falls under Creative Commons—so you don’t need to worry about getting sued. If you’d like to learn more about how image copyright works on social media, check out our post Can I Use This Photo on Social Media? Understanding Image Copyright.

1. Adobe Stock

Not only does Adobe Stock have over 90 million high-quality creative assets you can use in your social campaigns, you can license them directly within the Hootsuite dashboard. That means once you’ve found the perfect image, you can download it, attach it to your posts, and share it across your social channels—all from one place.

2. Gratisography

Gratisography is one of the most interesting of the free stock photo sites due to the quirky style of photographer Ryan McGuire. All of the photos are high-resolution and royalty-free—ready for your use wherever you please. The photos are organized in a number of categories—animals, nature, objects, people, urban, and whimsical—and new ones are added every week, which McGuire shares on Twitter and Facebook.

Too busy to read? Just click the play button below to listen to this post.

Facebook, as a platform, is barely recognizable from the social network that launched to connect Harvard University students in February 2004.

And looking ahead, the Facebook of five years from now is highly unlikely to resemble the product that 2.2 billion people use every month right now.

That’s no bad thing. If Facebook is to thrive over the next 5, 10, 15+ years, it’ll need to evolve.

Here’s where we think it’s heading…

You may have heard or read the acronym VPN in recent news stories about internet privacy and security and wondered, "what is VPN?" VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, an extension of a private network over a public one that allows users to send and receive data safely, securely, and anonymously so that hackers, websites, and advertisers can't access it. In addition to addressing privacy concerns like hacking and malware, a VPN allows users to remotely utilize the private internal systems and features of workplace and other networks without being on site. If you work from home, travel, or enjoy taking your tablet or laptop to the coffee shop to catch up on emails, social networking, or banking, it's time to join a Virtual Private Network! Before picking the best VPN service for your needs, there are a few things to learn. Let's get started familiarizing ourselves with Virtual Private Networks. 

Related: 2018 Update: 13 Security Tips to Protect Your iPhone from Hackers

How Does a VPN Work?

Virtual Private Networks connect your device to one or more servers and route all your traffic through those servers with a secure, encrypted connection. This way your private data can't be stolen, even if you're accessing the internet via cellular data or an unsecured Wi-Fi network. This means several things: your IP (Internet Protocol) address is masked, so you're anonymous online; throttling is also eliminated because your internet service provider can no longer inspect your data and restrict connection speed, lowering the quality of streaming and downloads; and an additional benefit for travelers or those hoping to access content only available in another country is that VPN allows users to access geo-blocked content from anywhere in the world. Sounding good so far? Then let's move on to the next step! 

How to Choose a VPN

Not all VPNs are created equal, and there are several things to research before choosing which VPN is right for you. If you don't find a VPN that will work for you, there's always the option to create your own. I'll get into that in another article though; for now, let's stick to choosing a VPN service already available on the market. Here are some things to look into before deciding on a Virtual Private Network: