Marketcircle Makes Daylite’s Opportunities Board Tools Accessible for Users on the Go, Now Available on iPhone and iPad

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

Marketcircle, makers of Daylite, the CRM and productivity business app built exclusively for the Apple platform that empowers small businesses to handle more clients, close more deals, execute more projects and boost team collaboration, is excited to announce its popular Opportunities Board is now available on iOS and iPadOS. 

This enhanced mobile tool brings all of Opportunities Board’s features to iPhone and iPad. It has the same functionality as the desktop version and is ideal for on-the-go or hybrid workers.

The Opportunities Board provides a unified view of every step of the sales pipeline so all team members can visually track, organize and prioritize business opportunities to generate more revenue by shortening the sales cycle and winning more deals.

Increased transparency with the Opportunities Board allows sales teams to spend more time selling and less time in time-consuming status update meetings. Daylite visually tracks the status of opportunities across whole teams, so bottlenecks are identified, and productivity and results are boosted with optimal team collaboration.

For more information about the Daylite Opportunities Board visit: https://marketcircle.blog/daylite-opportunities-board-ipad-iphone/

Beyond the exciting Opportunities Board enhancements, Daylite is now fully optimized and compatible with Apple’s latest operating system macOS 13 Ventura. Daylite users can now take advantage of all the benefits of the newest macOS while enjoying the productivity, collaboration and CRM mastery of Daylite.     

Daylite is available on the Mac App Store, making it easy to download Daylite on the App Store across iOS, iPadOS and macOS devices. Download Daylite on the App Store today.

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Elon Musk Fact Checked By Former Twitter Employees…. How Embarrassing For Him

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

It is bad enough for Elon Musk that he has turned Twitter into a train wreck next to a dumpster fire. But you know things are really bad when his own former employees fact check him. Let me give you two examples where Musk has been posted tweets intended to indicate financial or technical inefficiencies at the company which need to be fixed. And former staff calling him on it.

On Saturday, Musk put out this Tweet:

Cue the blowback:

Ouch. But it gets worse. Musk then reacted to someone calling him out for forcing employees to pay for lunch which breaks a long standing Twitter tradition:

Cue the blowback:

https://twitter.com/_hawko/status/1591909771124539393

What’s worse is if you look at these Tweets, he then gets into public pi$$ing contests with these people. That makes no sense and it’s almost as if Musk is just making stuff up to justify what he’s done. And is then trying to defend that tenuous position when he gets called on it. Which isn’t a good look if you are Elon Musk. I think it’s proof that Musk is in over his head and is just saying and doing anything to make his issues with Twitter go away.

If I were Musk, I would stop getting into public fights with these people, I would stop putting stuff like this out there, and I would either focus on making Twitter a place where people want to spend their time and advertisers want to spend money. Right now he’s not doing that and Twitter is further descending into hellscape territory.

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US Army Among Others Uses Code From Russian Company That’s Pretending To Be An American Company In Their Apps

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

When people create apps, it’s not at all unusual for the developer to use code from someone else. After all, why reinvent the wheel if someone has done the hard work for you?

Well, maybe that practice should be rethought. I say that because it now turns out a Russian company who were pretending to be an American company has had its code show up in thousands of apps. Including an app used by the US Army. Reuters has the details:

Thousands of smartphone applications in Apple and Google’s online stores contain computer code developed by a technology company, Pushwoosh, that presents itself as based in the United States, but is actually Russian, Reuters has found.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United States’ main agency for fighting major health threats, said it had been deceived into believing Pushwoosh was based in the U.S. capital. After learning about its Russian roots from Reuters, it removed Pushwoosh software from seven public-facing apps, citing security concerns.

The U.S. Army said it had removed an app containing Pushwoosh code in March because of the same concerns. That app was used by soldiers at one of the country’s main combat training bases.

According to company documents publicly filed in Russia and reviewed by Reuters, Pushwoosh is headquartered in the Siberian town of Novosibirsk, where it is registered as a software company that also carries out data processing. It employs around 40 people and reported revenue of 143,270,000 rubles ($2.4 mln) last year. Pushwoosh is registered with the Russian government to pay taxes in Russia.

On social media and in U.S. regulatory filings, however, it presents itself as a U.S. company, based at various times in California, Maryland and Washington, D.C., Reuters found.

Now the question is this: Is this company trying to simply evade sanctions against Russia to stay in business. Or are they collecting data from these apps and handing it over the the Russian government. The company says it didn’t hide the fact that it is Russian, though I question that based on the Reuters story. And one could argue that it really doesn’t matter as the Russian government could knock on their door asking for whatever data they had, and the company could hand it over.

I think that the take home message is as follows. If you as a developer plan to use someone else’s code in your apps, you should make sure that it’s from a trustworthy source. Clearly a lot of developers didn’t in this case. And now it’s an issue.

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Pinterest TV Expands To Canada

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

Following the launch of Pinterest TV in the US last year, Pinterest TV is now expanding into Canada with a focus on shopping inspiration for the holidays. Pinterest TV is a new feature created to unlock live original video for creators and merchants. 

Pinterest is kicking-off ‘Shop the Holidays on Pinterest TV’ with 10 hours of daily programming running from November 15-18th in Canada and the US. Over sixty brands and four major North American publishers are taking part in the series, which will include over 40 hours of shoppable content. Proving that even holiday shopping is different on Pinterest, Pinners will also benefit from mindful meditation breaks, shopping tips and tricks, and exclusive access to product drops and deals in time for inspiring holiday shopping.

Pinterest TV episodes will be hosted by a combination of publishers, Pinterest Key Opinion Sellers, Canadian and global brands. Each day will focus on a different category so shoppers in North America can find the gifts they’re looking for, while also delighting in discovering something new.

‘Shop the Holidays’ Program Schedule

November 15th – Food and Festivities

Dig into the first day of shoppable fun with The Bay, Fable, Apartment Therapy and a six-hour stream in collaboration with Tastemade, featuring beloved cuisine creators and deals on indie food brands.

November 16th – Home and Decor

Deck the halls with Red Land Cotton, exclusive holiday wreath ideas and a three-hour evening takeover with Wayfair, featuring deals and curated design tips from Pinterest’s own Live Shopping hosts. 

November 17th – Beauty and Fashion

Shop Nudestix, Jenny Bird, Theraface and more with an extra-special gifting curation from the editors at Allure Magazine. 

November 18th – Gift Guides

Finding the ideal gift for everyone will be easy this year. Tune in to shop from indie Canadian brands like LOHN candles, The Silk Labs, alongside Canadian retailer The Bay, and find curated ideas from editors at The Kit and Glamour. 

Pinterest is a destination for people to watch, shop and try inspiring ideas in categories including food, beauty, home, and DIY. Through recent advancements with shopping and creator features, Pinners are engaging in more immersive formats and actionable entertainment than ever before. Since launching Pinterest TV in the US last year, there have been over 2 million minutes of livestream watchtime and over 900 creators and brands have gone live. 

Simply click here, or tap the TV icon in the upper left corner of the Pinterest App to view episodes, interact with hosts, ask questions via chat, and shop products you like, live. 

Shopping Pinterest TV 

On Pinterest TV, brands and creators can showcase and tag products so Pinners can shop and purchase on the retailer’s site. Hosts will have a shopping toolbox to enable live shopping experiences including a product drawer with prices and product details, product drops and brand collaborations and a limited-time-offer module to offer discounts. 

Tastemade, a global partner of Pinterest, will kick off their inaugural Canadian programming during ‘Shop the Holidays on Pinterest TV’. Tastemade will be hosting programming dedicated to food and home days, to help Pinners get ready ahead of holiday hosting season. 

More on Pinterest TV

  • Fresh, live inspiration. Pinterest TV is a new way to discover fresh inspiration through live video from diverse Pinterest creators.
  • Inspiration for your life. Each weekday, Pinterest TV will bring you a fresh episode focused on a different category: food, home, fashion, beauty, and more.
  • Shop exclusive deals. Every Friday, a new brand will host an exclusive product drop. Show up live to see the big reveal and bag special discounts.
  • Watch live, revisit later. Check out our shows live for a chance to interact with creators and snag exclusive deals. Pinterest TV recordings will also be available after airing, so you can check out shows you missed or revisit any of your favorite episodes. To stay in the know on upcoming live sessions, tap “Remind me.
  • Shop anytime. Following each live Pinterest TV episode, brands will create Shoppable Boards with the products highlighted in the episode to make shopping and browsing easier than ever.

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Not A Good Look For Apple: Analytics Data Sent From iPhones With Or Without Your Consent… And A Lawsuit Has Been Filed

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

Many people, yours truly included use iPhones because we want our data to remain private. Well that appears that it isn’t the case. A security researcher named Tommy Mysk has discovered that regardless of whether you allowed your iPhone to send analytics data to Apple or not, iPhones and specifically Apple apps were sending that data anyway. Gizmodo broke this news over the weekend and their story is very much worth reading as it goes deep into the weeds about this. But the bottom line is that it blows up Apple’s privacy argument in epic fashion.

Gizmodo also reports that a class action lawsuit has been filed in California. Which is understandable because Apple trades on the privacy mantra and it appears that it doesn’t actually follow through on that. Now Apple hasn’t commented on this, but this has got to be a 9-1-1 event for the company. I would not at all be surprised if a bunch of software updates come out in the next couple of weeks or so to address everything that has been discovered. Then I would not at all be surprised if Apple makes some comment to suggest it was an oversight and there’s nothing to see here. Finally I fully expect that Apple’s iLawyers will try to get this lawsuit to go away as quickly as possible. Because Apple as a company that is under a lot of scrutiny from a variety of sources. Thus is is a problem that they do not need right now.

This is not a good look at all for Apple.

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Intuit’s Third Annual Prosperity Accelerator Aims to Spur Growth for Greater Toronto Area Fintechs

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

Intuit announced today the launch of its third annual Intuit Prosperity Accelerator in collaboration with Highline Beta, a globally recognized accelerator builder-operator and venture capital firm focused on corporate innovation.

The Intuit Prosperity Accelerator: Toronto, powered by Highline Beta, is an equity-free, challenge-based program focused on advancing financial prosperity. The four-month program is designed to accelerate the growth, impact, and fundability of high-potential Greater Toronto Area (GTA) tech startups whose mission is to improve the financial prosperity of Canadian consumers and small businesses. Selected startups will have access to a corporate and investor mentorship network, dedicated coaching, and the opportunity for follow-on investment from Highline Beta.

Today’s tech startups are facing uncertainty due to the possibility of a recession, high inflation, and an ongoing labour shortage. Further, startup funding in Canada for financial technology companies in the second quarter of 2022 saw a dramatic 70% drop compared to the previous year, highlighting the need for startup accelerator programs such as the Intuit Prosperity Accelerator.

Over the past two years, Intuit has worked with 15 startup participants in its Prosperity Accelerator program to help overcome such challenges by running design experiments, validating use cases, and helping position them to raise over $24 million CAD.

Toronto is now accepting applications until January 13, 2023. Six to eight startups will be selected, with the program kicking off in February 2023. Startups wishing to join must have a solution in market that fits into at least one of the program’s challenge areas:

Help consumers with:

  • Rising mortgage and rent costs
  • Managing savings and investments
  • Empowering income stability and mitigating debt

Help small businesses and self-employed individuals with:

  • Juggling the management of multiple businesses
  • Rising cost of goods sold
  • Attracting and retaining labour

For more information on eligibility requirements and to apply, visit: https://www.intuit.com/ca/prosperity-accelerator.

About the Program:

The Intuit Prosperity Accelerator: Toronto powered by Highline Beta is an equity-free challenged-based program focused on advancing financial prosperity. Selected startups will come from Toronto’s burgeoning tech ecosystem and have access to a corporate and investor mentorship network, dedicated coaching, and the opportunity for follow-on investment from Highline Beta. It will also provide exclusive access to experts, business mentors, and a vibrant alumni startup community. New this year, applicants will benefit from regular virtual and in-person programming.

The Intuit Prosperity Accelerator is now accepting applications until January 13, 2023. Six to eight startups will be selected, with the program kicking off in February 2023. Applicants must be from high-potential seed-stage tech startups located in the Greater Toronto Area who have technology-driven solutions with products in market. Applications from pre-seed or later-stage companies will also be considered based on alignment with program challenges.

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Guest Post: Generation X in China is the wariest of wearable technology due to data privacy concerns

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 14, 2022 by itnerd

Wearable electronics are becoming increasingly popular worldwide, including in China, where around 78% of the population own a smartwatch, a fitness tracker, or both. However, as such devices have access to a vast amount of sensitive data, like users’ health information, privacy and security concerns arise.

According to the data presented by the Atlas VPN team, based on the Rakuten Insight online survey, people born in Generation X (those born between the mid-1960-s and early 1980-s) are the most skeptical of wearable technology in China due to concerns over their personal data safety and privacy when stored by such devices.

In total, 27% of 45 to 54-year-olds in China who do not own any wearables indicated worry about their data safety and privacy as one of the reasons against purchasing one, while the same is true for 22% of people aged 55 and more. 

The younger generations are less bothered about wearable electronics’ privacy and safety implications. Nevertheless, nearly a fifth (19%) of Millennial survey respondents aged 25 to 44 stated safety and privacy concerns among the top deterrents to using wearables. In the meantime, 10% of respondents belonging to Generation Z (ages 16 to 24) do not use wearables for this reason.

Overall, 15% of survey participants indicated they would not buy wearable electronics in China due to data privacy and safety concerns. Males are more likely to distrust wearable devices due to such concerns (17%) than females (14%).

All in all, wearable technologies can be highly convenient, helping users evaluate their sleep quality, fitness levels, and overall health, among other things. However, to do so, wearable electronics collect a wide range of sensitive information, including users’ heart rate, blood pressure, sleep patterns, and GPS location, essentially enabling surveillance of individuals and their behaviors. When such information is stored, there is always a risk it can end up in the wrong hands or be misused. 

To read the full article, head over to:

https://atlasvpn.com/blog/generation-x-in-china-is-the-wariest-of-wearable-technology-due-to-data-privacy-concerns

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Twitter Is Now Engaged In A Second Round Of Layoffs…. This Time It’s Contractors…. Thousands Of Them

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 13, 2022 by itnerd

Elon Musk’s burning down of Twitter continues unabated.

Casey Newton of Platformer is saying that thousands of contractors worldwide have been laid off. And the way they’re finding out is absolutely wrong:

This is absolutely wrong on so many levels. You don’t treat other human beings this way. Clearly Elon Musk on top of being immature is a horrible human being who has no feelings whatsoever. It shows the level of desperation that he has to get Twitter to make money quickly in order to pay back all the loans he took out to buy Twitter. Oh yeah, if you think Twitter is in a bad place now, it’s about to get worse.

Oh yeah. Then there’s also this:

https://twitter.com/phocks/status/1591549286999023616

This guy is a scumbag too. Just like his boss. My advice for former Twitter employees who get a call to come back to work, decline it. Twitter doesn’t deserve you or your talents. Let them burn.

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Immature Elon Musk Picks A Fight With A US Senator….. Which Will Not End Well For Elon Musk

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 13, 2022 by itnerd

Yesterday I wrote a story on US Senator Ed Markey wanting answers from Elon Musk about the Twitter Blue debacle. Specifically, why Elon Musk did nothing to stop people from impersonating major brands and famous people. In that story I said this:

Now Elon can try to ignore this. But that would not be a good idea as all that will likely result is him being hauled in front of Congress where he will have to answer questions. And trying to blow that off will not end well for him. Thus I hope for his sake that Elon is drafting answers for Senator Markey that are comprehensive and detailed. Otherwise it’s not going to end well for him.

The good news is he is not ignoring this. The bad news is that Musk has decided to pick a fight with this senator. Via a reader:

Really Elon? You’re really going to tempt fate by being so juvenile? Because if you do, it’s going to be highly likely that any number of bad things will happen to you. Such as fines, investigations, congressional hearings, etc. None of which is a good look on you.

Oh wait, it appears that we might be heading down that road.

What Senator Markey is talking about is this:

  • Twitter is subject to a FTC consent decree that stems from begin caught using the security phone numbers users to target ads to said users.
  • Tesla is being investigated by the NHTSA for it’s autopilot software and how it works. This same senator has said “every day that Tesla disregards safety rules and misleads the public about its ‘Autopilot’ system, our roads become more dangerous.”

The fact is that Elon isn’t in a good place here. His immature behaviour is only going to result in him being put under so much scrutiny by congress and others that he going to wish that he would rather be in a proctology exam. It’s also going to send more of Twitters advertisers heading to the exits because nobody wants to be associated with this train wreck that Elon has created nor do they want to be associated with his immature behaviour. Finally users will continue to migrate to Mastodon and other places to avoid the hellscape that Twitter has become under immature Elon Musk. And all of that will not only kill Twitter, but it will start to negatively affect Tesla and SpaceX. The thing is, this is what you get when you have a guy who has the maturity of an adolescent at best running multi-billon dollar companies. Musk seriously needs to get his act together or find others to be his adults in the room. But I suspect that we’re way past that and we’re in the endgame for Twitter for sure, but maybe we’re also in the endgame for Tesla and SpaceX as well.

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How To Join Mastodon In Two Easy Steps

Posted in Commentary with tags on November 13, 2022 by itnerd

Thanks to Elon Musk’s incompetence or desperation, or perhaps both, Twitter is now the hellscape of toxic behaviour, racism, and bad behaviour that he promised that it would not become. That is sending people running from Twitter to Mastodon. The best way to describe Mastadon is that it is 2014 era Twitter that is made up of decentralized servers and it has no adverts. A big plus is that it is completely open source and isn’t controlled by any one person or organization. That decentralization does create a bit of complexity that you need to navigate if you want to join Mastodon. Thus this guide hopes to help to make this process easier by breaking it down all the required steps in bite sized chunks.

Step One: Choose A Server

To join Mastodon you need to join a Mastodon. Like I said earlier, Mastodon is made up of decentralized servers. So choosing one is your first task. You can find servers by choosing by geographic region, language, topic registration process and whether or not they’re hosted by individuals or organizations. All servers on the official Mastodon site have agreed to follow the best practices of the Mastodon Server Covenant. In my case, I am on noc.social because that one is tech focused, and I am a tech guy. But if you need some help with that, I would recommend that you visit instances.social which has a wizard that can help you to select the best server based on your interests. You might want to read the server’s about us page to make sure it’s a good fit for you as well as reading the server rules to make sure that you don’t break any of the server’s rules.

Step Two: Join The Server

Once you’ve chosen a server, your next step is to join it. Each Mastodon instance will have its own sign-up process, but majority of Mastodon servers work like this:

  • You provide a username.
  • You provide your real email address and a password,
  • You check the box agreeing to the terms of service and server rules and click “Sign Up.” 

You’ll then see a notification asking you to check your email for a verification message. Click the “Verify email address” in that email message, and you’re done. You’ll have a username that looks like this:

@USERNAME@Server.com

Where @USERNAME is the username that you chose and @Server.com is the name of the Mastodon server that you joined.

At this point you can not only start to follow people that server, but you can follow anyone in what is called the “Fediverse” which is the federation of all official Mastodon servers. So in short, you’re not missing out on anyone that you might want to follow by joining a specific server.

Now if you want to follow some people who are prominent on Twitter and have moved to Mastodon, this list will help you with that. And if you want to follow me specifically, I can be found on Mastodon at @The_IT_Nerd@noc.social and I am currently cross posting all my stories there along with interacting with people as well.

Should you have any questions, drop me a note in the comments and I’ll try and help you out. In the meantime, you can enjoy your hellscape free social media platform.

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