#pms software provider

[fiessystems]

To efficiently manage properties and streamline operations, many property managers turn to Property Management Software (PMS) solutions. However, with a plethora of options available in the market, choosing the right PMS software can be overwhelming.

Here are ten frequently asked questions to ask your PMS software provider. Read Now

[sayruq]

Dozens of Google employees began occupying company offices in New York City and Sunnyvale, California, on Tuesday in protest of the company’s $1.2 billion contract providing cloud computing services to the Israeli government. The sit-in, organized by the activist group No Tech for Apartheid, is happening at Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian’s office in Sunnyvale and the 10th floor commons of Google’s New York office. The sit-in will be accompanied by outdoor protests at Google offices in New York, Sunnyvale, San Francisco, and Seattle beginning at 2 pm ET and 11 am PT. Tuesday’s actions mark an escalation in a series of recent protests organized by tech workers who oppose their employer’s relationship with the Israeli government, especially in light of Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. Just over a dozen people gathered outside Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale on Tuesday. Among those in New York was Google cloud software engineer Eddie Hatfield, who was fired days after disrupting Google Israel’s managing director at March’s Mind The Tech, a company-sponsored conference focused on the Israeli tech industry, in early March. Several hours into the sit-ins on Tuesday, Google security began to accuse the workers of “trespassing” and disrupting work, prompting several people to leave while others vowed to remain until they were forced out. The 2021 contract, known as Project Nimbus, involves Google and Amazon jointly providing cloud computing infrastructure and services across branches of the Israeli government. Last week, Time reported that Google’s work on Project Nimbus involves providing direct services to the Israel Defense Forces. No Tech for Apartheid is a coalition of tech workers and organizers with MPower Change and Jewish Voice for Peace, which are respectively Muslim- and Jewish-led peace-focused activist organizations. The coalition came together shortly after Project Nimbus was signed and its details became public in 2021.

You can read No Tech for Apartheid's open letter here.

[collapsedsquid]

People who paid to speak to an AI girlfriend modeled after real life 23-year-old influencer Caryn Marjorie are distraught because the service they paid for, Forever Companions, no longer works. It appears that the service stopped working shortly after Forever Companion CEO and founder John Meyer was arrested for trying to set his own apartment on fire.  [...] On social media for the last few weeks, the official Forever Voices Twitter account has been posting bizarre videos and statements about the CIA, Donald Trump, and the FBI. According to Austin NBC affiliate KXAN, Meyer was arrested on October 22 for trying to set fire to the building where he lived, causing an estimated $360,000 in damages. In addition to those arson charges, 404 Media obtained an affidavit for an arrest warrant for charges of “Terroristic Threats” against the headquarters of a company called Cloud Kitchens, which provides software to restaurants. The affidavit states “On October 14th 2023 AT 9:06 PM John Heinrich Meyer posted on Twitter "@travisk get ready for me to literally blow up Cloud Kitchens." This post was posted under the twitter handle for John H. Meyer.” An employee for Cloud Kitchens sent this and additional tweets to the FBI, which is working with Austin police on the case. “Meyer has a history of being an emotionally disturbed person, which is consistent. with the behavior he displayed during this incident,” the affidavit notes.

[mariacallous]

For more than three weeks, Gaza has faced an almost total internet blackout. The cables, cell towers, and infrastructure needed to keep people online have been damaged or destroyed as Israel launched thousands of missiles in response to Hamas attacking Israel and taking hundreds of hostages on October 7. Then, this evening, amid reports of heavy bombing in Gaza, some of the last remaining connectivity disappeared.

In the days after October 7, people living in Gaza have been unable to communicate with family or friends, leaving them unsure whether loved ones are alive. Finding reliable news about events has become harder. Rescue workers have not been able to connect to mobile networks, hampering recovery efforts. And information flowing out of Gaza, showing the conditions on the ground, has been stymied.

As the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding its ground operations in Gaza this evening, internet connectivity fell further. Paltel, the main Palestinian communications company, has been able to keep some of its services online during Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attack. However, at around 7:30 pm local time today, internet monitoring firm NetBlocks confirmed a “collapse” in connectivity in the Gaza Strip, mostly impacting remaining Paltel services.

“We regret to announce a complete interruption of all communications and internet services within the Gaza Strip,” Paltel posted in a post on its Facebook page. The company claimed that bombing had “caused the destruction of all remaining international routes.” An identical post was made on the Facebook page of Jawwal, the region’s biggest mobile provider, which is owned by Paltel. Separately, Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian organization, said on X (formerly Twitter) that it had lost contact with its operation room in Gaza and is “deeply concerned” about its ability to keep caring for people, with landline, cell, and internet connections being inaccessible.

“This is a terrifying development,” Marwa Fatafta, a policy manager focusing on the Middle East and North Africa at the digital rights group Access Now, tells WIRED. “Taking Gaza completely off the grid while launching an unprecedented bombardment campaign only means something atrocious is about to happen.”

A WIRED review of internet analysis data, social media posts, and Palestinian internet and telecom company statements shows how connectivity in the Gaza Strip drastically plummeted after October 7 and how some buildings linked to internet firms have been damaged in attacks. Photos and videos show sites that house various internet and telecom firms have been damaged, while reports from official organizations, including the United Nations, describe the impact of people being offline.

Damaged Lines

Around the world, the internet and telecoms networks that typically give web users access to international video calls, online banking, and endless social media are a complicated, sprawling mix of hardware and software. Networks of networks, combining data centers, servers, switches, and reams of cables, communicate with each other and send data globally. Local internet access is provided by a mix of companies with no clear public documentation of their infrastructure, making it difficult to monitor the overall status of the system as a whole. In Gaza, experts say, internet connectivity is heavily reliant on Israeli infrastructure to connect to the outside world.

Amid Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza, physical systems powering the internet have been destroyed. On October 10, the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which oversees emergency responses, said air strikes “targeted several telecommunication installations” and had destroyed two of the three main lines of communications going into Gaza.

Prior to tonight’s blackout, internet connectivity remained but was “extremely slow and limited,” Access Now’s Fatafta says. People she has spoken to from Gaza say it could take a day to upload and send a few photos. “They have to send like 20 messages in order for one to go through,” Fatafta says. “They are desperately—especially for Gazans that live outside—trying to get through to their families.”

“Every time I try to call someone from family or friends, I try to call between seven to 10 times,” says Ramadan Al-Agha, a digital marketer who lives in Khan Yunis, a city in the south of the Gaza Strip. “The call may be cut off two or three times,” he told WIRED in a WhatsApp message before the latest outages. “We cannot access news quickly and clearly.” People in the region have simultaneously faced electricity blackouts, dwindling supplies of fuel used to power generators, and a lack of clean water, food, and medical supplies. “It is a humanitarian disaster,” Al-Agha says.

Connectivity in Gaza started to drop not long after Israel responded to the October 7 Hamas attack. Rene Wilhelm, a senior R&D engineer at the nonprofit internet infrastructure organization Ripe Network Coordination Center, says based on an analysis of internet routing data it collects that 11 Palestinian networks, which may operate both in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, began to experience disruption after October 7. Eight of the networks were no longer visible to the global internet as of October 23, Wilhelm says. Ahead of this evening’s blackout, there was around 15 percent of normal connectivity, according to data from Georgia Tech’s Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project. That dropped to around 7 percent as reports of the blackout circulated.

One office belonging to Paltel in the Al Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City has been destroyed in the attacks, photos and videos show. Floors have been destroyed and windows blown away in the multistory building, and piles of rubble surround the entrances. (It is unclear what equipment the building housed or how many floors Paltel occupied.) Another internet provider, AlfaNet, is listed as being based in the Al-Watan Tower. The company posted to its Facebook page on October 8 that the tower had been destroyed and its services have stopped, with other online posts also saying the tower has been destroyed.

Multiple Palestinian internet and telecoms firms have said their services have been disrupted during the war, mostly posting to social media. Internet provider Fusion initially said its engineers were trying to repair its infrastructure, although it has since said this is not continuing. “The network was destroyed, and the cables and poles were badly damaged by the bombing,” it wrote on Facebook. JetNet said there had been a “sudden disruption” to access points. SpeedClick posted that the situation was out of its control. And HiNet posted that it has “no more to offer to ensure” people could stay online following “the attacks and destruction our internet servers have suffered.”

Across Paltel’s network on October 19, according to an update shared by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 83 percent of fixed line users had been disconnected, with 53 percent of sites providing fixed line connections also being offline. Half of the company’s fiber optic internet lines in Gaza weren’t operational, the update says. The connectivity disappeared this evening, according to Paltel’s Facebook post, which says there has been a “complete interruption” of all its services. Paltel, AlfaNet, Fusion, and SpeedClick could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment.

Lost Connections

In recent years, governments and authoritarian regimes have frequently turned to shutting down the internet for millions of people in attempts to suppress protests and curtail free speech. Targeting the communications networks is common during conflicts. During Russia's war in Ukraine, its forces have decimated communications networks, tried to take over the internet, and set up new mobile companies to control information flows. When Hamas first attacked Israel on October 7, it used drones to bomb communications equipment at surveillance posts along the borders of the Gaza Strip.

Monika Gehner, the head of corporate communications at the International Telecommunication Union, says the body is always “alarmed” by damage inflicted on any telecommunications infrastructure during conflicts. The ITU, the United Nations’ primary internet governance body, believes “efficient telecommunication services” are crucial to peace and international cooperation, and its secretary-general has called for respecting infrastructure in the Middle East, Gehner says.

Officials in Israel have consistently claimed they are targeting Hamas militants within Gaza, not civilians, while responding to the Hamas attacks, which killed more than 1,400 people in Israel. The Hamas-run Health Ministry within Gaza has said more than 7,000 people have been killed there and released a list of names. A spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces did not respond to WIRED’s questions about internet disruptions within Gaza.

Hanna Kreitem, a senior adviser for internet technology and development in the Middle East and North Africa at the Internet Society, an open internet advocacy nonprofit, says Palestinian firms have a “big reliance” on Israeli internet firms. “Palestinians are not controlling any of the ICT infrastructure,” says Mona Shtaya, a non-resident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy. Mobile networks in the Gaza Strip rely on 2G technologies. Al-Agha, the digital marketer, shared a screenshot showing mobile internet speeds of 7.18 kilobytes per second; average mobile speeds in the US in 2022 were 24 megabits per second, according to mobile analytics firm Statista.

“The internet is vital in times of war in crises,” says Fatafta, the Access Now policy manager, who adds that there can be “terrible consequences” linked to connectivity blackouts. The UN’s OCHA said rescue workers have had a harder time “carrying out their mission” partly due to the “limited or no connection to mobile networks.” Al-Agha says he has lost some clients due to the disruptions. The lack of connectivity can obscure events that are happening on the ground, Fatafta says. News crews have told WIRED they have footage from the ground but are “losing the story because of the internet.”

Kreitem says that a lack of electricity and access to the equipment will have made an impact on top of any physical damage to communications networks. “We don't know how many of the people that actually operate these networks are still alive,” Kreitem says. “The network operators are part of the world there, there's no place for them to run. They are as affected as any other person.”

[school-of-roses]

☆･✧Introduction to Writing a Professional Email✧･☆

"Every professor secretly wants to be Ms. Frizzle." -@myshoeisonthewrongfoot

Introduction to Writing a Professional Email

Writing an email is one skill that you will most likely need in your professional life either as a student or in your time in the workforce. However, you can also use these skills to write emails to experts in any given field when you have questions among other things. The applications are endless.

Rule One: Don’t Panic

If you are writing to someone for information there is a very solid chance that the response you are going to get is going to be something like “yeah sure -sent from my iphone 11:35:18 PM” if it isn’t closer to an automatic message informing you that the person is out of the office until a specific date.Those who care don’t matter and those who matter don’t care. If your grammar is coherent enough to be understandable and cohesive, they are going to care more about the content of your email than the structure and soundness of the message. So fear not, internet denizen, you are probably gonna kill it. Being professional, polite, and persistent will get you very far in most things, and this is no exception.

Subject Line

Whatever anyone tells you, your job here is to NOT get caught by someone’s spam filter. Summarize what you’re looking for in about 3 to 5 words, and you should be good. I generally like to start with [What is it?] [Specific topic it pertains to.] Want to ask a professional about how many different kinds of tigers there are? 

Subject: Question about Tiger Species Statistics.

The [What is it?] helps give them an idea of what the email is about, and the specificity helps both keep you out of the spam filter and makes you sound purposeful.

Template

Writing an email isn’t particularly difficult once you get the hang of it, but when you’re first starting out, don’t be scared to use a template. Taking some of the thinking out of the process can do wonders for making you both comfortable as well as getting you most of the way there without having to struggle.  No one is going to judge you if your email doesn’t look particularly original in structure because this is about the content. You don’t have to worry here about looking like you copied someone else’s homework, rather, it’s encouraged. If you were writing a haiku you wouldn’t worry about having the same number of syllables as everyone else. In the same vein do not worry about having the same professional email structure as everyone else. Emails are a means to an end, and there is no harm in viewing them that way.

I’ve written one out below for your convenience.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Good morning,/ Good afternoon,/ Good evening,] ---> Header

[This is where you introduce yourself and provide relevant details about who you are. Are you a student with a question? Are you a professional in the field? Include that here. You may also want to include a thesis here about what you want in this introduction.  That is likely going to resemble something like “I have a question about {topic} and would like to hear your advice/ input/ knowledge on the subject, if possible.” It may seem redundant to introduce yourself here when your name is also going at the bottom, but redundancy isn’t always a bad thing.  This first paragraph is introducing yourself, the bottom is handing someone your business card.] ---> Introduction paragraph 

[This is your substantive content. You can indent this if you like, but some software gets a little finicky with this process, and most people prefer a space between the paragraphs in an email anyway because it genuinely makes it easier for people to read. Keep the paragraphs concise, clear, and don’t sweat the small stuff.] ---> First body of the email.

[I usually use much shorter paragraphs in an email that you would in an essay. You’re generally not arguing a point or giving an in depth analysis in an email, so they shouldn’t be too beefy in the first place, but generally separating them by question or by thought process is a good idea.]  ---> Second body of the email.

[And so on and so forth.] ---> Etc. body of the email.

[Best,/ Best wishes,/ Thank you,/ Thanks in advance, Kind regards] ---- Signature message

[Name O. Person] ---- Signature here

Stylistic Options

Some people insist there should be a colon at the end of the header portion, but in personal experience no one cares besides this one writing professor I had. However, if you wanna feel fancy with it, go for it. There are barely any rules to writing a professional email, but if it makes you a little less panicked to think you are performing a well guarded secret of professional email technique by using it, be the super spy you were born to be. 

Bonus Sign Off Sentence

Additionally, no one thinks for more than five seconds about the signature message. Whether you use “Regards”, or “Thank you” this is linguistic furniture. You notice when it isn’t there, but you don’t think very hard about it when it is there. I use the exact same one every single time, and so does everyone else. Pick one that sparks joy for you. If you want, you can even throw a sentence right before it to tailor it to your specific desires a la: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Body ends here.]

I genuinely appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Regards, Name O. Person

Email Signature

One way to elevate your professional email game is to create a signature in your email program. In gmail, it’s under general settings.  You click add signature, pick a name for it, and it should open a formatting box. This allows you to create essentially a business card that will automatically be affixed to the bottom of your emails. It will go in place of putting your name at the bottom every time. You can get a little more fancy with the fonts and information in this section by including things like job title or graduating class. This can elevate your professional email game tenfold and make you look like you really know what you’re doing. Nearly every program for email management has some variation of this in the settings somewhere.

[eruditetyro]

i’m learning the trick to being a good client liaison/point person/pm is to strike the right balance between being deferential to the client’s changing whims and advocating for the needs of the team if we are to produce properly QCed work that meets our standards. we were asked yesterday to run a process on data that was partially incomplete in at most 1/6th of the time we should have taken to do so, we rose to the occasion, we stayed late, we provided the work to the client, and there was a whole row missing from the data, which the client had already passed along the pipeline, because a keying error committed months ago by someone in the client team resulted in the row getting dropped when it was put through a script in a python-based software in the last twenty minutes of the processing time after close of business yesterday. and we only found the mistake today because the client requested the same analysis be run on a larger data set, and we were able to take more time with our QC of the larger set, and we found the error. which is great except we did it after the deadline set by the client that she had already yelled at me about this morning to try to impress the importance of the data because she thought she had found a mistake that it turns out wasn’t a mistake but in fact there was a real mistake hiding behind it. so anyway. also the company is beginning the rumblings of complete restructuring and my boss is leaving at the end of the month. which is just not conducive to the feeling of security needed to advocate properly for one’s team in front of a scary million dollar client.

[mortallyandrogynoussheep]

wassup, im back with (posting about) trying to get my life back together

i didnt quit the 100 days of struggling, or whatever, i was really just, well, struggling. to be alive, i guess.

yesterday was the peak of me feeling the most unstable over the last week or two, i think it was mostly due to my period being around the corner, so hormones are going crazy and you know the old shenanigan of - you know that your period is coming, when you start feels borderline suicidal and depressed.

ngl, it was scary as hell, because i think it was 40/60 of why i was feeling so down - 40 being the initial struggle, 60 being the fear coming from "i dont want for things to scale back to how they once were". because how they once were is best described the one sinlge word - hell.

anyway, the drama aside, i am now feeling much much better, thankfully, and i have a more positive outlook on life. at least for now.

so, we're missing the days from the 4th of July. insert the eagle scream. i will try to recount them from my memory to the best of my abilities, more so for myself and to keep track of days.

3/100 days of getting my life back together

Friday, July 5, 2024

quite frankly, I don't remember where the day went. i looked around for some notes or whatever else scattered in my place and im not sure what exactly was i doing. the only highlight of that day, was that i finally payed off the first paying for my dentist check and i think that is the most information I have. i think i woke up at 2:30 pm, so that would explain the short day. i remember studying a little bit in the evening and it probably was the software engineering notes, aka SE, since i think i was studying in bed and i do notes for se on my tablet.

4/100 days of getting my life back together

Saturday, July 6, 2024

on this day i met up with my friends for some socialization, i guess. we talked and had some boba. i studied on my way there and back, which came up to about an hour of studying in total. the rest of the day is, again, a mystery to me. maybe i should start keeping a journal to help myself. because i freaking bought one on that day fdskflsd

5/100 days of getting my life back together.

Sunday, July 7, 2024

okay, here i was really happy, because for the first time in weeks i managed to not only wake up at 8 am, but also went to bed somewhere between 22-23 at the clock. granted, i fell asleep an hour later, after i woke up, because i was suddenly hit with a wave of sleepiness and tiredness, but, i guess, one small step at a time. i mean it did fuck up my sleeping schedule for today, because i ended falling asleep somewhere between 2 and 3 am, but we have what we have.

the highlight of yesterday was finally finishing up a job i was postponing for MONTHS, which was printing out all the documents we would need, for my mom to apply for a job. i won't be going into too much details of why and etc, but yeah. at the end of the day i had 8 copies of 4 documents printed out, and was feeling more or less good about it.

at the second 4 copies batch printer decided to start playing games, and first chewed on the paper it was printing, and then i decided to try a new approach to try to speed things up, but it only ended up damaging one of the copies, so i had to redo that. but at the end of the day, the job was done.

i didn't study at all that day, because as i said at the start of this post - this was the day, when my head decided, that it's a great time to go sad-mode.

i also started taking some vitamins that have been laying around for a few months now, because i feel really crappy and i need some help, that maybe they can provide, before i get my eating habbits and everything else back in place. for now i am hoping they could be my crutches.

oh, and also i did some yoga to stretch my body. nothing huge, but i guess it's something good?

6/100 days of getting my life back together

Monday, July 8, 2024

and now we are back to present day. woke up at about 11:30 or so. played a little bit of guitar for the first time since MONTHS, i started learning the scientist, we'll see how it goes. i figured to reward myself, i would put a new fun sticket on it, if i finished learning it.

anyway, it is now 15:35 as i am writing this, i will be now cleaning up a little bit and getting back to studying.

DB 4 (finish up)

SE 4 (finish up)

DB 5

SE 5

[chariebelssss]

082924 | CPE312 Software Design and Engineering | 12:00 - 3:00 PM

WEEK 3

On August 29, 2024, we present our initial progress of our CitizenShield Net Project to Engr. Carl. My team had been diligently working on the front-end design, focusing on important components of login, sign up, and the homepage. The anticipation was palpable as we prepared to showcase our efforts and seek valuable guidance from our mentor.

The consultation with Engr. Carl provided us with invaluable insights and feedback. While we were pleased with the progress we had made, it became evident that there were areas where our project could be enhanced. The suggestions offered by Engr. Carl were instrumental in identifying potential areas for improvement and ensuring that our project aligns with the highest standards of quality and functionality.

Looking ahead, our team is eager to apply the lessons learned from last week's consultation to our ongoing development efforts. We are confident that by incorporating the feedback and continuing to work collaboratively, we will be able to deliver a project that not only meets but exceeds our initial expectations.

#SDE #CPE

[lgcrp]

LGCRP IS HIRING !!

hello, lgc ! due to developments in the admin team's personal lives and the changes that we're planning on making to our current system, we're looking for someone to help the team !

your main responsibility will entail maintaining the lgcmedia blog running, meaning creating instagram graphics for our monthly sns posts, youtube graphics for the intro videos, and acceptance graphics as well as writing news and pann articles. you will likely also aid with the upkeep of our subsidiary blogs (updating character rosters, writing captions for posts, etc.), plus reviewing and processing through the forms submitted on the lgcpoints blog ! please take into account that these tasks will take up a fair amount of time and don’t include the time you might spend communicating with the rest of the admin team about anything that comes up unforeseen ! if you’re interested in applying please fill out the following form and send it in through the main blog’s submit box. IF YOU’VE PREVIOUSLY APPLIED, YOU CAN JUST LET US KNOW YOU’RE STILL INTERESTED AS OPPOSED TO FILLING THE SAME APP OUT AGAIN !!!

what’s your alias?  who do you play in lgc? do you own photoshop? if not, do you have access to a software that allows you to open and edit .psd files? do you have previous experience as a mod or admin? ( this isn’t a make or break requirement, we’d just like to have an idea if we consider expanding your responsibilities down the road! ) graphics samples ( ideally a minimum of three, if you do not have any, just let us know and we will send you the templates for our current graphics to see if you’re able to complete it – they should be easy to work with, provided you have some graphic editing experience! ) news article/pann post sample ( doesn’t have to be long! pick one of the current happenings on the lgc schedule (ex. year end ceremonies, future dreams season 7, martine corporation, etc.) and write us a sample article! be sure to include a comment section if you choose to go down the pann route! )

we’ll take applications until SUNDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2023 11:59PM EST. if any questions come up please don’t hesitate to contact us through either the inbox or the pms! please refrain from sending an admin team questions about this privately for the sake of as many of us having access to your messages as possible! thank you! 

in the meantime, we assure you we are working and are here for whatever you need us for. love you all !

- the lgc admin team

[geeta1726]

How will my married life be? I am a female and my marriage is getting delayed. When will it happen? What kind of husband will I get and what will be my career? My DOB is 11/04/1994 at 8:45pm in Chitradurga.

Based on your birth details (11/04/1994 at 8:45 pm in Chitradurga), here are five points regarding your married life, potential marriage timing, husband's characteristics, and career:

Marriage Timing: Delayed marriage could be due to Saturn or Rahu's influence on your 7th house (house of marriage). A favorable transit of Jupiter or Saturn, or the beginning of a supportive planetary period (dasha), could indicate the timing of marriage. Checking these transits is essential for precise predictions.

Husband's Characteristics: The 7th house and its ruling planet(s) provide insights into your future husband. For instance, if Jupiter or Venus influence this house, your husband might be wise, caring, and well-educated. If Mars is influential, he might be dynamic and assertive.

Married Life: The overall harmony and happiness in married life can be assessed by the condition of the 7th house and Venus in your chart. A strong and well-placed Venus usually signifies a harmonious and loving married life.

Career Prospects: Your 10th house (house of career) and its ruling planet(s) determine your career path. If Mercury is strong, you might excel in communication, writing, or business. A strong Saturn suggests careers in administration, engineering, or structured professions

If you want to know information about your marriage and what obstacles are coming in your marriage, to know this more accurately you can use Vivaah Sutram software which can give you better information and you can contact us for match.

[ardathksheyna]

Made a huge update to Rowan's appearance. I decided to do away with the last of the Inu-Yasha influences. The end-result was completely changing his color-scheme to what you see here. I'll have one for Syleth at some point—provided I can keep my mental health issues in check.

As for me? I'm still unemployed, and because of the tech sector's bullshit, *hostile recruiters, and my age, I'm honestly frightened that this is going to be permanent.

*Hostile recruiters? What do I mean about this? A few months ago, I had a post about what it was like to be a female software developer—from my experience, the majority of the discrimination I faced came from other women, not men. It was almost always women in ancillary roles—PMs, HR, recruiters, etc. I never got this level of bullshit from female software devs (or male, for that matter). I'm experiencing this ten-fold from female recruiters as I continue my job hunt. Little slights like throwing junior roles at me when my experience begs to differ.

As a software dev who is a woman, I'd be curious to know if other women have faced this issue? Or if there's something specific to me, like race or the fact that I'm still very tomboyish. With the amount of anti-trans bullshit going on in the country, it almost wouldn't surprise me to find out that there's a backlash of sorts against tomboys as well.

[selloldmobile]

Realme 12 5G: Launch Date, Specifications, and Features

Realme 12 5G launch date in india

Realme is set to make waves in the mid and entry-level smartphone market in India with the launch of their latest offering, the Realme 12+ 5G. Anticipation is high as the company promises to redefine the sub-Rs 20,000 segment with segment-first features and powerful specifications.

While most details about the Realme 12+ 5G have been kept under wraps, the company has revealed some key information about its camera and processor. The phone will sport a 50MP Sony IMX600 main camera with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization), a feature previously unseen in this segment. Powering the device will be the MediaTek Dimensity 7050 chipset, promising smooth performance and efficient multitasking.

The official unveiling of the Realme 12+ 5G will be live-streamed on Realme's YouTube channel, starting at 12 PM. For those eager to witness the launch, the YouTube link will provide access to the event.

Renowned tipster Sudhanshu Ambhore recently shared a screenshot allegedly sourced from an e-commerce platform, revealing key details about the Realme 12 5G (RMX3999) and Realme 12+ 5G (RMX3867) smartphones.

According to the leak, the Realme 12 5G is expected to be priced at ₹18,999 for the 8GB RAM/128GB storage variant. It will come in Twilight Purple and Woodland Green color options. On the other hand, the Realme 12+ 5G is speculated to offer broader storage choices, with the 8GB RAM and 256GB storage variant potentially priced at ₹22,999. Color options for the Realme 12+ 5G include Navigator Beige and Pioneer Green.

Additionally, tipster Abhishek Yadav hinted at some exciting features of the Realme 12+ 5G. The smartphone is expected to sport a 6.67-inch Full HD+ AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. In terms of camera capabilities, alongside the confirmed 50MP Sony LYT600 primary sensor with OIS, it may feature an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens and a 2MP macro lens. Selfie enthusiasts can expect a 16MP selfie sensor on the front.

Battery life is always a concern, but the Realme 12+ 5G is rumored to come equipped with a sizable 5,000mAh battery, with support for 67W SuperVOOC fast charging. On the software front, it is expected to run on the latest Android 14 operating system with Realme's own UI skin.

The teaser from Realme has already confirmed the presence of a punch-hole-style notch at the top of the display, but according to the tipster, there will also be an in-display fingerprint sensor, adding an extra layer of convenience and security.

[mariacallous]

KnowBe4, a US-based security vendor, revealed that it unwittingly hired a North Korean hacker who attempted to load malware into the company's network. KnowBe4 CEO and founder Stu Sjouwerman described the incident in a blog post this week, calling it a cautionary tale that was fortunately detected before causing any major problems.

"First of all: No illegal access was gained, and no data was lost, compromised, or exfiltrated on any KnowBe4 systems," Sjouwerman wrote. “This is not a data breach notification, there was none. See it as an organizational learning moment I am sharing with you. If it can happen to us, it can happen to almost anyone. Don't let it happen to you.”

KnowBe4 said it was looking for a software engineer for its internal IT AI team. The firm hired a person who, it turns out, was from North Korea and was "using a valid but stolen US-based identity" and a photo that was "enhanced" by artificial intelligence. There is now an active FBI investigation amid suspicion that the worker is what KnowBe4's blog post called "an Insider Threat/Nation State Actor."

KnowBe4 operates in 11 countries and is headquartered in Florida. It provides security awareness training, including phishing security tests, to corporate customers. If you occasionally receive a fake phishing email from your employer, you might be working for a company that uses the KnowBe4 service to test its employees' ability to spot scams.

Person Passed Background Check and Video Interviews

KnowBe4 hired the North Korean hacker through its usual process. "We posted the job, received résumés, conducted interviews, performed background checks, verified references, and hired the person. We sent them their Mac workstation, and the moment it was received, it immediately started to load malware," the company said.

Even though the photo provided to HR was fake, the person who was interviewed for the job apparently looked enough like it to pass. KnowBe4's HR team "conducted four video conference based interviews on separate occasions, confirming the individual matched the photo provided on their application," the post said. "Additionally, a background check and all other standard pre-hiring checks were performed and came back clear due to the stolen identity being used. This was a real person using a valid but stolen US-based identity. The picture was AI 'enhanced.'"

The two images at the top of this story are a stock photo and what KnowBe4 says is the AI fake based on the stock photo. The stock photo is on the left, and the AI fake is on the right.

The employee, referred to as "XXXX" in the blog post, was hired as a principal software engineer. The new hire's suspicious activities were flagged by security software, leading KnowBe4's Security Operations Center (SOC) to investigate:

On July 15, 2024, a series of suspicious activities were detected on the user beginning at 9:55 pm EST. When these alerts came in KnowBe4's SOC team reached out to the user to inquire about the anomalous activity and possible cause. XXXX responded to SOC that he was following steps on his router guide to troubleshoot a speed issue and that it may have caused a compromise. The attacker performed various actions to manipulate session history files, transfer potentially harmful files, and execute unauthorized software. He used a Raspberry Pi to download the malware. SOC attempted to get more details from XXXX including getting him on a call. XXXX stated he was unavailable for a call and later became unresponsive. At around 10:20 pm EST SOC contained XXXX's device.

“Fake IT Worker From North Korea”

The SOC analysis indicated that the loading of malware "may have been intentional by the user," and the group "suspected he may be an Insider Threat/Nation State Actor," the blog post said.

"We shared the collected data with our friends at Mandiant, a leading global cybersecurity expert, and the FBI, to corroborate our initial findings. It turns out this was a fake IT worker from North Korea," Sjouwerman wrote.

KnowBe4 said it can't provide much detail because of the active FBI investigation. But the person hired for the job may have logged into the company computer remotely from North Korea, Sjouwerman explained:

How this works is that the fake worker asks to get their workstation sent to an address that is basically an "IT mule laptop farm." They then VPN in from where they really physically are (North Korea or over the border in China) and work the night shift so that they seem to be working in US daytime. The scam is that they are actually doing the work, getting paid well, and give a large amount to North Korea to fund their illegal programs. I don't have to tell you about the severe risk of this. It's good we have new employees in a highly restricted area when they start, and have no access to production systems. Our controls caught it, but that was sure a learning moment that I am happy to share with everyone.

[usafphantom2]

Anduril Is Helping The Air Force To Develop Its Loyal Wingman Drone

Anduril is one of five companies now working on the Collaborative Combat Aircraft program, which is a top priority for the Air Force.

Joseph TrevithickPUBLISHED Jan 25, 2024 12:33 PM EST

Defense contractor Anduril has formally announced that it is one of five companies working on the US Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) advanced drone program.

Anduril

Anduril has become the first contractor to formally announce that it supporting the U.S. Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft advanced uncrewed aircraft program. This comes as the service says this program is progressing slower than it would like due to budgetary issues and amid emerging concerns about the cost and capabilities of the future drones.

A brief press release Anduril put out today says it is one five vendors the Air Force has chosen to help develop its future Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA). The service said last year that a number of companies were under contract to conduct CCA-related work, but declined to name any of them. Last month, Breaking Defense reported that Boeing, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman were the other four contractors working on the CCA program, citing anonymous sources. That story added that some of these companies could be eliminated in a down-select later this year.

A rendering of Anduril's stealthy Fury drone. The company has not yet disclosed how exactly it is contributing to the CCA program. Anduril

When contacted for more information about exactly how it is now contributing to the CCA development effort, Anduril told The War Zone that it could not currently provide any more details "given sensitivities," which it did not elaborate on. We have also reached out to the Air Force for additional information.

Last year, Anduril did notably acquire small aviation firm Blue Force Technologies, which had been developing an advanced drone called Fury that has long seemed very much in line with the Air Force's CCA requirements. You can read more about the Fury, its expected capabilities, its origins, and Anduril's plans for the design in great detail in this feature The War Zone published last September.

Anduril also produces Lattice, which it describes as an "artificial intelligence-enabled software platform that enables teams of autonomous systems to dynamically collaborate to achieve complex missions, under human supervision." This could also be very relevant to the CCA program.

The CCA program is presently focused on the development and acquisition of at least one type of advanced "loyal wingman"-esque drone with a high degree of autonomy. These uncrewed aircraft are expected initially to operate closely together with stealthy Air Force F-35A Joint Strike Fighters and the future crewed sixth-generation Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) combat jet. The drones could potentially operate together with other types of aircraft, including non-stealthy fourth-generation fighters and the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, or independently, in the future. CCA is another element of the larger NGAD family of programs, which also includes new weapons, sensors, networking and battle management suites, advanced jet engines, and more.

"We commend Secretary Kendall and the U.S. Air Force for their leadership and commitment to integrating new technologies into the force," Anduril said in its release today. "We are honored to be the only non-traditional defense company selected to be a part of the CCA program."

The specific mention of being a "non-traditional defense company" here is noteworthy. Large established defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Atomics, and Raytheon have largely dominated the discussion about CCA-relevant developments in recent years.

Anduril regularly highlights its position as a 'disruptor' in the U.S. defense industrial space and its novel developmental, production, and general business practices, as you can read more about here. The company has steadily expanded its portfolio, with focuses on artificial intelligence software and smaller drones, since its founding in 2017.

The Air Force has also been touting its efforts to make use of novel contracting and other processes to help accelerate the CCA program. Air Force Lt. Gen. Richard Moore, Jr, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Programs, spoke about this just yesterday at a public event hosted by the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) think tank in Washington, D.C.

"The thing about this that's innovative with CCAs, in particular, is the Secretary [of the Air Force Frank Kendall] asked us: 'Please don't go to industry and give them a requirement. The last thing in the world we want to do is tell them what to build. We want to go to them with questions and we want to find out what they can do. What is the art of the possible and what is it that they could provide? And let's allow the envelope to expand by not constraining it with a requirement," Moore said.

"I think what we're starting to see now is that there are a lot of thoughts out there, some of them ... not necessarily from the large defense primes [traditional prime contractors], that really will will be beyond what we would have conceived had we decided to write a requirement," Moore added. "So it is exciting to see what's coming. And I think the the way that this is innovative is something that will transition to other programs. I don't think that this is one and done, because I think that we're going to find it to be wildly successful."

Moore also specifically mentioned "non-traditional sources" supporting the CCA program that had emerged through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. SBIR is a U.S. government contracting mechanism that focuses on smaller deals with smaller companies to help foster technical innovation. The initial work on the Fury drone was through SBIR contracts.

All of this being said, the Air Force has made clear that it is not moving ahead with CCA as fast as it wants. The service has blamed this primarily on broader budgetary disputes between President Joe Biden's administration and Congress that are currently impacting the U.S. government as a whole. Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has been particularly outspoken over the years about the problems that short-term spending packages, commonly called continuing resolutions (CR), rather than full annual budgets, impose on the U.S. military broadly.

"We're going to be limited in terms of forward progress based on the CR," Kristyn E. Jones, the senior official currently performing the duties of the Under Secretary of the Air Force, also said at yesterday's CSIS event, speaking alongside Lt. Gen. Moore. "CCA, as I mentioned – you know, we've made some progress being able to award contracts to some of the initial designers, but we can't ramp that."

The Air Force has said in the past that it wants to acquire at least 1,000 CCAs, and likely many more, and that it wants to begin major production of the drones within the next five years. At present, the expected cost of a single CCA is estimated to be around one quarter to one third of the unit price of an F-35 stealth fighter. This would put the price point for one of these future drones at between roughly $20.5 million and $27.5 million, based on public data about current F-35 unit prices.

An F-35A, at center, flies together with a Kratos XQ-58 Valkyrie drone, at left, and an F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, at right, during a test. USAF

The 1,000 CCA figured is based around a notional concept of operations involving a pair of the drones operating together with each of 200 NGAD combat jets and 300 F-35As. The Air Force has also previously said that a single crewed aircraft could oversee more CCAs in the future.

In addition, despite Moore's comments about the Air Force trying not to set firm requirements for the future CCAs, the service is clearly working to define several key parameters. From what has been disclosed so far, the CCA effort looks to be leaning toward designs with less range and higher performance than had previously been envisioned, and that will be at the high end of the expected unit cost range as a result. This, in turn, has already prompted Congress to voice concerns about the direction of the program.

The Air Force has made clear that the CCA program, however it might continue to evolve, is central to its future operational vision. The service sees the drones as especially critical for providing advanced capabilities in high volumes at a relatively low cost, a concept it currently refers to as "affordable mass." This kind of capacity is seen as particularly essential for success in any future high-end conflict, such as one against China in the Pacific.

In the meantime, much about the overall CCA program still seems to be in flux. The Air Force does now seem be working to coalesce the effort around a core group of contractors, including Anduril.

Contact the author: joe@thedrive.com

[dertaglichedan]

Why everyone’s phone will alarm at 2:20 pm ET on Wednesday

Klaus Vedfelt/Digital Vision/Getty Images CNN  — 

If you hear a screeching alert go off on your cell phone – and everyone else’s cell phone – this Wednesday at 2:20 pm ET, don’t panic.

The federal government said it will conduct on Wednesday afternoon a nationwide test of its Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts. The EAS portion of the test will send an emergency alert to all radios and televisions, while the WEA portion of the test will direct alerts to all consumer cell phones.

“The purpose of the Oct. 4 test is to ensure that the systems continue to be effective means of warning the public about emergencies, particularly those on the national level,” the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is conducting the test in coordination with the Federal Communication Commission, said in a statement.

Here’s what to know.

How does this impact me?

Beginning at approximately 2:20 pm ET this Wednesday, all wireless phones should receive an alert and an accompanying text message that reads: “THIS IS A TEST of the National Wireless Emergency Alert System. No action is needed.”

The free text message will be sent in either English or Spanish, depending on the language settings of your device. The text will be accompanied by a unique tone and vibration that is meant to make the alert accessible to the entire public, including people with disabilities, FEMA said.

The test will be broadcast by cell towers for approximately 30 minutes beginning at 2:20 pm ET, FEMA said. During this time, all compatible wireless phones that are switched on, within range of an active cell tower, and whose wireless providers participates in WEA tests should receive the text message.

Meanwhile, all radios and televisions will also broadcast a test emergency alert at the same time as part of the broader test. This message, which will run for approximately one minute, will state: “This is a nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System, issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, covering the United States from 14:20 to 14:50 hours ET. This is only a test. No action is required by the public.”

As the agency has said, no action is required by you after you receive the emergency alert test on your phone or hear it through the radio or TV.

Has this happened before?

Wednesday’s test is set to be the seventh-ever nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System – the alerts that are sent through radio and television broadcasters. It is the third nationwide test of the Wireless Emergency Alerts, but only the second to be sent to consumer cellular devices.

The most-recent test run of both systems took place in 2021. The first-ever test of the Emergency Alert System occurred more than a decade ago, in 2011.

Hasn’t the government messed this up before?

There have indeed been multiple high-profilemistakes, attributed to errors at the state-level, associated with mobile emergency alert systems that hit cell phones.

Perhaps the most infamous incident was a 2018 misfire in Hawaii that set off a wave of short-lived panic across the state. On the morning of January 13, 2018, a Hawaii state emergency management worker accidentally pushed the wrong button in the emergency operation center, sending out a false warning alerting of an incoming ballistic missile threat. The employee who pushed the wrong button was ultimately fired, state officials said.

And earlier this year in Florida, state emergency management officials issued an apology after Floridians were awoken at 4:45 a.m. by a test emergency alert sent to their phones. State officials said the test alert was meant to run only on TV and not meant to disturb anyone who was sleeping. Florida also said it was ending its contract with the software company blamed for shooting off the pre-dawn test alert to cell phones.