Beta testers who elect to receive the the freshest test builds of Windows 10 have some new features on the way, as we move even closer to the big Anniversary Update this summer. With Build 14352, Cortana’s music abilities go from simply being able to…
Samsung has just added a new storage capacity ‘500GB’ to its 750 EVO SATA 6.0 Gbps SSD line-up. Just like the 120GB and 250GB models, the 500GB model is also built with Samsung’s advanced NAND Flash memory chips, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, Samsung’s powerful MGX controller, a built-in AES 256-bit hardware encryption and an MTBF of 1.5 million hours.
Packed with the company’s proprietary TurboWrite, Dynamic Thermal Guard protection and RAPID Mode features, the 500GB 750 EVO SSD promises to deliver read and write speeds of up to 540MB/s and 520MB/s respectively, when TurboWrite is used. The Samsung 500GB 750 EVO SSD will hit the market from early June for $149.99 MSRP. [Product Page]
The post Samsung Outs 500GB 750 EVO SATA 6.0 Gbps SSD appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.
Mouse Computer hits back by launching their newest ultra-compact desktop PC, the MousePro-M590H. As part of the MousePro M500 series, this space-saving system is configured with a 2.30GHz Intel Core i5-6200U processor, an Intel HD Graphics 520, an 8GB DDR4 RAM and a 500GB hard drive.
Apart from that, the system also sports a multi-card reader, 2x USB 2.0 ports, 4x USB 3.0 ports, 1x HDMI port, 1x D-Sub port and Gigabit Ethernet. Running on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit OS (can be downgraded to Windows 7 Professional 64-bit), the MousePro-M590H provides WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 + LE for connectivity.
The Mouse Computer MousePro-M590H is available now for 74,800 Yen (about $682). [Mouse Computer]
The post Mouse Computer MousePro-M590H Ultra-Compact Desktop PC Launched appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.
There are numerous live music festivals and venues throughout North Carolina, Virginia and beyond on tap to help you celebrate the official kick off of summer over the upcoming Memorial Day holiday weekend. Following are a few highlights. If I’ve missed one, let me know!
Blue Ridge Music Center Summer Concert Series, Galax, Virginia
May 28
Saturday is the opening show of Summer Concert Series at the Blue Ridge Music Center featuring Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based Mipso, a bluegrass, Americana favorite I discovered at MerleFest last year. The band’s evolving musical style blends classic four-part harmonies and traditional Appalachian country and folk sounds with jazz and pop to create a new musical texture and terrain. Shadowgrass, a talented group of bluegrass musicians, ages 11 to 15, opens the show. The music starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $15. The series runs through Oct. 15 and will feature such acts as Steep Canyon Rangers, Dori Freeman, Carlene Carter, Bryan Sutton, The Church Sisters and Lonesome River Band.
Learn more at http://blueridgemusiccenter.org/5-28.htm
Eighth Annual Rooster Walk Music and Arts Festival, Axton, Virginia
May 26-May 29
With a 151-acre music venue in the rolling foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Rooster Walk near Martinsville, Virginia, is a favorite with families and music lovers alike. This year’s headliners include Lettuce, Sam Bush, Perpetual Groove and The Revivalists, as well as more than 40 other bands and musicians. The multi-day festival offers food, arts and crafts vendors, children’s activities, camping, craft beer, wine and cider, laser tag, a six-hole disc golf course, Tuff Strutter 5K, guided float trips on the Smith River and more.
Learn more at http://roosterwalk.com/
6th Annual Chantilly Farm Bluegrass & BBQ Festival, Floyd County, Virginia
May 27-28
The sixth annual Chantilly Farm Bluegrass & BBQ Festival at the beautiful Chantilly Farm in Floyd County, Virginia, has been called one of the region’s hottest bluegrass and mountain music festivals. It’s the home festival of MerleFest regular and awar- winning Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice. Other acts include Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out, Lonesome River Band, The Church Sisters, Volume Five and Commonwealth Bluegrass Band. The festival features a variety of food available from vendors, RV and tent camping facilities, arts and crafts vendors, antique tractors, children’s activities, hiking trails, kite flying, jamming opportunities and more. Attendees are encouraged to bring an instrument for impromptu jam sessions.
Single-day passes for Friday, May 27, are $25 advance/$30 at gate; Saturday, May 28, $30 advance/$35 at gate; Kids 12 and younger are free. Camping charges are separate.
Learn more at http://chantillyfarm.com/wp/
The Howling Craft Beer and Music Festival, Abingdon, Virginia
May 27-28
The Howling Craft Beer and Music Festival features Dave Eggar, Yarn and DJ RYZ on Friday.
Friday night’s events are at the Howling Wolf Brewery, 350 Park Street, beginning at 5 p.m. Saturday’s event is at the Southwest Virginia 4-H Educational Center, 25236 Hillman Highway. Saturday kicks off with The First Annual Wolf Hills Brewing Co.’s The Howling 5k, registration at 8, race at 9. The Overmountain Brewers Homebrew Competition will be from 11 a.m. to noon and gates open at 1 p.m. Camping is available for an additional charge.
Music on Saturday that begins at 3 p.m. will alternate between the Crowgey Cabin side stage and the Main stage: JP Parsons, Pointer Brothers, Bombadil, Backup Planet, Adam Bolt and Friends, Annabelle’s Curse, The Comet Conductors, Dangermuffin, Indighost and The Districts.
Organizers say they are proud of the lineup with a mixture of genres, local acts, brewery alums and national touring artists. “In particular, we are so excited to host The Districts. Their passion for their music is contagious. They are going to rock.”
Learn more at http://wolfhillsbrewing.com/event/the-howling-craft-beer-music-festival/
Ninth Annual DelFest, Cumberland, Maryland
May 26 – May 30
DelFest returns to the Allegany County Fairgrounds in Cumberland, Maryland, over Memorial Day weekend. The festival runs for four days with Late Night Shows, On-Site Camping, Kid’s Area/Activities, Artist Playshops, a Bluegrass Band Competition, Food and Drink, Arts and Crafts and much more!
Tickets on sale at https://goo.gl/gaxWNR
2016 Lineup: The Del McCoury Band, The Travelin’ McCourys, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Greensky Bluegrass, Railroad Earth, Bruce Hornsby & The Noisemakers, Sam Bush Band, Yonder Mountain String Band, The Wood Brothers, The Infamous Stringdusters feat. Nicki Bluhm, Jerry Douglas Presents The Earls of Leicester, Keller Williams, O’Connor Band feat. Mark O’Connor, Sierra Hull (Artist at Large), Rock My Soul feat. The Fairfield Four and The McCrary Sisters, Elephant Revival, Aoife O’Donovan, Joe Craven & The Sometimers, Cabinet, Larry Sparks & The Lonesome Ramblers, Dale Ann Bradley, Fruition, Frank Solivan and Dirty Kitchen, Hot Club of Cowtown, Henhouse Prowlers, Steve Poltz, The Dustbowl Revival, The Brothers Comatose, The Broomestix, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, The HillBenders, Dre and The Collective, The Lil’ Smokies, Pert’ Near Sandstone, Mipso, Driftwood, The Railsplitters, Grand Ole’ Ditch and The McCoury Brothers.
Learn more at http://delfest.com/
Gears and Guitars, Winston-Salem, North Carolina
May 21-29
“Gears and Guitars,” is being held this week and weekend in downtown Winston-Salem in conjunction with the Winston-Salem Cycling Classic. The festival features a variety of acts including The Band Perry, jam band O.A.R., Gin Blossoms, Better Than Ezra and Sister Hazel, among others. Tickets for tonight’s 7 o’clock show at Bailey Park featuring the country stars Jana Kramer and The Band Perry are $35. Better Than Ezra With Sister Hazel perform at 7 p.m. on May 28 at Bailey Park and Cracker will perform with O.A.R. in Bailey Park at 7 p.m. on May 29.
Learn more at http://www.gearsandguitarsfest.com/
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NATIONAL HARBOR, Md., May 26 (Reuters) – Nihar Janga, a fifth-grader from Austin, Texas, and Jairam Hathwar, a seventh-grader from Painted Post, New York, were declared co-champions of the U.S. Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday.
The pair battled head to head for 25 rounds in the finals. They ended co-winners when Jairam, 13, correctly spelled ‘feldenkrais’, a method of education, and Nihar, 11, aced ‘gesellschaft’, a type of social relationship.
“I can’t say anything. I’m just in fifth grade,” Nihar said after sharing the title and thanking his mother.
The tie is the third in a row in the Bee, a U.S. institution since 1925, and comes despite the contest introducing tougher rules this year to avoid another deadlock. Jairam and Nihar will each receive a $40,000 cash prize.
They are the ninth consecutive victors of South Asian ancestry, and the 12th in 16 years. Jairam’s brother Sriram was the 2014 co-champion.
(Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Peter Cooney)
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Rosie O’Donnell fired a new salvo in her ongoing war of words with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, delivering a series of blistering barbs while speaking before a concert with Boy George and Cyndi Lauper in New York on Wednesday night.
“I would rather give birth to a flaming iguana while taking a shit,” O’Donnell said in a clip posted online by the Daily Mail. “I hate him. I hate him. I’m not going to say his name.”
Someone in the audience at the Beacon Theater in New York yelled “Baba Booey!” which is a nickname for longtime Howard Stern producer Gary Dell’Abate.
O’Donnell noted that she and Dell’Abate have feuded in the past, but are friends now.
However, she added, Dell’Abate is also friends with Trump.
“He is friends with the shit stain, which worries me,” she said. “I worry if his shit stains have a tinge of orange.”
Then she asked the audience: “Too much? Too negative?”
Cries of “NO!” echoed back.
“Eat me, Donald,” she said.
O’Donnell is also active on Twitter, and on Thursday pinned a tweet predicting Trump will fall short in November:
The pair have been feuding for years, which may have began when O’Donnell memorably mimicked Trump when she was on The View in 2006:
Trump has in turn repeatedly launched his own verbal bombs at O’Donnell, which came up during a debate last year when he was asked about his history of insulting women.
“You’ve called women you don’t like, ‘fat pigs,’ ‘dogs,’ ‘slobs’ and ‘disgusting animals,'” moderator Megyn Kelly began.
“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump fired back.
The question led to a feud between Trump and Kelly.
(h/t Raw Story)
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar,rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
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We were in Southern California for the kids’ spring break a few years back, and I got the call from my sister Karyn that our dad had been taken in for emergency surgery.
He had been having severe stomach pains that we would later learn were caused by a tumor that had grown so large that it blocked up his small intestine. I can picture it vividly. Not the intestines, but the scene in front of me while Karyn filled me in. I was standing near Legoland’s Police and Fire Academy attraction, which is like a ride/competition combo where you move this fire truck across a course, racing against other teams.
There was that theme park ambient noise, that chorus of laughter and other assorted good times, and all the smiling kids – including all three of mine. The juxtaposition of theme park sights and sounds with the heart dropping news being delivered into my ear almost caused me to freak the fuck out. But I took big breaths, held back the tears as I filled my wife Adriana in on the details and the cloud of unknown, and we finished out our day at Legoland, knowing it would be hours before dad was out of surgery and we would know anything further.
This picture of my family was taken the next morning in Los Angeles. The Hollywood sign is somewhere out of frame in the background. We took a bunch of shots of our smiling crew and the sign, but this was the clear winner. Just the Eberles, being the Eberles. It’s one of my favorite photos ever and was actually our holiday card photo that year, even though it was taken while there was this huge unknown looming as we waited for more information from back east.
Minutes after this picture was taken I hopped on a siblings-and-mom conference call where my mom told my sisters and I that there was a tumor that had grown so big that it totally blocked dad’s small intestine. They were able to unblock and repair his intestine, but the web of cancer that was left tangled in there did not look good. It was the call. “This doesn’t look good. Can you get here?”
The ‘here’ that mom referred to was Geneva, NY, a small town between Rochester and Syracuse, home of Hobart & William Smith colleges, and of my parents. I didn’t grow up there, but had visited countless times so it felt like home. And home is where I headed. My sisters and I quickly figured out a plan for the next few weeks and I hopped on a plane. LAX to ATL to ROC. I skipped the last two days of vacation, leaving Adriana and the kids (and our car) to finish up vacation and make it back to Palo Alto without me.
I made it to Rochester on Monday, and drove my rental car far too fast from the airport to get to the hospital and to my dad. And that’s where I spent most of that week. At the hospital. I spent a lot of time with my dad, gave my mom some deserved breaks, and learned what we could at the time from the doctors. Side note – when they ask you what meal to bring for your dad the first time he’s having solid food after major intestinal surgery, do NOT choose the chicken fingers. Sorry dad. Though on the bright side, we knew very quickly that things were flowing quite well.
Life intersects with work pretty darn directly when something like this goes down. I had been set to be on PTO two days that week, but missed work the rest of the week. There was a lot of downtime at the hospital, so I was able to generally keep up on email and take calls here and there. And the teams I was working with were very understanding and supportive in keeping things rolling with my partners. But I was not at 100%.
The following week I was back in SF, trying to get my head into work while looking down the barrel of my dad dying. I had left Rochester not really knowing how much time we had left with dad, and not sure how the weeks and months ahead would look.
My boss was in town from NYC, and we went to Peet’s coffee to catch up. We were only a few minutes into the conversation when he asked a question that echoed in my head:
‘Do you think you’ll need to take more time?’
To be fair, his first question had been about how my dad was doing. And I do think he was sincere in asking. But my answer was that we really didn’t know. The surgery had been successful in unblocking things, but we did not know exactly what type of cancer had wrapped itself all up in my dad’s business. We were in limbo and I was scared.
(No suspense intended; we’d later find out that my dad has a pretty rare kind of cancer, with carcinoid tumors in multiple locations. It is in the same family of neuroendocrine cancer that killed Steve Jobs. Dad is still very much with us today, having done several rounds of surgical and chemical battle with his cancer these past few years. To say he is a fighter would be a dramatic understatement.)
But back to my manager’s question.
Do I think I’ll need more time?
Yeah, dude. If he dies I might need a day or two for the funeral. Also fuck you.
Do I think I’ll need more time?
Really? I took 3 days off, worked half the time, and nothing dropped.
Of course I didn’t say either of those things. No regrets there. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but it was neither combative nor defensive. I was sad about my dad being sick. Tired from a week spent largely in an uncomfortable hospital chair and on planes. And now I was trying to process who would ask something like that.
But it was in that moment, sitting with this guy at Peet’s, that I knew it was time to make a change. Not because of one question from my empathy-impaired boss, but because of the bow his question had tied around the whole situation.
And that’s actually what this piece is about – moments of clarity in your career. It just happened that my dad’s cancer helped me get to one of those moments.
I had been in the job a little under a year. I was an individual contributor sales VP. Truth be told, I wasn’t great at that job. I had made some strides with some partners, but I naturally gravitated towards account management, marketing, and operations vs. drumming up new business. Not the best thing for a salesperson.
And the environment was not fantastic. The person who hired me had been reorged to a different role and I was left reporting to his boss who was based across the country at company HQ in NYC. And there was also a not-so-fun dynamic with a very talented and very political sales leader back in NYC. Some junior high type stuff.
Oh, and I wasn’t passionate about what we were selling. It was a solid product, with a stellar team behind it, but it didn’t get me out of bed in the morning.
Spending days in a hospital room with my dad, not knowing what the future looked like for him, was a punch directly in the nose for me. Life is too short, and it is precious.
That conversation at that Peet’s was part two of the one-two punch I needed to wake up and make a move. It was time to find a new job.
I’ve written and rewritten the above a few times now. But it is all part of the story and needs to be told. The interpersonal stuff happens and nobody talks about it. It is not the only thing, but it is a thing. So for the small number of you who will know who those above referenced individuals are, that’s not the point. And if you are one of those individuals, no hard feelings? I wasn’t great at the job, you were not great to me, life goes on.
When I talk about that job I typically refer to it as “a sales job that I was not that good at.” That’s the takeaway, be honest with yourself about what you are good at.
Once I took that one-two punch in the nose, the decision was actually easy. The role didn’t play to my strengths, I was not passionate about what the company was doing, and there were some pretty lousy environmental factors.
You should regularly evaluate your job against these three areas. If you have all three, awesome. It won’t always be that way. I’d say that two out of three ain’t bad, but zero out of three is a huge problem.
As organizations evolve, and you evolve in your career, there will be ebbs and flows in all three of these areas. And that’s a good thing. You learn a ton when there are bumps in the road. But if a bump has become more of a detour, time to take action. And action doesn’t always mean quitting! In some ways my example here is an easy one. Zero out of three? Time to move on. But if you’ve got some strong component parts, see if you can’t find a way to fix what’s broken and/or re-focus on what’s not.
No way. Not for one second.
I developed empathy for people in senior sales roles that I otherwise would not have. And I learned a ton. And I met a bunch of great people, including my partners at Facebook, who endorsed me when I applied to work at Facebook. So I guess I wasn’t THAT bad at the job. 😉
Cancer, you suck. You come out of nowhere and take life away from people, and take those people away from so many others. But sometimes you fire warning shots. You scare us. You offer perspective, if we can get out of our own heads long enough to listen. And for that, cancer, I thank you. But make no mistake, you’re still a total douche.
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A mutant strain of E. coli, resistant to even the toughest antibiotics, has been found in the United States, federal health officials said Thursday.
The bacteria, discovered last month in a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman with a urinary tract infection, contains a gene known as mcr-1, making it resistant even to colistin, a decades-old antibiotic that has increasingly been used as a treatment of last resort against dangerous superbugs.
The discovery — the first time the strain has been found inside the U.S. — “heralds the emergence of truly pan-drug resistant bacteria,” according to a report released Thursday by Department of Defense researchers. The woman, now recovered, has a military connection, authorities said without elaborating.
The woman hadn’t traveled outside the U.S. in the previous five months, according to the report. Doctors treated the infection using another antibiotic, but said they were alarmed by the discovery of the mcr-1 gene inside the U.S.
“The fear is that this could spread to other bacteria and create the bacterium that would be resistant to everything,” Dr. Beth Bell, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told ABC News.
“The more we look at drug resistance, the more concerned we are,” Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC director, said Thursday. “The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients. It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently.”
At least 2 million people become infected in the U.S. each year with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to the CDC. Those infections result in at least 23,000 deaths annually.
The Pennsylvania woman’s case, while not deadly, is the first U.S. discovery in a human of bacteria resistant to colistin, a drug held in reserve to treat serious infections that resist another major class of antibiotics called carbapenems. Bacteria that could resist colistin and carbapenems would be unstoppable, according to The New York Times.
In a study last year, the CDC warned that drug-resistant infections would continue to rise. And while the medical community has been anticipating the strain’s arrival, the troubling part is that “this case seems completely home-grown,” according to Dr. Nasia Safdar, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Multi-drug-resistant bacteria are found elsewhere in the world, frequently in agriculture. This particular colistin-resistant strain, for instance, was first discovered in people and livestock in China in November 2015. Since then, it has turned up in Europe and Canada. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday it had detected the bacteria in a single sample of a domestic pig’s intestine.
When it comes to spreading resistant bacteria, “food-producing animals are of particular concern,” the CDC says. “Antibiotics must be used judiciously in humans and animals because both uses contribute to the emergence, persistence, and spread of resistant bacteria.”
The CDC, Defense Department and Pennsylvania Department of Health are working to identify close contacts of the Pennsylvania woman to determine if others have also been exposed to the bacteria. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf (D) said his administration was taking the discovery “very seriously” and promised to “take necessary actions to prevent mcr-1 from becoming a widespread problem with potentially serious consequences.”
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A certificate authority (CA) is a trusted entity that issues electronic certificates (duh) to verify identity on the Internet. They’re a key part of secure communications online — and thus super important. Then there’s intermediate CAs, signed by a…
HP has showed off another one of its upcoming 13.3-inch Full HD notebook, the EliteBook 1030 G1. Measuring 15.7mm thick and weighing 1.16kg, this travel-friendly notebook has a 13.3-inch 1920 x 1080 Full HD non-glossy display, an Intel Core m5-6Y54 processor (w/ built-in GPU), an 8GB DDR4 RAM and a 256GB SSD.
The system also sports a 92-megapixel webcam, 2x USB 3.0 ports, 1x USB 3.0 Type-C port, 1x HDMI output port and a 13.25-hour battery. Running on Windows 10 Pro 64-bit OS, the EliteBook 1030 G1 provides WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 4.2 for connectivity.
The HP EliteBook 1030 G1 is scheduled to hit the market from early July for 178,000 Yen (about $1,622). [HP]
The post HP’s Upcoming EliteBook 1030 G1 13.3-Inch Full HD Notebook appeared first on TechFresh, Consumer Electronics Guide.
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