Category Archives: Latest Warnings

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Thank you to all… Jasper v1.6 Image News!

First, I would like to say thank you to the community members for helping out. I have gotten a lot of input on the new image.  This has also given me better feel for what the community wanted in an image. Which leads me to the next bit of news.


Some of you are undoubtedly wondering why I have not released my Jasper v1.6 image as of yet.  Well, I can assure you there are very good reasons.

Firstly,  I have had some severe family/health issues come up as of late which take priority.  I am also in the middle of moving a family of 5.  Combine that with the other reasons below, and I feel that most will feel the wait to be worth it.

This leads me to the next bit of news, however shocking it may be.

  1.  There will be no version 1.6 image.
    1. There will be no image at all…
  2.  Instead, there will be a full installer.
    1. This is one of the reasons for the delay.
  3.   The installer will work with a full GUI, and on the desktop.
    1. Examples:
      1. Full ubuntu Install.
      2. Fresh RPI install with GUI.
  4. The installer will be iterated on by feature going forward.
    1. We can add community approved features one at a time.
      1. Example:
        1. Change Jaspers Name
        2. Change STT after setup
        3. Etc.

FAQ (COMING SOON)

  • So whats that mean for me?
  • What do I do if I am running Jasper v.15?
  • Where do I get the installer?
  • Do I need to upgrade?

 

Jasper Kits on hold…

These were for the community, and I have enjoyed designing and building these kits.  However, I am at a point now, where I do not have the time to properly maintain and build and ship them.  This is not necessarily a permanent decision, I may bring them back in the future given I have the time.

That being said, I do have a few left.  If you are interested please let me know now.  I will get an exact count soon, and update it here.  Once they are gone, I will not be building more.

With all that being said, I am still here to help with questions.  I am also still developing what I hope is a better user experience with my images.  (Version 1.6 out soon!)

If you have any questions; or would like one of the last kits, I would suggest speaking up now.  Not that I will disappear, but I will be unable to spend the time on them for a while starting soon.

I also wanted to say thank you again to the community members that are helping each other, and the new guys.  I do notice, and it is appreciated.

-M

Jasper Image V1.6 – Release Date!

I have recently had a large number of people wanting to know the exact release date for the v1.6 image. I will release it without the installer, and release the installer separately so it can be used on images that are not mine.

  • Release Date:
    February 15, 2017

I would highly suggest that if there is annoyance; or fix for the next release that it be reported ASAP to the room in our SLACK.

 

Thanks for your patience,

Matthew Curry

Google Disables Hangouts API…breaking many services.

I have seen much FUD around this, and I wanted to clarify so people are aware what Google’s Intentions are for Hangouts.  As I am a heavy user of the product, I was very surprised to see this.  It appears that Google will still keep Hangouts around, but for the ‘normal’ user demographic only.  They will be disabling their API on April 25.  This however, should not be a complete surprise.  Google has made it clear that with the arrival of their new products Allo and Duo that they are switching to an enterprise vision for many of their products.  However, they will NOT BE REMOVING IT COMPLETELY, as mentioned in the linked engadget.com article.

What does this mean for you? The ‘End User’, if just using the services at face value may not even see a difference.  However, services and sites that use the integration features will likely be affected.  They (google) have allowed for an exception, and that is if they site/service qualifies as an “Enterprise Communication Tool”, slack for example.  There won’t be many of those I expect.

Basically it comes down to this, they are ending the Hangouts API integration (publicly) on April 25th.

 

Hope that helps,

Matthew Curry

Pre-Built Jasper Kits, Ready to go out of the box!

These kits will arrive and be ready to use the moment you power them up. They will be customized to the user, and an image will be provided so they can restore any time they like.

They will include the following:

  • RPI3 B+
  • 32GB Class 10 SD Card
  • US Robotics 9610 [USB Speaker/Mic]
  • Customized/Installed/Setup of Jasper by me personally
    • Install of Jasper and all dependencies
    • STT Setup
    • TTS Setup
  • Testing
    • Running overnight
    • With your settings if you wish
  • Copy of your personalized image for backup
    • In case you wish to restore to a “Known Good” state
  • Updates
    • Such as customized integrations and modules provided by me.
    • Updated Installer / Setup script COMING SOON.


If you are interested in one of these kits, feel free to contact me or start the process by purchasing one below:




12 Years without Microsoft and loving it!

As of April, 2004 I stopped using all Microsoft products.

For many reasons. I know people like to debate about microsoft products. However, for me its not a debate.

Examples [Just a tiny bit]:

  • If I was a contractor and came into your company and said, “I am going to record all your keystrokes, and put them on my server every 30min”, you would laugh me out the door. Especially in software, where the source can be recreated from the key logs.  Well, Microsoft does it.
  • If I was a contractor and came in to your company and found a security bug, and then sold it on the black market making you vulnerable before there is a patch to hackers.  You would probably sue me; and maybe even press charges of some kind, as it can put you out of business.  Well, Microsoft does it.
  • If I was a contractor and came in during the night and upgraded all your desktops to an OS you haven’t tested… well I think you get the point by now…
  • UEFI – Just look into it…
  • Severe security issues; and poor coding.
    • Keep in mind even if they don’t use the keylog maliciously, with the poor security wrapped around it, it is within reason to think it would be compromised.

Please keep in mind I am just looking at the black and white of things. This has nothing to do with how I ‘feel’ about them.  From a business standpoint, I can not simply fathom the use of any Microsoft product in any serious company; especially a software development one.

Now, I am experienced in IT/Software Development/DevOps; and anyone will tell you security is a trade off with convenience.  That is true.  However, between the cost (which is high); and the constant worry about security and stability with each patch.  Its something people really need to ask themselves, ” Is this really convenient/cost effective”; and 15 years ago it might have been yes. Now, there is no excuse.

 

Reason #… I’ve lost count…not to use Microsoft.

image

Welcome all windows, and samba users. Please read badlock.org for why poor decisions have led to this day.

There is a known vulnerability with samba, please read the site listed. If time permits I will update this article with better info.  However, if you are running Samba the shame on you… especially the old version. I have not “had to run samba”, for anything in several years now.

Please read my article on using AFPd in linux to use it as a time machine  backup.  Works great! Or my preference is NFS on a LAN. 

Either way, I  hope this helps a few people. Please share the article if it helped.  There is a patch with CVE on the way according to their site.

Sincerely,
M

Be Careful with LetsEncrypt!

 

I must say, like a lot of people I love the idea of a free SSL Certificate.  So I thought this would be great for my site.  So I downloaded the LetsEncrypt package on to an Ubuntu 15.10 box.  The server was running Apache2, and was pretty much stock.  When I applied the cert to the site, it was super easy.  I was very impressed with the ‘–apache’ option.  I then updated my URLs in WordPress to HTTPS.  That’s it I was up and running in a few min.  I was pretty happy at this point.

Then, I realized it broke all of the other services I had on the machine that were public facing.  I had several.  Even ones with their own certs were breaking.  So I decided to remove it…. After removing it from Apache completely I noticed an issue.  All of my users that had been to the site; were getting redirected still.  Somehow it is keeping the redirct with the cert/data that is installed when the cert is installed from visiting the site.

Long story short, I had many people that thought my site was down.  I even moved servers; and it still happened. I tried clearing browser cache, DNS Cache on my MAC, from another IP. Finally after a reinstall (probably not needed, but quicker); I was able to actually load my site without the redirect.  I am sure there is something here I am not seeing; but to be honest I didn’t feel like spending all my time dealing with browser settings.

If anyone would like to let me know how they get around this I would like to know.

I hope this helps those who are thinking of trying out LetsEncrypt.  I am not saying its a bad product; or idea.  I love the install and the idea of it.  However, the practical implementation is not there yet.  For those reading this keep in mind that it is still in Beta as of this article.  So this might eventually go away.

P.S. – To those on the LetsEncrypt project, I appreciate all the work; and I hope you take this criticism positively. A good uninstall path is needed before I think this will go mainstream on monolithic boxes.  Maybe its ok with a 12 factor applications.

Sincerely,

Matthew Curry