Show Notes: extras.show/34

The post Popey on Thinkpads | Jupiter Extras 34 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Holly is a software engineer at BlackLocus, a big data analyzer for Home Depot. She discusses her journey into technology that started in college & took a big detour.

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Show Notes:

• Holly Gibson (@hollyglot) | Twitter
• Women Who Code ATX (@wwcodeatx) | Twitter
• SSD Cloud Hosting – Linode
• BlackLocus
• Women Who Code Austin (Austin, TX) – Meetup
• Welcome | Women Who Code

Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE:: So Angela, today we are going to talk to Holly Gibson. She is a programer for BlackLocus. Yes, it was awesome, which apparently has a reference to black hole, which is bad ass. Anyway, she is working kind of on data science and she went through boot camp and she does all sorts of cool things. And we talk about all of them.
ANGELA: Yes. It’s a very good interview that we are going to get into as soon as I mention that you can support this show. If you’re listening week after week and you like the content and you would like to help in some way, you can go to Patreaon.com/today. It is how the whole network of Jupiter Broadcasting is funded, but specifically, when you subscribe you are helping out Women’s Tech Radio as well. Patreon.com/today.
PAIGE: And we get started with today’s interview by asking Holly what she’s up to in tech today.
HOLLY: I’m a software engineer at BlackLocus. It’s a subsidiary of Home Depot and they do data science for Home Depot. They do a lot of web scraping and track all of Home Depot’s product catalog and their competitor’s prices so that they can price their products accurately. So lots of big data.
ANGELA: That’s really cool, because in a previous episode we were discussing that, was it Sears that needed a total IT aspect to it.
PAIGE: Yeah.
ANGELA: And so now this is similar. BlackLocus, you said?
HOLLY: Yes.
ANGELA: Yeah, for Home Depot.
HOLLY: Uh, Locus means place. They’re kind of like the black hole of the internet. They’re sucking in everything.
ANGELA: Wow.
PAIGE: I like that. That’s really cool.
ANGELA: Yeah, it is.
PAIGE: So we were essentially touching on the idea that at this point all companies are become tech companies.
ANGELA: Yeah.
HOLLY: Yes. Yes. Home Depot acquired them three years ago. They had become a client and immediately started negotiating to buy them, because their tool was so awesome.
PAIGE: Awesome. So you do data science, which I think of as kind of like a magical unicorn at this point, because no one is quite willing to nail down what that means in the tech sphere, so can you enlighten me?
HOLLY: Sure. I’m more on the software engineer side so I”m not writing the fancy algorithms that the data science people are. We’re working in Python and Java and Javascript to consume the data and wrap it and make it beautiful so that an average person can look at it and understand what it means.
PAIGE: Okay. So you write tools in Python and Javascript and stuff and then you take what they’ve done and make it so that someone like me can get their head around it?
HOLLY: Yes.
PAIGE: Very cool. What’s your favorite piece of that stack?
HOLLY: I really like all of it still. I”m a generalist engineer. I’m, you know, full stack as they say, but generalist. I dabble in a little bit of everything. I came out of a boot camp two years ago and my first job was working at an education startup doing everything from supporting the IT for the office to managing the serve and the databases, doing the front end and the back end. So I really like all of it. Mainly I like solving problems. So just let me solve problems. Let me use logic and my brain and I’m happy.
PAIGE: So, boot camp, is that the way that you got into the technology field?
HOLLY: Sort of. It was a reboot. I studied Javascript and databases in college and I took over the college website and I managed it for five years. And i really enjoyed it, but I was a one woman team and solo. So it was very lonely. I didn’t have any mentors at that time. You know, web applications were just coming out and it was before Facebook, so that’s how old I am. So people were just figuring stuff out and so I didn’t know how much I knew. I thought, I’m just a beginner. I don’t know very much. I’ve done this for five years. This is fun, but now I”m going to go try a bunch of other stuff. So I sold antiques on Ebay. I managed a restaurant. I did summer camps for kids with disabilities. And then two years ago I found out about a boot camp here in Austin, Texas, where I live, and my husband I signed up to do it together. It was a three-month program over the summer. The hardest thing I’ve ever done, but got through it and really enjoyed having teachers I could ask questions from, classmates along side of me. We were learning together. Building actual applications and projects. It was a really, really great experience.
PAIGE: What do you think was the major difference between studying at a university level and being in the boot camp. Maybe, was it the timeliness of it? Where the internet has grown so much and we have so much more to work with and so many more resources, or more like the way that the instruction was done? What was the real standout to you that made it stick this time around and didn’t last time?
HOLLY: The way the instruction was done. I think sometimes universities are behind the ball so the technology I was learning in school was already a couple years old. I went to a very small school and the classes were really little. Most of them I was by myself so the professor would hand me a text book and say go read this. Which was great, I was learning, but having the hands on experience of the boot camp really resonated with me. I’m a mechanical person. I like building. I like learning by projects. So it cemented the theory much more in my brain when I was actually doing stuff.
PAIGE: That makes total sense. So you mentioned in talking about your university that it was really confusing to you to tell what the next steps were and understanding how much you knew. Do you think that was — and then you mentioned a lack of mentors. Do you think that those two are kind of related and how have you tackled that this time around?
HOLLY: Sure. Yeah. The program that I studied in school wasn’t a traditional computer science program. It was a degree in Theology and they had just added web design, because they thought, well people might want websites. So I took all the classes, because I actually thought theology was boring. So I loved the web design and I wanted a job afterwards, and i didn’t want to be a minister. So the web design seemed like a good route to go, but then I, you know, after I had built some sites and when I was thinking about leaving the university, I wasn’t sure how to go about that, because I didn’t have computer science degree on my resume. I didn’t know anybody in computer science. All I knew is I liked web design and I had built some stuff, but I wasn’t sure how to translate that into getting a different job. And so I kind of just gave up and went and did other stuff where I knew I could sale myself in marketing, graphic design, and stuff. Since going through the boot camp, it was great because they had relationships with local companies. They recommended we go to meetups, that we looked for mentors, that we meet people in the local tech scene. And so immediately in the boot camp we started as a class going to different meetups. Going to the Javascripts meetup. Going to the Rails meetup. And then I was really lucky to go to a Women Who Code meetup that had just started here in Austin at our bootcamp. They had the first night there and I went and it was an informational meeting and I said how can I help? And the women said how would you like to run Austin Women Who Code. So-
PAIGE: The same thing happened to me.
ANGELA: Wow.
HOLLY: Yeah.
PAIGE: Yeah, not kidding.
HOLLY: So I took it over and now two years later we have 1,200 members and it’s been awesome. So that’s really been a great avenue for me to meet other women in tech, to find mentors. But what i tell the women in my group is go to the meetups. If you see someone talking intelligently about something and you want to know more, go ask them questions. They could turn into a mentor. Like I mentioned, my first job was at an education startup by myself. So again, that’s like a one woman team and I knew I needed help. And I knew where to go. So I went to the meetups. I met some people and I was like can you help me? Explain this code. I”m not understanding this. You know, I’m all by myself. And I said, yeah, let’s meet for coffee. And I said I”ll buy you coffee. I’ll buy you tacos, whatever you want. So one guy, we started meeting weekly for about four months and he explained code to me and design patterns and different things, and really got me over the first hump in my job. And since then I’ve been kind of networking through his friends and going, so do you know of someone who knows this, and someone who knows that. And just finding where the holes are in my knowledge and who can help me with those. There’s lots of online classes and blogs and videos and those are great. I learn mostly sitting with someone in pair programming and so I’ll read books and I will look up blogs. My best source of learning is from an actual physical person. So I really do like meeting. I write. Now I’m learning Haskell and functional programing so I meet weekly with my mentor, who came through my first mentor. And it’s great, because he has a master’s in Computer Science and he’s been doing this for 15 years and I can ask so many questions. I have this wealth of knowledge in that brain.
PAIGE: So did you find it with these mentors, were they resistant to the idea of being an official mentor or were they welcoming? How did you get over the fear of asking them for that relationship?
ANGELA: Or do they know that they’re your mentor?
PAIGE: Yeah, also that.
HOLLY: That’s a funny question. Yeah, a lot of them don’t like the label mentor, but they’re getting used to it. Most of them have been fascinated to teach a woman how to program, because some of them haven’t worked as often with a woman in programming. And I”m fine with being a social experiment for them.
PAIGE: You’re their token female programmer friend.
HOLLY: Yes. And I’m fine. If they want to explain things and teach me, that’s fine. I just make sure that it’s someone i connect with, you know, on a personality level. I’m not going to work with someone who’s going to speak down to me, you know, or be a programmer. And the guys I work with have been very nice and very supportive and want to start a mentorship program for Women Who Code so that they can get more women into tech. First of all, I didn’t say will you be my mentor. I would just say will you explain some code to me. And then if they’re willing to meet, then I”ll ask do you ever mentor people. And if they’re like, no I, I don’t and I’m not sure what that means, I’ll say well I’m learning this, would you mind explaining stuff with me. Could you work with me on a weekly or a bi-weekly, bi-monthly basis. What would fit in your schedule. So far, the people I’ve met, have said oh yeah I can meet with you weekly. I”ll buy them coffee. I make sure that I’m thanking them in some way. And they have all been really casual and nice about it. And I do the same. You know, I meet with women from my Women Who Code group. We have a Sunday morning ladies coding brunch and we code every Sunday morning. And I explain things to them that my mentors are teaching me. I think it’s important that people keep giving and raising up the people below them.
PAIGE: That was totally going to be my question for you and you answered it. Do you mentor as well? That’s very awesome that you do. I love that it’s a brunch.
ANGELA: Yeah.
PAIGE: That’s perfect. It’s just perfect. Very cool. So you go from like mentor first dating. Like, can you explain this thing to me? And then if it goes well you ask for more.
HOLLY: Yes.
PAIGE: So you filled out our awesome guest form and you mentioned this and I just have to ask about it, that you rebuilt a server from a remote cabin in Finland?
HOLLY: Yeah. So, last summer our server was hacked while I was on a two-week vacation in Finland. My mother-in-law is Finnish and she has a cabin on a lake. A lot of people do there. They have saunas and cabins and stuff. And so we were on — I was on the train with my husband and they have WiFI. Finland is, you know, great tech country. You know, that’s where Linux came from and Angry Birds and everything. So there’s WiFi on the train and I was checking my email and I saw that our server had been quarantined and over the next week I got to rebuild our server. I got a hotspot from the only electronic store in the village and had about three hours of sleep a night for a week.
PAIGE: Wow, that’s crazy. I do love that though about the modern world. It’s like you can be anywhere and do what we do.
HOLLY: Yeah. I was Facetiming with my boss. There was an eight hour difference and it would be 3:00 in the morning for her, but I was awake and telling her what I had fixed, where the progress was. And what happened is our app had been built by a backend team in Siberia and they had forgot to put a firewall on our elasticsearch engine, it has an open facing port and it didn’t have a firewall and a robot got installed and was DDosing other servers.
PAIGE: Oh man. That’s not fun.
HOLLY: No, but I got it fixed and that actually, that experience really made me feel like I can do this, because up to that point I’d been at that job straight out of the boot camp nine months. And it was nine months of being terrified. Do I know what I’m doing? I’m all by myself. You know, even with my mentor you have fear and sometimes the imposter syndrome and you can make things bigger than they really are in your head, because you’re not sure what’s going to happen. This is a whole new experience. You don’t know what’s coming down the road. And the unknown is more scary than the known. Well the worst thing that can happen to you is having your server hacked. But once I got through that I was like I can do anything. I’m not afraid anymore. I can solve anything.
PAIGE: Totally. So I can’t imagine that you went through that much ops during boot camp. At least with the boot camps I’ve been exposed to and know about, they don’t do a ton of server stuff. How did you dive into that? Was that something you brought from before or were you just kind of teaching yourself on the fly to fix this thing?
HOLLY: Everything I learned on the job. We used Linode so they did have some documentation. I knew the services that we used so I knew how to install them and set them up. Thankfully we used New Relic as a monitoring tool so I could see what processes were running and see that elasticsearch had a crazy amount of data being processed, because it was DdoSing other stuff. So having the right tools I think is also really important and thankfully the team in Siberia, even though they forgot the firewall, did set up New Relic and we have now — that company I had, after I came back we switched over to Herope so we didn’t have to worry about security anymore, but I still kept New Relic because I said I need to be able to see the different processes. I need to know the health of our application and what’s going on. I Googled a lot.
PAIGE: Right.
ANGELA: Yeah.
HOLLY: And Linode did have a brief document on how to deal with a quarantined server what tools to install to scan your files and make sure they weren’t corrupted. But mainly it was just me solving this big riddle of what happened, what’s going on, and how do I fix it.
PAIGE: That’s how I do things. You kind of dive in and start Googling.
ANGELA: Uh-huh.
HOLLY: Google knows.
PAIGE: How did you get to the point where you could kind of know what to Google? I’ve had that question from a lot of ladies as I start to mentor them or they come into Women Who Code and they’re like, well I don’t even know what to ask. Was a lot of that — where did that happen for you or did that happen for you?
HOLLY: Sure. That was one thing that I really appreciated from the boot camp. They worked with us on how do you Google. In the beginning the teachers would say oh well just Google it and I said I don’t know what to Google. Like what? What terms? Like if I’m trying to solve this how do I Google? Like what’s the tech speak. And so having them work with us a few times, then you started to get comfortable with realizing, okay these are the terms I need to search and is this bringing a result on Stack Overflow. Then I’m probably searching the right thing. You know, if I’m getting results for tech forums then, you just keep doing it and if it’s not returning the right thing, then switching out some terms and just trial and error.
PAIGE: Uh-huh.
HOLLY: Really helped. And time. As you do it more often and often then you’re going to start to know what are the key terms to search and it will get easier.
PAIGE: It is definitely a practiced skill, I would say, personally.
ANGELA: So I wanted to ask about your Ebay selling and you mentioned already a little bit that you were selling antiques.
HOLLY: Uh-huh.
ANGELA: So how did you even — did you get into Ebay when it was super — I think it was like ‘99 or 2000 that it really-
PAIGE: Yeah, right about then.
ANGELA: Became popular. When did you get into it and why?
HOLLY: 2009 is when I got into it, because my mother-in-law is a power seller. Her whole job is selling on Ebay. She had been doing it since ‘96. So after I left the university and I was looking at other things to do, she said well I can teach you a skill that you can use all the time, no matter what job you’re at. And so she showed me how to set up a store, so again, mentoring is so important.
ANGELA: Yes.
HOLLY: And she showed me how to take good pictures. She bought me a light box so that I could place the items in the light box and take quality photos and a scale so I could say how heavy the things were for jewelry. The different things that people want to know in the description of antique stuff. So having her as a resource was really great. And then also where to find the stuff. We went to a lot of estate sales and since my mother-in-law had been doing this for about 14 years she knew what kind of brands to look for and how to find good deals and we would buy box lots and sift through the stuff and she knew what could be sold by itself. What could be sold as an assortment. Having her as a mentor was great and it was fun. I never made enough money at it, because it’s something you have to really work at full time to build up enough inventory.
ANGELA: Yeah.
HOLLY: But my mother-in-law does it and she makes a good income and loves it.
PAIGE: Great.
ANGELA: I actually just went to a garage sale recently and it’s people that I actually know and they buy storage units that are unpaid and it’s just the luck of the draw. Everybody bids on it, whoever is the highest gets it. And then they have a garage sale. It’s a really interesting model, but a lot of work. A lot of footwork, but interesting.
HOLLY: A lot of footwork. So if you like that stuff, great. I was like man I don’t want to do this. This is taking me hours to make a few dollars.
ANGELA: Right. Right.
HOLLY: So I want to go work in an industry where I can make a nice amount of money for just an hour of work.
ANGELA: Yeah. If you’re passionate about finding really unique antiques or something I could see it being a fun thing to do on the side, but yeah, definitely not-
HOLLY: Definitely fun on the side.
ANGELA: A primary thing.
HOLLY: I got my furniture through an estate sale and so it’s nice to have that resource.
PAIGE: It’s amazing how, like, the skills we accumulate over a lifetime and how they affect everything.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes, definitely.
HOLLY: Yeah, it actually came back to be a benefit, because I judged at a Paypal Ebay Hackathon here in Austin and I got to say yeah I’m an Ebay seller.
PAIGE: Yeah, there you go. It’s always interesting. So one last question before we go. I wanted to know, since you mentioned it kind of before, like what tools do you use on a daily basis to do the work that you’re doing now? You said you’re in Python and Javascript, but what’s on your laptop kind of a thing?
HOLLY: Sure. The text editor I use is Sublime Text. I really like it. I have installed a bunch of different packages that help me work with the code. I use Mac, Macbook so I use iTerm as my terminal. I’m running in a virtual environment for Python using VIrtual ENBS and, let’s see, for (indiscernible) testing we like to use Gulp or Karma. We are using Elasticsearch and Redis for our search engine. The whole team is on HipChat and then Slack if HipChat breaks.
ANGELA: NIce to have an alternative.
HOLLY: Yes. And we have a lot of fun making our own little GIFs to have emoticons. I would say those are the main tools that I’m using. We use AWS for our servers and our fancy ops guys do all of our builds at Debian packages so builds have to be done on a Linux machine, but most of the team is on Macbooks.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Remember, you can find the full transcript of the show over at JupiterBroadcasting.com in the show notes. You can also catch us on Twitter, @HetyWTR or email us, WTR@JupiterBroadcasting.com
PAIGE: You can also find us and subscribe on any podcasting network of your choice, including iTunes. Or check us out on YouTube if you are not a podcast person or have a friend who’s not a podcast person. Please feel free to recommend us. You can also email us directly if you have comments, feedback, or people you’d like to hear on the show’ we’d love to hear about it. Our email is WTR@JupiterBroadcasting.com Thanks so much for listening.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter | Transcription@cotterville.net

The post Not a Bro-grammer | WTR 42 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Terra founded Soma Collaborations, an executive and professional collaborative coaching service.

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Full transcription of previous episodes can be found below or also at heywtr.tumblr.com

Transcription:

ANGELA: This is Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: A show on the Jupiter Broadcasting Network, interviewing interesting women in technology. Exploring their roles and how they’re successful in technology careers. I’m Paige.
ANGELA: And I’m Angela.
PAIGE: Angela, today we are interviewing Terra Soma. She is an executive coach, mostly, and also a team coach in the IT collaboration space. I met her working with the Women in Tech space in Portland.
ANGELA: Awesome. Before we get into the interview, I want to mention that you can support the show by going to patreon.com/jupitersignal. This supports the entire network, including this show. ANd there are, I think, 11 or 12 shows now on this network. It’s amazing. A lot of them are technology based. If you are interested in expanding your podcast listening, go check out some of those shows.
PAIGE: To get started in the interview today, we asked Terra to tell us about her role in technology now.
TERRA: My current role in technology is supporting people who are working in technology to become more collaborative, and supporting teams in general. And I also have a specific interest in helping women. I think we need more women’s voices. So, weaving that into everything that I do.
PAIGE: What does it look like to help people be more collaborative?
TERRA: It comes about in two ways. One is through coaching and individual one on one. Executive coaching, and I also work a lot of different levels. And then I do team development stuff. Sometimes that’s teaching people how to engage conflict more effectively. Sometimes that’s actually working with a team alongside them, and pointing out things while they’re working. A lot of times meetings get so off track unless there’s a trained facilitator. So, I come in and I’m not just saying, all right let’s stay on track, but I’m actually looking at what are the dynamics that are going on that get people off track and how can we get people back on track. The underlying power dynamics that come into play, I’m working with those a lot so that we can get more creative ideas. And also, all the interpersonal dynamics that help people collaborate more effectively, I”m developing those.
PAIGE: How did you end up there? That’s a really interesting, unique role. That sort of coaching and meeting. I kind of want to call it meeting, debugging.
TERRA: I got into it sort of in a random way. I was working at an e-commerce company as an analyst and the HR director who, super savvy guy, said Terra what is it that you really want to be doing? I didn’t even know that executive coaching was a field at the time. So, I said well I’d really like to teach executives to do yoga and have that help them be more effective in their jobs. And he said, oh you want to be an executive coach. I didn’t even know what that was. So, he introduced me to various people who do similar type work in the coaching realm and in the professional development realm, and it just started this path of getting the certifications that I needed for coaching and starting to work more on the team side than the coaching side, because I really like the interpersonal way. And developing that path. Just very much more of a journey than following a specific goal that was already set out. So, leaning into different things. Setting everything from zen to Sufi to adult development theory, and it’s just been a process of understanding things. Very organic.
PAIGE: That’s awesome. I love wrapping that in — I’ve actually been, myself, kind of, really on a journey of trying to wrap more than just technical documentation into my career and zen is one of the things on my list as well. Although, I have found that it’s really difficult, because being a technician, I expect to be able to pick up a book. And especially having like a more Judeo-Christian background, I expect to be able to pick up a book and see do this, don’t do that, do this, don’t do that. And zen is the exact opposite of that, and sometimes it is infuriating.
TERRA: Right. Yeah, find that exact opposite is actually what’s really helpful for helping people learn how to move into ambiguity, because our world is so crazy and complex, and it’s unnerving. But there is also that ground of, okay what do I do now when you don’t have the specific guidelines of how to go.
PAIGE: Yeah, and the answer is listen.
TERRA: Yes, that is always the answer.
PAIGE: Do you have a medication or mindfulness practice?
TERRA: I do. I actually, I get a lot of anxiety if I do sitting medication, so I actually do a moving meditation practice in the Sufi tradition.
PAIGE: What does that look like?
TERRA: It involves breathing. It’s similar to yoga, is probably the thing people will understand the most, but it’s not as scripted as yoga. There’s a scripted intro of about five, ten minutes of moving in a way that just connects me to my breath, and then it’s actually moving into more organic, just following how my body wants to move. It’s a really beautiful practice. Definitely takes some time to get into, but a beautiful practice for working with anxiety and trusting intuition.
PAIGE: That’s really interesting. I haven’t heard of that before. It’s kind of cool though. I actually have a similar problem. Especially, I have kind of like the ADDs, if you will. And I like Tai Chi and the same moving medication, but for me, being a developer and i like very clear paths. The scriptedness of the Tai Chi is very helpful for me to turn my mind off.
TERRA: Yeah, I can totally see that.
ANGELA: I’m going to have to do some research, because I don’t know any of these. The practicing mindfulness that I do is I just — I lay in bed and listen to music that has no words and i don’t know by heart, although I’m starting to. And just close my eyes and just lay there. And I’ve had a couple moments but I interrupt myself, like when my thoughts start free flowing, I’m like oh my gosh how did I even think of that. And I pull myself right out of it. So, I definitely need to practice it more.
TERRA: That sounds beautiful.
ANGELA: It was. It was amazing. It really was. It’s happened several times. Just a handful of times I was able to achieve that and it was really cool.
PAIGE: The allusive flow.
ANGELA: Mm-hmm.
PAIGE: Yeah. I think that it’s been really interesting to see how many successful people I know have a mindfulness practice, and whether that’s Sufi movement or Tai Chi, or mindfulness, or an actual zen medication if you will, but just how they incorporate that. Is that something you also teach with your coaching clients?
TERRA: It is. And I work in — it depends on how open they are. Sometimes I do it super subtly, I just offer a suggestion. And if they’re more open then I’ll be more explicit about what we’re actually doing.
PAIGE: Yeah, I’ve heard that from several people that kind of — that’s why the term mindfulness is coming about.
ANGELA: Yes.
PAIGE: I think. Because it doesn’t sound like medication.
ANGELA: Right. Yeah.
TERRA: Yeah, it’s a very non-denomination term, if you will.
PAIGE: Yeah, a secular term maybe.
TERRA: Yeah, secular is the word.
PAIGE: How did you — I know you’re very passionate about — we worked together recently on the ACTW Conference, which is Accelerating Careers of Women in Technology. I know you’re passionate about tech. How did that passion come into your life? Did you grow up with a lot of tech. Were you a developer? What does that story sound like?
TERRA: I actually grew up in a family that was really interested in any type of technology. My father especially is just kind of a tinker. He’s actually a farmer. That’s how he makes his living. But I think if he weren’t a farmer he would have been kind of a mad scientist. So, there was just that tinkering, playing with things, figuring things out. But, ironically, as a woman, I was not really encouraged to follow that path. I grew up in a family that was very interested in — women had very traditional roles. So I’ve had to do a lot of pushing against that. So, I didn’t actually go the developer path. I’ve worked mostly on the business side. Probably the most technical thing I”ve done is write SQL queries as an analyst. So, I’ve always been interested though in being around the development of technology, because it’s so fascinating. Just the things that we’re capable of doing and the passion that people have. And being around smart people is amazing. And smart people creating cools stuff is double amazing.
PAIGE: I like thinking about it that way. Smart people creating cool stuff.
ANGELA: Yep. Your description reminded of Belle’s dad Maurice in Beauty and the Beast, the tinkerer.
TERRA: Yes. Yeah, very much.
PAIGE: I can totally see that. So, growing up with that kind of built in — we’re going to go a little deep here — growing up with that built in patriarchy, do you think it gave you a leg up? Like, I actually spent a lot of my youth doing very masculine things. I worked at a garage. I did a lot of things like that. And I feel like, coming into the tech community it actually gave me kind of a leg up and a thick skin. I hate that I have to use it sometimes, but I have noticed that it really has impacted my career to have that ability to just kind of stand up and be one of the guys, if you will.
TERRA: Yeah, absolutely. And I see it as very much a double edged sword. On the one hand — and I’ve always, the same, been kind of a tomboy, play out in the dirt. I would rather play with the boys, because they were doing fun stuff, instead of just playing with dolls. So there’s always been that thing. And I think that’s really helped me in a lot of ways, because I can just be one of the guys, and everything that comes with that. The plusses and minuses with that has been hugely helpful. And I also don’t think of — when I was working at Lucent Technologies or working at Ebay. Ebay was better gender equality, but Lucent Technologies, I was one of two women on the entire team. I didn’t really realize it until later and I looked back. I was like, oh yeah, there really weren’t that many women. So I think there is that, just capacity to be one of the guys is hugely helpful. And the thick skin. I would say the double edge sword of that is that I’m also really sensitive. And it’s very strange, because I don’t feel it so much defensive in myself, but I feel really protective of other people. So, if there are other women around and there are crude comments made or their not given opportunities, then I feel really protective and defensive of them.
PAIGE: I share that. I will rarely speak up for myself because of the thick skin, but I will not hesitate to speak up for someone else.
ANGELA: Yep.
TERRA: Mm-hmm.
PAIGE: So, you’ve kind of been tangentially involved in technology. Have you found it kind of more difficult, less difficult with kind of how you wrap yourself into the community or effecting the community. Because I know you were kind of reading through some of the things that we’ve talked about or that you put in for the interview. You’re interested in helping women in technology careers. How does that impact you?
TERRA: My work as a consultant means that I’m outside of the team a lot. I tend to integrate into teams and become somewhat part of the team, but there is always a sense of being the outsider. And then not being a developer, while I can understand most of what they’re talking about, there are some things that I just don’t get. So, there is a little bit of that outsider trying to understand the inside. I think that outsider perspective gives me a lot of power, because I can actually impact the system rather than being a part of it. But there is that sense of never quite being in the middle of it and not having direct impact. Rather, I’m helping other people and helping other people grow. So, I’m not actually creating something, I’m just helping the process with that. And then from the outside it’s the total mother/lion protector thing. I’m really watching out for women. I’m actually working with a client right now and there’s a woman in charge of the group, but there are a lot of men that are coming in that have really strong personalities, and I feel so, so protective of her. I can’t really make her do anything, but I really want to influence her to have the right power to not get overrun. Kind of like, I would think like a mother. I’m trying to do the best that I can, but then I also have to just let go and let whatever happens happen.
ANGELA: That’s interesting. It kind of reminded me, it’s not the same, but it’s similar. All of my jobs I floated and wore many hats, and I always had direct input on whatever was going to happen. A lot of them are smaller companies, but even at McDonald’s, I was really good friends with my manager right away and she let me help with some technical aspects. But then a more recent job, the owners, that were all men, coincidentally, they would all meet behind closed doors and i had no input, and that was weird. it felt really weird that I wasn’t part of that. So that took some adjustment for me personally, because I always felt like I had input.
TERRA: Right.
ANGELA: Anyway, so it’s similar but different.
TERRA: Yeah. Yeah, that sounds so frustrating.
ANGELA: Yes. Yes, definitely.
PAIGE: Yeah, I think it’s just that balance of — you know, we talked about this in one of our other interviews, if you see behavior like that we have to say something, and it’s really difficult sometimes to be willing to stand up and kind of stick your neck out and say, hey guys you may not realize it but you’re cutting me out. Or, you’re using language that automatically puts me on the defensive, because you’re saying I’m emotional or I’m not coming at this rationally. Or just some of the things that are kind of built in with the way that society has typically viewed women. And especially coming into a workforce as a minority, that you have that impact and stigma. And I was talking with another friend and we kind of talked about getting women into technology. Just getting them in trickle by trickle is not the answer.
ANGELA: Mm-hmm.
TERRA: Yes.
PAIGE: It’s just going to create the same problem that we see now where women are leaving technology in droves, because they don’t have the support. They don’t have that network. If you’re in that company and you’re one of two or you’re one of one, it can be — you can kind of suffer a lot of friction. Even if you don’t realize it. But there is a gender gap, and that’s okay. And we can change it. But we have to speak up. We have to say things. We have to come up with different strategies.
TERRA: Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the tricky things is that there are effective ways to say things, and then there are things that just come out because we are so frustrated, and that creates more problems.
ANGELA: Right. So you should mediate first.
TERRA: So there’s that finessing. Yes.
ANGELA: I’m feeling this. I feel like saying this. I should practice mindfulness right now, because I shouldn’t say that. So, yeah I definitely — yes.
TERRA: Yeah. And then there are sometimes that you just have to have that. Sometimes that explosion really makes the difference that needs to happen. Like you said, I think it was Paige said, you have to be willing to stick your neck out. So it’s totally finding that balance.
PAIGE: It’s not easy. That’s the hardest part is I hate that it’s not easy. The mother lion in me wants it to be easy. Especially by now. I talk about one of the reasons I do Women’s Tech Radio is because I’ve talked with girls recently, like this year, with 16 year old girls who come into some of the meetups I run, or I just meet through other things, and they’re like yeah I’ve never really considered programing or technology or whatever, because that’s for boys. I’m like, seriously? It’s 2015. Like no. No, no, no. Trust me, you can type just as well as a boy.
TERRA: Right. Oh wow. That’s so sad.
PAIGE: Yeah, it was surprising to me. I really kind of felt like — I’ve been involved in initiatives to help girls get into technology many years before — ten years ago. I was like, yeah, ten years ago we needed that. Holy crap, we still need it now.
TERRA: Yeah, that’s amazing.
PAIGE: And I think that’s also true for the class gap. You know, not just to put a gender barrier on it. There’s plenty of other people who need to get into technology. These careers are accessible.
TERRA: I think that that’s one of the really interesting things. When I look at Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean in, I feel that class gap which is, not all of us have nannies at home taking care of kids. There’s definitely — that’s a big thing for me along with the gender lines, is that not everyone has the same opportunities and how can we equalize the field. Because technology is such a great equalizer.
ANGELA: And so is raising a family.
TERRA: Yes.
PAIGE: Now we — not only do we have jobs in technology, but we have the technology to allow you to stay home, raise your kids, and work.
ANGELA: You know, there was a couple years ago, or maybe five years ago, a big push for work at home. And then all the sudden it just went right back the other direction. Like, no. Nobody can work at home.
PAIGE: I was so sad seeing some of those big corporations, because they had really mismanaged the process.
ANGELA: Right.
PAIGE: Because it is — like we talked about with Darcy, it’s all about the process and how we communicate and how we keep on the team. Remote work is not the devil, but it’s not the answer to everything either. It has to be a carefully managed process.
TERRA: Right. For me too, collaboration is such an in-person thing that there is that balance of how do you get — and I’m also an introvert. So I need my time alone and my space to do my own thing. And I’m so much more productive at home. And collaborating in person is 1,000 times better. The sparks are just so much more intense. So, it is a balance and it is a process of figuring out.
ANGELA: Yeah. Although, even having people come into an office at a medical supply job that I worked at, we were divided. Customer service was upstairs and purchasing, shipping, and receiving were in the back, downstairs. And it totally created the us versus them mentality. I had to work with customer services on that. Like, okay stop. We’re not your enemy. We’re on your team. We can do this. So, there’s still — but it’s even worse, I think, possibly, when you’re remote.
PAIGE: I’ve kind of had the opposite experience, actually.
ANGELA: Really?
PAIGE: Yeah, because nobody is together, we’re all together.
ANGELA: Oh, interesting.
PAIGE: Because nobody is sitting — actually, in our office, in my company we have a small home office, but I would say probably 85 percent of the company is remote and we’re scattered all over the US. Even sometimes all over the world. But because we don’t build that kind of team mentality of us on our floor — Like, even some of my friends who are in the gaming industry, where they have their Nerf guns at their desks and they go on raids to other departments and stuff. It definitely creates that us versus them mentality where with the full remote team, we’re all just kind like we’re a team. This is how we do it and we all understand that we’re all doing it together.
ANGELA: Right.
TERRA: That’s a really cool perspective.
PAIGE: It’s not always what you think it will be.
TERRA: That’s a great new way to break down silos.
PAIGE: Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that, but I like it. It’s cool. I like remote work and I’m also an extravert, so it’s an interesting challenge for me where I get less work done at home. So I tend to work at coffee shops and things like that, because it’s just enough buzz in the air.
TERRA: Right.
PAIGE: That could be the caffeine. Terra, the one thing I did want to know, because you’ve kind of got a unique role that we haven’t talked about yet with the coaching is, what kind of software tools do you use in your day-to-day.
TERRA: That’s a good question. The big thing for me is just staying organized. So, I’m trying to figure out the best way to do that. Tracking all the different things that I have going on with clients. I use Linkit, somewhat. Which is cool. It’s kind of Tello like, but it’s a lot more organic. I have a friend who is actually developing Cardsmith, which will be a really cool strategic thinking, project management, task management tool. So, I’m super excited for that to come out. And then, of course, email, etcetera. My iPhone is definitely my best friend. It has everything on it. I track — what is the — I think it’s call AT Tracker, where I actually have all of my different clients and then I just push a button when I start working with them, and then it tracks the hours and that makes it really easy for me to invoice. Which is super helpful. My iPhone, literally, all the cool apps I have on my IPhone are the lifesavers.
PAIGE: Well, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.
TERRA: Yeah. Thank you.
PAIGE: If people want to kind of find you, maybe they’re interesting in coaching or anything, what’s the best way to find you?
TERRA: Somacollaborations.com is my business site. I’m also on LinkedIn at Terra Soma, and it’s T-E-R-R-A Soma. And then Twitter, @Soma_Terra.
PAIGE: And that will all be in the show notes for everyone.
ANGELA: Thank you for listening to this episode of Women’s Tech Radio. Don’t forget that you can find full transcription in the show notes on jupiterbroadcasting.com. There you can also use the contact form and email us directly by using the dropdown to select Women’s Tech Radio.
PAIGE: Or you can get us at wtr@jupiterbroadcasting.com. You can also follow us on Twitter @heywtr.com. And if you’re interested, you can always subscribe to the podcast on iTunes. if you have spare a moment, leave us a review or some feedback with the contact form. We’d love to hear what you think ladies.

Transcribed by Carrie Cotter | transcription@cotterville.net

The post Meeting Debugging | WTR 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Angela and Chris explain a project where you are able to gift items locally and participate in a community based system of giving and getting to know each other.

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— Show Notes —

Buy Nothing Project

• Buy Nothing Project
• Find a Buy Nothing Project group

WTR

• Check out Women’s Tech Radio – Episode 3

• Join the discussion for it on reddit here

• Follow WTR on twitter: www.twitter.com/heywtr
• Email WTR: wtr@jupiterbroadcasting.com

Mail Sack:

Thomas writes:

I am after a little advice. I have an upgrade on my mobile phone contract. The choices are the Samsung galaxy s5 or the HTC one m8 both 16gb.

If it were you, which would you go for? The hardware looks very similar, apart from the cameras. Which the s5 looks to smash the HTC.

One thing that slightly concerns me with the samsung is KNOX. I didn’t know anything about this before my upgrade, and it seems to lock down the device, apparently voiding warranty if rooted with custom kernel/recovery.

Many thanks Chris, keep up the great work!
PS I tune into LAS every week without fail, my misses asked the other day whilst listening to you and Matt, “oh, they are still going then, is that where you got the cool computer shirt from?”

Happy new year to you and the family,

Thomas from UK.

Mike writes:

Chris, I think you’re my father. Remember that girl in High school?

Where do I get JB stickers?

Sakuramboo writes:

Sup Ang,

I figured you all could use my story in a ting ad.

Way back when, when Ting started advertising on JB, I did a lot of research on them and Sprint and was very impressed with them and their pay what you use plan. I started to become a spokesman for them even though I never switched. I introduced my sister to them and shortly after my sister and her husband switched their Sprint phones to Ting. Last time I asked her, she said that they are saving money, but not much because her husband uses a LOT of data. But, I don’t have the figures. Then, my dad was getting fed up with Verizon and decided that it was time to “try out these new smart phones everyone is talking about.” I showed him Ting and liked the pay what you use model as well. So, he bought a phone off ebay and when it came, I set everything up for him. My mom also wanted a phone and so we bought an old flip phone for her and added it to my dads plan for 6 bucks more. He now pays just a fraction of what he did before and actually has 2 phones on the plan, which blew him away.

All this in the span of about a year. And all this while I was still on Verizon but convincing everyone around me to switch to Ting. Then I bought a Moto X (Sprint) to switch and early terminate from Verizon, only to find that Sprint had a lock on the Moto X for a year and could not BYOD. Then, October 1st they opened to BYOD and I quickly ported my number and moved to the Moto X.

I was paying $95 a month for Verizon’s unlimited(?) plans. After my first month with Ting, I paid $34 dollars after tax. My only complaint is that the 4G service where I mostly am isn’t the best. But, that is a problem with Sprint. Ting got 5 new customers all because I saw their ads on JB and began pitching their ads to my family.

Thanks go out to Ting, you, Chris, Matt, and everyone else at JB for saving me almost a grand a year. That’s a raise right there.

One final note. I know Chris always gets down to the song that plays in the background of Kyra’s app of the week videos. That song was made from the samples that are included with Adobe Audition. I know this because I created the same exact song for use in a previous job many years ago.

Just in case if Chris wanted that song to play on repeat in the car to drive you crazy.

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The post Buy Nothing | FauxShow 204 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

eBay and PayPal split & we speculate what the big picture might look like going forward. Adobe brings Photoshop to Chromebooks, Phoneblocks gets closer to reality & we bring the Kickstarters of the week in front of the judge.

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Show Notes:

eBay and PayPal are splitting up | The Verge

Citing a “rapidly changing global commerce and payments landscape,” eBay has just announced plans to separate its business into two distinct and independent companies: eBay and PayPal. Spinning off PayPal is seen as a way to refocus both companies on the “enormous opportunities” before them and to ensure that they move to grasp them as quickly as possible. Current eBay Marketplaces chief Devin Wenig will become the new eBay Inc. CEO when the restructuring is completed in the latter half of next year, while American Express executive Dan Schulman has been recruited to helm the new PayPal. He joins today as president and CEO-designee.

The separation of eBay, whose focus is facilitating online commerce, and PayPal, who wants to be seen as the leader in online payments, is something that activist investor Carl Icahn has been pushing for both publicly and behind the scenes.

Adobe brings Creative Cloud to Chromebooks starting w/ ‘Project Photoshop Streaming’ beta | 9to5Google

Google announced a new partnership with Adobe today that will see the companies bring Adobe’s suite of popular Creative Cloud apps to Chromebooks. Initially, Adobe will launch just the Photoshop app as a beta and make it available to only its education customers.

Project Photoshop Streaming is identical to the Photoshop you’d install locally with a few notable exceptions. This build can be accessed from any Chrome browser (Windows only) or Chromebook and does not require a full download and install. In other words, this is the same build of Photoshop you’d typically download and install from Creative Cloud, however, instead of being installed on your local machine, it is running in a virtualized environment so can be accessed from any Chrome browser or Chromebook. Because this version of Photoshop is running in a virtualized environment, you open, save, export and recover files from/to your Google Drive rather than your local file share. Also this Beta version of the virtualized environment does not have support for GPU consequently GPU dependent features are not yet available (coming soon). This build also does not yet support for print.

PHONEBLOKS.COM • PROJECT ARA NEWS

The first fully functional prototype will be shown at the second Ara developer conference, in December.

Project Ara will use a modified version of Android L, developed in collaboration with Linaro. Thanks to this version, the modules, except the CPU and the display, will be hot swappable. This means you can change them without turning the phone off. The modules will be available on a new online store, like Play store.

Ello | wtf

Ello is a simple, beautiful, and ad-free social network created by a small group of artists and designers.

We originally built Ello as a private social network. Over time, so many people wanted to join Ello that we built a public version of Ello for everyone to use.

Kickstarter of the week: iScent – Smell Your Ringtone by Qblinks — Kickstarter

iScent is a Bluetooth 4.0 atomizer which works with your phone, allowing you to use a custom scented mist as your ringtone or music.

BNOUS ROUND: HAVEN: The Stronger Smarter Home Lock by Haven Smart Lock — Kickstarter

Deadbolts have gone digital, but this hasn’t made them more secure. Inspired by a break-in, HAVEN is a stronger, smarter home lock.

The post eBay Auctions Paypal | Tech Talk Today 67 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

China goes on a hacking spree, compromising a Point of Sale system is as simple as an ebay purchase.

Plus what’s bad about about GoodGoogle, your questions, our answers, and much much more!

Thanks to:

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— Show Notes: —

What can you find on a used POS terminal off ebay?

• Matt Oh, a senior malware researcher with HP, recently bought a single Aloha point-of-sale terminal — a brand of computerized cash register widely used in the hospitality industry — on eBay for US$200.
• The Aloha POS system is sold by NCR, which came under its wing with its acquisition of Radiant Systems in July 2011 for $1.2 billion. It is one of the most popular systems in the hospitality industry behind those of Micros Systems, which Oracle bought last month for $5.3 billion.
• Oh found default passwords, at least one security flaw and a leftover database containing the names, addresses, Social Security numbers and phone numbers of employees who had access to the system.
• Oh’s research illustrates the security issues facing the hospitality industry, outdated POS systems which it sometimes cannot afford to update.
• Companies don’t appear to be paying enough attention to security issues with their POS terminals, and older systems are often still in use, which may not be as secure.
• The Problem is also impacting the food industry, where there is little budget to upgrade POS systems.
• P.F. Chang’s was listed as a customer of Radiant Systems in an SEC filing in March 2011, a few months before Radiant’s acquisition by NCR.
• P.F. Chang’s disclosed a credit and debit card breach last month.
• P.F. Chang’s said on July 1 the breach remains under investigation. The company temporarily shut down its POS system and switched to an old-style manual imprinting system for processing payment cards to prevent further damage.
• HP Security Research Blog

Hackers breach three Israeli Defense firms behind Iron Dome

• Brian Krebs breaks the news that the three defense contractors responsible for the design and building of the Iron Dome missile defense system have had their computer systems breached
• Iron Dome intercepts inbound rockets and mortars and has been credited with intercepting approximately one-fifth of the more than 2,000 rockets that Palestinian militants have fired at Israel during the current conflict
• The attackers stole huge quantities of sensitive documents pertaining to the missile shield technology
• The breach occurred between Oct. 10, 2011 and August 13, 2012, but was not disclosed
• The three victims were: Elisra Group, Israel Aerospace Industries, and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems
• The breach was investigated by Columbia, Md.-based threat intelligence firm Cyber Engineering Services Inc. (CyberESI)
• CyberESI managed to gain access to the secret communications infrastructure set up by the attackers, and from that learned that a very large volume of data had been exfiltrated from the victim networks
• The stolen material included a 900-page document that provides detailed schematics and specifications for the Arrow III missile, plus documents about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), ballistic rockets, and other related technical documents
• “Joseph Drissel, CyberESI’s founder and chief executive, said the nature of the exfiltrated data and the industry that these companies are involved in suggests that the Chinese hackers were looking for information related to Israel’s all-weather air defense system called Iron Dome.”
• Iron Dome is partially funded by the US Government, and was designed in cooperation with some US defense contractors
• “Most of the technology in the Arrow 3 wasn’t designed by Israel, but by Boeing and other U.S. defense contractors,” Drissel said. “We transferred this technology to them, and they coughed it all up. In the process, they essentially gave up a bunch of stuff that’s probably being used in our systems as well.”
• Many of the documents that were stolen have their distribution restricted by International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), a U.S. State Department control that regulate the defense industry, raising questions about the lack of timely disclosure
• “According to CyberESI, IAI was initially breached on April 16, 2012 by a series of specially crafted email phishing attacks. Drissel said the attacks bore all of the hallmarks of the “Comment Crew,” a prolific and state-sponsored hacking group associated with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and credited with stealing terabytes of data from defense contractors and U.S. corporations.”
• “Once inside the IAI’s network, Comment Crew members spent the next four months in 2012 using their access to install various tools and trojan horse programs on systems throughout company’s network and expanding their access to sensitive files. The actors compromised privileged credentials, dumped password hashes, and gathered system, file, and network information for several systems. The actors also successfully used tools to dump Active Directory data from domain controllers on at least two different domains on the IAI’s network.
• “Once the actors established a foothold in the victim’s network, they are usually able to compromise local and domain privileged accounts, which then allow them to move laterally on the network and infect additional systems,” the report continues. “The actors acquire the credentials of the local administrator accounts by using hash dumping tools. They can also use common local administrator account credentials to infect other systems with Trojans. They may also run hash dumping tools on Domain Controllers, which compromises most if not all of the password hashes being used in the network. The actors can also deploy keystroke loggers on user systems, which captured passwords to other non-Windows devices on the network.”
• “While some of the world’s largest defense contractors have spent hundreds of millions of dollars and several years learning how to quickly detect and respond to such sophisticated cyber attacks, it’s debatable whether this approach can or should scale for smaller firms.”

Chinese hackers breach National Research Council of Canada computers while they are working on new security system to prevent attacks

• The Canadian federal government revealed on Tuesday that the NRC’s computer networks were the target of a cyber attack, and had been shut down to contain the compromise
• The NRC is working with both the private sector and university research teams to create a physics-based computer encryption system
• “NRC is developing photonics-based, quantum-enhanced cyber security solutions … collaborating to develop technologies that address increased demands for high-performance security for communications, data storage and data processing.” says the NRC’s website.
• “NRC is continuing to work closely with its IT experts and security partners to create a new secure IT infrastructure”. “This could take approximately one year however; every step is being taken to minimize disruption.”
• The intrusion came from “a highly sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor,” said the Treasury Board. “We have no evidence that data compromises have occurred on the broader Government of Canada network.”
• The article states “… comes as the agency is working on an advanced computer encryption system that is supposed to prevent such attacks.”
• Encryption does not prevent your computer systems from being breached by attackers, especially if the attackers get a foothold via Phishing and other social engineering type attacks
• The encryption system is a defense against eavesdropping, and possibly can defend sensitive documents in cold storage, but it does not prevent systems from being compromised

Service offers to defeat your competitors online advertising

• Krebs brings us more news, this time about an online service that exhausts the daily advertising budget of your competitors, making your own advertisements less expensive and more visible
• A common scam involving Google’s AdSense service is “click fraud”. A fraudster sets up a website to display ads, then drives fake traffic to the site, and fake clicks on the ads
• The fraudster then gets paid by Google a portion of what the advertiser paid to show the ad
• However, Krebs found someone doing the opposite, defrauding the AdWords side of the business
• “GoodGoogle” is the name of one of these fraudster services. It promises to click the ads of your competitors, driving up their costs and exhausting their advertising budget early in the way (or early in each hour, depending on the Google settings)
• This means your own ads will be less expensive (your lower bid normally wouldn’t win, but if all of the higher bidders have expended their budget for the day, you are now the high bidder), and you cost your competitors more money
• “The prices range from $100 to block between three to ten ad units for 24 hours to $80 for 15 to 30 ad units. For a flat fee of $1,000, small businesses can use GoodGoogle’s software and service to sideline a handful of competitors’s ads indefinitely. Fees are paid up-front and in virtual currencies and the seller offers support and a warranty for his work for the first three weeks.”
• “Nicholas Weaver, a researcher at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and at the University California, Berkeley, speculated that GoodGoogle’s service consists of two main components: A private botnet of hacked computers that do the clicking on ads, and advanced software that controls the clicking activity of the botted computers so that it appears to be done organically from search results”
• This could also be an interesting case of double-dipping, If the fraudster ran fake sites with content specific to the keywords his customers wanted to attack, he could make money via the click fraud from the AdSense side, while charging for his services from the AdWords side
• “Amazingly, the individual responsible for this service not only invokes Google’s trademark in his nickname and advertises his wares via instructional videos on Google’s YouTube service, but he also lists several Gmail accounts as points of contact. My guess is it will not be difficult for Google to shutter this operation, and possibly to identity this individual in real life.”

Feedback:

• RPMfusion.org Not Secure

• William asks on mumble asks if anyone knows of an alternative to the ZeusRAM , a SAS SSD used in many ZFS boxes, but that uses a PCI-E interface, rather than being limited by a SAS interface. Or a modern version of the DDR-Drive, a PCI-E “ram disk”, but using DDR3 or 4 and with a supercapacitor to survive a reboot. I found the ‘SATADIMM’, an SSD that fits in a RAM slot
  • There is also the ULLtraDIMM which actually interfaces with the CPU via the memory controller, but it is not clear how it works or how it interfaces with the operating system. Additional Video – Technical Explaination

Round-Up:

• Symantec Endpoint Protection 0day
• Turning your USB devices against you
• Tor attackers tried to peek into the Deep Web, anonymity network reveals
• New SSL rules go into effect November 1st, no more internal SSL certificates
• Apple’s multi-terabit, $100M CDN is live—with paid connection to Comcast
• Comcast now carries 1Tbit/s of IPv6 traffic
• Android Fake ID Vulnerability Lets Malware Impersonate Trusted Applications, Puts All Android Users Since January 2010 At Risk
• Software that runs US bar exams fails
• Contries do not own their ccTLDs
• Social Engineering attack lets con artist defraud Apple out of over $300,000 in hardware over 42 occasions in 12 states
• How to invent a compression algorithm for a TV show
• Explaining the importance of Software Security

The post GoodGoogle BadUSB | TechSNAP 173 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Android growth is exploding, and showing no signs of slowing down… So why are big players still avoiding the platform? We’ll challenge some common misconceptions on why developers avoid Android.

Plus big Silicon Valley tech companies get busted colluding to keep wages low, the contractor fudge factor, your feedback..

And more!

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— Show Notes: —

Feedback

• iOs Dev
• Amazon.com: Programming in Objective-C (6th Edition) (Developer\’s Library)
• Reinventing the framework
• A defense for Contract companies
• Emails From Eric Schmidt And Sergey Brin On Hiring Apple Workers
• DigitalOcean Wins!
• Digital Ocean’s Journey From TechStars Reject To Cloud-Hosting Darling
• The price of innovation

Dev Hoopla:

Why don’t designers take Android seriously?

Hack Programming Language

• Hack Isn’t PHP – Marco.org

PHP has always been poorly designed and poorly stewarded, but it\’s appealing to developers because it\’s easy to learn (and tons of programmers already know it, so it\’s easy to hire for), it\’s everywhere and runs on anything, it\’s very fast, and it\’s very simple to host and maintain server-side. In short, it\’s extremely practical.

Since Facebook is migrating its own code to Hack, pure PHP will become a less-tested second-class citizen on HHVM. This could devalue HHVM to the outside world, throwing away the benefits it’s bringing to PHP programmers everywhere. The closeness of the two languages will probably prevent this from becoming a significant problem, but it’s a problem nonetheless.

The post Paranoid Android Developers | CR 94 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.