Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Last November, I posted that I was switching my email from GMail to Outlook.com. It didn’t affect anyone because it just meant that my @studio711.com email forwarded to a different site, but it was a pretty major change for me.

I did it in large part because I want to dogfood the solutions that our company provides in hopes of fairly representing them and offering feedback to the teams that wrote them. I thought it would be a bit of a downgrade, but wow, I’m really impressed. Outlook.com is a fantastic mail service. First of all, their junk mail detection is just as good as GMail. Where they really shine is their interface. Outlook.com loads faster and is subjectively easier to use, especially if you’re on a touch-enabled device. The web client looks and acts very similarly to the Windows 8 app so the continuity is a plus. I manage all my email in the desktop version of Outlook, but their web client and Windows 8 apps are so good, I’m thinking dropping the client version of Outlook.

This wasn’t the side-step (or even downgrade) that I expected. It’s pure win. If you’re frustrated with your email service or just looking for a change, give it a shot.

Yesterday I wrote about the process of losing weight, but I only alluded to data sets. Let’s dig in! My data sources were the Fitbit API (for both number of steps and weight) and some weather history which I’ll explain later. This all came into through Power Query.

First of all, here is a chart showing my weight over time and then which days of the week. I usually gained weight on Sundays (our days to get together with family), Tuesdays (taco day in the café at work) and Fridays (the day we sometimes go out to eat.)

Next up are some charts showing the number of steps I took each day. The chart on the left shows how often I took a certain number of steps. The chart on the right shows the total number of steps each month. Note that we’re only halfway through June so that bar is shorter.

I fully expected to see a correlation between the number of steps I took on a given day and the amount of weight that I lost. Nope. Here’s a scatter plot showing no correlation. I think that walking is good for weight loss if you’re very overweight and you don’t move much. But there’s a point where walking is just too efficient to do much additional good.

I then started looking for other possible data correlation. Maybe the number of steps that I took was related to the temperature? Nope.

We’re in a wet part of the country so maybe the amount of rain we get in a day dictates how many steps I take? Not really. My really big days have happened when it doesn’t rain, but just because it’s dry doesn’t mean I’ll walk a lot.

In the end, I took all the various data points and ran them through Excels correlation algorithm. Nothing came out showing any real correlation. The biggest one was one of the charts you see above: the bigger the high temperature, the more steps I take, and even that was only a 0.48 correlation. That’s skewed quite a bit too because I’ve been doing a LOT more yard work lately and it has been warmer.

Even though I didn’t find a scientific way to lose weight, I did learn lots of things that AREN’T related and that’s interesting too!

The general media has picked up on a huge bug that rocked the tech world this week. I’m sure it’s partially because it has such a great name and logo. But what is Heartbleed and how does it affect you?

This isn’t a virus or malware that affects your computer. It’s a bug in some very critical code that is run by a lot of web servers. Basically, it gives out somewhat random chunks of computer memory to anyone who asks for it. That memory usually contains gibberish but sometimes it will contain things like user passwords or keys to the encryption of all the traffic going in and out of the server. The webcomic xkcd has a very simple explanation of the bug.

There are a bunch of things that need to happen to fix the hole. First the server admins need to patch their systems, get new encryption keys, and replace their SSL certificate. Once that happens, you can complete the final piece of the puzzle by changing your password. Some websites are being proactive and telling you when they’re ready for you to change your passwords. Others are being more quiet about it.

This whole thing has been *gasp* overhyped by the media. Yes, it’s a potentially big vulnerability but the odds of someone exploiting you are low, the patch is relatively quick and easy, and there’s evidence that nobody launched a widespread attack using this vulnerability before it was announced. That being said, updating your passwords is still a good idea. There are various lists around the internet that tell you which sites were affected, but this is one a pretty good resource. They are updating it regularly and telling you when it’s time to change your password (if you need to change your password at all.)

If you’re changing all these passwords but you aren’t using a password manager, consider getting started with something like LastPass.com. It’s free and easy. If you’re already a LastPass member, run their security checker tool. They’ll tell you which of your passwords need to be changed. LastPass was affected by Heartbleed too, but because they encrypt all of their traffic even underneath the SSL encryption, there’s no chance that any of the LastPass data was exploited.

So don’t fret about this too much, but do make sure you’re changing passwords as needed.

I know I’ve been making a lot of Power Query posts lately, but once you get into it, you start seeing data everywhere! The latest example is a movie draft that I participate in with some friends. I won’t explain what a movie draft is except to say that it’s like fantasy football for movies. We participate in a huge league run by Brian Brushwood and friends. They post a spreadsheet with all the data here: http://draft.diamondclub.tv/

I pulled those spreadsheets into Power Query, cleaned up the data, and voila, now we have an easy way to track just the people in our little group! You can see it at http://bit.ly/excelmovies We get interesting views like a leaderboard just for our group, and a list of the movies left for each one of us. I might add some more data views later, but these are the basics.

So if you’re in our movie group, how can you use it? You can use it passively by just visiting that bitly link every once in a while. I’ll update the data periodically for your enjoyment.

If you want to update the data yourself, add your own friends to the list of names to watch, and/or learn how the workbook was built, then you’ll need to do a little extra work.

1. Install Office 2010 or 2013
2. Install Power Query. If it fails then you don’t have the the right version of Excel. Sorry, you’ll have to stop here. (I continue to tell management that I think this is a bad decision.)
3. Go to the bitly link and click Edit Workbook > Edit in Excel
4. Save the file as a local copy.
5. Click Data > Refresh All and wait a bit. When the status bar along the bottom of Excel completes then you should be seeing new data.
6. You can see the Power Query queries that make up the workbook by clicking the Power Query ribbon and then clicking Workbook. You’ll see a side pane appear and you can double click any of those queries to start digging in.

Unfortunately I think Step 2 is going to stop a lot of you, but at least you can view the online link. And if Power Query doesn’t work with your version of Office, please feel free to complain in our forums!

If you’re running Windows 8, you probably got a pretty big update this week. The Windows team has been listening to the feedback and has made some pretty key tweaks to improve your user experience. PCWorld says “This digital love letter should woo over all but the most obstinate of the PC faithful.” So what’s included?

The user experience is tailored depending on the type of device you’re using. If it’s a traditional mouse and keyboard desktop computer, you’ll boot to the desktop and media files get opened in the desktop version of the apps instead of the full screen Modern App experience. Additionally, you can right click on tiles on the start screen and there’s a bar at the top of the screen for full screen apps with common controls like minimize, close, etc. Those full screen Modern Apps will now show up in your taskbar on the desktop just like any other app.

There are a couple other tweaks, but those are probably the biggest things you’ll notice after you apply the update. Go forth and enjoy! And keep giving feedback not just on Windows but on all your favorite Microsoft products. They listen!

A while back I wrote a post talking about the cameras we’ve set up around the house and the software that manages it all (BlueIris.) There’s nothing terribly new in this post except to give a long term test update and say that I’m LOVING this setup. The garage cam lets me easily check to make sure that I remembered to put the garage door home or see if my family is home so I can ask Tyla to defrost some meat for dinner. And since we don’t regularly use our front door, the camera there is a great way to know that we have a package waiting or that someone left a flyer in our door. I even get an email showing a couple images and a 5-second video of whoever was at our door. All of the cameras are great but those are the two that I use the most regularly and I’m eager to add some more coverage.

If you ever want help with a similar setup for your house, let me know. I’m happy to share info. You can get going with one camera and the software for around $100-$125 and then each additional camera after that is about $65. You technically can skip the software but it makes life a lot easier.

In yesterday’s post about all my Amazon orders, JonathanC posted an interesting comment: “How about this one as a Power BI challenge: current value of the portfolio if you had purchased stock of Amazon instead of the product.” … Challenge accepted!

I already had a list of all my Amazon orders. I think headed to Yahoo Finance and downloaded a daily history of Amazon stock stretching back to 2001 when I made my first product purchase. That came as a CSV file too. Both files got loaded into Power Query. I did a merge on the date column, removed the columns that I didn’t need, and added a custom column that was the money spent divided by the closing share price that day. That told me how many shares I could have purchased. A quick sum over that column divided by a sum of the money spent revealed that I would have made an 81% return on my money! But wait a minute, transactions aren’t free. If I was pay $8 per transaction then I would have only made a 37% return. But that’s silly since I probably wouldn’t have bought $10 of stock at a time like I do with Amazon orders.

So now you’ve failed Part 1 or Part 2 of this security series and you have a virus. What should you do? The best thing is to stop everything. Turn off the machine and call your favorite geek. Offer them cookies and ask nicely. Remember that the virus warning might be fake and there’s nothing wrong with your computer.

If it’s legit and your computer is actually infected, your favorite geek is going to ask two things:

1. Do you have all your data backed up? Good grief people, the answer better be a resounding yes. I’ve blogged about this so much. Here’s the test to see how good your backups are: if I walk into your house, throw your computer out into the street and drive over it, what is your reaction? If you’re only mad because of the money loss then you have good backups. If you start crying because of all the pictures and memories that you’ve lost, then YOU NEED TO BACK UP NOW. There’s no excuse for it. Go to http://www.crashplan.com and sign up. It’s stupid simple, nearly free and it will protect your precious memories without you having to think about it.
2. Do you have the discs to reinstall all your software? Take all those discs that came with your computer and throw them in a bag for safe keeping. If you buy physical software, add the discs to that bag. If you buy software on the Internet, save a copy of it somewhere (not on your computer) to be reused later. Don’t forget to keep all the product keys with the discs too. If you’ve lost the product keys to Windows or Office, check out Magic Jelly Bean (or this open source version). It’s a nifty tool that helped me out recently.

They want to know these answers because the best way to remove a virus is to wipe the computer and start over. The time it takes to do that will almost certainly be less than the time it takes to try to surgically remove the virus. And when it’s all over, wiping the computer is the only way to make sure the virus is really gone.

Part 1 covered attacks through your browser. Part is is about attacks via email. We just had a mandatory training for all employees at work because somebody had this happen to them on a work machine and it created a ton of trouble. You really have to be on the lookout.

The first rule is to never click any link that you get in an email. If you always follow that rule, you are extremely unlikely to have any problems.

Ok, we both know that rule will be broken. So what should you think about before clicking on a link in an email?

1. Assume it’s a scam, a virus, or both.
2. Are you expecting to receive a link from the sender? Did your buddy call up and say “hey I have this hilarious YouTube video, I’ll send you a link”? If so then you’re probably good to go.
3. Does it look like something the sender would normally send you? Did your relative who normally writes you long text-only emails suddenly send you an email that only has a single link in it? Just leave it alone. Wait until you know that it’s something they really sent you before you click it.
4. Is some entity like PayPal or your bank telling you that you need to view something on their website? I NEVER click links like this even if I’m completely convinced they are fake. The penalties for being wrong are too great. If my bank says I have an important message about my account security or PayPal says I need to adjust my account settings, I don’t click on the link. Instead, I open up a browser and manually type in the address for my bank. If it’s a legit message, it will also show up somewhere in my account on their site. This is an important guideline to follow with phone calls too. If I ever get someone asking for any personal information, red flags go off. For example, when my credit card company called and said my card had been stolen, they started asking for my social security number, etc to verify some things. I politely asked for the caller’s name and extension, hung up, called the number on the back of my credit card and got back to talking to that same person. That convinced me he was legit and I continued. It’s too easy to scam people this way! I’ve caught people in the act like this too. Just the other day I had someone calling to collect money for the “King County Police” (which is an imaginary org) so I asked for his name and badge number so I could call him back to verify he was legit. It was a scam and it was funny to hear him squirm. (I later reported it to the sheriff’s office though it probably doesn’t do much good.)

When in doubt, don’t open a link. If you have to open a link, assume it’s a scam or virus and don’t open the link. If you REALLY have to open the link, see if you can get to that site without clicking on the link. And if you REALLY REALLY have to click the link, make sure that the sender actually intended to send it to you.

Only the paranoid survive. Everyone else gets a virus.