Zika Virus Ground Zero Neighborhood in Wynwood - Miami - NW 1st Ave / NW 30th St

After our nation's political conventions are over and congress has not yet authorized a Zika funding bill, almost all media organizations are now calling Miami ground zero for the Zika Virus. So I wanted to look into the exact Wynwood neighborhood that is considered the Zika Ground Zero in Wynwood.  

The Miami Herald article and video which shows Florida Department of Health workers going door to door on  NW 30th St and NW 1st Ave. An interview is given by Aileen M. Marty, MD, a Professor of Infectious Diseases at FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine. 

There is not too much detailed information out there about the specific Zika Virus cases in Miami. Here is some the key information: 

• The Aedes aegypti species of mosquito does not travel more than 150 meters, about 500 feet in its lifetime.
• 12 of Florida's 14 local Zika cases were transmitted within a 150 meter-local area. This is the only local neighborhood in Florida where the health department has confirmed the ongoing local transmissions of Zika as of Friday, July 29, 2016. 
• Florida health officials and local mosquito control workers have been spraying in this area for several weeks since the first case was diagnosed. 
• Below is a link to the map of the specific area. 

https://www.google.com/maps/@25.803904,-80.1962097,18.33z

Best Miami Zika Mosquito Repellent - Sawyer Products

On July 29, 2016, Governor Scott announced the following: 

Florida Gov. Rick Scott said Friday morning that Zika virus is being transmitted by local mosquitoes in a one-square-mile area north of Downtown Miami. The exact location identified as having active Zika transmission is within Northwest 5th Avenue to the west, U.S. 1 to the east, Northwest/Northeast 38th Street to the north and Northwest/Northeast 20th Street to the south. Read more here:
 

After reading this and since we frequently are in the Miami, Wynwood, Edgewater area, I did some online research as to the best Zika-virus Mosquito Repellent for Miami-Dade County. Sawyer Picaridin came up the top Zika Mosquito Repellent on most lists.

So I am ordering mine now from Amazon for the upcoming months in Miami Edgewater, Wynwood.

US Democratic National Committee Emails Hacked - Is Your Email Account Safe?

Today, as 19,252 emails of the US Democratic Committee were made public by Wikileaks, I was asked by some of my clients how they can keep their email accounts safe.

1. Downloading File Attachments -- If you don't know who the email is from, do not download the email attachments. This includes .RTF and .PDF file attachments.

2. Microsoft Windows Users / Spear phishing -- If you are a Microsoft Windows User, some of the computers in the DNC were more than likely compromised in an exploit called spear phishing. In a spear phishing example, an email is sent from a compromised trusted email account and a .RTF attachment file when opened created a registry key with a .dll file. To help deter this type of spear phishing, it is recommended you keep your virus checker up to date and notify your IT Department if you inadvertently open an attachment you think might be an attempt at spear phishing. Some   common types of spear phishing are password change notifications from Microsoft Live and Paypal.

3. Yahoo / AOL Accounts -- I would not recommend anyone use Yahoo or AOL Accounts. Google Gmail is much better at detecting and shutting off phishing email accounts. In the DNC case, a staffer used her personal Yahoo account to receive and respond to messages to and from dnc.org email addresses (most likely for convenience.)

4. Gmail / Google Apps -- If you have a business, it is strongly recommended you use a Gmail and/or Google Apps Service. It's $50 per user per year. You can also use Microsoft Office 365 for a business. It is not recommended that you use GoDaddy or your ISP email.

5. Check if Your Email Address is Compromised -- Use this website to check if your email address has been compromised. If it is, change your passwords.

https://haveibeenpwned.com/

6. Different Passwords - Use a different password for every website. You should write-down and securely store your passwords. Using a secure password manager should be okay, but I would not recommend writing down the exact password, use some sort of code.

7. Change Your Passwords - You should change the passwords of your most secure accounts every 90-days or less.


Sources: Exclusive Suspected Russian hack of DNC widens - includes personal email of staffer researching Manafort (by Michael Isikoff, Yahoo News July 25, 2016)

Spear Phishing: Scam, Not Sport (Norton by Symantec)

Upgrading my iPhone to iOS 8 with large Camera Roll - make sure you use iCloud to Backup

I had over 10K photos in my iPhone Camera Roll and had a feeling that when I upgraded my iPhone 5 from iOS 7 to iOS 8, there would be issues -- and there were! 

iPhone iOS 8 Verification Failed

Before I started the upgrade process, I manually backed up my iPhone with iCloud. Then I tried upgrading with my wi-fi network. It successfully downloaded the iOS 8, but during the verification process, I received a message that the iOS 8 verification failed. After several attempts to restart this process, about the time I concluded that my iPhone would not upgrade via wi-fi -- my phone displayed the iPhone Cable screen to plug it into your Computer. 

So I went to my Mac, downloaded the new iTunes, plugged in my iPhone. It then restored or installed iOS 8 into my iPhone. After several reboots it successfully reinstalled my iPhone Contacts, Messages, Phone Call History, Notes etc. Unfortunately, since I have a 64GB iPhone, it took 4-6 hours or more to re-download the Apps. During that time, I had also upgraded many of the Apps. 

Additionally, some of my Music downloaded, and some songs I had to tap the cloud to re-download it.

iOS 8 Camera Roll is Deprecated

Now to the Photos. With iOS 8, the Camera Roll Album has been deprecated or phased out. You now see a Recently Added, Recently Deleted (great feature) and several other Albums and on the bottom of the screen the message "Downloading". In Photos, you see the Years and in my case I noticed that iCloud restores the photos by date starting with your oldest photos. And after 10 hours, it appears to have gotten in 2010 at some Aldi grocery store in South Florida that I'll never go to again since we now have a Trader Joes here. 

Reboot

After googling around for the answer including stops in the Apple Forums, Twitter -- I finally decided to reboot my iPhone (isn't that usually the solution and I don't need to speak to an Apple Genius to figure that out). So sure enough, after the reboot it appears that iCloud was starting to restore some photos but it still appeared to be very slow. So I went to iPhone Apps and Upgraded all them since there appeared to be some that were also stuck. 

iPhone Photos Years - Restores Chronologically

Eventually, if I opened my iPhone Photos Years, I could visually see iCloud slowly restoring my 11K photos in chronological order from oldest to newest. This may take another 24 hours or so at the rate it's going. But hopefully with iOS 8, I will find a way to backup my iPhone Photos (but that's another blog). 

Note: What I should have done was use the Apple Mac Image Capture Utility to backup my iPhone Camera Roll  to my Mac and delete some of the photos. I have a Hoarder Gene in my DNA and never spent the time to remove many of the photos from it. I don't use Apple iPhone and the Camera Roll was so big that Google Picasa was never able to back it up. 

iCloud Rocks! 

You can follow me on Instagram @ogawadesign and on Twitter @martinog

Heartbleed Bug - List of Websites Vulnerable

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Sucessfully Ordering Nike Lebron XI Shoes on a Shoe Launch Day

At my age, I still like to hoop it up with the Bros to shed some pounds so I can enjoy my favorite  favorite sport -- eating. The other day I came down on my ankle with a slight sprain so I decided it was time to get a new pair of LeBron basketball shoes. As a Miami Heat Fan, it just doesn't feel right wearing Durant, CP3, Kobe or Rose in the 305.

So after unsuccessfully trying to order the #LebronXI shoes for the month at most of the Shoe Retailers, I was introduced to the Nike Release Dates & New Releases Calendar at:

insider.nike.com/us/

I'm also an e-commerce webmaster and maintain a number of online stores for my clients at my Design Agency and Internet Marketing Company in Miami. So on December 31, 2013 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time, I fired up my MacBook Pro to participate in the launch. Nike provides some launch tips at the link below so before launch day, I did the following:

• Followed @NikeStore on my Twitter Account
• Became a Nike.com Member (Since I have a Nike FuelBand, I already was)
• Tips For Nike Products Launch

On launch day, I logged in to Nike.com, Twitter/NikeStore and waited at the Nike Store website to refresh my browser at the link below.

LeBron James 11 Collection

Sure enough, at exactly 8 a.m. I saw LeBron 11 Dunkman with its radioactive set of hues appear on the screen. Then I selected my size and as expected it was an experience like buying concert tickets. My Firefox Browser locked up after entering my credit card. I tried quickly to login to some of the popular Shoe Retailers (eastbay.com, finishline.com - same issue). So just as I was about to give up, I fired up Google Chrome, logged in to Nike.com, Paypal.com and sure enough, Nike processed my order.

Just as I was celebrating my successful order, I checked @NikeStore tweets, and noticed that the other reason for the spike in online traffic at the NikeStore was the simultaneous release of the Air Jordan 3Lab5, which sold out in 56 minutes. Yikes, I realize Michael Jordan lives in the 305 but those shoes are not for me and in my days, we collected cards not shoes.

To any parents that are trying to make sure their kids can find a pair of LeBron 11s or other Nike Shoes, I would suggest you checkout the above links and use your PayPal Account for the best shopping experience. Also, don't hesitate to buy the shoes on launch day if the inventory is still available. With the global demand for shoes these day, they are produced in a limited quantity and will most likely sell out quickly.

How to Remove Facebook Video AutoPlay

NOTE: I tried this a temporary fix on my MacBook Pro, but finally disable it. There were too many conflicts with some of my programs. 

Here's a temporary fix to your browser to remove the Facebook Video Autoplay feature. It's a little annoying in that you don't see the video thumbnail, but it will prevent your computer from autoplaying videos in your Facebook Feed. 1. Google Chrome - In the Chrome browser, type: chrome://chrome/settings/content - Under Content Settings, Plug-ins, change the setting to Click to Play

 


 2. Firefox - click Tools, Add-Ons, Plugins - In Shockwave Flash, change your setting from Always Activate to Ask to Activate.

 

Notes:

- After making these changes, you will need to restart your browser.
- This will disable the Autoplay feature or and the video thumbnail for all websites, not just Facebook. This might not be the desirable result for some sites including CNN and ESPN. Unfortunately, the fix that most Facebook users would like to see would be a Facebook setting to disable this feature.

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