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FBI Shares 7 Tech Tips to Keep You Safe

Andrew Orr ·

The FBI’s Oregon office shared seven tech tips to keep people safe over the holidays, like not letting devices auto-connect to free Wi-Fi. It’s well worth the read.

The kids are getting out of school this week and you are packing your bags for the big trip to the in-laws. Now is not the time you want to talk about cyber security, but we do have a few travel tips to keep you safe while you are on the go.

TMO Deals

CleanShot: Capture Your Screen in a Superior Way: $10.62

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on CleanShot, a screengrab and recording app for your Mac. It helps you swiftly capture Mac’s screen without desktop icons in the background, annotate or blur specific parts, set a custom wallpaper for your screenshots, and lots more. It’s $12.50 through our deal, but coupon code MERRYSAVE15 brings the checkout price down to $10.62.

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An Interview With the COO of the Recently Acquired Private Internet Access VPN

Andrew Orr ·

Popular VPN Private Internet Access (PIA) was recently acquired by a company called KAPE, now called Private Internet. PIA COO did an interview.

Private Internet is positioned to lead the movement for a private and secure online experience for all. The internet as we now know it is a place where data is harvested and identities do not belong to the users but are traded by privileged few. Private Internet changes that. The new name also reflects the fact that we will now be offering four new privacy products to our product suite.

I’m interested, and wary, of the future of PIA. I’ve seen accusations of KAPE that include malware, but Mr. Sagi does say the app will be open-sourced. Although this quote sounds odd to me: “We’re building an internal roadmap to create a transparent and verifiable infrastructure, in which no one, including ourselves, is permitted access to the servers through which VPN traffic flows.” They had shown in court they can’t produce information regarding user data, so they already shouldn’t be able to access server traffic.

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MusicBot is the Shortcuts Companion to Apple Music

Andrew Orr ·

Federico Viticci recently announced his shortcut called MusicBot, which he says is the all-in-one assistant to Apple Music.

I created MusicBot for two reasons: I wanted to speed up common interactions with the Music app by using custom actions in the Shortcuts app; and I also wanted to build a series of “utilities” for Apple Music that could be bundled in a single, all-in-one shortcut instead of dozens of smaller, standalone ones.

I haven’t used this yet but Mr. Viticci is a master of shortcuts so I’m confident it’s a great tool to use.

TMO Deals

amplify Hi-Fi Wireless Headphone Amplifier: $60.35

Bryan Chaffin ·

We have a deal on the amplify Hi-Fi Wireless Headphone Amplifier. This device offers up to 12 hours of playback and supports current Bluetooth audio codecs such as LDAC, aptX HD, aptX, aptX Low Latency, AAC, and SBC. It’s $71 through our deal, but coupon code MERRYSAVE15 brings the checkout price down to $60.35. I’m linking to the black model, but there’s a silver option available in a pulldown menu in the deal listing.

Notability 9.2 Changes the Highlighter and Supports the Files App
Cool Stuff Found

Notability 9.2 Changes the Highlighter and Supports the Files App

Andrew Orr ·

Notability 9.2 didn’t bring a lot of changes, but the changes it did bring are important. Here are three things that were changed: Highlighter color now appears more vivid and behind text, making the text pop; Added ability to identify and troubleshoot unsearchable notes that have not been indexed properly; Can now import documents from the Files app.

Notability is among the best note-taking apps for the iPad, especially if you like handwriting your notes with an Apple Pencil. This update should be a welcome one for users.