If you are a fan of Skylum's Luminar software like  I am, you may have been disappointed, like I was, if your experience with 4.0 was like mine. One of the main reasons to get 4.0 is the great improvements they've made in that AI photo manipulation.  One of the things they do that almost works like magic is the AI-based "Automatic Sky Replacement".  It does just what it sounds like, but it does it almost perfectly well and in a matter of seconds.  What would take me a good 15 to 30 minutes to do, you can now do with 2-3 clicks of the mouse. The problem is/was, that function on version 4.0 didn't work for me and judging from the comment boards, it didn't work for a lot of people. One thing I don't get about Skylum is they allow customers to post their bugs, complaints, and questions on the public-facing BBS, but they always send the answer directly to the customer via DM.  So you might search the board for help on sn issue, find that same issue posted...

I took part in a Kickstarter project to build "The ultimate Dashcam".  One with front and back cameras that would shoot in HD, was durable and low power, and would upload video clips to the cloud with the push of a button.  We'll after waiting more than a year, they did just that.  I received my Dride Zero a couple of days ago and, other than an initial rocky "Setup" process, it has been working fantastic. This post isn't so much to talk about the Dride, you can get that information from them at https://dride.io.   This is more for those people who might run into the same issues with Setup that I had.  Hopefully this will save them some of the time I wasted trying to figure it out. Dride Zero Getting Started 1) Unpack from the shipping box.   To get started all you need at first is the Dride Camera, the powercord that has the cigarette lighter connector, and a 16Gb type 10 Micro SD card. 2) Insert the 16Gb Micro SD card in the slot...

Wow, almost exactly a year since my last post.   How some things change and other things don't. On the one hand my father has passed away almost a year ago and that has left a big hole in our lives.  On the other hand a year ago BitCoin was at it's peak and was days away from jumping off the cliff.  Well it fell from about $19,000 all the way to $6000 where it has held for many months...until yesterday when it jumped off the cliff again.  On to Twilio - I'm blown away with how easy it is to get communication components accomplished with Twilio.  We are using it for normal SMS text messages at TapCloud.  We also use it to send out our Authy based 2-Factor authentication tokens, and we are starting to use it for peer-to-peer and one-to-many video conferencing. One of the great things about Twilio is just how easy it is to use.  Here's an example of just a handful of code that will let you go from start to finish so you'll be sending out MMS me...

So a lot of people have heard of Bitcoin, but there are many more people that have not.  If you live in the crypto currency space, like I do, you sometimes forget how far away from mainstream Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are.  But, that may already be changing.  This from an article by Sean Williams shows just how far blockchain technology has come in the past few years. "Just over a week ago, financial giants American Just over a week Express ( NYSE:AXP ) and Banco Santander ( NYSE:SAN ) announced a cross-border partnership that entails utilizing the blockchain network developed by Ripple. Behind bitcoin ($137.4 billion), Ethereum ($35.2 billion), and bitcoin cash ($20.3 billion), Ripple has the fourth-largest market cap ($9.1 billion) of any virtual currency. As reported by CNBC , payments made by American Express' business customers on its FX International Payments platform will be routed through Ripple's blockchain network and allow for instant, cross-borde...

IOTA is not your typical cryptocurrency.  IOTA, which typically stands for the Internet Of Things is a completely new approach to managing a blockchain. Blockchain technology is what made coins like Bitcoin (BTC) possible.  BTC is just a coin that uses the blockchain technology.  As I've said many times before, the "real" invention here was coming up with a blockchain that works.  To show that it works they created BTC.  The success of BTC is a very good indication of how well blockchains can work. Blockchains are what provide the audit trail of each transaction.  It is what allows you to purchase a digital "product" and be assured that the product is authentic and that you are the only one who owns that particular product.  It is what allows us to use BTC as money because it protects against counterfeiting.  Blockchains do have their limitations, most notably transaction speed, and IOTA solves these limitations.  This is hugely impor...

As the November 16th Fork day for Bitcoin approaches I am getting more and more apprehensive about it. I really have a hard time seeing this fork go well. If you've been following me for the past year or so you'll know that's 100% different view from what I normally have. I have already moved most of my holdings to cash (Tether) and for my BTC brethren I encourage you to at least consider sitting this one out. I don't know who is going to be the winner here, BTC, B2X, or some other coin, but I've been hearing more and more about maybe Bitcoin Cash (BCH or BCC) being in play as the survivor. Here's a REALLY interesting article that talks about that possibility. I can't argue against any of what is in this article. https://www.yours.org/content/predicting-the-outcome-of-the-november-bitcoin-fork-89914ce0e1f5/?utm_content=bufferf3dec&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I have a serious question here that I'd appreciate any feedback on. Let me preface this by saying I've been mining, hording, and trading BTC and Alts for the last few years, and the upcoming BTC fork on November 16th, 2017, when block #494,784 is mined, is the most concerned I've ever been.  This is why: Up until now the BTC ticker has always been on the "right side" of any forks.  I know that's really just this past summer's fork with BCC because I'm ignoring Bitcoin Gold, but I also think of the ETH fork that led to ETC and how ETH stayed on the right side of that fork (IMHO).  The "big" coins have always maintained the ticker on the right side of the fork. But, I think that all changes with this next fork.  Even if you disagree with me, go with me here, we'll cover that at the end.  If I understand it correctly, and at least going by what Coinbase is going to do, the BTC ticker will stay with the non-segwit fork and the fork...