I grew up on Star Trek. My Dad was a NASA engineer. This is why I am fascinated by technology. What happened to us? Why did we stop going to space? I am looking forward to this movie, which seems to attempt an answer.

This cute trench coat has 18 pockets

Pockets. Why are women’s clothes so lacking in them? Women have more gear to carry than men, generally speaking. Yet our clothes are shamefully pocket-less. Laura and Scott Jordan, founders of SCOTTeVEST, get this. Everything they make is loaded with enough pockets to make your purse obsolete.

They are having a massive Mom’s Day sale. So get something for her, for you, for you again. And do it while most everything  is on sale. (Click the banner below to go directly to the sale.) This includes outlet items. So the deals are big.

I am a SCUBA diver. Whenever I can find the time and the money, I get under water. There is nothing like it. Most of the time, I go under water just to enjoy it.  But like any tourist with the good luck and technical savvy to visit another planet, I like to bring back a few photos to share and prove I was there.

Underwater photography is its own special challenge. People who do it seriously go into the briny deep toting more cameras and lights than I care to pay for or pack. So, whenever I find myself in a room with a professional photographer – which happens often in my line of work – I pelt him with questions about the challenge of shooting underwater with my favorite inexpensive underwater camera and natural light.

I am slowly getting better at it. (That’s my photo, above, taken while being dashed against rocks off the coast of Big Sur.) I have taken photos that hang on my walls. But I am nowhere near as good as people who take it more seriously than I ever will.

So when these Dreamstime photographers offered me tips on shooting underwater, I snapped at the offer like a shark being offered a morsel of seal. Here they are, with some of the results of their efforts. If you would like to hang one of these wonderful images on your walls, follow the links to the photographers site and buy one. That’s easier than flying to Fiji and suiting up.

Don’t scare the wildlife

If you go chasing after marine life, it will swim away. Most marine animals can swim a lot faster than you, so you won’t end up with any photos. Stay calm, move slowly, and when the animals become accustomed to your presence you’ll be able to get the photos.
–Richard Carey, Dreamstime photographer

Respect the environment

Good buoyancy control is key so you don’t touch and harm fragile corals. Humans are doing enough damage to the environment without us photographers adding to it. Respect the environment so it will still be beautiful next time you visit.
–Richard Carey, Dreamstime photographer

Get up close and personal

Getting close is perhaps the most important advice beginning underwater photographers should heed. The less water between your lens and your subject, the better. Water is much denser than air and can reduce contrast and sharpness. Additionally, if you’re wearing a mask underwater, objects may appear closer than they actually are.
–Andrew Jalpert, Dreamstime photographer

Add light

If your camera is equipped with a flash, make sure it’s turned on. Color fades rapidly with depth underwater and without the addition of artificial light, all those vibrant underwater hues will dull starting as shallow as 15 feet. If you are shooting with ambient light only, try to stay within 20 feet of the surface.
–Andrew Jalpert, Dreamstime photographer

Shoot Up, or at least not down

Reefs can be stunningly beautiful and diverse, but this also make them a complex and distracting background. It helps to either isolate your subject against a simple background or set it in a clearly “underwater” context. To do this, choose a subject that you can shoot level or, better still, from slightly below. This will make it much easier to make your subject standout against a pleasing blue water background or even to include some more familiar context in the background, like sun beams breaking through the water surface above.
–Jeremy Brown, Dreamstime photographer

Some things are more important than getting the shot

Underwater photography carries an elevated, but manageable, risk; following safe diving practices must be the priority, no matter how exciting or unique the potential image may be. Competency with general diving skills, especially buoyancy control, is not only essential for your safety but without them, your images will be underwhelming, at best. Put safety first.
–Jeremy Brown, Dreamstime photographer

In horror movies, the invading threat is usually a monster, human turned evil, or something undead. But, chances are pretty good that — just like the oblivious protagonist in every scary movie – you are living in the midst of horror scenario right now and don’t know it.

You – or more accurately your Internet of Things devices in your house – may have been forced into service as part of a mercenary, zombie army that can be rented – for a reasonable fee — to take down anyone’s enemy. This botnet army relies on you being unaware of your role. So if you want to fight for good, the first step is understanding what’s going on.

Some high-profile attacks in this massive war have made the news: In May, a global ransomware virus did a terrifying amount of damage. Late last year, over 900,000 customers of Deutsche Telekom, Germany’s largest telecom company lost service  because of an attack. Last October, well-known sites Paypal, Spotify, Twitter, and many others were taken down by a similar attack. And it is not only large Internet properties that are taking hits. Anyone can be the victim. Brian Krebs is a just freelance journalist but his site was taken down by a massive attack in September.

Here’s what’s happening.

Hackers built a massive botnet army by enslaving Internet connected devices – routers, cameras, and other appliances – in the homes of average people. This is easy to do. The hacker uses a bit of malware – Mirai, which is freely available on the Internet – to infect common devices. They send the malware out onto the Internet searching for devices with weak protection. The software hacks into them, infects them, and uses them to send the software out again in search of more weak devices. Once a device is infected, the hackers can call upon it at any time to do their bidding.

The easiest way to launch an attack, is for the hackers to instruct their botnet army to throw massive amounts of traffic at their target causing a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS). The traffic clogs up the service and the site chokes on it. This is exactly what happened in the recent PayPal, Twitter, etc meltdowns that affected so many people.

“Botnets are nothing new,” explains Adriel Desautels CEO of Netragard, a security services company that protects businesses from such attacks. “They have been around since the 90s — even the late 80s. What’s new is that home connections now have such high bandwidth. So when people purchase access to a botnet army they get a lot more firepower. That’s why these attacks are more noticeable.”

It also seems as if many of the botnet armies out there have been taken over by a couple of rather infamous hackers who go by the monikers BestBuy and Popopret who control – or so they claim – a massive army. These two claimed responsibility for the Deutsche Telekom attack and used the resulting media attention to announced that this massive botnet army is available to rent for prices starting a few thousand dollars. Owning a botnet army is no-doubt quite profitable.

So how can resist becoming part of this Zombie army? According to Desautels, there is no perfect safeguard. “Every piece of technology we use today is vulnerable at some level,” he says.

The best defense? “Be smart,” says Desautels.

Byron Rashed of security company InfoArmor agrees. “There is no bullet-proof security system that will protect you from malicious threats.” But criminals look for the path of least resistance and there are ways to make sure you and your devices put up some of that.

Gary Davis, chief consumer security evangelist at Intel Security, says, “The most important thing to do before bringing new Internet-connected devices into your home is to make privacy and security part of your purchase criteria. If the company doesn’t have a good reputation in those areas, avoid that device.”

And once you get a device home, make sure you update to the latest software versions and change the default passwords. “Many manufactures use simple or commonly known passwords,” says Davis. “Change these passwords to something unique and complex to add a considerable layer of difficulty for anyone trying to access the device.”

“Layering security is the best defense,” Rashed says. “Firewalls, antivirus software, and other layers of protection are necessary to reduce the risk of a successful attack. And put Internet of things devices on a secure network that does not use an obvious password.”

But, as Desautels points out, hackers do not have to get around people like him, who understand technology. There are many more people who fail to secure their devices.

Knowledge is your best defense in this war. Every little bit you learn about protecting yourself from becoming a Zombie is a step toward protecting the world from evil. Instead of fighting evil with a sword, fight it with your mind.

I am a bag addict. I have bags for every normal purpose. And some that have no real purpose. I buy them. I shop for them. I consider them a hobby. And it is only because of this obsession that I happened by accident upon what I think might be the perfect laptop bag.

• It stands up when I set it down.
• It is large enough to hold my laptop, charger, a small purse, a mouse, notebook, pens. Plenty large.
• It has a great pocket for my phone and two exterior pockets for travel documents and things I need to grab quickly when traveling. There are more pockets than that. But those are my criteria pockets.
• It sits neatly on top of a hard-sided roller suitcase.
• It hangs nicely when I have to carry it.
• It’s waterproof so if I ever sit next to that drunk guy on a plane who spilled his drink on me, my laptop and phone are safe.

And it looks great.

Best part? It’s $30. (Actually $28.99)

Seriously. $30. I’m buying another. That’s a gift price. Right?

I love Moo! It’s the best — and easiest — place to get your branding down on paper. Mini cards, cotton paper, square, a different photo on every card? Whatever you need. This is the way to love the cards you carry. I got you a discount. Just follow this link to Moo and your discount will be added. Have fun!

I’m the game geek here at Geek Girlfriends.  Teaching kids coding through games is all the rage this year and the //CODE Programming Game Series by the folks at Thinkfun are designed to do exactly that. I was skeptical that a game with such a goal, could be fun. But, if it’s a game, I’ll play it. Once.

Rush Hour

Thinkfun is the creator of the now-classic, vehicle-parking-lot-puzzle-game Rush Hour, which I enjoy and recommend. So I had high hopes. I don’t know why I love Rush Hour so much. It satisfies something deep within me. Maybe it confirms my belief that everything in the world is an intolerable mess, but that through patient fussing, I can sort it all out? It’s a quietly addictive one-person puzzle game with high replayability. 

New from Thinkfun is the //CODE Programming Game Series, three board games which — like Rush Hour — are designed for a single player. Rush Hour would be intolerable if someone was watching over your shoulder. The //CODE games are more conducive to collaborative play. But I played alone.

On the Brink

In On the Brink, you program the motion commands for a lost robot by arranging a series of movement cards. If, like me, you owned a BigTrak in the 80’s and enjoyed programming it to circumnavigate the kitchen island and slalom around the dining room furniture, you’ll enjoy On the Brink. You win when the robot navigates the entire route and stops at the Finish without falling off the walkway. The walkway is narrow and the robot is always On the Brink of falling to its doom. One false move, and it’s back to the drawing board. I had fun, playing through many levels of increasing difficulty.

Rover Control

Your poor lost robot needs help getting home! In Rover Control, your robot’s path has been erased by a Martian sandstorm. And your job is to color the criss-crossing pathways in the right order so that the preset program can be run. Players use three whiteboard markers to color the paths appropriately and solve the puzzles.

Robot Repair

Robot Repair is my favorite of the three games in this series. This time the challenge is more abstract. A robot has faulty wiring. It is your job to make sense of the programming logic to rewire the circuit board and get it running again. The key to solving the puzzles is unlocking interconnected logic statements. Players are introduced to the logic concepts TRUE, FALSE, AND, OR, NOT, IFF, XOR, NOR, and NAND. By activating the correct wires — and only the correct wires — players get all the logic statements to read as TRUE. Only then can the robot get back to work. I found this game, though more challenging, to be the most interesting and satisfying of the bunch. A few days after I put the games away on a shelf, I couldn’t resist pulling Robot Repair down to play some more.

I’m springing this on everyone all at once but–trust me–this has been a long time coming. My novel Vice Report is now on sale at Amazon. Please buy a copy so I can keep writing. It’s available in paper right now! The Kindle version will be available in the next few days.

It is a noir mystery (with a dash of romance and a generous helping of tragedy) set in the crumbling Fourth Estate, peopled with heroes who kick ass and villains who don’t. You will have fun.

Click here to buy a copy.

Prefer your reading in a portable format? Like to download the sample of a new read before you spend any hard earned cash on it?

Me too!

I take no offense at this. My novel, Vice Report–a mystery set in the life of a woman trying to survive a destructive marriage and the crumbling of the Fourth Estate (where she works)–is now available on Kindle.

Please buy a copy here! 

I am doing a super-quick sale on the Kindle copy of Vice Report because life is spendy and most of us are on a budget.

If you move sharpish, you can get this book into your library for a fraction of the cover price.

The price is starting out low and going up every couple of days till it gets back to its original price. Go now!

I have been pestering Amazon for an Echo that works in the car for years. Every time I go on a road trip, I am barely an hour into the trip before I start asking Alexa questions and cursing her refusal to travel.

Well, they finally listened to me! This is so gratifying.

The Echo Auto is available for pre-order. It’s a great deal if you are willing to order a thing that won’t arrive for a while. Pre-orders are $25.

I love Athleta clothes. But I don’t always want to pay that much money, especially for something I’m going to wear for maybe an hour. But if I go for a hike, or the morning dog walk, I want a pocket for my phone.

These shorts deliver on all fronts: Price, comfort, pocket. Amazon, $19. 

I spent a lot of time in the car this year. And I am gearing up for another big road trip. For this book geek, car time = audio book time. Nothing keeps me awake and gives my driving buddy and I more to talk about than listening to a great book while we burn up the miles.

Choosing an audio book is a different game from choosing a book. The narrator makes a huge difference. And the narrator has to be exactly the right reader for that book. This person talks to you for hours. You have to enjoy their voice and the way they interpret the text.

Audible from Amazon is, in my opinion, the best source of audio books. They do not skimp on production or narrators. And this makes listening an experience that can almost rival reading — especially if you want to drive, walk, clean the house, or garden while you read.

Never tried it? You can get two free audio books by clicking right here.

Here are two of my favorite in-car audio books.

The Cold, Cold Ground

by Adrian McKinty, read by Gerard Doyle

This writer/narrator combo may be the best I’ve ever listened to. The Cold, Cold Ground is the first of McKinty’s Sean Duffy series. Great character, a setting that’s ominous and historically accurate. A few hours into a drive with McKinty and Doyle playing and we begin talking about Sean as if he was in the car with us and we are worried for his safety. (He does take too many risks.) More than entertainment, this entire series has kept us in the car longer and the characters have become part of our journey.

Heart of Darkness

by Joseph Conrad, read by Kenneth Brannagh

This is a classic and if you have somehow missed it up till now, this is the audio version to listen to. Brannagh is perfect. It is rare that listening to a book, in my opinion, is better than reading it. This is one of those cases. Did you love Apocalypse Now (the movie)? This is the source of that story. It is a descent into hell. It was probably on your high school or college reading list. Maybe you skipped it? Mistake! Remedy that now.

Audible’s Best of the Year List

Audible put together its annual Best of the Year earlier this year and it has some good suggestions, culled from audio books that received the best reviews and highest ratings from listeners and Audible’s team of editors in 2017. There are some good suggestions.

Best Audiobook of the Year

 The Hate U Give

by Angie Thomas

Best Fiction

 Lincoln in the Bardo

by George Saunders, performed by a full cast

Best Nonfiction

 American Wolf 

by Nate Blakeslee

Best Science Fiction

Artemis

by Andy Weir, narrated by Rosario Dawson

Best Glorious Reboot

The Handmaid’s Tale: A Special Edition

by Margaret Atwood, narrated by Claire Danes

Best Young Adult

Long Way Down

written and narrated by Jason Reynolds

Best Romance

Accidental Sire

by Molly Harper

Best Memoir

You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me

written and narrated by Sherman Alexie

Best Audioshow

Where Should We Begin?

with Esther Perel

Listener Favorite

The Oathbringer

by Brandon Sanderson

I’m self-employed. Have been since my teenage daughter was a baby. I blame her for pushing me out of the nine-to-five. But I also thank her for it. Working for myself is amazing. I will never go back to a full-time, on site job. I have too many side interests, too much freedom, too much control.

I am not alone, according to a survey from FreshBooks. The data scientists at FreshBooks found that 30% of Americans work for themselves, at least part-time.

This isn’t that surprising. What’s more surprising is that 36% started their own business before they were sixteen. A remarkable 8% were under ten years old.

Naturally, most (90%) of those young entrepreneurs had a support system. Their parents helped them write the business plan, funded the business, and helped them sell the product.

I don’t want to add anything to your parenting pressures. Or my own. But maybe the next time your child has a brilliant idea for a lemonade stand (or an app or game), you might like to know that for some of the world’s self-employed, this is how they started out. And maybe it’s time my no-longer-a-baby daughter started her own business.

I love Airbnb. I use it for most of my travel and to rent my own place out when I’m not in it. (This makes travel much more affordable!)

I have been doing this for ten years and have never had a problem. Mostly I have stayed in places I should not have been able to afford. And met people I still adore.

Here’s a deal:

Click here for $40 off your first trip if you are new to Airbnb.

Someone asked me how to talk to kids about difficult topics. This is daunting but worth the effort. It grows informed kids willing to discuss anything from history to science to politics. I used a lot of online resources to get mine there.

One great thing about growing up in the information age, though, is that you don’t have to go it alone. There are many sources of information out there. You can use these! There are also terrible sources. Let’s hope your kids aren’t using these.

So, beyond talking to your kids about difficult subjects, I would suggest teaching them where to get information. When my kids were small, I showed them where to find answers, how to evaluate a source, and how to check facts. (I also filtered out the smut. That’s a topic for another day.)

But if you want to send them to a source they can trust, so you can get some work done, here are three of my favorite online learning tools for kids.

BrainPop

$10.95 a month

Funny, entertaining, and educational, Brainpop may be my favorite online educational tool. If you are freaking out over the sex talk, start here. Kids watch short animation on science, social studies, math, technology, English, health, arts, and music and can test their knowledge at the end with a multiple choice quiz. More than once, I turned homework time into a two-hour learning festival where my kids were having a blast. In fact, it can be as difficult to get a kid away from Brainpop as it is to get them away from cat videos on YouTube but when you do get them away, they will full of knowledge. I have lost a few hours to Brainpop myself.

Cosmeo

$9.95 a month

Your middle schooler turns to you, expecting you to help her with her math homework. But it’s been 20 years since you thought about the Pythagorean Theorem. Turn to Cosmeo’s Math Solver’s for a quick reminder on how to solve that problem. Or let you kid watch a teacher explain over and over again if necessary a troubling topic. Trouble with the times tables? Get him playing a video games that requires he master them to move to the next level. Fourth grader writing a paper on Madagascar? Wouldn’t it be nice to dial up every documentary the Discovery Channel has ever made on the subject? Need photos, data, or video she can use in her school project? Done. Done. And done. Check out the 30-day free trial.

Shmoop

Free

Schmoop helps middle school, high school, and college students get papers their written. It gives them resources to help them evaluate books, and think about themes in literature, poetry, and history. The content is written by PH.D students and it can help your student study more efficiently by providing study questions, links to audio and video content and writing guides. Is your tween staring at a blank piece of paper with a book-report deadline looming? Schmoop will help her break it down into an outline, add notes in, and guide her toward a finished paper while inspiring her with relevant quotes along the way.

There are also great sources out there for helping you through the sex talk. I will cover those in another post. Don’t miss it! Sign up for alerts from GeekGirlFriends.com here.

The Echo Dot is, I think, the Amazon Echo to get. It’s small, easy to hide in a corner, and you can connect it to your own speakers if you want Alexa to play music for you. Put one in the bathroom to listen to podcasts in the shower. One in the kitchen for timers and cooking assistance. Put one on your bedside table for alarms, morning music, and someone to read to you at night.

There is a great, limited time, deal on them at Amazon right now.

Buy two, get $10 off. 

Months ago, Swig sent me a pair of very sweet Insulated Stainless-Steel Stemless Wine Cups. I have used one of them every day since the day they arrived.

I sip water from one all day long as I work. I drink wine out of one at picnics and when I go to the beach. They have become indispensable.

They are so necessary now that I almost forgot that I haven’t always had one, that there was a life before this was on my desk, in my hand.

I once used a Kleen Kanteen Tumbler for this purpose and I didn’t expect ever to stop using it. But I rarely pick it up anymore.

The stemless wine glass shape feels better in my hand. It has become my go to.

It keeps my ice cold, doesn’t leave condensation marks on my furniture, and looks good if I find myself suddenly in a video conference.

So many people have asked me where I got them that I will probably gift one to most of the women on my gift list.

They come in dozens of colors, have a lid, and cost less than $20. How can that go wrong as a gift?

Don’t miss this amazing deal! Four months of your favorite magazines for only a buck.

Amazon is offering short — four month — subscriptions to popular magazine for $.99. You subscribe through Amazon, which is currently my favorite way to manage magazine subscriptions. It organizes my subscriptions in one place so I can renew or cancel easily without logging into twenty different, often clunky, Web sites for this.

I just subscribed to five magazines and spent only $5. There are other deals at Amazon’s magazine section but this one is hard to pass up. Read something written, designed, and edited by the pros! Get some new recipes! Look at pretty pictures! Magazines are still great!

A cute pair of reading glasses for less than a cup of coffee? Yes, please!

These reading glasses from the Reading Glass Company on Amazon are cute, come in great colors, and arrived in a day. You get two pairs for $7. I bought enough to stash a pair of glasses everywhere I’m likely to pick up a book. Annoying, daily life problem solved.