Humanity… in Space!

By Homer Bartlett

Astronauts gathered around a table Recently in an episode of my favorite podcast, America’s Test Kitchen, the hosts talked to Mary Roach, author of Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void about astronaut food, eating, and what happens after eating. In discussing the history of space food and eating at NASA, Mary explains a curiously human tangent to all the science. When space flights transitioned from a couple days in a cramped cockpit to spending months in space stations, the astronauts found their environment was missing an essential piece of equipment: a dinner table.

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French Press vs. Pour Over

By Joshua Flail

At Ripple, we’re fueled by the espresso drinks made on our in-office machine. But unfortunately the M29 Selectron is not very portable. So, when at home, we employ time-tested techniques for making caffeinated beverages. And in case you didn’t know, there are lots of different ways to brew those beans.

There are those folk who swear by one technique, but it’s really just a matter of personal preference. Some like the full-bodied taste and texture of French Press. Others are more inclined to seek out the clean and balanced cup that using a paper filter produces. Of course, there are more unique and stranger approaches, but in an effort to not make this analysis anymore convuluted, we’ll focus on presses and paper filters.

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OfficeTalk Phone Service

By Joshua Flail

Nearly every television commercial, tech magazine, and ad banner in the past year has been touting this “cloud” thing. Most of us get that the cloud is great way to listen to music, backup and store data, and collaborate on documents with faraway co-workers. But what many don’t know is that the cloud can eliminate a lot of the hassles associated with other services too. And while there’s yet to be a cloud-based solution for yard work or dental appointments, we have found a way to deliver business phone service that is more flexible and functional than traditional phone systems. We call it OfficeTalk (™).

For one low monthly fee our OfficeTalk service includes a business-class VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone system with unlimited calls to and from the lower 48, full Ripple management and technical support, and desk phones. All the tough stuff like installation and setup is the job of our support team. And they’ve got the chops to get it done.

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DNS Changer Malware

By Joshua Flail

What do Facebook, Google, and the FBI have in common? Nope, it’s not collecting your personal information. Well, maybe that, too, but the story this week is that all three are making an effort to alert people that the computers they’re using might be infected with harmful malware. So harmful, in fact, that it could prevent them from being able to access the internet come Monday morning.

In a raid that took place late last year, FBI agents seized a couple of servers that were being used to distribute malware. The malware was routing users of infected machines to rogue sites, largely without them knowing it was happening. Since shutting down the servers immediately would have cut off internet access to the some 570,000 machines infected at the time, the FBI decided to temporarily replace the servers with clean ones, and send out notices via their website. Popular websites such as Google and Facebook also ran awareness campaigns, dropping the number of infected computers to 300,000.

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