Audiobus: Use your music apps together.
What is Audiobus? — Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.
Download on the App StoreAudiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.
VPN thoughts, off topic
What do you think about vpns?
Are they really safe?
Do they work?
Knock on wood but no one has stolen my id or money (that I know of) yet.
Obviously the free ones are junk. I tried one paid service but it was too slow, would not stay connected, and wouldn't let me watch US Netflix whilst abroad (which is really why I bought it in the first place!).
Thoughts? Thanks!
Comments
I use my work's VPN when I'm out and about. I don't have any experience with market options.
The main wifi hack that's out there now is just insidious. All devices these days default to 'connect to networks I know'. Hacker can see your recently connected networks pretty easily. Then, they set up a fake network with the same info as one of your old ones and choke up the public wifi so your device switches. Now, unless you connect via HTTPS to everything, they can see everything you send (including cookies).
Some accept Paypal or other payment solutions which makes it safer as a consumer. Some take Bitcoins so you're completely anonymous
As for safety from hackers, a VPN does nothing to protect you from spearphishing, man in the middle or social engineering attacks or the nice hardware backdoors on modern hardware. If it's that kind of security you're looking for you should focus on other areas like uninstalling Java, disabling Flash in your browser, install a script control browser extension etc.
The vast majority of malware infections on personal computers are from social engineering so sensible browsing habits are a must. Don't open shady emails, don't download attachments you're not expecting, don't click on links unless you know for sure they're legit etc
Absolutely, however depending on what you expect from a VPN you'll need to look at different types of companies. Some focus on lots of servers in almost all countries while others focus on privacy and anonymity. Some allow torrenting, some allow anonymous payments through Bitcoins etc so it really depends on what you need
Also, as far as i'm aware, the large streaming sites like Netflix periodically bans popular VPN servers so if that's important you will probably need to do some research. Alternatively most offers a free trial so you can test if it does work for you
They sure do work. You can never be too anonym in the internet.
The problem is what VPN to use. I myself used this website: comparisonvpn.com as there's just too many to choose from.
BTW, if you are unsure about the quality of the provider, try the free trial ones first!
I use vpn express. Works perfect. Bought 20 gigs of streaming 5 years ago. And I'm only halfway through. And they have daily, weekly and monthly 'lucky draws' where you can get free mb to add to your account.
The free VPNs can't be trusted,
If you don't pay for the service you are the product.
Wow, cool! Thanks for all of the feedback!
I've been using IPVanish and like I said, I expected it to be faster and stay connected but It's probably just user error.
https://www.ipvanish.com
To be fair though, is there ANYTHING nowadays that is NOT using HTTPS or the encrypted equivalent for all the other protocols? 🤔 I mean, browsers put a huge red "NOT SECURE" warning in the address bar whenever your connection is unencrypted so...
The only ones who're still stubbornly using plain HTTP are those always-broke iOS music software companies in the Irish backyard... 😉
I take this further and have my ad/content blocker block all http urls. I do come across http fairly regularly, but it's still only a small minority of all sites. When it happens I try changing to https, and if the site don't have that I usually just don't visit it, on principle. Let's just starve them for traffic until they join the modern world.
That's a bit extreme maybe? Why should I go through the hassle of providing HTTPS for a website which consists entirely of publicly accessible information and where it is IMPOSSIBLE to SUBMIT ANY information? It only costs me time, my server CPU time, and unnecessary maintenance.
Or are people really afraid someone might "sniff" the fact that they're interested in Xequence 2 instead of MusicFolder 😄
I use Proton VPN and have been very satisfied with the quality and reliability. I’ve tried others as well. Had Cyberghost for a few years. But overall I recommend Proton for VPN and secure email.
If you do want to try them, their Black Friday (aka Black Fortnight) is on now https://protonvpn.com/blackfriday/.
mullvad.
Letsvpn - very very cheap and much better than socketpro. Even managed to stay working in China during the recent ccp conference which is really saying something, as the govt really cracks down on vpns during that time and many cease to work.
I look at it from the standpoint that it shows me the person running the website is aware there's a risk, and has taken the bare minimum steps to let people visiting the site feel secure. Even if there's not real risk for that particular site, its not that expensive or difficult to switch to https and just seems like one of the bare minimums I should be doing as someone who hosts a website other people will hopefully visit for whatever reason.
There are so many more likely ways to have your personal information stolen than someone sniffing the traffic between your computer and some web site.
In actuality, the most likely way your information will be stolen is through a breach of an institution that stores your information. No VPN can protect you from that. Trying to minimize the sites that store your information is the best defense. Whenever possible, I do not directly use a credit card to purchase online, I use PayPal instead if available. Could PayPal be hacked? Yes. But it's less likely, and no credit card info is communicated to or stored on all those sites you buy from. Every site that stores any of your information is a target, and believe me, not all have skilled security professionals and monitoring.
What really pisses me off is those credit-card kiosks. I bought something one day and made the mistake of allowing it to send me an email receipt. A few days later I bought something at a completely different place ... and got an email receipt without asking for it. I had to actually call the company behind it to get my information removed. Since then I have never asked for an emailed receipt, but for some reason establishments have my email or phone. Argh.
Then there are credit card skimmers which people install in gas pumps or ATMs. I and my family have had that happen a time or two. Use tap to pay whenever possible. It's much more secure.
The next most common vector is fooling people into entering information into a bogus web site made to look like a real one. An email that appears as if it's from your bank takes you to a web site that actually is served up 99% from your bank. All the graphics, etc. are actually pulled from the bank's web site, and it appears 100% legit. But the page is actually hosted by a hacker and any information you submit on that page goes to them. If you ever do get an email from your bank asking you to log in to update information (this is highly unlikely), never click on a link in the email. Open your browser and navigate to the known web site, log on to your account the normal way, and see if there's any truth to the matter.
(If you know how to find the actual sender address, as opposed to the name that appears in your mail program, it's interesting to see.)
Have you ever thought about when you pay with a credit card at a restaurant? How long did that person you never met that you handed your credit card to have it off in the back of the restaurant somewhere? And hummm ... they have your signature right there on the slip to copy some time.
I could go on and on. But all that was to say ...
Using a VPN is probably the least of your worries unless you're afraid of someone tracking your browsing habits. The only reason I can think that I would bother using a VPN for is to log into a work network where there are servers and resources that must be protected. Or, if I was surfing web sites that I really didn't want anyone to know I was on. That doesn't happen, so I don't worry about it.
VPNs are also good for watching the British News Comedy shows I enjoy now that I no longer live in Europe.
Also, https is a good norm to push, and it's more effective with actions than words. If potential visitors are wary of even visiting a http site, and the host knows this, that puts some extra pressure on the host to update.
That said, I still do visit http sites if I expect it to be especially interesting or important, but the content blocker gives me a choice. It blocks the site, and gives me a moment to decide whether to bypass the block or not.
As for VPN, I use Surfshark. No complaints.
Sadly, this switch is quite expensive.
First in terms of memory and CPU usage.
But more importantly, because self-signed certificates are handled like a pirate haven by webbrowsers!
They make users think that this website is esp. unsecure and make it even hard to visit it at all!
And this, of course, is totally wrong.
A self-signed certificate is - when done correctly - surely more secure than a centrally issued one.
This can be seen by the numerous problems with issuers and withdrawn certificates that happen all the time (or those that even can't be withdrawn).
The only problem is, that the webbrowser cannot ask anybody if this certificate is correct or not.
You would need to check for yourself, the same as with ssh keys, BTW.
Still, handling self signed certificates in such a way is a massive problem.
So, offering content without any logins over http instead of https is a totally valid thing to do!
And no, I do not want to pay for an official version nor do I want to seek out one of the free issuers.
It has gotten better since stuff like Certbot / Let's Encrypt has been around, but it's still some maintenance overhead.
And the fact remains that it's simply completely unnecessary. It's like going to a book shop and buying a bestseller, and demanding the clerk immediately put it into a "TOP SECRET" black plastic bag free of charge.
Using VPN makes basically sense just in case you are from some country where you are facing some threat becasue of web sites you want to visit OR they are blocked completely in your country (typically south korea, russia, china and other evil countries where human rights are worth shit, or also for example if you are from US but you want to trade derivatives at some crypto excange becasue this is not allowed for US citizens by US gov lol)
Otherwise you add more complication than benefits - you can hold low profile with minimum traces on internet even without VPN by using anonymous email (like proton.me), secure messengers with end - to - end strong encryption (like Signal, definitely NOT telegram or whatsapp), you don't use social netwroks like Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin, or at least you don't post any personal infomration and ideally you have profile with fake credentials or completely anon account .. laso in browser use AD blockers (Adblock Plus, Ghostery) or you use Browser which is from ground build for preserving maximum possible privacy like BRAVE browser, i would suggest it, it's really good.
If you from some serious reason MUST use VPN, i would sugest Proton.Me VPN service - they have great app also for iOS, very reliable, very fast.
They definitely work. I want one, but all the free ones you see arent great. I want one that can fool the geolocation, some don’t do that, so I can watch BBC player in the States.
I got Carbon VPN free it worked for like a week then stopped. It’s normally $1.99 I think.
If you want something decent that is secure you will have to pay, typically a subscription.
If anyone knows a free or very inexpensive vpn the gets past geolocation please let me know.
My post was from 2016 so....
Poppa, let's vpn does that - I use it regularly to listen to BBC podcasts on the Sounds app
Free trial so you can check it out. You can be logged in on 2 devices at any time - not much, but at least it's cheap and reliable.
https://letsvpn.world/?hl=en