Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

Join Us For the Sixth Annual Aaron Swartz Day This Weekend at The Internet Archive Join EFF and others on November 10 and 11 to celebrate the sixth annual Aaron Swartz Day , with a weekend of lectures, a virtual reality fair and a hackathon. This weekend we’ll join our friends at the Internet Archive in celebrating Aaron’s work as activist, programmer, entrepreneur, and political organizer. Aaron’s life was cut short in 2013, after he was charged under the notoriously draconian Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for systematically downloading academic journal articles from the online database JSTOR. Despite the fact that the CFAA was originally enacted to stop malicious computer break-ins, federal prosecutors have for years stretched the law beyond its original intent, instead pushing for heavy penalties for any behavior they don’t like that involves a computer. This was the case for Aaron, who was charged with eleven counts under the CFAA. Facing decades in prison, Aaron took his own...

The Unresolved Issue of Verizon Throttling Santa Clara’s Fire Department Shows Why ISPs Need Rules In August, it was revealed that Verizon throttled the wireless broadband services of fire fighters in the middle of a state emergency and spent four weeks debating with the local fire department while trying to upsell them a more expensive plan. This week, the Santa Clara Board of County Supervisors held a hearing to review what happened during the state’s worst fire in history. The hearing revealed that, Verizon’s statements to the contrary, nothing about this public safety issue have been resolved. EFF testified at the hearing to provide an understanding as to the legal and technical issues that are part of the conflict to assist the county in its review. In addition, EFF believes Verizon’s conduct would have subjected them to penalties under the 2015 Open Internet Order, because the actions by Verizon’s sales team appeared to be unjust and unreasonable under Title II of the...

What to do When Voting Machines Fail With Election Day just hours away, we are seeing reports across the country that electronic voting machines are already inaccurately recording votes and questions are being raised about potential foreign interference after 2016. While the responsibility to deal with these issues falls to state election officials, here is a quick guide for how to respond to some issues on Election Day, along with a handy resource from our friends at Verified Voting indicating what equipment is used in each polling place across the nation. 866-OUR-VOTE: If you experience voter machine glitches, see voters being turned away from the poll, or run into other issues, report them to the nonpartisan Election Protection network. This is the only way that we can spot patterns, put pressure on election officials to respond and, in the long run, make the case for paper ballots and risk limiting audits. If Voting Machines Are Down Since the first electronic voting machi...

No matter what the application, good power connections are critical to safety and performance One of the most important aspects of bringing power to any electrical installation is having solid connections. Even with the best of designs, if the electrical connections don’t hold up over time, you are going to be faced with a serious problem. What makes this seemingly simple part of the installation so prone to difficulty? It boils down to two things: ensuring proper connections at the time of installation, and ensuring those connections remain secure over time – which can be more challenging than you might first think. First, proper installation Power equipment, such as circuit breakers , frequently is designed with screw connections to allow a good, tight field connection. Such equipment always includes manufacturer specifications for the torque required to make solid connections. Installers know these specifications, but sometimes find it inconvenient to be as meticulous about the ...

EFF Unveils Virtual Reality Tool To Help People Spot Surveillance Devices in Their Communities Law Enforcement’s Deployment of High-Tech Spying Tools On the Rise San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) launched a virtual reality (VR) experience on its website today that teaches people how to spot and understand the surveillance technologies police are increasingly using to spy on communities. “We are living in an age of surveillance, where hard-to-spot cameras capture our faces and our license plates, drones in the sky videotape our streets, and police carry mobile biometric devices to scan people’s fingerprints,” said EFF Senior Investigative Researcher Dave Maass. “We made our ‘Spot the Surveillance’ VR tool to help people recognize these spying technologies around them and understand what their capabilities are. Spot the Surveillance, which works best with a VR headset but will also work on standard browsers, places users in a 360-degree street scene in Sa...

The pace of change in the IT industry has always been nothing short of amazing, but today it’s downright breathtaking. We’re creating data at a dizzying pace and, at some point, it all winds up in or passing through a data center. Nobody has to tell  colocation providers about this growth – they’re dealing with it first-hand building new data centers in an effort to seize the opportunity that this data growth presents. But they must carefully consider the best-fit data center designs to keep pace with this rapid change, and make effective use of new and emerging technologies. Solutions and Strategies to Achieve Colocation Growth – Now and Into 2020 To address strategies colocation providers can take to capture this fast-paced growth , Schneider Electric’s International Colocation Club is hosting a webinar November 15, 2018, featuring Steve Wallage, Managing Director of  BroadGroup Consulting . Steve has more than 25 years of experience in IT consulting, the last 12 focus...

I feel privileged to be working for a company that recognizes the value that military experience can bring to the civilian world.  Personally, I have seen firsthand how my experience and training with aviation electronics in the USAF prepared me for the career I enjoy today. Schneider Electric is making great strides in recruiting military veterans here in the United States, and has earned the status of Military Friendly® Employer . You might be thinking that hiring military veterans is a no-brainer, after all the military uses a lot of power, has data centers and buildings that need climate control and energy management systems. We have even sold PLC’s that are now running mission critical weapon systems for our military. With all the obvious synergies between military operations and power, energy management and automation, why single out military veterans from civilian potential hires? One reason is that military veterans have been living in a unique culture in the service. ...

Sen. Feinstein Supports “Backdoor” Warrants, So Why Don’t Reps. Nunes and Schiff? As the deadline for renewing and reforming key portions of the NSA’s spying apparatus looms less than two months away, two of the most important members of the House Intelligence Committee have stayed remarkably quiet in the conversation. Congress just introduced multiple bills to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act , a law that authorizes controversial NSA surveillance programs and is set to expire at the end of this year. Some of the bills include various ways to fix what is called the “backdoor search” loophole. Currently, the NSA “incidentally” collects the communications of countless Americans and stores those communications in vast databases. The FBI routinely searches through these databases for information about U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The FBI does not obtain any probable cause warrants for these searches, skirting Fourth Amendment protections...

If you have a leaky faucet, you have many options when fixing it. You can: DIY (do it yourself): Guess, Google, or YouTube the steps Call a relative or friend with more expertise than you Call a plumber But no matter who or how you do it, the goal is the same: fix the leak. Challenges in Oil & Gas – Where Do Leaks Occur? On a grander scale, value leaks occur along the entire hydrocarbon value chain, from upstream production to processing and distribution. They must be fixed, for value lost means dollars lost. The goal is to fix the bleeding margins that negatively impact the refinery’s bottom line. Many opportunities for growth exist as business goals differ: In Production, you can want to maximize production and reduce production cost In Refining, optimize feedstock cost, maximize throughput yields, reduce operating costs, improve uptime & reliability, and minimize blend giveaway In Distribution, the goals are to optimize allocations and minimize distribution cost...