waleed tech: March 2018

Sunday, 25 March 2018

Why I Ditched My Family’s Tried-and-True Accountant For DIY Taxes

Man using calculator and calculate bills in home office.

When I turned 16, my parents offered me use of their old 1987 Plymouth Horizon hatchback as “my car,” but only if I paid for the insurance, gas and repairs. Like any warm-blooded 16-year-old, I jumped at the opportunity and got a job at a big box retail store just a few miles from home. Little did I realize at my interview in September 2001 that my new paychecks not only gave me access to the open road, they also meant my first year paying taxes.

For a decade I followed my family’s example and used an accountant to prepare and file my taxes. Then in 2014, I took a leap of faith and switched to DIY taxes. I’m not going back — and here’s why.

Read: 30 Ways to Make Tax Season Less Scary

The Family Accountant

My parents have been using the same accountant to do their taxes for years, one who primarily deals with small businesses, but also does personal taxes. When I grew up, my family owned a video rental store, so this accountant made a lot of sense as my family could get business and personal taxes done by the same tax expert.

I started using the same accounting firm in 2001. They cut me a deal: they’d charge me just $50 per year from age 16 up until I finished college. That made me a loyal customer.

However, there were some red flags I noticed as I entered adulthood that made me start to rethink the arrangement.

No More Deals

A few years after graduating college, my tax preparation bill had exploded from $50 to about $600. I justified this cost initially, thinking that an accountant is an expert and can save me more in taxes than I pay.

Charging by the Form

Between my full-time job, my investments and my blogging, DJing and flash mob side hustles, I had a growing stack of 1099s to file — and my accountant charged per form. Even though he had little to do with those forms, my bill kept going up.

Mistakes

Toward the end of my time with the accountant, I noticed some big errors that could have cost me a lot of money. For example, one year he listed my retirement account investment gains as taxable, which they were not. That alone would have cost me $600 had I not caught it.

Doing the Work

As my tax situation got more and more complicated, I was filling out a lengthy packet for my accountant to use as documentation, so I was essentially doing it all myself anyway. I realized that I could just enter that information into a website or computer program instead of writing it on paper and delivering it to the accountant.

Making the Change

In 2014, I thought to myself, “I have two finance degrees and spent time as a corporate accountant. Maybe doing my taxes myself will end up being easier than working with an accountant.” I decided to start using an online filing program.

So, I gathered my tax forms, like my W-2s and 1099s, and after reviewing the costs, features and reviews of the big names in DIY taxes, I decided to file with H&R Block.

It’s worth noting that it took hours to gather and fill everything in, partially due to my multiple businesses that each had their own Schedule C. When I finally finished though, H&R Block let me file my taxes and export my 46 page PDF, which included details for my federal and state filings. It all went smoothly. I never got audited or had any problems with my tax returns.

As an added bonus, I saved about $400 compared to my old accountant for tax preparation costs. It’s safe to say that I was sold on the idea of handling my own taxes.

Every year since then I have done DIY taxes and have been pleased overall with the results. Though, of course, the various options have different pros and cons — TurboTax didn’t have a way for me to do my S-Corp business taxes on a Macbook or online, TaxAct had some unclear directions and poor customer service, etc. But no matter which DIY tax option I’ve used, I’ve saved money.

The Takeaway

Even if you have complicated taxes, you can absolutely do it yourself. A professional accountant brings some calculator skills and peace of mind to filing your taxes, but otherwise, it does not offer a major benefit for the average tax filer. Doing it yourself can save you a bundle of money, and might even save you a bit of time and protect you from errors compared to an accountant.

Click here to read more about getting free help with filing your taxes.

This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Why I Ditched My Family’s Tried-and-True Accountant For DIY Taxes

U.S. Sanctions Iranians For Hacking American, Foreign Colleges

March 23 (UPI) -- The Trump administration on Friday sanctioned nine Iranian nationals and one entity, officials say for hacking into hundreds of universities and stealing massive amounts of data and intellectual property.

The indictment by the Department of Justice said the hackers worked in behalf of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other government clients. The Treasury Department sanctioned the Iranians and the hacker network they worked for, the Mabna Institute.

"Iran is engaged in an ongoing campaign of malicious cyber activity against the United States and our allies. We will not tolerate the theft of U.S. intellectual property, or intrusions into our research institutions and universities," said Treasury Under Secretary Sigal Mandelker. "[We] will continue to systematically use our sanctions authorities to shine a light on the Iranian regime's malicious cyber practices, and hold it accountable for criminal cyberattacks."

Officials said the Mabna Institute contracted with Tehran and private firms to conduct massive, coordinated cyber intrusions into computer systems belonging to at least 144 U.S.-based universities and 176 schools in 21 other countries.

The stolen data was used to aid Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and sold within Iran through at least two websites. Login credentials belonging to university professors were also stolen and used to access online library systems, the Treasury said.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Steven Berman said the crackdown is one of the largest state-sponsored hacking campaigns ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.

"We have unmasked criminals who normally hide behind the ones and zeros of computer code. ... The hackers targeted innovations and intellectual property from our country's greatest minds," Berman said. "These defendants are now fugitives from American justice, no longer free to travel outside Iran without risk of arrest. The only way they will see the outside world is through their computer screens, but stripped of their greatest asset -- anonymity."

FBI Director Christopher Wray said the sanctions highlight the Trump administration's commitment to "vigorously pursue those that threaten U.S. property and security."

"We will protect our innovation, ideas and information, and we will use every tool in our toolbox to expose those who commit these cyber crimes," Wray said. "Our memory is long; we will hold them accountable under the law, no matter where they attempt to hide."

7 Clever Ways To Use That USB Drive Again

Here are some new uses for that old USB drive you have laying around. (Credit: REUTERS/Thomas Peter)

Thumb drives used to be so cool. They came in every shape and material, from little plastic rectangles to rubber wristbands, novelty animals, and pens sporting a built-in USB-drive. We used to marvel at the data they contained, easily dragged and dropped into a special icon. They were simple and portable, and yes, about the size of a human thumb.

Those days are over. Cloud technology has made USB drives redundant and worse, a liability since they could easily get lost. Most of them have vanished into junk drawers, exiled with old cell phones and various chargers, forgotten.

There are some rituals no longer necessary in high-tech households such as folding a map or memorizing a phone number. Teenagers may shrug, but if you’re 30 years or older, you’ll probably smile with nostalgia at this list of 20 things we don’t do anymore because of technology.

Unlike other outdated tech, such as CDs and Palm Pilots, the thumb drive is still useful, and not just for storing and transporting information. It’s time to give thumb drives a new lease on their electronic lives.

Check out these seven handy, fun and downright helpful ways to use USB thumb drives.

1. Run your own Google Chrome on other computers

Many of us get nervous about sharing web browsers. There are lots of personal settings, and private search histories, that we would rather not share with each other. Portable Apps, a site that collects apps that can run on USB drives, offers up Google Chrome Portable, a version of Chrome that lives on a flash drive.

Portable records your settings and extensions, so when you find yourself in front of a borrowed computer pop the thumb drive into the USB port. This is especially handy for travelers, who may find themselves an internet cafe or hotel business center. The Portable software is both familiar and efficient, and it won’t impact any version of Chrome that’s already on the machine.

2. Go incognito

The Tails operating system has an intriguing tagline: “Privacy for anyone anywhere.” You can run Tails from a USB drive on a computer, and it will keep your activity private and anonymous by acting as an independent OS.

You will need two USB drives for the initial Tails setup and it can seem a little involved, but the Tails site will walk you through the process.

Tails is one way to protect your privacy when using public computers or a computer you don’t trust. It can also be a way to hide your tracks if you’re shopping for birthday or holiday gifts on a computer you share with your family.

Click here to learn more about Tails operating system and get the direct download links.

3. Use it as the key to your computer

You can turn a USB drive into a key that unlocks your Windows computer. Download and install Predator on your PC and a flash drive. Once it’s set up, the computer will only work when the USB drive is plugged in.

Pull it out and the display goes dark, and the keyboard and mouse are disabled. Plug it back in to get back to work.

Predator can be used on multiple computers, so that the same flash drive can unlock more than one machine.

You can also have several flash drives as keys for the same computer, so everyone in your family (or only certain members) can unlock a particular PC. Predator starts at $10 for the home edition.

Click here to learn more about Predator and get the direct download links.

4. Scan for viruses

If you know or suspect a computer has been compromised by a virus, you can use a USB drive to scan and remove the offending software. PortableApps offers several options, including ClamWin Portable, McAfee Stinger Portable, and Spybot-Search & Destroy Portable. Install these on the drive, plug it into the computer, and run them to check and clean the machine.

5. Make a Dead Drop

This is a novel one: a “dead drop” is spy-speak for a method of passing secret information. Historically, agents would leave secrets messages in a wastebasket or behind a loose brick. Berlin artist Aram Bartholl started a trend of USB flash drive “Dead Drops,” which have attracted a cult following around the world.

Participants leave USB drives in public, perhaps cemented into a wall or tied to a tree. Dead Drop users are encouraged to share their favorite files, whether it’s photography, a poem, or some other creation.

You can find out how to participate on Bartholl’s Dead Drops site.

Just remember that attaching your computer to an unknown USB drive comes with plenty of potential security risks, so you might want to use a secondary computer for your Dead Drop activities.

6. Boost your Windows experience

Microsoft has long offered a little-known Windows feature called ReadyBoost. It’s meant to speed up certain processes on computers that use standard hard drives. While it may offer a benefit to some computers running Windows 10, people with older machines and those using earlier Windows operating systems are the most likely to see a speed improvement.

It does not work for computers with solid-state drives like those often found in higher-end laptops.

ReadyBoost turns an external flash drive into a hard disk cache. Microsoft gives instructions for setting up a ReadyBoost drive for Windows 7, but this also works on more recent versions of the operating system. It's worth a try if your computer feels poky.

7. Create a Windows recovery drive

Don’t wait until your Windows PC unexpectedly melts down. Prepare yourself by turning a spare USB stick into a recovery drive. This drive lets you run troubleshooting tools if your Windows machine is having problems, even if it won’t start up properly.

Follow Microsoft’s directions to create the drive. You may need at least a 16 GB USB drive if you choose the option to back up your system files, but this will let you reinstall Windows if necessary.

Once you have the drive finished, label the thumb drive and store it where you’ll be able to access it easily if your computer starts acting up.

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Learn about all the latest technology on the Kim Komando Show, the nation's largest weekend radio talk show. Kim takes calls and dispenses advice on today's digital lifestyle, from smartphones and tablets to online privacy and data hacks. For her daily tips, free newsletters and more, visit her website at Komando.com.

The Computer Scientist Who Prefers Paper

For years, Barbara Simons was the loneliest of Cassandras—a technologist who feared what technology had wrought. Her cause was voting: Specifically, she believed that the electronic systems that had gained favor in the United States after the 2000 presidential election were shoddy, and eminently hackable. She spent years publishing opinion pieces in obscure journals with titles like Municipal World and sending hectoring letters to state officials, always written with the same clipped intensity.

Simons, who is now 76, had been a pioneer in computer science at IBM Research at a time when few women not in the secretarial pool walked its halls. In her retirement, however, she was coming off as a crank. Fellow computer scientists might have heard her out, but to the public officials she needed to win over, the idea that software could be manipulated to rig elections remained a fringe preoccupation. Simons was not dissuaded. “They didn’t know what they were talking about and I did,” she told me.

She wrote more articles, wrote a book, badgered policy makers, made “a pain of myself.” Though a liberal who had first examined voting systems under the Clinton administration, she did battle with the League of Women Voters (of which she is a member), the ACLU, and other progressive organizations that had endorsed paperless voting, largely on the grounds that electronic systems offered greater access to voters with disabilities.

Simons was called a Luddite. At times, she was treated as just short of raving. At a League of Women Voters convention, she took a turn at the microphone to challenge the league’s president. The moderator tried to yank the mic from her hand.

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Simons is not grappling for mics anymore. In late July, at the annual Def Con hacker conference, in Las Vegas, she addressed an event called the Voting Village—a staged attack on voting machines. “I lose sleep over this. I hope you will too,” she told the hackers who had packed into a windowless conference room at Caesars Palace.

Four voting machines had been secured for the event, three of them types still in use. One team of hackers used radio signals to eavesdrop on a machine as it recorded votes. Another found a master password online. Within hours of getting their hands on the machines, the hackers had discovered vulnerabilities in all four.

For much of the afternoon, Simons was in the pressroom, surrounded by reporters eager to hear her make the same points she’d been making for years. “Anything that’s happening in here, you can be sure that those intent on undermining the integrity of our election systems have already done,” she told a reporter from USA Today.

Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election have reversed Simons’s fortunes. According to the Department of Homeland Security, those efforts included attempts to meddle with the electoral process in 21 states. At the same time, a series of highly publicized hacks—at Sony, Equifax, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management—has driven home the reality that very few computerized systems are truly secure.

State officials now return Simons’s calls. Like many of her former adversaries, the League of Women Voters no longer insists on paperless voting. In September, after years of effort by Simons and the nonprofit she helps run, Verified Voting, Virginia abandoned the practice. I asked Simons how it felt to be vindicated. “It sucks,” she said. “I would much rather have been wrong.”

Evidence has yet to emerge that Russia successfully manipulated voting systems in 2016, and most of Russia’s probing appears to have been aimed at databases of registered voters, not the machines that record votes. But Simons believes that the failure to heed her warnings has left states in grave danger, with too many potential weak points to shore up before hackers do succeed in altering an outcome. It is not a theoretical vulnerability, Simons told me. “Our democracy is in peril. We are wide open to attack.”

“It’s not that I don’t like computing or I don’t like computers. I mean, I am a computer scientist,” she said. “Many of the leading opponents of paperless voting machines were, and still are, computer scientists, because we understand the vulnerability of voting equipment in a way most election officials don’t. The problem with cybersecurity is that you have to protect against everything, but your opponent only has to find one vulnerability.”

Simons is slight of build, with short auburn hair. She walks and speaks at a breakneck speed that suggests her urgency of purpose. On a recent weekday, she touched down at Los Angeles International Airport wearing knee-high suede boots. She was in town for a meeting with the television star turned activist Alyssa Milano, one of many high-profile figures now eager to tap Simons’s expertise.

Milano wore her own boots, in metallic gold. Sitting at a conference table in the monumental headquarters of Creative Artists Agency, Simons addressed the actor and her entourage in typically blunt fashion. “I’m scared shitless,” she said.

Simons told Milano what she’s been telling state officials from Rhode Island to California: We have a single technology at our disposal that is invulnerable to hacking—paper. Verified Voting’s goal is to get paper ballots in every state. Where the organization meets resistance, it funds local activist groups and hires lobbyists; where it finds a sympathetic ear, it provides technical expertise and a road map for creating a secure system.

By Verified Voting’s count, 13 states, including populous ones such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey, still have paperless voting. Given the thin majorities in Congress, that leaves more than enough machines to allow hackers tremendous power to influence American politics. And all 50 states use computerized scanners for vote counting—few of them with sufficient postelection auditing to detect manipulation. Mandatory audits, in the form of hand counts of randomized samplings of ballots, are essential to protect against invisible vote theft, Simons believes. In an unaudited system, malicious code could easily go unnoticed. “It’s not rocket science,” she said. “Any halfway-decent programmer could do it.”

Barbara Simons is one of the original figures in a movement of perhaps three dozen people who have been fighting for paper ballots for nearly two decades. None are yet accustomed to being taken seriously. When Verified Voting first started working in Virginia, it was seen as “kind of out there,” admits Edgardo Cortés, the commissioner of Virginia’s Department of Elections. Now “they’re on the top of the list of who we call.”

Leading up to September’s unanimous, bipartisan decision by the Virginia board of elections to decertify the state’s remaining touch-screen voting machines, Simons was in the thick of the debate, emailing back and forth with election officials as they sought to assess the vulnerability of paperless machines. Cortés remembers that Simons “butted heads with a number of election officials over the years.” But, he adds, “I think her passion to keep pushing the issue over time—to just continue—it’s had results. It really changed things.”

What needs changing is a system that took root after 2000, when the presidential election hinged on the infamous chads left behind by Florida voters. Computer voting was still novel at the time, but it seemed like an improvement on the antiquated punch-card systems used in places like Broward County. If not properly maintained, those machines produced less-than-clean punches and ambiguous (“hanging,” “pregnant”) chads. “The takeaway was that paper ballots weren’t any good,” Simons recalled.

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act, and suddenly states were awash in money to invest in new systems—and fearful of becoming the next Florida. Security was a secondary concern—even though many of the new machines had wireless features and left no paper trail. They were viewed as easier to use, and seemed to have little downside. Each state “wanted to get the newest and greatest shiny object,” said Simons. It was “a gold-rush mentality.” She still has a League of Women Voters statement supporting the paperless revolution in which “hacking”—rendered in scare quotes—is quickly dismissed as a concern.

At the peak of the electronic-voting revolution, in 2006, some 40 percent of registered voters used paperless machines. Verified Voting worked to stem the tide, but found little receptiveness for its dark visions of compromised machines. Kevin Shelley, California’s secretary of state from 2003 to 2005 and a supporter of paperless voting, reluctantly took a meeting with Verified Voting. The group he’d dismissed as “crazy activists” made a compelling case, backing it up with data and reports on the insecurity of paperless machines.

Shelley changed his position, and California became an early, important victory for the group. Thanks in part to California’s shift, enthusiasm for electronic systems abated elsewhere, but not before thousands of machines were ensconced across the country.

Verified Voting supports some machine systems—hybrid models that ink paper ballots and can help people with disabilities to vote—so long as the results are audited. But Simons stubbornly prefers pen and paper, which she believes is the simplest, most idiotproof system. Of course, all voting systems must contend with the grubby realities of democracy—design and function have a way of diverging when millions of people enter the equation. Douglas Jones, a computer scientist who co-authored a book on voting history with Simons, notes that a surprising number of Americans insist on exercising their franchise using glitter pens.

What paper boasts—and no existing computer system can rival—is a solution to the confounding logic problem at the heart of our electoral system. The secret ballot presents a paradox: How can the validity of each vote be confirmed without being traceable to any individual voter? Ballots must be “anonymous and yet verifiable, secret and yet accountable,” says Eric Hodge of CyberScout, a security-services company that advises states and counties.

Paper, Simons said, is the best answer to this riddle. Marked clearly and correctly, it’s a portable and transparent record of voter intent, one that voters themselves can verify, at least while the ballot is still in their possession. It’s also a permanent record, unlike computer memory, which can always be overwritten. “There’s no malware that can attack paper,” Simons said. “We can solve this. We know how to do it.”

Flashing An ARM With No Soldering

[Sami Pietikäinen] was working on an embedded Linux device based on an Atmel SAMA5D3x ARM-A5 processor. Normally, embedded Linux boxes will boot up off of flash memory or an SD card. But if you’re messing around, or just want to sidestep normal operation for any reason, you could conceivably want to bypass the normal boot procedure. Digging around in the chip’s datasheet, there’s a way to enter boot mode by soldering a wire to pull the BMS pin. As [Sami] demonstrates, there’s also a software way in, and it makes use of mmap, a ridiculously powerful Linux function that you should know about.

Embedded Linux devices and the microcontroller in your Arduino or clone aren’t nearly as different as you’d think — you just haven’t read the datasheet for the former. If you’ve gotten deep into microcontrollering, you’re used to the paradigm of controlling the chip’s functionality by twiddling bits that lie in memory-mapped hardware registers. Flip this bit and an LED lights up. Flip that bit and you change the PWM peripheral’s clock speed. That sort of thing.

In Atmel’s SAMA5D3x, there’s a register that controls the initial boot media. Not surprisingly, nobody has written a Linux device driver for setting these bits, so you’ll have to flip them yourself. And the easy way to do that is using mmap which does just what it says — maps a region in memory to some physical peripheral and vice-versa.

Most of the time, you’re better off using the kernel and its drivers instead of directly setting registers with mmap — there’s no mechanisms to prevent multiple access for instance. Fooling around with mmap, with the possible exception of directly memory-mapping files, is best left for debugging device drivers or crashing your system. Unless you need to control the boot mode of a chip by setting some bits directly, that is.

[Sami]’s demonstration isn’t anything super secret, and some of you will cry “not a hack!1!!” because he’s just using information straight out of the manufacturer’s datasheet, but we found his writeup to be a nice tutorial and reminder of just how powerful memory-mapping can be in bridging the gap between what you might think of as a computer and a microcontroller. If you want to mess around with an embedded Linux system, and you can get root, mmap may be just the ticket. Or you may just be interested in blinking LEDs very quickly. Pick your poison.

Man Facing Child Porn, Flashing Charges Kept Computer Files Of His Rape Victims: Prosecutors

A "meticulously" organized fiend already facing child pornography and flashing charges on Long Island raped and recorded two unconscious women, keeping the evidence in clearly labeled files on his computer, prosecutors said Thursday.

Cameron McDermott, 31, is accused of repeated attacks on two women in 2010 and in 2013, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.

Assistant District Attorney Jamie Kleidman said McDermott “meticulously recorded each of his actions and then labeled them on his computer, under files named things like ‘unconscious’ and the victim’s name.”

McDermott is already facing charges in Nassau County for exposing himself while cross-dressing and for possessing child pornography. He could face additional charges for especially disturbing images of toddlers engaging in sex acts and “daddy and daughter” fetish conduct that was recovered from his computer.

Convicted child porn fiend busted again for same crime in N.Y.

He was ordered held without bail by Justice Mark Dwyer when he appeared in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday.

McDermott, who attended Elon University in North Carolina according to his LinkedIn page, could face up to 40 years to life in prison.

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Dell Latitude 7212 Review: A Rugged Extreme Tablet For The Most Demanding Conditions

There’s definitely been a trend over the past few years to make laptops and 2-in-1’s thinner, sleeker, and lighter. However, there are certain industries where thinner, sleeker, and lighter isn’t a good thing and that’s where the Dell Latitude 7212 comes in. Not technically a laptop, our Dell Latitude 7212 review takes a look at the company’s Rugged Extreme Tablet with optional keyboard and takes a look to see how it performs and stands up to harsher conditions and environments.

Specifications

The Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet (as tested) has the following specifications:

Processor: Intel® Core™ i5-7300U (Dual Core, up to 3.50 GHz, 3M Cache, 15W)

Graphics: Intel Integrated HD Graphics; 11.6″ screen at 1920 x 1080 resolution

Operating System: Windows 10 Professional 64-bit

Microsoft Ofﬁce: Microsoft Ofﬁce 30 Day Trial

Systems Management: Intel vPro™ Technology’s Advanced Management Features

Memory: 8GB 1866MHz LPDDR3

Hard Drive: M.2 256GB PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive

Keyboard: Keyboard Cover with Kickstand for Latitude 7212 Rugged Tablet

Wireless: Intel 8265 Wi-Fi + BT 4.2 Wireless Card (2×2)

Primary Battery: 2-cell (34Wh) Lithium Ion

Second Battery: 2-cell (34Wh) Lithium Ion Secondary Battery

Power Supply: 45 Watt AC Adaptor

Camera: 2MP HD Webcam/8MP Rear Camera with Flash and Dual Microphone

Chassis Options: WLAN Chassis 11.6 FHD (1920X1080) Outdoor-Readable Glove-Capable Touchscreen w/Gorilla Glass

Ports: 3.5mm audio, USB-A, USB Type-C, mini serial port, power

Backpack Pogo Connector: Connector for I/O Expansion

Back cover: Full Security, Smartcard/Contactless Smartcard/Fingerprint Reader

MIL-STD-810G testing: Transit drop (48”/1.22m; single unit; 26 drops), operating drop (36”/0.91m), blowing rain, blowing dust, blowing sand, vibration, functional shock, humidity, salt fog, altitude, explosive atmosphere, thermal extremes, thermal shock, freeze/thaw, tactical standby to operational

Operating thermal range: -20°F to 145°F (-29°C to 63°C); Non-operating: -60°F to 160°F (-51°C to 71°C)

IEC 60529 ingress protection: IP-65 (dust-tight, protected against pressurized water)

Dimensions (WxDxH): 12.3 x 8.0 x 0.96″ (312 x 203 x 24 mm)

Weight: Starting at 2.82 lbs. (1.3 kg) with single 2-cell battery

Warranty: 3 Years Mail-In Service

What’s in the box

Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet

Power cable

Keyboard Cover with Kickstand (optional)

What was included with our review unit…

Design

When taking the Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet out of the box, you definitely notice the heft, ruggedness, and level of protection that’s gone into this device. Just under an inch thick, the angled corners are covered by rubberized bumpers on both the front and the back of the tablet.

The Latitude 7212 has solid rubber bumpers on each corner.

On the front of the tablet is the 11.6″ display. The display bezels are just under ¾” thick and when coupled with the ¼” enclosure, you’re looking at about an inch of bezels. That being said, the thicker bezel has its purpose, mostly in the form of being able to hold the tablet while wearing gloves comfortably.

The Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet.

Centered on the top of tablet is the 2MP front HD camera, complete with privacy cover. Along the bottom of the front are the rotation button, volume down and up buttons, Windows key button, and three programmable buttons. These buttons are programmable through the Rugged Control Center, which I’ll touch on in the software section.

Front facing 2MP webcam.

Along the bottom edge of the tablet is a docking port for connecting to the optional keyboard cover or docking station. I’ll touch more on the keyboard cover in the Accessories section near the end of this review.

Connector panel for the keyboard cover and other optional accessories.

The left side of the tablet is pretty plain with the fan exhaust and Kensington lock slot. On the right side is where you’ll find all your ports covered under protective flaps. These ports include your DC-in, micro serial RS-232, USB Type-C, USB 3.0, and combo mic/headphone as well as the power button.

Some of the available ports you can get with the Latitude 7212.

On the back of the tablet is where things can get a bit more interesting. When looking at the back, near the top left is a Smartcard slot. Attached to the top near this is a stylus for use with the touchscreen functionality, although your finger works fine as well. Also on the upper left side is a fingerprint scanner while the 8MP rear-facing camera — again complete with a privacy cover — sits above the flash on the right side. Centered between this is a Backpack POGO I/O Expansion Connector for use with some of the additional accessories you can get for the tablet.

Back view of the Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet.

Below this is a screw hole for attaching the optional tablet stand. Below this are two more bays which, in the case of our review unit, house a pair of 2-cell, 34Wh batteries. Located under the right battery is a small door which, when opened, allows access to a uSIM card slot.

Display

The Dell Latitude 7212 houses an 11.6″ display even though it’s closer in size to a 14″ device. That being said, Dell thankfully gave us a 1920 x 1080 display which provides a higher PPI and is extremely crisp and clear given the screen size. Unfortunately, given the display size, the recommended zoom is 150% so you don’t have as much real estate to work with on a larger 1080p display.

Given the intended usage scenarios of the tablet, the display is easily readable in various lighting conditions — both inside and outdoors. In direct sunlight at full brightness, it’s still pretty easy to see what’s on the screen and glare is minimal. Auto-brightness settings also work very well so you don’t have to be constantly adjusting the brightness manually.

Software

Our review unit shipped with Windows 10 Pro. By now, if you’ve read any number of our reviews, we do feel here at Techaeris that Windows 10 is pretty solid as far as operating systems go. In the case of the Latitude 7212, it works rather well in both laptop and tablet mode depending on if you are using the keyboard cover or not and we encountered no issues with the OS on this system.

The Rugged Control Center is one piece of additional software that is worth mentioning as well. Fairly easy to use, the RCC is the control panel, so to speak, for the tablet and comes in handy, not only for programming the P1, P2, and P3 buttons but also for easily accessing camera, on screen keyboard, and other settings using the touchscreen interface. When enabled, it sits as a ribbon on the left hand side of the screen for easy access to quick launch certain actions or expand the full dashboard.

Physical buttons, including three programmable buttons.

The programmable buttons are easy to program with the RCC. Simply open the Dashboard, select the edit button beside the Programmable Hardware Buttons section, and then pick which control, app, URL, keystroke, or other Windows item you want to assign to the short or long press. By letting you assign both a short and long press, Dell has allowed easy access to up to six functions or apps.

Of course, with a mobile work device like the Latitude 7212, security is important and there are a number of endpoint security solutions offered by Dell which include encryption, threat protection, advanced authentication, and more. We didn’t test any of these out (aside from the fingerprint scanner) and more information is available on Dell’s website.

Performance

Under the hood, our review unit came with an Intel Core™ i5-7300U Dual Core (up to 3.50 GHz, 3M Cache, 15W) processor, 8GB RAM, and a 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe Class 40 Solid State Drive. As a result, performance is more than acceptable with your usual Office apps like Word, Excel, and Outlook loading quickly and running without issue.

More CPU intensive programs like Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom loaded fairly quickly and there were no issues with photo editing on this tablet either.

One of the key features of the Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet is its operating temperature range and IP65 water and dustproof protection. Dell claims the 7212 can run in temperatures as low as -29°C (-20°F) to 63°C (145°F). Thankfully, we had a bit of a cold snap recently with temperatures hitting as low as -25°C without the windchill.

I took the tablet outside and, with the keyboard cover closed, let it sit for a good hour to get nice and cold in temperatures of about -20°C. After the hour, I bundled up and went outside, flipped it open, hit the power button, and the tablet fired up with no issues, albeit a bit slower than normal. Once the system got running and warmed up a bit, typing was as responsive as you would expect under normal temperature use and apps worked as, again, one would expect under normal temperatures. While the touchscreen does work with gloves, I found that thinner gloves worked better and were more consistent with registering touches on the screen. Either way, it was easier in the cold to use the stylus but it’s nice to have the option to use gloves instead if you wish. You just may have to test out a few different pairs to find out works best for you with this tablet.

While I wasn’t able to test it to the extent as some real-world use, you can check out this video from Dell which showcases the use of the Latitude 7212 by the British Army.

Sound

As far as sound is concerned, the Dell Latitude 7212 does get quite loud, but sounds fairly tinny. With that in mind, it’s definitely acceptable enough for video conferencing, or watching videos and considering the 7212 is targeted for use in demanding work environments, I didn’t expect bass pumping, balanced sound from it.

Camera

I’ve never really been one to advocate taking pictures with a tablet, but the Latitude 7212 is definitely an exception given its target market. The 2MP front HD Webcam is decent and clear enough for video conferencing, as well as taking front-facing photos outside. Inside is hit and miss and will definitely depend on the lighting but can be pretty grainy.

Rear-facing camera and flash.

The rear-facing 8MP camera does have a flash as well and is great for outdoor pictures during the day. Indoor pictures without the flash will, of course, depend on the lighting, but the flash will let you take acceptable images indoors regardless of lighting conditions.

Sample outdoor image, 100% crop taken with the rear-facing camera.

Battery life

Our review unit came with two 2-cell 34Wh batteries. As mentioned in the design section above, these batteries are removable — something that is becoming more uncommon on newer laptops and is definitely unheard of for tablets. When in use, the tablet draws power from one battery and switches over to the second when the first is drained. The obvious benefit of this is the ability to remove the dead battery and replace it with a fresh one or place it on the charger to charge while still being able to use the Latitude 7212 without having to plug it in.

Dual battery slots.

After a few goes with trying to drain the batteries, we ended up averaging between 5 ½ to 7 hours between the two batteries. While that may not quite last an entire 8 hour work shift, it’ll come close depending on how much actual time you spend of those 8 hours constantly using a computer. As mentioned previously, the nice thing about this setup is that you can purchase additional batteries and an external charger to swap out batteries when they die for longer use of the system.

Protection

With a name like “Rugged Extreme Tablet” and marketing for tougher and more extreme work conditions, you better bet that the Dell Latitude 7212 can stand up to a beating and is IP65 rated. As mentioned in the Specifications section, this tablet goes through some rigorous MIL-STD-810G testing including transit drop (48”/1.22m; single unit; 26 drops), operating drop (36”/0.91m), blowing rain, blowing dust, blowing sand, vibration, functional shock, humidity, salt fog, altitude, explosive atmosphere, thermal extremes, thermal shock, freeze/thaw, and tactical standby to operational tests.

The Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet is rugged indeed.

We’re not in the habit of throwing around our review units here at Techaeris, but in this case I can attest to a couple of the above tests, quite by accident. For starters, the Latitude 7212 has no problem absorbing the impact when pushed off a kitchen table when opened and on. I was unfortunate enough to have caught the corner of the display with a box as I was passing by and as a result the tablet ended up landing on the hardwood floor. Glancing down at it, it hadn’t skipped a beat and the display was still showing what I had currently open. Picking it up for examination, there were no signs of damage and I assume the corner rubber took the brunt of the fall.

In another instance, I was poolside at the local recreation centre working on some stuff in the dry zone. Unfortunately, some youngster decided to cannonball into the hot tub beside the dry zone and the Latitude 7212 ended up getting a fair amount of water on it. Not drenched mind you, but enough that had it been a regular laptop or keyboard you’d be very concerned about water damage. A quick shake off and wipe down with a towel and everything was, once again, good to go.

Again, not in the habit of beating up our review units, but the display also features Corning Gorilla Glass for additional protection. (Un)fortunately, we never had the bad fortune of having that unexpectedly tested but just from the look and feel of it, it feels sturdy enough that it would survive most normal abuse.

Accessories Keyboard

The keyboard cover itself is held into place along the edge with strong magnets and there’s no worries about it inadvertently coming loose during use. The connector and the keyboard are held together by a flexible cloth mesh piece. At first, this seemed like an odd design choice but after extended use it makes sense as it increases the surfaces the Latitude 7212 can be placed on and still allow comfortable use of the keyboard. In other words, the tablet with keyboard attached doesn’t need to be placed on a perfectly flat surface in order to be usable.

Pin connectors to connect to the Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet.

Overall, it’s a pretty standard keyboard design, but the arrow keys and page up/page down/home/end and arrow keys are slightly larger than half sized but are nicely spaced out and drop below the bottom row slightly. I’m not a fan of half sized keys, but having them slightly larger and drop down slightly makes them much more useable.

The optional keyboard cover.

The backlit keyboard isn’t overly thick, but features the same rugged corners as the tablet does. The backlighting colour can be changed through the Rugged Control Center as well. Typing on the keyboard isn’t too bad and is fairly responsive. Centered beneath the keyboard is the trackpad with two mouse buttons. Unfortunately, I found the trackpad slow and a bit janky to use and I found myself quickly ignoring it almost entirely and relying on touching the screen with my finger or using the included stylus to navigate around the screen.

Stylus

The stylus is pretty simple and that’s not a bad thing. Constructed of solid, hard plastic with a softer, flexible tip, the stylus is rectangular in shape and pretty rugged as well. It’s easy to grip with or without gloves. When using the stylus as a pointer, the cursor responded as expected and there were no issues with performance when using the stylus.

The included stylus.

Stand

The tablet stand itself isn’t much and is a single piece attached to the hinge. The hinge screws snugly into place onto the back of the tablet and allows for a wide range of viewing and support angles as it rotates a full 180º on the hinge, limited of course by the back of the tablet. Moving the stand is fairly easy but does take some pressure which is a good thing as once you’ve set it to where you want it, it’s not going to easily shift out of place if you bump or move the tablet. It’s also very sturdy and during our testing showed no sign of loosening from the tablet or at the hinge.

The optional kickstand extended.

Other accessories

The Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet has a slew of optional accessories which we didn’t have the opportunity to test out. These accessories include:

Rugged Tablet Dock

Rugged Battery Charger

Havis Vehicle Dock

Dell Rugged Extreme Handle

Extended I/O Module (two USB 3.0 ports and an Ethernet port)

Active Pen

Chest Harness

Shoulder Strap

Scanner Module

As you can see, there are plenty of options for the Latitude 7212 for a wide range of work environments.

Price/Value

As configured, our Dell Latitude 7212 has an MSRP of $4,150.90USD ($5,133.00CAD). After savings of $1,245.27, our review unit retailed out at $2,905.63. Of course, pricing will depend on whatever promotions Dell has at that time. Currently, the Intel i3 CPU with 8GB RAM and 128GB version starts at $2,722.86USD ($3,563.00CAD) and is currently on sale for $1,899.99.

Of course, that price isn’t exactly cheap when you compare it to other business or gaming laptops but for the specific purpose and extreme work usage scenarios Dell anticipates this rugged tablet to be used in, coupled with the 3-year mail in warranty, the sale prices are pretty reasonable for the functionality, protection, and performance you’ll be getting.

Wrap-up

The Dell Latitude 7212 Rugged Extreme Tablet definitely isn’t a device for the average consumer. For the target market of professionals who work in more extreme conditions that may experience above or below-normal operating temperatures or weather conditions, the Latitude 7212 is definitely a solid, rugged choice for getting the job done. With the optional accessories, it can function as a laptop, be mounted or docked in various ways, and offer extended battery life, serving a number of different requirements and work conditions.

*We were sent a review unit of the Dell Latitude 7212 for the purposes of this review.

Dell Latitude 7212 $2,722.86 USD+

Nailed it

Rugged and versaitle

Decent performance

Programmable hardware buttons

Usable in extreme conditions

Swappable batteries to extend uptime

Backlit keyboard

Fingerpring scanner

Decent camera

Plenty of optional accessories

Needs work

Pricey

Single battery life could be better

Touchpad a bit sluggish

Tinny sound (but loud)

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 To Receive Oreo Update Soon

By: Meenu Rana, The Mobile Indian, New Delhi

Last updated : March 21, 2018 4:14 pm

Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 to receive Oreo update soon

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 was launched in India with Android 7.0 Nougat operating system last year.

Samsung launched Galaxy Tab S3 in India with Android 7.0 Nougat operating system last year. Now seems like the company will be rolling out the Oreo update to the device soon. The Galaxy Tab S3 has now got WiFi certification from the WiFi Alliance (WFA) with Android 8.0 Oreo onboard. The listing simply implies that Samsung is perhaps testing the latest software and may release the same for the device soon.

As per the listing via SamMobile, Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 will support dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n (2.4GHz, 5GHz) and Wi-Fi Direct connectivity features. Sadly, the listing does not show any specifications except that the device will be powered by Android 8.0 Oreo operating system. The listing also reveals that the tablet boasts the model number as SM-T825C with the certification ID WFA69783 and the date of certification being 17th March 2017. Since the device has got the got WiFi certification, we would expect the device to get Oreo update soon.

To recall, Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 sports a 9.7-inch QXGA Super AMOLED display with a screen resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels. The tablet comes with a four stereo speaker setup which is tuned by AKG, and the company boasts that it can automatically change the direction when you switch from landscape to portrait. On the hardware front, the device is powered by an older Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor coupled with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage which can be further expanded up to 256GB via microSD card slot. On the camera front, the device sports a 13-megapixel rear camera, while for the front, there is a 5-megapixel shooter for selfies and video calling. The tablet runs on Android 7.0 Nougat and is juiced by a 6,000mAh battery with fast charging which the company boasts can give up to 12 hours of video playback. On the connectivity front, the device support 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, USB Type-C and GPS. The dimensions of the tablet are 237.3 x 169.0 x 6.0 mm and it weighs 434 grams.