SI Yule tree needs prez-ent$

It’s not exactly a red carpet, but a Staten Island man whose home was devastated by Hurricane Sandy has just the thing to welcome President Obama today to his storm-ravaged neighborhood.

Perched outside Joseph Ingenito’s battered New Dorp Beach home is a 7-foot Christmas tree — all that remains of the towering blue spruce that toppled in his yard when the superstorm struck.

“I was hoping it was going to be the next Rockefeller Center Christmas tree,” Ingenito said.

The tree is decorated with ornaments that survived the surge, along with empty paper coffee cups, surgical masks and safety goggles.

NY Post photos: Chad Rachman

MAKE MERRY: Dennis Murphy cleans up a trashed home yesterday in New Dorp Beach, SI, where Joseph Ingenito (above) jokingly decorated what’s left of a spruce tree with coffee cups and surgical masks.

MAKE MERRY:Dennis Murphy cleans up a trashed home yesterday in New Dorp Beach, SI, where Joseph Ingenito jokingly decorated what’s left of a spruce tree with coffee cups and surgical masks.

“I just wanted to help the neighborhood keep its spirits up,” said Ingenito, whose Topping Street home was flooded when the hurricane struck. “We’re still going to have Christmas.”

FEMA-frustrated storm victims hope Obama comes bearing government gifts when he visits hard-hit areas of Long Island, Queens and Staten Island.

Sources said the president’s trip will include a helicopter fly-over with Gov. Cuomo above the Rockaways before he touches down at Staten Island’s Miller Field, where he will be met by Mayor Bloomberg.

Although Obama’s schedule is still tentative, he will likely spend a little time on the ground in and around New Dorp Beach, where a convoy of Sanitation Department street sweepers joined a neighborhood broom brigade to attack the piles of debris.

While the neighborhood buzzed with Secret Service, the National Guard and the NYPD, out-of-towner Dennis Murphy worried about the effects of a neighborhood on lockdown, where streets can be accessed only with a local ID.

“I’m going to have to sleep in one of these houses tonight if I want to help,” said Murphy, who flew in from Seattle to help his family in the neighborhood. “I leave on Monday and don’t have a day to waste while he walks around and makes a speech.”

“I want him to help me move this refrigerator,” said Achilleas Siozos, 53, as he cleaned up outside his home.

Heavy lifting is likely not on the agenda, but Obama did spend time yesterday tackling another weighty subject: climate change.

“I am a firm believer that climate change is real, that it is impacted by human behavior and carbon emissions,” Obama said at a news conference in response to a question about Hurricane Sandy.

“I think we’ve got an obligation to future generations to do something about it.”

Obama visited New Jersey two days after the storm, and received warm words from Republican Gov. Chris Christie just days before the presidential election.

In other developments:

* State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued subpoenas to LIPA and Con Ed regarding their preparations and response to Hurricane Sandy, sources said.

The broad request for documents includes preparation and recovery plans, communication records and information on what actions were taken to provide a reliable energy supply before and after Sandy.

* New York’s US senators outlined up to $1 billion in coastal storm-protection projects they are seeking immediately from the US Army Corps of Engineers.

* The city suspended alternate-side parking indefinitely for areas severely affected by the storm, including Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Gowanus and Red Hook in Brooklyn.

* The MTA is providing free shuttle buses from the Rockaways to and from its fare- and toll-hike hearings in Flushing today. Buses will leave the Far Rockaway-Mott Ave. subway station hourly starting at 3:30 pm.

The seven projects include the south shore of Staten Island, Long Beach, Fire Island, Rockaway Beach, Coney Island, Gilgo Beach and Asharoken.

* Dozens of American Red Cross relief workers are staying at the posh Soho Grand, one of few places with rooms available.

* New York’s highest court invoked its “disaster rule” for the first time, allowing out-of-state lawyers to provide pro-bono services to Sandy victims.

Additional reporting by Lorena Mongelli, S.A. Miller and Carl Campanile

leonard.greene@nypost.com

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Steve Wozniak, Chris Hughes share tales with Coconut Grove audience

Co-founders from two of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies gave a South Florida audience a glimpse into the early days of developing the technology that would reshape the world.

Steve Wozniak, of Apple, and Chris Hughes, of Facebook, were back-to-back speakers for the three-day Americas Business Council’s Continuity Forum that wrapped up Wednesday at the Ritz-Carlton in Coconut Grove.

The conference brought together innovators, activists, and thought leaders in entrepreneurship and philanthropy and also showcased 32 emerging social entrepreneurial ventures from around the Americas.

On Wednesday afternoon, both men relayed plenty of stories.

As a teenager, Wozniak used to hole up in his bedroom on the weekends, designing a computer on paper.

And he made a game of it — every weekend he would try to make a machine that would work just as well or better but cost a little less than the last design.

That engineering mentality to build things more efficiently as well as the desire to learn never left him, he told the audience. “I would buy my college books on a Friday and be halfway through before the first class on Monday.”

Then he met Steve Jobs, and began working with him on a variety of projects. “Steve Jobs was a hippie with no money. I was an engineer with no money. We had to think creatively. I designed projects for fun, and he would figure out how to make money,” Wozniak recalled as he told how he invented the Apple I and Apple II that started it all and the company’s ups and downs through the years. He called the iPhone the greatest product ever.

As one of the Facebook co-founders that lived in the famous Harvard dorm room, Chris Hughes said the movie The Social Network got a lot of things wrong.

“Our dorm wasn’t like a luxury condo, there was no sex in the bathroom, as far as I know. An alcohol-fueled hackathon, while it looked like a lot of fun, didn’t happen.”

Hughes told the real story of Facebook and described his roommate Mark Zuckerberg as “highly analytical and very skeptical of conventional wisdom.” What the movie did get right, Hughes told the crowd: “Facebook is the defining example of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship of the 21st century.” And at the core: “There’s a new universal respect for the entrepreneur.”

Hughes, now owner and publisher of The New Republic, also talked about his current passion: How to use mobile and social technologies to support serious long-form journalism into the 21st century.

“Conventional wisdom says this kind of journalism isn’t sustainable. Cynics say the golden age of journalism has past,” said Hughes.

Yet, over the past six months Hughes said it is the long, in-depth New Republic stories that have gone viral.

“Folks are reading just as much news today, if not more. ... We have an opportunity to deliver it across a limitless number of devices. [These trends] all come together to suggest … we are entering a true golden age of journalism.”

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Metrorail worker who was struck and killed by train identified

George Andrews, a Miami-Dade Transit employee who was killed Monday near Earlington Heights station when a moving train struck him, was walking on the tracks after parking his train on a side track because it had been malfunctioning, the director of MDT, Ysela Llort, said Tuesday.

“He had a train that was not functioning correctly and central control told him to park the train in what we call a pocket, north of Earlington Heights. He then was walking back to the station and was 30 yards from the station.”

Llort declined to give further details saying the case is still under police investigation. Miami-Dade police detectives, who are investigating the incident, said they will not provide all details until the investigation is completed.

Jeffrey Mitchell, vice president of the Transport Workers Union Local 291, which represents Metrorail operators, said walking on the track after parking a disabled train is normal procedure for MDT. What is unclear, he added, is why the train hit Andrews while he walked on the track.

A train operator who parks a train on a side track and then begins to walk on the track must advise his position to central control and technicians there must warn all trains, said Mitchell.

"The problem is that the trains are not like cars," said Mitchell. "The operator of the train that hit him may have seen him on the track, and may have applied the brakes immediately, but the train does not stop immediately."

Llort's explanation of the incident departs from the original explanation released by county police.

“According to investigators, the decedent, a Miami-Dade County Transit employee, was working on the Metrorail tracks when he was struck by the moving train. He died on the scene,” the police statement said Monday.

According to Llort, Andrews was operating a Green Line train between Dadeland South station and Palmetto station when the tragedy occurred.

Llort said Andrews was a highly valued employee of MDT. He was 47 and would have turned 48 on Friday. His family could not be reached Tuesday.

“He was a very beloved family member, and very well thought of by the transit family,” said Llort. “This is a tragedy to the transit family and we are in mourning.

Llort said she had ordered that every employee receives counseling if desired.

Andrews began working as bus operator trainee on Nov. 23, 1987, said Llort. Then he became a Metrorail operator full time in the summer of 2003.

Metrorail has two routes, the Green Line from Dadeland South to Palmetto station and the Orange Line from Dadeland South to Miami International Airport (MIA).

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Husband busted in teach slay

The husband of a woman found dead inside their Staten Island home last summer was charged yesterday with her murder, cops said yesterday.

Both suspect Jonathan Crupi, 30, and victim Simeonette Mapes-Crupi, 29, were teachers at the same Brooklyn high school.

He was collared at his mother’s Brooklyn home, where he had been staying since the July 5 slaying.

“I was shocked when police called this morning — because they said it was my son-in-law,” said the victim’s mom, Theresa Mapes. “I really didn’t want it to be him.

“They were madly in love, but toward the end, they had a few arguments,” she added.

Jonathan Crupi

“We started to suspect him a few weeks later because he just stopped calling us.”

Mapes-Crupi was found with 15 stab wounds in the couple’s ransacked condo.

“The allegations are unfounded,” said Crupi’s lawyer, Mario Gallucci.

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No touch screen? Stick with Windows 7

Q. I recently had to replace my 9-year-old Windows XP computer, and am having trouble adapting to Windows 7.

What are the advantages, if any, for me to upgrade to Windows 8, which I’ve read has touch-screen capability and works with other equipment besides desktop computers? Since I don’t have a touch screen, I’m wondering if there is any point in upgrading.

Peter Robinson Chaska, Minn.

Different versions of Windows 8 are being offered on PCs, tablet computers and smartphones. But in every case the new operating system is primarily aimed at people who are using touch-sensitive screens.

So unless you’re planning to buy a touch-screen device in connection with upgrading to Windows 8, you’re probably better off continuing to use Windows 7. By most accounts, using the touch-screen-oriented Windows 8 with a mouse and keyboard is more difficult than using previous Windows versions with a mouse and keyboard.

In addition, if you find the changes in Windows 7 to be challenging, I suspect you won’t enjoy the more radical changes embodied in Windows 8 (i.e., much different start screen.)

I’m not saying you should never upgrade to Windows 8; just let Microsoft deal with some of these usability issues first.Q. I disagree with your warning to never click the unsubscribe link to put a stop to spam emails. Totally inundated with spam, I began unsubscribing and cut my spam down from more than 50 a day to one or two.

Some spam senders were more difficult to shake than others. I threatened a nonexistent Florida corporation that I would go to their state attorney general’s office, but never heard from them again. I gave a dental company a taste of their own medicine until they finally stopped sending me email. Others just took me off their lists pronto. It has been well worth the effort.

Deborah Gray Mitchell North Miami

Your strategy will work with legitimate companies and with spammers who can be located and threatened with legal action.

Unfortunately, most spam producers are neither legitimate nor traceable. When you respond to their emails, you confirm that yours is a working email address, and therefore fair game.

At the same time, you’ve essentially challenged some spammers to a duel, a risky business because they know your email address. Make sure you have a strong email password to prevent tampering.

Congratulations on your success, but I can’t recommend your approach to others.

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South Florida disaster team heads north to help after Sandy

The 52 colorful quilts were neatly folded into a red duffel bag and hand-carried to New York City on Monday, where a local fire department will distribute them to victims of Hurricane Sandy.

The gifts from the East Sunrise Quilters Guild were brought north by nurse and educator Debra Hauss-DeJesse, one of 42 members of the South Florida Disaster Medical Assistance Team who left from airports in the region for two-week deployments in the Northeast.

Read the full story at  Sun-Sentinel.com.

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Lockheed says cyber attacks up sharply, suppliers targeted

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon‘s No. 1 supplier, Lockheed Martin Corp, on Monday cited dramatic growth in the number and sophistication of international cyber attacks on its networks and said it was contacting suppliers to help them shore up their security.

Chandra McMahon, Lockheed vice president and chief information security officer, said about 20 percent of the threats directed at Lockheed networks were considered “advanced persistent threats,” prolonged and targeted attacks by a nation state or other group trying to steal data or harm operations.

“The number of campaigns has increased dramatically over the last several years,” McMahon told a news conference. “The pace has picked up.”

She said the tactics and techniques were becoming increasingly sophisticated, and attackers were clearly targeting Lockheed suppliers to gain access to information since the company had fortified its own networks.

U.S. officials have stepped up their warnings about cyber attacks on U.S. banks and other institutions in recent months, warning that attackers are developing the ability to strike U.S. power grids and government systems.

Lockheed officials declined to say if any of the attacks they had seen originated in Iran, which has been linked to recent denial-of-service attacks against U.S. financial institutions.

Rohan Amin, Lockheed program director for the Pentagon’s Cyber Crime Center (DC3), said internal analysis showed that the number of campaigns had clearly grown, and multiple campaigns were often linked.

Lockheed recently wrested a $ 450 million contract to run the military cyber center away from long-time holder General Dynamics Corp.

“HUGE PROBLEM”

As the top information technology provider to the U.S. government, Lockheed has long worked to secure data on computer networks run by a range of civilian and military agencies. The company is also trying to expand sales of cybersecurity technology and services to commercial firms, including its suppliers, and foreign governments, Lockheed executives said.

“Suppliers are still a huge problem,” said Charlie Croom, Lockheed’s vice president of cybersecurity solutions, noting the large number of companies that provide products and components for Lockheed, which has annual sales of just under $ 47 billion.

Croom, the former head of the Pentagon’s Defense Information Systems Agency, said cybersecurity was a crucial area for Lockheed, but said it was difficult to pinpoint exactly how much business it generates because network security is part of nearly everything the company sells and does for the government.

He estimated that 5 to 8 percent of Lockheed’s revenues in the information systems sector were related to cybersecurity. Lockheed generated $ 9.4 billion sales in that division in 2011.

McMahon said Lockheed had seen “very successful” attacks against a number of the company’s suppliers, and was focusing heavily on helping those companies improve their security.

She said a well-publicized cyber attack on Lockheed’s networks in May 2011 came after the computer systems of two of its suppliers — RSA, the security division of EMC Corp and another unidentified company — were compromised.

“The adversary was able to get information from RSA and then they were also able to steal information from another supplier of ours, and they were able to put those two pieces of information together and launch an attack on us,” McMahon said.

She said Lockheed had been tracking the adversary for years before that attack, and was able to prevent any loss of data by using its in-house detection and monitoring capabilities.

One of the lessons the company learned was the importance of sharing data with other companies in the defense sector, and suppliers, to avert similar attacks, McMahon said.

“It’s just one example of how the adversary has been very significant and tenacious and has really been targeting the defense industrial base,” she said.

Social media, websites and malware introduced by emails remain major areas of concern, Lockheed executives said.

(Reporting By Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Paul Tait)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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One Direction on What They Look for in a Girl

Ellen DeGeneres is holding her biggest outdoor concert ever with British pop sensation One Direction on Thursday, and we have an advance clip.

RELATED: One Direction Plays Catch with Super Bowl Champ

During the sit-down portion, the boys answer the crucial questions: Which members are single and what do they look for in a girl?

"I like someone that's cute. Someone I can have a laugh with. And I also like people that are American. And you all qualify," said Niall Horan, 19, sending the crowd of teenage girls into frenzy.

Tune in to The Ellen DeGeneres Show November 15 for the full interview and concert. The band's sophomore studio album Take Me Home is available now.

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In Syria’s crossfire

JERUSALEM — An Israeli tank scored “direct hits” yesterday on a Syrian army vehicle after a mortar shell landed on Israeli-held territory, the military said, in the first direct confrontation between the countries since the Syrian uprising broke out.

Israel has tried to avoid getting sucked into the bloody Syrian conflict, but has grown worried as mortar shells landed in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights in recent days.

Israeli military officials say they believe the mortar fire is only spillover from fighting between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army and rebels, but are exploring whether the cross-border fire is intentional.

AP

BLAST FRONTIER: Shells fired by President Bashar al-Assad’s army explode in the Syrian village of Bariqa yesterday near the border with Israel’s Golan Heights.

“We will not allow our borders to be violated or our citizens to be fired upon,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday in a speech.

The civil war also shook Turkey yesterday after a Syrian jet bombed a rebel-held area near the border three times, killing more than a dozen in the town of Ras al-Ayn, a Turkish official said. Nearly 70 people were brought into Turkey for treatment, and eight more died there.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Ankara had formally protested the bombings, state-run TRT TV reported.

In yesterday’s Israeli strike, the military said its tanks targeted the “source of fire” in Syria after the mortar shell landed in Tel Hazeka, an open area of the Golan Heights.

Israeli military officials said an army vehicle carrying “Syrian mobile artillery” was hit. There was no immediate word on Syrian casualties.

A number of shells have landed in the Golan over the past week. Israel responded for the first time on Sunday, firing a “warning shot” into Syria.

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Noven’s niche: The Miami company is key producer of transdermal patches

At the Noven Pharmaceuticals plant in southwest Miami, scientists and technicians use highly specialized machinery to blend prescription medications and adhesives to make layered transdermal patches that release precise quantities of drugs over time after being applied to a patient’s skin.

Noven, a subsidiary of Japan’s Hisamitsu Pharmaceutical, has about 700 employees nationwide and ranks as a relatively small player among pharma giants. Nonetheless, the company, a leading research and development center for medicinal patches, produces a line of specialty pharmaceuticals and is the U.S. market leader in sales of estrogen patches for women.

“By industry standards, Noven is a small company,” said Jeffrey F. Eisenberg, Noven’s Miami-based president and CEO. “But we have a line of specialized products that competes successfully in the U.S. and overseas. We are experts in developing transdermal patches and produce other pharmaceutical products.”

In one key market — estrogen patches for women — Noven holds about a 68 percent share, he added. And the company has a robust research and development department in Miami at work on a variety of new drugs.

Medications may be delivered to patients orally, via injection or through transdermal patches, which can administer drugs slowly over an extended period of time. While Noven makes products other than medicinal patches, it devotes an important share of resources to transdermal patch technology.

“We have a talented group of scientists who are at the forefront of this specialty,” Eisenberg said. “We have M.D.s, PhDs in biology and chemistry and chemical engineers who specialize in pressure-sensitive adhesives and polymer chemistry.”

Noven has won more than 30 U.S. and 100 international patents and is developing several new drugs. The company recently announced it is making progress on studies to evaluate a new, amphetamine-based transdermal patch for treating Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents. Currently, there is no such patch approved for use with ADHD, the company said.

Noven also has applied to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration for approval of a new oral, non-hormonal medication to treat menopausal hot flashes.

Making patches is a complex process that requires the design and development of an ideal combination of drug, adhesive and backing, Eisenberg said. Patches must be formulated so that they will deliver a safe and effective dose of medication over a period of time and adhere to the skin as required.

At the Noven patch facility, which has the capacity for making 500 million patches per year, active drug compounds are mixed with custom adhesives in large, specialized kettles. The mix of drug and adhesive is then applied to sheets of release liner material under very precise tolerances. Noven removes a blending solvent from the compound and applies the backing material, making a three-layer patch. Laminate rolls subsequently are sent to punching, pouching and packing machines (Patches are punched into different sizes.). All of this occurs under strict quality control procedures and is not open to the public.

Noven was founded in 1987 by Steven Sablotsky, a chemical engineer, who had worked for another pharmaceutical firm and was an expert in transdermal patches. Noven went public in 1988 and operated as a publicly-traded company until it was taken over in 2009 by Hisamitsu, a Japanese pharmaceutical company that also manufactures and markets transdermal patches. (Salonpas, an over-the-counter analgesic patch widely advertised in South Florida, is made by Hisamitsu.)

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