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Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Weekend Random Stuff…

January 20, 2018, 07:22(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Firefox 58
Not officially out but you can download it:
Firefox 32-bit
Firefox 64-bit
All downloads (58 not available as of this post)
Release Notes (when available)

Social Media Sucks
Apple CEO Tim Cook when speaking about his nephew, “There are some things that I won’t allow; I don’t want them on a social network”

iGen
“the clearer it became that theirs is a generation shaped by the smartphone and by the concomitant rise of social media. I call them iGen. Born between 1995 and 2012, members of this generation are growing up with smartphones, have an Instagram account before they start high school, and do not remember a time before the internet…It’s not an exaggeration to describe iGen as being on the brink of the worst mental-health crisis in decades. Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones…But only about 56 percent of high-school seniors in 2015 went out on dates; for Boomers and Gen Xers, the number was about 85 percent…But iGen teens aren’t working (or managing their own money) as much. In the late 1970s, 77 percent of high-school seniors worked for pay during the school year; by the mid-2010s, only 55 percent did…when she does spend time with her friends in person, they are often looking at their device instead of at her. “I’m trying to talk to them about something, and they don’t actually look at my face,” she said. “They’re looking at their phone, or they’re looking at their Apple Watch.” “What does that feel like, when you’re trying to talk to somebody face-to-face and they’re not looking at you?,” I asked. “It kind of hurts,” she said. “It hurts. I know my parents’ generation didn’t do that. I could be talking about something super important to me, and they wouldn’t even be listening.”

GET OFF OF FACEBOOK
Facebook is asking users to rank the trustworthiness of news sources.
This is not high school. News isn’t a popularity contest. It is factually correct or it isn’t. It is unbiased or it isn’t. Allowing the masses to rank news only allows people to down-vote sources of news they don’t like or that don’t promote their own personal biases.
Then again, if you get your news from social media you are part of the problem.

*Sigh*
“What people don’t know about or see about Facebook is that polarization is built in to the business model,” Harris told NBC News. “Polarization is profitable.”

Tagged With: Computer News

More Meltdown and Spectre News

January 18, 2018, 07:58(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Intel has shared more info on this issue. Everything they put out looks like it has been filtered by their marketing department and lawyers.
Firmware Updates and Initial Performance Data for Data Center Systems
related: Speculative Execution and Indirect Branch Prediction Side Channel Analysis Method

“Frequent reboots”
We Geeks use the highly technical name “system crash” for this.
The models that may experience this behavior have expanded to Broadwell, Haswell, Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Skylake, and Kaby Lake. That is basically everything in the last 7 years.

I warned y’all not to update.

Intel Affected products:
Intel® Core™ i3 processor (45nm and 32nm)
Intel® Core™ i5 processor (45nm and 32nm)
Intel® Core™ i7 processor (45nm and 32nm)
Intel® Core™ M processor family (45nm and 32nm)
2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors
3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors
4th generation Intel® Core™ processors
5th generation Intel® Core™ processors
6th generation Intel® Core™ processors
7th generation Intel® Core™ processors
8th generation Intel® Core™ processors
Intel® Core™ X-series Processor Family for Intel® X99 platforms
Intel® Core™ X-series Processor Family for Intel® X299 platforms
Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series
Intel® Xeon® processor 3600 series
Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series
Intel® Xeon® processor 5600 series
Intel® Xeon® processor 6500 series
Intel® Xeon® processor 7500 series
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v2 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v3 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v4 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v5 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E3 v6 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v2 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v3 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5 v4 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v2 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v3 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor E7 v4 Family
Intel® Xeon® Processor Scalable Family
Intel® Xeon Phi™ Processor 3200, 5200, 7200 Series
Intel® Atom™ Processor C Series
Intel® Atom™ Processor E Series
Intel® Atom™ Processor A Series
Intel® Atom™ Processor x3 Series
Intel® Atom™ Processor Z Series
Intel® Celeron® Processor J Series
Intel® Celeron® Processor N Series
Intel® Pentium® Processor J Series
Intel® Pentium® Processor N Series

Tagged With: Security

Tuesday News

January 16, 2018, 17:13(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

samsung_ssd

Samsung Magician 5.2
Download
Getting “We apologize for your inconvenience Please try again within 24 hours” ?
Major Geeks has it!
Thanks Arthur!

CCleaner 5.39
Download ( I use the portable version )
Minor fixes

Tagged With: Cool Tools

InSpectre

January 16, 2018, 06:37(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Steve Gibson of GRC has a tool to check for the Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities and verify protection.
Download & Info

Tagged With: Security

Meltdown & Spectre Updates Benchmarked

January 14, 2018, 15:11(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

My system benchmarked after KB4056892 and CPU Microcode update (BIOS).
Full system specs here: My New PC – 2017
CPU: Intel i7-8700k
Mobo: Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 7
GPU: Zotac GeForce GTX 1060 AMP! Edition (Nvidia)
Ram: 32GB
Drives: x2 Samsung 960 EVO NVMe M.2
OS: Win10 Pro

 

***UPDATED 23JAN2018

My motherboard manufacturer released another BIOS update for this issue.
New scores on PCMark10.
[Read more…] about Meltdown & Spectre Updates Benchmarked

Tagged With: Computer Hardware, Security, This Site

Thursday Random Stuff…

January 11, 2018, 15:05(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Meltdown and Spectre News
Yeah I know, daily stuff. I know some of you are sick of it but it is bigger than a big deal so hear we go…
Intel has the nads to release some benchmarks showing performance hits varying from +1 to -21%. (pdf) None of us are going to know what the heck hits us until we get some fracking firmware updates.
On my end, Gigabyte has been silent on the entire issue. I emailed both the Press and Tech Support teams with no reply. Questions on this topic have gone unanswered in their forums.
Dell on the other hand has been a pleasant surprise. They have a dedicated support page for this issue that even list when your model will get an update. My Alienware 15 R2 is scheduled to get an update on the 14th.
Lawsuits: I am now officially a part of a class action suit (well, after I sign the retainer). More news may follow. Or not.
CEO: No new word on Intel’s CEO that many think should be fired or worse.
Excellent read: iVerge – How the industry-breaking Spectre bug stayed secret for seven months
Linux: Spectre & Meltdown Checker “A simple shell script to tell if your Linux installation is vulnerable” I repeat myself, at the risk of being cruel, if you’ve got Intel you’re vulnerable. Apologies to Paul Simon.
Browsers: Online browser checker. “If the result is VULNERABLE, it is definitely true. However, if the result is NOT VULNERABLE, it doesn’t mean your browser is absolutely not vulnerable because there might be other unknown attacking methods. ”
VMware Workstation Player: 14.1.1 released “This update of VMware Workstation Player exposes hardware support for branch target injection mitigation to VMware guests.”

Why Are You Still On Social Media?
I’m constantly amazed at the utter gall displayed by the higher-ups at these social media companies. The gist of this article is that if you don’t think like they do you are “shitty people” and they will “shadow ban” you. I don’t care what your political views are, no freedom loving person can find this behavior acceptable. The only way to change this is not to buy the Bravo Sierra that they will try to “fix” things. The fix is to remove their power over you. The fix is to GET OFF SOCIAL MEDIA.

The Beginning Of The End
Facebook developing ‘Portal’ gadget which will let it put microphones and cameras in people’s homes

Off Topic
Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer: 116.9 MPH
I don’t think I could even stay in the batters box.

Tagged With: Security

Windows Performance Impact Of Meltdown And Spectre

January 9, 2018, 15:19(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

win10_logo

Microsoft exec Terry Myerson lays out what he expects the performance impact of the Meltdown/Spectre patches.
– With Windows 10 on newer silicon (2016-era PCs with Skylake, Kabylake or newer CPU), benchmarks show single-digit slowdowns, but we don’t expect most users to notice a change because these percentages are reflected in milliseconds.
TH – Skylake released 2015. Kaby Lake 2016.
– With Windows 10 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), some benchmarks show more significant slowdowns, and we expect that some users will notice a decrease in system performance.
TH – Haswell released 2013.
– With Windows 8 and Windows 7 on older silicon (2015-era PCs with Haswell or older CPU), we expect most users to notice a decrease in system performance.
TH – Haswell released 2013
– Windows Server on any silicon, especially in any IO-intensive application, shows a more significant performance impact when you enable the mitigations to isolate untrusted code within a Windows Server instance. This is why you want to be careful to evaluate the risk of untrusted code for each Windows Server instance, and balance the security versus performance tradeoff for your environment.
TH – You’re attached to another object by an incline plane wrapped helically around an axis.

Conveniently left out is any reference to Microsoft bricking AMD machines.
I will repeat my advice to not update Windows machines right now. Certainly you need to have a full image backup before you do.
I recommend Macrium Reflect 7 Free Edition.

To find your CPU family.
Those odd names are CPU Family or CPU Code Names (Haswell, Skylake, Kabylake…).
Download Speccy PORTABLE and run it.
Click the CPU tab. Find the line Code Name, that is your CPU family.
Google it or, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_microprocessors

Tagged With: Computer Hardware, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8

Patch Tuesday

January 9, 2018, 13:47(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

windows security

Unless you are a masochist you shouldn’t be updating any Windows machine today. The only updates seems to be the typically Window Defender stuff, .Net updates and a Flash update for IE and Edge. Y’all are too smart to be using that garbage anyway 😉
Office Updates are available. See here to update from within Office:
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Install-Office-updates-2ab296f3-7f03-43a2-8e50-46de917611c5

Speaking Of Flash
Adobe Flash Player 28.0.0.137 is out.
Download for Firefox, Opera
Release notes

Speaking Of Windows Update
Microsoft Says No More Windows Security Updates Unless AVs Set a Registry Key
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\QualityCompat]
“cadca5fe-87d3-4b96-b7fb-a231484277cc”=dword:00000000

from command line (admin)
reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\QualityCompat /v cadca5fe-87d3-4b96-b7fb-a231484277cc /t reg_dword /d 0

Stupid, antisocial, and unhealthy
“A decade ago, smart devices promised to change the way we think and interact, and they have – but not by making us smarter…The lesson we’re slowly beginning to learn, though, is that they’re not a harmless vice. Used the way we currently use them, smartphones keep us from being our best selves.”
I am amazed at the ubiquity of constant cell phone use. I watch people on the road texting, speed fluctuating, drifting into to other lanes. I watch groups of young people at a table, all on their phones, no one talking. I watch children on phones and tablets, oblivious to the world around them.
Sad. Truly sad.

Off Topic
Jaromir Jagr done?
Dang. One my all time favs and a cool dude.
ESPN is opining on his future.

Tagged With: Computer News

Monday News

January 8, 2018, 16:00(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

nvidia

Net Neutrality
Oh no, we ain’t done with this yet. Not by a long shot. A NN vote has been forced.

Why I Do Not Use A NAS Device
Well, this kinda stuff is one reason at least. Western Digital My Cloud had over 80 security vulnerabilities exposed last year alone. Another one has been found and it is far reaching.

New Nvidia Drivers
Nvidia GeForce Game Ready Driver 390.65 WHQL
Provides the optimal gaming experience for Fortnite, including support for ShadowPlay Highlights in Battle Royale mode.
Security Update – This driver add security updates to driver components.
Download
Release Notes
Latest Linux driver is 384.11 Release Date: 2018.1.4

Macrium Reflect Updated
Version 7.1.2817 is out. There has pretty much been an update a week. If you haven’t created a boot disk lately you may want to do it now.
Download
Release Notes

Good Luck To All My Apple Using Friends
They’ve got an update for Spectre. Hope your experience goes better than my AMD using Windows bros. At least they have an update. I wonder how long us Android users will be waiting?

List Of CES News I Care About
1 – Booth babes
2 –

Tagged With: Computer News

Weekend Random Stuff…

January 6, 2018, 17:21(EST) By Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

Class
We the people are ticked off and that means lawsuits. There are three class action lawsuits aimed at Intel right now. Hopefully there are many more to follow. I’ve inquired about joining one.

Nightmare On Elm Street
The FCC is trying to say the lame internet speeds we had years ago are more than adequate and is trying to label them “broadband”. Some folks think they are trying to “Hide the Digital Divide“.
See also: #MobileOnly Challenge (frack I hate hashtags)

Breakfast Club
Wanna know the answer to Why Raspberry Pi isn’t vulnerable to Spectre or Meltdown? My guess: Cause it uses a crappy little CPU?
Tip: Sometimes bragging only serves to highlight your shortcomings.
Me, I’m in the math club, uh, the Latin, and the physics club… physics club.

RoboCop
ISP threatens to turn off heat off of those who are infringing on copyright. Apparently they have assumed to role of Barney Fife. Let us just hope Andy didn’t let him take his bullet out of his pocket.

Back To The Future
After being on the cover 10 times, Bill Gates will be the first guest editor at Time Magazine. I had to pop over to their website that I didn’t even know existed. I haven’t picked up an issue of Time in 20+ years and didn’t think much of it back then. In fact I haven’t picked up an issue of any print magazine in that long except the one with the bunny logo. Contrary to popular excuse making, it was only for the pictures.
Source

What do the above headlines have in common?
First correct guesser gets…um… the thanks and awestruck congratulations of me!

Tagged With: Computer News

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