TweakHound

Computer stuff...

Eric (a.k.a. TweakHound)

TweakHound’s World

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I was feeling a little guilty about leaving people out of the “Thank You” post so…
This is a list comes from the supporters of this site since I started keeping track of locations. Specifically, through buying the Win10 Tweak Guide.
So many people want to remain anonymous that I thought it would be cool to put everyone’s town, city, or village. I also included a map!
PLEASE let me know if I have left you out, or got anything wrong.
Also, please excuse the capitalization issues. This table was created by creating a large spreadsheet and the capitalization or lack of it is how they (the buyer) typed it in.
Last updated 30MAR2024.
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The Social Dilemma

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The Social Dilemma
“We tweet, we like, and we share— but what are the consequences of our growing dependence on social media? This documentary-drama hybrid reveals how social media is reprogramming civilization with tech experts sounding the alarm on their own creations…The Social Dilemma features the voices of technologists, researchers and activists working to align technology with the interests of humanity.”
I finally got around to watching this last night. My favorite quotes from the movie:

“I like to say that algorithms are opinions embedded in code.” Cathy O’Neil, data scientist‍

“The way to think about it is as 2.5 billion Truman Shows. Each person has their own reality with their own facts. Over time you have the false sense that everyone agrees with you because everyone in your news feed sounds just like you. Once you’re in that state, it turns out you’re easily manipulated.” – Roger McNamee, Early investor venture capitalist in Facebook‍

“It’s the gradual, slight, imperceptible change in your own behavior and perception that is the product.” – Jaron Lainer, founding father of Virtual Reality Computer Scientist‍

“There’s only a handful of people at these companies who understand how these [algorithm] systems work, and even they don’t necessarily fully understand what’s going to happen with a particular piece of content. So as humans we’ve almost lost control over these systems. Because they’re controlling the information that we see, they’re controlling us more than we’re controlling them.” – Sandy Parakilas, former operations manager at Facebook, former product manager at Uber‍

More quotes: The most hair-raising quotes from Netflix doco The Social Dilemma
More reading: References from Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma”

Question for folks in the U.K.

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Apologies in advance for my ignorance. I’ve never made it to the U.K. despite 3/4 of my DNA coming from those isles.
I’m redoing/updating a supporters list and I’ve run into something I’ve no answer to….
99% of the addresses I’m given say “United Kingdom”. Now, and again forgive me, I’ve always thought of the U.K. as England, Ireland, and Scotland. Likewise I call the people from there as English (or British), Irish, or Scottish. As an aside, a family member has always insisted we are Welsh not English based on the origin of our surname…
So, when filing out my list and I know “United Kingdom” is right for a mailing/billing address but it doesn’t feel right to me. Thus, I’ve been looking up the towns I don’t know to see which of the 3 aforementioned areas they are from and switch the address accordingly.
Anyway, can someone from the British Isles (or United Kingdom?) please straighten me out?
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Patch Tuesday

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Windows Updated
One Cumulative Update and a 1 or 2 .NET updates depending on which version you’ve installed.
20H2 & 2004: February 9, 2021—KB4601319 (OS Builds 19041.804 and 19042.804)
1909: February 9, 2021—KB4601315 (OS Build 18363.1377)

Firefox 85.0.2
“Fixed a deadlock during startup”
Download | Release Notes

O&O ShutUp10 Updated
“FIX: Determining registry key permissions has resulted in fewer displayed settings on some NT domain systems.”
If you aren’t on a corporate network (domain) then don’t bother with this update.
Download | Changelog

Security update available for Adobe Reader
Download | Security Bulletin

Google Chrome will no longer support dusty old computers from the mid-2000s
“Though admittedly small, the user base for Chrome users on devices dating back to the early to mid-2000s still exists. A new policy document published by the Chromium development team states that they will be dropping support for processors that lack something called SSE3, or Streaming SIMD Extensions 3, in x86 Chrome builds.”
SSE3 from Wikipedia:
“Intel introduced SSE3 in early 2004 with the Prescott revision of their Pentium 4 CPU. In April 2005, AMD introduced a subset of SSE3 in revision E (Venice and San Diego) of their Athlon 64 CPUs.”
From Intel: Products formerly Prescott

Tuesday Morning News

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Start10 1.96
“Some tweaks to search to ensure the Start10 search isn’t run ever if you are using Cortana mode and to ensure the search is terminated if you close the menu.”
I don’t use Cortana and I’m not having any issues. Skipping this one.
Download | Release Notes

Barcode Scanner app on Google Play infects 10 million users with one update
“It is hard to tell just how long Barcode Scanner had been in the Google Play store as a legitimate app before it became malicious. Based on the high number of installs and user feedback, we suspect it had been there for years. It is frightening that with one update an app can turn malicious while going under the radar of Google Play Protect. It is baffling to me that an app developer with a popular app would turn it into malware. Was this the scheme all along, to have an app lie dormant, waiting to strike after it reaches popularity? I guess we will never know.”
Google not doing it’s job and Android phone makers failing users by not having a stock barcode scanner.
Internet Wayback page of this app: https://web.archive.org/web/20201108202720/https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qrcodescanner.barcodescanner

Monday Random Stuff…

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New Intel Graphics Drivers
“This release contains security updates.”
Braswell, 4th and 5th generations: version 15.40, Download & Info
6th Gen: version 15.45, Download & Info
If you are on Windows 10 and using Skylake CPUs or newer I would use the DCH drivers instead:
Newest Intel DCH Drivers are v27.20.100.9168
FAQ about Windows DCH Drivers for Intel Graphics

Reader Question
Q – Why did you stop using openSUSE?
A –
1 – For me openSUSE has become less stable and less desirable over time. I’m not alone. While not scientific, IMHO the Distrowatch page hit ranking offers good insight into what people think about each distro:
Distrowatch Page Hit Rankings for openSUSE
2014: #4, corporate merger, BTRFS now default FS
2015: #4, openSUSE Leap 1st released November, 2015
2016: #4
2017: #6
2018: #9, sold to investment company
2019: #11
2020: #14
https://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=popularity
2 – IMHO Linux hasn’t lived up to it’s potential: https://www.google.com/search?q=linux+failed

What Are You Streaming?
It’s beginning to get hard for my wife and I to find something to watch. Over the last few months we were so desperate we did a speedy trip through:
Star Trek Enterprise, DS9, and Voyager. LA Law and Dallas too. We only watched the higher rated shows and use the IMDB app (Android) for that.
We watched Cougar Town and enjoyed that. Trying to put off watching Letterkenny on Hulu for a while.
We subscribed to PBS/Masterpiece through Amazon Prime. Both of use like British TV. Currently we are watching Endeavor and might do Inspector Morse after that.

Google Chrome Updated

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“The Stable channel has been updated to 88.0.4324.150 for Windows, Mac and Linux”
2 days ago Chrome was updated to 88.0.4324.146. Between the 2 updates it covers 7 security issues.
Download | Info
Chrome for Android was updated to 88.0.4324.141 on the 1st.
“This release includes stability and performance improvements.”