Computer News

Servicing stack update for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1: March 12, 2019
Readers Tim and Doug reminded me of the newest Servicing Stack Update for Windows 7.
The servicing stack is what installs Windows updates. Whether intentional or through incompetence, Microsoft has made updating Windows (especially Windows 7) somewhere between difficult and impossible. IMHO their servicing stack updates are meant to fix the problem they created. So if you have an issue with Windows Update, a servicing stack update is the place to start.
To download the latest servicing stack you look in the Microsoft Update Catalog. Search for servicing stack.
Windows 7: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=Servicing%20Stack%20Update%20for%20Windows%207
Windows 10: https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=Servicing%20Stack%20Update%20for%20Windows%2010
Last month I had linked to an article outlining this. The newest servicing stack update for Windows 7 will be required by July 16. This should have been installed automatically with Windows Update this month. If not, manually check Windows Update or see the above links.

Google Chrome 73
For the desktop, Chrome has several “Fixes and improvements” and 60 security fixes.
Chrome for Android has 2 new features as well as “stability and performance improvements”.
Download for desktop
Download for Android

Firefox Send
https://send.firefox.com/
Introducing Firefox Send, Providing Free File Transfers while Keeping your Personal Information Private
Send is a free encrypted file transfer service that allows users to safely and simply share files from any browser. Additionally, Send will also be available as an Android app in beta later this week.

Navy, Industry Partners Are ‘Under Cyber Siege’ by Chinese Hackers, Review Asserts
The assessment, delivered to Navy Secretary Richard Spencer last week and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, depicts a branch of the armed forces under relentless cyberattack by foreign adversaries and struggling in its response to the scale and sophistication of the problem.
Relentless is the word. Most of the internet seems to be under constant attack from the Chinese. This site is just a tiny little site at the edge of the internet yet:

Updates available for all currently supported versions of Windows.

Windows 10
1809 – March 12, 2019—KB4489899 (OS Build 17763.379)
1803 – March 12, 2019—KB4489868 (OS Build 17134.648)
1709 – March 12, 2019—KB4489886 (OS Build 16299.1029)
Several “Addresses an issue” +
Security updates to Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Scripting Engine, Windows Shell, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers, Windows Server, Windows Linux, Windows Hyper-V, Windows Datacenter Networking, Windows Storage and Filesystems, Windows Wireless Networking, the Microsoft JET Database Engine, Windows Kernel, Windows, and Windows Fundamentals.

Windows 8.1
March 12, 2019—KB4489881 (Monthly Rollup)
March 12, 2019—KB4489883 (Security-only update)
Several “Addresses an issue” +
Security updates to Internet Explorer, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Hyper-V, Windows Storage and Filesystems, Windows Fundamentals, Windows Kernel, Windows Server, Windows MSXML, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine .

Windows 7
March 12, 2019—KB4489878 (Monthly Rollup)
March 12, 2019—KB4489885 (Security-only update)
Several “Addresses an issue” +
Security updates to Internet Explorer, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Cryptography, Windows Hyper-V, Windows Storage and Filesystems, Windows Fundamentals, Windows Server, Windows Kernel, Windows MSXML, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine .

Windows 7 To Become Nagware, Again
After 10 years, support for Windows 7 is coming to an end on January 14, 2020, with Office 2010 following shortly thereafter. We are here to help you with recommendations for what to do next and answer questions that you may have about end of support. Beginning next month, if you are a Windows 7 customer, you can expect to see a notification appear on your Windows 7 PC. This is a courtesy reminder that you can expect to see a handful of times in 2019.

CCleaner v5.55
Bunch of stuff for people using the pay for version. Yeah, I don’t know why you would pay for this either.
Also a fix for the Chinese owned Opera browser.
I would skip this one.
Download (I use portable) | Release Info
See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall

Audacity 2.3.1
Free, open source, cross-platform audio software
Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.
Download | Release Info

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Nvidia’s study linking hardware to competitiveness is peak PC gamer elitism
Using a series of graphs to display data sourced anonymously through its GeForce Experience app, Nvidia posits that, unless you’re using one of its latest GeForce RTX graphics cards and a 144Hz Nvidia G-Sync monitor, you’re playing these games at a disadvantage.
So much so, in fact, that Nvidia directly links higher kill-death ratios – a figure measuring how many times you kill players versus how many times you’re killed – to more powerful (and considerably more expensive) gaming hardware.
What’s the worst thing about this? Nvidia’s claims are grounded in reality.
Welcome to life.

Ahead of Thursday Hearing, Portman, Carper Unveil Bipartisan Report Detailing Equifax’s Repeated Failures to Protect Sensitive Information of More Than 145 Million Americans
Fair warning, if you read this you’ll get angry.
Oh, and Brian Krebs comes up with this: MyEquifax.com Bypasses Credit Freeze PIN

‘Bikini barista’ coffee shop in California has license revoked after city council deems outfits too revealing
At a meeting on Tuesday, city council members in American Canyon voted unanimously to revoke a license granted to Bottoms Up Espresso, after critics argued that the “bikini barista” coffee shop was operating more like an adult business than a café.
Prudes

Y’all Heard? An Argument For The Great Southern Pronoun
Listen up, y’all: Perhaps even Yankees should start saying “y’all.”
Davies points out that early forms of English had pronouns for both the singular second person (thou or thee) and the plural second person (ye or you). Over time, “thou,” “thee” and “ye” all fell away. In contemporary English, we now use “you” to directly address both individuals and groups of people.
The Southern contraction “y’all” (“you” + “all”) brings back that plural pronoun, much like other regionalisms: “youse,” “you guys,” “you’uns” or “yinz.”
I had an friendly argument in high school with a teacher over the use of “y’all”. Millions of people use the contraction. That makes it proper language. What isn’t proper is to use “y’all” when addressing a single person, ever.

Town by town, local journalism is dying in plain sight
Blame revenue siphoned by online competition, cost-cutting ownership, a death spiral in quality, sheer disinterest among readers or reasons peculiar to given locales for that development.
Goings on around here are pretty much ignored by the regional paper (which sucks). The only “local” news we have around here is a blog.

Two congressmen just debated whether Nickelback is good on the House floor
The debate flared up after Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) cited the statistic that only four people out of 77,000 wanted to keep a particular voting rights provision that was being debated by the body. He described the ratio as “probably about the percent of people who think Nickelback is their favorite band in this country.”

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready WHQL Driver 419.35
Provides the optimal gaming experience for Apex Legends, Devil May Cry 5, and Tom Clancy’s The Division II
Download | Release Notes

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Google Finds It’s Underpaying Many Men as It Addresses Wage Equity
When Google conducted a study recently to determine whether the company was underpaying women and members of minority groups, it found, to the surprise of just about everyone, that men were paid less money than women for doing similar work.

Containing a Kernel: Bud Light’s New Ad is Really Old
During the 2019 Super Bowl, two Bud Light ads criticized its biggest rivals for using corn syrup in their brewing process, and it was classic misdirection.
While technically correct, Anheuser-Busch neglected to mention the mostly benign and commonplace uses of corn syrup in brewing, and that they happen to use rice for the same basic purpose. They counted on the general public to mistake corn syrup for the less popular high fructose corn syrup, then blanche reflexively.
Great read from a fantastic little beer blog: Brewed Culture – Brian Alberts, PhD

Winter is coming…

CCleaner 5.54
Single issue fix. I would skip this one.
Download (I use portable) | Release Notes
See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall

FinalCrypt 3.3.2
Download & Info

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Correction: Last month, we called Zuckerberg a moron. We apologize. In fact, he and Facebook are a fscking disgrace
Analysis In just the latest in a seemingly endless stream of half-truths, Facebook has admitted it misled the public when it claimed that only 5 per cent of the users of its banned tracking app were teenagers.
The real figure, the Silicon Valley wunderkind has since confirmed to US Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), was nearly four times higher: 18 per cent.
#DeleteFacebook

If you’ve added your phone number to Facebook for 2FA security, it can be used to search for you
But if you’ve used your mobile number to secure your account with 2FA, even if it is not visible to others, it can still be used to search for you — and there is no way to opt out of this.
Seriously, why are people still using Fbook?

Google, siding with Saudi Arabia, refuses to remove widely-criticized government app which lets men track women and control their travel
Google has declined to remove from its app store a Saudi government app which lets men track women and control where they travel, on the grounds that it meets all their terms and conditions.
Last time I posted about this issue I got a nasty comment posted from a spam account in Saudi Arabia. I thought I would post the follow up just to piss them off. GFY. You owe me and over 650,000 of my brothers and sisters for keeping Saddam from rolling over your country.

More people bought physical CDs and vinyl than songs on iTunes last year
Sales from individual song downloads have unsurprisingly been falling with no end in sight, thanks to the convenience of streaming options like Spotify and Apple Music. A new report, though, makes clear just how few people there are these days who will buy individual digital songs — there are so few of them, in fact, that they were outnumbered in 2018 by people who went old-school and bought actual compact discs and vinyl records.
According to the Recording Industry Association of America, total download sales in 2018 — for which iTunes led the pack — dropped almost 30%, to a little more than $1 billion. Purchases of full album downloads likewise fell, by 25%
I buy CD’s. From the artist when I can, Amazon when I can’t. If I only want one song I will get it from Amazon.
I rip my CD’s to FLAC only these days.

Cruise Line Issues Warning About The Bahamas
“We feel it is important to make our guests aware that Nassau has been experiencing an increase in crime. Non-violent crimes, such as theft of personal items, are the most common types of crimes being committed.”
Just like everywhere else in the islands. Example: Went to Jamaica, warnings everywhere. Resort had Pepsi products and I wanted a Coke. Bartender, a local mind you, said, “The store at the end of the street has Cokes but, don’t you go. Give the taxi driver out front a 5 and he will get it for you. It isn’t safe.” It was the middle of the afternoon.

Relocate or risk unemployment; closing GM plants leave employees with painful choice
Hundreds of workers at four General Motors plants slated to close this year are facing a painful choice: Take the company’s offer to work at another factory — possibly hundreds of miles away — even if that means leaving behind their families, their homes and everything they’ve built. Or stay and risk losing their high-paying jobs.
Welcome to 1982 in Michigan.

We were just talking about Bob Seger…

Bob Seger – Makin’ Thunderbirds
The big line moved one mile an hour
So loud it really hurt
The big line moved so loud
It really hurt
Back in ’55
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We filled conveyors
We met production
Foremen didn’t waste words
We met production
Foremen didn’t waste words
We were young and proud
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We were makin’ thunderbirds
They were long and low and sleek and fast
They were all you ever heard
Back in ’55
We were makin’ thunderbirds
Now the years have flown and the plants have changed
And you’re lucky if you work
The big line moves but you’re lucky if you work
Back in ’55
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We were makin’ thunderbirds
They were long and low and sleek and fast
They were classic in a word
Back in ’55
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We were young and proud
We were makin’ thunderbirds
We were young and sure
We were makin’ thunderbirds

*Friday evening update. Google Chrome 72.0.3626.121 released. Contains a single security fix.

Win10 1809 Updated
The updates for Win10 on February 19th left out version 1809. It’s out now. A bunch of “addresses an issue” stuff.
March 1, 2019—KB4482887 (OS Build 17763.348)

Software Updates
Firefox 65.0.2 Download (all) | Download 32-bit EN-US | Download 64-bit EN-US | Release Notes
Mp3tag 2.94
Wireshark 3.0

Rockin’ Robert Seger
I just saw that Bob Seger is doing a final tour. I’m gonna definitely try and see this. I would love to see his absolute final show in Detroit… err.. Pine Knob, uh… DTE Energy Music Theatre but due to family circumstances I will probably have to settle on Virginia Beach.
Growing up, Bob Seger was god-like in Michigan. He has always sold out multiple dates in the Detroit area. He just added a FORTH day for his DTE… Pine Knob concert finale. His music still takes me back to Michigan. There is nothing quite as haunting as a bus full of tired football players singing Turn The Page on the way home from Friday night’s game.
Artist: Bob Seger, Song: Turn The Page (live), Album: Live Bullet Etc: Recorded September 4-5, 1975 at Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan

Intel Solid State Drive Toolbox 3.5.9
Download | Release Notes

FinalCrypt 3.2.0
Download & Info

When Kids Realize Their Whole Life Is Already Online
While many kids may not yet have accounts themselves, their parents, schools, sports teams, and organizations have been curating an online presence for them since birth. The shock of realizing that details about your life—or, in some cases, an entire narrative of it—have been shared online without your consent or knowledge has become a pivotal experience in the lives of many young teens and tweens.

Autoruns 13.94
Bugfix. Released last week. Don’t know how I missed this.
Download & Info

Wireshark 2.6.7
Wireshark is the world’s foremost and widely-used network protocol analyzer. It lets you see what’s happening on your network at a microscopic level and is the de facto (and often de jure) standard across many commercial and non-profit enterprises, government agencies, and educational institutions.
Download | Release Info

Gab wants to add a comments section to everything on the internet
A tool called Dissenter lets you comment on tweets, websites and anything else with a URL.
Awesome. What the world needs is more trolls. Lets just turn the web into one giant Twitter-like shitshow.

7-Zip 19.00
64-bit Windows | 32-bit Windows | 7-Zip Home
What’s new after 7-Zip 18.06:
-Encryption strength for 7z archives was increased: the size of random initialization vector was increased from 64-bit to 128-bit, and the pseudo-random number generator was improved.
– Some bugs were fixed.

Google Chrome Updated
“The stable channel has been updated to 72.0.3626.119 for Windows, Mac, and Linux”
Bugfixes
Download

FinalCrypt 3
Free file encryption software for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Download & Info

Intel Wireless Bluetooth Drivers v20.120.0
Window 10 | Windows 8.1 | Windows 7

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Vox lawyers briefly censored YouTubers who mocked The Verge’s bad PC build advice
iVerge made a really bad how to build a PC guide. iVerge gets mocked by anyone who knows anything about building PCs. iVerge get panties in a wad and lashes out like a spoiled child.

The Final Version of the EU’s Copyright Directive Is the Worst One Yet
Despite ringing denunciations from small EU tech businesses, giant EU entertainment companies, artists’ groups, technical experts, and human rights experts, and the largest body of concerned citizens in EU history, the EU has concluded its “trilogues” on the new Copyright Directive, striking a deal that—amazingly—is worse than any in the Directive’s sordid history.
Under the final text, any online community, platform or service that has existed for three or more years, or is making €10,000,001/year or more, is responsible for ensuring that no user ever posts anything that infringes copyright, even momentarily. This is impossible, and the closest any service can come to it is spending hundreds of millions of euros to develop automated copyright filters. Those filters will subject all communications of every European to interception and arbitrary censorship if a black-box algorithm decides their text, pictures, sounds or videos are a match for a known copyrighted work. They are a gift to fraudsters and criminals, to say nothing of censors, both government and private.

NETGEAR R6700 Nighthawk AC1750 Dual Band Smart WiFi Router, Gigabit Ethernet
List Price: $129.99
Price: $89.99 then clip $10 coupon. Final price $79.99
You Save: $50.00 (38%)

Win10 Updates
All supported versions of Win10 have updates except 1809. A bunch of fixes.
1803 – February 19, 2019—KB4487029 (OS Build 17134.619)
1709 – February 19, 2019—KB4487021 (OS Build 16299.1004)
1703 – February 19, 2019—KB4487011 (OS Build 15063.1659)

Wise Disk Cleaner 10.1.6 Released
Download (I use portable) | Release Info

HandBrake 1.2.1
HandBrake is a tool for converting video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. Free.
Download

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Your phone and TV are tracking you, and political campaigns are listening in
Welcome to the new frontier of campaign tech — a loosely regulated world in which simply downloading a weather app or game, connecting to Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or powering up a home router can allow a data broker to monitor your movements with ease, then compile the location information and sell it to a political candidate who can use it to surround you with messages.
“We can put a pin on a building, and if you are in that building, we are going to get you,” said Democratic strategist Dane Strother, who advised Evers. And they can get you even if you aren’t in the building anymore, but were simply there at some point in the last six months.

You may soon have to give your DNA to the state and pay $250 for the privilege

Barack Obama: ‘If You’re Confident About Your Sexuality, You Don’t Need Eight Women Around You Twerking’

John Wayne has been dead for 40 years. Maybe focus your ire elsewhere

#MoveOver
In October, Lt. Bradford Clark, a Hanover County firefighter, was killed when a tractor-trailer failed to “move over” as mandated by Virginia law. Now, the General Assembly plans to memorialize Clark through a specialty license plate and strengthen the state’s “move over” law.
from the initial report:
Two firefighters, Carter Lewis and David Johnson, suffered serious injuries and were eventually released after being hospitalized. The day of the crash was the first day on the job for Lewis, who lost part of his leg as a result of injuries. A third firefighter, Chris Elish, suffered minor injuries.
Carter Lewis is the son of a guy I went to basic training with, we rode the train together from Richmond, Virginia to Fort McClellan, Alabama. He is a highly respected state trooper now.
Please give all emergency workers and road crews the space they need to do their jobs. Use your blinker and move over, give traffic that needs to move over the space they need.
more: Audience at annual Valor Awards sees grim reminder of risks first-responders take on the job