TweakHound

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Windows 7 Support

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Last week Microsoft announced extended support for “Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise customers in Volume Licensing” through January 2023. “Volume Licensing” means businesses, not home users. Home users will be EOLed on January 14, 2020.
This will leave users with either Windows 8.1 that nearly nobody wants, or Windows 10 that many people don’t want. I’m not all that sure anyone wanted either one to begin with. A Windows 7 Service Pack 2 would have done nicely. Never the less, here we are.
Windows 7 support for home users will end over 10 years after it was released. We whined when they stopped supporting XP, an operating system that they supported for nearly 13 years. But, to be fair to Microsoft lets look at some other operating systems:
(Dates are best I could find, if you have a correction please post it.)

Apple
macOS 10.11 (El Capitan) Oldest supported Mac OS, Released in 2015
iOS – oldest supported phone (iPhone 5S – September 20, 2013) = approx 5 years old

Linux
Linux varies wildly by vendor but here is my best estimate:
Kernel 3.X EOL 2015-16, 3.5 to 4 years after initial release
Kernel 4.X initial release was 12 April 2015 and is current.
There is a kernel branch called LTS that differs from the above. These “”longterm maintenance” releases have varying expiration dates.
Individual vendors set there own schedules and can often range up to 6 years. The latest Linux Mint LTS release is 19/Tara was released June, 2018 and is supported until April 2023, just shy of 5 years.

Android
Android support is an unmitigated disaster. There seem to be no rules at all. As far as I can tell most phones stop getting updates about 3 years in.

Conclusion
You can see that Microsoft supports their operating systems a long time. Longer than anyone else. Still, for us Windows 7 lovers, end of support will truly suck. From Microsoft’s viewpoint maintaining 3 desktop operating systems is difficult, I get that. But the thing is, they are going to keep maintaining it for businesses anyway. Leaving home users out of the loop seems to be a cold blooded money grab. It is, IMHO, a big middle finger to everyone at home using Windows 7.

*notes
Windows lifecycle fact sheet (Applies to: Windows 10 Windows 7 Windows 8.1)

Thursday Random Stuff…

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Tor Browser and Tails Updated
Download Tor Browser
Download Tails

Paint.net 4.1
“This update converts some effects to use the GPU for rendering, resulting in huge performance gains. Copy/Paste can now be performed on selections, Bicubic resampling is now available for the Move Selected Pixels tool, and there are lots of little quality-of-life improvements and general bug fixes.”
Download

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

Windows 10 support extended again: September releases now get 30 months
The headline is clickbait. Only Windows 10 Enterprise and Education versions will see this. IMHO this only reinforces the notion that home users are thought of as beta testers for businesses.
This Microsoft blog post explains it:
“All currently supported feature updates of Windows 10 Enterprise and Education editions (versions 1607, 1703, 1709, and 1803) will be supported for 30 months from their original release date…All feature releases of Windows 10 Home, Windows 10 Pro, and Office 365 ProPlus will continue to be supported for 18 months (this applies to feature updates targeting both March and September).”

Americans are changing their relationship with Facebook
“Just over half of Facebook users ages 18 and older (54%) say they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Around four-in-ten (42%) say they have taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while around a quarter (26%) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone. All told, some 74% of Facebook users say they have taken at least one of these three actions in the past year.”

Senate Committee Vents About Hijacking Of Big Tech For Information War
“The leaders of the Senate intelligence committee vented Wednesday morning about what they called the shortcomings of major tech firms, which they argue have led Americans to become vulnerable to foreign disinformation campaigns.
“What is under attack is the idea that business as usual is good enough. The information your platforms disseminate changes minds, hardens opinions, helps people make sense of the world. … That’s how serious this is,” said Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C.”
Twitter and Facebook CEO’s showed up. Google thinks they are to good to answer when called.

17 countries where teachers can earn the highest starting salary
“While the US is, according to World Bank data, the nation that pays high school teachers the sixth highest, according to the Learning Police Institute they’re actually paying teachers less and less — to the point where the country is experiencing a teacher shortage.
Data gathered from the National Center for Education Statistics actually suggests many states in the US have seen an average of a 4.6% salary reduction since the 2009-10 school year, which could be part of the reason the country is having to outsource teachers from overseas.”
The U.S. is ranked #6, ironically just above Mexico?!

Airport security trays carry more germs than toilets, study reveals
Just another reason I’ve no desire to fly.

There Are Whales Alive Today Who Were Born Before Moby Dick Was Written
“Bowheads seem to be recovering from the harvest of Yankee commercial whaling from 1848 to 1915, which wiped out all but 1,000 or so animals. Because the creatures can live longer than 200 years — a fact George discovered when he found an old stone harpoon point in a whale — some of the bowheads alive today may have themselves dodged the barbed steel points of the Yankee whalers.”

Man erects electrified fence to keep bus stop kids off his lawn
“The man — whose name is Bryan — said he was sick of students who cursed, fought, and littered at the bus stop.
“They don’t respect other peoples’ land,” Bryan said. “I pick up trash every day.”
Parents are ticked off. Perhaps they could teach their children to respect others property?

Applebees $2 Samuel Adams OctoberFest For All Of September
That’ll go nice with a Bourbon Street Steak!

Sources: Fox Sports Detroit’s Mario Impemba and Rod Allen involved in physical altercation
I haven’t watched many games this year because the Tigers suck. Not a surprise these 2 don’t like each other and the result shows in the booth. The broadcasting is sub-par. The only bright spot is the former Tiger great Kirk Gibson who is in the booth sparingly as he has Parkinson’s disease.

Burt Reynolds, Screen Legend and Sex Symbol, Dies at 82
One of my favorite actors. RIP brother.
Burt Reynolds Wikipedia
Burt Reynolds IMDB

Wednesday Morning Random Stuff…

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Chrome 69 Desktop & Android Released
“The Chrome team is delighted to announce the promotion of Chrome 69 to the stable channel for Windows, Mac and Linux”
Download | Download standalone(full) | Download standalone 64-bit Windows version(full)
“Chrome for Android 69 (69.0.3497.76) has been released and will be available on Google Play over the course of the next few weeks.”
Download

Firefox 62 Is Out
Download (all) | Download 32-bit EN-US | Download 64-bit EN-US
Release Notes

Other Software Updates
AS SSD Benchmark 2.0.6821.41776
HWiNFO 5.88 (I use portable version)
Wise Disk Cleaner 9.7.6 (I use portable version)

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

The military secret to falling asleep in two minutes
“The technique is said to work for 96 per cent of people after six weeks of practice.”
Hmmmm, I dunno…

Hero siblings lift overturned SUV from roadside ditch, save couple and baby
“I saw that water was seeping into the car, where it was turned upside down,” Allen said. “We tried to break the windows, but that didn’t work. So the only thing I could think of was to flip the car over. So I told my sister to help me so we could flip it over to its side. So what happened is after we flipped it over to the side, I took my shirt off and wrapped it around my fist and I used my fist to break the windshield off.”
Well done!

Monday Random Stuff…

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Last day of a 3 day holiday here. Burned some calories at the gym and immediately put them back on with fried chicken and beer.

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

Google and Mastercard Cut a Secret Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales
“Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Mastercard Inc. brokered a business partnership during about four years of negotiations, according to four people with knowledge of the deal, three of whom worked on it directly. The alliance gave Google an unprecedented asset for measuring retail spending, part of the search giant’s strategy to fortify its primary business against onslaughts from Amazon.com Inc. and others.
But the deal, which has not been previously reported, could raise broader privacy concerns about how much consumer data technology companies like Google quietly absorb.”
Just how far from, “Don’t be evil” can Google stray?

You’re about to get even more from your Office 365 Home or Personal subscription!
– Unlimited device installs and be signed in to 5 of those at any one time.
– 6 licenses (users) up from 5

98.6 Degrees Is A Normal Body Temperature, Right? Not Quite
“Forget everything you know about normal body temperature and fever, starting with 98.6. That’s an antiquated number based on a flawed study from 1868 (yes, 150 years ago). The facts about fever are a lot more complicated.”
Interesting!

Friday Random Stuff…

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It’s after lunch on a 3 day holiday weekend here on the East Coast of the USA. That means most of the workforce has checked out (either literally or figuratively) and highway traffic headed toward any body of water is beginning to slow to a crawl. Be safe out there and have a great weekend.

Intel Graphics Driver for Windows 10 24.20.100.6286
Download | Release Notes

Software Updates
EMDB (Eric’s Movie Database) 3.20
jv16 PowerTools 4.2.0.1883
VLC multimedia player 3.0.4

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

October 2018 Update
The Windows press are all wetting themselves over the fact that the next Win10 update has a name.
“I’m pleased to announce that our next feature update to Windows will be called the Windows 10 October 2018 Update. With this update, we’ll be bringing new features and enhancements to the nearly 700 million devices running Windows 10 that help people make the most of their time. We’ll share more details about the update over the coming weeks.”
No release date but I will go out on a limb and say sometime in October.

Useful or creepy? Machines suggest Gmail replies
“The responses are automatically created using Google’s artificial intelligence systems. Humans aren’t reading people’s emails, but machines are scanning them. Although Google stopped scanning email to target advertising in 2017, it still scans them to filter out junk mail, identify phishing scams and, now, to create suggested replies. (Yahoo and AOL, both owned by Verizon, still scan email for advertising.)”
I vote creepy.

5-year-old battling rare kidney disease asks for cards for his birthday
Address is in the article. Send the little dude a card!

Weekend Listening
In the early to mid 80s there was a Country Rock band in Virginia called Snuff. Though they never hit the big time, IMHO they were great.
I thought I would leave you with my favorite song from them called When Jokers Are Wild . I carefully recorded it from the original LP.

Thursday Random Stuff…

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CCleaner 5.46
Download (I use the portable version) | Release Announcment
I keep getting questions so…
Yes, I still use CCleaner. Yes, I still recommend CCleaner. But, though many seem not to listen, I keep telling folks NOT TO INSTALL IT. It doesn’t need to be installed and all the issues that have come up have been from the installed versions.

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

Google makes it easier for veterans to find jobs, as well as businesses led by other service members
“The first new initiative, through Grow with Google, adds new features to a search for “jobs for veterans.” Enter your military code (MOS, AFSC, NEC, etc.) and Google will surface results for civilian job listings that require a similar skill set. Partnerships with other companies will also make this possible on services that use Google’s Cloud Talent Solution, such as FedEx Careers, Encompass Health Careers, Siemens Careers, and more.”

Yahoo and AOL scan your inbox for advertising purposes
Google and Microsoft claim they don’t.

Logged off: meet the teens who refuse to use social media
“It is widely believed that young people are hopelessly devoted to social media. Teenagers, according to this stereotype, tweet, gram, Snap and scroll. But for every young person hunched over a screen, there are others for whom social media no longer holds such an allure. These teens are turning their backs on the technology – and there are more of them than you might think.”
Outstanding!

Which Social Media Site Is Tops Among Teens? Not Facebook
“This group favors another social channel above all others — Snapchat.”
I’m a little confused by the term “social media”. I take it to mean sites like Facebook and Twitter. Sites like Instagram and Snapchat are listed as “social media” but I just don’t see the resemblance. Am I wrong?

Dairy and meat ‘beneficial for heart health and longevity’

This Man Had to Have His Arm Amputated After Eating Raw Seafood
Warning, nasty pic there. I rarely eat sushi but I love me some raw oysters. I try to stick to the “months with R” advice.

Days you’re most likely to get a ticket.
“According to our figures, ticket volume spiked significantly toward the end of the month: The 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st were all among the top five days for tickets.”
If you ask you local and state police they swear up and down there are not any ticket quotas. This article shows that to be Bravo Sierra.

Master of Marketing
New web site, a watch line, and now Blackened American Whiskey.
Master of puppets, I’m pulling your strings
Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams
Blinded by me, you can’t see a thing
Just call my name ’cause I’ll hear you scream
Master, master!
Just call my name ’cause I’ll hear you scream
Master, master!

Viking Cruises bans children, says clients want kid-free vacations

Warner Bros’ Wile E. Coyote Movie Finds Its Scribes In The Silberman Brothers
“Road Runner’s nemesis, Wile E. Coyote a.k.a. ‘Super Genius’, is getting his own big screen feature and Deadline has learned that Jon and Josh Silberman, the supervising producers behind CBS’ Living Biblically have been hired to write Coyote Vs. Acme.”
I always wanted the coyote to catch and barbecue the road runner. When I was younger had this patch on my snowmobile suit and the sticker on my snowmobile: