Computer News

Goodbye 2020
I’ve never understood the preoccupation with the rollover of the calendar. I mean, I get the “any excuse to party” thing but beyond that I’m at a loss.
Anyhow, I do hope the next 365 days are better for all of us.

Updated – Bad Tweaks
My Bad Tweaks article is somewhere around 15 years old. Links to sources have disappeared. I updated the links today, mostly to the Internet Wayback Machine archive. I’ve also backed up these sources to PDF and have linked to those where appropriate.

Updated – UAC – Quick notes on why I disable it
As of today my original article is over eleven years old. Links to sources have disappeared. I updated the links today, mostly to the Internet Wayback Machine archive. I’ve also backed up these sources to PDF and have linked to those where appropriate.
UAC – Quick notes on why I disable it

WinAmp Community Update Project (WACUP)
Updated to build #6840. This is the second release in 8 days.
I’m a beta tester for WACUP. I’ll have a related article in the next week or so.
Download & Info

PowerToys v0.29.3
bugfixes
Download & Info

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

Windows 7: A year after the end-of-support deadline, millions choose not to upgrade
“Microsoft officially ended support for its one-time flagship operating system, Windows 7, at the start of 2020. As the year draws to a close, I ran the numbers to see how many PCs are still running this unsupported OS. Spoiler: It’s a big number,”
Go Ed Go!

“Psychological Flexibility” May Be Key To Good Relationships Between Couples And Within Families
“What makes for a happy family? The answer — whether you’re talking about a couple or a family with kids — is psychological “flexibility”, according to a new paper in the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. Based on a meta-analysis of 174 separate studies, Jennifer S. Daks and Ronald Rogge at the University of Rochester conclude that flexibility helps — and inflexibility hinders — our most important relationships.”
The paper cited even goes beyond that
“Within romantic relationships, higher levels of various forms of psychological inflexibility were linked to: (1) lower relationship satisfaction for themselves and (2) their partners, (3) lower sexual satisfaction and (4) emotional supportiveness, as well as (5) higher negative conflict, (6) physical aggression, (7) attachment anxiety, and (8) attachment avoidance. Taken as a set, these results suggest that psychological flexibility and inflexibility may play key roles both in couples and families to shape how individuals interact with the people closest to them.”
My takeaway: Don’t be a hard-ass. It’ll only make you miserable.

PowerToys v0.29.0
Nothing major, just a few fixes.
Download & Info

Intel Graphics – Windows 10 DCH Drivers
Version: 27.20.100.9079 Date: 12/23/2020
Download | Release Notes

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

Dawn Wells, ‘Gilligan’s Island’s’ Mary Ann, Dies of COVID at 82
I grew up watching Gilligan’s Island re-runs. Like many American boys, she was one of my first crushes.
RIP to a wonderful lady.

The Customer Is Not Always Right
“Customer entitlement at restaurants is at an all-time high, making work unsafe and unbearable for many in the industry. The way we think about hospitality needs to change…”
Our society has become mean and entitled. So many cannot seem to be nice anymore. IMHO it is time to eliminate tipping in this country and pay a fair wage.

Things are slowing down out there for the Christmas holiday.

Firefox 84.0.1
4 fixes.
Download | Release Notes

Intel Ethernet Adapter Complete Driver Pack 25.6
Download | Release Notes

The SolarWinds Supply Chain Attack
The full scope of this is still unknown. This is not contained. This is not just standard espionage. If it isn’t an act of war it certainly looks like a prelude to, well, something.

SolarWinds recap: All of the federal agencies caught up in the Orion breach
“The breach was first reported Dec. 13. And since then, the list of confirmed and potential victims within the federal government continues to grow.”
Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, State Department, Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, Department of the Treasury, National Institutes of Health

Big tech companies including Intel, Nvidia, and Cisco were all infected during the SolarWinds hack
“Last week, news broke that IT management company SolarWinds had been hacked, possibly by the Russian government, and the US Treasury, Commerce, State, Energy, and Homeland Security departments have been affected — two of which may have had emails stolen as a result of the hack. Other government agencies and many companies are investigating due to SolarWinds’ extensive client list.”

The sheer scale of the SolarWinds attack is sparking big changes to a $134.6 billion cybersecurity industry that already had to transform itself in 2020 (Paywalled)
“In the new world, CISOs have to assume that a breach is always present in the network”

The SolarWinds hack, and the danger of arrogance
“The SolarWinds hack exposed not only vulnerabilities within public and private sector networks, but also the dangers of arrogance. And make no mistake, the U.S. – public and private sector alike, across many sectors – has long suffered from a heavy dose of arrogance…In this latest attack, we’ve been caught flatfooted…America, we’ve been humbled. What matters most, however, is what we do now.”

VMware Flaw a Vector in SolarWinds Breach?
“On Dec. 7, 2020, the NSA said “Russian state-sponsored malicious cyber actors are exploiting a vulnerability in VMware Access and VMware Identity Manager products, allowing the actors access to protected data and abusing federated authentication.”
Brian Krebs has several other interesting posts on this: https://krebsonsecurity.com/

SolarWinds and Supply Chain Attacks: Could it happen to WordPress?
Nice, quick breakdown here.

Microsoft Flight Simulator is Fastest Growing Entry in the Series with Over 2 Million Players to Date
I keep saying I’m gonna buy this…

Facebook and Apple Are Sparring Over Ads, Privacy, and ‘the Free Internet’
Apple: Facebook doesn’t care about privacy.
World: Pot meet kettle.
Facebook: What they said. Wait…What?
Microsoft: Whew, they’re keeping us out of it.
Google: It’s because you’re irrelevant.
38 State Attorney’s General: You’re too relevant.

I Was the Homeland Security Adviser to Trump. We’re Being Hacked.
“The magnitude of this ongoing attack is hard to overstate.
The Russians have had access to a considerable number of important and sensitive networks for six to nine months. The Russian S.V.R. will surely have used its access to further exploit and gain administrative control over the networks it considered priority targets. For those targets, the hackers will have long ago moved past their entry point, covered their tracks and gained what experts call “persistent access,” meaning the ability to infiltrate and control networks in a way that is hard to detect or remove.
While the Russians did not have the time to gain complete control over every network they hacked, they most certainly did gain it over hundreds of them. It will take years to know for certain which networks the Russians control and which ones they just occupy.“

Firefox 84
Some security fixes and the last FF version to support Flash.
Download | Release Notes
Tails and Tor Browser updated too.

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready Drivers 460.89 WHQL
Vulkan Ray Tracing for the Quake II RTX v1.4.0 update.
Download | Release Notes

Be careful this winter!
Yesterday was trash pickup day. I awoke with a headache, sat down with my coffee, and remembered I needed to haul the trash to the curb.
It had rained heavily the day before and temps were in the 20s. I headed out the door in a hurried haze and forgot the steps would be iced over.
It hurts but luckily I’m OK except for bruising. I provide this video as comic relief and a warning to please be careful out there this winter.

Best Cities for Beer Drinkers – 2020 Edition
“we compared 384 cities across the following metrics: total number of breweries, breweries per 100,000 residents, average number of beers per brewery, bars per 100,000 residents and the average price of a pint.”

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready Drivers 460.79 WHQL
“This new Game Ready Driver provides the ultimate gaming experience for Cyberpunk 2077. In addition, this driver provides optimal day-1 support for the official launch of Minecraft with RTX for Windows 10.”
Download | Release Notes

Intel Graphics Windows 10 DCH Drivers
“Playability improvements to reduce stutter in Fortnite on 7th Generation Intel Core™ Processors and higher”
Download & Info

PowerToys v0.27.1
A few fixes.
Download & Info

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC Updated
Download | Security Bulletin

Amazon’s new health band is the most invasive tech we’ve ever tested
“Amazon has a new health-tracking bracelet with a microphone and an app that tells you everything that’s wrong with you.
You haven’t exercised or slept enough, reports Amazon’s $65 Halo Band. Your body has too much fat, the Halo’s app shows in a 3-D rendering of your near-naked body.
And even: Your tone of voice is “overbearing” or “irritated,” the Halo determines, after listening through its tiny microphone on your wrist.”
I already have one of these. It’s called a wife.

Windows Updates
Security updates only this month.
20H2 & 2004 – December 8, 2020—KB4592438 (OS Builds 19041.685 and 19042.685)
1909 & 1903 – December 8, 2020—KB4592449 (OS Builds 18362.1256 and 18363.1256)

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.12.1 Optional (WHQL)
Support For: Radeon RX 6900 Series, Cyberpunk 207, 5 other fixes, 11 known issues.
Download | Release Notes
Speaking of the RX 6900 series…
It’s a new release. MSRP is $1000. Nobody has it in stock.
Tom’s Hardware, “Impressive Mainstream Appeal“. Really, a card that MSRP’s at $1000 (U.S.) is mainstream?
Guru3D, “If you are less interested in what Raytracing and DLSS bring to the table, then the 6800/6900 XT with it’s 16GB graphics memory is a recommended choice over the $699 USD GeForce RTX 3080 and that expensive 1499 USD 3090 (not that you can purchase any atm).”

My Football Team Stinks
And it’s been a great season!

Google Chrome Updated
“The Stable channel has been updated to 87.0.4280.88 for Windows, Mac and Linux”
Bunch of fixes.
Download | Release info

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready Drivers 457.51 WHQL
“Includes support for the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti GPU”
Download | Release Notes

Intel Wireless Bluetooth for Windows 10
Download & Info

Google Chrome 87
33 security fixes and is supposedly faster and has better power saving.
Download | Release Info
Chrome for Android updated too.

Firefox 83
Over 20 security fixes and supposedly faster.
Download | Release Notes
Tails and Tor Browser updated too.

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2020 Edition 20.11.2 Optional (WHQL)
Support for Radeon RX 6800 Series and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands. A few fixes. I’ve learned to stay away from the “Optional” drivers.
Download | Release Notes