Thursday Random Stuff…

I interrupt the currently scheduled slew off off topic post to pass along a few tech related things…

Intel SSD Toolbox 3.5.8
Download | Release Notes

Samsung Magician SSD Software 5.3
This was released some time ago. As usual the downloads were restricted for days. I was waiting for some kind of release info before passing the news along. The “Magician Software Installation Guide” has remained at version 5.2.1. Then the link to that disappeared for days. Then it came back. A month later this guide STILL has not been updated to the current version. This is important because these guides contain the only thing resembling release notes. Whoever is behind the Samsung Magician shenanigans should be fired.
Download & Info

VLC 3.0.5
Download | Changelog

Did 2018 usher in a creeping tech dystopia?
We may remember 2018 as the year when technology’s dystopian potential became clear, from Facebook’s role enabling the harvesting of our personal data for election interference to a seemingly unending series of revelations about the dark side of Silicon Valley’s connect-everything ethos.

Big changes ahead for AskWoody and Windows Secrets
As of the end of the year, Penton/Informa media group is handing the Windows Secrets Newsletter and Lounge baton over to the people who started Windows Secrets years ago.
Many of you will remember the original Windows Secrets “dream team” — Brian Livingston, co-author of 11 Windows Secrets books; Susan Bradley, Patch Watch diva; Fred Langa, author of LangaList, the ultimate tech Q&A; and yours truly with Woody’s Windows Watch and a bunch of books. All of us, along with former editor in chief Tracey Capen and many current and former newsletter contributors, are joining forces once again to launch a new AskWoody Plus Newsletter. Those of you who subscribe to the Windows Secrets Newsletter will see your subscriptions carry over, uninterrupted, to the AskWoody Plus moniker.

Pic Of The Week