Computer News

Windows Updates
Win10 1903-1909
Security updates to Internet Explorer, the Microsoft Scripting Engine, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Microsoft Graphics Component, Windows Input and Composition, Windows Media, Windows Shell, Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Edge, Windows Fundamentals, Windows Cryptography, Windows Authentication, Windows Kernel, Windows Linux, Windows Update Stack, Windows Network Security and Containers, Windows Active Directory, Windows Storage and Filesystems, and the Microsoft JET Database Engine.
May 12, 2020—KB4556799 (OS Builds 18362.836 and 18363.836)
Win10 1809
Pretty much same as above plus a few fixes.
May 12, 2020—KB4551853 (OS Build 17763.1217)

Windows 8.1 – May 12, 2020—KB4556853 (Security-only update)
Security updates to Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Input and Composition, Windows Media, Windows Kernel, Windows Core Networking, Internet Information Services, Windows Network Security and Containers, Windows Active Directory, the Microsoft JET Database Engine, and Windows Storage and Filesystems.

Windows 7 – May 12, 2020—KB4556836 (Monthly Rollup)
Addresses an issue that prevents certain apps from installing if they are published using a Group Policy Object.
Addresses an issue that causes Windows to incorrectly report the connection state of a network interface. The issue might cause software that queries the media connection state to receive a result of “Unknown” from a network interface after installing Windows updates released after February 11, 2020. This issue has been observed in the Network Access Manager component of the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client.
Updates the 2020 start date for daylight saving time (DST) in the Kingdom of Morocco. For more information, see KB4557900.
Security updates to Internet Explorer, the Microsoft Scripting Engine, Windows App Platform and Frameworks, Windows Apps, Windows Input and Composition, Windows Kernel, Internet Information Services, Windows Network Security and Containers, Windows Active Directory, the Microsoft JET Database Engine, and Windows Storage and Filesystems.

O&O ShutUp10 1.8.1410
15 “Deactivate app access…” settings.
Download | Changelog

Adobe Reader Updated
v2020.09.20063
Addresses 10 important or critical vulnerabilities.
Download | Security Bulletin

EMDB 3.60
Free movie database software. 2 dozen changes in the last 2 weeks
Download | Release Notes

Intel Graphics – Windows 10 DCH Drivers
Version: 27.20.100.8187, Bugfixes
Download & Info

Winaero Tweaker 0.17
Too much new stuff to list.
Download & Info

iVerge – Google Authenticator’s first Android update in years lets you move your account between devices

– – – – Off Topic – – – –

Managers turn to surveillance software, always-on webcams to ensure employees are (really) working from home
“Thousands of companies now use monitoring software to record employees’ Web browsing and active work hours, dispatching the kinds of tools built for corporate offices into workers’ phones, computers and homes. But they have also sought to watch over the workers themselves, mandating always-on webcam rules, scheduling thrice-daily check-ins and inundating workers with not-so-optional company happy hours, game nights and lunchtime chats. Company leaders say the systems are built to boost productivity and make the quiet isolation of remote work more chipper, connected and fun. But some workers said all of this new corporate surveillance has further blurred the lines between their work and personal lives, amping up their stress and exhaustion at a time when few feel they have the standing to push back…A growing cottage industry of what some managers call “tattleware” now caters to company leaders wanting some way to peer over workers’ shoulders and confirm their productivity. Several time-tracking and employee-monitoring companies, including ActivTrak, Hubstaff, Time Doctor and Teramind, told The Washington Post they have seen their customer base and revenue soar since the pandemic pushed many companies remote.”

How My Boss Monitors Me While I Work From Home
“With millions of us working from home in the coronavirus pandemic, companies are hunting for ways to ensure that we are doing what we are supposed to. Demand has surged for software that can monitor employees, with programs tracking the words we type, snapping pictures with our computer cameras and giving our managers rankings of who is spending too much time on Facebook and not enough on Excel.
The technology raises thorny privacy questions about where employers draw the line between maintaining productivity from a homebound work force and creepy surveillance.”

If you can’t trust me to get the job done then you shouldn’t have hired me.
This crap needs to stop. It’s un-American, cruel, inhumane… Any owner or manager taking part in this are horrible human beings in addition to being perverts. Any company using this should be sued and fined.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –

More than 900 Missouri residents who ‘snitched’ on lockdown rule-breakers fear retaliation after their details are leaked online
Gov’t asked people to snitch. Losers did. Someone found the snitches info and let the info out (does that make him snitch too?). Now the snitches are scared. Good.
You’ve been told from childhood not to be a tattletale. Your parents told you, your teachers told you. Your siblings, friends, and co-workers told you not to be a nark.
tattletale noun
Synonyms for tattletale
betrayer, canary [slang], deep throat, fink, informant, informer, nark [British], rat, rat fink, snitch, snitcher, squealer, stool pigeon, stoolie, talebearer, tattler, telltale, whistle-blower
Words Related to tattletale
collaborator
blabber, blabbermouth, gossip, gossiper, leaker
snoop, snooper, spy
notifier

Cinco De Mayo > Taco Tuesday > Revenge Of The Fifth…
Which begs the question; Why are the grocery stores toilet paper shelves still empty?

Firefox 76
Security fixes, better online protection
Download | Release Notes | Tor Browser 9.0.10

Other Downloads
EMDB 3.59
HandBrake 1.3.2
ShellBagsView 1.25

Off Topic

Headline Of The Week

“Doc Blocker”

Netflix – Space Force

Finished streaming Letterkenny while polishing off an entire bag of All Dressed Potato Chips as an omage :-/
Also streaming:
Last Kingdom season 4
Salem – Stopped watching
Motherland: Fort Salem
Outer Banks
Finished Homeland. Only started watching because season 7 was filmed here. Last season (8) stunk.
Recording – Belgravia
Tried – Little Fires Everywhere (because Reese Witherspoon) Didn’t like it.

WTH?
In Virginia we are now allowed to go to the dentist but not the barber. Visualize that.
A barber and client can both wear masks and they are certainly not breathing DIRECTLY into each others faces.
Personally I don’t care, I do my own using Wahl Balding Clippers. They are $90 at Amazon. Can be found cheaper if you hunt for it.
Sallybeauty.com = $60.29 + free shipping came up in my cart. I had bought mine in store a while back.

Intel Graphics – Windows 10 DCH Drivers
Version: 26.20.100.8141
“*04/29/20 Update* Reports of OEM errors are still occurring during installation. The majority, if not all of these, are due to the current driver on the system is non-DCH. This update will only install over OEM DCH drivers. If this occurs, follow these instructions:
WARNING: This will remove any OEM customizations. If the OEM does not have a DCH driver available, it’s likely no customizations will be reinstalled by Windows Update after you upgrade to 100.8141. If you experience any issues such as flickering, BSOD, TDR, etc, please reinstall the latest OEM driver.”
Download & Info

Microsoft rolls out Windows 10 2004 release preview ahead of expected May release to mainstream users
Blah, blah, blah, Win10 May 2020 Update will be release on May 28th.

Intel’s 10th Gen Comet Lake for Desktops: Skylake-S Hits 10 Cores and 5.3 GHz
“Users wanting the 10-core 5.3 GHz will need to purchase the new top Core i9-10900K processor, which has a unit price of $488, and keep it under 70 ºC to enable Intel’s new Thermal Velocity Boost. Not only that, despite the 125 W TDP listed on the box, Intel states that the turbo power recommendation is 250 W – the motherboard manufacturers we’ve spoken to have prepared for 320-350 W from their own testing, in order to maintain that top turbo for as long as possible.”
Added bonus, it will heat your house in the winter.

Off Topic

Coronavirus NSW: Dossier lays out case against China bat virus program
“China deliberately suppressed or destroyed evidence of the coronavirus outbreak in an “assault on international transparency’’ that cost tens of thousands of lives, according to a dossier prepared by concerned Western governments on the COVID-19 contagion…Its major themes include the “deadly denial of human-to-human transmission”, the silencing or “disappearing” of doctors and scientists who spoke out, the destruction of evidence of the virus from genomic studies laboratories, and “bleaching of wildlife market stalls”, along with the refusal to provide live virus samples to international scientists working on a vaccine.”
You cannot trust anything the Chinese Communist government says or does.
Human Rights Watch – China’s Global Threat to Human Rights
Amnesty International – Everything you need to know about human rights in China
Time – China Poses an ‘Existential Threat’ to International Human Rights, Says Rights Group After Director Barred From Hong Kong

How close are people to each other? These pictures are taken at the same time, but show two very different things
“Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” – Richard Pryor Video 100% X-rated, NSFW

J.K. Rowling Honors ‘Battle Of Hogwarts’ Anniversary With $1.2 Million Charity Donation
“Today’s the 22nd anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts, but I’m going to be honest and say that it feels inappropriate to talk about fictional deaths today. Too many people are losing loved ones in the real world. So on this anniversary of a great wizarding victory, I’m thinking of the people who’re out there doing their jobs to protect us and our way of life. I have 3 key workers in my immediate family, and like all such relatives, I’m torn between pride and anxiety.As ever in a crisis of this sort, the poorest and most vulnerable are hit hardest, so in honour of the Battle of Hogwarts, I’ll be making a donation of £1m, half of which will go to crisis.org.uk, who’re helping the homeless during the pandemic and half of which will go to refuge.org.uk, because we know that domestic abuse has, sadly, increased hugely during the lockdown.”
Well done madam.

PowerToys 0.17
-PowerToys can now update itself #1686
-FancyZone can now snap to two zones (still experimental since it doesn’t support restoring the app to two zones)
-Per machine installation fixed, non-admin user will be able again to use PowerToys after the regression in 0.16.
-Fixed most of the FancyZones Virtual Desktop bugs.
-Fixed several FZ bugs including proper handling of taskbar position.
-PowerToys icon in the Start menu will always show slightly_smiling_face
Download & Info

CCleaner v5.66
“Cleaning
-Brave browser can now be cleaned independently
-Vivaldi browser can now be cleaned independently
Health Check
-Fixed an issue where ‘Cookies’ was also deleting internet history and was incorrectly reporting
large numbers of trackers
-Internet history is now deleted via the ‘History’ Privacy category, which also includes download history and
recently typed URLs
Pro Trial
-Starting a CCleaner Professional trial now gives you a guided experience to its features”
No reason to use this update unless you use the Vivaldi or Brave browser.
Download (I use portable) | Release Info
See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall

Off Topic

The 4-Second Workout
“Four seconds of high-intensity exertion repeated periodically throughout the day might counteract some of the unhealthy metabolic consequences of sitting for hours, according to a surprising and timely new study of the potentially large benefits of diminutive workouts.”
There’s a “your Mom” joke in there somewhere, err… maybe “your Dad”. I’m just too hungry to sit here and think on it.

and, since we are on the immature humor train…
I present the best headline of the week:
The Carnivore’s Guide To Beating A Meat Shortage

Google Chrome Updated
“The stable channel has been updated to 81.0.4044.129 for Windows, Mac, and Linux…This update includes 2 security fixes.”
Download | Release Info

Sysinternals Process Explorer 16.32
Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out. Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.
Download & Info

Sysinternals Sysmon 11
System Monitor (Sysmon) is a Windows system service and device driver that, once installed on a system, remains resident across system reboots to monitor and log system activity to the Windows event log. It provides detailed information about process creations, network connections, and changes to file creation time.
Download & Info

Start10 1.94
Meh, skipping this.
-Improved WindowBlinds skin support
-Addresses failed installs when Windows Controlled Folder Access \ Ransomware Protection is enabled
-Add additional support for new Stardock product: Curtains
Download | Changelog

Cleanmgr+ 1.33.1050
-Revised predefined/recommended clean-ups
-Optimized CLI-support (added /nowindow paramter to run completely silent and without confirmation dialog after cleanup)
-Minor stability improvements on Windows 20H1
Download | Release Noteshttps://github.com/mirinsoft/CleanmgrPlus/releases

VLC Media Player 3.0.10
“Update Twitch & VLSub scripts”
If you don’t use Twitch.tv or use subtitles in VLC then this is a skip-a-roonie.
Download: 32-bit or 64-bit

Macrium Reflect Updated
Macrium Reflect v7.2.4859 for everything except Windows XP. v7.2.4861 for that.
Download | Release Notes

Off Topic

Amazon tech workers are calling out sick in protest over COVID-19 response
“The protest is in part a result of Amazon’s aggressive response to worker organizing. In recent weeks, Amazon has fired six workers who have called for better safety precautions during the pandemic…”No company is benefiting more than Amazon right now, the stock is hitting an all-time high, and they could have also been the hero in people’s hearts, they could have set the bar high for how you treat essential workers in the time of COVID,” she says. “I really was trying to make Amazon a better company, for my kids, and for the company I worked for for 15 years.”
I want to personally thank all the Amazon employees for their exceptionally hard work during this. Y’all have come through for me, mine, and this entire country.

The Offspring – Here Kitty Kitty
Apparently this has something to do with Tiger King which I know little about. Not sure I want to. Very cool to see The Offspring doing country though. For those who don’t know, The Offspring are a punk band that rose to popularity during the mid-90’s. They’ve a number of hits but I would say my fav is “Gone Away” followed by “The Kids Aren’t Alright” (yeah, that’s a play on The Who song). Many punkers (including several old friends of mine) take to country music. “Same three chords on a different guitar at a different speed” a buddy once said to me. “Three Chords and the Truth” brother. Anywho, I digress…

The Offspring – Gone Away

The Offspring – The Kids Aren’t Alright

The Who – The Kids Are Alright

Win10 Updated
Optional, non-security, cumulative updates for all currently supported versions. Over 2 dozen “addresses an issue” type stuff.
1903 & 1909 – April 21, 2020—KB4550945 (OS Builds 18362.815 and 18363.815)
1809 – April 21, 2020—KB4550969 (OS Build 17763.1192)

Wise Disk Cleaner 10.2.8
Meh
– Improved the function of detecting browser saved passwords and browser cookies before cleaning.
– Support NeroBurningROM2020, NeroBackItUp2020 and RealPlayer18 cleanup.
– Updated various translations.
Nero? You’re kidding right? They still make that?
Download (I use the portable version) | Release Notes

Off Topic

Ya know, I thought I had some Canadian friends out there but it turns out y’all have been holding out on me. Here I am looking for something to binge-watch and keep coming up empty. Then I hear about this TV series out of the Great White North called Letterkenny. My wife and I watched 10 episodes last night. Friggin’ hysterical. You Canucks owe me a case of Puppers Premium Lager!
Letterkenny Home Page
Wikipedia – Letterkenny (TV series)
Video contains adult language and is probably NSFW.