All versions of Windows 7 now have a new EOS nagware update.
I have updated my Remove And Block GWX In Windows 7 article and batch file accordingly.
Monday Random Stuff…
Patch Tuesday is tomorrow so back it up or lock it out. I’ve got a busy day ahead tomorrow so I won’t be able to post at my usual Patch Tuesday time (just after 1300 hrs EST).
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not (mostly off topic today).
Personal note – I got my tix for Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison, and Joan Jett and the ♥’s!
A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired on this day in 1965.
see also: 14 Festive Facts About A Charlie Brown Christmas
AC/DC’s ‘Back in Black’ Certified 25 Times Platinum In U.S.
“On December 6, AC/DC’s 1980 breakthrough album “Back in Black” was certified by the Recording Industry Association Of America for U.S. shipments of 25 million copies.
“Back in Black” first went platinum in October 1980 and had previously been certified 22 times platinum in December 2007. The RIAA lists “Back In Black” as the fourth biggest-selling album of all time.”
and the bell rang 13 times…
Rumors are that they will tour next year. Some of those say Brian Johnson will be back out front.
related: Dee Snider: New AC/DC album will feature tracks recorded by Malcolm Young
NFL Network Reporter Jane Slater Reports How She Used Her Ex-Boyfriend’s Christmas Gift To Bag Him Cheating
“An Ex Boyfriend once got me a Fitbit for Christmas. I loved it. We synched up, motivated each other… didn’t hate it until he was unaccounted for at 4am and his physical activity levels were spiking on the app ? wish the story wasn’t real.”
Aw man, so much karma…
Confidential documents reveal U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan
“A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.
The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.”
Long read and worth every second.
The US, like China, has about one surveillance camera for every four people, says report
“One billion cameras will be installed globally by 2021…There is a difference in how the cameras are implemented, though. In China, most cameras are installed for the purposes of widespread video surveillance of cities, whereas cameras installed in the US are primarily for the purposes of retail and commercial usage.”
Well, I’ve got 12 at my house so…
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine actor René Auberjonois dies at 79
“Fellow actors George Takei, William Shatner and more pay tribute online to the actor who played Changeling Odo.”
Caroll Spinney, Who Played Big Bird And Oscar On ‘Sesame Street,’ Dies At 85
“The Sesame Workshop said Spinney had died at home in Connecticut, and that he had long lived with dystonia, a disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions.“
Weekend Random Stuff…
O&O ShutUp10 Updated
1.7.1405 – released December 06, 2019
FIX: Application of predefined settings via menu were not saved
Download & Info
FinalCrypt 6
Improved User Interface with better overview
Improved file manager behavior & presentation
Improved UserGuidance, Display & Button Layout
Download | Changelog | Home Page
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not
Supposed crack for Windows 7 Extended Updates that don’t exist.
The hack installs 4 .dll files. Cool trick but quite possibly a big security risk IMHO.
The PC was supposed to die a decade ago. Instead, this happened
“And so, here we are, a full decade after the PC’s untimely death, and the industry is still selling more than a quarter-billion-with-a-B personal computers every year. Which is pretty good for an industry that has been living on borrowed time for ten years.
Maybe the reason the PC industry hasn’t suffered a mass extinction event yet is because they adapted, and because those competing platforms weren’t able to take over every PC-centric task.”
FCC tries to bury finding that Verizon and T-Mobile exaggerated 4G coverage
“Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular exaggerated their 4G coverage in official filings to the Federal Communications Commission, an FCC investigation found. But FCC officials confirmed that Chairman Ajit Pai does not plan to punish the three carriers in any way.”
Wednesday Morning Random Stuff…
Start10 v1.8
Couple of fixes
Download | Changelog
Microsoft Office 365 Updated
Fixes and a few new features.
Release Info for 365
See MS How-To: Install Office updates
Speaking of MS Office there is a killer deal TODAY ONLY
Microsoft Office 365 Home 12-month subscription for up to 6 people + $50 Amazon.com Gift Card for $99.99
12-month auto-renewing subscription for up to 6 people
1TB OneDrive cloud storage per person
For use on multiple PCs/Macs, tablets, and phones (including Windows, iOS, and Android)
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not
Mozilla and Opera remove Avast extensions from their add-on stores, what will Google do?
“A month ago I wrote about Avast browser extensions being essentially spyware. While this article only names Avast Online Security and AVG Online Security extensions, the browser extensions Avast SafePrice and AVG SafePrice show the same behavior: they upload detailed browsing profiles of their users to uib.ff.avast.com. The amount of data collected here exceeds by far what would be considered necessary or appropriate even for the security extensions, for the shopping helpers this functionality isn’t justifiable at all.”
Google founders Page and Brin step back from Alphabet lead
“GOOGLE HAS entered a new phase of life, following the announcement that its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin are to step down from their roles at the top of the business.
The two boffins were Chief Executive and President of Google’s parent company Alphabet, but following the departures, it’s Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai who will fill the void, expanding his role to the wider company…
The slight paradox here is that by bringing the Google and Alphabet CEO roles together, the company is effectively bringing the alignment of the two companies back together, making it a little bewildering as to why they’re separate in the first place.
The real reasons are that of accounting and accountability, but it just feels like Google wants to realign as much as it can get away with without bringing anti-trust accusations to the table.”
Genius Allegedly Caught Google Stealing its Lyrics With an Ingenious Watermark
“Their watermark, which is applied to all of their content, makes the apostrophes in their lyrics alternate between straight and curly single-quote marks (’ and ’). In a delightful Agatha Christie-like twist, when converted to Morse code, the apostrophes spell out “red handed.”
Huh, another site that starts with G being content thieves.
Ring let police view map of video doorbell installations for over a year
“The company once offered a map, now withdrawn, that allowed police to zoom in to see the specific location of Ring customers.”
Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Poison on Tour 2020
Details?
SCORPIONS Plot July 2020 Las Vegas Residency, Tap METALLICA Producer For New Album
“So the plan is to record until the first of July, where we have a residency in Las Vegas for a whole month.”
I would love to see these guys again.
DISTURBED’s Performance Of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ Becomes First ‘Conan’ YouTube Clip To Surpass 100 Million Views
I had linked to it here: https://www.tweakhound.com/2016/04/01/friday-random-stuff-2/
A tiger went on an 800-mile odyssey in search of food, a mate, and a place to call home
I feel ya bro. I did this when I was 18.
O&O ShutUp10 Updated
1.7.1404 – released December 03, 2019
NEW: Category “Activity History and Clipboard” added
NEW: Disable user activity recordings
NEW: Disable saving the activity history of users on this device
NEW: Disable transfer of user activity to Microsoft
NEW: Deactivate storage of the history of the clipboard
NEW: Disable transfer of the clipboard to other devices via the cloud
FIX: Display of menus on touchscreen corrected
FIX: Adjustments to the HighContrast modes
Available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian and Chinese (simplified)
Tuesday Morning Random Stuff…
Microsoft PowerToys 0.14
Changes and bugfixes
Download | Release Info
Intel Chipset Drivers v10.1.18
“Certified for 19h1” That’s awesome except we are on 19h2.
Download | Release Notes
AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2019 Edition 19.12.1 Optional
Support for Radeon RX 5300M, fixes for RX 5700. If you don’t have one of those cards then skip this.
Download | Release Notes
Firefox 71
Download: 64-bit (en-US) | All Downloads | Release Notes
Related:
Tor Browser 9.0.2
Tails 4.1
FinalCrypt 5.6.9
Bugfixes and performance improvements
Download | Changelog | Home Page
Kali Linux 2019.4
Lots of changes. Apparently there is an ‘Undercover’ mode. Haven’t had a chance to try it.
Download
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:
Vulnerability in fully patched Android phones under active attack by bank thieves
“The vulnerability allows malicious apps to masquerade as legitimate apps that targets have already installed and come to trust, researchers from security firm Promon reported in a post. Running under the guise of trusted apps already installed, the malicious apps can then request permissions to carry out sensitive tasks, such as recording audio or video, taking photos, reading text messages or phishing login credentials. Targets who click yes to the request are then compromised.”
See: The StrandHogg vulnerability
Not good. Not good at all.
Wired: I Ditched Google for DuckDuckGo. Here’s Why You Should Too
“It all started with a realization: Most the things I search for are easy to find. Did I really need the all-seeing, all-knowing algorithms of Google to assist me? Probably not. So I made a simple change: I opened up Firefox on my Android phone and switched Google search for DuckDuckGo. As a result, I’ve had a fairly tedious but important revelation: I search for really obvious stuff. Google’s own data backs this up. Its annual round-up of the most searched-for terms is basically a list of names and events: World Cup, Avicii, Mac Miller, Stan Lee, Black Panther, Megan Markle. The list goes on. And I don’t need to buy into Google’s leviathan network of privacy-invading trackers to find out what Black Panther is and when I can go and see it at my local cinema.”
There are good points in the article. I use DuckDuckGo on my computer and phone. I have to say this, for real research there is nothing that tops Google. They know almost everything about almost everyone.
Oregon FBI Tech Tuesday: Securing Smart TVs
“Welcome to the Oregon FBI’s Tech Tuesday segment. Today: building a digital defense with your TV.
Yes, I said your TV. Specifically your smart TV…the one that is sitting in your living room right now. Or, the one that you plan to buy on super sale on Black Friday.”
Unplug it from the internet. My gripe is we went from waiting for the tubes to heat up, to instant on, to waiting for the TV to boot up.
For banks, data on your spending habits could be a gold mine
“For years, Google and Facebook have been showing ads based on your online behavior. Retailers from Amazon to Walgreens also regularly suction up your transaction history to steer future spending and hold your loyalty.
Now banks, too, want to turn data they already have on your spending habits into extra revenue by identifying likely customers for retailers. Banks are increasingly aware that they could be sitting on a gold mine of information that can be used to predict — or sway — where you spend. Historically, such data has been used mostly for fraud protection…Unlike Google or Facebook, which try to infer what you’re interested in buying based on your searches, web visits or likes, “banks have the secret weapon in that they actually know what we spend money on”…“Consumers aren’t aware of the subtle nudges apps are giving them to buy, buy, buy,” Mierzwinski said. “They are basically digging deep into your psyche and figuring out how to manipulate you.”
American jobs are getting worse, new economic index shows
“In 1990, the jobs were pretty much evenly divided” said Daniel Alpert, a founder of Westwood Capital and one of the creators of the index. In the process of running the numbers, he said, “We discovered that 63% of all jobs that were created since 1990 were low-wage, low-hour jobs. That was a pretty stunning statistic.”
Happy Thanksgiving
I wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving.
Wednesday Random Stuff…
Nvidia Geforce Game Ready WHQL Driver 441.41
Support for Halo: Reach and Image Sharpening Support for Vulkan and OpenGL
Download | Release Notes
Paint.NET 4.2.7
Bugfix for last weeks 4.2.6
Download | Release Info
FinalCrypt 5.6.7
Bugfixes
Download | Changelog
Microsoft Office Updated
Fixes and more fixes.
Release Info for 365 | Release info for standard version
See MS How-To: Install Office updates
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:
The California DMV Is Making $50M a Year Selling Drivers’ Personal Information
“DMVs across the country are selling data that drivers are required to provide to the organization in order to obtain a license. This information includes names, physical addresses, and car registration information. California’s sales come from a state which generally scrutinizes privacy to a higher degree than the rest of the country.”
Gobbled Out: 1 In 4 Americans Are Tired Of Traditional Thanksgiving Food
“A new survey of 2,000 Americans has revealed that more than a quarter (26%) have grown weary of the usual Thanksgiving food options and would like to see some new cuisine on the menu this year.
It should come as no surprise then that 45% of the survey’s respondents say they’ve already spiced up a Thanksgiving by cooking non-traditional food for the big meal, or plan to do so in the future. Moreover, 43% say they would be open to celebrating an “alternative Thanksgiving” this year.”
We are back to a small traditional turkey dinner this year. For years we have had a tradition of having crab legs for Thanksgiving. Last year we tried that and my Dad just cannot crack the legs anymore. This meant my wife and I had to do his and between cooking the legs in batches and after cracking his, our crab legs were getting cold. It just wasn’t enjoyable anymore. With his condition so badly deteriorating he doesn’t know Thanksgiving from any other day anyway.
Little Deer This Morning
Lots of deer come through here daily. The max I’ve had in the back yard was 8. We had four back here this morning. They usually don’t get too close to the house but this morning the smallest of them did. I thought I would share. Resized but still large. Hollar if you want a full-sized pic.
[Read more…] about Little Deer This Morning
Weekend Random Stuff…
Audacity 2.3.3
Many improvements and bugfixes. “Refactoring and 150+ bugs fixed since 2.3.2”
Download | Release Info
Paint.NET 4.2.6
Many improvements and bugfixes.
Download | Release Info
FinalCrypt
“Update fixed the 1st 70 bytes Crib Drag Vulnerability
Disabled all 0 to 255 byte value inversion of keydata
Removed Glow & Bloom effects for better GUI response
Please decrypt en re-encrypt for 100% OTP compliance”
Download | Changelog
Thanks Eric!
Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:
1.2 Billion Records Found Exposed Online in a Single Server
“contain profiles of hundreds of millions of people that include home and cell phone numbers, associated social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Github, work histories seemingly scraped from LinkedIn, almost 50 million unique phone numbers, and 622 million unique email addresses.”
“Ozzy! Ozzy! Ozzy!”…
DVD – Come On Feel The Noize: The Story Of How Rock Became Metal
Exclusive, long-lost live material from rock’s most iconic bands & artists, as well as all-new original interviews with the living legends themselves: This film is your access-all-areas backstage pass to Heavy Metal and Hard Rock history. Delve into the rich history of Heavy Metal: from its scandalous origins in the 1960s to its heyday in the 1980s, from its glam phase in the 1970s to its indestructible present in 2017. A backstage pass into the history of how Rock became Heavy Metal.
Pre-Order at Amazon Now