Computer News

VMware Workstation 15.5.2
“bug fixes and security updates”
Be sure to update tools too.
Download | Release Notes

Tor Browser 9.0.6
Browse Privately. Explore Freely. Defend yourself against tracking and surveillance. Circumvent censorship.
“This release features important security updates to Firefox. This release updates Firefox to 68.6.0esr and NoScript to 11.0.15.”
Download | Release Info

Tails 4.4
Tails is a live operating system that you can start on almost any computer from a USB stick or a DVD. It aims at preserving your privacy and anonymity.
“This release fixes many security vulnerabilities. You should upgrade as soon as possible.”
Download | Release Info

Clonezilla Updated
Free partition and disk imaging/cloning program.
Download | Release Info

Off topic:

OZZY OSBOURNE’s Son JACK Blasts People For Toilet Paper Hoarding: ‘Chronic S**tting Isn’t A Symptom Of Corona’

Meat department this morning at Wegmans Food Market in Short Pump, Virginia.

Win10 Updated
Out of band update today, “Updates a Microsoft Server Message Block 3.1.1 protocol issue that provides shared access to files and printers.”

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

Google: You know we said that Chrome tracker contained no personally identifiable info? Forget we ever said that
“Google has stopped claiming that an identifier it uses internally to track experimental features and variations in its Chrome browser contains no personally identifiable information.”

WTF?
What’s wrong with people? I made my weekly run to the store. “Really busy for a Thursday”, I thought as I drove up. I grab a few things to make chili and head over to get paper towels and toilet paper…
I…
Uh…
What the F***???
The aisle is almost empty, there is no toilet paper. A lady, seeing the stunned expression on my face says,”Yep, I went to Costco and you can’t even park there.”
Seriously, hoarding toilet paper? To everyone that did this, YOU SUCK.

Goodbye Old Friend
A computer I built in 2008 finally bit the dust. It was my main rig for about 6 years. Twin Raptor 150’s, oof! Those were the days…

GREYHOUND – Official Trailer (HD)
Definitely gonna see this in the theater…if they’re still open.

I’m Back
I want to thank so many of you that reached out to me during these last difficult months. Touched, amazed, grateful… those words don’t seem adequate. It helped me and my wife more than you know.
I’m doing well and my absence has been due to attending to things that were left unattended or neglected this last year or so. I will be easing back into this.

Google Chrome Updated
“The stable channel has been updated to 80.0.3987.132 for Windows, Mac, and Linux…This update includes 4 security fixes.”
Download | Release Notes

Microsoft PowerToys 0.15
“Our mantra for the 0.15 was infrastructure, quality, stability and work toward getting a way to auto-update PowerToys. While it took a bit longer to get here, we feel it was worth the extra time to fix bugs that really impacted your experience with PowerToys.”
Download & Release Notes

Samsung NVMe Driver 3.3
Download | Info | Installation Guide

CCleaner v5.64.7613
“Introducing… ‘Health Check’.” No thanks
Download (I use portable) | Release Announcement
See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall

I apologize that this post is as scattered as my life is right now. I’ll share someday.

Windows 7 EOL
Doomsday predictions, “end of an era”, supposed hacks. There are no answers to what will happen with Windows 7 going forward. Today is listed as the last day of extended support. Truth is nobody knows exactly what that entails. I wouldn’t be in a rush to ditch Windows 7 just yet but you do have options:
– “Upgrade” to Win10. The free option still works. I did it yesterday on my wife’s PC. It was my old one that I bought in 2008. It seems to be a little wonky and I haven’t had time to mess with it. I might just put Linux Mint on it.
– Install Linux. I use Linux Mint right now.
– Keep using Windows 7 as is. Should be OK for a while. At some point in the future that rig may need to be disconnected from the internet.
What are your plans?

Cryptic Rumblings Ahead of First 2020 Patch Tuesday
“Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Microsoft Corp. is slated to release a software update on Tuesday to fix an extraordinarily serious security vulnerability in a core cryptographic component present in all versions of Windows. Those sources say Microsoft has quietly shipped a patch for the bug to branches of the U.S. military and to other high-value customers/targets that manage key Internet infrastructure, and that those organizations have been asked to sign agreements preventing them from disclosing details of the flaw prior to Jan. 14, the first Patch Tuesday of 2020.”

New Intel Graphics Drivers
Windows 7-10 Braswell, 4th and 5th generations
Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 4th Generation
Windows 7 & Windows 8.1 6th Generation
Windows 7-10 Baytrail and 3rd generation
What a Charlie Foxtrot. You’re better off using the Intel Driver & Support Assistant.

Mark Hamill joins critics in deleting Facebook, condemning Zuckerberg
“So disappointed that Mark Zuckerberg values profit more than truthfulness that I’ve decided to delete my Facebook account,” Hamill tweeted. “I know this is a big ‘Who cares?’ for the world at large, but I’ll sleep better at night. #PatriotismOverProfits”

Who Signs Up to Fight? Makeup of U.S. Recruits Shows Glaring Disparity
“The men and women who sign up overwhelmingly come from counties in the South and a scattering of communities at the gates of military bases like Colorado Springs, which sits next to Fort Carson and several Air Force installations, and where the tradition of military service is deeply ingrained.
More and more, new recruits are the children of old recruits. In 2019, 79 percent of Army recruits reported having a family member who served. For nearly 30 percent, it was a parent — a striking point in a nation where less than 1 percent of the population serves in the military…
That has created a broad gap, easily seen on a map. The South, where the culture of military service runs deep and military installations are plentiful, produces 20 percent more recruits than would be expected, based on its youth population. The states in the Northeast, which have very few military bases and a lower percentage of veterans, produce 20 percent fewer.
The main predictors are not based on class or race. Army data show service spread mostly evenly through middle-class and “downscale” groups. Youth unemployment turns out not to be the prime factor. And the racial makeup of the force is more or less in line with that of young Americans as a whole, though African-Americans are slightly more likely to serve. Instead, the best predictor is a person’s familiarity with the military.”

Remembering Neil Peart, A Monster Drummer With A Poet’s Heart
“When Canadian prog-rock innovators Rush were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2013, it was both somewhat surprising and totally appropriate that drummer Neil Peart opened the trio’s acceptance speech. The musician and author, who passed away at the age of 67 on January 7 after a private, three-and-a-half-year struggle with brain cancer, famously eschewed the spotlight and rarely gave interviews. However, the Ontario native was a quiet leader who shaped Rush’s voice, writing the bulk of the band’s lyrics and maintaining a steely, rock-solid presence behind the drumkit.”
One of rocks greatest drummers. Side 1 of the Moving Pictures LP is my favorite from them (I still have it). Anyone else play air drums whenever the hear Tom Sawyer?

Nvidia Geforce Game Ready WHQL Driver 441.87
– Game Ready for Wolfenstein: Youngblood with Ray Tracing
– Maximum Framerate: In response to overwhelming demand from the community, we have introduced a new Maximum Framerate Setting into the NVIDIA Control Panel.
– Image Sharpening Improvements, Variable Rate Super Sampling, Share Freestyle Filters
Download | Release Notes

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

50 Greatest Hair Metal Albums of All Time
It’s a surprisingly good list considering Rolling Stone sucks.

Ricky Gervais’ Monologue – 2020 Golden Globes
I give zero f’s about award shows. Ricky Gervais monologue for the Golden Globes was in the news today. It caught my eye because my wife and I just streamed season one of his show After Life:
“Struggling to come to terms with his wife’s death, a writer for a newspaper adopts a gruff new persona in an effort to push away those trying to help.” It was outstanding. If you know pain this will hit home.
Anyway, Ricky takes no prisoners. He went after Hollywood, Apple, Amazon, Disney…
“So if you do win an award tonight, don’t use it as a platform to make a political speech. You’re in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world. Most of you spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg.
So if you win, come up, accept your little award, thank your agent, and your God and fuck off, OK?”
Article with full transcript

New Intel Wireless Drivers
Windows 10 Wi-Fi Drivers for Intel Wireless Adapters
Intel PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers for IT Admins
Intel Wireless Bluetooth for Windows 7
Intel Wireless Bluetooth for Windows 8.1
Intel Wireless Bluetooth for Windows 10
Intel Wireless Bluetooth for IT Admins

Intel Performance Maximizer Updates
Intel Performance Maximizer for 9th Generation Intel Core Processors
Intel Performance Maximizer for Intel Core X-series Processors

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

A top Google exec pushed the company to commit to human rights. Then Google pushed him out, he says.
“I didn’t change. Google changed,” LaJeunesse, who was Google’s global head of international relations in Washington, told The Washington Post. “Don’t be evil” used to top the company’s mission statement. “Now when I think about ‘Don’t be evil,’ it’s been relegated to a footnote in the company’s statements.”

Someone Compares The Minimum Wage In 2010 vs 2020, And If That’s Not Sad Enough, Other People Share More Statistics
“Everything started when reporter Ken Klippenstein tweeted that the minimum wage in the US has remained the same for a decade – $7.25. Pretty soon, people began replying to him with other gloomy numbers. The thread has already received over 172K likes and 53K retweets, and it looks like it continues to grow. Unlike the wallets of the minimum wage workers.”
IMHO the national minimum wage should go to $15 an hour immediately. Anything less is amoral, immoral, unethical, low-down, and rotten. Raise your prices if need be but if you can’t pay that you should close your doors. If I hurt your feelings, too damn bad.

Your smart TV is spying on you. Here are step-by-step instructions to stop it
“Those smart TVs that sold for unheard of low prices over the holidays come with a catch. The price is super low, but the manufacturers get to monitor what you’re watching and report back to third parties, for a fee.
Or, in some cases, companies like Amazon (with its Fire TV branded sets from Toshiba and Insignia) and TCL, with its branded Roku sets, look to throw those same personalized, targeted ads at you that you get when visiting Facebook and Google.”
It just never stops does it?

How we survive the surveillance apocalypse
“For the past year, I’ve been on the trail of the secret life of our data. What happens when you put your iPhone to sleep at night? Does Amazon’s Alexa eavesdrop on your family? Who gets to know where you drive – and where you swipe your credit card?…Learning how everyday things spy on us made me, at times, feel paranoid. Mostly, my privacy project left me angry. Our cultural reference points – Big Brother and tinfoil hats – don’t quite capture the sickness of an era when we gleefully carry surveillance machines in our pockets and install them in our homes.”

‘Cherry Pie’ girl Bobbie Brown says Warrant rocker Jani Lane was haunted by past before death
“At the moment that he admitted [he was drugged and raped by a member of a famous heavy metal band and their manager], it was devastating to hear. He admitted this to me before his death. It was traumatizing to watch him reveal those things and how much it had affected his life up to that point. When we were married I had no clue. This occurred when he was just starting out on the Strip. So when I’m hearing all of this with him, I’m crying with him. I was going, “We have to do something, we have to say something.” He was like, “No! No!” It was a humiliation for a man to be in that position.”

FinalCrypt 6.3.1 Download | Changelog
Macrium Reflect 7.2.4601 Download | Release Notes

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

MUST READ – One Nation, Tracked An investigation into the smartphone tracking industry from Times Opinion (Links at bottom of article). Mentioned earlier. Series now complete.
Bypass Paywalls Firefox | Bypass Paywalls Chrome
Part 1 – Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy
Part 2 – Protect Yourself
Part 3 – National Security
Part 4 – How It Works
Part 5 – One Neighborhood
Part 6 – Protests
Part 7 – Solutions

*$#!^ New Yorkers react to being named ‘rudest city in America’
“Americans think New Yorkers are the biggest jerks in the country, according to a new survey — released just days before Christmas, no less.”
Many of us also think as a group you are self-important. Can’t put all the blame on you though. Every media outlet acts like life starts and stops there. The rest of us just roll our eyes at that notion. And yes, I’ve been to New York. It was summertime in the mid 80’s and the entire city smelled like urine.

Dan’s Disaster: How the Washington Redskins Plummeted to Rock Bottom
“The professional football team in the nation’s capital was the hottest ticket in town for decades. But under Dan Snyder’s ownership, the franchise has lost a lot of games and managed to alienate even some of its most dedicated fans. What made one of most unshakable fandoms in America give up on its team?”
Four of us used to go up there to one game a year and tailgate like it was our last party. That’s over now, we’ve all lost interest. I haven’t watched a full football game of any kind this year. I still root for Dallas to lose though.

Zac Brown Band – The Woods (Official Music Video)

Latest Downloads
AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.3 Optional Drivers Download | Release Notes
Intel Graphics – Windows 10 DCH Drivers 26.20.100.7584
Sysinternals Process Explorer v16.31
Sysinternals Process Monitor v3.53
Winaero Tweaker 0.16.1 Download | Info

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

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
As usual we went to the first showing. I liked it. I don’t understand the negative reviews.

Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy
“After spending months sifting through the data, tracking the movements of people across the country and speaking with dozens of data companies, technologists, lawyers and academics who study this field, we feel the same sense of alarm. In the cities that the data file covers, it tracks people from nearly every neighborhood and block, whether they live in mobile homes in Alexandria, Va., or luxury towers in Manhattan.”
This is part one of a series of articles called One Nation, Tracked An investigation into the smartphone tracking industry from Times Opinion (Links at bottom of article).
Bypass Paywalls Firefox | Bypass Paywalls Chrome
Part 2 – Protect Yourself
Part 3 – National Security
Part 4 – How It Works
Part 5 – One Neighborhood
Coming Sunday Protests
Coming Sunday Solutions

Wawa announces data breach at ‘potentially all’ locations
“The malware accessed customers’ payment card information, including credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates and cardholder names at potentially inside the store and at the self-serve pumps”

Over 267 million Facebook users had their names, phone numbers, and profiles exposed thanks to a public database, researcher says
#DeleteFacebook

Alienated, Alone And Angry: What The Digital Revolution Really Did To Us
“Here is the most alienating fact about the Digital Nation we live in: It incentivizes forms of engagement that make Americans feel less empowered and more alone than ever, to the benefit of very few. It seizes some of the best, noblest human instincts — to share, to know, to connect, to belong — and harnesses them to a degrading system of profit. Anesthetization to these conditions is dangerous. Cynicism and powerlessness are the hallmarks of another form of digital life, an authoritarian one Americans should badly want to avoid.”

The Miseducation of the American Boy
“Why boys crack up at rape jokes, think having a girlfriend is “gay,” and still can’t cry—and why we need to give them new and better models of masculinity“

Google Chrome Updated
Version 79.0.3945.88 for Windows/Mac/Linux and 79.0.3945.93 for Android.
Download | Release Info
Android: Download | Release Info

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

The Most Popular Christmas Cookie in Every State
“While not unique to Christmastime, chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies with frosting are staples during the holiday season and favorites among Americans. By count of state, sugar cookies with frosting was overall the favorite Christmas cookie in the U.S. It won the most popular Christmas cookie in 21 of the 50 states.”
Everyone that didn’t pick gingerbread is wrong.

Top Gun: Maverick (2020) – New Trailer

Thanks to readers Arthur and Allen for a few of these.

AMD Radeon Adrenalin 2020 Edition 19.12.2 Recommended WHQL Drivers
Support for RX 5500 XT, performance improvements, new Radeon Software, lots of other stuff. Be sure to see the release notes.
Download | Release Notes

Macrium Reflect 7.2.4557
A few small fixes
Download | Release Notes

FinalCrypt 6.1.1
Download | Changelog | Home Page

IrfanView 4.54
Download & Info | History of changes

Americans Ranked The 50 Greatest Christmas Movies Of All Time, And I Am Very Disappointed In Everyone
My Top Eleven
1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1967)
2. Scrooged (1988)
3. A Charlie Brown Christmas
4. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
5. Santa Claus is Coming to Town
6. A Christmas Carol / Scrooge (Almost any year)
7. The Santa Clause
8. Frosty the Snowman
9. Four Christmases
10. It’s a Wonderful Life
11. Bad Santa
What say you?