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Monday Random Stuff…

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Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday. Backup if you get the time.

Adobe Reader Updated
Download en-US | All Downloads | Security Bulletin | Release Notes

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

Please don’t repeat these things WikiLeaks says you can’t say about Assange (updated)
You absolutely cannot say these 140 things about Julian Assange, according to bastion of the free press WikiLeaks.
A representative of WikiLeaks has sent a “confidential” memo to news outlets including an updated “defamation list” (version 1.2), advising reporters not to mention or publish it. The memo was promptly leaked (update: the first out of the gate to leak was Emma Best of MuckRock). WikiLeaks then linked to a revised, heavily edited and redacted version (version 1.3) they posted “anonymously” on a text paste site.
Here, without further comment or editing, and in its entirety, is the WikiLeaks advisory.

Gentlemen actually do prefer blondes: study
They needed a study for that? Next you’re gonna tell me guys like women with big, um… Anyway, I was searching for the actual research and I found this:
Not so dumb! Blondes have more complex DNA, with more than three times the number of genetic variants than brunettes or redheads
Blondes may have a ditzy reputation, but their lighter locks are far more complex than scientists thought.
I’m not sure of the author’s hair color but I’m not seeing how more complex DNA for hair equates to “Not so dumb”. Maybe it’s because I’m a stupid brunet.
The actual research is here: Genome-wide study of hair colour in UK Biobank explains most of the SNP heritability

Seasonal affective disorder: your eye colour might be why you have the ‘winter blues’
You’re not alone if colder weather and longer nights make you feel down. This well-known phenomenon, called seasonal affective disorder (SAD), might explain why people feel low, irritable, and lethargic in the winter months. For some, the condition can be serious and debilitating.
Although SAD is a recognised form of clinical depression, experts are still divided on what causes the condition, with some even arguing it doesn’t exist. But my own research has found that your eye colour might actually be one factor determining whether or not you develop SAD.
Interesting.

Weekend Random Stuff…

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MS Office Updates Out, Some Already Pulled
How-to update MS Office: Install Office updates
All Office Downloads & Info
Office Standalone Latest Updates
Update history for Office 365 ProPlus – Version 1812: January 3
The updates for Office 2010 have been pulled:
January 2, 2019, update for Office 2010 (KB4032217)
After you install this update, you may experience difficulties in Microsoft Excel or other applications. To resolve this, uninstall the update by following the instructions in the “More information” section.
This update is no longer available.

Updated: WACUP (WinAmp Community Update Project)
Version 1.0.0.3174 released
WACUP (which can be pronounced as wakeup or wac-up or however you prefer it in your native tongue) is designed to work only with the patched Winamp 5.666 release to provide bug fixes, updates of existing features and most importantly new features with the goal to eventually become it’s own highly Winamp compatible media player.
WACUP makes use of the benefits of Winamp being heavily based on a plug-in system so new plug-ins can add additional features as well as allowing replacements to be created which provide better implementations over the plug-ins natively included with Winamp.
Download & Info

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

Apple plasters privacy ad on billboard near Las Vegas Convention Center ahead of CES
“What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.”
Well played Apple. Never been to CES (can’t afford it) and I didn’t know CES was still a serious thing. Especially since there was a move to reduce or eliminate the best thing about it, Booth Babes!

Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data
The Weather Channel app deceptively collected, shared and profited from the location information of millions of American consumers, the city attorney of Los Angeles said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Popular Weather App Collects Too Much User Data, Security Experts Say
The app, called “Weather Forecast—World Weather Accurate Radar,” collects data including smartphone users’ geographic locations, email addresses and unique 15-digit International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers on TCL servers in China

Congrats on the new baby. Would you like a DNA screening test?
Every baby born in the United States is given a routine blood test to screen for dozens of inherited medical conditions. Now, the U.S. National Institutes of Health is exploring whether to use DNA sequencing to screen newborn babies for additional genetic abnormalities and disorders…One of the “key ethical issues” when using genome sequencing as a screening tool in newborns (or children in general), she wrote, “is that a comprehensive genetic profile is established without the person’s consent and without a clinical indication…”The issue with genetic information is, that once generated, it cannot be made ‘undone,’ ” wrote Lunshof, who was not involved in Beggs’ study. “If genetic information (that is often probabilistic) is on file, will it be used similar to ‘existing disorders’ and lead to denial of health insurance coverage?”

Move Over ‘Friends,’ Millennials Now Find ‘Seinfeld’ Problematic
Now, one of the most popular and successful TV shows of all time is considered problematic for several jokes that were okay – or a little edgy – in the 1990s that are now offensive to American millennials. The previous victim of this new, politically correct world was “Friends.” Now, “Seinfeld” is getting the social justice warrior treatment.

Blue Moon named official “craft beer” of the Kentucky Derby
Twatwaffles. Blue Moon isn’t craft beer. It is owned by MillerCoors which is owned the Molson Coors Brewing Company, world’s 7th largest brewing company.
Craft beer has the following label:

METALLICA’s LARS ULRICH Interviews JOAN JETT For ‘It’s Electric!’ Radio Show
Joan Jett recently joined METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich for a special edition of “It’s Electric!”, his online radio show on Apple Music’s Beats 1. She reflects on performing with NIRVANA at the 2014 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, dissects the role of women in glam rock, discusses her 2018 documentary “Bad Reputation”, and more.
I love Joan Jett!

Wednesday Random Stuff…

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The holidays are over. Hopefully the tech world will start to slowly come out of it’s hangover induced lethargy.
Thus ends the slew off Off Topic posts. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Web Site Feedback On A Couple Of Issues

1 – Errors – A reader had contacted me earlier and said when he went to this site it appeared as a download. I didn’t understand what he meant but I’ve now seen it. The problem seems to exist for a while and then go away. My new web host is Inmotion. Their tech support continues to deny the situation exists and if it does it must be on my end. Never mind that I keep telling them that the problem first appeared when I switched to them. If you see this issue PLEASE take a screenshot and send it to me at tweakblog@gmail.com .

2 – Quote font color. I’ve been trying to differentiate quoted text via color vs italics. Is the color too light? Any suggestions?

Software Updates
7-Zip 18.06
Notepad++ 7.6.2

Windows 10 is now more popular than Windows 7
The latest Windows 10 operating system is now the most popular desktop OS in the world, finally beating Windows 7’s market share according to Net Applications. Windows 10 held 39.22 percent of desktop OS market share in December 2018, compared to 36.9 percent for Windows 7. It’s a statistic that’s taken Microsoft three and a half years to achieve, and it demonstrates just how popular Windows 7 has been since its release nearly 10 years ago.
For the most part you haven’t been able to by a Windows 7 computer in 2 years and Win10 was being given away for free (still is). Congrats on nothing Microsoft.

First-Ever UEFI Rootkit Tied to Sednit APT
Researchers hunting cyber-espionage group Sednit (an APT also known as Sofacy, Fancy Bear and APT28) say they have discovered the first-ever instance of a rootkit targeting the Windows Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in successful attacks…The rootkit is named LoJax. The name is a nod to the underlying code, which is a modified version of Absolute Software’s LoJack recovery software for laptops…The infection chain is typical: An attack begins with a phishing email or equivalent, successfully tricking a victim into downloading and executing a small rpcnetp.exe dropper agent. The rpcnetp.exe installs and reaches out to the system’s Internet Explorer browser, which is used to communicate with the configured domains…Once the UEFI rootkit is installed, there’s not much a user can do to remove it besides re-flashing the SPI memory or throwing out the motherboard…By enabling Secure Boot, and making sure their UEFI firmware is up to date, end users can protect themselves against attack
Great, just great.

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

Netflix drops satire episode critical of Saudi Arabia
Netflix confirmed Tuesday that it removed an episode of a satirical comedy show that criticizes Saudi Arabia, after officials in the kingdom reportedly complained.
Another American tech company sacrificing freedom for a dollar.

New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule
“Congratulations to NASA’s New Horizons team, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute for making history yet again. In addition to being the first to explore Pluto, today New Horizons flew by the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft and became the first to directly explore an object that holds remnants from the birth of our solar system,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “This is what leadership in space exploration is all about.”
Well done NASA.

Kentucky Distillers Scientifically Emulate A Century-Old Bottle Of Bourbon
But that antique bottle of Old Taylor, which was originally released in 1917, inspired Eaves — whose background is in chemical engineering — to use new technology to examine the bourbon’s past.”The most dominant flavor in that 1917 bourbon was the butterscotch note,” Eaves says. “That’s something that bourbon aficionados and the ‘dusty hunters’ recognize about historic Old Taylor bourbon is this beautiful, rich, creamy, sweet butterscotch note — and the mouthfeel of that particular bottle was really unique for a historic whiskey.”…According to Reigler, many people still don’t recognize all the science and technological innovations that underpin the bourbon industry — from increasingly computerized distilling systems to spirits analytics like what Eaves did with the antique bourbon.

Thursday Random Stuff…

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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

Friday Morning Random Stuff…

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Intel Graphics Driver for Windows 10
Version: 25.20.100.6471  Date: 12/20/2018
Performance improvements, quality improvements, bugfixes.
Download | Release Notes

Macrium Reflect v7.2.3957
Download | Release Notes

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

Apple confirms some iPad Pros ship slightly bent, but says it’s normal
according to the company, this is a side effect of the device’s manufacturing process and shouldn’t worsen over time or negatively affect the flagship iPad’s performance in any practical way. Apple does not consider it to be a defect.
LOL. Apple fanboys will just accept this lame ass statement.

Friday’s winter solstice 2018 features a full moon and meteor shower
This astronomical event officially arrives Friday at 5:23 p.m. EST. At this time of year, each day is about 24 hours, 30 seconds long. It’s because Earth is nearing its closest point to the sun in its elliptical orbit.
Why winter solstice 2018 is unique: December full moon, Ursid meteor shower, Mercury/Jupiter conjunction.

Millennials Strike Again: This Time We Are Killing Cash And ‘Merry Christmas’
A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll found that adults under 30 — so, mostly millennials — are the only age group among holiday shoppers with a clear preference for paying with plastic rather than cash. They’re also the only group to strongly prefer the non-Christmas-specific greeting “Happy Holidays.”

Stuff I Don’t Understand…
Dudes who wear hats or hoodies in the gym.
BTW. Show some class and take your hat off when indoors.
Manners & Civility – Should You Remove Your Hat When Indoors?

Thursday Morning Random Stuff…

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Those patches from yesterday are under active exploit. If you are one of the three people that actually use Internet Explorer then get patched.
The article about Facebook I linked to yesterday made its way to the major news outlets. CNN & Fox & NPR.
Seriously, #DeleteFacebook : How to Delete Facebook

Linux Mint 19.1 Is Out
Mint has become my distro of choice. I conduct the majority of my web activities in a Mint virtual machine.
19.1 brings many changes and is an LTS release supported until 2023.
I’m not real thrilled with the default kernel of 4.15. The current LTS is 4.19 and it has been out since October. 19.1 is said to have support for installing “mainline kernels“. I’ve not seen a decent guide on this.
Download Linux Mint 19.1 Tessa
New features in Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon

AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 2019 Edition 18.12.3 Drivers
Bugfixes
Release Notes
Windows 10 64-bit
Windows 7 64-bit

Other Software Releases
EMDB 3.29
FinalCrypt 2.8.0
HWiNFO 6 (I use portable.) (Use the green button to download)
VirtualBox 6

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

Least-Educated State: California
California ranks No. 1 among the 50 states for the percentage of its residents 25 and older who have never completed ninth grade and 50th for the percentage who have graduated from high school, according to new data from the Census Bureau.
“No surprise”, says the residents of the other 49 states.

The Runaways’ Jackie Fox Locks Up Her First Week on Jeopardy!
A former bassist with The Runaways — the late-1970s all-female, teenage proto-punk/hard-rock band that inspired countless women to take up music — Fox has stirred interest in the rock world and beyond with her success on the syndicated game show. After a Wednesday-morning taping at Jeopardy!’s studio in Culver City, she had earned enough money to win again, for her fourth day as champion.
She is one smart lady: Fuchs earned her B.A. summa cum laude from UCLA in Linguistics and Italian, with a specialization in computing, and her J.D. from Harvard, where Barack Obama was one of her classmates. Fox speaks Italian and French, as well as conversational Greek and Spanish.
The Runaways – Cherry Bomb – Official music video

Wednesday Morning Random Stuff…

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It is Wednesday right?

Intel PROSet/Wireless Software and Drivers for Windows 10
Version: 20.100.0 Date: 12/18/2018

Microsoft Blog – Windows Sandbox
Most of the Windows sites are talking about this. In a future Win10 build, Microsoft is going to introduce a TEMPORARY sandbox feature. It isn’t intended to be a replacement for Virtual Machines. Something most writers on this subject seem to be missing.
“an isolated, temporary, desktop environment where you can run untrusted software without the fear of lasting impact to your PC. Any software installed in Windows Sandbox stays only in the sandbox and cannot affect your host. Once Windows Sandbox is closed, all the software with all its files and state are permanently deleted.”
Sounds like a neat feature. x64, Win10 Pro and Enterprise only.

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

This free online tool uses AI to quickly remove the background from images

Google’s Secret China Project “Effectively Ended” After Fight
Google has been forced to shut down a data analysis system it was using to develop a censored search engine for China after members of the company’s privacy team raised internal complaints that it had been kept secret from them, The Intercept has learned.
C’mon man. Does anyone seriously believe that?

As Facebook Raised a Privacy Wall, It Carved an Opening for Tech Giants
Facebook insisted that it had instituted stricter privacy protections long ago. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive, assured lawmakers in April that people “have complete control” over everything they share on Facebook.
But the documents, as well as interviews with about 50 former employees of Facebook and its corporate partners, reveal that Facebook allowed certain companies access to data despite those protections.
#DeleteFacebook

New thing I’m gonna do:

Stuff I Don’t Understand…
Having another mans name on your underwear.

Tuesday Morning Random Stuff…

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Rollout Status as of December 17, 2018:
Windows 10, version 1809, is now fully available for advanced users who manually select “Check for updates” via Windows Update.

O&O ShutUp10 v1.6.1400
Download | Changelog

Wise Disk Cleaner v10.1.4.760
Download (I use portable) | Release Announcement

Macrium Reflect v7.2.3954
Download | Release Notes

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

Google CEO Sundar Pichai: Fears about artificial intelligence are ‘very legitimate,’ he says in Post interview
“but the tech industry should be trusted to responsibly regulate its use.”
The fox in charge of the hen house analogy was never more apt than here.

Apple Warns iPhones Have A Serious Problem
What Apple is changing is how users will be able to resize pictures and manage applications on their iPhones. How will these functions be altered? Apple hasn’t said, other than to confirm the update and describe this functionality as “minor” when it is clearly anything but.
So what is going on? In short: Apple is trying to win favour with judges and iPhone users are the test subjects for this.
Those “judges” are in China.

Google isn’t the company that we should have handed the Web over to
Microsoft adopting Chromium puts the Web in a perilous place.
Agreed but it may be too late.

Former Edge intern says Google sabotaged Microsoft’s browser
LOL at a Microsoftie whining about web standards.

Social media is turning a generation of children into liars, leading headmistress warns
teenagers tend to “curate” a certain image of themselves on their social media accounts, such as the photograph sharing platforms, Instagram and Snapchat.
They become used to covering up any perceived imperfections, and there is a danger is when this attitude trespasses into other aspects of their life too.
“If you get used to showing one image of yourself on social media, you may begin to believe that is completely aligned to reality,”
Just how is this different than adult social media users? #DeleteFacebook

Polar vortex could unleash winter wallop by January
“Confidence is growing in a significant #PolarVortex disruption in the coming weeks. This could be the single most important determinant of the weather this #winter across the Northern Hemisphere.”
I’m gonna need thicker socks.

Best Christmas Yard Display Ever (Image credit Instagram via Brobible)

Friday Random Stuff…

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Not much going on out there. I reckon it’s the holidays.

Watch Out: Clicking “Check for Updates” Still Installs Unstable Updates on Windows 10
Microsoft hasn’t learned its lesson. If you click the “Check for Updates” button in the Settings app, Microsoft still considers you a “seeker” and will give you “preview” updates that haven’t gone through the normal testing process.
I’m curious, do all the Microsoft execs have to go to clown school before they work there? Do they all have a Masters in Arrogance and Dismissiveness? Is the Microsoft campus in Redmond really just a giant echo chamber? The level of stupidity, incompetence, and condescension under the current leadership is a marvel to behold.

Weekend viewing:
Pabst Blue Ribbon Presents: The Greatest Beer Run Ever
At a time when the Vietnam War was at its height, one man, John “Chickie” Donohue, snuck back into the war zone to find his 3 closest friends and buy them a beer.

expired
Kershaw Leek Pocket Knife, 3″ blade, Made in U.S.A. TODAY ONLY
Was: $44.97
Deal of the Day: $23.99
You Save: $20.98 (47%)
Arrives before Christmas.

Thursday Afternoon News

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*Important – Win10 Privacy Issue article updated.

Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) v16.8.0.1000
Win10 only – Download & Info

Intel Ethernet Drivers v23.5
Win 7 | Win 8.1 | Win10 | Complete Driver Pack

CCleaner v5.51
Download (I use portable.) | Release Announcement
See also: Blocking A Programs Internet Access Via The Windows Firewall
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Amazon’s Disturbing Plan to Add Face Surveillance to Your Front Door
Recently, a patent application from Amazon became public that would pair face surveillance — like Rekognition, the product that the company is aggressively marketing to police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement — with Ring, a doorbell camera company that Amazon bought earlier this year.
While the details are sketchy, the application describes a system that the police can use to match the faces of people walking by a doorbell camera with a photo database of persons they deem “suspicious.” Likewise, homeowners can also add photos of “suspicious” people into the system and then the doorbell’s facial recognition program will scan anyone passing their home. In either case, if a match occurs, the person’s face can be automatically sent to law enforcement, and the police could arrive in minutes…Amazon is dreaming of a dangerous future, with its technology at the center of a massive decentralized surveillance network, running real-time facial recognition on members of the public using cameras installed in people’s doorbells.
I was actually considering buying a Ring doorbell. Should’ve known they would f*** it up.