Happy Holidays 2022

Happy holidays to all and hope everyone around the world has had a great and safe morning no matter where you are or what you celebrate.

Today is the day I make one of my favorite breakfast recipes. And of course, while I could go find the cookbook on the shelf, like any good geek, I just googled it. Or rather duck duck go’d it.  (Sorry duck, you are going to have to work on your naming as it just doesn’t roll off the tongue.

Here’s hoping you have a wonderful holiday season, always have batteries on hand, always have power on hand, always have lit up Christmas trees and no burnt out bulbs and above all else, always have a helpful community to help you through any questions that life, or technology may throw your way.

Thanks to all our our readers and forum participants

So did you buy a new computer or laptop this season?

What did you buy?  What brand did you buy and why?  What specs?  Hard drive, memory?

Where did you buy it?  Several of my friends buy electronics at Costco because of the return policy.

One thing that I’m sad to see in the marketplace is that while you can find Chromebooks, the market for Linux based laptops and desktops is moved back to niche brands and a bit more expensive business machines and not affordable (i.e. cheap) home versions. Yes you can put it on older laptops that are aging away from Windows 7 and 8.1 but it’s also nice to see a healthy ecosystem of cheaper Linux based laptops geared towards the home market.

So what did you buy? Why did you buy it? Where did you buy it?

If you use LastPass…. read on

So there is a bit of disturbing read on the LastPass situation

Read this first.

also a bit of commentary from a Security expert on the topic:

Ask yourself…. do you have two factor authentation set up on your LastPass? I have Yubikey as a second factor on my password manager.

If you use LastPass and do not have two factor enabled, ensure that you change your master password. Add two factor authentication to any cloud based password manager.

Don’t get rid of a password manager, just make sure it’s appropriately protected. We will cover more on how best to protect your passwords in a future newsletter.

Patching year 2022 comes to a close

PATCH WATCH

By Susan Bradley

Every vendor brought us a lump of coal.

No matter which platform you use, we are closing out a year in which we have been very vulnerable. From Microsoft to Apple to our firewall vendors — and even to Linux distros such as Ubuntu and Mint — just about every vendor has ended the year with patches, vulnerabilities unfixed, and new releases.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.51.0, 2022-12-19).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

Will the last tech worker who is fired please turn off the server

PUBLIC DEFENDER

By Brian Livingston

A wave of layoffs by the world’s largest technology companies is causing widespread fears. People are afraid that the growth spurt in online commerce that occurred during the coronavirus pandemic may be over — and opportunities for tech employment may never be the same again.

Firings and separations are certainly ripping through the Internet at a rapid pace. But the impact of all this downsizing may not be exactly what you might expect.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.51.0, 2022-12-19).

Defibrillate your “dead” laptop

HARDWARE

By Ben Myers

I confess: I do not have a defibrillator to use on a laptop.

Beginning with Windows 7, a laptop in sleep mode can become unresponsive and completely inoperative. In the repair business, we call this “dead.” Ultimately, it’s about managing your laptop’s battery.

On the average, a seemingly dead laptop lands in my hands every couple of months. That is not often enough to be classified as a major problem by Microsoft, but it is still very real.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.51.0, 2022-12-19).

RemindMe — The digital spouse

FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT

By Deanna McElveen

My husband has always claimed that he doesn’t forget things.

His excuse is that he purges them from his brain to make room for more computer knowledge. You know, purging things like previous vacations, former pets … his momma’s birthday.

I went looking for a reminder program to assist with all of my husband’s new medical appointments and stuff. I found a great one by Dutch software engineer Stefan Gansevles. The program is called — simply enough — RemindMe, and it is an absolute breeze to use.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.51.0, 2022-12-19).

So when do you decide to update?

So there’s a pending update. It has security components. Should you update immediately? Well if you are a regular AskWoody reader you’d know what that answer is. Tonight’s tip for the weekend is not about what you should do if you run Windows, rather it’s about what to do if you run the Apple platform.

Unless you’ve set your machine to automatically install updates, you can see that you’ll be reminded/prompted that Ventura 13.1 is ready to be installed if you’ve already installed Ventura 13. But should you install Ventura in the first place?

.

First you need to ask yourself – do you have a backup? Should something happen with the update or should the hard drive fail for any reason, you want to make sure you have a backup. So first review if your backup has been working. On the Apple platform you can either use the built in time vault or use a third party program to back up your computer. Next no matter the platform I make sure I test how to restore at least a file. It may feel a bit extreme to test restore an entire machine, but at a minimum you should delete a few files and then test restoring those files.

Ventura includes improvements to search in Messages, an option to play a sound in the Find My app to locate AirTags, AirPods Pro, and ‌Find My‌ network accessories, plus there are several bug fixes.

Now just like in the Microsoft universe, there is no need to install major updates right away. Especially in business and University settings, some are still saying to hold off and not install Ventura on your Apple systems. And of course the more you hold back, the more the vendor puts back those items that they removed and people wanted back.

Bottom line, no matter what the platform, have a backup. Don’t jump to a new release too quickly. Take the advice from this site no matter the platform and don’t be first in updating your system.

Master Patch List as of December 13, 2022

#PatchTuesday

Business patchers:  Microsoft has indicated that they fixed the memory issue with the LSASS patch but still waiting for community confirmation.

Consumers:  Defer updates at this time.  The secure boot patch KB5012170 has been released to apply to Windows 10 and 11 22H2 so be sure to defer it as well.

I’ve updated the Master Patch List for Tuesday’s releases.

It’s too soon at this time for consumers to be making recommendations, I’m still watching for issues.

For businesses, the impact to look out for and keep an eye on are the Kerberos related patches.  Microsoft has indicated that the memory leak issues introduced in last month’s Kerberos updates have been fixed but I am still waiting for community confirmation.

As a reminder

• Windows 11 22H2: Not recommended
• Windows 11 21H2: If you have a Windows 11 PC, recommended
• Windows 10 22H2: Recommended
• Windows 10 21H2: Recommended (if a vendor won’t support 22H2)

As always, thank you all for supporting the cause! Remember a donation will give you access and if you donate $50 or more you’ll get a special code to enable text messages sent to your phone each time the Master Patch List gets updated and when I change the MS-DEFCON level.

Final patches for 2022

#PatchTuesday and MicrosoftCentric

It’s the final patches for 2022 for those of you in the Microsoft centric world

But don’t just think operating systems….. Firefox is out with Version 108

Citrix is recommending you update Citrix ADC and Gateway 

Fortinet is patching a zero day in FortiOS SSL VPNs

No matter what OS you have, take this week to review your vulnerabilities.

I’ll link up to the patches once they come out – and remember I’ll have full detailed guidance in the next newsletter.

Looks like .net security updates this month.

Our dear dear friend the lovely secure boot patch KB5012170 has been released to apply to Windows 10 22H2.

PK reports that searching in the Microsoft catalog site appears to be wonky – you can search by KB but searching by 2022-12 gives you results that don’t make sense. Apparently the Outlook search team is branching out to the Catalog site?

Is it time to move to Windows 11?

WINDOWS 11

By Lance Whitney

Microsoft is increasingly aiming its latest enhancements at Windows 11 instead of Windows 10. Does that mean it’s time to jump ship to the newest version of Windows?

I’m in the market for a new primary laptop and face a choice of outfitting it with Windows 10 or Windows 11. A few months ago, I might have gone with Windows 10, but now I’m shooting for Windows 11. The irony is that I’ve been critical of Windows 11, specifically because of the dumbing down and inflexibility of the Start menu, Taskbar, and certain other features. So why am I opting for Windows 11?

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.50.0, 2022-12-12).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

Getting everything you care about into OneNote

ONENOTE

By Mary Branscombe

OneNote becomes increasingly useful as you put more and more of your information into it, and there are many other ways to do that besides typing or using copy and paste.

Last time, I looked at why you might want to pull different kinds of information into OneNote. There are lots of tools in OneNote itself for doing that, as well as browser extensions and third-party services that can help.

You can also do many of these things in the Windows 10 OneNote app, but because that won’t be getting new features, I will discuss only how to do them in the desktop OneNote app.

Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.50.0, 2022-12-12).