Blog Archives

• Excess heat during laptop recharging?

  Posted on January 25th, 2021 at 01:30 FredLanga Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  Excess heat during laptop recharging?

  By Fred Langa

  A reader is concerned: His laptop’s CPU temperature rises during battery-charging sessions. Why would the CPU heat up?

  Relatedly, what are normal CPU temperatures, anyway? What’s a safe temperature rise?

  Plus: A tiny freeware app that prevents PC overheating!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.3.0 (2021-01-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, LangaList hardware, LangaList

• Hackers are running your smart home

  Posted on January 25th, 2021 at 01:25 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  Hackers are running your smart home

  By Brian Livingston

  I never thought it would get this bad. But it has.

  There are now more Internet of Things (IoT) devices than there are people on the planet. And the vast majority of those IoT gadgets are wide open, easily taken over by malicious hackers and used against you, your community, and the world.

  Almost half of all technology managers have let IoT gizmos — printers, HVAC systems, protocol gateways, etc. — into their corporate networks without changing the default passwords, according to a ForeScout survey.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.3.0 (2021-01-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Home Networks, Public Defender

• Freeware Spotlight – Immunet 7

  Posted on January 25th, 2021 at 01:20 Deanna McElveen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Best Utilities

  Freeware Spotlight — Immunet 7

  By Deanna McElveen

  Where did the good, free antivirus programs go?

  Remember how great the little AVG and Avast Antivirus companies from the Czech Republic once were? Well, they got big — real big — and then they merged back in 2016, as is often the case with small tech companies. Unfortunately, many use their free versions as a loss leader for their paid versions, which sadly means the free versions act like adware, popping up ads to nag users.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.3.0 (2021-01-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Best Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Deanna's Freeware Spotlight

• Schrödinger’s Bill

  Posted on January 25th, 2021 at 01:15 Max Stul Oppenheimer Comment on the AskWoody Lounge
  

  Legal Brief

  Schrödinger’s Bill

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  The recently passed Consolidated Appropriations Act includes provisions that should be of interest to those involved in e-commerce or whose use of the Internet involves copyrights.

  In March 2010, when House Speaker Pelosi told the National Association of Counties that we needed to pass the Affordable Care Act in order to find out what’s in it, few saw the humorous reference to one of the most famous parables of modern physics: Schrödinger’s cat.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.3.0 (2021-01-25).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal, Legislation AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal Brief

• What Linux is and why it has persisted

  Posted on January 18th, 2021 at 02:45 Sandra Henry-Stocker Comment on the AskWoody Lounge
  

  LINUX

  What Linux is and why it has persisted

  By Sandra Henry-Stocker

  When all your friends are using Windows and the desktops at work are all running Windows, Linux might be one of the last things you’d even think about.

  Anyone who has never taken a dive into Linux may wonder why anyone would bother using what might appear to be a nonstandard, aberrant, fragmented operating system with hundreds of different builds. There are, however, many reasons why Linux has become a successful OS, why hundreds of Linux distributions have come into being, and why Linux enthusiasts are so enamored with it.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.2.0 (2021-01-18).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Linux AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Linux

• Find the cable modem that’s just right for your ISP

  Posted on January 18th, 2021 at 02:40 Brian Livingston Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  Find the cable modem that’s just right for your ISP

  By Brian Livingston

  It’s hard as hell to find out the best device you can obtain to connect to an ISP. This can save you hundreds of dollars that you’d ordinarily pay over time for “renting” one.

  In last week’s column, I gave you Steps 1, 2, and 3 that determine the bandwidth you need — e.g., 25Mbps, 100Mbps, 1Gbps — and whether your own modem or gateway can replace the generic one your cable company provides. (Cable is now the way most Americans get broadband Internet access.)

  Today, we’ll go through the remaining steps to identify the exact piece of hardware that’s compatible with
  the service level you’ve chosen and with your ISP’s standards.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.2.0 (2021-01-18).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody Plus Newsletter

• Four GB of RAM vanishes … but then reappears

  Posted on January 18th, 2021 at 02:35 FredLanga Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  LANGALIST

  Four GB of RAM vanishes … but then reappears

  By Fred Langa

  A long-stable Win10 PC with 12GB of RAM suddenly crashes after losing track of a full third of its memory — only to have the missing RAM later reappear and work fine!

  The other symptoms seem to rule out simple RAM-chip failures or software-caused glitches. What the heck is going on here?

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.2.0 (2021-01-18).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Hardware, LangaList LangaList

• Wow! Even more Office updates!

  Posted on January 18th, 2021 at 02:30 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  PATCH WATCH

  Wow! Even more Office updates!

  By Susan Bradley

  • Office 2010 receives more updates this month
  • Windows Defender had a zero day that silently was patched
  • Security update for Secure Boot DBX can be skipped (KB 4535680)
  • I’m giving the all-clear for Windows 10 2004

  Well … once again, we thought we’d seen the last of Office 2010. And here we are AGAIN with more updates!

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.2.0 (2021-01-18).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Watch AskWoody Plus Newsletter, KB 4535680, Office updates, Patch Lady Posts
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