Newsletter Archives

• Tomorrow is World Backup Day

  Posted on March 30th, 2021 at 19:38 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Tomorrow, March 31, is World Backup day, a day that you are supposed to take stock and make sure your computers are truly backed up.

  “I solemnly swear to backup my important documents and precious memories on March 31st.”

  So what do you use for backing up your device? Personally, I’d urge you to do more than just backing up your documents and memories – you need to have a full image backup of your computer because you never know when a hard drive will fail, a patch will cause issues, or you accidentally save over the top of a file you didn’t intend to save over.

   

  Utilities Patch Lady Posts

• AskWoody Ultimate Utilities List — Fall edition

  Posted on November 22nd, 2020 at 21:05 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  UTILITIES

  By TB Capen

  Playing with new utilities for Windows PCs can be fun.

  Many are free, and they show an inventive range of solutions to common — and not-so-common — problems and tasks.

  And let’s face it: there are some apps built into Windows that are still rather … underwhelming. Photos? Groove Music? Mail? No thanks.

  The topic of essential utilities came up recently when I upgraded a relatively old ThinkPad.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.46.0 (2020-11-23).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Essential utilities, Third-party apps

• Following a trail of utilities

  Posted on November 8th, 2020 at 21:00 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  SHORTS

  By TB Capen

  It’s always a bit surprising how researching one topic can lead you to others.

  In this case, it started with an AskWoody Lounge post about the classic FTP app FileZilla.

  A forum member was concerned that the FileZilla download files reportedly contain malware. That’s unlikely, but a free version of the app currently does include “sponsoring” software

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.44.0 (2020-11-09).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, FTP, system information, Virus scanners

• Windows PowerToys — returns!

  Posted on September 13th, 2020 at 21:10 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge
  

  UTILITIES

  By Nathan Segal

  When it comes to utilities for Windows, most of us are conditioned to look either inside the OS or beyond Microsoft

  We forget that the folks in Redmond offer a wide variety of accessory tools and utilities online. When was the last time you visited Sysinternals, home of the classic Sysmon and Process Explorer?

  Another example is Microsoft PowerToys (GitHub page), which has been resurrected as an open-source app for Windows 10. This collection of useful tools is designed primarily for power users, but the average Windows jockey might want to look at them, too.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.36.0 (2020-09-14).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Color picker, Keyboard remapping, Power-user apps, PowerToys, Windows shortcuts

• Patch Lady – Teams background needs AVX2

  Posted on May 3rd, 2020 at 19:25 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  So if you are using Microsoft teams and for a week or so it supported custom backgrounds and now it doesn’t it’s because Teams now requires AVX2 in order to support the blurred background/custom background feature.

  Bottom line AVX2 is a certain newer chipset.  You can download CPU-Z to determine if your computer supports it … or not.

  I’ve seen the number of green backgrounds you can use for online meetings, but just as important is the security features of each video conferencing platform.

   

  Utilities, Windows 10 Patch Lady Posts

• Patch Lady – protecting your loved ones

  Posted on March 16th, 2020 at 15:38 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Spotted this twitter post and loved it…

  A message from me and my dad, @Melbrooks. #coronavirus #DontBeASpreader pic.twitter.com/Hqhc4fFXbe

  — Max Brooks (@maxbrooksauthor) March 16, 2020

   

  Also on CSOOnline I have some tips for businesses suddenly having to work from home.

  (edit:  Note if you don’t want to sign up you can view the video here)

  Everyone keep safe and sane out there.

  (and after this always have toilet paper in stock so you don’t have to go crazy and buy out Costco)

  Utilities Patch Lady Posts

• Comparing three file-compression tools

  Posted on February 24th, 2020 at 01:00 Tracey Capen Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  GENERAL COMPUTING

  By Lance Whitney

  Windows includes its own tool for compressing and uncompressing single files, multiple files, and entire folders.

  But the two most popular third-party compression tools — 7-Zip and WinZip — are far more powerful and capable.

  Windows’ built-in ZIP tool will get the job done for basic compression tasks, but it has some important limitations. For example, it has no option for creating or unzipping encrypted files. You also can’t control the compression format or level. Those are all options 7-Zip and WinZip handle with ease.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.8.0 (2020-02-24).

  Utilities 7-Zip, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, encryption, File compression, WinZip, ZIP files

• Born: Reported profile problems with the newly updated Firefox

  Posted on December 4th, 2019 at 06:35 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Günter Born reports that the new versions of Firefox, released yesterday — version 71 for most people and ESR (Extended Service Release) 68.3.0 for those on the extended track — have prompted problem reports. It isn’t clear if these are one-off, or if they’re indicative of a larger problem.

  • Upgrading to ESR 68.3 damages the default profile (C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default).
  • Upgrading to ESR 68.3 or Firefox 71 removes the policies.json file (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\distribution\policies.json).

  In addition, Born has a report that the picture-in-picture function for video playback keeps gobbling up memory.

  Can you confirm any of those reports?

  Utilities Firefox

• The new new PowerToys are here

  Posted on September 6th, 2019 at 08:04 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Time to resurrect this post from May:

  The rebirth of Windows PowerToys. Not.

  Now we’re hearing about new, new, new PowerToys, which is to say (1) an overlay list of Windows key shortcuts (lame) and (2) a window manager that lets you snap to any location (possibly useful).

  Last May, we were promised the Windows key shortcut utility (which has changed in design since May), and a “Maximize to new desktop” feature, which seems to have fallen by the wayside.

  Utilities PowerToys

• Patch Lady – looking for options?

  Posted on September 4th, 2019 at 12:56 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  I stumbled across this site the other day:  https://alternativeto.net/ and in particular https://alternativeto.net/software/microsoft-office-suite/

  For those of you looking for alternatives for …. fill in the blank older software that is no longer patched… you may want to check out that site for ideas of alternatives.

  Utilities Patch Lady Posts

• Patch Lady – Chrome is out…what’s in?

  Posted on September 2nd, 2019 at 15:54 Susan Bradley Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  Have you noticed this too?  Chrome sucks RAM like…. well it reminds me of what my Dad says about one of his cars — it can’t pass a gas station.  Bottom line Chrome lately is demanding RAM memory.  So much so that I’ve seen more and more talk about moving over to another browser.

  The other day at the conference I was at we talked about what is a “comfortable” Windows 10.

  250 Gig SSD

  8 to 16 gigs of RAM (or more if you are in the mood).

  I recently added more ram to my computer by going to crucial.com and getting their recommended upgrade.  Rather than remove the ram that was in my computer, I merely added the RAM to bump it up to 32 gigs.

  Bottom line if you still have a SATA drive, it’s time to upgrade to SSD.  Use a cloning software and a data cable to get the old data from the old drive to the new drive.  Or if you are buying a computer make sure you specifically look for a SSD boot drive.

  Utilities, Windows 10 Patch Lady Posts

• Patch Lady – How to avoid using RDP in Windows

  Posted on August 21st, 2019 at 09:46 woody Comment on the AskWoody Lounge

  An important new article from Susan Bradley in CIO Online:

  BlueKeep and DejaBlue are both potent threats. All of the variants depend on using Remote Desktop Services (commonly abbreviated RDP). Susan Bradley takes you through the steps to avoid or hide RDP, particularly in an enterprise.

  I still recommend that you not install the August Windows patches, which include DejaBlue fixes, specifically because they’re throwing errors like flowers at a wedding. (The May patches for BlueKeep are another story entirely. You should’ve installed those long ago.) But if you have RDP enabled on an internet-facing connection, it’s time to shut it off.

  Those of you connected to corporate servers should follow Susan’s advice and figure out an alternative to public-facing RDP. Those of you with standalone computers can take a couple of simple steps:

  In Vista or Win7, click My Computer and choose Computer. At the top, click System properties. On the left, click Remote Settings. You should be on the Remote tab, and the button under Remote Desktop marked “Don’t allow connections to this computer” should be selected. If it isn’t, click it and click OK.

  In Win10, right-click Start and choose System. On the left, choose Remote Desktop. Make sure the slider to Enable Remote Desktop is set Off.

  I’m not going to guarantee that those simple steps will ward off the Blue Evil Eyes, if and when they appear. But they’ll make breaking your system with the Blues just that much harder.

  If you need to get into your system remotely, there are dozens of alternatives. I use the free Chrome Remote Desktop, but my needs are tiny and I’m not overly concerned about Google snooping me even more. If you want the Tesla version, check out Solarwinds from Dameware. – which is $380 per site.

  Utilities, Windows Patches/Security DejaBlue, RDP
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