Newsletter Archives

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

  Posted on September 2, 2019 at 15:54 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  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 21, 2019 at 09:46 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  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

• Freeware Spotlight — StopUpdates10

  Posted on August 19, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  This year, it seems like installing Microsoft updates is a bit like playing Russian roulette with your computer — or the computers under your care.

  It might be surprising to learn that there are many third-party utilities offering tools to extend update deferrals — we’re happy to host one that actually works: StopUpdates10.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.29.0 (2019-08-19).

  Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Update blockers, utilities

• Kaspersky antivirus places a unique identifier on every website you visit

  Posted on August 16, 2019 at 15:51 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  I still swear by Microsoft Defender.

  Dan Goodin at Ars Technica has the story:

  For almost four years, AV products from Kaspersky Lab injected a unique identifier into the HTML of every website a user visited, making it possible for sites to identify people even when using incognito mode or when they switched between Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.

  The JavaScript… was designed to, among other things, present a green icon that corresponded to safe links returned in search results.

  Looks like Kaspersky ended its wayward ways in a June update. Four years later.

  Utilities Kaspersky Antivirus

• Freeware Spotlight — Eraser

  Posted on July 15, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  BEST UTILITIES

  By Deanna McElveen

  When you run a computer repair/IT business such as ours, you’re always looking for software to make your job easier.

  Recently, I was looking for a program that would securely wipe free space on refurbished computers without zapping Windows. I ran across Eraser (developed by Garrett Trant, Joel Low, and Dennis van Lith; more info) and decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.26.0 (2019-07-15).

  Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, drive wiping, eraser

• Freeware Spotlight — CipherShed

  Posted on July 8, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  Best Utilities

  By Deanna McElveen

  In a digital world that’s becoming increasingly less safe, data encryption is one of the better tools for keeping cyber thieves at bay.

  That’s especially true if you travel with a laptop or a flash drive — just imagine the damage you might incur if your device were lost or stolen. But keeping sensitive files, folders, and/or entire disks encrypted will make your files inaccessible to the device’s “new owner.”

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.25.0 (2019-07-08).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Utilities AskWoody Plus Newsletter, CipherShed, encryption, security
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