Newsletter Archives

• Not getting the Free Newsletter?

  Posted on December 7, 2021 at 07:49 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  We’re in the process of scrubbing our mailing list for the free edition of the AskWoody Newsletter. We took some initial steps this past weekend and we will be making some other changes in the coming weeks. Most of what we are doing is removing invalid email addresses (usually the result of misspellings such as “gmal” instead of “gmail”) and removing addresses that, for whatever reasons, are not being delivered.

  A few people expecting to get this week’s newsletter wrote to tell us it did not arrive. We regret any inconvenience. However, it’s a simple matter to sign up for the free newsletter again, after which delivery will resume. The link to sign up is in the top banner of the site, on every page. If you missed an issue, all the issues are here on the site and available to you at any time.

  This is important work for us because we pay for emails sent, whether delivered or not. We appreciate your patience while we perform this business chore.

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, Editorial AskWoody FREE Newsletter, Email

• The new PC Health Check app is here (almost)

  Posted on August 30, 2021 at 02:44 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  WINDOWS 11

  

  By Will Fastie

  Hallelujah!

  Sorry. That might be a little over the top. Rejoicing may be too early. And maybe unjustified.

  On August 27, Microsoft posted an article titled Update on Windows 11 minimum system requirements and the PC Health Check app to its Windows Insider blog. The article covered two topics, as its title suggests.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.33.0 (2021-08-30).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.33.F (2021-08-30).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Windows 11 AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Windows, Windows 11, Windows 11 compatibility checker

• Where’s our ‘National Strategy for Cyberspace’?

  Posted on August 16, 2021 at 02:45 CDT by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.31 • 2021-08-16

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  Crime on the Internet has gotten ridiculous.

  In 2020, the Federal Trade Commission received 4.8 million complaints of identity theft (and many others go unreported). At least 37% of businesses around the globe experienced a ransomware attack last year, according to security firm Sophos. And for six days in May, hackers were even able to shut down a pipeline that supplies 45% of the US East Coast’s fuel.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.31.0 (2021-08-16).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.31.F (2021-08-16).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Public Defender AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Cybersecurity, cyberspace

• The sheriff in the inbox

  Posted on August 9, 2021 at 02:45 CDT by Max Stul Oppenheimer • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.30 • 2021-08-09

  LEGAL BRIEF

  

  By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.

  Has the International Trade Commission come up with the opening wedge in eliminating important protection against lawsuits — or merely the worst idea ever for a holiday toy?

  Do you have a Facebook or LinkedIn or Amazon.com profile? Have you ever annoyed a foreign individual or company? How would you feel about opening one of your accounts and discovering a summons to appear in, say, Beijing, to explain yourself? The US International Trade Commission (ITC) may have just opened the door to that possibility.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.30.0 (2021-08-09).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.30.F (2021-08-09).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Legal AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, lawsuit, Legal Brief, process

• Securing sensitive files in OneDrive’s cloud

  Posted on May 31, 2021 at 01:04 CDT by Fred Langa • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.20 • 2021-05-31

  LANGALIST

  

  By Fred Langa

  Does it feel like rolling the security dice when you save your files to a cloud-based service? When the files move out of your control and protection and into who-knows-what security measures the cloud-provider is using? You feelin’ lucky?

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.20.F (2021-05-31).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, LangaList, OneDrive

• A quiet month of May

  Posted on May 31, 2021 at 01:00 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  

  By Susan Bradley

  21H1 is released. Quietly. With no fuss.

  The big release of this month is not the security patches released earlier but rather the May appearance of Windows 10 version 21H1. Microsoft currently has released 21H1 to “seekers” — that is, those people who click on Check for Updates in the Windows update interface. The 21H1 release is a bit anticlimactic; it doesn’t contain many changes. 21H1 even shares the same “base” as 2004 and 20H2. On my test laptop, the install of 21H1 was very fast and caused no side effects.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.20.0 (2021-05-31).

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Watch AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Patch Lady Posts, Patch Watch

• Other Apple privacy practices

  Posted on May 17, 2021 at 01:03 CDT by Nathan Parker • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.18 • 2021-05-17

  APPLE

  

  By Nathan Parker

  Not all privacy settings are neatly contained in the main Settings app in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.

  In my previous articles in this series on Apple’s privacy settings, I enumerated those found in what we might call the “usual places.” There are some others involving privacy that are found elsewhere. This final article in the series will help you find those “out of the box” controls.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.18.0 (2021-05-17).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.18.F (2021-05-17).

  Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Privacy Apple, Apple privacy, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Privacy

• Take control of your Mac’s privacy

  Posted on May 3, 2021 at 01:08 CDT by Nathan Parker • Comment in the Forums

  ISSUE 18.16 • 2021-05-03

  APPLE

  

  By Nathan Parker

  Apple’s emphasis on privacy is focused on personal devices, such as iPads and iPhones. But Macs have privacy settings, too.

  In my recent article “Take control of your privacy — iPhone & iPad” (AskWoody 18.12, 2021-04-05), I discussed many of the settings provided by iOS and iPadOS to control the privacy and security of the device and the apps running on it. Although one might think all Apple systems would be in lockstep, I have noticed that the settings in macOS are not quite as granular, not quite as detailed, as those in iOS/iPadOS.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.16.0 (2021-05-03).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.16.F (2021-05-03).

  Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Privacy Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, macOS, Privacy

• New M1 devices from Apple

  Posted on April 26, 2021 at 01:08 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  APPLE NEWS

  

  By Will Fastie

  Last week Apple welcomed more models into its family of M1-powered devices, including two new iPads!

  I listened to last Tuesday’s Apple event announcing a new iMac and the new iPads as well as several other less important products. I have a lot of thoughts not only about the products, but also about how Apple might interact with us in the future.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.15.0 (2021-04-26).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.15.F (2021-04-26).

  Apple, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter Apple, Apple Silicon, AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, News

• AskWoody Improvements

  Posted on April 5, 2021 at 01:08 CDT by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  EDITORIAL

  

  By Will Fastie, Editor

  We continue to make changes to AskWoody, to make it easier and faster for you to use.

  Susan Bradley and I have been subscribers to AskWoody and its predecessors from the get-go. And we’ve both been contributors, Susan for a very long time and I for about a year. We’ve been on the outside looking in, but that’s been reversed: we’re now the ones behind the curtain.

  Read the full story in the AskWoody Plus Newsletter 18.12.0 (2021-04-05).
  This story also appears in the AskWoody Free Newsletter 18.12.F (2021-04-05).

  AskWoody, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Editorial AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Editorial

• A housekeeping note about the Free Newsletter

  Posted on July 21, 2020 at 07:48 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  The AskWoody FREE Newsletter went out about 12 hours ago, and there are several outstanding questions that keep cropping up. Here’s a quick FAQ:

  Why am I getting both the Plus Newsletter and the FREE Newsletter? That’s by design. You can keep your FREE Newsletter subscription as long as you like, even if you’ve made a donation and become a Plus Member. Some people find it worthwhile to have the FREE Newsletter to remind them that the full Plus Newsletter arrived earlier (spam filters are such a pain!). Others want to have something they can forward to friends. In any case, the two subscriptions are maintained in two separate databases. Neither affects the other.

  How can I change my email address on the FREE Newsletter? It’s a two-step process. You can click Unsubscribe in any FREE Newsletter and have your email removed from the list. (Or you can write to me and I’ll remove it.) But I can’t add a new address to the list – our list management software is very picky about new addresses, and it should be. If you want to subscribe to the FREE Newsletter, you (or everybody you know!) can head over here to our signup page.

  The FREE Newsletter is, uh, free. We don’t sell, rent, give away or otherwise monkey around with the mailing list. We support the FREE Newsletter by running one ad, at the top of each issue. It’s the only ad in all of AskWoody-dom.

  How can I ask a technical question? You can shoot email to me, but I’ll recommend that you post your question here on the site, so everyone can benefit. With well over 200,000 subscribers, you might imagine that I get a lot of questions. I talk about that in the FAQ. Posting questions (and viewing them and answering them) is completely free. No obligations at all.

  A shout-out to our Plus members. Thanks a thousand times over to our Plus Members – the ones with gold ribbons on their pictures/avatars. I know times are tight. Believe me, I feel it too. Donations have been running slow this summer — a natural consequence of the economic times, I s’pose. If you aren’t yet a Plus Member, please consider joining us. It’s easy – and you get to choose how much to pay.

  We run things differently around these parts.

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter, AskWoody Plus membership AskWoody FREE Newsletter

• The AskWoody FREE Newsletter just went out

  Posted on June 8, 2020 at 14:35 CDT by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Issue 17.22.F just went out to 201,236 recipients.

  You can see the FREE newsletter here. (Yes, it’s available for everyone.)

  You can sign up for the FREE newsletter here.

  If you subscribed to both the Plus Newsletter and the FREE Newsletter, and don’t want the freebie, you can unsubscribe from the latter. Just click the Unsubscribe link that’s at the top of any issue. The FREE Newsletter and Plus Newsletter are handled by two completely separate databases: Unsubscribing from one won’t have any effect on the other.

  To change your FREE newsletter email address, click Unsubscribe at the top of the newsletter to dislodge your old email address, then head over to the sign up page to add your new email address.

  AskWoody FREE Newsletter AskWoody FREE Newsletter
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