Newsletter Archives
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The right to be sued
ISSUE 20.19 • 2023-05-08 LEGAL BRIEF
By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq.
Law students are sometimes puzzled by the section of the Corporations Statute saying that corporations have the right to be sued.
Why, they wonder, would anyone want to be sued? Wouldn’t it be better to have the right not to be sued?
The answer is subtle.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.19.0, 2023-05-08).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter. -
Want a faster, quieter PC? Cool it in water.
PUBLIC DEFENDER
By Brian Livingston
I’m not actually suggesting that you soak your computer in a bathtub. But keeping a high-powered CPU from frying — without the earsplitting hum of roaring fans — means a liquid cooler could be just the thing your PC needs.
It’s well known that water and some nonconductive oils are much more efficient than air at removing heat from electronic components. Many tower and desktop PCs have enough space for a built-in or add-on liquid chilling system. This can enable you to push a CPU to the max without burning it out.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.19.0, 2023-05-08).
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Microsoft Office’s drawing tools
MICROSOFT 365
By Peter Deegan
Many people are aware of the powerful program Visio and its drawing powers. Fewer know that a comprehensive, though basic, set of drawing tools is available in Office programs such as Word and Excel.
Let’s dig into the hidden and more interesting possibilities of Microsoft Office Shapes and its close cousin, Icons. You can use them to make a simple flowchart or diagram, or just add some easy decoration to a document, sheet, or slide.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.19.0, 2023-05-08).
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Planning for the final digital divide
ON SECURITY
By Susan Bradley
In a letter to Jean-Baptiste Le Roy in 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote a phrase that has often been repeated ever since.
Most of us don’t realize that his comment started with a mention of the recently signed U.S. Constitution, but instead remember only the final part of his saying.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.19.0, 2023-05-08).
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The pros and cons of RAID 1
ISSUE 20.18 • 2023-05-01 HARDWARE
By Will Fastie
Revisiting an old friend, it’s time to update our thinking about RAID 1.
In our all-too-brief time working together, Fred Langa and I had only one point of disagreement — RAID (redundant array of inexpensive drives). Our bone of contention dealt with RAID level 1, the “mirror.” That’s the focus of this, our spring bonus edition of the newsletter.
Following this brief explanation, I’ll provide an update on the RAID situation with two of my PCs, Onyx and Opal.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.18.0, 2023-05-01).
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Fixing Onyx’s RAID 1 failure
HARDWARE DIY
By Will Fastie
Before I was able to decommission Onyx, my daily driver desktop PC, one of my hard drives failed. Hard.
Why the hard failure? Because I didn’t take my own advice — to replace hard drives every five years. The two Seagate drives in Onyx’s RAID 1 array were built in 2014 and put into service in 2015.
One of the drives failed nine months ago, so it lasted seven years — two years later than when I should have replaced it. Fortunately, Onyx is modern enough to have a good RAID system, from Intel. The fix was remarkably easy and, for the most part, automated.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.18.0, 2023-05-01).
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Configuring RAID 1 for Opal
HARDWARE DIY
By Will Fastie
The last stumbling block in my quest to bring Opal, my new desktop PC, online has been resolved.
Back when I was building Opal, my new PC to run Windows 11, I ran into a problem configuring two 6TB drives as a RAID 1 array. I struggled with that, which surprised me because it was relatively easy setting up the mirror on my original box, Onyx.
I let Opal lie fallow. My excuse was that my wife had acquired her Lenovo Yoga, which was happily running Windows 11 Pro. That gave me access to a machine when I needed to deal with a Windows 11 topic for this newsletter. The delay that ensued turned out to have been a good thing.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.18.0, 2023-05-01).
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The problem with local administrator accounts
ISSUE 20.17 • 2023-04-24 Look for our BONUS issue on Monday, May 1, 2023! ON SECURITY
By Susan Bradley
Microsoft doesn’t want you to use a local administrator account, whether in a consumer or a business edition of Windows.
But depending upon which sort of user you are, the company is taking two different approaches to “encourage” you to stop using local accounts.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.17.0, 2023-04-24).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter. -
Windows 11 screws up Print Screen — here’s how to fix it
PUBLIC DEFENDER
By Brian Livingston
The behavior of the reliable old Print Screen button on your keyboard, affectionately known as PrtScr or PrtScn, has been radically changed in a preview build of Windows 11, which is almost certain to become the version we will all eventually have to live with.
Microsoft released to members of its Windows Insider program this month a new version of the OS. At this writing, it’s known as Preview Build 22624.1546 of Windows 11 22H2.
If and when this is rolled out to all users in the world as an update, the Print Screen key by default will no longer place a copy of your screen onto the Clipboard. Instead, the key will launch a version of Redmond’s Snipping Tool, which has several new controls to learn.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.17.0, 2023-04-24).
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My favorite OneNote tricks
ONENOTE
By Mary Branscombe
Once you get all your useful information into OneNote, there are some ways to make things go faster.
For a long time, one of the most common feature requests for OneNote was already in the product — being able to have more than one window open at once. It just wasn’t easy to find. There are useful tricks like that in OneNote. Here are my favorites.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.17.0, 2023-04-24).
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RoboMirror — robocopy’s fancy cousin
FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT
By Deanna McElveen
The ability to mirror two folders has been a Windows feature for about 26 years, using the robocopy command at a command prompt.
Now, you can use robocopy with a graphical user interface (GUI), thanks to Martin Kinkelin’s open-source project, RoboMirror.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.17.0, 2023-04-24).
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Windows 11 erases Windows 10 digital-signature fix
ISSUE 20.16 • 2023-04-17 PUBLIC DEFENDER
By Brian Livingston
A Registry tweak recommended by Microsoft to guard against malware in digitally signed files is wiped out in Windows 10 if you upgrade to Windows 11. As if that weren’t bad enough, at least one major software company has distributed to 600,000 customers worldwide a Trojan horse hidden in an executable file that’s certified by Microsoft’s very own digital signature.
The fact that malware can be inserted into an executable file — without invalidating the file’s digital signature — casts doubt on the whole idea that you can trust digitally signed files.
Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.16.0, 2023-04-17).
This story also appears in our public Newsletter.