2017

What Happen to ‘9’?

Is ‘9’ suddenly an unlucky number in the tech world? Microsoft released Windows 10 after Windows 8/8.1. Apple recently released the iPhone 8 and announced the forthcoming iPhone X. In the past couple days, has come word of Samsung announcing the successor of the Galaxy S8, the Galaxy X Folding Phone. Apple and Samsung both are skipping version ‘9’ of their flagship phones. So, what gives? Well, we have Microsoft to thank (or blame) for skipping 9. It was Microsoft that two years ago, started with releasing Windows 10. They even were the first one to represent ‘10’ with the…

Read More

Google Android 8.0 Oreo has Arrived

Earlier this week Google released the next version of Android with 8.0 aka Oreo. If you have a Google Pixel phone you can get the update a lot sooner by registering your phone in their ‘Beta’ program. Samsung phones on the other hand it could be a good six-months or more (especially for those who recently took out a loan for the Galaxy Note 8 which will not be getting this update anytime soon).  Even the LG G5 (my current phone) and G6 will eventually get this update in the future. Pretty much any phone released in the last year…

Read More

Intel to Announce 8th -Generation Coffee Lake Core®Processors

On Monday, August 21st Intel INTC 42,71 +0,07 +0,16% will officially announce the newest generation (8th) of Core® processors named Coffee Lake. Intel will livestream the event at 8:00 AM PDT via its Facebook page or the Intel newsroom. The new products are expected to have more cores than the current maximum of four in Intel’s mainstream processors, with some leaks pointing at three six-core processors, which could offer 50% more performance in multithreaded tasks compared to the current Core i7-7700K – the flagship mainstream processor. There are also rumors that Intel will be upping the core count of its Core i3 CPUs too, all of which…

Read More

On this Day In 1977…

RadioShack introduced the TRS-80 personal computer during a press conference at the Warwick Hotel in New York. The TRS (Tandy RadioShack) boasted a QWERTY keyboard, 4K RAM, 8-Bit Zlog Processor and a 64 colum video monitor, Starting price was $600. Upgrades which could be purchased at any RadioShack store included, cassette tape drives, floppy drives in July 1978, up to 48K RAM. In 1983, 5 MB Hard Drives were introduced and users could connect up to a total of four external drives (floppy and/or hard drive). By Rama & Musée Bolo – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, Link …Even…

Read More

Old Computer Hardware = No More Windows 10 Support

Microsoft MSFT 417,32 +0,90 +0,22% has said in the past they would cut off support for Windows 7 and 8.1 for computers running the latest processors in 2016. These included  ‘Kaby Lake’ (Intel), ‘Bristol Ridge’ (AMD) and Qualcomm’s ‘8996’. There reasoning was these processors work better and were designed for Windows 10.  So what if you had upgraded (willing or unwilling) to Windows 10 with an older PC? There is a chance you could stop getting Windows 10 upgrades before the October 2020 date Microsoft had promised in the past. Speaking to PC World, Microsoft said that despite pledging Windows 10 feature updates until October…

Read More

Google to Ban WoSign and StartCom Certificates

Following in the footsteps of Mozilla and Apple, Google is going to be removing all trust for WoSign and StartCom Certificates with Chrome 61 (current  version is 59) as well as Android browser. Mozilla has been very aggressive in enforcing their Mozilla’s CA Certificate Policy as was the case in April 2015 with the Firefox 37.0.1 release which Mozilla banned China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued Certificates. Once again another China based CA has ‘misbehaved’: About a year ago, Mozilla uncovered that a Chinese Certificate Authority (CA) called WoSign had a number of technical and management failures, which included…

Read More

MIA Posts

So it appears there are still some posts that did not get carried over from the old Firefox Blog. I am discovering this as I am trying to search for content I thought I had posted. I still have the old blog on a private domain for just such an emergency. Over the next couple weeks I am going to start comparing for each month what is on the old Firefox Blog versus what is on the tech blog. I have recently transferred over posts from April 2015 as I was needing to reference a post during this time frame for…

Read More

Paint (sort of) Going Away in Next Windows 10

Microsoft MSFT 417,32 +0,90 +0,22%  announced Monday, Paint is going to be deprecated application in the Fall Creators Update of Windows 10 slated for release later this year. Paint which has been around since first being introduced in Windows 1.0 back in 1985 is not totally going away. The technology giant said the 32-year-old sketching app “isn’t going anywhere” despite appearing on a list of software that was to be “deprecated” from the next Windows 10 update. The app will instead be moved to the Windows Store, where Windows users will be able to download it for free, the company said. But,…

Read More

Firefox Roadmap for Flash End-of-Life

In response to Adobe’s ‘Flash announcement‘ earlier today Mozilla has updated their published Firefox Roadmap for Flash End-of-Life: This morning, Adobe announced its roadmap to stop supporting Flash at the end of 2020. Working with Adobe and other browser vendors, Mozilla has prepared a roadmap for Flash support in Firefox, and guides for site authors to make their final transition away from Flash technology. By managing this transition carefully, announcing it years in advance, and providing options for transition, Mozilla will help make the web faster, safer, and better for everyone. via Mozilla Future Releases

Read More

Adobe to pull plug on Flash

Adobe ADBE 560,42 +8,73 +1,58%  has announced they will no longer release updates for Flash at the end of 2020. Flash has been around since 1996, then a product of Macromedia until 2005 when Macromedia (and Flash) were acquired by Adobe. 20+ years later, Adobe has announced the end of Flash: Adobe, along with partners Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. MSFT 417,32 +0,90 +0,22% , Alphabet Inc.’s Google  GOOGL 138,50 +0,83 +0,60% , Facebook Inc. FB 196,64 +0,99 +0,51%  and Mozilla Corp., said support for Flash will ramp down across the internet in phases over the next three years. Apple’s AAPL…

Read More