October 2022

Mozilla Addresses Firefox Crashing Issue with Windows 11 22H2

Mozilla on Monday, October 31st pushed out an updated to Firefox (106.0.3). This update addresses an odd crash/freeze Firefox users were experiencing when copying text using Windows 11 devices where the Suggested Actions clipboard feature is enabled. The issue impacts Firefox users running Microsoft’s latest OS release, Windows 11, version 22H2, where this new feature is enabled by default. “The browser freezes for a period of time (over 20 seconds), during which the entire window (chrome, viewport) is unresponsive to user input,” the user filed five months ago reads. “Video and animation appears to continue playing. After a while, the browser…

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Twitter Phishing Email Attack

With the ongoing uncertainty with Twitter verification, Cybercriminals are trying to take advantage of the confusion.  Emails are being sent from a Gmail account (twittercontactcenter) claiming to be from Twitter Services with a subject Re: Twitter Warning. The email claims Twitter users can keep their ‘free verified status’ if they confirm they are a ‘well-known person’ (what if I am a robot?). The email is sent from a Gmail account, abd links to a Google Doc with another link to a Google Site, which lets users host web content. This is likely to create several layers of obfuscation to make…

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Twitter Employees would get Stock Compensation on November 1st

This year-end employee benefit sheds a very bright light as to why Musk is in such a hurry to get the lay-offs done. As reported last week: The forthcoming layoffs are likely to occur before November 1st. The timing may give Musk the opportunity to avoid paying out stock grants to outgoing workers. According to The Times, such payouts “typically represent a significant portion” of an employee’s pay. The New York Times report this weekend he plans to lay off employees before Tuesday, November 1, thus cutting staff off from receiving stock grants as part of their compensation. In response to…

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Musk Wants to raise Twitter Blue to $20/month and Include Verification Badge

Days after Elon Musk (aka Chief Twit) took over Twitter, he is making big and not so popular opinion plans.  Though much like everything else involving him and Twitter this could (and hopefully will) change. Now he wants to raise the monthly subscbrtion fee for the Twitter Blue and also have the service include a verification badge. $20 sounds like a lot of money just to get a verified badge and many folks like Kara Swisher are not ready to pay that amount. A poll by investor Jason Calacanis — to which Musk replied “interesting” — also has a majority of the people saying…

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Weekly Round-Up: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Today is Sunday, October 30th: time for the weekly roundup of the good, the bad and the ugly tech news of the week! The Good Samsung has rolled-out a ‘maintenance mode’ feature on their Galaxy S22 phones (other models will get this feature next year). Before handing over their phone to a tech for repairs, the owner will activate Maintenance Mode. This will create a temporary user account for the tech to be able to install diagnostic apps and have full access to the phone. However, the user’s personal information (contacts, photos, etc.) are inaccessible to the tech. Once the…

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Elon Musk Purchase of Twitter Complete

After over six-months of on again, off again and lawsuits…Tesla and SpaceX’s Elon Musk finally closed the deal on purchasing Twitter on Thursday, October 27th. The final price tag of tag of the merger between Twitter and Musk’s subsidiary X Holdings II, Inc. was $44B USD.  What does this mean for the 16-year old once publicly held company? Rumors have been flying over the past week, some propagated by Musk himself including laying off 75% of the staff. Here is break-down of the recent news before and after Musk’s take-over/merger of Twitter: Elon Musk reportedly tells Twitter he won’t lay…

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Microsoft Issues Out-of-Band Update for One Drive Issues

During the October Patch Tuesday (October 11, 2022)  Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% pushed out the KB5018410 update for Windows 10 users. In true Microsoft fashion, this broke One Drive (“unexpectedly close”). On Friday, October 28, 2022 Microsoft has released an out-of-band update with the emergency KB5020953 cumulative update. Unlike regular updates, you won’t get to install this update via Windows Update. You can only install it manually after downloading it from the Microsoft Update Catalog. The update is available for Windows 10 20H2, Windows 10 21H1, Windows 10 21H2, and Windows 10 22H2. Note: According to Support Article for KB5020953 this update…

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PREVIEW: November 2022 Patch Tuesday – Windows 10 KB5018482

Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% has released the October 2022 “C” Update, a preview of the upcoming Windows 10 22H2 KB5018482 update. This update will be released for all other users on the November 2022 Patch Tuesday (November 8th).  This cumulative update comes with nineteen fixes or improvements. The seven highlighted ones listed below: It addresses an issue that causes an OS upgrade to stop responding, and then it fails. It addresses an issue that affects the font of three Chinese characters. When you format these characters as bold, the width size is wrong. It addresses an issue that affects…

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Apple Confirms Future iPhones will Comply with EU USB-C Mandate

Apple Exec have confirmed the future iPhones (likely the iPhone 15 due out in Fall 2023) will have USB-C charging port.  So far only the EU has mandated for new mobile devices with 1000 watts or less power consumption produced on/after December 2024 must have USB-C charging port.  Brazil and India are considering similar rules and in June 2022 several Democratic US Senators sent an open letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo pushing the US to follow the EU’s steps. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior Vice President of marketing, confirmed on Tuesday that the company will comply with EU’s ruling, but stopped…

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PREVIEW: November 2022 Patch Tuesday – Windows 11 22H2 KB5018496

Microsoft Corporation 411,84 -2,74 -0,66% has released the October 2022 “C” Update, a preview of the upcoming Windows 11 22H2 KB5018496 update. This update will be released for all other users on the November 2022 Patch Tuesday (November 8th).  This cumulative update comes with twenty-six fixes or improvements. The eleven fixes or improvements highlighted by Microsoft are listed below: New! It enhances search visual treatments on the taskbar to improve discoverability. This is available to a small audience initially and deploys more broadly in the months that follow. Some devices might notice different visual treatments as we gather feedback. To learn more about…

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