Today I am going to cover something a little different, yet still tech related. This from the ‘dark or evil’ side of tech, the ‘Tech Support’ and ‘Refund’ or ‘Gift Card’ Scams. Both of these while having a different ‘hook’ end the same, hours later the victim is handing over large sums of money (sometimes their entire savings) to the scammer and the scammer has complete access to their computer and/or phone. You may have heard about these and even wondered how they work and for that matter why do people fall for them. At the end of this post…
Microsoft
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Found this absurd pending class-action lawsuit this morning via Linkedin news feeds. Google has been sued in a proposed class-action lawsuit that alleges it violated wiretap laws by collecting information about user behavior on the internet without permission while users were in “private browsing,” or incognito mode. Um…apparently these plaintiff’s don’t understand how “private browsing” or incognito mode is supposed to work. Simply put incognito mode prevents someone else who is also sharing the same device (PC, phone, tablet, etc.) as the user from being able to view your browsing/search history that occurred while in incognito mode. This is done by opening…
Long article short, Microsoft is telling people to stop using Internet Explorer. It is old, outdated, doesn’t have the functionality of newer browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) and they have no interest in updating Internet Explorer. Yet, there are many companies (including the one I work for) that seem to be “stuck” on Internet Explorer. In our case, it is not because they can’t find someone to update the coding in the web application to work with a more “modern” browser, rather they don’t want to. When I ran into some issues last month when I was forced to switch over…
With the recent panic around Meltdown and Spectre, Microsoft MSFT 417,00 +4,13 +1,00% was quick to release Security Updates to address these vulnerabilities. For many users with AMD AMD 137,60 -1,79 -1,28% powered computers running WIndows 10, they no longer have to worry about these vulnerabilities thanks to the forced security updates pushed out by Microsoft this past week. The bad news is for these users is their device is now an over-priced paperweight. The updates have caused these devices are now unbootable (BSOD on boot-up) Again since non-enterprise users can not stop these updates it is very much Microsoft’s fault…
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…
Microsoft MSFT 417,00 +4,13 +1,00% 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…
Microsoft MSFT 417,00 +4,13 +1,00% 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,…
Adobe ADBE 518,73 +6,58 +1,28% 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 417,00 +4,13 +1,00% , Alphabet Inc.’s Google GOOGL 167,65 +2,89 +1,75% , 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…
Despite its best attempts to capture a slice of the smartphone market, Microsoft on Tuesday announced that it has officially terminated support for Windows Phone 8.1, ushering in the end of an era where the PC-maker sought to directly compete with Apple’s iPhone and Android-powered devices, which have since created a smartphone duopoly. Never really much got into Windows Phones, I think the biggest turn off for me besides the vertical scrolling between screens was lack of apps compared to Android or even Apple. I wonder how much longer Windows Phones are going to last as I am sure Microsoft’s…
Microsoft has admitted and apologized about ‘crossing the line’ with changing the behavior of the ‘Red X’ on the Windows 10 upgrade screen. However, they were well aware of what they were doing and the repercussions it could cause. Microsoft’s Chief Marketing Officer Chris Capossela: “We know we want people to be running Windows 10 from a security perspective etc, but finding that right balance where you’re not stepping over the line of being too aggressive is something we tried and for a lot of the year I think we got it right, but there was one particular moment in particular where,…