Monthly Archives: December 2024

• Closing the tech year of 2024

  Posted on December 31, 2024 at 10:40 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  As we close out 2024, just a reminder of the rules of tech:

  Always have a backup.

  Always have a plan B.

  Always have a spare power cord, or a fast way to order a replacement.

  Always have another device, even if it’s nothing more than a phone to be able to search on a topic.

  And last but not least, never break the cardinal rule of patching, which is to assume an update will work flawlessly so you begin the updating process at 10:30 p.m. on a Sunday night. Always give yourself plenty of time to recover from any side effects. (Ask me how I know this and yet I still find myself stupidly updating and not leaving myself enough of a maintenance window)

  My goals for 2025 is to continue to provide actionable and risk-based security and technology information for our readership for all of your technology.

  Tech Help Patch Lady Posts

• The best stories of 2024 — updated!

  Posted on December 30, 2024 at 02:45 CST by B. Livingston • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 21.53 • 2024-12-30

  Look for our BONUS issue on January 6, 2025!

  PUBLIC DEFENDER

  

  By Brian Livingston

  The year 2024 is now in the books. I’m pleased to report some positive moves this year that may make the tech industry’s products better for us all.

  I’ll give you some important updates today on (1) keeping artificial-intelligence services from creating malicious images, (2) minimizing social-media websites’ negative effects on users’ mental health, and (3) discovering how “answer engines” are improving on the tiresome linkfests of old-guard search giants.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.53.0, 2024-12-30).
  This story also appears in our public Newsletter.

  Public Defender AI, ChatGPT, DALL-E, Deepfakes, Generative AI, Google Gemini, Newsletters, OpenAI, Perplexity, Social Media

• LLMs can’t reason

  Posted on December 30, 2024 at 02:44 CST by Michael Covington • Comment in the Forums

  AI

  

  By Michael A. Covington

  The word is out — large language models, systems like ChatGPT, can’t reason.

  That’s a problem, because reasoning is what we normally expect computers to do. They’re not just copying machines. They’re supposed to compute things. We knew already that chatbots were prone to “hallucinations” and, more insidiously, to presenting wrong answers confidently as facts.

  But now, researchers at Apple have shown that large language models (LLMs) often fail on mathematical word problems.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.53.0, 2024-12-30).

  AI AI, Artificial Intelligence, Large language model, Machine Learning, Math Word Problems, Neural Networks, Neuroscience, Newsletters, Reasoning

• Microsoft 365 and Office in 2024 and beyond

  Posted on December 30, 2024 at 02:43 CST by Peter Deegan • Comment in the Forums

  MICROSOFT 365

  

  By Peter Deegan

  Let’s do a low drone pass over another year of innovation and hype in Microsoft 365 and Office.

  Amazingly, there were some non-AI highlights.

  As I review what happened in 2024, I’ll also provide a few notes about what to watch out for in 2025.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.53.0, 2024-12-30).

  Microsoft 365 Advanced Paste, Aptos, ARM, Calibri, Copilot, Copilot Credits, Excel, fonts, Newsletters, Office 2016, Office 2019, Office 2024, Publisher

• Am I part of the attack bot?

  Posted on December 30, 2024 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  

  By Susan Bradley

  The other day, a headline popped up that made me stop and read the news story.

  It was all about the American government’s considering blocking the vendor TP-Link from selling routers. TP-link happens to be a vendor I rely on for my wireless access point, but it has also been called out by Microsoft and other vendors who say its products may be used in attacks.

  Many of these units not been updated by the vendor to fix issues that allow them to be used by other bad actors in group attacks.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (21.53.0, 2024-12-30).

  On Security DNS, Edge Devices, Exchange, Firewalls, Firmware Update, ISPs, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Routers, TP-Link

• Intel ARC graphics gains traction

  Posted on December 27, 2024 at 03:00 CST by Will Fastie • Comment in the Forums

  Against the odds, Intel is gaining ground with its ARC graphics chips. Its new “Battlemage” chips are selling out.

  Intel’s A-series chips, codenamed “Alchemist,” piqued interest in ARC last year. I have been in the market for a dedicated graphics card for some time and was impressed enough that I bought a Sparkle ORC OC with the A580 chip, primarily because it cost a mere $165. My budget was set at a max of $200; no other product delivered comparable performance at that price.

  The Alchemist series struggled with games, initially showing competitive performance with a limited number of titles but steadily improving. I’m not a gamer, but I am interested in video rendering performance – the A580 boosted that by an order of magnitude (translation: cut my rendering time by 90%), more than enough to make me happy.

  With the B-series chips, performance has skyrocketed, so much so that Battlemage-based graphics cards are perpetually out of stock. The struggle with games is over; Intel has left its own Alchemist line in the dust.

  NVIDIA dominates with its graphics cards, with AMD trailing behind. Intel is a blip on the radar. But that blip is making a difference – Intel’s price and performance are buyer-friendly, making the market more competitive.

  Intel Graphics Cards, Intel, Intel ARC, News

• Time to patch now

  Posted on December 26, 2024 at 13:16 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  Today you get a DefCon5 – all clear and patch now for one specific reason and for one specific type of technology. There is one time when I’ll urge you to immediately patch. And that’s today, the day after Christmas when you are finally getting around to setting up and playing with whatever new technology you may have received.

  Today is the day that you’ll want to ensure that your new technology item has no issues getting patched, otherwise it should be returned. That said, on a new computer I recently set up, there can be a situation where an update fails because it’s trying to install an OEM driver update at the same time. I’ve personally seen that OEM drivers will sometimes try to install multiple updates at the same time.

  If you got a new phone, ensure its fully up to date before migrating to it. And don’t forget, don’t turn in that old phone until you’ve fully migrated any two factor applications off the old phone. Some, like the Microsoft authenticator application do not automatically migrate to the new phone. If you do not use the built in password app inside the phone, be patient as you log back in to all of those apps.

  Today – and just today only – for any new technology you just bought for yourself or got from others, patch away and make sure that device patches easily and well. Note for existing systems, I still recommend the more measured and cautious approach.  But for new devices? Let ‘er rip. This will test that all patching systems will work right out of the gate.

  Security Patch Lady Posts

• Happy Holidays and thank you for 2024!

  Posted on December 25, 2024 at 10:17 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  To all of you that are reading this, thank you for another successful year of keeping one step ahead of both the bad guys and the vendors. We hope that all of you have a wonderful Holiday today and try to spend some of today “off the grid” and enjoying the day.

  To all of you that visit the site and provide feedback, thank you! You push all of us here to do better in helping you tame your technology.

  2025 looks to be a busy year as we deal with Windows 10’s end of life. In addition to the decisions to make about that, keeping our technology tamed to our specifications while separating the clickbait from the real risks keeps us on our toes.

  I’m working on an article about better ways to protect all of your technology (hint, it’s about OpenDNS and other Domain name service providers) and the rest of our authors are already planning ahead for the new year.

  Tech Help Patch Lady Posts
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