Newsletter Archives

• Touching base

  Posted on December 27, 2014 at 05:28 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  It isn’t like I’m on vacation or anything, but…

  There’s been precious little news in the past week or so – little tidbits here and there, but nothing meaty, except the NSA revelation that dropped on Christmas eve. 

  The NSA, responding to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union, released a series of required quarterly and annual reports to the President’s Intelligence Oversight Board that cover the period from the fourth quarter of 2001 to the second quarter of 2013.

  The heavily-redacted reports include examples of data on Americans being e-mailed to unauthorized recipients, stored in unsecured computers and retained after it was supposed to be destroyed, according to the documents. They were posted on the NSA’s website at around 1:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve.

  Our tax dollars at work, eh?

  Anyway, I’m just biding my time, waiting for another shoe to drop. In the next few days I’ll look at the MS-DEFCON rating, but I don’t have much hope. December’s Black Tuesday may well be the worst BT in history, and there are dozens (if not hundreds) of conflicting problems.

  So please enjoy the break! Don’t patch anything — we’re at MS-DEFCON 2 for a reason.

  My usual advice applies, though: If you have a new Windows computer, install all of the outstanding patches — even the bad ones. Go through Windows Update, repeatedly, until there are no new updates to install. Your exposure from waiting is greater than the potential for bricking your machine.

  And if you got a Chromebook, you can smile and whistle a happy tune. I’m still playing with a half-dozen of them (from the big InfoWorld review), wondering whether the people I know can get by with a Chromebook most of the time. 

  Other Chromebook

• Chromebooks take on cheap Windows laptops

  Posted on December 5, 2014 at 15:08 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  Not sure if you want a cheap Windows laptop, a cheap Windows tablet, or a Chromebook for Christmas?

  Here’s an overview from the Windows side of things.

  Windows Secrets Newsletter

  I’ll have more details from the Chromebook side posted shortly.

  Other cheap Windows laptops, cheap Windows tablets, Chromebook
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