Newsletter Archives

• The patching year in review — for consumers

  Posted on December 26, 2023 at 02:42 CST by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  PATCH WATCH

  

  By Susan Bradley

  We’re closing another patching year for consumers and home users (aka the “unmanaged crowd”).

  Will and I have an ongoing, two-year struggle with a phrase I commonly use, “consumer and home users.” Will thinks it cumbersome and that there is no meaningful difference.

  I define consumers as anyone running Windows Home or Professional editions but not configured in a domain or not using patching tools favored by businesses. Consumers don’t have an IT department (assuming you don’t call the teenager next door an IT department) and don’t use a managed service provider. Consumers usually have a peer-to-peer network (because who doesn’t have multiple devices connected to their Internet service these days?) and may use it to connect to shared devices such as printers. Consumers tend to blur the lines of technology and will use Apple iPads or Android phones right alongside Windows machines.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (20.52.0, 2023-12-26).

  Patch Watch Apple, Consumers, Drivers, Home PCs, KB5025885, Microsoft, Newsletters, Patch Lady Posts, Repair Install, Secure Boot, Very Small Businesses

• How to transfer school apps from Chromebook to Windows

  Posted on August 23, 2020 at 21:05 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  DISTANCE LEARNING

  By Woody and Andy Leonhard

  Over the past few months, I assume many of you have become the local support center for an extended family of kids, all of whom are trying mightily to get into the swing of online learning.

  My fifth-grade son, Andy, is in a school district that spent USD $6 million this year on new Chromebooks. Here’s what he says:

  “You get a Chromebook administered by the district along with supplies. The district mainly uses Zoom for communications. But what I quickly discovered is that the Chrome’s sound output, camera quality, and screen are inferior to our Windows-based home PCs.”

  Fortunately, your school district probably doesn’t require the use of a Chromebook. Ours doesn’t. So our weekend project was to migrate Andy’s entire distance-schooling environment — applications, data, procedures … the whole ball of wax — to his trusty and comparatively beefy Windows PC.

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 17.33.0 (2020-08-24).

  AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Distance learning AskWoody Plus Newsletter, Chromebooks, Home PCs, Learning from home