Techno babel, decoded.

Let me give you the short and simple breakdown. UPDATED at 8:35est 1-3-18: This vulnerability affects AMD and many mobile chipsets as well. This means that basically every modern chipsets and OS is affected by this security vulnerability. Update:This should say INTEL, AMD and ARM instead of just INTEL. Original: INTEL has a bug in the way hardware addresses virtual memory in the chip.   This could allow hackers to access a lot of information that they shouldn't be able to and make it easier for them to take over your computer.  This will affect EVERY INTEL chip regardless of the Operating System.   All the Operating System vendors are releasing patches very soon to address this issue so it is CRITICAL that you DO YOUR PATCHES! On windows systems you are going to take a performance hit.  Your system will be slower after the patch, up to 30% slower.  Mac OS has been patched since 10.3.2 (if you aren't on this version upgrade ASAP.) and Linux s...

So I am pretty happy with most things Google and I don't mind most of the information gathering going on, but this latest report seems a bit sketchy and like a violation of privacy to me.  I am not a lawyer, but the practice of capturing location data even when you have location services disabled is questionable at best.   See this link for details.   google-collects-android-users-locations-even-when-location-services-are-disabled I know that location services can be enabled on a phone remotely by 911, but the fact that my location is continuously being monitored.  I mean, how am I supposed to hide the trips to the casino when I was supposed to be working?   I know Google and parent company Alphabet claim this is to provide the best ad experience possible, but you know what, I don't WANT that good of an Ad experience. I don't want to be tempted by Ad's every time I look at something.   I'm really good at not buying things everyday bu...

Two easy things you can do to help you prevent infection on your home computer. (This assumes you already have some antivirus on there). I don't need to go into details why this is important and why you need to keep yourself safe.  If you don't know ask me and I'll write it in another post. 1.  DISABLE AUTO PLAY!    - Here is why this is SO important!  This is how malware gets INSTALLED on your computer.   You could download an email with an attached file, you move your mouse over the file, and hidden in the information that would display for that file is a script that would auto run that malware and install it on your system.   You might not even see any visible sign it installed, but suddenly your computer is sending spam, or mining bitcoins which you are getting a share of.  (Wow that's just mean.)  The scripts leverage the auto play functionality built into windows.   If that ability is turned off, you have just el...

While I know many of you probably aren't as tech savvy and don't have the need to access your home system remotely, it is very convenient for a lot of reasons. I often find myself using my home machine to test and see if there are network issues at my office.  Or maybe I was working on a project on my home computer and I forgot to save it to the cloud or a usb stick.  With TeamViewer I can remote connect to my desktop from my phone or any other device.   I use the free version since I mostly use it to help my dad fix his machine when he downloads something not so good. https://www.teamviewer.us/ I have not been paid or compensated by Teamviewer in any way other than making use of their product which is most excellent.