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I am about to receive a Dell PC with Windows 10 Pro installed. It will have both an SSD drive (first one for me) and a SATA drive. With the past Dell PC purchases, I would take the supplied Windows OS disk and reinstall from scratch. Too much junk gets installed by Dell, and it seems trying to delete programs is more cumbersome than just performing a fresh install. I also like learning the clean install process before I actually put personal information on the new PC. Only issues are I have not used Windows 10 at all (initial need...

In case you have forgotten - or didn’t need to take note at the time - I would like to remind you again to never, ever buy a HP computer. I’m having another (major) computer problem. Less than 2 years old and I’ve already had it repaired once (to no avail) and then replaced under warranty. The new one worked for 8 months until this recent snafu. All of my issues have a common thread: drivers that will not load or load incorrectly. I’m as far from a techy as you could imagine and if I can diagnose the commonality...

An Arkansas-based telemarketing firm sent home more than 300 employees and told them to find new jobs after IT recovery efforts didn't go according to plan following a ransomware incident that took place at the start of October 2019. "Unfortunately, approximately two months ago our Heritage servers were attacked by malicious software that basically 'held us hostage for ransom' and we were forced to pay the crooks to get the 'key' just to get our systems back up and running," wrote Sandra Franecke, the company's CEO, in the letter sent to employees.

Members of the research team that conducted the experiment, standing in front of the high-energy X-ray photoemission spectroscopy setup at the PETRA III synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany. Left to right: Andrei Gloskovskii, Yury Matveyev, Dmitry Negrov, Vitalii Mikheev, and Andrei Zenkevich. Credit: Andrei Zenkevich/MIPT ==================================================================== Researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, along with their colleagues from Germany and the U.S., have achieved a breakthrough in nonvolatile memory devices. The team came up with a unique method for measuring the electric potential distribution across a ferroelectric capacitor, which could lead to the creation of memory orders of magnitude...

The increased connectivity of computers and the growth of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in most organizations is making the distribution of malicious software (malware) easier. Unlike other types of malicious programs that may usually go undetected for a longer period, a ransomware attack is usually experienced immediately, and its impact on information technology infrastructure is often irreversible. As part of Microsoft’s Detection and Response Team (DART) Incident Response engagements, we regularly get asked by customers about “paying the ransom” following a ransomware attack. Unfortunately, this situation often leaves most customers with limited options, depending on the business continuity and...

Phishing attempts and suspicious activity were detected on the city's network around 5 a.m., New Orleans chief information officer Kim LaGrue said during a press conference. By 11 a.m., technician investigators detected "a cybersecurity incident" and the city's information technology department began powering down servers and city computers as a precaution, the New Orleans Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness said in a series of tweets. While ransomware was detected, no ransom has been demanded in the cyberattack, Cantrell said.

Requesting feedback for a distribution of Linux to install on a spare PC. The PC has a 4th Gen Intel i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 1 TB hard drive, so I should be good to go. While I used UNIX a lot during my 30+ year career, I have minimal Linux experience.

In the highly competitive race to get self-driving cars to the market, most companies hold their secrets close. But when it comes to helping those cars figure out where they are on the road, some experts are ready to open up. Argo AI, based in the Strip District, and Aptiv, based in O’Hara, publicly released some of their own data sets earlier this year in an effort to further advancement in the field. The companies shared parts of their own maps of cities where they are testing self-driving cars, including Pittsburgh. That may seem strange considering the abundance of applications...

Linux was a 'cancer' but Microsoft is now defending it IBM, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation have partnered with the Open Invention Network (OIN), a company formed to protect Linux from patent threats, to take on "Patent Assertion Entities", also known as patent trolls.Specifically, the group will help fund the Open Source Zone of Unified Patents, an organisation which provides legal services to deter "unsubstantiated or invalid patent assertions".The move had already been flagged at the Open Source Summit in Lyon last month, but the identity of the participating companies was not then known. OIN CEO Keith Bergelt spoke to...

To: The Linux Foundation Jim Zemlin: Executive Director Angela Brown: VP of Events Andy Updegrove: Legal Council From: Robert Martin (@unclebobmartin) (unclebob@cleancoder.com) Re: Code of Conduct case of Charles Max Wood. Dear Linux Foundation: I am writing to you as a concerned member of the software development community which I have enjoyed serving for the last 50 years. I am writing in public because the events I wish to describe took place in public. I fear that something has gone terribly wrong within your organization; and that it will have deep repercussions within this industry that I cherish. The timeline...

Fourth time in three months when Symantec's antivirus crashes something. For the fourth time in three months, a Symantec security product is crashing user apps, and this time it's the latest Chrome release, v78, which rolled out earlier this week, on Tuesday, October 22.According to reports on Reddit [1, 2] the Google support forums [1, 2], and in comments on the official Google Chrome blog, Symantec Endpoint Protection 14 is crashing Chrome 78 instances with an "Aw, Snap! Something went wrong while displaying this webpage." error, as seen in the screenshot above.Users have been unable to use Chrome 78 at...

Monkeys may show off their physical flexibility as they clamber over tangled tree branches, but the animals also display impressive "cognitive flexibility," or the ability to quickly change how they think about, and work to solve, a problem. In the game, four squares appeared on screen during each trial: one striped, one spotted and two blank. In training sessions, players learned that clicking the striped square and then the spotted square would cause a blue triangle to pop up in place of one of the blank squares. Clicking the blue triangle produced a reward — in this case, an auditory...

COBOL is celebrating 60 years since its specifications were signed off. Darling of Y2K consultants, the language is rapidly approaching pensionable age, but many a greybeard owes their career to it. It arose from a desire to create a language that could straddle the computers of the era. Each manufacturer had its own way of working, which, while OK if a company always stuck with one maker, made portability of programs or skills a tad tricky. If only there was, say, a COmmon Business-Oriented Language? Wouldn't that be splendid? Mary Hawes, a programmer of Burroughs machines, put forward a proposal...

Ok- Not sure how to post vanity threads- hopefully i did it right by posting into general chit chat? Anyways, Looking for suggestions on how to run windows 7 securely on the internet since updates are gonna come to a close- I dual boot, and use Linux mint cinnamon as my main online OS- and use Windows 7 as my gaming OS, my photoshop OS- I do online Racing game which i have to connect to their site (Iracing) and occasionally have to look something up in firefox, but mostly i don't go online with windows except for those- I...

I want to control my Sonos-connected speakers from my window 10 laptop. I found the app for my IPhone and it works fine. N0w I need an app for my laptop. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi, everyone. My computer has something called Cortana on it, and it constantly pops up and insists on trying to "help" me. (Like the government.) Does anyone know how I can disable it?

I just downloaded and started using Brave. All I've done is make it the default browser and import bookmarks from Chrome. Are there any other settings I should know about or addons to make it run better? In their addons they recommended Microsoft Edge but since I've never used it before I don't see why I would be using it now. Should I add that on for some reason? I am also using AdGuard 7.0, which I installed before Brave. Is the built in ad blocker for Brave good enough to make AdGuard redundant? I've never had any problems with...

After this I'll try and keep my Himedia problems quiet for awhile. I moved it a few rooms away from the router and now its wireless interface cannot see the home network. But the TV right above it can????? So how does one connect a LAN outlet to a wireless interface/unit? I've been poking around and see several items but was wondering if someone else already went thru this. I didn't want to get one that might not do the job. One reply from my previous query described all the things the Himedia box can do but obviously needs to...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton abruptly canceled her scheduled appearance at the FireEye Cyber Defense Summit set for this coming October. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill explained that "this conference is for the world's leading security experts. It was decided that an appearance by the Secretary would undermine her claim that she used an unsecured email server and destroyed a dozen communications devices that were under subpoena out of ignorance and unfamiliarity with using computers and cell phones. We felt it would be better for her to adopt a position that as an aging person who grew up before such...

New Mac malware in the wild evades security software, researchers Roger Fingas for AppleInsider: Newly uncovered Mac malware is not only in the wild, but trying to avoid detection by security researchers, according to one such firm. Dubbed “CrescentCore,” the malware comes as it usually does —in the form of a DMG file pretending to be an Adobe Flash Player installer, Intego said. If someone launches its contents, the software will check to see if it’s running inside a virtual machine — a way researchers often quarantine their subjects. The malware also checks for several popular antivirus tools, and if...