Posted on

Windows 7 Security Updates Extended

Microsoft had promised Windows 7 extended support through January 2020. After that ended, there would be no more security updates. Microsoft has noted that despite the end of service being a few years away, some big clients might be on a longer trajectory for being able to migrate to Windows 10. As better serve them, Microsoft has decided that it will continue offering Windows 7 Extended Security Updates through January 2023, giving users three more time to upgrade to Windows 10.

The caveat is that the updates past January 2020 will be sold to users on a single device basis. The price to buy those updates will also go up each year. Extended Service Updates will be offered to Windows 7 Pro and Windows 7 Enterprise customers in Volume Licensing. That means some Home version users won’t be able to get the updates.

Works Cited

McGlaun, S. (2018, September 09). Clinging To Windows 7? Microsoft Will Eventually Charge For Security Updates. Retrieved September 9, 2018, from https://hothardware.com/news/windows-7-security-updates-extended

Posted on

Huawei lets all users access performance mode

Huawei got caught cheating on benchmark tests, and now it’s trying to do right by consumers. Huawei announced that users can force their phone into “performance mode.” This optimizes their device to run faster, but will also eat up the battery.  Users will get this with EMUI 9.0, a new version of Huawei’s Operating System.

The fact that Huawei is opening up its performance shows it’s clearly just trying to cater to users who care about benchmark tests and want access to the best performance. It could be useful for gamers who want to enable it before playing Still, it make the cheating from Huawei’s any better. The creators of 3DMark says they’ll reinstate Huawei’s benchmark scores once it opens performance mode up to all its phones.

Works Cited

Carman, A. (2018, September 07). Huawei will let all phone users access ‘performance mode’ after benchmark controversy. Retrieved September 8, 2018, from https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/circuitbreaker/2018/9/7/17832940/huawei-phone-performance-mode-camera-3dmark

Posted on

Home Internet outage

Due to a local Internet outage, articles will not be written until the ISP restores connectivity.

Tethering isn’t exactly a good solution and I need it for other purposes.

We appreciate your understanding.

Posted on

Why California’s Net Neutrality Bill doesn’t matter

California is attempting to force major internet companies to treat all internet traffic as equal…like they already do.  I don’t really see the point of just one state passing legislation that is used to affect a global network.   It’s Comcast’s right to charge more for a network the shareholders funded to have built.  This nation was founded on freedom of speech and personal property rights.  So if Comcast owns it’s cable network, Comcast should not be forced to do anything with it that it doesn’t want to do. 

If Comcast decides to send TCP resets to BitTorrent users in an attempt to discourage them from pirating content, they have the right to do that.  And in the mid 2000’s, Comcast did just that.  It’s called traffic shaping and sometimes it’s needed for the greater good of the rest of the network.  If a security camera fails because a local router was overloaded from illegal torrents, maybe Comcast shouldn’t be neutral to that.

With the internet of things, meaning the fact that one day even your toilet will have an ip address, networks will be under heavier loads than ever before.  Everyone needs to be promised a minimum quality of service if they pay for a service.  The internet connections we use everyday are a limited resource, and limited resources are subject to the laws of supply and demand.  Therefore, the internet, while it generally treats your Instagram the same way it treats this site’s traffic, cannot be equal.

Don’t worry about fast or slow lanes, because the big firms like Facebook and Google already have made their own fast lanes to serve you.  Google’s fiber network was built at great expense to enable it to capture market share.  Facebook builds massive data-centers to serve up cat videos and recipes, and if you think that they don’t have a different arrangement with the ISP’s, then maybe reading more is the answer.

Bendy Computers is here to educate, but you the consumer must choose to seek out this knowledge every day.  We’ll take anyone’s money as long as it’s a valid card for payment, but we want our customers to be so well versed in their purchases that they don’t need us.  Quality instruction is part of service, and you can’t get instruction from college educated professionals at most stores.

Works Cited

Peterson, T., Patel, S., Weiss, M., Willens, M., A., Davies, J., & Sahil Patel. (2018, September 04). WTF is California’s net neutrality bill? Retrieved September 5, 2018, from https://digiday.com/media/wtf-californias-net-neutrality-bill/
Posted on

On The 2018 Facebook Electioneering

There’s no doubt that by now, unless completely distracted by the modern bread and circuses of food-stamps and football, you’ve heard of the 2016 Russian Facebook, “hacking”.  But this isn’t a simple case of straight up collusion, Republican or Democrat.  This isn’t a personal information leak or a brute force hacking attack like most security incidents.

Two years ago, Donald John Trump shocked conventional wisdom and became the President of The United States of America.  The American people were sick and tired of 8 years of failed policies, undelivered promises, and were willing to take anything that was so off the beaten path it just might work.

But we of course now know that individuals or organizations with Russian IP Addresses, Russian Payment methods, and possibly with the direction of the Russian Government did a few things for sure:

  • Created websites that looked like local news outlets, but those outlets were long gone and the “articles” were just inflammatory.
  • These websites were heavily advertised using Facebook ad campaigns that were approved by Facebook.
  • Since people outside the United States are prohibited by law from buying political ads or contributing to campaigns in any way, either United States citizens helped Russian individuals or organizations buy ads, or
    • Russian individuals or organizations may have stolen American Identities to get the ads approved.
  • Many fake accounts were found to be on Facebook and controlled by botnets based in Russia.
  • Voters were swayed very easily by this psychological warfare.
  • Facebook stood to gain a high amount of profit from these ads, and may have known about this problem well before the 2016 General Election.  They may have ignored it.

The point is this, and this is what concerns me.  Facebook said they have reason to believe this is happening all over again in the 2018 Mid Term elections.  Facebook claims they are taking action, but as the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.”

We cannot excuse Facebook from this inaction, and the people should demand a new set of laws to ensure the major tech firms are bound to serve the people that use their services.  Facebook and other social networks have a responsibility to ensure their platforms aren’t used to commit felonies.

Works Cited

Menn, J. (2018, August 01). Facebook says it identifies campaign to meddle in 2018 U.S. elections. Retrieved September 4, 2018, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-facebook/facebook-says-it-identifies-campaign-to-meddle-in-2018-u-s-elections-idUSKBN1KL2FG
Posted on

New Indie Nintendo Switch Games

The Nintendo Switch may be in direct competition with gaming PC’s for the same marketshare, but since our motto is, “We’re Flexible”, and we owe the industry a few favors; we’ll write about it.  More specifically, Sword & Sworcery.

Sword & Sworcery is coming to the Nintendo Switch.  One thing that really sets this game apart is that all the dialogue is 140 characters or less, allowing the experience to be tweeted by the player as it unfolds.

Aside from that, the pixel art, Legend of Zelda like gameplay, and use of the ios system clock made it a smash hit.

The gane used the system clock to tell the game using the Internet to track real world lunar phases, and then only allow certain event and dialogue sequences to unlock when pre determined lunar phase conditions happened in real life.

The games moody music certainly helped too, as prior to making the game the lead developer did indie music. There’s no doubt in my mind that he put just as much effort into the games soundtrack as he did with any other music of his.  In fact, the game’s soundtrack was so passionately produced it was later sold separately.

Due to many good aspects of this title, even the creative team can’t pin down what exactly is the cause for the success, they’re just glad it did succeed.

Works Cited

Webster, A. (2016, March 24). Five years of Sword & Sworcery: The history of a weird and beautiful game. Retrieved September 3, 2018, from https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/24/11297534/superbrothers-sword-and-sworcery-retrospective

 

Posted on

Apple watch buyers prefer older models

Usually when people buy a smart watch, it is assumed the buyer is buying one because they have money to burn.  But sales figures prove otherwise.  Out of all the Apple Watches, if users do buy a non-cellular model, it’s the series one models.  Most likely because apple users already spent at least $800 on a flagship phone, so they don’t have much left over for a device that honestly has little practical use.

This proves that despite a strong economy, consumers are not as spendthrift as before 2001.  People have put their phones on installment, break them, and then rollover the balances, creating a massive unsecured personal debt with their phone carrier, all just to keep up with the Jones’s.

All of this is bad news for laptop and especially desktop makers. Due to thin budgets, only businesses or power users buy desktops, and most choose large firms.  This is exactly why we decided to diversify into support, software, and video production.  Major repair shops charge far more for far less in workmanship, education, and experience.  We owe it to the public to keep ourselves solvent and adapt to market changes.

We’ll have a wait list for service again, and older clients or ones who are willing to pay more obviously will be prioritized.

I used to have to turn down repairs simply due to time issues, but now combined with my trusted agents, we’re back at it because I have a God given talent, and I can’t spoil God’s gifts.  For now, enjoy our articles until you need us, and remember that we negotiate, offer coupons, and we don’t leave jobs half done or half baked.

Works Cited

Siegal, J. (2018, September 02). Vast majority of Apple Watch buyers are opting for old models. Retrieved September 2, 2018, from https://bgr.com/2018/09/02/apple-watch-best-selling-smartwatch-series-1/
Posted on

ios 12 bug report

On Thursday, social media posts from iOS 12 beta testers, both developers and members of Apple’s public beta program, detail quite a bug in the latest evaluation version.

Testers running Apple’s latest iOS 12 beta are encountering a peculiar issue that causes a software update prompt to repeatedly appear on screen, forcing users to manually dismiss the message over and over.  It doesn’t end when the device is powered off and on, and seems to be caused by the operating system thinking the build is about to expire.

Works Cited

AppleInsider. (2018, August 31). Apparent iOS 12 beta bug causes never-ending notifications to update software. Retrieved August 31, 2018, from https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/08/30/apparent-ios-12-beta-bug-causes-never-ending-notifications-to-update-software/amp/

Posted on

Indie games apocolypse: Stop Making Shovelware

An explosion of games can mean more choice for the consumer, and more revenues for Valve, but it’s anything but good for developers; especially ones that care about their products and won’t deliver bottom barrel shovelware.  The same thing happened with the atari 2600 in the first video game crash.

Loose quality controls led to declining game quality while prices stayed where they were when games were good.  A good title that cost more money to develop than a bad title sold for the same price on the same platform, frustrating the good developers.  The ecosystem was saturated, and more developers competed for the same limited consumer spending.

The result was a collapse of the game industry and the rise of Nintendo and hardware manufactures strict control of their libraries.  Due to this control, consumers had less choice, and the games they did have to choose from had better graphics, less bugs, better investment from the financial system; in short everyone was happy.

When Steam started, it was a platform to distribute a few valve originals, and keep drivers and multiplayer games up to date.  It wasn’t until Valve stopped making games and started focusing intensely on publishing that quality went down.  Valve didn’t have to care about making quality games, it was just a middle man with a no returns policy.  If the customer had a legitimate grievance and tried to vote with thier wallet, it wasn’t like they could get nearly as many PC titles anywhere else.  Reddit said EA Games was evil and spied on them.  Reddit says nothing bad about Steam, except when mom makes it shower.

Like it or not, Valve needs to do something about the deluge of incomplete voxel art games, minecraft rip offs, and general asset flips.  The fees Valve charges do not deter dedicated con artists, so a human employee of Valve should vet the games, not possible bot curators on the platform.  Existing titles should be given a year to comply with a fee for vetting, or face removal.  If the devs of existing titles truly didn’t make an asset flip or shovelware, they’d pay the fee to Valve.

Posted on

Pokemon essentials DMCA Takedown

Nintendo has gained a bit of a reputation for its strict copyright policy. In the last few months alone, it filed a few lawsuits against emulation sites. Now, Nintendo has gone after a new target: Pokemon Essentials.

The kit in question, a role-playing game maker, allowed users to “design” their own Pokémon adventures. According to sources, the software used “full tilesets, maps, music, and sprites” from the official games, as well as all the classic mechanics required to catch and collect Pokemon. It was founded in 2007, and was used to create a popular fan game called, “Pokemon Uranium”, which was shut down two years ago following a reported copyright notice from Nintendo. It was only a matter of time before Nintendo shutdown the software people used to make illegal asset flips.

Some people just can’t help violating copyright because they want what they can’t have; someone else’s intellectual property.  You can’t claim fair use or parody when the mechanics of a game or the assets in the game are just too similar to the original made by the current copyright holder.  When you purchase copyrighted media, you are really purchasing a revocable license to use the material as the creator sees fit.  All rights reserved means all rights of any kind when there is any doubt are reserved to the copyright holder.

If you want to make a “Pokemon Game”, you have to pay for a license to make a Pokemon game.  If you can’t afford one, you need to get a business line of credit to buy one and hope that someone buys your asset flip.

Works Cited

Kent, E. (2018, August 29). Nintendo triggers takedown of 11-year-old tool used to build Pok. Retrieved August 29, 2018, from https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-08-29-nintendo-takes-down-11-year-old-pokemon-fangame-kit