Targeted ads is abusive by design. A website, app, or service can advertise just fine by knowing themselves and their customer base. Otherwise, ads can be “targeted” to the content of the page.

While tracking people like animals certainly does improve targeting, it’s a violation of privacy, unnecessary for the customer, and creates opportunities for abuse.

Disable tracking IDs on any system you use, Windows, Android, etc.

• https://www.thewindowsclub.com/stop-microsoft-from-tracking-you-on-windows-computer
• https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-disable-ad-id-tracking-ios-and-android-and-why-you-should-do-it-now
Tags: Advertising ID, Android, Tracking ID, Windows

If I wanted it sorted by date, I would have DONE so!

Today, I had the misfortune of copying files from another computer on my network only to discover that they, and all folders below them, had been tainted with the Windows "group by" feature for some reason. I tried changing the view recursively, but that only changes between thumbnail or list view and doesn't affect Group By. Nothing does! It's a dark maisma that can never be killed and, believe me, I've tried!

There are your usual slough of unhelpful "Microsoft Answers" posts where some "Microsoft partner" who didn't actually read the question tells you the same thing you already knew: change this config and it will work! Except it doesn't. Group By still shows up at odd times and especially in save and open dialog boxes making it near impossible to actually find and manage your files. Whatever edge-case they designed this for is not something I have ever needed and trying to get rid of it is like scooping water out of a sinking ship with a ladle.

After all my time digging through the registry and learning about the "bags" (weird registry stuff, don't worry about it), I could still never figure out the secret to making Windows do something that it should have been designed to do from the start – let us choose how to use it. So today, with the lowest of expectations, I went back to MS "Answers" to see if anyone has figured out something new and this is what I found:

A desperate plea

With a title like Completely disable file grouping, always, everywhere, in all windows, dialogs, everything!, I knew I'd found the right conversation at least. This was someone else who had battled with the darkness. But had they gained ground? Did they fight it off?

A hero emerges!

LesFerch the hero arrives!

WinSetView. Click the pic to go to the website!

User LesFerch was the top voted answer with more than 800 "helpful" votes. Promising. His answer provides a lot of detail and methods to wrangle the monster into partial submission, but the most important part is right up top. WinSetView:a free, open-source tool to force Windows to disable Group-By in all views, in all ways, permanently.

I was so shocked, that I didn't believe it at first. Someone had actually defeated the villain? I checked out the tool and it was clear and function. I ran it and checked – no more Group By. Not only that, this tool will help me when I find my settings have been changed or ignored after an update or "new feature" or whatever demon possesses Windows to think that it should have more say in how I use my files than I do. With a button press, I can re-apply my preferred view system-wide in seconds.

I don't understand why it's so often necessary for the community to fix and replace basic Windows functions, but until Microsoft figures it out that it's THEIR job to do, at least we have heroes watching over us.

Photo by Javier Garcia on Unsplash.com

Malware from the manufacturer means bad times for everyone

It would be great if the stories of products sold by major retailers with baked-in malware were relegated to decades past, but the issue hasn't gone away. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that a low-budget kids tablet by Dragon Touch was sold on Amazon for the better part of a year despite having possible malware preinstalled from the factory.

There really is no clear and obvious way to prevent any instance of factory malware, but one thing that could help quite a bit is to keep your networks separate.

This is an example of a router with guest network functionality built in.
(See online!)

Many home routers these days offer "guest networks" which are intended to let houseguests or visiting friends access your Internet without exposing your home computers and files. It's convenient and easy to set up along with your normal network. But the best part is that you can use the same trick to keep untrusted devices away from your important data!

You'll need to look in the manual, instructions, or a handy Youtube video if you need help for your specific router (or buy a new one if your current one doesn't support it), but, once configured, it's simply a matter of asking: "does this device/thing need to connect to my home computers or backup systems? If "no", put it on the guest network!

Bottom line, you might have several computers and maybe a printer/scanner on your home network for file sharing or backup purposes, but why let the Playstation or Echo in the same space? They can still access the Internet on the Guest Network and that's really all they need

Moving forward, always put phones, tablets, and any other device stays segregated on the guest network where, if they become infected, they can't damage your real computers and important data.

(Image used under: Creative Commons 2.0 [SRC])

Changes like this always make me wonder about Microsoft's motto: "Empower every person to do more…" How am I "doing more" when I spend my time fighting with changes no one asked for and no one needs?

Granted, we probably needed a faster and more convenient method of opening the Snip tool than WIN+SHIFT+S, but what's wrong with WIN+PRINTSCREEN? That's an easy two keys that doesn't require remapping a key function used by people for literal decades which includes gamers – people who really don't have time to fart around with an auto-open app when they're in the middle of fragging this or exploding that.

Fortunately this isn't one of those changes they didn't give us a way to undo. In fact, the option is already there, but correctly disabled by default. Once it goes to "enabled by default… not that anyone asked", here's how you recover from their poor decision-making skills:

1. Press the Windows Key
2. Type "Print Screen". The "User print screen button to open screen snipping" control will show as an option. Click it.
3. The accessibility option allowing you to toggle this hateful feature is shown. Set it to the "OFF" position.
4. Sleep peacefully, but watchfully for the next thing Microsoft decides to screw up.

There's a toggle to turn it off thankfully

I'm sorry to my friends at Microsoft and admit I'm being a jerk on purpose partially for emphasis, but also partially because user-hostile decisions authentically annoy me. If you're on the Windows team, please consider doing more research and communicating with the community before making changes like this.

SIIG USB-C 2-Port KVM Switch MST Docking Station with PD 65W
(See online!)

So I put some effort into getting my home office put together. I have dual monitors nicely raised to the right eye height. I have a motorized standing desk, nice keyboard, mouse… the works! But the main issue was switching between my home computing and my work. I had one laptop for each (clean separation between the two), but moving all those cables is a non-starter.

The first thing I tried was a Thinkpad USBC hub. It's pretty straightforward – just plug everything into the hub, then plug the hub into the computer. The only problem is that I have to move the one cable between the computers when I want to switch (technically two because it was too slow to run both monitors so I had one HDMI cable I plugged directly into the computer for speed reasons). But the next thing I tried was the combo Hub/KVM. What an improvement!

So basically, the KVM works just like the hub, but it's faster so I haven't had HDMI problems even when playing games. And because it's plugged into both machines at the same time, all I have to do is click a single button to swap between the two computers. All my devices and monitors swap semi-instantly and it's just such a better process that it makes my workday so much better! If I remember something I need to do on my home computer (or on an account that I don't want to log into on my work laptop), it's a button press, get the work done, button press again to go back to the work machine.

If you have two computers for your home office and want to be able to rapidly switch between them while using the same peripherals for both, this is a pretty sweet way to do that!

Asus gaming machine. It turned out to be pretty good, but two years later, I'm looking for something new.
(See online!)

At the time I bought this, ASUS and MSI were the two top contenders. Both were solid brands with good history and all the features I wanted, but MSI has a weird obsession with making the keyboard perfectly rectangular at the expense of shoving all the keys together. As soon as I noticed the ASUS had a more spaced out keyboard and even a few media keys, the choice was obvious. In practice the keyboard is easy and natural to type on, though for some unknowable reason, there's no light indicating Num Lock status and no easily accessed END key which is REALLY annoying.

That aside, the coloration and controls are good, the performance is good, it's much thinner and lighter than my Qosmio and, most importantly, there's an empty RAM slot so I could upgrade from 16GB to 32 very easily (which I did).

The screen is crazy bright and I don't think I've used it on even 50% brightness yet because I'd likely get a burn from the glare. I think the macho ROG symbol is a bit childish but I wouldn't mind it too much if I could at least customize the color of the glowing ROG eye on the back of my screen.

Grr. So manly! Chest thump! WOOO. Look at my menacing laptop!

At the one year mark, I noticed two other problems. The function keys are shifted slightly further right than they should be making it too easy to hit the wrong one or the delete key when you mean F12. Additionally the fun keyboard color feature is less so when the color is weak and without definition. Either it's weakened considerably over the year or it was never as bright to begin with. Either way, the advertised color and reality are starkly different.

It's a shame. It's not an important feature, but I thought the lighted keyboard would be cool; not dim.

Second: I noticed this problem early, but didn't want to deal with it because I waited so long to buy the laptop that I just couldn't bring myself to return it. Every now and then it has problems with the disk hanging. I can move around, click windows, and so on, but disk-heavy programs (in particular VMware which I use for virtual machines) seem to lock hard. After that, the computer becomes incredibly slow in all programs (particularly any that would use the disk). If I try to shut it down, it hangs for so long that I usually just force power it down and when I restart, my login screen is wrong and I have to reset it.

I'm still not entirely sure if it's Windows 10 problem, a VMware problem, or an ASUS problem, but I figured it was better to point it out in case others had a similar issue.

In the end, it's a good laptop that did what I wanted it to. It has a few downsides that aren't critical enough that I wouldn't choose Asus again; but it wasn't great enough that it's my top choice for the next laptop either.

Razer, a name that you should be able to trust.
(See online!)

I've used a Microsoft Intellimouse for about 10 years but it finally gave up the ghost. I researched and posted in various forums to determine some good mice that were simple, comfortable, had good performance, and weren't LOUD. The Razer DeathAdder Chroma fits all those requirements well. It's good performance, has a smooth scrollwheel, fairly quiet operation, and a thumb button for going back in my browser. I also like the LED color option because, hey, pretty glowy yay!

I guess I can forgive that you need custom drivers to control the color options, but why do I have to SIGN UP FOR AN ONLINE ACCOUNT to download and use the drivers!? Let me say that again in case you missed it: you can't even CHANGE the settings later if you don't log in first.

It's bad enough that they forced me into a relationship with them to download drivers, but to block my access and force me to ask for permission to change from blue to cyan is just creepy. I didn't ask for this. I don't want it. Get out of my life.

I expected better from a company with such a solid reputation. I was able to make it work by using a fake email and information, but I won't be able to change my settings unless I remember my login information later. Good luck if you want to change a setting when you're not in an area with free wifi.

Bottom line, spruce up the guest bedroom because Razer is moving in.

EDIT: I should also point out that the right-click button was broken when it arrived. I gave it a chance because it seemed to resolve itself (still wasn't perfect, but enough that I didn't want to bother sending it back). When I tried playing a game where stealth needed me to hold the right mouse button, it clearly wasn't going to work. I discovered this outside the 30 day window so had to go to Razer for warranty. Luckily they didn't fight me, but add a sour note to an already abusive experience.

Edit 2: I realize I've had this mouse for two years now, but I still have PS2-port mice with balls that work just fine from the 90s. One without moving parts shouldn't have parts falling off of it this soon. All in all, I am more disappointed than I can say and definitely won't be buying from them again if they don't raise their standards significantly.

Razer - 2 years later, and stuff is falling right off

(Image is in the Public Domain)

Researchers have determined that if you were to install Windows XP and connect it to the Internet to download the security updates, your chances of getting the updates before being hacked are slim to none.

If you want to use XP (as I and other computer security experts often recommend), use the following best practices:

1. Don't install with the network cable attached. At least one commentor on the article cites a time when his windows 2000 (the basis of XP) was hacked during installation.
2. Get Windows Service Pack 3 which contains a cumulative patch of years worth of security updates. Download SP3 onto a second computer, move it to the new one, and install it offline [download here].
3. Install a virus scanner and a firewall prior to connecting the cable.
4. Download (on second computer) updates to Internet software such as Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer. While you can (and should) use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer, IE is integrated with the operating system so it's a good idea to keep it updated anyway.

You can also download incremental security patches from the Microsoft Download Center, but I couldn't tell you which ones are relevant and which aren't. I believe that Microsoft removes all security patches that are bundled into service packs already so, in theory, you should just download any security patch listed for XP on their site. If you can confirm this, please post it in comments.

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

Download a copy of Firefox 3 this Tuesday the 17th. Send a message that we're tired of big-company products that aren't stable, aren't standard, aren't secure, and can't be customized.

Don't worry, it's not real

(Image used under: Fair Use doctrine)

I haven't gotten around to making a module on digital imaging, but when I do, I'll definitely be covering the issue of fake photos and how to spot them. For now, here's a link with some tips.