ISSUE 23.45 • 2026-11-09 COPILOT By Will Fastie Microsoft’s handling of Copilot has been messy from the start. This isn’t exactly news. Copilot has been a moving target for the past three years, and the dance probably isn’t over yet. The most recent manifestation of this was the collapse of the Windows Copilot App, which […]

MICROSOFT 365 By Peter Deegan Rent or buy? It’s the question all Microsoft customers face. It’s not a simple comparison, but the hard facts lead to one conclusion for most people. Microsoft stopped supporting Office 2021 on October 13, 2026, with no extension and no paid security updates. If that’s you, or you’re buying Office […]

FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT By Deanna McElveen Zipping around the sky in my car with the new Windows 27 running on my brain implant, I will enjoy my music, weather forecasts, system info, calendars, and my everyday tools and settings. They will be displayed in a single panel that appears when I need it and goes away […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley Recently, we were looking for something to solve a problem at the office.  Rather than spin my wheels looking for the best way to get software A (an Excel spreadsheet) to talk to software B (a line-of-business app that has a SQL backend), I reached out to someone on the […]

Outlook search is rolling out changes to be better. I first checked to see if Outlook (classic) will participate in these promised changes (it will). It was interesting to see that Microsoft is specifically calling out Classic Outlook:  “Classic Outlook for Windows Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel with Subscription, Outlook on the web, new […]

ISSUE 23.44.1 • 2026-11-05 By Susan Bradley There’s a lot happening this month. October represented the end of the support window for Consumer and Pro versions of Windows 11 24H2. If you are still on either of those editions, you’ll need to make sure that you use the 25H2 enablement links to upgrade. But do […]

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Now, the details are coming out about how attackers were able to gain access to Binance and phish their way into the company to transfer 6.3 billion dollars out. Turns out they targeted an employee on LinkedIn and used job interviews to download the malicious software to the computer. (You […]

Apple reported its quarterly financial report, which is mostly positive. There are some indicators of problems. Like many tech companies, Apple is suffering from issues with supply chains due to AI and data centers. Also of interest is the indicator that sales to China and the iPad line isn’t as robust as expected. That weak […]

ISSUE 23.44 • 2026-11-02 PUBLIC DEFENDER By Brian Livingston Although we are already deluged with information from the Internet, our content-overload problem is being made worse by “technology” newsletters and websites that knowingly publish outrageous fictions. I’m not referring to the usual breathless prose by tech writers about some new gizmo that the authors are […]

RATIONAL AI By Michael A. Covington AI companies measure usage in “tokens.” What are those, and how can we control how many we’re using? Before you ask that, you may wonder whether it’s even worth counting things that are priced at a few dollars per million, or even a few cents per million. How would […]

MICROSOFT 365 By Peter Deegan Sooner or later, everyone needs to do something simple with a PDF. It could be combining two files, pulling out a few pages, or shrinking a file that’s too big to email. These are features that Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader DC does not provide. Naturally, Adobe wants you to pay […]

ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley Providers are pushing us to two-factor authentication (2FA). Every day, I get a prompt to enroll in two-factor, use two-factor instead of a password, or even upgrade to a passkey. Just the other day, I saw that Facebook is mandating passkeys for me. Don’t panic. It doesn’t appear that this […]

Recently a co-worker was looking for phone with a specific purpose. He wanted a phone that had no Internet connectivity and was not a smart phone. Amazingly, it was harder to find than we thought. Some that were recommended weren’t available or were out of stock. So far, we found Gabb phone and, Bark phone […]

Naming a new product is never easy, but there are times that I wonder what in the world the folks in the marketing department are thinking.  After years of doing everything perfectly, Apple may be hitting a wall. If I told you I was buying a “MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR Display” (at a price […]

Apple released a multitude of updates Monday, October 26, 2026. In addition to the version 27.2 updates, Apple has pushed updates to its older operating systems, including a Core Graphics fix for a vulnerability that may have been exploited in targeted attacks. Apple continues to use AI to find and correct vulnerabilities across the board […]

ISSUE 23.43.1 • 2026-10-27 By Susan Bradley Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to install. This month I’m seeing side effects, but ones that predominantly impact business patchers, not consumers. Accordingly, I’ve lowered the MS-DEFCON level to 4. Install updates at this time. I’d lower the MS-DEFCON to a rare level 5, were it not for […]

ISSUE 23.43 • 2026-10-26 PATCH WATCH By Susan Bradley We take for granted that our computers will boot and operate efficiently. For all operating systems, from Windows to Apple to your favorite flavor of Linux, the software we most often take for granted is drivers because they power all the things we depend upon. Speakers. […]

MICROSOFT By Lance Whitney Microsoft makes some of my favorite products, ones that I couldn’t live or work without. But it also drives me nuts with all the technical problems and sales tactics I encounter. When AskWoody editor Will Fastie asked me to write an opinion piece about Microsoft as a company, I had to […]

FREEWARE SPOTLIGHT By Deanna McElveen You’ve been there: Windows adds another suggestion, button, ad, or pop-up, and figuring out how to turn the darned thing off can feel like looking for a Necco wafer in a button jar. NixThis by Builtbybel takes a different approach. You just point it at the thing that’s bugging you, […]

LEGAL BRIEF By Max Stul Oppenheimer, Esq. On August 26, Meta and the Attorneys General of 51 US states and territories filed a request that a federal district court judge approve the settlement of a complaint. The settlement proposal is 130 pages long (although 53 of them are signature pages for all the parties and […]