Internet down?

  Some sites hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) may appear to be down due to an outage at AWS>

11/25/2020  Not good for on-line shopping.

Cheap router equals Exploit?

  Recent research finds "backdoor" in several hone routers sold at Walmart and Amazon.

A "backdoor" is a port that ANYONE on the Internet can gain access to your home router, thus your home network from anywhere.

 The two KNOWN brands are Wavlink and Jetstream. If you have one of these brands or home routers, suggest you remove and purchase a more reputable brand.

Computer Club membership email fraud alert

 Received today (11/16/2020)from Sun City Computer Club to my member email address:

Received today (11/26/2020) yet another with different content

a note from a club board member asking i purchase gift cards in the amount of $600, forward the card number(s) to that board member with reimbursement this Wednesday.

 This is a fraud attempt. DO NOT purchase the gift cards. BE AWARE.

If you have received a similar email, report it to the FTC 

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov

Updates abound

 iOS 14.1

Safari 14.0.1 MAC  14.1 iDevice

Windows Codec HEVC Video Extension  1.0.32532.0  (Windows Store)

Chrome 86.0.4240.111

Firefox 82.0

MacOS 11.0 (20A5395g)

Windows 10 2004 KB4579311

Edge 86.0.622.51

Brave 1.15.76

Vivaldi 3.4.2066.76

Several / many VPNs and Security suites

Oracle, Linux (SMB update is important)

An extraordinary number released this week.  Be aware

Firefox on Android platforms

   VERY important. Firefox on Android platforms had a SERIOUS Local Are Network flaw that allowed attackers to force the Firefox browser to visit sites that held malicious content and/or take over the Android device.

 IMPORTANT to update Firefox. I show version 81.1.1 as the current release.

Internet down/slow 30-Aug-2020

  Some sites unresponsive. If you experience slowness, outage, be aware.

Adobe Lightroom version 5.4 for iOS devices DELETES customer photos!!

  Adobe  has announced that users who updated Lightroom to version 5.4 may have lost all photos, presets, edits, watermarks, etc.

 Adobe apologizes, says there is no way to recover unless costumers had backup in Adobe cloud or other backup.

We are aware that some customers who updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing photos and presets that were not synced to the Lightroom cloud.

A new version of Lightroom mobile (5.4.1) for iOS and iPadOS has now been released that prevents this issue from affecting additional customers.

Installing version 5.4.1 will not restore missing photos or presets for customers affected by the problem introduced in 5.4.0.

We know that some customers have photos and presets that are not recoverable. We sincerely apologize to any customers who have been affected by this issue.