Category Archives: Tech

Steve Jobs 2005 Stanford Commencement Speech

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This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

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The Log4Shell 0-day exploit, how bad is it really?

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Log4Shell is the name given to a critical zero-day vulnerability that surfaced last Thursday when it was exploited in the wild in remote-code compromises against Minecraft servers. The source of the vulnerability was Log4J, a logging utility used by thousands if not millions of apps, including those used inside just about every enterprise on the planet. The Minecraft servers were the proverbial canary in the coal mine.

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Tech Firms race to fix software flaw

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A critical vulnerability in a widely used software tool — one quickly exploited in the online game Minecraft — is rapidly emerging as a major threat to organizations around the world.

“The internet’s on fire right now,” said Adam Meyers, senior vice president of intelligence at the cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike. “People are scrambling to patch,” he said, “and all kinds of people scrambling to exploit it.” He said Friday morning that in the 12 hours since the bug’s existence was disclosed that it had been “fully weaponized,” meaning malefactors had developed and distributed tools to exploit it.

The flaw may be the worst computer vulnerability discovered in years. It was uncovered in a utility that’s ubiquitous in cloud servers and enterprise software used across industry and government. Unless it is fixed, it grants criminals, spies and programming novices alike easy access to internal networks where they can loot valuable data, plant malware, erase crucial information and much more.

“I’d be hard-pressed to think of a company that’s not at risk,” said Joe Sullivan, chief security officer for Cloudflare, whose online infrastructure protects websites from malicious actors. Untold millions of servers have it installed, and experts said the fallout would not be known for several days.

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My new Rocket Lake CPU is Rocket Hot!

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My computer re-build is complete. Back in July i began the upgrade procedure by mounting an intel i7-11700k CPU into an Asus TUF series motherboard. Upgraded my power supply to a Corsair HX850 and supplied all this awesomeness with 64GB of Dominator RAM. Once all the firmware and driver updates were complete, along with the installation of Windows 11, I decided to run a copy of Prime 95 and do some stress testing of my own. The results of my test were quite different than many of the tech journalist reports. I was able to maintain a stable system running at 100 degrees Celsius (very near boiling water). I was also able to launch a browser and surf around the net, while running all cores at max load. The cooling solution that I choose for my upgrade was a Corsair H115i RGB Pro XT, with its massive radiator and intelligent software made the difference, I am convinced.

My clock speed tapped out at 4.79GHz, with a base clock of 3.60GHz. My BIOS settings were set to the standard Asus extreme tuning, naturally.

Very pleased with my new rig, particularly when editing video in DaVinci Resolve. Can’t wait until 2026 when I can do this all over again!

UCF Wins U.S. Department of Energy Cyber Defense Competition — Again

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UCF beat out 119 other teams that represented 105 universities from 33 states and the District of Columbia to earn its second top title at competition.

The Collegiate Cybersecurity Competition Team at UCF has won the 2021 U.S. Department of Energy CyberForce Competition, a challenge that pits collegiate teams from the across the country against each other as they thwart a simulated cyberattack.

This is the second time UCF has won the competition. This year, UCF beat out 119 other teams that represented 105 universities from 33 states and the District of Columbia.

This was the seventh CyberForce Competition hosted by the Department of Energy. Held virtually on Nov. 13, teams were challenged to harden and secure systems of a hydropower company — along with the systems of a subsidiary company – against a malicious cyberattack, all while maintaining service for customers, according to the Department of Energy.

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Windows 11

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https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

After just three months of testing, Microsoft has declared Windows 11 fit for public consumption on new PCs and on a select group of Windows 10 PCs that are ready for the upgrade. On October 5 the upgrade should start rolling out to pc’s in North America.

Is Microsoft using the same, phased rollout approach with Windows 11 that it has been using for Windows 10? Yes. Machines that Microsoft believes will have a good experience running Windows 11 (based on its own telemetry, testing and self-hosting) will be offered Windows 11 first. Microsoft is saying that it expects it will have offered to all eligible Windows 10 devices the option to get Windows 11 by the middle of 2022.

“Our launch approach to Windows 11 leverages the well-established systems and processes used for the 1.3 billion Windows 10 devices we have shipped and serviced for over five years,” Microsoft’s John Cable explains. “We will use a measured and phased process in offering Windows 11 as we have done with Windows 10 feature updates. Our objective is to provide you with a smooth upgrade experience.”

In addition to the handful of new Windows 11-based PCs that are now being sold to consumers at retail, Microsoft will also offer Windows 11 as an upgrade on eligible newer PCs running Windows 10. Then, as in the past, it will evaluate the reliability of the upgrade and increase the number of PCs that can receive it. “Device health data and other signals” will determine the pace at which Windows 11 is offered as an upgrade, Cable says.

Today also marks the start of Windows 11’s new two-year support lifecycle for the Home and Pro editions of the product.

How long will businesses and consumers be able to continue to license/buy/upgrade to Windows 10? Support for Windows 10 will continue through October 14, 2025, and users will be able to license/buy/install Windows 10 up until that time, according to Microsoft. Microsoft officials are not saying at this time if they’ll make Extended Support Updates available for Windows 10 so users can keep getting security updates for it beyond October 14, 2025.

Updated Windows 11 PC Health App Details Why You Can’t Update to Windows 11

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With just a couple of weeks until Windows 11 is launched, Microsoft has re-released its Windows 11 compatibility checker in the form of the PC Health App. This new version gives you precise details pertaining to the compatibility and incompatibility of Windows 11 on your system. Especially when it comes to TPM 2.0 support.

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