Amazon’s New World Makes your Graphics Processing Units a Brick!

Paul

New World and a NEW GPU!

According to reports from what I’m seeing,  Amazon’s New World MMO is bricking people Graphics cards.  I haven’t even tried this game on my system nor will I because I have other important things going on.  JayzTwocents on twitter said:

Fixing the MMO

Just cap your Frames Per Second to 60 or 70 at the most. It seems most are saying that is how to prevent the extra power draw from to your Nvidia 3060 or High GPU’s and stopping them from become bricks. Although it’s not just Nvidia but also AMD that seems to be having the problems. There are a few older cards that are also having problems with this but not to that extreme of bricking it. You should however be careful with this game and others and watching your heat and power draw using the MSI AfterBurner utility. Please don’t overclock your GPU while playing this game. Keep it at it’s defaults, that way you will less likely have issues.

Don’t be like other guys:

I think I’ll wait!

It’s time to put that on the burner. I won’t say I haven’t thought about trying this game when I first heard about it but I have been rather busy the last few weeks with school and about to move into my new place. I thought I would wait and maybe try it out later this year.   In any case, I am a little bit worried that if I did, my 1660 super would be fried.   So I am going to wait and see what Amazon does when it finally does fix this bug if it is one or fix this issue.   Happy Gaming all!

Find your inner voice to writing essays and papers

Paul

Writing? Yeah.

 

Staring at a blank page

We’ve all done it, at one time or another.  We’ve stared at a blank piece of paper or even a blank screen and asking ourselves “What am I going to write about?” I even imagine most people who are new this have a cold sweat or even feel anxious about even attempting the essay.   This is a common problem in colleges because more the half the students are new and inexperienced.   I have even done it, it can seem daunting to come up with a topic or even come up with what the professor wants you to do.  If you didn’t at least stop and ask yourself this every time you tried to write a essay, I’d be worried.   When you start the process of writing an essay, how can I find my inner voice to use for writing.   I’m going to talk about some of this and help students create their inner voice and bring it out.   It’s not as easy as it sounds, it can sometimes seem down right hard because you’ve never done it.   This, I suspect, will bring you out of your comfort zone and that might be a little or a lot difficult depending on how you feel about writing.

Close your eyes

If you’re a really good at typing on the keyboard, then this will be almost as easy as walking.   The problem is that most like to look at the screen or even the keyboard to write because they want to make sure they are spelling the words the right way.   I find sometimes I can listen to my inner voice and it helps me to let the words flow as I am writing, it has to be a skill but it is a good way to get the essay started.   It allows the mind to do start the process of writing a good essay.   When we do this we allow words to flow and it can be a very relaxing and enjoyable way to at least start the process.   It however can also be very inconvenient at times when you have to type a essay in class.   I’ve found this still works really well and allows my thoughts to be put onto the screen.

Start a diary

Self talk is necessary for creating that inner voice.   If you haven’t started this it might be helpful when it comes to writing essays.   This allows trains your mind into allowing your thoughts to be put onto paper or screen.   I originally started my blog as a way to be a diary.   However, lately, I have used it for much more than that.  I can share my experiences and my thoughts on a subject with much more vigor.   I love to share my opinions and hear what my audience has to say about the subject.    When I write on my blog I am free and I can express my thoughts and desires in ways I never knew I could when I was young.

Start a blog

We’ve all have our own passions and that can be anything in life.   I dare not even try to imagine what people are passionate about.   I do however find that when you’re passionate about something, people around you also will be encouraged.  There are three good blogging sites out there that are free to use and you can start writing and trying to get out of your comfort zone.   These sites are:

All of these are free for those who might want to try their hand at blogging.   I know there are even more but these are just a few that I’d suggest.   Personally I use WordPress and have loved it since the day I started using it but that is just me.

Our inner voice

It can’t be said that no one has an inner voice.   It’s there we just have to learn to listen for it and bring it out.   Once you find your inner voice, you just might be amazed at how much it has to say.   There are days I am sure that my inner just be quiet.   Then I started blogging or writing and it calms my inner voice right down.   I find that i do way better with writing then I used to because of my inner voice.   It’s a part of me and it drives me.   It helps me to get through those essays that we will always have in our college classes.   Have you heard your inner voice?  Is it a narrative?  is it augmentative?  or maybe it’s analytical?   Once you learn to harness your inner voice, those essays will come even easier than before.

How to Convert your Windows 10 from MBR to GPT

Paul

Securing Windows 10

It’s complicated is what I’ve heard from people all around the world. The idea that We have to figure how to turn our Windows 10 into a secure boot, can seem difficult at best. Just like Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) isn’t always labeled right in the bios and that can be hard to find.   It seems that all the motherboard manufacturers wanted to make it extremely difficult for anyone who might want to enable or disable UEFI to be able to do it.   Then add on to the fact that the Motherboard manufacturers also made it hard to figure out how to turn on TPM in the bios also.   Can seem quite maddening to most because each manufacturer didn’t just call it TPM or UEFI.   Some of them Call it PTT (The intel Platform Trusted Technology) or even the AMD which is called fTPM(Firmware Trusted Platform Module).   Although the AMD version is a whole lot easier to understand since it does say TPM.  Intel on the other hand can be hard to find or even know what PTT stands for unless you google it.

Checking your system

The first step you should always do is make sure you can do this in the first place.   If you haven’t read my other post about this, I’d go over there and check to make sure you can do this in the first place.   As of currently Microsoft has stated that the requirements are the same for the previous few weeks.   So I don’t know if they will change when the final release comes out but it could very well change.

Have backups

Before I talk about the upgrading or updating your boot system to allow you to boot into Windows 10 Secure boot.  I’ll make this statement, please consider backing up all your important files that you might want to keep to a USB Flash Drive or even portable HDD or a HD that you can unplug from the bios to keep your important files safe while the upgrading of Windows 10 is being done.    What you do after this is on yourself and no one else.

can you upgrade to secure boot?

If you have checked the previous post and turned on what you can besides secure boot, but you know you have it.  You’re pretty much set to upgrade Windows 10 from Master Boot Record (MBR) to GPT(GUID Partition Table).  The process for converting your Master Boot record is relatively simple but will require you to boot into a Windows 10 on a USB!  Once you have done that you will then want to get to the command prompt the easiest way is to hit Windows+S and type in cmd then right click run as administrator.  Now you’re at the command problem.  Now is where the fun starts.

Type in :  mbr2gpt.exe  /allowFullOS /convert

Let it do it’s conversion and once done you’ll need to reboot but before you try to log into Windows again, you’ll need to go into the bios and enable secure boot.   Depending on how much Windows 10 needs to go through a new startup process will depend on the way GPT was converted.  It may take a few minutes even on the fastest system for Windows 10 to fully boot or it could be just as quick as before.   Once Windows 10 is booted, I suggest verify all your files are there and that everything is working correctly.   You might need to update software but that shouldn’t be to much a problem.   After That if you are on the Windows Insider Program than go check for updates and Windows 11 should be able to install.  If it still says you can’t upgrade I’d go back and check Whynotwin11 and Find out if you haven’t enabled TPM or what version of the TPM it is.   Other than that you should be set to go.

Enjoy Windows 11 Preview builds.   

 

5 Tips and Trips to Writing an Essay Outline

Paul

Writing

 

Writing Essays

We’ve all been there and it can be very hard not to look at the essays we have to write and just get overwhelmed.   These are what every student in any class is probably going through.  We can do only so much but here are some of my greatest tips for those who are beginning the process of making an essay.   I’ve learned these from writing my blog (check my profile out for my blog) and I am going to share with you what I know.   You’re probably wondering how you can come up with some easy ways to write that much needed essay and not know where to start.

Break the Essay down

This is the easiest part of the whole essay outline.   You’ve got to think what you want to convey and then come up with ways to keep the readers wanting to continue to read your essay.   Funny antecedents  or even funny notions, can keep that reader wanting to continue to read that essay.   Find ways you can relate to the reader or people.   It’s a tricky little step because there are no two people who are the same but that can also help you.   Figure what you want to say and break it down into paragraphs and figure out how you want to approach the problem.

Title each paragraph

Here is another great tip, if you want to make an impact and keep the reader coming back, then make titles that communicate what you are going to say in each and every paragraph.   The reader will want know where you’re going and it makes it easier for the reader to keep up with what your are trying to convey.   Remember the reader may not know nothing about what you are wanting to talk about so you have to be especially clear on communicating the ideas, thoughts, and even motives of the essay.   Draw the reader into what you are talking about and make them a part of the reading experience.   This way, the reader more involved and you create a connection with the reader.

Write the beginning Sentence

This is the most important step.   When you write your essay, you should write the beginning sentence to draw the reader into essay paragraphs.   Remember the first step is to use the Why are you writing the essay and come up with other reasons why you are writing the paragraph.   When you do you will bring in even more responses to your essay.   Draw the reader into making the a personal journey into what your writing.   Once you do that you will make the reader want to keep reading.

Write a quick about what the paragraph will be about

This is another good important step because you want to be able to come back to the paragraph and not forget what you wanted to talk about.   Let’s face it, we are all human, and we’ll not remember what the paragraph was going to be about.   So jot down a quick note about what the paragraph was going to be about.   One or two sentences is really all you need to come back to figuring out what the each paragraph is about.   We are all busy but this will help you to keep on track when writing the esssay.

Write a strong conclusion

Writing a strong conclusion will help you to end the essay on a good note.   Readers don’t like it when you just stop in the middle of the essay.   Why would you want to leave your readers on a cliffhanger?   Are you going to make another essay?  If not, we have to come up with a way to create a awesome conclusion and that makes the reader say ‘um’ and create a good breaking point to allow the reader to come up with their own conclusions.   Some ways you can come up with a good conclusion is to talk about what you have seen or maybe even what you are thinking at the end of the essay.   Make it be something that helps relate the reader to your way of the thinking, or your augment.  When you do that, the reader is more likely to leave on a good note or a happy note.   They may not agree with you but they will at least respect you for what you have said.

Do you agree or disagree?  Do you have your own ideas for writing the essay outline?   You got any tips or tricks that you want to share? I’d like to hear about it and leave a comment or two.

This is why Windows 11 Will fail miserably with Security!

Paul
Photo by TheDigitalWay on Pixabay

Microsoft’s bad Idea

“Microsoft claims that their telemetry shows that they have seen up to a 60% reduction in malware when TPM-enabled features like Windows Hello and BitLocker encryption are used on supported devices — it’s unclear why that would be at all true, unless it’s correlation and not causation”   Steve Gibson (Security Now #825 Podcast)

I dare say it’s a terrible idea.  I have been doing some major research into secure boot and TPM and everything I’m seeing is a little bit worrying to say the least.  Even listening to others talk about what Windows 11 can do or can’t do seems quite obvious.   Afterall, I’ve even had my son get information on how to get around the security requirements for Windows 11 and install Windows a boot logged copy of it onto a USB just to play around with it.   I am quite concerned with this also because it seems Microsoft trying to force users onto a proprietary system.  Microsoft is only doing the complete opposite of what they claim.

Scrutinizing the Boot Process

The goal of a hardware root of trust is to verify that the software installed in every component of the hardware is the software that was intended.  — Jessie Frazelle

The problem with trust is that we should never trust anything and always question it.   How can a system trust that the software wasn’t installed as intended?   These are the basic problems with the premise of a TPM and even the Secure Boot process.

The goal of attestation is to prove to a third party that your operating system and application software are intact and trustworthy. — Jessie Frazelle

The problem with this is even more obvious to the security of a system.   Attestation can’t always witness or even prove a program doesn’t have the right to be run or used in boot up.   Unless Attestations can be programmed to boot Windows a certain everytime in hardware, we will always have the virus developers skirting around the boot process.

Some members of the technology industry have raised the concern that the well-documented, modern, high-level language interface provided by UEFI makes it easier to compromise a platform [12]; that the ability to add modules
and applications to the boot process could compromise security.

Richard Wilkins and Brian Richardson

I wouldn’t call some being a small amount of people but a large amount.  I’ve heard time and time again this idea and it seems to be a growing concern with UEFI and how virus writers / developers will overcome UEFI and be able to install viruses / Malware around the the Windows system to be able to do what they have always been able to do.

Security through Obscurity

Microsoft seems to have take this approach as  their next step through the security door and it’s seems quite evident that they’ve not learned their lesson from others.  I say that with the understanding that Apple tried this with their systems and they still have virus writers who can compromise their system.  It’s not like the security community doesn’t want all operating system to be secure, in fact most would want it so badly because we wouldn’t have to worry as much about the viruses or malware to being on peoples systems.   Let’s not forget we still have users who will do dumb things and that much will always be true.   There is always going to be need to teach the company users, how to be secure while using the company’s computer(s) or laptop(s).

Return-Oriented Programming

Return-Oriented Programming is a security exploit technique used by attackers to execute code on their target system. By obtaining control of the call stack, the attacker can control the flow of existing trusted software running on the computer and manipulate it to their own ends. — Secureteam UK

The ROP(return-oriented programming) has been a constant problem for several years now and will probably grow even more.   I say that not lightly because the Virus writers / Developers will have to start to use it more and more often and even find other exploits techniques to get around the Secure boot and UEFI protocols.  This is often called the Blindside attack and is most often used with IOT(Internet of Things) devices but can be used with Windows operating systems and will become more and more useful to them in the future, I suspect.

Not unlike the previous tutorial we will be crafting [ROP] the parameters to Windows API calls on the stack and then executing them.  — FuzzySecurity

As you can see, there is already programming that people can do with Windows 7 API and that’s been out for quite a while.  I am unsure when someone did this little experient and talked about the vulnerability.  This vulnerability is available on Windows 7.   It could very well be used on Windows 10 or even Windows 11, I suspect.

Mitigation

I will say there has been talk about mitigating this and other attacks but it requires a constant updating of the operating system and CPU (Secureteam UK).   As you know CPU manufacturers will take years to update a problem just because people will not want to go buy a new cpu or even a new computer until the old computer isn’t able to run or something actually breaks in the system.   I know Virus writers / developers will always be having to be a head of Windows updates and that might be what they are already doing.   Looking for vulnerabilities in the UEFI and Secure boot area.  I suspect they are already doing that now.   I can’t say if they’ll succeed but I know the virus writers make so much money on ransomware and getting those companies systems compromised.   So who really wins?  I would hazard a guess no one in the end, the security that Microsoft is trying to force will still fail miserably and I will be there saying “I told you so!”