I recently had a problem where my Arch Linux Fn sound volume keys quit working. I looked high and low and could not find a solution.

head space and timing

This is a military term related to ensuring the bolt and head space for the M2 .50 caliber machine gun are in alignment. This must be done correctly, or the weapon can explode during operation. It also means a person who’s screwed something up because they failed to check what they were doing before they did it.

~ head space and timing, Urban Dictionary

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A new, very real and very widespread security vulnerability in all wifi 802.11 devices has been found. It is a notable issue because it is not a manufacturer flaw but a design flaw caused by the wifi spec (802.11) itself.

Called KRACK (Key Reinstallation AttaCKs), the problem might take time to patch because of the fracturing of various types of wifi devices. For instance, Android phones are at the mercy of the phone manufacturers and/or carriers as to when updates occur. Older routers might not even have a user-friendly update mechanism, but I’ve noticed some newer ones will actually automatically check but not necessarily automatically install. The good news, though, is that the security vulnerability in all wifi devices can be patched via software. No hardware changes are required.

Today is being called “Black Monday” in many information security circles. We have had a major Wi-Fi vulnerability announced that affects absolutely every device that supports Wi-Fi. The vulnerability allows attackers to decrypt WPA2 connections. A second vulnerability also emerged today, and we will cover that at the end of this post.

~ PSA: Severe Vulnerability in All Wi-Fi Devices

We had a recent spate of Internet Explorer opening multiple tabs to the point of exhausting computer memory, and it seemed exclusively Windows 10 boxes. Turns out that a new “feature” that you didn’t ask for is the cause.

I got a weird call from another tech saying that a user’s Internet Explorer was opening multiple tabs, over and over again, until the system came to a crawl because it was running out of memory. Killing IE, if possible, else a hard reboot seemed the only options.

This was puzzling. It was really weird because it was a new system, so it must’ve been a new record if they downloaded something to cause the behavior. Normally, I would immediately suspect adware, spyware or a rogue toolbar. Turns out that the latter wasn’t so far from the truth. The problem is that a new “feature” of Windows 10 was to add an “Edge” tab to Internet Explorer. Microsoft really wants you to use Edge, and apparently haven’t learned from turning so many people off on trying to force Windows 10 upon them.

I keep wondering what it will take for the corporate world to wake up and move to open source software, where you can, if willing, customize the software all day long and not be held hostage by closed systems like MS Windows.

At any rate, 9/10ths of the time, you can fix the issue by going into Internet options and cleaning up the cache files, resetting Advanced settings and resetting IE completely, in that order. In the remaining cases, removing all temp files for all users with a utility like TFC did the trick.

And, yes, on new machines even.

I generally love my Huawei, but I kept getting frustrated because I could not figure out how to screen case from my Honor 6. I kept running into flip comments online such as “Simply turn on MirrorShare”, but I could not for the life of me find that setting.

This: Honor 8 screen cast | Honor 8

In short, all I had to do was:

How do you get the mirror get in the short cut menu. Currently, my phone do not show this as an option.

Scroll down in notification and it shows edit to switch icons

Problem solved! Turn on MirrorShare, and it will now show the devices capable of receiving the cast (don’t forget to turn it on in your Roku settings).