Modern start menu search was designed to drive users toward Bing and give MS-favored results to users. It’s hot garbage and has been for a while. So yeah, if you rely on as an IT pro it you probably aren’t very technical.

You can launch any common inbox or Office app and most MMC panels from the Win-R menu. And most of them haven’t changed since Windows 2000 / Office 95. Not being able to adapt and improve upon how you perform your job is sad.

It’s been broken and slow as hell since Vista. So yes, when IT “professionals” haven’t figured out other ways to run common programs by now, it hints at how remedial their skills are.

Have you had Culver’s root beer? It’s so good. It might be even better than A&W.

Win+R, wt, Enter

OR

Win-X, I

The start menu has sucked for a long time, but you don’t have to use it. I cringe when I see other IT folks using its search feature to launch common apps.

At least they are improving the app list with a nice category view and removing the All Apps button (still in preview). That’ll at least upgrade it from hot garbage to okayish.

I’d tell you a UDP joke, but you might not get it.

I’m really loving Octopi. Especially on the Fold since I can have multiple layouts. The stackable widgets are really nice too.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.otp.octopilauncher

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I mean, on a typewriter yeah. But otherwise, no.

I don’t think many places encrypt/hash email addresses, but even if they did they could just apply the hash algorithm to what you entered to compare the hashes.

Can’t say I’ve had this exact roast, but everything I’ve had from them has been good.

LUKS > LVM > ext4

Every time I install a new OS I ask myself if I should use BTRFS, if for no other reason than just to experience it. But I’ve never found a good enough reason that’s worth even a sliver of stability loss over more mature options.

It’s probably because I’ve also been burned too many times trying ReFS over NTFS on Windows (except for Veeam).

Yep that’s how my desktops and servers are set up. I only recently started adding the TPM PIN to my laptops for a bit of extra protection from cold boot / evil maid attacks.

given that Secure Boot prevents any modification of your computer’s boot chain

Secure Boot does no such thing. All it does it require that everything in the boot chain is signed by a trusted cert.

Binding TPM PCR7 to FDE (or more brittle options like 0+2+4) is really what protects against boot chain modifications but that’s another topic.

Disabling SB to install the distro, then re-enabling it once installed with either maintainer-signed shim or self-signed UKI/bootloader is perfectly fine.

You need both FDE and Secure Boot, ideally with FDE using a TPM with PIN and PCR 7+15=0. FDE without SB can be trivially boot-kitted and obviously SB without FDE is mostly pointless. Maybe for a server/desktop behind locked doors you don’t worry as much, but for a laptop you absolutely should. Also it’s really easy in Arch to resign the UKI with sbctl via a pacman hook whenever the kernel is updated so there’s no good reason not to use it.

If you’re relying on a LUKS password only, it can be brute-forced. To protect against that you need a decently long password which is annoying to type every boot. A short TPM PIN sealed by SB protecting LUKS is both more convent and more secure.

Finally, if an attacker or malware gets root, FDE isn’t protecting you either.

Yeah this is an issue but not a big one. Most distro’s installation media don’t use shim so you have to disable SB during install anyway.

And installing the 2023 KEK and db certs can be done via firmware without much trouble or you can use sbctl in setup mode which I believe has both the 2011 and 2023 keys.

If you dual boot Windows you’ll want to update it to the new bootmgr signed with the 2023 keys and add the 2011 certs to dbx to protect against BlackLotus or let Windows do it via patches+regfixes.

Also know that any changes to PK, KEK, dB, or dbx will change the PCR 7 measurement so handle that accordingly if you use TPM unlock for FDE.

Nope. For Linux you’ll want asusctl, maybe supergfxctl, and possibly some kernel modules.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ASUS_Linux

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Laptop/ASUS

Obligatory plug for G-Helper:

https://github.com/seerge/g-helper

It’s everything Armoury Crate should have been and not a drop more.

Same here. But it’s the best MMO for taking breaks and most compatible with adult life.

I only play about 3-6 months out of the year lately and have taken multiple year+ breaks. It can be a bear getting back into it after 3-4 years staring at an inventory full of unrecognizable icons, but not remotely as bad as other MMOs.

And when you come back all of your gear is still relevant.

Yeah I know but I need the skirmish claim tickets to finish out my light WvW set. And it still just felt wrong. Tbh I wanted the extra glowy ball from Confluence too although the new one probably won’t have that.

I’m looking forward to another legendary ring. I just made Conflux but just don’t have the time to raid for Confluence.

Plus I’m interested in new Skimmer masteries. I always bee-line the mount masteries first.