7 cable management tricks I regret not learning sooner “Cable management is a boring but necessary part of any PC build. Without it, you'll struggle to make sense of the cable jungle inside and outside your PC, and end up shoving cables wherever you can. That poses other problems related to airflow, dust accumulation, cable damage, diagnostics, and, of course, aesthetics. When I first started building PCs, I never did any cable management. Gradually, I learned the hard way that I should have picked up some tips along the way.” The very first tip about choosing the right case in the first place really brings something home to me that I have been learning as I got wiser in life. Buy the cheapest device/components, and it will last a much shorter time than a well-thought-out and maybe slightly more expensive purchase. Too often, we aim to save money up front, not realising it will actually cost us more over time. This is true from CPUs, to smartphones, to chargers, to cables, and most other things. Buy a bit better, and it won't run out of steam too early, won't cause RF interference, will have some capacity to take upgrades. Just some examples: * choosing an AMC CPU often means you can upgrade it later without having to buy a new motherboard. * a higher end smartphone can typically be used longer because it gets updates longer, and it was faster to start with. * a better power supply will give more stable performance, and may well have modular cabling. * a good choice of case, will mean you can likely do a few motherboard etc upgrades without having to replace that case for many years. * even a simple thing like an air duster, if you buy the cheapest, you just don't get the performance that does the job a lot quicker. * a slightly better buy also frequently comes with better support, a better warranty, and longer software upgrades. * a better office chair may not look glitsy, but it can have a 10-year warranty (I've had to throw out cheaper gaming chairs after just two years of use). * in a NAS type setup, using a desktop rated hard drive is going to last a shorter time than a NAS rated hard drive. See

XDA

7 cable management tricks I regret not learning sooner

These tips would have made life so much easier, both inside and outside my PC.

#technology #cables #quality

Hackers Exploit WordPress mu-Plugins to Inject Spam and Hijack Site Images “Threat actors are using the “mu-plugins” directory in WordPress sites to conceal malicious code with the goal of maintaining persistent remote access and redirecting site visitors to bogus sites.mu-plugins, short for must-use plugins, refers to plugins in a special directory (“wp-content/mu-plugins”) that are automatically executed by WordPress without the need to enable them explicitly via the admin dashboard. This also makes the directory an ideal location for staging malware.” This is actually a major problem because just about every WordPress site has this directory by default. It can just be deleted in many cases, but right now it is probably just sitting there waiting to be exploited. As the majority of websites on the Internet do use WordPress, this is a concern right now. So if you are a WordPress admin, you want to read the linked article and do the checks. If you don't use that directory, then it is probably safer to just delete it. Just keeping your installed plugins and themes up to date won't mitigate this risk, but updating is always a best practice, and WordPress lets you enable auto-update for plugins. See

The Hacker News

Hackers Exploit WordPress mu-Plugins to Inject Spam and Hijack Site Images

Threat actors hide malware in WordPress mu-Plugins, exploiting 4 CVEs in 2024 to hijack websites.

#technology #WordPress #vulnerability

Google's Street View data can now help analyse infrastructure like roads and utility poles “Government agencies and businesses will be able to use Street View data to analyse roadways, traffic patterns, and utility poles, starting today. It's all part of a push by Google to combine its maps database with AI and BigQuery to offer real-world insights. The company revealed it is adding support for geospatial analytics in BigQuery, meaning decision-makers can now detect damaged infrastructure.” This could certainly be useful to utility companies which are focussed on analysing and improving their signage etc. I remember years ago suggesting to our city's bus service (Golden Arrow Bus Services that is, not MyCiti who already has their routes on Google Maps and their own app) that they consider also putting their routing on Google Maps, as it would be way easier for commuters to use. Their own website was a major mess and there is no easy way of seeing when a bus would stop where, and certainly not where their service intersects with other bus and train routes. Sometimes it is just better to adopt a service that many of your commuters have free and easy access to, and which works across other transit services too. In fact, Golden Arrow Bus Services (GABS) in Cape Town is so bad, let me expand on that. Their website is a bunch of loose routes. There is no map even to show where are the routes go, and the search block returns nothing if you put say a suburb name in to just try to narrow down what routes pass through a suburb. There is none of those obvious aids to help you. Sending in suggestions and escalating those made no difference whatsoever. So yes, I cannot say all utilities and services are actually focussed on making their services better. But providing another useful tool for them is always a good thing. See

Android Police

Google Maps now helps cities fix signs and roads

Street View data and AI can now help governments and businesses fix roads, signs, and other infrastructure

#technology #streetview #signage

'Careless People' Is the Book About Facebook I've Wanted for a Decade, but it is Banned “Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams, is the book about Facebook that I didn’t know I had been waiting a decade to read. It’s also, notably, a book that Facebook does not want you to read; Wynn-Williams is currently under a gag order from a third-party arbitrator that prevents her from promoting or talking about the book because Facebook argued that it violates a non-disparagement clause in her employment contract.” Well of course now everyone will try to get hold of this book and read it. Nothing promotes a book better than a gagging or banning order. It implies there is some truth in it that someone does not want to get out. We've all known for a long time, at least since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, that Facebook has done some despicable things. Their efforts at fact checking etc was all part of the PR to try to disguise the questionable ethics that seemed to be ruling the roost. If we just think back to the very beginning why Mark created Facebook, it was questionable from the get-go. I still have a video clip where Mark is interviewed, and he clearly states the user's data belongs to the user, yet that data got sold and reshared elsewhere. To this day, WhatsApp has in its T&Cs that metadata will be shared upstream to Facebook and other partners. They are not trying to hide that fact. Out of all the Big tech companies, it is Facebook (Meta) that I have the least liking for. This is mainly for the repeated transgressions of privacy over many years. I can even stomach a company like Google using data (like reading our GMail) if they are not actually on selling or resharing that data like FB does. As far as we know, no other company has crossed the line like Facebook has. So of course I'll be interested in this book now too. I know it won't change much because at the end of the day, the only way a company like this feels anything, is if its users dessert its platform. That is just not likely to happen with Facebook in the shorter to medium term. “When I wonder if the company knows that its platforms are being taken over by the worst AI slop you could possibly imagine, if it knows that it is directly paying people to flood these platforms with spam, if it knows it is full of deepfakes and AI generated content of celebrities and cartoon characters doing awful things, if it knows it is showing terrible things to kids. Of course, it does. It just doesn’t care.” See

404 Media

'Careless People' Is the Book About Facebook I've Wanted for a Decade

I've reported on Facebook for years and have always wondered: Does Facebook care what it is doing to society? Careless People makes clear it does not.

#technology #Facebook #privacy #banned