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Microsoft has released a slew of emergency updates for various editions of Windows Server following the discovery of an authentication issue caused by this month's Patch Tuesday updates.

The updates (KB5008601, KB5008602, KB5008603, KB5008604, KB5008605 and KB5008606) are available for Windows Server 2008 SP2 up to Windows Server 2019. Although these are emergency, out-of-band updates, system administrators will still need to manually download and install them on affected domain controllers as Microsoft is not making them available via Windows Update.

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Microsoft has just released the latest preview version of Windows Subsystem for Linux, bringing with it a lengthy changelog.

With the launch of Windows Subsystem for Linux Pre-release 0.50.2.0, Microsoft has introduced a new icon (featuring, of course, a penguin), but there's far more to this release than just this visual update. The latest version fixes various WSL issues, updates the Linux kernel, and includes numerous other changes and additions.

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Solid state drives continue to get faster, with PCIe 4.0 variants leading the pack nowadays. Of course, most PCs don't have PCIe 4.0 support, so these ultra-fast drives are reserved for enthusiasts and those with brand new computers. If you have such a cutting-edge PC, you will probably want to get a PCIe 4.0 SSD to maximize your performance. True, it is largely for bragging rights and benchmarks, but you might as well go for the best if the difference in price isn't totally obscene.

Today, KIOXIA unveils its latest solid state drive. Called "BG5," it uses PCIe 4.0 x4 to achieve up to 3,500 MB/s read and 2,900 MB/s write. Yeah, this DRAM-less SSD is actually a bit slow compared to other PCIe 4.0 drives, but it does have a very cool feature -- it is being offered in the M.2 2230 form factor. This means it will fit inside Microsoft's all-new Surface Pro 8.

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A new survey from open source web development platform Elementor reveals that 67 percent of web professionals say they have experienced growth in their businesses since the pandemic began.

This trend is expected to continue, with 77 percent saying they expect the field of web design and development to continue to grow over the next five years.

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We've been told for a long time that passwords are on the way out. Indeed no less a figure than Bill Gates predicted the death of the password at 2004's RSA conference, yet we still rely on them for managing much of our day-to-day access.

But things are starting to change. Patrick McBride, CMO at Beyond Identity, believes that the technology to eliminate passwords and replace them with something more secure is starting to take off. We talked to him to discover more.

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Across the board, from operations to finances to customer satisfaction, the wrong data -- old, incomplete, and inaccurate information -- sets business back. According to MIT, "The cost of bad data is an astonishing 15 percent to 25 percent of revenue for most companies."

The differences between these errant data are important. Also important is understanding that, strictly speaking, there is no "bad data." "Bad" makes data subject to the interpretation of a value judgment. A better, more descriptive term would be "technical debt." This is when engineers begin to indiscriminately start to modify code and introduce new features. Over time, features are layered one on top of another and, if unchecked, teams sacrifice long-term efficiency via a durable, hard-won solution for the sake of easier, short-term approaches that yield a quick solution. 

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Tripp Lite is a company that I am very familiar with -- for high-quality power strips and surge protectors. When someone asks me what brand of surge protector they should buy to protect their picey desktop computer or other electronics, I usually recommend Tripp Lite. Are its power products a bit expensive? When compared to some other brands, I suppose so. With that said, that company's gear is typically well worth the premium.

Apparently, Tripp Lite also akes other types of computer accessories these days, including an all-new Thunderbolt 4 hub. Called "MTB4-HUB3-01," it will turn one Thunderbolt 3/4 port into three Thunderbolt ports and one USB-A port. This hub can even charge your laptop with up to 60W of power. While not the first such hub on the market, its slim body does look quite elegant.

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In recent years, cloud computing has become ubiquitous. So much so, that individuals rarely notice that they are using it to store documents and data instantly, despite the increasing importance that these technologies have in the remote arena. As many organizations continue to see their workforce scattered across different cities and countries, there is a clear urgency to access data safely, and without needing to do so in a physical workplace.

Beyond pandemic-incentivized cloud usage, other businesses will be motivated by the ease and flexibility that these technologies allow -- indeed, many find the ability to scale their operations up or down a very attractive prospect indeed.

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Remote work isn't going anywhere. The number of major companies announcing plans to allow their employees to work from home into the future continues to grow every week as Covid-19 prolongs the time away from the office and remote employees realize an improved work/life balance.

A switch to permanent remote work will also mean changes to the technology we use to work. Existing solutions were utilized early in the pandemic when there weren’t any other options, but as the projected time at home continued to increase it was clear that purpose-built solutions were needed to make an entirely remote office function properly.

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On Wednesday this week Microsoft rolled out a new build to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel. That build added a new sharing option to the taskbar and also fixed a number of issues.

Today, in time for the weekend, the software giant rolls out a build that offers a long list of improvements for those in the Beta and Release Preview channels.

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Windows 11 is a great operating system, and if your computer is compatible, you should upgrade from Windows 10 immediately. It is an absolute joy to use, and I find it to be the prettiest version of Windows yet.

If you want to make it even prettier, today, Microsoft shares a beautiful new Windows 11 wallpaper from artist Kervin Brisseaux. The company says the background image "merges the updated design of Windows 11 with the magical, vibrant nature of the holidays." Oddly, Microsoft fails to disclose which holidays those actually are.

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It’s no secret that Microsoft wants people to use its Edge browser. It advertises it in Windows 10 and 11 and of course it’s the default in both of those operating systems too.

The Chromium version of Edge is very good, but plenty of users prefer a different browser, like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox. You can use any browser in Windows, but Edge will still spring into life if you click on a link from within the operating system.

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The use of SaaS-based applications and systems has taken off in recent years, but that surge has highlighted a problem in the form of a lack of standardization for software descriptions across all types of systems.

This makes it much harder for IT teams to assess vulnerability levels across all the packages in an enterprise. But what risks does this pose and how can businesses tackle the problem? We spoke with Peter Lund, VP at operational technology cybersecurity company Industrial Defender, to discover more.

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A USB to HDMI dongle is pretty common nowadays and certainly nothing to get excited about. Amazon is littered with those adapters. Heck, even dongles that turn a single USB port into two video outputs can be found quite easily these days. But a USB adapter that offers four HDMI outputs? That's something worth noticing as it should be quite the useful tool.

And that, folks, is exactly what both the USB32HD4 and USBC2HD4 are -- USB adapters from StarTech.com that feature an impressive four HDMI ports. They are essentially the same, except the former uses USB-A, while the latter has USB-C. Both of these dongles can simultaneously output 1080p60 to a quartet of monitors. StarTech.com promises support for both Windows 10 and the all-new Windows 11; however, the company notes that neither dongle is compatible with macOS or Linux-based operating systems.

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In October, the internet was shaken by the Facebook outage that affected dozens of big-name companies, as well as millions of brands and businesses that advertise on Facebook’s platform. Because of something as simple as a misconfigured Domain Name System (DNS) record, every device with the Facebook app integration started DDoS-ing recursive DNS resolvers -- DDoS meaning "Distributed Denial of Service." This, in turn, caused overloading in countless cases across the board.

You might be thinking to yourself, "So, what? A few sites were offline for a couple of hours." But the outage brought to light other issues. Communications for the very Facebook employees that could fix this issue were crippled. Some of these hindrances went so far that people were unable to enter buildings because the physical badge system wasn't even online.

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