Write Code, Write Life

 T he majority of teenagers alive today weren’t alive in the 90s, meaning the oldest version of Windows they’re likely to be familiar with is Windows XP. If that tidbit makes you feel old, you might not want to watch the latest React video from Fine Brothers Entertainment, in which a bunch of teenagers are exposed to the wonders of mid-90s computing and Windows 95 for the first time in their lives. They’re not impressed. It starts with first impressions. “The fact that the monitor is bigger than the actual computer itself says a lot” said Daniel, 17 years old, who is young enough to only have vague memories of monitors and TVs that aren’t flat. “I’ve no clue what year this is from, but I feel like it was before the year I was born,” said Geneva, age 18, after seeing the mid-90s Dell. Her math checks out. The design flaws we all got used to are evident right away. When asked to turn on the computer, everyone hit the big button on the monitor and waited, somet...

Privacy and security are hot topics lately given the amount of malware that is constantly circulating throughout the internet by criminals and even government agencies with the purpose of accessing our personal and business information. At the same time, information is sometimes gathered inadvertently that could nevertheless end up making its way to nefarious parties. In many cases, issues arise where a function that is meant to make things easier for users ends up being poorly executed. One example of exactly that phenomena seems to have created by an audio driver that has shipped in a number of HP PCs. Security firm Modezero discovered code in a Conexant audio driver that supports an HP feature that enables controlling audio hardware by using keyboard combinations that toggle features on and off. One example would be a hotkey for enabling and disabling the microphone. This driver apparently intercepts and saves keyboard input in order to control the functionality...