Security application

Macros in Microsoft Office programs allow you to automate repetitive tasks, but some macros can be dangerous. Macros are bits of computer code and they’re infamous for containing malware that will infect your computer if you run them. Microsoft Office protects you from files containing macros by default. When you open a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file containing macros (.docm, .xlsm, or .pptm, respectively), a Security Warning message displays below the ribbon in the program telling you that macros have been disabled. If, and only if, you know the document came from a trusted source, you can click the “Enable Content” button on the Security Warning message to enable the macros in that document. RELATED: Macros Explained: Why Microsoft Office Files Can Be Dangerous If you know what you’re doing, and you don’t want to see that message every time you open an Office document, you can disable it. We’ll show you how to disable the message without compromising the security … [Read more...] about How to Disable the Security Warning Message Bar in Microsoft Office Programs

Telegram and Signal are widely popular privacy-focused messaging apps. However, the two apps have some big differences : While all messages sent via Signal are always end-to-end encrypted by default, Telegram messages aren’t. End-to-end encryption is an optional feature in Telegram. Why End-to-End Encryption Matters End-to-end encryption means that only the sender and the receiver of a message can see its contents. Not even the company running the server in the middle of the conversations can see the contents of the communications. With Signal, all conversations are always end-to-end encrypted: The Signal Foundation can’t see the contents of the messages. With Telegram, the company in charge of Telegram is technically capable of seeing the contents of the messages on its servers. There is still some encryption in Telegram, of course: Encryption is used to transmit messages between your Telegram app, Telegram’s servers, and the other person’s Telegram app. Your … [Read more...] about PSA: Telegram Chats Aren’t End-to-End Encrypted by Default

" " Visitors crowd the IBM stand at the CeBIT technology trade fair on the first day the fair opened to the public on March 4, 2008, in Hanover, Germany. Sean Gallup/ Getty Images Some people might tell you the world is getting smaller, and sometimes it seems that way. This is especially apparent in the things we buy. Many products you can find in the United States, such as clothing and toys, are manufactured overseas in countries like China and India. A lot of the gasoline someone might purchase to fill up a car probably comes from an oil refinery in a faraway country. Food grown on a farm in the Midwest can be shipped to the other side of the world in less than a day. The ubiquity of the Web has made these networks of trade even quicker to form and more complex. Anyone, no matter his or her interests, can surf the Internet for goods and services and make quick transactions. A student in New York City writing a major thesis on current Japanese animation can … [Read more...] about How does information technology work with trade laws?

Microsoft’s 21H2 update will debut in the second half of 2021. This is a bigger update with more new features and follows the 21H1 update planned for Spring 2021, which is focused on stability and polish. This article is up-to-date with the latest changes as of Windows 10 Insider build 21313 , which was released on February 12, 2020. No Guarantees! As usual, Microsoft offers no guarantee that these features will appear in the final version of 21H2. They’re currently in the development builds of what will become the 21H2 update, but Microsoft may pull these features and spend more time working on them—or never release them. With that in mind, let’s look at what Microsoft is working on. RELATED: What's New in Windows 10's 21H1 Update, Coming Spring 2021 Weather and News on the Taskbar Microsoft is adding a “News and Interests” pane to the taskbar. You’ll see the local weather to the left of your notification area icons on the taskbar. Click it and you’ll … [Read more...] about What’s New in Windows 10’s 21H2 Update, Coming Winter 2021

When the dominant Linux distributions adopted systemd , dissenters forked distributions and started new projects. So what are your options if you’re looking for a non-systemd distribution? Let’s take a look. systemd: A Quick Recap Historically, the startup sequence in a Linux system was a replica of the initialization system that was introduced with System V Unix (SysV). The SysV init system adhered to the Unix philosophy . When people refer to the Unix philosophy, they usually reduce it to the well-known soundbite “Do one thing, and do it well.” And that thing was to start as the first process and then start other processes. It also culled zombies now and then. SysV init did its job well enough, but it didn’t do it too efficiently. It started processes serially, one after the other. There was no parallelism. The design bottle-necked the throughput. This was more or less masked by the speed gains of modern hardware, and it’s not as if booting a Linux computer took … [Read more...] about The Best Linux Distributions Without systemd