Tech Advisor October 2022

If you bought a high-end PC motherboard from Asus last year, you should probably check out this safety alert. The manufacturer is recalling approximately 10,000 motherboards in the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero line, after discovering that a manufacturing defect can cause it to overheat and potentially catch fire. So far, ten reports of overheating have been processed by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, thankfully without any injuries. What exactly is the problem? According to Asus, a single capacitor on the board was installed backwards in some models, specifically those with the serial numbers starting with MA, MB and MC, manufactured last year. This apparently doesn’t cause the motherboard to malfunction right away, but with extended use it can result in error codes, a failure to post, or (at least…

If you bought a high-end PC motherboard from Asus last year, you should probably check out this safety alert. The manufacturer is recalling approximately 10,000 motherboards in the ROG Maximus Z690 Hero line, after discovering that a manufacturing defect can cause it to overheat and potentially catch fire. So far, ten reports of overheating have been processed by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, thankfully without any injuries. What exactly is the problem? According to Asus, a single capacitor on the board was installed backwards in some models, specifically those with the serial numbers starting with MA, MB and MC, manufactured last year. This apparently doesn’t cause the motherboard to malfunction right away, but with extended use it can result in error codes, a failure to post, or (at least potentially)…

We love us some PowerToys here at Tech Advisor, and it seems the semi-official add-on for Windows power users is only getting better. A recent update to the GitHub project for PowerToys indicates that ‘PowerOCR’ is in the latter stages of approval and should land in the official app before too long. The tool will add in an easy way for Windows users to activate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) via a quick screenshot interface. NeoWin spotted the changes to the PowerToys Github (fave.co/3Klvxs8), with extensive documentation of the new PowerOCR tool and an apparent approval nod from a Microsoft manager. The tool is mostly the work of independent developer Joseph Finney, contributing code that works similarly to his paid Text Grab app. He posted a handy GIF showing how quickly…

Participants in the MP3 revolution will remember Winamp fondly. The independent media player and library, initially released in the late 1990s, was the go-to choice for anyone who didn’t care for more marketed options like iTunes or Windows Media Player. The license to Winamp was passed around a bit before landing at its current owner. The last stable release was way back in 2013, but the new Winamp 5.999 is now available as a release candidate after four years of new development. Download and install the new version from the official Winamp forum (fave.co/3cc8xir), and you might just feel yourself transported back in time to 2001. The player still feels like an old-fashioned media library manager, and yes, still launches with a shock jock-style declaration of ‘it really whips the…

We love us some PowerToys here at Tech Advisor, and it seems the semi-official add-on for Windows power users is only getting better. A recent update to the GitHub project for PowerToys indicates that ‘PowerOCR’ is in the latter stages of approval and should land in the official app before too long. The tool will add in an easy way for Windows users to activate Optical Character Recognition (OCR) via a quick screenshot interface. NeoWin spotted the changes to the PowerToys Github (fave.co/3Klvxs8), with extensive documentation of the new PowerOCR tool and an apparent approval nod from a Microsoft manager. The tool is mostly the work of independent developer Joseph Finney, contributing code that works similarly to his paid Text Grab app. He posted a handy GIF showing how quickly and…

DuckDuckGo has made a name for itself protecting users from being tracked and preserving their anonymity, which is why people were understandably upset when they discovered that the browser maker had given the green light to being tracked by Microsoft. Last month, the search engine remedied that. DuckDuckGo chief executive Gabriel Weinberg said that it will expand the scripts that “we block from loading on websites to include scripts from Microsoft in our browsing apps (iOS and Android) and our browser extensions (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge and Opera), with beta apps to follow in the coming month”. DuckDuckGo tries to block tracking scripts from search engines and websites like Facebook, but also from more fundamental architects of scripts and tracking software. This browser uses what it calls ‘3rd-Party Tracking Loading…