Have a HP Laptop? This may interest you...

Pass this on to people you know who have an HP laptop. (and update the laptops in your department)
https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c05827409


Hidden software that can record every letter typed on a computer keyboard has been discovered pre-installed on hundreds of HP laptop models.

Security researcher Michael Myng found the keylogging code in software drivers preinstalled on HP laptops to make the keyboard work.

HP said more than 460 models of laptop were affected by the "potential security vulnerability".

It has issued a software patch for its customers to remove the keylogger.

The issue affects laptops in the EliteBook, ProBook, Pavilion and Envy ranges, among others. HP has issued a full list of affected devices, dating back to 2012.

In a statement, the company said: "HP uses Synaptics' touchpads in some of its mobile PCs and has worked with Synaptics to provide fixes to their error for impacted HP systems, available via the security bulletin on HP.com ."

OEM's what have you done to your Websites????

I've been making budgets for work for years. I am seasoned dealing with OEM websites like Dell, HP and Lenovo. I don't know who they have been hiring to maintain their websites but it's turned to shit.

I couldn't find the HP Z240 model I had put on my sheet unless I look for it on google. Instead of putting their machines in series like they used to, you get about 100 systems listed when you look for a desktop.

And what moron at Dell thought that putting the 3420 and 3620 together in the 3000 series was a good idea. I don't want to find out after completely configuring a system that it is the WRONG fucking system. And the Dell 3420 does not come in Tower form but their websites leads you to think it does. Imagine a purchaser in a regular company that has to buy systems...


I thought it was just me, but everyone else I've talked to, also says it's almost impossible to find anything.  How come the sites were so good in the past and such crap now?

What is the matter with PC vendor's websites of late?

I really heavily on the websites of companies like Dell, HP, Lenovo, and IBM to get drivers for the machines I use for testing. Lately I've been needing display drivers for the onboard graphic devices of machines from the vendors listed above.

This is the 3rd or 4th time I run into a website that is not functional!  Does not make me impressed. This morning it is HP. I've tried 3 times to get access to drivers for an older machine and I get "SERVICE UNAVILABLE".

Two weeks ago it was Dell, I wanted to download the new system BIOS for the Dell T7600, one of their latest machines. I got a website error and try again later. Still same issue the next day.

Last week it was Lenovo. Was trying to get drivers for one of their newer systems as well. I kept getting to a page not found.

Not impressed. 

UEFI Growing pains

I like the theory of UEFI and it's about time that GPT standard gets more widespread. It was available with windows Vista and server 2008 but the way it was done in those OS does not seem compatible with Windows 8.  I tried setting up a drive several times with Vista 64, server 2008 64, Windows 7 64, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 64 and Server 2012. In theory it should have worked. In practice it did not.  I could get vista and Windows 7 to play nice together, I can can windows 7 and windows 8 playing nice together. But all 3 was a no go.

Switching booting between legacy and UEFI mode is painful. I'm not sure if it's worse on a Dell because I don't care for Dells, and I've been arguing with dells for several days now. I had setup one Dell T1650 with one drive in UEFI mode for Windows 7 64, Server 2008 R2, Windows 8 64 and server 2012, the other drive had all legacy OS, all 32 bit OS and of course that vista 64 and server 2008 64 that were not compatible in UEFI mode. This second drive was in legacy mode and of course MBR. I use XP to partition the drive.   I had switched back and forth between both drives without any issues, and the system went - when it came back it was no longer booting on the UEFI drive. Kept saying no boot device found.

Then there's the Dell T1600 where I had a drive with all OS between XP and server 2008 R2, in leagcy mode, and I setup Windows 8 and server 2012 in UEFI mode. It was working fabulously until I lent it to a less tech savvy colleague. Now it will boot into it's drive if I'm using the onboard graphics card, but won't boot using an add-in card to a hard disk. It will hang. Since I need to test it with add-in cards it won't be particularly useful to the intern who's supposed to have it as a test machine.

It;s weird too when you switch between UEFI and legacy mode on the T1600, it tends to lose all boot devices and goes to this weird  default legacy mode, and if you want to set it in UEFI you cannot go between you have no options. It's just really weird. It's like no one thought it through.

HP seems to handle the switching between both better.  My Lenovo can be incredibly bitchy as devices appear and disappears as well in 'UEFI" mode. 

Another interesting discovery one of my interns made with build 8441 of Windows 8 is that if you were configured in UEFI mode and ran Worldbench 6, it would trash your hard disk.  I've since confirmed it with Windows 8 RTM. It trashed my hard disk.  I wonder what other software will also trash my hard disk in such a way that I can't reghosted it using the 'partition' method. So far that method has worked really well for me.  You can run worldbench 6 in non UEFI mode and it won't trash your drive but it may not run particularly well.

Something tells me that my near future will be filled with me restoring drives that get trashed in GPT mode. So far it's happened several times on a fairly small sampling.