How do I know if I can trust what I’m downloading online?

When you’re downloading a file off of the internet, like an installer for a program or even a full disc image for a version of Linux or Windows, it can be hard to know if the file is trustworthy, or if it may have been modified to contain a virus. So how do you know if something is safe to use?

The best method is by using a “checksum” or a file-hash. These are often long strings of letters and numbers and are almost always provided by the site you’re downloading from. It’s like a fingerprint, unique to that file – which means if the version number of the program has changed, you can bet that the checksum has, too! So here’s a great little tutorial for learning how to use checksums.

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Setting up Windows 11 without a Microsoft Account

Although I’m a big believer in the usefulness of a Microsoft account, there are times that I want to set up a new device with a LOCAL account first, and then add a Microsoft account, or maybe even join the machine to a domain for work purposes. So, what’s the easiest way to do that?

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Windows 11 24H2: “insufficient system resources” trying to login

I’ve talked about running a SAMBA Domain Controller before. It definitely has its ups and downs, but damn Microsoft loves being hostile to SAMBA.

I have deployed multiple computers with Windows 11, including the latest 24H2 update, but we recently had a specific Device, a Microsoft Surface Pro 9 to be precise, which received the 24H2 update “naturally” via Windows Update.

As soon as it rebooted, the user ran into an issue.

Upon trying to login, the user was greeted with the following error:
“insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service.”

Correct password, incorrect password, no password – it didn’t matter. Domain users immediately showed the error. I was, however, able to login as a local user.

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Ubuntu Linux CPU usage / CPU temperature high? Try this…

We have an Ubuntu based mini computer at which serves as little more than a network switch. CPU and other resource utilization should be next to nothing, but frequently this computer would have CPU temperatures around 80 degrees Celsius, and when you would watch the resource monitor the CPU activity was all over the place. Despite the computer only really showing a few percent of CPU usage, if you went toe the Resources Tab of System Monitor, the per-core CPU activity was all over the place.

As I mentioned, the computer in question is a simple network appliance that would never need to print, and upon closer inspection, it was the Linux “CUPS” Service. Once we disabled that, the CPU settled right down.

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