In a somewhat expected and inevitable move, Sony has announced that starting in January 2028 they will no longer be releasing any of their games on physical discs. Even though I don’t own a PlayStation 5, this is probably the beginning of the end for physical media for other consoles, as all it takes is one company to get the ball rolling.

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Similar to the release of the first edition of this book, I wanted to go into the details on why I created a second edition and what I learned while writing it. Just like the first time I went through this process, writing a book was harder than I thought it would be, and I wrongly assumed that creating a new edition would be a quick task to accomplish. Nevertheless, I still wanted to document the process if other people were interested in how it works.

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It was recently announced that in 2025, Microsoft had given BitLocker Recovery Keys to the FBI that were stored on their servers as part of a criminal investigation. Bitlocker is enabled by default on every Windows 11 device, and with the requirement to use a Microsoft Account on every default installation of Windows 11, the recovery keys should not be considered secure.

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The Vintage Computer Federation hosted the VCF Montréal event on January 24th and 25th, 2026. This was the first time that I have ever attended this type of event, and it has been something that I have wanted to do for a long time. I was originally planning on attending the VCF Midwest event in September of 2025, but recent events changed my plans. I had a great time, but unfortunately it was cut short due to circumstances beyond my control.

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I wanted to go over an initiative that I have been working on since the fall of 2024. Recent events have forced me to prioritize some of these tasks, as I really want to complete these tasks sooner rather than later. I am attempting to migrate as many of my online services as possible away from services based in the US. This is not an easy task which will require certain concessions on some things, and I am prepared to deal with that. It is impossible to avoid US services, but I will try my best to avoid them for critical services.

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Today (mostly) marks the end of support for Windows 10 for the average consumer. Businesses that use the LTSC versions will have support for longer, as well as companies who are willing to pay for updates. Windows 10 was a major change from Windows 8 (8.1), and several of the changes were due to customer feedback. Despite the initial issues and reputation of Windows 10, it has become the next Windows 7 in people not wanting to move on to the next supported version.

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On July 19, 2024 an incident occurred where approximately 8.5 million Windows computers were taken offline due to a bad definition file being deployed to the CrowdStrike Falcon product. Due to the way that the definition file was formatted, the way that Windows does not allow bad drivers to be bypassed at boot time, and the way that Windows handles Antivirus products in general all contributed to the outage. It has been a year since this incident and I wanted to go over what has changed, and if it is still possible for this issue to occur in the future.

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There were several tasks that needed to be completed to successfully migrate away from Microsoft 365. I decided that I would test different solutions and make changes as needed, but the move away from Microsoft 365 would be a one-way trip. I had no intention of going back to that platform, and I was going to make whatever solution I ended up with work for me. At the end of this migration, I was able to have a proper email and groupware solution that did everything I needed it to do, and it was on a non-US provider.

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