One can never get enough of Windows 10 Update History. I found the latest Windows 10 news interesting in that version 1903 and 1909 are nearly identical. There does seem to be some change. The latest versions are interoperating, meaning version 1909 is a master switch for 1903.
“Windows 10, versions 1903 and 1909 share a common core operating system and an identical set of system files. As a result, the new features in Windows 10, version 1909 were included in the recent monthly quality update for Windows 10, version 1903 (released October 8, 2019), but are currently in a dormant state. These new features will remain dormant until they are turned on using an enablement package, which is a small, quick-to-install “master switch” that simply activates the Windows 10, version 1909 features.”
When you are studying for Azure Cloud exams and working off the Microsoft Learn website, then realize your personal Azure account is GROWING
The reality is that the bulk of these costs is covered, given that the Learn site utilizes sandboxes for on-hands learning. But there were a few situations where using a regular Azure account was required. Also, for the purposes of learning and certification exam preparation, these resources can simply be deleted.
Of course, it is always best to monitor costs. The Azure Management section provides for helpful cost analysis, budget monitoring and optimization tools.
WordpPress 5.3 was just released. I just upgraded my blog’s WordPress version, and 5.3 is really moving aggressively forward with the Block Editor and all of its latest enhancements.
The WordPress Twenty Twenty Theme is introduced with the 5.3 version of WordPress, along with all of the new features.
Twenty Twenty introduces a very interesting advancement: a new typeface, called, “Inter”. It is a variable font format for default themes. It will supposedly help increase site load times due to its handling of font load file storage.
My personal favorite is the automatic image rotation – FINALLY someone thought to get this done!
I am studying the Microsoft Azure Administrator modules off of the Microsoft “Learn” website. It is a great free resource to learn some of the hottest and most relevant modern Cloud technologies. This one particular area piqued my interest: data storage security. I know that many businesses and various leaders are pessimistic about the protection of their Cloud data. It makes sense. Why would any leader not think about the way in which their organization’s data is stored in the Cloud? To many leaders, the notion of their valuable data being moved to and handled in the Cloud does not necessarily make them feel warm and fuzzy [as we may see in the commercials ;> ]. Instead they have a healthy cynicism of their data handling. I agree with the healthy cynicism.
But Microsoft Azure has many ways in which to secure data. These include, but are not limited to, proper network security rules to block out most or all traffic; access control lists; strict internal roles based access; and good old-fashioned data encryption.
Azure automatically encrypts all data as it is stored or written to the cloud, i.e. is stored “at rest” [meaning, it is sitting on the disk, so to speak]. Any file that is written to Azure storage is encrypted with Storage Service Encryption (SSE). It is 256-bit AES encryption. This is very powerful encryption and is an industry standard. My favorite part of the SSE is that this encryption of the data that gets stored to disk does NOT affect performance. So, there is no degradation whatsoever to services. Encryption involves scrambling of bits and bytes and generally takes some resources, but Microsoft accomplishes this with no hit to resources.
Of course, in addition to the SSE security, the actual virtual disks themselves, if applicable, can be encrypted as well with ‘BitLocker’ for Windows or ‘dm-crypt’ for Linux . But I wanted to focus only on the Storage Security Encryption at this point. And this SSE should help any leader breathe a sigh of relief when thinking about their data security.
