As expected, Microsoft has dumped the perpetually-licensed Office 2019 from its "Home Use Program" agreements with organizations that license the productivity software for the workplace.

Home Use Program (HUP) is one of the benefits provided by Software Assurance (SA), in turn either included with some Office licensing categories or optional with others.

Although SA may be best known for granting upgrade rights to the next version of a "perpetual" license – such as Office 2019 – it also is included with some subscription-based licensing of, for instance, Office 365 or its more inclusive big sister, Microsoft 365.

[ Further reading: Review: Office 2019 is the best advertisement yet for Office 365 ]

The idea: Let employees buy the same Office suite that they use at work, then run the suite on their home PC.

Employers liked the idea because it implicitly encouraged employees to work at home.

Probably the world’s most exclusive iPhone

Ivan Krstić, Apple’s head of security engineering provided big insights into Apple’s platform security during his presentation at Black Hat U.S. 2019.

The pre-jailbroken device lacks some of the layers of security Apple wraps around iPhones, so it is much easier for researchers to explore these systems for security weaknesses.

[ Take this mobile device management course from PluralSight and learn how to secure devices in your company without degrading the user experience. ]

Similar devices are widely used in Apple’s factories for testing and quality control, which has spawned a black market in them among security researchers, governments and others -- they are often spirited out of factories for sale.

The idea is that by opening up the platform a little, security pros will find it worthwhile to probe it for vulnerabilities and the black market in such devices will erode.

Well, one of the demos was of the coming Microsoft Virtual PC platform, which is a server instance for a virtualized desktop.

Because I use and review a large number of PCs, there is seldom a month that goes by that doesn’t have me setting up a new PC.

The Epyc 2 event was amazing – largely because AMD didn’t just show a small performance increase and their typical price advantage.

They showcased a massive performance increase and, particularly at the top end, a massive performance advantage.

AMD brutalized Intel at the launch not just because of the stats but because they had a major brand vendor stand up after each segment and rave about this performance.

Regardless of the vendor I spoke to – and this included virtually all of the major server and cloud providers – they just gushed about AMD’s part and how it would change dramatically what they were bringing to market.

IT support staff meets every week to discuss open requests and go over support tickets from the previous week.

The new CFO decides to sit in on one of these meetings, where one ticket that pops up for review is from a VP who requested support over the previous weekend because he was unable to log on to a system.

Pilot fish argues against the idea; the company isn’t in retail, and it’s closed on evenings and weekends.

But he adds, if the owners and senior management want to do it, IT can certainly plan accordingly.

That leads to more discussion, this time about expectations and compensation.

It’s generally agreed that responses would have to happen within an hour or two of a trouble call.

I’m told Apple is at last looking into the privacy and security of free VPN apps made available across its platforms, following a report from researcher, Simon Migliano.

The researcher has flagged up several concerns that really should be recognized by anyone choosing a VPN service from both the Apple and Google App Stores:

Ownership: Migliano claims that almost 60 percent of the most popular VPN apps are actually owned (sometimes opaquely) by Chinese companies.

Privacy: The researcher also found that as many as 77% of these VPN apps may have what he calls “serious privacy flaws”,including no privacy policy at all, generic policies with no mention of VPN or no detailed logging policy.

That last allegation is particularly concerning.

That’s fine when your traffic is kept in a private space, but much less fine when information about what you are doing online is sold on to third parties without any oversight.

It’s the beginning of the new millennium, and the company where this pilot fish works decides to start web filtering at one office.

Users are resistant, even though miscategorizations and improperly blocked sites have been relatively infrequent, says fish.

One bit of resistance that comes fish’s way is a terse user request to whitelist a website that the content filter is blocking.

It’s a law firm’s site, and the software has it flagged for malware.

Fish does a quick check on other malware databases, and the site is flagged on some of them, too.

So fish tells user that he’ll have to investigate further before whitelisting the site.

With Google's final Android Q beta now out in the wild and the final Q release likely just days away, the question on everyone's mind is: When will my phone get the upgrade?

The question of "when will it hit me" is an all-too-common query here in the land o' Android — and it's become a frustratingly difficult one to answer.

Now, let's not kid ourselves: A company's priorities can certainly shift, and the past doesn't necessarily dictate the future.

Length of time for Android Pie delivery: 0 days

Length of time for Android Oreo delivery: 0 days

Length of time for Android Pie delivery: 0 days