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Members of Generation Z, or people born between 1997 and 2012, will comprise 27% of the workforce by 2025. That means they will soon be working in your company if they aren’t already.

What makes this generation different from the ones that came before it? Statistically, a few facts are worth noting.

Gen Z is on track to be the most diverse and best-educated generation yet. More than 20% of its members identify as LGBT. Yet, they have little or no memory of 9/11.  Nearly every one of them owns a smartphone, at least in the developed world.

Perhaps most important is that a significant percentage of them began their professional lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. That may have an impact that reverberates for years.

I asked the experts on Qwoted to get some real-world perspective on people’s experiences with Gen Zers in the workplace. I got plenty of responses, and a few threads were evident.

Show the way

“They crave mentorship: someone to take them under their wing, show the Jedi way, have heart-to-heart talks, and provide a real, tangible, lasting relationship with a person who is interested in their betterment,” says Austin Fox, president of PeopleCaddie, a temp hiring agency.

Although this group has grown up with a screen always within arm’s reach, they crave human contact more than those who came before them, Fox says. “Millennials were all about text and emails; Gen Z is about video, face-to-face, and live interaction,” he says.

That isn’t surprising, perhaps, given that human contact was so rare during the early years of their careers.

TalentReef, a maker of a platform for high-volume hiring, posted advice on its blog earlier this year about attracting Gen Z talent.

Among its recommendations are to promote your company culture with fun, musical videos, make the application process fast and easy, hire promising candidates quickly and promote the causes your company supports.

Respect gender preferences

Gender identity is important to this group, experts say.

For example, Veris Insights found that “three-quarters of LGBTQ+ students said they’d find an employer more appealing if employers asked about their pronouns during an interview while 86% of LGBTQ+ students find it important to feel comfortable being out at work,” according to Chelsea Schein, director of university recruiting research at the recruiting intelligence and analytics firm.

Experts say that you might expect a generation that came of age during quarantines to shun office work, but the opposite is true.

A study by human resource software maker BambooHR found that 48% of Gen Zers feel more productive in the office compared to 30% of Baby Boomers, 32% of Generation X, and 45% of Millennials.

In fact, the study found that members of this generation are more interested in seeing colleagues in person than the four cohorts that came before them, the study found.

Not that they want to be chained to a desk.

“Gen Zers are the drivers of the Great Resignation,” says Ximena Hartsock, founder of BuildWithin, a firm that helps businesses manage apprenticeship programs. “They have seen the lack of work-life balance of their parents, and they want a better life for themselves. They had their first jobs during the pandemic and expect that work will be remote and flexible.”

A recent survey by IWG, a global provider of hybrid workspaces, found that Gen Z hybrid workers are the least likely to say their personal career growth has advanced due to hybrid work. Members of this group also have the lowest expectations for how much of a pay bump they would receive for returning to the office full-time.

Compassion matters

Although a good salary is table stakes for hiring in a market like this, Gen Z members are more inclined than their predecessors to expect additional services that support their health and mental well-being.

“Caring for employees needs to be the highest priority,” says Birk Cooper, chief marketing officer at  Fetch Rewards, which manages loyalty programs.

Among the services his company offers all employees are no-cost confidential counseling, legal support, mental health resources, paid parental leave, and child-care assistance.

“Aligning values is most important to this generation,” Cooper says. “Every company promotes Black History, LGBTQ+ and Women’s History agenda, but what are they doing on a 24/7 basis?”

Many Gen Zers may have started their careers during lockdowns, but that doesn’t make them any more or less resilient than others, says PeopleCaddie’s Fox.

“COVID has brought them through adversity; coming through adversity breeds confidence,” he says. “They’re resourceful. Because they’ve been so adept at finding things on their own, they can figure things out, but they still want a road map that shows what success looks like.”

That’ll be your job.

On a stressed-out planet, employee wellbeing is becoming an important consideration in the workplace, and so it’s easy to sympathize with Apple employees rebelling (again) against the company’s inflexible take on flexible work.

Flexibility empowers employees and speaks of trust

Flexible work has not only already proved to be productive, but to deliver significant benefits in terms of better work/life balance. It accepts the reality that there is no one-size-fits-all approach that suits all the individuals, teams, and functions that drive corporate success.

The need for work/life balance became far more evident during the pandemic. There was resistance. Employees complained that not only did they feel that the work they were doing wasn’t being recognized, but employers thought they could call them any time, day or night.

Employees also reported a much better work/life balance (once they’d sorted management out), enabling them to avoid expensive commutes, spend quality time with family, and enjoy better focus. Not surprisingly, they want to keep working that way.

But for all the focus on flexible working practices, these are just part of a much larger focus on employee wellbeing and corporate social responsibility. The new world of work will almost certainly be characterized by an excess of digital processes to support new working models.

Can digital tools support remote employee wellbeing?

What matters? Some important insights are available in the Future Workplace 2021 HR sentiment survey, which identified that 68% of senior HR leaders understand the importance of supporting employee wellbeing.

What is that, exactly? It spans financial and employment security, of course, but also encompasses various layers of health protection, including mental and family health, and work/life balance.

The challenge to delivering such support to remote teams is driving some companies to invest in digital solutions to support their people. Some have invested in corporate access to meditation apps such as Calm; others subscribe to activity and exercise promoting services. Another interesting illustration of the trend comes from UK firm Oddbox, which has partnered with Mintago to provide staff with financial and pension management and advice services.

Managers have also been encouraged to take a more empathic approach to their teams — particularly around stress-related absences, given the highly stressful environment we’re in, buffeted by pandemic, inflation, environment challenges, and geopolitical uncertainty. Another approach to bolster mental health is to support employees who increasingly seek ways to act for social purpose, contributing time to local community causes.

Apple is among many big firms to offer employees paid time off to volunteer in that way. Doing so delivers triple benefits — employees get to do good, meet and engage with their community, and try something new. This boosts employee engagement and fosters feelings of wellbeing. It also supports staff retention.

The need for purpose

Ultimately, purpose is critical. Think about the early onset of BYOD, when initial employer resistance was simply overcome by the growing desire for employee choice. Today, such choice has become an HR imperative.

That move to mobility arguably helped protect at least some of the economy across the last couple of years. At the same time, the inherent autonomy of remote and flexible working practices meant we began to think different about work. It wasn’t simply about fulfilling contractual hours or meeting defined goals.

Employee choice meant we used the devices we wanted to do our jobs, adopted working patterns that enabled us to manage our own unique lives, and focused on reaching targets. This approach is full of purpose, autonomy, and trust.

An alternative direction

Apple says its purpose in getting people back into its offices three days a week is to foster its culture of collaboration, but this doesn’t ring true given that most of those employed at the company have little involvement in product design. That makes this a blanket mandate that inherently disempowers the company’s teams, which also seems to blunt Apple’s core purpose. This is, after all, the company that delivers the tech to unleash the creative power of “The Crazy Ones.”

Another approach the company could take, but for reasons known only to its upper level, union-busting HR has not, is to develop purposeful opportunities for connection. This might include all-hands meetings in hybrid space. It could include fostering different internal networks. It might extend to giving employees spaces in which they can discuss and identify real challenges — even those outside the company — in which they can make a difference. This, too, is collaboration.

Does it need to be boundaried in certain hours or in a defined space? (No.)

Brian Elliott at Future Forum on LinkedIn suggests a better approach to boosting collaboration is to “get people virtual ways to connect, but also reasons to connect across teams: schedule all-hands meetings with virtual and in real life options, [and] encourage participation in Employee Resource Groups and local voluntary activities.”

This approach ticks so many of the boxes around employee wellbeing. It’s a worldview that embraces truly flexible working practise.

It adapts to the inevitable future in which the fixed workplace becomes a resource and accepts the value of the mixed platform of relationships and collaboration most of us already experience daily.

We have friends we’ve only ever met online, after all. Do we not collaborate with them?

We know — because we already use them — that digital tools will underpin the new workplace. These tools will also help empower the future collaboration space. Water coolers are now optional, and won’t suit everybody.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

Last week, I looked at some technologies that can solve the increasingly pernicious problem of robocalls.

They work great for individuals, but these intrusions on our time and privacy present a different problem for people who work in offices.

“Of late, scammers have begun transitioning to corporate phone numbers because businesses live and die by their calls,” says Matthew Mizenko, a senior vice president at RoboKiller Enterprise. “They have to answer, thus exposing them to greater risk.”

Automatically blocking or screening unknown numbers is risky since businesses can’t predict who will call or why. There’s also little they can do to block calls that go to direct-dial numbers within the organization.                

STIR/SHAKEN

But there are some steps business owners can take.

A simple one is to ensure that their VOIP provider complies with the FCC’s STIR/SHAKEN standards and protocols, as they were required to do at the end of June.

While not absolute protection against scammers, the technology enables called parties to verify that the calling number is accurate and has not been spoofed, assuming every carrier along the way is complying with the rules.

STIR/SHAKEN standards should become more effective over time, as the FCC’s database of robocalls grows.

Inside the corporate network, “Try to avoid using personal phone numbers for business. Get a separate, virtual SIM or ‘second-line’ phone product with a number that can easily be changed or discarded,” Mizenko says. Burner is an app that lets you create a temporary and untraceable phone number that you can then discard.

Switchup creates secondary phone numbers that you can use for business calls or during certain hours of the day.

You can use the alternative number in business correspondence and signature lines of emails to clients and prospects. In addition, they guarantee some protection against your business phone number being used to harass you after hours.

Limit direct-dial numbers

For outbound calls, Mizenko recommends that businesses configure their caller ID to show all calls originating from a single source – most likely the company’s main number – rather than from individual lines.

The risk of revealing directly to your members is that scammers can use them to infer other numbers within the organization.

“If someone knows your extension, it’s much easier for them to target other individual phone numbers,” he says. “They can use patterns to figure out extensions behind the firewall.”

Once they can do that, they can also configure their caller IDs to spoof another number.

Imagine a call to your finance department from a number that appears to be that of your CEO authorizing a large wire transfer to an anonymous address.

Mizenko also recommends that companies lock down administrative policies on corporate messaging apps, particularly those that accept inbound messages. Anything that comes from outside the company is potentially a path inside your network that can be used to spam you with calls.

Businesses should also educate their employees about how to recognize scam calls.

Warning signs include “robotic speech, callers refusing to verify themselves, calling from international or out-of-state numbers where you don’t do business and those that ask for sensitive company information,” says Nizel Adams, CEO of tech consultancy Nizel Corp.

Personally, I hang up if a caller takes more than two seconds to acknowledge my answer. That’s about how long it takes autodial systems to hand a call off to a human operator.

Could branded calling work?

An intriguing grassroots effort that several private firms are promoting is branded calling.

This technology allows organizations to display their brand name, logo, and reason for calling on mobile device screens.

Research firm The Fast Mode said its research revealed that while only 11% of consumers said they’d answer a call from an unknown number, that figure rises to 30% if the call has a name attached and 50% if it includes a name, logo, and reason for the call.

Uptake on branded calling by carriers has been tepid so far.

Mizenko believes they’ve had their hands full with STIR/SHAKEN and want to see how that will work out first.

In addition, “there’s no industry standard,” he says. “We aren’t playing in the branded calling space now but are looking for partnerships and trying to get an industry consortium together.”

I wish them luck, at least until the robocallers figure out how to compromise branded calling and attach their own fake identities.

In the cat-and-mouse game that is robocalling, it seems the rat is always the big winner.

No matter what type of Android phone you carry or how you usually use it, one thing is a near-universal constant:

You’re gonna spend a ton of time sending and reading messages.

The messages may be from clients, colleagues, or your cousin Crissy from Cleveland (damn it, Crissy!). But regardless of who sends ’em or what they’re about, they’re all popping up on your phone and cluttering your weary brainspace.

My fellow Android adorer, I’m here to tell you there’s a better way.

Google’s Android Messages app has gotten surprisingly good over the years. That’s no big secret. If you’re only relying on what you see on the surface within Android Messages, though, you’re missing out on some of its most powerful and underappreciated efficiency-enhancing options.

Today, we’ll explore the Android Messages app’s most effective out-of-sight superpowers. They may not be able to cut down on the number of messages you send and receive on your phone (DAMN IT, CRISSY!), but they will help you spend less time fussing with ’em. And they might just help you have a more pleasant experience, too.

Let’s dive in, shall we?

(If you’re using a phone where the Android Messages app wasn’t preinstalled or set as the default, by the way, you can download it from the Play Store and give it a whirl. Especially if you’re coming from the world of Samsung’s wildly unnecessary self-made Messages alternative, you might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.)

Android Messages tricks for reading and receiving messages

1. Custom notifications for important people

We’ll start with what might be my favorite little-known trick for Google’s Android Messages app: With a couple quick adjustments, you can turn any of your contacts’ faces into a custom notification icon. That icon will then show up at the top of your phone whenever that person messages you for extra-easy visibility and access.

See?

JR

The only catch is that your phone needs to be running 2020’s Android 11 operating system or higher for the feature to be available. (And honestly, if your phone isn’t running Android 11 at this point, you’ve got bigger fish to fry.)

Here’s how to make it happen:

• The next time you get a message from someone, press and hold your finger to the notification.
• That’ll pull up a screen that looks a little somethin’ like this:

JR

• Tap the “Priority” line, then tap “Apply” to save the changes.

And that’s it: The next time that person messages you, you’ll see their profile picture in place of the standard Messages icon in your status bar, and the notification will show up in a special section above any other alerts.

2. Easier-to-read text

File this next Android Messages feature under “accidental discoveries”: The next time you find yourself squinting at something in a messaging thread on your phone, try a good old-fashioned zoom gesture on the screen — placing your finger and thumb together and then spreading ’em slowly apart.

You’d never know it, but the Messages app supports that standard gesture for zooming into a conversation. The inverse applies, too: When you’re ready to zoom back out and make everything smaller, just bring your two fingers closer together.

And if those actions aren’t working for you, tap the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen and select “Settings,” then make sure the toggle next to “Pinch to zoom conversation text” is in the on position.

Who knew?!

3. Smarter inline media

You know a fantastic way to waste time? I’ll tell ya: moving from one app to another just to glance at something someone sent you (like those blasted Bangles video Crissy is always blasting your way).

Well, get this: Google’s Android Messages app can let you preview and even watch entire YouTube videos without ever leaving your current conversation — and it can give you helpful previews of web links right within the app, too.

The key is to make sure you’ve got the associated options enabled:

• Tap that three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen.
• Select “Settings,” then tap “Automatic previews.”
• Make sure the toggle next to “Show all previews” is on and active.

Now, the next time someone sends you a video link, you’ll see the video start playing without any sound as soon as it shows up:

JR

And if you want to actually watch it, you can tap the video — not the text link but the actual box where the video is playing — to turn on the sound and play the entire thing right then and there.

With web pages, Messages will show you just enough of a preview to let you make an educated decision about whether you want to tap the link or not.

JR

Almost painfully sensible, wouldn’t ya say?

4. Less annoying iPhone interactions

One obnoxious side effect of Apple’s “no one exists outside of iOS” mentality is the way those silly iPhone message reactions show up on Android.

You know what I’m talkin’ about, right? Those pointless messages you get from iGoobers that say stuff like “Loved ‘Please stop texting me, Crissy’”?

As of a relatively recent update, Google’s Android Messages app is able to intercept those absurd platform-specific reactions and turn ’em into standard reactions instead of plain-text interruptions. All you’ve gotta do is enable the option:

• Head back into the Messages app’s settings.
• Tap “Advanced.”
• Look for the line labeled “Show iPhone reactions as emoji” and make sure the toggle next to it is in the on position.

All that’s left is to breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

Android Messages tricks for interacting with messages

5. Swift appointment scheduling

Working to plan a meeting or event with a fellow Homo sapien in Messages? Make yourself a mental note of this:

Anytime someone sends you a message that includes a specific date and time, the Messages app will underline that text — like this:

JR

You’d be forgiven for failing to realize, but you can actually tap that underlined text to reveal a shortcut for opening that same day and time in your calendar app. It’s a great way to get a quick ‘n’ easy glimpse at your availability for the time you’re discussing.

And if you then want to create a calendar event, just look for the “Create event” command that should appear right below that very same message. That’ll fire up a new calendar event for you on the spot, with the day and time already filled in.

JR

Don’tcha just love simple step-savers?

6. Sanity-saving snoozing

We could write a whole book on all the ways snoozing can make your life easier on Android (and I did, in fact, as part of a recent guide over in my private resource community!) — but for our purposes here today, the specific snoozing system we need to scrutinize is the one built right into the Google-made Android Messages interface.

Lemme tell ya: If you haven’t gotten in the habit of using it, you’re really missing out. It’s an incredibly effective way to make sure you remember to deal with a message at a specific future date and time.

And you’ve got two different ways to take advantage of it:

• If you want to remember a specific individual message within an Android Messages conversation, press and hold your finger to the message in question — then look for the clock-shaped icon in the bar at the top of the screen.
• If you’d rather have your reminder show up for an entire thread with someone instead of a specific individual message, press and hold your finger to the thread within the main Messages screen — then look for the same clock-shaped icon in the top bar there.

Either way you go, you’ll be able to set your reminder for any future date and time you want:

JR

And no matter how mushy that noggin of yours may be, you’ll remember to revisit that message at exactly the right moment.

7. Seamless message scheduling

If you’re ready to hammer out a response to a message right now but don’t want your reply to be sent for a while yet, skip the snoozing and simply schedule your message for the future.

The Android Messages app’s scheduling system is spectacularly useful. You can rely on it for setting reminders to be sent to clients, business-related messages to be sent out the next morning, or context-free middle-finger emojis to be sent to your cousin in Cleveland.

To tap into its productivity-boosting powers, just type out your message normally — but then, instead of tapping the triangle-shaped send icon at the right of the composing window, press and hold your finger onto that same button when you’re done.

No reasonably sane person would possibly realize it, but that’ll pull up a hidden menu for selecting precisely when your message should be sent.

JR

And the person on the other end will have no way of even knowing that you wrote the thing in advance.

Android Messages tricks for finding messages

8. Important contact prioritizing

Ever wish you could keep your most important messaging threads at the top of the list for easy ongoing access?

Poof: Wish granted. Just hold your finger onto the conversation in question on the main Messages app screen, then tap the pushpin-shaped icon in the app’s top bar.

You can pin up to three conversations that way, and they’ll always appear above all other threads in that main inbox view.

9. Important message saving

When you run into a message you know you’ll want to reference again, save yourself the trouble of trying to dig it back up later and instead star it on the spot to make it easy to find in the future.

It couldn’t be much easier to do: While viewing an individual message thread, press and hold your finger onto the specific message you want to save, then tap the star-shaped icon that appears in the bar at the top of the screen.

Then, when you want to find the message again, tap the three-dot icon in the upper-right corner of the main Messages screen and select “Starred” from the menu that comes up. That’ll show you every message you’ve starred for exceptionally easy resurfacing.

10. Advanced message searching

Starring is sublime, but sometimes, you need to dig up an old message that you didn’t go out of your way to save.

The Android Messages app makes that even easier than you might realize. Tap the search bar at the top of the app’s main screen — and in addition to searching your entire history message for any specific string of text, take note:

• You can tap the picture of any of your contacts and then type in some text to limit your search to messages only from that one person.
• You can scroll horizontally along the boxes beneath the word “Categories” to look specifically at images, videos, locations, or links people have sent you.
• And you can combine any of those variables for even more powerful finding — looking for links you sent to a particular client, for instance, or locations an out-of-town colleague sent to you.

JR

Just be sure to avoid telling Crissy that’s possible. As far as she’s concerned, all those Bangles videos never reached you, and you’ve got no way of tracking ’em down now.

And don’t worry: Your secret’s safe with me.

Get even more advanced shortcut knowledge with my free Android Shortcut Supercourse. You’ll learn tons of time-saving tricks for your phone!

Software developers spend a third of their week in meetings on average, according to data collected by time management app Clockwise — with those at large companies facing the most packed schedules.

Clockwise’s data is gathered from 1.5 million meetings tracked by its platform over the course of 12 months up to May 2022, providing an overview of work practices by 80,000 developers at 5,000 companies. It shows that the average software engineer spends 10.9 hours per week in meetings, with 19.6 hours of “focus” time – defined as two or more hours free to concentrate on work.

The remaining six hours are classed as “fragmented”, which refers to the schedule gaps between meetings that provide little opportunity to settle back into completing a task. Separate research has shown that it can take around 23 minutes to refocus after an interruption, and meetings can often be the cause of context switching that distracts workers from more productive work.

The Clockwise report also highlighted the importance of focus time via a survey of 150 software engineering managers. Almost all (90%) correlate focus time with productivity, and most (77%) see a connection with increased revenue for the business.

That’s not to say that meetings aren’t important, but it makes sense for managers to find the right balance for their teams, said Dan Kador, vice president of engineering at Clockwise. “It’s something that companies have to pay attention to and try to understand their meeting culture — what’s working and what’s not working for them.”

“It is important that teams get together to discuss things and make sure they are all on the same page, but often meetings are scheduled at regular intervals even if they aren’t necessary,” said Jack Gold Principal analyst & founder at J. Gold Associates. “We are all subjected to weekly meetings, or other intervals, where, even if there is nothing to discuss, the meeting takes place anyway. And some meeting organizers feel obligated to use up the entire scheduled time.”

Of course, meeting overload is not just an issue for those writing code. “Too much time spent in meetings is not just a problem for developers,” said Gold. “It is a problem across the board for employees in many companies.”

Clockwise

Unsurprisingly, developers spend more time in meetings as they climb the career ladder and become managers: seven hours more a week on average, according to Clockwise, largely due to an increase in one-to-one meetings.

There is, however, little difference between senior roles. Developers that become managers, directors or vice presidents all spend a similar amount of time in meetings. The same goes for focus time, which drops markedly for managers, but again remains relatively similar for more senior leaders, too.

Another indicator of time spent in conference rooms or staring at a webcam is company size. Developers at large organizations spent an average of 12.2 hours in meetings, compared to 9.7 hours at smaller companies. Those at large and medium-sized businesses also spend 36% more time in one-to-one meetings than those at smaller firms.

And focus time drops from 22.5 hours a week at small companies to 16.9 hours for large businesses.

That happens, said Kador, because more established businesses rely on meetings to make decisions. The bigger they get, the more decisions are required — and that leads to more meetings. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be true, but that’s the way things are often done,” he said.

By contrast, smaller companies are more likely to adopt new ways of working, such as greater reliance on asynchronous communications that don’t require everyone take part at the same time.

Clockwise

“Larger, more established companies haven’t embraced a more asynchronous way of working as fully,” said Kador, “whether that’s Loom or leaning into Slack or Teams’ audio and video messages…,Notion, Google Docs — the suite of async documentation tools that exist out in the world.”

Gold also sees potential for collaboration and productivity tools to cut down on the need for some meetings.

“With newer collaboration tools, some of the burden of meetings has been reduced, as people can now have ad hoc meetings with just the folks that need to be involved, leaving others to do their thing,” he said.  “These tend to be to the point and briefer, and are not as broad, meaning I’m more involved and not tuning out when other things are discussed not relevant to me.

“That doesn’t completely replace periodic group meeting[s], but it does have the potential to reduce the non-productive part of meeting.”

Async tools can replace the daily or weekly standup meeting (which are held on Tuesdays 80% of the time, according to the Clockwise data, making that the day with the least focus time on average). Thirty-five percent of engineering teams have at least one standup a week, and the same proportion have them daily.

While technology can help cut back on meetings, it can also require a cultural change on behalf of management.  

Companies can try introducing “no-meeting days” to encourage new meeting habits and drive adoption of async communications, said Kador. “Those are the kinds of things that larger organizations can experiment with,” he said. “My expectation, based on my own career and what I’ve seen in the industry, is they actually have a pretty positive impact.”

Microsoft’s August Patch Tuesday release addresses 123 security issues in Microsoft Windows, Office, Exchange (it’s back!) and Visual Studio — and unfortunately, we have two zero-days with reports of active exploitation in the wild. Since this is a broad update, it will require planning and testing before deployment.

The first (CVE-2022-34713) occurs in the Windows diagnostic tools and the second (CVE-2022-30134) affects Microsoft Exchange. Basically, the holidays are over and it’s time to pay attention to Microsoft updates again. We have made “Patch Now” recommendations for Windows, Exchange and Adobe for this month.

You can find more information on the risk of deploying these Patch Tuesday updates in this infographic.

Key testing scenarios

Given the large number of changes included in this August patch cycle, I have broken down the testing scenarios into high risk and standard risk groups:

High Risk: These are likely to include functionality changes, may deprecate existing functionality and will likely require creating new testing plans:

• Service Stack Update: There is a significant change to the Microsoft Servicing Stack (SSU). I have written a brief explainer that details some of the ways that Microsoft “updates the update process” and how its servicing stack has moved to a singular, combined update each Patch Tuesday. The changes included for August will require reboot testing to collect/collate and then parse event viewer logs. Microsoft provided a handy reference to Windows Boot Manager event viewer files found in KB5016061.
• Web Printing: Though there do not appear to be any functional changes, Microsoft has updated how web documents (HTML and JPEG) are printed. Basic print testing is required here. It doesn’t look like this update will take down any servers, printer server or otherwise.

The following updates are not documented as functional changes, but still require a full test cycle:

• Microsoft FAX: Like printing, we now have to test enterprise FAX services with each Patch Tuesday update. This month’s update is actually pretty cool; it addresses a vulnerability in junctions, which I have not used since the early 2000’s. Here’s a hint: avoid FAX drivers, and don’t use junctions. They were a cool way to address directory redirect requirements through the registry — and are definitely not needed in a modern desktop. 
• DirectComposition: This Windows component allows for rapid bitmapping and animations. There was an API update this month that will require testing for internally developed applications. I can’t share the exact API changes, but I suggest you scan your applications (and subsequently test) for any references for IDCompositionDevice3.
• Microsoft Office Updates: We recommend a general “smoke” test for all updated Microsoft Office products this month. Specifically for Outlook, we recommend testing with a Gmail account and then switching to a Microsoft account; test sending invites between accounts. This applies to all supported versions of Microsoft Office.

Given the changes to the SSU, Windows Boot Manager and updates to the Windows kernel (WIN32KY.SYS) this month, it may be worth having a look at some Microsoft testing platforms such as the Microsoft Test Authoring and Execution Framework (TAEF). You will have to know C++ or C# and you will need the Windows Driver kit (WDK). Noting that for each of these testing scenarios, a manual shut-down, reboot and restart is suggested, with a focus on Boot Manager entries in the event viewer logs.

Known issues

Each month, Microsoft includes a list of known issues that relate to the operating system and platforms that are included in this update cycle. This month, there are some really complex changes:

• The Secure Boot Forbidden Signature Database (DBX) prevents UEFI modules from loading on systems with the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI). The KB5012170 update adds modules to the DBX in an attempt to address a vulnerability that exists in the secure boot loader process. Unfortunately, if BitLocker is enabled with the PCR7 binding, this update may fail. To resolve this issue, use the following command: “Manage-bde –Protectors –Disable C: -RebootCount 1.” Then deploy the update and reboot.
• After installing KB4493509, devices with some Asian language packs installed may receive the error “0x800f0982 -PSFX_E_MATCHING_COMPONENT_NOT_FOUND”. PSFX is a differential compression mode used in reducing the size of Microsoft updates. Microsoft has probably published the most interesting update and deployment and packaging article ever to be included in the middle of a long technical article related to packaging and updates. Given that this issue relates to how Windows installs feature-level components, Microsoft recommends reinstalling any language packs. This usually solves the problem — though it is not an official fix.
• After installing this month’s update on Windows 10 builds, IE mode tabs in Microsoft Edge might stop responding when a site displays a modal dialog box. Microsoft is still working on an official fix.

And for the latest release of Windows 11, it looks as if this month’s update may lead to the utility XPS Viewer behaving badly (using increasing processor and memory resources) before closing unexpectedly (i.e. badly). A reboot will solve the issue until Microsoft posts a fix.

Major revisions

Though we have fewer “new” patches released this month, there are a lot of updated and newly released patches from previous months:

• CVE-2022-26832: NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability. This is the fourth update to this .NET security fix. First released in April, all subsequent revisions have related to updating the products that are affected by this patch. It appears that all versions of Windows 10, Windows Server 2016 and with this latest revision, Windows 8 and Server 2012, are affected. If you’re using Windows update (or even Autopatch), no further action is required.
• CVE-2022-30130: .NET Framework Denial of Service Vulnerability. This revision to May’s update now includes coverage for Windows 8 and Server 2012. This is only an informational update — no further action required.
• ADV200011: Microsoft Guidance for Addressing Security Feature Bypass in GRUB. This revision relates to the Linux sub-system boot loader in Windows. For more information refer to KB5012170 and the very informative blog post, “There is a hole in the boot.”

Mitigations and workarounds

• CVE-2022-34715: Windows Network File System Remote Code Execution Vulnerability. Microsoft has offered a set of PowerShell mitigation commands to reduce the severity of an attack by disabling NFSV4.1 :”PS C:\Set-NfsServerConfiguration -EnableNFSV4 $false.” Running this command will require a reboot of the target system. Microsoft recommends patching these systems as soon as possible, even with NFSV4.1 disabled.
• CVE-2022-34691: Active Directory Domain Services Elevation of Privilege Vulnerability. Microsoft advises that this vulnerability is applicable if you are, in fact, actually running Active Directory Certificate Services. If you are, you must deploy the Microsoft May 10 update immediately and enable Audit events. Take your time planning and deploying this patch as it may put your server into a special compatibility mode. You can read more here KB5014754. You have until May 9, 2023 before Microsoft closes this loophole.

Probably the most important workaround this month relates to Microsoft Outlook crashing and locking up immediately after start-up. Microsoft explains, “When you start Outlook Desktop, it gets past loading profile and processing, briefly opens, and then stops responding,” Microsoft is currently working on the issue and we expect an update soon. Microsoft offered the following workarounds:

1. Sign in and out Office.
2. Disable support diagnostics in Outlook with the following registry keys: software\policies\microsoft\office\16.0\outlook\options\general\disablesupportdiagnostics, Disabled value =0
3. Manually set the email address to the identity of the user that is seeing the issue in the registry path.

You can find out more about Microsoft Diagnostic settings here. This is a little embarrassing for Microsoft as this is another significant Office issue following the recent Uber receipt crashing issue.

Each month, we break down the update cycle into product families (as defined by Microsoft) with the following basic groupings:

• Browsers (Microsoft IE and Edge);
• Microsoft Windows (both desktop and server);
• Microsoft Office;
• Microsoft Exchange;
• Microsoft Development platforms (ASP.NET Core, .NET Core and Chakra Core);
• And Adobe (retired???, maybe next year).

Browsers

Microsoft released three updates to its Edge browser (CVE-2022-33636, CVE-2022-33649 and CVE-2022-35796). Following a trend, none of these are rated as critical. There were also 17 updates to the Chromium project. Google has published all these changes in its update log. For further information, refer to the Chromium security update page. Along with these security fixes, there were a few new features in the latest stable release (103) which can be found here. Add these low-profile updates to your standard patch release schedule.

Windows

Microsoft addressed 13 critical issues and 43 issues rated important this month. This is fairly broad update that covers the following key Windows features:

• Windows Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol including RAS;
• Kernel Updates (Win32K.SYS);
• Windows Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol (SSTP);
• Windows Print Spooler Components.

In addition to this large update, CVE-2022-34713 (Microsoft Windows Support Diagnostic Tool (MSDT) Remote Code Execution Vulnerability) has been reported as both publicly disclosed and exploited in the wild, making this a serious Windows zero-day. This serious Windows security flaw is a path traversal flaw that attackers can exploit to copy an executable to the Windows Startup folder when a user opens a specially-crafted file through an email client or downloaded from the web. In lighter news, you can find the latest Windows 11 update video here. Add these critical Windows updates to your “Patch Now” release schedule.

Microsoft Office

Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) patch (KB5002248) for Microsoft Office 2016 (both 32- and 64-bit) relating to VBA projects and Microsoft Access. This month’s release cycle delivers only four updates, all rated important. Microsoft Excel, Outlook and a few core Microsoft Office libraries are affected, with the most serious leading to remote code execution scenarios. Fortunately, all of these security issues have official fixes from Microsoft and are all relatively difficult to exploit, particularly in a well-managed enterprise environment. Add these low-profile updates to your standard release schedule.

Microsoft Exchange Server

Unfortunately we have six updates for Microsoft Exchange Server, with three rated critical and the remaining three rated important. As promised in May, Microsoft has updated its patching process to include self-extracting EXE’s. You will not find these latest updates in the Microsoft catalog, so I have included a list of updates available for the following specific builds of Exchange Server:

Given the publicly disclosed vulnerability in Microsoft Exchange (CVE-2022-30134) which allows an attacker to read targeted email messages, Microsoft has recommended you apply these security related fixes immediately (italics added by Microsoft). To get the latest updates, you may also have to run the Exchange SetupAssist PowerShell script. 

Your organization may already be comfortable with the new update format, but if you are in doubt about the status of your Exchange servers, you can run the Microsoft CSS Health Checker. My feeling is that some preparation and planning is required to stage these updates. It took me a while just to walk through the patching decision/logic trees this month, never mind troubleshooting failed Exchange updates. Add this month’s updates to your “Patch Now” schedule, noting that all updates this month will require a server reboot.

Microsoft development platforms

Microsoft released five updates rated as important for Visual Studio and .NET Core. The .NET vulnerability (CVE-2022-34716) is really tough to exploit and depends upon successfully executing a technically challenging blind “external entity” injection (XXE) attack. The remaining Visual Studio vulnerabilities relate to remote code execution (RCE) scenarios exploited through a local email client (requiring the user to open a specially crafted file). Add these updates to your standard developer update schedule.

Adobe (really just Reader)

Who would have thought it? We are back this August with three updates rated critical and four as important for Adobe Reader. APSB22-39 has been published by Adobe but not included by Microsoft in this month’s patch cycle. All seven reported vulnerabilities relate to memory leak issues and could lead to a remote code execution scenario (RCE), requiring immediate attention. Add these Adobe updates to your “Patch Now” schedule.

As development of its AR glasses inches toward the release of v.1, Apple’s innovation engine continues to churn — and now the company is investing in content to drive services revenue in what is expected to be a challenging macro-economic environment.

Dance nimble, dance light

Apple’s teams of economists, accountants, lobbyists, and managers are feeding back insights from across the planet, which is why the company knows that to make it through the coming years it needs to continue to diversify its business.

Yes, it can’t make Macs and iPads fast enough, and yes, as it works to begin product manufacturing outside of China, the company is horribly exposed to the continued decline in global order. But that doesn’t mean Apple can’t think laterally about how to continue to generate good business in a difficult environment. The company has been working at it for years. Its pivot to services — which accounted for 23.6% of its net revenue in the just gone quarter — is part of this, and it’s an approach any business should explore.

But building a new opportunity takes thought, time, effort, and investment, which is potentially why Apple is spending more on content. Consider how it is aggressively investing in sports content for TV+, reaching deals with MLB and MLS, with others such as the NFL also hotly tipped. Consider, too, the dozens of films and shows reported in the last two weeks alone, and the status of some of the stars it is working with. None of these things come cheap, but once filming ends the content created becomes an Apple product, just like everything else it invests in.

Apple doesn’t seem to be satisfied, yet. Most recently, we learned that it has reached a deal with podcast creator Futuro. That deal reflects the company’s quest to find and film new TV+ shows as it seeks to upsell content to its nearly 860 million existing services subscribers. Apple gains first chance to turn any podcast into a film or TV show under that deal. It clearly intends on building a very large collection of high-quality, watchable, repeatable content.

How to build your digital business

I know you’ve not come to Computerworld to explore a long hit list of Apple’s media content deals, but this activity represents at least three important traits any digital business can learn from, particularly as every business today is digital.

For example:

1. Think laterally: Apple was swift to recognize that if people used its platforms to offer their own products it could begin to use the same platforms to offer its own solutions, too. Ever since iTunes, the company has understood the value of content; now it provides its own. Apple’s opportunity to scale to media is a little unique, but every business has some digital services it can provide – it’s just a matter of exploring the nature, the data, and the customers to identify where you can develop something that may make a difference. One example of this I like is the John Deere TractorPlus app, which gives farmers easy access to frequently accessed information about their machines. The business plan may not be obvious, though components ordering and servicing provision within the app become a convenience that reaches customers, as is the chance to build customer loyalty.
2. Build iteratively: It’s difficult to imagine just how important Apple’s investment in Cassady & Greene’s Soundjam MP application turned out to be; it was perhaps almost as foundational as the PA Semi purchase. Think about it: Soundjam begat iTunes, which itself enabled iPod and eventually morphed into the services offer Apple now provides, generating almost a quarter of the vast company’s revenue. That journey wasn’t a simple one, it took years in which each platform and each evolution was in some way built on the one before. That constant iteration underpins Apple’s services pivot today, and it’s  reasonable to think that almost every company has its own unique advantages, such as data, knowledge, or experience, that could be reconfigured to become a new business opportunity. Technology can help identify such chances. Data analytics helps big companies, including Adidas, NBA, Tesco, and others monitor existing business and customer experiences and identify opportunities. If they can do this, your business can, too, building new strands of business on top of what you already do. “Pull the string to see where it goes,” as Apple CEO Tim Cook is wont to say.
3. Know yourself, know your customer: We all know Apple’s customers skew toward being a little wealthier, which means they also tend to be more willing to take a chance on subscriptions and less likely to abandon them once they do. With its foundations exploring the intersection between technology and the liberal arts, Apple also recognizes that its core audience remains comprised of creative professionals with an interest in creativity and the arts. It was because it knew this that the company saved itself with the iMac, iBook, iPod, and iTunes. It was this that informed the company when it worked to bring Quark, Adobe, and (indeed, in a piece of news that meant a huge amount at the time it emerged) Maya to OS X. Apple played to its existing strengths, its core market, and built out from there. It focused on what its customers needed. It still does — even recently with the high quality creative apps coming to Apple Silicon. But don’t underestimate the importance of the company’s services segment. After all, if it is winning critic’s choice awards with its TV shows and movies today, just imagine how much of a response it’s going to get when it offers up this content in highly immersive, near realistic 3D. Which of course it will eventually do in support of the next iterative innovation it’s about to introduce in the form of those AR goggles everyone is talking about. Apple’s 154,000 employees do like to iterate into tomorrow’s world, after all.

Please follow me on Twitter, or join me in the AppleHolic’s bar & grill and Apple Discussions groups on MeWe.

President Biden on Tuesday signed into law the CHIPS and Science Act, which includes a $52.7 billion package of subsidies and grants to the US semiconductor manufacturing industry, in a move aimed at reducing the country’s dependence on Asian silicon makers and reinvigorating US chipmakers.

Manufacturing incentives form the lion’s share of the funding in the bill, at $39 billion, but there’s also $2 billion for legacy chipmakers who make products critical to automotive and defense systems, $13.2 billion for research and workforce development, and $500 million for supply chain and networking security.

“America invented the semiconductor, but today produces about 10% of the world’s supply—and none of the most advanced chips,” the president’s office said in a statement. “The CHIPS and Science Act will unlock hundreds of billions more in private sector semiconductor investment across the country, including production essential to national defense and critical sectors.”

US chipmakers start investments in manufacturing

Two major US chipmakers have already committed to expanding their domestic manufacturing facilities, in the run-up to the act’s passge. Qualcomm, in partnership with GlobalFoundries, said Monday that it would invest $4.2 billion to expand the latter company’s facility in Malta, NY.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat for New York, one of the key legislative supporters of the bill, said that the move is “terrific news” for industry and the community.

“This deal to 2028 proves what we have always known – that the industry will grow here when we are competitive with Asia and Europe,” he said in a press release. “With major new federal incentives for microchip manufacturing in the U.S., I look forward to many more announcements like this to come.”

The other major deal announced was memory manufacturer Micron’s commitment to $40 billion in new capacity spending, a move that the Biden administration said could create as many as 40,000 new jobs.

While the bill enjoyed bipartisan support in Congress and is generally popular in most quarters of the technology industry, some companies aren’t thrilled about what was left out of the CHIPS and Science Act.

According to Gartner Research vice president and analyst Gaurav Gupta, US-based chip designers and some fabless semiconductor companies have expressed irritation that the bill provides the vast majority of its funding for manufacturers only—not for other parts of the silicon sector.

“If you talk to folks in the industry, you’ll get that view that it’s not going to benefit everyone equally,” he said in an interview with Computerworld last month.

Nor will the Act solve the semiconductor industry’s broader issues on its own, according to Forrester vice president and research director Glenn O’Donnell, who said that problems caused by supply chain failures and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue to be felt for the foreseeable future.

“Big problems in the semiconductor market will take a long time to resolve,” he said in a statement. “Also, the US government will need to establish oversight bureaucracy before it can disburse any investments.”

Disclosure: Nvidia is a client of the author.

Next week at Siggraph, Nvidia will be talking about its Omniverse offering, which contrasts sharply with the much-overhyped metaverse. What makes Nvidia’s effort powerful isn’t just that it’s being wrapped with services from companies like Siemens and used for cutting-edge autonomous factories like BMW’s latest, but its ability to anticipate and correct problems early on before they result in cost overruns or injuries. 

I also wish more companies understood is how much richer Nvidia’s presentations are in general because they use tools like Omniverse to create them. (This video of the last GTC keynote demonstrates the point.) Rather than relying on static word slides, the video experience from an Nvidia keynote better conveys the message while keeping the audience glued to the screen in a way that few speakers do today, proving you don’t need to be Steve Jobs if you have the right tools and spend the time on multimedia tools to entertain and inform. 

Nvidia at Siggraph

Nvidia is expected to talk about its progress with its Omniverse tool and the short-term future of these efforts. Much of what is driving the advance of Omniverse at the moment are the underlying concepts of digital twins and AI — one can’t reliably exist without the other. To be viable, digital twins not only have to initially emulate the real world but must stay connected to their physical counterparts to assure related simulations can accurately predict future events.  Without that connection, any variances between the physical element being emulated and the digital twin will introduce a growing number of unknown errors, which will reduce the accuracy of the result at an increasing rate because of the disconnect.

This is particularly problematic if, when used for factories and automobiles, the system attempts to come up with methodologies that blend these two elements. The result might not adequately predict future problems, and decision makers would have no way to understand the related risks in believing something that’s increasingly unreliable. 

AI is critical not only to making sure the physical world and its related digital twin remain connected (by bridging information gaps sensors can’t yet collect), but also by predicting the future behavior of these elements so problems can be identified early on. Nvidia’s approach to aggressively use AI in its Omniverse tool should provide a far higher degree of accuracy and reliability to any related metaverse simulation, which translates to more reliable outcomes.

Nvidia’s presentation process

Even if you have the best tool available, it won’t make much difference  if you can’t sell it. Nvidia’s heavy use of graphics during presentations has always given it a competitive advantage. These tools make presentations more entertaining and compelling, which has helped the company move ahead of rivals and drive new markets such as autonomous machines (including automobiles), the metaverse, and broad AI. With these tools, Nvidia can recreate much of the magic master presenters like the late Apple CEO and P. T. Barnum delivered through oration alone. It can show you what their version of the future will be — and make it real.

And if people believe in a future, much like what happened with Jobs and the iPhone, they will make it happen. If they don’t, you end up with something like the LG Prada — it was which was just like the iPhone but failed in market. Nvidia’s success isn’t just tied to what it builds, but how it presents what it builds. If more companies understood that dynamic, more new and potentially revolutionary products would succeed.

With that in mind, Nvidia’s presentation at Siggraph is important for two reasons. First, it represents the cutting edge of what is working in the metaverse and addresses the growing belief (thanks to overhype on the consumer side) that the metaverse is more smoke than mirrors. And it makes the case with presentations for audiences that are still largely remote 9with attention spans that are exceedingly short). 

Presentation matters

In short, Nvidia’s success isn’t just in building revolutionary offerings, but in presenting them in ways that are compelling and interesting, better assuring a future that benefits the company. 

I wish more firms would emulate Nvidia. If they did, not only would I be more entertained (and yes, sometimes it is about me) but their potential for success would be tremendous. Nvidia is turning the metaverse into a powerful productivity tool by both building a great toolset and presenting the technology in a way that will get it adopted.

This isn’t multiple choice. You have to do both to ensure the benefits the tool promises will be achieved. 

Hosts Ken Mingis and Michael Simon talk with guests about the latest tech trends and news.

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Join Macworld executive editor Michael Simon and Computerworld executive editor Ken Mingis as they talk about the latest iPhone 14 rumors – everything from anticipated release date to price to design changes. Plus, they'll talk about the features they hope to see in the latest release.

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