debugging Archives

Winsage

June 27, 2025

Microsoft Officially Retires ‘Blue Screen of Death’ After 40 Years of Frowny-Faces

Microsoft is replacing the "blue screen of death" with a "black screen of death" for Windows 11, version 24H2, set to roll out this summer. The new screen will provide crucial information such as the stop code and faulty system driver to aid IT administrators in diagnosing issues more efficiently. This change is part of Microsoft's Windows Resiliency Initiative, aiming to reduce recovery time to two seconds after a PC crash. The transition was prompted by the CrowdStrike outage in 2024, which affected over 8 million devices.

AppWizard

June 26, 2025

Swift, a coding language developed by Apple, is working to add Android support

Apple is forming an "Android Working Group" to support its Swift programming language for Android app development. This marks a shift in Apple's strategy, as Swift, previously focused on iOS and macOS, will now be officially supported for Android. The group's objectives include enhancing Android support for Swift, proposing improvements to core Swift packages, collaborating with the Platform Steering Group, establishing supported Android API levels, creating a continuous integration framework for testing, identifying best practices for bridging Swift with Android's Java SDK, developing debugging support, and integrating Android support into community-driven Swift packages. This initiative represents Apple's formal commitment to facilitating Swift's use on the Android platform.

AppWizard

June 21, 2025

Rematch surpasses 1 million players in its first day of full release

Sloclap's 5v5 soccer game Rematch attracted nearly 93,000 concurrent players on Steam during its launch day and welcomed one million unique players within its first 24 hours. The studio released a small update to enhance stability and performance, addressing crash issues and a desynchronization problem when the ball hit the goalpost. Some players are still experiencing difficulties, and Sloclap is encouraging feedback. The update does not include crossplay functionality, which is being worked on but faced technical complexities. A basic version of crossplay exists, but further implementation is needed. The update includes fixes for ball sync issues, reduced crash frequency after scoring, various stability improvements, and updates to matchmaking.

AppWizard

June 20, 2025

Rematch launched without crossplay because of ‘unforeseen technical complexities’ and Sloclap is sorry, but it’s a hit on Steam anyway

Sloclap, the developer of the 5v5 soccer game Rematch, acknowledged the absence of crossplay at launch, despite initially indicating it would be available. On March 3, a developer mentioned efforts to include crossplay at launch, but on June 16, it was confirmed that it would not be ready. Sloclap cited unforeseen technical complexities as the reason for the delay and expressed a commitment to enabling crossplay as a top priority. They also stated that they are addressing performance issues such as lag and crashes, which are their highest priority. Future updates will include gameplay improvements, tournament support, leaderboards, and new game modes, although no specific timeline was provided. On its first day, Rematch recorded nearly 93,000 concurrent players on Steam.

Tech Optimizer

June 19, 2025

5 Backend Tools That’ll Cut Your Dev Time in Half (2025 Stack)

Many developers rely on traditional tools like Redis, RabbitMQ, PostgreSQL, and ORMs due to familiarity, but there are newer alternatives that can improve performance and simplify workflows. 1. **Litefs**: A tool that enables SQLite in production with real-time replication across regions, allowing for global scaling with minimal latency, ideal for edge computing scenarios. 2. **Temporal.io**: A workflow engine that guarantees execution for background jobs, eliminating lost orders or stuck payments, and remembers everything even after crashes. 3. **DragonflyDB**: A drop-in replacement for Redis that is four times faster, capable of handling millions of requests per second with built-in horizontal scaling. 4. **sqlc**: A tool that generates type-safe Go/Postgres code directly from SQL, avoiding ORM complexities and runtime SQL errors. 5. **Benthos**: A tool for connecting Kafka, databases, APIs, and WebSockets using simple YAML configuration, supporting over 200 integrations. 6. **Earthly**: A CI/CD tool that combines Docker and Makefile for deterministic builds, ensuring reproducible builds and avoiding common CI pipeline failures.

Tech Optimizer

June 2, 2025

Hackers Allegedly Selling Windows Crypter Claims Bypass of All Antiviruses

Underground cybercriminal forums are seeing an increase in advanced malware tools, including a Windows crypter that claims to bypass major antivirus solutions. This crypter is marketed as fully activated and capable of achieving Full Undetectable (FUD) status against contemporary antivirus engines. It employs advanced obfuscation techniques to evade detection, including code injection methods, entropy manipulation, and anti-debugging features. The tool allows for granular control over obfuscation parameters, enabling customization for specific target environments. The rise of such sophisticated evasion tools poses challenges for traditional endpoint security, making organizations vulnerable if they rely solely on signature-based antivirus solutions. To defend against these threats, organizations should adopt multi-layered security architectures, including behavioral analysis and endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions.

Tech Optimizer

May 31, 2025

New WAL Archiving Tool ‘pgrwl’ Delivers Zero Data Loss for PostgreSQL in Containerized Environments

The project is a research platform for streaming Write-Ahead Logging (WAL) archiving, focusing on achieving RPO=0 during recovery scenarios in containerized environments. It replicates features of pg_receivewal, including automatic reconnection, streaming into partial files, and error checking. Installation requires a single binary, and debugging can be done with a preferred editor and a Docker container running PostgreSQL. Key features include streaming WAL archiving with replication slots, secure handling of .partial files, support for S3/SFTP backends with optional compression and encryption, a built-in HTTP server for serving WALs, minimal configuration options, and testability through Docker-based integration tests.

AppWizard

May 27, 2025

This week in PC games: Elden Ring Nightreign and a giantess dating sim

The author woke up at 6 AM on a bank holiday and observed a squirrel in a treehouse. A wave of new PC games is set to launch this week, including: - May 27: - Sol Cesto: A caffeinated roguelike in Steam early access with a unique art style. - Small Spaces: An interior design toolkit for small apartments. - May 28: - To A T: An adventure game featuring a boy in a T-pose and a sandwich-making giraffe. - Kabuto Park: A creature collector inspired by beetle battles. - May 29: - Islands & Trains: A sandbox city builder. - May 30: - Debugging Hero: An ARPG with a magical sword that allows players to manipulate enemy stats. - Deadly Quiet: An immersive sim and 4-player co-op horror game. - Doodle Empires: A strategy game where players draw their own territories. The author also mentioned needing to attend to a squirrel funeral and clean up a mess caused by the Snickers bar.

AppWizard

May 21, 2025

Google says Gemini 2.5 models are only getting better with Deep Think and Flash

Google has announced enhancements to its Gemini 2.5 models, including the 2.5 Pro version and the new 2.5 Flash model, which improves speed and efficiency. The 2.5 Pro will include native audio output controls for developers to customize speech. Enhanced security measures will protect against malicious instructions and prompt injection attacks. Project Mariner's functionality will be integrated into Gemini and Vertex AI. Google is also introducing insightful summaries for developers to aid in debugging, along with cost control features through a "thinking budget." A generally available model will be released, and support for Model Context Protocol (MCP) will facilitate the integration of open-source tools into Gemini projects.

Tech Optimizer

May 12, 2025

Defendnot: A Tool That Disables Windows Defender by Registering as an Antivirus

Cybersecurity developers have created a tool called defendnot, which disables Windows Defender by utilizing undocumented Windows Security Center (WSC) APIs. This tool is a successor to the no-defender project, which was taken down due to DMCA challenges. The developer reverse-engineered WSC’s validation algorithms and identified Taskmgr.exe as a suitable process to host the necessary code. Defendnot persists across reboots by adding itself to Windows autorun and can be managed via a command-line interface with options to disable Windows Defender and Windows Firewall. Unlike its predecessor, defendnot does not use third-party antivirus code. Security experts warn that disabling protection mechanisms should only be done in controlled environments by knowledgeable users.