Pumpkin prices are on the rise as we turn the Halloween corner and head for the jack o’lantern homecoming.

I just wanted to say pumpkin and jack o’ lantern in the same sentence and of course, when it comes to typing anything here, I typically get what I want.

Trying to think of some scary things to make the soon to be upon us Halloween holiday a little more frightening.

Chromebooks that expire are scary because they no longer receive important security updates.

Same thing with Macintosh computers.

When their hardware no longer supports the bloat known as macOS upgrades and updates, we are faced with the prospect of either buying a new Mac, or continue using the old one and its outdated software.

There’s no money to be made by Apple supporting older hardware. Everyone knows that. But, I always say it’d be a nice gesture to have a Ventura (Apple’s latest macOS) lite for all those peeps with old Macs so they can at least realize some semblance of modern security, instead of having the chances for ransomware increase.

Ventura will not run as well on Intel Macs, but again, Apple looks to forego Intel processors in favor of their own M1 and M2 chips featuring faster speeds and longer battery life.

I’m typing this on an expired Chromebook.

I recently found out about Lacros. Since I rarely post tutorials, I will just suggest you look it up if you have a Chromebook that has, or is about to reach its AUE (Auto Update Expiration) date, and you are concerned the computer is no longer protected by receiving regular updates.

Lacros is what I am using to type this post on.

While the Chrome operating system on this Chromebook is no longer receiving updates, Lacross gives me peace of mind security-wise.

It also makes me feel better because it’s faster than the old Chrome OS browser that was running previously.

Lacros is still not ready for prime time (it’s considered an alpha category software release). That said, it definitely is impressive. The speed is better and the whole machine feels like new again as a result.

I was going to erase the contents of the hard disk in the Chromebook and put a Linux variant of some kind in its place.

Doing this can be a bit of a hit or miss proposition, and probably would be a Halloween-worthy endeavor to engage in, as things of this nature can turn ugly pretty fast.

However, I actually have more ghoulish things in mind for Halloween, like going to bed early, putting in ear plugs, and not answering the door bell should it ring.

People get on me about that.

They say Halloween is for fun. I say, if the lights are off, and there’s no Halloween decorations out front, don’t bother knockin’.

Found out my recently purchased 2014 era Mac Mini will not run Ventura.

Scary?

Maybe.

But also maybe not that scary.

He took the place of an old Mac Tower than ran for 20 years.

Now that old timer was scary good.

I’ll miss it and the ghosts of Halloween past it always rekindled on an annual basis.

Its nickname was Frankenmac.

He was gutted and parted out.

This will be my first Halloween without him.