Love me, Love my Dog
Qui me amat, amet et canem meum “Love me, love my dog also” —Attributed to Julius Caesar Max wasn’t exactly the pick of the litter. He was the litter, the one and only occupant of his mother’s womb, as x-rays confirmed just days before he was born on my living room floor. I was there when he emerged, blind, helpless […]
Continue reading→War and Remembrance
Today is Memorial Day. Officially the day we set aside to remember those who have died in the service of the country in wartime, unofficially the start of the summer season. As with most customs, the practice of Memorial Day has changed over time. Once a genuinely solemn occasion, Memorial Day is now little more than an excuse for backyard […]
Continue reading→New Internet Scam Goes Retro
For several years now we have witnessed a parade of increasingly sophisticated scams involving various types of malicious software. In prior cases the software was typically spread anonymously, rapidly, through thousands of automated servers or through the use of suberfuge. But as the skill and the reach of the attacks has increased, so has the sophistication of the countermeasures deployed […]
Continue reading→On the Delicate Art of Saying “Scram”
A few years back I had a customer–I’ll call her “Jen”–who became a problem. She hadn’t started out a problem. In fact she was a pretty good customer for a good long run. Lots of issues, paid well and on time, gave referrals. The only obvious wrinkle was that she was pretty demanding, borderline neurotic actually, about getting things done […]
Continue reading→A Modest Proposal
This posting will have nothing whatsoever to do with computers other than that it was written on one. It’s been some weeks now since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown Connecticut. Everybody with a forum has posted their thoughts on this awful tragedy, and so having some thoughts of my own, herewith my two cents. First, there is […]
Continue reading→FBI Virus Wreaking Havoc across US
The warning, delivered under an official-looking Federal Bureau of Investigation logo, goes something like this: Warning: Your PC is blocked for one of the reasons specified below. You have been violating Copyright and Related Rights law (Video, Music, Software) and illegally using or distributing copyright content, thus infringing Article I, Section B, Clause 8, also known as the Copyright of […]
Continue reading→An Open Letter to Paul VanDevelder
Dear Paul: A recent op-ed piece by you in the LA Times captured my attention a couple of days ago. Not that this piece, about a secession petition making the rounds in a few red states, was especially important or even well-written. It got my attention for approximately the same reason that a loud, obnoxious drunk a couple of tables […]
Continue reading→Requiem for a Heavyweight
It’s been a few days now since the passing of Steve Jobs, on Oct 5, 2011. It is a measure of his stature as a public figure that most people probably remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. Steve Jobs had many admirers around the world, as well as more than a […]
Continue reading→Professional Discourtesy
Not too long ago I arrived at work one morning to find a message in my Inbox from “Concerned Citizen,” who had written us through the Contact Us form on our website. Concerned Citizen claimed to be a MacIntosh technician working in North Austin. He said that he had repaired a computer that we had previously worked on, and damaged […]
Continue reading→The Good and the Bad of Customer Service
In this business you often have to deal with the customer service departments of hardware and software manufacturers. The experience can be easy and pleasant, frustrating and difficult to the point of enraging, or anything in between. After a while you get a pretty good idea of what kind of company you are dealing with based on their customer service. […]
Continue reading→On the Care and Feeding of Digital Devices
A woman came into the shop the other day, obviously frustrated, even upset. She had two laptop computers that weren’t working. Both were older machines. One simply would not start, and the other had, apparently, a broken DC connector (the device that carries power into the laptop from an AC adapter.) One computer appeared to have a failed mainboard, making […]
Continue reading→Security 2010 Continues to Wreak Havoc
Since January, the Internet has been bombarded with the latest iteration of the Security 2010 scareware, with fresh outbreaks coming every few days. This blog has written previously about it. This malware is the latest generation of a family of rogue software known by many names going back to at least 2006. The basic MO remains the same: On startup […]
Continue reading→Missed Callings
The phone message, left by by an obviously irritated male caller, was brief and to the point: “The only way to get through to you is to send a (bleeping) message because you’re never around to answer the (bleeping) phone. Well forget it–I’m going to take my business somewhere else.” The tone of voice was borderline hostile with hints of […]
Continue reading→New Twist in Security 2010 Outbreak
Lately, we’ve been seeing a great deal of the Security 2010 malware, the subject of an earlier post. It comes in a number of different flavors but is, so far, removable without major disruption in most cases. It continues to surprise, though, with its clever little wrinkles. We recently encountered two separate cases of Security 2010 that were, apparently, successfully […]
Continue reading→A Matter of Personal Responsibility
A few days ago I received a phone call from a young man who said that his Mac laptop was damaged and could I possibly fix it. I said, yes, probably, but needed to know a bit more about the problem before committing. It turns out that he had carelessly dropped the laptop from a height, severely damaging the case. […]
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