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Posts by Highinthemountains
21 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jun 2018
We beg, implore and beseech thee. Stop reusing the same damn password everywhere
Ding-dong. Who's there? Any marketing outfit willing to pay: Not content with giving cops access to doorbell cams, Ring also touts personal info
Can't you hear me knocking? But I installed a smart knocker
I'm not Boeing anywhere near that: Coder whizz heads off jumbo-sized maintenance snafu
Big bang theory: Was mystery explosion over New York caused by a meteor? Dunno. By a military jet? Maybe...
World recoils in horror as smartphone maker accused of helping government snoops read encrypted texts, track device whereabouts
2,500 years ago, these folks weren't cremated – but their funeral-goers were absolutely baked: Earliest evidence of pot smoking discovered
Office Depot, OfficeMax, Support.com cough up $35m after charging folks millions in 'fake' malware cleanup fees
Huge news from Apple: No, not mags, games or TV – more than 50 security bugs to patch
Wednesday 27th March 2019 02:06 GMT
A good point about security
The author made a good point when he said:
These are the types of bugs that advanced (nation-state) adversaries exploit to remotely infect targets," said Wardle, who lamented that Apple's iOS platform rules disallow security tools that could thwart or at least detect this sort of attack.
Just about every computing platform has some sort of antivirus or anti malware product available for it except iPads and iPhones. With as many vulnerabilities that are being patched you’d think that Apple would come up with their own software, ala windows defender, or allow 3rd party apps to help secure their supposedly “secure” devices.
Microsoft flings untested Windows 10 updates to users! (Oh no it doesn't!)
Thursday 20th December 2018 05:11 GMT
Re: "production quality"?
Not even close to production quality for their updates and the lack of support when the forced update jacks up the computer isn’t production quality either. I had a customer who was force updated to 1809 on December 14th, when the PC finished booting up all of the customer’s data was missing. I had thought that problem was “fixed” back in October.
I called up support and was told by the first rep, too bad so sad, Microslop is not responsible for your data loss even though our update caused it. I did manage to get a case number before she hung up on me. I called back, gave the case number to the rep and was immediately disconnected, twice. I called back again, gave the case number and the rep said that they’d have to set up a level 2 support call to get my issue resolved. We set it up for 8 am local time on December 17th.
I get into work early on the 17th waiting for the support call that never comes. At 1045 I call into support and give the rep the case number and ask about the level 2 support call that I was supposed to have gotten. She told me that there wasn’t one scheduled. Huh?! I asked if she was sure and she said yes. I then asked her if the last rep I talked to lied to me about escalating the problem just to get me off the phone, and she said ummm. Crickets chirping. I then explained my previous experience on this issue and how displeased I was with Microslop‘s forced updates borking people’s computers. I then went on to explain how I am subjected to the wrath of angry customers when something like this happens, like it’s all my fault windows decided to do an update.
She did offer to do a remote session (which the other reps never asked to do) and we found that the update had somehow corrupted the user profile and when the user logged in it was using a temp profile and their data was missing. At no time was I notified that a temp profile was being used.
Once I knew what was going on, I thanked her for her time and said that I was looking forward to receiving the email with the customer quality survey in it. I created a new ID and moved the data from the corrupted profile to the new profile. I have further found out that all of the data that should have been in the corrupted profile was not there. Most of it had to do with the Mail and Edge apps. There still seems to be some quality issues that need to be addressed in 1809.
I’m now dreading the next customer’s PC forced to do the 1809 update. I think I’m going to warn my customers to back up early and to back up often and to put off Microslop’s updates for as long as possible. Production quality indeed. Uh huh, sure it is.
Tech support discovers users who buy the 'sh*ttest PCs known to Man' struggle with basics
Sunday 9th December 2018 06:19 GMT
Mike brought his “computer” into the shop because they’re spying on me
I had a customer, Mike, who seemed somewhat challenged and a was challenge to deal with when it came to computers. Mike called me up one day and said that they were spying on him when he was on the internet. When I asked what made him think that, he said that there was a little eye at the bottom of his web browser and it was watching him and he want me to fix it so they couldn’t watch him. Now, this was the time before remote support programs, so I asked him to bring his computer into the shop so I could scan it for viruses and malware.
A few hours later he comes walking in with his monitor. When I asked where the computer was he said that it was right here, meaning the monitor. I said no, the black box under his desk was the computer. I told home to take the monitor back home so he could shut down the computer to bring it in. He said that wouldn’t be necessary as he just unhooked everything before disconnecting his “computer”, meaning he just yanked the power.
I sent Mike back home to get the computer so he could show me how they were spying on him. He come back with the computer, I set everything up and turned it on. The first thing it wanted to do was a chkdsk because of his abrupt shutdown. He complained that it was always doing that check thing. I explained that because he wasn’t turning off the computer properly, he was seeing the disk check. I told him that I would show him how to keep it from happening.
After Windows came up I asked him to show me how they were spying on him. He launched Internet Explorer and went to his home page. He then pointed to the bottom of the screen and said, see there is the eye and they’re spying on me. What he pointed to was the old privacy setting symbol that they used to use in IE. When I tried to explain what it was, he was pretty adamant that he was being spied upon. (Well, he probably was, but back then we didn’t know how much data was really being slurped by web sites).
I told him that I would put a different web browser on his computer that wouldn’t spy on him and I loaded up Firefox. Mike didn’t see the eye anymore and felt he was safe and secure. I was somewhat frazzled by my experience with him, but several dollars richer.
Microsoft slips ads into Windows 10 Mail client – then U-turns so hard, it warps fabric of reality
Saturday 17th November 2018 16:05 GMT
Will they vet the ads any better than msn.com does?
I’m always getting calls from customers saying they were on the msn page (also happening with aol and yahoo) and all of a sudden one of those fake support you’re infected web pages comes up and they can’t close it down. Does this mean that they’ll now have another attack vector blatantly sponsored my micro$oft?
Zip it! 3 more reasons to be glad you didn't jump on Windows 10 1809
Wednesday 24th October 2018 03:26 GMT
Re: Is there
There’s probably an arbitration clause in the license agreement. Microsoft using their users as alpha testers and ignoring significant documented bugs as low impact is abominable.
I had 8 machines in my shop that 1803 bricked and Microsoft’s fix was a wipe and reload since the rollback didn’t work. When I asked the Microsoft rep how I was supposed to explain to the customer that their update broke their computer and that I had to charge them to fix it. His response was that they would fix it for free, but the customer needed another computer and a couple of flash drives. When I asked the rep if he thought that working over the phone with someone who can barely operate their computer and him having a pretty heavy accent if it was going to end well? He kinda hemmed and hawed and said maybe.
I guess I should look at this as a blessing in disguise. Microsoft can keep pushing out sh*tty code and I’ll keep making money rebuilding the computers their “keep it fresh” updates bork.
Microsoft Windows 10 October update giving HP users BSOD
Friday 12th October 2018 12:59 GMT
Re: Barton Gellman defended auto-updates, arguing they do more good than harm
I’m not kicking back squat to micro$oft! But I sure catch a lot of grief from customers when I have to charge them to fix their computer after a Windoze 10 update borks their computer. Having to wipe and reload is NOT an acceptable answer to a bad update.
Microsoft deletes deleterious file deletion bug from Windows 10 October 2018 Update
On the third day of Windows Microsoft gave to me: A file-munching run of DELTREE
Google cracks down on dodgy tech support ads
Windows 10 July update. Surface Pro 4. Working fondleslab. Pick two
Microsoft says Windows 10 April update is fit for business rollout
Monday 18th June 2018 15:19 GMT
Microsoft updates are really beta testing in disguise
I had 8 computers of various ages and manufacturers in my store with borked 1803 updates. A few were just missing drivers or had applications disappear. The others had non booting Windoze and rollback was not working. After several level 1 support conversations and a couple of Microsoft missed level 2 troubleshooting appointments, they’re grand fix to the problem was a clean install.
Yes, that fixes the problem, but doesn’t endear Microsoft to their customers when they realize that it’s going to cost a bunch of $’s to get their fix implemented. When I told them that their fix was an unacceptable solution to the problem, the rep told me that the customer could call them and they’d fix the problem for free provided that the customer had another computer and a flash drive. Yea, like that will really work, someone with a heavy accented voice telling a person who can barely turn on their computer how to fix it.
A few of my customers ended up getting new computers when I explained that dumping that much money into a computer that was as old as theirs was wasn’t a good idea. Since I don’t sell computers any more, I helped the customer (for a fee) select a new computer and then transferred their data and reinstalled their application onto the new one. The ones with newer computers or ones who just wanted theirs fixed wanted to know where they could send a bill to Microsoft for reimbursement of the repairs. I told them lots of luck on seeing any money.
Now that's old-school cool: Microsoft techies slap Azure Sphere IoT chip in an Altair 8800
Saturday 9th June 2018 05:17 GMT
Re: PFY?
The old adventure game was a kick to play. I think i even tried to map the game and kept getting hung up on the twisty-turny tunnels. Lol. Imagining the various rooms and encounters in your mind was all we had back then, but it’d be interesting to put some modern graphics into the program and see how it looks. Even if that happened, the game would probably be considered pretty lame when compared to whats out there now.
xyzzy
Biting the hand that feeds IT
