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Office

Phone tech support or NON-tech support?

Once again the ineptness of many of the phone tech support services reared its ugly head again. This time it was Sony's phone support. I worked with a client to set up his new Sony Vaio laptop (great screen by the way) and found that he was not shipped the Microsoft Office 2007 CD or certificate of authenticity that he paid extra for at purchase. Without the certificate, we could not activate the Office product. We called tech support and after 35+ minutes at three different people at two numbers, we were told that a call would be made back to my client within "three hours". 

Will old media kill itself off?

Viacom is suing YouTube (Google) for $1 billion for copyright violations. People (not YouTube) have posted clips (not entire shows unless the shows were under 10  minutes) on YouTube without Viacom's permission.

As a result, many YouTube visitors were turned onto Viacom regular programing as well as many other programs like, The Office, 24, Desperate Housewives, The Family Guy, Ali G, and Lost.

While some of these people would have started watching these programs without the help of the Internet, most people use the Internet to get caught up on episodes that aired before they started watching.

Is Vista driving computer prices down again?

After the release of Vista we saw prices for desktops and laptops rise nearly 15% for equivalent Windows XP computers. Since Vista's release, the sales numbers for computers and Vista itself have been dismal and retailers are not happy. I opened up my local paper today at breakfast and found that Office Depot had three decent laptops on sale for under $900 all with 1 GB of RAM. One was $699. We haven't seen those kind of prices on laptops since before Christmas. It makes me wonder if Microsoft is giving some kind of incentive to manufacturers to lower their prices in order to help drive sales.

Is it not ok anymore to be content with what we have?

I have had Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 sitting on my desk for more than three weeks now. I spent nearly $300 buying the stupid products so that I can install them on my machine, but I haven't. It's not because I haven't had time…I just have no burning desire to go through with the change yet. My Windows XP machine is running awesome, I like the configuration of my system and just don't want to upset the apple cart yet. I still occasionally turn on my backup machine that is running a beta version of Windows Vista, but I have only used it about ten times since I installed the beta version last September. 

How to detect keyloggers

Keyloggers are viruses (or can be hardware in an office situation) that log everything you enter into your computer…including passwords, user names, and account numbers. Don't take this problem lightly as it can lead to identity theft. Keyloggers are rare and if you run proper security software (search security on our site), you are not at risk. However, if you suspect a keylogger, use one of these tools to detect them:

SpyBot Search and Destroy

Keylogger Killer

So, I cleaned my office today

Tomorrow I will start taking calls again and return back to work. I decided to use my last day off of the Holiday season to clean my office and get a fresh start on the new year.

I am a pack rat, but I am not the kind of person who never throws anything away. I am picky in what I keep. Most of my clutter is job related. Since I spend my days working on computers, I tend to keep computer parts and cables "just in case."

While I kept a lot of cables, I did decide to finally get rid of a lot of stuff I will probably never need again. I collected a total of 5 trash bags full of junk in the cleaning process.

One month away from Windows Vista

Microsoft plans on rolling out Windows Vista en masse on January 30, 2007. After nearly three years of delays, the much anticipated new operating system will be available. Unfortunately, the only reason it is getting released now versus later is because Microsoft stripped away many of the features it was supposed to have in order to deliver the product at all. This doesn't bode well for Microsoft or we computer users. I showed my brother Windows Vista and Microsoft Office 2007 while he was here for the holidays. His response: "It's sexier."

I will admit that it has a certain visual appeal, but nothing earth shattering. What it doesn't have is an intuitive look and feel that users will feel comfortable with out of the box because the visual aesthetics are so different. With one month to go, I am anxious to see the reception that it gets from consumers. So far, the volume business clients that have had access since November have been very unimpressed and sales are lackluster.

HP printer jam recovery

Overall, HP printers are my favorite. They are dependable, they do a great job and they are fairly economical on a price per page basis. I have seen some good things from Canon printers lately, but HPs have a much longer track record.

Every brand of printer has its problems and HPs are no exception. One of the biggest problems with HP printers is that they get caught in a loop. If you turn the printer off in the middle of printing, or the computer locks up and you have to restart part way through a print job, don't be surprised if your HP goes bananas when you turn the computer back on.

Geek Squad Story

Two stories from one day of work. Those of you who know me know that I don't 'slam' other people or businesses. I only relay information that I view as important to save technology consumers money, time and frustration. Here are two actual stories that were relayed to me today about Best Buy's Geek Squad:

Story #1

A new customer of mine informed me that she hired the Geek Squad to come to her house to setup a home network. Their advertised rate for such a service is $159 minimum. The 'professional' who showed up spent nearly seven hours at the customer's house and when he left, the network was not completed and the customer told that it couldn't be done. To the Geek Squad's credit, they didn't charge the customer. 

Open Office 2.0 — FREE Alternative to Microsoft Office

In today's meetings, we downloaded, installed, and worked with Open Office. The FREE altnernative to Microsoft Office. To read why the software is free, read this information from their web site .

OpenOffice programs are completely compatible with Microsoft Office programs and allows you to read, edit, and create Office documents without owning the Microsoft Office suite. Here is a list of the programs and their functions in Open Office:

Open Office icons