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What do you tell people when.... ????

So... I'm at this social gathering last weekend. This woman starts talking to be about her computer because she hears I "do computers" from someone else. Man... That's an understatement. Anyway... she's telling me how she spent 12 hours last Friday "trying to fix AOL." I'm biting my tongue at this point. She can't make it dial. She does all this stuff... speaks to some HP person in India and has to pay money for them to prove her modem works. She calls AOL and they tell her to reinstall (the Windows way) and it finally "works" except now her AOL software pops up for no reason and does it constantly and all the time.

I'm sitting there trying not to let my eyes glaze over or smile and thinking to myself "you've got some sort of trojan horse or virus lady". What do you tell people and not either get yourself sucked in or make them have a heart attack?

Symptoms:

1. She's on dial-up and I'm sure AOL is configured to handle all of her internet traffic by default and offer to connect when there's traffic wanting to go out.
2. Her AOL software mysteriously stops working and needs a reinstall to fix
3. This stuff happens "all by itself and suddenly".

She's probably part of some script kiddie's botnet. How do you begin to explain that to someone? Sheesh! I don't want to be too negative, but I'm thinking "you need anti-virus software and don't have it - you got what you deserve".

Finally another woman who was there got sucked into the conversation. She "does help desk" and the woman with the trojan (man... that sounds bad) knew it. The help desk person says "that's easy to fix - stop using AOL". That shut the whole thing down. Help Desk FTW :-)

I Still HATE Dell

People who know me in real life know that Dell screwed me out of a computer a few years back by sending it to an existing customer with the same name at a different address. After first being nice and then yelling and screaming, I had to go through my credit card company to get the money back. I then wrote Michael Dell a letter and attached an invoice billing him for $100/hour for all the work I had to do in order to get my own refund. All that got me was a letter from his personal assistant who lied and said that "Dell has taken care of this matter for you and refunded your money". I try not to swear on my blog, or at all in real life, but it's hard not to when telling this story.

My Dad's laptop cover started to break. We went online to Dell's parts website and found exactly what we needed after entering the service tag number of his laptop. The description said it included the back cover, the bezel (frame around the LCD) and all of the replacement rubber bumpers because you have to rip them off to unscrew the thing.

So... yesterday, he gets the package. I arrive and he's pretty disappointed. All that's in the box is the back cover, and it's the wrong color. We call the "customer service" number and get some guy in India who says he can refund the $80 we had to spend for this thing minus shipping because WE ordered the wrong part. Finally it ended up in a shouting match. I pulled up the description on the internet and read it to him (quite loudly). I told him "I don't even work for Dell and I can pull up the description of he part and see that we indeed ordered the right thing. Why can't you do that - you work for Dell?". He then agreed to refund the shipping too. He suggested we talk to someone in sales so we could get the "right" part. So he transfers us.

The person in sales was unable to even locate the part - even with the part number that we had. Unbelievable... Dell sinks to a new low that I didn't even believe was possible.

10 minutes later, we had purchased the part on ebay for less than half the price.

Dell "Sucks Out Loud"!!!!! Michael Dell, you give Texas a bad name. I used to recommend your products and say the customer service was horrible. I can't in good conscience do that anymore - the quality of this laptop cover sucks and you can't even order a replacement because Dell outsources their customer service and has pot-smoking clowns who do order fulfillment.

I work for a VERY large company. Last time I had people come on-site to repair Dell Laptops, even they were badmouthing the quality of Dell and how it's gone down hill.

Christmas is coming. Don't buy a dell.

Christmas Project Update

I have received some of the hardware I purchased to do the crazy Christmas lights. I have decided, however, to register another domain name and put the info for my lights on that site. I use the TangoUniform.org site for things I don't necessarily want my real name attached to. As my other web site will probably have the URL on a sign on my front lawn when the Christmas Lights are on, I decided it would be a good time to separate the two. I am not planning on having much more detail about the Christmas Lights on this site. Sorry! I don't really want a "Mad Hacker Lives Here" sign on my front lawn. It might upset the neighbors ;-)

FiOS Security Hole Update

I just got to witness another FiOS install. Verizon appears to have used some hillbilly engineering to plug their own security hole a little. The Default WEP Key is still the same as the MAC address with the first 2 characters removed, HOWEVER (in this case, at least) they have changed the actual MAC address of the router. The router is broadcasting a different MAC address than the one on the sticker. I was joking around with the installer about it. He claims to not have heard anything about the security hole. Still the same dang sticker. Must have hired a bunch of undocumented workers and showed them how to swap out the hardware inside the routers - ha ha ha. Hopefully this exercise in hillbilly engineering is a temporary fix and not their long-term solution.

Insteon Addiction

OK... I'm hooked. This stuff rocks and looks pretty cool. For bedroom switches, though, I'm gonna have to remove the light pipes and replace them with black electrical tape. They look really cool everywhere else though.

I'm gonna have to get one of those countdown switches for the exhaust fan in my bathroom. That'll be great to defog everything after showers.

I have all of these useless switches on the walls of my new house that control outlets - I HATE those. I can now replace the switches with Insteon and wire the outlet so it is always on. I can then use Insteon (or X10 for the moment) modules to control what I REALLY want to control when someone hits the switch. This is going to be fun (and cause me to spend money - ha ha ha). I'd better get a whole house surge suppressor installed soon.

MH

First Impressions of Insteon

WOW... Call the police - two posts in the same month - LOLOLOL.

I received my Insteon Starter Kit yesterday afternoon. I ordered the "kitchen lighting" starter kit because it had a variety of different components that I want to try. I also ordered two Insteon Outlets and the relay version of the 6 button control pad.

Yesterday I only had time to plug in the two access points. These are what allow the Insteon signals to cross between the two legs of the "split single phase" circuit that most homes in the USA have. It took two tries to find outlets that were on opposite legs - quick and painless.

Today I installed the two outlets and the 6 button dimmer. Anyone who knows me or who has read my Wiki knows that I have a lot of X10 equipment. The dimmer switch is the "holy grail" of the X10 world. It allows you to turn the light on dim and brighten as you go. Another feature that they only ellude to on the website is that the switches, when in X10 mode, not only turn the light on when you push the button, but broadcast the on and off signals to the powerline as well (part two of the "holy grail"). I have the other 4 buttons of the 6 button dimmer set to control X10 devices. They monitor the powerline for signals and adjust their status accordingly (the buttons light up when they think the device is on and go dark when they think the device is off). Pretty nifty stuff. Most of the Insteon documentation mentions that the devices "do not repeat X10 signals". I think they leave the transmit X10 signals part out on purpose so as to not confuse people.

I will be buying some more Insteon switches VERY soon. The home I bought this summer leaves a little to be desired as far as switch placement goes. I can use the 6 button controllers to compensate for this. A lot cheaper and faster than hiring an electrician to boot.

Good stuff. Over time I see myself going almost completely away from X10. So far I am not very happy with the computer interfaces offered by Insteon - not a lot of Linux support, which is a killer for me. Who'd wanna automate their home with Windows - EWWW!!!!!

Yes, I am bridging both legs of my electrical system with an X10 bridge (homemade of course) and two Insteon Access Points. So far so good.

I am officially an Insteon fan (I just wish the stuff was as cheap as X10 - but then you get what you pay for. All things considered, Insteon is a bargain for what you get compared to X10).
MH