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============== Mischief Time
The computer industry is mostly in a holding pattern right now. Windows Vista is due out sometime this year, Office 2007 should be out either later this year or early next, AMD has switched all their production to 64 bit chips but there isn't much useful you can run on the 64 bit Windows so you are stuck running the 32 bit Windows with 32 bit applications, Intel is still migrating to 64 bit chips but will probably cease 32 bit production soon and no one is certain what we will need next year or the following.
Microsoft is pumping out stand-alone versions of some of the software that will be part of the enlarged Office suite. I have a program called "Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006" installed and am playing with it. It will be a stand-alone member of the Office 2007 family. There are other titles in the same situation with more on the way. Microsoft is also readying a subscription Office which will not reside on your computer at all. You'll pay a monthly fee and use it on Microsoft's servers, saving the documents onto your computer. This way, you'll never have to upgrade Office again. No worries about security, vulnerabilities or having to reinstall because something got farkled.
In the meantime, if everyone simply waited patiently for everything to fall into place, the computer industry would go broke. So, everyone has something to sell. Just be careful you really need it before you buy. There are going to be tons of "special" deals that are seemingly hard to resist. Just make sure you really need them before you bite. A lot of the specials are going to have an awfully short useful life.
============== Office 2007
Microsoft has listed their list of products available for the various versions of Office at http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview/suites.mspx There are quite a few changes. Outlook won't be included in Home © Student versions. It will be replaced by OneNote -- a useful note taking program that allows you to keep free-form notes, with useful Search and Flags to find the notes you have taken. You are able to copy a whole web page, make comments on it and save it for future reference. Probably more useful for students. Windows Vista will include a calendar program, so most of what current users get in Outlook will be available in Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express) and Vista. Too bad the other Office versions don't get OneNote. Nice program and many of us don't need everything Outlook has.
============== Rick's Rant: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, what happens behind the scenes that you never hear about!
Did that title get your attention! I hope so. We all love to know secret things and I'm about to share some with you today. I'm going to tell you what happens behind the scenes when your PC goes into the shop for a minor repair and you end up with a complete system crash and all your precious data is gone. As you stand there with your whole body going numb from the realization of it all the technician rambles off a bunch of Techno-Babble and shrugs his shoulders. Hold on a minute. Is this the real story? Or am I being told something just to get me out the door without throwing a fit. Once the deed is done can a second opinion help! Usually it's too late and there's not much you can do but head down to your favorite bar and cry in your beer. I'm not sure if this will make you feel any better but I'll tell you what really happened.
A favorite customer of ours brought in his wife's notebook for the usual tune-up as it was running slowly. Upon repeated attempts to dislodge whatever was holding back the power of performance we determined that a fresh install was the only fix for this poor abused notebook. It's our policy to backup our customer's data before we perform such a drastic surgical procedure. With a notebook we extract the hard drive and clone it to another drive and the go to work on the original with hammer and chisels. As it happened our newest member of the team was performing the appointed task when he made the fatal error of copying the drive to another one of the exact same size. When it came time to select copy "A to B or B to A" a wrong choice was entered and all the customer data was literally "wiped off the face of the earth". Needless to say when the error was discovered the tech was considerably distressed. Not wanting to put off the inevitable I hopped in my car and spirited down to my customer's workshop and requested a private audience. It was one of the more painful moments of my life when I looked him in the eye and said it's gone and it's my fault. After explaining what had happened he told me that his wife was working on her Ph.D. and there was two whole years of her work only on the notebook and she never backed up. I felt sick. We REALLY do care about how our actions affect people. He picked up the phone and said she will start crying but here goes. Upon hearing the news she hung up on her husband sobbing. He tried calling back after 5 minutes and she was still crying. I told him I would do everything I could to set her notebook back up as best I could. He said that he really appreciated the fact that I told him the truth and faced up to it like a man.
Back at the shop while reinstalling the OS on the notebook the hard disk failed completely. So we installed a new notebook hard disk, the OS, the latest version of Microsoft Office and well as a complementary Norton 2005 antivirus. After all was said and done our tech took some solace that the drive died on its own and he felt somewhat, not completely, but somewhat vindicated and I hear he is now able to sleep at night. THE GOOD! (Names have been changed to protect the guilty)
When our previous tech was hired he was referred by our departed tech who had accepted a position at the competition and has since been promoted to a manager. When the subject of backwards backups came up he told me what had happened a year ago. While working on a customer's computer my tech formatted a businesses hard drive. He informed me that the drive was bad and needed to be replaced. I spent a lot of time restoring backups and getting the business back up and running. What I didn't know was that he had copied the data incorrectly, wiping out the drive. He covered his tracks by lying to me and throwing out a good drive to finish the deception. We sold the customer the new drive when in reality they didn't need it except to make the story stick. THE BAD!
I have at least a dozen horror stories from customers who have had terrible experiences with other vendors. Because of the limits of your attention span and the constraints of my editor I will forgo detailed explanations except for a common thread. I know of many individuals who sent out notebooks for warranty repair that went to repair clearing houses that contract for vendors warranty repair work (See earlier RANT). These companies have no interest in customer service or providing quality work. All they want to do is repair as many notebooks in as little time as possible. And I believe they save money by invalidating warranties by claiming the damage was caused by water. I have had many clients get a call that it will now cost $400.00 to replace a mainboard because of water damage which is not covered under warranty. And they swear that they never spilled anything remotely near the notebook and it was operating before they sent it in. I truly believe that rather than do repair work for low cost they can make extraordinary profits on "out-of-warranty" repairs. What are you going to do? Ask to send it back and then send it out again for a second opinion!? I think there is a system of actual fraud out there that preys on the industry. I can't prove it but I've seen too circumstances that strongly suggest it. THE UGLY!
So there you have it! A glimpse into the back alleys and rooms of the PC repair business. They say you should never watch sausages or laws made. Better add PC repair to the list.
============== CIPCUG Notice
You don't have to be a member of CIPCUG to subscribe to this E-letter, but we do make a short notice of upcoming events.
Don't forget this Saturday's general meeting, February 25, at the Camarillo Boys © Girls Club. It's back to the fourth Saturday of the month, not the third. The holiday schedule is over.
The February issue of The Outer Edge, which went in the mail on Monday, Presidents Day, has a mistake in the program listing. Dave Whittle will be the speaker in March, not February. The correct schedule, as it appears on the Web site, is:
February 25: LINUX. Orville Beach will return to show us how to do an install of Kubuntu version of Linux. This is a great opportunity to see an alternative O/S being set up and how it works. Bring all your question you have been stewing over concerning Linux.
March 25: Dave Whittle. Dave will be presenting his "picks" at our March presentation: Muvee Autoproducer (new version recently), Photo Vista (new version just out), and Invisus, a new PC Security solution. Right now he also includes 3D Album, but may not be out by March). He ties them all together in a enjoyable, yet informative presentation called "Whittle's Picks for the Digital Home".
April 22: Don Miller, High Tech Task Force of Ventura County. This will be a presentation on computer forensics.
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