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Before You Complain About Gas Prices…

If you are an American living in the United States, you might not want to complain too loud about gas prices. People from other countries might hear you and laugh. The United States ranks 45th out of 155 countries in price paid for gas. Americans also pay less than half of what they do in […]

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Building Security? There Is No Such Thing

I had an exciting night last night. I was sitting in my office writing an article when I heard police cars in the distance. Then they got closer and louder. Then even louder until they were right next to my apartment. I then heard somebody running up to the building and entering, then running up […]

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Do Computer Security Policies Actually Cost Employees More Downtime?

This morning I was working with a company to try to get their software up and running. All we had to do was delete 1 file from the hard drive of their Windows laptop and all would’ve been jolly. When we looked on the C drive however, we couldn’t find the Program Files folder. It […]

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Tales From The Helpdesk: Rebooting

Support Rep: Looks like we have to reboot the computer.
Customer: You mean the whole thing?
Support Rep: Well, I don’t know how to reboot half of it do you?

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Why Exactly Does Vista Suck So Much?

I originally thought that the critics were just being hard on Windows Vista. All Microsoft products draw skepticism. After my experience with Windows Vista though, it became clear to me that it sucks bad. I thought I’d share some specific examples.
Options aren’t available unless you are on a specific screen
Many of the options for certain […]

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Problem Finding that Setting in Microsoft Office? Search For It!

As a computer tech, I spend most of my day just finding settings for users. The Microsoft Office product has become so filled with features and settings, I never can memorize them all myself. Let along the typical user. I often have to Google it before I can figure out where the setting that I […]

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If You Don’t Know the Real Error Message You Received, Just Make One Up When Calling Tech Support

Calling Tech Support? Need immediate help solving a Windows error message? You didn’t write down the error message when the problem occurred? That’s OK, just make one up. The tech should be able to figure it out if you state any general error such as “dll error”. No need to be specific here. We’re psychic […]

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Did You Get That Thing I Sent You?

We have a new jackass at my company that constantly has to send out everything he finds. I think that he believes he’s far more advanced than everybody else just because he uses Digg. He finds these links, then emails them. I see the email appear. I ignore it. I’m workin’ here! You know? Doing […]

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Tech Support Customers That Call For Help, Then Try to Tell You How Computers Work

In continuing my rant about dumb people calling me on the computer support line, this morning I experienced another situation I get regularly. Customers sometimes call and ask me a question, then I answer the question with 100% certainty. The customer then proceeds to disagree with my answer. OK? If you already know the answer, […]

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Are You Convinced Dyson Makes Better Vacuum Cleaners?

I was in a Best Buy shopping for Vacuum cleaner bags recently. I saw a couple come in and look at the Dyson vacuum cleaners. They were fascinated by every model on the floor. Hypnotized by the commercials Dyson runs on TV constantly, they overlooked all of the other models available on the floor, despite […]