Ramblings of Silver Blue

when THIS describes my clients.

…mostly behind the scenes. Apologies to those who found the blog to be sluggish this morning as Blogrolling has having server problems. Other than that, the day is progressing. I have an entry about someone I’ll call “Scary Death” which is being fleshed out in my mind as to exactly how I want to write […]

Thanks to Revog who directed me to this article. Sounds to me like Best Buy is setting themselves up for a major class action lawsuit.

That would be websites that are so intrinsically tied to the browser that they will not work in ANY other browser. Sorry, but life’s short. They already own my operating system. They are NOT going to own my browser any longer. That would be like Honda saying you could only use Honda gasoline in the […]

Try to leave a comment and get: Internal Server Error The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request. Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@blog.mu.nu and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error. More information about […]

…that some hosting companies think that they’re the shit and can do with their clients whatever they want and disguise it all under the veils of “TOS”. From everything I’ve read, and heard, it would be a long, cold, snowy day in hell before qwk.net ever got any of my business. I’ve worked with three […]

Nuff said. Sorry, but hotlinking can eat up bandwidth like no tomorrow. I know, I’ve had it happen to me. While I may not have gone as far as Tiff did, you can bet your sweet ass that I did redirect all hot-linkers to my Ebay auctions. Mind your P’s & Q’s, qwk.net. You’re on […]

In a rare moment of blogging about work, today at CHK, I had to have my administrative PC profile reset, something that I cannot do for my own account (because I’d have to be logged in to do it). I called over to our industrious computing services and identified myself, my position, my department, and […]

If you’ve got your PC running just as you’d like, get yourself a copy of Ghost, or a program like it, and image your machine. This way if the hard drive fails, you can always restore it to just the way you liked it to run.

…with us JUST coming off a full moon. Yet another email: “I am having trouble opening some emails and responding to others. Please advise. Thanks.” What kind of troubles? From your office machine or from home? Give me generic problems, get generic answers.

people could use their brains as something more than just to keep their skulls from collapsing. I get an email today from a client that said: “Please visit my pc. thanks” That’s all. Nothing about what was wrong with it, or what it was or wasn’t doing. I replied that more information needed to be […]

Microsoft to Zap Sony DRM ‘Rootkit’ By Ryan Naraine November 12, 2005 Microsoft Corp. will start deleting the rootkit component of the controversial DRM scheme used by Sony BMG Music Entertainment. The software giant’s Windows AntiSpyware application will be updated to add a detection and removal signature for the rootkit features used in the XCP […]

I send an email out to end users on October 28 telling them they must change passwords by November 11, or they will not be allowed in the system. Each time that they log on and have not changed their password, the system reminds them that their password would expire 11/11. Why, then, is it […]

You knew it was going to happen. AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (Reuters) — A computer security firm said Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG’s controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc. Under a subject line containing the words “Photo approval,” a hacker has mass-mailed the so-called […]

…your feet, that is. I have to laugh. I was responsible for a website, and the person it represented decided it should go in a different direction — no problem, I was doing it volunteer wise so it just took one thing off my plate. We’re still friends, etc. Now, 7 months later, their “new” […]

I received a call from a client today: “We’ve got a computer in the office that isn’t working.” Okay. First off, let’s dissect this for what it’s worth. Your office as 14 computers in it. Which computer is it? “I’m not sure” the client says. Next, what’s wrong with it? “It’s not working right.” Ok, […]

Removing Sony’s CD ‘rootkit’ kills Windows More fun with digital audio By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco Published Tuesday 1st November 2005 10:25 GMT Sysinternals’ Mark Russinovich has performed an analysis of the copy restriction measures deployed by Sony Music on its latest CDs: which he bluntly calls a ‘root kit’. Using conventional tools to […]

I try not to blog about work because it’s not wise — not that CHK has a policy about it, but hey, why tempt fate, right? But I honestly have to question the intelligence of some of the people who work there. Say you receive an email saying “I need you to order me a […]

From World Features Syndicate: Communicating on the Internet 1. Instant messages sent in a day: 5 billion to 6 billion 2. Instant messages that are spam: 5 percent 3. Instant messenger users: 400 million 4. Spam blocked by AOL: 1.6 million every minute 5. Email that contains a virus: one in ever 11* *In the […]

what do you tell a client when they say they want a piece of software installed and it’s already on the machine? I don’t mind installing software, if it’s not there already, but why not take the five seconds it would take to verify if the software is already installed or not before wasting my […]

No matter how bad things ever got in my life, I don’t think I would EVER have considered resorting to sabatoge. I work too hard trying to keep things working (think of it like that Oath thingy the doctors take … Apothacarian? or something like that — “above all, do no harm”). Some techies don’t […]

It’s rare that I blog about anything having to deal with work, but I’ve got to get this out of my system. We are required, by auditors, to do inventory annually. No problem. I received the inventory sheet, and under each item, in the “Comments” section, wrote if the information was correct, and if not, […]

Well, thanks to Microcrap Internet Exploiter, a hacker tried to backdoor into my system at work (giving me a lot of “”, “[“, and “j”‘s across the screen), so I’ve started using FireFox and going to see how it goes from there. I’ll admit, i’m no fan of Micro$haft, but since my work has to […]

Click Here. Not work friendly, but funny as hell.

…that those people who have computers would know better. I had a client who brought their laptop in. Symptom: running really REALLY slow. Initial diagnosis: spyware and/or virus infection. Final diagnosis: 1300 pieces of spyware and 130 viruses. Yeah, I think that would cause a laptop to run very slow. What do you think?