Some of you may have seen this in the news lately:
Researchers went to a typical office in London to take swabs from 30 keyboards. The results were pretty horrifying with a whole host of different bacteria found on the swabs. One of the more serious bacteria found is called staphylococcus aureus, also known as “golden staph”, that can cause skin infection and food poisoning. Another keyboard was so badly infested with bacteria it was recommended by a microbiologist that the offending keyboard be removed from use.
The same test also took a swab from a toilet in the London office, which was five times cleaner than the keyboard that had to be removed.
The reason for the build-up of bacteria on our keyboards has been put down to the fact we eat our food around them. The tiny crumbs of food that fall in between the keys act as a great breeding ground for bacteria to grow on. Not washing your hands regularly, especially after visiting the toilet, was also partly to blame.
You might want to get a package of those individually wrapped isopropyl alcohol pads and wipe down your keyboard regularly.
Disturbing news for their clients:
From TGDaily: Minneapolis (MN) - As a high-profile lawsuit against Best Buy’s Geek Squad technical support service gets ready for court, a new employee confession has come through detailing one of the company’s more questionable policies. The lawsuit, filed in Hennepin County, Minnesota, claims that when a computer comes into a Geek Squad center, the employees comb through personal files and sometimes copy lewd or other content over to their own personal flash drive.
Having been in this business for over 25 years, we can attest that we’ve encountered some very sensitive information over the years. But the mark of a true professional is that they know when to keep their mouth shut (and their flash drive in their pocket) and they know when a matter should be brought to the attention of the business owner.
As consultants, our reputation IS our livelihood and we aren’t about to risk our livelihood by doing juvenile things like copying MP3 files, rooting through personal correspondence, or browsing through your photos. It’s all part of our “business computing” philosophy.
I just ran across this: Back in May of 1978 the very first spam e-mail was sent by Carl Gartley for a DEC marketing representative, Gary Thuerk, in order to advertise a new line of DEC computers. Not surprising is that people back in ‘78 were just as annoyed with receiving spam as we all are in the present. Today of course the spam problem is much worse with spam being estimated at 80 to 95 percent of all e-mail traffic depending on who you talk to.
A good RSS reader and subscribing to some key RSS feeds is a great way to skim headlines and keep up with the news/blogs/information that you’re interested in.
Enter Twitter. Some websites are using Twitter in addition to RSS feeds. If you like short messages (limit 140 characters) that can follow you on your mobile devices, then this is a way to keep up on the go.
Billed as a way to keep in touch between blog entries and e-mail, it is mainly targeted at the Facebook social networking crowd, but it’s an interesting way to keep up to date without an RSS Reader.
We just went live with our new website design. Any and all comments are welcome, including suggestions.
The major change, as many of our clients can attest, is using this Blog to let you know current information instead of modifying a web page. It also invites you to ask questions and give us feedback.
People who have automatic Windows updates turned on for their computers will start receiving the Vista Service Pack 1 update today (providing you have Vista, of course).
Out among the announcements was this little gem: “Even after today’s announcement, however, some Vista users may not see SP1 for weeks or even months because their PCs are using defective device drivers that Microsoft says may cause problems during an upgrade. It is blocking systems with those drivers from obtaining SP1 until the drivers themselves have been updated.”
No matter. That’s one of the big reasons we don’t turn on automatic updates on our clients’ (or our) computers. It’s usually wise to wait awhile after the release of a Service Pack for others to find the bugs and give Microsoft time to fix them before deployment.
Various viruses are floating around that purport to be a Microsoft update sent by Microsoft. DO NOT BELIEVE IT! Microsoft does not send updates via e-mail.
Remember, no software company sends patches or updates via e-mail, only notifications that there are patches or updates available. If you have ANY questions, please call us at 303.290.8888.
The FTC warns that there are no offical anti-spam registries operating now with any government backing. Some sites claim to be an anti-spam registry but could actually increase the spam you see in your e-mail inbox if you provide your e-mail address.
If you have ANY questions, please call us at 303.290.8888.
Welcome to the Entré Computer and Communication blog. You will find a wide variety of information here: almost all of it targeted for the non-technical person, but information you should know about.