Enlightened Conversation.
Category: communication
Today’s scam comes from your friendly banking institution. Just kindly open the attached ZIP file for all of the details… Nope, don’t think so!
Your bank may very well send you e-mails. I would not open any files that you were not expecting.
If you look at the “from address” you will see that it is not from Bank of America but someplace that makes no sense.
Make a phone call to your local bank if you are in doubts, before opening anything!
-Best to you and those that you care about.
Why are the feds not looking into this?
Now I get a lot of this type of stuff and I know better….
Having said that; how many times have I been tempted to click before engaging the brain? Too many too count… And I know better….
The post office would not have my e-mail address; nor would they send any type of attachment or even communicate with me in this manner.
They are the king of coming during the business week and leaving one of those nice little notes that you were missed and oh yes now go waste 30 odd minutes of your life standing in line; not counting the drive time, gas or other inconvenience for using USPS.
I digress, don’t play into this as it is most probably some sort of virus lurking, waiting to do some nastiness to your computer, files or exploit your personal information.
You would also be wise to have your e-mail package not display pictures by default. That too is a source of ingress into your system, like files, you should only allow pictures from trusted sources and then make sure that your trusted source has not been compromised.
-Best to you and those that you care about.
Time and Puzzles
I wish I understood all that I know about time.
Like the mysteries of the Quark, I would really like to understand that too.
What I do know about time is that we never seem to have enough of it. When things slow down I like to ponder what I know about “things.” One of those things is time.
As a creator of a science fiction book I had to do some messing with time. Not unlike the “flux capacitor” I had to “invent” a device that would move my beleaguered crew through time and space. This required a lot of research because I really don’t want to be laughed at.. Well I guess if they must laugh I would hope it is with the same jocularity that we laughed at the garbage consuming flux capacitor.
Having said that and on a little more serious note I was wondering. Things like this keep me up at night as I “wonder” a lot. Ever notice how the storms on the sun seem to last forever?
I am thinking that they only seem to last forever as the sun has its own version of time which is a lot slower than ours due to its mass and gravity.
Nostalgia is not lost on me. To that end I truly enjoy bringing things back to life of the electronic type, that should have otherwise gone in the dumper.
Currently there are countless transistor radio’s that were dead and now work once again at least as good as they did new, and some of them probably better as materials are now better. While the challenge of transistor radio’s is finding the parts; tube radio’s magnify that issue as no one is making new tubes for radio’s that I know of.
My latest project is this Tube Radio that I have had well over 30 years. I bought this for next to nothing and of course it did not work. If the case is in good shape and the parts are all there, that is about all I require.
The Radio is an Emerson 744B that was made in 1954. It sold for $34.95 which, back then was a heap of money.
Sadly there are many that will read this blog and not know what a tube is. With that in mind I have taken pictures of my latest project and will “splain” a few things as we go. The glass objects are tubes. These either are dead in the case of the rectifier tube or weak or leaky as with the rest.
The tubes house a filament, some metal structures that emit and collect electrons as well as things that control the flow of the electrons. Some house a thing called a “getter.” The Getters sole job is to collect and burn off any o2 that should get in by way of the pins. The getter is coated with a chemical that accomplishes this.
The British refer to these “tubes” as “valves” and in actuality that is a much more accurate description as that is in essence how they work.
This is the audio output tube in action. Notice the filament is glowing.
Here is a top view of the radio in operation.
Here is a bottom view of the radio showing the point to point electronic components. If you know anything about electronics you will notice the modern parts that I have installed, replacing the parts that failed.
Back in the day, capacitors were expensive to manufacture so they would use just what they needed and nothing more in terms of capacitance. Today that is not the case and with technology I was able to offer much more capacitance and higher working voltages to the circuit for around $6.
One old .05 MFD capacitor is still in the radio and functioning so I left it. The white square capacitors replaced two of the three .05 which are now .047.
The two modern electrolytics replaced the huge combination capacitor that some “purists” will actually disassemble and install the newer capacitors inside of it. I know very few who are going to take the metal bottom off of the radio and look underneath to see the parts. This radio sounds like a new one.
Here in North Texas we have a station that plays music from the era that this radio came from. http://www.kaamradio.com/
Big Band music I just never get tired of…. Anyway, this radio sounds great playing that station.
-Best to you and those that you care about..
It would seem that “Pride cometh before a fall” is something that is lost on most people who work in IT.
As someone who has been working with computers from about the time Bill Gates was buying an operating system from some poor guy in Washington State, and Steve Jobs was phone phreaking; There is just not much that escapes me.
I was doing some consulting for a company that was simply put together with bailing wire and scotch tape. They had a huge pipe to the internet and were getting a dribble through by the time it hit the desktop.
Loading WireShark (a free protocol analyzer) examining the broadcast packets it was easy to see why. The OS was literally working with NetBIOS to route packets.
A quick examination of the “server room” found the switches all tied together with Fiber and, patch cords going from one switch to another causing untold amount of routing loops etc. While the picture above is a stock photo the room in question looked very much like this.
My job however was not to fix their networking issues as this was the task of the guy I was “helping.” He was the System Administrator. I sent e-mails to him alerting him to my findings so he could take the appropriate steps, which for some reason he discounted and did not do.
The weeks went on and the problems persisted several times a day where people were kicked off of the network or files were corrupt or lost etc. His response/fix was to release and renew the IP address. Putting one band aid on the problem day after day I guess gave him a sense of accomplishment but the problems were looming and like the 500 pound gorilla in the closet, soon to get out.
One of the things that I learned many years ago is to work with VARS. Value added resellers have years of experience to draw upon. They know which products are buggy and to stay away from and which are tried and true. If you are a business don’t try and save money via internet stores as you will get what others can’t sell for one reason or another. They are on sale for a reason…
When I asked him for his vendor contact list to include in his DR plan, there were no VARS on the list. Everything was from internet companies or local retail locations. He in fact had no fallback plan if the $hit hit the fan.
The hardware purchased looked as much. There were no standards anywhere. There were high end SANS tied to cheap switches. The workstation of choice was whatever he got a good deal on making mass deployment of anything just about impossible. Hardware was way past its lifecycle and the list just went on. Because of his pride; he was not willing to listen to anyone regarding anything IT. If he does not change it will be his undoing.
This is not my first rodeo and certainly not my first encounter with arrogance. As a manager I can deal with it, as a consultant one must work around it and if it becomes too big of an impediment, bow out. There is no reason to sully your name with a situation like this when the outcome will likely somehow be your fault.
Always hire people smarter than you are and have the humility to acknowledge that you are not the end all be all. There is simply too much information out there to know it all. Wisdom is; knowing that you need help and to leverage VARS and consultants is simply smart.
-Best to you and those that you care about!
IT in a nutshell..
Most CEO’s or presidents of companies have no idea that the sword of Damocles’ is right over their head. They don’t know because they are blissfully ignorant of the workings of their IT department. Truth be told IT, is a cost center and frowned upon in most companies as they “don’t produce.” This is true in the mindset of the upper echelon. They put up with the CIO or his people and equivocate when it comes to allowing them money for projects, as they really don’t have a clue. Their job is to run the company, not IT.
There are three basics tenants of IT.
In working with most companies the infrastructure grew behind the power curve out of necessity. This of course is the most expensive way to grow your infrastructure in that many things are done to “temporarily” get them through the “event”. Emergency projects are hardly ever well thought out, and hidden surprises are always lurking. Remember that old axiom; there are never any good surprises in business.
One of the things that I talk about a lot is hardware management. Each and every piece of hardware in your company has a life cycle. Not unlike your car or home computer or cell phone. Planning for the life cycle for equipment allows the company to budget for replacement of same and keeps the down time to a minimum as well as keeps the employees productive.
Down time is expensive both in hard and soft dollars. If you have 300 people who can’t work because the server is down, you are loosing money. If Sally can’t assist the outside sales people because her pc is moving at the speed of drying paint, they both are loosing time which is “MONEY!”
S.A.M. or software asset management is also something that the IT department seems to ignore and this is really something that should grab at least the attention of the CFO. Does each and every person need a full copy of office or do they simply need Word or Outlook. I was in one account where each and every machine had a full version of office on it. 40% of these were used as a terminal: that was it! Five hundred dollars times 120 machines is $60K wasted! Can you tell me one company that could not use an extra $60K?
Now, add to this scenario that this guy was installing this software on machines that were already past their life cycle. I don’t profess to be an attorney or a legal scholar on EULA but, it is conceivable that when that machine dies, that license will die with it. There may be hoops that you can jump through to get Microsoft to allow a transfer of the license but, what are the odds that this guy will do it. It is not his money after all.
There was one company who had 300 locations with 2.5 machines per location. These were servers so each had a copy of Microsoft “flavor of the day” server on it.
The application that was on there was a home grown point of sale. It was compiled to run on the Microsoft platform.
When I ask why they had not considered LINUX as an alternative I was laughed at. Here are the scissors that will cut the thread.
There support desk was equipped with PcAnywhere and each and every call for help meant that a remote session would be placed to assist the person with their machine. Push come to shove the machine was sent to the Depot where another was sent out as a replacement. As the hardware evolved some locations had newer equipment. The variables were mind numbing.
Had they used LINUX a simple telnet session would have allowed the help desk to terminate a daemon and restart it all behind the scene. Licenses for server software, remote connection software, anti virus software would have been avoided. The other thing about LINUX is that it is more forgiving of hardware platforms in that they could have used their equipment until it died vs. replacing it when the software dictated it. This particular CIO had no technical background other than he knew some programming. He did not embrace technology at all and did not have a computer at his home until his kids wore him down. Any CIO that does not embrace technology ought not be a CIO. Oh yes, LINUX is free and the kernel can be hardened so it can be very secure.
How is it that these two people were in the place that they were in? They were likable! The failure here cleary sits on the CEO or the person they report to. If I am hiring someone for a position, I don’t care if I like them or not. They must be able to perform the job that they are being hired for and, if I like them it is a plus, not mandatory!
Ethical hacking is becoming more and more in vogue. The bad guys are out there doing their thing and we simply buy anti virus software and hope for the best. Some of us don’t do that, we use something that is free or not at all. Free is not worth what you pay for it when it comes to anti virus software! Do your homework and see who is touting what and why.
As another add on to the cost center and depending upon your desire to be safe, I would consider hiring a security person who has been around the block a few times. This is not some kid fresh out of college who is academically savvy but, someone who has the scars on their back to prove that they have been there.
In a nutshell, any connection to the outside world is a portal for the bad guy to get in. Even if you have a secure firewall you have people on the inside who may be working for the competition. There are many products that allow a PC to be remote controlled from outside the building. Some are actually viruses and others are installed by an unwitting employee or worse, a spy. Software audits are a necessity; not something you do if you have time. Speaking of which; the anti piracy folks are at it again offering huge rewards if you report someone using business software without a license. Another reason for SAM.
While you may think that I am paranoid (a little paranoia is a good thing btw) I assure you that industrial espionage is real and there are those that do it for a living. Your security person would be actively monitoring the traffic coming in and leaving the building, looking for anything on ports that are typically used for such things. Activity during off hours should be a red flag. There is something called SYSLOG which is basically a service that talks with a server and creates logs of events. Along with server logs this log should be monitored for unusual activity.
One way a person might gain access to your stuff is to drop a thumb drive or dvd in the parking lot. Label the dvd X pics or have bunny rabbit ears on the thumb drive. I would be surprised if someone did not pick it up and stick it into their machine to see what was one it. Of course it would contain a program that would install a remote control host and the person would never know as he would be too busy looking for pictures.
Physical security is also a must. Keycards with picture ID’s on them would be ideal. Cheap and effective. With this you can track employees movements through the day / night. Along with security cameras if things turned up missing one could read the keycard report and know who it was and where they were and then look at the footage with that timestamp to see if they were carrying anything.
Biometrics are becoming in fashion as well. While I would want to stay with tried and true I would definitely be monitoring this to see when and if it made sense to move that way.
This scratches the surface and as you can see, security is physical, it is Cyber and it is employee education along with policies. Any configuration of a user’s machine should be done by IT. Users should not have any more rights than they need to function. That allows for protection of your data, declines viruses administrative rights as they usually assume the rights of the user and, protects the machine from being altered making more work for the IT department when it breaks or more often than not broken.
A little forethought and planning on the IT department can help them to run lean on employees as well as protect the company’s assets.
The statement is an excellent ingress into the last thing that needs addressing.
More times than I can write about I find that data centers are a cobbled together disaster waiting for some event to push them over the edge. There is a web site dedicated to such things and if I had had a mind to, I could have created such a site like that with just what I have seen.
Along with hardware management and software management a strong dialogue needs to exist between the CEO and the CIO. Business needs and or possible needs to be accounted for and anticipated. Looking back at the past one could extrapolate what may be needed into the future and at least make plans for growth. A robust well thought out network that is well managed and maintained is a crucial starting point.
I could write on entire book on what that means but, what it does not mean are knee jerk throw it together solutions “because we needed it yesterday!” Any change might effect some other part of the business and or company or have unintended side effects. If they don’t have one I stress the importance of change management. This is crucial to the success of just about any company with technology.
Proper consideration should be given to each and every device and or software that is to be installed.
Parting thoughts:
There is no room for emotions in Information systems. Emotions cloud judgment and, judgment is crucial for success.
You do not hire or fire someone because you find them likable or distasteful. Either they are well qualified and have a well defined track record or they don’t. The rest does not matter unless they are insubordinate or are deemed unfit. They are not your friend and don’t think that they are.
Never hire anyone that you cannot fire. Family and friends even if the company is ok with it are a liability as employees. At best they will be a burden upon yourself, and at worst you will loose them as friends and they might compromise your job.
Surround yourself with people that are smarter than you, you will be well served.
Keep your ego in check as it will defeat you. Humility will allow you to “hear” from those that probably know what you are seeking.
When you get in too deep, call for help; admitting trouble is always preferable than suffering defeat because of pride.
There is never any case for listening to or passing on rumors. Small people talk about people, others talk about ideas and things.
Your employees and vendors job is to make you look good; your job is to make them look good.
-Best to you and those that you care about!
While I am certain that in some cases allowing an employee to work from home would work, I believe that we may be taking it too far.
Recently I was doing business with my bank and had to be transferred to a specialist. “Due to the overwhelming response all agents are busy, please hang on.”
After about five minutes of being on hold the phone is finally answered. The girl that handled the call was somewhat disorganized and I know this as she ask me for the same information several times as she most likely was stalling while she got to the right screen or possibly off of Facebook.
Between the pauses I could hear a baby crying in the background. I am not sure that allowing people to work at home with many distractions is a good idea however; commercial offices are sold or rented by the square foot. The amount each department is charged is allocated by the square footage that they occupy. Electricity used is divided up the same way. I.e. if sales uses X square footage and accounting uses X and IT uses X that is all split up so the bean counters can accurately assess the cost for each department or cost center.
Many companies are trying to cut cost by having people share a desk, meaning that they work from home so many days, then the other person works from home. Personally I think this idea is really poor as your phone, keyboard and lets face it; every surface is a harbor for germs. The phone especially as it is close to your nose and mouth. In this day of bacteria and viruses that are mutating and becoming resistant to the antibiotics that we have, I don’t think it a good idea to provide yet another way to transfer them.
So what kinds of folks could work from home? I think people who are self starters. There are folks out there who look forward to Monday. I know this as I am one of them. While most can’t wait for Friday to roll around I am one that looks at the clock not to see how much more time that I must endure but, how little time I have left to complete what I wanted to get done that day.
That is a self starter. That person could work out of their car or where ever. My office was the airplane and airport for years.
I mention this as I doubt that the bank had an excessive surge of calls today and I doubt that the cable company does every time that I call etc. While some of this may be to understaffing I suspect some of this is people being distracted at a home office.
Customer service is part of your brand much like the poor customer service at HP is iconic of what not to do and has been immortalized in shows like Big Bang and of course the ever famous YouTube video where the Marine shoots his printer with an automatic weapon, as his HP support was so bad.
Whether your company is public or private you must protect your brand. Think carefully about where your employees do their job and what kinds of employees are able to work from home.
Think really hard about outsourcing your customer service to “Peggy!”
-Best to you and those that you care about!
Consulting as a Disaster Recovery Specialist, I often find things that need to be changed to avoid a disaster, much like a loose rug over a threshold or too many things plugged into one circuit; which would be an issue in your home. In the business world it comes down to security issues both IT related and physical, as well as simple things like a lack of fire extinguishers or the wrong type of fire retardant system in the computer room. I am trained to notice the smallest of details including things like cable management issues.
When Best Practice scenarios are not followed by sys-admins or networking guru’s, they too trigger red flags. There is an art to designing data centers. I have designed and built many over the last 30 years complete from the ground up; from air handling to power requirements to working with ADA compliance issues. I have designed cable management for many companies that include the MDF and IDF’s and working with building management to handle communication through multiple story buildings making sure that they pass fire code. You would be amazed at how many data centers that I walk into that are under wired, lack proper air handling and have a sprinkler head above the equipment! The cable management looks like Spiderman installed it, nothing is labeled, and there is absolutely not one shred of documentation. And the boss / owner is oblivious to the immanent disaster, as he thinks his guys are pretty good!
When business’s start up, often times they don’t contact the brightest and best to build it as they are on a tight budget. When I am called, their data center is generally a candidate for one of those web sites that post “what not to do.” The exercise of unraveling the Gordian knot comes into play before anything can be changed. Many times a family friend is called to assist or the business owner has a home network and thinks that a business network is no different.
When these knots are constructed; most if not always there is limited or no documentation and the original creator has long since abandoned ship as he undoubtedly realized the ice berg ahead was not too far off. To that end there are many land mines that have to be discovered and diffused. This practice is akin to changing the tires on a racecar, while it is going down the track, and part of that track is in no mans land! The catch 22 is that no business can afford down time but, if they don’t address the issues they will have un-planned down time! Un-planned is always much longer than planned, and always more expensive!
As an SME on this and many subjects regarding IT, I can offer many things to mitigate any issues and put them on a road to setting things right. Whether that is working with their current IT staff, or bringing in hired guns to knock it out quickly!
The business must be willing to want to change, and have Executive buy-in as well as buy-in from the local staff. The process can take weeks to months depending upon the situation; but after it is all said and done, procedures and processes are put into place to keep up with change.
Some policies addressed are Change Management, Incident analysis; complete with root cause analysis, documentation with the introduction of the concept of a living document. The run book, what is it and how does it work? Testing the Disaster Recovery plan and then implementing changes from things learned. Other topics include SAM (software asset management,) and of course hardware management including lifecycle, and the budget process.
All too often the CFO or CEO is told that IT needs X thousands of dollars for this, that, or the other thing; not because it is a new project but because something failed! With proper asset management this can be mitigated greatly and things can be budgeted for.
Much like any other audit, I don’t guarantee anything will be pleasant other than the knowledge that when it is done you will have the documentation you need, your network will be running at peak efficiency and it will be secure. Depending upon your growth and company needs, a design can be implemented to make sure your data network is robust enough to handle changes and or growth!
The last thing that I can address for you is personnel. As a manager of and director of IT for 2 decades I know people. I know who is right for a job and who is not. If that type of expertise is needed; look no further.
-Best
Greetings to you and so long 2013!
I have spent a number of years on eBay and for the most part been happy with the services and products. Having said that a few stand out in my mind and I thought an airing of the facts might help someone else.
Sites like eBay have accountability built in however; many of us don’t leave a negative rating when the person deserves it, thus skewing the results. Some of us leave them a bad mark because the item was defective or what have you when it was clearly marked “as is no returns.”
I have been known to leave them a positive feedback but then voice my concerns for their way of doing business in the comments. For instance one fellow sold me something and then just threw it into a “if it fits it ships box, no packing and barely any tape. Why the post office took it is another story but it did make it. The box did not survive and the device inside looked as if the Cowboys used it for a football. Anyone reading his feedback will see that he needs to step up his shipping game.
Here is my argument, see what you think. I have always felt that we are too litigious of a society, we are “sue happy.” Anything goes wrong and there is some lawyer somewhere looking to make some money and will take the case no matter how petty the suite. Much like sharks; the more hungry the beast, the more appetizing a license plate or old shoe looks as opposed to a “wrongful death suite” that just don’t fall into “everyone’s” lap..
Is there a time to sue and is there a time to leave a negative rating? The answer is yes to both. If you are suing someone because you see it as a way to make money; (much like the lawyer,) than probably not. However; if you are bringing legal action as a way to hold the entity accountable, and possibly get them to change the way that they do business, than I believe that you are not only justified, but you should. The same is true about not leaving five stars.
Did they earn it?
Was the description accurate?
Was the product or service delivered as expected?
Was the shipping “normal” or was it high?
Was the item packed correctly?
If there was a problem, did they go out of their way to make it right?
Did they communicate with you until it was resolved?
Online buying has evolved over the years and I would suspect that the day of shopping via printed catalogue will be history in the next few years. With companies like Amazon, and others, it seems that the market place is much larger, only limited by internet access and access to the mail, or UPS or what have you.
I collect, purchase and refurbish old radio’s, purely as a hobby. I visited a re-cycle plant a few years ago where I saw home electronics being shredded, ground up, pulverized etc. While there is a need for this, I really would like to salvage some of “Americana” via its technology of the 50’s and 60’s and before, for the next generations. This quest has me looking for and purchasing unique antique e-stuff and than looking for the parts to repair it. Few young people today know what a tube is or how it works. We have managed to pack a video camera into wristwatch that still tells the time and only a few years ago (60) the transistor was replacing the tube allowing for smaller power supplies and of course smaller radio’s. We got the first transistor radio in 1954 which was a combined effort of Texas Instruments and Industrial Development Engineering Associates. A year later over 100,000 pocket radios were on the market. That is when Raytheon jumped in to make a better radio hence came along the 8 TP 1 which basically was a radio that doubled the amount of transistors incorporated from 4 to 8 allowing for better sound.
eBay seems like a natural place for this as it is rife with all kinds of these things.
Here are some things that I learned over the years that may help you and or might guilt the person or person’s who practice this type of behavior to stop it.
When selling an old “transistor radio” the seller said, “I am not sure how to test this.” Translated “I have done everything that I know and this thing is dead.” If you are incapable of installing a 9volt battery and turning a couple of knobs to see what happens, than perhaps you should not be selling on-line.
“I put a battery in and just static, there are no AM stations in my area.” Unless you live on the moon or in a cave or a solid brick building, there are radio stations that you can hear, that is especially true if you have the internet and cell phone. Translated, “this thing is screwed up and I will say this in hopes that someone will buy it.”
I guess what I see most of is that “I got this at an estate sale and have no way to test it.” Folks, the most idiotic person out there knows that it is worth more money if it works and most people who buy at an estate sale know more than just a little about what they are buying. So, translated, “I did everything that I know, called all of my normal resources and this thing appears to be dead so I will say I don’t know how to test it and it will be someone else’s problem.”
A few others that I have received over the years are “for parts or repairs.” Now this is fair game. Accompanied along with pictures so people can see what they are bidding on, I now know that it is dead, that you don’t know how or don’t want to repair it and you want to move it. Here is where the rub comes in.
I have bought many such radio’s to find that someone had opened them up and removed parts to repair another radio and then sold what they did not want as “for parts or repair.” Translated, “I took what I needed, but I am not going to tell you that there are parts already gone.” The real problem is that I can’t prove that is what they did, but I can watch them and not purchase from them again.
Another “parts or repair item” is this, electronics that have been under water. Folks, it is dishonest to sell something as “unknown condition,” parts or repair, I don’t know how to test etc if the item has been under water! It is ruined if that is the case. Case in point, I purchased a “lot of 3” RCA radio’s from the 50’s. Three radios’ that were of an unknown condition, “for parts or repair.” There were fuzzy pictures of the cases and that was about it. By the time you bid against others looking for these little collectables, pay shipping to find out that they are worthless well; that is just wrong on so many levels. Not only were parts missing out of the three, each and every one was filled with mud. The cases are not pristine so I pretty much threw away money and have nothing to show for it.
My last bone of contention is really the first radio that I bought like this. As a long time Ham I started my radio hobby with a borrowed Hallicrafters SX-99 back in the late 60’s. If you have not experienced what I am going to relate, you have missed out. There is something magical about sitting in front of a radio such as this and listening to stations from all over the world; bask in the glow of dial lights, knobs and meters swaying with the signal strength. It is as if you are somehow connected to the station on the other end. I remember listening to a station in Hawaii and for a few moments I was there. Shortwave used to be much more influential than it is today. I think it was used as a propaganda method as well as a way to get information into areas that were blacked out by their local government. To control the people, you control what they hear, see, read and so forth. We still do it today but that is another blog.
I think a huge part of the success of eBay is people, much like me, trying to reclaim that lost moment through an old radio or trinket or favorite toy. I started my search looking for one of these radios. They are popular these days so the bidding gets intense and they frequently go for much more than they are worth.
Found one and bid on it. After an intense bidding war I got it from a local store and by local I mean in Texas. Bad news there, not only did I pay premium dollar but, I had to pay sales tax. Good news, I arranged to pick it up some weeks later when we were both going to be at the same event saving me $40 in shipping.
At first glance the case was not right; I could tell that it had been dropped. Looking through the top cover everything else seemed rough but workable. The money I paid for this the radio should have been turn key but alas, it was not.
After getting it home I pulled the case off of it thinking I would straighten it out, to discover that this radio must have sat in a barn where water was allowed to enter it every time that it rained and stay until it evaporated. My guess is that it was in this barn for years. A restoration of that radio would mean replacing each and every control, the capacitors and who knows what else. These things are very old and finding parts for them is not as easy as one might think.
The person, who sold it to me, took it on trade. The person who traded it to him is likely the person who knew its history, and just did not care.
So here is my last bit of eBay advice, if they took it on trade, you may want to think about looking elsewhere as that is another escape clause if you are unhappy. “No returns, all sales final etc” are just things that I tend to stay away from. Now I know why some take no returns as there are those out there who need a part and will buy your item, take the part that they need from it and than send it back to you as a DOA. You are then held hostage by your eBay rating.
I would rather eat a bug than take advantage of someone or a circumstance or in this case, steal from someone. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone felt that way?
Watch their feedback, if it is less than 100%, why is it that way? If you get had by someone; warn others by leaving them less than positive. eBay has a good resolution center which I have used before but this was really only when someone sold me something that they did not have to sell. This happens more than you might suspect.
Hope that you have a great New Years and that you can use this to your advantage or at least to protect yourself, friends and family from the less than scrupulous people out there. And by the way, some of the junk on eBay really does need to go to the e-cycle place, especially if it has been under water.
Best to you and those that you care about and Happy Bidding!
We have all heard that the definition of insanity is: doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. This was not lost on me when recently my password on my home PC was no longer accepted.
Imagine logging in to your own PC, that no one else touches, and the password no longer works.
I cannot tell you how many times that I tried the password that I know that it is supposed to be, and then doubting my sanity, trying every other password that it might be “just in case I changed it” without remembering I did.
The only reason there was a smidgeon of a doubt is that recently Yahoo forced me to change my password. They would accept nothing less than a strong password which by the way is so strong that I have trouble typing it while looking at it, and there is not a chance of remembering it.
No longer are the days of the family pet or address or birthday acceptable as passwords. Imagine having to type a password like this T4^s#hg^9? every time you logged on to your computer!
While the home PC’s password was not quite this strong, there is more than room for error. This led to a rather frustrating afternoon as one might guess.
The trouble shooting process was difficult as Windows allows little room for error and certainly not much for diagnostics. My first guess was the keyboard had to be messing up in some way so I changed the batteries. When that did not bear fruit I hooked up a hard wired keyboard to the USB port and still nothing. “Incorrect login name or password.”
Google produced nothing relevant other than an ad for some company that sells some software to recover your password. Microsoft was no help. If I were in a decision making role at Microsoft I would make some sort of option on the login screen that would allow for one to make certain that their keyboard is typing the correct letter and that the caps is on or off. Wireless keyboards don’t have any LED on them to tell you about “num lock” or shift lock and , the screen was not giving me any hint of this either although it normally would.
Windows 7 offers a way to reset the password, but you have to plan for it first and oh yes, it requires the “A drive, a floppy.” This too needs to be re-thought as few computers today have a floppy drive.
Somewhere in the process of trying to boot into safe mode I get an error that says “keyboard failure.”
At this point I try the wired keyboard into several different USB ports with the same results. I then installed a usb card thinking that maybe that would work, nope same results.
I could do things in Bios but not in Windows. The thing that would have helped is a way to check the keyboard, in Bios. My guess is that Bios is not as picky about what it sees from the keyboard and since you are only using limited keyboard functions, curser movements, enter and tab, one would not have guessed that the USB was having issues.
I just happen to own another machine of identical configuration, so a swap of the hardrive to the other machine rendered a machine that worked with my password that worked all along.
I can only conclude that there is an issue with the USB controller on the motherboard.
I am considering clearing out the Bios on the old board and trying a re-install of the software just to see if that fixes it. There may also be some sort of update from Dell for that Bios.
For you hardware junkies out there, this is probably standard fare. While I could have purchased a new machine for the $$ wasted in time to diagnose this, I have a new found empathy towards those who just use the machine and have no clue how it works.
Can you imagine Joe Q User out there that really looks for the “any key” having an issue like this?
If I was frustrated (and I have been at this when DOS 1 was new,) I cannot even fathom what something like this would be like for others who have less experience than I.
I hope that this helps someone somewhere possibly saving some time and frustration as this type of bugaboo should not happen.
Best to you and those that you care about!
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