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Yet another iteration of the Nintendo DS – Super NES Edition!

Ah, another version of the timeless Nintendo DS. I wonder if anyone over at Nintendo has ever head the expression “whipping a dead horse.”? In case they are wondering. please see below as defined by my friends at Wikipedia:

Flogging a dead horse (alternatively beating a dead horse, or beating a dead dog in some parts of the Anglophone world) is an idiom that means to continue a particular endeavor that is a waste of time as the outcome is already decided.

This time around the folks at Nintendo will be offering a “NEW” 3DS XL that resembles a retro Super NES case. According to the product specifications:

Continue reading “Yet another iteration of the Nintendo DS – Super NES Edition!”

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Virus Email Reminder – Word Macros Are Bad!

I had a couple of users in the office this week attempt to enable word macros on a document they received in email. I try to give my users as much information as I can to avoid viruses and malware, but each week the hackers come up with additional methods to attempt unauthorized network access.

Exploit Vector:

This time around the hack was email based and the email came from a known  source.  The attacker has already gained control of the senders workstation and had sent the message as a reply to an earlier thread. Continue reading “Virus Email Reminder – Word Macros Are Bad!”

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Exchange 2016- EVENT ID 9646 – MoMT exceeded the maximum of 32 objects of type Session

Here is another issue I encountered during my Exchange 2016 migration. A hand full of users have been getting knocked out of public folders with an Event ID 9646 and they have exceed the max of 32 session objects. What the hell does that mean? Why only a few users?

Investigating Event 9646

The Monday after I migrated public folders to Microsoft’s new “Modern Public Folders” a hand full of users began calling me they were unable to access them. Their specific error was:

“Cannot expand the folder. Your server administrator has limited the number of items you can open simultaneously. Try closing messages you have opened or removing attachments and images from unsent messages you are composing.”

Continue reading “Exchange 2016- EVENT ID 9646 – MoMT exceeded the maximum of 32 objects of type Session”

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Talking Cars Of The 80’s

It’s hard to remember a time when our devices didn’t talk to us. Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant just to name a few. Devices that talk and can understand and respond to us are so common place now we take them for granted. That wasn’t the case 40 years ago. Just imagine how revolutionary and advanced talking cars of the early 80’s must have seemed. If you were alive back then phrases like “Your door is ajar” and “Fuel Level Low” would probably bring back some memories.

The 1981 Datsun Maxima

In 1981 Datsun was the first manufacture to add speech technology to their Maxima model. At the time this was a technology breakthrough. The kind lady in the car presented messages such as “Please tun off the lights” and “Parking brake is on”. In today’s digital age most of us assumed that Nissan (Datsun) simply put a speech chip in the car and done.

This is NOT the case, the technology in the Maxima was mostly analog. The cars voice alert system was a record player. Yes, you read that correctly the car was equipped with a phonograph recording of the alert messages. A small white plastic disk would spin and when an alert was requested by the car a precision tone arm would select the correct track to play.  I wonder if the record would skip over a rough road, or if the message could be played to the point where the needle or record could wear out. Continue reading “Talking Cars Of The 80’s”

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Update your iPhone & iPad NOW 10.3.3 – New WiFi Vulnerability

This post is just a friendly reminder to update your IOS devices. As soon as your  done reading this, grab all of your iPhones and iPads and run the 10.3.3 update.

Apple has recently discovered a vulnerability in the WiFi chip that could allow an attacker within proximity of your phone to run unsigned code and gain unauthorized access to your device.

Just think of the hacking possibilities as you order your morning coffee at Starbucks, or while you walk the boardwalk this summer enjoying the beach. This new vulnerability will be exploited in public spaces where a large pool of targets are in range of the attacker.

How to update and prevent the vulnerability?

Continue reading “Update your iPhone & iPad NOW 10.3.3 – New WiFi Vulnerability”

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R.I.P. Radio Shack, you will be missed

My first job as a teenager was working for Radio Shack, the year was 1990 and I was a senior in high school looking for a job to pay for my ride. I already knew I had a love for computers and consumer electronics so Radio Shack was a good fit. I wound up working for the Tandy corporation for my entire college career.

Almost 30 years later and Radio Shack is on the ropes going down for the count. Where did they go wrong? How could they have saved themselves. I have a few theories that I would like to share.

Why did Radio Shack Fail?

  • Late entry into the online world – Radio Shack was a brick and mortar business that relied on tons of direct marketing and consumers viewing the “Radio Shack catalog”. As we went into the DOT-COM boom and the Internet took hold Radio Shack was late to the starting gate. They never placed enough emphasis on internet sales, however they did ask for the last 4 digits of your phone number for every transaction.
  • Loosing focus on its own branding – As Radio Shack saw the future writing on the wall they tried to adapt to the Best Buy model and began stocking name brand merchandise. Forgetting the tens of thousands of customers who enjoyed their Realistic speakers or  Optimums stereo systems. Don’t forget the DuŌphone answering machines and most of all Tandy computers.
  • Loosing focus on its staff –  When I was a Tandy employee my compensation was commission based. We basically made 7.5% of every dollar sold and a few bonuses or “spiffs” as they were known on items corporate wanted us to focus on. If you knew your stuff  a college kid could make a decent living. A few years after I left the company I stopped back at one of my old stopping grounds and found the company reduced commissions to 1% plus an hourly wage. This reduction forced all the talented sales staff to move on to their next jobs. There was no longer any incentive to learn the brands and features and make loyal customers. What remained was mostly a young staff that was clueless to help you.

Continue reading “R.I.P. Radio Shack, you will be missed”

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Internet Privacy – Should you care? Is VPN the answer?

There is no simple answer to the Internet privacy solution, but lately the news media has been kicking up a storm regarding the repeal of the Obama era privacy laws.

Lets take a look at what is going on in the realm of Internet privacy and I will give you some good options to protect yourself if you deem it necessary.

How many people did you say?

You are just 1 of 3,200,000,000. Yes you read that correctly there are over 3.2 billion people on the Internet across the entire world. You are just one bit in the world of terabytes upon terabytes of people. Does any one marketer care about you specifically, not exactly.  Most of the time your ISP and other Internet companies are compiling data in batches to analyze trends. Maybe count the number of Netflix subscribers, or the number of YouTube videos watched. However more recently we have been seeing increasingly targeted  campaigns at specific groups users. Is this a breach of your privacy?

Was the Obama law repealed?

Yes and no. The new FCC rules would have given consumers greater control over what their internet service provider can do with their data by requiring them to get permission from customers before using their information to create targeted advertisements. However, the rules were never in effect. So basically we repealed a law that never happened anyway. Its business as usual. The controversy of the law stems from different standards for the ISP (like Verizon, Comcast, Cox, Spectrum etc) and other websites like Google and Facebook. In other words the law would force the Verizon and others to obtain consumer permissions to track and sites like Google would not need consent giving them an unfair advantage. Continue reading “Internet Privacy – Should you care? Is VPN the answer?”

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