Toshiba Notebooks

When clients ask me what brands they should consider, I often specifically say that I've had problems with the quality of Toshiba notebooks in recent years.

I'm currently restoring a client's Toshiba notebook, and got a great working example of such a problem. I put the factory-supplied Recovery Disc into the machine, and began the process, only to be greeted with a message that this was the "Wrong Machine!" O RLY?

It turns out that many Toshiba notebooks suffer from this specific issue, so much that Toshiba's support site has a "fix" for the issue, but it apparently took them several years to put it up. And to make matters worse:
- There's different fixes depending on the model
- It involves making either a bootable floppy (?) or CD - not very user-friendly.
- It involves booting the machine from that bootable floppy/cd

I'm just wondering how they screwed this up across so many different models.

To wit: http://www.google.com/search?q=toshiba+%22wrong+machine%22&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

ACORN

Just listened to Glenn Beck in the car. He was going through yet another hidden camera exposé on ACORN. Why is NO ONE ELSE reporting on this?


-- Post From My iPhone

Kanye West is a Douchebag

I didn't watch this year's MTV Video Music Awards, but I became aware of a controversy stemming from Kanye West ripping the mic out of Taylor Swift's hand as she tried to give an acceptance speech. Viacom removed all of the videos of it from YouTube, but here's the clip on MTV's site:

http://www.mtv.com/global/music/videos/popout/?id=1620605&vid=435995


For someone as successful as he is, he sure seems to have a victim mentality. The truth is, if Taylor Swift was white, he wouldn't have done it. He's a racist douche who needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.

Lunchbox Laboratory

I had read about a place called "Lunchbox Laboratory" in Seattle, WA. I saw pictures of their "dork" (duck & pork) burger, and their "super beef" burgers, loaded with real cheese, thick smoked bacon and plenty of greasy goodness. I knew I had to try their work. I was already planning to visit Bellevue, WA, and decided my trip must inclide a visit to Lunchbox Laboratory.

Below is a record of what was consumed.

Above is the "Homage to Dick's". Apparently Dick's is a local burger joint that sells tasty but crappy burgers. This was clearly tasty but nowhere near crappy. On the side are some lovely tater tots.

Here's the "Dork" (duck & pork) burger, onion fries on the side:


The place is very tiny, barely enough room for 15-20 people to eat at any given time. Below is a short clip showing the entire extent of the "dining room", which includes the line to order food.



The prices weren't cheap - about $60 for three burgers, fries and sodas. Once I ate there, the price could've been double. I wouldn't have cared - it's that good. Overall, I knew this would be an exercise in excess. I was correct. I'm still recovering. I regret nothing.

WinAntivirus - Mac users falling for it?

I received two calls today from clients who "fell for" a "winantivirus" popup, AKA smitfraud. For those who don't know, that's a scam popup that often results in a "drive-by download" - a virus that installs itself on your machine without you clicking anything.

It varies all the time but may look something like this:



It alerts you to several viruses that it says are currently on your machine, then directs you to download their antivirus software that will fix everything. Of course, it doesn't fix anything, and in many cases it is the thing that is infecting your computer. It is sometimes very hard to remove.

I get calls about such scams almost every day, but what makes today interesting is that these aren't Windows users. It's two clients who switched to Mac over two years ago.

Thankfully, these types of scam software doesn't even work on Macs. But the website that the popup directs you to asks for credit card and other personal information as they process your "order" for this crap. That, of course means they're stealing your money and likely worse.