Byte by Bite

Waiting for Wild Blue

by Marv Dealy

I’d hoped by this time to be able to invite you to my office to try out the Wild Blue satellite Internet connection. But, alas – demand has continued to outstrip supply and we won’t get ours installed until mid-January.

After that, please do stop by if you’re looking for a faster Internet connection than dialup and don’t think around $50 a month is too expensive.

By the time you read this, we will have abandoned our problem-plagued AT&T née SBC T1 line. All 23 of you faithful readers will recall that, for the past 14 months, we have attempted to get along with the on again, off again service (guaranteed by SBC to be up 99.9% of the time, by the way).

We’ve had so many problems with the dang T1 that we’ve been awarded “chronic” status by the T1 repair people at SBC, meaning apparently that they are really, really tired of seeing the name Throckmorten Enterprises come up on the repair tags in the morning meeting.

The majority of the folks that SBC has thrown at the problem in the time this soap opera has dragged on really cared about trying to solve the problem. Ultimately, one fellow (whose name I’ll forget in any court into which I’m dragged) said that out of every 100 T1 installations, 95 work right away, and of the remaining five, four are resolved fairly easily and one never is made to work correctly.

“You’re the one,” he told me one day. We were standing in my office commiserating about how he thought he’d had the problem licked after discovering one leg of my twisted pair providing the T1 was some 1200’ longer than the other – this is it! He exclaimed. Several days later he was back, admitting defeat.

We’ve been told by various people at SBC that we’re owed a credit for all the problems that have been associated with the problematic T1. We’ve received one tiny reimbursement way back at the first part of 2005, but nothing since. I’ll be very happy to keep you posted as to how this turns out with SBC.

In the meantime, so much for reliable service by SBC it seems. Remember that 99.9% up guarantee from them? The only thing that was up 99.9% of the time for the past 14 months was my ire.

Reports are that Wild Blue customers are reporting an incredible 94% satisfaction rate, on the other hand. I can’t wait for ours to be installed.

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Winfixer 2005 – If you haven’t run across this little bad boy yet, you’re lucky. As the Internet highway continues to add lanes, an ever growing number of companies continue to introduce products that they claim will “do everything” for your computer to keep you up to snuff and safe while on the Internet.

Unfortunately, none of these “do everything” programs actually takes the place of an experienced technician who knows what specific tools are useful for which particular problem.

Winfixer 2005 is a good example. A quick Google of the name found 452,000 entries, one of which talks about how to uninstall Winfixer. It seems that while Winfixer might seem to be a good tool to help keep your PC running smoothly, in fact it installs adware that generates fake “alert message” popups telling you that you need to “fix” your supposed system problem.

These fake popups are actually generated by adware software secretly installed by Winfixer. You can get the same secret adware, by the way, just by visiting certain web sites, where the software installs itself in sort of a “drive by installation.”

If you’ve already been infected by Winfixer (and I’ve seen several computers in the shop that were infected) you can try to get rid of it following the instructions you’ll find at http://www.remove-winfixer.com/

Or just bring me the computer and we’ll shoot the dang thing.

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About the photo – The rooster, until recently, ruled the roost at my place, blissfully chasing and occasionally catching one of eight laying hens.

The photo is an excuse to tell you about the Great Big Oak Flat Chicken Massacre of 2005. Yes, it’s true – a dog managed to get into the chicken’s yard and the coop and scared to death seven hens, and mauled the rooster and the eighth hen.

The rooster (no name, it’s a chicken for God’s sake) hung on for four days, then died. The last surviving hen drug herself into the coop where she nested on the floor, unable to make the perches due to a dog-induced malfunctioning left leg.

For some days she couldn’t open her foot from the closed position so sort of hobbled around with one good foot and the other used as a hopping crutch. At this writing, she’d regained much of her walking ability, amazingly.

The neighbor had being doing a good thing, adopting a dog from the Humane Society that they were assured was well trained and would be no trouble. The neighbor did the right thing – took the dog back to the Humane Society the next day. They’ll also take care of replacing the laying hens.

The dead hens and rooster had a lovely burial (a few choice words and then a heave ho into a nearby ravine where they rejoined the food chain). I made an incredible quiche of the remaining eggs this afternoon.

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That’s it for this month from The Computer Guy — e-mail me any rants at marv.dealy@throck.com

Marv Dealy founded Throckmorten Enterprises in 1988 in San Francisco and moved the company to Big Oak Flat in 1996. He opened a branch in Boise, ID, in 2004 and is in the process of opening another branch in Sutter Creek, CA. Throckmorten provides support to companies such as Hewlett Packard in producing, conducting and tech supporting on-line, on-demand or live events or “webinars,” in addition to commercial graphic design, web design, computer lessons and repair and upgrades (Mac or PC), and network mending from their Big Oak Flat office. Open Monday thru Friday 8 to 5. Phone 209 962-7308