These are the thoughts of Matt, unless otherwise indicated.
Much of the tech reporting blogs and websites have already started to spread the word about the Best Buy Software Installer (“BBSI”), just days after some websites started making the claim that the Geek Squad Optimization service is a “Big Stupid Waste of Money”. But what some of these pundits may not know is what the BBSI is, or how it is supposed to radically change the way people buy computers today. I’ll try to break it all down.
Continue reading ‘Best Buy Software Installer: Win, or Fail?’
Alright, listen up…
If you’ve been to by blog since December 1st, you’ll have noticed it was a boring blue blob, pretty-looking but that is about it. It seems around that time, Michael Heilemann decided to remove the Vader theme from K2 since it was “old and rarely updated anyway”. Well it may have been that, but I know there are probably several blogs that were using that theme including this one. I do hope that it is officially added back in soon… otherwise I’ll just start repackaging it!
I finally pushed out version 1.0.0 of mattfast1.com, with the final conversion of some pages from HTML to PHP. The site itself will not reflect the changes made until the automatic updates occur, sometime around 1:02am PDT (-0700). If you have any problems with the site after this automatic update, you are encouraged to let me know.
If you want to read the release notes, here’s the [ link ].
Anyone in the computer repair industry knows, when an update comes along that just doesn’t work properly, whether it be an operating system patch, application patch, or a new version of a driver, that singular bad update becomes the bane of all technicians for anywhere from a few weeks to months, depending on the app it’s patching and the conditions required to recreate the issue.
This was one such instance. On Tuesday August 25, 2009, Microsoft released the KB973879 update to the Microsoft Update service. Since many Windows-based computers run with automatic updates enabled, this update was installed, which was released to correct an infrequently-noticed error that only occurs during the installation of Vista Service Pack 2. However, it appears to have been tested incompletely as on many computers (most of them, from our informal observations, appear to be HP notebooks for some reason), the installation of this patch will cause a severe bluescreen issue (0×7E). This will only occur on 64-bit editions of Windows Vista SP1 however.
Continue reading ‘KB973879: Or, How Microsoft “Inadvertantly” Pushed SP2 To All Vista Machines.’
So I did say a new 101 in 1001 list was coming back… in February, damn. Oh well.
I’ve made the decision to pull the plug on this blog anyway. The 101 in 1001 concept won’t leave my site – far from it. The content I’ve already posted here will be moved on over to my main blog, for posterity’s sake. New posts on this subject will be posted there as well. Once the move is complete, the main URL to this blog (http://blog.mattfast1.com/1001) will redirect to the category/tag I’m posting all these items in over there.
Oh, and all those posts I went though the main blog and hid? Those will be pulled out into a separate system, disconnected from the internet at large, and will most likely be added to as my personal journal, where there is much less of a chance for tampering or unauthorized viewing. Consider these acts numbers 1 and 2 on my new 101 list.
Wow, it’s certainly been a crazy ride, right? Especially considering the last time I actually penned anything here was nearly 5 months ago. I’d be surprised if I had any readers anymore, other than spambots and stalkers… but I digress.
I have goals. Short-term, long-term, and in between – I have them all. One of the things I’ve realized, though, is that many of my goals are currently undefined. One of the reasons I haven’t even touched this site in months is because of a lack of stated goals concerning the site, which has lead to a lack of motivation. What this means for you is that you definitely have less motivation to read my writing, and in the world of Web 2.0, that’s commiting suicide.
So here’s the bottom line: I am stating a goal to write a blog post every week from here on out. Any more than that will be a bonus. I think the current state of the world brings me no shortage of things to write about. I also intend to finish the “quick” project I started over two years ago to bring my websites into the 21st century, by recoding into PHP and potentially linking content in from all of my online sources. Long-term, I will probably look into redesigning my website. The modular design of my PHP-driven code should help in that.
My writings will also probably become more personal, about things that affect me on a day to day basis. This means that occasionally, this blog might host stories about virtual chickens, the Geek Squad, and computing technologies in general. This blog will hopefully become more well-written. I reserve the right to kill off old, poorly-written entries, although things like the outing of Bill Smith Auto Parts (who it occurs to me now that I sent the CEO an email about the quality and quantity of posts by one if its employees here, and nothing appears to have come of it) will stay until the end of time so people can read about these types of business failures.
As seen recently on the Blog of helios, there have apparently been some issues with some techs believing they are being pushed out of their jobs by open source software.
Of course when I see this post referred to on Twitter and various other social networking sites, original posters are referring to “Geek Squad-style techs assaults open source advocate”. Which leads directly to posts claiming “The Geek Squad brutalizes open source advocate”. It goes further, but you get the drift.
My issue with this type of thing is that the original post, made on the Blog of helios, makes no allusion to The Geek Squad – or to any other company, for that matter. In addition, I can tell you that The Geek Squad does not automatically schedule recalls, as indicated in the article. The affair is against the entire character of The Geek Squad, and I would expect anyone who has made it up through the ranks as any Geek Squad Double Agent to execute on the values of the company and leave us in a much better light.
One of the mottos of The Geek Squad is “any computer, any coordinates, any time”. Even if Microsoft Windows disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow, the vast majority of computer users would still require assistance – and The Geek Squad would still be assisting them. Users transitioning to Mac OS are a good example – yes things are still done in roughly the same way as in Windows, but there are enough differences that people has needed help transitioning. Geek Squad is still in the infancy of supporting alternatives to Microsoft Windows – but support them they will, and they will do it admirably in response to the kinds of challenges and changes found within the computer support market today.
Disclaimer: mattfast1 is an Agent in the employ of The Geek Squad in the United States of America. The views expressed in this article may not be the same as the views held by Geek Squad/Best Buy. For any official views or opinions, please contact Best Buy at http://www.bestbuy.com or The Geek Squad at http://www.geeksquad.com.
Due to repeated abuses from someone styling themselves as “George Obrien” (relating to my two previous posts about my bad experiences with Bill Smith Auto Parts, ebay ID billsmithautoparts), and my anti-spam defenses not being crafted to work against manual spam, I am now requiring that all comments are approved by me before they can appear on my blog. I am hoping that the WordPress setting isn’t overridden by Spam Karma 2. If it is, I’ll have to investigate moving to a different anti-spam solution on my blog.
If you are curious about the type of spam I have been receiving, it began with comparing me to devices used to introduce water to the human body, various comments of a sexual nature, a few racist and bigoted remarks, and of course the ever-popular name calling. In practice, these comments have only been degrading to the one posting them, as well as the company they work for. I realize anyone could type an arbitrary email address and name into a form on the internet and think they could get away with it, but with the multiple abuses including the particular email addresses used, the IP addresses used, the comments received, and other info, I feel confident in saying that these are mostly, if not all, from the same human being, presumably one who works for Bill Smith Auto Parts.
If you have anything constructive to say about this situation, I am open to hearing it. If not… your comment will hit the dung heap. I’m sorry that’s the way it has to be, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
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