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Independence Day greetings
We at Biz Tech and Home PC Helpers wish you and yours a proud and safe Independence Day celebration. Let’s go and spend some money to get the economy moving again! If you are at a loss for what to buy technology-wise for your business or home, look to us for ideas! Needless to say, we will be closed Friday, July 3rd for the holiday, although someone will be on-call to rescue any workaholic who needs tech help. We do recommend you take the weekend off and get away from your PC and work, however.
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Microsoft Security Advisory Microsoft released an alert on July 6 relating to a vulnerability in Apple's QuickTime Active X that many websites use to show video. Infected websites will cause your PC to become infected if you run the ActiveX in order to play the videos from such websites. Microsoft is working on a security update which is released monthly.
Meanwhile, it has released a registry fix as a workaround. This workaround is being installed on all computers monitored by our Biz Tech Managed Services (BTMS) - actually was installed over the weekend. For those of you not covered by BTMS, you can find out more information and install it yourself by visiting this website: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972890
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Magic Jack: Does it really work like magic?
You all probably have seen TV commercials from this new upstart company promising unlimited phone service for $1.70 per month! Compare that to a landline cost of $30-50 per month, or Vonage at $25 per month + taxes. Sounds like a good deal, right? So what’s the catch?
Well folks, we have tried it and it really works… kind of. Can you replace your home phone line with this? I would not recommend it. First of all, it does cost $20 to buy the device and $20 to sign up for a year of phone service. You do get a local phone number, unlimited calling anywhere in the USA, caller-ID, etc. That’s a great price. What they don’t tell you is that you need a $1000 computer to use it. Now you might say, I already have a PC (or Mac), so this is not costing me extra, right? Well… It does load up the PC a bit, so if you have an older PC, you may find it does not work right, sound gets choppy, and so on. Plus, you have to leave a PC or Mac running all the time if you expect to get incoming calls. That will probably cost you several hundred dollars in electric and cooling bills per year, not to mention taxing the environment.
You also need a cordless phone so you can use the line anywhere in the home or office, rather than sitting at the PC. Add another $100 to $200 if you don’t have one.
Besides occasional choppy sound, sometimes the unit does not dial out - a problem which can be corrected by either restarting your PC or unplugging and re-plugging the USB cord. The non-techies among you may find that too much of a bother, even if it happens rarely.
A few more nits to pick: you cannot put your PC in standby or hibernate mode to save energy and increase the PC’s life. The dialer window pops up when you dial and after you hang up the call. Many times it will disrupt what you are doing on your PC; you could be typing away in a word document and 30 seconds after your call is over, the Magic Jack window will overtake your Word window, causing you to lose what you just typed- a few words. Not a show stopper, but a nuisance.
So what is my recommendation? Get it for use as a second line, just to make outgoing calls. I use it at work to keep our incoming lines free, and have set it up so that if someone calls the new number from its caller ID the call automatically forwards to the incoming line. And be prepared for occasional choppy sound or needing to fiddle with the unit.
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Our new website
We have a new Helper, Kimaya who is now managing the front office. Welcome Kimaya, who we hope to have over the summer. She did a wonderful job with revamping our web site. Check it out at www.biztech-helpers.com and you may even find a money saving coupon or deal on a refurbished or surplus computer there.
Shri Chaudhary
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