Happy Tech Support Thursday!

Today, we’re going to talk about password strength… which all began with this comic from xkcd, posted by my friend Ben on his Google+:

password strength from xkcd.com

So, I wanted to ask you about how strong your password is. To be honest, I’ve never thought about passwords the way that xkcd shows up here. Most of the jobs that I’ve worked at have required a password with a symbol, a number and at least 8 characters.

I wonder how much time I could have saved by just putting in something like this.

How strong is your password?

Check it here.

This is a rather random post… enjoy!

You may or may not remember the last Tech Support Thursday.

It was rather exciting, and not in a good way. To break it down for you, I spilled coffee on my work laptop.

As of Tuesday, August 16th, the poor laptop is now running again, thanks to a completely new top case.

Which basically means that I just cost the school ~$100, with a 5 cent styrofoam cup and some cheap coffee. What can I say, at least I’m efficient!

Now my laptop has to wear a keyboard protector, one of those silicone covers that lays over the keys to prevent dirt/liquid from entering the laptop. Our IT director first gave me a pink one. He thought it was hilarious.

Thankfully, he must’ve ordered a bundle, as I now have a red keyboard cover on my laptop.

Come to think of it, I’m looking at a red wall too. No wonder I’ve been so hungry – red is supposed to increase appetite – but another study says it is supposed to increase the heart rate and sometimes cause more stress.

It all makes sense now.

What tech stories have happened to you lately?

Don’t let me touch your computer this week…

It’s been a bad week for me and technology.

First on Sunday, my personal Macbook’s hard drive decided to start the slow process of dying. I noticed some slowdown, ran a test and found numerous problems. Needless to say I started backing up much more often than usual.

Then Monday morning, during a training time, my clumsy hands directed half of a styrofoam cup of coffee onto my running work laptop. Ahhh, FREAK OUT!

Luckily, I knew what to do, so grabbing the laptop with both hands while simultaneously pressing the power button I poured out the rest of the coffee, on to the floor… and my pants. I was then able to remove the entire back cover of the laptop and laid it out, hoping it would dry well.

Tuesday morning came. A cloud of fear hung over me as I put the laptop back together.

Will it work? Will it somewhat work? Is it fried? Why am I so clumsy? Is there any coffee made?

Bong!

Yes, it turns on! It’s running fine!

No, wait… I can’t enter anything on the keyboard.

[Keyboard - Volume Up! Volume Up! Volume Up! Tab, Tab, Tab, Tab]

Sigh.

I then plugged in an external keyboard and found that it worked just fine with the external keyboard. Phew.

The keyboard not working is a problem though, so at this point we’ve order a special screwdriver to take the laptop apart, clean it and put it back together again. The good news is that, at most, the entire top case would cost $150. That’s much better than $900 for a brand new one.

Lesson learned – Styrofoam cups + Coffee + Keyboard + Clumsiness = Disaster.

Oh, and I was able to install a new hard drive in my home laptop, so its working fine.

So, I’ll leave this Tech Support Thursday with a couple questions:

Have you ever spilled anything on a laptop?

Did you, aaaaaaah, FREAK OUT!?! 

Today is Tech Support Thursday… and I’m going to tell you a secret.

Well, probably not truly a secret in the “I’ll have to kill you after telling you this way.” It probably isn’t even a secret at all. I think maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “secret” because I’ve gotten you all excited now.

Get to the point, Isaiah!

Fine, fine. The real secret for Tech Support is this: Google is your friend.

I know, it sounds lame, right. Let me give you an example:

Random Friend: Hey, I’m getting an error on my computer. Do you know what that means?

Me: Hmm, let me see [Google error while they're not looking] – Oh, what do you know, you just have this one setting wrong. Here, I’ll fix it.

Random Friend: You’re a genius, how do you know so much?

Me: Well, you know… I just do.

Yes, yes, I figured out the problem, but really, it’s only because I know how to use Google.

In all seriousness, during my time in Tech Support we were trained on any number of errors and problems that could come up in a conversation. Outlook Express is the bane of my existence, enough said. There were times, however, that we had no idea what this error meant. I remember looking up an error and Microsoft’s definition for it was: “A problem has occurred.” Duh, that’s why they call it an error.

That’s when I’d turn to Google, and after a minute or so, we’d find a quick solution. Once I found it, I’d add it to the database of errors we kept and how to fix it.

So, there you have it. When in doubt, Google it!

p.s. I may or may not send you to the “Let me Google that for you” page if you ask me a tech issue now. I’ve already told you the secret .

Today’s Tech Support Thursday is about technology addiction.

Yesterday Twitter had a strange bug for some of its users. Those looking for other people’s tweets in their timeline were not in luck. No tweets appeared from anyone, and it stated that the user needed to start following people to see other people in their timeline.

Well, some people freaked out about this.

I’m glad to say that I didn’t freak out, but I did enjoy some of the responses.

“Whenever any of my followers tweet, please @hisname, so I can see your tweets to!”

“What happened to twitter? I can’t see anybody’s tweets but my own?”

“The rapture has happened… to my Twitter timeline!”

“Harold Camping was off by 4 days! Just look at twitter!”

Ok, I made some of those up, but it made me realize how insanely addicted some people are to Twitter.

I can’t see that, I love to use it as a communication tool, and to see some great research and information from some people… but it wasn’t the end of the world that it wasn’t working.

Then again, I don’t know what I’d do if all of the technology I own stopped working… I might start getting “the shakes.”

What about you?

Are you addicted to any form of technology?

Do you freak out when Facebook/Twitter/the Playstation Network is down?

Today’s Tech Support Thursday is going to be all about me! Ok, not really, but if you’ve left already… I understand [sniff].

Today we’ll be talking about the Tech we use every day.

Black top case on white Macbook

I own a Macbook 1.83 Core Duo, 2gb RAM, 160gb HD. It is now 5 years old. Yes, 5 years and still kicking. 5 years of me beating the snot out of it, taking it in and out of my bag, clumsily, almost every day. It has been a great computer for me.

During my time of ownership, I’ve only upgraded the RAM (to the 2gb max), bought a new a/c adapter (fried) and replaced the battery. Cosmetically I made a few changes: I’ve added an Iron Man Macbook Sticker to the lid (NERD!) and installed a black top case to give it the reverse oreo look, which you can see in the picture to the left.

Other than those few upgrades, this Macbook has taken me from Mac OS X Tiger (10.4) all the way to Snow Leopard (10.6). Sadly the newest OS X (Lion) will not run on my old, aging Macbook when it is released later this year.

This beast of a computer has been good to me, and it will continue to be good to me until it dies… because, well, I can’t afford a new one yet .

So, that’s my computer, a 5 year old Mac.

What tech are you using?

Tech Support Thursday has returned.

[aside] Is it sad that I just wrote that, immediately thinking of the Protoss Dragoon in Starcraft saying, “I have returned.” Probably.

Anyway, I wanted to talk about frustrations. That is, frustrations with Tech Support, as a customer.

We’ve all been there. Although I’ve talked frequently about the other side of Tech Support – the Phone/Chat side – my frustrations talking with a customer. Instead, this time, I’ll talk about the frustrations I have when I have to be the customer.

I’ll call or send an email and immediately state the problem:

Me: “I’ve powercycled the modem, and the modem still won’t show a connection to you. I double-checked all of the connections, both the phone and ethernet ports, and, yes, I have plugged my computer directly into the modem, and it still won’t connect. I have also checked at the Demarc outside, and the DSL light still won’t come on.”

Them: “Ok, thank you sir. Will you please unplug the modem for 30 seconds and plug it back in?”

Me: “Really? I just told you everything you need to know… and I already did that.”

Them: “Please, sir, if you could unplug the modem and plug it back in.”

Me: Sigh – “Ok.” – I wait the full 30 seconds and plug it back in.

Them: “Is it working now?”

Me: “No, it still isn’t connecting to you. The DSL light is off.”

Them: “Hmm, will you please check to make sure that the phone line is plugged in correctly.”

Me: “I will once again check, but I did state before that I already did this, and in fact checked the modem at the Demarc to make sure it wasn’t a phone line issue.”

Them: “Uh, ok. Is there a filter plugged into the phone line?”

Me: [flabbergasted] “No, and I just said I checked in the Demarc – the box outside, and there wasn’t a dsl connection from you.”

Them: “So there isn’t a filter on the line?”

Me: “No, there isn’t.”

Them: “Hmm, let me check the status of your modem.”

Me: “Ok, thank you!”

Them: “Oh, we’re currently experiencing an outage in your area. I apologize for the delay.”

Me: “Alright, I was wondering. Is there an ETA for a fix?”

Them: “A what now?”

Me: Sigh. “Do you know when it will be fixed, or an estimation of when?”

Them: “I’m sorry sir, but we aren’t sure.”

Me: “Ok, thank you.”

Them: “No problem sir, thank you for letting me help you.”

Me: [hanging up] “You actually weren’t any, at all…”

Sigh.