CST News

As many of you will be aware, Blake has left CST to move to pastures new. He is now working in Dunedin for the DHB. I am not exactly sure what his new job title is or what his new job actually entails, but it is a really big job and I am sure Blake will be a busy man.

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Blake for the four years he has spent here. He has been an amazing person to have around and I have really enjoyed my time working with him. We wish him all the best in his new venture and hope he keeps in touch so we can follow his progress.

We have appointed a new technician – Gregg Hickling. Gregg comes to us from retail computing background in Dunedin. I am sure you will make Gregg welcome as he settles into his new job.

As well, just to add a few extra headaches, Lawrence, the manager at ProSouth in Dunedin has also resigned to go to a position at the Medical School. Once again, I would like to thank him for the time he has spent with us in Dunedin and wish him all the best for his new job. We are still in the process of appointing his replacement.

However the shortest day is almost on us so the days will soon be getting longer and we can think about gardens and other outdoor activities with some reliability.

Other Important CST News

However the news is not all bad. Sue had a really important big number birthday recently. (I am probably not allowed to tell you which one but it was between 59 and 61!) What is even more important is that my daughters in law arranged a lunch at Wal’s Plantland in Mosgiel which Sue knew nothing about till I arrived with her about 11 am on the big day. There were all our children and partners from Dunedin and Christchurch and the grandchildren. We spent an hour or so playing mini golf – lots of laughs but in our family, a fair degree of competitiveness also. Then a nice lunch shouted by the kids then out to Waihola for a walk around the wetlands (Sue is into long walks on cold days!). Back to Dunedin for a slap-up meal prepared by eldest daughter – thank you Paula – with helpers and home late in the evening (late for a couple of oldies anyway. A fantastic family day that Sue knew nothing about till it happened.

Windows 10

Windows 10 is due to be released worldwide on July 29 to 190 markets world wide. It will be available as a free upgrade to customers running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Customers will have one year to take advantage of the free upgrade.

Once a Windows device is upgraded to Windows 10, Microsoft will continue to keep it current for the supported lifetime of the device.

If you’re currently running either Windows 7 or 8.1, you should see a notification pop up in the lower-right corner of your screen informing you that Windows 10 is coming and that Microsoft is offering a limited time free upgrade. If it doesn’t pop up, have no fear – click the small Windows icon in your task bar and it should appear.

The icon should appear if you’ve got Windows Update enabled, but if you don’t, there’s another way to register. You just have to navigate to the Control Panel and click on the Windows Update menu.

Our strong advice at this stage is NOT to be among the first to get the upgrade. Let others find the bugs and problems and wait for a period before making the jump. There are bound to be glitches and teething problems.

These problems may not be with Windows but instead may be with the software you are running – for example, your accounting package or Minda or any one of 100 others.

Have a read in a little more detail here.

New Business Level Inkjet Printer

The Canon Maxify range is a range of four inkjet multifunction printers with amazingly cheap running costs. They are designed especially for the office or home office situation with running costs as low as 2.7 cents per page – this beats even laser printers. They come with a three year warranty as standard – where do you get better than that without paying extra?

We are that convinced that these will be the bees knees that we have even bought one ourselves for our In2Learning branch in Dunedin.

When I was talking to the guys at Canon as we made our purchase decision, he told me that they have had less than 1% warranty return. What an incredible figure.

To make the deals even more attractive Canon are also offering an end user cashback which you can claim also.

Maxify 2070   Print, scan, copy, fax              4 cpp               $199.00           $70 cashback

Maxify 2360   Print, scan, copy, fax              2.7 cpp            $299.00           $100 cashback

Maxify 4060   Print, scan, copy, fax              2.7 cpp            $249.00           $100 cashback

Maxify 5060   Print, scan, copy, fax              2.7 cpp            $349.00           $150 cashback

Maxify 5360   Print, scan, copy, fax              2.7 cpp            $449.00           $200 cashback

You can check these out in more detail here.

Winter Around The Corner

With winter just around the corner, I thought we could remind ourselves just how fortunate we are with the mild winters we have – mild compared to some parts of Russia anyway!!

Thank you Joyce.

Terms for Nasties

Our little bit of the world is full of jargon and big words to a much greater degree than a lot. I found this list of words and thought it was a simple description of some of the jargon.

• Backdoor
  A “Backdoor” means exactly what it says, an alternative entry point to your computer. Programmers intentionally build Backdoors into supposedly useful programs to allow access via the “back door” to the computer where they are installed. This allows an infected PC to be completely remotely controlled, e.g. for sending Spam.
• Botnet
  A Botnet describes a large network of computers infected with a particular Trojan. The author of the Trojan controls the infected computers, which then behave quasi-automatically like robots. Larger Botnets can consist of thousands of PCs – all unknown to their owners.
• Captcha
  Is used to decide whether a program or online service is being operated by a human or machine user. The most common form of Captchas are randomly generated images containing codes that are to be manually entered. A machine cannot decode the intentionally distorted letters and numbers. This ensures that (e.g.) a program cannot be switched off by another program or a Bot.
• Cookie
  This is a small snippet of information sent from a web server to a user’s browser, which then stores it. On subsequent access to the same web server this server can then read back this information snippet and use it to “recognize” the user. This method is ideally suited to recording user profiles (what was clicked?).
• Exploit
  An Exploit is the technical term for a damaging program that exploits specific weak points in a piece of software (for example Buffer Overflows). Attackers can gain control of an attacked computer via weak points in the operating system or applications.
• Hoax
  Describes an intentionally distributed false warning that is treated as true and passed on by many users. A well-known hoax told users to delete supposedly Malware files such as SULFNBK.EXE and JDBGMGR.EXE, despite the fact that these are important system files.
• Security hole
  An attacker can use a security hole to gain access to a PC and install their own software. See “Exploit”. Regular software updates and a Behavior Blocker are useful against security holes.
• Signature
  A signature represents the unique fingerprint of a program. Signatures are especially used by scanners for recognizing damaging software. Their major disadvantage is the exponential growth of the number of different versions of damaging software and the fact that a particular piece of Malware must first be known before a signature can be created.
• Zero-Day Attack
  A Zero-Day Attack describes Malware on the first day of distribution. New Malware is especially dangerous in the first few days because it usually takes a while for the anti-virus companies to obtain a sample and create a suitable signature.
• Zombie Computer
  A computer infected with a Backdoor Trojan that listens for remote commands and carries out remotely controlled actions.

Architect Messups

My dad was a carpenter and at times did not have much time for architects and such people. Looking at these, you can understand why.

How the Fight Started

One year, I decided to buy my mother-in-law a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift…

The next year, I didn’t buy her a gift.

When she asked me why, I replied,

“Well, you still haven’t used the gift I bought you last year!”

And that’s how the fight started…..

My wife and I were sitting at a table at her high school reunion, and she kept staring at a drunken man swigging his drink as he sat alone at a nearby table.

I asked her, “Do you know him?”

“Yes”, she sighed,

“He’s my old boyfriend. I understand he took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear he hasn’t been sober since.”

“My God!” I said, “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”

And then the fight started…

My wife sat down next to me as I was flipping channels.

She asked, “What’s on TV?”

I said, “Dust.”

And then the fight started…

Thanks for these Kelly.